Markin comment:
Some days it’s hard being a communist. Or, for that matter, a garden variety socialist, wild-eyed radical, weepy-eyed left liberal or a just flat-out plain vanilla “conscious” anti-imperialist. The only ones who can rejoice on those occasions are the usual line-up of abject pro-imperialist spokesmen, of one hue or another. Hell, let’s call a thing by its right name imperialist lapdogs. And what has drawn my ire, my communist ire, this day. Well, a little exchange on the Letters to the Editor page of Workers Vanguard between that paper and one Daniel Lazare, a writer of some sort for the left-liberal Nation magazine, over the question of support to the “rebel” side in the Libyan civil war prior to March 19, 2011, a war that has now expanded into a full-blown American-led imperialist intervention, complete with bombs advisers, drones, and, and… collateral damage. The now familiar face, too familiar face, of geared-up imperialist war.
What got Mr. Lazare’s goat was an article in the March 18th issue of Workers Vanguard (Number 976) entitled “Imperialists Hands Off Libya” noting at that time that the proper course for communists, socialists of whatever variety, radicals whatever the condition of their eyes, ditto left-liberals, and anti-imperialist of whatever flavor that the developing civil war in Libya between long-time mad man leader of the country, Qaddafi ( I will use that spelling, the spelling of the exchange, although, truth to tell I have seen at least seven variations of the spelling of his name in the prints) and the “rebel” opposition of former henchmen (who backed even rotten thing the boss did until things got too hot, monarchists and assorted other political, tribal and religious factions was “revolutionary defeatist" on both sides.
Now this policy of revolutionary defeatism has a long, if abused, history in the international workers movement. Its most famous expression was the policy of the Russian Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, with the outbreak of World War I in 1914 among the imperialist powers in Europe where he declared, under traditional Marxist principles, that the international working class, and its then fighting various national components, has no interest in the victory of one imperialist power over another. Not as an abstract proposition but as a fighting propaganda slogan in order to advance the interests of the class struggle, the struggle for socialism. Those too were hard days for communists as the traditional leaders of the Socialist (Second) International capitulated to their own bourgeoisies against the interest of their own working class’ struggles.
And that was really the point then, and the point in Libya now. How does the support of any social struggle by reds, or progressives for that matter, help or hinder the advance toward socialism. For socialist purposes as well as just plain political "smarts" about the composition of the "rebel" forces which were, and are, murky to say the least that policy was correct at the time. That position changed, as noted by the International Communist League (see “Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack”, WV Number 977, dated April 1, 2011) in a statement issued the day after the American-led NATO forces started dropping the bombs on Tripoli. At that point communists, socialists, radicals, left-liberals, and especially those vaunted anti-imperialists, who have this little habit of getting a little wobbly when the bombs start dropping and the patriotic furor in their own countries gets heated up, should have been crying to high heaven against these imperialist atrocities against Libya. And calling for the military defense of semi-colonial Libya. While holding one's nose, if necessary, but doing so while giving no political support to mad am Qaddafi.
The staff at the Nation, or at least Mr. Lazare, rather than planning another conference ocean cruise to nowhere on the plight of contemporary liberalism as endlessly advertised in the New York Review of Books, should have been busy getting out the paint and poster paper to put forth slogans to oppose those imperialist actions. Instead he leaves, as liberals, even left-liberals are inclined to do, the question up in the air. Even when his beloved “rebels” acted as ground troops for the imperialist advance. Cheer- leading ground troops to be more exact. Obviously this is not a question that disturbs the sleep of imperialist apologists like the Nation’s Mr. Lazare since they, and their ilk, have no interest in advancing the socialist agenda. Yes, these are hard days for communists but at least we know when, and with whom, to stand up for against the “monster” here in the “belly of the beast.”
Note: The Nation magazine has a long, if checkered history, as a voice, if not the voice of left-liberalism in the United States. I note that the Nation did yeoman’s, no beyond yeoman’s service, in defense of Northern side in the American Civil War. But I also note that they were more than willing to act as fellow-travelers, fair-weather fellow-travelers to be sure, in the 1930s when Joseph Stalin put the old Bolsheviks (and many, many others) up against the wall in the Moscow Trials. So that publication is not immune to the siren call of misinformation and disinformation, willful or otherwise.
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Workers Vanguard No. 979
29 April 2011
On the Libyan Opposition
(Letter)
21 March
To the editor:
Apropos of the Libyan civil war, you declare in the latest issue of Workers Vanguard that “Marxists presently have no side in this conflict.” This is absurd. The civil war began with a mass civil uprising that the Qaddafi regime brutally crushed in Tripoli and then moved to extirpate in other cities as well. Are you neutral when unarmed protesters are shot down in the streets? Do you take no side when the most elementary democratic rights are violated? In your statement on the US, UK, and French intervention, you refer to the Benghazi opposition as a “cabal of pro-imperialist ‘democrats,’ CIA stooges, monarchists, and Islamists.” What about the thousands of ordinary workers fighting for their lives against the nationalist regime? Are they less worthy of support than the Egyptian, Yemeni, or Bahraini masses? This is a travesty of Marxism. You people have really lost your way.
Daniel Lazare
WV replies:
What began as an uprising against the bonapartist bourgeois regime of Muammar el-Qaddafi quickly turned into a civil war between the Tripoli-centered government and an imperialist-backed opposition in the eastern areas, heavily overlaid by tribal and regional divisions. For Marxists, the question of extending military support in civil wars and other conflicts is determined by whether the victory of one side or the other would further the cause of the working class and the oppressed. As we explained at the time in “Imperialists Hands Off Libya!” (WV No. 976, 18 March), from this class standpoint neither the Qaddafi regime nor the Benghazi-based opposition—a motley crew of former officials of the Qaddafi regime, monarchists, Islamists and tribal leaders who early on appealed for imperialist intervention—merited support. But, as the article noted, the world proletariat would have a side in opposing any intervention into Libya by the imperialists.
Indeed, immediately after NATO forces began their attack on Libya, the International Communist League declared in a March 20 statement: “The civil war in Libya has now been subordinated to the fight of a neocolonial country against imperialism” (“Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack,” WV No. 977, 1 April). In this war, it is the duty of Marxists to stand for the military defense of Libya against imperialism and the opposition forces that are acting as the imperialists’ ground troops, while not giving Qaddafi an ounce of political support. Daniel Lazare, who writes for the Nation and other publications, does not say where he stands on the imperialist war against Libya.
The ICL statement continued: “Every step taken by the workers of the imperialist countries to halt the depredations and military adventures of their rulers is a step toward their own liberation from capitalist exploitation, impoverishment and oppression.” We also note that militant opposition to imperialist intervention is a prerequisite for the working class in Egypt, Tunisia and throughout North Africa and the Near East to emerge as a revolutionary force under its own class banner.
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In the interest of completeness I have placed both articles from Workers Vanguard mentioned in my comment above here for the readers inspection.
Workers Vanguard No. 976
18 March 2011
Imperialists Hands Off Libya!
MARCH 15—The opposition in Libya to the decades-long rule of bourgeois strongman Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi appears to have taken the form, for now, of a low-intensity civil war, heavily overlaid by tribal and regional divisions, between the Tripoli-centered government and imperialist-backed opposition forces concentrated in the country’s eastern areas. Leadership of the anti-Qaddafi opposition includes Islamists, tribal leaders, former generals of Qaddafi’s army and former officials of his blood-soaked regime. Much of Libya’s diplomatic corps has defected to the opposition. Marxists presently have no side in this conflict, which is essentially a struggle to decide who will control the country’s immense oil and gas wealth while lording it over the exploited and oppressed masses.
The world proletariat does have a side, however, in opposing any intervention into Libya by the imperialists, who are backing the anti-Qaddafi forces. In the U.S., those beating the drums for imposing a “no-fly zone” over Libya span the gamut from Republican John McCain to Democrats Bill Clinton and John Kerry. If implemented, that would mean a direct military assault against Libya’s air force and air defenses. Washington has positioned a pair of amphibious assault vessels off the Libyan coast, reportedly to be joined by the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, while the United Nations Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Libya and tens of billions in Libyan assets held in foreign banks have been frozen. As Marxist opponents of the capitalist-imperialist order, we oppose all imperialist sanctions against the Qaddafi regime. In the event of imperialist attack against neocolonial Libya, the proletariat internationally must stand for the military defense of that country while giving no political support to Qaddafi’s capitalist regime.
Particularly given the turmoil in North Africa and the Near East, the imperialists are somewhat between a rock and a hard place when dealing with Libya under Qaddafi, whose forces have been turning back the rebels. While insisting that “all options are on the table,” the Obama administration has shied away from being drawn into a possible quagmire in Libya when U.S. imperialism’s military forces are already stretched thin by their murderous occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy has officially declared the opposition National Council, based in the eastern city of Benghazi, to be Libya’s “legitimate” government. The Arab League joined the Near East’s erstwhile colonial masters, Great Britain and France, in calling for imposing a “no-fly zone” over Libya. Britain’s cause was not exactly helped by Tory prime minister David Cameron’s Monty Python moment, when a Special Air Service mission to contact the Libyan opposition ended in debacle, with the rebels detaining the delegation and promptly dispatching it from the country. At a meeting of the G8 in Paris today, German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle put cold water on talk of a “no-fly zone,” declaring that Germany did not want to “get sucked into a war in north Africa” (London Guardian, 15 March).
Just as the New York Times retailed the Bush administrations’ lies of Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” in the lead-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion, the bourgeois media quickly took on the role of press agents for the anti-Qaddafi opposition, making “facts” fit the imperialists’ agenda. Gruesome stories put out by the opposition about Qaddafi’s fighter jets deliberately bombing civilians were widely reported as fact. Virtually unreported was the March 2 admission by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that “we’ve seen no confirmation whatsoever” of those accounts. Meanwhile, the media has delicately refrained from going into the sordid pasts of the former Qaddafi loyalists in the leadership of the opposition forces in Benghazi. That rogue’s gallery includes Qaddafi’s former “justice” minister, as well as his former interior minister and head of the special forces. Of four former generals who have gone over to the opposition, two had been at Qaddafi’s side since he took power 42 years ago!
There is no doubt that Qaddafi is a butcher of his “own” citizens. This is also the case with the many kings, sheiks and colonels who have benefited from U.S. military aid. After America’s puppet regime in Iraq killed at least 29 people demonstrating for jobs and services on February 25, a U.S. military spokesman lauded the Iraqi forces’ “response” to the protest as “professional and restrained.” The military intervention by U.S.-backed Saudi Arabia in support of the Sunni monarchy in Bahrain demonstrates that, in the eyes of the U.S. imperialists, Bahrain’s Shi’ite majority is less than human, with no rights they are bound to respect. In recent years, the Libyan government has actively collaborated in the imperialists’ “war on terror” and introduced neoliberal privatization schemes. The imperialists are now shedding crocodile tears about the death toll in Libya only because they have not always enjoyed such civil relations with Qaddafi’s regime.
Not least of the crimes of the Qaddafi regime has been its racist treatment of black African migrant workers, who are subjected to arbitrary arrest and deportation—and at times outright pogromist attacks—while being used as scapegoats for unemployment and other ills. Currently, workers from sub-Saharan Africa are being set upon by both pro- and anti-Qaddafi forces, the latter of which often accuse them of being mercenaries for the regime. Over 100 black African migrants are feared dead and thousands are in hiding or seeking to flee the country.
As revolutionary Marxists, we have always staunchly opposed Qaddafi’s brutal rule while standing for military defense of Libya against imperialist attack. In March 1986, the international Spartacist tendency (precursor to the International Communist League) sent a journalistic team to Tripoli as U.S. warships and planes were attacking Libyan forces in and around the Gulf of Sidra. Our purpose, as we wrote in a telegram to the Libyan government, was to express our support for the “just cause of Libyan independence and territorial integrity.” Within days of our delegation’s visit, President Ronald Reagan launched bombing raids on Tripoli and Benghazi, killing scores of civilians. One of the victims was Qaddafi’s infant daughter, who was killed when his compound was targeted. For the Cold Warriors of the Reagan administration, a primary “crime” of the Qaddafi regime was that it was a military client of the Soviet Union.
Our team reported from Tripoli: “The memory of bloody imperialist rampage and spoliation is burned into the Libyan masses” (see “Under Reagan’s Guns in Libya: Report from Tripoli,” WV No. 401, 11 April 1986). Our reporters made the point that the Turko-Italian war of 1911, in which thousands of Arabs were butchered, was a barbaric conflict over the possession of what would become Libya. For the first time in a war, airplanes were used against a population whose most advanced form of military transport was camels. It was, as Lenin called it, “a perfected, civilised bloodbath, the massacre of Arabs with the help of the ‘latest’ weapons” (“The End of the Italo-Turkish War,” 28 September 1912). That conflict set off a 20-year resistance struggle, centered in the east, against the Italian imperialists. Italian forces dropped poison gas bombs on civilians and imprisoned more than 100,000 in concentration camps, where up to 70,000 people—nearly half the population of Cyrenaica
—died of disease and starvation.
During World War II, both Axis and Allied troops ravaged the country and its people. Following the war, the imperialists created an independent Libya by joining together three distinct regions: Cyrenaica in the east, Tripolitania in the west and Fezzan in the south. Italian rule was replaced with a British-imposed monarchy. It is the flag of that pre-Qaddafi regime that is prominently displayed today by opposition forces.
Those imperialist-backed forces have the willing and avid support of the reformist International Socialist Organization (ISO), which at the outset of the conflict embraced the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, an outfit founded in the early 1980s with start-up capital supplied by the CIA and the Saudi royal family. Presenting Qaddafi as someone with whom the imperialists feel “they can do business,” the ISO ludicrously lauded the National Front as “less likely to be so pliable” (Socialist Worker, 24 February). Day after day, representatives of opposition forces parleyed with U.S. and European officials and issued pleas for the imperialists to impose a “no-fly zone,” launch air strikes, arm the rebels or otherwise intervene militarily in Libya. Utterly exposed, the ISO tried to backtrack, declaring in Socialist Worker (9 March): “The CIA-backed National Front for the Salvation of Libya is an unsurprising advocate of U.S. action.”
Equally unsurprising is the fact that the ISO lined up with the imperialists against Qaddafi’s bourgeois regime. From supporting the CIA-backed, woman-hating, anti-Soviet mujahedin forces in Afghanistan and cheering the destruction of the USSR to lending its voice to the imperialist chorus against the deformed workers states of China and North Korea, the ISO, born of social-democratic anti-Communism, has always been squarely in the camp of “democratic” imperialism.
Writing in Socialist Worker (28 February), Todd Chretien derides the Workers World Party (WWP) and Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) for refusing “to take a stand with the Libyan people against a dictator.” While opposing imperialist intervention in Libya, the WWP and PSL are mainly driven by their longstanding political support for any and all forces in Third World countries that make a pretense of being “anti-imperialist.” This has included everyone from bourgeois-nationalist rulers like Qaddafi and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez—who along with Cuba’s Fidel Castro is supporting Qaddafi in the current conflict—to reactionary Islamists like Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and Hamas in Gaza.
Workers World (12 March) goes so far as to praise “Libya’s record on human rights,” citing a section of a January 4 UN report that summarized the testimony of the Libyan delegation! The PSL, for its part, is disappointed in how yesterday’s “anti-imperialist” Qaddafi has turned out. Liberation (24 February) refuses to characterize his bonapartist regime as capitalist, complaining only that the government “included bourgeois forces” that were strengthened “over time.”
Lastly, mention should be made of David North’s Socialist Equality Party (SEP), best known as the “World Socialist Web Site,” whose propaganda today appears rather critical of Qaddafi and states opposition to imperialist military intervention. We urge any readers who take the SEP’s “Marxism” for good coin to take a closer look at these political bandits, who comprise a special category in the annals of renegades from Trotskyism.
The SEP self-servingly disappears its history as participants in the squalid pro-Qaddafi machinations carried out by the dominant party in its “International Committee of the Fourth International” (IC), the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) in Britain led by one Gerry Healy. After years of hailing the mythical “Arab Revolution,” Healy’s IC openly championed blood-drenched bourgeois regimes like Qaddafi’s. Healy’s embrace of Qaddafi coincided with the reappearance of a Healyite daily paper, News Line, in England in May 1976, two months after his previous daily, Workers Press, had folded. In “Healyites, Messengers of Qaddafi” (WV No. 158, 20 May 1977), we noted of Qaddafi’s Libya, “where communists are to be jailed and butchered and their books burned, ostensible leftists would have to do some pretty peculiar things to survive—and News Line has made it clear the WRP would be more than willing to do them.” The Healyites went on to hail the murder of Iraqi Communist Party members by Saddam Hussein in 1979.
As we wrote in “Healyism Implodes” (Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 36-37, Winter 1985-86): “It has been perfectly clear for some time that the Healy/Banda organization has been a captive creature of despotic ‘Third World’ capitalist regimes which have the blood of the workers and peasants on their hands.” This was a logical application of the WRP’s adulation for “anti-imperialist” Arab rulers combined with its vicious anti-Sovietism. The Spartacist article noted: “Once you discard the struggle for the building of Leninist parties to lead the working class in the liberation of mankind, and take off in search of get-rich-quick schemes, you will end up in a despicable place—if not a Healy, perhaps the more ordinary kind of scoundrel voting war credits for his own ruling class.”
For our part, we struggle for the political independence of the proletariat from all bourgeois forces. A fundamental difference between the events in Libya and the popular upsurges in Tunisia and Egypt is that in the latter two countries there is a powerful, concentrated working class that has emerged as an active force. However, the workers organizations are subordinated to one or another bourgeois political force. Marxists must fight for the proletariat, the only class with the social power to overthrow the bourgeoisie, to come to the fore to lead all the oppressed in a revolutionary assault on the capitalist system.
The Libyan proletariat has clearly been devastated in the current conflict, as migrant workers—a major component of the working class in that country—have fled the chaos, armed violence and racist attacks en masse. The future of the Libyan masses will be decided by working-class struggle that extends beyond the national terrain to include the proletariats of Algeria, Tunisia and, especially, Egypt. That requires the forging of revolutionary working-class parties as part of a genuine Trotskyist Fourth International, which would link the fight for socialist federations of North Africa and of the Near East to the struggle for proletarian revolution in the imperialist centers.
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Statement of the International Executive Committee of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)
Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack!
The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) calls on workers around the world to take a stand for military defense of semicolonial Libya against the attack begun yesterday by a coalition of rapacious imperialist governments. The French, British and U.S. rulers, in league with other imperialist governments and with the blessings of the sheiks, kings and military bonapartists of the Arab League, wasted not a moment in acting on the green light given by the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to slaughter countless innocent people in the name of “protecting civilians” and ensuring “democracy.” French air strikes were quickly followed by U.S. and British missile attacks, while Egypt’s military regime is providing arms to the Benghazi opposition forces. From Indochina and the Korean peninsula to the U.S.-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan today, the “democratic” imperialist rulers wade in the blood of millions upon millions of their victims. Recall that Britain and France historically carried out untold massacres in the Near East, Africa and the Indian subcontinent in order to pursue their colonial subjugation of those areas. Recall that Italy, now providing the use of its air bases for the attack, is responsible for the deaths of up to half the population of Cyrenaica in eastern Libya during its colonial rule prior to World War II.
Prior to the current attack, the conflict in Libya had taken the form of a low-intensity civil war, heavily overlaid by tribal and regional divisions, between the Tripoli-centered government of strongman Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi and imperialist-backed opposition forces concentrated in the country’s eastern areas. Workers Vanguard No. 976 (18 March), newspaper of the U.S. section of the ICL, noted that “Marxists presently have no side in this conflict.” But as the article continued: “In the event of imperialist attack against neocolonial Libya, the proletariat internationally must stand for the military defense of that country while giving no political support to Qaddafi’s capitalist regime.” The civil war in Libya has now been subordinated to the fight of a neocolonial country against imperialism. Every step taken by the workers of the imperialist countries to halt the depredations and military adventures of their rulers is a step toward their own liberation from capitalist exploitation, impoverishment and oppression. Defend Libya against imperialist attack! U.S. Fifth Fleet and all imperialist military bases and troops out of North Africa and the Near East!
Recall that the slaughter of well over a million people in Iraq began with the imposition of a UN-sponsored starvation embargo and a “no fly zone” in the 1990s. The latest action by the Security Council, including the neo-apartheid South African regime led by the African National Congress, underscores yet again the character of the United Nations as a den of imperialist thieves and their lackeys and semicolonial victims. The abstention by the representative of China, a bureaucratically deformed workers state, gave tacit approval to imperialist depredation, emboldening the very forces which seek to overturn the 1949 Chinese Revolution.
The crocodile tears shed by the imperialist rulers and their media mouthpieces over the Libyans killed by the Qaddafi regime during the recent wave of protests stands in sharp contrast to their muted response to the continuing massacre of protesters in Yemen—whose dictatorship is a key component of Washington’s “war on terror”—and their ongoing support to the Bahraini kingdom, which hosts the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet. To aid in crushing mass protests, Bahrain last week invited in troops from the medievalist and theocratic Saudi monarchy, a key bulwark of U.S. imperialist interests in the region. In the eyes of the imperialist rulers, Bahrain’s Shi’ite majority and the Yemeni masses are less than human, with no rights they are bound to respect.
Numerous social-democratic leftists, typified by the United Secretariat (USec) and the British Cliffite Socialist Workers Party, have done their part to prepare the ground for imperialist massacres in Libya by cheering on the so-called “Libyan Revolution.” Having urged support for the cabal of pro-imperialist “democrats,” CIA stooges, monarchists and Islamists that comprise the Benghazi-based opposition, these reformists now feign to balk at imperialist military intervention in support of the opposition. The New Anti-Capitalist Party, constituted in 2009 by the USec’s French section, signed a call for a demonstration yesterday demanding that the Benghazi outfit be recognized as “the only legitimate representative of the Libyan people”—which French ruler Sarkozy had already done! At the same time, those left groups that have promoted illusions in Qaddafi’s “anti-imperialist” pretensions—such as the Workers World Party in the U.S.—seek everywhere and at all times to chain the working class to a mythical “progressive” wing of the bourgeoisie.
We pledge today, as we did at the time of the U.S. Reagan administration’s bombing of Libya in 1986, to “undertake every effort to propagandize the need for the world working class to take the side of Libya” against its imperialist enemies (“Under Reagan’s Guns in Libya,” WV No. 401, 11 April 1986). In the pursuit of profit and domination, the same capitalist ruling classes that brutally exploit the working class “at home,” only to throw workers on the scrap heap during periods of economic crisis, as today, carry out murderous imperialist attacks abroad. The struggle against imperialist war cannot be conducted separately and apart from the class struggle. Only socialist revolution can overthrow the system of capitalist imperialism which breeds war. Our path is that of the October Revolution of 1917, led by the Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Trotsky, which was a beacon of revolutionary internationalism for the proletariat everywhere. We struggle to reforge the Fourth International as an instrument that can lead the working masses, from the Near East to the imperialist centers, forward to new October Revolutions and a world socialist society.
—20 March 2011
Friday, May 06, 2011
Thursday, May 05, 2011
From The "Renegade Eye" Blog-Religion and Secularism
Religion and Secularism
Written by John Pickard
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
As the twenty-first century progresses, there has been an increasing interest and not a small amount of debate on the role of religion in society and particularly on advances in secularisation. Richard Dawkins’ book , ‘The God Delusion,’ was a best-seller in the UK and novels like ‘The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ’ by Richard Pullman have touched raw nerves in Church hierarchies.
Against what they see as a growing tide of secularism, spokespersons for the Church have denounced the ‘intolerance’ of atheism and have fought a vigorous rearguard action to defend the special position of faith, woven as it is into the fabric of everyday life.
In his 2010 visit to the UK, the Pope typically denounced the fact that faith was being driven into the private domain. Like others, he has argued that faith is more than a ‘private’ matter, that it must be manifestsly in the public arena, where it would necessarily feature as part of civil society. Alongside it and as part of the debate, there has been an ongoing argument about science. Some US evangelists, who support leading political candidates of the so-called Tea Party, have even questioned the value of science itself as if it were some kind of nefarious left-wing creed.
More particularly, it has been the role of science in education that has been challenged, and especially evolution. Pressure has been exerted, with some success, to ensure that Creationism is taught in the school science curriculum, in the guise of ‘Intelligent Design.’ In the United States especially, the extreme neo-conservative right allies itself openly and unashamedly to what they see as Christian principles and it draws its inspiration from the Bible as the unerring “Word of God.”
Debate
On the other side of the debate, the problem with many atheists and secularists is that their arguments are presented as if the whole question of religion is purely an ideological struggle, an intellectual debate in which the followers of religion are charged with harbouring inferior and inconsistent ideas. That indeed may be the case but it is important to see the modern phenomenon of mass support for various religions, as well as their historic foundations as being rooted in the material conditions of society. Religions have not arisen because of ideas that were superior at the time, and which are required to be supplanted at a later stage by even more superior ideas. The origin of all mass religions is rooted in specific sets of social and economic conditions, each at a given moment in history.
These material conditions were expressed ideologically – in politics and, above all, in religion – as a consequence, not as a cause. The inception of a religion owes more to the national and class conflicts of the day than to a clash in the realm of pure ideas. It is as a result of the material and intellectual cul-de-sac in which modern capitalism finds itself that so many millions of people are so ‘spiritually’ alienated from society that they look for inspiration elsewhere, including metaphysics. Likewise, it will be from these economic and material contradictions and the class conflicts they engender that a new social order can be created. It is within that perspective that the ground can be prepared for religious ideas to wither away.
Secularism
In ‘The German Ideology’ Karl Marx was critical of the ‘materialist’ Feuerbach, who did not carry his ‘materialism’ over into the realm of politics and economics. “As far as Feuerbach is a materialist,” Marx wrote, “he does not deal with history, and as far as he considers history he is not a materialist.”
Similar criticisms could be made today of many of the most celebrated advocates of secularism and atheism. Richard Dawkins has produced a withering criticism of religious faith in ‘The God Delusion’ and he has made a valuable contribution to the argument in favour of the secularisation of civil life.
The same is true of Daniel Dennett, the American philosopher, who, like Dawkins in the UK, has been a strident defender of atheism and what he calls a “naturalist” (i.e. materialist) world outlook. But neither of these celebrated authors carries his materialism into the realm of politics and economics.
The same can be said of secular organisations like the British Humanist Association. The BHA plays a very valuable role in education and in the promotion of secular cultural ceremonies like marriages and funerals. BHA publications add great weight to the argument for secularism. But whenever the BHA accidentally strays into the realm of politics they too are trapped in an idealistic framework. Most humanists, according to Jim Merrick in ‘Humanism an Introduction,’ “support a mixed economy…” He argues for a social system based on “fairness” and “justice”. No doubt the overwhelming majority of humanists sincerely support these aims and they are predominantly broad-minded, tolerant, left-leaning and radical, rather than conservative. But supporting the principles of “fairness” and “justice” and placing them in their material reality are two different matters.
Ideas
As an example of the political swamp into which some secularists have sunk, we need look no further than ‘The End of Faith’ by Sam Harris, a book unfortunately endorsed by Richard Dawkins. In this 300-page think-piece, the author condemns the attack on the World Trade Centre on 9/11 and suicide attacks by Islamic militants but insistently places these actions in the realm of ideas and divorces them from the social and political milieu from which such terrorist attacks are ultimately derived.
Harris takes issue with the American author Noam Chomsky who cites the 1998 US bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan and the later invasion of Iraq – both of which have led to tens of thousands of innocent deaths – as a form of state “terrorism”. According to Harris, there is no “moral equivalence”, between the actions of Al Qaeda and the US military, because, he argues, none of the deaths caused by America were intended.
“Did the Clinton administration intend to bring about the deaths of thousands of Sudanese children? No. Was our goal to kill as many Sudanese as we could? No. Were we trying to kill anyone at all? Not unless we thought members of Al Qaeda would be at the Al-Shifa facility in the middle of the night. Asking these questions about Osama bin Laden and the nineteen (9/11) hijackers puts us in a different moral universe entirely.” (p 141)
On the contrary, it is this author who inhabits a moral “parallel universe”. To paraphrase Marx, as far as Harris is a materialist, he should not dabble with politics, because as far as he does stumble into politics he is certainly not a materialist. It doesn’t matter one iota what the formal rules of engagement are or what the declared moral intentions of US forces happen to be. The material fact is that the overwhelming US military firepower, combined with a quasi-racist contempt for the worth of non-American lives leads inevitably to massive ‘collateral’ loss of life. The United States follows an economic, diplomatic and military policy that is wholly in the material interests of US corporations. This policy works directly against the interests of the mass of Muslims in the Middle East. To deny that this has any connection to the resurgence of political Islam, including 9/11, is to fly in the face of reality; it is idealism of the worst kind.
It is well known that Karl Marx wrote that religion is “the opium of the people”, but less well known are his words immediately preceding, that religion “is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions”. (Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right).
Lenin too, writing in 1909, said that:
“The deepest root of religion today is the socially downtrodden condition of the working masses and their apparent complete helplessness in the face of the blind forces of capitalism, which every day and every hour inflicts upon ordinary working people the most horrible suffering and the most savage torment, a thousand times more severe than those inflicted by extraordinary events such as wars, earthquakes, etc.” (The Attitude of the Workers Party to Religion).
Connections
Even some of the spokespersons and representatives of the US administration can see a connection between mass support for militant Islam and the political, economic and social realities experienced by Muslims around the world. Sam Harris may not like it, but it is perfectly possible to condemn the attacks of 9/11 and at the same time understand the relevant social and economic connections.
The capitalist system (what the BHA pamphlet calls the ‘mixed economy’) rests upon the exploitation of workers (and the super-exploitation of workers in the less developed world), not to mention the spoliation of the whole planet in the pursuit of material gain. Historically, and in every part of the world, each single step along the road towards democratic freedom – voting, trade union rights, the right of assembly, publishing, etc – has had to be fought for against the most bitter and uncompromising opposition of the capitalist class and their political representatives (including the Church). Asking a rapacious capitalist class to support “fairness and justice” and not to behave like rapacious capitalists is, to coin a very unsecular phrase, like asking the devil to renounce sin.
Justice and Fairness are good ideas but they have not been established anywhere in the world without the real struggle of the working class. It is still in the material interests of the working class to achieve and maintain these rights, just as it is in the material interests of the capitalist class to oppose and erode them. They are not issues that can be decided by a civilized and friendly debate with one’s opponents.
Marxists support the right of all religious people to practice their religion in full. Indeed many of the best class fighters will first come into the movement still carrying the religious trappings of their traditional culture. But Marxists also support the idea of the complete separation of religions from the state and from civil society. Education, government, the courts and all aspects of public service and provision should have no connection at all with religious practice. It may be perfectly correct, as part of an education system based on tolerance and mutual respect, that school students understand the basic outlines and beliefs of world religions. But on the other hand it is absolutely unacceptable for faith to be taught within the realms of science. It is a scandalous legacy of medievalism that there should be 26 bishops sitting in the House of Lords and affecting the passage of legislation that ought to be the preserve of only elected representatives.
Materialism
Returning to the issue of religion versus secularism, it is not possible to understand the development of organised religion by a discussion on ‘ideas’ alone, but only by an examination of the material roots of religion. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were consistent materialists, in that they applied their materialist world outlook to history and politics in what became known as Historical Materialism. “Marx and I”, Engels wrote, “were pretty well the only people to rescue conscious dialectics from German idealist philosophy and apply it in the materialist conception of nature and history.”
“The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or estates is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged.
“From this point of view the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in man's better insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange. They are to be sought, not in the philosophy, but in the economics of each particular epoch...” (Anti-Duhring)
The task of Marxists is to ensure that workers and youth are not diverted by religion and dreams of the here-after but focus instead on the real task before them - the class struggle to overthrow capitalism and with it all the material causes of poverty, war and oppression here on earth. This is the only reality
Written by John Pickard
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
As the twenty-first century progresses, there has been an increasing interest and not a small amount of debate on the role of religion in society and particularly on advances in secularisation. Richard Dawkins’ book , ‘The God Delusion,’ was a best-seller in the UK and novels like ‘The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ’ by Richard Pullman have touched raw nerves in Church hierarchies.
Against what they see as a growing tide of secularism, spokespersons for the Church have denounced the ‘intolerance’ of atheism and have fought a vigorous rearguard action to defend the special position of faith, woven as it is into the fabric of everyday life.
In his 2010 visit to the UK, the Pope typically denounced the fact that faith was being driven into the private domain. Like others, he has argued that faith is more than a ‘private’ matter, that it must be manifestsly in the public arena, where it would necessarily feature as part of civil society. Alongside it and as part of the debate, there has been an ongoing argument about science. Some US evangelists, who support leading political candidates of the so-called Tea Party, have even questioned the value of science itself as if it were some kind of nefarious left-wing creed.
More particularly, it has been the role of science in education that has been challenged, and especially evolution. Pressure has been exerted, with some success, to ensure that Creationism is taught in the school science curriculum, in the guise of ‘Intelligent Design.’ In the United States especially, the extreme neo-conservative right allies itself openly and unashamedly to what they see as Christian principles and it draws its inspiration from the Bible as the unerring “Word of God.”
Debate
On the other side of the debate, the problem with many atheists and secularists is that their arguments are presented as if the whole question of religion is purely an ideological struggle, an intellectual debate in which the followers of religion are charged with harbouring inferior and inconsistent ideas. That indeed may be the case but it is important to see the modern phenomenon of mass support for various religions, as well as their historic foundations as being rooted in the material conditions of society. Religions have not arisen because of ideas that were superior at the time, and which are required to be supplanted at a later stage by even more superior ideas. The origin of all mass religions is rooted in specific sets of social and economic conditions, each at a given moment in history.
These material conditions were expressed ideologically – in politics and, above all, in religion – as a consequence, not as a cause. The inception of a religion owes more to the national and class conflicts of the day than to a clash in the realm of pure ideas. It is as a result of the material and intellectual cul-de-sac in which modern capitalism finds itself that so many millions of people are so ‘spiritually’ alienated from society that they look for inspiration elsewhere, including metaphysics. Likewise, it will be from these economic and material contradictions and the class conflicts they engender that a new social order can be created. It is within that perspective that the ground can be prepared for religious ideas to wither away.
Secularism
In ‘The German Ideology’ Karl Marx was critical of the ‘materialist’ Feuerbach, who did not carry his ‘materialism’ over into the realm of politics and economics. “As far as Feuerbach is a materialist,” Marx wrote, “he does not deal with history, and as far as he considers history he is not a materialist.”
Similar criticisms could be made today of many of the most celebrated advocates of secularism and atheism. Richard Dawkins has produced a withering criticism of religious faith in ‘The God Delusion’ and he has made a valuable contribution to the argument in favour of the secularisation of civil life.
The same is true of Daniel Dennett, the American philosopher, who, like Dawkins in the UK, has been a strident defender of atheism and what he calls a “naturalist” (i.e. materialist) world outlook. But neither of these celebrated authors carries his materialism into the realm of politics and economics.
The same can be said of secular organisations like the British Humanist Association. The BHA plays a very valuable role in education and in the promotion of secular cultural ceremonies like marriages and funerals. BHA publications add great weight to the argument for secularism. But whenever the BHA accidentally strays into the realm of politics they too are trapped in an idealistic framework. Most humanists, according to Jim Merrick in ‘Humanism an Introduction,’ “support a mixed economy…” He argues for a social system based on “fairness” and “justice”. No doubt the overwhelming majority of humanists sincerely support these aims and they are predominantly broad-minded, tolerant, left-leaning and radical, rather than conservative. But supporting the principles of “fairness” and “justice” and placing them in their material reality are two different matters.
Ideas
As an example of the political swamp into which some secularists have sunk, we need look no further than ‘The End of Faith’ by Sam Harris, a book unfortunately endorsed by Richard Dawkins. In this 300-page think-piece, the author condemns the attack on the World Trade Centre on 9/11 and suicide attacks by Islamic militants but insistently places these actions in the realm of ideas and divorces them from the social and political milieu from which such terrorist attacks are ultimately derived.
Harris takes issue with the American author Noam Chomsky who cites the 1998 US bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan and the later invasion of Iraq – both of which have led to tens of thousands of innocent deaths – as a form of state “terrorism”. According to Harris, there is no “moral equivalence”, between the actions of Al Qaeda and the US military, because, he argues, none of the deaths caused by America were intended.
“Did the Clinton administration intend to bring about the deaths of thousands of Sudanese children? No. Was our goal to kill as many Sudanese as we could? No. Were we trying to kill anyone at all? Not unless we thought members of Al Qaeda would be at the Al-Shifa facility in the middle of the night. Asking these questions about Osama bin Laden and the nineteen (9/11) hijackers puts us in a different moral universe entirely.” (p 141)
On the contrary, it is this author who inhabits a moral “parallel universe”. To paraphrase Marx, as far as Harris is a materialist, he should not dabble with politics, because as far as he does stumble into politics he is certainly not a materialist. It doesn’t matter one iota what the formal rules of engagement are or what the declared moral intentions of US forces happen to be. The material fact is that the overwhelming US military firepower, combined with a quasi-racist contempt for the worth of non-American lives leads inevitably to massive ‘collateral’ loss of life. The United States follows an economic, diplomatic and military policy that is wholly in the material interests of US corporations. This policy works directly against the interests of the mass of Muslims in the Middle East. To deny that this has any connection to the resurgence of political Islam, including 9/11, is to fly in the face of reality; it is idealism of the worst kind.
It is well known that Karl Marx wrote that religion is “the opium of the people”, but less well known are his words immediately preceding, that religion “is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions”. (Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right).
Lenin too, writing in 1909, said that:
“The deepest root of religion today is the socially downtrodden condition of the working masses and their apparent complete helplessness in the face of the blind forces of capitalism, which every day and every hour inflicts upon ordinary working people the most horrible suffering and the most savage torment, a thousand times more severe than those inflicted by extraordinary events such as wars, earthquakes, etc.” (The Attitude of the Workers Party to Religion).
Connections
Even some of the spokespersons and representatives of the US administration can see a connection between mass support for militant Islam and the political, economic and social realities experienced by Muslims around the world. Sam Harris may not like it, but it is perfectly possible to condemn the attacks of 9/11 and at the same time understand the relevant social and economic connections.
The capitalist system (what the BHA pamphlet calls the ‘mixed economy’) rests upon the exploitation of workers (and the super-exploitation of workers in the less developed world), not to mention the spoliation of the whole planet in the pursuit of material gain. Historically, and in every part of the world, each single step along the road towards democratic freedom – voting, trade union rights, the right of assembly, publishing, etc – has had to be fought for against the most bitter and uncompromising opposition of the capitalist class and their political representatives (including the Church). Asking a rapacious capitalist class to support “fairness and justice” and not to behave like rapacious capitalists is, to coin a very unsecular phrase, like asking the devil to renounce sin.
Justice and Fairness are good ideas but they have not been established anywhere in the world without the real struggle of the working class. It is still in the material interests of the working class to achieve and maintain these rights, just as it is in the material interests of the capitalist class to oppose and erode them. They are not issues that can be decided by a civilized and friendly debate with one’s opponents.
Marxists support the right of all religious people to practice their religion in full. Indeed many of the best class fighters will first come into the movement still carrying the religious trappings of their traditional culture. But Marxists also support the idea of the complete separation of religions from the state and from civil society. Education, government, the courts and all aspects of public service and provision should have no connection at all with religious practice. It may be perfectly correct, as part of an education system based on tolerance and mutual respect, that school students understand the basic outlines and beliefs of world religions. But on the other hand it is absolutely unacceptable for faith to be taught within the realms of science. It is a scandalous legacy of medievalism that there should be 26 bishops sitting in the House of Lords and affecting the passage of legislation that ought to be the preserve of only elected representatives.
Materialism
Returning to the issue of religion versus secularism, it is not possible to understand the development of organised religion by a discussion on ‘ideas’ alone, but only by an examination of the material roots of religion. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were consistent materialists, in that they applied their materialist world outlook to history and politics in what became known as Historical Materialism. “Marx and I”, Engels wrote, “were pretty well the only people to rescue conscious dialectics from German idealist philosophy and apply it in the materialist conception of nature and history.”
“The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or estates is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged.
“From this point of view the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in man's better insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange. They are to be sought, not in the philosophy, but in the economics of each particular epoch...” (Anti-Duhring)
The task of Marxists is to ensure that workers and youth are not diverted by religion and dreams of the here-after but focus instead on the real task before them - the class struggle to overthrow capitalism and with it all the material causes of poverty, war and oppression here on earth. This is the only reality
All Out In Support- NURSES AT TUFTS (Boston) SET TO STRIKE - MAY 6! -An Injury To One Is An Injury To All
NURSES AT TUFTS SET TO STRIKE - MAY 6!
by peacelabor
(No verified email address) 29 Apr 2011
MNA Set to Strike at Tufts Medical Center on May 6th at 6 am;
Rally at 4 pm
The members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association have voted for a one-day strike at Tufts Medical Center in Boston should a collective bargaining agreement not be reached by Friday May 6th. The nurses rallying cry is ‘Patient Safety’ as hospital management has dug their heels in on the desperately needed improvements in staffing levels that the MNA is seeking to address at the bargaining table.
In response to the MNA’s strike authorization Tufts Hospital has contracted with firms to provide replacement nurses and is threatening to lock the nurses out to prevent them from returning to work after the one-day strike.
Should the Tufts nurses strike it will begin at 6AM on Friday and conclude at 6:45 AM on Saturday May 7th. The nurses will be holding a rally outside Tufts Medical Center, at 4 pm on Friday, May 6th at 800 Washington St. in Boston. Your continued support for and solidarity with the Tufts nurses would be greatly appreciated at this event
For more information contact Jenn at jennifer (at) massjwj.net
See also:
http://www.massjwj.net
by peacelabor
(No verified email address) 29 Apr 2011
MNA Set to Strike at Tufts Medical Center on May 6th at 6 am;
Rally at 4 pm
The members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association have voted for a one-day strike at Tufts Medical Center in Boston should a collective bargaining agreement not be reached by Friday May 6th. The nurses rallying cry is ‘Patient Safety’ as hospital management has dug their heels in on the desperately needed improvements in staffing levels that the MNA is seeking to address at the bargaining table.
In response to the MNA’s strike authorization Tufts Hospital has contracted with firms to provide replacement nurses and is threatening to lock the nurses out to prevent them from returning to work after the one-day strike.
Should the Tufts nurses strike it will begin at 6AM on Friday and conclude at 6:45 AM on Saturday May 7th. The nurses will be holding a rally outside Tufts Medical Center, at 4 pm on Friday, May 6th at 800 Washington St. in Boston. Your continued support for and solidarity with the Tufts nurses would be greatly appreciated at this event
For more information contact Jenn at jennifer (at) massjwj.net
See also:
http://www.massjwj.net
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Defense Committee-Protest US war crimes and torture. Free Bradley Manning! New York City, May 3, 2011
Click on the headline to link to an American Left History blog entry, dated Sunday, March 20, 2011, Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner.
Protest US war crimes and torture. Free Bradley Manning!
42 St. and First Ave, across the street from the United Nations in the plaza.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123922347685840
Protest US war crimes and torture. Free Bradley Manning!
42 St. and First Ave, across the street from the United Nations in the plaza.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123922347685840
The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Website-Rally at Leavenworth June 4, 2011 for Bradley Manning! All Out To Defend Private Bradley Manning!
Click on the headline to link to an American Left History blog entry, dated Sunday, March 20, 2011, Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner.
Rally at Leavenworth for Bradley Manning!
Rally to protest the indefinite detention and unconstitutional torture of Bradley Manning.
Saturday, June 4
11:30am – 2:30pm
Leavenworth, Kansas
Contact: jim at indomitus dot net
More info forthcoming!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=204793382876169
Rally at Leavenworth for Bradley Manning!
Rally to protest the indefinite detention and unconstitutional torture of Bradley Manning.
Saturday, June 4
11:30am – 2:30pm
Leavenworth, Kansas
Contact: jim at indomitus dot net
More info forthcoming!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=204793382876169
The Latest From The Bradley Manning Defense Committee-Why was PFC Manning moved to Fort Leavenworth?
Click on the headline to link to an American Left History blog entry, dated Sunday, March 20, 2011, Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner.
The Latest From The Bradley Manning Defense Committee-Why was PFC Manning moved to Fort Leavenworth?
Why was PFC Manning moved to Fort Leavenworth?
Manning Kansas
April 19, 2011, by David Coombs, attorney for Bradley Manning
Like many others, the defense first learned of PFC Manning’s move to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas by reading that a government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, leaked the information to the Associated Press. The defense was not officially notified of PFC Manning’s pending move until twenty minutes before the Pentagon’s press briefing. This is despite the fact that the Pentagon has “been thinking about this for a while.” Although the news of the move came as a surprise to the defense, the timing did not.
The defense recently received reliable reports of a private meeting held on 13 January 2011, involving high-level Quantico officials where it was ordered that PFC Manning would remain in maximum custody and under prevention of injury watch indefinitely. The order to keep PFC Manning under these unduly harsh conditions was issued by a senior Quantico official who stated he would not risk anything happening “on his watch.” When challenged by a Brig psychiatrist present at the meeting that there was no mental health justification for the decision, the senior Quantico official issuing the order responded, “We will do whatever we want to do.” Based upon these statements and others, the defense was in the process of filing a writ of habeas corpus seeking a court ruling that the Quantico Brig violated PFC Manning’s constitutional right to due process. See United States ex. rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 74 S.Ct. 499 (1954) (violation of due process where result of board proceeding was predetermined); United States v. Anderson, 49 M.J. 575 (N.M. Ct. Crim. App. 1998) (illegal punishment where Marine Corps had an unwritten policy automatically placing certain detainees in MAX custody). The facts surrounding PFC Manning’s pretrial confinement at Quantico make it clear that his detention was not “in compliance with legal and regulatory standards in all respects” as maintained at the Pentagon press briefing.
While the defense hopes that the move to Fort Leavenworth will result in the improvement of PFC Manning’s conditions of confinement, it nonetheless intends to pursue redress at the appropriate time for the flagrant violations of his constitutional rights by the Quantico confinement facility.
The Law Office of David E Coombs
www.armycourtmartialdefense.info
The Latest From The Bradley Manning Defense Committee-Why was PFC Manning moved to Fort Leavenworth?
Why was PFC Manning moved to Fort Leavenworth?
Manning Kansas
April 19, 2011, by David Coombs, attorney for Bradley Manning
Like many others, the defense first learned of PFC Manning’s move to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas by reading that a government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, leaked the information to the Associated Press. The defense was not officially notified of PFC Manning’s pending move until twenty minutes before the Pentagon’s press briefing. This is despite the fact that the Pentagon has “been thinking about this for a while.” Although the news of the move came as a surprise to the defense, the timing did not.
The defense recently received reliable reports of a private meeting held on 13 January 2011, involving high-level Quantico officials where it was ordered that PFC Manning would remain in maximum custody and under prevention of injury watch indefinitely. The order to keep PFC Manning under these unduly harsh conditions was issued by a senior Quantico official who stated he would not risk anything happening “on his watch.” When challenged by a Brig psychiatrist present at the meeting that there was no mental health justification for the decision, the senior Quantico official issuing the order responded, “We will do whatever we want to do.” Based upon these statements and others, the defense was in the process of filing a writ of habeas corpus seeking a court ruling that the Quantico Brig violated PFC Manning’s constitutional right to due process. See United States ex. rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 74 S.Ct. 499 (1954) (violation of due process where result of board proceeding was predetermined); United States v. Anderson, 49 M.J. 575 (N.M. Ct. Crim. App. 1998) (illegal punishment where Marine Corps had an unwritten policy automatically placing certain detainees in MAX custody). The facts surrounding PFC Manning’s pretrial confinement at Quantico make it clear that his detention was not “in compliance with legal and regulatory standards in all respects” as maintained at the Pentagon press briefing.
While the defense hopes that the move to Fort Leavenworth will result in the improvement of PFC Manning’s conditions of confinement, it nonetheless intends to pursue redress at the appropriate time for the flagrant violations of his constitutional rights by the Quantico confinement facility.
The Law Office of David E Coombs
www.armycourtmartialdefense.info
Monday, May 02, 2011
Systematic Injustice Against Sundiata Acoli by Stephen Lendman
Systematic Injustice Against Sundiata Acoli by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 26 Apr 2011
repression
Systematic Injustice Against Sundiata Acoli - by Stephen Lendman
In her book titled "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," Michelle Alexander cites Martin Luther King in 1968 highlighting the need to shift from civil to human rights advocacy, saying initiatives for it just began. In fact, it's truer now than then with Blacks and Hispanics comprising two-thirds of America's prison population, by far the world's largest at around 2.4 million, most incarcerated for nonviolent or political reasons.
Focusing on the war on drugs, Alexander characterizes the New Jim Crow as a modern-day racial caste system designed by elitists who embrace colorblindness. Believing poor Blacks are dangerous and economically superfluous, America's gulag became an instrument of control. According to Alexander:
"Any movement to end mass incarceration must deal with (it) as a racial caste system, not (a method) of crime control. We need an effective system of crime prevention and control in our communities, but that is not what the current system is. (It's) better designed to create crime, and a perpetual class of people labeled criminals, rather than to eliminate crime or reduce the number of criminals."
Overall, America's most vulnerable are victimized by judicial unfairness, get tough on crime policies, a guilty unless proved innocent mentality, three strikes and you're out, racist drug laws, poverty, and advocacy for social justice issues challenging repressive state policies.
As a result, figures like former UN ambassador Andrew Young believes "(t)here are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people (in America incarcerated as) political prisoners." Including undocumented Latino immigrants and other aliens, it's tens of thousands, an April 2011 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report saying Washington annually spends over $1.5 billion imprisoning them.
Currently, around 55,000 are in federal prisons, another 75,000 in state facilities. At a November 2010 Workers World Party conference, International Action Center organizer Gloria Verdieu said:
"Freeing all political prisoners, prisoners of conscience and prisoners of war" tops America's social justice struggle, "because the state uses the criminal justice system to lock up those who sacrifice their livelihood for freedom and justices for the masses."
In fact, international precedent recognizes releasing them. France freed anarchists, Germany Baader-Meinhof figures, and Britain IRA members. Not America, however, in contrast to notorious criminals pardoned, including Iran-Contra conspirators Caspar Weinberger, Elliott Abrams and John Poindexter, as well as others convicted of serious offenses warranting long internments.
Unlike them, today in America, heroic activists are incarcerated unjustly, including Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Ramsey Muniz, Oscar Lopez Rivera, the Cuban Five, lawyers Lynne Stewart and Paul Bergrin, and, among many others, Sundiata Acoli (born Clark Edward Squire) for 38 years.
Access his complete profile at:
http://www.sundiataacoli.org/
Born in January 1937, it calls him a New African political prisoner of war, mathematician, and computer analyst with a BA in math from Prairie View A & M College. In summer 1964, he did voter registration work in Mississippi. In 1968, he joined the Harlem Black Panther Party, doing community work relating to schools, housing, jobs, child care, drugs, and police brutality.
In 1969, he and others were arrested in the Panther 21 conspiracy case, jailed for two years without bail, then acquitted and released. Afterward, FBI pressure denied him professional employment, and COINTELPRO harassment and surveillance drove him underground.
Driving on the New Jersey Turnpike in May 1973, he and others were accosted by state troopers. Zayd Shakur was killed, Assata Shakur wounded and captured. One state trooper was killed, another wounded. Acoli was captured days later. In a highly charged, "sensationalized and prejudicial" trial, he was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life plus 30 years.
Initially for five years at Trenton State Prison (TSP), he was confined to a special Management Control Unit (MCU) solely for political reasons, given only 10 minutes daily for showers and two hours weekly for recreation.
The International Jurist (TIJ) "publishes perspectives and opinions on the current state of international law and its future," especially international humanitarian law, human rights law, transitional justice and international criminal law, and comparative law.
After interviewing Acoli in September 1979, TIJ declared him a political prisoner. Days later, he was secretly transferred to solitary confinement at maximum security US Penitentiary, Marion, IL despite no outstanding federal charges. In July 1987, he was sent to Leavenworth, KS federal prison.
Eligible for parole in fall 1992, he was denied permission to attend his own hearing, permitted only to participate by prison phone. Despite his exemplary prison work, academic and disciplinary record, hundreds of supportive letters, and numerous offers as a computer professional, he was denied in a 20 minute proceeding, giving him "a 20-year hit, the longest in New Jersey history," minimally requiring him to serve another 12 years before again becoming eligible for parole.
Reasons given were his Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army membership, as well as hundreds of "Free Sundiata" form letters calling him a "New Afrikan Prisoner of War" and that he hadn't been sufficiently rehabilitated. At issue, however, is forcing him to renounce his social justice advocacy and admit wrongdoing for struggling to liberate his people.
On March 4, 2010, the New Jersey State Parole Board (NJPB) denied him for the third time, again calling him "not rehabilitated" despite over a 1,000 supportive letters and petitions from noted figures, including lawyers, clergy, academics, psychologists, community members, and journalists.
Then in mid-July, with no explanation, he got written notice of a 10-year hit, requiring at least another six years imprisonment before parole eligibility at which time he'll be 79 years old or perhaps dead.
On August 27, 2010, an administrative appeal to the New Jersey Parole Board was filed, his legal advisers saying his case is strong based on NJPB procedural errors.
Throughout his incarceration, he's endured harsh treatment yet maintained an exemplary record, as well as becoming a talented painter and writer on prison industrial complex issues. He's also a father, grandfather, and both brother and mentor to fellow inmates besides making invaluable community contributions before incarceration.
In the 1960s, after years as a skilled computer programmer, he participated in southern civil rights struggles. Moreover, his New York chapter Black Panther Party activities involved him in numerous social justice struggles, including education, slum housing, school breakfasts, healthcare, legal help, and politics. He also worked on anti-drug and police brutality initiatives, an admirable record overall deserving praise, not incarceration for nearly four decades.
A Final Comment
On April 17, 2011, Acoli's latest article headlined, "Sundiata Acoli: Why You Should Support Black Political Prisoners/POWs and How," saying:
"My name is Sundiata Acoli....and am now a Black Political Prisoner and Prisoner or War (PP/POW) who's been (incarcerated) for the last 37 years."
"So why should you care," he asked? "Why should you support Black PP/POWs? Well, maybe you shouldn't. If you're happy with (how America) and the world is going, and if you want (Washington and Western powers) to dominate and oppress the rest of the world, then (don't) support Black PP/POWs (and it agenda to end predatory) capitalism, sexism, (racism), and all unjust oppressions of people and life (on) earth."
That advocacy got Acoli and many others imprisoned for supporting and doing the right thing. Now it's up to mass activism no longer to tolerate it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 26 Apr 2011
repression
Systematic Injustice Against Sundiata Acoli - by Stephen Lendman
In her book titled "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," Michelle Alexander cites Martin Luther King in 1968 highlighting the need to shift from civil to human rights advocacy, saying initiatives for it just began. In fact, it's truer now than then with Blacks and Hispanics comprising two-thirds of America's prison population, by far the world's largest at around 2.4 million, most incarcerated for nonviolent or political reasons.
Focusing on the war on drugs, Alexander characterizes the New Jim Crow as a modern-day racial caste system designed by elitists who embrace colorblindness. Believing poor Blacks are dangerous and economically superfluous, America's gulag became an instrument of control. According to Alexander:
"Any movement to end mass incarceration must deal with (it) as a racial caste system, not (a method) of crime control. We need an effective system of crime prevention and control in our communities, but that is not what the current system is. (It's) better designed to create crime, and a perpetual class of people labeled criminals, rather than to eliminate crime or reduce the number of criminals."
Overall, America's most vulnerable are victimized by judicial unfairness, get tough on crime policies, a guilty unless proved innocent mentality, three strikes and you're out, racist drug laws, poverty, and advocacy for social justice issues challenging repressive state policies.
As a result, figures like former UN ambassador Andrew Young believes "(t)here are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people (in America incarcerated as) political prisoners." Including undocumented Latino immigrants and other aliens, it's tens of thousands, an April 2011 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report saying Washington annually spends over $1.5 billion imprisoning them.
Currently, around 55,000 are in federal prisons, another 75,000 in state facilities. At a November 2010 Workers World Party conference, International Action Center organizer Gloria Verdieu said:
"Freeing all political prisoners, prisoners of conscience and prisoners of war" tops America's social justice struggle, "because the state uses the criminal justice system to lock up those who sacrifice their livelihood for freedom and justices for the masses."
In fact, international precedent recognizes releasing them. France freed anarchists, Germany Baader-Meinhof figures, and Britain IRA members. Not America, however, in contrast to notorious criminals pardoned, including Iran-Contra conspirators Caspar Weinberger, Elliott Abrams and John Poindexter, as well as others convicted of serious offenses warranting long internments.
Unlike them, today in America, heroic activists are incarcerated unjustly, including Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Ramsey Muniz, Oscar Lopez Rivera, the Cuban Five, lawyers Lynne Stewart and Paul Bergrin, and, among many others, Sundiata Acoli (born Clark Edward Squire) for 38 years.
Access his complete profile at:
http://www.sundiataacoli.org/
Born in January 1937, it calls him a New African political prisoner of war, mathematician, and computer analyst with a BA in math from Prairie View A & M College. In summer 1964, he did voter registration work in Mississippi. In 1968, he joined the Harlem Black Panther Party, doing community work relating to schools, housing, jobs, child care, drugs, and police brutality.
In 1969, he and others were arrested in the Panther 21 conspiracy case, jailed for two years without bail, then acquitted and released. Afterward, FBI pressure denied him professional employment, and COINTELPRO harassment and surveillance drove him underground.
Driving on the New Jersey Turnpike in May 1973, he and others were accosted by state troopers. Zayd Shakur was killed, Assata Shakur wounded and captured. One state trooper was killed, another wounded. Acoli was captured days later. In a highly charged, "sensationalized and prejudicial" trial, he was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life plus 30 years.
Initially for five years at Trenton State Prison (TSP), he was confined to a special Management Control Unit (MCU) solely for political reasons, given only 10 minutes daily for showers and two hours weekly for recreation.
The International Jurist (TIJ) "publishes perspectives and opinions on the current state of international law and its future," especially international humanitarian law, human rights law, transitional justice and international criminal law, and comparative law.
After interviewing Acoli in September 1979, TIJ declared him a political prisoner. Days later, he was secretly transferred to solitary confinement at maximum security US Penitentiary, Marion, IL despite no outstanding federal charges. In July 1987, he was sent to Leavenworth, KS federal prison.
Eligible for parole in fall 1992, he was denied permission to attend his own hearing, permitted only to participate by prison phone. Despite his exemplary prison work, academic and disciplinary record, hundreds of supportive letters, and numerous offers as a computer professional, he was denied in a 20 minute proceeding, giving him "a 20-year hit, the longest in New Jersey history," minimally requiring him to serve another 12 years before again becoming eligible for parole.
Reasons given were his Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army membership, as well as hundreds of "Free Sundiata" form letters calling him a "New Afrikan Prisoner of War" and that he hadn't been sufficiently rehabilitated. At issue, however, is forcing him to renounce his social justice advocacy and admit wrongdoing for struggling to liberate his people.
On March 4, 2010, the New Jersey State Parole Board (NJPB) denied him for the third time, again calling him "not rehabilitated" despite over a 1,000 supportive letters and petitions from noted figures, including lawyers, clergy, academics, psychologists, community members, and journalists.
Then in mid-July, with no explanation, he got written notice of a 10-year hit, requiring at least another six years imprisonment before parole eligibility at which time he'll be 79 years old or perhaps dead.
On August 27, 2010, an administrative appeal to the New Jersey Parole Board was filed, his legal advisers saying his case is strong based on NJPB procedural errors.
Throughout his incarceration, he's endured harsh treatment yet maintained an exemplary record, as well as becoming a talented painter and writer on prison industrial complex issues. He's also a father, grandfather, and both brother and mentor to fellow inmates besides making invaluable community contributions before incarceration.
In the 1960s, after years as a skilled computer programmer, he participated in southern civil rights struggles. Moreover, his New York chapter Black Panther Party activities involved him in numerous social justice struggles, including education, slum housing, school breakfasts, healthcare, legal help, and politics. He also worked on anti-drug and police brutality initiatives, an admirable record overall deserving praise, not incarceration for nearly four decades.
A Final Comment
On April 17, 2011, Acoli's latest article headlined, "Sundiata Acoli: Why You Should Support Black Political Prisoners/POWs and How," saying:
"My name is Sundiata Acoli....and am now a Black Political Prisoner and Prisoner or War (PP/POW) who's been (incarcerated) for the last 37 years."
"So why should you care," he asked? "Why should you support Black PP/POWs? Well, maybe you shouldn't. If you're happy with (how America) and the world is going, and if you want (Washington and Western powers) to dominate and oppress the rest of the world, then (don't) support Black PP/POWs (and it agenda to end predatory) capitalism, sexism, (racism), and all unjust oppressions of people and life (on) earth."
That advocacy got Acoli and many others imprisoned for supporting and doing the right thing. Now it's up to mass activism no longer to tolerate it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
From The Partisan Defense Committee- Third Circuit Court of Appeals Orders New Sentencing Hearing-Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!
Click on the headline to link to the Partisan Defense Committee website.
28 April 2011
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!
Third Circuit Court of Appeals Orders New Sentencing Hearing
On April 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit turned down the Philadelphia district attorney’s appeal to reinstate the death penalty for political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Court ordered the Pennsylvania trial court to convene a new trial solely to determine whether Abu-Jamal should be sentenced to death once again or left to rot in prison for life. The D.A.’s office has announced it will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Third Circuit decision upheld the 2001 decision by U.S. District Court judge William Yohn that overturned the death sentence while upholding the frame-up murder conviction. Yohn found the sentence to be unconstitutional under the precedent of the Mills v. Maryland decision because the sentencing form and jury instructions did not allow jurors to freely consider the mitigating circumstances weighing against a death sentence.
Yohn’s ruling had been upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2008. But in January 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Third Circuit decision, ordering the Third Circuit to review the case in light of its ruling that reinstated the death sentence for neo-Nazi Frank Spisak, whose sentence had also been overturned due to improper jury instructions.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man who should not have spent a day in prison. Free Mumia now! (For more, see “Appeals Court Hearing on Death Sentence for Mumia Abu-Jamal,” Workers Vanguard No. 966, 8 October 2010.)
28 April 2011
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!
Third Circuit Court of Appeals Orders New Sentencing Hearing
On April 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit turned down the Philadelphia district attorney’s appeal to reinstate the death penalty for political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Court ordered the Pennsylvania trial court to convene a new trial solely to determine whether Abu-Jamal should be sentenced to death once again or left to rot in prison for life. The D.A.’s office has announced it will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Third Circuit decision upheld the 2001 decision by U.S. District Court judge William Yohn that overturned the death sentence while upholding the frame-up murder conviction. Yohn found the sentence to be unconstitutional under the precedent of the Mills v. Maryland decision because the sentencing form and jury instructions did not allow jurors to freely consider the mitigating circumstances weighing against a death sentence.
Yohn’s ruling had been upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2008. But in January 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Third Circuit decision, ordering the Third Circuit to review the case in light of its ruling that reinstated the death sentence for neo-Nazi Frank Spisak, whose sentence had also been overturned due to improper jury instructions.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man who should not have spent a day in prison. Free Mumia now! (For more, see “Appeals Court Hearing on Death Sentence for Mumia Abu-Jamal,” Workers Vanguard No. 966, 8 October 2010.)
3rd Circuit Appeal Ruling For Abu-Jamal confronts US Supreme Court
Click on the headline to link to the Partisan Defense Committee website.
3rd Circuit Appeal Ruling For Abu-Jamal confronts US Supreme Court
by freemumia
(No verified email address) 26 Apr 2011
The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, in a stunning smack at the U.S. Supreme Court, has issued a ruling upholding its earlier decision backing a new sentencing hearing in the controversial case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.
Published on This Can't Be Happening (http://thiscantbehappening.net)
3rd Circuit Appeal Ruling Favoring Abu-Jamal Smacks Down US Supreme Court
3rd Circuit Appeal Ruling Favoring Abu-Jamal Smacks Down US Supreme Court
by:
Linn Washington Jr.
The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, in a stunning smack at the U.S. Supreme Court, has issued a ruling upholding its earlier decision backing a new sentencing hearing in the controversial case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.
The latest ruling, issued on Tuesday April 26, 2011, upholds a ruling the Third Circuit issued over two years ago siding with a federal district court judge who, back in 2001, had set aside Abu-Jamal’s death penalty after determining that death penalty instructions provided to the jury, and a flawed jury ballot document used during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial, had been unclear.
The U.S. Supreme Court had ordered the Third Circuit to re-examine its 2009 ruling upholding the lifting of Abu-Jamal’s death sentence.
The nation’s top court had cited a new legal precedent in that directive to the Third Circuit, a strange order given the fact that the Supreme Court had earlier consistently declined to apply its own precedents to Abu-Jamal’s case.
The Associated Press was the first to report the Third Circuit’s latest dramatic ruling and in fact, as of the morning of the ruling’s release, the decision had still not been posted on the appeals court’s website.
Abu-Jamal’s current lead attorney, Prof Judith Ritter of the Widener Law School, could not be reached for comment.
Mumia Abu-JamalMumia Abu-Jamal
The Third Circuit’s ruling, if left standing, requires Philadelphia prosecutors to call for a whole new sentencing hearing if they want to try and reinstate the death penalty. That would require the impaneling of a whole new jury, to hear and consider evidence regarding mitigating circumstances and aggravating circumstances in the case, and then to decide for either execution of life-without-possibility of parole--the only two options legally available. Abu-Jamal has exhausted his avenues of appeal of his conviction, absent new evidence in the case.
If prosecutors opted against holding new hearing then Abu-Jamal’s sentence would be converted automatically to a life sentence, which in Pennsylvania means no chance of parole. Abu-Jamal would have to spending the remainder of his life behind bars, though not on death row.
Experts contend a new sentencing hearing would be problematic for prosecutors. Although the issue of guilt or innocence would not be on trial, the defense could bring in witnesses to explain exactly what they saw happen the night of the shooting--witnesses whose testimony could ultimately raise new questions about the validity of the underlying conviction.
It is almost a certainty that prosecutors will appeal the Third Circuit’s latest ruling back up to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, prosecutors concede that current and yet unresolved legal issues in this case, which continues to attract unprecedented international scrutiny, will keep it in courts for years. For example, there are several avenues of appeal of Abu-Jamal's death sentence which were never adjudicated by the Federal District court, which mooted them after the Judge, William Yohn, found in favor of one argument and tossed out the death sentence.
In early April 2011 the NAACP Legal Defense Fund publicly announced it was joining the Abu-Jamal defense team and working with Professor Ritter. NAACP lawyers had joined Ritter last fall during the hearing where she argued the legal point just upheld by the Third Circuit in its latest ruling.
Recently Abu-Jamal recorded yet another birthday (4/24) inside a death row isolation cell. Abu-Jamal and the 222 other Pennsylvania death row inmates spend 23-hours per day every day isolated inside minimalist cells.
Since 1983 Abu-Jamal has languished in the confinement of death row, following his controversial July 1982 conviction for the murder of Officerl Faulkner.
Now 57, Abu-Jamal has spent nearly 29 years of his life in prison for a crime he has consistently denied committing--a crime that ample evidence conclusively proves could not have occurred as police and prosecutors have proclaimed.
Authorities, for example, claim Abu-Jamal fired four shots at the policeman, while straddling the officer as he lay defenseless on a sidewalk, striking him only once with a fatal shot in the face.
However, police crime scene photos and police reports make no reference of any bullet marks in that sidewalk around the fallen officer--marks that should have been clearly visible if Abu-Jamal fired three shots at almost point-blank range into the sidewalk as witnesses and the prosecutor claimed.
As detailed in an thorough investigative ballistic test released in September 2010 by This Can’t Be Happening! (See our film at the bottom of the home page), it is impossible to fire high-velocity bullets into a sidewalk without leaving any marks. TCBH! test-fired each kind of .38-caliber bullets referenced in police reports about the 1981 crime scene into a slab of old city sidewalk, and each of those bullets left easily visible marks…marks totally contradicting claims by authorities that Abu-Jamal wildly fired into the sidewalk without leaving bullet marks.
Rulings by federal and state courts denying Abu-Jamal the legal relief routinely granted other inmates who had raised the same appeals claims are the least-examined element of this internationally-condemned injustice.
The same Philadelphia and Pennsylvania courts that found major flaws by either defense attorneys, police, prosecutors and/or trial judges in 86 Philadelphia death penalty convictions during a 28-year period after Abu-Jamal’s December 1981 arrest declare no errors exist anywhere in the Abu-Jamal case – an assertion critics call statistically improbable.
The federal Third Circuit, for example, declined to grant Abu-Jamal a new trial based on solid legal issues from racial discrimination by prosecutors in jury selection to documented errors by trial judge Albert Sabo, the late jurist who relished his infamous reputation for pro-prosecution bias.
The Third Circuit’s 2008 ruling faulting Sabo for his inability to provide the jury with simple death penalty deliberation instructions included the contradictory conclusion that Sabo had adequately provided the jury with instructions about a highly complicated legal issue involving misconduct by the trial prosecutor.
Faulting Sabo for that flawed instruction on prosecutorial misconduct would have required the Third Circuit to give Abu-Jamal a whole new trial. Unwilling to do that, the court sidestepped its duty to ensure justice, by deciding to just eliminate Abu-Jamal’s death sentence, instead.
Pennsylvania state courts have released three Philadelphians from death row (half of Pa’s death row exonerations to date) citing misconduct by police and prosecutors…misconduct that was less egregious than that documented in the Abu-Jamal case. One of those Philadelphia exonerations involved a man framed by police for a mob-related killing, who was arrested six months before Abu-Jamal.
While many people in Philadelphia may feel Abu-Jamal is guilty as charged, millions around the world question every aspect of this conviction, citing facts that proponents of Abu-Jamal’s conviction deliberately dismiss as irrelevant.
This widespread questioning of Abu-Jamal’s guilt is the reason why pro-Abu-Jamal activities occurred around the world commemorating Abu-Jamal’s 4/24 birthday, including people in San Francisco attending a screening of the “Justice on Trial” movie examining ignored aspects in the case, and people marching for Abu-Jamal’s freedom in the Brixton section of London.
Officials in the French city of Saint-Denis will stage a ceremony rededicating a street they named for Abu-Jamal during the last weekend in April.
The ire erupting over Abu-Jamal’s prominence on the part of advocates of his execution contains contradictions that are as clear as the proverbial black-&-white.
The U.S. Congress engaged in color-coded contradiction approving a May 2006 resolution condemning far off Saint-Denis for its honoring Abu-Jamal by placing his name on a small one block long street.
Over a decade before that anti-Saint-Denis outrage, over 100 members of Congress had battled to block the U.S. government from deporting a white fugitive convicted of killing a British Army officer in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
That officer’s killing had occurred during an investigation into the murder of another Belfast policeman.
Incidentally, the U.S. Congress did not erupt angrily when the City Council of New York City voted to place the name of that fugitive – Joseph Doherty – on the street corner outside the federal detention center then housing him.
In 1988 – six years after Abu-Jamal’s conviction – more than 3,000 Philadelphians signed petitions asking federal authorities to grant Doherty special permission to leave his federal detention cell for one day to allow Doherty to serve as Grand Marshall of Philadelphia’s St Patrick’s Day Parade.
One Philly supporter of suspected convicted cop killer Doherty was the then-President Judge of Philadelphia’s trial courts, Edward J. Bradley.
Judge Bradley told a reporter in 1988 that he had no problems as a jurist reconciling his support for a convicted felon because he questioned the “fair treatment” Irish nationals received in English courts.
Judge Bradley’s concern about fairness for IRA fighters in English courts is not parallelled by any concern about fairness in Philadelphia courts with regard to the case of former Black Panther Party member Abu-Jamal. Judge Bradley's double standard highlights the gross unfairness of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania state court judges.
Critics who castigate those who contribute to Abu-Jamal’s defense fund, especially by Hollywood stars, did not object to fund-raising on behalf of one of the white Los Angeles policemen convicted in federal court for the 1991 beating of Rodney King. That criminal cop was allowed to keep nearly $10-million in sales from his book and from a fund-raising campaign on his behalf – monies generated mainly after that the former police sergeant's imprisonment following a civil rights violation conviction.
One reason the decades-old Abu-Jamal case continues to generate support and rage is Abu-Jamal himself.
A charismatic figure who is articulate, with a level of education and intelligence atypical of the mainly illiterate denizens of death row, Abu-Jamal is able to explain his case, as well as to expose the horrors of the nation's prison system and its death rows.
While on death row Abu-Jamal has written six critically acclaimed books (including one on jailhouse lawyers), produced thousands of commentaries, learned two foreign languages, earned two college degrees, including a masters, and developed a loyal support network comprising millions worldwide.
Even the prosecutor at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial – Joseph McGill – described him during that trial as the most “intelligent” defendant he’d ever faced.
And another prosecutor, during Abu-Jamal’s tainted 1995 appeals hearing, said he didn’t think “the shooting of Officer Faulkner is characteristic of this defendant.” (Abu-Jamal had no record of violence or criminal acts before his 1981 arrest.)
Supporters applaud Abu-Jamal’s defense of the downtrodden, particularly his poignant criticisms of America’s prison-industrial complex, that incarcerates more people per capita than any other country on earth.
Abu-Jamal’s stance highlighting the deprivations of the have-nots, predated his arrest, and had earned him the title of “Voice of the Voiceless” during his professional broadcast reporting career, which ran from 1975 till his December 1981 arrest.
Abu-Jamal rarely uses his world-wide platform to speak about his own plight, preferring to focus instead on the injustices endured by others.
Source URL: http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/579
3rd Circuit Appeal Ruling For Abu-Jamal confronts US Supreme Court
by freemumia
(No verified email address) 26 Apr 2011
The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, in a stunning smack at the U.S. Supreme Court, has issued a ruling upholding its earlier decision backing a new sentencing hearing in the controversial case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.
Published on This Can't Be Happening (http://thiscantbehappening.net)
3rd Circuit Appeal Ruling Favoring Abu-Jamal Smacks Down US Supreme Court
3rd Circuit Appeal Ruling Favoring Abu-Jamal Smacks Down US Supreme Court
by:
Linn Washington Jr.
The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, in a stunning smack at the U.S. Supreme Court, has issued a ruling upholding its earlier decision backing a new sentencing hearing in the controversial case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.
The latest ruling, issued on Tuesday April 26, 2011, upholds a ruling the Third Circuit issued over two years ago siding with a federal district court judge who, back in 2001, had set aside Abu-Jamal’s death penalty after determining that death penalty instructions provided to the jury, and a flawed jury ballot document used during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial, had been unclear.
The U.S. Supreme Court had ordered the Third Circuit to re-examine its 2009 ruling upholding the lifting of Abu-Jamal’s death sentence.
The nation’s top court had cited a new legal precedent in that directive to the Third Circuit, a strange order given the fact that the Supreme Court had earlier consistently declined to apply its own precedents to Abu-Jamal’s case.
The Associated Press was the first to report the Third Circuit’s latest dramatic ruling and in fact, as of the morning of the ruling’s release, the decision had still not been posted on the appeals court’s website.
Abu-Jamal’s current lead attorney, Prof Judith Ritter of the Widener Law School, could not be reached for comment.
Mumia Abu-JamalMumia Abu-Jamal
The Third Circuit’s ruling, if left standing, requires Philadelphia prosecutors to call for a whole new sentencing hearing if they want to try and reinstate the death penalty. That would require the impaneling of a whole new jury, to hear and consider evidence regarding mitigating circumstances and aggravating circumstances in the case, and then to decide for either execution of life-without-possibility of parole--the only two options legally available. Abu-Jamal has exhausted his avenues of appeal of his conviction, absent new evidence in the case.
If prosecutors opted against holding new hearing then Abu-Jamal’s sentence would be converted automatically to a life sentence, which in Pennsylvania means no chance of parole. Abu-Jamal would have to spending the remainder of his life behind bars, though not on death row.
Experts contend a new sentencing hearing would be problematic for prosecutors. Although the issue of guilt or innocence would not be on trial, the defense could bring in witnesses to explain exactly what they saw happen the night of the shooting--witnesses whose testimony could ultimately raise new questions about the validity of the underlying conviction.
It is almost a certainty that prosecutors will appeal the Third Circuit’s latest ruling back up to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, prosecutors concede that current and yet unresolved legal issues in this case, which continues to attract unprecedented international scrutiny, will keep it in courts for years. For example, there are several avenues of appeal of Abu-Jamal's death sentence which were never adjudicated by the Federal District court, which mooted them after the Judge, William Yohn, found in favor of one argument and tossed out the death sentence.
In early April 2011 the NAACP Legal Defense Fund publicly announced it was joining the Abu-Jamal defense team and working with Professor Ritter. NAACP lawyers had joined Ritter last fall during the hearing where she argued the legal point just upheld by the Third Circuit in its latest ruling.
Recently Abu-Jamal recorded yet another birthday (4/24) inside a death row isolation cell. Abu-Jamal and the 222 other Pennsylvania death row inmates spend 23-hours per day every day isolated inside minimalist cells.
Since 1983 Abu-Jamal has languished in the confinement of death row, following his controversial July 1982 conviction for the murder of Officerl Faulkner.
Now 57, Abu-Jamal has spent nearly 29 years of his life in prison for a crime he has consistently denied committing--a crime that ample evidence conclusively proves could not have occurred as police and prosecutors have proclaimed.
Authorities, for example, claim Abu-Jamal fired four shots at the policeman, while straddling the officer as he lay defenseless on a sidewalk, striking him only once with a fatal shot in the face.
However, police crime scene photos and police reports make no reference of any bullet marks in that sidewalk around the fallen officer--marks that should have been clearly visible if Abu-Jamal fired three shots at almost point-blank range into the sidewalk as witnesses and the prosecutor claimed.
As detailed in an thorough investigative ballistic test released in September 2010 by This Can’t Be Happening! (See our film at the bottom of the home page), it is impossible to fire high-velocity bullets into a sidewalk without leaving any marks. TCBH! test-fired each kind of .38-caliber bullets referenced in police reports about the 1981 crime scene into a slab of old city sidewalk, and each of those bullets left easily visible marks…marks totally contradicting claims by authorities that Abu-Jamal wildly fired into the sidewalk without leaving bullet marks.
Rulings by federal and state courts denying Abu-Jamal the legal relief routinely granted other inmates who had raised the same appeals claims are the least-examined element of this internationally-condemned injustice.
The same Philadelphia and Pennsylvania courts that found major flaws by either defense attorneys, police, prosecutors and/or trial judges in 86 Philadelphia death penalty convictions during a 28-year period after Abu-Jamal’s December 1981 arrest declare no errors exist anywhere in the Abu-Jamal case – an assertion critics call statistically improbable.
The federal Third Circuit, for example, declined to grant Abu-Jamal a new trial based on solid legal issues from racial discrimination by prosecutors in jury selection to documented errors by trial judge Albert Sabo, the late jurist who relished his infamous reputation for pro-prosecution bias.
The Third Circuit’s 2008 ruling faulting Sabo for his inability to provide the jury with simple death penalty deliberation instructions included the contradictory conclusion that Sabo had adequately provided the jury with instructions about a highly complicated legal issue involving misconduct by the trial prosecutor.
Faulting Sabo for that flawed instruction on prosecutorial misconduct would have required the Third Circuit to give Abu-Jamal a whole new trial. Unwilling to do that, the court sidestepped its duty to ensure justice, by deciding to just eliminate Abu-Jamal’s death sentence, instead.
Pennsylvania state courts have released three Philadelphians from death row (half of Pa’s death row exonerations to date) citing misconduct by police and prosecutors…misconduct that was less egregious than that documented in the Abu-Jamal case. One of those Philadelphia exonerations involved a man framed by police for a mob-related killing, who was arrested six months before Abu-Jamal.
While many people in Philadelphia may feel Abu-Jamal is guilty as charged, millions around the world question every aspect of this conviction, citing facts that proponents of Abu-Jamal’s conviction deliberately dismiss as irrelevant.
This widespread questioning of Abu-Jamal’s guilt is the reason why pro-Abu-Jamal activities occurred around the world commemorating Abu-Jamal’s 4/24 birthday, including people in San Francisco attending a screening of the “Justice on Trial” movie examining ignored aspects in the case, and people marching for Abu-Jamal’s freedom in the Brixton section of London.
Officials in the French city of Saint-Denis will stage a ceremony rededicating a street they named for Abu-Jamal during the last weekend in April.
The ire erupting over Abu-Jamal’s prominence on the part of advocates of his execution contains contradictions that are as clear as the proverbial black-&-white.
The U.S. Congress engaged in color-coded contradiction approving a May 2006 resolution condemning far off Saint-Denis for its honoring Abu-Jamal by placing his name on a small one block long street.
Over a decade before that anti-Saint-Denis outrage, over 100 members of Congress had battled to block the U.S. government from deporting a white fugitive convicted of killing a British Army officer in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
That officer’s killing had occurred during an investigation into the murder of another Belfast policeman.
Incidentally, the U.S. Congress did not erupt angrily when the City Council of New York City voted to place the name of that fugitive – Joseph Doherty – on the street corner outside the federal detention center then housing him.
In 1988 – six years after Abu-Jamal’s conviction – more than 3,000 Philadelphians signed petitions asking federal authorities to grant Doherty special permission to leave his federal detention cell for one day to allow Doherty to serve as Grand Marshall of Philadelphia’s St Patrick’s Day Parade.
One Philly supporter of suspected convicted cop killer Doherty was the then-President Judge of Philadelphia’s trial courts, Edward J. Bradley.
Judge Bradley told a reporter in 1988 that he had no problems as a jurist reconciling his support for a convicted felon because he questioned the “fair treatment” Irish nationals received in English courts.
Judge Bradley’s concern about fairness for IRA fighters in English courts is not parallelled by any concern about fairness in Philadelphia courts with regard to the case of former Black Panther Party member Abu-Jamal. Judge Bradley's double standard highlights the gross unfairness of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania state court judges.
Critics who castigate those who contribute to Abu-Jamal’s defense fund, especially by Hollywood stars, did not object to fund-raising on behalf of one of the white Los Angeles policemen convicted in federal court for the 1991 beating of Rodney King. That criminal cop was allowed to keep nearly $10-million in sales from his book and from a fund-raising campaign on his behalf – monies generated mainly after that the former police sergeant's imprisonment following a civil rights violation conviction.
One reason the decades-old Abu-Jamal case continues to generate support and rage is Abu-Jamal himself.
A charismatic figure who is articulate, with a level of education and intelligence atypical of the mainly illiterate denizens of death row, Abu-Jamal is able to explain his case, as well as to expose the horrors of the nation's prison system and its death rows.
While on death row Abu-Jamal has written six critically acclaimed books (including one on jailhouse lawyers), produced thousands of commentaries, learned two foreign languages, earned two college degrees, including a masters, and developed a loyal support network comprising millions worldwide.
Even the prosecutor at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial – Joseph McGill – described him during that trial as the most “intelligent” defendant he’d ever faced.
And another prosecutor, during Abu-Jamal’s tainted 1995 appeals hearing, said he didn’t think “the shooting of Officer Faulkner is characteristic of this defendant.” (Abu-Jamal had no record of violence or criminal acts before his 1981 arrest.)
Supporters applaud Abu-Jamal’s defense of the downtrodden, particularly his poignant criticisms of America’s prison-industrial complex, that incarcerates more people per capita than any other country on earth.
Abu-Jamal’s stance highlighting the deprivations of the have-nots, predated his arrest, and had earned him the title of “Voice of the Voiceless” during his professional broadcast reporting career, which ran from 1975 till his December 1981 arrest.
Abu-Jamal rarely uses his world-wide platform to speak about his own plight, preferring to focus instead on the injustices endured by others.
Source URL: http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/579
Supreme Court Lets Corporations Ban Class Actions by Stephen Lendman
Supreme Court Lets Corporations Ban Class Actions by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 28 Apr 2011
corporatism
Supreme Court Lets Corporations Ban Class Actions - by Stephen Lendman
An earlier article discussed hurdles ordinary people face before America's High Court, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/07/supreme-court-inc-supremely-pro.ht
Saying pro-business rulings aren't new, it suggested the most damaging one occurred in 1886. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway, the High Court granted corporations legal personhood. Ever since, they've had the same rights as people without the responsibilities. Their limited liability status exempts them.
As a result, they've profited hugely and continue winning favorable rulings. Today more than ever from the Roberts Court, one observer calling its first full (2006-07) term a "blockbuster" with the Court's conservative wing prevailing most often.
Through today, it's been much the same, notably in its January 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, ruling government can't limit corporate political election spending as doing it violates their First Amendment freedoms. Writing for the 5 - 4 majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy called it legal "political speech," effectively putting a price tag on democracy.
The decision overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990), restricting corporate political spending because their resources unfairly influence electoral politics, and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003), upholding part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (the McCain-Feingold Act), restricting corporate and union campaign spending.
Citizen's United set a precedent, but does it matter given the power of big money and past failures to curb it, Professor John Kozy saying at the time:
"Expecting the Congress, most if not all of whose members reside deep in corporate pockets, to eliminate that influence can be likened to expecting the rhinovirus to eliminate the common cold. Corporate money (in large or smaller amounts) is the diseased life-blood of American politics; it carries its cancerous spores to all extremities."
Kozy also cited Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' Lochner dissent, saying "the Court has taken its task to be the constitutionalization of a totally immoral, rapacious, economic system instead of the promotion of justice, domestic tranquility, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty."
Of course, the same judgment applies throughout Court history with past civil libertarians far outnumbered by established order supporters and big money interests that run it. As a result, for every William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall there have been dozens of John Jays (the first chief justice), Roger Taneys, William Howard Tafts, Scalias, Burgers, Rehnquists, and Roberts.
It's why Michael Parenti calls the Supreme Court America's "autocratic branch" of government, affirmed shamelessly in its April 27 AT&T v. Conception decision, accessed through the following link:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-893.pdf
America's Supremes Deny Class Action Redress
After the ruling, Dow Jones Newswires Brent Kendall headlined, "US Supreme Court Blocks Class Action Against AT&T Unit," saying:
The Court blocked "a class action lawsuit alleging AT&T Inc. (T) wireless subsidiary acted fraudulently by charging sales tax on cellphones that it advertised as free. The case was considered a test of the enforceability of arbitration agreements that bar individuals from pooling their claims together in a class action."
Earlier, two California federal courts ruled that AT&T Mobility's wireless contract arbitration agreement was not enforceable because it blocked class actions. On April 27, the Supreme Court overturned them. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said permitting group suits runs afoul of federal law promoting arbitration.
Dissenting, Justice Stephen Breyer said requiring consumers to arbitrate individually forces them to abandon small claims, too costly to litigate.
The case involved Vincent and Liza Concepcion's complaint about the $30.22 sales tax on AT&T's cellphone promoted as free. As a result, Breyer added:
"What rational lawyer would have signed on to represent (them) in litigation for the possibility of fees stemming from" an amount that small, effectively shutting them out entirely from judicial redress.
Still pending before the court is the largest class action in US history - Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. It involves sexual job discrimination, claiming the company violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by denying women equal promotion opportunities as men.
Wal-Mart lawyers now want the case dismissed on behalf of 1.5 million current and past female employees. Doing so, however, will be a crushing blow to aggrieved company employees and millions of others henceforth for redress it appears the ruling now denies.
Public citizen attorney Deepak Gupta represented the Concepcions before the High Court. After the decision he said:
"This morning, the US Supreme Court dealt a crushing blow to American consumers and employees, ruling that companies can ban class actions in the fine print of contracts."
So whenever you "sign a contract" for a cell phone, bank account, credit card, employment, or other purpose, "you may be giving up your right to hold companies accountable for fraud, discrimination or other illegal practices."
In its latest unprincipled decision, the Court ruled 5 - 4 that corporations may use arbitration clauses to prevent consumers and employees from using class actions to hold them accountable, requiring individual litigation instead.
In fact, class actions, like Brown v. Board of Education, are an essential litigation tool. Their fate shouldn't be decided by corporate fine print "take-it-or-leave-it contracts" only lawyers understand.
The 1925 Federal Arbitration Act facilitated private arbitration settlements in state and federal courts, applicable to interstate commerce transactions under the Constitution's Commerce Clause. Henceforth, it will shield corporations from accountability, making it harder for people to litigate "civil rights, labor, consumer, and other (type) claims," resulting from corporate wrongdoing by "join(ing) together to obtain their rightful compensation."
As a result, says Gupta, it's essential for Congress to enact legislation "ending forced arbitration in consumer and employment contracts," but expect no redress from a Republican controlled House and a pro-business president claiming populist credentials.
As a result, expect CEO's from AT&T, Wal-Mart and other corporate predators to sleep comfortably henceforth, knowing America's High Court backs their right rip off consumers and employees with impunity.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 28 Apr 2011
corporatism
Supreme Court Lets Corporations Ban Class Actions - by Stephen Lendman
An earlier article discussed hurdles ordinary people face before America's High Court, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/07/supreme-court-inc-supremely-pro.ht
Saying pro-business rulings aren't new, it suggested the most damaging one occurred in 1886. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway, the High Court granted corporations legal personhood. Ever since, they've had the same rights as people without the responsibilities. Their limited liability status exempts them.
As a result, they've profited hugely and continue winning favorable rulings. Today more than ever from the Roberts Court, one observer calling its first full (2006-07) term a "blockbuster" with the Court's conservative wing prevailing most often.
Through today, it's been much the same, notably in its January 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, ruling government can't limit corporate political election spending as doing it violates their First Amendment freedoms. Writing for the 5 - 4 majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy called it legal "political speech," effectively putting a price tag on democracy.
The decision overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990), restricting corporate political spending because their resources unfairly influence electoral politics, and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003), upholding part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (the McCain-Feingold Act), restricting corporate and union campaign spending.
Citizen's United set a precedent, but does it matter given the power of big money and past failures to curb it, Professor John Kozy saying at the time:
"Expecting the Congress, most if not all of whose members reside deep in corporate pockets, to eliminate that influence can be likened to expecting the rhinovirus to eliminate the common cold. Corporate money (in large or smaller amounts) is the diseased life-blood of American politics; it carries its cancerous spores to all extremities."
Kozy also cited Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' Lochner dissent, saying "the Court has taken its task to be the constitutionalization of a totally immoral, rapacious, economic system instead of the promotion of justice, domestic tranquility, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty."
Of course, the same judgment applies throughout Court history with past civil libertarians far outnumbered by established order supporters and big money interests that run it. As a result, for every William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall there have been dozens of John Jays (the first chief justice), Roger Taneys, William Howard Tafts, Scalias, Burgers, Rehnquists, and Roberts.
It's why Michael Parenti calls the Supreme Court America's "autocratic branch" of government, affirmed shamelessly in its April 27 AT&T v. Conception decision, accessed through the following link:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-893.pdf
America's Supremes Deny Class Action Redress
After the ruling, Dow Jones Newswires Brent Kendall headlined, "US Supreme Court Blocks Class Action Against AT&T Unit," saying:
The Court blocked "a class action lawsuit alleging AT&T Inc. (T) wireless subsidiary acted fraudulently by charging sales tax on cellphones that it advertised as free. The case was considered a test of the enforceability of arbitration agreements that bar individuals from pooling their claims together in a class action."
Earlier, two California federal courts ruled that AT&T Mobility's wireless contract arbitration agreement was not enforceable because it blocked class actions. On April 27, the Supreme Court overturned them. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said permitting group suits runs afoul of federal law promoting arbitration.
Dissenting, Justice Stephen Breyer said requiring consumers to arbitrate individually forces them to abandon small claims, too costly to litigate.
The case involved Vincent and Liza Concepcion's complaint about the $30.22 sales tax on AT&T's cellphone promoted as free. As a result, Breyer added:
"What rational lawyer would have signed on to represent (them) in litigation for the possibility of fees stemming from" an amount that small, effectively shutting them out entirely from judicial redress.
Still pending before the court is the largest class action in US history - Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. It involves sexual job discrimination, claiming the company violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by denying women equal promotion opportunities as men.
Wal-Mart lawyers now want the case dismissed on behalf of 1.5 million current and past female employees. Doing so, however, will be a crushing blow to aggrieved company employees and millions of others henceforth for redress it appears the ruling now denies.
Public citizen attorney Deepak Gupta represented the Concepcions before the High Court. After the decision he said:
"This morning, the US Supreme Court dealt a crushing blow to American consumers and employees, ruling that companies can ban class actions in the fine print of contracts."
So whenever you "sign a contract" for a cell phone, bank account, credit card, employment, or other purpose, "you may be giving up your right to hold companies accountable for fraud, discrimination or other illegal practices."
In its latest unprincipled decision, the Court ruled 5 - 4 that corporations may use arbitration clauses to prevent consumers and employees from using class actions to hold them accountable, requiring individual litigation instead.
In fact, class actions, like Brown v. Board of Education, are an essential litigation tool. Their fate shouldn't be decided by corporate fine print "take-it-or-leave-it contracts" only lawyers understand.
The 1925 Federal Arbitration Act facilitated private arbitration settlements in state and federal courts, applicable to interstate commerce transactions under the Constitution's Commerce Clause. Henceforth, it will shield corporations from accountability, making it harder for people to litigate "civil rights, labor, consumer, and other (type) claims," resulting from corporate wrongdoing by "join(ing) together to obtain their rightful compensation."
As a result, says Gupta, it's essential for Congress to enact legislation "ending forced arbitration in consumer and employment contracts," but expect no redress from a Republican controlled House and a pro-business president claiming populist credentials.
As a result, expect CEO's from AT&T, Wal-Mart and other corporate predators to sleep comfortably henceforth, knowing America's High Court backs their right rip off consumers and employees with impunity.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
All Out In Support- NURSES AT TUFTS (Boston) SET TO STRIKE - MAY 6! -An Injury To One Is An Injury To All
NURSES AT TUFTS SET TO STRIKE - MAY 6!
by peacelabor
(No verified email address) 29 Apr 2011
MNA Set to Strike at Tufts Medical Center on May 6th at 6 am;
Rally at 4 pm
The members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association have voted for a one-day strike at Tufts Medical Center in Boston should a collective bargaining agreement not be reached by Friday May 6th. The nurses rallying cry is ‘Patient Safety’ as hospital management has dug their heels in on the desperately needed improvements in staffing levels that the MNA is seeking to address at the bargaining table.
In response to the MNA’s strike authorization Tufts Hospital has contracted with firms to provide replacement nurses and is threatening to lock the nurses out to prevent them from returning to work after the one-day strike.
Should the Tufts nurses strike it will begin at 6AM on Friday and conclude at 6:45 AM on Saturday May 7th. The nurses will be holding a rally outside Tufts Medical Center, at 4 pm on Friday, May 6th at 800 Washington St. in Boston. Your continued support for and solidarity with the Tufts nurses would be greatly appreciated at this event
For more information contact Jenn at jennifer (at) massjwj.net
See also:
http://www.massjwj.net
by peacelabor
(No verified email address) 29 Apr 2011
MNA Set to Strike at Tufts Medical Center on May 6th at 6 am;
Rally at 4 pm
The members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association have voted for a one-day strike at Tufts Medical Center in Boston should a collective bargaining agreement not be reached by Friday May 6th. The nurses rallying cry is ‘Patient Safety’ as hospital management has dug their heels in on the desperately needed improvements in staffing levels that the MNA is seeking to address at the bargaining table.
In response to the MNA’s strike authorization Tufts Hospital has contracted with firms to provide replacement nurses and is threatening to lock the nurses out to prevent them from returning to work after the one-day strike.
Should the Tufts nurses strike it will begin at 6AM on Friday and conclude at 6:45 AM on Saturday May 7th. The nurses will be holding a rally outside Tufts Medical Center, at 4 pm on Friday, May 6th at 800 Washington St. in Boston. Your continued support for and solidarity with the Tufts nurses would be greatly appreciated at this event
For more information contact Jenn at jennifer (at) massjwj.net
See also:
http://www.massjwj.net
US Intervention in Syria by Stephen Lendman
US Intervention in Syria by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 30 Apr 2011
imperialism
US Intervention in Syria - by Stephen Lendman
Despite genuine popular Middle East/North Africa uprisings, Washington's dirty hands orchestrated regime change plans in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, and Syria as part of its "New Middle East" project.
On November 18, 2006, Middle East analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya's Global Research article headlined, "Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a 'New Middle East,' " saying:
In June 2006 in Tel Aviv, "US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (first) coin(ed) the term" in place of the former "Greater Middle East" project, a shift in rhetoric only for Washington's longstanding imperial aims.
The new terminology "coincided with the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal in the Eastern Mediterranean." During Israel's summer 2006 Lebanon war, "Prime Minister Olmert and (Rice) informed the international media that a project for a 'New Middle East' was being launched in Lebanon," a plan in the works for years to "creat(e) an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan."
In other words, "constructive chaos" would be used to redraw the region according to US-Israeli "geo-strategic needs and objectives." The strategy is currently playing out violently in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria, and may erupt anywhere in the region to solidify Washington's aim for unchallengeable dominance from Morocco to Oman to Syria.
Partnered with Israel, it's to assure only leaders fully "with the program" are in place. Mostly isn't good enough, so ones like Mubarak, Gaddafi, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, likely Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh (now damaged goods), and Syria's Bashar al-Assad are targeted for removal by methods ranging from uprisings to coups, assassinations, or war, perhaps in that order.
Nazemroaya now says Syrian "protesters are being armed and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states via Jordan and Saad Hariri in Lebanon," besides US and Israeli involvement.
Pack Journalism Goes to War with Washington
America's pack journalism never met an America imperial initiative it didn't support and promote, no matter how lawless, mindless, destructive or counterproductive. For example, an April 28 New York Times editorial headlined, "President Assad's Crackdown," saying:
He "appears determined to join his father in the ranks of history's blood-stained dictators, sending his troops and thugs to murder anyone who has the courage to demand political freedom."
Whether about Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, Haiti's Aristide, former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, Venezuela's Chavez or others for many decades, Times "journalists" and opinion writers have a sordid history of supporting America's imperial ruthlessness, including perpetual wars killing millions for power, profit, and unchallengeable dominance.
Now Times writers laud Obama for intervening in Libya and trying "to engage Syria....in hopes that Mr. Assad would make the right choice," meaning get "with the program" by surrendering Syrian sovereignty.
Despite clear evidence of US intervention, Obama "issued a statement condemning the violence and accusing Mr. Assad of seeking Iranian assistance in brutalizing his people. That is a start, but it is not nearly enough."
War is always a last choice so The Times endorses "international condemnation and tough sanctions, (as well as) asset freezes and travel bans for Mr. Assad and his top supporters and a complete arms embargo."
However, "Russia and China, as ever, are determined to protect autocrats. That cannot be the last word."
Times opinions are shamelessly belligerent, one-sided, wrong-headed, and mindless on rule of law issues, including about prohibitions against meddling in the internal affairs of other countries except in self-defense until the Security Council acts.
Instead, the "newspaper of record" remains America's leading managed news source, backing the worst of Washington's imperial arrogance and ruthlessness. As a result, it omits inconvenient facts to make its case, including America's notorious ties to numerous global despots on every continent.
WikiLeaks Released Cables Expose America's Regime Change Plan
Though widely reported since mid-April, The Times hasn't acknowledged information (though sketchy) from Washington Post writer Craig Whitlock's April 17 report headlined, "US secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show," saying:
Through its Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), "The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel (London-based Barada TV) that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables."
"Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of (pro-Western) Syrian exiles."
Funding began at least after the Bush administration cut ties with Damascus in 2005. In April 2009, a diplomatic cable from Damascus said:
"A reassessment of current US-sponsored programming that supports anti-(government) factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive."
In February 2006, Bush officials announced funding to "accelerate the work of reformers in Syria." Nonetheless, Barada TV denied receiving money, its news director Malik al-Abdeh saying:
"I'm not aware of anything like that. If your purpose is to smear Barada TV, I don't want to continue this conversation. That's all I'm going to give you."
America's National Endowment for Democracy: A Global Regime Change Initiative
Besides covert CIA activities, US-government funded organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and International Republican Institute (IRI) operate as US foreign policy destabilizing instruments. They do it by supporting opposition group regime change efforts in countries like Syria, despite claiming "dedicat(ion) to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world....in more than 90 countries."
In MENA nations (Middle East/North Africa) alone, NED's web site lists activities in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Yemen, Kuwait, Morocco, Lebanon, Bahrain, Libya, Sudan, and Syria.
The IRI's web site includes (destabilizing anti-democratic) initiatives in Afghanistan, Egypt, GCC states, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, and Palestine.
Other US imperial organizations are also regionally active, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), operating contrary to their stated missions.
In January 1996, based on firsthand knowledge, former CIA agent (from 1952 - 1977) Ralph McGehee discussed covert NED efforts in Cuba, China, Russia and Vietnam, saying:
The government-funded organization "assumed many of the political action responsibilities of the CIA," including:
-- "efforts to influence foreign journalists;"
-- money laundering;
-- isolating "democratic-minded intellectuals and journalist in the third world;"
-- distributing propaganda articles "to regional editors on each continent;"
-- "disseminating an attack on people in Jamaica;"
-- funding anti-Castro groups in South Florida as well as Radio and TV Marti, airing regime change propaganda;
-- anti-communist grants; and
-- much more while claiming its mission is "guided by the belief that freedom is a universal human aspiration that can be realized through the development of democratic institutions, procedures and values."
In a 2005 interview, another former CIA agent (1957 - 1968), Philip Agee, author of "Inside the Company," explained NED's origins and covert efforts to destabilize and oust Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, calling efforts "similar to what (went on) in Nicaragua in the 1980s minus the Contra terrorist operations (that) wreaked so much destruction on the Nicaraguan economy."
Founded in 1982, NED distributes government funds to four other organizations, including the IRI, NDI, Chamber of Commerce's Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the AFL-CIO's American Center for International Labor Solidarity.
In fact, a 2010 Kim Scipes book titled, "AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage?" discusses its covert anti-worker "labor imperialism," including regime change initiatives.
Manipulated Popular Uprising in Syria
Since late January, popular uprisings began, suspiciously orchestrated by outside forces to destabilize and oust Assad. In fact, Richard Perle's 1996 "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," prepared for Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu during his first term, stated:
"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli objective in its own right."
It added:
"Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An affective approach, and one with which America can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon...."
"Given the nature of the regime in Damascus (much the same today), it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan comprehensive peace and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction programs, and rejecting land for peace deals on the Golan Heights," Syrian territory colonized by Israel since 1967.
Perle's report was a destabilization and regime change manifesto, implemented in Iraq, Libya, elsewhere in the region, and now Syria. The strategy includes managed news, funding internal and external dissident groups, and other initiatives to oust leaders like Assad.
On March 30, 2011, Haaretz writer Zvi Bar'el headlined "Why did website linked to Syria regime publish US-Saudi plan to oust Assad?" saying:
"According to the report....the plan was formulated in 2008 by the Saudi national security advisor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Jeffrey Feltman, a veteran US diplomat in the Middle East who was formerly ambassador to Lebanon and is currently the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs."
Dividing Syria into large cities, towns and villages, the plan involved "establishing five recruitment networks," using unemployed youths, criminals, other young people, and media efforts "funded by European countries but not" America, as well as a "capital network of businesspeople from the large cities."
Training included "sniper fire, arson, and murdering in cold blood," journalists reporting it by hard to monitor satellite phones depicting "human rights activists....demanding not the regime's fall," but need for social networks training "as a means for recruitment."
"After the recruitment and training phases, which would be funded by Saudi Arabia for about $2 billion," thousands of "activists" would be given communications equipment to begin public actions. "The plan also suggest(ed) igniting ethnic tensions between groups around the country to stir unrest," including in Damascus "to convince the military leadership to disassociate itself from Assad and establish a new regime."
"The hoped-for outcome is the establishment of a supreme national council that will run the country and terminate Syria's relations with Iran and Hezbollah."
The Jordan-based Dot and Com company was named as the behind the scenes recruiter, a company run by Saudi intelligence under Bandar to destabilize Syria and oust Assad.
Whether or not the plan was implemented, some of its features are now playing out violently across the country. Orchestrated in Washington, it's to install a totally "with the program" regime, the same war strategy ongoing in Libya.
A Final Comment
On April 28, Russia and China blocked a US-backed UK, French, German and Portugal proposed Security Council resolution condemning Syrian violence. Damascus' UN ambassador, Bashar Ja'arari, said it failed because several members were fair-minded enough to reject it, knowing Libya's fate after Resolution 1973, calling only for no-fly zone protection.
UN Undersecretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe reported about 400 deaths so far. Other estimates are higher. Russian, Chinese and Syrian representatives say government security forces killed by armed extremists are among them. According to RT.com:
"Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry had clearly outlined its position: it condemned all those responsible for the deaths of protesters during the clashes with the police. But, it urged (no intervention) in Syria's internal affairs," that could easily escalate to Western regime change plans.
Federation Council to the Asian Parliamentary Assembly, Rudik Iskuzhin, believes Syrian intervention may mean Iran is next, saying:
"We very well understand that the hidden motive of all of the recent revolutionary processes is Iran, to which the destabilization in Syria will eventually ricochet. Libya, just like Syria, was an important ally of" Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Western powers and Israel want the alliance subverted.
On April 29, China ruled out force against Syria, Foreign Affairs Ministry Vice-Minister He Yafei saying it "cannot bring a solution to the problem and will only cause a greater humanitarian crisis." Insisting proposed solutions comply with the UN Charter and international law, he added:
"Any help from the international community has to be constructive in nature, which is conducive to the restoration of stability and public order and ensuring the maintenance of economic and social life."
American intervention assures "constructive chaos," the agenda Washington pursues globally, focusing mainly on controlling Eurasia's enormous wealth and resources. Either one or multiple countries at a time, it includes turning Russia and China into vassal states, a goal neither Beijing or Moscow will tolerate.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 30 Apr 2011
imperialism
US Intervention in Syria - by Stephen Lendman
Despite genuine popular Middle East/North Africa uprisings, Washington's dirty hands orchestrated regime change plans in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, and Syria as part of its "New Middle East" project.
On November 18, 2006, Middle East analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya's Global Research article headlined, "Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a 'New Middle East,' " saying:
In June 2006 in Tel Aviv, "US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (first) coin(ed) the term" in place of the former "Greater Middle East" project, a shift in rhetoric only for Washington's longstanding imperial aims.
The new terminology "coincided with the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal in the Eastern Mediterranean." During Israel's summer 2006 Lebanon war, "Prime Minister Olmert and (Rice) informed the international media that a project for a 'New Middle East' was being launched in Lebanon," a plan in the works for years to "creat(e) an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan."
In other words, "constructive chaos" would be used to redraw the region according to US-Israeli "geo-strategic needs and objectives." The strategy is currently playing out violently in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria, and may erupt anywhere in the region to solidify Washington's aim for unchallengeable dominance from Morocco to Oman to Syria.
Partnered with Israel, it's to assure only leaders fully "with the program" are in place. Mostly isn't good enough, so ones like Mubarak, Gaddafi, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, likely Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh (now damaged goods), and Syria's Bashar al-Assad are targeted for removal by methods ranging from uprisings to coups, assassinations, or war, perhaps in that order.
Nazemroaya now says Syrian "protesters are being armed and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states via Jordan and Saad Hariri in Lebanon," besides US and Israeli involvement.
Pack Journalism Goes to War with Washington
America's pack journalism never met an America imperial initiative it didn't support and promote, no matter how lawless, mindless, destructive or counterproductive. For example, an April 28 New York Times editorial headlined, "President Assad's Crackdown," saying:
He "appears determined to join his father in the ranks of history's blood-stained dictators, sending his troops and thugs to murder anyone who has the courage to demand political freedom."
Whether about Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, Haiti's Aristide, former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, Venezuela's Chavez or others for many decades, Times "journalists" and opinion writers have a sordid history of supporting America's imperial ruthlessness, including perpetual wars killing millions for power, profit, and unchallengeable dominance.
Now Times writers laud Obama for intervening in Libya and trying "to engage Syria....in hopes that Mr. Assad would make the right choice," meaning get "with the program" by surrendering Syrian sovereignty.
Despite clear evidence of US intervention, Obama "issued a statement condemning the violence and accusing Mr. Assad of seeking Iranian assistance in brutalizing his people. That is a start, but it is not nearly enough."
War is always a last choice so The Times endorses "international condemnation and tough sanctions, (as well as) asset freezes and travel bans for Mr. Assad and his top supporters and a complete arms embargo."
However, "Russia and China, as ever, are determined to protect autocrats. That cannot be the last word."
Times opinions are shamelessly belligerent, one-sided, wrong-headed, and mindless on rule of law issues, including about prohibitions against meddling in the internal affairs of other countries except in self-defense until the Security Council acts.
Instead, the "newspaper of record" remains America's leading managed news source, backing the worst of Washington's imperial arrogance and ruthlessness. As a result, it omits inconvenient facts to make its case, including America's notorious ties to numerous global despots on every continent.
WikiLeaks Released Cables Expose America's Regime Change Plan
Though widely reported since mid-April, The Times hasn't acknowledged information (though sketchy) from Washington Post writer Craig Whitlock's April 17 report headlined, "US secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show," saying:
Through its Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), "The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel (London-based Barada TV) that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables."
"Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of (pro-Western) Syrian exiles."
Funding began at least after the Bush administration cut ties with Damascus in 2005. In April 2009, a diplomatic cable from Damascus said:
"A reassessment of current US-sponsored programming that supports anti-(government) factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive."
In February 2006, Bush officials announced funding to "accelerate the work of reformers in Syria." Nonetheless, Barada TV denied receiving money, its news director Malik al-Abdeh saying:
"I'm not aware of anything like that. If your purpose is to smear Barada TV, I don't want to continue this conversation. That's all I'm going to give you."
America's National Endowment for Democracy: A Global Regime Change Initiative
Besides covert CIA activities, US-government funded organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and International Republican Institute (IRI) operate as US foreign policy destabilizing instruments. They do it by supporting opposition group regime change efforts in countries like Syria, despite claiming "dedicat(ion) to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world....in more than 90 countries."
In MENA nations (Middle East/North Africa) alone, NED's web site lists activities in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Yemen, Kuwait, Morocco, Lebanon, Bahrain, Libya, Sudan, and Syria.
The IRI's web site includes (destabilizing anti-democratic) initiatives in Afghanistan, Egypt, GCC states, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, and Palestine.
Other US imperial organizations are also regionally active, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), operating contrary to their stated missions.
In January 1996, based on firsthand knowledge, former CIA agent (from 1952 - 1977) Ralph McGehee discussed covert NED efforts in Cuba, China, Russia and Vietnam, saying:
The government-funded organization "assumed many of the political action responsibilities of the CIA," including:
-- "efforts to influence foreign journalists;"
-- money laundering;
-- isolating "democratic-minded intellectuals and journalist in the third world;"
-- distributing propaganda articles "to regional editors on each continent;"
-- "disseminating an attack on people in Jamaica;"
-- funding anti-Castro groups in South Florida as well as Radio and TV Marti, airing regime change propaganda;
-- anti-communist grants; and
-- much more while claiming its mission is "guided by the belief that freedom is a universal human aspiration that can be realized through the development of democratic institutions, procedures and values."
In a 2005 interview, another former CIA agent (1957 - 1968), Philip Agee, author of "Inside the Company," explained NED's origins and covert efforts to destabilize and oust Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, calling efforts "similar to what (went on) in Nicaragua in the 1980s minus the Contra terrorist operations (that) wreaked so much destruction on the Nicaraguan economy."
Founded in 1982, NED distributes government funds to four other organizations, including the IRI, NDI, Chamber of Commerce's Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the AFL-CIO's American Center for International Labor Solidarity.
In fact, a 2010 Kim Scipes book titled, "AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage?" discusses its covert anti-worker "labor imperialism," including regime change initiatives.
Manipulated Popular Uprising in Syria
Since late January, popular uprisings began, suspiciously orchestrated by outside forces to destabilize and oust Assad. In fact, Richard Perle's 1996 "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," prepared for Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu during his first term, stated:
"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli objective in its own right."
It added:
"Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An affective approach, and one with which America can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon...."
"Given the nature of the regime in Damascus (much the same today), it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan comprehensive peace and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction programs, and rejecting land for peace deals on the Golan Heights," Syrian territory colonized by Israel since 1967.
Perle's report was a destabilization and regime change manifesto, implemented in Iraq, Libya, elsewhere in the region, and now Syria. The strategy includes managed news, funding internal and external dissident groups, and other initiatives to oust leaders like Assad.
On March 30, 2011, Haaretz writer Zvi Bar'el headlined "Why did website linked to Syria regime publish US-Saudi plan to oust Assad?" saying:
"According to the report....the plan was formulated in 2008 by the Saudi national security advisor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Jeffrey Feltman, a veteran US diplomat in the Middle East who was formerly ambassador to Lebanon and is currently the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs."
Dividing Syria into large cities, towns and villages, the plan involved "establishing five recruitment networks," using unemployed youths, criminals, other young people, and media efforts "funded by European countries but not" America, as well as a "capital network of businesspeople from the large cities."
Training included "sniper fire, arson, and murdering in cold blood," journalists reporting it by hard to monitor satellite phones depicting "human rights activists....demanding not the regime's fall," but need for social networks training "as a means for recruitment."
"After the recruitment and training phases, which would be funded by Saudi Arabia for about $2 billion," thousands of "activists" would be given communications equipment to begin public actions. "The plan also suggest(ed) igniting ethnic tensions between groups around the country to stir unrest," including in Damascus "to convince the military leadership to disassociate itself from Assad and establish a new regime."
"The hoped-for outcome is the establishment of a supreme national council that will run the country and terminate Syria's relations with Iran and Hezbollah."
The Jordan-based Dot and Com company was named as the behind the scenes recruiter, a company run by Saudi intelligence under Bandar to destabilize Syria and oust Assad.
Whether or not the plan was implemented, some of its features are now playing out violently across the country. Orchestrated in Washington, it's to install a totally "with the program" regime, the same war strategy ongoing in Libya.
A Final Comment
On April 28, Russia and China blocked a US-backed UK, French, German and Portugal proposed Security Council resolution condemning Syrian violence. Damascus' UN ambassador, Bashar Ja'arari, said it failed because several members were fair-minded enough to reject it, knowing Libya's fate after Resolution 1973, calling only for no-fly zone protection.
UN Undersecretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe reported about 400 deaths so far. Other estimates are higher. Russian, Chinese and Syrian representatives say government security forces killed by armed extremists are among them. According to RT.com:
"Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry had clearly outlined its position: it condemned all those responsible for the deaths of protesters during the clashes with the police. But, it urged (no intervention) in Syria's internal affairs," that could easily escalate to Western regime change plans.
Federation Council to the Asian Parliamentary Assembly, Rudik Iskuzhin, believes Syrian intervention may mean Iran is next, saying:
"We very well understand that the hidden motive of all of the recent revolutionary processes is Iran, to which the destabilization in Syria will eventually ricochet. Libya, just like Syria, was an important ally of" Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Western powers and Israel want the alliance subverted.
On April 29, China ruled out force against Syria, Foreign Affairs Ministry Vice-Minister He Yafei saying it "cannot bring a solution to the problem and will only cause a greater humanitarian crisis." Insisting proposed solutions comply with the UN Charter and international law, he added:
"Any help from the international community has to be constructive in nature, which is conducive to the restoration of stability and public order and ensuring the maintenance of economic and social life."
American intervention assures "constructive chaos," the agenda Washington pursues globally, focusing mainly on controlling Eurasia's enormous wealth and resources. Either one or multiple countries at a time, it includes turning Russia and China into vassal states, a goal neither Beijing or Moscow will tolerate.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
A Jeff Bridges Retrospective- “Stick It” (Yes, Stick It)- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Stick It, starring Jeff Bridges.
DVD Review
Stick It, starring Jeff Bridges, Missy Peregrym, Touchstone Films,2006
Over the past year or so, since he won the Academy Award for best actor for his role as broken down country singer/songwriter Bad Blake in Crazy Hearts I have been reviewing the cinematic work of Jeff Bridges as his films have come into my hands. Most of my reviews have been positive reflecting the very real talent and flare that Jeff Bridges brings to the movies. That said, I am at a lost for why he did the film under review, Stick It, that while marginally entertaining at times is an incredible waste of his time and talent. Now I am not, and never have been, privy to the decisions that actors make about taking on scripts. Maybe they see something in the plot line, maybe they are looking for something a little edgy, or maybe just for the dough, not an unimportant consideration in fickle movie land. But now I can add Jeff Bridges to the vast number of very talented actors that have been in “turkeys”, for whatever reason.
Strangely, it is not the subject matter, the trials and tribulation of a troubled, ex- or maybe not so ex- gymnast (Haley Graham, played by Missy Peregrym) trying tot find her place in the world, the non-monastic gymnastics training world that is off here but the subtext that the teenage rebellion of a gymnast attempting to dramatically change the way the sport is conducted has enough energy to fill an hour and one half film. It really doesn’t since an amazing amount of time is spent in various clips of gym activity. And Jeff Bridges as a washed-out (kind of) gym camp owner is in the thick of this thing as Haley’s substitute father/confessor. There are plenty of issues (sexual, physical, psychological) that could have been raised by a close look at the cult-like elite gymnastics world (or any high-level sports training) but none, other than a silly attack on the scoring system, are by a film which decided that it did not want to tackle them and played instead to a kind of campy teenage melodrama. And high talent (although poor gymnast and sage) Jeff Bridges got caught in the middle.
DVD Review
Stick It, starring Jeff Bridges, Missy Peregrym, Touchstone Films,2006
Over the past year or so, since he won the Academy Award for best actor for his role as broken down country singer/songwriter Bad Blake in Crazy Hearts I have been reviewing the cinematic work of Jeff Bridges as his films have come into my hands. Most of my reviews have been positive reflecting the very real talent and flare that Jeff Bridges brings to the movies. That said, I am at a lost for why he did the film under review, Stick It, that while marginally entertaining at times is an incredible waste of his time and talent. Now I am not, and never have been, privy to the decisions that actors make about taking on scripts. Maybe they see something in the plot line, maybe they are looking for something a little edgy, or maybe just for the dough, not an unimportant consideration in fickle movie land. But now I can add Jeff Bridges to the vast number of very talented actors that have been in “turkeys”, for whatever reason.
Strangely, it is not the subject matter, the trials and tribulation of a troubled, ex- or maybe not so ex- gymnast (Haley Graham, played by Missy Peregrym) trying tot find her place in the world, the non-monastic gymnastics training world that is off here but the subtext that the teenage rebellion of a gymnast attempting to dramatically change the way the sport is conducted has enough energy to fill an hour and one half film. It really doesn’t since an amazing amount of time is spent in various clips of gym activity. And Jeff Bridges as a washed-out (kind of) gym camp owner is in the thick of this thing as Haley’s substitute father/confessor. There are plenty of issues (sexual, physical, psychological) that could have been raised by a close look at the cult-like elite gymnastics world (or any high-level sports training) but none, other than a silly attack on the scoring system, are by a film which decided that it did not want to tackle them and played instead to a kind of campy teenage melodrama. And high talent (although poor gymnast and sage) Jeff Bridges got caught in the middle.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
*On The 125th Anniversary- Remember The Haymarket Martyrs- May Day Is Our Workers' Holiday
Click On Title To Link To BAAM Newsletter (local Boston anarchist collective) site for two good introductory articles about the labor struggles of the 19th century and a biographic sketch of the heroic anarchist (and later American Communist Party member) Lucy Parsons, widow of Haymarket martyr Albert Parson and revolutionary fighter in her own right. While my sympathies are clearly with the communist wing on the left wing continuum, especially the struggles led by Leon Trotsky to save the heritage of the Russian Revolution in the 1920’s and 1930’s, the main points of these articles are made by kindred spirits that all labor militants can stand in solidarity with as part of our common labor history.
Markin comment-repost
As is always appropriate on international working class holidays and days of remembrance here is the song most closely associated with that movement The Internationale in English, French and German. I will not vouch for the closeness of the translations but certainly of the spirit. Workers Of The World Unite!
The Internationale [variant words in square brackets]
Arise ye workers [starvelings] from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.
No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty [give up their booty]
And give to all a happier lot.
Each [those] at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.
________________________________________
L'Internationale
Debout les damnés de la terre
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin
Du passe faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout
C'est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous, et demain (bis)
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain
Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
Décrétons le salut commun
Pour que le voleur rende gorge
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
Battons le fer quand il est chaud
L'état comprime et la loi triche
L'impôt saigne le malheureux
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux
C'est assez, languir en tutelle
L'égalité veut d'autres lois
Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle
Egaux, pas de devoirs sans droits
Hideux dans leur apothéose
Les rois de la mine et du rail
Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose
Que dévaliser le travail
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande
Ce qu'il a crée s'est fondu
En décrétant qu'on le lui rende
Le peuple ne veut que son dû.
Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans
Appliquons la grève aux armées
Crosse en l'air, et rompons les rangs
S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales
A faire de nous des héros
Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles
Sont pour nos propres généraux
Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand parti des travailleurs
La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes
L'oisif ira loger ailleurs
Combien, de nos chairs se repaissent
Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours
Un de ces matins disparaissent
Le soleil brillera toujours.
________________________________________
Die Internationale
Wacht auf, Verdammte dieser Erde,
die stets man noch zum Hungern zwingt!
Das Recht wie Glut im Kraterherde
nun mit Macht zum Durchbruch dringt.
Reinen Tisch macht mit dem Bedranger!
Heer der Sklaven, wache auf!
Ein nichts zu sein, tragt es nicht langer
Alles zu werden, stromt zuhauf!
Volker, hort die Signale!
Auf, zum letzten Gefecht!
Die Internationale
Erkampft das Menschenrecht
Es rettet uns kein hoh'res Wesen
kein Gott, kein Kaiser, noch Tribun
Uns aus dem Elend zu erlosen
konnen wir nur selber tun!
Leeres Wort: des armen Rechte,
Leeres Wort: des Reichen Pflicht!
Unmundigt nennt man uns Knechte,
duldet die Schmach langer nicht!
In Stadt und Land, ihr Arbeitsleute,
wir sind die starkste Partei'n
Die Mussigganger schiebt beiseite!
Diese Welt muss unser sein;
Unser Blut sei nicht mehr der Raben
und der machtigen Geier Frass!
Erst wenn wir sie vertrieben haben
dann scheint die Sonn' ohn' Unterlass!
Markin comment-repost
As is always appropriate on international working class holidays and days of remembrance here is the song most closely associated with that movement The Internationale in English, French and German. I will not vouch for the closeness of the translations but certainly of the spirit. Workers Of The World Unite!
The Internationale [variant words in square brackets]
Arise ye workers [starvelings] from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth [forthwith] the old tradition [conditions]
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale unites the human race.
No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.
No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty [give up their booty]
And give to all a happier lot.
Each [those] at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.
________________________________________
L'Internationale
Debout les damnés de la terre
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin
Du passe faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout
C'est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous, et demain (bis)
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain
Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
Décrétons le salut commun
Pour que le voleur rende gorge
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
Battons le fer quand il est chaud
L'état comprime et la loi triche
L'impôt saigne le malheureux
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux
C'est assez, languir en tutelle
L'égalité veut d'autres lois
Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle
Egaux, pas de devoirs sans droits
Hideux dans leur apothéose
Les rois de la mine et du rail
Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose
Que dévaliser le travail
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande
Ce qu'il a crée s'est fondu
En décrétant qu'on le lui rende
Le peuple ne veut que son dû.
Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans
Appliquons la grève aux armées
Crosse en l'air, et rompons les rangs
S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales
A faire de nous des héros
Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles
Sont pour nos propres généraux
Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes
Le grand parti des travailleurs
La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes
L'oisif ira loger ailleurs
Combien, de nos chairs se repaissent
Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours
Un de ces matins disparaissent
Le soleil brillera toujours.
________________________________________
Die Internationale
Wacht auf, Verdammte dieser Erde,
die stets man noch zum Hungern zwingt!
Das Recht wie Glut im Kraterherde
nun mit Macht zum Durchbruch dringt.
Reinen Tisch macht mit dem Bedranger!
Heer der Sklaven, wache auf!
Ein nichts zu sein, tragt es nicht langer
Alles zu werden, stromt zuhauf!
Volker, hort die Signale!
Auf, zum letzten Gefecht!
Die Internationale
Erkampft das Menschenrecht
Es rettet uns kein hoh'res Wesen
kein Gott, kein Kaiser, noch Tribun
Uns aus dem Elend zu erlosen
konnen wir nur selber tun!
Leeres Wort: des armen Rechte,
Leeres Wort: des Reichen Pflicht!
Unmundigt nennt man uns Knechte,
duldet die Schmach langer nicht!
In Stadt und Land, ihr Arbeitsleute,
wir sind die starkste Partei'n
Die Mussigganger schiebt beiseite!
Diese Welt muss unser sein;
Unser Blut sei nicht mehr der Raben
und der machtigen Geier Frass!
Erst wenn wir sie vertrieben haben
dann scheint die Sonn' ohn' Unterlass!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
From The Archives Of The International Communist League-For a Labor-Socialist Ticket in 1968 (In The U.S.)
Markin comment:
In October 2010 I started what I anticipate will be an on-going series, From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America), starting date October 2, 2010, where I will place documents from, and make comments on, various aspects of the early days of the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Worker Party in America. As I noted in the introduction to that series Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement than in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League.
After mentioning the thread of international linkage through various organizations from the First to the Fourth International I also noted that on the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I was speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Eugene V. Debs' Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that led up to the Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Further, I noted that beyond the SWP that there were several directions to go in but that those earlier lines were the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s.
I am continuing today what I also anticipate will be an on-going series about one of those strands past the 1960s when the SWP lost it revolutionary appetite, what was then the Revolutionary Tendency (RT) and what is now the Spartacist League (SL/U.S.), the U.S. section of the International Communist League (ICL). I intend to post materials from other strands but there are several reasons for starting with the SL/U.S. A main one, as the document below will make clear, is that the origin core of that organization fought, unsuccessfully in the end, to struggle from the inside (an important point) to turn the SWP back on a revolutionary course, as they saw it. Moreover, a number of the other organizations that I will cover later trace their origins to the SL, including the very helpful source for posting this material, the International Bolshevik Tendency.
However as I noted in posting a document from Spartacist, the theoretical journal of ICL posted via the International Bolshevik Tendency website that is not the main reason I am starting with the SL/U.S. Although I am not a political supporter of either organization in the accepted Leninist sense of that term, more often than not, and at times and on certain questions very much more often than not, my own political views and those of the International Communist League coincide. I am also, and I make no bones about it, a fervent supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a social and legal defense organization linked to the ICL and committed, in the traditions of the IWW, the early International Labor Defense-legal defense arm of the Communist International, and the early defense work of the American Socialist Workers Party, to the struggles for freedom of all class-war prisoners and defense of other related social struggles.
***********
Markin comment on this article:
Note: The commentary below addresses my thoughts on the concept of the labor-socialist party slogan as a general proposition. The thrust of the article centers on running presidential and vice-presidential candidates through such a vehicle. Since that time the International Communist League has rejected the then common (1968) view among Trotskyists, including orthodox Trotskyists like the Spartacist League, that it was principled to run for the executive offices of the bourgeois state. That newer understanding of the role of the bourgeois state would now preclude presidential candidacies (although not the possibility for critical support to other working class formations). My comment should be taken in that context although today such propaganda would center on running for legislative offices as “tribunes of the people.”
*****
In hindsight, given the muddle of left-wing politics in 1968, the notion of a broad labor-socialist presidential campaign based on the trade unions, black liberation fighters, and radicalized youth seems very appealing today. Even as a propaganda slogan. With the highly symbolic nature of the Tet offensive in Vietnam in exposing the military quagmire there for all to see, the disintegration of tradition ties and turmoil in the left-wing of the Democratic Party (and among their fellow-travelers) in the aftermath of Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to run for reelection after Senator Eugene McCarthy’s good showing in New Hampshire, the entry of, and subsequent assassination, of left-wing bourgeois icon, Robert Kennedy, and the various futile Peace and Freedom-type lash-ups organized to rein in the discontent this was a politically timely slogan.
Of course that is hindsight for a now pristine communist propagandist. Back then, back then in the mud of bourgeois politics that this writer was neck-deep into, the notion, the far out notion, that some non-Democratic Party operation would be formed to siphon off votes from the Democratic presidential candidate would have incurred my ire. Didn’t you know that the main enemy in the world, the “real” world, brothers and sisters, was one Richard Milhous Nixon, one time President of the United States and a common criminal. Save your labor-socialist slogan for 1972 when one Hubert Horatio Humphrey was up for re-election and the stakes were not so high.
Yes, it was that bad, bourgeois democratic politics bad. I started the year with my beloved bad boy, badass Irish boy, Robert Kennedy- the last time that I was mad for a bourgeois candidate as I have mentioned previously. But due to that man, that Nixon man, and the need to beat him at all costs (and to begin to make my way in the maze of upwardly mobile bourgeois politics) I worked, and worked hard by the way, for HHH.
Of course that was a time, a time out of joint if you will, when my politics, my politics on the ground, were out of synch, way out of synch, with my organizational affiliations. I was no crypto-communist, no question, but neither was I a Democratic Party hack. So it is possible to learn something in this wicked old world. And that something is that in the “real world” we desperately need to fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government. See, easy.
************
For a Labor-Socialist Ticket in 1968
Spartacist number 11, March-April 1968
The 1968 elections come at a time of enormous discontent over the Vietnam war, deeply-felt and violent outbursts of disillusionment among the Negro masses, and an upsurge in labor militancy and rash of hard-fought strikes. The exposure of the Democratic Party as the party of savage racist oppression in the American cities and imperialist intervention in Vietnam sharply poses the necessity of a break with the two capitalist parties in favor of a Freedom-Labor Party based on a working-class program which can link up the issues of the war, the ghetto and the labor struggle. The 1968 Presidential elections offer the best opportunity in 20 years for the intervention of radicals in the electoral arena through the form of a labor-socialist ticket—to consist for example of a local trade union leader and a socialist, one of whom might well be black—which could build wide support for a decisive break with capitalist politics and lay the basis for a movement to struggle for a Freedom-Labor Party.
Need for a Working-Class Party
The United States is the only advanced capitalist country which does not have some kind of mass party of the working class. The need for such a party of working-class struggle has long been recognized by Marxists and was included as one of the basic points of the Transitional Program of the Fourth International. The increasing recognition of the role of the Democratic Party in the maintenance of the capitalist status quo poses this question sharply as the necessary consequence not only of the objective situation but of needs which are becoming widely subjectively felt by broad sections of the population—student radicals, ghetto militants and now, following a period of relative labor quiescence, sections of the working class.
Yet the American Left, faced with such immense possibilities for the intervention of a radical program, exhibits increasingly its lack of any perspective for this period and turns more and more to passive enthusing and mindless activism combined with an essential cynicism toward a relevant perspective for social change.
American radicalism has long been confronted by the seemingly permanent situation of a working class which has shown itself, even in periods of great militancy and willingness to fight for economic demands, politically pragmatic and complacent, with an explicit philosophy, on the political scene, which is essentially passive—"rewarding the (so-called) friends of labor and punishing its enemies." Such a situation, of course, is not an abstract and a priori phenomenon, but exists in the context of the historic betrayals and misleaderships of the working class by those who presumed to speak in the name of radicalism. One of the healthy features of the New Left movement, and certainly one of the formative factors of its ideology, has been the rejection of the example of the old Communist Party—the New Left generalizes this to "the Old Left"—with its history of capitulationist politicking which found its clearest expression in the support of Roosevelt and the New Deal and continues today as the "Reform Democrat" orientation.
Political Struggle, Not Abstentionism
But the New Left, while presuming to have rejected this approach to radical politics, has actually taken over one of the basic underlying conceptions of this outlook—the equating of struggle on the political front with cynical maneuvering toward the various enemies of the working class. The New Left has instead embraced a concept of non-political and even anti-political militancy and activism. It mindlessly throws its energies into self-destructive physical "confrontation" with the "war-makers" and passively and enthusiastically applauds the directionless and programless ghetto outbursts which leave the situation of the black masses unchanged. The New Left rejects out of hand the possibility for working-class struggle, viewing the political passivity of the workers as given, rather than the result of the absence of a revolutionary leadership. By rejecting an orientation to revolutionary political struggle, the New Left dooms its efforts to failure, and its cadres to disillusionment and disorganization. Impatience and cynicism do not make a program.
The result of this rejection of any kind of political struggle by the radicals is the continuation of the reformist status quo. The recognition of the need for political struggle and the utilization of this recognition remains in the hands of the reformist fakers, best exemplified by Irving Howe and his ilk, to whom politics is synonymous with "coalitionism." The demonstrated militancy of the trade unions remains tied to the liberal trade union bureaucracies; the black ghetto, despite its deep disgust with and rejection of the liberal establishment, still votes Democratic at election time. All opportunity for political struggle remains the monopoly of those whose only concept of politics is maneuvering within the capitalist system.
Failure of the CNP
The spectacular failure of the Conference for New Politics only serves to demonstrate this lack of a political perspective for the radical movement. The participants at the Conference were unable to distinguish between independent working-class politics and the use of the forms of independence to further the aims of coalition politics within the system. Common to all the competing political alternatives was the attempt to build an outside base of a temporary sort from which to exert pressure within the existing framework. With the limits of such a perspective, the radicals were unable to break from those whose aims are an admittedly temporary break with the Democratic Party because its naked exposure as the primary tool of racist brutality and imperialist slaughter is an embarrassment and a threat to the maintenance of capitalist rule. Those at the Conference who were perhaps opposed to this underlying conception of political action could see no alternative but the diffuse and unrewarding perspective of "community organizing" without a program.
SWP’s Opportunism
The announced presidential campaign of the Socialist Workers Party in the 1968 elections must be seen in this context. The whole role of the SWP in radical politics has been to reinforce the fragmentation of current struggles into isolated compartments of militancy, without a perspective for linking up these struggles into an anti-capitalist one. While the SWP gives lip service to some acceptable demands and even includes in its formal program the call for a labor party, it accepts the present vacuum on the left as given and, instead of intervening to change it, actually seeks to head off the development of a broader perspective by jumping into the ring a year early in order to "cop the field" for its own candidates.
Towards a Labor Party!
The Spartacist League, at this juncture, calls for the formation of a broadly-based labor and socialist ticket, as a concrete step in the building of a political party of the U.S. working class. Such a campaign, which would link up the anti-war sentiment to which the SWP seeks to appeal with the broader felt needs of the masses, would transcend the sterile concept of a "protest vote" in posing the need for independent working-class political action on a real scale. The fight to build such a campaign would provide a focal point for rank-and-file struggle in the unions around the issues of the Vietnam war, the rights of black workers, union demands and strike struggles, rank-and-file control of the unions, the fight to break the unions’ reliance on and ties with the capitalist state, a fundamental break with the Democratic and Republican parties and the enfranchisement of the working people in a political party to fight for their needs. Out of this struggle could come the forerunner committees to a Labor Party.
Thus the Spartacist League does not at this point endorse any of the essentially defective variants, rather seeking to help shape a real alternative to capitalist politics. If this fuller perspective has not materialized by the summer of 1968, it would then be necessary to choose from among whatever supportable possibilities exist at that time. In the interim, we will seek to assist the SWP, as we might any tendency within the working-class movement, to meet the technicalities of ballot entry, while calling upon them to indicate their willingness to withdraw at least part of their ticket in favor of a labor-socialist one and to work for the formation of such a ticket.
FOR A LABOR-SOCIALIST TICKET IN ’68!
In October 2010 I started what I anticipate will be an on-going series, From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America), starting date October 2, 2010, where I will place documents from, and make comments on, various aspects of the early days of the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Worker Party in America. As I noted in the introduction to that series Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement than in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League.
After mentioning the thread of international linkage through various organizations from the First to the Fourth International I also noted that on the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I was speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Eugene V. Debs' Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that led up to the Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Further, I noted that beyond the SWP that there were several directions to go in but that those earlier lines were the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s.
I am continuing today what I also anticipate will be an on-going series about one of those strands past the 1960s when the SWP lost it revolutionary appetite, what was then the Revolutionary Tendency (RT) and what is now the Spartacist League (SL/U.S.), the U.S. section of the International Communist League (ICL). I intend to post materials from other strands but there are several reasons for starting with the SL/U.S. A main one, as the document below will make clear, is that the origin core of that organization fought, unsuccessfully in the end, to struggle from the inside (an important point) to turn the SWP back on a revolutionary course, as they saw it. Moreover, a number of the other organizations that I will cover later trace their origins to the SL, including the very helpful source for posting this material, the International Bolshevik Tendency.
However as I noted in posting a document from Spartacist, the theoretical journal of ICL posted via the International Bolshevik Tendency website that is not the main reason I am starting with the SL/U.S. Although I am not a political supporter of either organization in the accepted Leninist sense of that term, more often than not, and at times and on certain questions very much more often than not, my own political views and those of the International Communist League coincide. I am also, and I make no bones about it, a fervent supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a social and legal defense organization linked to the ICL and committed, in the traditions of the IWW, the early International Labor Defense-legal defense arm of the Communist International, and the early defense work of the American Socialist Workers Party, to the struggles for freedom of all class-war prisoners and defense of other related social struggles.
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Markin comment on this article:
Note: The commentary below addresses my thoughts on the concept of the labor-socialist party slogan as a general proposition. The thrust of the article centers on running presidential and vice-presidential candidates through such a vehicle. Since that time the International Communist League has rejected the then common (1968) view among Trotskyists, including orthodox Trotskyists like the Spartacist League, that it was principled to run for the executive offices of the bourgeois state. That newer understanding of the role of the bourgeois state would now preclude presidential candidacies (although not the possibility for critical support to other working class formations). My comment should be taken in that context although today such propaganda would center on running for legislative offices as “tribunes of the people.”
*****
In hindsight, given the muddle of left-wing politics in 1968, the notion of a broad labor-socialist presidential campaign based on the trade unions, black liberation fighters, and radicalized youth seems very appealing today. Even as a propaganda slogan. With the highly symbolic nature of the Tet offensive in Vietnam in exposing the military quagmire there for all to see, the disintegration of tradition ties and turmoil in the left-wing of the Democratic Party (and among their fellow-travelers) in the aftermath of Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to run for reelection after Senator Eugene McCarthy’s good showing in New Hampshire, the entry of, and subsequent assassination, of left-wing bourgeois icon, Robert Kennedy, and the various futile Peace and Freedom-type lash-ups organized to rein in the discontent this was a politically timely slogan.
Of course that is hindsight for a now pristine communist propagandist. Back then, back then in the mud of bourgeois politics that this writer was neck-deep into, the notion, the far out notion, that some non-Democratic Party operation would be formed to siphon off votes from the Democratic presidential candidate would have incurred my ire. Didn’t you know that the main enemy in the world, the “real” world, brothers and sisters, was one Richard Milhous Nixon, one time President of the United States and a common criminal. Save your labor-socialist slogan for 1972 when one Hubert Horatio Humphrey was up for re-election and the stakes were not so high.
Yes, it was that bad, bourgeois democratic politics bad. I started the year with my beloved bad boy, badass Irish boy, Robert Kennedy- the last time that I was mad for a bourgeois candidate as I have mentioned previously. But due to that man, that Nixon man, and the need to beat him at all costs (and to begin to make my way in the maze of upwardly mobile bourgeois politics) I worked, and worked hard by the way, for HHH.
Of course that was a time, a time out of joint if you will, when my politics, my politics on the ground, were out of synch, way out of synch, with my organizational affiliations. I was no crypto-communist, no question, but neither was I a Democratic Party hack. So it is possible to learn something in this wicked old world. And that something is that in the “real world” we desperately need to fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government. See, easy.
************
For a Labor-Socialist Ticket in 1968
Spartacist number 11, March-April 1968
The 1968 elections come at a time of enormous discontent over the Vietnam war, deeply-felt and violent outbursts of disillusionment among the Negro masses, and an upsurge in labor militancy and rash of hard-fought strikes. The exposure of the Democratic Party as the party of savage racist oppression in the American cities and imperialist intervention in Vietnam sharply poses the necessity of a break with the two capitalist parties in favor of a Freedom-Labor Party based on a working-class program which can link up the issues of the war, the ghetto and the labor struggle. The 1968 Presidential elections offer the best opportunity in 20 years for the intervention of radicals in the electoral arena through the form of a labor-socialist ticket—to consist for example of a local trade union leader and a socialist, one of whom might well be black—which could build wide support for a decisive break with capitalist politics and lay the basis for a movement to struggle for a Freedom-Labor Party.
Need for a Working-Class Party
The United States is the only advanced capitalist country which does not have some kind of mass party of the working class. The need for such a party of working-class struggle has long been recognized by Marxists and was included as one of the basic points of the Transitional Program of the Fourth International. The increasing recognition of the role of the Democratic Party in the maintenance of the capitalist status quo poses this question sharply as the necessary consequence not only of the objective situation but of needs which are becoming widely subjectively felt by broad sections of the population—student radicals, ghetto militants and now, following a period of relative labor quiescence, sections of the working class.
Yet the American Left, faced with such immense possibilities for the intervention of a radical program, exhibits increasingly its lack of any perspective for this period and turns more and more to passive enthusing and mindless activism combined with an essential cynicism toward a relevant perspective for social change.
American radicalism has long been confronted by the seemingly permanent situation of a working class which has shown itself, even in periods of great militancy and willingness to fight for economic demands, politically pragmatic and complacent, with an explicit philosophy, on the political scene, which is essentially passive—"rewarding the (so-called) friends of labor and punishing its enemies." Such a situation, of course, is not an abstract and a priori phenomenon, but exists in the context of the historic betrayals and misleaderships of the working class by those who presumed to speak in the name of radicalism. One of the healthy features of the New Left movement, and certainly one of the formative factors of its ideology, has been the rejection of the example of the old Communist Party—the New Left generalizes this to "the Old Left"—with its history of capitulationist politicking which found its clearest expression in the support of Roosevelt and the New Deal and continues today as the "Reform Democrat" orientation.
Political Struggle, Not Abstentionism
But the New Left, while presuming to have rejected this approach to radical politics, has actually taken over one of the basic underlying conceptions of this outlook—the equating of struggle on the political front with cynical maneuvering toward the various enemies of the working class. The New Left has instead embraced a concept of non-political and even anti-political militancy and activism. It mindlessly throws its energies into self-destructive physical "confrontation" with the "war-makers" and passively and enthusiastically applauds the directionless and programless ghetto outbursts which leave the situation of the black masses unchanged. The New Left rejects out of hand the possibility for working-class struggle, viewing the political passivity of the workers as given, rather than the result of the absence of a revolutionary leadership. By rejecting an orientation to revolutionary political struggle, the New Left dooms its efforts to failure, and its cadres to disillusionment and disorganization. Impatience and cynicism do not make a program.
The result of this rejection of any kind of political struggle by the radicals is the continuation of the reformist status quo. The recognition of the need for political struggle and the utilization of this recognition remains in the hands of the reformist fakers, best exemplified by Irving Howe and his ilk, to whom politics is synonymous with "coalitionism." The demonstrated militancy of the trade unions remains tied to the liberal trade union bureaucracies; the black ghetto, despite its deep disgust with and rejection of the liberal establishment, still votes Democratic at election time. All opportunity for political struggle remains the monopoly of those whose only concept of politics is maneuvering within the capitalist system.
Failure of the CNP
The spectacular failure of the Conference for New Politics only serves to demonstrate this lack of a political perspective for the radical movement. The participants at the Conference were unable to distinguish between independent working-class politics and the use of the forms of independence to further the aims of coalition politics within the system. Common to all the competing political alternatives was the attempt to build an outside base of a temporary sort from which to exert pressure within the existing framework. With the limits of such a perspective, the radicals were unable to break from those whose aims are an admittedly temporary break with the Democratic Party because its naked exposure as the primary tool of racist brutality and imperialist slaughter is an embarrassment and a threat to the maintenance of capitalist rule. Those at the Conference who were perhaps opposed to this underlying conception of political action could see no alternative but the diffuse and unrewarding perspective of "community organizing" without a program.
SWP’s Opportunism
The announced presidential campaign of the Socialist Workers Party in the 1968 elections must be seen in this context. The whole role of the SWP in radical politics has been to reinforce the fragmentation of current struggles into isolated compartments of militancy, without a perspective for linking up these struggles into an anti-capitalist one. While the SWP gives lip service to some acceptable demands and even includes in its formal program the call for a labor party, it accepts the present vacuum on the left as given and, instead of intervening to change it, actually seeks to head off the development of a broader perspective by jumping into the ring a year early in order to "cop the field" for its own candidates.
Towards a Labor Party!
The Spartacist League, at this juncture, calls for the formation of a broadly-based labor and socialist ticket, as a concrete step in the building of a political party of the U.S. working class. Such a campaign, which would link up the anti-war sentiment to which the SWP seeks to appeal with the broader felt needs of the masses, would transcend the sterile concept of a "protest vote" in posing the need for independent working-class political action on a real scale. The fight to build such a campaign would provide a focal point for rank-and-file struggle in the unions around the issues of the Vietnam war, the rights of black workers, union demands and strike struggles, rank-and-file control of the unions, the fight to break the unions’ reliance on and ties with the capitalist state, a fundamental break with the Democratic and Republican parties and the enfranchisement of the working people in a political party to fight for their needs. Out of this struggle could come the forerunner committees to a Labor Party.
Thus the Spartacist League does not at this point endorse any of the essentially defective variants, rather seeking to help shape a real alternative to capitalist politics. If this fuller perspective has not materialized by the summer of 1968, it would then be necessary to choose from among whatever supportable possibilities exist at that time. In the interim, we will seek to assist the SWP, as we might any tendency within the working-class movement, to meet the technicalities of ballot entry, while calling upon them to indicate their willingness to withdraw at least part of their ticket in favor of a labor-socialist one and to work for the formation of such a ticket.
FOR A LABOR-SOCIALIST TICKET IN ’68!
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