Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Major Media Promote War on Libya
Major Media Promote War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman
When imperial America wants war, peace advocates are shut out by official rhetoric and hawkish media reports supporting militarism, not diplomatic efforts to achieve peace. Those for it aren't heard. Hugo Chavez's government is one. On February 28, Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Nicolas Maduro, warned against belligerence saying:
"We would be against any military intervention against the Arabic people of Libya, and I'm sure that all peoples of the world would support a struggle against any interventionism that some powerful countries would commit against it....Arabic people who are in a process of rebellion, seeking a better destiny, (can) find their way to peace. (Venezuelans understand) very difficult times, (but have) gone about finding our ways to independence, democracy, and freedom, which in our case" is Bolarivarianism.
"Just as we were against the invasion of Iraq and the massacre of the Palestinian people of Gaza, we would be against any military (attack or) invasion of Libya."
Chavez added: We "want peace for this country and for the peoples of the world. Those who immediately condemn Libya don't talk about (Israel's) bombing (of Gaza, America assault on) Fallujah, and the thousands and thousands of deaths including children, women, and whole families. They are quiet about the bombing and massacres in Iraq, in Afghanistan, so they don't have the right to condemn anyone," especially from unverified reports.
Amidst hawkish official rhetoric and supportive media reports, Chavez and Maduro are shut out, unheard voices in the wilderness outside Venezuela and parts of Latin America.
Official US Policy: War Yes, Peace No
For imperial America, giving peace a chance isn't an option when war is planned to destroy another nation, replace its leader with a more amenable one, and plunder its resources. In Libya, its to exploit its vast energy reserves and people, commodities for greater profit.
A previous article said Gaddafi without question is despotic, governing by "fear and cronyism," treating Libya as his "private estate," as well as spawning a hierarchy of corrupt officials, disdainful of popular interests.
The same holds for dozens of other countries, most of which Washington supports, some as close allies. Ones allied with America escape media scrutiny, their crimes airbrushed from daily reports. Enemies, however, are pilloried, including by unverified misreporting, willfully distorting the truth, violating good journalism principles.
Until it closed at year end 2005, Chicago's famed City News Bureau gave young reporters rigorous training, explained in its notable principle: "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out with two independent sources." In other words, get it right or not at all, what's absent in today's deplorable reporting, from Fox to The New York Times, BBC and others, offering managed, not real news and information.
Fox News especially, as America's official voice of right wing politics. On US television, it's in full battle mode, beating the drums of war, its staff under strict management guidelines, manipulating facts to be hardline.
As a result, news anchor Jon Scott said, "If I were President Obama, I would unilaterally" impose a no-fly zone, no matter that doing so is an act of war. Bill O'Reilly called Obama's position "beyond wimpy." Sean Hannity wonders when America will attack Libya, calling Obama "extraordinarily weak." Glenn Beck said Wisconsin protests prove the Caliphate's presence in America. Other hosts are just as extreme. No wonder Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR) calls Fox "the most biased name in news." It reports. It decides. Truth is nowhere in sight.
The New York Times editorial headlined, "Qaddafi's Crimes and Fantasies," matched Fox, saying:
His "crimes continue to mount." Citing unverified reports, it said "Libyan Air Force warplanes bombed rebel-controlled areas in the eastern part of the country. Libyan special forces mounted ground assaults on two breakaway cities near the capital. (Finally), the United States (EU and UN want) Qaddafi and his cronies to go (and) called on the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes."
This is the same paper that exonerated Washington and Britain for fabricating Iraq WMD intelligence to justify war, citing London's whitewash Hutton inquiry in its January 29, 2004 editorial headlined, "Testing Two Leaders; Tony Blair, Vindicated."
Despite clear indictable evidence, The Times endorsed the findings for being "fully consistent with the information available to British intelligence (and Washington) at that time and that no claims then known to be false or unreliable were concluded." In fact, they were independently exposed as false and misleading, though nonetheless used to wage war.
Moreover, discredited reporter Judith Miller wrote daily propaganda, functioning as a Pentagon press agent, not a legitimate journalist. Commenting on her earlier, Alex Cockburn said:
"With Miller, we (sunk) to the level of straight press handout. Lay all Judith Miller....stories end to end, from late 2001 to June 2003, and you (got) a desolate picture of a reporter with an agenda, both manipulating and being manipulated by US government officials, Iraqi exiles and defectors, an entire Noah's Ark of scam-artists."
Worst of all was The Times itself for giving her daily front page space, then never adequately apologizing when their complicity was exposed. Powerful media outlets never have to say they're sorry. They stay in full battle mode against new targets.
Now Times editors have the audacity to advocate Libyan intervention for reasons other than humanitarian, including asset freezes, a no-fly zone, harsh sanctions, travel bans, encouraged insurrection, criminal prosecution, stopping just short of endorsing war, but expect that to change if Washington attacks.
The Washington Post is just as belligerent, its February 21 editorial headlined, "Moammar Gaddafi must pay for atrocities," saying:
His "beleaguered dictatorship (is) waging war against its own people and committing atrocities that demand not just condemnation but action by the outside world," accusing Gaddafi of committing genocide based on mostly unverified reports, according to reliable independent in-country sources. Nonetheless, the Post endorses "regime change" and International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution, ignoring far greater Bush and Obama administration crimes, ongoing daily but not reported.
On March 2, a Wall Street Journal editorial headlined, "The Reluctant American," saying:
"The moral and strategic case for US leadership in Libya is obvious. A terrorist regime is slaughtering its people who will appreciate America's support and protection. A bloody civil war could create chaos that turns Libya into a northern African failed state, an ideal home for terrorist groups. The US should support a provisional government that can take over when the regime collapses....What is Obama waiting for?"
Ask beleaguered Iraqis and Afghans if they appreciate US intervention, occupation, mass destruction, genocide, depravation, disease, and for many living early deaths! Ask them if they recommend this for Libyans! Ask them if they prefer America to Saddam and Taliban rulers!
Ask Kosovars and Serbs! Ask Koreans and Southeast Asians with long memories! Ask Central and Latin Americans! Ask Somalis and other African nationals! Ask Palestinians! Ask Libyans if they know what awaits them if America intervenes! If not, explain and let them decide! It won't for Washington's military option, growing more imminent daily.
On February 28, New York writers Mark Landler and Thom Shanker headlined, "US Readies Military Options on Libya," saying:
"The United States began moving warships toward Libya and froze $30 billion in (its) assets on Monday," ahead of plundering them, Libyan oil, and other resources, not mentioned in The Times report.
Conflict looks increasingly likely. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton want Gaddafi out "without further violence or delay." "No option is off the table," said Clinton, stopping just short of declaring war. Secretaries of State can't do it. Neither can presidents, but it hasn't stopped them since December 8, 1941, the last time America legally went to war.
In meetings with NATO allies, said The Times, "European officials have resisted military action," but didn't rule it out. "Should NATO get involved in a civil war to the south of the Mediterranean," asked French Prime Minister Francosi Fillon? "It is a question that at least merits some reflection before being launched," weasel words perhaps ahead of proceeding.
Pentagon officials want an international action mandate, either from NATO or the UN, usually easily pressured to get. War winds are blowing. Expect anything ahead, especially if misreporting incites it the way it precedes all US wars.
Notable was Al Jazeera's March 1 report headlining: "Battles rage in Libya," saying:
Gaddifi's forces stepped up attacks, including "fighter jets bomb(ing) an ammunition depot in the eastern city of Ajdabiya." Up to 2,000 deaths were reported in Tripoli. Many thousands fled. Gaddafi remains defiant.
Most of what Al Jajeera and Western media report isn't verified. Yet it's inflammatory enough to stoke war for "humanitarian intervention," the usual bogus reason America and Western nations use, the same one earlier for Iraq, Afghanistan and other imperial interventions. Affected nations are never the same.
Breaching Libyan Sovereignty
Britain and Germany already launched air operations to evacuate their citizens. France is sending two or more planeloads of aid to opposition forces in Benghazi. Italy suspended its Libyan nonaggression treaty, saying the state no longer exists, an outrageous assertion.
In a BBC interview, Gaddafi called Western actions "betrayal," adding: "They have no morals." Indeed not and never did, despite Big Oil profiting handsomely in Libya, and Gaddafi offering his security forces for America's "war on terror."
Nonetheless, he's targeted for removal, State Department spokesman PJ Crowley saying US officials have "been reaching out...to a range of figures within the opposition." Hillary Clinton added: "We are going to be ready and prepared to offer any kind of assistance that anyone wishes to have from the US." Nothing is ruled out, including weapons, intervention and war.
Nothing is said about client regimes engaged in similar or worse practices, including killing, arresting, torturing, and otherwise abusing thousands of its citizens. Decades of Israeli atrocities are ignored. So are those of Iraq and Afghanistan puppet governments, proxy force belligerence in Somalia and elsewhere, and numerous global client states doing the same things.
Only outlier leaders are vilified, in Gaddafi's case an embraced one now betrayed for broader aims. Washington seeks greater regional dominance. Doing it requires compliant leaders, willing to let America and European nations colonize their countries, plunder their resources, exploit their people, and provide locations for new Pentagon bases. For six and half million Libyans, that awaits them as Washington moves in for the kill.
Final Comments
According to Russia Today (RT) television:
Russia's military has been monitoring Libya by satellite since unrest began for accurate information about what, in fact, is ongoing. Its Joint Staff confirms no evidence of air strikes or destruction on the ground. Reports from US media, BBC, other Western sources, and Al Jazeera are entirely bogus.
Writer Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a Middle East/Central Asian special maintains reliable Libyan contacts, essential for accurate accounts on the ground.
On March 2, he said the following:
-- "Qaddafi still has control over much of the country."
-- "There are claims that cities have fallen, but in reality old videos or (ones) of other cities are being shown (in airing) these reports....to the public."
-- "The words 'claim' and 'claimed' are now systematically being used....to (corroborate) distorted or incorrect information."
-- World attention is on Libya, excluding other vital events "in the Arab world - such as the continued protests and demands of the Egyptian people (and others regionally) for authentic democracy," jobs, better wages, and other social issues.
-- "Reports have been made (about) fighting in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, (saying) parts of it have fallen, when it has been peaceful for days."
-- "On February 26, 2011, claims were (falsely) made that all the main cities were not in Qaddafi's control." In fact, he controls the following ones: "Sabha (in central Libya), Sirt/Surt (on the coastal mid-point of Libya), Ghat (on the southern border with Algeria), Al-Jufra, Al-Azizya (close to Tripoli) and Tripoli itself."
-- Media reports ignore Qaddafi "trying to negotiate with the places not under his control."
-- Most important: Outrageous misreporting persists, "blowing the violence out of proportion to justify foreign intervention."
It's coming - Washington-led naked aggression justified as "humanitarian intervention." In fact, it's imperial lawlessness against another target before advancing to the next one.
While one-sidely focusing on Libya, Western media ignore the March 1 Amnesty International (AI) report titled, "Tunisia in Revolt: State Violence during Anti Government Protests," saying:
During December and January protests, Tunisian security forces engaged in "unlawful killings and acts of brutality....act(ing) with reckless disregard for human life in all too many cases," according to Malcolm Smart, AI's Middle East and North African program director.
"People detained by the security forces were also systematically beaten or subjected to other ill-treatment, according to (corroborated) evidence" obtained. Innocent bystanders were killed in cold blood, some shot from behind. Death, injury and arrest numbers are far higher than acknowledged. Major media sources, including Al Jazeera, largely suppress this.
Brutal Egyptian military treatment is also ignored, including mass arrests, disappearances and torture. An Egyptian human rights group said thousands are in military custody. Many have been beaten or tortured. US media ignored Egypt after Mubarak was ousted, despite protests, strikes and violence continuing after a brief quiet period.
On February 15, AI condemned Bahrain's "heavy-handed....excessive police force" violence, including killings against peaceful protesters. An eyewitness said police, without provocation, opened fire on demonstrators, wanting a new constitution and democratically elected government.
In its January 11 report titled, "Crackdown in Bahrain: human rights at the crossroads," AI cited serious human rights abuses, including suppressing free expression, closing critical web sites, and banning opposition publications, besides arrests, killings, beatings and other abuses.
US major media reports suppress client regime crimes. Only leaders Washington opposes draw attention, mostly by distorted misreporting. Major focus now is on Gaddafi to provide legitimacy for imperial intervention. As issue is replacing one despot with another willing to open Libya to Western colonization, ahead of regional expansion for greater plunder, exploitation and profits.
Arabs and North Africans want democratic change. Washington and Western allies plan raw power to suppress it. Battle lines are drawn. Sustained popular resistance is essential for real reform, what people want, not dark forces allied against them repressively, especially America treating all developing countries as exploitable low-hanging fruit. What better time than now to stop it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@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/.
Friday, March 11, 2011
From The Rag Blog- Senate Bill 5 squeaks by in Columbus:Corporate union busters draw first blood in Ohio
Senate Bill 5 squeaks by in Columbus:Corporate union busters draw first blood in Ohio
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman /The Rag Blog / March 3, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The national corporate campaign to destroy America’s public sector unions has drawn first blood in Ohio.
But a counterattack centered on one or more statewide initiatives or constitutional amendments has become highly likely.
While thousands of protesters chanted, spoke and sang inside and outside the statehouse for the past two weeks, the Ohio Senate voted 17-16 on Senate Bill 5, a bill that will slash collective bargaining for state workers by banning strikes and giving local officials the right to settle disputes. The bill, among other things, also eliminates all paid sick days for teachers.
The vote came amid shouts of “shame on you” and widespread booing from the diverse crowd of teachers, police, firefighters, construction workers, state employees, and more.
The bill decimates a legal framework in place since 1983. The vote was surprisingly close as six Republicans joined 10 Democrats in opposition. The 17 yes voters were all Republicans.
In order to vote the bill out of committee, Republican Senate president Tom Niehaus had to remove two key Republican senators who opposed the bill from crucial committees. Both Senators Scott Oelslager of Canton and Bill Seitz of Cincinnati were yanked from their posts. The removal of Seitz broke a committee stalemate and allowed the bill to come to the floor with a 7-5 vote.
Ultraconservative Senator Timothy Grendell of rural Chesterland, Ohio denounced the bill as"unconstitutional" pointing out that it prohibits union members from talking with elected public officials during negotiations and labels such activity as an unfair labor practice. Seitz echoed this theme: "It's an unfair labor practice if they exercise their First Amendment right to call up their councilman."
The bill now goes to the Ohio House, where it is fast-tracked and anticipated to pass by mid-March. In the House, the passage is being orchestrated by House Speaker Bill Batchelder. The Free Press has reported in the past of Batchelder's ties to the secretive Council for National Policy.
Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates describes CNP members as not only traditional conservatives, but also nativists, xenophobes, white racial supremacists, homophobes, sexists, militarists, authoritarians, reactionaries and "in some cases outright neo-fascists."
The Democrats do not hold enough seats in either house to deny the GOP a quorum, as is being done in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Ohio’s multimillonaire Governor John Kasich, who got rich selling junk assets to public pensions in Ohio as a managing partner for Lehman Brothers , will sign the bill as soon as he gets it. Kasich is a former Fox news commentator who was elected last November with a large last-minute contribution from Rupert Murdoch.
Kasich has blamed budget problems on state workers. But a rich person’s repeal of Ohio’s estate tax has cost the state a long-standing multimillion-dollar revenue stream. Like Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich also has rejected a big federal grant ($400 million) to upgrade the state’s passenger rail system, which would have created at least a thousand direct jobs and thousands more indirectly, along with a jump in state tax revenue.
Kasich meanwhile has given his chief of staff a substantial pay hike over that of his predecessor. He has hired at least four commissioners to sit on a “job creation” panel with annual salaries of roughly $150,000 each. The commission has been structured to operate without formal accountability to the legislature or taxpayers of the state. Kasich has already succeeded in privatizing the state's department of development.
Kasich tried to ban the media and the public from his inauguration. He has warned opponents that they had better “get on the bus or get run over by the bus.”
Unlike Wisconsin, Ohio has no recall law. The only apparent route to overturning this union-busting legislation may be with a statewide initiative or a constitutional amendment. As the statehouse filled with union protestors, talk spread of how and when that might be done.
Polls are showing overwhelming support for public workers, in part due to the blatant attack on Ohio's police and firefighters who are now barred from negotiating on safety issues. The bill bans binding arbitration used in the past to settle negotiations, and instead allows management to pick the settlement it wants.
Ohioans may also consider a constitutional amendment to guarantee hand-counted paper ballots. Electronic voting is dominated here by the successor to the Ohio-based Diebold corporation and the ES&S corporation, and other Republican-controlled voting machine companies. The privatization of Ohio's voting and voter registration rolls corresponded with a 5.4% shift to the Republican Party not predicted by the exit polls in the 2010 election. Exit polls showed Kasich losing the election.
Overall the architectural map of the Ohio election system appears to give private voting companies contracted to the Secretary of State's office -- currently headed by John Husted, a Republican -- the ability to electronically select state office winners in a matter of a few minutes on election night.
Husted has already introduced legislation to restrict voting rights through demands for photo ID and other measures aimed at students, the elderly, poor, and other Democratic-leaning citizens. Without universal voter registration and hand-counted paper ballots, the Ohio Democratic party has little chance of winning statewide office for the foreseeable future, or of turning back legislative union busting.
Key to the national corporate strategy now playing itself out in Ohio is the destruction of the Democratic Party’s traditional base. It is also about trashing teachers, firefighters, police, and other citizens who choose to work for the general good rather than individual profit. As Nina Turner, a Senate Democrat told The New York Times, “This bill seeks to vilify our public employees and turn what used to be the virtue of public service into a crime.”
It’s widely believed Kasich will next assault Ohio’s pubic school system, whose funding mechanisms have been repeatedly ruled unconstitutional by state courts. Kasich is a cheerleader for private charter schools. The GOP is expected to push a voucher program that would use taxpayer money to subsidize private schools for the rich.
David Brennan, owner of White Hat Management, a chain of private charter schools, has consistently been the leading donor to the Ohio Republican candidates. Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray filed a legal complaint against Brennan alleging that "White Hat's management agreements with the schools are invalid because the public charter schools handed over nearly all funding -- 96 percent -- to White Hat and were given essentially no accountability or transparency as to how the funds were spent."
Kasich and the GOP have already moved to gut environmental regulations and turn the state’s park system over to corporate extractors. He is also expected to attack legislation mandating advances in renewable energy while pushing for a new nuclear plant to be built in southern Ohio by corporations poised to cash in on massive federal subsidies being proposed by President Obama.
While the mood of demonstrators yesterday at the statehouse was angry and defiant, there are no illusions about the stakes in this battle. Governor Kasich and his wholly owned Republican legislature are born of unlimited Citizens United corporate cash and rigged electronic voting machines.
It’s thus no surprise that the first serious blood drawn in this latest corporate campaigns to finally wipe labor unions off the American map has come in the Buckeye State.
The question now: can the unions effectively fight back, in Ohio and nationwide?
[Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman have co-authored four books on election protection at www.freepress.org , where Bob’s Fitrakis Files books appear. Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States is at harveywasserman.com.]
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman /The Rag Blog / March 3, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The national corporate campaign to destroy America’s public sector unions has drawn first blood in Ohio.
But a counterattack centered on one or more statewide initiatives or constitutional amendments has become highly likely.
While thousands of protesters chanted, spoke and sang inside and outside the statehouse for the past two weeks, the Ohio Senate voted 17-16 on Senate Bill 5, a bill that will slash collective bargaining for state workers by banning strikes and giving local officials the right to settle disputes. The bill, among other things, also eliminates all paid sick days for teachers.
The vote came amid shouts of “shame on you” and widespread booing from the diverse crowd of teachers, police, firefighters, construction workers, state employees, and more.
The bill decimates a legal framework in place since 1983. The vote was surprisingly close as six Republicans joined 10 Democrats in opposition. The 17 yes voters were all Republicans.
In order to vote the bill out of committee, Republican Senate president Tom Niehaus had to remove two key Republican senators who opposed the bill from crucial committees. Both Senators Scott Oelslager of Canton and Bill Seitz of Cincinnati were yanked from their posts. The removal of Seitz broke a committee stalemate and allowed the bill to come to the floor with a 7-5 vote.
Ultraconservative Senator Timothy Grendell of rural Chesterland, Ohio denounced the bill as"unconstitutional" pointing out that it prohibits union members from talking with elected public officials during negotiations and labels such activity as an unfair labor practice. Seitz echoed this theme: "It's an unfair labor practice if they exercise their First Amendment right to call up their councilman."
The bill now goes to the Ohio House, where it is fast-tracked and anticipated to pass by mid-March. In the House, the passage is being orchestrated by House Speaker Bill Batchelder. The Free Press has reported in the past of Batchelder's ties to the secretive Council for National Policy.
Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates describes CNP members as not only traditional conservatives, but also nativists, xenophobes, white racial supremacists, homophobes, sexists, militarists, authoritarians, reactionaries and "in some cases outright neo-fascists."
The Democrats do not hold enough seats in either house to deny the GOP a quorum, as is being done in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Ohio’s multimillonaire Governor John Kasich, who got rich selling junk assets to public pensions in Ohio as a managing partner for Lehman Brothers , will sign the bill as soon as he gets it. Kasich is a former Fox news commentator who was elected last November with a large last-minute contribution from Rupert Murdoch.
Kasich has blamed budget problems on state workers. But a rich person’s repeal of Ohio’s estate tax has cost the state a long-standing multimillion-dollar revenue stream. Like Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich also has rejected a big federal grant ($400 million) to upgrade the state’s passenger rail system, which would have created at least a thousand direct jobs and thousands more indirectly, along with a jump in state tax revenue.
Kasich meanwhile has given his chief of staff a substantial pay hike over that of his predecessor. He has hired at least four commissioners to sit on a “job creation” panel with annual salaries of roughly $150,000 each. The commission has been structured to operate without formal accountability to the legislature or taxpayers of the state. Kasich has already succeeded in privatizing the state's department of development.
Kasich tried to ban the media and the public from his inauguration. He has warned opponents that they had better “get on the bus or get run over by the bus.”
Unlike Wisconsin, Ohio has no recall law. The only apparent route to overturning this union-busting legislation may be with a statewide initiative or a constitutional amendment. As the statehouse filled with union protestors, talk spread of how and when that might be done.
Polls are showing overwhelming support for public workers, in part due to the blatant attack on Ohio's police and firefighters who are now barred from negotiating on safety issues. The bill bans binding arbitration used in the past to settle negotiations, and instead allows management to pick the settlement it wants.
Ohioans may also consider a constitutional amendment to guarantee hand-counted paper ballots. Electronic voting is dominated here by the successor to the Ohio-based Diebold corporation and the ES&S corporation, and other Republican-controlled voting machine companies. The privatization of Ohio's voting and voter registration rolls corresponded with a 5.4% shift to the Republican Party not predicted by the exit polls in the 2010 election. Exit polls showed Kasich losing the election.
Overall the architectural map of the Ohio election system appears to give private voting companies contracted to the Secretary of State's office -- currently headed by John Husted, a Republican -- the ability to electronically select state office winners in a matter of a few minutes on election night.
Husted has already introduced legislation to restrict voting rights through demands for photo ID and other measures aimed at students, the elderly, poor, and other Democratic-leaning citizens. Without universal voter registration and hand-counted paper ballots, the Ohio Democratic party has little chance of winning statewide office for the foreseeable future, or of turning back legislative union busting.
Key to the national corporate strategy now playing itself out in Ohio is the destruction of the Democratic Party’s traditional base. It is also about trashing teachers, firefighters, police, and other citizens who choose to work for the general good rather than individual profit. As Nina Turner, a Senate Democrat told The New York Times, “This bill seeks to vilify our public employees and turn what used to be the virtue of public service into a crime.”
It’s widely believed Kasich will next assault Ohio’s pubic school system, whose funding mechanisms have been repeatedly ruled unconstitutional by state courts. Kasich is a cheerleader for private charter schools. The GOP is expected to push a voucher program that would use taxpayer money to subsidize private schools for the rich.
David Brennan, owner of White Hat Management, a chain of private charter schools, has consistently been the leading donor to the Ohio Republican candidates. Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray filed a legal complaint against Brennan alleging that "White Hat's management agreements with the schools are invalid because the public charter schools handed over nearly all funding -- 96 percent -- to White Hat and were given essentially no accountability or transparency as to how the funds were spent."
Kasich and the GOP have already moved to gut environmental regulations and turn the state’s park system over to corporate extractors. He is also expected to attack legislation mandating advances in renewable energy while pushing for a new nuclear plant to be built in southern Ohio by corporations poised to cash in on massive federal subsidies being proposed by President Obama.
While the mood of demonstrators yesterday at the statehouse was angry and defiant, there are no illusions about the stakes in this battle. Governor Kasich and his wholly owned Republican legislature are born of unlimited Citizens United corporate cash and rigged electronic voting machines.
It’s thus no surprise that the first serious blood drawn in this latest corporate campaigns to finally wipe labor unions off the American map has come in the Buckeye State.
The question now: can the unions effectively fight back, in Ohio and nationwide?
[Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman have co-authored four books on election protection at www.freepress.org , where Bob’s Fitrakis Files books appear. Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States is at harveywasserman.com.]
From The Renegade Eye Blog- From The In Defense Of Marxism- Venezuela and Libya: it is not an April 11 coup, it is a February 27 Caracazo -Hands Off Libya!
Venezuela and Libya: it is not an April 11 coup, it is a February 27 Caracazo
Written by Jorge MartÃn
Friday, 04 March 2011
There has been a lot of discussion in Latin America about the events unfolding in Libya. This article explains the position of the IMT, which is one of support for the uprising of the Libyan people, while at the same time opposing any imperialist intervention. We also critically examine the position adopted by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.
Zawiyah. Photo: bandolero69The governments of Venezuela and Cuba have correctly stood up in international institutions to oppose any imperialist intervention in Libya. They have criticised the hypocrisy of those countries who raise a hue and cry over human rights violations in Libya while at the same time having participated in murderous imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the brutal repression of the Palestinian people by the state of Israel.
The Venezuelan ambassador to the UN, Jorge Valero, explained it this way:
“Who pays for the more than one million dead in Iraq? Who pays for the permanent massacre against the Palestinian people? Why is it that those responsible for these crimes of war, genocide and against humanity – who are known to all and publicly recognise their deed – are not taken to the International Court of Justice? What does the Security Council do faced with these horrible massacres that take place?”
Quite correctly, the Venezuelan representatives denounced the real aims of the intervention of imperialism in the region:
“Those who promote the use of military force against Libya, do not seek to defend human rights, but to establish a protectorate in order to violate them, as is always the case, in a country which is one of the most important sources of oil and energy in the Middle East”.
The people of Iraq are a testimony to this fact. Washington made up an excuse (so-called “weapons of mass destruction”) in order to attack Iraq so that they could reassert their power and regain direct control over crucial oil resources. The aim of the invasion was not to “establish democracy” and certainly there is very little democracy in Iraq now under the Maliki government. Thousands of Iraqis marched last month demanding electricity, water, jobs and bread and they were met with the brutal repression of government forces, leading to deaths, injuries, arrests and kidnappings. And yet no one is suggesting taking the government of Iraq to the International courts!
The United Nations is in fact a farce. It is a body that merely reflects the domination of US imperialism. When the US are able to get resolutions passed in order to justify their actions, they use the UN as a fig leaf. When, for whatever reason, they are not able to get their aims endorsed by the UN, they ignore the UN and carry them out regardless. And, finally, when resolutions are passed against their imperialist aims (for instance against the blockade on Cuba or condemning Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people), they simply ignore them, and they are never enforced. In the recent case of the resolution on Israeli settlements on Palestinian Territory, the US used its veto to block resolution. So much for justice and human rights.
In the last few days there has been a lot of noise and some concrete actions on the part of imperialist nations regarding Libya. The US has now moved two amphibious warships, the USS Ponce and the USS Kearsarge, carrying helicopters and fighter jets, into the Mediterranean. Under the cover of so-called “humanitarian intervention”, imperialist powers (including the US, UK, France and Italy) amongst others, are discussing what action they can take to secure their own interests. European countries are mainly worried about the possible arrival of a mass of refugees on their shores. Another worry is control over oil resources and above all the impact of the revolutionary tide sweeping the Arab world on oil prices and the knock on effect this could have on the capitalist economy as a whole.
The most discussed option is a “no-fly zone”, which has been advocated amongst others by both Republican senator John McCain and Democratic senator John Kerry. For his own reasons, British Prime Minister David Cameron, has also made belligerent noises, attempting to puff up a role in world politics for Britain that it can no longer really play.
However, the truth is that even a limited intervention in the form of a no fly-zone would be risky and complicated to implement. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates complained that “there’s a lot of, frankly, loose talk about some of these military options.” He warned of the implications of such an action: “Let’s just call a spade a spade: a no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya, to destroy the air defences. That’s the way you do a no-fly zone... It also requires more airplanes than you would find on a single aircraft carrier. So it is a big operation in a big country.”
The US military is already overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, as he stressed: “If we move additional assets, what are the consequences of that for Afghanistan, for the Persian Gulf?” he said. “And what other allies are prepared to work with us in some of these things?”
However, the main worry imperialist planners have regarding intervention in Libya is the backlash this would generate throughout the region. The masses are sick and tired of imperialism and the revolutionary wave which is sweeping the Arab world is directly aimed at US-sponsored regimes. Gates showed that the US ruling class is aware of this when he said: “We also have to think about, frankly, the use of the US military in another country in the Middle East.”
These considerations, of course, do not rule out imperialist intervention in Libya or anywhere else, if their vital interests come under threat. However, they do underline the fact that the US has been caught unawares by the present revolutionary wave and has been unable to intervene decisively to steer the course of events in their favour.
In the face of imperialism’s manoeuvres, and also the inconsistent manner in which they deal with the matter of “human rights” and “crimes against humanity”, Venezuela and Cuba are correct in exposing the hypocrisy of imperialism and agitating against any foreign powers intervening in Libya.
However, the case that is being made by both countries, and most prominently by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, is undermined by the fact that they are perceived as being supportive of Gaddafi, instead of supporting the masses of the Libyan people who have risen up against his regime.
It is true that Venezuelan ambassador to the UN said in his speech that Venezuela “greets the Arab peoples who are in a process of peaceful and justice seeking rebellion, and looking for a better future through peaceful roads”. But at the same time Fidel Castro has argued that the problems faced by Libya are different to those faced by Tunisia and Egypt. He has added that while “there is no doubt that the faces of those protesting in Benghazi expressed real indignation”, there has been a “colossal campaign of lies, unleashed by the mass media, which led to great confusion on the part of the world’s public opinion”.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has also said that he “refuses to condemn Gaddafi” who has been “a long-time friend of Venezuela” because apparently there is not enough information on the situation. He has used the example of April 11, 2002, when the world’s media accused Chavez of having ordered the army to fire on unarmed demonstrators in order to justify the coup against him. As we all know, it was later on proven that it had all been a set up, with hired snipers firing on opposition and revolutionary demonstrators alike.
However, in the case of Libya, the situation is completely different. In Venezuela what we had was a reactionary movement against a democratically elected government attempting to implement progressive reforms and standing up against imperialism. In Libya we have a popular uprising against an oppressive regime which had made all sorts of deals with imperialism.
To a certain extent, it can be understood why there is confusion in Venezuela about the real nature of what is really happening in Libya. The Venezuelan people no longer trust the capitalist media, completely discredited by the role they played in the coup in 2002. Furthermore, the Venezuelan counter-revolutionary opposition is attempting to jump on the bandwagon of the Arab revolution, saying that “the next dictator to fall will be Hugo Chavez”.
It is a matter of public record that the Venezuelan counter-revolutionary opposition receives funding, training and support of all kinds from Washington. On a number of occasions they have organized their forces on the streets to make it look as if Chavez were a tyrant facing popular opposition (in the run up to the April 11, 2002, coup, during the oil lock out in December 2002, during the guarimba in 2004, the student protests in defence of RCTV, etc). They will not hesitate in doing it again. However, what we are seeing in the Arab world is precisely the opposite: a series of revolutionary uprisings against US backed dictatorial regimes.
It is true that the Libyan regime of Gaddafi came to power at the head of a movement with large popular support against the rotten monarchy of Kind Idris in 1969. In the 1970s, influenced by the previous wave of the Arab revolution, and under the impact of the 1974 worldwide recession, the regime moved further to the left, expelling imperialism and making deep inroads against capitalist property. Basing itself on the oil wealth of the country and the small size of its population, it was able to implement many progressive reforms and substantially increase the standard of the living of the overwhelming majority of Libyans.
However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the regime started making openings to imperialism. Already in 1993 laws guaranteeing foreign investment were passed. And it was after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 that Gaddafi decided to settle affairs with imperialism signing a number of deals for decommissioning its weapons of mass destruction, paying reparations to the victims of terrorist bombings, etc. The regime became a loyal partner of imperialism in the so-called “war on terror” and collaborated with the European Union in order to strengthen “fortress Europe” against the entry of sub-Saharan illegal immigrants.
This was accompanied by requesting entry into the WTO, creating Special Trade Zones, privatizing large parts of the economy, allowing back oil multinationals into the oil industry and eliminating subsidies on basic foodstuffs. The aim was to privatise 100% of the economy, according to Libyan officials. It was precisely the implementation of these policies that led to increased unemployment (between 20 and 30%), poverty and inequality, that played a key role in the current uprising.
In his latest article about the situation, Fidel Castro stresses the fact that, “it is an undeniable fact that the relations between the US and its NATO allies with Libya in the recent years were excellent,” adding that Libya “opened up strategic sectors as the production and distribution of oil to foreign investment” and that, “many state-owned companies were privatized. The IMF played its role in implementing these policies.” And as a result “Aznar was full of praise for Gaddafi, and he was followed by Blair, Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Zapatero, and even my friend the King of Spain, they all queued up under the mocking smile of the Libyan leader. They were pleased.” (Cuba Debate)
Illustration: CROIn his recent interviews with the BBC and ABC news Gaddafi himself explained how he felt “betrayed” by the Western powers. After having supported them and followed their policies for a number of years now they are abandoning him. Even the rhetoric he uses demonstrates that. When accusing the rebels of being manipulated by Al Qaeda, he is using the same scare-mongering tactics that Ben Ali and above all Mubarak used earlier on, and in reality is asking the West for support against the common enemy. The real character of Gaddafi’s regime can be deduced from his position regarding the revolutionary uprising in Tunisia, where he came out firmly on the side of Western ally Ben Ali and criticized the Tunisian workers and youth for having overthrown him!
As for the truth of what is really happening in Libya, one does not need to listen to the Western media. Saif al Islam, Gaddafi’s son and right hand man, himself admitted to the use of the army against unarmed demonstrators in his speech on February 20:
“Of course there were many deaths, which angered many people in Benghazi, but why were there people killed? The army was under stress, it is not used to crowd control so they shot, but I called them. The army said that some protesters were drunk, others were on hallucinogens or drugs. The army has to defend its weapons. And the people were angry. So there were deaths, but in the end Libyans were killed.”
Gaddafi himself has admitted that “a few hundred were killed”, but put it down to Al Qaeda distributing drugs to the youth!!
The story reported by TeleSUR’s correspondent in Libya, Reed Lindsay (twitter.com/reedtelesur), confirms the reports coming from other sources: there were popular, peaceful and unarmed demonstrations and the army opened fire (see for instance this report: Telesur). In a report he sent from Brega on March 2 (Telesur), he described how there were soldiers that had joined the rebellion but also “citizens of all kinds, I have spoken to doctors, engineers, workers from the oil company, here they are all in rebellion, part of the uprising and armed” adding that “this rebellion started peacefully, two weeks ago, but now the people are armed to struggle until they achieve the overthrow of Gaddafi.” He also rejected the notion that there is a civil war in Libya: “We are not talking about a civil war here… this started as peaceful demonstrators being attacked by security forces using heavy gunfire.”(Union Radio)
As part of his reporting, Reed Lindsay, has also confirmed all the reports that show how the Libyan people who have risen up against Gaddafi are staunchly against foreign intervention. “They say that if the US troops arrive here, they will fight them in the same way they are fighting against the government of Gaddafi.”
The other important point that Lindsay has made in his reports is regarding the attitude of the people, both in Benghazi and Brega, towards Latin American governments, and particularly those of the ALBA countries. In Brega many people are asking “why the Venezuelan president and other Latin American presidents who are in favour of social justice and revolutionary change are supporting a dictator who is using the Army against his own people” he said (Union Radio). “They are asking the ALBA countries to break with Gaddafi and support the revolutionary struggle of the Libyan people” he reported from Benghazi. According to him, the people in Ajdabiya talk of a “common struggle with the peoples of Latin America” (Twitter. We are quoting from Reed Lindsay, because he cannot be accused of being an agent of imperialism or of distorting the news in order to justify an intervention by imperialism.
Even the other TeleSUR correspondent, Jordan RodrÃguez, who is basically just reporting what Gaddafi and other officials are saying, without any comment, had problems when he attempted to report about clashes in neighbourhoods in Tripoli. His team was detained by police officers for four hours, beaten up, threatened with guns pointed at them and their footage was taken away (Telesur). This was the second time they had been arrested and it happened even though they were travelling in a Venezuelan diplomatic car.
Libyan rebels with a captured anti-aircraft gun. Photo: Al Jazeera EnglishThere is a very important point made in these reports. The Venezuelan revolution and particularly president Chavez are immensely popular in the Arab world, particularly after his very vocal opposition to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. The masses in these countries see Hugo Chavez as the leader of an oil country who stands up to imperialism and uses the oil money in order to improve the living conditions of the people. This is in stark contrast to the rulers of their own countries, who are puppets of US imperialism, do not open their mouths against Israel’s aggressions and use the wealth of the country for their own personal enrichment. This is precisely one of the reasons behind the revolutionary uprising of the Arab masses. In an opinion poll conducted in 2009 in several Arab countries, the most popular leader was Hugo Chavez with 36% of support, well ahead of any others (pdf).
The only base of support on which the Venezuelan revolution can count are the masses of workers and youth in the Middle East and North Africa, and throughout the world, who feel sympathy and solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution because they would like a similar revolution to take place in their own countries. Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution should come out clearly in favour of the revolutionary wave sweeping the Arab world, because it is part of the world revolution of which Latin America was for some years the advanced guard. This includes giving support to the Libyan people rising up against Gaddafi, while at the same time opposing any imperialist intervention.
In his attempts to prevent foreign military intervention in Libya, Hugo Chavez has proposed an international mediation commission to go to Libya. Latest reports in the media indicate that while Gaddafi is said to have accepted this, his son Saif al-Islam has firmly rejected the proposal. "We have to say thank you, but we are able and capable enough to solve our issues by our own people". Venezuelans, he added, "are our friends, we respect them, we like them, but they are far away. They have no idea about Libya. Libya is in the Middle East and North Africa. Venezuela is in Central America." For Saif’s information, Venezuela is not in Central America, but now doubt his mind is concentrated on other matters.
On their part, the Libyan rebels have also rejected the mediation, saying they have not heard about it, but that it is too late for negotiations anyway, and that too many people have been killed by Gaddafi. If one understands the real essence of the situation in Libya, one of a government brutally putting down peaceful demonstrations of his own people, which then becomes a popular armed uprising with sections of the army and the police going over to the people, then one can understand why this proposal is wrong. It is as if in the last days of the Cuban revolution, when the revolutionary army was about to overthrow Batista, someone had said, “wait a second, let’s have international mediation so that there can be an understanding between Batista and the M26J movement.”
The only position a revolutionary can take in a situation like this is one of support for the revolutionary uprising of the Libyan people. If Hugo Chavez does not come out clearly in favour of the revolutionary masses of the Arab world then he would be making a serious mistake, one for which the Venezuelan revolution can pay dearly. Hugo Chavez is looking at the Libyan situation through Venezuelan lenses, making the wrong comparisons. The Libyan rebels cannot be compared to the Venezuelan opposition and the position that regime of Gaddafi finds itself in cannot in any way be compared to that facing Chavez.
We must be clear: what we are seeing in Libya and the rest of the Arab world is not an April 11, 2002 coup justified with media manipulation, but rather a February 27, 1989, a Caracazo-like uprising, in which the governments are using the Army against unarmed demonstrators. While opposing imperialist intervention, we must be clear what side we are on: that of the Libyan people against the Gaddafi regime.
Written by Jorge MartÃn
Friday, 04 March 2011
There has been a lot of discussion in Latin America about the events unfolding in Libya. This article explains the position of the IMT, which is one of support for the uprising of the Libyan people, while at the same time opposing any imperialist intervention. We also critically examine the position adopted by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.
Zawiyah. Photo: bandolero69The governments of Venezuela and Cuba have correctly stood up in international institutions to oppose any imperialist intervention in Libya. They have criticised the hypocrisy of those countries who raise a hue and cry over human rights violations in Libya while at the same time having participated in murderous imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the brutal repression of the Palestinian people by the state of Israel.
The Venezuelan ambassador to the UN, Jorge Valero, explained it this way:
“Who pays for the more than one million dead in Iraq? Who pays for the permanent massacre against the Palestinian people? Why is it that those responsible for these crimes of war, genocide and against humanity – who are known to all and publicly recognise their deed – are not taken to the International Court of Justice? What does the Security Council do faced with these horrible massacres that take place?”
Quite correctly, the Venezuelan representatives denounced the real aims of the intervention of imperialism in the region:
“Those who promote the use of military force against Libya, do not seek to defend human rights, but to establish a protectorate in order to violate them, as is always the case, in a country which is one of the most important sources of oil and energy in the Middle East”.
The people of Iraq are a testimony to this fact. Washington made up an excuse (so-called “weapons of mass destruction”) in order to attack Iraq so that they could reassert their power and regain direct control over crucial oil resources. The aim of the invasion was not to “establish democracy” and certainly there is very little democracy in Iraq now under the Maliki government. Thousands of Iraqis marched last month demanding electricity, water, jobs and bread and they were met with the brutal repression of government forces, leading to deaths, injuries, arrests and kidnappings. And yet no one is suggesting taking the government of Iraq to the International courts!
The United Nations is in fact a farce. It is a body that merely reflects the domination of US imperialism. When the US are able to get resolutions passed in order to justify their actions, they use the UN as a fig leaf. When, for whatever reason, they are not able to get their aims endorsed by the UN, they ignore the UN and carry them out regardless. And, finally, when resolutions are passed against their imperialist aims (for instance against the blockade on Cuba or condemning Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people), they simply ignore them, and they are never enforced. In the recent case of the resolution on Israeli settlements on Palestinian Territory, the US used its veto to block resolution. So much for justice and human rights.
In the last few days there has been a lot of noise and some concrete actions on the part of imperialist nations regarding Libya. The US has now moved two amphibious warships, the USS Ponce and the USS Kearsarge, carrying helicopters and fighter jets, into the Mediterranean. Under the cover of so-called “humanitarian intervention”, imperialist powers (including the US, UK, France and Italy) amongst others, are discussing what action they can take to secure their own interests. European countries are mainly worried about the possible arrival of a mass of refugees on their shores. Another worry is control over oil resources and above all the impact of the revolutionary tide sweeping the Arab world on oil prices and the knock on effect this could have on the capitalist economy as a whole.
The most discussed option is a “no-fly zone”, which has been advocated amongst others by both Republican senator John McCain and Democratic senator John Kerry. For his own reasons, British Prime Minister David Cameron, has also made belligerent noises, attempting to puff up a role in world politics for Britain that it can no longer really play.
However, the truth is that even a limited intervention in the form of a no fly-zone would be risky and complicated to implement. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates complained that “there’s a lot of, frankly, loose talk about some of these military options.” He warned of the implications of such an action: “Let’s just call a spade a spade: a no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya, to destroy the air defences. That’s the way you do a no-fly zone... It also requires more airplanes than you would find on a single aircraft carrier. So it is a big operation in a big country.”
The US military is already overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, as he stressed: “If we move additional assets, what are the consequences of that for Afghanistan, for the Persian Gulf?” he said. “And what other allies are prepared to work with us in some of these things?”
However, the main worry imperialist planners have regarding intervention in Libya is the backlash this would generate throughout the region. The masses are sick and tired of imperialism and the revolutionary wave which is sweeping the Arab world is directly aimed at US-sponsored regimes. Gates showed that the US ruling class is aware of this when he said: “We also have to think about, frankly, the use of the US military in another country in the Middle East.”
These considerations, of course, do not rule out imperialist intervention in Libya or anywhere else, if their vital interests come under threat. However, they do underline the fact that the US has been caught unawares by the present revolutionary wave and has been unable to intervene decisively to steer the course of events in their favour.
In the face of imperialism’s manoeuvres, and also the inconsistent manner in which they deal with the matter of “human rights” and “crimes against humanity”, Venezuela and Cuba are correct in exposing the hypocrisy of imperialism and agitating against any foreign powers intervening in Libya.
However, the case that is being made by both countries, and most prominently by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, is undermined by the fact that they are perceived as being supportive of Gaddafi, instead of supporting the masses of the Libyan people who have risen up against his regime.
It is true that Venezuelan ambassador to the UN said in his speech that Venezuela “greets the Arab peoples who are in a process of peaceful and justice seeking rebellion, and looking for a better future through peaceful roads”. But at the same time Fidel Castro has argued that the problems faced by Libya are different to those faced by Tunisia and Egypt. He has added that while “there is no doubt that the faces of those protesting in Benghazi expressed real indignation”, there has been a “colossal campaign of lies, unleashed by the mass media, which led to great confusion on the part of the world’s public opinion”.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has also said that he “refuses to condemn Gaddafi” who has been “a long-time friend of Venezuela” because apparently there is not enough information on the situation. He has used the example of April 11, 2002, when the world’s media accused Chavez of having ordered the army to fire on unarmed demonstrators in order to justify the coup against him. As we all know, it was later on proven that it had all been a set up, with hired snipers firing on opposition and revolutionary demonstrators alike.
However, in the case of Libya, the situation is completely different. In Venezuela what we had was a reactionary movement against a democratically elected government attempting to implement progressive reforms and standing up against imperialism. In Libya we have a popular uprising against an oppressive regime which had made all sorts of deals with imperialism.
To a certain extent, it can be understood why there is confusion in Venezuela about the real nature of what is really happening in Libya. The Venezuelan people no longer trust the capitalist media, completely discredited by the role they played in the coup in 2002. Furthermore, the Venezuelan counter-revolutionary opposition is attempting to jump on the bandwagon of the Arab revolution, saying that “the next dictator to fall will be Hugo Chavez”.
It is a matter of public record that the Venezuelan counter-revolutionary opposition receives funding, training and support of all kinds from Washington. On a number of occasions they have organized their forces on the streets to make it look as if Chavez were a tyrant facing popular opposition (in the run up to the April 11, 2002, coup, during the oil lock out in December 2002, during the guarimba in 2004, the student protests in defence of RCTV, etc). They will not hesitate in doing it again. However, what we are seeing in the Arab world is precisely the opposite: a series of revolutionary uprisings against US backed dictatorial regimes.
It is true that the Libyan regime of Gaddafi came to power at the head of a movement with large popular support against the rotten monarchy of Kind Idris in 1969. In the 1970s, influenced by the previous wave of the Arab revolution, and under the impact of the 1974 worldwide recession, the regime moved further to the left, expelling imperialism and making deep inroads against capitalist property. Basing itself on the oil wealth of the country and the small size of its population, it was able to implement many progressive reforms and substantially increase the standard of the living of the overwhelming majority of Libyans.
However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the regime started making openings to imperialism. Already in 1993 laws guaranteeing foreign investment were passed. And it was after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 that Gaddafi decided to settle affairs with imperialism signing a number of deals for decommissioning its weapons of mass destruction, paying reparations to the victims of terrorist bombings, etc. The regime became a loyal partner of imperialism in the so-called “war on terror” and collaborated with the European Union in order to strengthen “fortress Europe” against the entry of sub-Saharan illegal immigrants.
This was accompanied by requesting entry into the WTO, creating Special Trade Zones, privatizing large parts of the economy, allowing back oil multinationals into the oil industry and eliminating subsidies on basic foodstuffs. The aim was to privatise 100% of the economy, according to Libyan officials. It was precisely the implementation of these policies that led to increased unemployment (between 20 and 30%), poverty and inequality, that played a key role in the current uprising.
In his latest article about the situation, Fidel Castro stresses the fact that, “it is an undeniable fact that the relations between the US and its NATO allies with Libya in the recent years were excellent,” adding that Libya “opened up strategic sectors as the production and distribution of oil to foreign investment” and that, “many state-owned companies were privatized. The IMF played its role in implementing these policies.” And as a result “Aznar was full of praise for Gaddafi, and he was followed by Blair, Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Zapatero, and even my friend the King of Spain, they all queued up under the mocking smile of the Libyan leader. They were pleased.” (Cuba Debate)
Illustration: CROIn his recent interviews with the BBC and ABC news Gaddafi himself explained how he felt “betrayed” by the Western powers. After having supported them and followed their policies for a number of years now they are abandoning him. Even the rhetoric he uses demonstrates that. When accusing the rebels of being manipulated by Al Qaeda, he is using the same scare-mongering tactics that Ben Ali and above all Mubarak used earlier on, and in reality is asking the West for support against the common enemy. The real character of Gaddafi’s regime can be deduced from his position regarding the revolutionary uprising in Tunisia, where he came out firmly on the side of Western ally Ben Ali and criticized the Tunisian workers and youth for having overthrown him!
As for the truth of what is really happening in Libya, one does not need to listen to the Western media. Saif al Islam, Gaddafi’s son and right hand man, himself admitted to the use of the army against unarmed demonstrators in his speech on February 20:
“Of course there were many deaths, which angered many people in Benghazi, but why were there people killed? The army was under stress, it is not used to crowd control so they shot, but I called them. The army said that some protesters were drunk, others were on hallucinogens or drugs. The army has to defend its weapons. And the people were angry. So there were deaths, but in the end Libyans were killed.”
Gaddafi himself has admitted that “a few hundred were killed”, but put it down to Al Qaeda distributing drugs to the youth!!
The story reported by TeleSUR’s correspondent in Libya, Reed Lindsay (twitter.com/reedtelesur), confirms the reports coming from other sources: there were popular, peaceful and unarmed demonstrations and the army opened fire (see for instance this report: Telesur). In a report he sent from Brega on March 2 (Telesur), he described how there were soldiers that had joined the rebellion but also “citizens of all kinds, I have spoken to doctors, engineers, workers from the oil company, here they are all in rebellion, part of the uprising and armed” adding that “this rebellion started peacefully, two weeks ago, but now the people are armed to struggle until they achieve the overthrow of Gaddafi.” He also rejected the notion that there is a civil war in Libya: “We are not talking about a civil war here… this started as peaceful demonstrators being attacked by security forces using heavy gunfire.”(Union Radio)
As part of his reporting, Reed Lindsay, has also confirmed all the reports that show how the Libyan people who have risen up against Gaddafi are staunchly against foreign intervention. “They say that if the US troops arrive here, they will fight them in the same way they are fighting against the government of Gaddafi.”
The other important point that Lindsay has made in his reports is regarding the attitude of the people, both in Benghazi and Brega, towards Latin American governments, and particularly those of the ALBA countries. In Brega many people are asking “why the Venezuelan president and other Latin American presidents who are in favour of social justice and revolutionary change are supporting a dictator who is using the Army against his own people” he said (Union Radio). “They are asking the ALBA countries to break with Gaddafi and support the revolutionary struggle of the Libyan people” he reported from Benghazi. According to him, the people in Ajdabiya talk of a “common struggle with the peoples of Latin America” (Twitter. We are quoting from Reed Lindsay, because he cannot be accused of being an agent of imperialism or of distorting the news in order to justify an intervention by imperialism.
Even the other TeleSUR correspondent, Jordan RodrÃguez, who is basically just reporting what Gaddafi and other officials are saying, without any comment, had problems when he attempted to report about clashes in neighbourhoods in Tripoli. His team was detained by police officers for four hours, beaten up, threatened with guns pointed at them and their footage was taken away (Telesur). This was the second time they had been arrested and it happened even though they were travelling in a Venezuelan diplomatic car.
Libyan rebels with a captured anti-aircraft gun. Photo: Al Jazeera EnglishThere is a very important point made in these reports. The Venezuelan revolution and particularly president Chavez are immensely popular in the Arab world, particularly after his very vocal opposition to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. The masses in these countries see Hugo Chavez as the leader of an oil country who stands up to imperialism and uses the oil money in order to improve the living conditions of the people. This is in stark contrast to the rulers of their own countries, who are puppets of US imperialism, do not open their mouths against Israel’s aggressions and use the wealth of the country for their own personal enrichment. This is precisely one of the reasons behind the revolutionary uprising of the Arab masses. In an opinion poll conducted in 2009 in several Arab countries, the most popular leader was Hugo Chavez with 36% of support, well ahead of any others (pdf).
The only base of support on which the Venezuelan revolution can count are the masses of workers and youth in the Middle East and North Africa, and throughout the world, who feel sympathy and solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution because they would like a similar revolution to take place in their own countries. Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution should come out clearly in favour of the revolutionary wave sweeping the Arab world, because it is part of the world revolution of which Latin America was for some years the advanced guard. This includes giving support to the Libyan people rising up against Gaddafi, while at the same time opposing any imperialist intervention.
In his attempts to prevent foreign military intervention in Libya, Hugo Chavez has proposed an international mediation commission to go to Libya. Latest reports in the media indicate that while Gaddafi is said to have accepted this, his son Saif al-Islam has firmly rejected the proposal. "We have to say thank you, but we are able and capable enough to solve our issues by our own people". Venezuelans, he added, "are our friends, we respect them, we like them, but they are far away. They have no idea about Libya. Libya is in the Middle East and North Africa. Venezuela is in Central America." For Saif’s information, Venezuela is not in Central America, but now doubt his mind is concentrated on other matters.
On their part, the Libyan rebels have also rejected the mediation, saying they have not heard about it, but that it is too late for negotiations anyway, and that too many people have been killed by Gaddafi. If one understands the real essence of the situation in Libya, one of a government brutally putting down peaceful demonstrations of his own people, which then becomes a popular armed uprising with sections of the army and the police going over to the people, then one can understand why this proposal is wrong. It is as if in the last days of the Cuban revolution, when the revolutionary army was about to overthrow Batista, someone had said, “wait a second, let’s have international mediation so that there can be an understanding between Batista and the M26J movement.”
The only position a revolutionary can take in a situation like this is one of support for the revolutionary uprising of the Libyan people. If Hugo Chavez does not come out clearly in favour of the revolutionary masses of the Arab world then he would be making a serious mistake, one for which the Venezuelan revolution can pay dearly. Hugo Chavez is looking at the Libyan situation through Venezuelan lenses, making the wrong comparisons. The Libyan rebels cannot be compared to the Venezuelan opposition and the position that regime of Gaddafi finds itself in cannot in any way be compared to that facing Chavez.
We must be clear: what we are seeing in Libya and the rest of the Arab world is not an April 11, 2002 coup justified with media manipulation, but rather a February 27, 1989, a Caracazo-like uprising, in which the governments are using the Army against unarmed demonstrators. While opposing imperialist intervention, we must be clear what side we are on: that of the Libyan people against the Gaddafi regime.
From The HistoMat Blog- A Black Radical’s Notebook-Detroit's James Boggs
A Black Radical’s Notebook
A new book makes Detroit ‘revolutionist’ James Boggs’ long career accessible to current activists remaking the Motor City.
By Paul Abowd
'Grace and Jimmy have said their experiences in struggle taught them that the struggle to create revolutionary change cannot just be for things—for material conditions. People and communities have to be transformed.'SHARE THIS ARTICLE | Pages from a Black Radical’s Notebook: A James Boggs Reader is the first volume to compile the writings of tireless Detroit revolutionist James Boggs. The book’s contents comprise half a century of Boggs’ writing and document his evolution as a rank-and-file autoworker, a leader in the civil rights and black power movements, and a visionary thinker about how Detroit’s post-industrial crisis might spark revolution.
Boggs, author of the 1963 book The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook, was married to his collaborator—feminist, activist and author Grace Lee Boggs—for 40 years before his death in 1993. As the matriarch of Detroit’s activist community, she continues their work today at age 95.
In February, I discussed James Boggs’ legacy with University of Michigan Professor Stephen Ward, who edited the compilation.
What were Jimmy Boggs’ early experiences in Detroit?
Jimmy came to Detroit in the summer of 1937 during the Depression, looking for work in the auto industry. He couldn’t find a job, but he came back in 1940 and started at the Chrysler Jefferson plant. He became involved in United Auto Workers (UAW) and radical politics, as well as civil rights politics — which were all intertwined for him.
By the early ’50s he became part of a radical group when Grace Lee and C.L.R. James came to Detroit. Later, Jimmy and Grace left the Trotskyist movement and became an independent Marxist organization. They started a newspaper called Correspondence, which they took from the Committees of Correspondence during the American Revolution. They saw it as an expression of the ideas, sentiments and aspirations of the working class. They saw African Americans and women as an important part of a new American revolution. They were driven by the belief that rank-and-file workers, not the labor movement, could create their own movement and lead their own revolution.
If you’ll permit a slight digression, the spontaneity that we’ve seen in the Egyptian revolution is something that C.L.R. and others in the group were talking about. In ‘57, C.L.R. was excited about the Hungarian revolution. Jimmy had a different take. Based on his experience in labor movement, he’d seen it go from radical possibilities in the ’40s to what he called an interest group by the mid-50s, after the AFL and CIO had merged. By ‘57, Jimmy has seen the labor movement change in the post-war society. He got excited when the workers did anything to revolt, but for him, what was happening in Hungary was not as exciting as what was happening in the third world. Nineteen fifty-seven was also the year of the Ghanaian revolution—the first African nation to gain independence. This was an early expression of their diverging political focus.
Can you say more about how Jimmy’s focus evolved in the post-war period?
During the late ’40s Jimmy was part of the Discrimination Action Committee, which was led by Detroit’s NAACP but with heavy involvement by black workers. They were fighting discrimination in restaurants and in the plants, and it spread to bowling alleys and other spaces. Jimmy was part of radical politics, and he was part of the Fair Practices Committee in his local, but he was beginning to see the labor movement’s limitations.
One of the themes running through the book, and through Jimmy’s work, is that that revolutionary ideas can become reactionary. The need for constant evolution and re-evaluation is vital.
That’s right. Grace calls it the importance of dialectical thinking. In the early ’40s, Jimmy’s politics were rooted in labor movement, but a decade later he’s part of labor but looking for revolutionary possibilities elsewhere. In the ’60s he’s starting to see automation—the changes in production process and factory life. Jimmy saw an increasing use of advanced technology in plants undercutting the need for mass employment, which had been the basis of union movement in ’30s. Labor was unable to respond to this change. Labor’s fight was for a rightful place in the American economy, but that couldn’t be realized because of changes in production.
By the early ’60s, Jimmy began to see the African-American struggle for democratic rights as having the potential to forge revolutionary change. In his ‘63 book The American Revolution, he argues that Black struggle is replacing working-class struggle as a potential revolutionary force. He was rejecting a particular strand of Marxism.
How did Jimmy interact with black worker movements that appeared to form an intersection of black power and rank-and-file organizing?
People from the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement had formed a UHURU [a black radical student group] at Wayne State university in ‘63. Jimmy had been in the plant for 20 years by then, and was something of a mentor to General Baker and others. By ‘68 Baker and others had formed DRUM and in ‘69 the League of Revolutionary Black Workers was becoming stronger in the plants.
At the same time, overall employment was declining and you have white workers leaving the city and the plants. The experience in the plants was different than Jimmy’s was. There was a divergence in their personal and political experiences, their historical understandings, and their political projects—but they all remained part of the black power movement in Detroit and nationally.
What was the next moment of evolution for Jimmy and Grace during the “post-industrial” era?
The black power movement was dissipating by the mid-’70s when Jimmy and Grace formed the National Organization for American Revolution. It was a cadre organization trying to develop committed revolutionaries. But for the first time in their careers they were trying to create a revolution without a substantial social movement taking place. They were in the post-industrial crisis and had had a decade of black leadership in Detroit with Coleman Young. This is also the decade of crack, and AIDS for that matter. By the late ’80s there’s a really extreme experience with youth violence and gun violence in the city. Of course, de-industrialization is a major element of this context.
Jimmy and Grace began to focus on local, community-based efforts. They created a range of organizations: We the People Reclaim Our Streets (WEPROS); they worked with a group called Save Our Sons and Daughters (SOSAD), founded by Clementine Barfield and mothers whose children had been victims of youth violence. A lot of pieces from the SOSAD newsletter form the last section of the Boggs Reader. … Jimmy was actively involved in this type of work until his death in ‘93.
How did Jimmy and Grace approach the reality of growing material inequality and austerity in the ’70s and ’80s in relation to their growing focus on revolutionary work through community building?
Grace and Jimmy have said their experiences in struggle in the ’40s and ’50s and ’60s taught them that the struggle to create revolutionary change cannot just be for things—for material conditions. People and communities have to be transformed. Jimmy and Grace were central in the efforts at creating black power in the city in the ’60s. But that experience confirmed for them that just achieving political power was not enough. It was important and necessary, but not enough.
Their ‘74 book Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century says that Americans will have to make the first revolution in history that’s not for material goods. We’d have to give up some things. The revolutionary struggle couldn’t be just about bread, for more things, but for new human relationships and new ways for societies to be organized to build healthy and vibrant communities.
In ‘92, just before he passed, Jimmy wrote something like “my ideology is constantly changing, with one constant: it has to advance humanity.” That’s a summary statement about his thinking on revolution.
What is also important to understand in Jimmy and Grace’s long activist career is his distinction between a revolutionary and a revolutionist. A revolutionary may have some ideas about how society should be changed and run. But a revolutionist makes a commitment to put those ideas into being. It helps us understand how they moved through decades of different movements with a commitment to revolutionary change and a commitment to continuing struggle.
Pages from a Black Radical’s Notebook is available for purchase here.
Help In These Times publish more articles like this. Donate today!
Subscribe today and save 46% off the newsstand price!
A new book makes Detroit ‘revolutionist’ James Boggs’ long career accessible to current activists remaking the Motor City.
By Paul Abowd
'Grace and Jimmy have said their experiences in struggle taught them that the struggle to create revolutionary change cannot just be for things—for material conditions. People and communities have to be transformed.'SHARE THIS ARTICLE | Pages from a Black Radical’s Notebook: A James Boggs Reader is the first volume to compile the writings of tireless Detroit revolutionist James Boggs. The book’s contents comprise half a century of Boggs’ writing and document his evolution as a rank-and-file autoworker, a leader in the civil rights and black power movements, and a visionary thinker about how Detroit’s post-industrial crisis might spark revolution.
Boggs, author of the 1963 book The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook, was married to his collaborator—feminist, activist and author Grace Lee Boggs—for 40 years before his death in 1993. As the matriarch of Detroit’s activist community, she continues their work today at age 95.
In February, I discussed James Boggs’ legacy with University of Michigan Professor Stephen Ward, who edited the compilation.
What were Jimmy Boggs’ early experiences in Detroit?
Jimmy came to Detroit in the summer of 1937 during the Depression, looking for work in the auto industry. He couldn’t find a job, but he came back in 1940 and started at the Chrysler Jefferson plant. He became involved in United Auto Workers (UAW) and radical politics, as well as civil rights politics — which were all intertwined for him.
By the early ’50s he became part of a radical group when Grace Lee and C.L.R. James came to Detroit. Later, Jimmy and Grace left the Trotskyist movement and became an independent Marxist organization. They started a newspaper called Correspondence, which they took from the Committees of Correspondence during the American Revolution. They saw it as an expression of the ideas, sentiments and aspirations of the working class. They saw African Americans and women as an important part of a new American revolution. They were driven by the belief that rank-and-file workers, not the labor movement, could create their own movement and lead their own revolution.
If you’ll permit a slight digression, the spontaneity that we’ve seen in the Egyptian revolution is something that C.L.R. and others in the group were talking about. In ‘57, C.L.R. was excited about the Hungarian revolution. Jimmy had a different take. Based on his experience in labor movement, he’d seen it go from radical possibilities in the ’40s to what he called an interest group by the mid-50s, after the AFL and CIO had merged. By ‘57, Jimmy has seen the labor movement change in the post-war society. He got excited when the workers did anything to revolt, but for him, what was happening in Hungary was not as exciting as what was happening in the third world. Nineteen fifty-seven was also the year of the Ghanaian revolution—the first African nation to gain independence. This was an early expression of their diverging political focus.
Can you say more about how Jimmy’s focus evolved in the post-war period?
During the late ’40s Jimmy was part of the Discrimination Action Committee, which was led by Detroit’s NAACP but with heavy involvement by black workers. They were fighting discrimination in restaurants and in the plants, and it spread to bowling alleys and other spaces. Jimmy was part of radical politics, and he was part of the Fair Practices Committee in his local, but he was beginning to see the labor movement’s limitations.
One of the themes running through the book, and through Jimmy’s work, is that that revolutionary ideas can become reactionary. The need for constant evolution and re-evaluation is vital.
That’s right. Grace calls it the importance of dialectical thinking. In the early ’40s, Jimmy’s politics were rooted in labor movement, but a decade later he’s part of labor but looking for revolutionary possibilities elsewhere. In the ’60s he’s starting to see automation—the changes in production process and factory life. Jimmy saw an increasing use of advanced technology in plants undercutting the need for mass employment, which had been the basis of union movement in ’30s. Labor was unable to respond to this change. Labor’s fight was for a rightful place in the American economy, but that couldn’t be realized because of changes in production.
By the early ’60s, Jimmy began to see the African-American struggle for democratic rights as having the potential to forge revolutionary change. In his ‘63 book The American Revolution, he argues that Black struggle is replacing working-class struggle as a potential revolutionary force. He was rejecting a particular strand of Marxism.
How did Jimmy interact with black worker movements that appeared to form an intersection of black power and rank-and-file organizing?
People from the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement had formed a UHURU [a black radical student group] at Wayne State university in ‘63. Jimmy had been in the plant for 20 years by then, and was something of a mentor to General Baker and others. By ‘68 Baker and others had formed DRUM and in ‘69 the League of Revolutionary Black Workers was becoming stronger in the plants.
At the same time, overall employment was declining and you have white workers leaving the city and the plants. The experience in the plants was different than Jimmy’s was. There was a divergence in their personal and political experiences, their historical understandings, and their political projects—but they all remained part of the black power movement in Detroit and nationally.
What was the next moment of evolution for Jimmy and Grace during the “post-industrial” era?
The black power movement was dissipating by the mid-’70s when Jimmy and Grace formed the National Organization for American Revolution. It was a cadre organization trying to develop committed revolutionaries. But for the first time in their careers they were trying to create a revolution without a substantial social movement taking place. They were in the post-industrial crisis and had had a decade of black leadership in Detroit with Coleman Young. This is also the decade of crack, and AIDS for that matter. By the late ’80s there’s a really extreme experience with youth violence and gun violence in the city. Of course, de-industrialization is a major element of this context.
Jimmy and Grace began to focus on local, community-based efforts. They created a range of organizations: We the People Reclaim Our Streets (WEPROS); they worked with a group called Save Our Sons and Daughters (SOSAD), founded by Clementine Barfield and mothers whose children had been victims of youth violence. A lot of pieces from the SOSAD newsletter form the last section of the Boggs Reader. … Jimmy was actively involved in this type of work until his death in ‘93.
How did Jimmy and Grace approach the reality of growing material inequality and austerity in the ’70s and ’80s in relation to their growing focus on revolutionary work through community building?
Grace and Jimmy have said their experiences in struggle in the ’40s and ’50s and ’60s taught them that the struggle to create revolutionary change cannot just be for things—for material conditions. People and communities have to be transformed. Jimmy and Grace were central in the efforts at creating black power in the city in the ’60s. But that experience confirmed for them that just achieving political power was not enough. It was important and necessary, but not enough.
Their ‘74 book Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century says that Americans will have to make the first revolution in history that’s not for material goods. We’d have to give up some things. The revolutionary struggle couldn’t be just about bread, for more things, but for new human relationships and new ways for societies to be organized to build healthy and vibrant communities.
In ‘92, just before he passed, Jimmy wrote something like “my ideology is constantly changing, with one constant: it has to advance humanity.” That’s a summary statement about his thinking on revolution.
What is also important to understand in Jimmy and Grace’s long activist career is his distinction between a revolutionary and a revolutionist. A revolutionary may have some ideas about how society should be changed and run. But a revolutionist makes a commitment to put those ideas into being. It helps us understand how they moved through decades of different movements with a commitment to revolutionary change and a commitment to continuing struggle.
Pages from a Black Radical’s Notebook is available for purchase here.
Help In These Times publish more articles like this. Donate today!
Subscribe today and save 46% off the newsstand price!
From The SteveLendmanBlog-America's War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman
Sunday, March 06, 2011
America's War on Libya
America's War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman
Since WW II alone, America waged direct and proxy wars against Korea, Southeast Asia, Central and South American countries, African ones, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and now Egypt and Libya. One down, one to go, besides dozens of attempted and successful coups, as well as numerous other interventions to control world markets, resources and people. Imperial America doesn't sleep. It plots, deciding where next to strike.
Despite popular passion for democratic change, uprisings in Egypt and Libya were externally orchestrated, funded and armed by Washington to replace one despot with another. Democracy won't be tolerated. It's never been at home.
America's media go along, especially when Washington goes to war or plans one. In the lead: The New York Times, the nation's equivalent of an official information and propaganda ministry, posing as independent journalism.
It's February 28 editorial headlined, "Qaddafi's Crimes and Fantasies" made baseless accusations, then called on the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes. Indeed it should - against America and Western co-conspirators, not Libya, for instigating regional aggression, a reality The Times ignored, besides previously against Afghanistan, Iraq, and other US targets.
On March 4, writer David Kirkpatrick headlined, "Qaddafi Brutalizes Foes, Armed or Defenseless," saying:
Gaddafi attacked "unarmed protesters....His militia's actions seemed likely to stir renewed debate over international intervention to limit his use of military power against his own citizens, possibly by imposing a no-flight zone." If established, it's an act of war ahead of aggressive air attacks against a defenseless country, America's latest imperial target.
Kirkpatrick's article read more like bad fiction than real journalism, borrowing a page from now disgraced former Times writer Judith Miller, who functioned as a Pentagon press agent, promoting America's planned Iraq conquest and occupation. Now it's Libya, struggling to defend itself against naked aggression, covert so far but not for long, claiming "humanitarian intervention."
US warships are now positioned in the Mediterranean close by. About 1,200 Marines went to Greece for "Operation Libya." "Rebels" are being sent military and other supplies. Armed intervention is coming, colonial subjugation planned. Libya's "humanitarian crisis" was made in the USA. The pattern by now is familiar, used against many past targets.
On March 4, hinting about what's already begun, Obama said:
"So what I want to make sure of is that the United States has full capacity to act potentially rapidly if the situation deteriorated in such a way that you had a humanitarian crisis on our hands, or a situation in which civilians were - defenseless civilians were finding themselves trapped and in great danger."
He already called on Gaddafi to step down. Among his options, he included a no-fly zone, saying:
"I don't want us hamstrung. I want us to be making our decision based on what's going to be best for the Libyan people in consultation with the international community."
In Geneva, Hillary Clinton called intervention "an option we are actively considering," referring to a no-fly zone and other measures. Stiff economic sanctions were also imposed, effective 8:00PM EST February 25."
The die is cast. Colonizing Libya is planned to exploit its vast energy reserves, other resources, and people, doing what's best for Washington, not Libyans, what's always top priority.
Major Media Suppressed Independent Voices
On August 13, 2011, Fidel Castro will be 85. An elder statesman, he remains active, thoughtful and incisive, now writing commentaries on world issues. On March 3, the Havana Times headlined, "Fidel Castro Forecasts War on Libya," publishing his full article in English.
Until America intervened, Libya "occupie(d) the first spot on the Human Development Index for Africa," including the continent's highest life expectancy. Authorities gave special attention to healthcare and education. Poverty is low. "The cultural level of the population is without a doubt the highest. The population wasn't lacking food and essential social services." Employment was plentiful, including for "hundreds of thousands of workers from Egypt, Tunisia, China and other countries (to) carry out ambitious plans for production and social development."
America plans naked aggression to halt them. "The colossal campaign of lies, unleashed by the mass media," distorts reality on the ground, including by Al Jazeera. Its daily commentaries feature misinformation and distortions based on unverified reports, including about alleged bombings that Russian satellite imagery proved untrue. Nonetheless, Gaddafi is falsely called an aggressor, not victim, his regional despot status notwithstanding.
Telesur Journalists Targeted
Reporting from Libya, Pan American broadcaster Telesur's Jordan Rodriguez said members of his team were threatened, assaulted, and arrested for trying to report events accurately, including about pro-Gaddafi rallies in Tripoli's Green Square.
Prior to Mubarak's ouster, Egypt's military junta detained and interrogated its Cairo team, preventing them from reporting the same way. Other independent journalists were also accosted. Dozens of incidents were reported.
Telesur's Rodrigo Hernandez said he and his colleagues were bullied face down on the pavement, left there for hours, then "forced into an armored police vehicle, with armed personnel inside, and blindfolded," en route to a military barracks for questioning.
They were also threatened with imprisonment, deportation, or "something much worse" if they kept reporting and were detained again. Similar tactics are ongoing in Libya to prevent accurate reports coming out. Imperial Washington wants none of its plans exposed.
Accurate Independent Journalism
Keith Harmon Snow is an independent journalist, war correspondent, human rights investigator, photographer, lecturer, and longtime observer of African country events. On March 1, his article titled, "Petroleum & Empire in North Africa: Muammar Gaddafi Accused of Genocide? NATO Invasion Underway" provided detailed Libyan information. Access it through the following link:
http://www.consciousbeingalliance.com/2011/03/petroleum-empire-maps-for-north-africa/
Key points he stressed included:
-- In 2004, America's sanctions were dropped "in exchange for Gaddafi's (limited) collaboration, (paving) the way for a new era of US-Libyan bilateral trade." America's main interest is Libya's vast oil, gas and other mineral reserves. The Oil and Gas Journal estimates 46.4 billion barrels of oil and around 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, producing 95% of Libya's 2010 export earnings. Its petrodollars "were reportedly invested in US Equity and Big Banks, including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and others, and into (companies) like the Carlyle Group, one of America's most seedy arms dealers."
-- the CIA "long wanted" Gaddafi removed and replaced." In 1986, Reagan-ordered air strikes tried to kill him. His infant daughter was murdered instead. "The CIA (downed) Pan Am 103," not Gaddafi who had nothing to do with it.
-- Libya's "opposition" includes "unspecified, unnamed, unidenfied 'rebels' of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL). These are not innocent 'pro-democracy' protesters...." They seemingly "appeared out of thin air." Who they are isn't explained. NFSL, in fact, was established in 1981 by Sudan's Colonel Jaafer Nimieri, a US puppet dictator from 1971 - 1985.
-- For decades, CIA front groups have been operating in Libya, "backing armed insurgents and interventions" portrayed as "pro-democracy" movements.
-- Western media is reporting misinformation about events on the ground, including alleged bombings, massacres, and possible nerve gas used. None of it is credible. Libya, in fact, is being attacked. It's responding in self-defense.
-- Vicious propaganda is being used to enlist support for imperial intervention. "US troops have already moved ashore....joining the 'opposition....The US, France and Britain have already set up Bases in Libya." British and American Special Forces are operating out of Benghazi and Tobruck. Other covert US forces have been on the ground for weeks. Nothing humanitarian is planned.
-- More than oil and gas is wanted. So are valued mineral deposits. "Libya has a huge land mass with massive untapped mineral potential (including uranium)," besides known energy resources.
-- Accusing Gaddafi of genocide is malicious and untrue, like other major media fabrications. Their "disinformation frenzy and hysteria knows no bounds." No verifiable evidence exists, but there's plenty proving US genocides in Iraq, Afghanistan, and earlier in other targeted countries, causing many millions of deaths for decades. Western media air brushed them out, including The New York Times, America's lead propaganda instrument.
In "Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective," Gerald Perreira wrote:
"The conflict in Libya is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution. (It's) fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi's vision of a united Africa, and reactionary racist Libyan Arab forces who reject (his) vision of Libya as part of a United Africa."
"For those of us who have lived and worked in Libya, there are many complexities to the current situation that have been completely overlooked by the Western media and 'Westoxicated' analysts who have nothing other than a Eurocentric perspective to draw on....Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside the Western imagination."
As a result, all Western government and media reports lack credibility. They're malicious imperial agitprop, including from top officials, BBC and Al Jazeera, each with its own agenda, all serving Western interests, harmful to Libyans.
A Final Comment
Ongoing events in Libya are familiar. Like many of his past counterparts, Gaddafi's been targeted for removal. For weeks or much longer, covert CIA and Special Forces operatives recruited, funded and armed so-called "opposition forces." They, not Gaddafi, instigated violence, heading for civil war. He responded in self-defense. Doing less would be irresponsible.
Western media portray instigators as victims, saying Gaddafi's waging war on his people. America and Western nations are called white knights, offering "humanitarian intervention" when, if fact, imperial colonization is planned. The longer violence continues, the more false media reports will exaggerate it, enlisting support for another nation to be destroyed to save it.
Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Pakistanis, and many other oppressed people understand, victimized by imperial aggression, occupation, exploitation, immiseration, and regular drone attacks murdering innocent men, women and children called militants.
The latest in Afghanistan were nine young children, aged seven to 12, gathering wood in the mountains near their village. They were murdered in cold blood, what's escalating in Libya, being softened up in preparation for colonization and greater harshness.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@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/.
America's War on Libya
America's War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman
Since WW II alone, America waged direct and proxy wars against Korea, Southeast Asia, Central and South American countries, African ones, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and now Egypt and Libya. One down, one to go, besides dozens of attempted and successful coups, as well as numerous other interventions to control world markets, resources and people. Imperial America doesn't sleep. It plots, deciding where next to strike.
Despite popular passion for democratic change, uprisings in Egypt and Libya were externally orchestrated, funded and armed by Washington to replace one despot with another. Democracy won't be tolerated. It's never been at home.
America's media go along, especially when Washington goes to war or plans one. In the lead: The New York Times, the nation's equivalent of an official information and propaganda ministry, posing as independent journalism.
It's February 28 editorial headlined, "Qaddafi's Crimes and Fantasies" made baseless accusations, then called on the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes. Indeed it should - against America and Western co-conspirators, not Libya, for instigating regional aggression, a reality The Times ignored, besides previously against Afghanistan, Iraq, and other US targets.
On March 4, writer David Kirkpatrick headlined, "Qaddafi Brutalizes Foes, Armed or Defenseless," saying:
Gaddafi attacked "unarmed protesters....His militia's actions seemed likely to stir renewed debate over international intervention to limit his use of military power against his own citizens, possibly by imposing a no-flight zone." If established, it's an act of war ahead of aggressive air attacks against a defenseless country, America's latest imperial target.
Kirkpatrick's article read more like bad fiction than real journalism, borrowing a page from now disgraced former Times writer Judith Miller, who functioned as a Pentagon press agent, promoting America's planned Iraq conquest and occupation. Now it's Libya, struggling to defend itself against naked aggression, covert so far but not for long, claiming "humanitarian intervention."
US warships are now positioned in the Mediterranean close by. About 1,200 Marines went to Greece for "Operation Libya." "Rebels" are being sent military and other supplies. Armed intervention is coming, colonial subjugation planned. Libya's "humanitarian crisis" was made in the USA. The pattern by now is familiar, used against many past targets.
On March 4, hinting about what's already begun, Obama said:
"So what I want to make sure of is that the United States has full capacity to act potentially rapidly if the situation deteriorated in such a way that you had a humanitarian crisis on our hands, or a situation in which civilians were - defenseless civilians were finding themselves trapped and in great danger."
He already called on Gaddafi to step down. Among his options, he included a no-fly zone, saying:
"I don't want us hamstrung. I want us to be making our decision based on what's going to be best for the Libyan people in consultation with the international community."
In Geneva, Hillary Clinton called intervention "an option we are actively considering," referring to a no-fly zone and other measures. Stiff economic sanctions were also imposed, effective 8:00PM EST February 25."
The die is cast. Colonizing Libya is planned to exploit its vast energy reserves, other resources, and people, doing what's best for Washington, not Libyans, what's always top priority.
Major Media Suppressed Independent Voices
On August 13, 2011, Fidel Castro will be 85. An elder statesman, he remains active, thoughtful and incisive, now writing commentaries on world issues. On March 3, the Havana Times headlined, "Fidel Castro Forecasts War on Libya," publishing his full article in English.
Until America intervened, Libya "occupie(d) the first spot on the Human Development Index for Africa," including the continent's highest life expectancy. Authorities gave special attention to healthcare and education. Poverty is low. "The cultural level of the population is without a doubt the highest. The population wasn't lacking food and essential social services." Employment was plentiful, including for "hundreds of thousands of workers from Egypt, Tunisia, China and other countries (to) carry out ambitious plans for production and social development."
America plans naked aggression to halt them. "The colossal campaign of lies, unleashed by the mass media," distorts reality on the ground, including by Al Jazeera. Its daily commentaries feature misinformation and distortions based on unverified reports, including about alleged bombings that Russian satellite imagery proved untrue. Nonetheless, Gaddafi is falsely called an aggressor, not victim, his regional despot status notwithstanding.
Telesur Journalists Targeted
Reporting from Libya, Pan American broadcaster Telesur's Jordan Rodriguez said members of his team were threatened, assaulted, and arrested for trying to report events accurately, including about pro-Gaddafi rallies in Tripoli's Green Square.
Prior to Mubarak's ouster, Egypt's military junta detained and interrogated its Cairo team, preventing them from reporting the same way. Other independent journalists were also accosted. Dozens of incidents were reported.
Telesur's Rodrigo Hernandez said he and his colleagues were bullied face down on the pavement, left there for hours, then "forced into an armored police vehicle, with armed personnel inside, and blindfolded," en route to a military barracks for questioning.
They were also threatened with imprisonment, deportation, or "something much worse" if they kept reporting and were detained again. Similar tactics are ongoing in Libya to prevent accurate reports coming out. Imperial Washington wants none of its plans exposed.
Accurate Independent Journalism
Keith Harmon Snow is an independent journalist, war correspondent, human rights investigator, photographer, lecturer, and longtime observer of African country events. On March 1, his article titled, "Petroleum & Empire in North Africa: Muammar Gaddafi Accused of Genocide? NATO Invasion Underway" provided detailed Libyan information. Access it through the following link:
http://www.consciousbeingalliance.com/2011/03/petroleum-empire-maps-for-north-africa/
Key points he stressed included:
-- In 2004, America's sanctions were dropped "in exchange for Gaddafi's (limited) collaboration, (paving) the way for a new era of US-Libyan bilateral trade." America's main interest is Libya's vast oil, gas and other mineral reserves. The Oil and Gas Journal estimates 46.4 billion barrels of oil and around 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, producing 95% of Libya's 2010 export earnings. Its petrodollars "were reportedly invested in US Equity and Big Banks, including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and others, and into (companies) like the Carlyle Group, one of America's most seedy arms dealers."
-- the CIA "long wanted" Gaddafi removed and replaced." In 1986, Reagan-ordered air strikes tried to kill him. His infant daughter was murdered instead. "The CIA (downed) Pan Am 103," not Gaddafi who had nothing to do with it.
-- Libya's "opposition" includes "unspecified, unnamed, unidenfied 'rebels' of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL). These are not innocent 'pro-democracy' protesters...." They seemingly "appeared out of thin air." Who they are isn't explained. NFSL, in fact, was established in 1981 by Sudan's Colonel Jaafer Nimieri, a US puppet dictator from 1971 - 1985.
-- For decades, CIA front groups have been operating in Libya, "backing armed insurgents and interventions" portrayed as "pro-democracy" movements.
-- Western media is reporting misinformation about events on the ground, including alleged bombings, massacres, and possible nerve gas used. None of it is credible. Libya, in fact, is being attacked. It's responding in self-defense.
-- Vicious propaganda is being used to enlist support for imperial intervention. "US troops have already moved ashore....joining the 'opposition....The US, France and Britain have already set up Bases in Libya." British and American Special Forces are operating out of Benghazi and Tobruck. Other covert US forces have been on the ground for weeks. Nothing humanitarian is planned.
-- More than oil and gas is wanted. So are valued mineral deposits. "Libya has a huge land mass with massive untapped mineral potential (including uranium)," besides known energy resources.
-- Accusing Gaddafi of genocide is malicious and untrue, like other major media fabrications. Their "disinformation frenzy and hysteria knows no bounds." No verifiable evidence exists, but there's plenty proving US genocides in Iraq, Afghanistan, and earlier in other targeted countries, causing many millions of deaths for decades. Western media air brushed them out, including The New York Times, America's lead propaganda instrument.
In "Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective," Gerald Perreira wrote:
"The conflict in Libya is not a revolution, but a counter-revolution. (It's) fundamentally a battle between Pan-African forces on the one hand, who are dedicated to the realization of Qaddafi's vision of a united Africa, and reactionary racist Libyan Arab forces who reject (his) vision of Libya as part of a United Africa."
"For those of us who have lived and worked in Libya, there are many complexities to the current situation that have been completely overlooked by the Western media and 'Westoxicated' analysts who have nothing other than a Eurocentric perspective to draw on....Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside the Western imagination."
As a result, all Western government and media reports lack credibility. They're malicious imperial agitprop, including from top officials, BBC and Al Jazeera, each with its own agenda, all serving Western interests, harmful to Libyans.
A Final Comment
Ongoing events in Libya are familiar. Like many of his past counterparts, Gaddafi's been targeted for removal. For weeks or much longer, covert CIA and Special Forces operatives recruited, funded and armed so-called "opposition forces." They, not Gaddafi, instigated violence, heading for civil war. He responded in self-defense. Doing less would be irresponsible.
Western media portray instigators as victims, saying Gaddafi's waging war on his people. America and Western nations are called white knights, offering "humanitarian intervention" when, if fact, imperial colonization is planned. The longer violence continues, the more false media reports will exaggerate it, enlisting support for another nation to be destroyed to save it.
Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Pakistanis, and many other oppressed people understand, victimized by imperial aggression, occupation, exploitation, immiseration, and regular drone attacks murdering innocent men, women and children called militants.
The latest in Afghanistan were nine young children, aged seven to 12, gathering wood in the mountains near their village. They were murdered in cold blood, what's escalating in Libya, being softened up in preparation for colonization and greater harshness.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@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 Rag Blog-The revolution at home:Dispatch from the Madison front
The revolution at home:Dispatch from the Madison front
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 8, 2011
MADISON, Wisconsin -- My wife Kathie and I have been to the Capitol square in Madison, sometimes inside, sometimes outside the Capitol building, most days since February 13 when the demonstrations began. It’s been cold, often snowy, usually with a wind chill of 20 degrees or less. Pretty uncomfortable. And they’ve been some of the best days of our lives.
We are proud of Wisconsin. We have new hope (dare we hope so much?) for America. According to Michael Moore , everyone is a Wisconsinite now. Welcome! Badgers of the world, unite!
Background to protest
Scott Walker provoked the demonstrations Friday, February 11, when he tabled his 144-page “Budget Repair Bill” and insisted it be passed the following week without significant alteration. The first thing that leapt out of the bill was its frontal assault on Wisconsin’s public service unions: the bill would eviscerate the unions and effectively eliminate the collective bargaining process.
Quickly it became apparent that there were many other right-wing dreams buried in the bill that would be instantly made law.
SB11 attacked public-sector pensions and health care (resulting in public service pay reductions of 8-10%); provided authority for the Walker administration (without further legislative consideration) to sell off public owned power plants on no-bid contracts; and it separated the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the State of Wisconsin University System.
There were many other far-reaching provisions as well, together with ominous undertones foretelling drastic cuts that would be included in the biennial budget still to come: cuts to local schools and services, and to Wisconsin’s very successful Medicare initiative (Badger Care). Many suspected that Wisconsin’s huge and fully-funded public service pension fund would soon have crosshairs on it.
Understanding spread that, first, most of the provisions had little or nothing to do with “repairing” the present-year budget; and, second, all were part of a national right-wing agenda best articulated by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and funded by billionaires such as the Koch brothers. (The latter, Charles and David, were heavy funders of Walker’s election campaign, and they had just opened a lobbying firm a block away from the Wisconsin Capitol.)
As all of this came out, the Budget Repair Bill seemed radical to the core in turning back Wisconsin’s progressive traditions and in transferring important legislative powers to the Governor’s administration.
Walker threw a match into this pail of gasoline by preemptively remarking that if there were worker trouble he would call out the state’s National Guard.
In the state Assembly, the Republican majority was strong enough to pass the bill without a single Democratic vote, or even the presence of a single Democrat. But in the Senate, while Republicans held a 19 to 14 advantage, at least one Democrat had to be in the chamber to count toward quorum to legally pass the bill.
The Democrats made themselves scarce. The Republican leader of the Senate instructed his father (since Walker’s election, the head of the State Patrol) to bring them in. Suddenly, on Thursday, February 17, all heard the news: the 14 Democratic Senators were safely out-of-state, in Illinois. The bill could not be passed.
Meanwhile, demonstrations had begun. They started small with a few of Madison’s “usual suspects” (people like myself) and members of the UW-Madison’s Teaching Assistants’ Association. But in a day or so protesters numbered in the thousands: unprecedented in recent history.
The numbers grew exponentially as understanding of the bill’s implications sank in. Teachers caught a collective cold; the schools had to close; high school students marched down in phalanxes to join the crowds. University students were there en masse, and parents brought their children. The Capitol’s marble rotunda became a gigantic resonator for the opposition: packed on three levels, festooned with signs, reverberating with drums and chants: “Walker is a weasel, not a badger!” “What’s disgusting? Union busting!” “Kill the Bill!”
And among the teachers, the parents, the school children, the university students, the retirees and other townspeople were: the unions! The unions really got it from day one: they knew that this battle had the significance of the 1981 air controller’s strike: a last ditch struggle to hold on to the remnants of our trade union movement (and with it, much of the progressive achievement of the twentieth century).
The unions knew this was not a local issue, not a Wisconsin-only issue, and not a budget issue. (Early on, the public service unions indicated they would agree to the salary cuts -- for health and pension payments -- that the Budget Repair bill demanded; they thus took the genuine deficit-reduction issues off the table.)
Walker had cunningly tried to separate the police and fire fighter unions from the rest by exempting them from the bill’s provisions. What a great moment it was (we were there, and up front) when a long line of fire fighters, many in uniform, carrying solidarity placards, marched in a file through the crowd which cheered them ecstatically. And this happened over and over again: fire fighters, police, prison workers condemned the anti-union provisions.
Taken in by a prankster, Walker said to a caller he thought to be David Koch that the demonstrations were dying down and consisted mainly of out-of-staters. (See the complete transcript of the call.)
He wished! The demonstrations were only getting going!
The joy of protest
What does it look and feel like? First, really huge crowds. Thursday, the 17th, when the 14 Senators fled, the crowd is 25,000. The next day, 40,000. On Saturday, 68,000. The following Saturday, more than 70,000. (This despite the constantly below-freezing temperatures). The wide streets that make the square around the Capitol are packed all the way around. The crowd moves slowly, drumming, chanting, waving signs. The procession moves (wouldn’t you know it!) in a leftward direction.
There are some pre-printed signs, mainly from the many (more than 60) unions that are participating. They predominated on the first day or so, but quickly were swamped by thousands of wonderful, whimsical hand-made signs. Each communicates its maker’s own sense of the essence of the problem or the solution.
Humor is adopted as a weapon by many. Plays are made on the name of Scott Walker’s corporate backers, the Koch brothers (the funders of Americans For Prosperity, which already is taking out ads and organizing bus tours to support Walker).
“Scottie, kick your Koch habit.” Or, referring to the infamous 20 minute phone conversation with “David Koch:” “Scott: Koch dealer on 2.”
Many, a little ribald for these pages, play on the Koch brothers’ name mispronounced. Many other signs, always greatly appreciated by the crowd, proclaim: “I voted for Walker. And am I sorry.” You see the figure “14” everywhere: “14 Heroes!” Or just “14.” We all know who they are.
By the time of Saturday’s big demonstration on March 5 (when Michael Moore spoke) the variety of hand-made signs has come to seem infinite. Even dogs are displaying signs, on the order of “I smell a weasel!” or “Bad Scottie! Bad! Bad!”
Inside and out, music and drumming has a spontaneous character. Many of the drums are plastic drywall tubs, sometimes with a tin can inside to impart a ring. We also saw pans, cow bells, snare drums, African drums, even a ukulele. South African vuvuzelas blare discordantly.
Here and there, inside and out, speeches are being given. Most loudspeaker systems are minimalist, hand-held. Some speakers (or, shouters) use only old-fashioned unamplified megaphones (probably made at the kitchen table an hour ago).
Amid the drumming and the chanting in the Capitol, most speeches can’t be heard by most people. But that doesn’t stop us from cheering and applauding. We feel sure the speech was right on, saying just what we think!
Getting warm In Madison (I don’t mean the weather)
Monday, February 28, a new stage was reached. The Capitol reverberated throughout with the people’s voices. Governor Walker would present his budget on Tuesday evening. How could the television-watching public be allowed to see and hear the tens of thousands of citizens that would be outside the chamber?
Solution: close the Capitol to the public. He did. That added more fuel to the fire. The Dane County sheriff withdrew his men and women from the job of closing the entrances, making the unhelpful statement: “My deputies are not a palace guard.”
The Capitol police, assigned the job of clearing the rotunda of the tens, sometimes hundreds, of protesters who had camped there for two weeks, declined to do so, saying the protest had been remarkably peaceful, safe and respectful, and they saw no necessity of arresting and dragging out the campers.
A Dane County judge decided it was not legal to close the building to the public. He issued an injunction against the closure. This was overruled (not legally, of course) as Walker’s Department of Administration simply announced they were in compliance, but then did not open the building.
Some remarkable scenes ensued. Senator Glenn Grothman, a Tea Party Republican, left the Capitol for some reason and for some time could not get back in. He knocked on a window to attract the attention of his staff inside, and they assumed he was a demonstrator and ignored him. Meanwhile the crowd walked with him, wherever he went, and shouted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” (This was the refrain of the Democrats in the Assembly after the Budget Repair Bill there was passed -- or “passed” -- in a surprise vote at 1 a.m.
Finally, Grothman was rescued by a Democratic Assembly member who came out, calmed the crowd, and brought him back into the building. Afterwards, somewhat strangely, Grothman referred to the “slobs” who had “attacked” him, even though the crowd is dressed in pure Wisconsin and is almost embarrassingly middle class in character.
A Democratic Assembly member meanwhile was denied entrance to the Capitol completely; she had her official ID card but insisted it should not be required for her, as a Wisconsin citizen, to enter. Another Democratic Assembly member was tackled and taken to the floor by police (on video), even though he WAS showing his state ID card.
By the end of the week the Department of Administration had to retreat from their manifestly not-legal closure of the building. They then imposed a “security” system so elaborate as to make entrance an onerous, hour-long job. By Saturday March 5, this too was backed away from as a much more reasonable security check was administered by friendly police officers.
The Republican Senate then passed a resolution defining the absent 14 as in contempt, and ordering their arrest. But police spokesmen indicated they would not attempt to arrest them.
Still one more Walker initiative did not work out well. Probably feeding into Tea Party stereotypes involving long-haired, bad-smelling “radicals,” his administration announced that it would cost $7.5 million dollars to remove tape and repair other damage done to the beautiful Capitol building interior during the occupation.
Alas for Walker, both the painters union and an expert in landmark building preservation surveyed the building and reported that damages were slight to non-existent.
Finally, a Fox TV interview show about Madison by Bill O’Reilly cut in footage showing “unruly” (read dangerous Communist?) protesters. Unfortunately, in the scenes shown there was no snow, trees were leafed out, and palm trees could be seen. Oops: not Madison! (Ever since this report, some protesters have carried plastic palm trees.)
Beginning of a movement (or not?)
Where are we now? On Saturday, March 6, it is clear from speeches and conversations that most people feel that we are winning. Whistling in the graveyard? We can’t know for sure. But things seem to be swinging our way.
Walker was forced to present his biennial budget before getting the special powers provided in the Budget Repair Bill. Now, throughout Wisconsin communities are realizing the extent of the hit they are about to take, especially to their schools. Teachers all over Wisconsin are already getting layoff notices.
“Luxuries” like school athletic programs may have to go. Ambulance service may be cut. Smaller towns’ personnel budgets typically are about half police and firefighters and they are exempt from the anti-collective bargaining provisions (even if Walker gets them). Most communities already have multi-year contracts with their public workers anyway.
Demonstrations are beginning in the small towns. The polls make very bad reading for Republicans. Stay tuned.
My wife and I are old enough to remember the anti-Vietnam protests of the 60s. How does this compare? Larger, we would say, and happier. The participants are passionate about the issues: the attack on workers' rights to collective bargaining and on their pensions and health care; cutting Medicaid eligibility and funding; pushing a state deficit down to the local level; and pushing the deficits born mainly of tax concessions to the rich and the corporations onto the schools and the young.
But also, humor seems to bubble through it all, and there is an enormous sense of fellowship. The police have mainly been wonderful (that’s a contrast!). The crowds are a complete cross-section of Wisconsin’s working (or studying) population, and all ages are participating.
Everyone admits that, while they are campaigning seriously for the old Wisconsin (good schools, good government, clean government, union rights, democracy), they are also having the best time that they’ve had in a long time. Emma Goldman would have loved it.
Is this the beginning of a nationwide mobilization of the center and the left against right-wing extremism? All here in Madison hope so. We’ll have to wait to see. In the meantime, we feel that our protest here is, indeed, exactly “what democracy looks like!”
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
By Paul Beckett / The Rag Blog / March 8, 2011
MADISON, Wisconsin -- My wife Kathie and I have been to the Capitol square in Madison, sometimes inside, sometimes outside the Capitol building, most days since February 13 when the demonstrations began. It’s been cold, often snowy, usually with a wind chill of 20 degrees or less. Pretty uncomfortable. And they’ve been some of the best days of our lives.
We are proud of Wisconsin. We have new hope (dare we hope so much?) for America. According to Michael Moore , everyone is a Wisconsinite now. Welcome! Badgers of the world, unite!
Background to protest
Scott Walker provoked the demonstrations Friday, February 11, when he tabled his 144-page “Budget Repair Bill” and insisted it be passed the following week without significant alteration. The first thing that leapt out of the bill was its frontal assault on Wisconsin’s public service unions: the bill would eviscerate the unions and effectively eliminate the collective bargaining process.
Quickly it became apparent that there were many other right-wing dreams buried in the bill that would be instantly made law.
SB11 attacked public-sector pensions and health care (resulting in public service pay reductions of 8-10%); provided authority for the Walker administration (without further legislative consideration) to sell off public owned power plants on no-bid contracts; and it separated the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the State of Wisconsin University System.
There were many other far-reaching provisions as well, together with ominous undertones foretelling drastic cuts that would be included in the biennial budget still to come: cuts to local schools and services, and to Wisconsin’s very successful Medicare initiative (Badger Care). Many suspected that Wisconsin’s huge and fully-funded public service pension fund would soon have crosshairs on it.
Understanding spread that, first, most of the provisions had little or nothing to do with “repairing” the present-year budget; and, second, all were part of a national right-wing agenda best articulated by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and funded by billionaires such as the Koch brothers. (The latter, Charles and David, were heavy funders of Walker’s election campaign, and they had just opened a lobbying firm a block away from the Wisconsin Capitol.)
As all of this came out, the Budget Repair Bill seemed radical to the core in turning back Wisconsin’s progressive traditions and in transferring important legislative powers to the Governor’s administration.
Walker threw a match into this pail of gasoline by preemptively remarking that if there were worker trouble he would call out the state’s National Guard.
In the state Assembly, the Republican majority was strong enough to pass the bill without a single Democratic vote, or even the presence of a single Democrat. But in the Senate, while Republicans held a 19 to 14 advantage, at least one Democrat had to be in the chamber to count toward quorum to legally pass the bill.
The Democrats made themselves scarce. The Republican leader of the Senate instructed his father (since Walker’s election, the head of the State Patrol) to bring them in. Suddenly, on Thursday, February 17, all heard the news: the 14 Democratic Senators were safely out-of-state, in Illinois. The bill could not be passed.
Meanwhile, demonstrations had begun. They started small with a few of Madison’s “usual suspects” (people like myself) and members of the UW-Madison’s Teaching Assistants’ Association. But in a day or so protesters numbered in the thousands: unprecedented in recent history.
The numbers grew exponentially as understanding of the bill’s implications sank in. Teachers caught a collective cold; the schools had to close; high school students marched down in phalanxes to join the crowds. University students were there en masse, and parents brought their children. The Capitol’s marble rotunda became a gigantic resonator for the opposition: packed on three levels, festooned with signs, reverberating with drums and chants: “Walker is a weasel, not a badger!” “What’s disgusting? Union busting!” “Kill the Bill!”
And among the teachers, the parents, the school children, the university students, the retirees and other townspeople were: the unions! The unions really got it from day one: they knew that this battle had the significance of the 1981 air controller’s strike: a last ditch struggle to hold on to the remnants of our trade union movement (and with it, much of the progressive achievement of the twentieth century).
The unions knew this was not a local issue, not a Wisconsin-only issue, and not a budget issue. (Early on, the public service unions indicated they would agree to the salary cuts -- for health and pension payments -- that the Budget Repair bill demanded; they thus took the genuine deficit-reduction issues off the table.)
Walker had cunningly tried to separate the police and fire fighter unions from the rest by exempting them from the bill’s provisions. What a great moment it was (we were there, and up front) when a long line of fire fighters, many in uniform, carrying solidarity placards, marched in a file through the crowd which cheered them ecstatically. And this happened over and over again: fire fighters, police, prison workers condemned the anti-union provisions.
Taken in by a prankster, Walker said to a caller he thought to be David Koch that the demonstrations were dying down and consisted mainly of out-of-staters. (See the complete transcript of the call.)
He wished! The demonstrations were only getting going!
The joy of protest
What does it look and feel like? First, really huge crowds. Thursday, the 17th, when the 14 Senators fled, the crowd is 25,000. The next day, 40,000. On Saturday, 68,000. The following Saturday, more than 70,000. (This despite the constantly below-freezing temperatures). The wide streets that make the square around the Capitol are packed all the way around. The crowd moves slowly, drumming, chanting, waving signs. The procession moves (wouldn’t you know it!) in a leftward direction.
There are some pre-printed signs, mainly from the many (more than 60) unions that are participating. They predominated on the first day or so, but quickly were swamped by thousands of wonderful, whimsical hand-made signs. Each communicates its maker’s own sense of the essence of the problem or the solution.
Humor is adopted as a weapon by many. Plays are made on the name of Scott Walker’s corporate backers, the Koch brothers (the funders of Americans For Prosperity, which already is taking out ads and organizing bus tours to support Walker).
“Scottie, kick your Koch habit.” Or, referring to the infamous 20 minute phone conversation with “David Koch:” “Scott: Koch dealer on 2.”
Many, a little ribald for these pages, play on the Koch brothers’ name mispronounced. Many other signs, always greatly appreciated by the crowd, proclaim: “I voted for Walker. And am I sorry.” You see the figure “14” everywhere: “14 Heroes!” Or just “14.” We all know who they are.
By the time of Saturday’s big demonstration on March 5 (when Michael Moore spoke) the variety of hand-made signs has come to seem infinite. Even dogs are displaying signs, on the order of “I smell a weasel!” or “Bad Scottie! Bad! Bad!”
Inside and out, music and drumming has a spontaneous character. Many of the drums are plastic drywall tubs, sometimes with a tin can inside to impart a ring. We also saw pans, cow bells, snare drums, African drums, even a ukulele. South African vuvuzelas blare discordantly.
Here and there, inside and out, speeches are being given. Most loudspeaker systems are minimalist, hand-held. Some speakers (or, shouters) use only old-fashioned unamplified megaphones (probably made at the kitchen table an hour ago).
Amid the drumming and the chanting in the Capitol, most speeches can’t be heard by most people. But that doesn’t stop us from cheering and applauding. We feel sure the speech was right on, saying just what we think!
Getting warm In Madison (I don’t mean the weather)
Monday, February 28, a new stage was reached. The Capitol reverberated throughout with the people’s voices. Governor Walker would present his budget on Tuesday evening. How could the television-watching public be allowed to see and hear the tens of thousands of citizens that would be outside the chamber?
Solution: close the Capitol to the public. He did. That added more fuel to the fire. The Dane County sheriff withdrew his men and women from the job of closing the entrances, making the unhelpful statement: “My deputies are not a palace guard.”
The Capitol police, assigned the job of clearing the rotunda of the tens, sometimes hundreds, of protesters who had camped there for two weeks, declined to do so, saying the protest had been remarkably peaceful, safe and respectful, and they saw no necessity of arresting and dragging out the campers.
A Dane County judge decided it was not legal to close the building to the public. He issued an injunction against the closure. This was overruled (not legally, of course) as Walker’s Department of Administration simply announced they were in compliance, but then did not open the building.
Some remarkable scenes ensued. Senator Glenn Grothman, a Tea Party Republican, left the Capitol for some reason and for some time could not get back in. He knocked on a window to attract the attention of his staff inside, and they assumed he was a demonstrator and ignored him. Meanwhile the crowd walked with him, wherever he went, and shouted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” (This was the refrain of the Democrats in the Assembly after the Budget Repair Bill there was passed -- or “passed” -- in a surprise vote at 1 a.m.
Finally, Grothman was rescued by a Democratic Assembly member who came out, calmed the crowd, and brought him back into the building. Afterwards, somewhat strangely, Grothman referred to the “slobs” who had “attacked” him, even though the crowd is dressed in pure Wisconsin and is almost embarrassingly middle class in character.
A Democratic Assembly member meanwhile was denied entrance to the Capitol completely; she had her official ID card but insisted it should not be required for her, as a Wisconsin citizen, to enter. Another Democratic Assembly member was tackled and taken to the floor by police (on video), even though he WAS showing his state ID card.
By the end of the week the Department of Administration had to retreat from their manifestly not-legal closure of the building. They then imposed a “security” system so elaborate as to make entrance an onerous, hour-long job. By Saturday March 5, this too was backed away from as a much more reasonable security check was administered by friendly police officers.
The Republican Senate then passed a resolution defining the absent 14 as in contempt, and ordering their arrest. But police spokesmen indicated they would not attempt to arrest them.
Still one more Walker initiative did not work out well. Probably feeding into Tea Party stereotypes involving long-haired, bad-smelling “radicals,” his administration announced that it would cost $7.5 million dollars to remove tape and repair other damage done to the beautiful Capitol building interior during the occupation.
Alas for Walker, both the painters union and an expert in landmark building preservation surveyed the building and reported that damages were slight to non-existent.
Finally, a Fox TV interview show about Madison by Bill O’Reilly cut in footage showing “unruly” (read dangerous Communist?) protesters. Unfortunately, in the scenes shown there was no snow, trees were leafed out, and palm trees could be seen. Oops: not Madison! (Ever since this report, some protesters have carried plastic palm trees.)
Beginning of a movement (or not?)
Where are we now? On Saturday, March 6, it is clear from speeches and conversations that most people feel that we are winning. Whistling in the graveyard? We can’t know for sure. But things seem to be swinging our way.
Walker was forced to present his biennial budget before getting the special powers provided in the Budget Repair Bill. Now, throughout Wisconsin communities are realizing the extent of the hit they are about to take, especially to their schools. Teachers all over Wisconsin are already getting layoff notices.
“Luxuries” like school athletic programs may have to go. Ambulance service may be cut. Smaller towns’ personnel budgets typically are about half police and firefighters and they are exempt from the anti-collective bargaining provisions (even if Walker gets them). Most communities already have multi-year contracts with their public workers anyway.
Demonstrations are beginning in the small towns. The polls make very bad reading for Republicans. Stay tuned.
My wife and I are old enough to remember the anti-Vietnam protests of the 60s. How does this compare? Larger, we would say, and happier. The participants are passionate about the issues: the attack on workers' rights to collective bargaining and on their pensions and health care; cutting Medicaid eligibility and funding; pushing a state deficit down to the local level; and pushing the deficits born mainly of tax concessions to the rich and the corporations onto the schools and the young.
But also, humor seems to bubble through it all, and there is an enormous sense of fellowship. The police have mainly been wonderful (that’s a contrast!). The crowds are a complete cross-section of Wisconsin’s working (or studying) population, and all ages are participating.
Everyone admits that, while they are campaigning seriously for the old Wisconsin (good schools, good government, clean government, union rights, democracy), they are also having the best time that they’ve had in a long time. Emma Goldman would have loved it.
Is this the beginning of a nationwide mobilization of the center and the left against right-wing extremism? All here in Madison hope so. We’ll have to wait to see. In the meantime, we feel that our protest here is, indeed, exactly “what democracy looks like!”
[Dr. Paul Beckett lives in Madison, Wisconsin. He can be reached at beckettpa@gmail.com.]
From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky- On German Bonapartism
Leon Trotsky
German Bonapartism
(October 1932)
Written in exile in Turkey, October 30 1932.
Bulletin of the Opposition, No.32, December 1932.
Translated for The Militant, December 24, 1932.
The elections to the Reichstag put the “presidential government to a new critical test.” [1] It is useful, therefore, to remind ourselves of its social and political nature. It is precisely through the analysis of such concrete and, at first glance, “sudden” political phenomena as the government of Papen-Schleicher, that the Marxist method reveals its invaluable advantages.
At one time we defined the “presidential” government as a species of Bonapartism. It would be incorrect to see in this definition the chance outcome of a desire to find a familiar name for an unfamiliar phenomenon. The decline of capitalist society places Bonapartism – side by side with fascism and coupled with it – again on the order of the day. Previously we have characterized the government of Brüning as a Bonapartist one. Then, in retrospect, we narrowed the definition to a half, or pre-Bonapartist one.
What did other Communists and in general “left” groups say in this connection? To await an attempt at a scientific definition of a new political phenomenon from the present leadership of the Comintern would of course be naive, not to say foolish. The Stalinists simply place Papen in the fascist camp. If Wels and Hitler are “twins,” then such a trifle as Papen is altogether not worth breaking one’s head about. This is the same political literature that Marx called vulgarian and which he taught us to despise. In reality fascism represents one of the two main camps of civil war. Stretching his arm to power, Hitler first of all demanded the relinquishing of the street to him for seventy-two hours. Hindenburg refused this. The task of Papen-Schleicher: to avoid civil war by amicably disciplining the National Socialists and chaining the proletariat to police fetters. The very possibility of such a regime is determined by the relative weakness of the proletariat
The SAP rids itself of the question of the Papen government as well as of other questions by means of general phrases. The Brandlerites preserved silence on our definition as long as the matter concerned Brüning, that is, the incubation period of Bonapartism. When, however, the Marxist characterization of Bonapartism confirmed itself fully in the theory and practice of the presidential government the Brandlerites came out with their criticism: the wise owl of Thalheimer takes flight in the late hours of the night.
The Stuttgart Arbeitertribüne teaches us that Bonapartism, raising the military-police apparatus over the bourgeoisie in order to defend its class domination against its own political parties, must be supported by the peasantry and must use methods of Social Democracy. Papen is not supported by the peasantry and does not introduce a pseudo-radical program. Therefore, our attempt to define the government of Papen as Bonapartism “does not fit at all.” This is severe but superficial.
How do the Brandlerites themselves define the government of Papen? In the same issue of the Arbeitertribüne there are very timely announcements of the lecture of Brandler on the subject: Junker-monarchical, fascist or proletarian dictatorship? In this triad the regime of Papen is presented as a Junker-monarchist dictatorship. This is most worthy of the Vorwärts and of vulgar democrats in general. That titled German Bonapartists make some sort of little private presents to the Junkers is obvious. That these gentlemen are inclined to a monarchistic turn of mind is also known. But it is purest liberal nonsense that the essence of the presidential regime is Junker monarchism.
Such terms as liberalism, Bonapartism, fascism have the character of generalizations. Historical phenomena never repeat themselves completely. It would not have been difficult to prove that even the government of Napoleon III, compared with the regime of Napoleon I, was not “Bonapartist” – not only because Napoleon himself was a doubtful Bonaparte by blood, but also because his relations to the classes, especially to the peasantry and to the lumpenproletariat were not at all the same as those of Napoleon I. Moreover, classical Bonapartism grew out of the epoch of gigantic war victories, which the Second Empire [2] did not know at all. But if we should look for the repetition of all the traits of Bonapartism, we will find that Bonapartism is a one-time, unique occurrence, i.e., that Bonapartism in general does not exist but that there once was a general named Bonaparte born in Corsica. The case is no different with liberalism and with all other generalized terms of history. When one speaks by analogy of Bonapartism, it is necessary to state precisely which of its traits found their fullest expression under present historical conditions.
Present-day German Bonapartism has a very complex and, so to speak, combined character. The government of Papen would have been impossible without fascism. But fascism is not in power. And the government of Papen is not fascism. On the other hand, the government of Papen, at any rate in its present form, would have been impossible without Hindenburg who, in spite of the final prostration of Germany in the war, stands for the great victories of Germany and symbolizes the army in the memory of the popular masses. The second election of Hindenburg had all the characteristics of a plebiscite. Many millions of workers, petty bourgeois, and peasants (Social Democracy and Center) voted for Hindenburg. They did not see in him any one political program. They wanted first of all to avoid civil war, and raised Hindenburg on their shoulders as a superarbiter, as an arbitration judge of the nation. But precisely this is the most important function of Bonapartism: raising itself over the two struggling camps in order to preserve property and order. It suppresses civil war, or precedes it or does not allow it to rekindle. Speaking of Papen, we cannot forget Hindenburg, on whom rests the sanction of the Social Democracy. The combined character of German Bonapartism expressed itself in the fact that the demagogic work of catching the masses for Hindenburg was performed by two big, independent parties: the Social Democracy and National Socialism. If they are both astonished at the results of their work, that does not change the matter one whit.
The Social Democracy asserts that fascism is the product of Communism. This is correct insofar as there would have been no necessity at all for fascism without the sharpening of the class struggle, without the revolutionary proletariat without the crisis of capitalist society. The flunkeyish theory of Wels-Hilferding-Otto Bauer has no other meaning. Yes, fascism is a reaction of bourgeois society to the threat of proletarian revolution. But precisely because this threat is not an imminent one today, the ruling classes make an attempt to get along without a civil war through the medium of a Bonapartist dictatorship.
Objecting to our characterization of the government of Hindenburg-Papen-Schleicher, the Brandlerites refer to Marx and express thereby an ironic hope that his authority may also have weight with us. It is difficult to deceive oneself more pathetically. The fact is that Marx and Engels wrote not only of the Bonapartism of the two Bonapartes, but also of other species. Beginning, it seems, with the year 1864, they more than once likened the “national” regime of Bismarck to French Bonapartism. And this in spite of the fact that Bismarck was not a pseudoradical demagogue and, so far as we know, was not supported by the peasantry. The Iron Chancellor was not raised to power as the result of a plebiscite, but was duly appointed by his legitimate and hereditary king. And nevertheless Marx and Engels are right. Bismarck made use in a Bonapartist fashion of the antagonism between the propertied classes and the rising proletariat overcoming in this way the antagonism within the two propertied classes, between the Junkerdom and the bourgeoisie, and raised a military-police apparatus over the nation. The policy of Bismarck is that very tradition to which the “theoreticians” of present German Bonapartism refer. True, Bismarck solved in his fashion the problem of German unity, of the external greatness of Germany. Papen however so far only promises to obtain for Germany “equality” on the international arena. Not a small difference! But we were not trying to prove that the Bonapartism of Papen is of the same caliber as the Bonapartism of Bismarck. Napoleon III was also only a parody of his pretended uncle.
The reference to Marx, as we have seen, has an obviously imprudent character. That Thalheimer does not understand the dialectics of Marxism we suspected long ago. But we must admit we thought that at least he knew the texts of Marx and Engels. We take this opportunity to correct our mistake.
Our characterization of the presidential government rejected by the Brandlerites, received a very brilliant confirmation from a completely unexpected and in its way highly “authoritative source. With regard to the dissolution of the “five-day” Reichstag, DAZ (Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, organ of heavy industry) quoted in a long article on August 28 the work of Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte – for what purpose? No more and no less than to support the historical and political right of the president to put his boot on the neck of popular representation. The organ of heavy industry risked at a difficult moment drinking from the poisoned wells of Marxism. With a remarkable adroitness the paper takes from the immortal pamphlet a long quotation explaining how and why the French president as the incarnation of the ”nation” obtained a preponderance over the split-up parliament. The same article in the DAZ reminds us most opportunely of how in the spring of 1890 Bismarck developed a plan for a most suitable governmental change. Napoleon III and Bismarck as forerunners of presidential government are called by their right name by the Berlin newspaper, which – in August at least – played the role of an official organ.
To quote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte in reference to the “July 20 of Papen” is of course very risky, since Marx characterized the regime of Napoleon in the most acid terms as the regime of adventurists, crooks, and pimps. As a matter of fact, the DAZ could be liable to punishment for a malicious slander of the government. But if we should leave aside this incidental inconvenience, there remains nevertheless the indubitable fact that historic instinct brought the DAZ to the proper place. Unfortunately one cannot say the same of the theoretical wisdom of Thalheimer.
The Bonapartism of the era of the decline of capitalism differs utterly from the Bonapartism of the era of the ascension of bourgeois society. German Bonapartism is not supported directly by the petty bourgeoisie of the country and village, and this is not accidental. Precisely therefore, we wrote at one time of the weakness of the government of Papen, which holds on only by the neutralization of two camps: the proletariat and the fascists.
But behind Papen stand the great landowners, finance capitalists, generals – so rejoin other “Marxists.” Do not the propertied classes in themselves represent a great force? This argument proves once more that it is much easier to understand class relations in their general sociological outline than in a concrete historical form. Yes, immediately behind Papen stand the propertied heights and they only: precisely therein is contained the cause of his weakness.
Under the conditions of present-day capitalism, a government which would not be the agency of finance capital is in general impossible. But of all possible agencies, the government of Papen is the least stable one. If the ruling classes could rule directly, they would have no need either of parliamentarism, or of Social Democracy, or of fascism. The government of Papen exposes finance capital too clearly, leaving it without even the sacred figleaf ordered by the Prussian Commissioner Bracht. Just because the extra-party “national” government is in fact able to speak only in the name of the social heights, capital is ever more careful not to identify itself with the government of Papen. The DAZ wants to find support for the presidential government in the National Socialist masses, and in the language of ultimatums demands of Papen a bloc with Hitler, which means capitulation to him.
In evaluating the “strength” of the presidential government we must not forget the fact that if finance capital stands behind Papen, this does not at all mean that it falls together with him. Finance capital has innumerably more possibilities than Hindenburg-Papen-Schleicher. In case of the sharpening of contradictions there remains the reserve of pure fascism. In case of the softening of contradictions, they will maneuver until the time when the proletariat puts its knee on their chests. For how long Papen will maneuver, the near future will show.
These lines will appear in the press when the new elections to the Reichstag shall already have gone by. The Bonapartist nature of the “anti-French” government of Papen will inevitably reveal itself with a new force, but also its weakness. We will take this up again in due time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
German Bonapartism
(October 1932)
Written in exile in Turkey, October 30 1932.
Bulletin of the Opposition, No.32, December 1932.
Translated for The Militant, December 24, 1932.
The elections to the Reichstag put the “presidential government to a new critical test.” [1] It is useful, therefore, to remind ourselves of its social and political nature. It is precisely through the analysis of such concrete and, at first glance, “sudden” political phenomena as the government of Papen-Schleicher, that the Marxist method reveals its invaluable advantages.
At one time we defined the “presidential” government as a species of Bonapartism. It would be incorrect to see in this definition the chance outcome of a desire to find a familiar name for an unfamiliar phenomenon. The decline of capitalist society places Bonapartism – side by side with fascism and coupled with it – again on the order of the day. Previously we have characterized the government of Brüning as a Bonapartist one. Then, in retrospect, we narrowed the definition to a half, or pre-Bonapartist one.
What did other Communists and in general “left” groups say in this connection? To await an attempt at a scientific definition of a new political phenomenon from the present leadership of the Comintern would of course be naive, not to say foolish. The Stalinists simply place Papen in the fascist camp. If Wels and Hitler are “twins,” then such a trifle as Papen is altogether not worth breaking one’s head about. This is the same political literature that Marx called vulgarian and which he taught us to despise. In reality fascism represents one of the two main camps of civil war. Stretching his arm to power, Hitler first of all demanded the relinquishing of the street to him for seventy-two hours. Hindenburg refused this. The task of Papen-Schleicher: to avoid civil war by amicably disciplining the National Socialists and chaining the proletariat to police fetters. The very possibility of such a regime is determined by the relative weakness of the proletariat
The SAP rids itself of the question of the Papen government as well as of other questions by means of general phrases. The Brandlerites preserved silence on our definition as long as the matter concerned Brüning, that is, the incubation period of Bonapartism. When, however, the Marxist characterization of Bonapartism confirmed itself fully in the theory and practice of the presidential government the Brandlerites came out with their criticism: the wise owl of Thalheimer takes flight in the late hours of the night.
The Stuttgart Arbeitertribüne teaches us that Bonapartism, raising the military-police apparatus over the bourgeoisie in order to defend its class domination against its own political parties, must be supported by the peasantry and must use methods of Social Democracy. Papen is not supported by the peasantry and does not introduce a pseudo-radical program. Therefore, our attempt to define the government of Papen as Bonapartism “does not fit at all.” This is severe but superficial.
How do the Brandlerites themselves define the government of Papen? In the same issue of the Arbeitertribüne there are very timely announcements of the lecture of Brandler on the subject: Junker-monarchical, fascist or proletarian dictatorship? In this triad the regime of Papen is presented as a Junker-monarchist dictatorship. This is most worthy of the Vorwärts and of vulgar democrats in general. That titled German Bonapartists make some sort of little private presents to the Junkers is obvious. That these gentlemen are inclined to a monarchistic turn of mind is also known. But it is purest liberal nonsense that the essence of the presidential regime is Junker monarchism.
Such terms as liberalism, Bonapartism, fascism have the character of generalizations. Historical phenomena never repeat themselves completely. It would not have been difficult to prove that even the government of Napoleon III, compared with the regime of Napoleon I, was not “Bonapartist” – not only because Napoleon himself was a doubtful Bonaparte by blood, but also because his relations to the classes, especially to the peasantry and to the lumpenproletariat were not at all the same as those of Napoleon I. Moreover, classical Bonapartism grew out of the epoch of gigantic war victories, which the Second Empire [2] did not know at all. But if we should look for the repetition of all the traits of Bonapartism, we will find that Bonapartism is a one-time, unique occurrence, i.e., that Bonapartism in general does not exist but that there once was a general named Bonaparte born in Corsica. The case is no different with liberalism and with all other generalized terms of history. When one speaks by analogy of Bonapartism, it is necessary to state precisely which of its traits found their fullest expression under present historical conditions.
Present-day German Bonapartism has a very complex and, so to speak, combined character. The government of Papen would have been impossible without fascism. But fascism is not in power. And the government of Papen is not fascism. On the other hand, the government of Papen, at any rate in its present form, would have been impossible without Hindenburg who, in spite of the final prostration of Germany in the war, stands for the great victories of Germany and symbolizes the army in the memory of the popular masses. The second election of Hindenburg had all the characteristics of a plebiscite. Many millions of workers, petty bourgeois, and peasants (Social Democracy and Center) voted for Hindenburg. They did not see in him any one political program. They wanted first of all to avoid civil war, and raised Hindenburg on their shoulders as a superarbiter, as an arbitration judge of the nation. But precisely this is the most important function of Bonapartism: raising itself over the two struggling camps in order to preserve property and order. It suppresses civil war, or precedes it or does not allow it to rekindle. Speaking of Papen, we cannot forget Hindenburg, on whom rests the sanction of the Social Democracy. The combined character of German Bonapartism expressed itself in the fact that the demagogic work of catching the masses for Hindenburg was performed by two big, independent parties: the Social Democracy and National Socialism. If they are both astonished at the results of their work, that does not change the matter one whit.
The Social Democracy asserts that fascism is the product of Communism. This is correct insofar as there would have been no necessity at all for fascism without the sharpening of the class struggle, without the revolutionary proletariat without the crisis of capitalist society. The flunkeyish theory of Wels-Hilferding-Otto Bauer has no other meaning. Yes, fascism is a reaction of bourgeois society to the threat of proletarian revolution. But precisely because this threat is not an imminent one today, the ruling classes make an attempt to get along without a civil war through the medium of a Bonapartist dictatorship.
Objecting to our characterization of the government of Hindenburg-Papen-Schleicher, the Brandlerites refer to Marx and express thereby an ironic hope that his authority may also have weight with us. It is difficult to deceive oneself more pathetically. The fact is that Marx and Engels wrote not only of the Bonapartism of the two Bonapartes, but also of other species. Beginning, it seems, with the year 1864, they more than once likened the “national” regime of Bismarck to French Bonapartism. And this in spite of the fact that Bismarck was not a pseudoradical demagogue and, so far as we know, was not supported by the peasantry. The Iron Chancellor was not raised to power as the result of a plebiscite, but was duly appointed by his legitimate and hereditary king. And nevertheless Marx and Engels are right. Bismarck made use in a Bonapartist fashion of the antagonism between the propertied classes and the rising proletariat overcoming in this way the antagonism within the two propertied classes, between the Junkerdom and the bourgeoisie, and raised a military-police apparatus over the nation. The policy of Bismarck is that very tradition to which the “theoreticians” of present German Bonapartism refer. True, Bismarck solved in his fashion the problem of German unity, of the external greatness of Germany. Papen however so far only promises to obtain for Germany “equality” on the international arena. Not a small difference! But we were not trying to prove that the Bonapartism of Papen is of the same caliber as the Bonapartism of Bismarck. Napoleon III was also only a parody of his pretended uncle.
The reference to Marx, as we have seen, has an obviously imprudent character. That Thalheimer does not understand the dialectics of Marxism we suspected long ago. But we must admit we thought that at least he knew the texts of Marx and Engels. We take this opportunity to correct our mistake.
Our characterization of the presidential government rejected by the Brandlerites, received a very brilliant confirmation from a completely unexpected and in its way highly “authoritative source. With regard to the dissolution of the “five-day” Reichstag, DAZ (Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, organ of heavy industry) quoted in a long article on August 28 the work of Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte – for what purpose? No more and no less than to support the historical and political right of the president to put his boot on the neck of popular representation. The organ of heavy industry risked at a difficult moment drinking from the poisoned wells of Marxism. With a remarkable adroitness the paper takes from the immortal pamphlet a long quotation explaining how and why the French president as the incarnation of the ”nation” obtained a preponderance over the split-up parliament. The same article in the DAZ reminds us most opportunely of how in the spring of 1890 Bismarck developed a plan for a most suitable governmental change. Napoleon III and Bismarck as forerunners of presidential government are called by their right name by the Berlin newspaper, which – in August at least – played the role of an official organ.
To quote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte in reference to the “July 20 of Papen” is of course very risky, since Marx characterized the regime of Napoleon in the most acid terms as the regime of adventurists, crooks, and pimps. As a matter of fact, the DAZ could be liable to punishment for a malicious slander of the government. But if we should leave aside this incidental inconvenience, there remains nevertheless the indubitable fact that historic instinct brought the DAZ to the proper place. Unfortunately one cannot say the same of the theoretical wisdom of Thalheimer.
The Bonapartism of the era of the decline of capitalism differs utterly from the Bonapartism of the era of the ascension of bourgeois society. German Bonapartism is not supported directly by the petty bourgeoisie of the country and village, and this is not accidental. Precisely therefore, we wrote at one time of the weakness of the government of Papen, which holds on only by the neutralization of two camps: the proletariat and the fascists.
But behind Papen stand the great landowners, finance capitalists, generals – so rejoin other “Marxists.” Do not the propertied classes in themselves represent a great force? This argument proves once more that it is much easier to understand class relations in their general sociological outline than in a concrete historical form. Yes, immediately behind Papen stand the propertied heights and they only: precisely therein is contained the cause of his weakness.
Under the conditions of present-day capitalism, a government which would not be the agency of finance capital is in general impossible. But of all possible agencies, the government of Papen is the least stable one. If the ruling classes could rule directly, they would have no need either of parliamentarism, or of Social Democracy, or of fascism. The government of Papen exposes finance capital too clearly, leaving it without even the sacred figleaf ordered by the Prussian Commissioner Bracht. Just because the extra-party “national” government is in fact able to speak only in the name of the social heights, capital is ever more careful not to identify itself with the government of Papen. The DAZ wants to find support for the presidential government in the National Socialist masses, and in the language of ultimatums demands of Papen a bloc with Hitler, which means capitulation to him.
In evaluating the “strength” of the presidential government we must not forget the fact that if finance capital stands behind Papen, this does not at all mean that it falls together with him. Finance capital has innumerably more possibilities than Hindenburg-Papen-Schleicher. In case of the sharpening of contradictions there remains the reserve of pure fascism. In case of the softening of contradictions, they will maneuver until the time when the proletariat puts its knee on their chests. For how long Papen will maneuver, the near future will show.
These lines will appear in the press when the new elections to the Reichstag shall already have gone by. The Bonapartist nature of the “anti-French” government of Papen will inevitably reveal itself with a new force, but also its weakness. We will take this up again in due time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From The Rag Blog-Barbara Deming and David McReynolds were 'out' pioneers of the left.
A Saving Remnant:
Two lives of courage and commitment
Barbara Deming and David McReynolds were 'out' pioneers of the left.
By Doug Ireland / The Rag Blog / March 9, 2011
[A SAVING REMNANT: The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds, by Martin Duberman (The New Press, March 1, 2011); Hardcover; 298 pp; $27.95.]
Martin Duberman, known as “the father of gay studies,” is a distinguished historian, playwright, essayist, novelist, and public intellectual, and any new book by him is an event in queer culture to which attention must be paid.
Such is certainly the case with A Saving Remnant: The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds, an unusual dual biography by Duberman just published by the New Press.
Duberman is a distinguished professor of history emeritus at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where three decades ago he founded the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS), the first such program in any American university, much emulated since. Duberman’s long struggle to establish that center is recounted in his third volume of memoirs, Waiting to Land, published two years ago (see this reporter’s October 15, 2009 review, “Queer Studies’ Essential Man.”)
Duberman first established his reputation as a historian with his groundbreaking work on the 19th-century anti-slavery movement, and later produced stunning biographies of Paul Robeson and Lincoln Kirstein, among others, a body of work that won him the recognition of his peers, who awarded him the American Historical Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Scholarship.
Duberman was already well-known as an important public intellectual whose essays and articles engaged with “the passion and action of our time” (to borrow Oliver Wendell Holmes’ formulation), and as a prize-winning historian and playwright, when he became the first major intellectual of premier rank to come out and join the gay liberation movement in the early 1970s. As an activist, he went on to help found the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and, later, Queers for Economic Justice.
With his new book, “A Saving Remnant,” Duberman returns to the preoccupation with social movements that has been at the heart of much of his work. And in choosing to recount the lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds [a contributor to The Rag Blog], Duberman has picked two openly queer Americans who devoted their lives to the struggles for peace and social justice.
David McReynolds addresses a gathering of the War Resisters League, where, on the recommendation of Bayard Rustin, he worked late in his career, until his retirement in 1999. Photo from The New Press / Gay City News.
Nothing in their family backgrounds destined either Deming or McReynolds to become political radicals. Deming, a novelist, short story writer, and poet who was born in 1917 and died in 1984, was raised in Manhattan by upper-middle class parents with “traditional habits and opinions.” But at 16, she fell in love with her mother’s best friend (Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sister Norma) and boldly wrote in her journal, “I am a lesbian. I must face it.”
Thereafter, she refused to conceal her sexual orientation. After graduation from Bennington, Deming moved to Greenwich Village, worked at Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater, and had a brief affair with Lotte Lenya, the Austrian actress-singer who was married to composer Kurt Weill.
McReynolds, born in 1929 and still going strong today, was raised in Los Angeles as a devout Baptist by conservative Republican parents. But while in high school he read muckraker Lincoln Steffens’ autobiography and underwent a political conversion. McReynolds had his first homosexual experience in grammar school, and when he was 19 came out to his parents.
Although he had some guilt about his “deviance,” that vanished when he was a student at UCLA after an encounter in a notorious “queer bathroom” on campus with a young Alvin Ailey, not yet famous as a dancer and choreographer.
“Alvin’s guilt-free attitude toward homosexuality became a model for David (‘I came home walking on a cloud’) and the two became good friends, though never lovers,” Duberman recounts.
By this time, 1951, McReynolds had become deeply involved with the Socialist Party. Founded in 1901 under the leadership of labor leader Eugene Victor Debs, the party reached its peak of influence in 1912, when, with Debs as its presidential candidate, it won 6 percent of the vote; had 100 elected public officials, including several members of Congress; and a press with a readership in the millions.
But the party’s principled pacifism during World Wars I and II brought it government persecution and decimated its membership, and by the early ’50s the party, for decades led by Norman Thomas, was a shadow of its former self.
As a well-known, “outspoken and magnetic” campus radical “on the non-Communist side,” the handsome young McReynolds became a leader of the Socialists’ left wing, all while being open about his homosexuality with his party comrades in its somewhat Bohemian LA local, but “never taking any flack for it.”
McReynolds, already a committed pacifist, risked prison when he refused induction into the army for the Korean War, and it was then that he met Bayard Rustin, the field director of the principal pacifist organization, the War Resisters League, later famous as the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington under Martin Luther King’s leadership.
At the time of their meeting, Rustin had just been arrested on a “morals charge” for a homosexual encounter, and a long talk with Rustin about homosexuality helped further diminish any of McReynolds’ residual guilt feelings about his own same-sex orientation.
It is difficult to overstate the enormous courage and personal integrity required of Deming and McReynolds to be openly queer at a time in America when homosexuality was illegal, and homosexuals were condemned to barbaric tortures to “cure” them by medicine and loathed as degenerate outcasts by most of society.
This was especially true in the 1950s at the height of the McCarthyite witch-hunts, when government was purging both left-wingers and homosexuals from its ranks and those of academia and the labor movement, and when homosexuality was frequently identified with Communism in the dominant rhetoric of the red-baiters.
In 1955, McReynolds was fired from his job on account of being a “political security risk” and decided to move to New York where, with help from Rustin, he obtained a series of “movement” jobs (including a stint with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, where he was the only white person in its Harlem headquarters) before joining Rustin on the staff of the War Resisters League, where he remained until his retirement in 1999.
Deming, while essentially liberal, had remained rather apolitical until the late ’50s, when on a trip to India she steeped herself in Gandhi’s writings and became a convert to his theory of nonviolence as the path to peace and change, eventually emerging as a leader of A.J. Muste’s Committee for NonViolent Action.
It was on her return to the U.S. from revolutionary Cuba that Deming began to put her body on the line and got arrested in a never-ending series of non-violent direct action struggles, both in the movement for black civil rights -- she spent several harrowing months in jail in Albany, Georgia -- and in the budding movement against nuclear weapons and for peace and disarmament.
As she later wrote of these militant actions, they “reverberated deeply a so-called ‘apolitical’ struggle I’d been waging on my own, in a lonely way up until then, as a woman and a lesbian: the struggle to claim my life as my own.”
Barbara Deming (holding flowers) at the 1983 Seneca Women's Encampment for Peace and Justice to protest the planned deployment of NATO first-strike missiles from the Seneca Army Depot. Image from The New Press / Gay City News.
Duberman writes, “Barbara would also come to believe that nonviolent actions are by their nature androgynous. Two impulses long identified as belonging to different genders -- the ‘masculine’ impulse of self-assertion and the ‘feminine’ impulse of sympathy -- come together in any individual, regardless of gender, who adheres to nonviolence.”
Duberman contrasts McReynolds’ focus from Deming’s, saying he “was no less committed than Barbara to nonviolence, but throughout most of the 1960s, until the rise of the feminist movement, he emphasized a somewhat though not absolutely different goal than she: his concern centered more on the need to transform social institutions than individuals.”
But the path of Deming and McReynolds increasingly crossed in their activism, as they participated in many of the same direct actions and causes. In the long struggle against the Vietnam War, McReynolds’ War Resisters League and the Committee for Non-Violent Action, in which Deming was a key figure, both played crucial roles.
A Silent Remnant recounts the history of all this activism with many details never before recorded. Deming left her extensive papers at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute, and McReynolds not only has retained expansive personal files but is fortunately still around to add his personal illuminations to Duberman’s account of those years. The book is, as usual with this distinguished historian’s work, carefully footnoted, and includes several dozen photos of its principals and their activism.
There are chapters on the controversies over the U.S. New Left (including McReynolds’ debates about it with right-wing socialists like Irving Howe); on the burnout toll that activism takes on those who choose its demanding path (including McReynolds’ struggle with alcoholism and Deming’s eventually failed attempt to preserve her love affair of two decades with the artist and writer Mary Meigs); on the impact of the feminist and gay movements; and on the disagreements between the two sterling activists on such questions as pornography and patriarchy.
There are also fresh insights into the history of the Socialist Party and the debates and splits with which it has been riven over the last half-century. McReynolds went on to become the first openly gay presidential candidate as the Socialists’ standard-bearer twice, in 1980 and 2000.
Queers have always played an important role in all the movements for social justice and social change, and the lives of Deming and McReynolds are both eloquent testimony to that fact, but it has largely remained hidden history to heterosexuals on the left.
At the same time, as Duberman writes, “Radical gay people engaged with a wide variety of issues besides ‘gay liberation’ (like the continuing struggle against racial discrimination) do still exist in the gay community, but they lack the influence they once wielded in the half-dozen years after Stonewall.”
In A Saving Remnant, Duberman has given us an absorbing book, radiant with an emboldening and unquenchable humanity, that has meaningful lessons both for the left and for today’s single-issue gay activists.
Duberman notes, “I’m certain that my empathy, both political and personal, for both Barbara and David had a lot to do with my being drawn to write about them in the first place and may well have affected how I chose to narrate their lives. Although unsympathetic critics -- especially those with a centrist or right-wing political bias -- will perhaps accuse me of whitewashing my subjects, I’ve nevertheless done my best to recognize and record their foibles and shortcomings.”
That Duberman has succeeded in doing so renders this dual biography all the more meaningful and admirable.
[Doug Ireland is a longtime radical political journalist and media critic and an openly gay man. His work has appeared in many U.S. and French publications, including the New York Post (back in its liberal days), the Village Voice, New York magazine, The Nation, Bakchich, the Parisian daily Liberation, the LA Weekly, and Gay City News, the largest lesbian and gay weekly in New York City, where this article was first published.]
The Rag Blog
Posted by thorne dreyer at 8:36 AM
Labels: Barbara Deming, Books, David McReynolds, Doug Ireland, Gay Movement, Leftists, Martin Duberman, Nonviolence, Peace Movement, Rag Bloggers, Sixties, Socialists
1 Make/read comments:
Anonymous said...
Barbara Deming and David McReynolds are two of the three people who have influenced me the most politically and ethically.
The third was their EWar Resisters League colleague Igal Roodenko.
Worth noting that all three are/were gay. I am not.
Two lives of courage and commitment
Barbara Deming and David McReynolds were 'out' pioneers of the left.
By Doug Ireland / The Rag Blog / March 9, 2011
[A SAVING REMNANT: The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds, by Martin Duberman (The New Press, March 1, 2011); Hardcover; 298 pp; $27.95.]
Martin Duberman, known as “the father of gay studies,” is a distinguished historian, playwright, essayist, novelist, and public intellectual, and any new book by him is an event in queer culture to which attention must be paid.
Such is certainly the case with A Saving Remnant: The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds, an unusual dual biography by Duberman just published by the New Press.
Duberman is a distinguished professor of history emeritus at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where three decades ago he founded the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS), the first such program in any American university, much emulated since. Duberman’s long struggle to establish that center is recounted in his third volume of memoirs, Waiting to Land, published two years ago (see this reporter’s October 15, 2009 review, “Queer Studies’ Essential Man.”)
Duberman first established his reputation as a historian with his groundbreaking work on the 19th-century anti-slavery movement, and later produced stunning biographies of Paul Robeson and Lincoln Kirstein, among others, a body of work that won him the recognition of his peers, who awarded him the American Historical Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Scholarship.
Duberman was already well-known as an important public intellectual whose essays and articles engaged with “the passion and action of our time” (to borrow Oliver Wendell Holmes’ formulation), and as a prize-winning historian and playwright, when he became the first major intellectual of premier rank to come out and join the gay liberation movement in the early 1970s. As an activist, he went on to help found the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and, later, Queers for Economic Justice.
With his new book, “A Saving Remnant,” Duberman returns to the preoccupation with social movements that has been at the heart of much of his work. And in choosing to recount the lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds [a contributor to The Rag Blog], Duberman has picked two openly queer Americans who devoted their lives to the struggles for peace and social justice.
David McReynolds addresses a gathering of the War Resisters League, where, on the recommendation of Bayard Rustin, he worked late in his career, until his retirement in 1999. Photo from The New Press / Gay City News.
Nothing in their family backgrounds destined either Deming or McReynolds to become political radicals. Deming, a novelist, short story writer, and poet who was born in 1917 and died in 1984, was raised in Manhattan by upper-middle class parents with “traditional habits and opinions.” But at 16, she fell in love with her mother’s best friend (Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sister Norma) and boldly wrote in her journal, “I am a lesbian. I must face it.”
Thereafter, she refused to conceal her sexual orientation. After graduation from Bennington, Deming moved to Greenwich Village, worked at Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater, and had a brief affair with Lotte Lenya, the Austrian actress-singer who was married to composer Kurt Weill.
McReynolds, born in 1929 and still going strong today, was raised in Los Angeles as a devout Baptist by conservative Republican parents. But while in high school he read muckraker Lincoln Steffens’ autobiography and underwent a political conversion. McReynolds had his first homosexual experience in grammar school, and when he was 19 came out to his parents.
Although he had some guilt about his “deviance,” that vanished when he was a student at UCLA after an encounter in a notorious “queer bathroom” on campus with a young Alvin Ailey, not yet famous as a dancer and choreographer.
“Alvin’s guilt-free attitude toward homosexuality became a model for David (‘I came home walking on a cloud’) and the two became good friends, though never lovers,” Duberman recounts.
By this time, 1951, McReynolds had become deeply involved with the Socialist Party. Founded in 1901 under the leadership of labor leader Eugene Victor Debs, the party reached its peak of influence in 1912, when, with Debs as its presidential candidate, it won 6 percent of the vote; had 100 elected public officials, including several members of Congress; and a press with a readership in the millions.
But the party’s principled pacifism during World Wars I and II brought it government persecution and decimated its membership, and by the early ’50s the party, for decades led by Norman Thomas, was a shadow of its former self.
As a well-known, “outspoken and magnetic” campus radical “on the non-Communist side,” the handsome young McReynolds became a leader of the Socialists’ left wing, all while being open about his homosexuality with his party comrades in its somewhat Bohemian LA local, but “never taking any flack for it.”
McReynolds, already a committed pacifist, risked prison when he refused induction into the army for the Korean War, and it was then that he met Bayard Rustin, the field director of the principal pacifist organization, the War Resisters League, later famous as the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington under Martin Luther King’s leadership.
At the time of their meeting, Rustin had just been arrested on a “morals charge” for a homosexual encounter, and a long talk with Rustin about homosexuality helped further diminish any of McReynolds’ residual guilt feelings about his own same-sex orientation.
It is difficult to overstate the enormous courage and personal integrity required of Deming and McReynolds to be openly queer at a time in America when homosexuality was illegal, and homosexuals were condemned to barbaric tortures to “cure” them by medicine and loathed as degenerate outcasts by most of society.
This was especially true in the 1950s at the height of the McCarthyite witch-hunts, when government was purging both left-wingers and homosexuals from its ranks and those of academia and the labor movement, and when homosexuality was frequently identified with Communism in the dominant rhetoric of the red-baiters.
In 1955, McReynolds was fired from his job on account of being a “political security risk” and decided to move to New York where, with help from Rustin, he obtained a series of “movement” jobs (including a stint with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, where he was the only white person in its Harlem headquarters) before joining Rustin on the staff of the War Resisters League, where he remained until his retirement in 1999.
Deming, while essentially liberal, had remained rather apolitical until the late ’50s, when on a trip to India she steeped herself in Gandhi’s writings and became a convert to his theory of nonviolence as the path to peace and change, eventually emerging as a leader of A.J. Muste’s Committee for NonViolent Action.
It was on her return to the U.S. from revolutionary Cuba that Deming began to put her body on the line and got arrested in a never-ending series of non-violent direct action struggles, both in the movement for black civil rights -- she spent several harrowing months in jail in Albany, Georgia -- and in the budding movement against nuclear weapons and for peace and disarmament.
As she later wrote of these militant actions, they “reverberated deeply a so-called ‘apolitical’ struggle I’d been waging on my own, in a lonely way up until then, as a woman and a lesbian: the struggle to claim my life as my own.”
Barbara Deming (holding flowers) at the 1983 Seneca Women's Encampment for Peace and Justice to protest the planned deployment of NATO first-strike missiles from the Seneca Army Depot. Image from The New Press / Gay City News.
Duberman writes, “Barbara would also come to believe that nonviolent actions are by their nature androgynous. Two impulses long identified as belonging to different genders -- the ‘masculine’ impulse of self-assertion and the ‘feminine’ impulse of sympathy -- come together in any individual, regardless of gender, who adheres to nonviolence.”
Duberman contrasts McReynolds’ focus from Deming’s, saying he “was no less committed than Barbara to nonviolence, but throughout most of the 1960s, until the rise of the feminist movement, he emphasized a somewhat though not absolutely different goal than she: his concern centered more on the need to transform social institutions than individuals.”
But the path of Deming and McReynolds increasingly crossed in their activism, as they participated in many of the same direct actions and causes. In the long struggle against the Vietnam War, McReynolds’ War Resisters League and the Committee for Non-Violent Action, in which Deming was a key figure, both played crucial roles.
A Silent Remnant recounts the history of all this activism with many details never before recorded. Deming left her extensive papers at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute, and McReynolds not only has retained expansive personal files but is fortunately still around to add his personal illuminations to Duberman’s account of those years. The book is, as usual with this distinguished historian’s work, carefully footnoted, and includes several dozen photos of its principals and their activism.
There are chapters on the controversies over the U.S. New Left (including McReynolds’ debates about it with right-wing socialists like Irving Howe); on the burnout toll that activism takes on those who choose its demanding path (including McReynolds’ struggle with alcoholism and Deming’s eventually failed attempt to preserve her love affair of two decades with the artist and writer Mary Meigs); on the impact of the feminist and gay movements; and on the disagreements between the two sterling activists on such questions as pornography and patriarchy.
There are also fresh insights into the history of the Socialist Party and the debates and splits with which it has been riven over the last half-century. McReynolds went on to become the first openly gay presidential candidate as the Socialists’ standard-bearer twice, in 1980 and 2000.
Queers have always played an important role in all the movements for social justice and social change, and the lives of Deming and McReynolds are both eloquent testimony to that fact, but it has largely remained hidden history to heterosexuals on the left.
At the same time, as Duberman writes, “Radical gay people engaged with a wide variety of issues besides ‘gay liberation’ (like the continuing struggle against racial discrimination) do still exist in the gay community, but they lack the influence they once wielded in the half-dozen years after Stonewall.”
In A Saving Remnant, Duberman has given us an absorbing book, radiant with an emboldening and unquenchable humanity, that has meaningful lessons both for the left and for today’s single-issue gay activists.
Duberman notes, “I’m certain that my empathy, both political and personal, for both Barbara and David had a lot to do with my being drawn to write about them in the first place and may well have affected how I chose to narrate their lives. Although unsympathetic critics -- especially those with a centrist or right-wing political bias -- will perhaps accuse me of whitewashing my subjects, I’ve nevertheless done my best to recognize and record their foibles and shortcomings.”
That Duberman has succeeded in doing so renders this dual biography all the more meaningful and admirable.
[Doug Ireland is a longtime radical political journalist and media critic and an openly gay man. His work has appeared in many U.S. and French publications, including the New York Post (back in its liberal days), the Village Voice, New York magazine, The Nation, Bakchich, the Parisian daily Liberation, the LA Weekly, and Gay City News, the largest lesbian and gay weekly in New York City, where this article was first published.]
The Rag Blog
Posted by thorne dreyer at 8:36 AM
Labels: Barbara Deming, Books, David McReynolds, Doug Ireland, Gay Movement, Leftists, Martin Duberman, Nonviolence, Peace Movement, Rag Bloggers, Sixties, Socialists
1 Make/read comments:
Anonymous said...
Barbara Deming and David McReynolds are two of the three people who have influenced me the most politically and ethically.
The third was their EWar Resisters League colleague Igal Roodenko.
Worth noting that all three are/were gay. I am not.
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