COMMENTARY
‘Globalization’ has come home to roost in the West. Now is the time to fight back. Support the French workers, students and immigrants in their struggle against the French version of the two-tier wage system.
Not for the first time in its history the French working class, including the important immigrant and second generation immigrant sections, students and other supporters have massively demonstrated their opposition to the imposition by the Chirac government of a French version of the what we in the United States know as the two (or more)-tier wage and hiring system. This system is not uncommon in the United States where it effectively pits younger workers against older workers, white workers against black, Hispanic and other minority workers for the small piece of the pie. Under the terms of the French law, not fully worked out yet but in effect as I write, youth under the age of 26 face extended probationary periods and lesser protections against layoff and victimization. This is nothing new under the imperatives of international capitalism (or to use the more fashionable but less effective term- ‘globalization’) in its search for maximization of profits.
What is unusual is that this imperative mechanism of the capitalist system has dramatically hit the metropolitan centers of world capitalism ( the German and other European governments are trying to impose like terms on its working class, as well) where a modicum of social legislation has existed as protection against extreme exploitation rather than some outposts where workers receive a dollar a day from these same major international capitalist corporations in their race to the bottom line of their wage bill. Not fighting back will only embolden those who want to increase their unrestricted assess to a ‘free’ labor market. One only has to look at the condition of the working class in the United States as major sections of it watch helplessly (and passively) as their pensions benefits are eroded or taken away, their health care benefits are decreased or eliminated, their wages decreased or eaten up by inflation or their jobs taken away by those same capitalist forces that want ‘their government’ to pass even more restrictive legislation. Enough is enough.
LET THE STRUGGLE IN THE UNITED STATES START HERE AND NOW. SUPPORT THE FRENCH WORKERS AND STUDENTS IN THEIR STRUGGLE AGAINST THE CHIRAC LEGISLATION. FIGHT FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS WHEREVER THEY ARE ENDANGERED. CHRIAC- NO REPRISALS AGAINST DEMONSTRATORS. FREE ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN ARRESTED. CALL ON YOUR UNION, SCHOOL OR POLITICAL ORGANIZATION TO SUPPORT THE DEMANDS OF THE FRENCH WORKERS AND STUDENTS. FIGHT FOR THE OLD LABOR PRINCIPAL-EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL PAY- WORLDWIDE. FIGHT FOR WORKERS GOVERNMENTS.
UPDATE-APRIL 12, 2006. AS OF TODAY CHRIAC HAS SHELVED HIS CFE PLAN. THAT IS A VICTORY. OTHER ASPECTS OF THIS LEGISLATION ARE, HOWEVER, STILL IN EFFECT AND NEED TO BE FOUGHT. THE FUNDAMENTAL PREMISE ON MY ARTICLE STILL HOLDS TRUE THAT THE EUROPEON CAPITALISTS, LIKE THEIR AMERICAN COUNTERPARTS, ARE COMPELLED TO SLASH THEIR WAGE BILLS TO SURVIVE IN THE 'GLOBAL' MARKET. BE READY TO FIGHT AGAIN ON THESE SAME ISSUES UNDER DIFFERENT LEGISLATION.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
*Free The Last Of The Ohio Seven- Jaan Laaman And Tom Manning Must Not Die In Prison!
Click on title to link to the Partisan Defense Committee web site. The Partisan Defense Committee has defended the Ohio Seven, and particularly through the annual Holiday Appeal has provided stipends for Brothers Laaman and Manning over the years.
COMMENTARY
ONE OF THE OHIO SEVEN -RICHARD WILLIAMS- RECENTLY DIED IN PRISON. THAT LEAVES JAAN LAAMAN AND TOM MANNING STILL IN PRISON. IT IS AN URGENT DUTY FOR THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR MOVEMENT AND OTHERS TO RAISE THE CALL FOR THEIR FREEDOM. FREE ALL CLASS WAR PRISONERS.
The Ohio Seven, like many other subjective revolutionaries, coming out of the turbulent anti-Vietnam War and anti-imperialist movements, were committed to social change. The different is that this organization included mainly working class militants, some of whose political consciousness was formed by participation as soldiers in the Vietnam War itself. Various members were convicted for carrying out robberies, apparently to raise money for their struggles, and bombings of imperialist targets. Without going into their particular personal and political biographies I note that these were the kind of subjective revolutionaries that must be recruited to a working class vanguard party if there ever is to be a chance of bringing off a socialist revolution.
In the absence of a viable revolutionary labor party in the 1970’s and 1980’s the politics of the Ohio Seven, like the Black Panthers and the Weathermen, were borne of despair at the immensity of the task and also by desperation to do something concrete in aid of the Vietnamese Revolution and other Third World struggles . Their actions in trying to open up a second front militarily in the United States in aid of Third World struggles without a mass base proved to be mistaken but, as the Partisan Defense Committee which I support has noted, their actions were no crime in the eyes of the international working class.
The lack of a revolutionary vanguard to attract such working class elements away from adventurism is rendered even more tragic in the case of the Ohio Seven. Leon Trotsky, a leader with Lenin of the Russian Revolution of 1917, noted in a political obituary for his fallen comrade and fellow Left Oppositionist Kote Tsintadze that the West has not produced such fighters as Kote. Kote, who went through all the phases of struggle for the Russian Revolution, including imprisonment and exile under both the Czar and Stalin benefited from solidarity in a mass revolutionary vanguard party to sustain him through the hard times. What a revolutionary party could have done with the evident capacity and continuing commitment of subjective revolutionaries like the Ohio Seven poses that question point blank. This is the central problem and task of cadre development in the West in resolving the crisis of revolutionary leadership.
Finally, I would like to note that except for the Partisan Defense Committee and their own defense organizations – the Ohio 7 Defense Committee and the Jaan Laaman Defense Fund- the Ohio Seven have long ago been abandoned by those New Left elements and others, who as noted, at one time had very similar politics. At least part of this can be attributed to the rightward drift to liberal pacifist politics by many of them, but some must be attributed to class. Although the Ohio Seven were not our people- they are our people. All honor to them. As James P Cannon, a founding leader of the International Labor Defense, forerunner of the Partisan Defense Committee, pointed out long ago –Solidarity with class war prisoners is not charity- it is a duty. Their fight is our fight! LET US DO OUR DUTY HERE. RAISE THE CALL FOR THE FREEDOM OF LAAMAN AND MANNING. MAKE MOTIONS OF SOLIDARITY IN YOUR POLITICAL ORGANIZATION, SCHOOL OR UNION.
YOU CAN GOOGLE THE ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED ABOVE- THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE- THE OHIO 7 DEFENSE COMMITTEE- THE JAAN LAAMAN DEFENSE FUND.
COMMENTARY
ONE OF THE OHIO SEVEN -RICHARD WILLIAMS- RECENTLY DIED IN PRISON. THAT LEAVES JAAN LAAMAN AND TOM MANNING STILL IN PRISON. IT IS AN URGENT DUTY FOR THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR MOVEMENT AND OTHERS TO RAISE THE CALL FOR THEIR FREEDOM. FREE ALL CLASS WAR PRISONERS.
The Ohio Seven, like many other subjective revolutionaries, coming out of the turbulent anti-Vietnam War and anti-imperialist movements, were committed to social change. The different is that this organization included mainly working class militants, some of whose political consciousness was formed by participation as soldiers in the Vietnam War itself. Various members were convicted for carrying out robberies, apparently to raise money for their struggles, and bombings of imperialist targets. Without going into their particular personal and political biographies I note that these were the kind of subjective revolutionaries that must be recruited to a working class vanguard party if there ever is to be a chance of bringing off a socialist revolution.
In the absence of a viable revolutionary labor party in the 1970’s and 1980’s the politics of the Ohio Seven, like the Black Panthers and the Weathermen, were borne of despair at the immensity of the task and also by desperation to do something concrete in aid of the Vietnamese Revolution and other Third World struggles . Their actions in trying to open up a second front militarily in the United States in aid of Third World struggles without a mass base proved to be mistaken but, as the Partisan Defense Committee which I support has noted, their actions were no crime in the eyes of the international working class.
The lack of a revolutionary vanguard to attract such working class elements away from adventurism is rendered even more tragic in the case of the Ohio Seven. Leon Trotsky, a leader with Lenin of the Russian Revolution of 1917, noted in a political obituary for his fallen comrade and fellow Left Oppositionist Kote Tsintadze that the West has not produced such fighters as Kote. Kote, who went through all the phases of struggle for the Russian Revolution, including imprisonment and exile under both the Czar and Stalin benefited from solidarity in a mass revolutionary vanguard party to sustain him through the hard times. What a revolutionary party could have done with the evident capacity and continuing commitment of subjective revolutionaries like the Ohio Seven poses that question point blank. This is the central problem and task of cadre development in the West in resolving the crisis of revolutionary leadership.
Finally, I would like to note that except for the Partisan Defense Committee and their own defense organizations – the Ohio 7 Defense Committee and the Jaan Laaman Defense Fund- the Ohio Seven have long ago been abandoned by those New Left elements and others, who as noted, at one time had very similar politics. At least part of this can be attributed to the rightward drift to liberal pacifist politics by many of them, but some must be attributed to class. Although the Ohio Seven were not our people- they are our people. All honor to them. As James P Cannon, a founding leader of the International Labor Defense, forerunner of the Partisan Defense Committee, pointed out long ago –Solidarity with class war prisoners is not charity- it is a duty. Their fight is our fight! LET US DO OUR DUTY HERE. RAISE THE CALL FOR THE FREEDOM OF LAAMAN AND MANNING. MAKE MOTIONS OF SOLIDARITY IN YOUR POLITICAL ORGANIZATION, SCHOOL OR UNION.
YOU CAN GOOGLE THE ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED ABOVE- THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE- THE OHIO 7 DEFENSE COMMITTEE- THE JAAN LAAMAN DEFENSE FUND.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)