The Spark

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

Issue no. 962 — April 28 - May 12, 2014

EDITORIAL
Murder in Kansas:
The Extreme Right IS a Danger

Apr 28, 2014

This is making sure justice is done,” said Stephen M. Howe, a district attorney in Overland Park, Kansas, after charging Frazier Glenn Miller for shooting and killing three people at a Jewish Community Center and a Jewish assisted-living complex.

Justice? Not hardly. Not for William Corporon, Reat Underwood and Terri LaManno. They are dead because Miller, an avowed Klansman, Nazi and white supremacist with a long history of racist violence, decided to kill Jews. If they are dead, it is because the authorities had no qualms about leaving Miller free to murder again.

The 73-year-old Miller had made a long career out of violence, murder and openly calling for genocide. In 1979, Miller belonged to a Nazi group called the National Socialist Party of America. He was with them in Greensboro, North Carolina, when they attacked an anti-Klan protest march and murdered five communists. But the cops gave Miller a free pass.

Not even an arrest.

Miller went on to found and lead the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Patriot Party. He got part of the 3.8 million dollars stolen in an armored truck robbery. He stockpiled weapons and explosives stolen from Fort Bragg and other military bases–including armor piercing anti-tank rockets and C-4 explosives. He and his buddies marched in military formation up and down the Atlantic Seaboard, threatening black people, Jewish people and “traitors to the white race.” They burnt crosses. They meted out violence against anyone they crossed paths with. They planned assassinations.

And the police gave them a free pass.

At one point the cops put Miller away for a couple of years on a charge of attempting to obtain stolen Army weapons! But he was out soon enough, free to spew his poison and hate. It was hardly a slap on the wrist.

The authorities in this country have always nurtured and protected groups like the Klan, Nazis–or in earlier times, the Black Legion and the White Citizens Councils. In a society divided into rich and poor, into capitalists and workers–those on top use violence to maintain their rule against all the working people of this country.

The police are used to break strikes. The FBI gathers information about people who would dare to organize the oppressed or oppose U.S. wars. But there are also unofficial groups. These groups may be made up of hoodlums and thugs, or ruined members of the middle class. But behind the scenes, they have ties to law enforcement, just as Miller had ties to the army and local sheriffs. And they get funding from local businesses and big companies alike.

During the civil rights movement in the South, the FBI had informers and agents inside the Klan and they often took part in attacks, sometimes led them. Local police barely hid their faces behind Klan robes. During the union organizing drives of the 1930s, GM bankrolled the Black Legion and relied on foremen and managers to run the Legion.

Today, extreme right wing groups maintain themselves on a daily diet of racism and hatred. Some patrol the Southern border and attack immigrants. Others carry out campaigns against abortion and women’s health clinics. Some blow up buildings. Others assassinate doctors. And, as always, black people are their special targets.

In the future, when economic conditions get worse and anger grows, we can be sure that these groups, which look somewhat marginal today–“Kooks”–will be at the forefront of attacks against the working class when it fights.

It would be an enormous mistake for workers to think these extreme-right wing groups are not a danger. And it would be a tragic mistake for white workers to succumb to their racist poison. The working class, the whole working class, will have to prepare to defend itself against these violent defenders of capitalism.

Pages 2-3

Right-wing Attack on Academic Freedom in South Carolina

Apr 28, 2014

The South Carolina House of Representatives recently voted to cut $52,000 from the budget of the College of Charleston, along with cutting $17,000 from the budget of the University of South Carolina Upstate, Spartanburg. On top of that, they want to appoint a new right-wing president for the College of Charleston who has no education experience and used to run a gift shop that sold Confederate Civil War memorabilia.

Legislators launched these attacks because the two colleges assigned books with gay themes. The College of Charleston assigned a book called Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, a memoir about a young woman coming to terms with her gay father’s suicide and the fact that she is a lesbian. The college faculty chose this as a book for all freshman to read in order to spark discussions. The University of South Carolina Upstate chose a similar book for a similar program.

But open discussion about gay themes is too much for the right-wingers who dominate the South Carolina legislature. They want to control what young people read, and what they think.

The outgoing president of the College of Charleston summed it up: “Is there an alternative to academic freedom? Yes, there is. It’s called oppression.”

Corporations Weigh on Education

Apr 28, 2014

Throughout the country, more and more of what students learn at universities and community colleges is being designed directly by corporations to meet their short-term needs.

Northrop Grumman gave the University of Maryland money for a new cybersecurity program. IBM partnered with Ohio State for a program in data analytics. Many community colleges are polling local businesses to see what kinds of training they want students to get, and then expanding those programs at the expense of traditional fields like science and history.

At first glance, this seems like it might help students be prepared for the jobs that actually exist. Corporations give universities money, and in return, universities train students to go straight into corporate jobs. But of course, the amount of money the corporations give never comes close to the full cost of training students, so taxpayers and students’ own loans subsidize the corporations’ need for training. And having a very specific skill might be great in the short term, but as the field changes, these students will be much less prepared with the general skills they need to learn and adapt. Does anyone expect cybersecurity to work the same way ten years from now as it works today?

Young people need real educations, that teach them how to engage with different ideas, and that give them a deep understanding of the skills they will need for a given career. Corporations aren’t interested in that–they want the public to pay for training to meet their needs right now. The corporate takeover of the university is one more attack on young people.

Part-time Faculty Hustle

Apr 28, 2014

Today, only about 30% of professors at universities and community colleges in the United States have traditional full-time, tenure-track jobs. They’ve been replaced by part-time faculty, usually called adjuncts. These adjuncts are paid extremely low wages, and they can’t give the kind of education they’d like to provide.

For the equivalent of full-time work, adjuncts make an average of $18,000-$30,000 a year. They are not guaranteed employment from one semester to the next. And they almost never receive health or retirement benefits. This means that many adjuncts teach at as many as five schools in a given area, scrambling to put together enough classes each semester to pay the bills.

This is bad for the adjuncts, but it’s also bad for the students. Adjuncts usually have no office space in which to meet, and no time to do so. They don’t have as much time to devote to preparing for class or giving students useful feedback. Adjuncts also have much less time to attend and organize lectures, student clubs, plays, field trips, research projects, and the other parts of college that allow students to learn beyond the classroom.

Despite the fact that college and university classes are increasingly taught by lower paid professors, the cost of college education has been going up. This is in part because the number of administrators and their pay has been skyrocketing. But more than that, it’s because states have been cutting back on funding for higher education–all while handing ever more tax breaks to the corporations.

All this means that students are paying more tuition every year, for a worse education, and that a large number of the people teaching them are forced into an increasingly precarious economic situation. The situation of these adjuncts proves the lie that getting a lot of education is the path to a good paying job!

Student Loans to Cost More

Apr 28, 2014

The U.S. federal government directly profits off the increasing student loan debt that is crippling the future of young people. In 2013, the federal government booked 41 BILLION DOLLARS in profit from interest on student loans.

Congress and the Obama administration hit a new low for deception and cynicism when they passed a law in 2013 to “fight” rising student loan debt.

When the law was passed, interest rates did go down–for ONE year. But for the next NINE years, interest rates will go up! In July 2014, interest rates on new student loans will rise by almost one third and are projected to keep rising annually.

Under the old law, interest charges would have been less for students, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis. Under the new law, the federal government is projected to rake in an additional 700 million dollars in profit.

The policy of both political parties to cut taxes on corporations goes hand in glove with the federal government making up that lost revenue off the backs of students and working people.

The younger generation is making the acquaintance of a very old saying: “With ‘friends’ like these, who needs enemies!”

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter—A Fighter against Injustice

Apr 28, 2014

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter has died at the age of 76. Carter, a well-known black middleweight boxer, was twice falsely convicted of a triple murder, in 1967 and 1976, and sentenced to life in prison. Carter eventually won his release from prison after a widespread campaign on his behalf.

In June of 1966, three people were shot in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. Carter and his friend John Artis were arrested and charged with the murders. It later became clear that the cops and the prosecutors were out to get Carter, to pin the crime on him despite having no case against him.

The prosecution based their case largely on the testimony of two “eyewitnesses” who later recanted. The police took no fingerprints at the scene of the murders and did not test Carter and Artis for gunshot residue. They claimed to show the bullets could have come from guns found in Carter’s car, but the bullets used in the shootings did not match those found with the guns.

In 1974, the original judge in the case refused to grant Carter a new trial. Carter was outspoken about his innocence, and gained widespread popular support on his behalf. Muhammad Ali spoke out in Carter’s defense. Bob Dylan wrote a hit song declaring him innocent.

That led the New Jersey Supreme Court to take up the case, and in 1975 it granted Carter and Artis a new trial, finding the prosecution withheld evidence from the defense.

The prosecution wanted to make an example of Carter, to make it clear they weren’t going to accept having another Muhammad Ali on their hands. They prosecuted Carter a second time. At the second trial, one of the supposed “eyewitnesses” refused to testify. Other witnesses corroborated Carter’s alibi that he was in a different bar at the time of the shooting.

Still, without evidence, the prosecution presented the theory Carter and Artis carried out the shootings as revenge for the killing of a black bar owner earlier that night. An all-white jury again convicted the two.

In 1985 after Carter had spent 19 years in prison, Judge Haddon Sorokin finally overturned his conviction on the grounds the prosecution was “predicated upon an appeal to racism rather than reason” based on the prosecution’s “revenge” theory, “and concealment rather than disclosure.”

Following his release from prison, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter moved to Canada, reasonably fearing retribution by the American system of injustice. Up to his death, he remained an outspoken defender of other black prisoners falsely convicted of crimes they did not commit.

Pages 4-5

Bosses Continue Attacks on the Working Class and Reap Massive Profits

Apr 28, 2014

The following remarks are from a Spark presentation in Los Angeles in March 2014.

Five years after the economic recovery officially began, almost 30 million people, or more than 20 percent of the working age population, is either unemployed or working part-time, while looking for full time work. And things are not getting better. Over the last year, the federal government cut 68,400 jobs, and the Postal Service cut almost another 200,000 jobs, or more than 25 percent of all jobs from its pre-recession level. State governments around the country cut another 150,000 jobs. And local governments cut 600,000 jobs, including over a quarter of a million jobs in public education.

As for the private sector, mass layoffs are continuing there too. Over the last couple of months, giant retailers, including Radio Shack, Staples, WalMart, Macy’s and Penney’s all announced big cutbacks that will cost thousands more jobs at each company.

This unending massive unemployment is not some natural catastrophe, completely out of the control of human beings. It is a catastrophe brought on by the capitalist drive for profit. In the midst of an unemployment disaster, corporate profits have never been higher, running at an annual rate of nearly two trillion dollars—after taxes. This is the highest share of GDP for profit since 1947, when record-keeping began.

What Did They Do with Their Profit?

The corporations passed their profits on to their largest shareholders. Last year, dividends hit a new peak, close to 900 billion dollars. Corporations also bought back shares of their own stock, thus handing billions more to their biggest stockholders. When the number of shares falls, the value of each share goes up. In 2013 the 30 companies that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average authorized 211 billion dollars in stock buybacks.

Even after all this money was lavished on stockholders, non-financial companies in the U.S. were still sitting on trillions of dollars in cash. Not to mention the trillions more the banks hold as the result of what they have taken off the top of profits from production.

But companies aren’t investing their profits to expand; they are squeezing more production out of the same old plants and equipment. Factories that used to have one or two shifts are now running flat out: three shifts, 24-hours a day, seven days a week, resulting in hellish hours for the workforce, much greater health and safety hazards, worse working conditions. Airlines cut routes, shrink capacity, fly their planes completely full and charge much higher fares, along with added fees. Electric utilities don’t replace old equipment or install extra capacity for usage peaks, resulting in regular blackouts, explosions and fires.

Capital’s drive to extract greater profit for the benefit of a few is laying waste to all of society, destroying the infrastructure, smashing the standard of living of the working class and other parts of the population.

25 “Good” Years—At What Price?

Some liberal economist pretend that capitalism can be reformed if the economy is regulated. They say that the quarter century between 1947 and 1974 illustrates that it is possible for capitalism to grow and raise everyone’s standard of living. They quote President John F. Kennedy’s famous dictum that the economy’s rising tide lifts all boats.

But what really made those 25 years of growth possible? First of all, they were making up for the preceding two decades of destruction and misery. Between the 1930s Great Depression, the worst, most devastating depression in history, and World War II, the most bloody and destructive war in world history, so many goods, so many factories and equipment were destroyed, it finally made it very profitable for capitalists to invest in new factories and equipment and expand production.

Furthermore, the terrible destruction and pillage by U.S. imperial domination over the underdeveloped parts of the world allowed U.S. companies to extract super profits from Asia, Africa and Latin America. It also led to the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and dozens of other countries.

As long as the big and easy profits poured in, the U.S. capitalists let a few crumbs fall from their abundant table. They paid for labor peace, especially faced with a unionized working class that was ready to go on strike. The capitalists agreed to increase wages and to add fringe benefits—slowly.

Of course, the capitalists didn’t do this for everyone. Not by a long shot. A big part of the workforce remained condemned to unemployment in the reserve army of those with either no jobs or very precarious jobs—a position historically reserved for black people in the country. This was the capitalists’ method to hold back wage increases for everyone.

But black people’s massive social struggles changed that. Those struggles, which culminated with actual uprisings in cities throughout the 1960s, pushed the U.S. government to expand its safety net and income maintenance programs for the poor, the infirm, the elderly, the blind, those with mental disabilities and the unemployed. Taken together, these programs had a large impact on the whole workforce. Economists estimated that they reduced the total hours worked by all workers by 7%, even while the standard of living went up rapidly.

The Gains Came to a Screeching Halt

By the late 1960s, the rate of profit for the capitalist class had begun to drop. In response, the capitalists slowed investment, cut hiring, and let unemployment grow. This led to a slowdown in the growth of consumer demand, which led the capitalists to cut production and to invest even less.

Our jobs were supposed to have gone overseas, or else they were eliminated by computers and robots.

It’s a fairy tale. The loss of five million manufacturing jobs over the last four decades is not due to a drop in manufacturing production. Manufacturing production in the U.S. didn’t fall. On the contrary, it more than doubled. Workers were robbed of their jobs right here by companies that pushed fewer workers to produce much more than they did before. Today, 40 percent fewer production workers in this country produce more than twice as much as they did four decades ago.

The reality is that companies threaten to move jobs overseas—in order to extort greater production out of a smaller workforce. They push workers to literally work their way out of their own job.

This ended the period of economic growth and opened up a new period of ever worsening crises, a period that, after almost half a century, is still not over. In the midst of these crises, the capitalists sought to recover their profits by bleeding and impoverishing the rest of society.

This required a massive offensive against the working population.

That offensive was spear-headed by the government, which slashed social programs. These programs had helped to insulate wages and living standards for workers, giving workers who had lost their jobs a choice. Deprived of this income assistance, workers had to accept the low wage jobs they previously had been able to turn down.

Government officials and the capitalist class also opened up a broad offensive against the entire workforce. This began in the mid-1970s, when both big city governments, like New York, and big companies, like Chrysler, threatened bankruptcy and collapse unless their workforces agreed to big sacrifices, including layoffs and wage and benefit givebacks. These big sacrifices, said all the top officials in corporations, the government, the news media, academia and even the unions, were necessary in order to rescue the companies and government agencies from bankruptcy.

But once concessions were imposed at a few places, the dam burst. Companies and government entities alike clamored for big concessions from their workforce just to keep them supposedly competitive with the companies and government entities that were going bankrupt.

When companies returned to profitability, they paid out fat dividends to shareholders and fat bonuses to their executives. Not only didn’t they return something to the workers, they continued to demand new concessions.

Union Response Was Weak

Workers began to express open dissatisfaction. But union officials led only a few, very limited strikes, the kind you can’t win! As these strikes failed, union officials began to push the message that strikes no longer worked and were outdated.

The number of strikes plummeted. And along with that, the portion of the workforce in unions also plummeted. This reflected the declining power of the workers, a decline in the workers’ confidence in their ability to organize and fight in their own interests.

Could the workers have challenged this? Of course they could have. A strike in 1978 in the eastern coal fields saw the miners taking the offensive. They not only closed down union mines, they sent out roving pickets who closed down non-union mines. To try to stop the strikes, the Carter administration invoked the Taft-Hartley Act. They got a court injunction ordering miners back to work. But the miners would not be cowed, and pretty soon a federal judge ruled in exasperation that since the miners were not obeying the injunction, he was revoking it. The miners showed it was possible to push back the capitalists’ demands for sacrifices. But other sectors did not take up the coal miners’ lead. And most union officials began to repeat the lie that’s it’s not possible to fight.

Without workers making a fight, the door was left open for the capitalist class to increasingly rob the working class—and for profit to skyrocket.

The Working Class Can Fight

The whole increase in profit and wealth is not inevitable. It is not a part of the natural order of things. It’s a result of the unfavorable relationship of forces in the class struggle, which is impoverishing the working class today.

Just to stop the backwards march in their standard of living, workers are going to have to fight. If workers are to win, they can’t be satisfied in carrying out the kinds of isolated fights that the unions have led in the past. The workers cannot accept all of the divisions between union and non-union, and between workers in different companies and unions, between active workers and retirees, between “legacy” workers and new hires. These divisions only serve to weaken the workers. The workers must learn to bring as many forces as possible into their fights. Their strength lies in their numbers and their position as the class that makes society run.

Today we cannot defend our own special interests without also fighting to defend the interests of all workers. Instead of fighting each other over who is going to keep their job, workers must fight to end layoffs and job cuts all together. There must be a fight to put the tens of millions of people who don’t have jobs back to work.

Certainly, there is plenty that could be done by all those who don’t have jobs today. Just look at one sector of the economy: education. Look at the condition of the schools, the buildings that are crumbling and filthy because they are not maintained properly. And look at all the overcrowded classrooms. Millions of people could be put to work just in education alone—and all of society would benefit. Imagine how all of society could be improved if the same thing was done in other sectors: open up the hospitals that have been closed, put people back to work to build up the infrastructure—and so much more.

And if workers are told that there is not enough work for everyone, the answer is simple: share out the work, with no loss in pay for anyone. In this way, people don’t have to kill themselves working all the time in order to make a living.

Finally, workers have to protect themselves from rising prices. They have to protect their buying power. So when prices go up, wages immediately go up at the same rate.

In other words, workers have to use their fights to take back from the bourgeoisie’s accumulated profit in order to guarantee a decent standard of living for themselves and for the whole population.

Pages 6-7

China:
Thousands of Workers Strike over Benefits

Apr 28, 2014

Tens of thousands of workers who came from China’s provinces to the city of Dongguan in Guangdong province to work in factories have gone on strike. Ten million workers in this area, called the workshop of the world, make shoes, electronics and other manufactured goods.

The strikers work for Yue Yuen shoe factory, owned by a corporation in Taiwan, making shoes for brands like Adidas and Nike. The workers began a strike on April 5th, with hundreds of workers blocking a bridge. They demanded the company pay all the money owed to their pension, health and disability funds, as required by law. When the company stalled, thousands more demonstrated, beginning on April 14th. Some banners read “Return Our Social Insurance, Return My Housing Fund!” “Shame on Yue Yuen’s Illegal Activities!”

According to the strikers’ representatives, more than 30,000 men and women workers went on strike. The next day, it spread to five of the ten factories owned by Yue Yuen in China. A woman worker said, “The factory tricked us for ten years,” referring to its failure to pay into the benefit funds. After a strike in 2011, the Yue Yuen workers got wages of 1,500 yuan a month or $250 for six-day-work weeks. Yue Yuen withheld 20 million dollars in contributions to workers’ benefit funds over several years.

The Taiwanese company, which brags on the Internet that it makes 300 million shoes annually, got 435 million dollars in profit off its 400,000 Chinese, Indonesian and Vietnamese workers. And, of course, Nike and the other big shoe companies get vastly greater profits off the labor of these same workers.

This company does not pay legally mandated benefits–and that’s completely normal.

Despite the 2,000 anti-riot police with dogs, the mobilization continues. The strikers are occupying the parking lots, sitting on plastic chairs, snacking and drinking tea. They are expressing their anger and their impatience.

Who Pays Taxes in Maryland

Apr 28, 2014

Sometimes the Maryland politicians say to us that the state doesn’t have a “business-friendly” climate.

The IRS must see it a little differently, since the 2013 tax tables showed Maryland took in the same amount from businesses–2.6 billion dollars–as the states of Kansas and Arizona.

Yes, all three state governments took in the same amount in business taxes–but Maryland’s total taxes were much much higher. Maryland took in twice as much tax money as the state of Kansas, and it took in one and a half times as much in state taxes as Arizona.

The difference is that Maryland collects 95 percent of all taxes–53 billion dollars–from us individual taxpayers. That sure seems quite friendly to business interests!

April 15th Tax Day Bonanza for Big Biz

Apr 28, 2014

Last year the IRS collected almost three TRILLION dollars in taxes, of which businesses paid 11 percent and individuals and families paid 89 percent.

Not only do the companies pay little in taxes, 288 of the Fortune 500 companies that were profitable every year of the last five years took in more than 350 billion dollars in tax subsidies.

That works out to a whopping billion and a quarter dollars ($1,250,000,000) apiece!

Even bigger tax breaks go to Verizon, General Electric, Wells Fargo, AT&T and IBM. Those “poor” corporations got back more in tax breaks, 77 billion dollars, than they made in profits, 62 billion.

What a great racket for the richest corporations in history, thanks to the tax code written for them by Congress!

More Taxes NOT Paid

Apr 28, 2014

Up to 150 billion dollars is lost from corporations in tax revenues every year. Corporations pretend they have moved their headquarters out of the U.S., even though their business activities continue here. In one of the worst examples, 18,000 U.S. corporations claim to have headquarters in the Cayman Islands–in one building. That’s how they get away with paying no taxes.

That 150 billion dollars lost is enough money to provide FREE college tuition for every student currently at two-year and four-year state-run colleges and universities in the U.S.!

Who Is Responsible for the Korean Ferry Disaster?

Apr 28, 2014

South Korean police have now arrested 15 of the 22 surviving crew members of the Sewol, the long-range ferry/cargo ship that rolled onto its side and sank while transporting 476 passengers to Jindo, a South Korean vacation island. Police and prosecutors initially pretended that the captain and crew were the main culprits responsible for the drowning of over 300 of the 476 passengers aboard, including at least 275 high school students and their teachers.

But now it’s clear that the company had created a disaster waiting to happen. It added sleeping cabins to upper decks for cruises to and from Jindo, increasing the weight of the upper decks by 239 tons, making the ship top-heavy and more susceptible to tilting when turning, particularly in rough seas or strong currents.

In addition, the ship carried cargo as well as passengers. And at the time the ship sank, it had been overloaded way beyond its limit–between three and four times its safe limit.

Lee Gwee Bok, the president of the Incheon Port Development Association (the home port of the Sewol) says the ship should never have been cleared for operation after its modification; because the ship register should have known the shipowner would never abide by safe cargo limits. But both the Korean Register of Shipping and the Korean Shipping Association are run by the shipping bosses. “The ship’s operator aims to make money and instinctively adds more weight,” says Lee.

The tragedy of the sinking of the Sewol was a man-made disaster years in the making by the bosses and their regulatory officials. And this is only one of many ships operating the same way!

Outpouring of Support for Arizona Mother

Apr 28, 2014

A single mother in Arizona is being charged with felony child abuse for leaving her two small children (2 years old and 6 months old) alone in her car for half an hour.

Shanesha Taylor was interviewing for an office job at the time. Taylor’s lawyer said she was desperately trying to find a full-time job so that she could put food on the table for her three children.

Stephanie Cordoba, a neighbor of Taylor’s and a mother of three, said she knows how difficult it can be to qualify for child care if you are unemployed and looking for a job.

Tens of thousands of people across the country shared Cordoba’s feelings of solidarity with Taylor. By April 14, 45,000 people had signed an internet petition, calling on officials to drop the charges. The internet campaign, initiated by a 24-year-old woman from New Jersey, had also raised more than $113,000 on Taylor’s behalf.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said he would still not drop the charges. He even tried to belittle the people who support Taylor: “I don’t know whether any of these individuals in their pajamas who’ve logged on the site and put their names in there really had a clue of all the circumstances,” he said.

This official is the one who has no clue about what it means to be a working-class single mother in capitalist society–or he is indifferent to it. And all those “individuals in pajamas” obviously know a thousand times more about human compassion than prosecutors in black robes like Montgomery!

Page 8

Iraq:
An Attack on Women’s Rights

Apr 28, 2014

Ahead of the elections in Iraq scheduled for April 30, a draft law attacking women’s rights has been put before parliament by the reactionary Shiite religious right-wing. Women’s status in Iraq is still probably the most “equal” in the Arab world, based on a long-entrenched tradition dating back to secular reforms passed in 1959. Even the constitution agreed to by the U.S./British-backed post-Saddam, Shia-dominated religious regime, has so far failed to eliminate these rights.

But now women’s rights are under attack. The so-called Jaafari law would lower the age of marriage to 9 years for girls; legalize polygamy and marital rape; ban marriages between Muslims and non-Muslims; prevent wives leaving the home without permission; remove a husband’s obligation of financial support; give custody of children over 2 years to the father, etc. While a husband could divorce his wife for suffering from a skin condition, she would have virtually no right to divorce him.

If the backward religious sects have the possibility of imposing their will today, it is entirely due to the utter destruction of Iraqi society brought about by the U.S./British “war for oil” in 2003. So much for the “civilization” they have brought to Iraq, or indeed to anywhere in the Middle East!

Ukraine:
Breakdown of the State

Apr 28, 2014

Every day another police station or government building is occupied in cities in eastern Ukraine. There are barricades, armed militia troops, tents set up downtown, and ordinary people to support the movement and confrontations with the special forces.

It seems similar to events three months ago, when now-deposed President Yanukovich’s opponents camped out in Maidan square in Kiev. But today’s confrontations are against the government arising from the Maidan movement, and today they denounce Ukrainian nationalism and its submission to the West. Neither the West’s leaders nor their media show any sympathy for this unrest.

The government in Kiev treats the pro-Russian activists as separatists, even as terrorists. These activists scorn the Kiev government and demand a referendum on autonomy for the regions of the east. Even the National Guard recruited from the anti-Russian far right can’t stamp out this movement.

In fact, the Kiev government saw that it couldn’t count on the National Guard to turn its guns on its eastern neighbors. The eastern Ukraine is the most industrialized part of the country, where a third of its exports come from, accounting for over half its national wealth.

Pushed hard, the temporary Ukrainian president finally said he was no longer against a referendum on the future of the regions. His maneuver to undercut the eastern pro-Russians and the power of Moscow behind them, probably backfired. A referendum is likely to show that a majority of people living in these regions mistrust the central power, and even consider it illegitimate.

The presidential election scheduled for May 25th to replace Yanukovich, who was driven out by street protests, seems like it won’t go the way Kiev wants. What approval will any future head of state obtain in this election?

The “separatist” demands for a lot of power going to the regions establishes a federalism that will weaken the central state. The authority of those who hope to take over the central state will come out very weakened.

With the forced departure of Yanukovich, Putin’s Russia lost what power it still had over the Ukrainian government. But Russia has obtained a type of consolation prize, the more or less resigned acceptance by the Western powers of its takeover of Crimea, favored by the big majority of the people there. Further, the Ukrainian state apparatus has been destabilized, as events in Maidan square showed. The new pro-Western authorities are weak and are opposed inside their own territory. A good third of the Ukraine, the richest part, could secede.

Finally, Ukraine is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Putin seems to think he will gain from Ukraine’s problems, as he pushes into areas where the imperialist powers have had a lot of influence.

No matter what their representatives mouth to the media, the U.S., the European Union and Russia negotiate behind the scenes. All sides speak about keeping Ukraine together, while Putin talks about defending the Russian-speaking minorities.

But today, the masses of the Ukraine are caught in the grip of opposing nationalisms, called on to choose a side, neither of which is theirs.

Meanwhile, the current Ukrainian government is working on another attack against the standard of living of the workers. It wants to freeze the pay and pensions of public workers while inflation is taking off. It proposes to take an ax to social expenditures, reducing public services, doubling energy bills, and increasing taxes.

The godfathers of the West have forced on Ukraine attacks on public as well as private workers, on retirees, the unemployed and the poor. It’s clear why a part of the population, in particular the Russian-speaking, see Russia as some kind of protection, and even want to be attached to it, all the more so because the standard of living there is clearly higher than in Ukraine.

But the oligarchs’ hated domination of the country has not gone away with the change of government. Russia is also pillaged by its oligarchs and its ruling caste, a pillaging that Putin’s authoritarian regime protects.

The continually worsening situation in Ukraine may cause the working class to react. But will workers come forward for their own interests, despite the propaganda from the different nationalists? We certainly hope so. If not, the population risks finding itself torn between its diverse components, against the background of a dramatic aggravation of the economic and social situation.

The great powers don’t give gifts. They have nothing to offer Ukraine and its workers other than enormous sacrifices for the benefit of the Western European and U.S. bankers and capitalists.

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