We Are
This is a publication of the Communist Youth Organization of the Workers Communist Party of Iran
The 99%
ISSUE 00 MONTH YEAR
December2014
this issue “From the river to the sea, Irish water will be free”: a manifestation of capitalism’s exchange/use-value contradiction The largest union strike in Belgium in years The United States war crimes report Thousands protest at Mall of America against police brutality, Cuba: why now? Syriza: Greek radical left Oppose Iran’s state racism towards Afghan residents and migrants! Switching hats three times to be president: the Tunisian election The spectre of Podemos in Spain Neo-Nazi demonstration in Germany: capitalism taking its dog for another
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Editor: Chia Barsen Assistant Editor : Arash Yazdan javanan.tamas@gmail.com http://cyo-iran.blogspot.co youtube.com/user/sjkiran1
“From the river to the sea, Irish water will be free”: a manifestation of capitalism’s exchange/use-value contradiction With over 100,000 people gathered in the streets of Dublin, the people of Ireland have made it loud and clear that they will not allow the government to impose the new water tax on them. Since the collapse of the economy in 2008 the government of Ireland has imposed deep cuts into the social services. The financial bailout that Ireland received from the European Central Bank predicated on these cuts to social services. However, smaller social services do not mean lower taxes for the working people. As it is the case now with the Irish Water, which already receives one billion euros from taxes, the government has setup a private company to charge an additional fee for water.
ing the water or its delivery, but on the demand and supply of the market, and or arbitrarily set by the government in order to counter balance other costs. A complete privatization of commodity water can create a scenario where a corporation, having a monopoly in the market, can change the price (the exchangevalue) that they wish in order to generate profits. In this way the “cost” of water via taxes and fees, its exchange-value character, does not necessarily reflect actual costs. This of course means that now many Irish people are being denied access to the use-value of water simply because of the capitalism imposed exchange-value imposed on commodity water.
The march and rally against the newly imposed water tax is setup and organized by Right2Water campaign. This campaign has organized rallies in Letterkenny, Donegal, Drogheda, Bray, Sligo, Waterford, Fermoy in Cork, Gorey in Wexford, and many other small towns and cities in Ireland. Further, YouTube videos have been made to show the citizens how to remove water meters as well as the resistance against the installation of water meters and the heavy handed police repression.
The commodification of water is also a manifestation of the commodity fetishism of capitalism. Capitalism expanding market needs has seen the commodification of the natural world space around us. This list does not only include just water, forests and the oceans, but anything that can be possibly yields an exchange-value in the market. Capitalism will put a price tag on air if it is able to control it. For capitalism it does not matter if something is produced via social labour, but if it can be traded for a profit through the exchange-value system.
Taxation of water is an example manifestation of one of the most central contradictions of capitalism: the exchangevalue and use-value contradiction. The use-value of water is very clear, and it is not only a very basic necessity of life, but it should be the right of every woman, man and child to have access to it for free since life is impossible without it. However capitalism functions on an exchange-value basis, the exchangevalue for the commodity water is decided not necessarily on the cost of extract-
The Irish people are amidst the largest and most total assault by the bourgeoisie on their human rights. Access to water must never be a bargaining chip on a negotiating table, or a bought and sold in the market: it is a human right! The ruthlessness by which the state police are attacking the protesters only demonstrates the inhuman mechanics of a system that will rather put bullets into the bodies of Irish working people than lose a penny in profits.
The largest union strike in Belgium The labour in unions in Belgium went on a 24 hour strike against the government austerity policies that are aimed at making 14 Billion worth of cuts to the social services. The pro-austerity Charles Michel government is planning on increasing the pension age, cutting pension, laying-off public sector workers, and scrapping the inflation linked pay rise that was planned to take effect next year. The unions shut down all mass transit including national and regional trains and international traffic such as the Eurostar service to London. Main highways were also blocked and access to the city of Ghent was also closed. Europe’s principal port of Antwerp was also closed by union workers. The current right-wing government is planning to balance the books on the backs of the workers. Instead of taxing the rich corporations that generate exorbitant profits, the government is following the austerity agenda taking place in the rest of Europe that will result in the increasing gap between the rich and the poor. The welfare state and the social services within it, was the result of the post WWII bourgeois crisis initiative to control the demand in the market. With European standard wages and social services available to working class it provided the bourgeois the demand
for its commodities in the market via the disposable income of the workers. This allowed workers comparably a better standard of living, at least until the neoliberalism era. Today, after four decades of neoliberal assault on wages and benefits of workers, the European bourgeois, after the 2008 crisis has no other option but to cut whatever that is left in the bank of social services and feed it to the compounding profit needs of the market. The union workers in Belgium are facing the same bourgeois agenda as the rest of Europe and are now in a defensive fight to keep whatever that is left of their welfare state. This struggle, class struggle, is taking place at a time when capitalism’s internal contradictions has manifested in such a way that it can only move forward by bulldozing through the workers’ wages, benefits and social services. It is no longer a matter of small reforms, give and takes, but a colossal change that will leave nothing in its wake. The only question here is that will the unions can muster enough strength to hold back the bourgeois assault long enough for a worker’s party to organize a fight back?
The United States war crimes report It was by no means news to the world that the US practices torture on its prisoners. Even before the Guantanamo Bay revelations the world knew that the flag of “freedom” and “justice” that the US is exporting around the world is empty. Despite this knowledge, it was still difficult to listen to list of practices including waterboarding, rectal feeding, sleep deprivation of up to a week, stress positions, and brutal beatings. The Obama administration, when taking office, knew about the methods of torture used by the US forces. However, his administration only banned practices such as waterboarding and stopped at prosecuting those involved in the practice, people such as Dick Cheney who openly revealed his support for “enhanced interrogation”, and that he would “do it again in a minute” if he was given the chance. The Obama administration will not and cannot prosecute or investigate war crimes because opening that area for investigation will likely implicate both the Democrats and the Republicans alike. The civilized world recognizes the actions of the US military for what they are: war crimes. The revelations of the crimes committed by the US army were read in the US congress and via media transmitted across the world. But what is the role of the American people, and the international community in the aftermath of these revelations? The citizens of the US, living with poverty level wages, unemployment and lack of social services are currently with their backs against the wall, struggling in a long and bitter class struggle against one of the most domineering imperialist states. Further, just as the US army continues to murder and plunder abroad, the US police forces are the torturers and the executioners domestically. With the countless new revelations of unarmed men and women being beaten and shot by the US police force, perhaps this was one of the reasons the American people did not raise an eyebrow about the US army’s torture practices. American people also know today that the US army did not tread into the sand of the Middle East to bring them the American dream. This is even clearer to the workers of the countless arms factories based in the US that sends military supplies to every corner of the world. The US army, a conglomerate of corporations, aside from its role of easing the financial markets at home through opening new markets abroad, feeds its own profit needs as well: companies such as Bombardier and HP are two examples of hundreds of US corporations produce arms for the US army. Human rights and freedoms are the baseline of what are and what are not crimes against humanity. We must broaden the definition of crimes against humanity and make it part of the social narrative. We must make child poverty, low wages, lack of social services, and employment part of the definition of crimes against humanity. We must make the lack of access to modern healthcare and the lack of access to free education a crime. We must make the prosecution based on race and ethnicity a crime against humanity. These are some of the domestic crimes that US government is committing to control and subdue the working-class at home while torturing and murdering others abroad to open new markets.
Thousands protest at Mall of America against police brutality, Thousands of people gathered in cities such as Boston; in boulder, Colorado; in Portland, Oregon; in Austin, Tex; in Bay Area, California; and in New York City to protest against the lack of accountability for the lethal police violence against unarmed Black people. The names of two recent police brutality victims continue to be echoed in the protests: Mike Brown of Ferguson and Eric Garner, who was strangled to death in Staten Island in July. After being taken to court, the police was found innocent in relation to the death of both these men. The state, via the police, protects and defends the laws that are written in defence of private property and corporate profits, such as breaking strikes and breaking up protests that get in the way of stores selling their goods, such as we saw in the Mall of America. Corporations accumulate their profits by dispossessing the workers from the value s/he produces in the workplace and outside of the workplace with the exchange-value system (increasing the cost of living such as rent and food). Today there is a colossal difference in the amount of wealth controlled by the top 1% and the bottom 99%. The role of the state, especially the police, who are in the front line of the clash between these two classes, is to mediate it, using its monopoly on violence if necessary. In this way, since the police force, as part of the state, is itself the coercive force to protect property and encapsulate the legal dispossession of the working class, capitalism will never
allow it to be made frail or fragile in anyway. History has made this fact clear that as the working class exploitation increases, through higher prices and lower wages and loss of benefits, it correlates positively with higher cases of police ruthless brutality. Creating and or maintaining divisions within the working class such as by gender, ethnicity or race benefits capital accumulation. It is to the benefit of capitalism to keep wages as low as possible, and by breaking worker’s solidarity through divisions such as race, the system as a whole benefits. Today the working people in the US are fighting against the state, its laws and the police, and are taking this fight where it really matters: disrupting the profits of corporate America. By holding their protest in the Mall of America, the Black Lives Matter movement essential clogged one of many of United States’ corporate arteries for a day. This method of protest is also an economic attack on the faceless capital accumulation which is the foundations of everything.
Cuba: why now? The recent news about the US administration, via president Obama, negotiating the end of the Cuban economic embargo is the culmination of several decades of defeat of the US foreign policy towards Cuba. The economic embargo and sanctions on the Cuban economy was first set by the United States as a block and opposition to the encroaching Soviet Union central capitalism planned economy. It was not the choice of the Cuban leaders or their people to have the sanctions decades ago. However, the impact of the sanctions had a devastating effect on the Cuban economy, which were for some time during the Cold War offset by the USSR’s markets (85% trading partner), but eventually after the collapse of the Berlin Wall Cuba was left to fend for itself primarily through an extensive expansion on tourism. Since the fall of the USSR Cuba has made many important economic alliances, especially with countries in South America, such as Venezuela. These economic ties, which was the export of services such as doctors and health workers in exchange for desperately necessary commodities such as Oil, has kept Cuba afloat for a number of years now. During this time Cuba has saw itself rise, not economically, but politically: influencing political change in countries such as Ecuador (Rafael Correa), Venezuela (Hugo Chavez), Bolivia (Evo Morales), Brazil (Lula), Argentina (Nestor Kirchner), Uruguay (Tabare Vazquez). Effectively, through Cuba’s perseverance against the US and defeating the US foreign policy for regime change, it has been the political weight that has influenced the political shift of South America towards the left. The place of Cuba in the political map of South America is a very significant consideration because currently the United States is seeing an important but small opportunity to make its long sought after political change in the South. By admitting that the long drawn economic embargo on Cuba has been ineffective in creating regime change, the US economy is hoping to bring change by releasing its economic hounds:
finance capital. One of the first bargaining chips is the US oil, which is now selling at half its original price a year ago, to compete with Venezuela: the supply of US shale oil and gas is trying to undermine Venezuela’s economy, which has been the recent lifeline for Cuba. The US militarism, one of its largest pillars of power, has not been effective in the middle-east in implementing foreign policy and has ground to a halt. In South America as well as Cuba, the US army cannot create regime change as it once did in Chile: this is the major change of tactic taking place. However an important weapon in the arsenal still remains: the economic pressure through market penetration. Cuba is not a socialist country, however it does deliver on some of socialism’s important socio-economic foundations such as Cuba’s healthcare system that the World Health Organization calls “a model for the world”, or Cuba’s education system that has one of the highest post -secondary education graduates in the world and has been highly ranked consistently for many years. With the flood of US finance capital entering the Cuban market, the Cuban people must fight and defend their hard fought for rights and freedoms and their standard of living. One of the pioneering ideas that the Cuban revolution’s (despite its large shortcomings as a socialist country) has taught the world is that even with very short and limited resources, a communal share of the country’s wealth, can result in a higher and more humane standard of living.
Syriza: Greek radical left Greek people suffered the worst consequences of the European Central Bank’s bailout: severe cuts to social services including healthcare, education and pension. In addition, Greece continues to have one of the highest unemployment rates. However the people of Greece, exhausted by half a decade of neo-liberal ransack of their economy are hoping to use the parliament to fight back against the rolling cuts and austerity measures. The coalition of the radical left, known as Syriza, led by Alexis Tsipras are working to win the next early election that must be called according to the Greek constitution. The Greek economy is heavily weaved into the neo-liberal agenda of Europe that has generated far and wide poverty and misery for the Europeans. However, the Syriza party is attempting to become the counter balance to the waves of austerity to favour the working people and the have-nots. Specifically, the party’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, is planning to renegotiate Greece’s loans with the European creditors. The Syriza is targeting the top 10% income earners in the country that includes some politicians and elites to pay for the changes he wishes to make in Greece. Alexis Tsipras’ plan is essentially redistributing the wealth in Greece in order to save the social services and reverse some of the privatization that has taken place. The changes may also include, in addition to the reversing the privatizations, increases in salaries and pensions and repealing bailout laws liberalising the markets. In order for Syriza or any other self- proclaiming grassroots and workers’ party to be successful against the strong neoliberal right-wing statuesque, it has to have extraordinary support from the people to defend it during inevitable war with big business. To defend workers’ rights and wages as they are is one battle, but to reverse the theft of banks through rebuying privatized public institutions will be a herculean feat. The European central bank as well all other European nations subservient to the ECB will do everything in their power not to allow Syriza to be successful. The people of Greece need a worker’s party that stays loyal to its roots and goes the important extra mile of eventually removing all of Capitalism exploitative tentacles in the country. No matter how many institutions are publicly owned, a Greece that rises and falls with the ebbs and flows of the European and global markets, is not free! As long as any capitalist institution exists in Greece, it will always be in danger of losing all that it has fought so hard to gain: this is the extra mile that any self-proclaiming working-class party needs to go.
Oppose Iran’s state racism towards Afghan residents and migrants! Iran’s department of interior ministry has banned Afghan migrants from residing in nine provinces in Iran, other provinces being under consideration for a similar ban. Restriction and bans on Afghan people residing in Iran includes: Travel bans on the use of public transportation Ban on marriage between Iranians and Afghans No legal recognition of children born out of a mixed marriage Ban on Afgan children attending and or mixing with Iranian children Ban on employment opportunities and social benefits Afghans are forbidden from using social recreational areas such as city parks Afghan people must use a separate line to purchase bread In the province of Mazandaran, the authorities are prohibiting Afghan people to reside, work or to purchase basic life necessitates such as food! The Islamic Republic of Iran’s laws and state policies towards the Afghan people residing in Iran is both racist and inhumane! The institutional and social discrimination against the Afghan people must stop. It is the human right of all Afghan people to have equal access to employment and to all of society’s benefits accessible to Iranians residents.
The Islamic Republic is attempting to blame the Afghan people for the social and economic insecurities that are prevalent in Iran! The Islamic regime is using racism and discrimination towards the Afghan people to create divisions within the working-class and to drive wages down. The Islamic regime of Iran wants nothing less than infighting within the working people in order to continue its stranglehold on power and to justify the social poverty experienced by millions of people. Many Afghan people have been residing in Iran for several generations and have been subject to the Islamic regime’s ruthless repression like all other residents. An important part of our struggle and fight against the Islamic Regime is to stop the discrimination and racism against the Afghan people in every corner of Iranian society: at home, on the streets, at the shops, at school, and at work!
Switching hats three times to be president: the Tunisian election Tunisia has solidified its position against the Islamists by electing a secular government. Mr Beji Caid Essebsi, who was a former interior minister of Tunisia’s first repressive Islamist president, is the leader of the anti-Islamist paty Nidaa Tounes, and now the president of Tunisia. Mr Beji Caid Essebsi was also a speaker of parliament under the overthrown dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. When peering beneath the surface of this election results, it can be inferred that the Tunisian people do not want an Islamic government, and they also do not want Islam to grow in power in the government. Also, this election results demonstrates that despite the Islamist group Ennahda sweeping into office in 2011, the group has been shown to be incompetent in running the economy and the country during the current turbulent times. This election result was also a major blow to the Islamic movement in North Africa: Islamists were praying that the Islamic movement would carry through all of North Africa. Now the stage is set for this new administration to demonstrate if it can bring economic and social security to the Tunisian peo-
ple. The newly elected president has switched hats three times to become president. The people of Tunisia want economic security and secularism: Tunisians want jobs, better wages, benefits, social services and without any threats from Islamists. The powerful and resilient revolutionary youth of Tunisia want more from their revolution than any government has provided thus far. The test of the new government is to deliver on these important needs, and during these turbulent revolutionary times, the results need to be delivered quickly! The election results also show the lack of a real opposition in Tunisia. The Ennahda was elected during a revolutionary period: it was a vote against Ben Ali rather than a vote for Islamists. The result of this new election the people of Tunisia, by voting and electing a politician that has previously served the Ben Ali regime, only highlight the desperate need for a secular alternative. This is the current plight of the Tunisian people, bringing old politician back only to hold back the Islamists till a real progress opposition can be trusted.
The spectre of Podemos in Spain
A new left wing spectre is rising in Spain and it has forced both the centre-left and the centre-right to rethink their political strategy. Most especially, the neo-liberal right-wing party in Spain that was comfortably in bed with the European Central Bank, is scrambling to renegotiate how it will approach next year’s election, and specifically, how to lubricate the next round of austerity measures in order to press it down the throats of the Spanish working-class. Spain, since its liberal bourgeois democracy in 1970 has had a two party system. The new left-wing group called “Podemos” is the third addition to the two powerful parties. This new party has been polling almost evenly with the People’s Party (the right wing party) and edging ahead of the Socialists party. The Podemos is promising to the people to be an alternative to the business as usual exclusive bourgeois politics that wants nothing more than to keep the working-class deaf, dumb and out of politics and the sphere of political influence. The Podemos is attempting to create “Circulos” (local assemblies) across Spain. The Circulos hold weekly meetings where Spaniards can discuss macro and micro level economic and political issues. In this way the Podemos is generating its power from the grassroots, and it is in turn empowering the local people and the working-class of Spain in general. It is only if the Podemos truly represents the economic interests of the workingclass in Spain that it can count on the working-class to support it in return. Working people of Spain want immediate social and economic security, and a strong and committed plan to leave the exchange-value wage slavery system of capitalism that has places them in economic and social crisis periodically. Where does the politics of the Podemos lay in the political spectrum of Spain? When in power, any political group will have to answer to the bankrupt economy and its many ties with tentacles of the European Central Bank. Podemos will have to take a strong stance against the European Central Bank, but it can only do that if the working-class is behind it. The Podemos has no choice but to empower the working people if it wants to gain power and to stay in power: all other reformist bourgeois options have already been taken by other political groups in the political spectrum of Spain. There is simply no more room for another neo-liberal reformist party or a dead-end “socialist” party: those two categories have already been taken. The right-wing parties in Spain, as well as the long lost decaying left-wing parties that have nothing new to say, are desperately trying to match the words of Podemos in order to make sure they get as much of the election pie as possible. It is simply new faces telling old lies, but this time the people of Spain have an alternative and the unpredictable nature of Podemos is putting fear in the bourgeoishearts of the centre-left and the centre-right parties. The people of Europe have simply no-where left to go economically. The people of Europe, having lost all economically, have literally nothing left to lose in trying a new alternative. The lies of the neo-liberalism, told in so many languages, have become saturated. The rise of the spectre of Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece, demonstrates a strong possibility of a counter weight to the neo-liberal agenda for Europe, but this can only happen if both parties remain true to economic interests of the working-class in their respective countries.
Neo-Nazi demonstration in Germany: capitalism taking its dog for another walk
A gather of 17,000 people in Dresden illustrates the impact of economic and social insecurity in Europe. The so called “Islamification of Europe” is only a new mask for the neo-Nazi movement that has been trying to hijack the people’s discontent with the system as a whole. This neo-Nazi nationalist movement has already sprouted in several countries in Europe, one of which was Greece (Golden Dawn). However, both there in Greece and in Germany it will not be able to gain anything other than an annual gathering such as this. The neo-Nazi movement is decayed, and simply has no answer for what the people of Europe want: which is a death sentence for any movement. The items on the agenda of any neo-Nazi party are to push the working-class the breaking point with deeper cuts to wages, benefits and social services, but with twice the police brutality and firepower. Perhaps if one was to wind back the clocks to 50 years ago they may have had some sway. But today, blaming the migrant workers for domestic economic problems is dying argument that a unified Europeans will never accept. Also, the nationalist tune does not hold water against the more pervasive anticapitalism arguments. Many of the neo-Nazi party members are themselves large stakeholders in the system. They are themselves part of the heart-beat of the bourgeois. Today however, they are kept pickled only to be used by the system when it suits it. One of the main uses of the neo-Nazi groups in today’s class struggle is to break the ranks of the working -class and to spread ethnic (and now religious) divisions. It is also used to
spread fear into the hearts of the working-class to give the statuesque government cuts a facelift. In all other ways the system wants to keep a leash on the neo-Nazis, for if it overruns its boundaries it will destabilize the economy. Despite being on a leash, this movement has a massive bite, a danger that the working-class must adhere to and consider seriously in its struggle with the bourgeois.