Markin comment:
As noted below when the liberals abandon class-war prisoners like Lynne Stewart because "justice has been done" or because the case is just too "hot" working class militants and their supporters stand their ground. Just like James Cannon, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Karl Marx taught us. Free Lynne Stewart and her co-defendants now!
Workers Vanguard No. 975
4 March 2011
Vindictive Transfer to Texas Prison
Free Lynne Stewart Now!
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
Last December, radical lawyer Lynne Stewart was transferred to FMC Carswell prison in Fort Worth, Texas. The government vindictively denied her request to be sent to a prison in Connecticut, instead locking her up more than 1,000 miles away from her family and core of supporters in New York. Known for her decades-long defense of Black Panthers, radical leftists and others reviled by the capitalist state, Lynne Stewart was incarcerated for zealously defending her client, an Egyptian cleric imprisoned for an alleged plot to blow up New York City landmarks in the early 1990s.
Stewart, along with her interpreter Mohamed Yousry and paralegal Ahmed Abdel Sattar, was convicted in February 2005 of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism and to defraud the U.S. government. What constituted “material support” was Stewart’s statement to a Reuters reporter that her client urged his supporters in the Islamic Group to reconsider their cease-fire with the Mubarak dictatorship. As we wrote at the time of the conviction in WV No. 842 (18 February 2005): “The verdict gives the government a green light to prosecute lawyers for the alleged crimes of their clients, thereby shooting the basic right to counsel to hell.… And if nobody can get a lawyer to zealously defend him from prosecution, then fundamental liberties, from the right to a trial and an attorney, to even the right of free speech and assembly, are choked.”
Stewart was originally sentenced to 28 months in prison. On 15 July 2010, federal district judge John Koeltl, who was directed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to resentence Stewart, more than quadrupled her original sentence. This is a loud affirmation by the Obama administration that there will be no letup in the massive attacks on democratic rights under the “war on terror.” Stewart is currently appealing her conviction before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. As for her codefendants, Yousry is imprisoned on a term of 20 months while Abdel Sattar was additionally convicted of conspiracy to “kill and kidnap persons in a foreign country” and is locked away for 24 years. None of them should have been charged or spent a day in prison.
In sentencing Stewart to ten years, the government is essentially seeking to impose a death sentence on this 71-year-old woman who has been battling breast cancer and chronic diseases. Her transfer to FMC Carswell places her health at even greater risk. The reality of “Federal Medical Center Carswell” prison has been extensively documented by Betty Brink, an award-winning journalist with the Fort Worth Weekly. Brink has written numerous exposés chronicling the deaths of prisoners through “medical mistakes, substandard care and unconscionable delays” in treatment, to use the words of a former Carswell doctor. Eight prison employees have been convicted of rape and other crimes against the inmates at this women’s prison.
Speaking at the January 21 New York City Partisan Defense Committee Holiday Appeal for Class-War Prisoners, Stewart’s husband, Ralph Poynter, conveyed a defiant message from her: “I’m going to continue speaking out about what’s wrong with this government.” He had recently returned from Texas, and described the ordeal both he and Lynne went through just to be able to see each other, with prison officials forcing him to wait more than three hours to get into the visiting room. Poynter thanked the PDC—which recently added Stewart to its monthly stipend program—for continuing to defend her when some liberals abandoned her cause. He also read Lynne’s greetings to the event, in which she roundly denounced the FBI persecution of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, pro-Palestinian activists and other leftists (see “FBI Infiltration Exposed” WV No. 973, 4 February):
“We stand strong with the resisters who elect not to become part of the same prosecution team that has terrorized the world. Now the so-called Department of Justice (ha!) has decided to focus on support groups of the world’s peoples and also on ecoterrorism. Why? Because they can! It sends a message to the people that it’s dangerous; don’t join, don’t resist. That message once again must be shouted down, first by the resisters who will go to jail and second by us, the movement who must support them by always filling those cold marble courtrooms to show our solidarity and speaking out so that their sacrifice is constantly remembered.”
The defense of Stewart and her codefendants is an elementary duty for socialist opponents of U.S. imperialism. Yet in their capitulation to “respectable” bourgeois liberals who sought to separate Stewart’s defense from that of her codefendants, Workers World Party, Socialist Action and the Party for Socialism and Liberation have abandoned the defense of Yousry and Abdel Sattar, refusing to raise the call for their freedom. National Lawyers Guild attorney Liz Fink, who quit the legal team just days before Stewart’s resentencing, filed court papers that despicably attempted to exonerate Stewart by framing up Yousry! The prosecution seized on this in the resentencing to mock the defense team. Stewart, to her credit, directed the defense attorney to reply that those were Fink’s words, not Stewart’s.
Lynne Stewart must not become another forgotten person locked up in this country’s vast prison system. The government vendetta against her and the other class-war prisoners is intended to intimidate and silence opponents of racist oppression, capitalist exploitation and imperialist war. It is in the vital interest of the labor movement and all defenders of civil liberties to demand immediate freedom for Lynne Stewart, Mohamed Yousry and Ahmed Abdel Sattar.
The PDC has contributed to Stewart’s legal defense fund and encourages others to do the same. Send donations to: Lynne Stewart Organization, 1070 Dean Street, Brooklyn, New York 11216. Letters can be mailed to: Lynne Stewart, #53504-054, FMC Carswell, Federal Medical Center, P.O. Box 27137, Fort Worth, TX 76127.
Friday, March 11, 2011
From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-Zimbabwe: Hands Off Leftists, Trade Unionists!
Workers Vanguard No. 975
4 March 2011
Zimbabwe: Hands Off Leftists, Trade Unionists!
The following joint statement was issued by the Spartacist League/Britain and Spartacist South Africa, sections of the International Communist League, on February 27.
The Spartacist League/Britain (SL/B) and Spartacist South Africa (SSA) condemn the arrests on 19 February of some 52 trade unionists, students, workers and activists attending a meeting of the International Socialist Organisation of Zimbabwe. We vehemently protest the fact that these men and women were arrested in a raid on a lecture in Harare by police and were detained and tortured. Outrageously, they now face treason charges, which can carry the death penalty, for the simple reason that they organised a meeting in solidarity with the mass mobilisations that overthrew the dictators Mubarak and Ben Ali in Egypt and Tunisia. These arrests are a blatant attempt to suppress protest and strike fear into left organisations who oppose the government. It is in the direct interests of the working class to oppose this naked act of state repression.
As Marxists, the Spartacist League/ Britain opposes the sanctions and other machinations practiced by the racist British ruling class against Zimbabwe. From the time of Cecil Rhodes’ bloody quest to establish a “British Africa” from Cairo to the Cape, to the racist “independent” Ian Smith government, to the sanctions against Zimbabwe today, imperialist Britain never hesitated to use bloody force to assert its control and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of black Africans killed during the independence struggle in Zimbabwe.
The present British government led by David Cameron and the Labour regimes that preceded it couldn’t care less what the Robert Mugabe regime does to workers and peasants. Their only concern is that the enormous wealth that is extracted from the exploitation of black labour continues to flow into the coffers of the City of London and Wall Street.
As revolutionary internationalists in South Africa, the dominant regional economic power, SSA fights for solidarity by the South African workers movement with its class brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe and throughout the region. In particular, we fight for the workers to vigorously oppose the South African government’s harassment and threat of impending deportations against hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwean immigrants; we demand full citizenship rights for all immigrants.
We demand the immediate release of the detainees in Zimbabwe and the dropping of all charges.
4 March 2011
Zimbabwe: Hands Off Leftists, Trade Unionists!
The following joint statement was issued by the Spartacist League/Britain and Spartacist South Africa, sections of the International Communist League, on February 27.
The Spartacist League/Britain (SL/B) and Spartacist South Africa (SSA) condemn the arrests on 19 February of some 52 trade unionists, students, workers and activists attending a meeting of the International Socialist Organisation of Zimbabwe. We vehemently protest the fact that these men and women were arrested in a raid on a lecture in Harare by police and were detained and tortured. Outrageously, they now face treason charges, which can carry the death penalty, for the simple reason that they organised a meeting in solidarity with the mass mobilisations that overthrew the dictators Mubarak and Ben Ali in Egypt and Tunisia. These arrests are a blatant attempt to suppress protest and strike fear into left organisations who oppose the government. It is in the direct interests of the working class to oppose this naked act of state repression.
As Marxists, the Spartacist League/ Britain opposes the sanctions and other machinations practiced by the racist British ruling class against Zimbabwe. From the time of Cecil Rhodes’ bloody quest to establish a “British Africa” from Cairo to the Cape, to the racist “independent” Ian Smith government, to the sanctions against Zimbabwe today, imperialist Britain never hesitated to use bloody force to assert its control and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of black Africans killed during the independence struggle in Zimbabwe.
The present British government led by David Cameron and the Labour regimes that preceded it couldn’t care less what the Robert Mugabe regime does to workers and peasants. Their only concern is that the enormous wealth that is extracted from the exploitation of black labour continues to flow into the coffers of the City of London and Wall Street.
As revolutionary internationalists in South Africa, the dominant regional economic power, SSA fights for solidarity by the South African workers movement with its class brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe and throughout the region. In particular, we fight for the workers to vigorously oppose the South African government’s harassment and threat of impending deportations against hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwean immigrants; we demand full citizenship rights for all immigrants.
We demand the immediate release of the detainees in Zimbabwe and the dropping of all charges.
From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-No Illusions in Democratic Party!-Wisconsin Showdown Over Union Rights
Workers Vanguard No. 975
4 March 2011
No Illusions in Democratic Party!
Wisconsin Showdown Over Union Rights
On February 26, some 100,000 pro-union demonstrators flooded the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, following nearly two weeks of protests against Republican governor Scott Walker’s proposed union-busting bill, which would strip public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights. The massive demonstrations began on Valentine’s Day, when over 1,000 workers and University of Wisconsin students occupied the state Capitol building rotunda. They flooded into the lawmakers’ chambers, with hundreds camping at the Capitol every night since. This action sparked the teachers unions to organize sick-outs, causing schools to close across the state. Sensing a draconian threat to their livelihoods and rights, tens of thousands of unionists and their families as well as students and other supporters have flocked to Madison on a daily basis demanding, “Kill the Bill!”
It is in the vital interest of the entire labor movement to defend Wisconsin’s public employee unions and spike the union-busting “budget repair bill.” This deadly law would eliminate public sector collective bargaining on any issue besides wages, limit raises to no more than cost-of-living increases, and require public sector unions to endure mandatory annual recertification votes that would threaten the very existence of these unions. Under the bill, employee payroll deductions for health care would be dramatically increased. Workers would be required to pay 50 percent of the contributions to the pension fund, resulting in a pay cut of 5 to 12 percent. Walker, a Republican of the reactionary Tea Party ilk, has threatened to start laying off 12,000 workers beginning this week if his bill does not pass.
“It’s about the assault on labor, an assault on the working human being; to take and throw away the contract and say it’s balancing the budget is bull crap,” said a member of Wisconsin’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). In short order, Scott Walker confirmed this observation. Believing, gullibly, that he was in a phone conversation with right-wing billionaire and Tea Party backer David Koch, Walker confessed to having considered planting troublemakers among the pro-union demonstrators while praising Ronald Reagan’s 1981 smashing of the PATCO air traffic controllers strike and destruction of the union; Walker said that this was “our” PATCO “moment.” Indeed, the impact of such legislation is demonstrated in Indiana, where all collective bargaining for public unions was banned six years ago. Since that time, as the governor of that state brags, union membership for state workers has nose-dived by 90 percent.
There will either be class struggle or defeat. In his phone call with the ersatz David Koch, Governor Walker articulated a strategy of simply letting the protests play out. What is needed is hard class struggle to defeat this union-busting attack. The massive, hugely popular Madison protests show that there is widespread outrage over the savage cutbacks and that workers are ready to fight.
On February 21, the South Central Federation of Labor (SCFL), composed of delegates from 97 public and private sector union locals representing 45,000 workers in Madison and southern Wisconsin, unanimously passed a motion stating: “The SCFL endorses a general strike, possibly for the day Walker signs his ‘budget repair bill’.” In another motion, SCFL rejected any bargaining concessions on wages, benefits and union rights. At the same time, SCFL president Jim Cavanaugh was quick to explain that the group’s support for a “general strike” was just advisory: “We’re just a support organization, and the actual local unions would have to decide if they wanted to escalate things to the point of a strike.” Recommendations will not do the trick. The Wisconsin labor movement needs to prepare for statewide strike action if this attempt to gut the unions is to be defeated.
But the Wisconsin public union tops have centered their whole strategy on pressuring the capitalist politicians to “compromise” by merely deleting the portions of Walker’s bill that gut their collective bargaining rights. Blathering about the need to “share the sacrifice,” these labor lieutenants of capital have pledged their support to all the wage and benefit givebacks Walker wants to wring from the unions. On February 21, the teachers union bureaucracy called off the school sick-outs—themselves a weak form of protest that sets individual teachers up for victimization.
It is necessary to defend each and every gain that the labor movement has won—from wages and benefits to pensions to the right for unions to exist. But that cannot be done by playing by the bosses’ rules. Beginning with the very right to form unions, all the major gains that labor has wrested from the bosses in the past century were once themselves “illegal” by the norms of bourgeois “law and order.” The class-struggle methods through which our rights were won—from massive picket lines to factory occupations to hot-cargoing struck goods—were also “illegal,” and are today! Hard-fought strikes galvanize the rest of the labor movement and, when victorious, tear up the bosses’ anti-strike laws and injunctions.
With similar restrictions and cuts against labor on the legislative agenda in many states (see article, page 1), the showdown in Wisconsin—the first state to legalize public sector unions, in the 1950s—has riveted the attention of workers nationally and internationally. In the U.S., private sector unions have mobilized in force alongside public sector workers around the Midwest. From New Jersey to Oklahoma and elsewhere, labor has rallied against similar anti-union legislation. In Columbus, Ohio, over 5,000 trade-union demonstrators filled Capitol Square.
With the global economic crisis grinding down working people and the oppressed throughout the world, mobilizations against exploitation and oppression quickly resound. Many in Wisconsin have identified their struggles with those of the working masses of Egypt, with some carrying signs denouncing Walker as a Mubarak-type dictator. In turn, messages of solidarity have been sent to Wisconsin from Egyptian workers and activists.
In Wisconsin, Democratic Party politicians have heavily promoted the protests to burnish their image as “friends of labor” in Midwest swing states. Fourteen Democratic state senators fled across the border to Illinois in a maneuver to deprive Walker of a quorum to ram the bill through the Republican-controlled state legislature. President Barack Obama has claimed to sympathize with public workers, asserting that it would be wrong “to vilify them or to suggest that somehow all these budget problems are due to public employees.” That takes a lot of chutzpah from an imperialist Commander-in-Chief whose assaults on the United Auto Workers, relentless attacks on teachers unions, and two-year wage freeze on federal employees have set the stage for the current round of state and local attacks on public sector unions.
In distributing Workers Vanguard to the Madison protesters, our comrades have warned against any illusions in the Democrats. No less than the Republicans, the Democratic Party is a capitalist party and the class enemy of workers, black people, immigrants and the oppressed. While the Tea Party reactionaries want to smash the unions outright in order to extract the maximum concessions, the Democrats pretend to be “friends” of labor to better hoodwink the workers and maintain labor “peace,” while extracting the same economic concessions.
The union tops—a component of the Democratic Party—are fully committed to the system of capitalist exploitation. In the private sector, these types have for decades agreed to the savage cutbacks of wages and benefits and the job-slashing attacks deemed by the bosses to be vital to the health of corporate America. This class collaboration has fueled the steep decline of the once-powerful industrial unions, which were built in the giant class battles of the 1930s. Now public sector unions face the same attacks along with the threat of a nationwide spate of “right to work” legislation to assure the withering of their union membership. In short, the union bureaucracy’s subordination of the class struggle to the dictates of the bosses has set the stage for those forces on the right that seek the destruction of public sector unions.
The union tops are fond of portraying labor struggles as a fight to maintain the “middle class,” thus obscuring the class divide in this country. In turn, the Tea Party types portray their struggle as a fight to maintain the middle class against encroachments of the labor movement. In reality, what is at issue is the inherent class conflict of workers against their capitalist exploiters.
Walker’s bill exempts firefighters and cops from the cutbacks, supposedly in the interest of public safety. Firemen, who have joined the demonstrations at the Capitol, are workers whose job it is to save lives and prevent destruction. The cops and prison guards are not workers. They are the hired thugs of the capitalist rulers, front-line enforcers of the racist capitalist “justice” system. Marxists understand that far from being “neutral,” the capitalist state is at bottom nothing more than an apparatus of violence—the cops, army, courts and prisons—for enforcing the bosses’ class rule. This is no mystery to the bourgeois politician Walker, who has threatened to call out the National Guard to quell militant labor action. But the public sector unions like AFSCME have recruited cops and prison guards, deadly enemies of the working class, into the unions by the tens of thousands. Cops, prison guards out of the trade-union movement!
In channeling the workers’ anger into the dead end of bourgeois pressure politics, the union bureaucrats are aided by a host of reformist “socialist” outfits. Groups like the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Socialist Alternative (SAlt) and the Party for Socialism and Liberation have uncritically cheered the Madison protests while upholding the losing strategy of pressuring the Democrats to “fight the right” and “tax the rich” to balance the budget. In a February 19 statement on its Web site, SAlt cravenly wrote, “We can’t rely on the Democratic Party to maintain a principled stand unless they feel the fire of the movement spreading underneath them. After all, would the Senate Democrats have even taken their stand if the working people of Wisconsin hadn’t risen up in the first place?” For the ISO, the demonstrations have “transformed U.S. politics in a way that won’t disappear, whatever happens with Walker’s legislation.” Or as Jesse Jackson put it in addressing a crowd at the state Capitol, “This is a Martin Luther King moment, this is a Gandhi moment.” The continuing miseries of black Americans and of the Indian masses show that this is not the way forward.
Labor needs a fighting leadership that will break the chains that tie the unions to the capitalist Democrats—a class-struggle leadership that understands that the whole capitalist system of racism, war and exploitation must be thrown on the garbage heap of history. This is part of the struggle to build a revolutionary workers party that fights for a workers government and for a socialist egalitarian society in which those who labor will rule. Speaking of the victorious 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strikes, which were key to establishing the Teamsters as an industrial union, Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon noted in The History of American Trotskyism (1944):
“Our people didn’t believe in anybody or anything but the policy of the class struggle and the ability of the workers to prevail by their mass strength and solidarity. Consequently, they expected from the start that the union would have to fight for its right to exist; that the bosses would not yield any recognition to the union, would not yield any increase of wages or reduction of the scandalous hours without some pressure being brought to bear. Therefore they prepared everything from the point of view of class war. They knew that power, not diplomacy, would decide the issue. Bluffs don’t work in fundamental things, only in incidental ones. In such things as the conflict of class interests one must be prepared to fight.”
4 March 2011
No Illusions in Democratic Party!
Wisconsin Showdown Over Union Rights
On February 26, some 100,000 pro-union demonstrators flooded the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, following nearly two weeks of protests against Republican governor Scott Walker’s proposed union-busting bill, which would strip public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights. The massive demonstrations began on Valentine’s Day, when over 1,000 workers and University of Wisconsin students occupied the state Capitol building rotunda. They flooded into the lawmakers’ chambers, with hundreds camping at the Capitol every night since. This action sparked the teachers unions to organize sick-outs, causing schools to close across the state. Sensing a draconian threat to their livelihoods and rights, tens of thousands of unionists and their families as well as students and other supporters have flocked to Madison on a daily basis demanding, “Kill the Bill!”
It is in the vital interest of the entire labor movement to defend Wisconsin’s public employee unions and spike the union-busting “budget repair bill.” This deadly law would eliminate public sector collective bargaining on any issue besides wages, limit raises to no more than cost-of-living increases, and require public sector unions to endure mandatory annual recertification votes that would threaten the very existence of these unions. Under the bill, employee payroll deductions for health care would be dramatically increased. Workers would be required to pay 50 percent of the contributions to the pension fund, resulting in a pay cut of 5 to 12 percent. Walker, a Republican of the reactionary Tea Party ilk, has threatened to start laying off 12,000 workers beginning this week if his bill does not pass.
“It’s about the assault on labor, an assault on the working human being; to take and throw away the contract and say it’s balancing the budget is bull crap,” said a member of Wisconsin’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). In short order, Scott Walker confirmed this observation. Believing, gullibly, that he was in a phone conversation with right-wing billionaire and Tea Party backer David Koch, Walker confessed to having considered planting troublemakers among the pro-union demonstrators while praising Ronald Reagan’s 1981 smashing of the PATCO air traffic controllers strike and destruction of the union; Walker said that this was “our” PATCO “moment.” Indeed, the impact of such legislation is demonstrated in Indiana, where all collective bargaining for public unions was banned six years ago. Since that time, as the governor of that state brags, union membership for state workers has nose-dived by 90 percent.
There will either be class struggle or defeat. In his phone call with the ersatz David Koch, Governor Walker articulated a strategy of simply letting the protests play out. What is needed is hard class struggle to defeat this union-busting attack. The massive, hugely popular Madison protests show that there is widespread outrage over the savage cutbacks and that workers are ready to fight.
On February 21, the South Central Federation of Labor (SCFL), composed of delegates from 97 public and private sector union locals representing 45,000 workers in Madison and southern Wisconsin, unanimously passed a motion stating: “The SCFL endorses a general strike, possibly for the day Walker signs his ‘budget repair bill’.” In another motion, SCFL rejected any bargaining concessions on wages, benefits and union rights. At the same time, SCFL president Jim Cavanaugh was quick to explain that the group’s support for a “general strike” was just advisory: “We’re just a support organization, and the actual local unions would have to decide if they wanted to escalate things to the point of a strike.” Recommendations will not do the trick. The Wisconsin labor movement needs to prepare for statewide strike action if this attempt to gut the unions is to be defeated.
But the Wisconsin public union tops have centered their whole strategy on pressuring the capitalist politicians to “compromise” by merely deleting the portions of Walker’s bill that gut their collective bargaining rights. Blathering about the need to “share the sacrifice,” these labor lieutenants of capital have pledged their support to all the wage and benefit givebacks Walker wants to wring from the unions. On February 21, the teachers union bureaucracy called off the school sick-outs—themselves a weak form of protest that sets individual teachers up for victimization.
It is necessary to defend each and every gain that the labor movement has won—from wages and benefits to pensions to the right for unions to exist. But that cannot be done by playing by the bosses’ rules. Beginning with the very right to form unions, all the major gains that labor has wrested from the bosses in the past century were once themselves “illegal” by the norms of bourgeois “law and order.” The class-struggle methods through which our rights were won—from massive picket lines to factory occupations to hot-cargoing struck goods—were also “illegal,” and are today! Hard-fought strikes galvanize the rest of the labor movement and, when victorious, tear up the bosses’ anti-strike laws and injunctions.
With similar restrictions and cuts against labor on the legislative agenda in many states (see article, page 1), the showdown in Wisconsin—the first state to legalize public sector unions, in the 1950s—has riveted the attention of workers nationally and internationally. In the U.S., private sector unions have mobilized in force alongside public sector workers around the Midwest. From New Jersey to Oklahoma and elsewhere, labor has rallied against similar anti-union legislation. In Columbus, Ohio, over 5,000 trade-union demonstrators filled Capitol Square.
With the global economic crisis grinding down working people and the oppressed throughout the world, mobilizations against exploitation and oppression quickly resound. Many in Wisconsin have identified their struggles with those of the working masses of Egypt, with some carrying signs denouncing Walker as a Mubarak-type dictator. In turn, messages of solidarity have been sent to Wisconsin from Egyptian workers and activists.
In Wisconsin, Democratic Party politicians have heavily promoted the protests to burnish their image as “friends of labor” in Midwest swing states. Fourteen Democratic state senators fled across the border to Illinois in a maneuver to deprive Walker of a quorum to ram the bill through the Republican-controlled state legislature. President Barack Obama has claimed to sympathize with public workers, asserting that it would be wrong “to vilify them or to suggest that somehow all these budget problems are due to public employees.” That takes a lot of chutzpah from an imperialist Commander-in-Chief whose assaults on the United Auto Workers, relentless attacks on teachers unions, and two-year wage freeze on federal employees have set the stage for the current round of state and local attacks on public sector unions.
In distributing Workers Vanguard to the Madison protesters, our comrades have warned against any illusions in the Democrats. No less than the Republicans, the Democratic Party is a capitalist party and the class enemy of workers, black people, immigrants and the oppressed. While the Tea Party reactionaries want to smash the unions outright in order to extract the maximum concessions, the Democrats pretend to be “friends” of labor to better hoodwink the workers and maintain labor “peace,” while extracting the same economic concessions.
The union tops—a component of the Democratic Party—are fully committed to the system of capitalist exploitation. In the private sector, these types have for decades agreed to the savage cutbacks of wages and benefits and the job-slashing attacks deemed by the bosses to be vital to the health of corporate America. This class collaboration has fueled the steep decline of the once-powerful industrial unions, which were built in the giant class battles of the 1930s. Now public sector unions face the same attacks along with the threat of a nationwide spate of “right to work” legislation to assure the withering of their union membership. In short, the union bureaucracy’s subordination of the class struggle to the dictates of the bosses has set the stage for those forces on the right that seek the destruction of public sector unions.
The union tops are fond of portraying labor struggles as a fight to maintain the “middle class,” thus obscuring the class divide in this country. In turn, the Tea Party types portray their struggle as a fight to maintain the middle class against encroachments of the labor movement. In reality, what is at issue is the inherent class conflict of workers against their capitalist exploiters.
Walker’s bill exempts firefighters and cops from the cutbacks, supposedly in the interest of public safety. Firemen, who have joined the demonstrations at the Capitol, are workers whose job it is to save lives and prevent destruction. The cops and prison guards are not workers. They are the hired thugs of the capitalist rulers, front-line enforcers of the racist capitalist “justice” system. Marxists understand that far from being “neutral,” the capitalist state is at bottom nothing more than an apparatus of violence—the cops, army, courts and prisons—for enforcing the bosses’ class rule. This is no mystery to the bourgeois politician Walker, who has threatened to call out the National Guard to quell militant labor action. But the public sector unions like AFSCME have recruited cops and prison guards, deadly enemies of the working class, into the unions by the tens of thousands. Cops, prison guards out of the trade-union movement!
In channeling the workers’ anger into the dead end of bourgeois pressure politics, the union bureaucrats are aided by a host of reformist “socialist” outfits. Groups like the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Socialist Alternative (SAlt) and the Party for Socialism and Liberation have uncritically cheered the Madison protests while upholding the losing strategy of pressuring the Democrats to “fight the right” and “tax the rich” to balance the budget. In a February 19 statement on its Web site, SAlt cravenly wrote, “We can’t rely on the Democratic Party to maintain a principled stand unless they feel the fire of the movement spreading underneath them. After all, would the Senate Democrats have even taken their stand if the working people of Wisconsin hadn’t risen up in the first place?” For the ISO, the demonstrations have “transformed U.S. politics in a way that won’t disappear, whatever happens with Walker’s legislation.” Or as Jesse Jackson put it in addressing a crowd at the state Capitol, “This is a Martin Luther King moment, this is a Gandhi moment.” The continuing miseries of black Americans and of the Indian masses show that this is not the way forward.
Labor needs a fighting leadership that will break the chains that tie the unions to the capitalist Democrats—a class-struggle leadership that understands that the whole capitalist system of racism, war and exploitation must be thrown on the garbage heap of history. This is part of the struggle to build a revolutionary workers party that fights for a workers government and for a socialist egalitarian society in which those who labor will rule. Speaking of the victorious 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strikes, which were key to establishing the Teamsters as an industrial union, Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon noted in The History of American Trotskyism (1944):
“Our people didn’t believe in anybody or anything but the policy of the class struggle and the ability of the workers to prevail by their mass strength and solidarity. Consequently, they expected from the start that the union would have to fight for its right to exist; that the bosses would not yield any recognition to the union, would not yield any increase of wages or reduction of the scandalous hours without some pressure being brought to bear. Therefore they prepared everything from the point of view of class war. They knew that power, not diplomacy, would decide the issue. Bluffs don’t work in fundamental things, only in incidental ones. In such things as the conflict of class interests one must be prepared to fight.”
From The Partisan Defense Committee-Free Oscar López Rivera!-Parole Denied for Puerto Rican Independence Fighter
Workers Vanguard No. 975
4 March 2011
Parole Denied for Puerto Rican Independence Fighter
Free Oscar López Rivera!
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
We reprint below a February 12 letter from the Partisan Defense Committee to the U.S. Parole Commission demanding the release of Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López Rivera. López Rivera was denied parole on February 18 and remains incarcerated in the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
The Partisan Defense Committee joins those across the country and around the world calling for the release of Oscar López Rivera. Mr. López Rivera is a principled and courageous political prisoner who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1981 for struggling for the independence of his native Puerto Rico. After moving to the mainland as a youth, he was drafted into the Army where he served with distinction. He became a well-respected community activist in Chicago, where he fought for bilingual education and an end to anti-Latino discrimination in education and public utilities.
Mr. López Rivera has now been incarcerated for nearly three decades, subjected to the oppressive conditions in maximum security prisons in Marion, IL, and then Florence, CO. He has described his situation as being enclosed like a zoo animal in a cell eight feet wide by nine feet long for an average of 22 hours a day. This cruelty must end now.
In 1999 Mr. López Rivera was one of many Puerto Rican political prisoners who was offered conditional clemency by then President Bill Clinton. But he rejected the chance to reduce his sentence out of solidarity with Carlos Alberto Torres and Marie Haydée Beltrán Torres, two of his compañeros who were not included in the clemency offer.
As has become the norm for the continued incarceration of political prisoners, Mr. López Rivera has been accused of showing no “remorse” or “contrition.” Mr. López Rivera has no reason to apologize for his part in the struggle for Puerto Rican independence. The people of Puerto Rico have every right to demand an end to the more than a century of colonial oppression meted out by the United States of America. We demand that Oscar López Rivera be released immediately and unconditionally.
4 March 2011
Parole Denied for Puerto Rican Independence Fighter
Free Oscar López Rivera!
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
We reprint below a February 12 letter from the Partisan Defense Committee to the U.S. Parole Commission demanding the release of Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López Rivera. López Rivera was denied parole on February 18 and remains incarcerated in the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
The Partisan Defense Committee joins those across the country and around the world calling for the release of Oscar López Rivera. Mr. López Rivera is a principled and courageous political prisoner who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1981 for struggling for the independence of his native Puerto Rico. After moving to the mainland as a youth, he was drafted into the Army where he served with distinction. He became a well-respected community activist in Chicago, where he fought for bilingual education and an end to anti-Latino discrimination in education and public utilities.
Mr. López Rivera has now been incarcerated for nearly three decades, subjected to the oppressive conditions in maximum security prisons in Marion, IL, and then Florence, CO. He has described his situation as being enclosed like a zoo animal in a cell eight feet wide by nine feet long for an average of 22 hours a day. This cruelty must end now.
In 1999 Mr. López Rivera was one of many Puerto Rican political prisoners who was offered conditional clemency by then President Bill Clinton. But he rejected the chance to reduce his sentence out of solidarity with Carlos Alberto Torres and Marie Haydée Beltrán Torres, two of his compañeros who were not included in the clemency offer.
As has become the norm for the continued incarceration of political prisoners, Mr. López Rivera has been accused of showing no “remorse” or “contrition.” Mr. López Rivera has no reason to apologize for his part in the struggle for Puerto Rican independence. The people of Puerto Rico have every right to demand an end to the more than a century of colonial oppression meted out by the United States of America. We demand that Oscar López Rivera be released immediately and unconditionally.
From The Partisan Defense Committee-Support Fight to Free Private Bradley Manning
Workers Vanguard No. 975
4 March 2011
Support Fight to Free Private Bradley Manning
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
The release by WikiLeaks of some 250,000 State Department cables has provoked a vicious campaign of retaliation by the rulers of U.S. imperialism against both WikiLeaks and Army Private Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking secret material. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been held under house arrest in Britain since mid December, faces patently trumped-up accusations of “rape” and “sexual molestation” in Sweden. On February 24, a British court ordered his extradition, a decision Assange is fighting. Manning is being held under torturous conditions of solitary confinement at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia.
Manning incurred Washington’s wrath when a video of a U.S. war crime in Baghdad was posted last April by WikiLeaks. It showed an Apache helicopter gunning down and killing at least 12 people, including two Reuters journalists, as the pilots gloated over the carnage. Manning is a courageous individual who—if he was, indeed, the source of the leaks—performed a laudable service by lifting, however slightly, the veil of secrecy and lies that shrouds the imperialists’ machinations.
Manning was put on “suicide watch,” meaning that he was stripped of all his clothes except his underwear, and his glasses were taken away, leaving him in “essential blindness,” as he put it. He is now under “prevention of injury watch.” He is given no sheet or pillow and is confined to his cell for 23 hours a day. Even his one hour of exercise is done in solitary. Guards check on him every five minutes and his cell is constantly lit, including when he tries to sleep. A 24 January Amnesty International report stated: “Manning is classed as a ‘maximum custody’ detainee, despite having no history of violence or disciplinary offences in custody. This means he is shackled at the hands and legs during all visits and denied opportunities to work, which would allow him to leave his cell.”
Workers and the oppressed throughout the world must champion the cause of Private Manning and demand his immediate freedom. The Partisan Defense Committee has contributed to Bradley Manning’s defense and encourages others to do the same. Send checks earmarked “Manning defense” to: The Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Avenue #41, Oakland, CA 94610.
4 March 2011
Support Fight to Free Private Bradley Manning
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
The release by WikiLeaks of some 250,000 State Department cables has provoked a vicious campaign of retaliation by the rulers of U.S. imperialism against both WikiLeaks and Army Private Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking secret material. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been held under house arrest in Britain since mid December, faces patently trumped-up accusations of “rape” and “sexual molestation” in Sweden. On February 24, a British court ordered his extradition, a decision Assange is fighting. Manning is being held under torturous conditions of solitary confinement at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia.
Manning incurred Washington’s wrath when a video of a U.S. war crime in Baghdad was posted last April by WikiLeaks. It showed an Apache helicopter gunning down and killing at least 12 people, including two Reuters journalists, as the pilots gloated over the carnage. Manning is a courageous individual who—if he was, indeed, the source of the leaks—performed a laudable service by lifting, however slightly, the veil of secrecy and lies that shrouds the imperialists’ machinations.
Manning was put on “suicide watch,” meaning that he was stripped of all his clothes except his underwear, and his glasses were taken away, leaving him in “essential blindness,” as he put it. He is now under “prevention of injury watch.” He is given no sheet or pillow and is confined to his cell for 23 hours a day. Even his one hour of exercise is done in solitary. Guards check on him every five minutes and his cell is constantly lit, including when he tries to sleep. A 24 January Amnesty International report stated: “Manning is classed as a ‘maximum custody’ detainee, despite having no history of violence or disciplinary offences in custody. This means he is shackled at the hands and legs during all visits and denied opportunities to work, which would allow him to leave his cell.”
Workers and the oppressed throughout the world must champion the cause of Private Manning and demand his immediate freedom. The Partisan Defense Committee has contributed to Bradley Manning’s defense and encourages others to do the same. Send checks earmarked “Manning defense” to: The Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Avenue #41, Oakland, CA 94610.
*From The Pages Of The Communist International-In Honor Of The 92nd Anniversary Of Its Founding (March 1919) And The 90th Anniversary Of The Third World Congress (1921)-The Communist International and the Red International of Trade Unions
Honor The 92nd Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International (March, 1919)- Honor The 90th Anniversary Of The Historic Third World Congress Of The CI (1921)
Markin comment:
Some anniversaries, like those marking the publication of a book, play or poem, are worthy of remembrance every five, ten, or twenty-five years. Other more world historic events like the remembrance of the Paris Commune of 1871, the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1917, and, as here, the founding of the Communist International (also known as the Third International, Comintern, and CI) in 1919 are worthy of yearly attention. Why is that so in the case of the long departed (1943, by Stalin fiat) and, at the end unlamented, Comintern? That is what this year’s remembrance, through CI documentation and other commentary, will attempt to impart on those leftist militants who are serious about studying the lessons of our revolutionary, our communist revolutionary past.
No question that the old injunction of Marx and Engels as early as the Communist Manifesto that the workers of the world needed to unite would have been hollow, and reduced to hortatory holiday speechifying (there was enough of that, as it was) without an organization expression. And they, Marx and Engels, fitfully made their efforts with the all-encompassing pan-working class First International. Later the less all encompassing but still party of the whole class-oriented socialist Second International made important, if limited, contributions to fulfilling that slogan before the advent of world imperialism left its outlook wanting, very wanting.
The Third International thus was created, as mentioned in one of the commentaries in this series, to pick up the fallen banner of international socialism after the betrayals of the Second International. More importantly, it was the first international organization that took upon itself in its early, heroic revolutionary days, at least, the strategic question of how to make, and win, a revolution in the age of world imperialism. The Trotsky-led effort of creating a Fourth International in the 1930s, somewhat stillborn as it turned out to be, nevertheless based itself, correctly, on those early days of the Comintern. So in some of the specific details of the posts in this year’s series, highlighting the 90th anniversary of the Third World Congress this is “just” history, but right underneath, and not far underneath at that, are rich lessons for us to ponder today.
*********
Third Congress of the Communist International
The Communist International and the Red International of Trade Unions
The Struggle Against the Amsterdam (scab) Trade-Union International
Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
12 July 1921
I
The bourgeoisie keeps the working class enslaved not only by means of naked force, but also by subtle deception. In the hands of the bourgeoisie, the school, the church, parliament, art, literature, the daily press – all become powerful means of duping the working masses and spreading the ideas of the bourgeoisie into the proletarian milieu.
One of the ideas which the ruling classes have succeeded in inculcating into the working masses is trade-union neutrality – the idea that trade unions are non-political organisations and should have no party affiliations.
Over recent decades and, in particular, since the end of the imperialist war, the trade unions in Europe and America have become the largest of the proletarian organisations, in some countries uniting the entire working class. The bourgeoisie is well aware that the future of the capitalist system in the next few years depends on the extent to which the trade unions free themselves from bourgeois influences. Hence the frantic efforts of the international bourgeoisie and its social-democratic hangers-on to maintain, at all costs, the hold of bourgeois social democratic ideology over the trade unions.
As the bourgeoisie cannot openly call on the workers’ trade unions to support the bourgeois parties, it urges the unions not to support any party, the revolutionary Communist Party included. The sole aim of the bourgeoisie, however, is to prevent the trade unions from supporting the Communist Party.
The idea that trade unions should be neutral and apolitical has a long history. For decades the trade unions of Great Britain, Germany, America and other countries have believed in this idea. The priest-ridden Christian trade unions, the leaders of the bourgeois Hirsch Duncker trade unions, the respectable and peace-loving British trade unions, the members of the free trade unions of Germany and many syndicalists – all have come to accept it. Legien, Gompers, Jouhaux, etc. have been preaching neutrality for years.
In reality the trade unions have never been and could never have been neutral, even had they tried. Not only is trade-union neutrality harmful to the working class, but it cannot possibly be maintained. In the struggle between capital and labour, no mass workers’ organisation can remain neutral. The trade unions cannot remain uncommitted in their relations with the bourgeois parties and the parties of the proletariat. The leaders of the bourgeoisie are perfectly aware of this. But, just as it is essential to the bourgeoisie that the masses believe in life after death, so is it essential that they also believe that trade unions can be apolitical organisations and neutral in their relations with the workers’ Communist Party. In order to maintain its rule and squeeze surplus value from the workers, the bourgeoisie needs not only the priest, the policeman, the general and the informer, but also the trade-union bureaucrat and the kind of ‘workers” leader that teaches trade-unionists the virtues of neutrality and non-participation in political struggle.
Even before the imperialist war broke out, the more politically educated workers in Europe and America had begun to see through the idea of neutrality. The inadequacy of this teaching became even more obvious as the class contradictions deepened. When the imperialist slaughter began, the old trade-union leaders were forced to drop their masks of neutrality and openly take sides, each with their own national bourgeoisie.
During the imperialist war the social democrats and syndicalists who had for years preached that trade unions were apolitical placed their organisations at the service of the murderous policy of the bourgeois parties; those who had yesterday preached trade-union ‘neutrality’ now became the undisguised agents of certain political parties, but parties of the bourgeoisie, not parties of the working class.
Now that the imperialist war has ended, these same social-democratic and syndicalist trade-union leaders are trying once more to hide behind the mask of trade-union neutrality. Now that the war emergency is over, these agents of the bourgeoisie are adapting themselves to the new situation; they are trying to divert the workers from the path of revolution onto a path that profits the bourgeoisie alone.
Economics and politics are inseparably linked. This connection is particularly close in epochs such as the present. All important questions of political life should interest not only the workers’ party, but also the proletarian trade unions, and, similarly, all important economic questions should interest both trade union and workers’ party. When the French imperialist government calls up certain age-groups in order to occupy the Ruhr basin and crush Germany, can the French proletarian and trade-union movement say that this is a purely political question which does not concern the trade unions? Can a revolutionary French trade-unionist remain neutral on such a question? Or, to take another example: if a purely economic movement develops in Britain such as the present coal-miners’ strike, can the Communist Party say that this is just a trade-union question that does not concern it? At a time when millions of unemployed are faced with the struggle against poverty and need, when the question of requisitioning the homes of the bourgeoisie to relieve the housing shortage has to be raised, when the broad masses of workers are forced by circumstances to consider the question of arming the proletariat, when, first in one country and then in another, the workers organise the seizure of factories – at such a time, to say that the trade unions must not interfere in the political struggle and must remain neutral in relation to political parties means in practice to serve the bourgeoisie.
Despite the wide variety of names adopted by the political parties in Europe and in America, they can, on the whole, be divided into three groups: 1) parties of the bourgeoisie 2) parties of the petty bourgeoisie (mainly the social-democratic parties) and 3) parties of the proletariat (the Communists). Those trade unions which proclaim themselves neutral in relation to the three above-mentioned groups of parties in practice support the parties of the petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie.
II
The Amsterdam Trade-Union International is the organisation in which the Second International and the Two-and-a-Half International have met and joined hands. The bourgeoisie everywhere looks to this organisation with hope and trust. The neutrality of the trade unions is the fundamental principle of the IFTU. It is no accident that the bourgeoisie and its hangers-on – the social democrats and the right-wing syndicalists – are trying to rally the broad working masses in Western Europe and America under the slogan of trade-union neutrality. The Second International, which was more obviously political and openly went over to the side of the bourgeoisie, has completely collapsed, while the IFTU, which is attempting to hide its true colours once more behind the cover of neutrality, is having a certain success. Under the flag of neutrality, the IFTU carries out the dirtiest and most difficult missions of the bourgeoisie. The miners’ strike in Britain, for example, was crushed by the infamous J.H. Thomas, who is both chairman of the Second International and one of the best-known leaders of the IFTU. The IFTU is a party to the lowering of workers’ wages and to the organised robbery of the German workers as payment for the sins of the German imperialist bourgeoisie.
The workers’ leaders – Leipart, Grassman, Albert Thomas, Jouhaux, J.H. Thomas, Wissell, Bauer, and Robert Schmidt – have agreed on a division of labour. Some of them, who were previously leaders of the trade unions, have now entered bourgeois governments, serving as ministers, commissars, etc., while others, of the same flesh and blood, head the IFTU and preach neutrality in the political struggle to their trade-union members.
The IFTU is at the present time the main supporter of international capital. The struggle against capitalism cannot be waged successfully unless the need to fight this conception of the trade unions as apolitical and neutral is grasped. Before the most effective methods of struggle against the IFTU can be worked out, it is essential first and foremost to establish a clear and exact definition of the relations between the Party and the trade unions in each country.
III
The Communist Party is the vanguard of the proletariat. Its members have fully understood how the proletariat is to be liberated from capitalist oppression and have consciously accepted the Communist programme.
Trade unions are mass organisations of the proletariat. They are increasingly developed into organisations which unite all the workers of a given branch of industry; they include in their ranks not only dedicated Communists, but also workers who have little interest in politics and workers who are politically backward and who only gradually, through their own experience, come to understand what Communism means. In many respects the role of the trade union varies according to the stage the revolution has reached. But at every stage the trade unions are organisations which rally broader layers of the masses than does the Party. Their relation to the Party is to some extent like that of the provinces to the centre. In the period before the seizure of power, the truly revolutionary trade unions organise the workers, primarily on an economic basis, to fight for gains which can be won under capitalism. However, the main object of all their activity must be the organisation of the proletarian struggle to overthrow capitalism by proletarian revolution. At a time of revolution the genuinely revolutionary trade unions work closely with the Party; they organise the masses to attack capitalist strongholds and are responsible for laying the foundations of socialist production. After power has been won and consolidated, economic organisation becomes the central focus of trade-union work. The unions devote almost all their forces to the task of organising the economy on a socialist basis and are effectively transformed into a practical school of Communism. At all three stages of the struggle the trade unions must support the proletarian vanguard – the Communist Party – which leads the struggle of the proletariat. To achieve this end, the Communists and their sympathisers must organise cells within the trade unions; these cells are completely subordinate to the Communist Party as a whole.
The tactic formulated by the Second Congress of the Communist International of setting up Communist cells in each trade union has over the past year proved itself to be correct. Significant results have been achieved in Germany, Britain, France and Italy and in a number of other countries. The fact that considerable numbers of the less experienced workers have recently been leaving the free unions in Germany, out of disappointment at not receiving any direct advantages, should not alter the principled position taken by the Communist International on the participation of Communists in the trade-union movement. Communists must explain to the proletariat that their problems can be answered not by leaving the old trade unions for new ones, or by staying outside the unions, but by revolutionising the trade unions, ridding them of reformist influence and the treacherous reformist leaders, and transforming them into a genuine stronghold of the revolutionary proletariat.
IV
The principal task of all Communists over the next period, is to wage a firm and vigorous struggle to win the majority of the workers organised in the trade unions. The Communist must not be discouraged by the present reactionary mood of the labour unions, but must try to overcome all resistance and by actively participating in their day-to-day struggle, win the unions to Communism. The true measure of the strength of a Communist Party is the influence it has on the mass of trade-unionists. The Party must learn how to influence the unions without being tempted to put itself forward as their guardian. Only the Communist cells of the union are subject to Party control; the union as such is independent of any control. The Communists have to rely on the persistent, selfless and intelligent work on the part of the Communist trade-union cells in order to make the trade unions as a whole willing and eager to follow their advice.
In France the trade unions are at present going through a period of healthy ferment. The working class is gradually beginning to recover strength after the crisis in its ranks, and is learning to recognise the treachery of the social-reformists and syndicalists for what it is.
Some of the revolutionary syndicalists in France are still prejudiced against the idea of political struggle and a proletarian political party. They still subscribe to the principle of neutrality as expressed in the well-known Amiens Charter of 1906. This incorrect and vulnerable position held by a wing of the revolutionary syndicalists is potentially dangerous for the movement. If this wing were to gain the majority in the unions, it would not know how to act and would be helpless against the agents of capital, the Jouhauxs, the Dumoulins, etc.
The revolutionary syndicalists will lack a firm line until the Communist Party itself develops a consistent policy. The French Communist Party must seek to co-operate in a friendly fashion with the most politically advanced of the revolutionary syndicalists. It is, however, essential that the Party rely primarily on its own members, forming Communist cells wherever it has two or three members. The Party must initiate an immediate agitational campaign against the concept of neutrality. It must explain in a friendly but firm way the incorrect aspects of revolutionary syndicalism. This is the only approach that can revolutionise the French trade-union movement and bring about the close co-operation of the Party and the movement.
In Italy the situation has certain specific aspects. The rank-and-file members of the trade unions are revolutionary, but the leadership of the Confederazione del Lavoro is in the hands of out-and-out reformists and centrists whose sympathies are with the IFTU. The first task of the Italian Communists is therefore to organise a firm struggle within the trade unions around day-to-day issues to expose systematically and patiently the treachery and indecision of the leaders, thereby wresting the trade unions from their control.
The Italian Communists should adopt the same attitude towards the revolutionary syndicalists as the French Communists.
In Spain the trade-union movement is very revolutionary in outlook, but has no clearly defined goal. The Communist Party is young and relatively weak. The Communists must do everything possible to secure a firm footing in the trade unions, giving active support and advice, conducting a vigorous campaign of agitation within the unions and establishing firm links between their party and the unions as a first step towards co-ordinating the struggle.
Important developments are taking place within the British trade-union movement. The unions are rapidly adopting a revolutionary orientation. The mass movement is growing, and the old trade-union leaders are being thrust aside. The Party must do its utmost to establish itself firmly in the largest unions (the miners’ unions etc.). Party members must be active in their unions and must work consistently and hard to extend Communist influence. Every effort must be made to forge closer contacts with the masses.
The same revolutionary process is occurring in America, though more slowly. Communists must on no account leave the ranks of the reactionary Federation of Labour [composed in the main of skilled workers]. On the contrary, they should seek to gain a foothold in the old trade unions with the aim of revolutionising them. It is vital that they work with the IWW members most sympathetic to the Party; this does not, however, preclude arguing against the IWW’s political positions.
In Japan abroad trade-union movement is developing spontaneously, but so far no clear leadership has emerged. Japanese Communists must support this movement and exert a Marxist influence upon it.
In Czechoslovakia our Party has the support of the majority of the working class, but the trade-union movement is still largely in the hands of the social-patriots, and is furthermore split along ethnic lines. This is the result of poor organisation and indecisive policies on our part. The Party must make a great effort to improve the situation and win the leadership of the trade-union movement. The formation of Communist cells in the unions and of a central trade-union body for Communists of all nationalities is absolutely essential. Every effort must also be made to unite the various politically divided unions.
In Austria and Belgium the social-patriots have skilfully managed to achieve a firm influence on the trade unions. In these two countries the trade-union movement is the main arena of struggle, and therefore the Communists should direct all their attention to this area of work.
In Norway the Party has the support of the majority of workers and must now strengthen its position in the trade unions and rid the leadership of its centrist elements.
In Sweden the Party has to contend not only with reformism, but also with petty-bourgeois currents in the socialist movement.
In Germany the Party is on the right road to winning over the trade unions gradually. On no account should concessions be made to those who advocate withdrawal from the trade unions. This would play into the hands of the social-patriots. All attempts to exclude Communists from the unions must be stubbornly resisted, and every effort must be made to win the majority of the organised workers.
V
These considerations determine the relations to be established between the Communist International on the one hand and the Red Trade-Union International on the other.
It is the task of the Communist International to direct not only the political struggle of the proletariat in the narrow sense of the word, but the general struggle for liberation, whatever forms it may take. The Communist International must be more than the arithmetical total of the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of the various countries. The Communist International must inspire and unite the work and struggle of all proletarian organisations, both the purely political and the trade-union, co-operative, Soviet and cultural organisations, etc.
The RILU, unlike the scab Amsterdam International, can in no circumstances stand above politics or adopt an attitude of neutrality. Any organisation that wanted to be neutral in relation to the II, the “Two-and-a-Half” and III Internationals would inevitably become a pawn in the hands of the bourgeoisie. The programme of action of the International Council of the Red Trade Unions which is outlined below, and which the Third World Congress of the Communist International is to present to the first Congress of the Red Trade Unions, will be defended in practice by the Communist Parties and the Communist International alone. For this reason, if for no other, the Red trade unions that wish to revolutionise the trade-union movement in every country and honestly and firmly carry out the movement’s new tasks will have to work in close contact with the Communist Party, and the International Council of Red Trade Unions will have to co-ordinate all its work with that of the Communist International.
The respect for neutrality, independence, apoliticism and non-partisanship that some honest revolutionary syndicalists in France, Spain, Italy and certain other countries harbour is nothing other than a concession to bourgeois ideology. The Red trade unions will be incapable of defeating the scab Amsterdam International or of overthrowing capitalism unless they repudiate once and for all the bourgeois ideas of independence and neutrality.
In order to conserve strength and concentrate striking power, the ideal solution would be the formation of a single proletarian International, uniting in its ranks both political parties and other forms of working-class organisation. Undoubtedly this is the organisation of the future. However, in the present transitional period, given the diverse types of trade union that actually exist, the essential need is for an independent international association of Red trade unions which supports the general outline of the platform of the Communist International, but sets less strict conditions for membership than the Communist International can allow.
The Third Congress of the Communist International pledges wholehearted support to the International Council of Red Trade Unions which is to be organised along these lines. To ensure closer contact between the Communist International and the RILU, the Third Congress of the Communist International proposes that it should be permanently represented by three members on the International Council of Red Trade Unions and vice versa.
The programme of action which the Communist International would like to see accepted by the Constituent World Congress of the Red Trade Unions is along the following lines:
Programme of Action
1 The acute world economic crisis, the catastrophic fall of wholesale prices, the overproduction of goods coupled with their actual scarcity, the aggressive anti-working-class policy pursued by the bourgeoisie, which aims at lowering wages and throwing the workers back decades – all this has led to discontent among the masses on the one hand and to the bankruptcy of the old trade unions and their methods of struggle on the other. The revolutionary, class-conscious trade unions the world over are confronted with new tasks. In this period of capitalist disintegration new forms of economic struggle have to be adopted and the trade unions have to pursue an aggressive economic policy in order to counter the capitalist attack and go over to the offensive.
2 The main tactic of the trade unions has to be the direct action of the revolutionary masses and their organisations against the capitalist system. The gains the workers make are in direct proportion to the degree of direct action taken and of revolutionary pressure exerted by the masses. By direct action is meant all forms of direct pressure on the employers and the state – boycotts, strikes, street demonstrations, the seizure of factories, armed insurrection and other revolutionary activities which unite the working class in the struggle for socialism. The aim of the revolutionary class trade unions is therefore to make direct action an instrument in the education and military training of the working masses for the social revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
3 The most recent years of struggle have shown especially clearly the weakness of the trade-union organisations. The fact that workers in the same enterprise belong to several different unions reduces their ability to struggle. An unremitting fight therefore has to be fought to restructure the unions so that each union represents a whole branch of industry instead of a single trade. “Only one union in a factory” – this is the organisational slogan. The fusion of unions should be carried out in a revolutionary way – the question should be discussed directly by the members of the unions at the factories and subsequently by district and regional conferences and national congresses.
4 Each factory must become a stronghold of the revolution. The traditional forms of contact between rank-and-file members of the unions (through dues collectors, representatives, delegates) must be superseded by the formation of factory committees. All workers, whatever their political convictions, should participate in the election of the factory committees. RILU supporters should strive to involve all the workers of the factory in the elections of their representative body. Any attempt to elect exclusively like-minded comrades to the factory committees, thus excluding the broad masses who remain outside the Party, should be sharply condemned. This would be a Party cell rather than a factory committee. The revolutionary workers must influence the general meeting and the factory committee through the Party cells, the committees of action and the work of their rank-and-file members.
5 The first question which needs to be put before the workers and the factory committees is the issue of maintenance money that employers should pay workers made redundant. In no circumstance should factory owners be allowed to throw workers out onto the streets without bearing any of the consequences. They ought to pay full redundancy pay. The unemployed and, to an even greater extent, the employed workers should be organised around this question. They should be shown that the problem of unemployment cannot be solved as long as capitalist relations exist and that the best method of beating unemployment is to fight for social revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
6 At the present time the closure of factories and the reduction of the working day are two of the most important weapons used by the bourgeoisie to force the workers to accept lower wages, longer hours and the ending of factory agreements. The lock-out is increasingly becoming the form of ‘direct action’ used by the organised employers against the organised working masses. The unions must fight the closure of factories and demand that the workers have the right to investigate the reasons behind the closure. Special control commissions to deal with raw materials, fuel and orders must be established to carry out on-the-spot checks of the raw materials in stock, the materials essential to production and the bank balance of the factory or institution.
Specially elected control committees must undertake a thorough investigation of financial relations between the concern in question and other concerns – this raises in a practical way the need to open the books.
7 Factory occupations and work-ins are also forms of struggle against the mass closure of factories and wage cuts. In view of the prevailing lack of consumer goods, it is particularly important that production be maintained and unions should not permit the deliberate closure of factories. Other methods of putting pressure on capital can and must be used, in accordance with local conditions, the industrial and political situation, and the intensity of the social struggle. The administration of factories occupied by workers should be placed in the hands of factory committees and union representatives specially picked for the purpose.
8 The economic struggle should be fought around the slogan of raising wages and working conditions far above pre-war levels. Attempts to reintroduce pre-war working conditions must be resisted in a determined and revolutionary manner. The working class must be compensated for the privations of war-time by an increase in wages and an improvement in labour conditions. Capitalist arguments about foreign competition should always be disregarded: the revolutionary trade unions must approach the question of wages and labour conditions from the standpoint of the protection and the welfare of the labour force and not from the standpoint of competition between the exploiters of different nations.
9 If capitalist policy, as a result of the economic crisis, is leading to wage cuts, the revolutionary trade unions should make sure that their forces are not divided by wages being lowered first in one factory then in another. The workers in the socially useful branches of the economy (miners, railway workers, electricity and gas workers) must struggle from the start so that the resistance to the capitalist attack affects the key centres of the country’s economic life. All types of resistance, from guerrilla actions to general national strikes of individual basic industries, can be used.
10 The trade unions must consider in practical terms the question of preparing and organising industrial strike action in particular industries on an international scale. The temporary standstill on an international scale of transport or coal-mining is a powerful weapon against the reactionary intentions of the bourgeoisie. The trade unions must follow world events closely in order to choose the most appropriate moment for economic struggle. They must not for a moment forget that international action of any kind is only possible with the formation of international trade unions that are genuinely revolutionary and have nothing in common with the scab Amsterdam International.
11 The revolutionary movement must strongly criticise the absolute faith in the value of collective agreements preached by opportunists everywhere. The collective agreement is nothing more than an armistice. The owners always violate these agreements at the earliest opportunity. This religious attitude towards collective agreements is evidence that bourgeois ideology is firmly rooted in the minds of the leaders of the working class. Revolutionary trade unions must not reject collective agreements, but they must understand that their value is limited, and must be prepared to break the agreements when this benefits the working class.
12 The struggle of the workers’ organisations against the individual employer or groups of employers should, while adapting itself to national and local conditions, also draw on all the experience acquired in previous struggles for working-class emancipation. Every important strike, for example, needs to be thoroughly prepared. Furthermore, from the outset the workers must form special groups to fight the strike-breakers and combat the provocative action of the various kinds of right-wing organisation which are encouraged by the bourgeois governments. The Fascists in Italy, the German technical emergency relief, the civilian organisations in France and Britain whose membership is composed of former officers and N.C.O.s – all these organisations have as their object the destruction and suppression of all working-class activity, not only by providing scab labour, but by smashing the working-class organisations and getting rid of their leaders. In such situations the organisation of special strike militias and special self-defence groups is a matter of life and death.
13 These defence organisations should not only resist the factory owners and the strike-breaking organisations – they should take the initiative in stopping the dispatch of goods to and from the factory where the strike is in progress. The transport workers’ union should play a particularly prominent role in such activity: it is its responsibility to hold up goods in transit, which can only be done, however, with the full support of all the workers in the area.
14 In the coming period the entire economic struggle of the working class must be conducted around the slogan of workers’ control over production. The workers should fight for the immediate introduction of workers’ control and not wait for the government and the ruling classes to think up some alternative. An uncompromising struggle has to be waged against all attempts by the ruling classes and the reformists to create intermediary labour associations and control commissions. Only when strict control over production is introduced can results be achieved. The revolutionary trade unions must resolutely fight against the way the leaders of the traditional unions, aided and abetted by the ruling class, use the idea of ‘nationalisation’ to blackmail and swindle the workers.
These gentlemen talk about peaceful socialisation only to divert the workers from revolutionary activity and social revolution.
15 Ideas of profit-sharing are put forward in order to play on the petty-bourgeois aspirations of the workers, diverting their attention from their long-term goals. Profit-sharing means that workers receive an insignificant part of the surplus value they produce, and the idea should therefore be subjected to harsh and rigorous criticism. “Not profit-sharing, but an end to capitalist profit” should be the slogan of the revolutionary unions.
16 In order to reduce or break the fighting power of the working class, the bourgeois states have resorted, under the pretence of protecting vital industries, to the temporary militarisation of industrial factories and whole branches of industry. Compulsory arbitration and conciliation commissions have been introduced, allegedly to prevent economic crises, but in actual fact to defend capital. In the interests of capital, direct taxation has been introduced, which places the burden of the war expenditure entirely on the shoulders of the workers and turns the employer into a tax-collector. The trade unions must put up a fierce fight against these state measures that serve only the interests of the capitalist class.
17 When they struggle for better labour conditions and living standards for the masses and the introduction of workers’ control, the Red unions should remember that these problems cannot be lastingly settled within the framework of capitalist relations. As the revolutionary trade unions win concessions from the ruling classes, step by step, forcing them to pass social legislation, they must make it clear to the working masses that only the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat can solve the social question. They must use every action, every local strike, every conflict, however minor, to argue their point. They must draw the lessons from the experience of struggle, raising the consciousness of the rank and file and preparing the workers for the time when it will be necessary and possible to achieve the social revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
18 Every economic struggle is a political struggle, i.e., a struggle that concerns the class as a whole. However great working-class participation, the struggle can only be revolutionary and bring the proletariat maximum benefit if the revolutionary trade unions work in a close and unified fashion with the Communist Party of the country in question. The theory and practice of dividing the working-class struggle into two independent halves is extremely harmful, particularly in the present revolutionary situation. Every action requires the greatest possible concentration of forces, which can only be achieved if the working class, and all its Communist and revolutionary elements, give their utmost to the revolutionary struggle. If the Communist Parties and the revolutionary class-conscious trade unions work separately, their action is doomed to failure and defeat. It is for this reason that unity of action and close contact between the Communist Parties and the trade unions are prerequisites for success in the struggle against capitalism.
Markin comment:
Some anniversaries, like those marking the publication of a book, play or poem, are worthy of remembrance every five, ten, or twenty-five years. Other more world historic events like the remembrance of the Paris Commune of 1871, the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1917, and, as here, the founding of the Communist International (also known as the Third International, Comintern, and CI) in 1919 are worthy of yearly attention. Why is that so in the case of the long departed (1943, by Stalin fiat) and, at the end unlamented, Comintern? That is what this year’s remembrance, through CI documentation and other commentary, will attempt to impart on those leftist militants who are serious about studying the lessons of our revolutionary, our communist revolutionary past.
No question that the old injunction of Marx and Engels as early as the Communist Manifesto that the workers of the world needed to unite would have been hollow, and reduced to hortatory holiday speechifying (there was enough of that, as it was) without an organization expression. And they, Marx and Engels, fitfully made their efforts with the all-encompassing pan-working class First International. Later the less all encompassing but still party of the whole class-oriented socialist Second International made important, if limited, contributions to fulfilling that slogan before the advent of world imperialism left its outlook wanting, very wanting.
The Third International thus was created, as mentioned in one of the commentaries in this series, to pick up the fallen banner of international socialism after the betrayals of the Second International. More importantly, it was the first international organization that took upon itself in its early, heroic revolutionary days, at least, the strategic question of how to make, and win, a revolution in the age of world imperialism. The Trotsky-led effort of creating a Fourth International in the 1930s, somewhat stillborn as it turned out to be, nevertheless based itself, correctly, on those early days of the Comintern. So in some of the specific details of the posts in this year’s series, highlighting the 90th anniversary of the Third World Congress this is “just” history, but right underneath, and not far underneath at that, are rich lessons for us to ponder today.
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Third Congress of the Communist International
The Communist International and the Red International of Trade Unions
The Struggle Against the Amsterdam (scab) Trade-Union International
Source: Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congress of the Third International, translated by Alix Holt and Barbara Holland. Ink Links 1980;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
12 July 1921
I
The bourgeoisie keeps the working class enslaved not only by means of naked force, but also by subtle deception. In the hands of the bourgeoisie, the school, the church, parliament, art, literature, the daily press – all become powerful means of duping the working masses and spreading the ideas of the bourgeoisie into the proletarian milieu.
One of the ideas which the ruling classes have succeeded in inculcating into the working masses is trade-union neutrality – the idea that trade unions are non-political organisations and should have no party affiliations.
Over recent decades and, in particular, since the end of the imperialist war, the trade unions in Europe and America have become the largest of the proletarian organisations, in some countries uniting the entire working class. The bourgeoisie is well aware that the future of the capitalist system in the next few years depends on the extent to which the trade unions free themselves from bourgeois influences. Hence the frantic efforts of the international bourgeoisie and its social-democratic hangers-on to maintain, at all costs, the hold of bourgeois social democratic ideology over the trade unions.
As the bourgeoisie cannot openly call on the workers’ trade unions to support the bourgeois parties, it urges the unions not to support any party, the revolutionary Communist Party included. The sole aim of the bourgeoisie, however, is to prevent the trade unions from supporting the Communist Party.
The idea that trade unions should be neutral and apolitical has a long history. For decades the trade unions of Great Britain, Germany, America and other countries have believed in this idea. The priest-ridden Christian trade unions, the leaders of the bourgeois Hirsch Duncker trade unions, the respectable and peace-loving British trade unions, the members of the free trade unions of Germany and many syndicalists – all have come to accept it. Legien, Gompers, Jouhaux, etc. have been preaching neutrality for years.
In reality the trade unions have never been and could never have been neutral, even had they tried. Not only is trade-union neutrality harmful to the working class, but it cannot possibly be maintained. In the struggle between capital and labour, no mass workers’ organisation can remain neutral. The trade unions cannot remain uncommitted in their relations with the bourgeois parties and the parties of the proletariat. The leaders of the bourgeoisie are perfectly aware of this. But, just as it is essential to the bourgeoisie that the masses believe in life after death, so is it essential that they also believe that trade unions can be apolitical organisations and neutral in their relations with the workers’ Communist Party. In order to maintain its rule and squeeze surplus value from the workers, the bourgeoisie needs not only the priest, the policeman, the general and the informer, but also the trade-union bureaucrat and the kind of ‘workers” leader that teaches trade-unionists the virtues of neutrality and non-participation in political struggle.
Even before the imperialist war broke out, the more politically educated workers in Europe and America had begun to see through the idea of neutrality. The inadequacy of this teaching became even more obvious as the class contradictions deepened. When the imperialist slaughter began, the old trade-union leaders were forced to drop their masks of neutrality and openly take sides, each with their own national bourgeoisie.
During the imperialist war the social democrats and syndicalists who had for years preached that trade unions were apolitical placed their organisations at the service of the murderous policy of the bourgeois parties; those who had yesterday preached trade-union ‘neutrality’ now became the undisguised agents of certain political parties, but parties of the bourgeoisie, not parties of the working class.
Now that the imperialist war has ended, these same social-democratic and syndicalist trade-union leaders are trying once more to hide behind the mask of trade-union neutrality. Now that the war emergency is over, these agents of the bourgeoisie are adapting themselves to the new situation; they are trying to divert the workers from the path of revolution onto a path that profits the bourgeoisie alone.
Economics and politics are inseparably linked. This connection is particularly close in epochs such as the present. All important questions of political life should interest not only the workers’ party, but also the proletarian trade unions, and, similarly, all important economic questions should interest both trade union and workers’ party. When the French imperialist government calls up certain age-groups in order to occupy the Ruhr basin and crush Germany, can the French proletarian and trade-union movement say that this is a purely political question which does not concern the trade unions? Can a revolutionary French trade-unionist remain neutral on such a question? Or, to take another example: if a purely economic movement develops in Britain such as the present coal-miners’ strike, can the Communist Party say that this is just a trade-union question that does not concern it? At a time when millions of unemployed are faced with the struggle against poverty and need, when the question of requisitioning the homes of the bourgeoisie to relieve the housing shortage has to be raised, when the broad masses of workers are forced by circumstances to consider the question of arming the proletariat, when, first in one country and then in another, the workers organise the seizure of factories – at such a time, to say that the trade unions must not interfere in the political struggle and must remain neutral in relation to political parties means in practice to serve the bourgeoisie.
Despite the wide variety of names adopted by the political parties in Europe and in America, they can, on the whole, be divided into three groups: 1) parties of the bourgeoisie 2) parties of the petty bourgeoisie (mainly the social-democratic parties) and 3) parties of the proletariat (the Communists). Those trade unions which proclaim themselves neutral in relation to the three above-mentioned groups of parties in practice support the parties of the petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie.
II
The Amsterdam Trade-Union International is the organisation in which the Second International and the Two-and-a-Half International have met and joined hands. The bourgeoisie everywhere looks to this organisation with hope and trust. The neutrality of the trade unions is the fundamental principle of the IFTU. It is no accident that the bourgeoisie and its hangers-on – the social democrats and the right-wing syndicalists – are trying to rally the broad working masses in Western Europe and America under the slogan of trade-union neutrality. The Second International, which was more obviously political and openly went over to the side of the bourgeoisie, has completely collapsed, while the IFTU, which is attempting to hide its true colours once more behind the cover of neutrality, is having a certain success. Under the flag of neutrality, the IFTU carries out the dirtiest and most difficult missions of the bourgeoisie. The miners’ strike in Britain, for example, was crushed by the infamous J.H. Thomas, who is both chairman of the Second International and one of the best-known leaders of the IFTU. The IFTU is a party to the lowering of workers’ wages and to the organised robbery of the German workers as payment for the sins of the German imperialist bourgeoisie.
The workers’ leaders – Leipart, Grassman, Albert Thomas, Jouhaux, J.H. Thomas, Wissell, Bauer, and Robert Schmidt – have agreed on a division of labour. Some of them, who were previously leaders of the trade unions, have now entered bourgeois governments, serving as ministers, commissars, etc., while others, of the same flesh and blood, head the IFTU and preach neutrality in the political struggle to their trade-union members.
The IFTU is at the present time the main supporter of international capital. The struggle against capitalism cannot be waged successfully unless the need to fight this conception of the trade unions as apolitical and neutral is grasped. Before the most effective methods of struggle against the IFTU can be worked out, it is essential first and foremost to establish a clear and exact definition of the relations between the Party and the trade unions in each country.
III
The Communist Party is the vanguard of the proletariat. Its members have fully understood how the proletariat is to be liberated from capitalist oppression and have consciously accepted the Communist programme.
Trade unions are mass organisations of the proletariat. They are increasingly developed into organisations which unite all the workers of a given branch of industry; they include in their ranks not only dedicated Communists, but also workers who have little interest in politics and workers who are politically backward and who only gradually, through their own experience, come to understand what Communism means. In many respects the role of the trade union varies according to the stage the revolution has reached. But at every stage the trade unions are organisations which rally broader layers of the masses than does the Party. Their relation to the Party is to some extent like that of the provinces to the centre. In the period before the seizure of power, the truly revolutionary trade unions organise the workers, primarily on an economic basis, to fight for gains which can be won under capitalism. However, the main object of all their activity must be the organisation of the proletarian struggle to overthrow capitalism by proletarian revolution. At a time of revolution the genuinely revolutionary trade unions work closely with the Party; they organise the masses to attack capitalist strongholds and are responsible for laying the foundations of socialist production. After power has been won and consolidated, economic organisation becomes the central focus of trade-union work. The unions devote almost all their forces to the task of organising the economy on a socialist basis and are effectively transformed into a practical school of Communism. At all three stages of the struggle the trade unions must support the proletarian vanguard – the Communist Party – which leads the struggle of the proletariat. To achieve this end, the Communists and their sympathisers must organise cells within the trade unions; these cells are completely subordinate to the Communist Party as a whole.
The tactic formulated by the Second Congress of the Communist International of setting up Communist cells in each trade union has over the past year proved itself to be correct. Significant results have been achieved in Germany, Britain, France and Italy and in a number of other countries. The fact that considerable numbers of the less experienced workers have recently been leaving the free unions in Germany, out of disappointment at not receiving any direct advantages, should not alter the principled position taken by the Communist International on the participation of Communists in the trade-union movement. Communists must explain to the proletariat that their problems can be answered not by leaving the old trade unions for new ones, or by staying outside the unions, but by revolutionising the trade unions, ridding them of reformist influence and the treacherous reformist leaders, and transforming them into a genuine stronghold of the revolutionary proletariat.
IV
The principal task of all Communists over the next period, is to wage a firm and vigorous struggle to win the majority of the workers organised in the trade unions. The Communist must not be discouraged by the present reactionary mood of the labour unions, but must try to overcome all resistance and by actively participating in their day-to-day struggle, win the unions to Communism. The true measure of the strength of a Communist Party is the influence it has on the mass of trade-unionists. The Party must learn how to influence the unions without being tempted to put itself forward as their guardian. Only the Communist cells of the union are subject to Party control; the union as such is independent of any control. The Communists have to rely on the persistent, selfless and intelligent work on the part of the Communist trade-union cells in order to make the trade unions as a whole willing and eager to follow their advice.
In France the trade unions are at present going through a period of healthy ferment. The working class is gradually beginning to recover strength after the crisis in its ranks, and is learning to recognise the treachery of the social-reformists and syndicalists for what it is.
Some of the revolutionary syndicalists in France are still prejudiced against the idea of political struggle and a proletarian political party. They still subscribe to the principle of neutrality as expressed in the well-known Amiens Charter of 1906. This incorrect and vulnerable position held by a wing of the revolutionary syndicalists is potentially dangerous for the movement. If this wing were to gain the majority in the unions, it would not know how to act and would be helpless against the agents of capital, the Jouhauxs, the Dumoulins, etc.
The revolutionary syndicalists will lack a firm line until the Communist Party itself develops a consistent policy. The French Communist Party must seek to co-operate in a friendly fashion with the most politically advanced of the revolutionary syndicalists. It is, however, essential that the Party rely primarily on its own members, forming Communist cells wherever it has two or three members. The Party must initiate an immediate agitational campaign against the concept of neutrality. It must explain in a friendly but firm way the incorrect aspects of revolutionary syndicalism. This is the only approach that can revolutionise the French trade-union movement and bring about the close co-operation of the Party and the movement.
In Italy the situation has certain specific aspects. The rank-and-file members of the trade unions are revolutionary, but the leadership of the Confederazione del Lavoro is in the hands of out-and-out reformists and centrists whose sympathies are with the IFTU. The first task of the Italian Communists is therefore to organise a firm struggle within the trade unions around day-to-day issues to expose systematically and patiently the treachery and indecision of the leaders, thereby wresting the trade unions from their control.
The Italian Communists should adopt the same attitude towards the revolutionary syndicalists as the French Communists.
In Spain the trade-union movement is very revolutionary in outlook, but has no clearly defined goal. The Communist Party is young and relatively weak. The Communists must do everything possible to secure a firm footing in the trade unions, giving active support and advice, conducting a vigorous campaign of agitation within the unions and establishing firm links between their party and the unions as a first step towards co-ordinating the struggle.
Important developments are taking place within the British trade-union movement. The unions are rapidly adopting a revolutionary orientation. The mass movement is growing, and the old trade-union leaders are being thrust aside. The Party must do its utmost to establish itself firmly in the largest unions (the miners’ unions etc.). Party members must be active in their unions and must work consistently and hard to extend Communist influence. Every effort must be made to forge closer contacts with the masses.
The same revolutionary process is occurring in America, though more slowly. Communists must on no account leave the ranks of the reactionary Federation of Labour [composed in the main of skilled workers]. On the contrary, they should seek to gain a foothold in the old trade unions with the aim of revolutionising them. It is vital that they work with the IWW members most sympathetic to the Party; this does not, however, preclude arguing against the IWW’s political positions.
In Japan abroad trade-union movement is developing spontaneously, but so far no clear leadership has emerged. Japanese Communists must support this movement and exert a Marxist influence upon it.
In Czechoslovakia our Party has the support of the majority of the working class, but the trade-union movement is still largely in the hands of the social-patriots, and is furthermore split along ethnic lines. This is the result of poor organisation and indecisive policies on our part. The Party must make a great effort to improve the situation and win the leadership of the trade-union movement. The formation of Communist cells in the unions and of a central trade-union body for Communists of all nationalities is absolutely essential. Every effort must also be made to unite the various politically divided unions.
In Austria and Belgium the social-patriots have skilfully managed to achieve a firm influence on the trade unions. In these two countries the trade-union movement is the main arena of struggle, and therefore the Communists should direct all their attention to this area of work.
In Norway the Party has the support of the majority of workers and must now strengthen its position in the trade unions and rid the leadership of its centrist elements.
In Sweden the Party has to contend not only with reformism, but also with petty-bourgeois currents in the socialist movement.
In Germany the Party is on the right road to winning over the trade unions gradually. On no account should concessions be made to those who advocate withdrawal from the trade unions. This would play into the hands of the social-patriots. All attempts to exclude Communists from the unions must be stubbornly resisted, and every effort must be made to win the majority of the organised workers.
V
These considerations determine the relations to be established between the Communist International on the one hand and the Red Trade-Union International on the other.
It is the task of the Communist International to direct not only the political struggle of the proletariat in the narrow sense of the word, but the general struggle for liberation, whatever forms it may take. The Communist International must be more than the arithmetical total of the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of the various countries. The Communist International must inspire and unite the work and struggle of all proletarian organisations, both the purely political and the trade-union, co-operative, Soviet and cultural organisations, etc.
The RILU, unlike the scab Amsterdam International, can in no circumstances stand above politics or adopt an attitude of neutrality. Any organisation that wanted to be neutral in relation to the II, the “Two-and-a-Half” and III Internationals would inevitably become a pawn in the hands of the bourgeoisie. The programme of action of the International Council of the Red Trade Unions which is outlined below, and which the Third World Congress of the Communist International is to present to the first Congress of the Red Trade Unions, will be defended in practice by the Communist Parties and the Communist International alone. For this reason, if for no other, the Red trade unions that wish to revolutionise the trade-union movement in every country and honestly and firmly carry out the movement’s new tasks will have to work in close contact with the Communist Party, and the International Council of Red Trade Unions will have to co-ordinate all its work with that of the Communist International.
The respect for neutrality, independence, apoliticism and non-partisanship that some honest revolutionary syndicalists in France, Spain, Italy and certain other countries harbour is nothing other than a concession to bourgeois ideology. The Red trade unions will be incapable of defeating the scab Amsterdam International or of overthrowing capitalism unless they repudiate once and for all the bourgeois ideas of independence and neutrality.
In order to conserve strength and concentrate striking power, the ideal solution would be the formation of a single proletarian International, uniting in its ranks both political parties and other forms of working-class organisation. Undoubtedly this is the organisation of the future. However, in the present transitional period, given the diverse types of trade union that actually exist, the essential need is for an independent international association of Red trade unions which supports the general outline of the platform of the Communist International, but sets less strict conditions for membership than the Communist International can allow.
The Third Congress of the Communist International pledges wholehearted support to the International Council of Red Trade Unions which is to be organised along these lines. To ensure closer contact between the Communist International and the RILU, the Third Congress of the Communist International proposes that it should be permanently represented by three members on the International Council of Red Trade Unions and vice versa.
The programme of action which the Communist International would like to see accepted by the Constituent World Congress of the Red Trade Unions is along the following lines:
Programme of Action
1 The acute world economic crisis, the catastrophic fall of wholesale prices, the overproduction of goods coupled with their actual scarcity, the aggressive anti-working-class policy pursued by the bourgeoisie, which aims at lowering wages and throwing the workers back decades – all this has led to discontent among the masses on the one hand and to the bankruptcy of the old trade unions and their methods of struggle on the other. The revolutionary, class-conscious trade unions the world over are confronted with new tasks. In this period of capitalist disintegration new forms of economic struggle have to be adopted and the trade unions have to pursue an aggressive economic policy in order to counter the capitalist attack and go over to the offensive.
2 The main tactic of the trade unions has to be the direct action of the revolutionary masses and their organisations against the capitalist system. The gains the workers make are in direct proportion to the degree of direct action taken and of revolutionary pressure exerted by the masses. By direct action is meant all forms of direct pressure on the employers and the state – boycotts, strikes, street demonstrations, the seizure of factories, armed insurrection and other revolutionary activities which unite the working class in the struggle for socialism. The aim of the revolutionary class trade unions is therefore to make direct action an instrument in the education and military training of the working masses for the social revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
3 The most recent years of struggle have shown especially clearly the weakness of the trade-union organisations. The fact that workers in the same enterprise belong to several different unions reduces their ability to struggle. An unremitting fight therefore has to be fought to restructure the unions so that each union represents a whole branch of industry instead of a single trade. “Only one union in a factory” – this is the organisational slogan. The fusion of unions should be carried out in a revolutionary way – the question should be discussed directly by the members of the unions at the factories and subsequently by district and regional conferences and national congresses.
4 Each factory must become a stronghold of the revolution. The traditional forms of contact between rank-and-file members of the unions (through dues collectors, representatives, delegates) must be superseded by the formation of factory committees. All workers, whatever their political convictions, should participate in the election of the factory committees. RILU supporters should strive to involve all the workers of the factory in the elections of their representative body. Any attempt to elect exclusively like-minded comrades to the factory committees, thus excluding the broad masses who remain outside the Party, should be sharply condemned. This would be a Party cell rather than a factory committee. The revolutionary workers must influence the general meeting and the factory committee through the Party cells, the committees of action and the work of their rank-and-file members.
5 The first question which needs to be put before the workers and the factory committees is the issue of maintenance money that employers should pay workers made redundant. In no circumstance should factory owners be allowed to throw workers out onto the streets without bearing any of the consequences. They ought to pay full redundancy pay. The unemployed and, to an even greater extent, the employed workers should be organised around this question. They should be shown that the problem of unemployment cannot be solved as long as capitalist relations exist and that the best method of beating unemployment is to fight for social revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
6 At the present time the closure of factories and the reduction of the working day are two of the most important weapons used by the bourgeoisie to force the workers to accept lower wages, longer hours and the ending of factory agreements. The lock-out is increasingly becoming the form of ‘direct action’ used by the organised employers against the organised working masses. The unions must fight the closure of factories and demand that the workers have the right to investigate the reasons behind the closure. Special control commissions to deal with raw materials, fuel and orders must be established to carry out on-the-spot checks of the raw materials in stock, the materials essential to production and the bank balance of the factory or institution.
Specially elected control committees must undertake a thorough investigation of financial relations between the concern in question and other concerns – this raises in a practical way the need to open the books.
7 Factory occupations and work-ins are also forms of struggle against the mass closure of factories and wage cuts. In view of the prevailing lack of consumer goods, it is particularly important that production be maintained and unions should not permit the deliberate closure of factories. Other methods of putting pressure on capital can and must be used, in accordance with local conditions, the industrial and political situation, and the intensity of the social struggle. The administration of factories occupied by workers should be placed in the hands of factory committees and union representatives specially picked for the purpose.
8 The economic struggle should be fought around the slogan of raising wages and working conditions far above pre-war levels. Attempts to reintroduce pre-war working conditions must be resisted in a determined and revolutionary manner. The working class must be compensated for the privations of war-time by an increase in wages and an improvement in labour conditions. Capitalist arguments about foreign competition should always be disregarded: the revolutionary trade unions must approach the question of wages and labour conditions from the standpoint of the protection and the welfare of the labour force and not from the standpoint of competition between the exploiters of different nations.
9 If capitalist policy, as a result of the economic crisis, is leading to wage cuts, the revolutionary trade unions should make sure that their forces are not divided by wages being lowered first in one factory then in another. The workers in the socially useful branches of the economy (miners, railway workers, electricity and gas workers) must struggle from the start so that the resistance to the capitalist attack affects the key centres of the country’s economic life. All types of resistance, from guerrilla actions to general national strikes of individual basic industries, can be used.
10 The trade unions must consider in practical terms the question of preparing and organising industrial strike action in particular industries on an international scale. The temporary standstill on an international scale of transport or coal-mining is a powerful weapon against the reactionary intentions of the bourgeoisie. The trade unions must follow world events closely in order to choose the most appropriate moment for economic struggle. They must not for a moment forget that international action of any kind is only possible with the formation of international trade unions that are genuinely revolutionary and have nothing in common with the scab Amsterdam International.
11 The revolutionary movement must strongly criticise the absolute faith in the value of collective agreements preached by opportunists everywhere. The collective agreement is nothing more than an armistice. The owners always violate these agreements at the earliest opportunity. This religious attitude towards collective agreements is evidence that bourgeois ideology is firmly rooted in the minds of the leaders of the working class. Revolutionary trade unions must not reject collective agreements, but they must understand that their value is limited, and must be prepared to break the agreements when this benefits the working class.
12 The struggle of the workers’ organisations against the individual employer or groups of employers should, while adapting itself to national and local conditions, also draw on all the experience acquired in previous struggles for working-class emancipation. Every important strike, for example, needs to be thoroughly prepared. Furthermore, from the outset the workers must form special groups to fight the strike-breakers and combat the provocative action of the various kinds of right-wing organisation which are encouraged by the bourgeois governments. The Fascists in Italy, the German technical emergency relief, the civilian organisations in France and Britain whose membership is composed of former officers and N.C.O.s – all these organisations have as their object the destruction and suppression of all working-class activity, not only by providing scab labour, but by smashing the working-class organisations and getting rid of their leaders. In such situations the organisation of special strike militias and special self-defence groups is a matter of life and death.
13 These defence organisations should not only resist the factory owners and the strike-breaking organisations – they should take the initiative in stopping the dispatch of goods to and from the factory where the strike is in progress. The transport workers’ union should play a particularly prominent role in such activity: it is its responsibility to hold up goods in transit, which can only be done, however, with the full support of all the workers in the area.
14 In the coming period the entire economic struggle of the working class must be conducted around the slogan of workers’ control over production. The workers should fight for the immediate introduction of workers’ control and not wait for the government and the ruling classes to think up some alternative. An uncompromising struggle has to be waged against all attempts by the ruling classes and the reformists to create intermediary labour associations and control commissions. Only when strict control over production is introduced can results be achieved. The revolutionary trade unions must resolutely fight against the way the leaders of the traditional unions, aided and abetted by the ruling class, use the idea of ‘nationalisation’ to blackmail and swindle the workers.
These gentlemen talk about peaceful socialisation only to divert the workers from revolutionary activity and social revolution.
15 Ideas of profit-sharing are put forward in order to play on the petty-bourgeois aspirations of the workers, diverting their attention from their long-term goals. Profit-sharing means that workers receive an insignificant part of the surplus value they produce, and the idea should therefore be subjected to harsh and rigorous criticism. “Not profit-sharing, but an end to capitalist profit” should be the slogan of the revolutionary unions.
16 In order to reduce or break the fighting power of the working class, the bourgeois states have resorted, under the pretence of protecting vital industries, to the temporary militarisation of industrial factories and whole branches of industry. Compulsory arbitration and conciliation commissions have been introduced, allegedly to prevent economic crises, but in actual fact to defend capital. In the interests of capital, direct taxation has been introduced, which places the burden of the war expenditure entirely on the shoulders of the workers and turns the employer into a tax-collector. The trade unions must put up a fierce fight against these state measures that serve only the interests of the capitalist class.
17 When they struggle for better labour conditions and living standards for the masses and the introduction of workers’ control, the Red unions should remember that these problems cannot be lastingly settled within the framework of capitalist relations. As the revolutionary trade unions win concessions from the ruling classes, step by step, forcing them to pass social legislation, they must make it clear to the working masses that only the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat can solve the social question. They must use every action, every local strike, every conflict, however minor, to argue their point. They must draw the lessons from the experience of struggle, raising the consciousness of the rank and file and preparing the workers for the time when it will be necessary and possible to achieve the social revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
18 Every economic struggle is a political struggle, i.e., a struggle that concerns the class as a whole. However great working-class participation, the struggle can only be revolutionary and bring the proletariat maximum benefit if the revolutionary trade unions work in a close and unified fashion with the Communist Party of the country in question. The theory and practice of dividing the working-class struggle into two independent halves is extremely harmful, particularly in the present revolutionary situation. Every action requires the greatest possible concentration of forces, which can only be achieved if the working class, and all its Communist and revolutionary elements, give their utmost to the revolutionary struggle. If the Communist Parties and the revolutionary class-conscious trade unions work separately, their action is doomed to failure and defeat. It is for this reason that unity of action and close contact between the Communist Parties and the trade unions are prerequisites for success in the struggle against capitalism.
Major Media Promote War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman- A Guest Commentary
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Major Media Promote War on Libya
Major Media Promote War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman
When imperial America wants war, peace advocates are shut out by official rhetoric and hawkish media reports supporting militarism, not diplomatic efforts to achieve peace. Those for it aren't heard. Hugo Chavez's government is one. On February 28, Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Nicolas Maduro, warned against belligerence saying:
"We would be against any military intervention against the Arabic people of Libya, and I'm sure that all peoples of the world would support a struggle against any interventionism that some powerful countries would commit against it....Arabic people who are in a process of rebellion, seeking a better destiny, (can) find their way to peace. (Venezuelans understand) very difficult times, (but have) gone about finding our ways to independence, democracy, and freedom, which in our case" is Bolarivarianism.
"Just as we were against the invasion of Iraq and the massacre of the Palestinian people of Gaza, we would be against any military (attack or) invasion of Libya."
Chavez added: We "want peace for this country and for the peoples of the world. Those who immediately condemn Libya don't talk about (Israel's) bombing (of Gaza, America assault on) Fallujah, and the thousands and thousands of deaths including children, women, and whole families. They are quiet about the bombing and massacres in Iraq, in Afghanistan, so they don't have the right to condemn anyone," especially from unverified reports.
Amidst hawkish official rhetoric and supportive media reports, Chavez and Maduro are shut out, unheard voices in the wilderness outside Venezuela and parts of Latin America.
Official US Policy: War Yes, Peace No
For imperial America, giving peace a chance isn't an option when war is planned to destroy another nation, replace its leader with a more amenable one, and plunder its resources. In Libya, its to exploit its vast energy reserves and people, commodities for greater profit.
A previous article said Gaddafi without question is despotic, governing by "fear and cronyism," treating Libya as his "private estate," as well as spawning a hierarchy of corrupt officials, disdainful of popular interests.
The same holds for dozens of other countries, most of which Washington supports, some as close allies. Ones allied with America escape media scrutiny, their crimes airbrushed from daily reports. Enemies, however, are pilloried, including by unverified misreporting, willfully distorting the truth, violating good journalism principles.
Until it closed at year end 2005, Chicago's famed City News Bureau gave young reporters rigorous training, explained in its notable principle: "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out with two independent sources." In other words, get it right or not at all, what's absent in today's deplorable reporting, from Fox to The New York Times, BBC and others, offering managed, not real news and information.
Fox News especially, as America's official voice of right wing politics. On US television, it's in full battle mode, beating the drums of war, its staff under strict management guidelines, manipulating facts to be hardline.
As a result, news anchor Jon Scott said, "If I were President Obama, I would unilaterally" impose a no-fly zone, no matter that doing so is an act of war. Bill O'Reilly called Obama's position "beyond wimpy." Sean Hannity wonders when America will attack Libya, calling Obama "extraordinarily weak." Glenn Beck said Wisconsin protests prove the Caliphate's presence in America. Other hosts are just as extreme. No wonder Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR) calls Fox "the most biased name in news." It reports. It decides. Truth is nowhere in sight.
The New York Times editorial headlined, "Qaddafi's Crimes and Fantasies," matched Fox, saying:
His "crimes continue to mount." Citing unverified reports, it said "Libyan Air Force warplanes bombed rebel-controlled areas in the eastern part of the country. Libyan special forces mounted ground assaults on two breakaway cities near the capital. (Finally), the United States (EU and UN want) Qaddafi and his cronies to go (and) called on the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes."
This is the same paper that exonerated Washington and Britain for fabricating Iraq WMD intelligence to justify war, citing London's whitewash Hutton inquiry in its January 29, 2004 editorial headlined, "Testing Two Leaders; Tony Blair, Vindicated."
Despite clear indictable evidence, The Times endorsed the findings for being "fully consistent with the information available to British intelligence (and Washington) at that time and that no claims then known to be false or unreliable were concluded." In fact, they were independently exposed as false and misleading, though nonetheless used to wage war.
Moreover, discredited reporter Judith Miller wrote daily propaganda, functioning as a Pentagon press agent, not a legitimate journalist. Commenting on her earlier, Alex Cockburn said:
"With Miller, we (sunk) to the level of straight press handout. Lay all Judith Miller....stories end to end, from late 2001 to June 2003, and you (got) a desolate picture of a reporter with an agenda, both manipulating and being manipulated by US government officials, Iraqi exiles and defectors, an entire Noah's Ark of scam-artists."
Worst of all was The Times itself for giving her daily front page space, then never adequately apologizing when their complicity was exposed. Powerful media outlets never have to say they're sorry. They stay in full battle mode against new targets.
Now Times editors have the audacity to advocate Libyan intervention for reasons other than humanitarian, including asset freezes, a no-fly zone, harsh sanctions, travel bans, encouraged insurrection, criminal prosecution, stopping just short of endorsing war, but expect that to change if Washington attacks.
The Washington Post is just as belligerent, its February 21 editorial headlined, "Moammar Gaddafi must pay for atrocities," saying:
His "beleaguered dictatorship (is) waging war against its own people and committing atrocities that demand not just condemnation but action by the outside world," accusing Gaddafi of committing genocide based on mostly unverified reports, according to reliable independent in-country sources. Nonetheless, the Post endorses "regime change" and International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution, ignoring far greater Bush and Obama administration crimes, ongoing daily but not reported.
On March 2, a Wall Street Journal editorial headlined, "The Reluctant American," saying:
"The moral and strategic case for US leadership in Libya is obvious. A terrorist regime is slaughtering its people who will appreciate America's support and protection. A bloody civil war could create chaos that turns Libya into a northern African failed state, an ideal home for terrorist groups. The US should support a provisional government that can take over when the regime collapses....What is Obama waiting for?"
Ask beleaguered Iraqis and Afghans if they appreciate US intervention, occupation, mass destruction, genocide, depravation, disease, and for many living early deaths! Ask them if they recommend this for Libyans! Ask them if they prefer America to Saddam and Taliban rulers!
Ask Kosovars and Serbs! Ask Koreans and Southeast Asians with long memories! Ask Central and Latin Americans! Ask Somalis and other African nationals! Ask Palestinians! Ask Libyans if they know what awaits them if America intervenes! If not, explain and let them decide! It won't for Washington's military option, growing more imminent daily.
On February 28, New York writers Mark Landler and Thom Shanker headlined, "US Readies Military Options on Libya," saying:
"The United States began moving warships toward Libya and froze $30 billion in (its) assets on Monday," ahead of plundering them, Libyan oil, and other resources, not mentioned in The Times report.
Conflict looks increasingly likely. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton want Gaddafi out "without further violence or delay." "No option is off the table," said Clinton, stopping just short of declaring war. Secretaries of State can't do it. Neither can presidents, but it hasn't stopped them since December 8, 1941, the last time America legally went to war.
In meetings with NATO allies, said The Times, "European officials have resisted military action," but didn't rule it out. "Should NATO get involved in a civil war to the south of the Mediterranean," asked French Prime Minister Francosi Fillon? "It is a question that at least merits some reflection before being launched," weasel words perhaps ahead of proceeding.
Pentagon officials want an international action mandate, either from NATO or the UN, usually easily pressured to get. War winds are blowing. Expect anything ahead, especially if misreporting incites it the way it precedes all US wars.
Notable was Al Jazeera's March 1 report headlining: "Battles rage in Libya," saying:
Gaddifi's forces stepped up attacks, including "fighter jets bomb(ing) an ammunition depot in the eastern city of Ajdabiya." Up to 2,000 deaths were reported in Tripoli. Many thousands fled. Gaddafi remains defiant.
Most of what Al Jajeera and Western media report isn't verified. Yet it's inflammatory enough to stoke war for "humanitarian intervention," the usual bogus reason America and Western nations use, the same one earlier for Iraq, Afghanistan and other imperial interventions. Affected nations are never the same.
Breaching Libyan Sovereignty
Britain and Germany already launched air operations to evacuate their citizens. France is sending two or more planeloads of aid to opposition forces in Benghazi. Italy suspended its Libyan nonaggression treaty, saying the state no longer exists, an outrageous assertion.
In a BBC interview, Gaddafi called Western actions "betrayal," adding: "They have no morals." Indeed not and never did, despite Big Oil profiting handsomely in Libya, and Gaddafi offering his security forces for America's "war on terror."
Nonetheless, he's targeted for removal, State Department spokesman PJ Crowley saying US officials have "been reaching out...to a range of figures within the opposition." Hillary Clinton added: "We are going to be ready and prepared to offer any kind of assistance that anyone wishes to have from the US." Nothing is ruled out, including weapons, intervention and war.
Nothing is said about client regimes engaged in similar or worse practices, including killing, arresting, torturing, and otherwise abusing thousands of its citizens. Decades of Israeli atrocities are ignored. So are those of Iraq and Afghanistan puppet governments, proxy force belligerence in Somalia and elsewhere, and numerous global client states doing the same things.
Only outlier leaders are vilified, in Gaddafi's case an embraced one now betrayed for broader aims. Washington seeks greater regional dominance. Doing it requires compliant leaders, willing to let America and European nations colonize their countries, plunder their resources, exploit their people, and provide locations for new Pentagon bases. For six and half million Libyans, that awaits them as Washington moves in for the kill.
Final Comments
According to Russia Today (RT) television:
Russia's military has been monitoring Libya by satellite since unrest began for accurate information about what, in fact, is ongoing. Its Joint Staff confirms no evidence of air strikes or destruction on the ground. Reports from US media, BBC, other Western sources, and Al Jazeera are entirely bogus.
Writer Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a Middle East/Central Asian special maintains reliable Libyan contacts, essential for accurate accounts on the ground.
On March 2, he said the following:
-- "Qaddafi still has control over much of the country."
-- "There are claims that cities have fallen, but in reality old videos or (ones) of other cities are being shown (in airing) these reports....to the public."
-- "The words 'claim' and 'claimed' are now systematically being used....to (corroborate) distorted or incorrect information."
-- World attention is on Libya, excluding other vital events "in the Arab world - such as the continued protests and demands of the Egyptian people (and others regionally) for authentic democracy," jobs, better wages, and other social issues.
-- "Reports have been made (about) fighting in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, (saying) parts of it have fallen, when it has been peaceful for days."
-- "On February 26, 2011, claims were (falsely) made that all the main cities were not in Qaddafi's control." In fact, he controls the following ones: "Sabha (in central Libya), Sirt/Surt (on the coastal mid-point of Libya), Ghat (on the southern border with Algeria), Al-Jufra, Al-Azizya (close to Tripoli) and Tripoli itself."
-- Media reports ignore Qaddafi "trying to negotiate with the places not under his control."
-- Most important: Outrageous misreporting persists, "blowing the violence out of proportion to justify foreign intervention."
It's coming - Washington-led naked aggression justified as "humanitarian intervention." In fact, it's imperial lawlessness against another target before advancing to the next one.
While one-sidely focusing on Libya, Western media ignore the March 1 Amnesty International (AI) report titled, "Tunisia in Revolt: State Violence during Anti Government Protests," saying:
During December and January protests, Tunisian security forces engaged in "unlawful killings and acts of brutality....act(ing) with reckless disregard for human life in all too many cases," according to Malcolm Smart, AI's Middle East and North African program director.
"People detained by the security forces were also systematically beaten or subjected to other ill-treatment, according to (corroborated) evidence" obtained. Innocent bystanders were killed in cold blood, some shot from behind. Death, injury and arrest numbers are far higher than acknowledged. Major media sources, including Al Jazeera, largely suppress this.
Brutal Egyptian military treatment is also ignored, including mass arrests, disappearances and torture. An Egyptian human rights group said thousands are in military custody. Many have been beaten or tortured. US media ignored Egypt after Mubarak was ousted, despite protests, strikes and violence continuing after a brief quiet period.
On February 15, AI condemned Bahrain's "heavy-handed....excessive police force" violence, including killings against peaceful protesters. An eyewitness said police, without provocation, opened fire on demonstrators, wanting a new constitution and democratically elected government.
In its January 11 report titled, "Crackdown in Bahrain: human rights at the crossroads," AI cited serious human rights abuses, including suppressing free expression, closing critical web sites, and banning opposition publications, besides arrests, killings, beatings and other abuses.
US major media reports suppress client regime crimes. Only leaders Washington opposes draw attention, mostly by distorted misreporting. Major focus now is on Gaddafi to provide legitimacy for imperial intervention. As issue is replacing one despot with another willing to open Libya to Western colonization, ahead of regional expansion for greater plunder, exploitation and profits.
Arabs and North Africans want democratic change. Washington and Western allies plan raw power to suppress it. Battle lines are drawn. Sustained popular resistance is essential for real reform, what people want, not dark forces allied against them repressively, especially America treating all developing countries as exploitable low-hanging fruit. What better time than now to stop it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
Major Media Promote War on Libya
Major Media Promote War on Libya - by Stephen Lendman
When imperial America wants war, peace advocates are shut out by official rhetoric and hawkish media reports supporting militarism, not diplomatic efforts to achieve peace. Those for it aren't heard. Hugo Chavez's government is one. On February 28, Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Nicolas Maduro, warned against belligerence saying:
"We would be against any military intervention against the Arabic people of Libya, and I'm sure that all peoples of the world would support a struggle against any interventionism that some powerful countries would commit against it....Arabic people who are in a process of rebellion, seeking a better destiny, (can) find their way to peace. (Venezuelans understand) very difficult times, (but have) gone about finding our ways to independence, democracy, and freedom, which in our case" is Bolarivarianism.
"Just as we were against the invasion of Iraq and the massacre of the Palestinian people of Gaza, we would be against any military (attack or) invasion of Libya."
Chavez added: We "want peace for this country and for the peoples of the world. Those who immediately condemn Libya don't talk about (Israel's) bombing (of Gaza, America assault on) Fallujah, and the thousands and thousands of deaths including children, women, and whole families. They are quiet about the bombing and massacres in Iraq, in Afghanistan, so they don't have the right to condemn anyone," especially from unverified reports.
Amidst hawkish official rhetoric and supportive media reports, Chavez and Maduro are shut out, unheard voices in the wilderness outside Venezuela and parts of Latin America.
Official US Policy: War Yes, Peace No
For imperial America, giving peace a chance isn't an option when war is planned to destroy another nation, replace its leader with a more amenable one, and plunder its resources. In Libya, its to exploit its vast energy reserves and people, commodities for greater profit.
A previous article said Gaddafi without question is despotic, governing by "fear and cronyism," treating Libya as his "private estate," as well as spawning a hierarchy of corrupt officials, disdainful of popular interests.
The same holds for dozens of other countries, most of which Washington supports, some as close allies. Ones allied with America escape media scrutiny, their crimes airbrushed from daily reports. Enemies, however, are pilloried, including by unverified misreporting, willfully distorting the truth, violating good journalism principles.
Until it closed at year end 2005, Chicago's famed City News Bureau gave young reporters rigorous training, explained in its notable principle: "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out with two independent sources." In other words, get it right or not at all, what's absent in today's deplorable reporting, from Fox to The New York Times, BBC and others, offering managed, not real news and information.
Fox News especially, as America's official voice of right wing politics. On US television, it's in full battle mode, beating the drums of war, its staff under strict management guidelines, manipulating facts to be hardline.
As a result, news anchor Jon Scott said, "If I were President Obama, I would unilaterally" impose a no-fly zone, no matter that doing so is an act of war. Bill O'Reilly called Obama's position "beyond wimpy." Sean Hannity wonders when America will attack Libya, calling Obama "extraordinarily weak." Glenn Beck said Wisconsin protests prove the Caliphate's presence in America. Other hosts are just as extreme. No wonder Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR) calls Fox "the most biased name in news." It reports. It decides. Truth is nowhere in sight.
The New York Times editorial headlined, "Qaddafi's Crimes and Fantasies," matched Fox, saying:
His "crimes continue to mount." Citing unverified reports, it said "Libyan Air Force warplanes bombed rebel-controlled areas in the eastern part of the country. Libyan special forces mounted ground assaults on two breakaway cities near the capital. (Finally), the United States (EU and UN want) Qaddafi and his cronies to go (and) called on the International Criminal Court to investigate potential war crimes."
This is the same paper that exonerated Washington and Britain for fabricating Iraq WMD intelligence to justify war, citing London's whitewash Hutton inquiry in its January 29, 2004 editorial headlined, "Testing Two Leaders; Tony Blair, Vindicated."
Despite clear indictable evidence, The Times endorsed the findings for being "fully consistent with the information available to British intelligence (and Washington) at that time and that no claims then known to be false or unreliable were concluded." In fact, they were independently exposed as false and misleading, though nonetheless used to wage war.
Moreover, discredited reporter Judith Miller wrote daily propaganda, functioning as a Pentagon press agent, not a legitimate journalist. Commenting on her earlier, Alex Cockburn said:
"With Miller, we (sunk) to the level of straight press handout. Lay all Judith Miller....stories end to end, from late 2001 to June 2003, and you (got) a desolate picture of a reporter with an agenda, both manipulating and being manipulated by US government officials, Iraqi exiles and defectors, an entire Noah's Ark of scam-artists."
Worst of all was The Times itself for giving her daily front page space, then never adequately apologizing when their complicity was exposed. Powerful media outlets never have to say they're sorry. They stay in full battle mode against new targets.
Now Times editors have the audacity to advocate Libyan intervention for reasons other than humanitarian, including asset freezes, a no-fly zone, harsh sanctions, travel bans, encouraged insurrection, criminal prosecution, stopping just short of endorsing war, but expect that to change if Washington attacks.
The Washington Post is just as belligerent, its February 21 editorial headlined, "Moammar Gaddafi must pay for atrocities," saying:
His "beleaguered dictatorship (is) waging war against its own people and committing atrocities that demand not just condemnation but action by the outside world," accusing Gaddafi of committing genocide based on mostly unverified reports, according to reliable independent in-country sources. Nonetheless, the Post endorses "regime change" and International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecution, ignoring far greater Bush and Obama administration crimes, ongoing daily but not reported.
On March 2, a Wall Street Journal editorial headlined, "The Reluctant American," saying:
"The moral and strategic case for US leadership in Libya is obvious. A terrorist regime is slaughtering its people who will appreciate America's support and protection. A bloody civil war could create chaos that turns Libya into a northern African failed state, an ideal home for terrorist groups. The US should support a provisional government that can take over when the regime collapses....What is Obama waiting for?"
Ask beleaguered Iraqis and Afghans if they appreciate US intervention, occupation, mass destruction, genocide, depravation, disease, and for many living early deaths! Ask them if they recommend this for Libyans! Ask them if they prefer America to Saddam and Taliban rulers!
Ask Kosovars and Serbs! Ask Koreans and Southeast Asians with long memories! Ask Central and Latin Americans! Ask Somalis and other African nationals! Ask Palestinians! Ask Libyans if they know what awaits them if America intervenes! If not, explain and let them decide! It won't for Washington's military option, growing more imminent daily.
On February 28, New York writers Mark Landler and Thom Shanker headlined, "US Readies Military Options on Libya," saying:
"The United States began moving warships toward Libya and froze $30 billion in (its) assets on Monday," ahead of plundering them, Libyan oil, and other resources, not mentioned in The Times report.
Conflict looks increasingly likely. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton want Gaddafi out "without further violence or delay." "No option is off the table," said Clinton, stopping just short of declaring war. Secretaries of State can't do it. Neither can presidents, but it hasn't stopped them since December 8, 1941, the last time America legally went to war.
In meetings with NATO allies, said The Times, "European officials have resisted military action," but didn't rule it out. "Should NATO get involved in a civil war to the south of the Mediterranean," asked French Prime Minister Francosi Fillon? "It is a question that at least merits some reflection before being launched," weasel words perhaps ahead of proceeding.
Pentagon officials want an international action mandate, either from NATO or the UN, usually easily pressured to get. War winds are blowing. Expect anything ahead, especially if misreporting incites it the way it precedes all US wars.
Notable was Al Jazeera's March 1 report headlining: "Battles rage in Libya," saying:
Gaddifi's forces stepped up attacks, including "fighter jets bomb(ing) an ammunition depot in the eastern city of Ajdabiya." Up to 2,000 deaths were reported in Tripoli. Many thousands fled. Gaddafi remains defiant.
Most of what Al Jajeera and Western media report isn't verified. Yet it's inflammatory enough to stoke war for "humanitarian intervention," the usual bogus reason America and Western nations use, the same one earlier for Iraq, Afghanistan and other imperial interventions. Affected nations are never the same.
Breaching Libyan Sovereignty
Britain and Germany already launched air operations to evacuate their citizens. France is sending two or more planeloads of aid to opposition forces in Benghazi. Italy suspended its Libyan nonaggression treaty, saying the state no longer exists, an outrageous assertion.
In a BBC interview, Gaddafi called Western actions "betrayal," adding: "They have no morals." Indeed not and never did, despite Big Oil profiting handsomely in Libya, and Gaddafi offering his security forces for America's "war on terror."
Nonetheless, he's targeted for removal, State Department spokesman PJ Crowley saying US officials have "been reaching out...to a range of figures within the opposition." Hillary Clinton added: "We are going to be ready and prepared to offer any kind of assistance that anyone wishes to have from the US." Nothing is ruled out, including weapons, intervention and war.
Nothing is said about client regimes engaged in similar or worse practices, including killing, arresting, torturing, and otherwise abusing thousands of its citizens. Decades of Israeli atrocities are ignored. So are those of Iraq and Afghanistan puppet governments, proxy force belligerence in Somalia and elsewhere, and numerous global client states doing the same things.
Only outlier leaders are vilified, in Gaddafi's case an embraced one now betrayed for broader aims. Washington seeks greater regional dominance. Doing it requires compliant leaders, willing to let America and European nations colonize their countries, plunder their resources, exploit their people, and provide locations for new Pentagon bases. For six and half million Libyans, that awaits them as Washington moves in for the kill.
Final Comments
According to Russia Today (RT) television:
Russia's military has been monitoring Libya by satellite since unrest began for accurate information about what, in fact, is ongoing. Its Joint Staff confirms no evidence of air strikes or destruction on the ground. Reports from US media, BBC, other Western sources, and Al Jazeera are entirely bogus.
Writer Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a Middle East/Central Asian special maintains reliable Libyan contacts, essential for accurate accounts on the ground.
On March 2, he said the following:
-- "Qaddafi still has control over much of the country."
-- "There are claims that cities have fallen, but in reality old videos or (ones) of other cities are being shown (in airing) these reports....to the public."
-- "The words 'claim' and 'claimed' are now systematically being used....to (corroborate) distorted or incorrect information."
-- World attention is on Libya, excluding other vital events "in the Arab world - such as the continued protests and demands of the Egyptian people (and others regionally) for authentic democracy," jobs, better wages, and other social issues.
-- "Reports have been made (about) fighting in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, (saying) parts of it have fallen, when it has been peaceful for days."
-- "On February 26, 2011, claims were (falsely) made that all the main cities were not in Qaddafi's control." In fact, he controls the following ones: "Sabha (in central Libya), Sirt/Surt (on the coastal mid-point of Libya), Ghat (on the southern border with Algeria), Al-Jufra, Al-Azizya (close to Tripoli) and Tripoli itself."
-- Media reports ignore Qaddafi "trying to negotiate with the places not under his control."
-- Most important: Outrageous misreporting persists, "blowing the violence out of proportion to justify foreign intervention."
It's coming - Washington-led naked aggression justified as "humanitarian intervention." In fact, it's imperial lawlessness against another target before advancing to the next one.
While one-sidely focusing on Libya, Western media ignore the March 1 Amnesty International (AI) report titled, "Tunisia in Revolt: State Violence during Anti Government Protests," saying:
During December and January protests, Tunisian security forces engaged in "unlawful killings and acts of brutality....act(ing) with reckless disregard for human life in all too many cases," according to Malcolm Smart, AI's Middle East and North African program director.
"People detained by the security forces were also systematically beaten or subjected to other ill-treatment, according to (corroborated) evidence" obtained. Innocent bystanders were killed in cold blood, some shot from behind. Death, injury and arrest numbers are far higher than acknowledged. Major media sources, including Al Jazeera, largely suppress this.
Brutal Egyptian military treatment is also ignored, including mass arrests, disappearances and torture. An Egyptian human rights group said thousands are in military custody. Many have been beaten or tortured. US media ignored Egypt after Mubarak was ousted, despite protests, strikes and violence continuing after a brief quiet period.
On February 15, AI condemned Bahrain's "heavy-handed....excessive police force" violence, including killings against peaceful protesters. An eyewitness said police, without provocation, opened fire on demonstrators, wanting a new constitution and democratically elected government.
In its January 11 report titled, "Crackdown in Bahrain: human rights at the crossroads," AI cited serious human rights abuses, including suppressing free expression, closing critical web sites, and banning opposition publications, besides arrests, killings, beatings and other abuses.
US major media reports suppress client regime crimes. Only leaders Washington opposes draw attention, mostly by distorted misreporting. Major focus now is on Gaddafi to provide legitimacy for imperial intervention. As issue is replacing one despot with another willing to open Libya to Western colonization, ahead of regional expansion for greater plunder, exploitation and profits.
Arabs and North Africans want democratic change. Washington and Western allies plan raw power to suppress it. Battle lines are drawn. Sustained popular resistance is essential for real reform, what people want, not dark forces allied against them repressively, especially America treating all developing countries as exploitable low-hanging fruit. What better time than now to stop it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
From The Rag Blog- Senate Bill 5 squeaks by in Columbus:Corporate union busters draw first blood in Ohio
Senate Bill 5 squeaks by in Columbus:Corporate union busters draw first blood in Ohio
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman /The Rag Blog / March 3, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The national corporate campaign to destroy America’s public sector unions has drawn first blood in Ohio.
But a counterattack centered on one or more statewide initiatives or constitutional amendments has become highly likely.
While thousands of protesters chanted, spoke and sang inside and outside the statehouse for the past two weeks, the Ohio Senate voted 17-16 on Senate Bill 5, a bill that will slash collective bargaining for state workers by banning strikes and giving local officials the right to settle disputes. The bill, among other things, also eliminates all paid sick days for teachers.
The vote came amid shouts of “shame on you” and widespread booing from the diverse crowd of teachers, police, firefighters, construction workers, state employees, and more.
The bill decimates a legal framework in place since 1983. The vote was surprisingly close as six Republicans joined 10 Democrats in opposition. The 17 yes voters were all Republicans.
In order to vote the bill out of committee, Republican Senate president Tom Niehaus had to remove two key Republican senators who opposed the bill from crucial committees. Both Senators Scott Oelslager of Canton and Bill Seitz of Cincinnati were yanked from their posts. The removal of Seitz broke a committee stalemate and allowed the bill to come to the floor with a 7-5 vote.
Ultraconservative Senator Timothy Grendell of rural Chesterland, Ohio denounced the bill as"unconstitutional" pointing out that it prohibits union members from talking with elected public officials during negotiations and labels such activity as an unfair labor practice. Seitz echoed this theme: "It's an unfair labor practice if they exercise their First Amendment right to call up their councilman."
The bill now goes to the Ohio House, where it is fast-tracked and anticipated to pass by mid-March. In the House, the passage is being orchestrated by House Speaker Bill Batchelder. The Free Press has reported in the past of Batchelder's ties to the secretive Council for National Policy.
Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates describes CNP members as not only traditional conservatives, but also nativists, xenophobes, white racial supremacists, homophobes, sexists, militarists, authoritarians, reactionaries and "in some cases outright neo-fascists."
The Democrats do not hold enough seats in either house to deny the GOP a quorum, as is being done in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Ohio’s multimillonaire Governor John Kasich, who got rich selling junk assets to public pensions in Ohio as a managing partner for Lehman Brothers , will sign the bill as soon as he gets it. Kasich is a former Fox news commentator who was elected last November with a large last-minute contribution from Rupert Murdoch.
Kasich has blamed budget problems on state workers. But a rich person’s repeal of Ohio’s estate tax has cost the state a long-standing multimillion-dollar revenue stream. Like Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich also has rejected a big federal grant ($400 million) to upgrade the state’s passenger rail system, which would have created at least a thousand direct jobs and thousands more indirectly, along with a jump in state tax revenue.
Kasich meanwhile has given his chief of staff a substantial pay hike over that of his predecessor. He has hired at least four commissioners to sit on a “job creation” panel with annual salaries of roughly $150,000 each. The commission has been structured to operate without formal accountability to the legislature or taxpayers of the state. Kasich has already succeeded in privatizing the state's department of development.
Kasich tried to ban the media and the public from his inauguration. He has warned opponents that they had better “get on the bus or get run over by the bus.”
Unlike Wisconsin, Ohio has no recall law. The only apparent route to overturning this union-busting legislation may be with a statewide initiative or a constitutional amendment. As the statehouse filled with union protestors, talk spread of how and when that might be done.
Polls are showing overwhelming support for public workers, in part due to the blatant attack on Ohio's police and firefighters who are now barred from negotiating on safety issues. The bill bans binding arbitration used in the past to settle negotiations, and instead allows management to pick the settlement it wants.
Ohioans may also consider a constitutional amendment to guarantee hand-counted paper ballots. Electronic voting is dominated here by the successor to the Ohio-based Diebold corporation and the ES&S corporation, and other Republican-controlled voting machine companies. The privatization of Ohio's voting and voter registration rolls corresponded with a 5.4% shift to the Republican Party not predicted by the exit polls in the 2010 election. Exit polls showed Kasich losing the election.
Overall the architectural map of the Ohio election system appears to give private voting companies contracted to the Secretary of State's office -- currently headed by John Husted, a Republican -- the ability to electronically select state office winners in a matter of a few minutes on election night.
Husted has already introduced legislation to restrict voting rights through demands for photo ID and other measures aimed at students, the elderly, poor, and other Democratic-leaning citizens. Without universal voter registration and hand-counted paper ballots, the Ohio Democratic party has little chance of winning statewide office for the foreseeable future, or of turning back legislative union busting.
Key to the national corporate strategy now playing itself out in Ohio is the destruction of the Democratic Party’s traditional base. It is also about trashing teachers, firefighters, police, and other citizens who choose to work for the general good rather than individual profit. As Nina Turner, a Senate Democrat told The New York Times, “This bill seeks to vilify our public employees and turn what used to be the virtue of public service into a crime.”
It’s widely believed Kasich will next assault Ohio’s pubic school system, whose funding mechanisms have been repeatedly ruled unconstitutional by state courts. Kasich is a cheerleader for private charter schools. The GOP is expected to push a voucher program that would use taxpayer money to subsidize private schools for the rich.
David Brennan, owner of White Hat Management, a chain of private charter schools, has consistently been the leading donor to the Ohio Republican candidates. Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray filed a legal complaint against Brennan alleging that "White Hat's management agreements with the schools are invalid because the public charter schools handed over nearly all funding -- 96 percent -- to White Hat and were given essentially no accountability or transparency as to how the funds were spent."
Kasich and the GOP have already moved to gut environmental regulations and turn the state’s park system over to corporate extractors. He is also expected to attack legislation mandating advances in renewable energy while pushing for a new nuclear plant to be built in southern Ohio by corporations poised to cash in on massive federal subsidies being proposed by President Obama.
While the mood of demonstrators yesterday at the statehouse was angry and defiant, there are no illusions about the stakes in this battle. Governor Kasich and his wholly owned Republican legislature are born of unlimited Citizens United corporate cash and rigged electronic voting machines.
It’s thus no surprise that the first serious blood drawn in this latest corporate campaigns to finally wipe labor unions off the American map has come in the Buckeye State.
The question now: can the unions effectively fight back, in Ohio and nationwide?
[Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman have co-authored four books on election protection at www.freepress.org , where Bob’s Fitrakis Files books appear. Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States is at harveywasserman.com.]
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman /The Rag Blog / March 3, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The national corporate campaign to destroy America’s public sector unions has drawn first blood in Ohio.
But a counterattack centered on one or more statewide initiatives or constitutional amendments has become highly likely.
While thousands of protesters chanted, spoke and sang inside and outside the statehouse for the past two weeks, the Ohio Senate voted 17-16 on Senate Bill 5, a bill that will slash collective bargaining for state workers by banning strikes and giving local officials the right to settle disputes. The bill, among other things, also eliminates all paid sick days for teachers.
The vote came amid shouts of “shame on you” and widespread booing from the diverse crowd of teachers, police, firefighters, construction workers, state employees, and more.
The bill decimates a legal framework in place since 1983. The vote was surprisingly close as six Republicans joined 10 Democrats in opposition. The 17 yes voters were all Republicans.
In order to vote the bill out of committee, Republican Senate president Tom Niehaus had to remove two key Republican senators who opposed the bill from crucial committees. Both Senators Scott Oelslager of Canton and Bill Seitz of Cincinnati were yanked from their posts. The removal of Seitz broke a committee stalemate and allowed the bill to come to the floor with a 7-5 vote.
Ultraconservative Senator Timothy Grendell of rural Chesterland, Ohio denounced the bill as"unconstitutional" pointing out that it prohibits union members from talking with elected public officials during negotiations and labels such activity as an unfair labor practice. Seitz echoed this theme: "It's an unfair labor practice if they exercise their First Amendment right to call up their councilman."
The bill now goes to the Ohio House, where it is fast-tracked and anticipated to pass by mid-March. In the House, the passage is being orchestrated by House Speaker Bill Batchelder. The Free Press has reported in the past of Batchelder's ties to the secretive Council for National Policy.
Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates describes CNP members as not only traditional conservatives, but also nativists, xenophobes, white racial supremacists, homophobes, sexists, militarists, authoritarians, reactionaries and "in some cases outright neo-fascists."
The Democrats do not hold enough seats in either house to deny the GOP a quorum, as is being done in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Ohio’s multimillonaire Governor John Kasich, who got rich selling junk assets to public pensions in Ohio as a managing partner for Lehman Brothers , will sign the bill as soon as he gets it. Kasich is a former Fox news commentator who was elected last November with a large last-minute contribution from Rupert Murdoch.
Kasich has blamed budget problems on state workers. But a rich person’s repeal of Ohio’s estate tax has cost the state a long-standing multimillion-dollar revenue stream. Like Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich also has rejected a big federal grant ($400 million) to upgrade the state’s passenger rail system, which would have created at least a thousand direct jobs and thousands more indirectly, along with a jump in state tax revenue.
Kasich meanwhile has given his chief of staff a substantial pay hike over that of his predecessor. He has hired at least four commissioners to sit on a “job creation” panel with annual salaries of roughly $150,000 each. The commission has been structured to operate without formal accountability to the legislature or taxpayers of the state. Kasich has already succeeded in privatizing the state's department of development.
Kasich tried to ban the media and the public from his inauguration. He has warned opponents that they had better “get on the bus or get run over by the bus.”
Unlike Wisconsin, Ohio has no recall law. The only apparent route to overturning this union-busting legislation may be with a statewide initiative or a constitutional amendment. As the statehouse filled with union protestors, talk spread of how and when that might be done.
Polls are showing overwhelming support for public workers, in part due to the blatant attack on Ohio's police and firefighters who are now barred from negotiating on safety issues. The bill bans binding arbitration used in the past to settle negotiations, and instead allows management to pick the settlement it wants.
Ohioans may also consider a constitutional amendment to guarantee hand-counted paper ballots. Electronic voting is dominated here by the successor to the Ohio-based Diebold corporation and the ES&S corporation, and other Republican-controlled voting machine companies. The privatization of Ohio's voting and voter registration rolls corresponded with a 5.4% shift to the Republican Party not predicted by the exit polls in the 2010 election. Exit polls showed Kasich losing the election.
Overall the architectural map of the Ohio election system appears to give private voting companies contracted to the Secretary of State's office -- currently headed by John Husted, a Republican -- the ability to electronically select state office winners in a matter of a few minutes on election night.
Husted has already introduced legislation to restrict voting rights through demands for photo ID and other measures aimed at students, the elderly, poor, and other Democratic-leaning citizens. Without universal voter registration and hand-counted paper ballots, the Ohio Democratic party has little chance of winning statewide office for the foreseeable future, or of turning back legislative union busting.
Key to the national corporate strategy now playing itself out in Ohio is the destruction of the Democratic Party’s traditional base. It is also about trashing teachers, firefighters, police, and other citizens who choose to work for the general good rather than individual profit. As Nina Turner, a Senate Democrat told The New York Times, “This bill seeks to vilify our public employees and turn what used to be the virtue of public service into a crime.”
It’s widely believed Kasich will next assault Ohio’s pubic school system, whose funding mechanisms have been repeatedly ruled unconstitutional by state courts. Kasich is a cheerleader for private charter schools. The GOP is expected to push a voucher program that would use taxpayer money to subsidize private schools for the rich.
David Brennan, owner of White Hat Management, a chain of private charter schools, has consistently been the leading donor to the Ohio Republican candidates. Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray filed a legal complaint against Brennan alleging that "White Hat's management agreements with the schools are invalid because the public charter schools handed over nearly all funding -- 96 percent -- to White Hat and were given essentially no accountability or transparency as to how the funds were spent."
Kasich and the GOP have already moved to gut environmental regulations and turn the state’s park system over to corporate extractors. He is also expected to attack legislation mandating advances in renewable energy while pushing for a new nuclear plant to be built in southern Ohio by corporations poised to cash in on massive federal subsidies being proposed by President Obama.
While the mood of demonstrators yesterday at the statehouse was angry and defiant, there are no illusions about the stakes in this battle. Governor Kasich and his wholly owned Republican legislature are born of unlimited Citizens United corporate cash and rigged electronic voting machines.
It’s thus no surprise that the first serious blood drawn in this latest corporate campaigns to finally wipe labor unions off the American map has come in the Buckeye State.
The question now: can the unions effectively fight back, in Ohio and nationwide?
[Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman have co-authored four books on election protection at www.freepress.org , where Bob’s Fitrakis Files books appear. Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States is at harveywasserman.com.]
From The Renegade Eye Blog- From The In Defense Of Marxism- Venezuela and Libya: it is not an April 11 coup, it is a February 27 Caracazo -Hands Off Libya!
Venezuela and Libya: it is not an April 11 coup, it is a February 27 Caracazo
Written by Jorge Martín
Friday, 04 March 2011
There has been a lot of discussion in Latin America about the events unfolding in Libya. This article explains the position of the IMT, which is one of support for the uprising of the Libyan people, while at the same time opposing any imperialist intervention. We also critically examine the position adopted by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.
Zawiyah. Photo: bandolero69The governments of Venezuela and Cuba have correctly stood up in international institutions to oppose any imperialist intervention in Libya. They have criticised the hypocrisy of those countries who raise a hue and cry over human rights violations in Libya while at the same time having participated in murderous imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the brutal repression of the Palestinian people by the state of Israel.
The Venezuelan ambassador to the UN, Jorge Valero, explained it this way:
“Who pays for the more than one million dead in Iraq? Who pays for the permanent massacre against the Palestinian people? Why is it that those responsible for these crimes of war, genocide and against humanity – who are known to all and publicly recognise their deed – are not taken to the International Court of Justice? What does the Security Council do faced with these horrible massacres that take place?”
Quite correctly, the Venezuelan representatives denounced the real aims of the intervention of imperialism in the region:
“Those who promote the use of military force against Libya, do not seek to defend human rights, but to establish a protectorate in order to violate them, as is always the case, in a country which is one of the most important sources of oil and energy in the Middle East”.
The people of Iraq are a testimony to this fact. Washington made up an excuse (so-called “weapons of mass destruction”) in order to attack Iraq so that they could reassert their power and regain direct control over crucial oil resources. The aim of the invasion was not to “establish democracy” and certainly there is very little democracy in Iraq now under the Maliki government. Thousands of Iraqis marched last month demanding electricity, water, jobs and bread and they were met with the brutal repression of government forces, leading to deaths, injuries, arrests and kidnappings. And yet no one is suggesting taking the government of Iraq to the International courts!
The United Nations is in fact a farce. It is a body that merely reflects the domination of US imperialism. When the US are able to get resolutions passed in order to justify their actions, they use the UN as a fig leaf. When, for whatever reason, they are not able to get their aims endorsed by the UN, they ignore the UN and carry them out regardless. And, finally, when resolutions are passed against their imperialist aims (for instance against the blockade on Cuba or condemning Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people), they simply ignore them, and they are never enforced. In the recent case of the resolution on Israeli settlements on Palestinian Territory, the US used its veto to block resolution. So much for justice and human rights.
In the last few days there has been a lot of noise and some concrete actions on the part of imperialist nations regarding Libya. The US has now moved two amphibious warships, the USS Ponce and the USS Kearsarge, carrying helicopters and fighter jets, into the Mediterranean. Under the cover of so-called “humanitarian intervention”, imperialist powers (including the US, UK, France and Italy) amongst others, are discussing what action they can take to secure their own interests. European countries are mainly worried about the possible arrival of a mass of refugees on their shores. Another worry is control over oil resources and above all the impact of the revolutionary tide sweeping the Arab world on oil prices and the knock on effect this could have on the capitalist economy as a whole.
The most discussed option is a “no-fly zone”, which has been advocated amongst others by both Republican senator John McCain and Democratic senator John Kerry. For his own reasons, British Prime Minister David Cameron, has also made belligerent noises, attempting to puff up a role in world politics for Britain that it can no longer really play.
However, the truth is that even a limited intervention in the form of a no fly-zone would be risky and complicated to implement. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates complained that “there’s a lot of, frankly, loose talk about some of these military options.” He warned of the implications of such an action: “Let’s just call a spade a spade: a no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya, to destroy the air defences. That’s the way you do a no-fly zone... It also requires more airplanes than you would find on a single aircraft carrier. So it is a big operation in a big country.”
The US military is already overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, as he stressed: “If we move additional assets, what are the consequences of that for Afghanistan, for the Persian Gulf?” he said. “And what other allies are prepared to work with us in some of these things?”
However, the main worry imperialist planners have regarding intervention in Libya is the backlash this would generate throughout the region. The masses are sick and tired of imperialism and the revolutionary wave which is sweeping the Arab world is directly aimed at US-sponsored regimes. Gates showed that the US ruling class is aware of this when he said: “We also have to think about, frankly, the use of the US military in another country in the Middle East.”
These considerations, of course, do not rule out imperialist intervention in Libya or anywhere else, if their vital interests come under threat. However, they do underline the fact that the US has been caught unawares by the present revolutionary wave and has been unable to intervene decisively to steer the course of events in their favour.
In the face of imperialism’s manoeuvres, and also the inconsistent manner in which they deal with the matter of “human rights” and “crimes against humanity”, Venezuela and Cuba are correct in exposing the hypocrisy of imperialism and agitating against any foreign powers intervening in Libya.
However, the case that is being made by both countries, and most prominently by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, is undermined by the fact that they are perceived as being supportive of Gaddafi, instead of supporting the masses of the Libyan people who have risen up against his regime.
It is true that Venezuelan ambassador to the UN said in his speech that Venezuela “greets the Arab peoples who are in a process of peaceful and justice seeking rebellion, and looking for a better future through peaceful roads”. But at the same time Fidel Castro has argued that the problems faced by Libya are different to those faced by Tunisia and Egypt. He has added that while “there is no doubt that the faces of those protesting in Benghazi expressed real indignation”, there has been a “colossal campaign of lies, unleashed by the mass media, which led to great confusion on the part of the world’s public opinion”.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has also said that he “refuses to condemn Gaddafi” who has been “a long-time friend of Venezuela” because apparently there is not enough information on the situation. He has used the example of April 11, 2002, when the world’s media accused Chavez of having ordered the army to fire on unarmed demonstrators in order to justify the coup against him. As we all know, it was later on proven that it had all been a set up, with hired snipers firing on opposition and revolutionary demonstrators alike.
However, in the case of Libya, the situation is completely different. In Venezuela what we had was a reactionary movement against a democratically elected government attempting to implement progressive reforms and standing up against imperialism. In Libya we have a popular uprising against an oppressive regime which had made all sorts of deals with imperialism.
To a certain extent, it can be understood why there is confusion in Venezuela about the real nature of what is really happening in Libya. The Venezuelan people no longer trust the capitalist media, completely discredited by the role they played in the coup in 2002. Furthermore, the Venezuelan counter-revolutionary opposition is attempting to jump on the bandwagon of the Arab revolution, saying that “the next dictator to fall will be Hugo Chavez”.
It is a matter of public record that the Venezuelan counter-revolutionary opposition receives funding, training and support of all kinds from Washington. On a number of occasions they have organized their forces on the streets to make it look as if Chavez were a tyrant facing popular opposition (in the run up to the April 11, 2002, coup, during the oil lock out in December 2002, during the guarimba in 2004, the student protests in defence of RCTV, etc). They will not hesitate in doing it again. However, what we are seeing in the Arab world is precisely the opposite: a series of revolutionary uprisings against US backed dictatorial regimes.
It is true that the Libyan regime of Gaddafi came to power at the head of a movement with large popular support against the rotten monarchy of Kind Idris in 1969. In the 1970s, influenced by the previous wave of the Arab revolution, and under the impact of the 1974 worldwide recession, the regime moved further to the left, expelling imperialism and making deep inroads against capitalist property. Basing itself on the oil wealth of the country and the small size of its population, it was able to implement many progressive reforms and substantially increase the standard of the living of the overwhelming majority of Libyans.
However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the regime started making openings to imperialism. Already in 1993 laws guaranteeing foreign investment were passed. And it was after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 that Gaddafi decided to settle affairs with imperialism signing a number of deals for decommissioning its weapons of mass destruction, paying reparations to the victims of terrorist bombings, etc. The regime became a loyal partner of imperialism in the so-called “war on terror” and collaborated with the European Union in order to strengthen “fortress Europe” against the entry of sub-Saharan illegal immigrants.
This was accompanied by requesting entry into the WTO, creating Special Trade Zones, privatizing large parts of the economy, allowing back oil multinationals into the oil industry and eliminating subsidies on basic foodstuffs. The aim was to privatise 100% of the economy, according to Libyan officials. It was precisely the implementation of these policies that led to increased unemployment (between 20 and 30%), poverty and inequality, that played a key role in the current uprising.
In his latest article about the situation, Fidel Castro stresses the fact that, “it is an undeniable fact that the relations between the US and its NATO allies with Libya in the recent years were excellent,” adding that Libya “opened up strategic sectors as the production and distribution of oil to foreign investment” and that, “many state-owned companies were privatized. The IMF played its role in implementing these policies.” And as a result “Aznar was full of praise for Gaddafi, and he was followed by Blair, Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Zapatero, and even my friend the King of Spain, they all queued up under the mocking smile of the Libyan leader. They were pleased.” (Cuba Debate)
Illustration: CROIn his recent interviews with the BBC and ABC news Gaddafi himself explained how he felt “betrayed” by the Western powers. After having supported them and followed their policies for a number of years now they are abandoning him. Even the rhetoric he uses demonstrates that. When accusing the rebels of being manipulated by Al Qaeda, he is using the same scare-mongering tactics that Ben Ali and above all Mubarak used earlier on, and in reality is asking the West for support against the common enemy. The real character of Gaddafi’s regime can be deduced from his position regarding the revolutionary uprising in Tunisia, where he came out firmly on the side of Western ally Ben Ali and criticized the Tunisian workers and youth for having overthrown him!
As for the truth of what is really happening in Libya, one does not need to listen to the Western media. Saif al Islam, Gaddafi’s son and right hand man, himself admitted to the use of the army against unarmed demonstrators in his speech on February 20:
“Of course there were many deaths, which angered many people in Benghazi, but why were there people killed? The army was under stress, it is not used to crowd control so they shot, but I called them. The army said that some protesters were drunk, others were on hallucinogens or drugs. The army has to defend its weapons. And the people were angry. So there were deaths, but in the end Libyans were killed.”
Gaddafi himself has admitted that “a few hundred were killed”, but put it down to Al Qaeda distributing drugs to the youth!!
The story reported by TeleSUR’s correspondent in Libya, Reed Lindsay (twitter.com/reedtelesur), confirms the reports coming from other sources: there were popular, peaceful and unarmed demonstrations and the army opened fire (see for instance this report: Telesur). In a report he sent from Brega on March 2 (Telesur), he described how there were soldiers that had joined the rebellion but also “citizens of all kinds, I have spoken to doctors, engineers, workers from the oil company, here they are all in rebellion, part of the uprising and armed” adding that “this rebellion started peacefully, two weeks ago, but now the people are armed to struggle until they achieve the overthrow of Gaddafi.” He also rejected the notion that there is a civil war in Libya: “We are not talking about a civil war here… this started as peaceful demonstrators being attacked by security forces using heavy gunfire.”(Union Radio)
As part of his reporting, Reed Lindsay, has also confirmed all the reports that show how the Libyan people who have risen up against Gaddafi are staunchly against foreign intervention. “They say that if the US troops arrive here, they will fight them in the same way they are fighting against the government of Gaddafi.”
The other important point that Lindsay has made in his reports is regarding the attitude of the people, both in Benghazi and Brega, towards Latin American governments, and particularly those of the ALBA countries. In Brega many people are asking “why the Venezuelan president and other Latin American presidents who are in favour of social justice and revolutionary change are supporting a dictator who is using the Army against his own people” he said (Union Radio). “They are asking the ALBA countries to break with Gaddafi and support the revolutionary struggle of the Libyan people” he reported from Benghazi. According to him, the people in Ajdabiya talk of a “common struggle with the peoples of Latin America” (Twitter. We are quoting from Reed Lindsay, because he cannot be accused of being an agent of imperialism or of distorting the news in order to justify an intervention by imperialism.
Even the other TeleSUR correspondent, Jordan Rodríguez, who is basically just reporting what Gaddafi and other officials are saying, without any comment, had problems when he attempted to report about clashes in neighbourhoods in Tripoli. His team was detained by police officers for four hours, beaten up, threatened with guns pointed at them and their footage was taken away (Telesur). This was the second time they had been arrested and it happened even though they were travelling in a Venezuelan diplomatic car.
Libyan rebels with a captured anti-aircraft gun. Photo: Al Jazeera EnglishThere is a very important point made in these reports. The Venezuelan revolution and particularly president Chavez are immensely popular in the Arab world, particularly after his very vocal opposition to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. The masses in these countries see Hugo Chavez as the leader of an oil country who stands up to imperialism and uses the oil money in order to improve the living conditions of the people. This is in stark contrast to the rulers of their own countries, who are puppets of US imperialism, do not open their mouths against Israel’s aggressions and use the wealth of the country for their own personal enrichment. This is precisely one of the reasons behind the revolutionary uprising of the Arab masses. In an opinion poll conducted in 2009 in several Arab countries, the most popular leader was Hugo Chavez with 36% of support, well ahead of any others (pdf).
The only base of support on which the Venezuelan revolution can count are the masses of workers and youth in the Middle East and North Africa, and throughout the world, who feel sympathy and solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution because they would like a similar revolution to take place in their own countries. Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution should come out clearly in favour of the revolutionary wave sweeping the Arab world, because it is part of the world revolution of which Latin America was for some years the advanced guard. This includes giving support to the Libyan people rising up against Gaddafi, while at the same time opposing any imperialist intervention.
In his attempts to prevent foreign military intervention in Libya, Hugo Chavez has proposed an international mediation commission to go to Libya. Latest reports in the media indicate that while Gaddafi is said to have accepted this, his son Saif al-Islam has firmly rejected the proposal. "We have to say thank you, but we are able and capable enough to solve our issues by our own people". Venezuelans, he added, "are our friends, we respect them, we like them, but they are far away. They have no idea about Libya. Libya is in the Middle East and North Africa. Venezuela is in Central America." For Saif’s information, Venezuela is not in Central America, but now doubt his mind is concentrated on other matters.
On their part, the Libyan rebels have also rejected the mediation, saying they have not heard about it, but that it is too late for negotiations anyway, and that too many people have been killed by Gaddafi. If one understands the real essence of the situation in Libya, one of a government brutally putting down peaceful demonstrations of his own people, which then becomes a popular armed uprising with sections of the army and the police going over to the people, then one can understand why this proposal is wrong. It is as if in the last days of the Cuban revolution, when the revolutionary army was about to overthrow Batista, someone had said, “wait a second, let’s have international mediation so that there can be an understanding between Batista and the M26J movement.”
The only position a revolutionary can take in a situation like this is one of support for the revolutionary uprising of the Libyan people. If Hugo Chavez does not come out clearly in favour of the revolutionary masses of the Arab world then he would be making a serious mistake, one for which the Venezuelan revolution can pay dearly. Hugo Chavez is looking at the Libyan situation through Venezuelan lenses, making the wrong comparisons. The Libyan rebels cannot be compared to the Venezuelan opposition and the position that regime of Gaddafi finds itself in cannot in any way be compared to that facing Chavez.
We must be clear: what we are seeing in Libya and the rest of the Arab world is not an April 11, 2002 coup justified with media manipulation, but rather a February 27, 1989, a Caracazo-like uprising, in which the governments are using the Army against unarmed demonstrators. While opposing imperialist intervention, we must be clear what side we are on: that of the Libyan people against the Gaddafi regime.
Written by Jorge Martín
Friday, 04 March 2011
There has been a lot of discussion in Latin America about the events unfolding in Libya. This article explains the position of the IMT, which is one of support for the uprising of the Libyan people, while at the same time opposing any imperialist intervention. We also critically examine the position adopted by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.
Zawiyah. Photo: bandolero69The governments of Venezuela and Cuba have correctly stood up in international institutions to oppose any imperialist intervention in Libya. They have criticised the hypocrisy of those countries who raise a hue and cry over human rights violations in Libya while at the same time having participated in murderous imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the brutal repression of the Palestinian people by the state of Israel.
The Venezuelan ambassador to the UN, Jorge Valero, explained it this way:
“Who pays for the more than one million dead in Iraq? Who pays for the permanent massacre against the Palestinian people? Why is it that those responsible for these crimes of war, genocide and against humanity – who are known to all and publicly recognise their deed – are not taken to the International Court of Justice? What does the Security Council do faced with these horrible massacres that take place?”
Quite correctly, the Venezuelan representatives denounced the real aims of the intervention of imperialism in the region:
“Those who promote the use of military force against Libya, do not seek to defend human rights, but to establish a protectorate in order to violate them, as is always the case, in a country which is one of the most important sources of oil and energy in the Middle East”.
The people of Iraq are a testimony to this fact. Washington made up an excuse (so-called “weapons of mass destruction”) in order to attack Iraq so that they could reassert their power and regain direct control over crucial oil resources. The aim of the invasion was not to “establish democracy” and certainly there is very little democracy in Iraq now under the Maliki government. Thousands of Iraqis marched last month demanding electricity, water, jobs and bread and they were met with the brutal repression of government forces, leading to deaths, injuries, arrests and kidnappings. And yet no one is suggesting taking the government of Iraq to the International courts!
The United Nations is in fact a farce. It is a body that merely reflects the domination of US imperialism. When the US are able to get resolutions passed in order to justify their actions, they use the UN as a fig leaf. When, for whatever reason, they are not able to get their aims endorsed by the UN, they ignore the UN and carry them out regardless. And, finally, when resolutions are passed against their imperialist aims (for instance against the blockade on Cuba or condemning Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people), they simply ignore them, and they are never enforced. In the recent case of the resolution on Israeli settlements on Palestinian Territory, the US used its veto to block resolution. So much for justice and human rights.
In the last few days there has been a lot of noise and some concrete actions on the part of imperialist nations regarding Libya. The US has now moved two amphibious warships, the USS Ponce and the USS Kearsarge, carrying helicopters and fighter jets, into the Mediterranean. Under the cover of so-called “humanitarian intervention”, imperialist powers (including the US, UK, France and Italy) amongst others, are discussing what action they can take to secure their own interests. European countries are mainly worried about the possible arrival of a mass of refugees on their shores. Another worry is control over oil resources and above all the impact of the revolutionary tide sweeping the Arab world on oil prices and the knock on effect this could have on the capitalist economy as a whole.
The most discussed option is a “no-fly zone”, which has been advocated amongst others by both Republican senator John McCain and Democratic senator John Kerry. For his own reasons, British Prime Minister David Cameron, has also made belligerent noises, attempting to puff up a role in world politics for Britain that it can no longer really play.
However, the truth is that even a limited intervention in the form of a no fly-zone would be risky and complicated to implement. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates complained that “there’s a lot of, frankly, loose talk about some of these military options.” He warned of the implications of such an action: “Let’s just call a spade a spade: a no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya, to destroy the air defences. That’s the way you do a no-fly zone... It also requires more airplanes than you would find on a single aircraft carrier. So it is a big operation in a big country.”
The US military is already overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, as he stressed: “If we move additional assets, what are the consequences of that for Afghanistan, for the Persian Gulf?” he said. “And what other allies are prepared to work with us in some of these things?”
However, the main worry imperialist planners have regarding intervention in Libya is the backlash this would generate throughout the region. The masses are sick and tired of imperialism and the revolutionary wave which is sweeping the Arab world is directly aimed at US-sponsored regimes. Gates showed that the US ruling class is aware of this when he said: “We also have to think about, frankly, the use of the US military in another country in the Middle East.”
These considerations, of course, do not rule out imperialist intervention in Libya or anywhere else, if their vital interests come under threat. However, they do underline the fact that the US has been caught unawares by the present revolutionary wave and has been unable to intervene decisively to steer the course of events in their favour.
In the face of imperialism’s manoeuvres, and also the inconsistent manner in which they deal with the matter of “human rights” and “crimes against humanity”, Venezuela and Cuba are correct in exposing the hypocrisy of imperialism and agitating against any foreign powers intervening in Libya.
However, the case that is being made by both countries, and most prominently by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, is undermined by the fact that they are perceived as being supportive of Gaddafi, instead of supporting the masses of the Libyan people who have risen up against his regime.
It is true that Venezuelan ambassador to the UN said in his speech that Venezuela “greets the Arab peoples who are in a process of peaceful and justice seeking rebellion, and looking for a better future through peaceful roads”. But at the same time Fidel Castro has argued that the problems faced by Libya are different to those faced by Tunisia and Egypt. He has added that while “there is no doubt that the faces of those protesting in Benghazi expressed real indignation”, there has been a “colossal campaign of lies, unleashed by the mass media, which led to great confusion on the part of the world’s public opinion”.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has also said that he “refuses to condemn Gaddafi” who has been “a long-time friend of Venezuela” because apparently there is not enough information on the situation. He has used the example of April 11, 2002, when the world’s media accused Chavez of having ordered the army to fire on unarmed demonstrators in order to justify the coup against him. As we all know, it was later on proven that it had all been a set up, with hired snipers firing on opposition and revolutionary demonstrators alike.
However, in the case of Libya, the situation is completely different. In Venezuela what we had was a reactionary movement against a democratically elected government attempting to implement progressive reforms and standing up against imperialism. In Libya we have a popular uprising against an oppressive regime which had made all sorts of deals with imperialism.
To a certain extent, it can be understood why there is confusion in Venezuela about the real nature of what is really happening in Libya. The Venezuelan people no longer trust the capitalist media, completely discredited by the role they played in the coup in 2002. Furthermore, the Venezuelan counter-revolutionary opposition is attempting to jump on the bandwagon of the Arab revolution, saying that “the next dictator to fall will be Hugo Chavez”.
It is a matter of public record that the Venezuelan counter-revolutionary opposition receives funding, training and support of all kinds from Washington. On a number of occasions they have organized their forces on the streets to make it look as if Chavez were a tyrant facing popular opposition (in the run up to the April 11, 2002, coup, during the oil lock out in December 2002, during the guarimba in 2004, the student protests in defence of RCTV, etc). They will not hesitate in doing it again. However, what we are seeing in the Arab world is precisely the opposite: a series of revolutionary uprisings against US backed dictatorial regimes.
It is true that the Libyan regime of Gaddafi came to power at the head of a movement with large popular support against the rotten monarchy of Kind Idris in 1969. In the 1970s, influenced by the previous wave of the Arab revolution, and under the impact of the 1974 worldwide recession, the regime moved further to the left, expelling imperialism and making deep inroads against capitalist property. Basing itself on the oil wealth of the country and the small size of its population, it was able to implement many progressive reforms and substantially increase the standard of the living of the overwhelming majority of Libyans.
However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the regime started making openings to imperialism. Already in 1993 laws guaranteeing foreign investment were passed. And it was after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 that Gaddafi decided to settle affairs with imperialism signing a number of deals for decommissioning its weapons of mass destruction, paying reparations to the victims of terrorist bombings, etc. The regime became a loyal partner of imperialism in the so-called “war on terror” and collaborated with the European Union in order to strengthen “fortress Europe” against the entry of sub-Saharan illegal immigrants.
This was accompanied by requesting entry into the WTO, creating Special Trade Zones, privatizing large parts of the economy, allowing back oil multinationals into the oil industry and eliminating subsidies on basic foodstuffs. The aim was to privatise 100% of the economy, according to Libyan officials. It was precisely the implementation of these policies that led to increased unemployment (between 20 and 30%), poverty and inequality, that played a key role in the current uprising.
In his latest article about the situation, Fidel Castro stresses the fact that, “it is an undeniable fact that the relations between the US and its NATO allies with Libya in the recent years were excellent,” adding that Libya “opened up strategic sectors as the production and distribution of oil to foreign investment” and that, “many state-owned companies were privatized. The IMF played its role in implementing these policies.” And as a result “Aznar was full of praise for Gaddafi, and he was followed by Blair, Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Zapatero, and even my friend the King of Spain, they all queued up under the mocking smile of the Libyan leader. They were pleased.” (Cuba Debate)
Illustration: CROIn his recent interviews with the BBC and ABC news Gaddafi himself explained how he felt “betrayed” by the Western powers. After having supported them and followed their policies for a number of years now they are abandoning him. Even the rhetoric he uses demonstrates that. When accusing the rebels of being manipulated by Al Qaeda, he is using the same scare-mongering tactics that Ben Ali and above all Mubarak used earlier on, and in reality is asking the West for support against the common enemy. The real character of Gaddafi’s regime can be deduced from his position regarding the revolutionary uprising in Tunisia, where he came out firmly on the side of Western ally Ben Ali and criticized the Tunisian workers and youth for having overthrown him!
As for the truth of what is really happening in Libya, one does not need to listen to the Western media. Saif al Islam, Gaddafi’s son and right hand man, himself admitted to the use of the army against unarmed demonstrators in his speech on February 20:
“Of course there were many deaths, which angered many people in Benghazi, but why were there people killed? The army was under stress, it is not used to crowd control so they shot, but I called them. The army said that some protesters were drunk, others were on hallucinogens or drugs. The army has to defend its weapons. And the people were angry. So there were deaths, but in the end Libyans were killed.”
Gaddafi himself has admitted that “a few hundred were killed”, but put it down to Al Qaeda distributing drugs to the youth!!
The story reported by TeleSUR’s correspondent in Libya, Reed Lindsay (twitter.com/reedtelesur), confirms the reports coming from other sources: there were popular, peaceful and unarmed demonstrations and the army opened fire (see for instance this report: Telesur). In a report he sent from Brega on March 2 (Telesur), he described how there were soldiers that had joined the rebellion but also “citizens of all kinds, I have spoken to doctors, engineers, workers from the oil company, here they are all in rebellion, part of the uprising and armed” adding that “this rebellion started peacefully, two weeks ago, but now the people are armed to struggle until they achieve the overthrow of Gaddafi.” He also rejected the notion that there is a civil war in Libya: “We are not talking about a civil war here… this started as peaceful demonstrators being attacked by security forces using heavy gunfire.”(Union Radio)
As part of his reporting, Reed Lindsay, has also confirmed all the reports that show how the Libyan people who have risen up against Gaddafi are staunchly against foreign intervention. “They say that if the US troops arrive here, they will fight them in the same way they are fighting against the government of Gaddafi.”
The other important point that Lindsay has made in his reports is regarding the attitude of the people, both in Benghazi and Brega, towards Latin American governments, and particularly those of the ALBA countries. In Brega many people are asking “why the Venezuelan president and other Latin American presidents who are in favour of social justice and revolutionary change are supporting a dictator who is using the Army against his own people” he said (Union Radio). “They are asking the ALBA countries to break with Gaddafi and support the revolutionary struggle of the Libyan people” he reported from Benghazi. According to him, the people in Ajdabiya talk of a “common struggle with the peoples of Latin America” (Twitter. We are quoting from Reed Lindsay, because he cannot be accused of being an agent of imperialism or of distorting the news in order to justify an intervention by imperialism.
Even the other TeleSUR correspondent, Jordan Rodríguez, who is basically just reporting what Gaddafi and other officials are saying, without any comment, had problems when he attempted to report about clashes in neighbourhoods in Tripoli. His team was detained by police officers for four hours, beaten up, threatened with guns pointed at them and their footage was taken away (Telesur). This was the second time they had been arrested and it happened even though they were travelling in a Venezuelan diplomatic car.
Libyan rebels with a captured anti-aircraft gun. Photo: Al Jazeera EnglishThere is a very important point made in these reports. The Venezuelan revolution and particularly president Chavez are immensely popular in the Arab world, particularly after his very vocal opposition to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. The masses in these countries see Hugo Chavez as the leader of an oil country who stands up to imperialism and uses the oil money in order to improve the living conditions of the people. This is in stark contrast to the rulers of their own countries, who are puppets of US imperialism, do not open their mouths against Israel’s aggressions and use the wealth of the country for their own personal enrichment. This is precisely one of the reasons behind the revolutionary uprising of the Arab masses. In an opinion poll conducted in 2009 in several Arab countries, the most popular leader was Hugo Chavez with 36% of support, well ahead of any others (pdf).
The only base of support on which the Venezuelan revolution can count are the masses of workers and youth in the Middle East and North Africa, and throughout the world, who feel sympathy and solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution because they would like a similar revolution to take place in their own countries. Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution should come out clearly in favour of the revolutionary wave sweeping the Arab world, because it is part of the world revolution of which Latin America was for some years the advanced guard. This includes giving support to the Libyan people rising up against Gaddafi, while at the same time opposing any imperialist intervention.
In his attempts to prevent foreign military intervention in Libya, Hugo Chavez has proposed an international mediation commission to go to Libya. Latest reports in the media indicate that while Gaddafi is said to have accepted this, his son Saif al-Islam has firmly rejected the proposal. "We have to say thank you, but we are able and capable enough to solve our issues by our own people". Venezuelans, he added, "are our friends, we respect them, we like them, but they are far away. They have no idea about Libya. Libya is in the Middle East and North Africa. Venezuela is in Central America." For Saif’s information, Venezuela is not in Central America, but now doubt his mind is concentrated on other matters.
On their part, the Libyan rebels have also rejected the mediation, saying they have not heard about it, but that it is too late for negotiations anyway, and that too many people have been killed by Gaddafi. If one understands the real essence of the situation in Libya, one of a government brutally putting down peaceful demonstrations of his own people, which then becomes a popular armed uprising with sections of the army and the police going over to the people, then one can understand why this proposal is wrong. It is as if in the last days of the Cuban revolution, when the revolutionary army was about to overthrow Batista, someone had said, “wait a second, let’s have international mediation so that there can be an understanding between Batista and the M26J movement.”
The only position a revolutionary can take in a situation like this is one of support for the revolutionary uprising of the Libyan people. If Hugo Chavez does not come out clearly in favour of the revolutionary masses of the Arab world then he would be making a serious mistake, one for which the Venezuelan revolution can pay dearly. Hugo Chavez is looking at the Libyan situation through Venezuelan lenses, making the wrong comparisons. The Libyan rebels cannot be compared to the Venezuelan opposition and the position that regime of Gaddafi finds itself in cannot in any way be compared to that facing Chavez.
We must be clear: what we are seeing in Libya and the rest of the Arab world is not an April 11, 2002 coup justified with media manipulation, but rather a February 27, 1989, a Caracazo-like uprising, in which the governments are using the Army against unarmed demonstrators. While opposing imperialist intervention, we must be clear what side we are on: that of the Libyan people against the Gaddafi regime.
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