People Before Profit blog

The History You Aren’t Supposed to Understand: “The Iron Curtain”

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 01:48:00 +0000

8-28-07, 9:33 am

I was on a university radio station today talking about aspects of the history of the cold war, from Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech, to what fascism was about, to the propaganda behind equating the fascist states with the Soviet Union. This got me to thinking about the history of events which are clouded in ways that not only obscure the meaning of those events but often turn them inside out. This is a first of what I hope will be a number of articles for our online edition that explore such events.

Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech, made on March 5th, 1946, before a small college audience in Fulton, Missouri, is an excellent example of events being turned inside out. “The Iron Curtain” became a phrase that would repeated endlessly for more than half a century, used to “explain” Soviet “domination” of Eastern Europe, repeated over and over again in political discussion, movies, television. But where did it come from?

On February 5th, 1945, Josef Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister wrote in Das Reich, his newsweekly that “if the German people lay down their weapons, the Soviets, according to the agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, would occupy all of East and Southeast Europe, along with the greater part of the Reich. An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory, controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered. The Jewish press in London and New York would probably still be applauding.”

Besides the last line and a half, this isn’t that different from what Churchill was to say thirteen months later. While the phrase wasn’t original with Goebbels (an “eisene Vorhang” or Iron Curtain in English had been used on stages in German theaters to prevent the spread of fires and there had been earlier uses of the term as a political metaphor, even to the Soviet revolution immediately after WWI) the specific reference and more importantly the analysis that Churchill picked up on came from pretty Goebbels, who was trying to keep the Germans fighting in spite of an inevitable total defeat and use anti-Communism and of course anti-Semitism to divide the allied powers.

It is likely that Churchill read Goebbels commentary in some translated intelligence report. While Churchill was no fascist, he was a conservative and imperialist who had fought Hitler to save the British Empire and from 1943 on was actively seeking to limit revolutionary and Soviet influence in Europe even if it meant delaying the second front and advancing policies that costs millions more lives and undermined postwar peace. He had no intention of seeing the war lead to social revolutions or, if he could help it, to an end to colonial imperialism.

On May 12, 1945, days after the German surrender, Churchill wrote Harry Truman “I am profoundly disturbed by the European situation….An iron curtain is upon their [the Soviet front]. ... All kinds of arrangements will have to be made by General Eisenhower to prevent another immense flight of the German population westward as this enormous Muscovite advance toward the center of Europe takes place.”

Churchill, as he had earlier, wanted the U.S. to treat the Soviets as a leading enemy in a future war rather than the major ally of a war that was just ending. And he wasn’t averse to using a “sanitized” version of Goebbels Iron Curtain propaganda to accomplish that goal. On June 4, he wrote to Truman again (suggesting in effect that the U.S. forces fight to hold territory in Germany in violation of tentative agreements made at Yalta rather than give up such territory to the Soviets) by warning that U.S. “withdrawal” would lead to “Soviet power in Western Europe and the descent of an iron curtain between us and everything eastward.”

The British Labor Party won a sweeping victory in June 1945 on a program to build a “Socialist Britain,” and Churchill was out of power, although he did lead the British delegation to the Potsdam Conference, where Truman, informed of the successful testing of an atomic bomb, began to quarrel with the Soviets on a wide variety of issues concerning postwar Europe and move in the direction that Churchill wished.

By December, 1945, Allen Dulles, the OSS official, brother of Republican foreign policy specialist John Foster Dulles, and later director of the CIA when Eisenhower became president and John Foster Dulles became Secretary of State, referred to Soviet occupation forces in Germany as “a bunch of thugs” and noted that “an iron curtain has descended over the fate of these people and very likely conditions are truly terrible. The promises at Yalta to the contrary, probably eight to ten million people are being enslaved.”

What was going with these people? They knew certainly what the Soviet Union and much Europe had suffered in the war, the mass murder carried on by the Fascist states. Did they care? They were not racists and imperialists of the same kind as the Nazis and their allies but they were racists and imperialists and they had fought to war not to create an international order where higher levels of peace and social justice would become possible but to keep the Fascist Axis from taking away their own imperial power and privilege. Their anti-Communism, which had been a central factor in the policies of appeasing the fascist states, now became a powerful engine to break up the Allies and launch a cold war that was initially seen by many as a prelude to WW III.

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent,” Churchill said on March 5, 1946, in Fulton, Missouri, in a speech titled “The Sinews of Peace.” “All these famous cities,” Churchill went on to say, “and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some measure increasing control from Moscow.”

Six months after the Japanese surrender in the aftermath of the atomic bomb attacks, Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech was widely criticized as an incitement to war, but it both reflected and was clearly an attempt to rally support to the policy of forcing the Soviets out of Eastern Europe while using U.S. and British occupation forces to marginalize Communist and left forces in Western Europe, which the Truman administration had embarked upon.

If the public knew of the connections to Goebbels when the Iron Curtain concept began to be disseminated widely in 1947, would it have made a difference? After all, the public was being bombarded with propaganda that communism equaled fascism, Stalin equaled Hitler, and not to resist the Soviets was in effect a policy of appeasement that would lead to the advance of an “iron curtain” over Europe, a term that became both Winston Churchill’s last truly famous speech and Joseph Goebbels last albeit posthumous propaganda “achievement.”

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Padilla's Kangaroo Court

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 01:37:00 +0000

8-28-07, 9:29 am

This presidential administration will go down as having taken the most liberties with dirty tricks as any other administration in history. The fact that they can detain an 'enemy combatant' and torture him to the point where he can't competently defend himself against some of the most serious charges in US history is pure cowardice. To loosely connect him to the horrific events of September 11th 2001 and get away with it is astounding. Yet this is what many are made to believe regarding Jose Padilla; a man essentially no worse than an inner city gang-banger. Gang-banger convicted by gangsters. It wouldn't be out of line to recall the immortal words of Billy Batts in 'Goodfellas' and tell this batty administration to 'go home and get your F—kin' shine-box.'

This is the man whose conviction is supposed to make us think we got payback for 9/11? This guilty verdict is supposed to make us breath a sigh of relief? I think not. If you run across Bush in a theater sneaking into the compassionate conservative section, ask him why he didn't have Luis Posada – a man with a record of killing – detained, tortured and prosecuted? And while his face is twitching (as it always does) ask him how the bin Laden search is going. Surely he must remember him; the man initially blamed for the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. The charges of Padilla meeting bin Laden and planning to detonate a 'dirty bomb' were never substantiated (according to NPR). Undaunted, Bush trudged on with other charges he that he felt would stick.

Padilla was originally held as a material witness on a warrant issued in the state of New York stemming from 9/11. On 6/9/02 the President ordered then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to detain Padilla as an enemy combatant. District Court Judge Michael Mukasey may have been on the verge of questioning and ruling on the validity of continuing to hold Padilla under the material witness warrant, but he was then transferred to a military brig in South Carolina.

It was the Authorization for use of Military Force (AUMF) that legally justified the detention because it states you can use all 'necessary force against… such nations, organizations or persons' under the opinion or based on opinion that a US citizen is an enemy combatant. No I don't know Padilla, I know he's not a saint, but this is the stuff of Kangaroo courts.

Accusations of being 'light on evidence' and requests to drop some charges by the presiding judge add to the suspicious nature of the trial. Eventually it would be some wiretapped conversation with a co-defendant that would play a major role in his guilty verdict. It was assumed that plans between Padilla and co-defendant Adham Hassoun for a family outing at an amusement park was code language regarding plans for a domestic attack. Prosecutors (make that co-persecutors) played 70 intercepted phone calls, 7 of those calls actually had Padilla's voice on them. The notorious Chicago gang-banger was convicted by a jury of his 'peers;' 5 Blacks, 4 whites, 3 Latinos and 0 Muslims, obviously all from south Florida. You'd think they'd at least flew in a couple of Chicanos from IL who owed him 20 bucks to sit in. The real kicker is Padilla wasn't even fit to stand trial, psychiatrist Angela Hegarty said that after 22 hours of examination he was mentally unfit, plus he exhibited a 'facial tic.' Hey, so does Bush. Perhaps he should have been on trial.

--Chris Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Criterion .Contact him at

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Green Alternatives to Dishwashing Soap

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 01:32:00 +0000

8-28-07, 9:18 am

EARTH TALK From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: What are the best kinds of dishwasher and laundry soaps to use in consideration of where all the wastewater goes after use? -- Jessica Weichert, Waterford, CA

The average North American produces between 60 and 150 gallons of wastewater every day, much of it a result of washing dishes and clothes. Municipal water treatment facilities do their best to filter out the synthetic chemicals common in most mainstream dishwasher and laundry soaps, but some of these pollutants inevitably get into rivers, lakes and coastal areas, where they can cause a wide range of problems.

Perhaps the most worrisome of these pollutants, phosphates, can cause large build-ups of algae and bacteria that rob water bodies of oxygen and thus choke out other life forms. In response to just such a problem occurring in Lakes Ontario and Erie in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the U.S. and Canada signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 1972. The agreement banned the use of phosphates in laundry detergents and dish soaps used in the region, and resulted in a significant decrease in algae blooms throughout the Great Lakes.

Despite the success of the agreement, phosphates and other synthetic chemicals continue to be widely used in laundry and dish soaps throughout the world. Aside from their effect on water bodies, these ingredients also trigger allergies, irritate the skin and eyes and carry other health risks.

Fortunately, consumers now have more environmentally friendly choices than ever. Companies such as Seventh Generation, Ecover, Bioshield and Naturally Yours make safer dishwasher and laundry soaps that do not contain phosphates or other harmful synthetic chemicals. Many of these greener options are available at retail stores like Whole Foods and Wild Oats as well as online from websites like Kokopelli’s Green Market and a host of others.

According to Seventh Generation CEO Jeffrey Hollender, consumers interested in doing the right thing for the environment should look at ingredients, not slogans. “Just because a product says it is natural doesn’t mean it is nontoxic,” he says. Environmentally friendly ingredients to look for include grain alcohol, coconut or other plant oils, rosemary and sage. Synthetic ingredients to avoid include butyl cellosolve, petroleum, triclosan and phosphates. It is also best to avoid detergents that employ fragrances, as they can contain chemicals known as phthalates that have been linked to cancer.

Although household-cleaning chores can often be accomplished with non-toxic, homemade alternatives—such as water mixed with borax, lemon juice, baking soda, vinegar or washing soda—laundry and automatic dishwashing soaps are not so easily replaced with home concoctions. However, Emily Main, senior editor at The Green Guide, recommends adding one-quarter cup of baking soda or white vinegar to clothes washes to act as a fabric softener, and for stain removal suggests soaking fabrics in water mixed with either borax, lemon juice, hydrogen peroxide or white vinegar. As to home recipes for dishwashing, some hardcore homesteaders recommend trying an equal mix of borax and baking soda, but this is probably best used only in a pinch as the abrasiveness of such a mixture can scratch glassware over time.

CONTACTS: Ecover, www.ecover.com; Seventh Generation, www.seventhgeneration.com; Kokopelli's Green Market, www.kokogm.com; The Green Guide, www.thegreenguide.com.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.

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Puntos de enfoque para una perspectiva de izquierda en el debate sobre la inmigración

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 04:01:00 +0000

8-27-07, 12:01 pm

Se está escribiendo y hablando mucho sobre los problemas relacionados con la inmigración de los indocumentados. Los políticos y los llamados “expertos” pitorrean mentiras racistas. Los defensores de los derechos de los inmigrantes valientemente intentan refutar estas mentiras. Pero hay unas verdades básicas que no se deben mencionar. La derecha no las repiten por temor que van a poner al descubierto su esquema de echarle la culpa a los inmigrantes por todo. No son mencionadas ni por liberales ni progresistas envueltos en la lucha por defender los derechos de los inmigrantes por no comprender las mismas o por temor de que no sean comprendidas por los politicos o el público.

Al reconocer las limitaciones del balance del poder en Washington, el movimiento de derechos para los inmigrantes comprende que no puede lograr todo lo que desea en estos momentos. Saben que tiene que haber compromisos y cambalaches. La legislación que deseamos solo podrá lograrse en étapas porque los Demócratas solo tienen un voto de mayoría en el Senado y una mayoría de 31 votos en la Cámara de Representantes que no es suficiente para derrotar una obstrucción en el Senado o un bloqueo de ley por parte de la presidencia. Sin embargo la administración Bush está tratando de lograr una ventaja a través de redadas despiadadas de inmigrantes, detenciones masivas y deportaciones. Algunos aceptan el concepto de una “reforma comprensiva de las leyes de inmigración” que incluye algunas concesiones para lograr la legalización de 12 millones de indocumentados que se alega viven en este país. Durante este proceso hemos tenido que escuchar disparates absurdos sobre inmigración que vienen de parte del presidente Bush, de los Republicanos, de las corporaciones que salivan por un programa de braceros y hasta de los políticos demócratas que en su mayoría están tratando de ayudar.

Los disparates incluyen la idea de que, antes de bregar con la legalización de los indocumentados y crear una política de inmigración sensata para el futuro, tenemos que“fortalecer las agencias que manejan las leyes de inmigración” y tenemos que “sellar las fronteras.” Los que hemos trabajado en el asunto de inmigración sabemos que esto es un disparate de mayores proporciones. En caso de que una ley surja de las diferentes tendencias en el Congreso que incluye estas tonterías, tenemos que estar claros, y conocer la situación para poder explicarle la realidad al pueblo norteamericano. El problema de los inmigrantes indocumentados no se puede comprender sin saber lo siguiente:

• La inmigración en masa de los indocumentados a los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica es el resultado de la destrucción despiadada de las economías de Méjico y otros países pobres del Caribe, América Latina y demás, que viene de las políticas de comercio y desarrollo que el gobierno estadounidense ha impuesto agresivamente para beneficiar las corporaciones norteamericanas, y no por la falta de enforzar las leyes de inmigración, o por complots para reconquistar las tierras de Méjico que fueron robadas por EEUU, ni la inmigración en cadena que envuelve bebés nacidos en este país, tampoco por los atractivos empleos bien remunerados de EEUU. Por ejemplo, la inmigración de indocumentados desde Méjico aumentó desde el 1994 cuando entró en vigor el Tratado de Libre Comercio de Norteamérica (Nafta) y Wall Street impusó las medidas crueles neoliberales como condición para el préstamo Clinton-Rubin para salvar la economía mejicana. Como resultado para el año 2000 más de 6 millones de mejicanos fueron ahuyentados de la economía agrícola y de otros sectores económicos. Los nuevos empleos que supuestamente iban a generar las corporaciones extranjeras nunca llegaron, se fueron a otros países donde la mano de obra era aún más barata. Los únicos ganadores fueron las multinacionales norteamericanas y sus cómplices de la élite económica y política norteamericana, canadiences y mejicanas. Lo mismo pasó en otros países pobres. No se tiene que ir más allá de estos hechos para la causa del aumento en la inmigración. Si se quiere parar la inmigración indocumentada, entonces no dejemos que nuestros líderes construyan murallas y criminalizen a los inmigrantes, luchemos contra el imperialismo y la globalización capitalista.

• Esta inmigración entra al país sin documentos por que el gobierno norteamericano sencillamente no le da visas a este tipo de persona, campesinos y trabajadores urbanos, cuyo sustento ha sido destruido por cosas como el Tratado de Libre Comercio de Norteamérica (TLC) o el Tratado de Libre Comercio Centroamericano. De hecho, en 2005, EEUU solo expedió 5,000 visas de residencia permanentes para estos tipos de trabajadores. Más personas entraron con visas a través del programa de unidad familiar, la cual la legislación que se está discutiendo en el Senado busca reducir radicalmente. Personas que han perdido su manera de sobrevivir por la política económica norteamericana y que desesperadamente necesitan buscar una nueva manera de mantener a sus familias tendrían que, en muchos casos, esperar hasta que sean muy viejos para trabajar y entrar al país legalmente. En vez de dejar a sus familias sufrir deciden entrar sin documentos.

• No hay ninguna “fila” para los inmigrantes indocumentados en el proceso de legalización. Los pobres que se ganan las habichuelas con sus manos no han podido unirse a la fila de visas estadounidenses aunque sean los que más necesitan emigrar. Ellos no se colaron al frente de la fila, fueron excluidos de la fila por la política norteamericana aún cuando se estaban implementando políticas estadounidenses que los desalojaban y los forzaban a intentar venir a este país. Hasta democrátas como el Senador Kennedy, cuando los acusan de ser blanditos con los indocumentados, hablan de hacer a los indocumentados ir a la cola de la fila antes de poder recibir sus visas de trabajo. Esto es otro disparate más.

• Plantear que los indocumentados “toman los trabajos que nadie quiere” es un disparate tambien. Aunque no hay prueba de que los empleos que los indocumentados tienen serían tomados por los desempleados de los arrabales urbanos si fueran mejor remunerados, si está claro que las principales industrias que emplean trabajadores indocumentados en masa lo hacen para mantener un ejército de reserva de obra de mano barata. Sin embargo, el impacto de la inmigración indocumentada sobre los salarios y el desempleo es una cuestión complicada; los indocumentados participan en la economía de muchas maneras no sólo tomando los trabajos que pagan menos. Lo cierto es que si los que ahora son indocumentados dejaran de serlo no tolerarían las condiciones de trabajo peligrosas, sucias y mal pagadas que enfrentan ahora. • No es verdad, como sugieren entidades como la Cámara de Comercio norteamericana y el Instituto Manhattan, que la única manera de canalizar legalmente la inmigración desde los países pobres es a través de programas de braceros. Esta es pura propaganda promovida por la industria agrícola, gastronómica y otros sectores industriales que quieren mantener la obra de mano barata y sin derechos que tienen ahora implementando programas de braceros con pocos derechos laborales. La mejor manera de “legalizar” los indocumentados es aumentando las visas de residencia permanente a trabajadores de países pobres despojados por la globalización corporativa.

• La explotación despiadada de los indocumentados le ha producido superganancias a las industrias agrícolas, gastronómicas y otros sectores del capital norteamericano y si esos inmigrantes ganan poco y pagan menos impuestos es por que sus patronos los explotan tomando ventaja de su estatus vulnerable. Forzemos a los patronos a que paguen mejores sueldos (y que reconozcan el derecho a sindicalizarse y poder luchar por mejores condiciones de trabajo) y asi los trabajadores tendran la posibilidad de pagar más impuestos.

• Los cortes en las contribuciones que les tocan a los ricos hacer comenzó con Ronald Reagan y ha llegado hasta la estratósfera con George W. Bush permitiendo a estas compañías lograr muchas ganancias de la explotación de los indocumentados, mientras, no pagan su porción equitativa de las contribuciones. Si te quejas que los indocumentados están chupando sin pagar, culpa a los explotadores y no los explotados por esta situación. Hay que hacer que las multinacionales y los ricos paguen sus contribuciones, asi se verá como habra bastante dinero para las escuelas y la salud. No hay que quejarse de que los inmigrantes están abusando del erario público.

• Si legalizamos a los 12 millones de inmigrantes indocumentados de una manera efficiente, rápida y menos costosa y creamos un sistema de inmigración justo, basado en quien tiene la necesidad verdadera de venir a este país, entonces el problema de como enforzar las leyes en la frontera y dentro del país va a disminuir bastante. Uno de los problemas sería el detener a los verdaderos criminales, a los terroristas y los contrabandistas de drogas. El negocio ilícito del contrabando de indocumentados y de la falsificación de documentos virtualmente desaperecería. No habría necesidad de construir centros de setenciones o de emplear mas guardias fronterizos o de construir murallas en las fronteras, si se desviaran los recursos para usos mas constructivos; los contribuyentes ahorrarían mucho dinero.

• Las medidas propuestas de seguridad interna (encontradas en muchas de las propuestas para reformar el sistema de inmigración) va hacerle mas daño a los ciudadanos norteamericanos y a los residentes legales de lo que el gobierno está dispuestos a admitir. Por ejemplo, en unas de las secciones de la propuesta del Senado, todos los patronos en el país tendrán que eventualmente chequear el estado legal de cada trabajdor. De acuerdo a las estadísticas de la Administración de Seguro Social este sistema que ahora se implementa voluntariamente ha demostrado una tasa de error de un cuatro por ciento. La fuerza de trabajo de este país es de 140 millones y con la tasa de error esto quiere decir que unos 5,600,000 trabajadores pudieran ser afectados por esta medida, muchos perdiendo el trabajo que han tenido por años o injustamente ser rechazados para trabajos. Esto le causaría miseria y sufrimiento a muchas familia y le haría daño a la economía del país.

• Los indocumentados no son una amenaza rampante de depravación y enfermedad. Al revés, tienen una tasa de criminalidad y enfermedad mas baja que otros sectores similares. En vez, son los chivos expiatorios del momento, víctimas inocentes que sirven para cubrir los fracasos deshonrosos del gobierno actual y los crímenes de la clase dominante norteamericana. Si las personas no le hicieran caso a Lou Dobbs, el Centro para los Estudios de Inmigración y todos los otros anti-inmigrantes estrepitosos, y en verdad estudiar estas cosas se darían cuenta de que los inmigrantes no tienen la culpa por:

• La crisis financiera del sistema de salud de EEUU. • Los cortes en la ayuda financiera para los estudiantes universitarios. • La falta de apoyo a la educación pública por nuestros líderes. • Los cortes en la ayuda federal a las comunidades. • La corrupción masiva en todos los niveles del gobierno. • El desmantelamiento de la acción afirmativa y la pérdida de oportunidades para la juventud y adultos de color en EEUU. • El fracaso del Congreso de legislar un aumento significante en el salario mínimo. • La negativa de la administración de enforzar las leyes laborales para todos los trabajadores y no solo dónde trabajan muchos indocumentados.

• La guerra de Iraq y el desperdicio de tantas vidas y fondos que ésta ha consumido. Los inmigrantes con o sin papeles no han causado estos problemas serios de nuestra sociedad. Los culpables son una élite codiciosa de las corporaciones ricas y los políticos corruptos que están al servicio de éstas, incluyendo especificamente la administración de Bush.

• Los ocho millones de trabajadores indocumentados en la fuerza laboral estadounidense sin duda alguna son utilizados por los patronos para minar los sueldos, los beneficios y las condiciones de trabajo de otros trabajadores, pero, si son deportados a sus países, el impacto para los trabajadores norteamericanos sería aún peor. Las economías de Méjico, el Salvador, la República Dominicana, Haití, etc. no podría absorber el retorno de tantas personas, ni la pérdida de renta del dinero enviado a los familiares por los indocumentados que generaría un colapso total de las economías. Estos países serían aún más pobres, con unas fuerzas laborales baratas atrayendo a las corporaciones norteamericanas aún más.

• Los trabajdadores indocumentados con papeles se pueden convertir en una fuerza libertadora para nosotros. ¿Cómo sabemos ésto? Sólo tenemos que recordar las manifestaciones masivas por derechos de los inmigrantes de este año y del año pasado para darnos cuenta que este no es un grupo manso dispuesto a dejarse explotar. ¿No nos gustaría ver manifestaciones masivas para los derechos laborales, para poner fin a la opresión racial y la discriminación sexual, para un sistema de salud universal, por mas fondos para las escuelas públicas y para poner fin a la guerra de Iraq? Los inmigrantes, sus aliados, familiares compañeros y compañeras de trabajo han demostrado que son un fuerza de lucha por la justicia y el progreso. Se alzaron en protesta en el 2006 contra la legislación siniestra del congresista Sensenbrenner (HR 4437) que amenazaba a sus seres amados y a ellos. Los inmigrantes también son trabajadores, padres de niños en el sistema escolar, estudiantes, pacientes en el sistema de salud, consumidores y miembros de nuestra sociedad y lucharán por la justicia social para todos. Encontremos la manera de luchar hombro con hombro con ellos para juntos resolver los verdaderos problemas de nuestra sociedad, en vez de caer en la trampa tendida por nuestro enemigo común que busca dividirnos y conquistarnos.

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Ending the War: Peace Activists Meet to Chart Course

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 03:49:00 +0000

8-27-07, 12:00 pm

“Can we live in peace when more than a quarter of the world’s people live in poverty and all we can offer is increased war spending and more unwinnable wars?” – Jeremy Corbyn

This was the over arching question posed by British MP Jeremy Corbyn, one of the prominent international guests at the recent national meeting of United for Peace and Justice in Chicago. Corbyn and the other guests encouraged the delegates as they tackled tough issues of organization and strategy during three days of intensive work. He told them that their decisions and future actions would, in turn, encourage people around the world.

Corbyn continued, “What we do is very, very important. It matters to the people of Palestine; it matters to the people of Iraq,” to see that people in the US and Britain are actively opposing their government’s imperialist policies. Corbyn was joined on the stage that night by an array of distinguished visitors from Middle Eastern and Asian nations that have resisted or are resisting US foreign policy. These included two Iraq trade-union leaders as well as Dr. Mona al Farah, vice president of Gaza Red Crescent; Tran Xuan Thu and other plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Dow Chemical and 35 other corporations on behalf of millions of Vietnamese suffering from the use of chemical defoliants by the US during the Vietnam War; Gihad Ali, a young woman poet of Palestinian ancestry; and a group of Iranian cyclists who are touring the US to build friendship and understanding between our two countries.

The speakers at the Saturday evening public program were at once uplifting and sobering. Their message – the urgency of building a powerful US peace movement – resonated with the delegates. In plenary sessions and small group workshops they wrestled with the conference’s main challenge: reaching and mobilizing the 70 percent majority of the US population that opposes the Iraq war. The proceedings showed that they were well aware of the connections between peace and justice, at home and abroad. For example, at the Saturday morning plenary session, the delegates heard Michael McPherson of Veterans for Peace tell how his organization had made the link between FEMA’s lack of response to refugees from Hurricane Katrina and the resources being wasted on the Iraq war. He emphasized the importance of making a difference in people’s immediate lives in order to win “strategic victories” by, for example, participating in a rally against police brutality in an American city as well as a rally against prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. In confronting US imperialism he said it was important “to fight the body as well as the tentacles.”

After hours of passionate but respectful discussion and debate, they set priorities and dates; they reached agreement on strategy and allowed for flexible tactics by local and regional organizations. They set October 27 as the target date for large regional demonstrations around the country for an end to the war and the occupation of Iraq. They elected a steering committee for the period ahead. UFPJ is, after all, a widely diverse coalition of organizations. Among its criteria are requirements that its various constituencies be represented on the steering committee: At least 50 percent women; at least 50 percent people of color; at least 20 percent youth and students; at least 15 percent LGBT identified persons. The steering committee is authorized to add groups in between national meetings if these minimums are not reached by the election process.

Among the key constituent groups at the meeting were delegates from the labor movement. John Cameron is political director of AFSCME in Illinois and an executive committee member of US Action. He told the delegates that US Action, after finding that the top issue with voters in the 2006 elections was the Iraq war, had refocused is activity and was working to bring in labor, African American and military leaders. His organization’s “Iraq summer” project has 100 organizers across the country in key districts to insure a super-majority in Congress in 2008. Labor’s contribution to building the antiwar movement was underscored by the appearance of two Iraqi union leaders at the Saturday evening international program. Hashmeya Mohsen al Hussein of the electrical utility workers, is the first woman to lead a national union in Iraq. Faleh Abood Umara is the general secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions. Their appearance was part of a national speaking tour to inform Americans about the struggles of Iraq’s workers.

The labor delegates included some who had previously been active with US Labor Against the War (USLAW is a member organization of UFPJ) and those who were meeting that organization for the first time. Dorothea Wilson, past president of the retiree chapter of Philadelphia’s AFSCME District Council 47, an affiliate of USLAW, was a first time delegate to UFPJ. She told Political Affairs “We should send more people next time. All of us have to be a part of this to bring the troops home. If funds were cut off, we would get them back faster.” She also connected the gun violence ravaging American cities to the government’s war priorities. “We’ve lost brothers, cousins, husbands…. We could use that money we’ve sent over there for our schools in Philadelphia.”

Michael Zweig of SUNY’s faculty and professional staff union was at the conference representing the 32,000 members of AFT local 2190, also a USLAW affiliate. He felt that it was important for the peace movement to bring in organized labor, since it represents “a constituency that has not traditionally been in the house. Fifteen million people is a sizable group, and they are already organized and ready to use their power and experience.” An example of the unique contribution that labor can make, he pointed out, was bringing the Iraqi trade unionists, “our co-workers,” to the US. Their message made the link between the struggle for economic justice and peace. “They are protecting their jobs; they are also protecting the resources of their country. They are fighting the same corporations that we fight for contracts.”

Zweig said that the “mainstream” media represents Iraqis either as terrorists or as helpless victims, but that most Iraqis are ordinary workers, “as are most Americans.” Labor, which is “prepared to exercise power in a reasonable way… can show people that Iraqis can solve their own problems.” Zweig’s comments reminded this writer that both of us had heard the Iraqi unionists in Philadelphia a few days earlier. There, in a lively question and answer session, they had expanded on the theme of labor’s significance in Iraq and in working for peace. Hashmeya emphasized the multiethnic character of Iraq and its labor movement. She told the audience that she, a Shia, left her 7-year-old son in the care of a Sunni woman and that Faleh is Shia and his wife is Sunni.

Faleh told of the oil workers’ recent strike. When an Iraqi military commander refused a government order to arrest striking workers, saying “I will not arrest anyone who loves Iraq,” the government had to agree to establish a broad based committee to recommend solutions to the problem of control of the nation’s oil resources. And both leaders had ridiculed the notion that Iraqis needed the “protection” of the US Army, “Did we fight among ourselves before the occupation?” Hashmeya said she believes that one of the aims of the occupation is to make Iraqis lose hope in their own future and to force them to accept the privatization of their national resources.

The Chicago UFPJ conference was memorable both because of the successful formal proceedings and the decisions reached and because of the countless sidebar conversations and discussions that enriched everyone’s experience. Readers are urged to go to the Web sites of UFPJ and USLAW in order to get involved in what promises to be an active period in the struggle for both justice and peace. See: www.unitedforpeace.org and www.uslaboragainstwar.org.o

--Ben Sears is labor editor of Political Affairs. Send your letter to the editor to

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Exposed! Police Brutality in Buffalo

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 03:39:00 +0000

8-27-07, 12:00 pm

A talk show producer once told me that he breaks police officers down into three categories. Twenty percent of the officers are really good cops; they arrest dangerous criminals, they’ll climb a tree to save your little girl’s cat. Another 20 percent are flat-out evil, bad, corrupt, racist and abusive. And 60 percent are in the middle. Believe it or not it’s the ones in the middle that are the biggest problem: they’re the ones who will often be in a position to stop the malcontents and won’t do it. An officer among the 60 will help cover up police misconduct, will at times side in favor of the erring cop not really out of maliciousness, but in the spirit of going along to get along, and lasting long enough to collect his or her pension. This is a story about officers in all three categories.

Lawsuits are currently being filed in Buffalo, New York over cases that have nothing to do with public safety or fighting crime, but everything to do with harassment of inner city Blacks and the subsequent acts to keep these ridiculous behaviors from reaching the media. On November 1, 2006 a mailman flagged down an officer after witnessing a domestic squabble between a former live-in couple. Evidently, the former girlfriend of a Mr. Neal Mack stopped by his Walden Avenue home to pick up an anticipated check that didn’t come with Mack’s batch of mail that day and the woman accused Mack of stealing her check. Along comes a really bad role of the dice known as Officer Greg Kwiatkowski – literally one of Buffalo’s worst.

According to Mack’s attorney Anthony Pendergrass, Mack was arrested because when Kwiatkowski and a backup officer who arrived at some point (Buffalo squad cars have only one officer per vehicle) at Mack’s door, he asked them if they had a warrant and the officers indicated they didn’t have one so he made an attempt to close his door. And the officers were said to have kicked the door open and according to Pendergrass: “run rough-shod over his home… beating up his children – one under 18 – his adult son Neal Mack Jr., and his girlfriend. He was billyclubbed over the head.”

Mack, a middle-aged family man wasn’t just weathering the current abuse, he was in danger of losing his life and probably would have if it weren’t for a very bold and selfless action of a police officer who was about to arrive at that apartment. Officer Cariol (or Carol as she is known) Horn of Buffalo’s 12th District (formerly known as the Ugly-12th Precinct) says she got the call to the residence not knowing what the situation was or that another officer was there.

She disclosed to me her version of the incident: “When I got there Neal Mack was cuffed in the front and he was standing sideways while the cop (Kwiatkowski) was punching him in the face.” Hmmm, already cuffed, punching him in the face. What a brave soul this Kwiatkowski is. Officer Horn continued, “so the cop that was in front of me said ‘Greg let me get him, let me cuff him in the back,’ and Greg said ‘no,’ When I walked in there, Kwiatkowski continued to punch him in the face.”

Considering that Officer Kwiatkowski’s actions were a complete breakdown in police and public safety procedure, not to mention the uncalled for lack of total respect for a private citizen and his guests in his home, Horn said the only thing on her mind at that point was to get Mack out of the apartment.

“Actually I was really thinking we’d better get him out of here before Kwiatkowski kills him,” said Horn in an interview with me for the Buffalo Criterion. Other officers of course did arrive, but thanks to the determined Kwiatkowski, things didn’t get any better. Then Greg had Mr. Neal; he pulled him down to him and just started choking him with his arm (around Mr. Mack’s neck). I was looking at the guys face and I said “Greg! Greg! You’re choking him.” So I grabbed his arm from around the guy’s neck and he said “Get the F—k off of me” and punched me in my face.

When Kwiatkowski hit his own fellow officer because she stopped him from choking Mack, other officers stepped in to separate them both. Horn wasn’t the only Black officer there but her quick thinking probably saved a life that Kwiatkowski may have been determined to take. Predictably she didn’t receive a hero’s welcome at downtown headquarters. No less than eight charges were leveled against Horn by Buffalo’s internal affairs division (known in Buffalo as Professional Standards Division) most relating to obstruction.

Kwiatkowski accused Horn of jumping on his back, which she denies. Horn is not without her own prior issues with the department, but she deserves more objective judgment. She was once fired years ago by the same PSD officer who is investigating this case: Carl Terranova. Eventually she fought it and was reinstated to the department. In order to understand Kwiatkowski’s angle, one would have to bend his mind away from all conventional thought of right and wrong and make a conscious effort to become totally obstinate (nothing new in Buffalo).

What makes this story still relevant is that Kwiatkowski has long been back on duty, while Horn is still considered IOD (injured on duty) pending a medical approval. I knew of the incident back when it happened, but the Buffalo News and the Buffalo Challenger covered it immediately (the Challenger – a Black paper – went into more detail). Officer Kwiatkowski went back on duty without suspension, just a 30-day administrative leave with pay – little more than a slap on the wrist for doing something he should have been arrested and fired for. This is not even my first story on him.

I spoke with Commissioner Gipson about this case several times now. Once myself and about eight local activists met with Mr. Gipson in a scheduled meeting in his conference room back on April 19 at downtown headquarters to see about getting Horn back on duty and to call for Kwiatkowski’s ouster from the department. Our esteemed police chief heard what we had to say and basically told us his decisions weren’t going to be influenced by public opinion. I think he feels that Horn is dodging it, but she’s a tiny woman, shorter than average at just over 5’1”. She can’t shake a blow from a 6’2” guy like that the way a larger person might and just go back to work. Over the months she’s suffered headaches. Gipson told me last July while returning one of my messages that even though he is the commissioner, there are laws that prevent him from firing Horn as well as Kwiatkowski.

Officer Horn has been before the electronic media and stated her case. Her last interview on a local Black talk show resulted in members of the local police department marching into the Apollo Theater studio with a fake subpoena or warrant demanding copies of the show. Kwiatkowski’s Kooky Kops I call them (KKK). This also earned Horn three more charges from PSD including their most precious, the one that both the commissioner and their internal affairs want out of her the most: a complete silence regarding all media contact. A couple of activists have told me this is just a way to get her quietly fired.

Kwiatkowski should have been fired long ago. I broke a story on him back in February 2000 where he at least in part helped start a fight in a bar after exchanging words with three men talking to two white females. Two of the three men were Black and whether or not any of the three were in a relationship with either of the women is nobody’s business. But the real kicker to this story is, the officers were said to have been intoxicated by this time. An interdepartmental memo I obtained from a police source admits they “created a problem in this bar,” and, according to the memo, they were released from duty early by a supervisor after returning from a “training session.”

Just what was this rigorous training session that evidently caused enough stress that forced Kwiatkowski and his charge to seek the comforts of ye olde watering hole? Was it SWAT training? Perhaps they were training to go undercover. Nope. It was cultural diversity training. I even talked to the head of the training group back then, Brian Hayes. He said a police lieutenant told him that those guys got “stirred-up but in the wrong direction.”

It would send out a good message to the rest of Buffalo’s head-case cops if the new commissioner removed a cancer like Kwiatkowski. A new line of work would probably give the troubled officer a new perspective on life knowing he has to deal with various people without a uniform, badge and Glock to shield him.

As it turns out, all news isn’t bad news. Charges against Mr. Neal Mack were recently dropped. They originally charged him with obstructing governmental administration (I guess if you want to call Kwiatkowski’s actions “governmental administration” you are free to do so), petty larceny (for stealing a check that was assumed to have been in his own mailbox, even though that check had yet to be delivered), criminal mischief, and probably for not breathing hard enough while Kwiatkowski was choking him.

Mack’s attorney Anthony Pendergrass moved for a dismissal of all charges based on one small factor; the initial arrest was unlawful. Pendergrass referenced an old case from 1980, Payton v. New York, in which the US Supreme Court ruled that “absent consent exigent (a situation requiring swift attention or action) circumstances, no home may be entered by the police for the purpose of arresting its occupant without an arrest warrant first being obtained.” Honorable City Court Judge Debra Givins agreed with Pendergrass in June. It was a gutsy ruling by her, and rare for a Buffalo attorney to fight the case for Mack without the customary compromises that most area lawyers try and make their Black clients think they have to settle for.

Pendergrass says he is not within the local “old boy network” and a lot of Blacks don’t even realize how deep that network runs. Most Blacks suspect the surface evidence. If a given city has an ample amount of industries leave, the fate of Blacks reverts to the hands of remaining corporations, white politicians on both parties and the judicial system. Buffalo’s network runs deeper still.

Former longtime Deputy Assembly Speaker Arthur O. Eve recently stated on his Saturday morning radio show that he and several ministers actually believe that Buffalo is suffering from a “43-year-old curse” that has kept our city from moving forward. Is this curse making Buffalo suffer more than other industrial cities hit with structural decline? Is Buffalo’s racism more potent than racism in other cities like New York, Philly or Chicago? Bad cops exist as a result of certain white industry and business leaders giving them the signal through the low hiring and redlining of working-class and business Blacks. The 60 percent complicit officers exit through Black indifference. Buffalo cops are not given to murder as they were in the early 1990’s, but continued police abuse and disrespect of Blacks could lead to an unrest they haven’t seen since the 1960’s.

--Send your letter to the editor to

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Nature, Society and Human Survival

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 03:31:00 +0000

8-27-07, 12:00 pm

Editor’s Note: This article is based on a longer essay, “The Dialectics of Climate Change,” that addresses the ecological crisis in more detail, with more social and scientific examples. The complete essay relates dialectical materialism to the environment; provides a unified framework to help us understand the interrelationships between social, economic and environmental crises; addresses several contentious questions like China’s role, nuclear power, and the practical and theoretical challenges that environmental crises pose for socialists and communists; and proposes a number of steps humanity needs to take to begin to deal with the most crucial climate change questions. For an interview with Marc Brodine see: Political Affairs Radio – Episode 33

Frederick Engels, in his graveside address for Marx, noted that “Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.”

These are the fundamental realities of all human life: our lives are based on food, water, and resources that come from nature. As well, the ways in which we create and distribute food, drink and shelter impact the natural world we depend on. We need nature for our survival. If the air becomes too polluted for human health, we can’t simply breathe something else. Pollution that is blown away is blown away to somewhere else; it doesn’t just disappear. We can’t just stop eating; we require water.

Humans are not separate from their environment, and the environments of different countries are not separate from each other; what we experience in one region of the world is intimately connected to what people experience in other regions; what happens to natural global systems also happens to all of us.

All value to humanity comes either directly from nature, or from nature altered by human labor. If we compromise nature’s ability to regenerate the materials we need for our survival, we compromise our own ability to survive. We face a series of linked environmental problems – from climate change, to water use, to soil depletion – which have the potential to negatively affect sea levels, weather systems, our ability to grow food and drink water, and other essential aspects of human life. We can’t endlessly alter the balance of natural systems like the atmosphere or the oceans without suffering the consequences of that alteration.

There are direct human costs of capitalism, but there are also serious indirect costs, as capitalist production and agriculture exploit the non-renewable resources we depend upon in an ever-speedier race to catastrophe.

Capitalism operates on several deadly assumptions: that nature is “free,” that natural resources are limitless, that the waste-absorbing capacity of nature is infinite, that economic activity and the natural world are separate, that short-term profit is more important than long-term sustainability, and that the production of more commodities without end is progress. This is in addition to the human exploitation and oppression capitalism engenders and profits from.

The potential of looming environmental catastrophe isn’t a single problem with a simple solution. The climate crisis, excessive garbage and toxic waste, an increasing list of endangered species, pollution and toxic chemicals in the air, water, soil, and in our food, our workplaces, and our homes, are among the myriad problems we face. When we are threatened with a series of related potential crises, the chances that one or another of them will happen are much greater. We can’t now predict exactly which of the interlocked environmental problems we face will first lead to major negative tipping points. But because we face so many related problems, we can be pretty sure that if we fail to act, one or another of these crises is going to get us.

That’s the nature of risk probability: many risks times many opportunities for system breakdown equals inevitable crisis. Because the world is a complex of interlocking processes with dynamic interrelationships, once any one of these crises hit, the chances of the others occurring escalate rapidly. More global warming results in more forest fires. More forest fires heat the atmosphere and result in more glacial melting, melting more permafrost, releasing more greenhouse gases, melting more glaciers, resulting in more forest fires, all of which increase global warming. The world is a series of giant feedback loops. And humanity is busy impacting those feedback loops.

The real question is: will we continue to force these natural systems to work together against humanity? Or will we restructure our social, economic, agricultural, and industrial systems to work more in harmony with them?

Human Society Needs to Change

The adaptability of human social systems is more limited than general human adaptability. When oppressive, class-divided societies are stressed by external events, whether war, economic crisis, or impending environmental collapse, the ruling class first transmits the main burdens of that crisis to the oppressed and exploited classes, using money and power to escape the consequences as long as possible. So the crises that threaten us are not just environmental, they are also crises of our social and economic systems and will accelerate social and economic problems, contributing to even more social instability and conflict. The genocide in Rwanda is one example – global warming and competition for limited degraded agricultural land were not the only causes, but certainly exacerbated the genocide.

When a society comes into unresovlable conflict with its environment, there are three basic adaptations that can happen:

• the society can move elsewhere and continue as before in a new place (the main adaptation in ancient times), • people can stay where they are and transform their society and economy, or • the society and people can die out.

There are many examples of all three occurring over the course of human history, such as the Mesopotamian Fertile Crescent, North Africa, and Easter Island.

Our globalized economy and globalized environmental crises have left us with nowhere else to go. We can change our economic practices or else perish, or perhaps survive in a diminished fashion in a much more inhospitable world.

In the 10,000 years of agriculture and the four or five centuries of capitalism, humans have already transformed our relations with the microbial world, the seas, the vegetation, the crust of the earth, and now the atmosphere. We have reached a new successional stage in our relations with the rest of nature. The ecological crisis of our species is inextricably entwined with capitalism and its inefficient use of resources for the profit of a relative handful of individuals. If we create ways to transform our relationship to nature by changing our social and economic systems, we may be able to adapt and create a new ecology that enables our species to continue. Otherwise, we will be subjected to the often brutal workings of climate change and natural selection.

The world will survive. That is not in question. The earth has been through many more cataclysmic changes than global warming will bring. Nature will reach a new equilibrium. The question is whether or not our species will be able to survive that new balance. And if we are, will it be compatible with developed human existence, with the existence of human sustainability at a level of technological and cultural advancement and agricultural and water sufficiency. We can either work with nature, or nature will work against us. Nature doesn’t “care” about humanity; humanity must care about nature. We must work to enable nature to sustain us.

Most discussions of global climate change are limited in an odd way. The problems are seen as problems of human interaction with natural systems (which they are) or as problems in need of technological solutions (which they are). But little is done to connect any of this to our economic and social systems. In a private property system, when we collectively face problems that need collective solutions (and it doesn’t get much bigger or more collective than global climate change, both on the problem side and the required solution side), we run into private property rights and private decision-making about production, land use, resources, disposal of waste, and investment. The environmental problems we face are fundamental, so the solutions need to be fundamental. Solutions to our collective problems must be collective solutions.

A starting point is transforming the political and economic system from one that is ruled by a tiny class that privately expropriates maximum profit from socially-produced goods and services, to one led by the vast majority, motivated by the collective survival and sustainability needs of humanity as a whole. As with fundamental solutions to other problems such as racism, inequality, economic exploitation and others, socialism is a necessity for the survival of the human race – not a guarantee, but a necessary precondition for the kinds of fundamental solutions humanity needs. Socialists also need to understand that if capitalism does a bad enough job of ruining the environment, then the material basis for socialism will be harmed or destroyed. Socialism is a necessary, essential aspect of the changes we need to make to protect the survival of our species, but it is not a sufficient condition by itself.

However, we can’t wait for socialism to preserve our existence on this planet. We need to stop making things worse now. As well, confronting environmental problems and their social and economic causes are part of what will convince millions that we need socialism.

What More is Needed?

Socialism is crucial to the environmental, industrial, agricultural, and distribution changes we need to make, but by itself that won’t be enough. We need to integrate socialist economics with environmental science.

The natural world we live in is not infinite, and the resources in and of nature are also not infinite. So our definition of the “greatest good” must not be the greatest amount of material goods, but rather improving the living and health standards of all humanity while facilitating the continual reproduction and restoration of the natural conditions which we need to survive. We can’t have healthy humanity without a healthy natural world.

While the history of socialist countries contain positive environmental steps (such as Cuba’s recycling, organic agriculture and reforestation programs), they also have produced some very negative examples. This is discussed in more detail in the complete essay, available online.

Ultimately, failures and problems of socialism represent a failure to think, research, plan and implement dialectically. Economics and development are based on nature, based on the ability of nature to reproduce itself, and based on maintaining a healthy balance between human needs and the needs of the natural systems humanity depends on. If economics and development don’t work to maintain that balance, they work against the survival of humanity, and that is as true of socialist development as any other kind.

We shouldn’t use up non-renewable resources wastefully, like oil, and we can’t act as if the waste-absorbing capacity of the natural world is infinite. Even renewable resources can be damaged by human activity – if water and soil are degraded faster than nature rebuilds them, they turn into non-renewable resources. Significant shifts in what and how we produce, and in how we package and distribute goods, are necessary for our survival as a species. We have to redesign our industrial processes to eliminate the creation of pollution and take other steps to decrease the impact of human activity on the natural world, including reducing the impact of our agricultural systems and reducing over-reliance on chemical fertilizers, including reducing toxic chemical wastes. We have to restore and rebalance our relationships with nature.

The collective problems of humanity require the collective thinking and action of humanity. That is part of what socialist economic democracy must be about, the mobilization of our collective intelligence, ability and activity to solve our shared problems.

What To Do

There are many steps we need to take to address the linked series of environmental problems facing humanity. Some are changes in individual behavior; others are major changes in how we produce food and industrial commodities. Both kinds of changes are needed – if we only focus on changing the habits of individuals but still keep running our industries in ways that continue to produce pollution, CO2 and methane, we won’t make much of a dent in the problems.

Social, economic, industrial and agricultural changes are required to solve environmental problems. Capitalism is a big part of the problem, and engaging in struggles to solve ecological crises are part of the path to replacing capitalism.

Recognizing Necessity

Engels said that “freedom is the recognition of necessity.” Only by recognizing environmental imperatives will we be free to make the right choices for humanity’s survival. Only by recognizing the restraint required of us by natural systems can we become truly conscious factors in improving the world for ourselves and our descendents.

--Send your letter to the editor to

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September/October 2007 – Nature, Society, and Human Survival

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 03:18:00 +0000

8-27-07, 12:00 pm

In this issue...

Contributing writer Peter Zerner looks at the 2008 presidential election and discusses one of the most popular non-candidates – Al Gore. Marc Brodine writes on the links between our political and economic organization and the global climate crisis. Long-term change is needed, he argues, but we need to act now. Lawrence Albright revives the issue of environmental racism and its impact on communities of color. Historian Gerald Meyer reviews the recent documentary on the life of progressive artist Alice Neel and fills in the gaps. Brian Fitzpatrick visits Nicaragua and asks whether the Sandinista movement has what it takes to revitalize that country’s struggle for democracy and socialism. PA Editor Joe Sims looks at the record and compares former President Jimmy Carter to Britain’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Who is more progressive?

Also, please find book reviews, poetry, debate, and more….

PA Editors

Departments:

04 Letters

05 Exchange No Monkeying With Marxist Morality By Frank Chapman

07 Marxist IQ

08 Commentary

Al Gore, The Assault on Reason, and the Run for the Presidency By Peter Zerner

Is Jimmy Carter to the Left of Tony Blair? By Joe Sims

Gaza and After By Hannah Amireh

11 That's Capitalism By Owen Williamson

12 Book Reviews The Yiddish Policemen’s Union Reviewed by Martha Kramer

The Dust of Empire Reviewed by Emilian Kavalski

Flight Reviewed by Clara West

15 Movie Review Hard Road Home Reviewed by Anthony Papa

16 Poetry Alone with the Shoe Manufacturer in his Memorial Park By Liz Rosenberg

The Carpenter Uses Nails: American Soldiers in Vietnam and Iraq By Luis Lázaro Tijerina

Leopardi at Chavez Ravine - 1946 By Michael Shepler

35 International Notes

39 Fiction The Shadow Man, part I By Karin Coddon

Features:

Cover Story Nature, Society and Human Survival Marxist thinkers need to reinvent a “green socialism.” By Marc Brodine

18 Slam Dump: The Biological War Against Communities of Color In the hubbub about the environment, let’s not forget environmental racism in our local communities. By Lawrence Albright

26 Exposed! Police Brutality in Buffalo Race-based police brutality persists in Buffalo, New York. By Chris Stevenson

30 Ending the War: Peace Activists Meet to Chart Course Peace activists meet to chart a future course. By Ben Sears

32 Nicaragua’s Sandinistas: A Born Again Social-Democratic Movement Can Nicaragua’s Sandinistas revitalize social democracy in that country? By Brian Fitzpatrick

36 Alice Neel: A Review The hidden story of artist Alice Neel. By Gerald Meyer

44 Puntos de enfoque pa ra una perspectiva de izquierda en el debate sobre la inmigración Por Emile Schepers

The Elvira Arellano Endgame

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:15:00 +0000

8-27-07, 10:03 am

On rare occasions humble acts of moral courage awaken our souls and reverberate through history. They touch us quietly and intimately, shed light, and profoundly inspire spiritual renewal: Rosa Parks refuses to sit in the back of a Montgomery, Alabama bus; an anonymous protester stands up to a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square; Anne Frank writes a diary before her deportation and death in Auschwitz.

On August 19, 2007 the US Immigrant Rights movement had its own historic moment destined to inspire future generations of social justice activists. Elvira Arellano, a Chicago cleaning woman and working mom, was arrested outside a church in Los Angeles. The immigration police immediately deported her to Mexico.

Arellano, who worked maintenance at O’Hare International Airport until she was fired in a post-9/11 purge of undocumented workers, became an unlikely human rights hero last year when she sought sanctuary in a Chicago Methodist church. Her simple Christian purpose was to avoid deportation and separation from her son Saul, a US citizen. Saul was an infant when Elvira was mopping our floors and cleaning our airport toilets. Now he was a second-grader, and his mom was a fugitive, on the run from the dreaded migra.

Like millions of other economic refugees, Elvira and Saul have been subjected to the increasingly stringent enforcement policies of a government hard-pressed by its xenophobic fringe. While some immigration reform efforts in Congress hold out promise to immigrants, most have been blocked by hardliners intent on waging a crusade against immigrant families.

The consequences have been catastrophic:

* The militarization of our southern border has caused a dramatic increase in mortality. Over 4,000 corpses have been found in the desert since 1996, with dehydration and heat stroke among the leading causes of death. 2007 is on track to be the deadliest year on record.

* Mass workplace raids and deportations are becoming terrifyingly commonplace. In December 2006, 1,300 Swift & Co. meat-processing workers were arrested simultaneously in six states. It was the largest raid in immigration enforcement history.

* Raids and round-ups are facilitated by a government program called Endgame. Creepily evocative of the Ultimate Solution, Endgame is the Bush Administration’s plan to “remove all removable aliens” by the year 2012. Its bite has recently been strengthened by a compliant Congress.

The tightening of surveillance, enforcement and prosecution has created a climate of fear in immigrant communities not seen in this country since the 1954 civil rights debacle, Operation Wetback.

Elvira Arellano’s deportation is a wake-up call for America. It’s time to say, ¡Basta ya! We’ve had enough exploitation, abuse and exclusion. It’s time to say “Sí, se puede” – We can do it!” to working families’ rights to healthcare, education, liberty and legalization.

Immigrant working families deserve our gratitude and respect. Demonizing them as “illegals” only serves to inflame our worst ethnocentric impulses at the precise moment in history when we most need to emphasize our best qualities—generosity and inclusiveness.

Addressing the complexities of immigration issues requires a serious multi-national dialogue. Such dialogue cannot commence in earnest, however, without compassionately and effectively addressing the humanitarian crisis on our borders, in our barrios, and at our detention centers.

We have nothing to fear from legalizing several million working families like Elvira and Saul Arellano who are already productive members of our society. On the other hand, we have plenty to fear if we succumb to ethnocentrism and revert to the intolerance of Operation Wetback. The Elvira Arellano snapshot of the immigrant worker’s dilemma gives us a precious opportunity to reflect inwardly on who we are and what we want to become in the 21st century. Such introspection brings a humanitarian clarity to our political endeavors. It permits us to acknowledge the mothers, fathers and children who are the economic refugees among us. It permits us to love Elvira and Saul. That’s the endgame.

--David Howard is a teacher, writer and co-chair of Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions/CPR.

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A Long Way to Go to Ban Land Mines

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:06:00 +0000

8-27-07, 9:51 am

EARTH TALK From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: What is the status of the land mines issue popularized by Princess Diana and Paul McCartney’s ex-wife, Heather Mills? How many mines have been removed? How many are left? What is being done? -- Jonas Schultz, via e-mail

Land mines were first widely used in World War II and have since been used in Vietnam, the Korean War, the first Gulf War, and in about a half dozen conflicts around the world today. Initially, mines were used for defensive purposes, to guard certain areas and keep the enemy out. Today they are used for more insidious reasons such as to terrorize civilians and limit their movement. And, of course, many remain behind from past wars and continue to unintentionally kill or maim civilians, including many children.

Today, an estimated 110 million mines are still scattered around the world in 78 countries, injuring or killing upwards of 26,000 people each year. According to a recent United Nations (UN) study, the countries most affected by mines are Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, Croatia, Eritrea, Iraq, Mozambique, Namibia, Somalia, Nicaragua and Sudan. The landmines in these countries make up almost 50 percent of all mines deployed in the world today.

Stats like these have prompted outcries from concerned people all over the world. Organizations such as the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Adopt a Minefield work to both rid the world of these weapons and to aid those injured by them. In the last decade, such organizations have spearheaded the destruction of as many as 30.5 million mines. Their work has also led to such a dramatic decrease in the mine trade worldwide that, since 2003, the manufacture and sale of mines has essentially ended (or at least no evidence exists that any trade in mines is still going on). In addition, Costa Rica, Djibouti, El Salvador, Kosovo and Moldova have all been declared “mine safe” as of 2004.

The UN itself does more than conduct studies and issue reports. Some14 different UN departments, agencies and programs work on de-mining efforts in some 30 countries. The actual work is done by non-governmental organizations and various military entities employing commercial contractors. Many intergovernmental and charitable organizations also support the UN’s efforts with financial assistance.

Many rather low-tech methods are used to detect and destroy mines. In Denmark, for instance, scientists have genetically modified Thale cress, a fast-growing green plant from the mustard family, to turn red whenever its roots are exposed to nitrogen dioxide, a gas released into soil by degrading mines. The Danish company Aresa Biodetection works with governments around the world to sow fields with the plant in areas plagued by mine problems. In another example, Colombian researchers have trained rats to freeze when they encounter mines in the ground. Since rats weigh so little, they don’t trigger explosions.

In December 1997 an international conference held in Ottawa, Ontario yielded the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, otherwise known as the Mine Ban Treaty. The treaty was formalized in March 1999 when 122 countries became signatories. The international treaty works to prevent mine use, production and trade, assist victims and to destroy existing mines.

CONTACTS: Adopt a Minefield, www.landmines.org; International Campaign to Ban Landmines, www.icbl.org; Mine Ban Treaty; www.icbl.org/treaty.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.

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Cuban Five Defense Team Exposes Trial Errors

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:59:00 +0000

8-27-07, 9:46 am

On August 20, the 11th Circuit Appeals Court in Atlanta heard convincing allegations by the legal team defending the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters imprisoned in the United States. The defense lawyers submitted that the prosecution committed serious procedural errors and used intimidation to pressure the jury of the initial trial, which took place in Miami in a climate of apparent hostility toward the five heroes.

For the first time eminent foreign legal professionals were present at the hearing of the case of Gerardo Hernández, Fernando González, Ramón Labaniño, Antonio Guerrero and René González, known as the Five in the international campaign for their release.

Alicia Jrapko, a member of the International Free the Five Committee, told the Cuban radio and TV Roundtable program over the phone that the presence of prestigious international lawyers was much larger than before and signified strong backing for the Cuban anti-terrorist fighters.

Juan Guzmán, the Chilean attorney who brought charges against the ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, was present and informed the Roundtable program (again by phone) that the U.S. government was unable to refute the defense truths, as reflected in the international media.

Guzmán appreciated the questions put by the sitting judges and stated that there is really no evidence to justify the charges of espionage against the prisoners, nor that of 'conspiring to commit murder,' brazenly brought against two of them.

It was also abundantly clear that Miami was not an appropriate venue for the original trial, where the Five were handed down sentences ranging from 15 years’ imprisonment to two life terms, because the jury was intimidated, a point firmly established by the defense appeal, Guzmán added.

The Chilean legal professional thought that the defense achieved its main objective: to communicate the poor conduct of the U.S. government and the shortcomings of the jury selected for the Miami trial.

'In line with my legal experience, my impression was that those who have knowledge of this case would have to rule in favor of the five Cubans,' Guzmán affirmed.

The multinational TV networks Telesur and CNN covered aspects of the hearing and antecedents in the case of the Five.

This September the Cuban patriots will have completed nine years of arbitrary detention in the United States after they were sentenced for crimes that they did not commit in a rigged trial in Miami, lacking in procedural guarantees, as confirmed by UN experts and three judges at the Court of Appeals in the first hearing.

From Granma International

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Israel and Palestine: The Language of Force

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:52:00 +0000

8-27-07, 9:39 am

Soon after coming to power, Ariel Sharon started to commission public opinion polls. He kept the results to himself. This week, a reporter of Israel's TV Channel 10 succeeded in obtaining some of them.

Among other things, Sharon wanted to know what the public thought about peace. He did not dream of starting on this road himself, but he felt it important to be informed about the trends.

In these polls, the public was presented with a question that came close to the final Clinton Proposal and the Geneva Initiative: Are you for a peace that would include a Palestinian state, withdrawal from almost all occupied territories, giving up the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and dismantling most settlements?

The results were very instructive. In 2002, 73% (seventy three percent!) supported this solution. In the next two years, support declined, but it was still accepted by the majority. In 2005 the percentage of supporters slipped under the 50% line.

What had changed in these years?

The TV presenter painted in the context: in 2002 the second intifada had reached its climax. There were frequent attacks in Israeli cities, people were being killed. The majority in Israel preferred to pay the price of peace than to suffer the bloodshed.

Later, the intifada declined, together with the Israeli public's readiness for compromise. In 2005, Sharon carried out the 'unilateral separation'. It seemed to many Israelis that they could manage without an agreement with the Palestinians. The readiness for peace dropped below the half mark.

A POPULAR Israeli saying has it that 'The Arabs understand only the language of force.' This poll may confirm what many Palestinians think: that it is the Israelis themselves who don't understand any other language.

Both versions are true, of course.

I have often said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a clash between an irresistible force and an immovable object. A clash is a matter of force.

The present lamentable state of the Palestinians, with half of them living under occupation and the other half as refugees, is a direct result of the Palestinian defeat in the 1948 war. The first part of that war, from December 1947 to May 1948, was a clash between the Palestinian people and the Hebrew community (the 'yishuv'). It resulted in a resounding defeat for the Palestinians. (When the armies of the neighboring Arab states then entered the fray, the Palestinians became irrelevant to the struggle.)

That was a military defeat, of course, but its roots extended far beyond the narrow military field. It followed from the lack of cohesion of Palestinian society at the time, its failure to set up a functioning leadership and a unified military command, to mobilize and concentrate its forces. Every region fought alone, without coordination with the next one. Abd-al-Kader Husseini in the Jerusalem area fought independently of Fawzy al-Kaukji in the North. The yishuv, in contradistinction, was unified and strictly organized, and therefore won - in spite of the fact that in numbers it was hardly equal to half the Palestinian population.

HAMAS LEADERS mock Mahmoud Abbas and his supporters in Ramallah for expecting an Israeli withdrawal without armed struggle.

They point out that even the Oslo agreement (to which they object) was achieved only after six years of the first intifada, which convinced Yitzhak Rabin that no military solution was possible.

They aver that Ehud Barak left South Lebanon in 2000 only after the resounding success of the Shiite guerillas

Their conclusion: even a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders will not come into being unless the 'Palestinian resistance' inflicts on the Israelis sufficient casualties and damage to convince them that it is in their interest to withdraw from the occupied territories.

The Israelis, they say, will not give up one square inch without being compelled to do so. Sharon's poll may well reinforce them in that belief.

The people around Abbas respond by mocking Hamas for believing that they can win against Israel by force of arms.

They point to the immense superiority of Israeli forces. According to them, all the violent actions of the Palestinians have only provided Israel with a pretext to reinforce the occupation, steal more land and increase the misery of the occupied population.

And indeed, the personal situation of the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is now incomparably worse that it was on the eve of the first intifada, when they could reach any place in the country, work in all Israeli towns, bathe on the Tel-Aviv sea-shore and fly from Ben-Gurion airport.

Both views contain much truth. Yasser Arafat understood this. That's why he did everything to keep the Palestinians united at any cost, encourage the Israeli peace forces and gather international support, without giving up the deterrence of the 'armed struggle'. He succeeded in this up to a point, and as a result was removed.

PALESTINIANS WHO worry about the fate of their people are asking themselves where all this is leading to.

Their situation has reached its lowest point in over 20 years. They are politically almost isolated throughout the world. Israeli public opinion has become indifferent and united around the mendacious mantra: 'We have no partner'. In the peace camp, many are dispirited. And, most importantly, the Palestinian national movement has split into two factions, and it seems that the hatred between them is growing from day to day.

Splits are not uncommon in national liberation movements. Actually, there has hardly been one liberation movement that did not undergo such a crisis. But a situation where two warring factions control two different territories, both under foreign occupation, is almost unknown.

IT MAY be interesting to compare this situation with that of our own underground organizations before the foundation of the State of Israel.

There is some similarity (not ideological, of course): Fatah is a little bit like the large Haganah organization that was controlled by the official Zionist leadership; Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which reject the PLO leadership, are like the Irgun and Stern group. Fatah's al-Aqsa Battalions can be compared to the Palmach, the regular fighting force of the Haganah.

Between these Hebrew organizations, a burning hatred developed. Haganah members considered the Irgunists as fascists, the Irgun fighters considered the Haganah men as collaborators with the British occupation authorities. The national leadership called the Irgun and Stern group 'secessionists', the official Irgun designation for the Haganah was 'shits'. Matters reached a climax in the 'saison' (hunting season), when the Haganah abducted Irgun members and turned them over to the British police, who interrogated them under torture and then deported them to internment camps in Africa. But there was also a short period when all three organizations coordinated their actions under the umbrella of the 'Hebrew Rebellion Movement'.

Israeli politicians like to recall the Altalena incident, when Ben-Gurion gave the order to shell an Irgun ship loaded with arms off the shore of Tel-Aviv. (Menachem Begin, who had come on deck, was narrowly saved when his men shoved him into the water). Why doesn't Abbas dare to do the same to Hamas?

This question ignores a salient point: Ben-Gurion used the 'sacred cannon' (as he called it) only after the State of Israel had already come into being. That makes all the difference.

The bitter hatred between the Haganah and the Irgun, and to some extent also between the Irgun and the Stern group, simmered down only gradually, during the first years of the State of Israel. Nowadays streets in Tel-Aviv are named after the commanders of all three organizations.

More importantly: historians now tend to view the struggle of all three as a single campaign, as if it had been coordinated. The 'terrorist' actions of the Irgun and the Stern group complemented the illegal immigration campaign of the Haganah. The growing popularity of the Irgun and the Stern Group convinced the British that they should reach a modus vivendi with the official Zionist leadership, lest the 'extremists' take over the entire Hebrew community.

This analogy has, of course, its limitations. Ben-Gurion was a strong and authoritative leader, like Arafat, while the position of Abbas is much weaker. Menachem Begin was resolved to prevent a fratricidal war at any cost, even when his men where abducted and turned over to the British. I don't believe the Hamas leaders would react like this in a similar situation. Unlike the Irgun and its supporting political party, Hamas has won the majority in democratic elections.

But it is possible that in the future, after the state of Palestine comes into being, historians will say that Fatah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad really complemented each other. President Bush is pressuring Ehud Olmert into making concessions to Mahmoud Abbas, in order to prevent the complete takeover of the West Bank by Hamas. Perhaps it is precisely the turning of Gaza into Hamastan that will enable Abbas to utilize his weakness to achieve things that he could not get any other way.

ANYWAY, in order to accommodate President Bush's request, Olmert is now ready to cooperate with Abbas in writing something like a 'framework agreement' that will lay down the principles of an agreement that may be achieved later on - but without details or a time-table.

According to the leaks, the agreement will repeat more or less Ehud Barak's proposals at Camp David, including some of the bizarre ones, such as Israeli sovereignty 'beneath' the Temple Mount. The Palestinian state will have 'temporary' borders, with the 'permanent' borders to be fixed some time in the future. Olmert demands that the Separation Wall will serve as the 'temporary' border. This, by the way, confirms what we have been saying from the very first moment, and what was violently denied even before the Supreme Court: that the path of the Wall does not reflect security considerations, but was designed to annex 8% of the West Bank to Israel. In this area, the 'settlement blocs' were set up, those that President Bush has generously promised to attach to Israel.

The whole exercise is very dangerous for the Palestinians. True, if such a document is indeed completed, it will officially fix the minimum that the Israeli government is ready to give, but it can be interpreted as setting down the maximum that the Palestinians will be allowed to demand. In political life, not much is more permanent than the 'temporary'.

It is also dangerous for the Israelis. It may encourage the illusion that such a 'solution' would put an end to the conflict. In fact, no Palestinian will see this as a real solution, and the conflict will go on.

How will public opinion treat this plan? Olmert is certainly commissioning polls to find out. We don't know the results. Like Sharon, he keeps his polls secret.

From Uri Avnery's Column

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Differences among Chavez Supporters over Venezuelan Constitutional Reforms

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:43:00 +0000

8-27-07, 9:28 am

Caracas, August 21, 2007, (venezuelanlysis.com) – The Venezuelan political party Podemos distanced itself yesterday from comments made over the weekend by Ramon Martinez, the Podemos Governor of the state of Sucre, who called for an alliance of governors and mayors to “defend regional autonomy” against President Chavez’s plan for a “new geometry of power.”

Chavez’s proposal would allow for the creation, through popular referendum, of “federal districts” in specific areas, which could then be categorized as states. The proposals would also allow for the appointment of various regional vice-presidents and the recognition of the social missions as alternative administrations to bypass the old bureaucratic institutions. During his announcement to the National Assembly on August 15, Chavez argued that these changes are necessary “to remove the old oligarchic, exploiter hegemony, the old society, and, in the words of Gramsci, to weaken the old ‘historic block.’”

Chavez also warned against “regionalism,” which he described as a “dogma, that impedes change,” and, he continued, “we can not accept situations that create Caudillos.”

In response Martinez said that he is opposed to any territorial alteration of the State of Sucre and in an interview in the August 19 edition of El Nacional claimed that “Ramoncismo [a reference to Martinez’ first name] is much stronger than Chavismo,” in the streets of Sucre.

Martinez continued, “Not only are we in defense of regional autonomy, but of the constitution.” He also said, “In this struggle, I am accompanied by more than 46 mayors throughout the country. I’m not going to give you more details of the plan. I am the only one sticking out my nose.”

Podemos deputy in the National Assembly Ricardo Guitierrez clarified that the party did not support the comments of the Governor of Sucre. “This is an attitude in which the governor and president of the party Ramon Martinez runs with his own colors. We have discussed our position over the weekend and we will express them in the National Assembly during the first discussion of the project to reform the constitution [today].”

However, Guitierrez conceded Podemos does have differences over the proposed geopolitical reorganization of the country.

Venezuelan opposition parties argue that the “new geometry of power” would centralize power in the executive and weaken governorships, however Chavez argues the aim is to transfer power to the people. During an inauguration of a Children’s Cardiology Hospital yesterday, Chavez declared, “I am not an enemy of decentralization.” Rather, he argued, he is an enemy of the “bureaucratic, corrupt state.” Podemos, which describes itself as a “social democratic” party, declined to dissolve itself earlier this year to become part of the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), and has since replaced Accion Democratica as the Venezuelan representative of the Socialist International, an international alliance of ‘social democratic’ parties, including the British Labour Party, the Australian Labour Party, the Socialist Parties of France and Spain, among others.

Patria Para Todas (PPT), another Chavez-aligned party that also declined to become part of the PSUV, is organizing 3,000 open forums all around the country to discuss the proposed constitutional reforms. Jose Albornoz, a PPT Deputy in the National Assembly, said that while the PPT maintained some differences with the proposal of the president, on the question of reelection, they supported the removal of the two-term limit, which would allow Chavez to stand for reelection in 2012. However, they argued that this should apply to all publicly elected positions.

Geronimo Carrera, president of the Venezuelan Communist Party (the third Chavez-aligned party which declined to be part of the PSUV), was quoted as saying in the daily newspaper El Nacional (August 18), “The country is tired of constitutions.” The solutions to the social problems Venezuela faces are more pressing than constitutional reform, he argued, “It is not a legal problem, but one of planning.”

Carrera also said that Chavez defended private property in his proposal, “because he is a politician, he prioritized tactics over principles,” he continued, “In a revolutionary change… you cannot permit coexistence with private property.”

From

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Made Love, Got War

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:31:00 +0000

8-27-07, 9:20 am

'Made Love, Got War' is the title of Norman Solomon's latest book, an autobiographical account of the peace and disarmament movements in the United States over the past half century. Better than his other books, I think, this one achieves the level of artistic composition found in Solomon's brilliant and frequent columns on the media, war, and peace. But the value of 'Made Love, Not War' lies in the lessons it provides for current and future activism, the accounts of pitfalls and seductive detours encountered in the past, the insights gained, and the analysis of how one can push on without hope or optimism or the desire for them, all as told by one of the most morally decent people we are privileged to live alongside today.

'I was born in 1931,' Daniel Ellsberg writes in the foreword, 'and my generation had to reorient itself to the unprecedented threat of planetary nuclear suicide-murder. Norman Solomon was born twenty years later, and his generation has never lived under any other circumstance.' Yes, but few in that generation have remained constantly aware of the fact and devoted to changing it. Human beings have always been able to put the fact of their fast approaching personal demise out of their minds, often aided by the pretense of an 'afterlife.' Solomon's and later generations have usually managed to put the possibility of our collective nuclear end out of our thoughts, often aided by the pretenses of the news and entertainment industry.

Solomon has refused his entire life to forget that we are dangerously close to nuclear oblivion, and wishing others would also stop forgetting, he inevitably became something that most peace activists do not: a media critic. In a section toward the end of the book dated July 7, 2006, Solomon writes:

'Today is my fifty-fifth birthday, and the feeling that despite all the changes so little has changed really torments me. Turn on a television and there's the president, giving hypocrisy a bad name, and this is normal. Always has been in my lifetime. Turn on the TV when I was fifteen and there's the president, some kind of perverse fount of lies. That was when I started to get it and not get over it. If I'd been born ten years earlier, it would have started with Ike instead of LBJ.'

Or it could have started earlier, with Truman. '[F]rom one president to another,' Solomon writes, 'one commander in chief to another: …they've all been ready to demolish us in an instant. That fact, alone, from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush and whoever comes next, is so ghastly that we can't really look at it….'

Solomon's recent book 'War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death,' which has also been made into a movie, documents the similar lies all recent presidents have told about wars. This new book touches on that theme, with Truman (discussed by Ellsberg) pretending Hiroshima was a military base, Kennedy pretending the Soviet Union had more missiles, Johnson pretending he was for peace and restraint, and so forth. But here we learn not just what Solomon thinks of these lies today, but what he thought of Kennedy as a young man growing up in the suburbs, what he thought of Johnson as a teenager in full rebellion, and how he viewed the world as an activist through turbulent decades.

Solomon's early sins read more like the confessions of St. Augustine than the confessions of an economic hit man. He failed to fully appreciate the racism of his society or the horrors of war by the time he was 17. If that were the worst anyone had done in life, we would have utopia now. From the time Solomon was 17, he was on the path to try to better the world. The story he tells is of his own activism but also of trends in the movement. One point of frustration is reached around 1970, with unsuccessful saviors of the world beginning to advocate self-absorbed dedication to personal liberation rather than structural political change. 'The idea that 'consciousness' – or, for that matter, culture – can fundamentally change as swiftly as hats,' Solomon writes, 'was to cause enormous confusion, shallow posturing, and bitter disappointment in the 1970s and beyond.' Later, Solomon describes the efforts of various people in 2006 to save the world by growing organic crops.

In the meantime, the Vietnam war was being declared officially on the way out. Air strikes were replacing ground fighting, meaning fewer U.S. casualties, but more Vietnamese. And a pundit, whom Solomon quotes, commented: 'The American majority is against the war. To oppose it involves no risk: the only risk is in trying to stop it.' The summer of 2007 has witnessed endless 'anti-war' rallies outside the offices of Republican congress members, and TV advertisements to the same effect have funneled progressive dollars into the media war machine. No similarly funded effort has urged the Democratic leadership to actually end the occupation.

'Despite all the changes, so little has changed.'

Solomon quotes James Baldwin: 'They have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.'

Solomon quotes these lines approvingly, but his goal is not just to make us aware of what the U.S. military state is doing, but to stop it. He offers no hope that we can, instead arguing that the demand that we be ever optimistic is another assumption imposed on us by the media, and something we can get along without. That may be, but clearly optimism breeds activism which in turn increases both the grounds for optimism and the likelihood of success. The fact that Solomon has done what he's done, seen what he's seen, and continues to insist on sanity and disarmament, should provide us at least with inspiration. That's a good enough substitute for optimism in my mind, so who am I to say it won't do for others as well?

From

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Bush’s Brain Calls it Quits (His Other Brain)

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:27:00 +0000

8-27-07, 9:12 am

Bush Administration consigliere and political operative Karl Rove will resign effective the end of the month. Recently he had been subpoenaed in regard to the firing of federal judges. When Rove wasn’t denying Blacks the right to vote, he created a climate of voter fraud paranoia aimed at opponents. I find his planned departure as somewhat of a surprise. “He was the go-to guy when the administration wants to put politics ahead of the country,” said talk radio’s Stacy Taylor.

Rove engineered a lot of political moves that have since become or should have become scandals. During some of these, other members of the administration have taken the fall for him. The one he should have been subpoenaed for was the first, the one that-for whatever reason-is taken the least serious among the American voters and least explored by the major American media; the Florida voter fraud. People have said that one of Rove’s tactics is to attack his opponent’s strength. While other Republican strategists have mastered the art of searching for weakness, even to the point of nitpicking, or outright lies, Rove dares to assault that most admirable quality others observe about the opposition. He called George McGovern a “left-wing peacenik” even though McGovern flew a B-24 during WWII. During Vietnam Rove used his draft deferment even though he was just a part-time student; he attended several Universities including Utah and Maryland but graduated from none of them. The Swift-Bus veteran would eventually rear his ugly head over and over again.

What does Karl Christian Rove (his actual middle name) have to do with voter fraud you ask? Rove dropped out of college back in ’71 to ironically take a position in a group known as the College Republican National Committee. During the Watergate controversy the Washington Post broke a story about some recordings of Rove discussing his brand of campaigning to a class of young republicans at a few seminars, which included rummaging through opponent’s garbage cans and no-doubt other dirty tricks. In ’94 while working the campaign of Perry Hooper for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Rove won what was then the closest race of his career by accusing Hooper’s opponent of voter fraud and even hiring investigators to observe the counting and produce evidence of fraud in various counties, even though he knew there was none.

Of course the charge led to a recount and though Hooper trailed by 698 votes the morning after the election and lost by 304 votes, “the charges of voter fraud led to an Election 2000 Florida-style recount and naturally wound up in court. The case dragged on for nearly a year and eventually was settled by the United States Supreme Court-in favor of Rove’s client,” according to a 4/12/07 article in the Atlantic.com website. This is not the first time Rove bargained on opponents throwing up their arms over his tireless undermining and judicial filibustering that must have squeezed all the pleasure out of politics that can be traced. Apparently the worst was yet to come. Reportedly back in ’60 at the age of nine Rove decided he wanted to back Richard Nixon. If this didn’t give you some idea of his future direction, nothing would. Twelve years later he signed on to Nixon’s campaign but not before running for National Chairman of College Republicans.

By then he met Lee Atwater and eventually he introduced him to George H.W. Bush. The rest, as they say, is history. Rove met W in 11/73. I can’t link Rove to the Florida voter purge but it has all the circumstantial earmarks. On 9/6/73 young Rove was chosen by Bush (George’s father) to be the Chairman of the College Republicans effective on the 16th. His opponent Robert Edgeworth received a nasty letter from Bush who told him he was out of the party for leaking information about the seminars to the Post. Unlike George W, the elder Bush took leaks to the press very personally, he would fire Rove a couple of times when Rove worked his campaigns.

Since meeting Bush Sr. however, Rove continued a paid political consultant career that became more high profile. He would represent the likes of John Ashcroft (’94 Senate), Rick Perry and eventually George W on two Texas gubernatorial campaigns and of course his 2000 presidential campaign where he would once again see his client trailing late in the race by more than half a million votes. Naturally it wound up in court. The case dragged on and was eventually settled by the US Supreme Court in favor of Rove’s client. Apparently the worst was yet to come. It turns out the Florida voter scandal that still warrants so much focus is only the tip of the iceberg.

--Chris Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Criterion. Contact him at

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Atlanta: Public Housing Residents File Civil Rights Complaint with HUD

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 02:07:00 +0000

8-26-07, 9:51 am

(APN) ATLANTA – The Resident Advisory Board (RAB) representing all Atlanta public housing residents has filed a civil rights complaint with US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Atlanta Progressive News has learned.

Diane Wright, President of the Jurisdiction-Wide RAB Board and Hollywood Courts, and Shirley Hightower, Treasurer of Jurisdiction-Wide and President of Bowen Homes, sent a letter dated August 06, 2007, to James Sutton, HUD Region IV Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Director.

The complaint argues the Atlanta Housing Authority’s plans to demolish or sell Atlanta’s public housing communities violate the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by discriminating against the residents, most of whom are Black.

Further, AHA has failed to comply with HUD regulations requiring consultation with the residents about the plans to demolish public housing, the complaint states. For example, AHA has refused to comply with public records requests made by the RAB Board.

'Please consider this correspondence as a formal complaint of racial discrimination in housing opportunity in violation of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, as amended,' the letter states.

'This complaint is made against the Atlanta Housing Authority and relates to its policies and practices undertaken in an effort to demolish and, or dispose of its remaining stock of public housing projects in the City of Atlanta.'

'This complaint seeks your office’s intervention by way of investigation, conciliation and, or litigation as required and necessary to enforce the legally protected rights of the African American tenants currently living in the affected public housing projects to be free from racial discrimination in housing and community development opportunities,' the letter states.

The complaint explains there is a lack of affordable housing in Atlanta, and that the majority of public housing residents and low-income renters in general are Black.

'The intentional elimination of useful public housing projects occupied almost exclusively by low-income African Americans would be a double insult to the civil rights of African Americans, in so far that it would displace low-income African American families who had attained affordable housing security, while compounding the lack of fair share housing opportunities for low-income African Americans in general in the City of Atlanta by increasing the already significant affordable housing deficiency within the city,' the letter states.

'We want to make sure everyone know what’s going on,' Shirley Hightower told Atlanta Progressive News. 'We’re asking them to do an investigation to enforce the legal rights we have as people to make sure we’re free from racial discrimination.'

'I think they’re gonna respond. When these letters go out and people see these letters, I hope and pray it touch their hearts and their minds,' Hightower said.

'I want to make sure with this [voucher] thing there is enough affordable houses to move to and not be homeless two years from now, a year from now. If you lose your job, it’s not like public housing. If you lose your job in public housing, you can ask for a hardship. [The voucher program] is not like that. You got to pay your utilities on time. You got to pay that rent. What happens when they get out there and they snatch it all away?' Hightower said.

'Public is nothing but Black people, number one. That’s what public housing is all about. They have some Caucasians here. But they’re a few, you can count them on your hand,' she said.

Attorney Lindsay Jones of Emory University helped Wright and Hightower write the letter.

'They [AHA] need to show the units are no longer capable for being used. That's set forth in statutes. There are legal requirements for showing the communities to be not operable, or that demolition is otherwise in public interest, and that they consulted with the tenants. HUD also has to prove a decision to demolish housing or dispose by selling it doesn't lessen the opportunity for housing on African Americans, otherwise a violation of the Fair Housing Act,' Jones told Atlanta Progressive News.

Jones is troubled AHA has not provided requested information to Wright and Hightower.

'The request was also made under the obligation to consult with tenants. They have a right to access the information independent to the Open Records Request,' Jones said.

'We wanted to look at the vouchers. We want to see how they’re funding them. How many units of housing are out there? Is this a real opportunity? We can't get the information. It's two-pronged. Information is not be shared. And there’s how this is being spun to the public. Those things need to be scrutinized very carefully,' Jones said.

The goal of the complaint 'is not to get into the judiciary, but to get power in the hands of tenants. We want you to be conciliatory. Come down, play ball, sit at the table. Until then none of this is gonna happen. Waive the saber, we have a basis of discrimination if we go forward,' Jones said.

Jones is currently trying to establish a 'civil rights project full-time' for Atlanta public housing residents. Legal Aid and the Georgia Law Center for the Homeless currently provide help to individuals but cannot take on class action cases due to funding restrictions.

Wright said she has made several efforts to get information from AHA.

As reported previously in APN, RAB Board meeting minutes earlier this year show that AHA specifically told residents they did not have to consult with them, and that they misled residents as to what regulations they were moving under.

The demolition/disposition requirements, also known as “Section 18,” do require resident consultation, Atlanta Progressive News has verified.

'They’re supposed to come to the RAB Board first and we were supposed to sit down with them and try to put the plan together... and they just went around that. We heard from them on February 14th that they had made a decision to go ahead and demolish and tear down the properties. They told us; they never sat down and tried to put anything or even to discuss a plan. They just said that they were doing it,' Wright recalled.

'From then on, they started coming to the community meetings with the police, security, and started offering vouchers,” Wright said. “They came to my community meeting with a police officer and security. There was one at mine. I don’t know how many others they went to with them. Hightower said they came to hers.'

'It’s supposed to be intimidating. And don’t forget, with cameras. They come with cameras. They don’t ask us if we want any videotape. They just start setting up. I met [AHA’s] Mr. Simms out there and I made him put the camera down,' Wright said.

'I want them to come back to the table and sit down with us. And talk about the vouchers and talk about the landlords and we want to see the database of landlords that’s gonna take Section 8. Timely inspections. They should hold landlords to the standards they hold the residents to. They should do criminal background checks and make sure the property is theirs and make sure the property isn’t going into foreclosure,' Wright said.

'I have questions about the Section 8 program. I have questions about the site-based program. I have questions, why they can’t move into Pittsburgh, East Lake Meadows... all these new sites they’re building, not why let the residents move in those?' Wright said.

'And that money they’re using to tear down the property, we want to know why they can’t use that money to rebuild?' Wright said.

'And I sure have questions about the utilities, the moneys. My biggest question is about moving the seniors. I need to know, where are you going to move these seniors to? And if the seniors is sick and they don’t have family, what gives them the authority to put them in a home?' Wright said.

From Atlanta Progressive News

--About the author: Matthew Cardinale is the News Editor for The Atlanta Progressive News and may be reached at

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Iraq: Refugees at Karama in South in Urgent Need of Assistance

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 02:06:00 +0000

8-26-07, 9:47 am

DIWANIYAH, 23 August 2007 (IRIN) - People are leaving Karama camp in the southern province of al-Qadisiyyah because of the terrible conditions there, and urgent supplies are needed to rectify the situation. The camp, 15km to the west of Diwaniyah, the provincial capital, currently has 129 residents. It was previously a children's camp until its formal conversion into a center to accommodate internally displaced persons (IDPs).

'In May 2007, Karama was reportedly home to 250 persons; of these, 21 families, or 129 individuals, remain. Those still at the site are extremely poor, and lack sufficient resources to relocate,' a UN Refugee Agency [UNHCR] press release said.

The items needed include, water, electricity, sanitation equipment, food and non-food items.

Basic health services are also needed. Jaffer Abbas, a spokesperson for the locally based Iraqi Peace Organization (IPO), said at least 90 percent of the camp's residents were suffering from one kind of disease or another.

'Children are suffering from malnutrition, women have serious gynaecological problems caused by poor hygiene, and elderly people with life-threatening diseases don't have access to medicines,' Abbas said, adding: 'The nearest medical center is very far from the camp and the residents have no money.'

Al-Qadisiyyah Province is now closed to IDPs arriving from other parts of Iraq. In July, fighting and the bombing of major urban areas, led to families fleeing to safer areas in the province.

“Displacement in Diwaniyah continues as a result of insurgency, counter-insurgency, crime and a struggling economy,” Anita Raman, associate reporting officer for UNHCR’s Iraq Operation, said. “While Diwaniyah's [al-Qadisiyyah province] IDP population is less than most Iraqi governorates - 3,972 families - conditions for these IDPs are exacerbated by scarce basic services availability.”

According to UNHCR, the location is under-served and under-resourced, leading to extremely poor living conditions and the resulting departure of many families from the camp.

'UNHCR's field and partner staff have delivered life-essential items, and basic facility upgrades are on track for completion in the coming weeks. Much more is needed to support a safe and habitable environment in Karama,' the agency said.

Abbas said that local NGOs and international agencies, such as UNHCR, are struggling to help Karama camp residents. “Water and food have to be delivered urgently to prevent a catastrophe in the area,' he said.

'Karama camp, if helped, could be home again to dozens of other Iraqis urgently requiring assistance and a safer place to stay,' Abbas added. 'We hope international donors can help in assisting the most vulnerable camp in Diwaniyah.'

From IRIN News

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Police Provocateurs at SPP Protest

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 01:59:00 +0000

8-26-07, 9:43 am

Thousands of people rallied against George Bush, Stephen Harper and Felipe Calderon during the 'Three Amigos' summit at Montebello, despite a concerted campaign by politicians and the mainstream media to downplay the 'Security and Prosperity Partnership' as nothing more than tidying up government regulations.

The largest rally took place on August 19 in Ottawa, where opponents of the SPP from across Ontario and Quebec gathered to condemn the deal as a plan to speed up the process of North American integration.

On the next day, demonstrators headed to nearby Montebello, where 4,000 police and troops were stationed. Earlier, the courts had struck down plans by the Canadian and U.S. military to impose a draconian 25-kilometre 'security zone' around Montebello, but the Summit was heavily guarded, and the Council of Canadians was never allowed to hold its planned forum on the SPP at a nearby location.

At Montebello, protest leaders were prevented from delivering a petition signed by more than 10,000 people. The RCMP had previously told the Council of Canadians that the petitions could be delivered just outside the gates of the Chateau.

'This is clearly not a security concern but a political prohibition,' said Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians. 'This is yet another strong message from the Conservative government that they are not willing to hear the concerns of Canadians on the Security and Prosperity Partnership.'

The Council and many other groups are demanding that the Harper government cease all SPP talks until the agreement is brought before parliament and the public.

Anti-SPP actions were held in some three dozen communities across Canada, ranging from forums to pickets to rallies. One of the largest, organized by Vancouver's StopWar peace coalition, No One Is Illegal, and the Council of Canadians, drew some 600 people to the Art Gallery, shutting down Robson Street for over an hour. Meanwhile, the suspicious actions of several 'protesters' at Montebello indicated that the police were using provocateurs in an attempt to spark confrontations.

A Canadian Press story dated August 21 reads as follows:

'Protesters are accusing police of using undercover agents to provoke violent confrontations at the North American leaders' summit in Montebello, Que. Such accusations have been made before after similar demonstrations but this time the alleged agents provocateurs have been caught on camera.

'A video, posted on YouTube, shows three young men, their faces masked by bandannas, mingling Monday [Aug. 20] with protesters in front of a line of police in riot gear. At least one of the masked men is holding a rock in his hand.

'The three are confronted by protest organizer Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. Coles makes it clear the masked men are not welcome among his group of protesters, whom he describes as mainly grandparents. He urges them to leave and find their own protest location.

'Coles also demands that they put down their rocks. Other protesters begin to chime in that the three are really police agents. Several try to snatch the bandannas from their faces.

'Rather than leave, the three actually start edging closer to the police line, where they appear to engage in discussions. They eventually push their way past an officer, whereupon other police shove them to the ground and handcuff them.

'Late Tuesday, photographs taken by another protester surfaced, showing the trio lying prone on the ground. The photos show the soles of their boots adorned by yellow triangles. A police officer kneeling beside the men has an identical yellow triangle on the sole of his boot....

'Veteran protester Jaggi Singh said ... four of those arrested are known to organizers and are genuine protesters.

'But we see very clearly in that video three (other) men being arrested ... How do (police) account for these three people being taken in, being arrested? Where did they go?' Singh said. 'I have no hesitation in saying they were police agents ... and they were caught red-handed.'

'Singh, a member of the Montreal-based No One is Illegal, believes the agents were meant to provoke a confrontation and give the police an excuse to use some of their `toys,' such as tear gas and rubber bullets.

'To a certain extent it's self-fulfilling logic. You provide police with this kind of equipment and they end up using it and one way to justify it is to plant some people that toss a rock or two.'

The YouTube video of the suspected provocateurs can be viewed at .

From People's Voice

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Book Review: Fair Trade For All

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 01:53:00 +0000

Fair Trade For All – How Trade Can Promote Development.

By Joseph Stiglitz and Andre Charlton.

Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K., 2005.

In 2003 Joseph Stiglitz published his much acclaimed and critically popular book Globalization and it Discontents. Its overall thesis, arguable particularly to those hidebound within the 'Washington Consensus,' simply stated that following International Monetary Fund (IMF) rules and regulations – the combination of trade rules, loans, and ‘structural adjustments’ required to receive financial assistance – “the result for many people has been poverty and for many countries social and political chaos. The IMF has made mistakes in all the areas it has been involved in.”

These allegations have become more apparent as truths as time has passed since the publication of Stiglitz’ first book. It is a book that is readily accessible to the public. Stiglitz’ writing is clear and well argued. He does not slip into a frenzy of economic jargon and presents concise historical examples of the different situations that unfolded globally due in part to IMF ministrations (along with other non-governmental organizations and other governmental interference, especially with the EU and the US.). At the end of his arguments he presents what he sees as reasonable ways and means to help correct the faults of the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

For the WTO he argues that “Reforming the WTO will require thinking further about a more balanced trade agenda – more balanced in treating the interests of the developing countries, more balanced in treating concerns, like environment, that go beyond trade.” He follows by saying that “so long as globalization is presented in the way that it has been, it represents a disenfranchisement…” and “…of equal concern is what globalization does to democracy.”

With those positive concerns in mind, it was with positive anticipation that I read his subsequent work, Fair Trade For All. Unfortunately I was fully dismayed by the faults of the book, both of its writing style, and its lack of insightful arguments.

To be fair, Stiglitz is writing in companionship with Andrew Charlton, who has wonderfully impressive credentials as professor at the London School of Economics, but with equally unimpressive results. Also to be fair, the book was written on “behalf of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), a network of some two hundred economists and development researchers throughout the developed and developing world” and was then presented to various high level economic meetings (World Bank, IMF, WTO, UN Commonwealth Finance Ministers). That perhaps explains it first major flaw: the lay reader will become lost in the economic jargon, research papers, and suggestions of “empirical evidence” that overwhelm the book.

Fair Trade For All certainly is not accessible for all, quite ironic in that Stiglitz and Charlton along with the major groups involved are continually asking for more “transparency” – this book delivers opacity instead. If this work is typical of the trade papers that travel throughout the world of economics, it is no wonder that we are in significant trouble – lots of jargon and rhetoric, very narrow perspective, (although there are some superficial attempts to be more broadminded with a paragraph or two on the environment and labour), and not much real wisdom and intelligence.

There are a few gems contained within, short summary comments, almost like diamonds in a slag pile of kimberlite. The forward indicates, “The world trading system has protected the interests of the rich countries, at the expense of the poor, and entrenched inequalities.” Describing the situation six years after the Doha talks with the WTO, those promises “…lie discarded at the base of a trading system whose credibility is crumbling.” The first chapter, “Trade Can Be Good For Development” says that the few successes over the “…last fifty years have pursued inventive and idiosyncratic policies. To date, not one successful developing country has pursued a purely free market approach to development.” Another gem is their argument that “None of today’s rich countries developed by simply opening themselves to foreign trade,” a relatively well-known position that is historically supported.

Few new insights are contained concerning how the system needs to change, in particular the WTO that is the focus of this book. There are some common sense statements that seem terribly obvious yet may not be to the economists targeted initially by the authors, or perhaps they were thrown in for lay people to feel that they could actually understand what was going on. This ‘duh’ factor stands out significantly in two areas: fairness and costs to the poor countries.

Stating that “It seems self-evident…” the authors say it anyway, “Any agreement should be fair” and “Any agreement should be arrived at fairly.” It seems economists are also in need of reminders of what they should have learned in grade school, with the ever increasing “life’s not fair” mantra creeping in more and more as education becomes higher and higher, until it becomes the dog-eat-dog world of free market capitalism. Unfortunately, it is the WTO that is being discussed here and “fairness” is not exactly something it cares about.

The asymmetrical costs to the poorer developing countries also should seem self-evident, though they are presented as discoveries from “empirical evidence”. The fourth reason in particular is classic, “…developing countries are home to the world’s poorest people and weakest credit markets.” Well, surprise, surprise. Equally unsurprising is the third reason for these unequal costs, as biggest distortions occur “…in the industries of importance to developing countries.”

Common sense would tell me that “fair trade” would encompass many other issues: labor rights and protections; environmental protections and responsibilities; military projections (and not just complaints about poor countries “wasting money” on their militaries); social services support; and, 'it seems self-evident,' democracy.

Labor receives a page or two in arguments about the movement of labor (a good point as free trade is hardly free without free labor movement), but the arguments are confined to rules and regulations that will assist immigrants to work where the lower paying positions are not filled by the local people. To be truly fair, labor also requires the freedom to establish unions, the rights of a safe work environment, and fair remuneration for work performed.

The environment receives short shrift, the main example being a trade clause restricting trade on tuna that endangers turtle species in international waters. There are no true insights offered nor any real concern expressed for the increasing need to protect all environments against the over-consumptive development demands of the west and the overall growing global population. No discussion is made of the need to preserve fresh water and promote sustainable lifestyles in a finite world.

The military is mentioned just in passing with the Meiji restoration in Japan (“a wealthy nation and a strong army”) and does not even rate a mention in the index. Common sense should indicate, especially after the debacle in Afghanistan and Iraq and the many books on or related to military topics (Bacevich, Johnson, Greider, Galbraith, Grandin, Ritter among many others) that the military plays a huge role in the economic life of most of the world, if not all of it. Significantly, it has been called the “hidden fist” behind the economic prosperity of the U.S.

Social services are identified as being weak in developing countries and needing assistance, but again with only minimal mention and an emphasis on some kind of cost accounting for the losses incurred by the poorest workers. No mention is made of the “structural adjustments” (an IMF term) that requires downward 'adjustments' to the educational system, any welfare system, and health services, that result from revenue required to pay adjustment costs elsewhere (including, ironically, the huge economics bill for all the new economists and accountants and government bureaucrats required to track it all). The largest fault in these common sense items is in a bizarre way the strongest positive – through the implications of its lack of attention. Democracy.

By now the world understands the end all and be all of all this free trade marketing rhetoric and the imperialistic wars waged against the ‘terrorists’ and ‘evil’ people of the world is to bring them democracy. Stiglitz mentions democracy twice – once in passing in relation to media control by conglomerates; twice as an adjective describing a poor country; and, whoops, a third time not mentioned in the index but significantly more important: the North America Free Trade Agreement [NAFTA]“...contains provisions that would probably never have been accepted by a democratic parliament with open discussion in a deliberative process.”

As a Canadian living under NAFTA I can attest to that view. Canada is supposedly democratic, but both major political parties, the Liberals and Conservatives, Chretien and Mulroney, favored NAFTA, lied about their intentions, and went against the clear majority of Canadian opinion and signed on to it anyway, presumably as always because of corporate interests lining the political pockets. Canada lost sovereignty over its energy resources (and possibly later, water), social services are increasingly under attack, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer (admittedly still well off in comparison to the majority of the world), economic integration with the U.S. is almost complete, and we are producing far more greenhouse gasses per capita than any other country. Great.

But that is it for democracy; it is never discussed otherwise throughout this work, and does not come under discussion, as it often does in government spin, when discussing trade and international relations. In a weird macabre way that is a good thing, because if nothing else it highlights that Stiglitz and Charlton do not see democracy per se as being in any way related to free market liberalization. In other words, by deliberate omission, they are saying that free markets and market liberalization do not have anything to do with democracy.

Can I say that more clearly? Free market neoliberal capitalism does not equate with democracy.

That leads into the largest major fault with the work, the World Trade Organization itself that is the centerpiece for this document. The WTO (along with its compatriot think-tank, the OECD) is arguably one of the least democratic institutions in the global arena today. It is set up as a negotiating unit comprised of government financial representatives, bankers, economists, CEOs, lawyers et al who have no interest in the democratic workings of the world as long as the money is allowed to flow freely into corporate coffers.

As for the manner in which those involved – the CEOs, the MBAs, lawyers, economists, and financial “experts” – perform their duties in secret and for their own wealth creation against the true forces of any popular citizens’ democracy is summed up in the wonderful frequently quoted phrase by a WTO official that “This is the place where governments collude in private against their domestic pressure groups,” those nasty people like laborers, environmentalists, health care workers, and farmers. An earlier Director General of the WTO Renato Ruggerio boasted, “We are writing the constitution of a single global economy”[1] 1. Ruggerio is on record with his environmental concerns as well, stating, “environmental standards in the WTO are “doomed to fail and could only damage the world trading system.”

Wonderful! This is the system Stiglitz and Charlton expect to reform? A highly unlikely project and one that will only provide another sheen of democratic pretence while they continue the business of business.

Another fault of all these arguments is that of growth and development. It is never defined, never described as 'this is what it looks like.' Ultimately, in all the arguments I have read it comes down to being the dollar value of the GDP, either gross or per capita. Growth and development, in all the materials I have read, never mention the environment, the health of the people, the safety and security of the workers, nor the education system as having any relevance to growth and development as a definition. Unfortunately, the GDP is a highly fallible argument and can be a very simplistic misleading statistic.

The ultimate positive from this book then is the recognition by omission that democracy is not related to free market liberalization. That should come under the common sense ‘it seems self-evident’ category of results, nothing original with that statement either.

The rest is mostly negatives. Fair trade and globalization could be a positive, but not as presented by the authors, and not under the rules and regulations of the WTO, who still insist on a top down (even though they say items are to be discussed and adjusted with governments, knowing that many governments do not truly represent the majority of the people of the country, Canada included) bureaucratic formula to aid the poor. It cannot work, not unless they ask the people of each country what they want and then effectively respond to those requests. Most of the answers, perhaps, should be 'self evident,' but until the people themselves are actually consulted and responded to effectively, no true progress on fair trade will be achieved.

If done as suggested by Fair Trade For All, the world will continue to be enveloped in a corporate sponsored, non-democratic, militaristic, environmentally, social, and labour unfriendly regime. As well as being a poorly written book, it is not at all helpful either, and definitely not fair.

[1] These quotes are widely cited in a variety of sources active against the deservedly deceased MAI. Also quoted in Chomsky, Noam. “Hordes of Vigilantes”, Profit Over People – Neoliberalism and Global Order. Seven Stories Press, N.Y. 1999. p. 163.

Venezuela’s Parliament Gives Initial Approval to Constitutional Amendment Proposal

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 01:44:00 +0000

8-26-07, 9:29 am

Caracas , August 22 2007, (venezuelanalysis.com) – The first extraordinary session convoked by Venezuela's National Assembly to debate President Hugo Chavez's proposed constitutional amendments gave its initial approval to the proposal yesterday. The proposal is now passed on to a mixed parliamentary commission in preparation for two more parliamentary sessions, where article will be discussed. The National Assembly (AN) has also launched a plan to facilitate a national debate and discussion, including “parliaments of the streets” and a series of activities to insure participation from all sectors of society, including the opposition.

After being approved in a final parliamentary session, which AN president Celia Flores hoped would take place during the first week of November, the reforms are then required to be put to a popular referendum within thirty days and will most likely take place in early December.

The reforms include a proposal which would remove the two term presidency limit, allowing Chavez to stand for reelection in 2012 and extend presidential terms from six to seven years, the original proposal in the 1999 constitution. Opponents of the Chavez government say these changes would lead to 'dictatorship' and that Chavez is attempting to “stay in power for life.”

However, supporters argue that with the latest polls showing a 70% approval rating for Chavez, opposition to reelection is really a tacit recognition that Chavez would win the next election hands down. They also say that if the majority of Venezuelans want Chavez to continue as president after his current term finishes in 2012 then that is their democratic right. Chavez has denied that he wants to stay in power for life and has pointed to other countries such as England, France, and Australia, where there are no limits on reelection.

Cilia Flores said during the extraordinary session yesterday that, “The same people that attacked the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999, are now using the same arguments to attack the reforms proposed by the President,”

Flores also pointed out that Venezuela has had 26 constitutions since 1811, and of these the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999 is the only one whose draft was consulted by the people and was approved in a popular referendum.

Flores continued, “Now is the historical and political moment to make the reforms to deepen the revolutionary process.”

Also included in the proposal is a geopolitical redistribution of power, designated by Chavez as the “new geometry of power,”

National Assembly Deputy, Carlos Escarrá, spoke in favor of the “new geometry of power” yesterday, saying the changes would enable the people to exercise power. He also said that the creation of federal districts would, for example, be able to deal with management issues related to the lakes of Valencia and Maracaibo, which transcend state borders.

Other aspects of the proposal include removal of the autonomy of the Central Bank of Venezuela, which would allow the government to put more money into social programs and programs of national development, reduction of the work day from eight to six hours, and a redefinition of the military as a “patriotic” and “anti-imperialist” force.

From

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