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October 16-31, 2013
Volume 21 – Number 17
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Prolétaires de tous les pays, unissez-vous!
Otatoskewak ota kitaskinahk mamawestotan!
Workers of all lands, unite
1) TIME FOR PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF TELCOM INDUSTRY
3) PAN-CANADIAN DELEGATION GROWS FOR YOUTH FESTIVAL
4) SUPPORT INDIGENOUS LAND RIGHTS! - Editorial
5) YES: WE CAN ERADICATE POVERTY - Editorial
6) VANCOUVER ISLAND'S MOST HATED DEVELOPER PLEADS GUILTY TO TAX CHARGES
7) SALE OF CESNAM (MARPOLE) LANDS TO MUSQUEAM FINALIZED
8) CROWN HOLDINGS WORKERS FIGHT CONCESSIONS
9) THE SHUTDOWN GAME IN WASHINGTON DC
11) WINNIPEG EVENT MARKS 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF CHILEAN COUP
12) SUDAN COMMUNISTS ARRESTED IN REPRESSION
13) THE TERRIBLE COST OF U.S. "REALISM"
PEOPLE'S VOICE OCTOBER 16-31, 2013 (pdf)
People’s Voice 2013 Calendar
”Ideas of Revolution”
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People's Voice finds many "Global Class Struggle" reports at the "Labour Start" website, http://www.labourstart.org/. We urge our readers to check it out! |
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(The following articles are from the October 16-31, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)
1) TIME FOR PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF TELCOM INDUSTRY
Statement by the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, October 2013
The decision by the giant U.S.‑based Verizon not to enter the Canadian telecommunications market at this time ended one sharp battle over the immediate future of this major industry. But the issues raised by this episode remain on the table, as seen by the proposal from CEP/Unifor to establish a publicly‑owned crown corporation in the telecommunications sector. The Communist Party of Canada believes that the best way to protect Canadian sovereignty, jobs, and consumer interests would be to put wireless and the entire telecommunications industry under public ownership and democratic control.
Verizon intended either to take part in an upcoming wireless spectrum auction, or to buy one of the smaller telcos operating here, with the aim of becoming a dominant force in Canada's telecommunications sector. That strategy was backed by the Harper Conservatives, using a smokescreen of "more choice for consumers." But Verizon was strongly resisted, by the current three big companies in the Canadian market, by unions representing workers in this sector, and by a majority of Canadians opposed to foreign-owned wireless companies entering the Canadian telecommunications market.
The opposition expressed by Rogers, Telus and Bell Aliant is understandable. These domestic corporations rang up $3.3 billion in profits last year, from combined revenues of $26.6 billion, and they mounted a huge public relations campaign to preserve their lucrative monopoly status in Canada.
But there were many other reasons to speak out. Existing "free trade" rules mean that Verizon's expansion would effectively create one integrated North American market, dominated by U.S. capital. The CRTC would lose any meaningful ability to protect Canadian consumers. Allowing Verizon to piggyback on communications technology built by and for Canadians would put thousands out of work, without lowering costs for consumers.
This crisis arose from last year's federal omnibus budget, which allowed foreign?controlled corporations to buy 100 per cent of telco companies holding up to 10 per cent of the Canadian market, and from there to expand without limit.
Since telecom firms increasingly also provide broadcasting services, opening the sector to foreign companies is a step towards foreign ownership in broadcasting, inevitably undermining Canadian cultural content.
This scenario is clearly the goal of the Harper Conservatives. According to a leaked German document, Canada has included telecommunications "liberalization" in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) currently under negotiation with the European Union. CETA would make it nearly impossible for the people of Canada to own, protect and regulate this vital sector of the economy.
There are also serious national security and privacy concerns related to this debate. Verizon has worked closely with the U.S. National Security Agency to collect personal data on millions of customers, and the company has close ties to the U.S. military. If asked by U.S. authorities for the personal information of Canadian subscribers, Verizon would likely have to comply under the U.S. Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
For all these reasons, Canadians must remain vigilant against any new proposals by giant U.S. telecom firms to enter the Canadian market, and against the dangerous CETA deal.
Instead, the Communist Party of Canada calls to put this important industry, one of the "commanding heights" of the economy, under full public ownership and democratic control.
Such a strategy is necessary to ensure equal and affordable access to services which all Canadians need. Cable and internet, land lines and cell phones, should be seen as important public utilities rather than a source of huge profits for private shareholders.
Public ownership under democratic control is needed to protect the jobs of many thousands of Canadians who work in this sector, and to direct the profits from this industry towards the urgent economic and social needs of working people.
The increasing domination of TV, radio and internet by U.S.‑based transnationals poses a direct threat to the cultural development, democracy and sovereignty of the peoples of Canada. Our interests cannot be protected by private corporations or even by publicly‑funded entities, such as CBC and TVOntario, which operate at the dictates of right‑wing governments.
Not least, as the recent NSA scandal shows, private corporations will not resist the increasing U.S. pressure to allow access to communications data for purposes of so‑called "national security".
It is also timely to call for public ownership in other key sectors, such as oil and gas, resources, pharmaceuticals, and banking and insurance. Such highly profitable industries could become the material basis for a radical transformation of the economy, focused on jobs, housing, social programs, and environmental sustainability.
Expanded public ownership is not a utopian dream; it is an urgent necessity as the private profit economy known as capitalism attacks to the living standards of working people and threatens the very future of our planet. Placing the telecommunications sector under public ownership and democratic control would help to put people's needs ahead of corporate greed, a good step towards a real People's Alternative for the Canadian economy.
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By Helen Kennedy
New developments in the back rooms of the Ontario Federation of Labour may threaten to derail its leadership at the upcoming convention in November. The current President, Sid Ryan, has moved the Federation a giant step forward by mobilizing labour in strike solidarity and building a common front of labour and social justice allies across the province.
Ryan's leadership has been a welcome relief to the complacency that was the norm under the previous leadership of Wayne Samuelson, whose claim to fame was to shut down the enormously successful mobilization against Premier Mike Harris.
Since Ryan was elected there has been more vigour from the Federation: big rallies against service cuts and attacks on collective bargaining; the high profile "kill a worker go to jail" health and safety campaign, the development of a community‑labour "Common Front", and major public reports exposing how inequality is growing, how Ontario is falling behind, and how the so‑called "right to work" is a fraud.
The same affiliates who rang the death knell for building community labour solidarity across the province during the "Days of Action" are now plotting to run Bob Linton from the UFCW to shut down the much needed revitalization of the labour movement in the province.
The leaders of the back room deal are the District 6 of the United Steelworkers, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the International Association of Machinists, the Elementary Teachers, and the Power Workers union. The leaders of ONA (Ontario Nurses Association) and OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) are also part of the anti‑Ryan faction, but they remain unaffiliated to the OFL.
If these unions are successful, this would be the second time around. In 1997, the same affiliates under the nickname the "pink paper" unions took over the Federation, against a candidate backed by CUPE and the CAW.
That period does not bear a re‑run. The Federation became almost invisible. While the decline in labour since 1997 is multi‑faceted, the absence of the Federation played an important role.
Within the Federation, there are progressive affiliates like CUPE and the newly merged Unifor that support the action orientation of Ryan's leadership. In addition, many members of those affiliates involved in the latest backroom dealing have been living the austerity agenda of concessions and attacks on collective bargaining rights. Their voices need to be heard in their unions and on the floor of the OFL convention.
We must also remember that the OFL leadership fight takes place in a province that is governed by a Liberal minority, on borrowed time. The stakes are high for the Tories whose central plank in the next election will be the wholesale destruction of the labour movement by killing the dues check‑off. But there are also high stakes for the NDP, who may not want Sid Ryan and his militant leadership interfering in any way with their "electability."
Ryan can be a polarizing figure. But there is no doubt that he is a determined fighter for working people ‑ at a time when such leaders are not so easy to find. It's not an exaggeration to say that with the choice between Ryan and Linton the labour movement will decide whether they want to fight back ‑ or not.
Our task as progressive minded unionists is to build a fighting unity at the OFL. The working class in Ontario deserve no less.
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3) PAN-CANADIAN DELEGATION GROWS FOR YOUTH FESTIVAL
PV Youth Bureau
Drew Garvie is the acting co‑chair of the Pan-Canadian delegation to the 18th WFYS and a member of the Young Communist League of Canada. Drew sat down with People's Voice to talk about the organizing for the Festival.
So what is the festival in a nutshell?
The festival is basically the largest gathering of anti-imperialist and progressive youth in the world. Something like 12,000 to 17,000 youth are expected to attend from over 120 different countries! The festival itself will be held in one of the hot spots of social change in Latin America today, the Republic of Ecuador, from December 7th to 13th.
Tell us the latest news.
The Pan‑Canadian delegation continues to grow. Endorsing groups of the festival now include CUPE Toronto District, the Canadian Federation of Students‑Ontario, several Quebec student unions, the BC Federation of Labour, the Young Communist League of Canada, the Vancouver District Labour Council, the Kamloops Socialist Club, Occupy Edmonton, and others. The Pan‑Canadian delegation will be between 50 and 100 participants. The final size of the delegation really depends on the outreach efforts of the 10 or so local committees over the next couple weeks.
The third International Preparatory Meeting for the 18th World Festival of Youth and Students wrapped up last month in New Delhi, India. The meeting, which came after planning meetings already hosted in Ecuador, South Africa and Spain, showed that preparation for the festival is coming together quickly in a political climate facing the very real danger of imperialist war in Syria, as well as continued mass unemployment and impoverishment of youth. While the Pan‑Canadian delegation was unable to attend the most recent meeting in India, we did receive a series of reports from the meeting organizers and some participants.
And we understand there is now a basic schedule set for the festival?
Yes. The 18th WFYS will have a format similar to that of previous festivals with eight days of action: the inauguration/opening ceremonies; a day dedicated to the regions of Asia, Middle East, Europe, America and Africa; another to the host country, Ecuador; and the closing ceremonies.
Each day will feature a series of different large‑scale conferences and seminars on broad themes, as well as smaller workshops on specific issues. Talks with cultural and political content will vary, predominantly to publicize the struggles and situation in each region or particular countries. The rough program is finalized and will be circulated after translation.
Also on the agenda will be inter‑exchange meetings where delegates can share experiences and struggles through open forums for activists from labour, students, media, women, queer groups, etc. and a three‑day Anti‑Imperialist Tribunal which will hear presentations from around the world about the crimes of imperialism in their countries. The Tribunal will be at the end of the festival, and will symbolically judge the crimes of imperialism against the people of the world.
It is mainly a lot of politics?
Well there is also a lot of fun too ‑ social events, dances, parties late at night, etc. Cultural, sports, and musical performances are also part of the draft programme and it looks like they are expected every day, including an anti‑imperialist soccer match. The opening act of the festival may be the Hip Hop group Calle 13. That's the word on the street, anyway.
Who are Calle 13?
Calle 13 are two step‑brothers and their half‑sister who hail from Puerto Rico. While relatively unknown in Canada, the left-wing rap group is a block‑buster hit in Latin America. They have won a record nineteen Latin Grammy Awards.
In their biggest most recent hit "LatinoAmerica", they rap a kind of representation of the continent, singing of the struggles of its peoples. It is very powerful music and as the opening act it could kind of set a tone for the whole event.
Like in that song when they say "You can't buy the wind, the sun, the rain, the heat, the clouds, happiness, pain," etc., and then "Here we share, what's mine is yours." This is very much linked with what is going on across Latin America right now, and especially in Ecuador where there is a rejection of the sort of monopoly capitalism and imperialism which has tried to commodify everything and a search for a different way forward, like more public ownership, environmental sustainability, and socialism.
And the indigenous communities have a big role to place in the process, both supporting and criticizing the process in Ecuador. So, for example, we are learning about Transito Amaguaa, an indigenous Ecuadorian women who was an organizer country's first agricultural unions and joined by other human rights activists in founding the Ecuadorian Federation of Indians in 1944. Transito struggled under very harsh conditions her entire life, but she kept fight eventually joining the Communist Party, which led again to her imprisonment. These are really amazing stories that will be coming forward at this festival.
Tell us about the logistics.
So now we know that the Festival will take place in the brand new Quito Bicentennial Park, formerly Mariscal Sucre International Airport which is now being converted into a convention center, school, aquarium, and green space.
Over a hundred and twenty hectares in size (that is very big!), almost all Festival activities will take place inside, including a camping area where over 5,000 Ecuadorian youth participating in the Festival will stay in large military tents. The park is located in the north central part of the city, which is a safe and quiet area.
The international delegates are expected to stay in hotels or in a space created especially for that purpose such as a large vacant convent. Food plans are also advanced and seem much better prepared than the past festival.
Will there be an opportunity to see other parts of the country?
Probably not, but festival delegates are already beginning to plan side‑trips after the festival, to places like the Amazon or the Galapagos Islands, or elsewhere in Latin America. Ecuador is a tremendously ecologically and climatically diverse country. The temperatures in Quito are relatively stable throughout the year between 10 and 27 degrees.
Quito is a generally temperate climate, but December is a month of rain. The entire city is a UNESCO heritage site, and at an elevation of 9,350 feet (2,800 meters above sea level), it is the highest capital city in the world. I visited the city around the same time, in late November last year, and did not find the high altitude a problem.
Is there a deadline to register?
We have an excellent opportunity to bulk buy plane tickets through a connection to a Latin American airline. To do this we require $50 per delegate registered 45 days before our departure. We are in the process of setting up a system to collect the money and to register delegates.
This will probably give us a very reduced rate on tickets, possibly in the hundreds of dollars less per ticket, unfortunately we will not know the deal until we do the registration. If you are going to the Festival, and haven't yet bought a ticket, please have $50 handy and watch your email as we will have to do the registration in a hurry to have tickets reserved for the end of October!
For more information visit www.18wfys.tumblr.com or write 18wfys.canada@gmail.com. To make a donation, send cheques to the Marty Skup Memorial Fund c/o S. Skup, Treasurer, 56 Riverwood Terrace, Bolton, Ontario, L7E 1S4.
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4) SUPPORT INDIGENOUS LAND RIGHTS!
People's Voice Editorial
Canadian governments often act as though they can erase basic human rights by a vote in Parliament or even just a signature on a piece of paper. Perhaps the most fundamental examples concern the nature and structure of the country we call Canada, starting with the forced colonization of Aboriginal peoples. From the time of Confederation in 1867, politicians and corporate interests have argued that the formation of the Canadian state signalled that all the land and resource base, except for some reservations, belonged entirely to the European majority.
But the original peoples of this country have never surrendered their inherent national rights. They maintain to this day that the Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763, outlining the relationship between the British Crown and the nations in Turtle Island/North America, remains a valid document which legally mandates Canada to recognize indigenous land rights. It was therefore highly significant that on October 7, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Professor James Anaya, began an official visit to Canada to examine the human rights situation of the indigenous peoples of the country.
Inspired by the Idle No More movement, more than fifty events were held on Oct. 7 to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Proclamation. Together with the recent Reconciliation Walk which brought tens of thousands of Aboriginal peoples and allies into the streets of Vancouver, these actions prove that inherent indigenous rights are not going to be put into a museum as a dusty relic of the past. Despite the pretensions of governments and corporations, these rights remain valid and binding today, and the struggle for inherent Aboriginal national rights will continue to advance.
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5) YES: WE CAN ERADICATE POVERTY
People's Voice Editorial
October 17 is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, but sadly, this goal is far from being achieved. The United Nations' food agencies estimate that during the years 2011-13, 842 million people were suffering chronic hunger. That is a staggering 12 per cent of the world's population, or nearly one human being out of eight.
These figures are said by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to represent some progress over the past twenty years. But the same organizations say that many countries will not meet the UN's Millennium Development Goal to halve the extent of hunger by 2015. They report that the countries which face the biggest challenges are those which have experienced civil conflicts and wars, as well as landlocked countries and those with weak economic and social infrastructure. In Africa, more than one in five people are undernourished.
But this is not just a "global south" problem. Here in "wealthy" capitalist Canada, hunger and poverty are persistent, especially for Aboriginal peoples on reserves and in many impoverished inner-city neighbourhoods. Brutal cuts to social assistance rates have left many impoverished Canadians with little or nothing to eat near the end of each month.
On a global scale, the real problem is an economic system based on maximizing private profits for the shareholders of transnational corporations, rather than meeting the real needs of human beings and the environment. Greed and war are highly profitable enterprises, while efforts to reduce economic inequality only cut into the huge share of global wealth and income held by the "one percent". It's time to turn things around. Poverty can only be wiped out as part of a wider struggle to put people before profits - and to dump the right-wing politicians who favour the interests of corporations.
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6) VANCOUVER ISLAND'S MOST HATED DEVELOPER PLEADS GUILTY TO TAX CHARGES
By Zoe Blunt, Victoria, BC
He's a walking illustration of capitalism run amok. Just five years ago, Barrie was golden ‑ "living the dream," as one newspaper breathlessly reported. That dream has turned to dust, along with millions in monies owed to everyone from day labourers to the government of Canada.
Len Barrie was once known for his mediocre NHL career, but his real fame comes from the antics that won him the label "most hated man on Vancouver Island." His downhill slide continues October 11 when he is expected to plead guilty to four criminal counts of violating the tax code.
In August, the McMansion that Barrie built in his brief heyday sold for a $10 million loss. The resort he boasted would be worth $3.5 billion was repossessed by the bank for a $300 million debt and now is up for sale. Word is it may go for as little as $50 million.
In laying the foundation for his resort fiefdom, Barrie chose
confrontation over diplomacy. He drew the anger of local First Nations by destroying indigenous heritage sites and ignoring provincial guidelines on heritage preservation. Under his direction, builders bulldozed and blasted caves, cairns and gravesites that were used and tended by indigenous groups for hundreds of generations. He thumbed his nose at public protests and filed a million‑dollar lawsuit against indigenous activists who sought to protect the mountain they call SPAET.
Barrie was never charged with destroying indigenous heritage sites.
The first sign of the impending collapse at Bear Mountain came when nearby residents noticed work had halted at the interchange intended to link the resort to the TransCanada Highway. Soon after, we learned that Bear Mountain, which was responsible for most of the cost of the interchange, had defaulted on its payment to the city of Langford. It is not clear whether the resort ever made good on its debt. In any event, four years and millions of dollars later, the "Bridge to Nowhere" is a roundabout, and only a rutted overgrown track leads up the mountain to the resort.
In 2010, as his ill‑fated empire crumbled, it emerged that Barrie had fleeced a raft of investors, including $13 million from fellow hockey players. Over a hundred smaller creditors were also bilked, including contractors, windows installers, concrete suppliers, plumbers, and day labourers.
It is small consolation that Barrie is in the same boat. His family trust was wiped out and all his properties are in foreclosure. At last report, he was living in Youbou near Cowichan Lake, in a property that was foreclosed but not yet seized by creditors.
In addition to the tax charges, the RCMP is investigating allegations of fraud relating to auditor reports that Barrie improperly diverted $16 to $20 million from the resort to purchase the Tampa Bay Lightning. The hockey team was sold a year and a half later for an estimated $80 million loss.
Eight years after embarking on his development career, Barrie has lost everything. His reputation is irrevocably tainted by greed, arrogance, defaulted payments and broken promises.
Developers across Canada, take note: Don't be that guy.
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7) SALE OF CESNAM (MARPOLE) LANDS TO MUSQUEAM FINALIZED
After a lengthy struggle to protect an ancient burial site along Marine Drive in southwest Vancouver, the Musqueam Indian Band has succeeded in purchasing a two acre portion of "Cesnam", also known as the Musqueam Marpole Village Site.
The transaction came after 18 months of negotiation, involving Musqueam Chief and Council, Musqueam community members, Century Group (the private owners of the land), and the province of BC.
Cesnam's ancient village and burial site was declared a National Historic Site in 1933. It includes one of the largest pre‑contact middens in Western Canada.
In early 2012, Century Group had approval from the City of Vancouver to develop a multi‑family residential condominium project on the site. But during pre‑construction archaeological work, ancestral remains were uncovered, causing great anguish to Musqueam members. Band members and supporters used a wide range of tactics last year to draw public attention to the issue.
The proposed development would have destroyed a sacred burial place precious to Musqueam, an important link to the band's heritage extending back thousands of years in the geographic area known today as Vancouver. Like most of the rest of British Columbia, the traditional territories of the Musqueam and other Coast Salish nations have never been surrendered to colonial powers or the present-day Canadian state. This de facto occupation of unceded First Nation territories has allowed private corporate interests to gain incredible wealth on the west coast, while Aboriginal peoples remain impoverished.
"As Chief of the Musqueam Indian Band, I am pleased with the outcome. I would like to acknowledge and thank the Musqueam members and supporters who drove this process on the ground level. It is our teachings to always protect the interests of our membership, including our lands, history, and culture," said Chief Wayne Sparrow. "The successful resolution of the development plans for these lands demonstrates First Nations and private property owners can work together to understand each other's interests, and conduct business in a respectful way."
Musqueam is currently in discussion with all levels of government to identify the next steps to ensure the protection of Cesnam for generations to come.
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8) CROWN HOLDINGS WORKERS FIGHT CONCESSIONS
The United Steelworkers (USW) has escalated its campaign against Crown Holdings by sending letters to Crown's CEO and Board of Directors demanding they take action to end a strike at a beverage and food can manufacturing plant in Toronto.
The 130 members of USW Local 9176 who work at Crown Holdings produce more than five million cans per day. They were forced to strike on Sept. 6 by Crown's demands to impose a two‑tier wage schedule, remove a cost‑of‑living allowance and provide only minimal wage increases after years of pay freezes.
The USW believes Crown Holdings is engaging in a protracted campaign to lower wages and working conditions. The company has 149 plants and operations in 41 countries.
Crown is demanding cuts despite doubling its profits in 2012 and recognizing its Toronto workers with an award this year for their "dedication, commitment, teamwork and personal accountability" and for meeting or exceeding the company's expectations for "safety, productivity, quality and budget management."
"The Toronto plant is one of the company's premier plants, and it's time to draw a line in the sand to stop Crown's unwarranted attack on all its workers," said Ken Neumann, USW Canadian National Director. "We are launching a global campaign to fight back for Crown workers and their communities all over the world."
"We will leave no stone unturned in this campaign and will hold Crown's officers and Board of Directors wholly responsible for these attacks," Neumann added.
Crown customers in Canada, such as breweries and soft‑drink companies, may be forced to seek other suppliers if the strike is prolonged.
IndustriALL, the global union federation representing over 50 million members, recently condemned Crown's efforts to crush a union in Turkey. As part of the international campaign, three demonstrations will protest the ongoing conflicts at Crown plants.
The first one will be held on October 16 in Philadelphia, where the company is headquartered; the second, on October 18, is in Baar, Switzerland, the company's European headquarters; and the third will be in Turkey on October 21.
(For details, visit http://www.usw.ca)
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9) THE SHUTDOWN GAME IN WASHINGTON DC
By Glen Ford, http://mltoday.com
The government shutdown battle is more like a Civil War re‑enactment than the real thing. A face‑saving bargain will soon be struck, returning 825,000 furloughed federal employees to their jobs at wages that have been frozen for the past two years not by the Republicans, but on President Obama's orders.
The clock has been stuck with both hands on "austerity" since Obama came fully out of the closet as a GOP fellow‑traveller following the 2010 midterm elections. From that moment on, Republican‑imposed gridlock has been the only barrier to Obama's long‑sought Grand Bargain to eviscerate entitlement programs.
When the current theatrics are over, Obamacare will remain intact and the president will be back on his ever‑rightward stride. The GOP will take Obama up on his offer, earlier this year, to cut Social Security and will probably be offered other bits and pieces of the social safety net in the interest of "shared sacrifice" and domestic peace.
In the interim, while the reenactors haul their cannons around the cow pasture, waiting for the rich people who call themselves "markets" to signal an end to the charade, rest assured that national security is sacrosanct.
For example, the pause in some government spending will have minimal effect on the National Security Agency's spying on Americans and the rest of the Earth's inhabitants. The NSA circulated a memo stating that its "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities required to support national or military requirements necessary for national security" are exempt from the fiscal exercise, as are all programs that are necessary for "protection of life and property."
Presumably, that means President Obama can still spend next Tuesday morning selecting the week's victims for his Kill List.
Protection of property being the prime directive of both wings of the Corporate Party, democracy will remain in shutdown mode in Detroit and all of Michigan's largely Black cities, whatever happens on Capitol Hill.
The disenfranchisement of Detroit under the iron rule of a corporate lawyer is simply another form of "shared sacrifice" necessitated by austerity which is why the Obama administration challenges voter ID cards in North Carolina but does not deploy the Justice Department to re‑enfranchise the majority of Blacks in the state of Michigan, whose votes have been rendered worthless.
Detroit's ability to borrow money or, in this case, to be stripped of every asset of value for the benefit of Wall Street bankers trumps citizenship rights, every time.
The same logic will dictate that the Republicans turn the spigot back on. Forget about social justice, the rule of law, and political decorum. The sanctity of U.S. Treasury notes is what holds the nation and its global empire together.
As the "liberal" economist Paul Krugman writes, "Financial markets have long treated U.S. bonds as the ultimate safe asset; the assumption that America will always honour its debts is the bedrock on which the world financial system rests".
Which is another way of saying that the U.S. maintains its supremacy in the world, not merely by force of arms, but through the artificial supremacy of the dollar, as the world reserve currency.
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By Anna Pha, Communist Party of Australia
The atmosphere and oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, the sea levels have risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased. These are some of the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a report released on September 27. Instead of acting responsibly and taking urgent action to slash greenhouse gas emissions and protect human life and the biodiversity of the planet, the climate change deniers in Canberra are hell bent on increasing coal and gas production and business as usual for the big polluters.
The widely accepted international target, which the Abbott government claims to have adopted, is to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees (Celsius) above pre‑industrialisation levels.
The Alliance of Small Island States, a grouping of 43 countries particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, are seeking a 1.5C cap on temperature rises. Their slogan is "1.5C to stay alive", one which reflects the reality of millions around the world, not just small island states.
"The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. CO2 concentrations have increased by 40 percent since pre‑industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use, change emissions," the IPCC said in its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.
The IPCC attributes this increase to human activity.
The 1.5C temperature rise requires a CO2 emissions cap of 350 parts per million (ppm). The required cap for the 2C target is 450 ppm. In 2011 the concentration of CO2 had reached 391 ppm. The report states that an annual reduction in emissions of 10 percent is required to limit temperature rises to 2 degrees.
"Heat waves are very likely to occur more frequently and last longer. As the Earth warms, we expect to see currently wet regions receiving more rainfall, and dry regions receiving less, although there will be exceptions," IPCC Co‑Chair Thomas Stocker warned.
The IPCC found that each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850. In the Northern Hemisphere, the IPCC says it is likely that 1983-2012 was the warmest 30‑year period of the last 1,400 years.
"The rate of sea level rise since the mid‑19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia. Over the period 1901-2010, global mean sea level rose by an estimated 19 cm," the IPCC said. Depending on the measures taken, the IPCC forecasts that sea levels could rise by between 28 and 98 cm by the end of the century.
Rises of such magnitude would be catastrophic for millions of people living, not just in the smaller island states, but in many coastal regions including Australia.
Time is running out, even if governments act swiftly to ensure there are substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, a process has been set in train which will continue for centuries to come....
Australia needs to plan for a future that does not rely on fossil fuels for export or electricity generation. That means no new coal‑fired power stations or coal mines, and no expansion to existing fossil fuel power stations or mines. It also requires the immediate axing of all fossil fuel rebates and other forms of support for fossil fuel use and production.
Government planning and investment is essential, as is the development of programs to assist coal dependent communities to make the transition to other more sustainable sources of economic prosperity. The mining and energy sectors should be nationalised so that government has full control.
Australia also has a responsibility to assist the Island states whose lands are already disappearing under rising oceans. This includes mitigation measures and opening our doors to those displaced.
We only have one planet, no second chances. Inaction is criminal and suicidal, promotion of fossil fuels is beyond belief and totally unjustifiable in this age of scientific knowledge. The mob in Parliament are living in the dark ages and must be stopped before it is too late.
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11) WINNIPEG EVENT MARKS 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF CHILEAN COUP
Winnipeg's Chilean community had a panel discussion on Sept. 25 about Canada's response to the fascist coup against Chile's Popular Unity government in 1973. On the panel were former Manitoba Premier Howard Pawley, former NDP MP Judy Wasylycia‑Leis, Paul Graham and leader of the Communist Party of Canada in Manitoba, Darrell Rankin, whose comments are below.
I want to thank the Chile 40 Committee for inviting us to discuss one of the most important turning points in your lives. It is hard to imagine the ordeal you endured to be here forty years later.
I would like to talk about the early months of Canada's solidarity movement for a democratic Chile. The Trudeau Liberal government accepted thousands of refugees to Canada. Yet Trudeau rejected the demands of the solidarity movement not to recognize Augusto Pinochet's fascist junta and to ban the import of Chilean products.
We will never know how many more lives could have been saved if the Chilean junta was more isolated and shut off from the world. Certainly, the parties of big business in Canada and around the world were guilty of handing Pinochet a big economic lifeline. It was help that failed to reach the Chilean people but propped up the oligarchy.
The strengths and lessons of the solidarity movement are important today. I want to look beyond the facts and figures to understand the eruption of feelings of solidarity that took place across Canada...
Percy Bysse Shelley, one of the finest poets in the English language, wrote that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Chile has made a major contribution to humanity's socialist future through its music, poetry and art, and you have brought that authentic humanity to Canada, all of you here. We are very thankful.
Chile's fascist coup forty years ago shook the world. Defending the interests of the Chilean oligarchy and U.S. imperialism, Augusto Pinochet's military junta crushed Salvador Allende's Popular Unity government with the aim of eradicating socialist and Marxist thoughts from the people.
In South America especially, the balance of forces shifted against democracy, socialism and the workers' movements, despite many kinds of resistance. For example, Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976. In other continents, the coup provided a sharp warning to strengthen the struggle against imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism.
Asia and Africa were emerging from colonial rule; the Vietnamese people were near victory. The socialist countries, led by the Soviet Union, pushed for dialogue and détente with the U.S. and other members of the NATO military alliance.
Globally, the balance of forces favoured détente, disarmament, and anti‑colonialism. It favoured the broad socialist and reformist movements. The Soviet Union's prestige from fighting hardest to defeat Hitler in World War Two was in the living memory of all anti‑fascists.
The global economy grew at a far faster pace than today. Working people knew if they united and struggled, they could achieve advances.
In Canada, working people were able to win stronger public medicare and pensions. In 1972, the Canadian Labour Congress re‑admitted several communist‑led unions expelled in the 1950s. This had a positive effect on the militancy and direction of the CLC for the next twenty years.
When the coup happened in Chile, the labour movement and a broad array of progressive forces were united, conducting big strikes and making political demands against monopoly‑inspired rising prices. Canada had its first and only general strike in 1976, against wage controls. The strike movement was far larger than it is today.
The labour movement was becoming more political and moving in the direction of détente, disarmament and the peaceful co‑existence of socialist and imperialist countries. And because they were already in a fighting spirit, unions were ready to act swiftly and build a strong and powerful solidarity movement for a democratic Chile.
The response was just as tremendous around the world. Salvador Allende's Socialist Party was the leading force in the Popular Unity government, a full member of the Socialist International. The election of his government showed what socialist and communist parties together can achieve.
The Popular Unity government's programme stated that it was three million workers, together with the whole people, who, by "unified combative action," would be able to "break the present structures and advance in the task of their liberation."
The program was not to reform capitalism, but to make decisive inroads against the power of the capitalist and landed oligarchy and its political structures.
Unity in Chile developed into global unity for solidarity with Chile's democratic forces. The Socialist International, which includes Canada's NDP, condemned the military coup and called upon its member parties to assist Chilean democrats. It urged governments to refrain from taking diplomatic steps in support of the junta and to stop any kind of aid, credits or loans to the regime.
In March 1974, the Socialist International formed a committee that was instrumental in launching large‑scale solidarity campaigns in many capitalist countries.
The socialist countries, especially the Soviet Union, also acted firmly in support of Chile's democratic forces, as did the international peace and trade union movements. The international conference "Chile is not alone," attended by 57 countries and 17 international organizations on September 29‑30, 1973 in Helsinki, is just one example.
The Soviet Union successfully negotiated with the junta in 1976 to free Luis Corvalan, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Chile. General Pinochet received a report every morning about the letters read by Radio Moscow sent to it by loyal listeners in Chile. The Soviet Union and communist parties, including in Canada, directly helped the resistance against the Chilean junta.
It was the resistance and courage of the Chilean people themselves that played the main role in removing the dictatorship in 1989.
In the end, Pinochet's junta accomplished nothing except the destruction of Chile's economy and undermining the country's sovereignty. It carried out a big, failed neo‑liberal experiment. It dealt a severe and sad, yet temporary setback to the people's movements and to socialism in Chile. For me, capitalism's inhumanity will never make me stop being a socialist. I agree with Frederick Engels' ideas that humanity's true history will begin only with socialism and that we are confronted with the choice of either socialism or barbarism.
I want to end by asking "Why Chile?" When the world was moving in the direction of détente, mutual and balanced disarmament and the peaceful co‑existence of socialist and capitalist countries, why did U.S. imperialism target Chile, of all places?
Quite simply, it was losing and wanted desperately to find a way to stop the transition of humanity from capitalism to socialism. It wanted to freeze history, to declare with bullets and torture that history had ended. It ran out of arguments in Chile, so it used bullets.
Chile meant more to U.S. imperialism as a possession than other parts of the world. It was only one continent away from the U.S. It had a lot of U.S. investments. In 1975, Latin America's dependence on foreign investment was much higher per person compared to Asia and Africa ‑ $132 compared to $16 and $29, respectively. The U.S. imperialist oligarchy was protecting its back yard.
Détente did not go as planned for capitalist imperialism, since even its coup in Chile did not stop Portugal's Revolution and the liberation of Vietnam two years later. It did not stop the Afghan revolution in 1978.
By the end of the decade, imperialism ended up restarting the arms race recklessly by placing Cruise and Pershing 2 missiles in Europe, effectively ending détente. It has since become an increasingly reactionary and militaristic social system that endangers all of humanity more than ever, including through the heedless, anti‑scientific destruction of our environment.
Humanity's setbacks on the road to a better society always give a lesson. Chile's lessons confirm the idea that socialism needs the support of the overwhelming majority of the working class and that the alliance policy with the small capitalists can be decisive at critical moments of the revolutionary process.
There are no rules that say revolutions need to be violent. Both Marx and Lenin stated this. And, if we consider that we are in the epoch of humanity's transition from capitalism to socialism, violence cannot stand in the way ‑ violence is not a decisive force for either of the big contending classes. As socialists, our main problem, especially since the setbacks to socialism twenty years ago, is that imperialism has most of the weapons and newspapers at its disposal at this time.
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12) SUDAN COMMUNISTS ARRESTED IN REPRESSION
The situation in Sudan continues to arouse international anger at the ongoing repression by the al-Bashir government.
The popular uprising of the Sudanese working people, which began as opposition to sharp increases in fuel, food and essential goods and services, is now nationwide in scale. The regime has resorted to brute force to regain control through terror and repression. Trade union leaders, leaders of opposition forces and political opponents have been arrested. Trying to force the opposition to back down and to intimidate ordinary people from joining the struggle, the regime has embarked on the tried and tested tactics of spreading chaos and initiating a breakdown in social order. According to news from Sudan, the supporters of the government have burned and looted public buildings in order to spread fear and friction within the ranks of protesters.
Mass protests have swept the country, as demonstrators call for the overthrow of the regime which has unleashed a reign of terror and repression for nearly a quarter of a century.
For more information on the struggle in Sudan, visit the website of the Communist and Workers' parties, http://solidnet.org.
The following is an appeal circulated by the Bureau of International Relations of the Sudanese Communist Party.
The security forces have arrested yesterday night Tuesday the 1st of October Comrade Alkinain, the Organisational Secretary, member of the PB and the Secretariat of the CC of the Sudanese Communist Party. He was arrested while shouldering his responsibility towards the people and the party. Comrade Alkinain who is in his early seventies, is diabetic and has high blood pressure. He needs continuous medical care and supply of medicine. Despite attempts made by the party, his family and friends to make sure that he receives the right medical treatment, no response was made by the authorities. Those responsible have turned deaf ears to request by lawyers to meet the comrade.
The arrest of comrade Alkinain comes at time when our people are strengthening their resistance and mass actions against the regime. The forces of the opposition are finalising their preparations to further increase the pressure on the regime and bring its downfall. It is in the process of discussing and agreeing upon the shape and governance of future democratic Sudan. No repression will deter our people from reaching their final goal.
In addition to Comrade Alkinain, the detainees whose numbers are increasing by the day, who include outstanding leaders of different political parties and trade unionists are languishing either in detention centres of the security or government prisons. Among them are Comrades Sidig Yousif, Mirghani Atta Almanan, Abd Alfatah Rufaie as well as leaders and active members of our party.
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13) THE TERRIBLE COST OF U.S. "REALISM"
By John Pilger, from the New Statesman
The most important anniversary of the year took place last month ‑ the 40th anniversary of September 11, 1973. The crushing of the democratic government of Chile by General Augusto Pinochet and US secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
The National Security Archive in Washington has posted new documents that reveal much about Kissinger's role in an atrocity that cost thousands of lives. In declassified tapes, Kissinger is heard planning the overthrow of president Salvador Allende with Richard Nixon. They sound like mafiosi thugs.
Kissinger warns that the "model effect" of Allende's reformist democracy "can be insidious." He tells CIA director Richard Helms: "We will not let Chile go down the drain," to which Helms replies: "I am with you."
With the slaughter under way Kissinger dismisses a warning by his senior officials of the scale of the repression. Secretly, he tells Pinochet: "You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende."
I have known many of Pinochet's and Kissinger's victims. Sara De Witt, a student at the time, showed me the place where she was beaten, assaulted and electrocuted. On a wintry day in the suburbs of Santiago, we walked through a former torture centre known as Villa Grimaldi, where hundreds like her suffered terribly and were murdered or "disappeared."
Understanding Kissinger's criminality is vital when trying to fathom what the US calls its "foreign policy." Kissinger remains an influential voice in Washington, admired and consulted by Barack Obama.
When Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain commit crimes with US collusion and weapons, their impunity and Obama's hypocrisy are pure Kissinger. Syria must not have chemical weapons, but Israel can have and use them. Iran must not have a nuclear programme, but Israel can have more nuclear weapons than Britain.
This is known as "realism" or realpolitik by Anglo‑American academics and think tanks that claim expertise in "counter-terrorism" and "national security," which are Orwellian terms meaning the opposite.
In recent weeks the New Statesman has published articles by John Bew, an academic in the war studies department of King's College London which the cold warrior Lawrence Freedman made famous.
Bew laments the parliamentary vote that stopped David Cameron joining Obama in lawlessly attacking Syria and the hostility of most British people to bombing other nations. A note at the end of his articles says he "will take up the Henry A. Kissinger chair in foreign policy and international relations" in Washington DC.
If this is not a black joke, it is a profanity on those like Sara De Witt and Kissinger's countless other victims, not least those who died in the holocaust of his and Nixon's secret, illegal bombing of Cambodia.
This doctrine of "realism" was invented in the US after the second world war and sponsored by the Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations, the Office of Strategic Services ‑ a forerunner of the CIA ‑ and the Council on Foreign Relations.
At the great universities students were taught to regard people in terms of their usefulness or their expendability, in other words, their threat to "us."
This narcissism served to justify the cold war, its moralising myths and cataclysmic risks, and, when that was over, the "war on terror."
Such a "transatlantic consensus" often found its clearest echo in Britain with the British elite's enduring nostalgia for empire. Tony Blair used it to commit and justify his war crimes until his lies got the better of him. The violent deaths of more than a thousand people every month in Iraq are his legacy.
Yet his views are still courted and his chief collaborator Alastair Campbell is a jolly after‑dinner speaker and the subject of obsequious interviews. All the blood, it seems, has been washed away.
Syria is the current project.
Outflanked by Russia and public opinion, Obama has now embraced the "path of diplomacy."
Has he? As Russian and US negotiators arrived in Geneva on September 12, the US increased its support for the al‑Qaida affiliated militias with weapons sent clandestinely through Turkey, eastern Europe and the Gulf.
The Godfather has no intention of deserting his proxies. Al‑Qaida was all but created by the CIA's Operation Cyclone, which armed the mojahedin in Soviet‑occupied Afghanistan.
Since then jihadists have been used to divide Arab societies and in eliminating the threat of pan‑Arab nationalism to western "interests" and Israel's lawless colonial expansion. This is Kissinger‑style "realism."
In 2006 I interviewed Duane "Dewey" Clarridge, who ran the CIA in Latin America in the 1980s. Here was a true "realist."
Like Kissinger and Nixon on the tapes, he spoke his mind. He referred to Salvador Allende as "whatshisname in Chile" and said "he had to go because it was in our national interests."
When I asked him what gave him the right to overthrow governments, he said: "Like it or lump it, we'll do what we like. So just get used to it, world."
The world is no longer getting used to it. In a continent ravaged by those whom Nixon called "our bastards," Latin American governments have defied the likes of Clarridge and implemented much of Allende's dream of social democracy ‑ which was Kissinger's fear.
Today most of Latin America is independent of US foreign policy and free from its vigilantism. Poverty has been cut almost by half. Children live beyond the age of five. The elderly learn to read and write.
These remarkable advances are invariably reported in bad faith in the West and ignored by the "realists." That must never lessen their value as a source of optimism and inspiration for all of us.
John Pilger's new film Utopia premiered at the National Film Theatre in London on October 3.
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