the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Dec 11, 2006
In the beginning of December, the Iraq Study Group headed by Baker and Hamilton, a Republican and Democrat, issued its long-awaited report calling for a “change in direction” in the U.S. war in Iraq. Most officials in Washington chimed in, calling for the same thing.
The Bush administration is now carrying out its own war policy reviews and has promised to announce plans to “change course” in Iraq before Christmas.
And what is this “change?” First of all, the Bush administration is supposed to change how it justifies the continuation of the war to an American public which overwhelmingly opposes and rejects it. They say that Bush has to blame the Iraqis for the problems.
Bush has already started to put this “change in course” in place.
But the real change is to be an intensification and worsening of the war. And the U.S. military has already stepped up the bombing of the country.
Barely one day after the Iraq Study Group issued its report, a coordinated U.S. bombing and ground attack on an Iraqi village north of Baghdad killed more than 30 Iraqis, including 10 children, who belonged to two extended families. Horrific video footage showed over a dozen charred and bloodied bodies.
At the same time, U.S. and Iraqi troops had imposed a siege on the population of the city of Haditha in Anbar province, cutting off all electricity and food for at least a week and not allowing anyone out of their homes.
The U.S. is trying to put together an Iraqi military that imposes a dictatorship over much of the country, incorporating major elements of the biggest militia, the Badr Brigade, into the state apparatus. The Badr Brigade’s notorious death squads in official government uniforms have not only been attacking rival militias, but they have been carrying out a merciless campaign of terror against the Iraqi civilian population.
The Iraq Study Group recommends that the U.S. government vastly expand the number of Special Forces, Army Rangers, Navy Seals, as well as mercenaries–that is, all the more highly-trained killers–by the thousands to torture, imprison and murder Iraqis. Of course, the Iraq Study Group says that these killers will only be “training” and “advising” the “new and improved” Iraqi military.
To do what? To impose order, in much the same way that the U.S. after the first Gulf War encouraged and armed Saddam Hussein to massacre those in the Iraqi population who attempted to gain freedom for themselves. The U.S. is trying to put together a similar or worse dictatorship in Iraq right now.
No, the U.S. military will not be reducing the number of troops in Iraq any time soon. This is confirmed by every single U.S. general, who says that, if anything, they want more U.S. troops in Iraq.
The money to pay for this stepped up war is already in the pipeline–the Bush administration’s record-breaking Pentagon emergency military appropriation of 150 billion dollars that comes on top of the 70 billion dollars that Congress already approved during just this year. It couldn’t be clearer: the U.S. government is stepping up the war.
The U.S. is leaving vast death and destruction in its wake, thereby demonstrating the horrible power and might of the U.S. military, and its intention to continue to dominate the entire Middle East region and its oil riches.
The brutal casualties continue to mount. An estimated 655,000 Iraqis have already been killed and millions more have been turned into refugees, living on the edge of starvation. At the same time, there are now 3,000 U.S. military deaths and over 150,000 U.S. soldiers so seriously wounded they are today considered “disabled.”
The entire U.S. political establishment has done nothing but lie about what it was doing in Iraq, starting with Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction. The course may be changing, but the lying isn’t.
Dec 11, 2006
To protest the Detroit school district’s plans to lay off teachers, parents at Duke Ellington Conservatory in Detroit overwhelmingly kept their children home from school for one day last week.
The Duke Ellington Conservatory is a specialized school in the Detroit Public Schools district, teaching students from kindergarten through eighth grade. Of the 500 students who attend the school, only 50 showed up on the day of the protest.
The Detroit school board had previously announced plans to lay off up to 450 teachers across the city.
After the protest, a spokesperson for the school district said that, “because we went back and looked at the numbers...the overwhelming majority of teachers will keep their jobs.”
Yes, they went back and looked at the numbers...after parents and students like those at this school pushed them to!
Dec 11, 2006
The National Science Teachers’ Association (NSTA) turned down an offer of 50,000 free copies of a DVD on global warming. The NSTA said they were concerned that other “special interests” might want to distribute materials to classrooms if the NSTA gave this DVD to science classes.
What was the movie? It was “An Inconvenient Truth,” by former Vice President Al Gore. Neither Gore, nor the producers, Participant Productions, get any money for the DVDs. So they thought it would be helpful to give it to science teachers to use on the topic of global warming, even if the narrator was the former vice president.
Is the NSTA overly concerned that politics could enter the science curriculum? Not at all. This teachers’ organization has accepted lesson plans about forests from Weyerhaeuser and International Paper; about oil and fuel from Shell and ExxonMobil; and about genetic engineering from Monsanto Company.
For instance, the NSTA has distributed to classrooms a video made by the American Petroleum Institute (API) called “You Can’t be Cool without Fuel.” The API clearly states it is trying to influence the science curricula in classrooms. ExxonMobil says on its web site that it will spend 40 million dollars this year to have an impact on how educational organizations teach science. It has funded 29 organizations devoted to denying that human activity causes global warming.
This corporate method of “educating” follows the path once taken by the Joe Camel ads. R.J. Reynolds designed the cartoon character to attract children to cigarettes. Of course, neither the ads nor the company warned the children about such deadly consequences of smoking as lung cancer or emphysema.
Evidently a more scientific DVD about global warming conflicts with the “special interests” of the NSTA’s corporate friends.
Dec 11, 2006
The Detroit Police and Fire Retirement System is now the proud owner of a toxic waste site in Romulus, Michigan, near Detroit Metro Airport. The company that owned the site, Environmental Disposal Systems, Inc. (EDS) recently defaulted on 38 million dollars in loans from the police and fire department’s pension fund.
Last January, a federal judge had given EDS approval to inject hazardous waste in wells 4500 feet underground, despite the objections of local residents and environmental activists who had fought against the injection well plan for 17 years up to that point.
This site was so badly run that the state Department of Environmental Quality shut the wells down in October, just ten months later. One of the wells was leaking and another one emitting an acidic vapor. Even the federal Environmental Protection Agency cited the company for not being able to show that it properly monitored the waste and for having only one part-time employee with any experience in well operations.
So the polluting company quickly disappeared–pulling the plug on its website, and using workers from another company to answer its phones.
So thirty-eight million dollars seems to have disappeared, local residents are left to worry about toxic waste leaking from the wells, and police and firefighters are left to manage a toxic waste dump. It smells like it was a bad plan from the beginning–as the people of the area knew.
(Maybe retired police officers and firefighters can pay their landlords and bill collectors with hazardous waste!)
Dec 11, 2006
Five cops fired fifty shots at three peaceable unarmed men outside a club in the Queens neighborhood of New York in the early morning hours of November 25. One of the men, Sean Bell, was killed and the two others seriously wounded. The three had attended a bachelor party for Bell, who was to have been married the next day. Their only crime was trying to get away from five men, roughly dressed, who threatened them with guns pulled.
The cops, who were undercover, claimed to be conducting a prostitution and drug sting at the club. Witnesses said the three men took them for robbers and tried to drive away. The cops rammed their car, jumped out of their own unmarked car and started firing. One of the police fired 31 shots, meaning he had to stop and reload in the middle of the shooting. The witnesses said the police never identified themselves until after the men had been shot down.
People from the community started protesting the shootings almost immediately. Many people noted the similarity between this incident and the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo, another black man who was shot 41 times by four cops as he sat on his doorstep.
This shooting was so obviously vicious that even New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had to say it was “excessive.” But he tried to smooth things over by claiming the shootings were not racially motivated since two of the cops were black, two were Hispanic and only one was white. He said, “The police officers were as diverse as the people in the car. I don’t think there was any evidence that race had anything to do with this.”
This is just a coverup for the cops.
In the first place, the cop who started it all, shooting 31 times, was white. But the bigger issue is not who did the shooting, but who was shot. What are the odds that a peaceable and unarmed white man and two friends celebrating his upcoming marriage would be gunned down in such a fashion?
Racism is not simply the result of the attitudes of individuals, but of the organization of the society and the way it functions. The automatic assumption that a young black man is dangerous and guilty until proven innocent is part of the everyday functioning of the New York City police, and behind them, a racist society. For the mayor to pretend that this shooting was not racist means more young black men will be gunned down by New York’s “finest” killers.
Dec 11, 2006
Today there are 47 charter schools in the city of Chicago, handed over as gifts at public expense to private interests . Four million dollars of taxpayers’ money was spent renovating Bunche elementary school only to turn it over to the Catholic church as a charter school. Millions of dollars were spent building a new Haugan school, again turned over to a charter school. Now the same is going on with Englewood Academy High School.
Why would Chicago do this?
Parents, of course, send their children to charter schools in the hope of giving them a better education than Chicago public schools, which a few years ago were judged the worst in the country. But every credible study in Chicago and elsewhere shows that students do worse in charter schools. Federal education statistics show that charter school students on average are a half year behind public school students.
No matter how bad public schools are, charter schools are worse. It’s obvious why. Charter schools are set up for reasons other than education. Many are run for profit, which means making money is their primary goal, not the improvement of students. So-called non-profits operate charters to employ more staff and build their clout. In Chicago, the United Neighborhood Organization runs two charter schools. This organization is closely tied to the Hispanic Democratic Organization, which was created by Mayor Daley as part of his patronage system. Others are run by private universities to siphon off public money for their teacher training programs. And the charter schools run by churches give them a place to push their beliefs, even though they are paid for by all the taxpayers, many of whom are opposed to their dogmas.
While the Chicago public school system is draining public money to charter schools, it continues to let public schools deteriorate. Water leakage has been a serious problem–at Monroe Elementary shorting wires and causing a fire; at Montefiore Special closing a new cafeteria; and at Kennedy High School ruining library books and equipment. Broken glass wasn’t removed for months at Morton Career Academy and Howe Elementary.
Charter schools are a mark of our times. Educational “entrepreneurs” are ripping off public school funds while the public schools are deteriorating. And all of this is being promoted by politicians and public school bureaucrats who, having failed the children once, are lining up to do it again.
Dec 11, 2006
About half a million people in Missouri and Illinois, and hundreds of thousands in other states, lost their electric service when an early December snow and ice storm plowed through parts of the Midwest. Tens of thousands didn’t get their power back for a week or more. In the meantime, they suffered without lights and heat in the middle of record cold weather.
At least 25 people died in the storm, including two men dead of carbon monoxide poisoning, trying to use a charcoal fire to get warm. At least 43 others were hospitalized from carbon monoxide poisoning, as they tried any means at hand to avoid freezing to death.
Most of the power outages occurred in areas serviced by St. Louis-based Ameren Corporation. Ameren spokesmen claim that the company did its best to restore power quickly. But according to the Missouri Public Power Commission, this was Ameren’s fourth major, prolonged power outage in three years.
Experts say Ameren hasn’t been investing in upkeep, such as burying its power lines, putting up stronger lines, and trimming back trees near its lines. But Ameren doesn’t lack for money! Like most other utility and power generation companies, Ameren has been making money hand over fist.
During the months of July, August and September 2006 alone, Ameren made a profit of 293 million dollars–a rate of return on the stockholders’ investment of over 18%! Missouri’s Public Power Commission chairman, trying to save his own image, lectured Ameren: “The perception out there is maybe you guys have spent a little too much time on Wall Street and not enough time worrying about Main Street.”
This is undoubtedly true. But neither in Missouri and Illinois, nor anywhere else in the country, can utility customers expect politicians and commissioners to do anything about the problem–unless they are forced to do so. Those authorities are the very same people who have allowed the power companies to privatize and vastly increase their ripoff of customers and taxpayers.
Dependable power infrastructure can mean the difference between life and death in emergencies. If utility profits have to freeze, so that people caught in storms don’t freeze, then so be it. And right now!
Dec 11, 2006
The Democrats asked Robert Gates if he thought the U.S. is “winning” in Iraq. That’s the same question the pollsters ask. Not whether the U.S. should even be in Iraq. Not whether the war is right, or justified. Just whether the U.S. is “winning.”
But what would it mean if the U.S. were winning the war? To WIN the war, the U.S. would need to gain complete control over the country. That means destroying any opposition to its being there, and that means bombing the country even more heavily–and KILLING a lot more people, to beat the population into submission.
The U.S. “winning” in Iraq? It means only the peace...of the graveyard.
Dec 11, 2006
The Senate took just one day to confirm Robert Gates as George Bush’s nominee to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. The vote was 95-2; not one Democrat voted against confirmation.
One reason for the big Democratic Party win in November was voters’ disgust at the war in Iraq. But no sooner was the election over, than Democrats started backtracking on getting out of Iraq.
Democrats and Republicans portrayed Gates as “refreshing” and a straight-shooter. They praised his “candor.” Why? Because he said “no” when asked if the U.S. is “winning” in Iraq.
Gates a straight shooter? Yeah, he’s a straight shooter. He said right up front that the U.S. would be in Iraq for years. Just as Bush has said all along that the U.S. would be in Iraq for years. Democrats had no problem with that, though, and voted to confirm him anyway.
But if anyone wants to believe that he’s not a liar, all they have to do is look at his record. This is the same guy who, as head of the CIA, falsified intelligence reports during the Reagan years and ran a clandestine war in Nicaragua using hired thugs.
Gates’ record never even came up. Not once did any Democrats ask him about those falsified reports. Not once did they mention his role in the Nicaraguan war.
If the Democrats had REALLY wanted to oppose the war in Iraq, they could have tied up his confirmation until the new Senate gets seated next month; and then they would have voted him down.
IF.
But their actions speak much louder than their words.
Dec 11, 2006
“It is another defeat for Mr. Danger, the devil (meaning George Bush). Venezuela will no longer be a colony for North America nor for any other country.” So declared Hugo Chavez, the winner by a big margin in the Venezuelan presidential election held December 3rd. He won 62% of the vote, his bestpercentage yet since he was first elected in 1998. Chavez won in all of the states in the country, including in Zulia where Governor Manuel Rosales, his main opponent, got only 38% of the vote.
The opposition to Chavez was made up essentially of those who, before Chavez took power, made profits in partnership with the United States, most notably from its oil. This was open pillage of Venezuela’s resources, which always left the popular classes poorer, as is the case in the rest of Latin America.
Chavez moved to reestablish state control over oil revenue, using at least some state revenue for the benefit of the popular masses–leaning on them in order to gain some room to maneuver with the United States. The Venezuelan owners, supported by the United States, did all they could to stop him. But two military takeovers failed, as did a referendum to try to isolate Chavez and their attempts to oppose him in different elections.
Chavez continues to furnish oil to the United States, but he has reinforced the weight of the Venezuelan state in the oil sector and used the revenue to finance different “social missions” that have visibly improved the lives of the disinherited–most notably in the area of healthcare (with massive support from Cuban doctors), in education and in food aid. Thanks to these things and to the organization of “Bolivar circles” that organized the population into new structures, Chavez found a large popular support–which was again shown in this latest election.
The news media, reflecting the views of those opposed to Chavez, speak about the “new rich” being formed out of this situation. But among those owners who are prospering in Venezuela under Chavez, there are not only the “new rich.” There are also the old ones for whom the “missions” opened by Chavez are an appreciable source of profits. This should come as no surprise, given that the regime itself says that it does not intend to put in question the hold of wealth over society. The banks and private companies thus continue to prosper. And even a U.S. agribusiness corporation, Cargill, runs the food distribution system that sells food at discount prices.
But the social policies of Chavez, even if they don’t put the capitalist system in question, clothe it with an appearance sufficiently exceptional in Latin America that it feeds the hopes of some 225 million poor people there and influences the way in which other Latin American parties have to speak to them.
U.S. imperialism had begun to hope, with the illness of Fidel Castro, that they would soon be rid of a symbol of someone who refuses to bend over in front of its might, this clear electoral victory for Chavez shows that the Latin American masses are not resigned to submit to the U.S. yoke.
Dec 11, 2006
Scientists recently announced an important discovery in the study of human evolution. They found a fossil skeleton of an individual they believe lived 3.3 million years ago in the Dikika region of Ethiopia.
The fossil skeleton comes from the same species as the famous “Lucy” skeleton, Australopithecus afarensis, a species that may be on the line of descent between humans and their last common ancestor with apes. But it is of a very young individual, and its skeleton is more complete than any previously discovered.
The completeness of the skeleton is giving scientists a better understanding of how humans evolved. The Dikika fossil shows that this species had some similarities to humans and other features more like those of apes.
The species was a hominid, meaning it walked upright on two feet, like humans. The fossil’s shoulder blades, on the other hand, show that this species had powerful arms and shoulders that gave it the ability to swing from trees. The curved shape of the fossil child’s fingers was also better for grasping tree limbs and also indicate that it probably clung to its mother while she moved–more like chimp babies do than human babies, whose mothers set them down while they do other things.
Earlier fossils from this species show that it had a larger brain–proportionate to its size–than apes do. But the fossil child’s brain was smaller than that of a young chimpanzee at the same age. The fossil’s discoverers believe the skeleton shows that the child’s brain developed more slowly than those of apes–like human brains do.
It took scientists working on this fossil almost six years of diligent work to get to the point they could make this announcement. And new discoveries could change the significance of some of these details.
But the discovery of this extraordinary fossil adds to the picture of evolution as a process in which species arise having a mixture of features of earlier and later species.
Dec 11, 2006
On November 1st, representatives of 360 unions from 150 countries met in Vienna to officially found the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). It claims to have 190 million members worldwide.
The unions came together from the three different currents of international unions that have acted separately since 1947: Christian unions that are strong in Latin America but also in Quebec and in Europe; so-called “free unions,” like the AFL-CIO here and unions connected to the socialist parties in Europe; and finally, some unions formerly tied to the Communist Parties and the Russian bureaucracy like the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) in France or the All-Polish Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ).
In its declaration of aims, the ITUC says it wants to “fundamentally change globalization in order that it function in favor of workers, the unemployed and the poor.” This is a worthy goal. But there was only a vague proposal on how to win this. The ITUC will organize a “world day of action demanding immediate international action to formulate and put on the agenda a new globalization.”
Workers have a vital interest in uniting their forces across borders. The working class is one and the same class all over the world, and its defense and future can only be guaranteed by becoming conscious of its common interests. If the workers came together in an organization which really represented their interests, they would have the means to change their situation, and still more, to change this society based on generalized injustice! But this isn’t what the ITUC proposes, any more than do the union federations that make it up.
In each country, the leaders of the union federations show themselves more concerned about participating in the management of companies or governments, as they are, that is, dominated by the bosses, rather than in explaining to workers that they can reverse the relationship of forces, and calling on them to struggle. The union federations often accept concessions like wage and benefit cuts and accept changes in laws that worsen benefits and protections the workers have–if union officials are allowed to sit at the negotiating table with the bosses. Fundamentally, they agree that workers should sacrifice, contribute more out of their own pockets for benefits the companies used to pay for, and also accept reduced benefit levels. This has gone on a lot in the U.S., but the same thing is happening in all countries, with slight variations from place to place.
This new organization just piles on another bureaucratic layer in the unions. In addition to the different union bureaucracies in each country, there will now be a still higher level of bureaucracy. The national union federations already show themselves far removed from workers’ lives, concerns and interests. But with this new union federation, a small inner circle of international union leaders will meet more often with the heads of the multinational corporations and international bodies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, often staying at the same luxury hotels with them.
Nevertheless, workers definitely need international organizations, on a political level as much as on a union level. In order for an organization to be truly useful to workers, it needs to set a goal to organize workers to impose their demands on the capitalists who dominate the world.
Dec 11, 2006
There are more people living in poverty in the suburbs today than in U.S. cities. While this contradicts the popular image of where most poor people live, it is based on a wide study recently done of U.S. census data. Looking at data for the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, researchers showed that poverty has spread its tentacles far beyond the center cities.
Many workers who fled the cities in the 1970s and ’80s have either lost their jobs, or have children who cannot find jobs with decent pay.
Many immigrants, thinking to escape the cities, went directly to the suburbs–but that didn’t give them higher wages.
Clearly, workers who moved to the suburbs ever since the 1970s in order to escape from the poverty in the cities, have failed to do so.
It’s obvious why: The cities don’t create poverty–capitalism does. And you can’t run away from capitalism. Either you fight it collectively–or you let it abuse you.
Dec 11, 2006
In the November general elections in Michigan, the UAW endorsed a certain Eugene Driker for election to the Wayne State University Board of Governors.
This same Eugene Driker was a lead lawyer defending GM’s side against GM retirees. The retirees sued (and lost) when GM deliberately broke their contract and imposed higher health care costs on them.
In court, the UAW actually supported GM against the retirees! So when UAW headquarters endorsed the GM lawyer, retirees thought of that old expression: “thick as thieves!”
Dec 11, 2006
Only days after Ford announced that nearly half of its workforce had “volunteered” to take the buyout, the Detroit News ran an article entitled, “How 38,000 were enticed to leave Ford.”
The article chronicled the “untold story” of how Ford put one over on its U.S. workforce, convincing them to head for the exits, using a combination of marketing ploys, scare tactics and fake promises of great career opportunities–all with the blessing and participation of the UAW International.
So where was the media the whole year this huge scam operation was being carried out? The answer is–they were part of it! The newspapers, TV, radio, politicians, top UAW International officials, many local union officials, banks, universities, community colleges, psychologists, sociologists, telemarketers–you name it, they were all accomplices. They repeated the lies and the scare tactics to do the bidding of a multi-billion-dollar, world-wide corporation to scam tens of thousands of workers out of a job–only to replace them with tens of thousands more who will be paid half as much.
So what are the details of this operation? In March 2006, Ford executives and UAW leaders met in Las Vegas to start the ball rolling. They agreed that Ford workers should compete with OTHER FORD WORKERS in U.S. plants, coming up with 30 “Competitive Operating Agreements.” These COA’s will let Ford close some plants and run others flat out. The aim isn’t to cut production, but only pack more people into fewer plants to run production 24-7.
But the biggest scam of all was the so-called “Special Incentive” programs to try to convince the existing workforce to leave–so that Ford, like Delphi and GM, could replace them with a permanently “temporary” lower-paid workforce.
Then a scare campaign was put into play, full-force, with none other than Bob King–a UAW VP, newly appointed in June at the UAW Las Vegas convention–to play the duet with Ford’s counterpart, Mark Fields. Some workers got the company line, slickly-packaged with power-point presentations and fire-and brimstone speeches, from Bob King in person. Others were given a DVD–with the same, slick financial analysis portraying a gloomy financial outlook for the company. Asserting that Ford was in “financial trouble–so serious, I believe that it has put the hard-earned job security of many of our members at risk,” King claimed that “a voluntary work force reduction seems to be our best option.”
To ensure they were covering all bases, Ford enlisted the help of research marketers from the University of Michigan–at the Dearborn campus, Dearborn being the Ford company town of the Ford dynasty. These marketing “experts” surveyed 2,000 workers who had taken earlier buyouts from the Edison, N.J., and St. Louis plants, to see how to sell the new buy-outs. Marketing tactics were designed to fine tune just how Ford would package the buyout, ESPECIALLY to convince younger workers, not even close to retirement age, to leave.
The scam continued. Ford assembled a team from Human Resources, Labor Relations, and Public Relations, coming up with banners, a web site, call centers, financial analysts and slick video profiles of the “success” stories of seven former Ford workers who had taken earlier buyouts. They organized career fairs at each plant and set up booths, including recruiting workers for the most disgusting work of all–as Border Patrol or CIA! They held in-plant meetings, stopping production, so workers would hear yet more horror stories from the top bosses, with local union leaders sitting quietly, their heads down, on the right hand side of the bosses.
The company now is bragging they got their big buyout numbers. They also got the green light from UAW leaders to hire replacement workers, paid much less, with no benefits, no union rights–except having to pay dues–and no permanent job status.
Ford, the UAW leadership, and a whole host of con artists ran a game on the Ford workers. And they were so arrogant, they thought they could brag about it publicly right after people signed up.
But the story isn’t over. Scammers sometimes end up getting scammed themselves. There’s nothing that says workers can’t throw these so-called “offers” back in Ford’s face. According to the papers everyone signed, workers can withdraw their decision to quit up until the last day before they are to leave.
Scams don’t work with people who are savvy. Workers have proven time and time again that they understand who their real enemies are. “Solidarity Forever” was the battle cry of auto workers in the past. These old, militant traditions can be resurrected and put into practice today by workers who are equally savvy about what their own real interests are.