Commentary :: Globalization
Hard Times Getting Harder
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (unverified!) 18 Sep 2011
economy
Hard Times Getting Harder - by Stephen Lendman
Americans are being hammered economically, politically and socially. Paul Craig Roberts quoted Vladimir Putin calling America "a parasite on the world."
PR manipulators present a virtuous image. Roberts said "Putin understated the burden that America is on the world. How much longer will (it) put up with" our virtuosity?
Death, destruction, and global economic wrecking defines its agenda. Libya at peace became a hellish charnel house. Mainstream Americans suffer greatly in deepening Depression.
Political Washington fattens itself on campaign cash, hanging out to dry struggling millions. Trends analyst Gerald Celente says it's time for direct democracy - "tak(ing) power out of the hands of politicians and put(ting) into the hands of the people."
With their own self-interest at stake, bet on them getting it right. With politicians on the take, they do it only for fat cat contributers, and the bigger the bribe, the more they get.
Depression Defines Today's Economy
Gluskin Sheff chief economist Dave Rosenberg calls what's ongoing "a modern day depression," saying:
A Depression, "simply put, is a very long period of economic malaise and when the economy fails to respond in any meaningful or lasting way to government stimulus programs," or what passes for them with benefits mostly to corporate favorites and super-rich elites.
It's defined by a "series of rolling recessions and modest recoveries over a multi-year period of general economic stagnation as the excesses from the prior asset and credit bubble(s) are completely wrung out of the system."
Using a baseball metaphor, Rosenberg says we're "in the third inning of this current debt deleveraging ball game."
In other words, after three tough years, many more lie ahead for ordinary working households suffering most.
"You know you're in a depression when interest rates go to zero and there is no revival in credit-sensitive spending."
How can there be with banks hoarding nearly $2 trillion in cash. A classic "liquidity trap" occurs when private sector lending dries up.
Depressions usually follow bursting asset bubbles, especially housing ones. Before his August 2007 death, economist Kurt Richebacher warned about them in a 2004 commentary titled, "Property Bubbles: Beware of Property Bubbles."
Citing "economic and financial imbalances," he said America's growth depends "entirely on the continuation of the frenetic housing bubble."
However, "all bubbles end painfully, housing (ones) in particular. They're an especially dangerous asset bubble because of their extraordinary debt intensity."
They cause great harm by extracting wealth (through refinancing) from rising valuations and by "heavily entangl(ing) banks and the whole financial system as lenders."
Thus, property bubbles have historically been the main cause of major financial crises, notably Depressions.
Late 1980s Japan was a striking example. Its stock and property bubbles burst together, but the former got most attention. The "property deflation continued for 13 years (with) calamitous effects on (its) banking system through a horrendous legacy of bad loans."
Japan's "building sector" also suffered and "never recovered from the depression following its (late 1980s) excesses."
Richebacher wondered if America faces the same fate, asking, "Is the US economy in better or worse shape today (in 2004) than in 2000 (as it faced recession)? Is it in a self-sustaining recovery?"
Absolutely not, and he was right, saying "it is in dramatically worse shape" because of years of binge borrowing.
Also because of leveraged asset purchases and soaring imports. The former involves no income creation. The latter destroys it. Moreover, this type borrowing is unproductive dead-weight debt, "yielding to debtors no future flow of income from which to" service it.
As a result, a bad ending is assured. In summer 2007, it arrived with painful, deepening effects. Over three years later, growing millions can explain America's economy better than trained experts by relating their current state.
Rosenberg says Depressions result from "bursting of an asset bubble and a contraction in credit, whereas plain-vanilla recessions are typically caused by inflation and excessive manufacturing inventories."
Moreover, when true unemployment hovers around 23%, and half of those looking did it fruitlessly for six months or longer, "you know you are in something much deeper than a garden-variety recession."
Instead of soup lines in streets, they're "in the mail - 99 weeks of unemployment checks for over 10 million jobless Americans," and many others end up losing them.
In addition, secular change affect attitudes toward debt. Discretionary spending and homeownership plans are altered or curtailed until hard times give way to better ones.
"More fundamentally, in a recession," government stimulus revives economic growth. In Depressions, at best, it's kept from getting worse. Many bucks don't deliver enough bang to spur sustained upward momentum.
"In a recession, everything would be back to a new high nearly three years after" the economy contracted. Currently, "everything" is still below December 2007 levels.
Under normal conditions or garden variety recessions, all the monetary, fiscal and bailout stimulus would revive a "roaring" economy. Because it failed shows Depression conditions exist. That's what bond prices are signaling, with yields approaching Japanese levels. At near zero, it hasn't worked.
Even with current government deficits around 10% of GDP, double Great Depression levels, bucks injected to stimulate bang fell flat.
A decade of credit growth excess created the current mess. No quick fix will end it. Another $5 trillion "has to be extinguished either by paying it down," walking away from it, or having it socialized.
With 10-year Treasuries around 2%, the message not only is something is very wrong but that years are needed to fix it. Even then, only if good, not counterproductive, policies are employed.
At the same time, "epic changes" are occurring in how households allocate budgets, especially regarding discretionary spending and debt at a time they're undergoing a prolonged deleveraging cycle.
Years of credit expansion were fueled by no-doc loans (requiring no documentation), low-doc ones, liar loans, NINJA ones (with no income, jobs or assets), 0% vendor financing, subprime mortgages, risky Alt-A ones, and option ARMs (adjustable rate ones) with negative amortization.
From the mid-1960s through mid-1980s, household debt to income was 70%. In 2002, it was 105%. In 2007, it hit an all-time 140% high, and it's still 120%. It shows years more deleveraging are required to return it to normal levels.
In fact, "for the first time in recorded history, the entire $70 trillion household balance sheet is in a long-term process of shrinking."
It suggests rising savings and weaker private sector growth. It's also deflationary at a time essential commodities are rising, including food, energy, and medical care, key items in every household budget.
Bottom line reality is protracted pain ahead for working households, no matter what policy measures are employed.
Given counterproductive ones proposed and planned (including austerity when stimulus is needed), expect hard times indeed ahead to get harder.
A Final Comment
No wonder America's middle class is disappearing. At its current pace, it won't be long before it's gone.
In his book titled, "How the Economy Was Lost," Paul Craig Roberts said it's gone and won't come back until "free trade myths are buried six feet under."
"America's (19th and) 20th centur(ies) economic success was based on two things. Free trade was not one of them. (It) was based on protectionism (and) British indebtedness."
US economic ascendance eroded by abandoning traditional practices and preaching "free trade" dogma, neoliberalism, globalization, and the disease of offshoring. As a result, "American cities and states lost tax base, and families and communities lost jobs," replaced by fewer lower paying ones.
"The pressure of jobs offshor(ed), together with vast imports, has destroyed the economic prospects for all Americans....Doing a good job, providing a good service, is no longer the corporation's function. Instead," goal one is cutting labor costs, exporting high paid jobs to low wage countries, and hollowing out America for profit.
As bad as it's been it may get worse with millions more white-collar jobs vulnerable to offshoring. They include high paying positions in information technology, accounting, architecture, advanced engineering design, news reporting, stock analysis, and medical and legal services.
In other words, any job, high or low level, performed effectively anywhere will be moved to the lowest paying locales, abandoning America and other higher cost ones.
At the same time, major media scoundrels won't explain it or the truth about America's troubled economy.
Instead, consensus lying reports slow growth but no recession at a time of deepening Depression. In other words, coverup and denial substitutes for hard truths when they're most needed.
In his latest summer review, Gerald Celente says America's "economy is in collapse. Nothing the White House, Congress or the Federal Reserve tries to do to stop the crash" is working.
Everything tried fell flat. Operating on life-support, when the plug finally is pulled "and the money pump stops, the US economy will go down and" take much of the world with it.
It shows financial destruction can be as painful as military might. Either way, ordinary people suffer most, especially when governments they rely on don't help.
That's the state across America and Europe. It's why activism, not apathy, must confront what only will worsen unless effectively addressed.
Of course, responsible leaders are needed to do it. They're, in fact, nowhere in sight, so it's up to voters to clean house for better ones.
Given Americans' choice between bad or worse, it may be beyond reach, but what option is there than to try.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Imperial Arrogance and Hypocrisy - by Stephen Lendman
Imperial Arrogance and Hypocrisy
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 18 Sep 2011
state terrorism
Imperial Arrogance and Hypocrisy - by Stephen Lendman
Washington supports a UN seat for the illegitimate Transitional National Council (TNC) Libyan government.
Obama vows to veto a Palestinian bid for statehood and full de jure UN membership.
Imperial America's wrong over right agenda takes center stage across North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
Death, destruction, and immiseration take precedence over rule of law principles and norms.
It's no different at home where political leaders favor wealth and power interests over working households, struggling to cope during America's greatest Depression.
Imperial arrogance and hypocrisy define Washington's contempt for human and civil rights, as well as other core democratic values. Almost daily it reaches for new heights.
On September 16, New York Times writer Neil MacFarquhar headlined, "UN Takes Steps to Assist Libya's Transitional Leaders," saying:
The "Security Council lift(ed) some economic sanctions and the General Assembly accept(ed) the credentials of the (Illegitimate) transitional government to represent Libya in the world body."
Reuters said Washington "welcome(d the) vote. Vow(ed) to be 'friend' of Libya."
UN ambassador Susan Rice said Tripoli will have "a friend and partner in the United States. The Libyan people still have much more work to do, but they also have the full knowledge that the international community, including the United States, stands ready to help their transition towards democracy, prosperity, and the rule of law."
In fact, Washington plans colonization, occupation, plunder, and exploitation. Libya is now wholly owned by America and its imperial partners.
Democracy, rule of law principles, and general prosperity won't be tolerated. Only favored elitist interests will benefit. That's what all wars are about, not freedom and a new beginning for liberated people.
Seventeen countries voted against UN membership. Venezuela's UN Ambassador, Jorge Valero, perhaps spoke for others, saying:
Caracas rejects the "illegitimate transitory authority imposed by foreign intervention" and any attempt to make Libya a NATO or Security Council "protectorate."
It's already a colony to be brutally exploited like wherever imperial America shows up.
Cuban UN Ambassador Pedro Nunez Mosquera said NATO conducted "a military operation to change the regime to promote their political and economic interests."
On September 20, Obama will welcome TNC head Mustafa Jalil in New York at the UN. He'll also meet there with other imperial partners to discuss how to carve up their new trophy property.
White House deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes describes it as "US support (for) the type of Libya we'd like to see going forward."
He barely concealed what he means, calling Libya a "success" story. Millions now suffering there might disagree. For them, in fact, the worst is yet to come.
A previous article discussed planned peacekeeper occupation of Libya, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/09/planned-peacekeeper-occupation-of-
On September 16, the Security Council authorized a "UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL)," without explaining its another illegal imperial occupation against the wishes of Libyans wanting freedom, peace, and right to govern their own affairs.
Instead they'll get paramilitary brutality, mass rapes, and sex trafficking, as well as other atrocities and crimes against humanity.
They're commonplace wherever Blue Helmets show up. They come as enforcers, not peacekeepers. They serve powerful interests, not those of people they're sworn to protect.
Libyans will soon taste what 16 other countries endure, including DRC Congo, Sudan, Kosovo, Rwanda, and Haiti where local people hate them and want them out. However, they have no say or rights. Their choice is obey or else.
Libya v. Palestine
Partnered with Israel, Washington won't tolerate Palestinian statehood and full UN membership. Note the contrast. TNC-led Libya has no legitimacy. Yet it easily got UN membership.
Palestinians have waited 63 years for their legitimate rights.
Maybe next time, not now, because Obama and Netanyahu won't tolerate them. Neither does Abbas who signaled capitulation in a September 16 speech.
New York Times writers Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner weren't listening. It shows in their September 16 article headlined, "Palestinians Set Bid for UN Seat, Clashing with UN," saying:
Abbas "announced Friday that he would seek membership for a state of Palestine from the (Security Council) next week, putting him on a collision course with Israel and the United States...."
Fact check
The only "collision" will be Arab street anger after America's veto, even though doing so has no teeth. The General Assembly alone admits new members. The Security Council only recommends.
A previous article said Abbas won't petition the General Assembly, or if he does, it'll be for less than full rights within easy reach. In other words, he'll settle for half a loaf status quo, leaving Palestinians back at square one.
Yet both Times writers called Abbas' plan "a double defeat for the United States. Washington not only failed to dissuade (him) from a unilateral bid for statehood, but also fell short of its goal of" preventing an easy to pass "symbolic" General Assembly vote.
Fact check
As explained above, if properly done, General Assembly membership votes are decisive, not "symbolic."
"The United States has struggled to place itself on the side of those seeking justice and freedom in the current revolts....A veto of Palestinian membership would intensify Arab perceptions of American double standards."
Fact check
Ask Bahrainis about Washington's "struggle" for "justice and freedom." Ask Yemenis being bombed by US drones. Ask Libyans enduring months of daily terror bombings and cutthroat mercenaries murdering anyone thought to be pro-Gaddafi.
Ask starving Somalis being attacked by US proxies and tortured in secret US prisons. Ask Iraqis and Afghans how they feel about Americans in their midst. Ask anyone anywhere when US forces show up. They'll explain.
Bronner and Kershner are paid to lie and support powerful interests, not popular ones or rule of law standards.
Netanyahu - a Profile in Brazen Defiance
Haaretz writer Doron Rosenblum accused Netanyahu of "running Israel aground," saying:
He devoted his tenure "to riding roughshod over every diplomatic finesse, to scattering threats, to provoking crises, to searching for anti-Semitism and to finding various bizarre excuses for continuing the annexationist status quo."
"Only when (he was) absolutely forced (did he) pay lip service to 'two states' and 'willingness to negotiate' - but with a lack of conviction that was worse than a direct refusal. For in doing so, (he) did not merely lose sympathy; he lost a much more important card: trust."
Rosenblum only stopped short of saying better trust a snake than a man known for never "having acted in good faith."
On September 16, it showed by his rejection of Palestinians seeking statehood recognition at the UN, saying:
"Peace can only be achieved through direct negotiations with Israel," adding:
When the PA "abandon(s) its futile measures, firstly its unilateral decision to approach the UN, it will find Israel as a partner for negotiations and peace."
In fact, Israel only wants Palestinian leaders as an occupying power's enforcer.
Israel never negotiates and won't tolerate peace. Netanyahu once called it "a waste of time."
Washington backs whatever Israel wants, even when it harms its own interests.
On September 6, US Israeli ambassador Daniel Shapiro said:
"The test of every policy the administration develops in the Middle East is whether it is consistent with the goal of ensuring Israel's future as a secure, Jewish, democratic state. That is a commitment that runs as a common thread through our entire government."
Israel, of course, never was democratic and isn't now. Any nation affording rights solely to one segment of society at the expense of others is discriminatory, repressive and unfair.
Arabs comprise one-fifth of Israel's population, but are treated more like fifth column threats than citizens.
America, of course, treats all working people as subjects to be exploited, not helped. It's true at home and abroad. Israel modeled its economy after America's, adopting the worst of its neoliberal harshness.
Both nations are partnered in an imperial enterprise to subjugate people throughout the Middle East/North Africa/Central Asia. America and its NATO allies plan the same thing globally, waging multiple wars to do it.
Freedom, independence, and democratic rights are notions none of these countries tolerate. Ask suffering millions. They'll explain.
Taking Aim at Abbas
As explained above, Abbas signaled capitulation in his September 16 speech, again revealing his collaborationist credentials.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad denounced his speech.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused him of "unilateral moves" by acting without consulting Palestine's legitimate government and other factions.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shihab said his objective is reopening negotiations with Israel, not independence and UN membership.
He added that Abbas should focus on implementing his May unity government agreement, now sidetracked at Washington and Israel's behest. They, in fact, want Hamas isolated, not allied with Fatah to serve all Palestinians.
Reuters said Quartet members will meet in New York on September 18 in a last-ditch effort to derail a showdown over Palestinian statehood and UN membership.
They want resumption of bilateral Israeli/Palestinian negotiations going nowhere and won't now. At issue is preventing Abbas from petitioning the UN, no matter how little he'll settle for.
In a word, they want Palestinians subjugated under permanent occupation with no rights. Obama and Netanyahu call it "peace."
Others call it bondage. Abbas calls it the best he can get.
Palestinians may finally realize they need leaders representing them, no matter what they sacrifice to do it.
Freedom never comes easily or quickly. It never comes at all without trying under committed leaders doing what they know is right.
Freedom next time isn't good enough. Tomorrow never comes.
Palestinian statehood and full UN membership - now's the time.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 18 Sep 2011
state terrorism
Imperial Arrogance and Hypocrisy - by Stephen Lendman
Washington supports a UN seat for the illegitimate Transitional National Council (TNC) Libyan government.
Obama vows to veto a Palestinian bid for statehood and full de jure UN membership.
Imperial America's wrong over right agenda takes center stage across North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
Death, destruction, and immiseration take precedence over rule of law principles and norms.
It's no different at home where political leaders favor wealth and power interests over working households, struggling to cope during America's greatest Depression.
Imperial arrogance and hypocrisy define Washington's contempt for human and civil rights, as well as other core democratic values. Almost daily it reaches for new heights.
On September 16, New York Times writer Neil MacFarquhar headlined, "UN Takes Steps to Assist Libya's Transitional Leaders," saying:
The "Security Council lift(ed) some economic sanctions and the General Assembly accept(ed) the credentials of the (Illegitimate) transitional government to represent Libya in the world body."
Reuters said Washington "welcome(d the) vote. Vow(ed) to be 'friend' of Libya."
UN ambassador Susan Rice said Tripoli will have "a friend and partner in the United States. The Libyan people still have much more work to do, but they also have the full knowledge that the international community, including the United States, stands ready to help their transition towards democracy, prosperity, and the rule of law."
In fact, Washington plans colonization, occupation, plunder, and exploitation. Libya is now wholly owned by America and its imperial partners.
Democracy, rule of law principles, and general prosperity won't be tolerated. Only favored elitist interests will benefit. That's what all wars are about, not freedom and a new beginning for liberated people.
Seventeen countries voted against UN membership. Venezuela's UN Ambassador, Jorge Valero, perhaps spoke for others, saying:
Caracas rejects the "illegitimate transitory authority imposed by foreign intervention" and any attempt to make Libya a NATO or Security Council "protectorate."
It's already a colony to be brutally exploited like wherever imperial America shows up.
Cuban UN Ambassador Pedro Nunez Mosquera said NATO conducted "a military operation to change the regime to promote their political and economic interests."
On September 20, Obama will welcome TNC head Mustafa Jalil in New York at the UN. He'll also meet there with other imperial partners to discuss how to carve up their new trophy property.
White House deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes describes it as "US support (for) the type of Libya we'd like to see going forward."
He barely concealed what he means, calling Libya a "success" story. Millions now suffering there might disagree. For them, in fact, the worst is yet to come.
A previous article discussed planned peacekeeper occupation of Libya, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/09/planned-peacekeeper-occupation-of-
On September 16, the Security Council authorized a "UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL)," without explaining its another illegal imperial occupation against the wishes of Libyans wanting freedom, peace, and right to govern their own affairs.
Instead they'll get paramilitary brutality, mass rapes, and sex trafficking, as well as other atrocities and crimes against humanity.
They're commonplace wherever Blue Helmets show up. They come as enforcers, not peacekeepers. They serve powerful interests, not those of people they're sworn to protect.
Libyans will soon taste what 16 other countries endure, including DRC Congo, Sudan, Kosovo, Rwanda, and Haiti where local people hate them and want them out. However, they have no say or rights. Their choice is obey or else.
Libya v. Palestine
Partnered with Israel, Washington won't tolerate Palestinian statehood and full UN membership. Note the contrast. TNC-led Libya has no legitimacy. Yet it easily got UN membership.
Palestinians have waited 63 years for their legitimate rights.
Maybe next time, not now, because Obama and Netanyahu won't tolerate them. Neither does Abbas who signaled capitulation in a September 16 speech.
New York Times writers Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner weren't listening. It shows in their September 16 article headlined, "Palestinians Set Bid for UN Seat, Clashing with UN," saying:
Abbas "announced Friday that he would seek membership for a state of Palestine from the (Security Council) next week, putting him on a collision course with Israel and the United States...."
Fact check
The only "collision" will be Arab street anger after America's veto, even though doing so has no teeth. The General Assembly alone admits new members. The Security Council only recommends.
A previous article said Abbas won't petition the General Assembly, or if he does, it'll be for less than full rights within easy reach. In other words, he'll settle for half a loaf status quo, leaving Palestinians back at square one.
Yet both Times writers called Abbas' plan "a double defeat for the United States. Washington not only failed to dissuade (him) from a unilateral bid for statehood, but also fell short of its goal of" preventing an easy to pass "symbolic" General Assembly vote.
Fact check
As explained above, if properly done, General Assembly membership votes are decisive, not "symbolic."
"The United States has struggled to place itself on the side of those seeking justice and freedom in the current revolts....A veto of Palestinian membership would intensify Arab perceptions of American double standards."
Fact check
Ask Bahrainis about Washington's "struggle" for "justice and freedom." Ask Yemenis being bombed by US drones. Ask Libyans enduring months of daily terror bombings and cutthroat mercenaries murdering anyone thought to be pro-Gaddafi.
Ask starving Somalis being attacked by US proxies and tortured in secret US prisons. Ask Iraqis and Afghans how they feel about Americans in their midst. Ask anyone anywhere when US forces show up. They'll explain.
Bronner and Kershner are paid to lie and support powerful interests, not popular ones or rule of law standards.
Netanyahu - a Profile in Brazen Defiance
Haaretz writer Doron Rosenblum accused Netanyahu of "running Israel aground," saying:
He devoted his tenure "to riding roughshod over every diplomatic finesse, to scattering threats, to provoking crises, to searching for anti-Semitism and to finding various bizarre excuses for continuing the annexationist status quo."
"Only when (he was) absolutely forced (did he) pay lip service to 'two states' and 'willingness to negotiate' - but with a lack of conviction that was worse than a direct refusal. For in doing so, (he) did not merely lose sympathy; he lost a much more important card: trust."
Rosenblum only stopped short of saying better trust a snake than a man known for never "having acted in good faith."
On September 16, it showed by his rejection of Palestinians seeking statehood recognition at the UN, saying:
"Peace can only be achieved through direct negotiations with Israel," adding:
When the PA "abandon(s) its futile measures, firstly its unilateral decision to approach the UN, it will find Israel as a partner for negotiations and peace."
In fact, Israel only wants Palestinian leaders as an occupying power's enforcer.
Israel never negotiates and won't tolerate peace. Netanyahu once called it "a waste of time."
Washington backs whatever Israel wants, even when it harms its own interests.
On September 6, US Israeli ambassador Daniel Shapiro said:
"The test of every policy the administration develops in the Middle East is whether it is consistent with the goal of ensuring Israel's future as a secure, Jewish, democratic state. That is a commitment that runs as a common thread through our entire government."
Israel, of course, never was democratic and isn't now. Any nation affording rights solely to one segment of society at the expense of others is discriminatory, repressive and unfair.
Arabs comprise one-fifth of Israel's population, but are treated more like fifth column threats than citizens.
America, of course, treats all working people as subjects to be exploited, not helped. It's true at home and abroad. Israel modeled its economy after America's, adopting the worst of its neoliberal harshness.
Both nations are partnered in an imperial enterprise to subjugate people throughout the Middle East/North Africa/Central Asia. America and its NATO allies plan the same thing globally, waging multiple wars to do it.
Freedom, independence, and democratic rights are notions none of these countries tolerate. Ask suffering millions. They'll explain.
Taking Aim at Abbas
As explained above, Abbas signaled capitulation in his September 16 speech, again revealing his collaborationist credentials.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad denounced his speech.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused him of "unilateral moves" by acting without consulting Palestine's legitimate government and other factions.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shihab said his objective is reopening negotiations with Israel, not independence and UN membership.
He added that Abbas should focus on implementing his May unity government agreement, now sidetracked at Washington and Israel's behest. They, in fact, want Hamas isolated, not allied with Fatah to serve all Palestinians.
Reuters said Quartet members will meet in New York on September 18 in a last-ditch effort to derail a showdown over Palestinian statehood and UN membership.
They want resumption of bilateral Israeli/Palestinian negotiations going nowhere and won't now. At issue is preventing Abbas from petitioning the UN, no matter how little he'll settle for.
In a word, they want Palestinians subjugated under permanent occupation with no rights. Obama and Netanyahu call it "peace."
Others call it bondage. Abbas calls it the best he can get.
Palestinians may finally realize they need leaders representing them, no matter what they sacrifice to do it.
Freedom never comes easily or quickly. It never comes at all without trying under committed leaders doing what they know is right.
Freedom next time isn't good enough. Tomorrow never comes.
Palestinian statehood and full UN membership - now's the time.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
Face-Off: Palestine v. Washington/Israel on Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
Face-Off: Palestine v. Washington/Israel on Statehood
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 15 Sep 2011
Palestine
Face-Off: Palestine v. Washington/Israel on Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
With the moment of truth arriving next week, rhetoric from both sides suggests Palestinians again will lose out.
Instead of an advocate representing them in New York, a collaborationist apparently will show up. Public statements and body language say so.
What could at last be looks likely to be denied. Instead of a new beginning, betrayal appears in the cards.
It's almost no exaggeration saying the fix is in. What'll finally emerge will be portrayed as a Palestinian win. In reality, it'll be defeat - a worthless half loaf in place of what's easily within reach.
With more than enough international support backed by international law at a time Israeli and US influence are weaker, a golden chance is slip-siding away.
The daily soap opera continues. Here's the latest.
On September 14, Haaretz writer Avi Issacharoff headlined, "Palestinians trying to dodge pre-UN vote face-off with Obama," saying:
"Next week, intense negotiations will be undertaken between the European Union, the PA and the American government regarding the specific formula of the request for Palestinian statehood recognition."
The "specific formula" says it all. Only an easily attainable one delivers statehood and full de jure UN membership. Anything less continues status quo betrayal.
Instead of going for it with overwhelming support, bet on Abbas petitioning only for reshuffling the deck chairs, leaving status quo denial in place.
Apparently he's less concerned about justice than embarrassing Washington, if Obama followed through with his threatened Security Council veto. Bet on it, and it won't be long before it's known.
On September 13, New York Times writers Steven Myers and David Kirkpatrick headlined, "US Scrambles to Avert Palestinian Vote at UN," saying:
Ahead of next week in New York, "maneuvering became an exercise in brinkmanship as the administration wrestles with roiling tensions in the region, including a sharp deterioration of relations between....Egypt, Israel and Turkey."
While Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Palestinian statehood "not a choice but an obligation," Arab League Secretary-General Nabil el-Araby said after meeting with PA officials:
"(I)t is obvious that the Palestinian Authority and the Arab countries are leaning towards going to the General Assembly" for a meaningless status upgrade from "observer entity" to "observer state," leaving them back at square one.
Even so, Obama, Hillary Clinton, regional envoy Tony Blair (a reinvented war criminal), EU representative Catherine Ashton, US Middle East envoy David Hale, and pro-Israeli hardliner Dennis Ross want Abbas to call the whole thing off.
In their minds, even a fig leaf is too much.
Only Israeli interests matter. Palestinians must accept their status as powerless occupied people and shut up.
"The administration has spent months trying to avoid" the embarrassment of a Security Council veto, even though under international law it's toothless. Only the General Assembly admits new members. The Security Council recommends.
Both get their say on admissions. One body alone matters, and it's ready to do the right thing if proper procedures are followed.
Lots of times, Abbas and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat had their say more for Israel than Palestine.
Erekat, in fact, signaled no change now, saying:
"We don't intend to confront the US, or anyone else for that matter (suggesting Israel and its EU allies)."
The early 2011 released Palestine Papers revealed that policy position was longstanding, siding with Israel against his own people.
So did Abbas as chief Oslo negotiator where he sold them out entirely and did so ever since.
Expect no change of heart now. For him, Erekat and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, it would be entirely out of character. Leopards can't change their spots, nor snakes in the grass.
Nor Congress, threatening to cut off aid in the event of a UN vote, what most in it call a "confrontation," not long delayed justice.
The same Congress backs Obama's imperial wars, banker bailouts, austerity hardship for needy Americans, and repressive police state laws to slap them down if they complain.
The deck indeed is stacked, and unrepresented Palestinians hold no aces.
So hinted Jimmy Carter, America's 39th president and author of "Peace Not Apartheid."
His September 13 New York Times op-ed headlined, "After the UN Vote on Palestine," saying:
Camp David promises proved hollow. Despite overwhelming Knesset approval, "call(ing) for honoring all aspects of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (November 22, 1967)," Israel systematically violated its provisions.
Key ones included denying "the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security."
Others mandated:
"(i) Withdrawal of Israel(i) armed forces from territories occupied in (1967);" and
"(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."
In 1948, Palestinians lost 78% of their historic homeland. In 1967, they lost the rest. Camp David I, Madrid, Oslo, Oslo II, Wye River, Camp David II, Taba, and decades of peace process futility accomplished nothing.
Every post-Camp David I negotiation favored Israel. Palestinians' only choice was take it or leave it. Nothing's changed now. Carter knows it but didn't say. So do Palestinians and the Arab street with no power.
Carter did say Washington "basically withdr(ew) from active participation in the peace process. The Palestinians and other Arabs have interpreted US policy as acquiescing on the occupation and (being) biased against them."
Given what they're up against, "what are the options for the future?"
Instead of explaining the futility of peace process negotiations because Palestinians have no willing partner, Carter called for "comprehensive" efforts "based on the fully compatible US official policy, previous UN resolutions and the Quartet's previous demands."
In other words, he recommends another round of what won't work instead of suggesting what may, and saying US policy must back it. With enough (sorely lacking) commitment, Israel would have a hard time saying no, but don't bet it wouldn't try.
Yet Carter's vision calls for "peace for Israel and all its neighbors. The United States would regain its leadership role in the region, based on its commitment to freedom, democracy and justice, and a major cause of widespread animosity toward America within the Arab world would be eliminated."
Shamefully, Carter omitted mention of America's imperial wars. That the business of America is war. That permanent war is official policy.
That eroding homeland social justice pays for them. That repressive police state laws slap down resisters.
That post-9/11, $10 trillion or more was spent on militarism with all categories included.
That over the same period, millions of lives were lost. Many millions more were harmed, and killer weapons destroyed nonbelligerent countries lawlessly.
Libya, of course, is Washington's latest trophy. Even so, death and destruction continue daily, turning the entire country into a hellish charnel house.
At home, unbridled greed, corruption, and imperial lawlessness define America.
Torture, extraordinary renditions, indefinite detentions without charge, military commissions, warrantless surveillance, and racial profiling are official policies.
Special Forces death squads murder people globally who disagree with US policies.
Decades of bad policies, including his own, have America on a fast track toward tyranny and ruin.
America's middle class is disappearing. Growing millions suffer from poverty, homelessness, hunger and despair. America's media don't notice, let alone care.
America partners with Israel's most lawless policies. Its leaders (including himself) support the worst of world despots and brutes.
Democracy in America is a sham illusion. Whistleblowing and dissent can be called criminal.
Times op-eds alone won't change things, especially ones falling way short of the mark.
On October 1, Carter turn's 87. Arguably, his post-presidency is the best of the lot, though far from perfect.
At this stage in life, why not go all the way burnishing it.
What better way than by forthrightly challenging US policies causing so much harm to so many, including permanent imperial wars and social injustice.
Then support Palestinian statehood and full de jure UN membership. At the same time, denounce Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, saying "harsh and grave consequences" will follow a UN vote.
That's the kind of legacy worth working for!
It's true for everyone, not just him!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 15 Sep 2011
Palestine
Face-Off: Palestine v. Washington/Israel on Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
With the moment of truth arriving next week, rhetoric from both sides suggests Palestinians again will lose out.
Instead of an advocate representing them in New York, a collaborationist apparently will show up. Public statements and body language say so.
What could at last be looks likely to be denied. Instead of a new beginning, betrayal appears in the cards.
It's almost no exaggeration saying the fix is in. What'll finally emerge will be portrayed as a Palestinian win. In reality, it'll be defeat - a worthless half loaf in place of what's easily within reach.
With more than enough international support backed by international law at a time Israeli and US influence are weaker, a golden chance is slip-siding away.
The daily soap opera continues. Here's the latest.
On September 14, Haaretz writer Avi Issacharoff headlined, "Palestinians trying to dodge pre-UN vote face-off with Obama," saying:
"Next week, intense negotiations will be undertaken between the European Union, the PA and the American government regarding the specific formula of the request for Palestinian statehood recognition."
The "specific formula" says it all. Only an easily attainable one delivers statehood and full de jure UN membership. Anything less continues status quo betrayal.
Instead of going for it with overwhelming support, bet on Abbas petitioning only for reshuffling the deck chairs, leaving status quo denial in place.
Apparently he's less concerned about justice than embarrassing Washington, if Obama followed through with his threatened Security Council veto. Bet on it, and it won't be long before it's known.
On September 13, New York Times writers Steven Myers and David Kirkpatrick headlined, "US Scrambles to Avert Palestinian Vote at UN," saying:
Ahead of next week in New York, "maneuvering became an exercise in brinkmanship as the administration wrestles with roiling tensions in the region, including a sharp deterioration of relations between....Egypt, Israel and Turkey."
While Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Palestinian statehood "not a choice but an obligation," Arab League Secretary-General Nabil el-Araby said after meeting with PA officials:
"(I)t is obvious that the Palestinian Authority and the Arab countries are leaning towards going to the General Assembly" for a meaningless status upgrade from "observer entity" to "observer state," leaving them back at square one.
Even so, Obama, Hillary Clinton, regional envoy Tony Blair (a reinvented war criminal), EU representative Catherine Ashton, US Middle East envoy David Hale, and pro-Israeli hardliner Dennis Ross want Abbas to call the whole thing off.
In their minds, even a fig leaf is too much.
Only Israeli interests matter. Palestinians must accept their status as powerless occupied people and shut up.
"The administration has spent months trying to avoid" the embarrassment of a Security Council veto, even though under international law it's toothless. Only the General Assembly admits new members. The Security Council recommends.
Both get their say on admissions. One body alone matters, and it's ready to do the right thing if proper procedures are followed.
Lots of times, Abbas and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat had their say more for Israel than Palestine.
Erekat, in fact, signaled no change now, saying:
"We don't intend to confront the US, or anyone else for that matter (suggesting Israel and its EU allies)."
The early 2011 released Palestine Papers revealed that policy position was longstanding, siding with Israel against his own people.
So did Abbas as chief Oslo negotiator where he sold them out entirely and did so ever since.
Expect no change of heart now. For him, Erekat and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, it would be entirely out of character. Leopards can't change their spots, nor snakes in the grass.
Nor Congress, threatening to cut off aid in the event of a UN vote, what most in it call a "confrontation," not long delayed justice.
The same Congress backs Obama's imperial wars, banker bailouts, austerity hardship for needy Americans, and repressive police state laws to slap them down if they complain.
The deck indeed is stacked, and unrepresented Palestinians hold no aces.
So hinted Jimmy Carter, America's 39th president and author of "Peace Not Apartheid."
His September 13 New York Times op-ed headlined, "After the UN Vote on Palestine," saying:
Camp David promises proved hollow. Despite overwhelming Knesset approval, "call(ing) for honoring all aspects of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (November 22, 1967)," Israel systematically violated its provisions.
Key ones included denying "the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security."
Others mandated:
"(i) Withdrawal of Israel(i) armed forces from territories occupied in (1967);" and
"(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."
In 1948, Palestinians lost 78% of their historic homeland. In 1967, they lost the rest. Camp David I, Madrid, Oslo, Oslo II, Wye River, Camp David II, Taba, and decades of peace process futility accomplished nothing.
Every post-Camp David I negotiation favored Israel. Palestinians' only choice was take it or leave it. Nothing's changed now. Carter knows it but didn't say. So do Palestinians and the Arab street with no power.
Carter did say Washington "basically withdr(ew) from active participation in the peace process. The Palestinians and other Arabs have interpreted US policy as acquiescing on the occupation and (being) biased against them."
Given what they're up against, "what are the options for the future?"
Instead of explaining the futility of peace process negotiations because Palestinians have no willing partner, Carter called for "comprehensive" efforts "based on the fully compatible US official policy, previous UN resolutions and the Quartet's previous demands."
In other words, he recommends another round of what won't work instead of suggesting what may, and saying US policy must back it. With enough (sorely lacking) commitment, Israel would have a hard time saying no, but don't bet it wouldn't try.
Yet Carter's vision calls for "peace for Israel and all its neighbors. The United States would regain its leadership role in the region, based on its commitment to freedom, democracy and justice, and a major cause of widespread animosity toward America within the Arab world would be eliminated."
Shamefully, Carter omitted mention of America's imperial wars. That the business of America is war. That permanent war is official policy.
That eroding homeland social justice pays for them. That repressive police state laws slap down resisters.
That post-9/11, $10 trillion or more was spent on militarism with all categories included.
That over the same period, millions of lives were lost. Many millions more were harmed, and killer weapons destroyed nonbelligerent countries lawlessly.
Libya, of course, is Washington's latest trophy. Even so, death and destruction continue daily, turning the entire country into a hellish charnel house.
At home, unbridled greed, corruption, and imperial lawlessness define America.
Torture, extraordinary renditions, indefinite detentions without charge, military commissions, warrantless surveillance, and racial profiling are official policies.
Special Forces death squads murder people globally who disagree with US policies.
Decades of bad policies, including his own, have America on a fast track toward tyranny and ruin.
America's middle class is disappearing. Growing millions suffer from poverty, homelessness, hunger and despair. America's media don't notice, let alone care.
America partners with Israel's most lawless policies. Its leaders (including himself) support the worst of world despots and brutes.
Democracy in America is a sham illusion. Whistleblowing and dissent can be called criminal.
Times op-eds alone won't change things, especially ones falling way short of the mark.
On October 1, Carter turn's 87. Arguably, his post-presidency is the best of the lot, though far from perfect.
At this stage in life, why not go all the way burnishing it.
What better way than by forthrightly challenging US policies causing so much harm to so many, including permanent imperial wars and social injustice.
Then support Palestinian statehood and full de jure UN membership. At the same time, denounce Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, saying "harsh and grave consequences" will follow a UN vote.
That's the kind of legacy worth working for!
It's true for everyone, not just him!
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 16 Sep 2011
Palestine
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
Some roads prove too rocky to traverse, especially when opposition against the real thing comes from alleged supportive allies.
The worst of all enemies often are traitors to a just cause. That in a word sums up Palestine's dilemma as loyalists count down to September's General Assembly meeting next week.
The 11th hour. The moment of truth, looking more like disappointment, shame and betrayal.
In other words, again Palestinians face what they've endured for decades, despite millions of global supporters, including most or perhaps the entire Arab street.
What do Palestinians want and deserve? In a word: justice.
They want sovereign statehood - no ifs, ands, buts or maybe next time.
They want it comprised of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - 22% of historic Palestine, not parts only in isolated pieces.
They want control over their shoreline and air space.
They want fixed borders and unfragmented territorial integrity, not isolated cantons on worthless scrub land constituting no state at all.
They want Israel's illegal occupation ended.
They want unauthorized incursions on their land called naked aggression.
They want international law provisions enforced, including UN Charter Chapter VII, Article 51, saying nations may attack another only in self-defense. Even then, it's only until the Security Council acts as the final arbiter on matters of international peace and security.
They want freedom over their own lives.
They want decades of Israeli state terror ended.
They want no more of their land stolen.
They want access to every international convention and institution able to help them.
They want diaspora refugees freely able to return as codified in international law.
On December 11, 1948, UN Resolution 194 "(r)esolve(d) that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation (paid by responsible governments or authorities) should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return...."
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his (or her) own, and to return to his (or her) country."
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:
"No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his (or her) own country."
In short, they want and deserve the same rights as all citizens. Sadly, too few have them, but no one anywhere should quit struggling for what's right, especially those long-suffering and denied.
Victories Take Sustained Commitment
Great victories aren't won by the timid. Only those committed to stay the course may succeed. They're also the most deserving because they put their bodies where their hopes and dreams lie.
They're willing to stake it all for a just cause. They're willing to settle for only what new generations may enjoy. That's commitment.
Palestinians have it, but not their collaborationist officials, planning to sell them out in New York, despite duplicitous rhetoric to the contrary.
On September 15, reiterating his "no retreat" vow on full UN membership, Abbas said:
"Going to the United Nations to request full membership for Palestine in the international organization is an inevitable thing and there is no retreat from it."
"Despite the pressures exercised on us, Palestine will go to" New York on September 23 "to request full membership."
Heavy US/EU/Israeli pressure haven't stopped demanding he give it up. Washington, in fact, vowed not to stop trying. According to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland:
"We want to leave no stone unturned in our effort to get these parties back to the table," where Israel holds all the aces. Palestinians have none, the way it's always been.
Nonetheless, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (notoriously pro-Israeli like Obama and his handpicked envoys) said:
"The only way of getting a lasting solution is through direct negotiations between the two parties, and the route to that lies in Jerusalem and Ramallah, not in New York."
Earlier she called destroying Libya and NATO's genocidal rape "liberation."
She backs the worst of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity. She deplores the idea of Palestinians having any say over their own affairs. She feels the same way about Americans, as does Obama.
He called Palestinians petitioning the UN a "distraction," adding:
"What happens in New York can occupy a lot of press attention but is not going to change, actually, what is happening on the ground until the Israelis and Palestinians sit down."
He's saying Washington and Israel will deny independent Palestine a moment of peace and security, threatening its right to exist.
Israel calls Palestinian statehood an attempt to isolate it and undermine its legitimacy. It'll say or do anything to get its way. So will America and its deceitful EU partners. They're enemies of independence and freedom as is Israel.
Its extremist ultranationalist Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, raged about the prospect, warning "harsh and grave consequences" will follow any attempt by Palestine to petition the UN for what's right.
Stopping short of revealing specifics, he said:
"The moment has not yet come to give details of what will happen. What I can say with the greatest confidence is that from the moment they pass a unilateral decision there will be harsh and grave consequences."
"I hope that we shall not come to (that point), and that common sense will prevail in all decisions taken in order to allow co-existence and progress with negotiation."
Spoken like true despot, he also accused Palestinians of planning an "unprecedented bloodbath" after the UN acts.
With racist hatemongers like Lieberman and Netanyahu in high places, anything ahead is possible. Both symbolize the worst of Israeli state terror, directed against Arabs for not being Jewish.
On September 15, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy headlined, "Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period," saying:
It has no "single persuasive argument against" one. Neither does Washington or pro-Israeli EU partners.
"Next week will be Israel's moment of truth, or more precisely the moment in which its deception will be revealed."
Its position is wholly without merit. In fact, its entirely self-serving and underhanded, forgetting that the UN, in part, established Israel and other new nations since 1945.
Moreover, it's the only way to create Palestinian statehood, what neither Israel or Palestine can do on their own. Nor Washington.
Notably, Oslo promised final status talks in five years. It didn't happen and won't in 50 or 500 if left up to Israel.
Every Israeli excuse turned up empty, leaving disturbing naked truths exposed. They're plain as day now to see.
As a result, Palestinians have "three options, not four: to surrender unconditionally (and stay occupied); to launch a third intifada; or to mobilize the world on their behalf."
They chose the third and got most of it. Israel has no leg to stand on, yet persists against what world public opinion calls the right thing at the right time.
"Yesterday, a coalition of Israeli peace organizations published a list of 50 reasons for Israel to support a Palestinian state."
In sum, they come down to backing what's lawful, principled, high-minded, righteous and timely.
On September 14, New York Times writer Isabel Kershner headlined, "Palestinians Say a UN Gamble on Statehood Is Worth the Risks," saying:
"Going to the United Nations remains a high-stakes gambit for Mr. Abbas," adding that it's "far from clear what will happen when the Palestinians go to the United Nations next week to seek recognition of statehood."
Fact check
What's very clear is that status quo occupation is intolerable and unacceptable.
That independence beside a rogue aggressor is better than living under its rules.
Moreover, anything improving their current lot advances true liberation for millions deserving it, even if getting it means waiting years or even decades longer.
Try finding any Times writer or op-ed contributor saying so.
Notably, its Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, stands out. On September 14, Max Blumenthal's Columbia Journalism Review article headlined, "Conflict in Israel? saying:
In charge since March 2008, Bronner "joined the speakers bureau of one of Israel's top public relations firms, Lone Star Communications," an organization with a pro-Israeli agenda.
It "arranges speaking dates for Bronner and takes 10 to 15 percent of his fee. At the same time, (it) pitches (him) stories."
His Times bosses see no conflict of interest. Why should they with their pro-Israeli agenda and refusal to hire on staff with views different from their own. Bronner fits the bill.
Combining journalism with "paid engagements from a firm that also pitches him stories" he reports is big time conflict of interest, especially one with a "clear ideological bent."
"Bronner faced an earlier controversy when his young son decided to serve in the Israeli military....(F)ormer Times editor Bill Keller strongly backed (him) and he weathered it."
At first, however, he and Times editors declined comment. Foreign Editor Susan Chira said only that:
"Mr. Bronner's son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At The Times, we have found Mr. Bronner's coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case."
Others disagree based on studies showing a history of Times misreporting on Israel/Palestine, besides on so much else. In fact, bias and distorted coverage defines how its correspondents and opinion writers do their job.
Calling it "scrupulously fair" is laughable on its face. It's also insulting to those affected.
A Final Comment
On September 23, Abbas will formally petition the UN for whatever he intends to propose. He'll address the General Assembly the same day.
So will Netanyahu after earlier saying Shimon Peres would represent him. Advisors warned him against it, saying not being there would show weakness and support what Palestinians want.
He claims he decided to go "to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it." In fact, he and truth are total strangers. He couldn't look it in the eye and see it.
Neither can Obama, those around him, and most in Congress, warning harsh measures if Palestinians pursue their rights.
"Make no mistake," said House Appropriations Committee member Steve Rothman (D. NJ), "I have no doubt that Congress will act swiftly and with an overwhelming majority to impose penalties...."
Besides cutting off funding, he may even have declaring war in mind. Why not with a legislative body packed with rogues. They're bipartisan criminals, backing imperial rampaging and wrecking America for their deep-pocketed funders.
They also support whatever Israel wants, including the right to reign terror on Palestine.
"The PA has little to gain and much to lose," added Rothman. Most Americans, in fact, gained nothing and lost everything under Republican and Democrat scoundrels, sacrificing them for their own self-interest.
Homeland justice depends on committed grassroots activism. It's true as well for Palestinians.
On September 23, Abbas plans to sell them out like so many previous times. Rothman and his bunch needn't worry.
Americans are on their own. So are Palestinians.
The struggle for liberating justice here and there continues.
With enough sustained commitment, maybe one day it'll show up.
For Palestinians, however, not on September 23. Abbas didn't book it passage on his New York flight.
Hopefully, he won't be warmly greeted when he returns.
Many there hope he's gone and won't come back.
That would be a big step forward, especially if his number two, Salam Fayyad, leaves with him.
Great victories come a baby step at a time.
Hopefully some are coming, but only people power ones matter most.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 16 Sep 2011
Palestine
Palestine's Rocky Road to Statehood - by Stephen Lendman
Some roads prove too rocky to traverse, especially when opposition against the real thing comes from alleged supportive allies.
The worst of all enemies often are traitors to a just cause. That in a word sums up Palestine's dilemma as loyalists count down to September's General Assembly meeting next week.
The 11th hour. The moment of truth, looking more like disappointment, shame and betrayal.
In other words, again Palestinians face what they've endured for decades, despite millions of global supporters, including most or perhaps the entire Arab street.
What do Palestinians want and deserve? In a word: justice.
They want sovereign statehood - no ifs, ands, buts or maybe next time.
They want it comprised of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem - 22% of historic Palestine, not parts only in isolated pieces.
They want control over their shoreline and air space.
They want fixed borders and unfragmented territorial integrity, not isolated cantons on worthless scrub land constituting no state at all.
They want Israel's illegal occupation ended.
They want unauthorized incursions on their land called naked aggression.
They want international law provisions enforced, including UN Charter Chapter VII, Article 51, saying nations may attack another only in self-defense. Even then, it's only until the Security Council acts as the final arbiter on matters of international peace and security.
They want freedom over their own lives.
They want decades of Israeli state terror ended.
They want no more of their land stolen.
They want access to every international convention and institution able to help them.
They want diaspora refugees freely able to return as codified in international law.
On December 11, 1948, UN Resolution 194 "(r)esolve(d) that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation (paid by responsible governments or authorities) should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return...."
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his (or her) own, and to return to his (or her) country."
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:
"No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his (or her) own country."
In short, they want and deserve the same rights as all citizens. Sadly, too few have them, but no one anywhere should quit struggling for what's right, especially those long-suffering and denied.
Victories Take Sustained Commitment
Great victories aren't won by the timid. Only those committed to stay the course may succeed. They're also the most deserving because they put their bodies where their hopes and dreams lie.
They're willing to stake it all for a just cause. They're willing to settle for only what new generations may enjoy. That's commitment.
Palestinians have it, but not their collaborationist officials, planning to sell them out in New York, despite duplicitous rhetoric to the contrary.
On September 15, reiterating his "no retreat" vow on full UN membership, Abbas said:
"Going to the United Nations to request full membership for Palestine in the international organization is an inevitable thing and there is no retreat from it."
"Despite the pressures exercised on us, Palestine will go to" New York on September 23 "to request full membership."
Heavy US/EU/Israeli pressure haven't stopped demanding he give it up. Washington, in fact, vowed not to stop trying. According to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland:
"We want to leave no stone unturned in our effort to get these parties back to the table," where Israel holds all the aces. Palestinians have none, the way it's always been.
Nonetheless, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (notoriously pro-Israeli like Obama and his handpicked envoys) said:
"The only way of getting a lasting solution is through direct negotiations between the two parties, and the route to that lies in Jerusalem and Ramallah, not in New York."
Earlier she called destroying Libya and NATO's genocidal rape "liberation."
She backs the worst of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity. She deplores the idea of Palestinians having any say over their own affairs. She feels the same way about Americans, as does Obama.
He called Palestinians petitioning the UN a "distraction," adding:
"What happens in New York can occupy a lot of press attention but is not going to change, actually, what is happening on the ground until the Israelis and Palestinians sit down."
He's saying Washington and Israel will deny independent Palestine a moment of peace and security, threatening its right to exist.
Israel calls Palestinian statehood an attempt to isolate it and undermine its legitimacy. It'll say or do anything to get its way. So will America and its deceitful EU partners. They're enemies of independence and freedom as is Israel.
Its extremist ultranationalist Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, raged about the prospect, warning "harsh and grave consequences" will follow any attempt by Palestine to petition the UN for what's right.
Stopping short of revealing specifics, he said:
"The moment has not yet come to give details of what will happen. What I can say with the greatest confidence is that from the moment they pass a unilateral decision there will be harsh and grave consequences."
"I hope that we shall not come to (that point), and that common sense will prevail in all decisions taken in order to allow co-existence and progress with negotiation."
Spoken like true despot, he also accused Palestinians of planning an "unprecedented bloodbath" after the UN acts.
With racist hatemongers like Lieberman and Netanyahu in high places, anything ahead is possible. Both symbolize the worst of Israeli state terror, directed against Arabs for not being Jewish.
On September 15, Haaretz writer Gideon Levy headlined, "Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period," saying:
It has no "single persuasive argument against" one. Neither does Washington or pro-Israeli EU partners.
"Next week will be Israel's moment of truth, or more precisely the moment in which its deception will be revealed."
Its position is wholly without merit. In fact, its entirely self-serving and underhanded, forgetting that the UN, in part, established Israel and other new nations since 1945.
Moreover, it's the only way to create Palestinian statehood, what neither Israel or Palestine can do on their own. Nor Washington.
Notably, Oslo promised final status talks in five years. It didn't happen and won't in 50 or 500 if left up to Israel.
Every Israeli excuse turned up empty, leaving disturbing naked truths exposed. They're plain as day now to see.
As a result, Palestinians have "three options, not four: to surrender unconditionally (and stay occupied); to launch a third intifada; or to mobilize the world on their behalf."
They chose the third and got most of it. Israel has no leg to stand on, yet persists against what world public opinion calls the right thing at the right time.
"Yesterday, a coalition of Israeli peace organizations published a list of 50 reasons for Israel to support a Palestinian state."
In sum, they come down to backing what's lawful, principled, high-minded, righteous and timely.
On September 14, New York Times writer Isabel Kershner headlined, "Palestinians Say a UN Gamble on Statehood Is Worth the Risks," saying:
"Going to the United Nations remains a high-stakes gambit for Mr. Abbas," adding that it's "far from clear what will happen when the Palestinians go to the United Nations next week to seek recognition of statehood."
Fact check
What's very clear is that status quo occupation is intolerable and unacceptable.
That independence beside a rogue aggressor is better than living under its rules.
Moreover, anything improving their current lot advances true liberation for millions deserving it, even if getting it means waiting years or even decades longer.
Try finding any Times writer or op-ed contributor saying so.
Notably, its Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, stands out. On September 14, Max Blumenthal's Columbia Journalism Review article headlined, "Conflict in Israel? saying:
In charge since March 2008, Bronner "joined the speakers bureau of one of Israel's top public relations firms, Lone Star Communications," an organization with a pro-Israeli agenda.
It "arranges speaking dates for Bronner and takes 10 to 15 percent of his fee. At the same time, (it) pitches (him) stories."
His Times bosses see no conflict of interest. Why should they with their pro-Israeli agenda and refusal to hire on staff with views different from their own. Bronner fits the bill.
Combining journalism with "paid engagements from a firm that also pitches him stories" he reports is big time conflict of interest, especially one with a "clear ideological bent."
"Bronner faced an earlier controversy when his young son decided to serve in the Israeli military....(F)ormer Times editor Bill Keller strongly backed (him) and he weathered it."
At first, however, he and Times editors declined comment. Foreign Editor Susan Chira said only that:
"Mr. Bronner's son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At The Times, we have found Mr. Bronner's coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case."
Others disagree based on studies showing a history of Times misreporting on Israel/Palestine, besides on so much else. In fact, bias and distorted coverage defines how its correspondents and opinion writers do their job.
Calling it "scrupulously fair" is laughable on its face. It's also insulting to those affected.
A Final Comment
On September 23, Abbas will formally petition the UN for whatever he intends to propose. He'll address the General Assembly the same day.
So will Netanyahu after earlier saying Shimon Peres would represent him. Advisors warned him against it, saying not being there would show weakness and support what Palestinians want.
He claims he decided to go "to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it." In fact, he and truth are total strangers. He couldn't look it in the eye and see it.
Neither can Obama, those around him, and most in Congress, warning harsh measures if Palestinians pursue their rights.
"Make no mistake," said House Appropriations Committee member Steve Rothman (D. NJ), "I have no doubt that Congress will act swiftly and with an overwhelming majority to impose penalties...."
Besides cutting off funding, he may even have declaring war in mind. Why not with a legislative body packed with rogues. They're bipartisan criminals, backing imperial rampaging and wrecking America for their deep-pocketed funders.
They also support whatever Israel wants, including the right to reign terror on Palestine.
"The PA has little to gain and much to lose," added Rothman. Most Americans, in fact, gained nothing and lost everything under Republican and Democrat scoundrels, sacrificing them for their own self-interest.
Homeland justice depends on committed grassroots activism. It's true as well for Palestinians.
On September 23, Abbas plans to sell them out like so many previous times. Rothman and his bunch needn't worry.
Americans are on their own. So are Palestinians.
The struggle for liberating justice here and there continues.
With enough sustained commitment, maybe one day it'll show up.
For Palestinians, however, not on September 23. Abbas didn't book it passage on his New York flight.
Hopefully, he won't be warmly greeted when he returns.
Many there hope he's gone and won't come back.
That would be a big step forward, especially if his number two, Salam Fayyad, leaves with him.
Great victories come a baby step at a time.
Hopefully some are coming, but only people power ones matter most.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
Targeting Lawyers: America v. Paul Bergrin - by Stephen Lendman
Targeting Lawyers: America v. Paul Bergrin
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 16 Sep 2011
persecution
Targeting Lawyers: America v. Paul Bergrin - by Stephen Lendman
Post-9/11, thousands of political prisoners languish unjustly behind bars or await trial.
They include lawyers for challenging injustice, especially for defending the "wrong" clients after America declared war on humanity.
Longtime human rights lawyer Lynne Stewart got 10 years for doing it. In a recent interview she said:
"I believe I am one of an historical progression that maintains the struggle to change (America's) perverted landscape....It seems that being a political prisoner must be used as a means of focusing people's attention on the continuing atrocities around them....I might think I hadn't been doing my utmost if they didn't believe I was dangerous enough to be locked up!"
Explaining how outrageously prisoners are treated, she added:
"Human rights do not exist in prison....I see day-to-day brainwashing that teaches all prisoners that they are less than nothing and not worthy of even the least human or humane considerations."
It shows up in "adequate medical care, the appalling diet....no access to the Web....an absence of legal advice," and so much else "to keep us dumbed-down, docile and estranged."
"The outside world is oblivious....brainwashed into believing (everyone locked up is) less than human."
Inhumanity is official policy in America's gulag. It's by far the world's largest, and for many in it as brutal as some of the worst. A growing part includes filling prison beds for profit, many in them victimized by injustice.
Lynne's there for defending a client Bush officials wanted locked up for life - no matter his innocence.
Paul Bergrin now awaits his turn, behind bars ahead of his trial. A previous article discussed his case, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/12/targeting-lawyers-case-of-paul-ber
It said the Sixth Amendment assures defendants in "all criminal prosecutions" the right to speedy, public, fair trials with "the Assistance of (competent) Counsel for his (or her) defense" provided free if unable to pay for it.
The Fourteenth Amendment holds government subservient to the law and guarantees due process respect for everyone's legal right to judicial fairness on matters relating to life, liberty, or property.
In America and elsewhere, defending unpopular clients is a long, honored tradition. So is upholding the law and challenging unfettered power defiling it. Yet doing it risks lawyers being criminalized for doing their job too vigorously or making enemies in high places.
Before being targeted, Bergrin was a formidable advocate. The New Times Times called him a "top prosecutor" before becoming one of New Jersey's "most prominent defense lawyers representing clients as varied as Abu Ghraib defendants, the rap stars Lil' Kim and Queen Larifah, and members of Newark's notorious street gangs."
They and others deserve the same legal rights as everyone, nothing less. So does Bergrin as an unjustly accused defendant, targeted for doing his job.
He defended US soldiers accused of killing four Iraqis near Samarra during Operation Iron Triangle in May 2006. The case made international headlines when evidence showed Col. Michael Steele gave orders to "kill all military age males."
Stjepan Mestrovic's important book explained what happened, titled "The 'Good Soldier' on Trial: A Sociological Study of Misconduct by the US Military Pertaining to Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq."
It was no ordinary murder case. It involved government conspiracy, cover-up and intrigue against scapegoated soldiers to absolve higher-ups throughout the chain of command to the top.
As a result, four soldiers were convicted of conspiracy, murder, aggravated assault, or obstruction of justice for following orders. If disobeyed they'd have been court-martialed, dishonorably discharged, fined and imprisoned.
Guilt or innocence didn't matter. They never had a chance, and for using his formidable skills for them, neither perhaps does Paul.
Obama officials want him crucified and locked away for life, turning justice into a four-letter word like for so many others targeted for political advantage.
Prosecutorial Charges
On May 20, 2009, a Department of Justice (DOJ) press released headlined "Newark Lawyer Arrested, Charged with Racketeering Conspiracy, Including Murder of a Federal Witness (along with) Three Others Also Arrested and Charged."
The 14-count indictment (now 33) accused him of "using various legal entities, including (his law office) to conduct illegal activities, including murder, to protect criminal clients, perpetuate their activities and shield them from prosecution."
Specifically cited was his alleged role in the "murder of a confidential witness in an Essex County (New Jersey) federal drug case, and his efforts to hire a hitman from Chicago to kill at least one witness in a Monmouth County drug case."
Bergrin was charged with "racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, murder of a federal witness, and conspiracy to murder a federal witness, and, separately, witnesses in a state case, as well as Travel Act violations and conspiracy to commit Travel Act violations."
If convicted of murder, racketeering and conspiracy, potentially he faces life in prison.
Bergrin v. Attack Journalism
On June 5, New York Magazine writer Mark Jacobson headlined, "The Baddest Lawyer in the History of Jersey," practically convicting him without trial by his title.
Naming some of Essex County's most notorious scoundrels, including Mafia boss Lucky Luciano, he called Bergrin a "strong candidate for addition to this list.... facing charges that are a good bet to keep him behind bars for the rest of his life."
In other words, he swallowed government accusations hook, line and sinker pre-trial, what legitimate journalism never should do. He accepted inflammatory charges as truth, no matter how implausible and bogus.
American justice accuses innocent victims spuriously with crimes they didn't commit, including terrorism, conspiracy to commit it, and murder.
In Bergrin's case, Jacobson admitted that federal authorities hated him, without saying why. It was because of his skill and commitment to expose their crimes, the same ones ongoing daily in war theaters.
Anyone doing that for a living or pro bono will be targeted the same way. Authorities don't like effective thorns in their side, so stop at nothing to remove them. Innocence doesn't matter, only continuity of unchallenged crimes of war and against humanity with impunity.
Bergrin knew it and wanted top chain of command officials exposed and prosecuted. As a result, he's behind bars facing possible life in prison.
Based on government charges and uncorroborated hearsay, Jacobson said he'd "gone rogue," crossed "that border between what was allowed and what was not..."
Yet he admitted that "(h)e knew the reality, how the deck was stacked, and was willing to fight fire with fire" for justice. "He went to war for you," said a former client. "That's why Paul was loved in the streets." They're aren't enough like him.
The deck is so stacked against him that former counsel Lawrence Lustberg believes it's impossible he can get a fair trial in this environment. Attack journalism, of course, doesn't help.
ABA (American Bar Association) Journal contributor, Martha Neil, discussed Bergrin's case in previous articles.
On June 7, she headlined "Expanded New RICO Indictment Accuses Alleged Rogue Attorney of More Law-Firm-Related Charges," saying:
A "new racketeering indictment (read more like) the latest John Grisham legal thriller" from murder one to piling on lots more. In other words, the more charges, the more likely some will stick, whether or not credible.
On August 30, she headlined, "High-Profile Defense Attorney Accused of Practicing Law in RICO Enterprise May Represent Himself," saying:
Jailed since 2009 "on charges that he ran his law practice as part of a criminal racketeering enterprise," he may do what "one expert" calls a good idea, given his skill representing others.
"Three of the government's main cooperating witnesses (include) his mistress and alleged top criminal associate, his former law partner, and a drug kingpin ex-client."
All copped a plea for lighter treatment in return for testifying against Bergrin, the main target prosecutors locked up for life, even by framing him on bogus charges.
On September 12, Neil headlined, "Attorney Paul Bergrin's Biggest Trial is About to Begin: His Own Racketeering Case," saying:
Federal Judge William Martini agreed to let him proceed pro se, but he'll "be restricted in his courtroom movements."
He won't be allowed to approach jurors, hand documents to witnesses, or participate in private out of earshot sidebar conferences at the bench where legal issues are considered.
At the same time, federal marshals will monitor him closely, giving jurors the appearance of a guilty man going through the motions.
Overcoming a stacked deck will be Bergrin's greatest challenge. Some, however, say if anyone can do it he can, given his reputation as a formidable adversary other lawyers feared, knowing how tough he is to beat.
However, judicial restrictions will impede his every move, making jurors believe he lacks credibility and is guilty. On October 11, his trial is scheduled to begin, fair or foul.
A Final Comment
The entire case is based on fabrication and intimidation to suppress hard truths and convict lawyers trying to expose them. Bergrin was framed to discredit and silence him. In November 2009, he said:
"This virtual nightmare has destroyed everything I worked my heart and soul out for, including my family. What hurts me the most is I am not guilty and totally innocent."
I was about to change the course of history that I had affirmative proof that President Bush, VP Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Assist. Secy. of (Defense) Wolfowitz, Carbone and White House Counsel, (Alberto) Gonzales (later US Attorney General) had lied, deliberately and intentionally when they denied knowledge of the torture techniques at Abu Ghraib."
He never got a chance to prove it. Instead, he's been convicted in the court of public opinion. His trial won't be about alleged crimes. It's for threatening the wrong people up the chain of command to the top.
Imagine the possibilities if he'd done it, putting Bush/Cheney & Co. in the dock, instead of himself because he tried.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 16 Sep 2011
persecution
Targeting Lawyers: America v. Paul Bergrin - by Stephen Lendman
Post-9/11, thousands of political prisoners languish unjustly behind bars or await trial.
They include lawyers for challenging injustice, especially for defending the "wrong" clients after America declared war on humanity.
Longtime human rights lawyer Lynne Stewart got 10 years for doing it. In a recent interview she said:
"I believe I am one of an historical progression that maintains the struggle to change (America's) perverted landscape....It seems that being a political prisoner must be used as a means of focusing people's attention on the continuing atrocities around them....I might think I hadn't been doing my utmost if they didn't believe I was dangerous enough to be locked up!"
Explaining how outrageously prisoners are treated, she added:
"Human rights do not exist in prison....I see day-to-day brainwashing that teaches all prisoners that they are less than nothing and not worthy of even the least human or humane considerations."
It shows up in "adequate medical care, the appalling diet....no access to the Web....an absence of legal advice," and so much else "to keep us dumbed-down, docile and estranged."
"The outside world is oblivious....brainwashed into believing (everyone locked up is) less than human."
Inhumanity is official policy in America's gulag. It's by far the world's largest, and for many in it as brutal as some of the worst. A growing part includes filling prison beds for profit, many in them victimized by injustice.
Lynne's there for defending a client Bush officials wanted locked up for life - no matter his innocence.
Paul Bergrin now awaits his turn, behind bars ahead of his trial. A previous article discussed his case, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/12/targeting-lawyers-case-of-paul-ber
It said the Sixth Amendment assures defendants in "all criminal prosecutions" the right to speedy, public, fair trials with "the Assistance of (competent) Counsel for his (or her) defense" provided free if unable to pay for it.
The Fourteenth Amendment holds government subservient to the law and guarantees due process respect for everyone's legal right to judicial fairness on matters relating to life, liberty, or property.
In America and elsewhere, defending unpopular clients is a long, honored tradition. So is upholding the law and challenging unfettered power defiling it. Yet doing it risks lawyers being criminalized for doing their job too vigorously or making enemies in high places.
Before being targeted, Bergrin was a formidable advocate. The New Times Times called him a "top prosecutor" before becoming one of New Jersey's "most prominent defense lawyers representing clients as varied as Abu Ghraib defendants, the rap stars Lil' Kim and Queen Larifah, and members of Newark's notorious street gangs."
They and others deserve the same legal rights as everyone, nothing less. So does Bergrin as an unjustly accused defendant, targeted for doing his job.
He defended US soldiers accused of killing four Iraqis near Samarra during Operation Iron Triangle in May 2006. The case made international headlines when evidence showed Col. Michael Steele gave orders to "kill all military age males."
Stjepan Mestrovic's important book explained what happened, titled "The 'Good Soldier' on Trial: A Sociological Study of Misconduct by the US Military Pertaining to Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq."
It was no ordinary murder case. It involved government conspiracy, cover-up and intrigue against scapegoated soldiers to absolve higher-ups throughout the chain of command to the top.
As a result, four soldiers were convicted of conspiracy, murder, aggravated assault, or obstruction of justice for following orders. If disobeyed they'd have been court-martialed, dishonorably discharged, fined and imprisoned.
Guilt or innocence didn't matter. They never had a chance, and for using his formidable skills for them, neither perhaps does Paul.
Obama officials want him crucified and locked away for life, turning justice into a four-letter word like for so many others targeted for political advantage.
Prosecutorial Charges
On May 20, 2009, a Department of Justice (DOJ) press released headlined "Newark Lawyer Arrested, Charged with Racketeering Conspiracy, Including Murder of a Federal Witness (along with) Three Others Also Arrested and Charged."
The 14-count indictment (now 33) accused him of "using various legal entities, including (his law office) to conduct illegal activities, including murder, to protect criminal clients, perpetuate their activities and shield them from prosecution."
Specifically cited was his alleged role in the "murder of a confidential witness in an Essex County (New Jersey) federal drug case, and his efforts to hire a hitman from Chicago to kill at least one witness in a Monmouth County drug case."
Bergrin was charged with "racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, murder of a federal witness, and conspiracy to murder a federal witness, and, separately, witnesses in a state case, as well as Travel Act violations and conspiracy to commit Travel Act violations."
If convicted of murder, racketeering and conspiracy, potentially he faces life in prison.
Bergrin v. Attack Journalism
On June 5, New York Magazine writer Mark Jacobson headlined, "The Baddest Lawyer in the History of Jersey," practically convicting him without trial by his title.
Naming some of Essex County's most notorious scoundrels, including Mafia boss Lucky Luciano, he called Bergrin a "strong candidate for addition to this list.... facing charges that are a good bet to keep him behind bars for the rest of his life."
In other words, he swallowed government accusations hook, line and sinker pre-trial, what legitimate journalism never should do. He accepted inflammatory charges as truth, no matter how implausible and bogus.
American justice accuses innocent victims spuriously with crimes they didn't commit, including terrorism, conspiracy to commit it, and murder.
In Bergrin's case, Jacobson admitted that federal authorities hated him, without saying why. It was because of his skill and commitment to expose their crimes, the same ones ongoing daily in war theaters.
Anyone doing that for a living or pro bono will be targeted the same way. Authorities don't like effective thorns in their side, so stop at nothing to remove them. Innocence doesn't matter, only continuity of unchallenged crimes of war and against humanity with impunity.
Bergrin knew it and wanted top chain of command officials exposed and prosecuted. As a result, he's behind bars facing possible life in prison.
Based on government charges and uncorroborated hearsay, Jacobson said he'd "gone rogue," crossed "that border between what was allowed and what was not..."
Yet he admitted that "(h)e knew the reality, how the deck was stacked, and was willing to fight fire with fire" for justice. "He went to war for you," said a former client. "That's why Paul was loved in the streets." They're aren't enough like him.
The deck is so stacked against him that former counsel Lawrence Lustberg believes it's impossible he can get a fair trial in this environment. Attack journalism, of course, doesn't help.
ABA (American Bar Association) Journal contributor, Martha Neil, discussed Bergrin's case in previous articles.
On June 7, she headlined "Expanded New RICO Indictment Accuses Alleged Rogue Attorney of More Law-Firm-Related Charges," saying:
A "new racketeering indictment (read more like) the latest John Grisham legal thriller" from murder one to piling on lots more. In other words, the more charges, the more likely some will stick, whether or not credible.
On August 30, she headlined, "High-Profile Defense Attorney Accused of Practicing Law in RICO Enterprise May Represent Himself," saying:
Jailed since 2009 "on charges that he ran his law practice as part of a criminal racketeering enterprise," he may do what "one expert" calls a good idea, given his skill representing others.
"Three of the government's main cooperating witnesses (include) his mistress and alleged top criminal associate, his former law partner, and a drug kingpin ex-client."
All copped a plea for lighter treatment in return for testifying against Bergrin, the main target prosecutors locked up for life, even by framing him on bogus charges.
On September 12, Neil headlined, "Attorney Paul Bergrin's Biggest Trial is About to Begin: His Own Racketeering Case," saying:
Federal Judge William Martini agreed to let him proceed pro se, but he'll "be restricted in his courtroom movements."
He won't be allowed to approach jurors, hand documents to witnesses, or participate in private out of earshot sidebar conferences at the bench where legal issues are considered.
At the same time, federal marshals will monitor him closely, giving jurors the appearance of a guilty man going through the motions.
Overcoming a stacked deck will be Bergrin's greatest challenge. Some, however, say if anyone can do it he can, given his reputation as a formidable adversary other lawyers feared, knowing how tough he is to beat.
However, judicial restrictions will impede his every move, making jurors believe he lacks credibility and is guilty. On October 11, his trial is scheduled to begin, fair or foul.
A Final Comment
The entire case is based on fabrication and intimidation to suppress hard truths and convict lawyers trying to expose them. Bergrin was framed to discredit and silence him. In November 2009, he said:
"This virtual nightmare has destroyed everything I worked my heart and soul out for, including my family. What hurts me the most is I am not guilty and totally innocent."
I was about to change the course of history that I had affirmative proof that President Bush, VP Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Assist. Secy. of (Defense) Wolfowitz, Carbone and White House Counsel, (Alberto) Gonzales (later US Attorney General) had lied, deliberately and intentionally when they denied knowledge of the torture techniques at Abu Ghraib."
He never got a chance to prove it. Instead, he's been convicted in the court of public opinion. His trial won't be about alleged crimes. It's for threatening the wrong people up the chain of command to the top.
Imagine the possibilities if he'd done it, putting Bush/Cheney & Co. in the dock, instead of himself because he tried.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
The Latest From The "Jobs With Justice Blog"-The Seemingly One-Sided Struggle Continues-It's High Time To Push Back-Push Back Hard-30 For 40 Is The Slogan Of The Day.
Click on the headline to link to the Jobs With Justice Blog for the latest national and international labor news, and of the efforts to counteract the massively one-sided class struggle against the international working class movement.
From the American Left History blog-Wednesday, June 17, 2009
With Unemployment Rising- The Call "30 For 40"- Now More Than Ever- The Transitional Socialist Program
Google To Link To The Full Transitional Program Of The Fourth International Adopted In 1938 As A Fighting Program In The Struggle For Socialism In That Era. Many Of The Points, Including The Headline Point Of 30 Hours Work For 40 Hours Pay To Spread The Work Around Among All Workers, Is As Valid Today As Then.
Guest Commentary
From The Transitional Program Of The Fourth International In 1938Sliding Scale of Wages
and Sliding Scale of Hours
Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.
The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.
Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.
Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.
Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.
From the American Left History blog-Wednesday, June 17, 2009
With Unemployment Rising- The Call "30 For 40"- Now More Than Ever- The Transitional Socialist Program
Google To Link To The Full Transitional Program Of The Fourth International Adopted In 1938 As A Fighting Program In The Struggle For Socialism In That Era. Many Of The Points, Including The Headline Point Of 30 Hours Work For 40 Hours Pay To Spread The Work Around Among All Workers, Is As Valid Today As Then.
Guest Commentary
From The Transitional Program Of The Fourth International In 1938Sliding Scale of Wages
and Sliding Scale of Hours
Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.
The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.
Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.
Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.
Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.
The Latest From The “Veterans For Peace” Website-Gear Up For The 2011-12 Anti-War Season-Troops Out Now!
Click on the headline to link to the Veterans For Peace website for the latest news.
Re-posted From American Left History- Thursday, November 11, 2010
*A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.
Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstool”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.
Previously there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events.) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois party pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. Nice, right? Something of the old I’ll take my ball and bat and go home by the "officials" was in the air on that one.
But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in the world. In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited as the official paraders marched by and waved and clapped at our procession. Be still my heart. But that response just provides another example of the ‘street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these vets would go beyond the “bring the troops home” and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today I was very glad to be fighting for our communist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.
Re-posted From American Left History- Thursday, November 11, 2010
*A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.
Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstool”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.
Previously there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events.) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois party pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. Nice, right? Something of the old I’ll take my ball and bat and go home by the "officials" was in the air on that one.
But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in the world. In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited as the official paraders marched by and waved and clapped at our procession. Be still my heart. But that response just provides another example of the ‘street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these vets would go beyond the “bring the troops home” and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today I was very glad to be fighting for our communist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.
“Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International-From The Archives-The Founding Conference Of The Fourth International (1938)-"On The Mexican Question"
Click on the headline to link to the Toward A History Of The Fourth International website for the article listed above.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
********
Markin comment on this document
Everybody, and that most notably included Leon Trotsky, knew something was going awry with the Bolshevik Revolution by 1923 for many reasons, some of them beyond correction outside of an international extension of the revolution, especially to Germany that would provide the vital industrial infrastructure to aid the struggling Soviet Union. Nevertheless, and this is important to note about serious revolutionary politics and politicians in general, the fight in 1923 still needed to aimed at winning the party cadre over. That was the failing point of many oppositionists, inside and outside the party, then.
By 1933, with the rise of the virtually unopposed rise and consolidation of Nazism in Germany clearly putting paid to the Communist International’s (read: Stalin’s) erroneous strategy, working inside the party, or acting as an expelled fraction of the party, was no longer tenable. Like earlier with the First and Second Internationals the Communist International was now dead as a revolutionary organizational center. Time now to gather, by fits and starts, the cadre for a new international- the Fourth International
Needless to say in trying to organize a new international in tough times, with not enough seasoned cadre, not enough not-Leon Trotsky leadership, not enough money, and not enough, well, of anything internal bickering and personality disputes are going to slow down any efforts.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
********
Markin comment on this document
Everybody, and that most notably included Leon Trotsky, knew something was going awry with the Bolshevik Revolution by 1923 for many reasons, some of them beyond correction outside of an international extension of the revolution, especially to Germany that would provide the vital industrial infrastructure to aid the struggling Soviet Union. Nevertheless, and this is important to note about serious revolutionary politics and politicians in general, the fight in 1923 still needed to aimed at winning the party cadre over. That was the failing point of many oppositionists, inside and outside the party, then.
By 1933, with the rise of the virtually unopposed rise and consolidation of Nazism in Germany clearly putting paid to the Communist International’s (read: Stalin’s) erroneous strategy, working inside the party, or acting as an expelled fraction of the party, was no longer tenable. Like earlier with the First and Second Internationals the Communist International was now dead as a revolutionary organizational center. Time now to gather, by fits and starts, the cadre for a new international- the Fourth International
Needless to say in trying to organize a new international in tough times, with not enough seasoned cadre, not enough not-Leon Trotsky leadership, not enough money, and not enough, well, of anything internal bickering and personality disputes are going to slow down any efforts.
From The Annals Of The Class Struggle-ILWU Votes One-Day Work Stoppage to Support Miners (1978)- A Model For Today's Labor Struggles
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for backgrond information concerning the great nationwide coal strike of 1977-78, a classic class-war battle with many lesson, good and bad, for today's labor militants.
Markin comment:
In the wake of the recent somewhat isolated strike action at Verizon this summer and the struggle of the public worker unions in Wisconsin earlier this year that cried out for general strike solidarity action by all of organized labor, private and public, a little glimpse at the kind of solidarity actions by other parts of the organized, if only as an exemplary action, is worth taking note of. The class battles looming ahead will provide of opportunity to take these measures from paper to power. Forward!
ILWU Votes One-Day Work Stoppage to Support Miners
The Spartacist League championed attempts by labor militants to bring other unions out on strike to smash Taft-Hartley and exposed the fake-lefts who helped sabotage this crucial defense of the miners...
—excerpted from WV No. 197, 17 March 1978
SAN FRANCISCO, March 14—As the mine workers face the most critical hour in their 100-day-old strike, the labor movement must ensure that they do not stand alone. With Carter lowering the boom by invoking Taft-Hartley it is the urgent duty of the unions to undertake protest strike action against this government strikebreak¬ing. Last week the International Longshoremen's and Warehouse¬men's Union (ILWU) became the first major U.S. union to move in this direction.
On Friday, March 10 the ILWU International Executive Board (IEB) adopted a resolution whose substance was as follows:
1) to authorize the International officers to call a 24-hour longshore strike coastwide, to protest the use of Taft-Hartley against the miners; 2) to call on the rest of the ILWU, particularly Hawaii and the Warehouse Division, to join in this action; 3) to call on the rest of organized labor in cities where the ILWU has locals to join the 24-hour stop-work action.
Such solidarity action with the coal miners is precisely what is needed at this moment. It could be the spark which ignites the rest of labor to join in this crucial battle, but some of the ILWU tops are predictably dragging their feet. Trade-union militants must raise an urgent clamor demanding that a coastwide dock shutdown and citywide work stoppages against Taft-Hartley and for victory to the miners strike be implemented NOW!...
Ferment in the ILWU
The earliest breakthrough leading to the ILWU resolution came in Local 13 in the San Pedro/Long Beach/Los Angeles area where several hundred longshoremen passed a resolution at the March 2 membership meeting calling for a one-day work action. According to a statement circulated by Chick Loveridge, an IEB member: "Local13 is urging President Carter not to interfere on the side of the mine owners, no Taft-Hartley. Local 13 is calling for a one-day supporting action, by closing down the port of LB/ LA and urging all other ports on the West Coast to do the same. Local 13 is also inviting all other labor organizations to join us in a meeting of support on the day the ports are closed down"
Parallel to the Local 13 action, Stan Gow and Howard Keylor,
members of the Local 10 (S.F. longshore) Executive Board and
publishers of "Longshore Militant," a class-struggle opposition
newsletter in the Local, along with the Militant Caucus in Local 6,
began circulating a petition on March 8 to"call on president Herman
and the Bay Area 1LWU local presidents to organize a 24-hour Bay
Area-wide protest strike against government strikebreaking in the
coalfields." The petition quoted a statement made by Herman at a
February 24 rally, where he boasted: "If they try mining coal with
bayonets or visit harm on the miners, there will be actions here and
throughout the country "
With a couple of days' circulation the petition gathered over 100 signatures in Local 10 and 150 in Local 6, as well as the signatures of Local 13 president Art Almeida and Seattle Local 19 president Dick Moork. This petition was an important factor in forcing the Local 10 Executive Board on March 9 to come out for some kind of solidarity action in support of the miners strike.
Strike Support Coalition
Herman himself had made the call for solidarity actions before some 1,000 assembled trade unionists at a February 24 rally organized by the so-called "Miners Strike Labor/Community Support Coalition," a collection of top Bay Area labor bureaucrats such as John Crowley of the Central Labor Council and Walter Johnson, president of Retail Clerks Local 1100. When this coalition held an organizing meeting March 11 at the Retail Clerks headquarters, about 200 trade union militants showed up, clearly upsetting the conservative trade union tops. Early in the meeting the Coalition's co-chairman, Larry Wing, president of ILWU Local 10, mentioned that the ILWU IEB favored a 24-hour coastwide work stoppage and was calling the rest of labor to join in. Wing also noted the IEB had voted a $25,000 donation to the mine workers as well as a $1 per-month/per-member assessment of the ILWU membership for the miners' families.
At this point a militant Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) worker announced that a similar motion for a "one day stop work mass labor rally of all Bay Area labor" had been passed 44 to 1 at a membership meeting of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 on March 8. Noting the parallel course of the two unions, she put forward a motion calling for implementing the work-stoppage motions and extending them to Bay Area labor as a whole:
"This body calls for a 24-hour Bay Area-wide stop-work protest strike against government strikebreaking in the coalfields. We urge all local unions and the Central Labor Council of all nine Bay Area counties to immediately prepare for such an action."
This simple motion immediately polarized the meeting, for the encrusted U.S. labor bureaucracy cannot abide even such elementary actions of class solidarity. Caught off guard, the nervous bureaucrats sought a way out of this dilemma and found it with the criminal aid of the Communist Party (CP) and the SWP. While both groups are vying to play chief hatchetman against labor militancy for the union tops, at this meeting the SWP clearly led the pack in wrecking the chances of solidarity strike action.
The fight which followed found the CP supporters caught in the middle. With the BART militants' motion simply calling for implementing the 1LWU resolution, they did not want to completely disavow it. But aware that the ILWU bureaucracy was seeking to minimize its impact, neither did they want to go too far out on a limb. Thus early on in the heated discussion Franklin Alexander, well-known CP supporter in ILWU Local 6, said he was "not ready" to vote for such a motion because it was "too soon," and later tried to kill it by referring it to the steering committee. (Ironically Billy Proctor, a CP supporter in Local 10, had signed the "Longshore Militant" petition earlier in the week.)
But the SWP supporters present did not beat around the bush. Mobilizing their small army of hitherto silent "Coalition" members to come out and defeat the motion, they effectively denounced the ILWU resolution as "ultra-left"! First Roland Sheppard, SWP floor leader, openly attacked the solidarity motion on the grounds that:
1) "The job of this body is to support the miners" [read Miller]; 2) "The ILWU actually isn't calling for the action, only looking for the mood in the ranks"; and 3) One must "walk before you run." Actually the SWP is on its hands and knees, a position it got used to during its 1960's peace crawls. And as if the miners who have been on strike for three months would not appreciate the support of a solidarity strike, John Olmstead, a Teamster, seconded Sheppard's remarks and actually cautioned that the motion would "alienate the union membership"!...
At this point a militant Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) worker announced that a similar motion for a "one day stop work mass labor rally of all Bay Area labor" had been passed 44 to 1 at a membership meeting of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 on March 8. Noting the parallel course of the two unions, she put forward a motion calling for implementing the work-stoppage motions and extending them to Bay Area labor as a whole:
"This body calls for a 24-hour Bay Area-wide stop-work protest strike against government strikebreaking in the coalfields. We urge all local unions and the Central Labor Council of all nine Bay Area counties to immediately prepare for such an action."
By voting time the several score SWP supporters had lined up a solid voting bloc of themselves and the most rabid right-wing bureaucrats present. Even so the first voice vote was disputed and a second hand vote was only defeated by a margin of roughly 120 to 70, with CP supporters such as Figueiredo, Franklin and several others abstaining. As if this wasn't enough, the SWP even opposed a subsequent proposal for nothing more frightening than a Saturday rally. (This was tabled to the steering committee!)
This sabotage of the solidarity strike proposal is the most blatant proof yet that the S WP's "turn to the unions" means covering for the bureaucrats and outright sabotage of vitally needed militant labor action. Surely the spectacle of these "socialists" denouncing the call of the ILWU Executive Board as, in substance, adventurist is downright grotesque. No conscious union militant can consider these reformists as anything but despicable betrayers of labor's cause. Because they are seeking to establish themselves as sophisticated braintrusters and apparatchiks for the liberal wing of labor officialdom these pimps for the bureaucracy are fiercely determined to maintain capitalist stability—sometimes even more so than the union tops themselves, who are occasionally subject to pressure from the ranks. Today the most rabid opponent of sympathy protest strikes to aid the miners—excepting only the reactionary Meanyites—is the SWP.
*********
Australian Labour Council Vows to Aid U.S. Coal Strike
SYDNEY—On 16 March the Newcastle, New South Wales Trades and Labour Council approved the following statement of solidarity with striking coal miners in America:
"The U.S. coal miners are currently in the forefront of American labour in their battle to safeguard their union rights and working conditions against the onslaught of the coal bosses and the Carter government. A victory by the miners in their strike is in the interest of the labour movement internationally and all attempts at strikebreaking by U.S. employers and the Carter government must be resisted. We pledge our full support and we condemn the U.S. government union bashing through its use of the Taft-Hartley Act."
The motion was referred for action to the Waterfront Group of Unions in Newcastle, which is a major port for shipment of Australian coal. On 21 March the WGU also passed this motion and sent a cable in solidarity with U.S. miners. Bob Rose, secretary of the Waterfront Group, told the Spartacist League that they are not going to ship coal to the U.S. as an expression of solidarity with the coal strike.
The Spartacist League of Australia and New Zealand held demonstrations in support of the American miners strike in front of U.S. consulates in Sydney and Melbourne on 14 and 15 March respectively. At these demonstrations and in its press the SL/ ANZ called for a black ban [hot-cargoing] on all coal to the U.S. for the duration of the strike, a demand for which it alone on the Australian left has consistently fought.
Markin comment:
In the wake of the recent somewhat isolated strike action at Verizon this summer and the struggle of the public worker unions in Wisconsin earlier this year that cried out for general strike solidarity action by all of organized labor, private and public, a little glimpse at the kind of solidarity actions by other parts of the organized, if only as an exemplary action, is worth taking note of. The class battles looming ahead will provide of opportunity to take these measures from paper to power. Forward!
ILWU Votes One-Day Work Stoppage to Support Miners
The Spartacist League championed attempts by labor militants to bring other unions out on strike to smash Taft-Hartley and exposed the fake-lefts who helped sabotage this crucial defense of the miners...
—excerpted from WV No. 197, 17 March 1978
SAN FRANCISCO, March 14—As the mine workers face the most critical hour in their 100-day-old strike, the labor movement must ensure that they do not stand alone. With Carter lowering the boom by invoking Taft-Hartley it is the urgent duty of the unions to undertake protest strike action against this government strikebreak¬ing. Last week the International Longshoremen's and Warehouse¬men's Union (ILWU) became the first major U.S. union to move in this direction.
On Friday, March 10 the ILWU International Executive Board (IEB) adopted a resolution whose substance was as follows:
1) to authorize the International officers to call a 24-hour longshore strike coastwide, to protest the use of Taft-Hartley against the miners; 2) to call on the rest of the ILWU, particularly Hawaii and the Warehouse Division, to join in this action; 3) to call on the rest of organized labor in cities where the ILWU has locals to join the 24-hour stop-work action.
Such solidarity action with the coal miners is precisely what is needed at this moment. It could be the spark which ignites the rest of labor to join in this crucial battle, but some of the ILWU tops are predictably dragging their feet. Trade-union militants must raise an urgent clamor demanding that a coastwide dock shutdown and citywide work stoppages against Taft-Hartley and for victory to the miners strike be implemented NOW!...
Ferment in the ILWU
The earliest breakthrough leading to the ILWU resolution came in Local 13 in the San Pedro/Long Beach/Los Angeles area where several hundred longshoremen passed a resolution at the March 2 membership meeting calling for a one-day work action. According to a statement circulated by Chick Loveridge, an IEB member: "Local13 is urging President Carter not to interfere on the side of the mine owners, no Taft-Hartley. Local 13 is calling for a one-day supporting action, by closing down the port of LB/ LA and urging all other ports on the West Coast to do the same. Local 13 is also inviting all other labor organizations to join us in a meeting of support on the day the ports are closed down"
Parallel to the Local 13 action, Stan Gow and Howard Keylor,
members of the Local 10 (S.F. longshore) Executive Board and
publishers of "Longshore Militant," a class-struggle opposition
newsletter in the Local, along with the Militant Caucus in Local 6,
began circulating a petition on March 8 to"call on president Herman
and the Bay Area 1LWU local presidents to organize a 24-hour Bay
Area-wide protest strike against government strikebreaking in the
coalfields." The petition quoted a statement made by Herman at a
February 24 rally, where he boasted: "If they try mining coal with
bayonets or visit harm on the miners, there will be actions here and
throughout the country "
With a couple of days' circulation the petition gathered over 100 signatures in Local 10 and 150 in Local 6, as well as the signatures of Local 13 president Art Almeida and Seattle Local 19 president Dick Moork. This petition was an important factor in forcing the Local 10 Executive Board on March 9 to come out for some kind of solidarity action in support of the miners strike.
Strike Support Coalition
Herman himself had made the call for solidarity actions before some 1,000 assembled trade unionists at a February 24 rally organized by the so-called "Miners Strike Labor/Community Support Coalition," a collection of top Bay Area labor bureaucrats such as John Crowley of the Central Labor Council and Walter Johnson, president of Retail Clerks Local 1100. When this coalition held an organizing meeting March 11 at the Retail Clerks headquarters, about 200 trade union militants showed up, clearly upsetting the conservative trade union tops. Early in the meeting the Coalition's co-chairman, Larry Wing, president of ILWU Local 10, mentioned that the ILWU IEB favored a 24-hour coastwide work stoppage and was calling the rest of labor to join in. Wing also noted the IEB had voted a $25,000 donation to the mine workers as well as a $1 per-month/per-member assessment of the ILWU membership for the miners' families.
At this point a militant Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) worker announced that a similar motion for a "one day stop work mass labor rally of all Bay Area labor" had been passed 44 to 1 at a membership meeting of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 on March 8. Noting the parallel course of the two unions, she put forward a motion calling for implementing the work-stoppage motions and extending them to Bay Area labor as a whole:
"This body calls for a 24-hour Bay Area-wide stop-work protest strike against government strikebreaking in the coalfields. We urge all local unions and the Central Labor Council of all nine Bay Area counties to immediately prepare for such an action."
This simple motion immediately polarized the meeting, for the encrusted U.S. labor bureaucracy cannot abide even such elementary actions of class solidarity. Caught off guard, the nervous bureaucrats sought a way out of this dilemma and found it with the criminal aid of the Communist Party (CP) and the SWP. While both groups are vying to play chief hatchetman against labor militancy for the union tops, at this meeting the SWP clearly led the pack in wrecking the chances of solidarity strike action.
The fight which followed found the CP supporters caught in the middle. With the BART militants' motion simply calling for implementing the 1LWU resolution, they did not want to completely disavow it. But aware that the ILWU bureaucracy was seeking to minimize its impact, neither did they want to go too far out on a limb. Thus early on in the heated discussion Franklin Alexander, well-known CP supporter in ILWU Local 6, said he was "not ready" to vote for such a motion because it was "too soon," and later tried to kill it by referring it to the steering committee. (Ironically Billy Proctor, a CP supporter in Local 10, had signed the "Longshore Militant" petition earlier in the week.)
But the SWP supporters present did not beat around the bush. Mobilizing their small army of hitherto silent "Coalition" members to come out and defeat the motion, they effectively denounced the ILWU resolution as "ultra-left"! First Roland Sheppard, SWP floor leader, openly attacked the solidarity motion on the grounds that:
1) "The job of this body is to support the miners" [read Miller]; 2) "The ILWU actually isn't calling for the action, only looking for the mood in the ranks"; and 3) One must "walk before you run." Actually the SWP is on its hands and knees, a position it got used to during its 1960's peace crawls. And as if the miners who have been on strike for three months would not appreciate the support of a solidarity strike, John Olmstead, a Teamster, seconded Sheppard's remarks and actually cautioned that the motion would "alienate the union membership"!...
At this point a militant Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) worker announced that a similar motion for a "one day stop work mass labor rally of all Bay Area labor" had been passed 44 to 1 at a membership meeting of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 on March 8. Noting the parallel course of the two unions, she put forward a motion calling for implementing the work-stoppage motions and extending them to Bay Area labor as a whole:
"This body calls for a 24-hour Bay Area-wide stop-work protest strike against government strikebreaking in the coalfields. We urge all local unions and the Central Labor Council of all nine Bay Area counties to immediately prepare for such an action."
By voting time the several score SWP supporters had lined up a solid voting bloc of themselves and the most rabid right-wing bureaucrats present. Even so the first voice vote was disputed and a second hand vote was only defeated by a margin of roughly 120 to 70, with CP supporters such as Figueiredo, Franklin and several others abstaining. As if this wasn't enough, the SWP even opposed a subsequent proposal for nothing more frightening than a Saturday rally. (This was tabled to the steering committee!)
This sabotage of the solidarity strike proposal is the most blatant proof yet that the S WP's "turn to the unions" means covering for the bureaucrats and outright sabotage of vitally needed militant labor action. Surely the spectacle of these "socialists" denouncing the call of the ILWU Executive Board as, in substance, adventurist is downright grotesque. No conscious union militant can consider these reformists as anything but despicable betrayers of labor's cause. Because they are seeking to establish themselves as sophisticated braintrusters and apparatchiks for the liberal wing of labor officialdom these pimps for the bureaucracy are fiercely determined to maintain capitalist stability—sometimes even more so than the union tops themselves, who are occasionally subject to pressure from the ranks. Today the most rabid opponent of sympathy protest strikes to aid the miners—excepting only the reactionary Meanyites—is the SWP.
*********
Australian Labour Council Vows to Aid U.S. Coal Strike
SYDNEY—On 16 March the Newcastle, New South Wales Trades and Labour Council approved the following statement of solidarity with striking coal miners in America:
"The U.S. coal miners are currently in the forefront of American labour in their battle to safeguard their union rights and working conditions against the onslaught of the coal bosses and the Carter government. A victory by the miners in their strike is in the interest of the labour movement internationally and all attempts at strikebreaking by U.S. employers and the Carter government must be resisted. We pledge our full support and we condemn the U.S. government union bashing through its use of the Taft-Hartley Act."
The motion was referred for action to the Waterfront Group of Unions in Newcastle, which is a major port for shipment of Australian coal. On 21 March the WGU also passed this motion and sent a cable in solidarity with U.S. miners. Bob Rose, secretary of the Waterfront Group, told the Spartacist League that they are not going to ship coal to the U.S. as an expression of solidarity with the coal strike.
The Spartacist League of Australia and New Zealand held demonstrations in support of the American miners strike in front of U.S. consulates in Sydney and Melbourne on 14 and 15 March respectively. At these demonstrations and in its press the SL/ ANZ called for a black ban [hot-cargoing] on all coal to the U.S. for the duration of the strike, a demand for which it alone on the Australian left has consistently fought.
Labor's Untold Story-From The Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Archives-The Struggle For Working Class Organization-Engels to Sorge-1886
Markin comment:
Every Month Is Labor History MonthThis post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America (algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organization with various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
*****
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1886
Engels to Sorge-1886
Source: Science and Society Volume II, Number 3, 1938;
Translated and Edited: by Leonard E. Mins.
London, April 29, 1886.
Dear Sorge:
Your letters of February 15th and 28th and March 8th, and postcard of March 21st received.
The manuscript [of Capital] contains largely the same things that Marx noted in his copy for the third edition. In other passages, which provide for more insertions from the French, I am not binding myself to these unconditionally, (1) because the work for the third edition was done much later, and hence is decisive for me, and (2) because, for a translation to be made in America, far away from him, Marx would rather a have had many a difficult passage correctly translated from the French simplification than incorrectly from the German, and this consideration now vanishes. Nevertheless, it has given me many very useful hints which will, in time, find application for the German edition too. As soon as I am through with it I shall return it to you by registered mail....
The Broadhouse-Hyndman translation of Capital is nothing but a farce. The first chapter was translated from the German, full of mistakes to the point of ridiculousness. Now it is being translated from the French — the mistakes are the same. At the present rate of speed the thing won’t be finished by 1900.
Thanks for the calendar. I had, it is true, not suspected that Douais is so terribly underrated as a great man. Let him take the consciousness of his greatness, together with all of its underrating, with him into the grave without having it lessened in a pastry mold. But he was the right man for America, and if he had remained an ordinary democrat, I would have wished him the best of luck. But, as it is, he got into the wrong pew. As for the purist who declaims against our style and punctuation: he knows neither German nor English, else he wouldn’t find Anglicisms where there aren’t any. The German he admires, which was drilled into us in school, with its horrible periodic structure and the verb at the very end — separated from the subject by ten miles of intervening matter — it took me thirty years to unlearn that German again. That bureaucratic schoolmaster’s German, for which Lessing doesn’t exist at all, is on the decline even in Germany. What would this good fellow say if he heard the deputies speaking in the Reichstag, who have abolished this horrible construction because they always got tangled up in it, and spoke like the Jews: “Als der Bismarck ist gekommen vor die Zwangswahl, hat er lieber den Papst gekusst auf den Hintern als die Revolution auf den Mund.” This advance was first introduced by little Lasker; it is the only good thing he did. If Mr. Purist comes to Germany with his schoolmaster’s German, they will tell him he talks American. “You know how petty the learned German philistine is” — he seems to be particularly so in America. German sentence structure together with its punctuation as taught in the schools forty or fifty years ago deserves only to be thrown on the scrap-heap, and that is happening to it in Germany at last.
I think I have already written you that an American lady, married to a Russian, has gotten it into her head to translate my old book. I looked over the translation, which required considerable work. But she wrote that publication was assured and it had to be done at once, and so I had to do it. Now it turns out that she turned the negotiations over to a Miss Foster, the secretary of a women’s rights society, and the latter committed the blunder of giving it to the Socialist Labor Party. I told the translator what I thought of this, but it was too late. Moreover, I am glad that the gentlemen over there do not translate anything of mine; it would turn out beautifully. Their German is enough, and then their English!
The gentlemen of the Volkszeitung must be satisfied. They have gained control of the whole movement among the Germans and their business must be flourishing. It is a matter of course that a man like Dietzgen is pushed to the rear there. Playing with the boycott and with little strikes is, of course, much more important than theoretical enlightenment. But with all that the cause is moving ahead mightily in America. A real mass movement exists among the English-speaking workers for the first time. That it proceeds gropingly at first, clumsy, unclear, unknowing, is unavoidable. All that will be cleared up; the movement will and must develop through its own mistakes. Theoretical ignorance is a characteristic of all young peoples, but so is practical rapidity of development, too. As in England, all the preaching is of no use in America until the actual necessity exists. And this is present in America now, and they are becoming conscious of it. The entrance of the masses of native-born workers into the movement in America is for me one of the greatest events of 1886. As for the Germans over there, let the sort flourishing now join the Americans gradually; they will still be somewhat ahead of them. And lastly, there still is a central core among the Germans over there which retains theoretical insight into the nature and the course of the whole movement, keeps the process of fermentation going, and finally rises to the top again.
The second great event of 1886 is the formation of a workers party in the French Chamber by Basly and Camelinat, two handpicked “worker” deputies nominated and elected by the Radicals, who, contrary to all the regulations, did not become servants of their Radical masters, but spoke as workers. The Decazeville strike brought the split between them and the Radicals to a head — five other deputies joined them. The Radicals had to come out in the open with their policy towards the workers, and, as the government exists only with the Radicals’ support, that was dreadful, for they were justifiably held accountable by the workers for each of the government’s acts. In short, the Radicals: Clemenceau and all the others, behaved wretchedly; and then there took place what no preacher had succeeded in accomplishing up to then: the French workers’ defection from the Radicals. And the second result was: the union of all the socialist fractions for joint action. Only the miserable Possibilists kept apart, and consequently they are falling asunder more and more every day. The government helped this new departure tremendously by its blunders. For it wants to float a loan of 90,000,000 francs and needs high finance for this purpose, but the latter is also a stockholder in Decazeville and refuses to lend the money unless the government breaks the strike. Hence the arrest of Duc and Roche. The workers’ reply is: Roche’s candidacy in Paris for next Sunday (elections to the Chamber) and Due’s (Quercy’s) candidacy for the Municipal Council, where he is certain of election. In brief, a splendid movement is merrily under way in France again, and the best thing about it is that our people, Guesde, Lafargue, Deville, are the theoretical leaders.
The reaction upon Germany did not fail to make its appearance. The revolutionary speech and action of the Frenchmen made the whining of Geiser, Viereck, Auer and Co. appear more feeble than ever, and thus only Bebel and Liebknecht spoke in the Last debate on the Socialist Law, both of them very good. With this debate we can show our faces in respectable society again, which was by no means the case with all of them. In general it is good for the Germans to have their leadership disputed somewhat, especially since they have elected so many philistine elements (which was unavoidable, to be sure). In Germany everything becomes philistine in quiet periods; the spur of French competition then becomes absolutely necessary, nor will it be lacking. French socialism has suddenly grown from a sect into a party, and only now and only thereby is the mass affiliation of the workers possible, for the latter are sick and tired of sectarianism, and that was the secret of their following the extremist bourgeois party, the Radicals. Next Sunday will show considerable progress in the elections, though it is scarcely to be expected that Roche will win.
I think the printing of the English translation of Capital, Volume I, will begin in two to three weeks. I am far from through with revision, but 300 pages are ready for the printer and another hundred almost ready. Another thing. A Mr. J. T. McEnnis interviewed me a few days ago under the pretext of getting advice on labor legislation for, the State of Missouri. I soon discovered that newspaper business was behind it, and he confessed that he was working for the leading democratic paper of St. Louis, but gave me his word of honor that he would submit, every word to me in advance for revision. The man was sent to me by the Russian Stepniak. Nearly two weeks have passed, and I am afraid he did not keep his promise. I have forgotten the name of the St. Louis paper. Therefore, if anything is printed regarding the interview, please have the enclosed statement printed in the Sozialist, Volkszeitung, and anywhere else you think necessary. If the man does come and keep his promise, I shall of course, let you know at once, and you can then tear up the statement. Here the movement is not progressing at all, luckily enough. Hyndman and Co. are political careerists who spoil everything, while the anarchists are making rapid progress in the Socialist League. Morris and Bax — one as an emotional socialist and the other as a chaser after philosophical paradoxes — are wholly under their control for the present and must now undergo this experience in corpere vili. You will note from the Commonweal that Aveling, largely thanks to Tussy’s energy, no longer shares the responsibility for this swindle, and that is good. And these muddleheads want to lead the British working class! Fortunately the latter wants to have absolutely nothing to do with them.
Best regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
Every Month Is Labor History MonthThis post is part of an on-going series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!
Other Septembers in this series I have concentrated on various sometimes now obscure leaders and rank and file militants in the international working class movement, especially those who made contributions here in America like "Big Bill" Haywood and Eugene V. Debs. This year, given the pressing need for clarity around the labor party question in America (algebraically expressed in our movement as the struggle for a workers party that fights for a workers government) I have gone back to the sources-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and their correspondence on working class organization with various associates and opponents. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely given the state of working class organization here these days, many of their comments, taken in due regard for changed times and circumstances, are germane today. This correspondence is only a start and should just whet the reader's appetite to research further.
*****
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1886
Engels to Sorge-1886
Source: Science and Society Volume II, Number 3, 1938;
Translated and Edited: by Leonard E. Mins.
London, April 29, 1886.
Dear Sorge:
Your letters of February 15th and 28th and March 8th, and postcard of March 21st received.
The manuscript [of Capital] contains largely the same things that Marx noted in his copy for the third edition. In other passages, which provide for more insertions from the French, I am not binding myself to these unconditionally, (1) because the work for the third edition was done much later, and hence is decisive for me, and (2) because, for a translation to be made in America, far away from him, Marx would rather a have had many a difficult passage correctly translated from the French simplification than incorrectly from the German, and this consideration now vanishes. Nevertheless, it has given me many very useful hints which will, in time, find application for the German edition too. As soon as I am through with it I shall return it to you by registered mail....
The Broadhouse-Hyndman translation of Capital is nothing but a farce. The first chapter was translated from the German, full of mistakes to the point of ridiculousness. Now it is being translated from the French — the mistakes are the same. At the present rate of speed the thing won’t be finished by 1900.
Thanks for the calendar. I had, it is true, not suspected that Douais is so terribly underrated as a great man. Let him take the consciousness of his greatness, together with all of its underrating, with him into the grave without having it lessened in a pastry mold. But he was the right man for America, and if he had remained an ordinary democrat, I would have wished him the best of luck. But, as it is, he got into the wrong pew. As for the purist who declaims against our style and punctuation: he knows neither German nor English, else he wouldn’t find Anglicisms where there aren’t any. The German he admires, which was drilled into us in school, with its horrible periodic structure and the verb at the very end — separated from the subject by ten miles of intervening matter — it took me thirty years to unlearn that German again. That bureaucratic schoolmaster’s German, for which Lessing doesn’t exist at all, is on the decline even in Germany. What would this good fellow say if he heard the deputies speaking in the Reichstag, who have abolished this horrible construction because they always got tangled up in it, and spoke like the Jews: “Als der Bismarck ist gekommen vor die Zwangswahl, hat er lieber den Papst gekusst auf den Hintern als die Revolution auf den Mund.” This advance was first introduced by little Lasker; it is the only good thing he did. If Mr. Purist comes to Germany with his schoolmaster’s German, they will tell him he talks American. “You know how petty the learned German philistine is” — he seems to be particularly so in America. German sentence structure together with its punctuation as taught in the schools forty or fifty years ago deserves only to be thrown on the scrap-heap, and that is happening to it in Germany at last.
I think I have already written you that an American lady, married to a Russian, has gotten it into her head to translate my old book. I looked over the translation, which required considerable work. But she wrote that publication was assured and it had to be done at once, and so I had to do it. Now it turns out that she turned the negotiations over to a Miss Foster, the secretary of a women’s rights society, and the latter committed the blunder of giving it to the Socialist Labor Party. I told the translator what I thought of this, but it was too late. Moreover, I am glad that the gentlemen over there do not translate anything of mine; it would turn out beautifully. Their German is enough, and then their English!
The gentlemen of the Volkszeitung must be satisfied. They have gained control of the whole movement among the Germans and their business must be flourishing. It is a matter of course that a man like Dietzgen is pushed to the rear there. Playing with the boycott and with little strikes is, of course, much more important than theoretical enlightenment. But with all that the cause is moving ahead mightily in America. A real mass movement exists among the English-speaking workers for the first time. That it proceeds gropingly at first, clumsy, unclear, unknowing, is unavoidable. All that will be cleared up; the movement will and must develop through its own mistakes. Theoretical ignorance is a characteristic of all young peoples, but so is practical rapidity of development, too. As in England, all the preaching is of no use in America until the actual necessity exists. And this is present in America now, and they are becoming conscious of it. The entrance of the masses of native-born workers into the movement in America is for me one of the greatest events of 1886. As for the Germans over there, let the sort flourishing now join the Americans gradually; they will still be somewhat ahead of them. And lastly, there still is a central core among the Germans over there which retains theoretical insight into the nature and the course of the whole movement, keeps the process of fermentation going, and finally rises to the top again.
The second great event of 1886 is the formation of a workers party in the French Chamber by Basly and Camelinat, two handpicked “worker” deputies nominated and elected by the Radicals, who, contrary to all the regulations, did not become servants of their Radical masters, but spoke as workers. The Decazeville strike brought the split between them and the Radicals to a head — five other deputies joined them. The Radicals had to come out in the open with their policy towards the workers, and, as the government exists only with the Radicals’ support, that was dreadful, for they were justifiably held accountable by the workers for each of the government’s acts. In short, the Radicals: Clemenceau and all the others, behaved wretchedly; and then there took place what no preacher had succeeded in accomplishing up to then: the French workers’ defection from the Radicals. And the second result was: the union of all the socialist fractions for joint action. Only the miserable Possibilists kept apart, and consequently they are falling asunder more and more every day. The government helped this new departure tremendously by its blunders. For it wants to float a loan of 90,000,000 francs and needs high finance for this purpose, but the latter is also a stockholder in Decazeville and refuses to lend the money unless the government breaks the strike. Hence the arrest of Duc and Roche. The workers’ reply is: Roche’s candidacy in Paris for next Sunday (elections to the Chamber) and Due’s (Quercy’s) candidacy for the Municipal Council, where he is certain of election. In brief, a splendid movement is merrily under way in France again, and the best thing about it is that our people, Guesde, Lafargue, Deville, are the theoretical leaders.
The reaction upon Germany did not fail to make its appearance. The revolutionary speech and action of the Frenchmen made the whining of Geiser, Viereck, Auer and Co. appear more feeble than ever, and thus only Bebel and Liebknecht spoke in the Last debate on the Socialist Law, both of them very good. With this debate we can show our faces in respectable society again, which was by no means the case with all of them. In general it is good for the Germans to have their leadership disputed somewhat, especially since they have elected so many philistine elements (which was unavoidable, to be sure). In Germany everything becomes philistine in quiet periods; the spur of French competition then becomes absolutely necessary, nor will it be lacking. French socialism has suddenly grown from a sect into a party, and only now and only thereby is the mass affiliation of the workers possible, for the latter are sick and tired of sectarianism, and that was the secret of their following the extremist bourgeois party, the Radicals. Next Sunday will show considerable progress in the elections, though it is scarcely to be expected that Roche will win.
I think the printing of the English translation of Capital, Volume I, will begin in two to three weeks. I am far from through with revision, but 300 pages are ready for the printer and another hundred almost ready. Another thing. A Mr. J. T. McEnnis interviewed me a few days ago under the pretext of getting advice on labor legislation for, the State of Missouri. I soon discovered that newspaper business was behind it, and he confessed that he was working for the leading democratic paper of St. Louis, but gave me his word of honor that he would submit, every word to me in advance for revision. The man was sent to me by the Russian Stepniak. Nearly two weeks have passed, and I am afraid he did not keep his promise. I have forgotten the name of the St. Louis paper. Therefore, if anything is printed regarding the interview, please have the enclosed statement printed in the Sozialist, Volkszeitung, and anywhere else you think necessary. If the man does come and keep his promise, I shall of course, let you know at once, and you can then tear up the statement. Here the movement is not progressing at all, luckily enough. Hyndman and Co. are political careerists who spoil everything, while the anarchists are making rapid progress in the Socialist League. Morris and Bax — one as an emotional socialist and the other as a chaser after philosophical paradoxes — are wholly under their control for the present and must now undergo this experience in corpere vili. You will note from the Commonweal that Aveling, largely thanks to Tussy’s energy, no longer shares the responsibility for this swindle, and that is good. And these muddleheads want to lead the British working class! Fortunately the latter wants to have absolutely nothing to do with them.
Best regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
The Latest From The British Leftist Blog-"Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism"
Click on the headline to link to the latest from the British Leftist blog-Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism
Markin comment:
While from the tenor of the articles, leftist authors featured, and other items it is not clear to me that this blog is faithful to any sense of historical materialism that Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky would recognize I am always more than willing to "steal" material from the site. Or investigate leads provided there for material of interest to the radical public-whatever that seemingly dwindling public may be these days.
Markin comment:
While from the tenor of the articles, leftist authors featured, and other items it is not clear to me that this blog is faithful to any sense of historical materialism that Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky would recognize I am always more than willing to "steal" material from the site. Or investigate leads provided there for material of interest to the radical public-whatever that seemingly dwindling public may be these days.
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Kathy Mattea's"Black Lung"
Click on the title to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Kathy Mattea performing about the classic coal country health issue that never goes away, "Black Lung".
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Markin comment:
I can add nothing here to the song, except that the struggle portrayed in the accompanying film review on this date, "Harlan County, U.S.A.", brings that safety issue home in a very big way.
Black Lung Lyrics
Sign a petition under working condition
Union is in bed with the coal operators
Carry our freedom, looking for something
To get your family a better life for every single day
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name?
All the men look the same
When they come out the mine
No prejudice for the mighty black lung
Rank and file workers, rank and file minds
Take off the gloves and sock it to 'em
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name?
Hey unbeliever (Hey)
Black lung fever (Hey)
Transmit receiver (Hey)
Stand up deceiver (Hey)
Well I don't like it either (Hey)
No predjucide for the Black lung fever(no)
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name
In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.
Markin comment:
I can add nothing here to the song, except that the struggle portrayed in the accompanying film review on this date, "Harlan County, U.S.A.", brings that safety issue home in a very big way.
Black Lung Lyrics
Sign a petition under working condition
Union is in bed with the coal operators
Carry our freedom, looking for something
To get your family a better life for every single day
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name?
All the men look the same
When they come out the mine
No prejudice for the mighty black lung
Rank and file workers, rank and file minds
Take off the gloves and sock it to 'em
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name?
Hey unbeliever (Hey)
Black lung fever (Hey)
Transmit receiver (Hey)
Stand up deceiver (Hey)
Well I don't like it either (Hey)
No predjucide for the Black lung fever(no)
Some things keep me going
Well I got no one to blame
Five o'clock is comin'
Do you feel the same?
When a lonely whistle
Calls out your name
Friday, September 23, 2011
“Yes, Now Is The Time For Your Tears.”-Troy Davis, R.I.P. - Down With The Barbaric Death Penalty!-Never Forget- A Short Additional Note
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Troy Anthony Davis and information on his case.
"Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears."
last lines from The Lonseome Death Of Hattie Carroll, another case of an injustice against black people. - Bob Dylan
, 1963
Markin comment (posted September 22, 2011):
Look, after almost half a century of fighting every kind of progressive political struggle I have no Pollyanna-ish notion that in our fight for a “newer world” most of the time we are “tilting at windmills.” Even a cursory look at the history of our struggles brings that hard fact home. However some defeats in the class struggle, particularly the struggle to abolish the barbaric, racist death penalty in the United States, hit home harder than others. For some time now the fight to stop the execution of Troy Davis has galvanized this abolition movement into action. His callous execution by the State of Georgia, despite an international mobilization to stop the execution and grant him freedom, is such a defeat.
On the question of the death penalty, moreover, we do not grant the state the right to judicially murder the innocent or the guilty. But clearly Brother Davis was innocent. We will also not forget that hard fact. And we will not forget Brother Davis’ dignity and demeanor as he faced what he knew was a deck stacked against him. And, most importantly, we will not forgot to honor Brother Davis the best way we can by redoubling our efforts to abolition the racist, barbaric death penalty everywhere, for all time. Forward.
Additional Markin comment posted September 23, 2011:
No question the execution on September 21, 2011 by the State of Georgia of Troy Anthony Davis hit me, and not me alone, hard. For just a brief moment that night, when he was granted a temporary stay pending a last minute appeal before the United States Supreme Court just minutes before his 7:00PM execution, I thought that we might have achieved a thimbleful of justice in this wicked old world. But it was not to be and so we battle on. Troy Davis shall now be honored in our pantheon along with the Haymarket Martyrs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and others. While Brother Davis may have not been a hard politico like the others just mentioned his fight to abolish the death penalty for himself and for future Troys places him in that company. Honor Troy Davis- Fight To The Finish Against The Barbaric Racist Death Penalty!
"Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears."
last lines from The Lonseome Death Of Hattie Carroll, another case of an injustice against black people. - Bob Dylan
, 1963
Markin comment (posted September 22, 2011):
Look, after almost half a century of fighting every kind of progressive political struggle I have no Pollyanna-ish notion that in our fight for a “newer world” most of the time we are “tilting at windmills.” Even a cursory look at the history of our struggles brings that hard fact home. However some defeats in the class struggle, particularly the struggle to abolish the barbaric, racist death penalty in the United States, hit home harder than others. For some time now the fight to stop the execution of Troy Davis has galvanized this abolition movement into action. His callous execution by the State of Georgia, despite an international mobilization to stop the execution and grant him freedom, is such a defeat.
On the question of the death penalty, moreover, we do not grant the state the right to judicially murder the innocent or the guilty. But clearly Brother Davis was innocent. We will also not forget that hard fact. And we will not forget Brother Davis’ dignity and demeanor as he faced what he knew was a deck stacked against him. And, most importantly, we will not forgot to honor Brother Davis the best way we can by redoubling our efforts to abolition the racist, barbaric death penalty everywhere, for all time. Forward.
Additional Markin comment posted September 23, 2011:
No question the execution on September 21, 2011 by the State of Georgia of Troy Anthony Davis hit me, and not me alone, hard. For just a brief moment that night, when he was granted a temporary stay pending a last minute appeal before the United States Supreme Court just minutes before his 7:00PM execution, I thought that we might have achieved a thimbleful of justice in this wicked old world. But it was not to be and so we battle on. Troy Davis shall now be honored in our pantheon along with the Haymarket Martyrs, Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and others. While Brother Davis may have not been a hard politico like the others just mentioned his fight to abolish the death penalty for himself and for future Troys places him in that company. Honor Troy Davis- Fight To The Finish Against The Barbaric Racist Death Penalty!
"Yes, Now Is The Time For Your Tears"- Photos Of Boston Protest Of The Execution Of Troy Davis By The State Of Georgia -Including His Last Statement To Supporters-Down With The Barbaric Racist Death Penalty!
Click on the headline to link to a Boston IndyMedia entry for a post-execution protest, on September 22, 2011 at Copley Square in Boston, of the execution of Troy Anthony Davis by the State Of Georgia.
“Workers of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains”-The Struggle For Trotsky's Fourth (Communist) International-From The Archives-The Founding Conference Of The Fourth International (1938)-"Resolution On The Situation In Poland"
Click on the headline to link to the Toward A History Of The Fourth International website for the article listed above.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
*******
Markin comment on this document
Everybody, and that most notably included Leon Trotsky, knew something was going awry with the Bolshevik Revolution by 1923 for many reasons, some of them beyond correction outside of an international extension of the revolution, especially to Germany that would provide the vital industrial infrastructure to aid the struggling Soviet Union. Nevertheless, and this is important to note about serious revolutionary politics and politicians in general, the fight in 1923 still needed to aimed at winning the party cadre over. That was the failing point of many oppositionists, inside and outside the party, then.
By 1933, with the rise of the virtually unopposed rise and consolidation of Nazism in Germany clearly putting paid to the Communist International’s (read: Stalin’s) erroneous strategy, working inside the party, or acting as an expelled fraction of the party, was no longer tenable. Like earlier with the First and Second Internationals the Communist International was now dead as a revolutionary organizational center. Time now to gather, by fits and starts, the cadre for a new international- the Fourth International
Needless to say in trying to organize a new international in tough times, with not enough seasoned cadre, not enough not-Leon Trotsky leadership, not enough money, and not enough, well, of anything internal bickering and personality disputes are going to slow down any efforts.
Markin comment (repost from September 2010):
Recently, when the question of an international, a new workers international, a fifth international, was broached by the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), faintly echoing the call by Venezuelan caudillo, Hugo Chavez, I got to thinking a little bit more on the subject. Moreover, it must be something in the air (maybe caused by these global climatic changes) because I have also seen recent commentary on the need to go back to something that looks very much like Karl Marx’s one-size-fits-all First International. Of course, just what the doctor by all means, be my guest, but only if the shades of Proudhon and Bakunin can join. Boys and girls that First International was disbanded in the wake of the demise of the Paris Commune for a reason, okay. Mixing political banners (Marxism and fifty-seven varieties of anarchism) is appropriate to a united front, not a hell-bent revolutionary International fighting, and fighting hard, for our communist future. Forward
The Second International, for those six, no seven, people who might care, is still alive and well (at least for periodic international conferences) as a mail-drop for homeless social democrats who want to maintain a fig leaf of internationalism without having to do much about it. Needless to say, one Joseph Stalin and his cohorts liquidated the Communist (Third) International in 1943, long after it turned from a revolutionary headquarters into an outpost of Soviet foreign policy. By then no revolutionary missed its demise, nor shed a tear goodbye. And of course there are always a million commentaries by groups, cults, leagues, tendencies, etc. claiming to stand in the tradition (although, rarely, the program) of the Leon Trotsky-inspired Fourth International that, logically and programmatically, is the starting point of any discussion of the modern struggle for a new communist international.
With that caveat in mind this month, the September American Labor Day month, but more importantly the month in 1938 that the ill-fated Fourth International was founded I am posting some documents around the history of that formation, and its program, the program known by the shorthand, Transitional Program. If you want to call for a fifth, sixth, seventh, what have you, revolutionary international, and you are serious about it beyond the "mail-drop" potential, then you have to look seriously into that organization's origins, and the world-class Bolshevik revolutionary who inspired it. Forward.
*******
Markin comment on this document
Everybody, and that most notably included Leon Trotsky, knew something was going awry with the Bolshevik Revolution by 1923 for many reasons, some of them beyond correction outside of an international extension of the revolution, especially to Germany that would provide the vital industrial infrastructure to aid the struggling Soviet Union. Nevertheless, and this is important to note about serious revolutionary politics and politicians in general, the fight in 1923 still needed to aimed at winning the party cadre over. That was the failing point of many oppositionists, inside and outside the party, then.
By 1933, with the rise of the virtually unopposed rise and consolidation of Nazism in Germany clearly putting paid to the Communist International’s (read: Stalin’s) erroneous strategy, working inside the party, or acting as an expelled fraction of the party, was no longer tenable. Like earlier with the First and Second Internationals the Communist International was now dead as a revolutionary organizational center. Time now to gather, by fits and starts, the cadre for a new international- the Fourth International
Needless to say in trying to organize a new international in tough times, with not enough seasoned cadre, not enough not-Leon Trotsky leadership, not enough money, and not enough, well, of anything internal bickering and personality disputes are going to slow down any efforts.
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