Socialist Worker 512

www.socialist.ca

no. 512 November 2009

IT’S TIME TO PUT PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT lGood green jobs for all lStrong public services lAccessible education and training More and more people know that capitalism is undemocratic and unsustainable.

The resources of the planet are plundered while workers themselves are exploited—all in the name of extracting the most amount of profit possible.

Workers are working longer hours for less pay and fewer benefits. Our pensions are at risk, our social safety net is in tatters and our public services are being dismantled. Around the world, the gap between the rich and poor has never been greater.

Competition and exploitation is at the heart of capitalism. Everywhere we turn we are faced with competition.

And it makes no sense.

Instead of joining forces to stop climate change, capitalists with the backing of their respective nation states compete with each to better exploit the resources of the planet.

Instead of ensuring that resources are distributed equitably and sustainably, capitalists compete to grab a greater and greater share for their selves.

Just look at the corporations that were bailed out with vast amounts of our money. Their new-found profits are not going toward accessible education, health care or housing—they are rewarding themselves with massive bonuses while nation states further cut the social safety net.

But this plundering and competition

is not without consequences. Competition and plunder lead to instability as the system drives one capitalist after another out of the market and as nation states resort to war.

But as the German socialist Karl Marx said, is capitalism creates its own grave-diggers. Precisely because it concentrates workers in cities and towns, offices and factories and on college and university campuses, it sows the seeds of its own destruction. It’s here where we learn that cooperation, not competition, can change the world.

Students are crucial. By connecting their energy and vision with the social power of labour, students and workers have the capacity to take-over the

system and impose a new set of priorities that puts human need— including the need to save the planet—above all else.

Workers produce the entire world’s wealth. By fighting together, workers and students can literally bring the system to a halt.

We have seen glimpses of this in the past: in the 1930s, and during the 1960s when students and workers joined in struggle around the world.

In France, this culminated in a general strike so powerful that the state teetered on its foundations.

Workers and students have the power, not by accepting the system, but by challenging its very foundation.

Classified photos reveal Omar Khadr’s innocence by peter hogarth

Photos taken from an 18-page submission to the Obama administration earlier this year prove that Omar Khadr could not have thrown the grenade that fatally wounded a US soldier, according to Khadr’s defence team.

The pictures, obtained by the Toronto Star, show the Canadian-born

Guantánamo detainee covered in the bricks and mud of a bombed-out building, following a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. The defence argued at a Guantánamo hearing last year that it was physically impossible for Khadr to have thrown the grenade, but the military judge withheld the photos and written submissions from public scrutiny.

The pictures, which have never

been made public, show the then 15-year-old Khadr immobilized, buried in rubble, and blinded by shrapnel at the time the Pentagon alleges he was responsible for the death of a US soldier.

The Toronto-born native was charged with five war crimes under George Bush’s Military Commissions Act, but his case was suspended when US President Barack

Obama pledged to shut down the Guantánamo Bay detention centre.

The case will now be tried in either a Washington, DC criminal court or before a military tribunal.

These pictures are just the latest evidence of the injustice surrounding the Khadr case. Video footage made public earlier this year showed government agents brutally interrogating the teenaged boy. Khadr

claims that he has been subject to acts of torture throughout his incarceration.

Despite these revelations, Prime Minister Stephen Harper continues to insist that the system of military trials in the US is a fair one. Harper also refuses to ask for Khadr’s repatriation, in defiance of Parliament, public opinion and the federal court.

Climate action now » page 12 l 100,000 displaced in Pakistan » page 3 China’s economic contradictions » page 6&7 l Sisters in spirit » page 5 CPMA No. 58554253-99 / ISSN No. 0836-7094 / $1 or $2 at newsstands

Wildrose make gains in Alberta by peter hogarth The global economic crisis has put an end to the “Alberta advantage,” putting thousands out of work, drastically reducing government revenues, and giving rise to the Wildrose Alliance.

The Wildrose, a party that advertises itself as to the right of even the Alberta Tories, has gained in popularity as the Alberta Conservative Party and its leader Ed Stelmach, which has ruled Alberta nearly uncontested since 1971, preside over a period of deep recession and massive decline in oil prices.

The Wildrose scored a surprising victory in the Calgary-Glenmore byelection, electing its first MLA to the provincial legislature in a riding that has been a Tory stronghold for 40 years. Since then, the party has elected Danielle Smith, a self-described “fiscal conservative, social moderate,” as party leader and seen an incredible bump in popularity. According to recent polls, 30 per cent of respondents support the Tories, 22 per cent would back the Wildrose Alliance, 18 per cent would support the Liberals and nine per cent would back the NDP. Much of the Wildrose success can be attributed to oil patch money. The bulk of the party’s campaign money has come from a petroleum sector dissatisfied with Stelmach’s tax hikes on oil and natural gas.

While the gains made by the Wildrose Alliance reflect voter uncertainty in a time of capitalist crisis, the party’s platform is down-right dangerous: calling for attacks on unions, the removal of legislation that prohibits racist attacks, a commitment to drastically reducing taxes on business and cutting spending on social programs and health care.

CLEAN TRAINS

Fight government’s inaction on clean trains by john bell Ontario’s Environment Minister John Gerretsen has ignored demands to turn a proposed rapid transit train corridor through Toronto from dirty diesel to electric power.

The route, through some of the city’s most densely populated neighborhoods, now sees about 50 diesel trains per day.

If Metrolinx, the newly created body overseeing transit in the Toronto-Hamilton corridor gets it’s way, the number of trips will rise to more than 450 per day. Most trips would link downtown Union Station with Pearson Airport.

The Toronto Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David McKeown, has unequivocally condemned the plan as a health hazard. Diesel exhaust contributes to smog, and is directly linked to respiratory diseases, especially among children. The Toronto District School Board has added its voice to public health experts and thousands of community members opposing the plan.

Electric trains would run quieter and cleaner, especially if the power source was sustainable wind or solar.

The technology is readily available. Electric trains are the norm in most developed

countries; France and Germany buy electric trains from Bombardier, a Canadian company.

In an effort to deflect environmental criticism, Gerretsen said the diesel locomotives would be Tier 4, or “clean diesel” technology.

This is just a fantasy, no such technology yet exists and there is no guarantee it will exist in time to be implemented.

Initially, Gerretsen refused to commit to converting the existing fleet of GO commuter trains from dirty diesel to imaginary clean ones. But after more than a week of bad publicity he recanted, promising to retrofit all the

diesels with the nonexistent technology. After all, fantasy is free.

The whole plan exposes Ontario’s environmental plan as a farce. But there is a subplot here: privatization.

Metrolinx was created by the Ontario Government to take local mass transit out of the hands of municipalities. Its new boss, Rob Pritchard, is unelected and unaccountable.

SNC Lavalin, a corporation with strong ties to the Liberal Party, would run the lucrative airport trains. Not surprisingly, SNC Lavalin is a major corporate player in the Alberta tar sands.

Crown cannot appeal Charkoui decision by jessica squires In late September, a judge ordered crown evidence revealed in the security certificate case of Adil Charkoui.

Rather than release this evidence, which the crown lawyers claimed would reveal sources whose identity must be kept secret, they withdrew it. Subsequently the judge quashed the certificate.

The government lawyers argued that the judge was favouring individual rights over international security. Judge Tremblay-Lamer ruled that was unfounded, and rejected their request for a “certified question” for an appeal.

Charkoui is planning a lawsuit and related actions to clear his name. Meanwhile, increasingly the very existence of security certificates is being questioned.

BC fights cuts to the arts by ian beeching As a part of the British Columbian budget announced on September 2, the arts will face major cuts.

TORONTO – Students hold a mock coroner’s inquest into the death of several public services­— child care, social assistance, education, health care—due to underfunding in the lead-up to the November 5 province-wide day of action for a poverty-free Ontario. For more information, visit www.dropfees.ca. PHOTO: JOHN BONNAR

Iraq War resister seeks sanctuary in church by bradley hughes Rodney Watson is the first Iraq War resister to seek sanctuary in a church to avoid being deported by the minority Tory government.

Despite two motions in parliament, and overwhelming support from Canadians to let the war resisters stay, Rodney was ordered to leave Canada. He is now living in sanctuary in First United Church in downtown Vancouver. Support for his decision to stay has been widespread.

People have stopped by the church to meet him and

others have made donations to the church. Local newspapers are filled with letters of support.

Rodney served out his complete tour in Iraq. He recalled what he witnessed: “Some of the things that disturbed me while I was in Iraq were the treatment of civilians by some soldiers that I witnessed, the beatings of unarmed men for no reason, desecrating the Koran and pretty much disregarding their religion and way of life.

“I witnessed grown men being slapped around— soldiers were calling them

‘sand niggers’, then turning to me and saying ‘we don’t mean you’.”

“There was an incident when an Iraqi civilian came to the FOB [forward operating base] in an Iraqi ambulance. He had suffered a gunshot to the abdomen.

He could have been saved— I radioed: ‘There is a civilian out here, he’s been shot, there are no explosives, no weapons, could we bring him in to see a medic?’ And the answer was ‘Negative’.

They turned him back, and this person died before our eyes.”

After Rodney returned to the US, he learned he was going to be “stop-lossed”.

The army was unilaterally extending his contract so that they could send him back to Iraq for another year. That is when he left and came to Canada.

He now has a Canadian fiancée and a 9 month old son in Vancouver.

Help the campaign to let Rodney and other soldiers who refuse to fight in an illegal war stay in Canada.

Contact your Member of Parliament, Prime Minister Harper and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

P.E.I activist and blogger kicked out of press gallery by stephen ellis On October 19, local media figures and Liberal Party politicians maneuvered to silence one of the bravest dissident voices in Prince Edward Island, that of disability activist and satirist, Stephen Pate.

The occasion was a hastily convened meeting of the newly formed PEI press gallery during which members were to vote as to whether or not Pate as the new secretary should be kicked out for not 2 Socialist Worker November 2009

being a “real journalist”.

The president of the press gallery, Wayne Thibodeau, also the senior political reporter for the Charlottetown Guardian, remarked that there was simply no room for bloggers in the gallery and that Pate’s continued membership would precipitate a flood of applications for membership.

Thibodeau later confirmed that the Speaker of the PEI Legislature, Kathleen Casey, had initiated the complaint against Pate.

For years, Pate has been hammering away at the Liberal government of Robert Ghiz. His blog, the Not Just the News Network, has been relentless in covering the biggest scandal in PEI politics.

The Provincial Nominee Program which offers citizenship to immigrants willing to invest $200,000 or more in the Island saw hundreds of millions of dollars lost in scandal. Pate has also exposed the hopeless corruption of the Liberals in a column entitled Liberal Millionaire’s Club.

“The press is not supposed to be influenced by the government,” said Stephen Pate “but in this case the Speaker’s office took umbrage at my membership in the press gallery, despite my previous accreditation.”

Pate is a one man wrecking ball. He consistently takes up the cause of First Nations, people of colour and people with disabilities against the entrenched Liberal Party establishment. His is a refreshing voice in a sea of stultifying media.

Arts companies and organizations are seeing their funding cut in half, from $47.8 million this year to $23.1 million next year.

General arts funding will be cut from $19.5 million in 2008-09 to $2.25 million in 2010-11 and $2.2 million in 2011-12. Many arts organizations traditionally funded by casino levies could be getting millions less. No other province in Canada has cut the arts so deeply.

The Alliance for Arts and Culture held an angry protest meeting on the day the budget was announced with some 300 to 400 artists present. Strategies on how to react to the cuts were debated for more than two hours.

Many in the arts community are urging a boycott of performing at the Olympics.

A rally was held on September 9 at the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was attended by more than 1,000 people, many dressed in somber grey.

For more information, visit www.stopbcartscuts.ca.

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PAKISTAN & AFGHANISTAN Abdullah drops out of run-off vote by paul stevenson and BRADLEY HUGHES NATO’s claims to support democracy in Afghanistan look even more questionable.

Victims of drone attacks readied for burial in Miranshah, North Waziristan. photo: Haji Mohammad Mujtaba/IPS

Pakistan’s deal with the devil displaces over 100,000 by salmaan abdul hamid khan The Pakistani military has entered the second phase of “Operation Rah-e-Nijat” or “Path to Salvation”. This is a ground offensive carried out by approximately 28,000 Pakistani troops backed by an array of helicopter gun ships, F-16 fighter jets, and millions of US dollars.

The target: South Waziristan, the so-called base of the Pakistani Taliban and a safe haven for fleeing al-Qaeda members.

Aimed at an approximated 10,000 Pakistani Taliban fighters, the ground offensive has claimed some success in the outskirts of the region, but has yet to reach the heartland of the area, where they are expected to encounter much higher levels of resistance.

After months of blockades, aerial bombardments and infamous drone attacks, the much-anticipated ground offensive into South Waziristan started in the early morning of October 17.

This is the second largest campaign against the Pakistani Taliban this year, the first launched in the Swat valley in late April 2009, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and the displacement of up

to 2,000,000. Not to be outdone, the current offensive has already resulted in over 125,000 civilians fleeing their homes, with the numbers expected to nearly double in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately, in an effort to contain the “threat” in the area, and prevent the escape of any “insurgents”, the Pakistani military has sealed off all exit and entry points surrounding the region. The civilians, who are now virtually trapped in what is developing into a war zone, are forced to take

any means necessary in order to escape.

With little or no access to a means of transportation, many families have resorted to walking for miles in the bush in an effort to reach safety, some travelling as far as Dera Ismail Khan, a neighbouring city in the North West Frontier Province.

For those unable to flee the region, the situation is even worse as military established blockades have made it almost impossible to transport goods, creating local food shortages.

October war’s deadliest month The death toll continues to increase in war-torn Afghanistan.

October was the deadliest month since the beginning of the war in 2001 and 2009 has seen more deaths of coalition forces than the first six years of the war combined.

On October 30, 24-year-old Sapper Steven Marshall was killed by an IED blast, marking the second Canadian death in three days. Justin Boyes, a 26-year-old Lieutenant, was killed two days earlier, also by

an IED explosion, which also wounded two others.

The death toll in Afghanistan has now exceeded the rate in the Iraq War. The death toll for US soldiers hit a record high of 56 with eight deaths on October 27 alone.

While there are no official statistics for civilian deaths in Afghanistan, estimates show that civilian deaths continue to rise.

The UN reported that 2009 has also been the deadliest month, with tolls topping 1,500.

To whom do we owe this grand military offensive, this “path to salvation”?

It should come as no surprise that only a few weeks prior to its launch, a US special envoy headed by Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, would spend five days in Islamabad, pressuring Pakistani officials into staging a military offensive in South Waziristan.

H o l b r o o k e ’s m e d d l i n g i s an indication of the Obama administration’s new vision and strategy for the “war on terror”, one that would place greater focus on Pakistan.

Pakistan’s increasing involvement in this war has resulted in increased destabilization and violence within its borders. This violence has skyrocketed since the start of Operation Rah-e-Nijat.

In the past three weeks alone, retaliation by the Pakistani Taliban has resulted in the deaths of 170 people. Families are afraid to leave their homes, schools are being shut down, and what were busy markets are now trickles in the street.

Pakistan’s deal with the devil is costing it its soul.

NATO ministers want more war Karzai’s brother on CIA payroll by paul stevenson At the NATO ministers’ meeting in Slovakia, NATO heads endorsed the McChrystal assessment of the war and agreed that the US should send 40,000 more troops.

In most NATO countries, support for the war is plummeting. It is much easier for these countries to ask the US to send more troops rather than risk an unpopular decision to increase the numbers of their own soldiers. There were no new commitments for troops from any NATO partner at the meetings.

However, the argument that troops need to stay to train Afghan troops was a popular refrain at the meetings. This continues to be the main argument of the Conservative government in

Canada. Peter MacKay, Canada’s Minister of National Defence, has said that if Canada stays on in Kandahar it will be as trainers, not as combat troops.

But it simply is not possible to avoid combat while occupying Kandahar. Even retired General Rick Hillier says, in his new book, “If you stay in the south and try to do something like training, you will still be in combat. I don’t care what [political] staffers say in the media about how they can find a way to do it. You simply will not.

You will be in combat.”

It is expected that a debate about the extension will begin in the spring.

This will be a critical moment for the anti-war movement in Canada. For more information on how to get involved, visit www.apc-cpa.ca.

by bradley hughes For the last eight years, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghanistan’s president, has been on the payroll of the CIA. Former US officials in Afghanistan have told the New York Times that Karzai provides intelligence for them, rents a compound for the CIA and US special forces, and operates a paramilitary force.

This unit, the Kandahar Strike Force, is used to attack the Taliban and insurgents, which sounds a lot like the death squads the CIA has been involved with in other countries.

In June, the Kandahar Strike Force shot and killed Kandahar’s provincial police chief, Matiullah Qati. Mr. Qati was killed when he

tried to stop the strike force from freeing the brother of one of their members from jail.

Previously, Karzai has received coverage in American newspapers for his involvement with the drug trade in Afghanistan. Several reports have claimed that he uses his government post to prevent interference with drug trafficking.

The same source to the New York Times describes Karzai’s rule as mafia like, and he has been implicated in producing phony ballots in the recent election fraud of his brother, the president.

This blatant US-funded corruption is aiding the Taliban indirectly by exposing the Afghan government for what it really is, and directly, since much of the drug trade profits go to fund the Taliban.

After weeks of investigating, it was found that at least one-third of all votes cast for the current president, Hamid Karzai, during the presidential election were illegal. This means that he did not get more than half the total votes, which triggered a run-off election.

The optics of holding a run-off vote when one candidate was so compromised has plagued NATO, Karzai and the Independent Electoral Commission for weeks.

This problem has been solved now that the other candidate Abdullah Abdullah has withdrawn from the run-off election.

With only one candidate on the ballot, Karzai will not need the one million or so fake votes that he used last time, and NATO will be spared the difficulties of fighting a war for democracy while defending polling stations that don’t open and yet still get more votes than they have registered voters.

Government illegitimate

Announcing that he would not run in the upcoming election, Abdullah said a “transparent election is not possible” and that the Afghan government has been illegitimate since May when the election was first supposed to be held. It was postponed until August.

Abdullah made his decision after the Karzai government rejected his conditions for joining he government and avoiding a run-off vote.

Among his conditions were that Karzai replace Azizullah Ludin who was appointed by Karzai as the head of the Independent Electoral Commission for the election. He had also asked that four ministers that campaigned for Karzai be removed from their posts.

Voter turnout

Most Afghans, tired of war and the corruption of the central government, did not vote in the last election. The turnout was only 38 per cent and with only one candidate on the ballot it is expected to be even lower in the run-off vote.

While the investigation into the election continued, the UN quietly released its Human Development Report for 2009, which found that development in Afghanistan is regressing.

Despite $36 billion in international aid over the last eight years, Afghanistan has slipped to 181 of 182 countries on the human development index, down 2 spots from last year.

November 2009 Socialist Worker 3

TALKING MARXISM

INTERNATIONAL

Abbie Bakan

Leslie Doucet, 1960-2009

A life against war For those who knew her, it’s hard to imagine life without Leslie. A brilliant and creative scholar, Leslie Doucet was also a dedicated social justice activist. She would bring her insights—and anger— about how racism, imperialism and war impinged on our daily lives into every conversation, every essay, and every action in which she participated.

Leslie Doucet died on October 17, 2009, in Kingston General Hospital, after suffering a series of strokes.

She was a supporter of US war resisters who sought refuge in Canada. Leslie’s commitment became personal when her son enlisted in the Canadian Forces; but he later withdrew. One factor in his change of mind was a meeting with a war resister at Queen’s University.

Leslie put her story into words, and her statement (ZNet, November 12, 2008) remains an inspiration. It is a fitting tribute to a life against war.

Making and unmaking a soldier

“My story is a personal one, but repeated many times across Canada; where young men and women with little prospect for meaningful employment are recruited into the Canadian Armed Forces through what is informally known as the Economic Draft. The pay is steady, their immediate needs are met, and entry-level recruits get a $40,000 first-tour-of-duty bonus for going to Afghanistan.

“It was too much of a lure for my own son, who signed up for the Reserves in the summer of 2004 at the age of 20. He competed for, and won, a spot in the first large contingent of Canadian forces personnel to be deployed to Afghanistan, and was due to leave in the summer of 2005. But on the day he was to go down to the base and sign his contract, he changed his mind.

“One of the last things he was told when he handed back his gear was that because of his level of weapons training, he would remain ‘on call’ to serve his nation, if it was deemed necessary. In other words, the Canadian government had invested too much money and effort in training him to let him go so easily.

“I was reminded of the family meeting we attended when he first joined the Reserves. We were repeatedly assured that the Reserves were strictly voluntary and that he would be under no commitment to go overseas unless he signed a contract (which would have moved him out of the Reserves and into the regular forces). As it turns out, that wasn’t quite true.

“Up until now, this story is largely unremarkable.

But when you take into consideration that my son is a Status Indian; that he is a member of the Kaska/ Dene Nation; and that he has always been painfully aware of the colonial legacy of violence against his people, then this story takes on a different dimension.

It now becomes one of internalized colonial identities that convince Aboriginal people that they are, in fact, ‘Canadians’…

“I’m not sure exactly what led my son to change his decision about participating in the war in Afghanistan.

Sometimes change comes in increments so small it’s barely perceptible.

“The stories of our American conscientious objectors are peppered with these small movements. Their presence in our midst is much like the pebble tossed in the pond; their actions resonating, finding their way into others’ lives, rendering new ways forward and new realities.

“On the lecture circuit, such as it is, these young men retell the collectivity of acts, both grand and small, that brought them to this moment in time, in this place—more often than not a church basement, or school auditorium. And so it was at one such event, a lazy fall afternoon, where I found myself sitting in the audience with my 21 year old son, now a reservist in the Canadian army. He listened dutifully and afterwards was drawn into conversation with one of the speakers—a young man of the same age, sharing in many ways a similar biography, and certainly a similar motivation to join the military: a lack of purpose and a steady paycheque.

“We did not speak of that afternoon for many months to come because by then the only thing left for him to do was sign the employment contract. The call came late in November. He respectfully declined.

“There may never be one, singular event or act that led to this decision. But we can know that it is one less life to sacrifice on the altar of imperialism. It is one less grieving mother. To these brave men and women who have resisted the war and come to Canada, for being the pebble in our pond, there are no words of thanks that can convey my gratitude.

“My son lives his life in a netherworld of identities—pressing one forward and suppressing another, dictated by circumstance and gut instinct—navigating through a complex world where he straddles the racial, cultural and economic divide that characterizes the general relationship between Aboriginal people and their colonizers.

“Many months later, after he had moved to Alberta, I was packing up some of his stuff in the garage. I came across an Afghani/English dictionary, and my heart stopped for a moment. Holding that little book in my hands, I was overwhelmed by what might have been.”

4 Socialist Worker November 2009

Honduran coup leaders crackdown on media by rebecca granovsky-larsen In October, Honduran dictator Micheletti was feted in rallies for “Peace, Unity, Democracy and Freedom”, while the increasingly surrealist Honduran media simultaneously denounced the resistance movement as unpatriotic, Chavezsponsored terrorists.

On a daily basis, enormous resistance protests go virtually unreported, unless it is to accuse the demonstrators of being paid by Chavez.

In their hysteria, the media has forgotten that the de facto president Roberto Micheletti himself pushed for a Constitutional Assembly in order to extend term limits in 1985.

In contrast, those who are actually paid to attend pro-coup rallies and who are told they will lose their jobs if they refuse are showered with praise by the press. One pro-Micheletti rally in July, uncritically reported as a “Peace, Unity, Democracy and Freedom march,” was ostensibly organized to defend the coun-

try from the threat of Chavez and the low interest rates of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.

Since Zelaya’s return to the Brazilian embassy a month ago, there have been brutal crackdowns on the remaining independent media outlets reporting on the country. Dictator Michiletti used Zelaya’s return as an excuse to remove all constitutional rights protecting freedom of association, the press, assembly and expression.

Meanwhile, the killing of women is up 60 per cent since the coup and repressive forces are raping female prisoners in punishment for the central role women have played in organizing coup opposition protests. Like in the blackest days of military repression, Honduran elites are reverting to their methods of targeted assassinations against key organizers in the movement, with at least 17 assassinations being documented since the coup occurred.

Yet the resistance does not stop. If anything general strike support builds daily. In explaining the strength of the

rebellion, Alejandra Fernandez told the Guardian, “[Zelaya] raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving light bulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, made more scholarships available for students.” Fernandez added, “That’s why the elite classes can’t stand him and we want him back.”

What sets this year’s coup in Honduras apart from those of Venezuela in 2002 and Haiti in 2004 is that the installed coup government has not technically been recognized by a single nation in the world.

Despite this positive note, the US has sent out mixed and worrying signals about whether they will recognize the fraudulent elections slated for late November, which will occur in the wake of the suspension of all civil liberties in the country.

Canada’s Minister of State of Foreign Affairs for the Americas, Peter Kent, has also continued to indirectly and implicitly back the coup.

Legitimacy of Somali Government questioned as violence rages on by farid omar

Islamist insurgents in Mogadishu are still locked in fierce battles with African Union (AU) troops backing the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia.

In the latest incident, the Somali President, Sheikh Shariff Sheikh Ahmed, escaped mortar attacks when forces from the Islamist Al-Shabab fired rockets into the airport as his plane landed from a trip to Yemen.

Six people died in the attack.

In a similar incident, Al-Shabab fighters shelled the airport when Mr. Shariff prepared to board a plane to Uganda, setting off heavy

artillery battles between the insurgents and AU forces that claimed the lives of at least 20 people.

In a bold rebuke of the US and Somalia’s neighbours, Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki blamed Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti for fanning the Somali conflict adding that the US involvement is further complicating the conflict.

“It is not an option to impose a government from outside in Mogadishu and declare that government to be a government of all Somalia. You cannot impose a peacekeeping force in one city and say there is a government,” said President Afewerki.

On the US role, Mr. Afewerki said: “The United States [and others]

getting involved in Somalia because of what they call terrorism is a problem. In Somalia, it is distorting the facts on the ground and probably fuelling undesired external intervention from neighbouring countries”.

In a move that will further escalate the conflict, the US is preparing the ground for armed American presence in Somalia, with a private US security firm securing a contract in war-torn Somalia.

The Grand Rapids Newspaper Press reports that Michiganbased CSS Global Inc. secured the contract “under the plea of ‘fighting terrorism and piracy’ and ‘protecting’ Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government”.

Probe into Israeli war crimes moves forward despite pressure by peter hogarth Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas drew outrage amongst Palestinians over the PA’s withdrawal of support for UN movement on the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of war crimes in its siege of Gaza last winter, and the resulting death of nearly 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

Abbas supported the postponement of a vote by the UN Human Rights Council to send the report to the Security Council for further action. The PA decision was reportedly influenced by heavy US and Israeli pressure.

The Goldstone report recommends an investigation into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, mostly against Israel, but also against Hamas.

Hamas’ condemnation of the PA’s decision reflects the incredible desire that exists for Israel to be held accountable for the hor-

rors of their occupation.

The indignation was palpable amongst the Palestinian people, as a poll conducted

by Ramallah-based Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre revealed that people’s confidence in Abbas decreased to 12.1 per cent from 17.8 last June. In the same poll, satisfaction in the way Abbas runs the PA dipped to 39.4 per cent, compared with 48.5 per cent last October. The incredible backlash that the decision caused forced Abbas to reverse his decision and move for the probe to go forward.

Since Abbas’ decision, the UN Human Rights Council has endorsed the Goldstone report and recommended establishing war crimes proceedings.

Meanwhile, Israel has decided against setting up an independent panel to investigate the military’s actions in Gaza last year. Instead, Israel has established a team to lobby the United States to block the issue from advancing with the UN Security Council.

Conflict over the Goldstone probe has disrupted reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority. US-backed Fatah has signed the Egyptian-mediated proposal, but Hamas has found several contentious issues that are blocking the reconciliation process.

The reconciliation document suggests disarmament of the Hamas’ military wing.

Abu Obaida, a Hamas spokesperson, stated that “dismantling al-Qassam brigades or any other wing of the Palestinian resistance is an unattainable dream.”

The leadership of Hamas has stated that the document lacks essential reference to Israeli aggression against Palestinian people and the right of Palestinians to resist occupation.

Abbas said that his government would hold presidential and parliamentary elections on January 24 regardless of whether it reaches a power-sharing deal with Hamas.

SISTERS IN SPIRIT Amelia Murphy-Beaudoin examines the disappearance of hundreds of Aboriginal women

and the shameful inaction by the federal government

O

ver the last 30 years, there have been at least 520 documented cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada, according to the latest research from the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC).

More than half the cases have occurred since 2000. Over two-thirds of the total number of missing women have been found dead. Twenty-five per cent are still missing.

If the same murder and disappearance rate was applied to the general female population in Canada, there would be 18,000 murdered and missing women in the country.

The federal government’s willful ignorance has allowed many of the murders of Aboriginal women to go unsolved. According to NWAC’s research, only 52 per cent have been cleared, compared to a national homicide clearance rate of over 80 per cent.

It’s a national tragedy that Aboriginal women are not a priority for police and public officials.

Sadly, when an Aboriginal woman is murdered or disappears, her case does not mobilize the police to act, or the media to report.

Women are more likely to be victims of social and physical abuse.

This problem is amplified when we talk about Aboriginal women. For example, despite all the public attention on the Robert Pickton murders, we rarely hear that most of his victims were young, Aboriginal women.

It is an appalling double-standard involving racism, stereotypes and discrimination that makes the cases of these women less important. Many of the Aboriginal women who have been murdered or disappeared have had difficult life circumstances. But it is precisely these circumstances that placed them at a much higher risk.

The oppression of Aboriginal people has been a fact for so long that the federal government is fully aware of the myriad of issues affecting their communities. But the government knowingly ignores them.

The fact remains, despite the indifference of the federal government, that an Aboriginal person is five times more likely to be murdered than a non-Aboriginal Canadian.

It’s true that alcoholism, drug addiction, and involvement in the sex trade are more common in Aboriginal communities than in mainstream society. There are reasons for these trends. The murder and disappearance of Aboriginal women is the most severe example of the price that First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples are paying for the appalling social conditions in which they are trapped.

Living conditions

Aboriginal communities endure environments that are overcrowded, sometimes contaminated and usually without adequate basic services such as sewage services or running water.

More than one third of Aboriginal people in Canada have, in government jargon, a “core housing need,” meaning their homes do not meet the most basic standards of acceptability.

A lower standard of education and levels of unemployment and poverty three times higher than mainstream society are the norm.

Despite this state of desperation, or perhaps because of it, the Aboriginal

‘The violence experienced

by Aboriginal women and girls in Canada is a national tragedy’

community has mobilized around the cases of these murdered and missing women.

In the last five years, public attitudes have shifted, giving momentum to the cause. Craig Benjamin, Amnesty International indigenous rights campaigner, said: “Five years ago, there was a sense that nobody was listening, which isn’t the case anymore.” Calls for a public inquiry into Canada’s missing and murdered Aboriginal women have been increasing, along with a growing body of research on the issue, which politicians are content to fund—but only as a substitute to heeding the calls for a national investigation.

Recently, the United Nations asked the Harper government to investigate why hundreds of deaths and disappearances of Aboriginal women remain unsolved.

The pressure is on the federal government to respond to this growing public pressure for accountability and justice, and to demand a thorough investigation of this ongoing horror.

On October 4, 72 Sisters in Spirit vigils took place in 69 communities, up from 11 vigils in 2006, the first year they were held. The vigils honour the lives of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls.

The vigils coincide with a report entitled No More Stolen Sisters from Amnesty International citing a “shocking failure” by the federal government to stop the killing and disappearance of Aboriginal women.

There still remains a lack of coordinated action on the federal level.

Amnesty International decries the federal government’s “piecemeal approach” to dealing with violence against Aboriginal women, calling for a coordinated, national action plan.

Sisters in spirit

The following is part of a statement that was read out at the Sisters in Spirit vigils from coast to coast:

“The violence experienced by Aboriginal women and girls in Canada is a national tragedy. The disappearance and murder of our Aboriginal sisters is felt nationwide, with countless First Nations, Inuit and Métis families and communities grappling with the loss of a loved one and struggling to find answers. We are speaking out, as individuals and organizations, because we believe this violence should be of urgent concern to everyone in Canada.

“More than that, this concern must lead to action—action to ensure that the rights and safety of Aboriginal sisters, daughters, mothers and grandmothers are respected and protected.

“Aboriginal women face disproportionate levels and severe forms of violence no matter where they live in Canada. There can be no piecemeal solution to a problem of this scale.

Therefore, we are calling on all levels of government to work with Aboriginal women, including the NWAC and other key stakeholders, collaboratively on issues of justice, safety, economic security and the well-being of Aboriginal women and girls.”

NWAC is calling for a national plan of action that recognizes the violence faced by Aboriginal women because they are Aboriginal and because they are women, that ensures effective and unbiased police response, that improves public awareness and accountability, that reduces the risk to Aboriginal women by closing the economic and social gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Canada, and that improves the child welfare system.

It’s time to begin the important work that must be done. There have been several recent initiatives undertaken by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the governments of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, among others, that show “concrete acknowledgement” of the specific

challenges facing aboriginal women.

This is progress, but it isn’t enough, and it doesn’t excuse the decades of inaction by the federal government.

Task force

Recently, under pressure from the Aboriginal community and advocacy organizations, the RCMP has created a task force to try to solve a portion of the cases of missing and murdered women—the mysterious deaths and disappearances of women along Highway 16.

Yellowhead Highway 16 West, which runs 720 km between Prince George and Prince Rupert, has come to be known as the Highway of Tears.

Since 1969, that stretch of road has seen 19 women, all but one of whom were Aboriginal, go missing or be found murdered. All of those cases are still unsolved.

Beginning in June 2008, hundreds of people joined a powerful journey called Walk4Justice—trekking from Vancouver to Parliament Hill in Ottawa to press for a public inquiry, and to honour the missing and murdered women of the Highway of Tears.

Canadians should not tolerate the horror of these crimes: more than 520 daughters, sisters, mothers and grandmothers stolen away from their families, friends and communities.

These women were murdered in our cities and along our highways.

As citizens, Aboriginal people are entitled to the same protection as anyone else, and their disappearances should be investigated as vigorously as anyone else’s.

Our task is to join and support the struggles led by Aboriginal women in their communities as they resist these massacres. Socialists can play a role in building and expanding solidarity between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people to force the government and its agents to take decisive action to stop the tragedies.

November 2009 Socialist Worker 5

CAN CHINA SAVE THE GLOBAL ECONOMY? China, the United States’ largest trading partner and holder of mass amounts of its debt, is now stuck between a rock and a hard place as it faces its own economic contradictions, writes Shawn Whitney

A

lmost every commentator and politician suggests that it will come down to China and the United States, the world’s number one and two economies. With China’s turbocharged 8.9 per cent growth rate in the third quarter, the reasons seem obvious enough.

What’s more, China is now the US’s number one trading partner, representing up to 19 per cent of total trade vs. Canada’s 14.5 per cent. Until last year Canada was the biggest US trading partner.

For China, the US is also its largest trading partner receiving 21 per cent of China’s exports and providing almost eight per cent of its imports. But these numbers also reveal what pundits often refer to as “structural imbalances” that are undermining the stability of the system as a whole, and China in particular.

Exports are key to China’s growth, with its trade surplus accounting for 10 per cent of China’s GDP. That means that China sells $300 billion per year more than it buys on the world market.

6 Socialist Worker November 2009

‘Exports are key to China’s growth, with its trade surplus accounting for 10 per cent of China’s GDP’

Having such a high trade surplus has meant that China can invest heavily in growing its economy. Its rate of investment is a whopping 43 per cent of GDP, compared to about 16.5 per cent in the United States and 23.1 per cent in the EU, China’s second largest trading partner.

It has also meant that China can buy up American debt—it holds close to $800 billion in US debt—in a process of debt cycling that helped fund the 2003-2007 boom.

Right wing historian Niall Ferguson labeled this cycle “Chimerica”. What underlay this symbiotic relationship was that China, by purchasing US government securities, kept US interest rates low— thus helping to fund the consumer debt boom.

It was a virtuous cycle until the bubble got too big. It is now in the process of becoming a negatively reinforcing cycle: the collapse in US imports is driving down China’s trade surplus, and the massive quantity of US debt is driving down the US dollar, which is making it less attractive as a reserve currency, which threatens to push up US interest rates.

China is desperately trying to avoid a slowdown in growth. Anything below about 8 per cent will cause a rise in unemployment and, it is feared, a growth in unrest—already in good supply, with rising levels of strikes and mass rioting a frequent response to layoffs.

Growth

As a result, China is pumping hundreds of billions into the economy, both directly through state investment and indirectly through a rapid expansion of lending—which is growing by 34 per cent, or four times the rate of GDP growth. There is a serious danger of an asset and property bubble as well as massive overcapacity as plants come online with insufficient global markets to absorb the increase in supply.

The only hope for China, beyond government stimulus that is expected to end after 2010, is a rapid expansion of domestic consumption. Recent statistics, showing a 16.5 per cent growth in retail sales and a whopping 34 per cent growth in auto sales, seem to suggest that this is happening. However, these stats are widely believed to be, at

best, manipulated, and are often outright fabrications.

The real problem is that rather than rising, household consumption in China is falling—from 47 per cent in 2000 to around 30 per cent today, a massive decline.

Michael Pettis writing for Global Economic Monitor notes that there are a number of structural and policy limitations to the growth of Chinese consumption, arguing that: “By transferring wealth from households to boost the profitability of producers, China’s ability to grow consumption in line with growth in the nation’s GDP was severely hampered.”

Consumption

What’s more, the Chinese state is unlikely to tackle these policies. Shifting economic priorities towards developing domestic consumption necessarily means reducing its very high rate of investment and providing an increase in wages, social services, etc. Yet it was reported at the end of October that investment accounted for nearly 88 per cent of GDP growth.

This is because cutting back in-

Obama’s snub of Dalai Lama sends signal by jonathon hodge

Barack Obama’s refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama in early October on the Dalai’s trip to Washington, DC sends a clear message to China that the US has no abiding interest in Tibetan rights.

Officially, the Dalai Lama’s reaction to Obama’s break with recent presidential tradition was indifference.

The Tibetan leader shrugged off the omission, saying: “He [Obama] already indicated that he’s going to speak with the Chinese and it seems he [will be] seriously engaging with the Chinese about [the] Tibetan issue… More serious discussion is better than just a picture, so I have no disappointment.”

Obama is scheduled to visit Beijing in mid-November at a time when the Chinese hold nearly $2 trillion in US currency reserves; reserves they are looking to diversify. With the US economy convulsing and foreign policy troubles in the Middle East, Latin America and Central Asia, the White House likely did not wish for any more headaches.

The office of the Dalai Lama reported that it was told the postponement specifically occurred to “avoid

by jonathon hodge

‘The office of the Dalai Lama reported it was to avoid embarassment to the Chinese president’

vestment and redirecting that money to consumption would, at least in the short term, lead to a substantial increase in unemployment. However, the export-led model has its own drawbacks, not least of which is that the Chinese economy is vulnerable to drops in external demand.

Pettis writes: “Between January and September, China’s exports fell by 21.3 per cent compared with the same period in 2008. The country’s total trade with the European Union dropped 19.4 per cent while trade with the US and Japan declined 15.8 per cent and 20 per cent respectively, according to the General Administration of Customs.”

US dollar

If there is no easy internal solution, there is also no easy external solution for China. Chinese leaders have discussed openly and in secret the possibility of moving to a different reserve currency than the US dollar. But there is no clear alternative to the dollar likely to appear in the near future.

At present, the strategy seems to be to let the yuan fall at the same rate as the US dollar. This is under-

US dollar decline symptom of deeper crisis

‘China must navigate between the rocks of multiple economic dangers and the whirlpool of urban and rural revolt’

embarrassment to the Chinese president”.

The White House, not surprisingly, denied these motives, but such a view is shared by the Washington Post, as well as news services from India to Israel. Coupled with Obama’s policy of “strategic reassurance”—convincing China that the US has no interest in curtailing its regional ambitions—the motivations for postponing a meeting with the Dalai Lama prior to one with the Chinese president becomes clear, whatever the White House press secretary would have us believe.

mining the value of China’s US dollar holdings but it is also making China’s goods cheaper everywhere in the world, except the US, where they will remain unchanged.

But this has a price. For one, it means a continuing decline in the buying power of the Chinese consumer as the cost of imports rise from everywhere but the US. This will make China further dependent upon exports to keep the economy growing.

And as it buys less and sells more it not only has the effect of slowing growth elsewhere and undermining its market, it raises the possibility of protectionism, which could be disastrous for China.

All of these contradictions demonstrate that China is more vulnerable than the media is prone to admit. China has literally grown itself into a corner. China must navigate between the rocks of multiple economic dangers and the whirlpool of urban and rural revolt. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the future of the world will be dramatically affected by whatever happens in this nation of 1.3 billion people.

Storm clouds are gathering on the horizons of the short American century. Its period of imperial dominance, which began at the end of the Second World War, has taken a serious beating in recent years. With stalemates in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the meltdown of Wall Street last fall that led to the largest corporate bankruptcy in world history and, shortly thereafter, history’s largest government bailout, US domination is dwindling.

Through its time in the sun, America has enjoyed a strategic advantage over and above its disproportionate economic and military muscle—the ubiquity of the US dollar. Since the Bretton Woods agreements that shaped the modern financial system, the US dollar has been the currency in which oil is traded. Oil exporters therefore, hold huge US dollar reserves that can be and are easily reinvested in the US economy.

On the other side of the deal, oil importers have been required to hold massive amounts of the greenback in order to pay for oil shipments. China, for instance, does 20 per cent of its trade with Europe, yet only 5 per cent of its currency on hand is in euros, as the huge bulk is US dollars needed to fund its energy appetite.

Demand for US dollars over the course of several decades has allowed the currency to lose touch with the economy upon which it is based. The value of the US dollar has remained high even through periods of relative US economic decline or stagnation, due to—among other factors—consistent demand.

As a consequence, the dollar has long been a relatively “safe” investment in times of uncertainty. In the 1990s, for example, when crisis beset large parts of Asia, US dollar investments were seen as “safe havens”—places where Asian capital could secure itself, in spite of meagre US economic growth prospects.

The capital flight into US investment banks is what sustained an artificial boom in the US through the final years of the Clinton administration.

World dominance

When the US was the overwhelmingly dominant economic power in the world, there was a certain logic to the greenback replacing gold as a universal medium of exchange, for its value was tied to genuine productivity, and so could be effectively guaranteed.

That logic no longer holds.

Today, the US is no longer large enough to dictate global economic policy as it once did.

The institutions through which it managed to do so in the past— the IMF and World Bank—now have trouble finding countries willing to accept their loans.

Domestic demand in the US is largely fueled by unsustainable personal debt, while US manufacturing has suffered massive losses in recent years, further undermining its economic base.

Finally, regional powers—most recently Russia and China—are asserting competing interests,

such as on trade and defence, through treaties that the US is largely powerless to oppose.

Petrodollar

In keeping with this new reality, it was reported in early October that the Gulf States, along with Russia, China, Japan and France, have for some time been in secret negotiations to phase out the dollar as the pricing currency for oil.

They are moving toward a basket of currencies, including the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, the euro, gold, and a new unified currency for the Gulf Co-operation Council, a group including US ally Saudi Arabia, among other Gulf States. This shift would occur over the coming decade.

Officials with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have, perhaps unsurprisingly, dismissed the reports.

However, it has been known for years that OPEC countries chafe at America’s ability to intervene in international finance, often to the detriment of OPEC members.

Iran recently announced that, henceforth, Iranian oil would be bought and sold in euros, while former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein announced a similar shift in 2000, before being deposed by US invasion.

Such a move, if successful, would severely undercut America’s historic advantages. No longer would the US dollar be propped-up through international trade, nor would the US treasury be able to unilaterally interfere with energy markets to their own advantage—two benefits that allowed US capital to maintain its strategic dominance since the 1950s.

China

China has emerged as one of the more enthusiastic backers of such a plan, a reflection of China’s increasingly global economic reach. Five years ago, public musing from China’s finance minister regarding the desirability of diversifying China’s foreign currency reserves (away from the greenback) prompted a snap high-level delegation from the US treasury.

Such a move is not without its risks.

China holds huge sums of US debt; debt that would lose its value should the dollar decline.

China is also reliant on the US consumer to purchase Chinese exports, a practice that hit a snag last fall with the bloodletting on Wall Street (Beijing engineered a bailout of its own banking system that was almost US $600 billion).

While the US is relatively weaker than a generation ago, it remains the world’s single largest economy and military force. The Bush Doctrine in which the military acted as a substitute for the trade policy bullying of the past, could be resurrected should Middle Eastern countries begin a concerted effort to court emerging powers.

Washington would see diversifying oil transactions as such a courtship. Whether they would be foolhardy enough to launch another war remains to be seen.

November 2009 Socialist Worker 7

COMMENT Swine flu exposes desperate need for health care funding The crisis created by the influenza pandemic calls for dramatic increases in health care funding and a radical transformation of society.

For six months we’ve known the second wave of the influenza pandemic would hit, yet governments have done next to nothing.

When the new strain of flu first emerged, Prime Minister Stephen Harper dismissed it as “Mexican flu”, scapegoating Mexican workers hard hit by the new virus. When First Nations communities demanded medical aid to deal with the pandemic, Health Canada delayed shipments of alcohol-based hand sanitizers, and then initially just sent body bags. Now that health care workers are scrambling to deal with a massive influx of patients, new flu clinics that were supposed to ease the burden are nowhere to be found.

This crisis is exacerbated by the way the pandemic has been portrayed by the media, government and medical establishments as a freak strain that emerged out of nowhere, against which the only solution is to wash your hands and take medicine.

This inevitably produces two responses: thousands are panicking and rushing to the Emergency Department at the first sign of a fever, while others are skeptical about the vaccine or even dismiss the pandemic as a hoax by the pharmaceutical companies.

Influenza pandemics are very real, and have emerged out of unnatural structural conditions imposed on the planet and its people by capitalism. Four years of trench warfare, concentrating millions of soldiers and livestock to feed them, incubated the 1918 flu. Massive factory farms—cramming millions of animals to defecate and feed on each other, alongside exploited workers—produced avian flu in 1997, and swine flu in 2009.

In the short-term, we need a massive increase in health care funding to deal with the pandemic. We need “health care not warfare” to divert bloated military spending towards under-funded healthcare. In the long-term, we need to radically transform society, restoring our interaction with nature under conscious democratic control, before capitalism destroys the planet and its people.

Tamil refugees face Tory racism The interception of the Ocean Lady off the coast of British Columbia, has brought to light, again, the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka and shown the racism of the Stephen Harper government.

The Ocean Lady was carrying 76 Tamils who had been at sea for weeks, mainly confined to the bottom of the ship. They are rumoured to have paid $45,000 for the voyage to escape detention camps in Sri Lanka.

The 76 refugees were immediately transported to jail. The men were detained for over a week, and only two were granted hearings to gain refugee status.

Lawyers for the men were denied the right to speak to the detainees.

In the first two hearings before the Immigration Review Board, a pattern of refusing to release the men until their full hearings could be scheduled was set.

This refusal came after a report by a representative of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, called their arrival in Canada “sketchy”. The attack on the legitimacy of Tamil refugees is part of the Tory strategy to deflect anger about job losses and unemployment onto immigrants and refugees.

The Sri Lankan Consulate and the right wing in Canada have denounced the refugees, speculating that they could all be members of the Tamil Tigers. They go so far as to recommend that the refugees should be denied entrance to Canada since the Tigers have been banned by the Harper government. They have also tried to frighten people with speculation about a flood of additional Tamil refugees.

Many of the detainees are fearful of public exposure in the media and of any involvement by the Sri Lankan Consulate. Many have family back home who would surely face reprisals by the Sri Lankan state. If the detainees are denied refugee status in Canada, they are likely to face death when deported back to Sri Lanka.

Every progressive union, student and community activist should pass resolutions to support the 76 Tamils and demand they and all Tamil refugees be given status.

8 Socialist Worker November 2009

Nobel Prize says “war is peace” Eric Fretz looks at the contradictions surrounding Obama’s Nobel

Peace Prize and what this means for the U.S. anti-war movement

T

he Nobel Peace Prize committee comes from Norway, but this year it sounds like it came from Oceania, the country in George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four where the “Ministry of Truth” broadcast such slogans as “war is peace,” and “freedom is slavery.”

In an act of pure double speak, this October the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was given to US President Barack Obama, currently leading two wars—in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I’m not sure I understand,” the Los Angeles Times quoted Afghan bank worker Homaira Reza as saying. “This isn’t for peace here, is it? Because we haven’t got any.” Around the world others agreed with Lech Walesa (who won the prize in 1983 for work in Solidarność) that “[Obama] has no contribution so far.”

The Committee did not cite accomplishments, but Obama’s “vision,” support of “international diplomacy,” and bringing “hope” to the world.

Certainly Obama talks a bit more about talking than his predecessor, George Bush.

He also spoke against the war in Iraq from the beginning. That was a decisive factor in his winning the Democratic primary, and a major factor in his winning the election. But during the campaign, he also promised to put more troops into the “good war” in Afghanistan. He kept that promise, while US troops are still in Iraq.

Obama seems to have won for sounding better than George Bush. “It could be too late to respond three years from now,” said Nobel Committee Chair Thorbjørn Jagland. It is too late already; we have already seen Obama’s actions, not just his words.

Actions speak volumes

Many were encouraged when Obama’s first statement in office was that he would close down Guantanamo Bay prison. But it is still open, as is the detention centre at the US air base at Bagram in Afghanistan.

Scandalously, the Obama administration is continuing Bush’s argument that the prisoners held there cannot sue to be brought to trial. Renditions are still taking place.

Once elected, Obama retained Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. He kept the Justice Department from holding accountable Bush administration officials who broke the law in getting the country into Iraq, in authorizing“extraordinary rendition,” and in approving the use of torture. Under Obama the US has still not joined the International Criminal Court, and the US is still one of the few countries that refuses to sign the international treaty outlawing land mines.

The Obama administration may have sounded somewhat better than Condoleezza Rice on illegal Israeli settlements,

but is still funding them through aid to Israel. When the UN’s Goldstone report found Israel guilty of war crimes in its attack on Gaza in January 2009, the US not only voted against adopting the report, but bullied and bribed the Palestinian Authority to help bury its conclusions.

One of the stipulations for the prize given by Alfred Nobel was “the abolition or reduction of standing armies.” But the United States has the world’s largest military budget, and it continues to swell under Obama.

Iraq and Afghanistan

While the press is making Iraq the invisible war, claims that the situation has improved are contradicted with each new massacre. In his last term, George Bush signed a new “Status of Forces Agreement” for a slow reduction in troops levels. Obama is just sticking to the same schedule (so far), and plans to retain essentially permanent US bases in the country.

If his Iraq policy is the same as that of Bush (with less internal opposition), on Afghanistan it is worse. Three days into office, Obama approved a drone attack in Pakistan. Since, then, these drone attacks are being used with increasing frequency, resulting in widespread civilian casualties.

Calling Afghanistan a “war of necessity”, he quickly sent 20,000 more troops.

The Nobel Prize was announced two days into the ninth year of the Afghan war, while Obama was discussing with advisors a request to send 40,000 additional troops.

They said pulling out was not an option.

Ministry of Realpolitik

But awarding the Nobel Prize to those with questionable track records is hardly new.

The Prize was never awarded to the leaders of the anti-Vietnam War movements, but rather to top warmonger Henry Kissinger (with Lê Ðức Thọ, who rightfully refused) for belated ceasefire negotiations after the US was obviously defeated. Even Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres split a prize with Yassar Arafat in 1994, despite

‘Three days into office, Obama approved a drone attack in Pakistan.

Such attacks have been continuing with devastating civilian casualties’

no peace arising from their negotiations.

“It is always a mix of idealism and realpolitik that can change the world,” claimed, Thorbjørn Jagland revealing the Nobel committee’s thinking.

That’s why Theodore Roosevelt won a Peace Prize, but not Gandhi.

The Prize, it seems, is used more to convince people that fine words and belated half-measures are the best we can hope for.

Response

Just over half of the US population disapproves of the Nobel Committee giving Obama the prize, and only a third believe he deserved it.

The US peace movement is split on how to respond, some livid at the hypocrisy and others congratulating Obama, hoping it will push him in the right direction. This sentiment is reflected in two open letters from Michael Moore. The first letter, addressing Obama said: “You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now.

If you don’t, you’ll have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo.” The second letter, addressing the anti-war movement, expressed second thoughts about being “too hard”, and said that while we push Obama “he needs to know we are with him” against the right wing.

This sentiment reflects the larger contradiction of bourgeois democracy that tells us that the only hope for change lies in getting the “right” people elected. In the runup to the presidential election, many antiwar activists put their efforts solely into the Obama campaign. And some continue to pin their hopes on the new administration.

But without mobilization from below, politicians—whatever their stripe— will accommodate to the dictates of the market, not challenge them, even if this logic leads them to support catastrophic, un-winnable wars. This helps explain Obama’s go slow approach on ending the war in Iraq and his support for the war in Afghanistan.

It also explains his low horizons on public health care, which is serving to embolden right wing forces in the US. An overwhelming number of Americans oppose the Iraq war and a majority think the war in Afghanistan is a bad idea. The time is right to revitalize the anti-war movement and build toward mass action. Inspiration can be taken from the incredible 200,000-strong LGBT Equality March on Washington that took place in October. Many of those demonstrating had supported Obama in the election but are now angry and will no longer wait quietly for him to do the right thing.

As long as troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to reject the notion that “War is Peace” and instead, raise the slogan: “Troops Out Now”.

LEFT JAB

REVIEWS

John Bell

When thieves fall out Karl Marx, who was a very bright fellow, once said that capitalists were like a “band of warring brothers”.

Joya exposes lies behind Afghanistan occupation Book H A Woman Among Warlords H Written by Malalai Joya Reviewed by Paul Stevenson Malalai Joya’s new book, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Life of an Afghan Woman who Dares to Speak Out is a sharp attack on the war in Afghanistan and a rallying cry for NATO troops to be sent home.

She does a fantastic job countering the lies of the “war on terror” as nothing more than “dust in the eyes of the world”.

The book is part biography and part political analysis. It catalogues the decades of war and corruption forced on the Afghan people by the major powers intent on controlling Central Asia.

She begins with her birth, just three days before the coup in 1978: “Within a year we were an occupied country, and since then war is all we Afghans have ever known.” She describes her early life in refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan and details the resistance against the warlords who ran the country during the years of the civil war, and also against the Taliban from 1996 until 2001, when she ran clandestine schools for girls in Herat.

But the bulk of her anger is pointed towards the current warlord-led government and the NATO occupation that supports it. Her descriptions of the daily

misery suffered by Afghans—mainly women—is at times so brutal that it is difficult to read. But far from being a defeatist story, Joya is able to show, with repeated examples, how the people of Afghanistan continue to resist these attacks.

Security

She relates a story of how, just after the US invasion, she met with representatives of the new government looking for support in opening a clinic in Farah province. The governor’s representative, knowing that Joya stood against the warlords, was angry about the clinic and told her that he could “not guarantee her security” if the clinic opened.

Feeling frustrated and disillusioned she left and told local supporters about the conversation. “The people will guarantee your security”, was the response from the crowd. This is an important message woven through the book: that the Afghan people are the solution to the crisis there if they can live without the meddling of warlords and foreign powers.

She says: “We are capable of defending our independence, governing ourselves

and determining our own future.”

People often defend the occupation saying that if foreign troops leave, Afghanistan will descend into civil war.

Joya counters this argument saying, “This prospect is raised by people who ignore the vicious conflict and humanitarian disaster that is already occurring.

The longer the foreign troops stay in Afghanistan ...the worse the eventual civil war will be. The terrible civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal certainly could never justify, after the fact, the destruction and death caused by that decade-long occupation.”

At the end of the book she speaks to the people of the West and asks us to keep up the pressure to end the war.

“Please understand that for us in Afghanistan, seeing that people all over the world are willing to stand publicly in solidarity with us in our hour of need has great moral value... Never underestimate the importance of the message your actions can send.”

This book is an indispensable read for anyone wishing to go beyond hollow rhetoric to a real understanding of the hardships facing the Afghan people under the brutal NATO occupation.

Unravelling Capitalism a necessary read for understanding capitalist crisis Book H Unravelling Capitalism H Written by Joseph Choonara Reviewed by Peter Hogarth The current economic crisis is wreaking havoc across the world, throwing people out onto the streets, gutting pensions and forcing workers and the poor to bear the brunt of the pain of systemic and massive restructuring.

There is a growing public sentiment against the greed and massive profiteering that are at the source of capitalism’s latest crisis. However, a solid analysis of the precise root of the system’s failure has been missing in the public discourse; a discourse that has been quite critical of the economic system that has thrown the world into chaos.

The current atmosphere of open criticism of capitalism makes necessary a work to demystify the systematic ways in which capital acts that create crises, while also pointing out the dead-end that government intervention serves in propping up an economic system which has disorder and chaos at its very core.

Joseph Choonara’s Unravelling Cap-

italism: A Guide to Marxist Political Economy serves as an extremely useful contribution. It makes sense of the wave of foreclosures, bankruptcies, bailouts, strikes, and attacks on workers and pensions that have become regular features in daily news reports.

Theory

Choonara provides an incredibly accessible and concise introduction to Karl Marx’s political economic theories. He explains theories that are critical to understanding how economics actually works, such as living and dead labour, the labour theory of value, Marx’s concept of alienation, accumulation, and the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. The author also delves into Marxist conceptions of imperialism and the way the uneven and combined development of global capitalism leads to epic violence.

However, the most valuable part of Unravelling Capitalism is that Choonara applies historical understanding of

Marxist theory to the current economic crisis. Included in this accessible and easy-to-follow book are analyses of contemporary issues, such as the exploitation of public workers, the increasing centralization of capital, the role that credit and stocks and bonds and other forms of speculative investment or “fictitious capital” play in extending the system beyond its limits and exacerbating crisis, and the oxymoron that is “ethical capitalism”.

Unravelling Capitalism is essential reading for everyone struggling to make sense of the uncertainty and barbarity of the capitalist system and the crises which routinely immiserate workers. The book succinctly explains what are often intimidating economic theories, providing an incredibly valuable handbook to dissect the global economic crisis and highlight the need to replace the capitalist system with something nicer—with a more just political economy based on equity and human need.

They are constantly in a no-holds-barred war of competition to see who can grab the biggest market share and the juiciest profits. The whole point is to drive each other out of business. Sometimes, reading the business section of the paper, I think it should come with a parental warning for violent language.

But when the capitalists as a group—dare I say it, as a class—are threatened with revolt from below they suddenly rediscover their family connections. They will try to set aside their competitive animosity and unite to face their common enemy: us.

I often run into people who declare themselves “capitalists”. Turns out they are usually working people who have been convinced, whether by the carrot or the stick, to identify with capitalism. Real capitalists own and control the resources (including our labour), the factories that convert resources into commodities and the service networks that distribute the commodities.

And they almost never trawl in the comments section of on-line news groups.

Exposed

The economic convulsions of the past year have exposed, as nothing has in my lifetime, the weakness of capitalism.

It can be summed up in a quote from either Roman historian Plutarch’s Life of Alexander or the bad guy from Die Hard, take your pick: “When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.”

Capitalism has truly enveloped the globe; there are no more markets to conquer, no more great populations to draw into its grinder. For a system that must expand– addicted to growth for its own sake and not for the sake of satisfying human need–this is the ultimate crisis. Capitalism weeps even as it turns in on itself.

In some ways, the owners of capital have never been more antagonistic. The great wave of hostile takeovers and mergers of the past decade only exacerbated the problem. Too many of those deals were done with credit cards or Ponzi scheme monopoly money. Iconic companies go under or hang by a thread thanks to massive state bailouts, no longer competitive but “too big to fail”.

At the same time, bosses all agree on one thing: they want us, the workers, to pay for their problem.

If they can’t profit from expanding outward, they can try to keep afloat by deepening our misery.

While the great class of people who are forced to sell their labour for a wage are far from storming the modern day equivalent of the Bastille, we are also far from knuckling under. Here we see a defeat, as when autoworkers allow their wages and pensions to be gutted in return for the increasingly nebulous promise of continued employment.

There we see a victory, as with massive strikes and protests in Greece and

France that force bosses and governments to backtrack on attempts to drive down living standards. In between we see stand-offs, like the Toronto City workers strike that beat back attempts to rip up their benefits wholesale.

So more and more the bosses fight among themselves: over how to get out of the slump, over how to deal with climate change, and so on. Here’s an example taking place right before us.

Recently, the CEO of the Canadian Oil Sands Trust, Jean Coutu, called for people and industry in the rest of Canada to take extra strides to cut their carbon emissions so that the tar sands can produce more. Currently, the tar sands projects add up to the dirtiest industrial project on Earth, and the industry, abetted by governments in Alberta and Ottawa, wants to triple the amount of greenhouse gases it spews.

Coutu justifies the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do plan thus: “What we have to do is prioritize what is most important to the economy and our way of life. At the end of the day I don’t think there is a single element of our economy that is more important than energy.”

When Coutu says “energy”, he means the dirtiest, leasteconomical-to-produce oil on the planet: synthetic crude.

Bosses of all the other industries that Coutu expects to bite the bullet are up in arms.

An open letter signed by Dow Chemical Canada, DuPont Canada, Catalyst Paper Corp., Direct Energy, Rio Tinto PLC, the Royal Bank, the TD Bank and others calls for a national cap-and-trade system that treats all the warring brothers equally.

A crack in the solidarity of the capitalist class is a weakness to be taken advantage of. When thieves fall out it is easier to catch them.

How should workers and environmentalists respond?

The risk is that we will line up behind the chemical corporations, et al, because Coutu’s position is so obviously unfair. Remember, the chemical, mining and forestry industries have been screwing the environment forever. It’s a bit rich to see them trying to take the high road now. But more than that, the cap-and-trade option they tout will be equally ineffective dealing with the climate change crisis. It will allow the corporations to buy the right to pollute, and pass the costs down to consumers and workers.

Solutions

It is our job to expose the self-serving bankruptcy of both plans, to drive a wedge into the crack in their façade.

We need to demand real binding caps on all industry, period. We need an end to tar sands tax breaks, and any tax breaks to corporations that pollute. That adds up to billions of dollars to invest in alternative energy and conservation programs now.

It is those forward thinking programs that will create the good jobs of the future.

When one or the other of the warring brothers comes to call for our support—and they will—we need to say: “A pox on both your houses.

We have our own agenda.”

November 2009 Socialist Worker 9

WHERE WE STAND

international socialist events

The dead-end of capitalism

TORONTO

The capitalist system is based on violence, oppression and brutal exploitation. It creates hunger beside plenty. It kills the earth itself with pollution and unsustainable extraction of natural resources. Capitalism leads to imperialism and war. Saving ourselves and the planet depends on finding an alternative.

A rebel’s guide to Marx: Marx and ecology Wed, Nov 4, 1:30pm International Student Centre, 33 St. George St. Third floor, Europe room Info: 416-972-6391 Organized by the UofT IS

Socialism and workers’ power

Any alternative to capitalism must involve replacing the system from the bottom up through radical collective action. Central to that struggle is the workplace, where capitalism reaps its profits off our backs.

Capitalist monopolies control the earth’s resources, but workers everywhere actually create the wealth. A new socialist society can only be constructed when workers collectively seize control of that wealth and plan its production and distribution to satisfy human needs, not corporate profits—to respect the environment, not pollute and destroy it.

How do we stop capitalism from destorying the planet Tues, Nov 10, 7:30pm Speaker: John Bell Bahen Centre 40 St. George St. Organized by the Toronto IS District

OTTAWA

Education under capitalism

Reform and revolution

Every day, there are battles between exploited and exploiter, oppressor and oppressed, to reform the system—to improve living conditions. These struggles are crucial in the fight for a new world. To further these struggles, we work within the trade unions and orient to building a rank and file movement that strengthens workers’ unity and solidarity.

But the fight for reforms will not, in itself, bring about fundamental social change. The present system cannot be fixed or reformed as NDP and many trade union leaders say. It has to be overthrown. That will require the mass action of workers themselves.

Elections and democracy

Elections can be an opportunity to give voice to the struggle for social change. But under capitalism, they can’t change the system. The structures of the present parliament, army, police and judiciary developed under capitalism and are designed to protect the ruling class against the workers. These structures cannot be simply taken over and used by the working class. The working class needs real democracy, and that requires an entirely different kind of state—a workers’ state based upon councils of workers’ delegates.

Internationalism

The struggle for socialism is part of a worldwide struggle. We campaign for solidarity with workers in other countries. We oppose everything which turns workers from one country against those from other countries.

We support all genuine national liberation movements.

The 1917 revolution in Russia was an inspiration for the oppressed everywhere. But it was defeated when workers’ revolutions elsewhere were defeated. A Stalinist counterrevolution which killed millions created a new form of capitalist exploitation based on state ownership and control. In Eastern Europe, China and other countries a similar system was later established by Stalinist, not socialist parties. We support the struggle of workers in these countries against both private and state capitalism.

Canada, Quebec, Aboriginal Peoples

Canada is not a “colony” of the United States, but an imperialist country in its own right that participates in the exploitation of much of the world. The Canadian state was founded through the repression of the Aboriginal peoples and the people of Quebec.

We support the struggles for self-determination of Quebec and Aboriginal peoples up to and including the right to independence.

Socialists in Quebec, and in all oppressed nations, work towards giving the struggle against national oppression an internationalist and working class content.

Oppression

Within capitalist society different groups suffer from specific forms of oppression. Attacks on oppressed groups are used to divide workers and weaken solidarity. We oppose racism and imperialism. We oppose all immigration controls. We support the right of people of colour and other oppressed groups to organize in their own defence. We are for real social, economic and political equality for women.

We are for an end to all forms of discrimination and homophobia against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. We oppose discrimination on the basis of religion, ability and age.

The Revolutionary Party

To achieve socialism the leading activists in the working class have to be organized into a revolutionary socialist party. The party must be a party of action, and it must be democratic. We are an organization of activists committed to helping in the construction of such a party through ongoing activity in the mass organizations of the working class and in the daily struggles of workers and the oppressed.

If these ideas make sense to you, help us in this project, and join the International Socialists.

10 Socialist Worker November 2009

Thurs, Nov 19, 7:30pm Speakers: Federico Carvajal and Heather Finn Cafe Alt, Simard Hall University of Ottawa

peace & justice events TORONTO

Good green jobs for all conference

Twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall

Rich robbers and poor robbers by paul kellogg In the 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it has become commonplace to argue that this event symbolized the fall of Communism and the triumph of the market.

Last issue we examined the fact that in the great contest between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, which was one of the main themes of the Cold War, without question Western Europe had a distinct advantage because of the earlier and more deeply rooted industrialization process which had occurred there over generations.

There was a second way in which the competition between the two blocs was unequal from the start.

The impact of the Second World War on the principal powers behind these two blocs—the United States and the Soviet Union—was very different.

The Soviet Union was crushed by the war. Militarily victorious, the price it paid was enormous. By November 1941, invading German armies controlled 45 per cent of the population, almost half of the country’s grain supplies, and 60 per cent of its coal, iron, steel and aluminum output. At various times, upwards of half its industrial plants were under German occupation, much of this industry was destroyed in the fight to retake it, leaving over 26 million dead.

The military economy of the Soviet Union grew enormously through the course of the war, but its civilian economy, the real source of wealth in an industrial society, shrank considerably. This was also true for Western Europe, but to a lesser extent. Fighting the war had led to a shrinkage of the civilian economy, a massive shrinkage in the case of Germany.

In the United States and Canada, however, the opposite occurred. The war was fought on every continent except North America. Not only did war industries in both Canada and the United States boom between 1939 and 1945, but the civilian economies in both countries grew massively. Industry in both countries was poised to emerge from the war stronger than

it had ever been. And indeed, Canada and the US emerged from the war economically dominant.

This dominance meant that it was in their interest to argue for “free trade” and the rule of the market.

This was the economic background to the Marshall Plan, a massive investment of capital from North America into Western Europe to redevelop the European economies and create markets for North American goods.

It explains the push for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Bretton Woods Agreement and all the other devices through which a US-dominated “free-market” western world was established in the postwar era.

The Eastern Bloc opposed free trade and the free play of the market. This was not for ideological reasons, not because they were “communist”. The result of the war for Russia—military victory coupled with economic devastation—meant that opening up to the West would have seen the Soviet ruling class lose in an unequal contest with the West. The United States and Canada, because they had not been bombed into the dust during the war, could profit from exploiting the world through the “free market”. The only quick way for the Russian ruling class to increase its economic strength was not through “free trade” but through its opposite—state-capitalist autarky to enforce brutal robbery.

Using their military dominance of Eastern Europe, the Russians dismantled literally hundreds of factories and transported them to Russia, an imperialist conquest of the first order. British socialist Ygael Gluckstein paints a clear, if stark picture. “When the populations of Eastern Europe, mainly of the ex-enemy countries, first met the Russian Army and State officials, they did not see them bringing gifts, supplying machinery, locomotives, etc., but looting their country.” The logic from the standpoint of Russia’s rulers was impeccable— use the state and military might to rob Eastern Europe of its industry and prop up Russian industry against the threat of the West.

But this had two consequences, one

political and one economic. The political consequence was the imposition of state-capitalist totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe. It is impossible to rob economies of half a continent without the use of brute force.

Democracy was not an option.

The economic consequence was to worsen the already wretched condition of Eastern Europe’s industrial base, which as we have seen had always been historically backward compared to the West. For places like Rumania and Poland, the effect was very bad. Even in relatively industrialized areas like Czechoslovakia and East Germany, the effects were felt for years.

The point is, the different structures of the economies of Eastern Europe and Western Europe did not arise from a competition between capitalism and communism, but from the logic imposed by very different economic and political histories. Both were capitalist. Both were based on robbing the wealth produced by wage-workers in offices and factories. But in the West, this robbery was done from a position of strength, the backing of the massive (and undamaged) United States economy allowing the Western ruling classes to argue for “free competition”. In any such “competition” they knew they would win.

In the East, all this was done from a position of weakness. The Russianbacked bloc needed to hem itself in from the vastly superior economies of the West, needed to use state and military power to rob the industry of Eastern Europe and transplant it to Russia, etc. Thus in Eastern Europe, a massive state-intervention in the economy was inevitable. It took the name communism, but in actual fact it was a variant of capitalism, bureaucratic state-capitalism.

Rich robbers and poor robbers act in different manners. But both are robbers.

Twenty years on, in the context of another in a series of deep recessions, our tasks could not be clearer—create a real alternative to capitalism. That alternative will look nothing like the state capitalist regimes, which collapsed a generation ago.

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reports@socialist.ca LIBRARY WORKERS

by JONATHON HODGE Workers at the largest and busiest public library system in the world are preparing for strike action after the union asked for a “no board” report that set a strike deadline of November 9.

This comes on the heels of an 86 per cent strike vote.

Workers have been in negotiations for over six months and have seen no movement on substantive issues.

Management wishes to extend opening hours in larger branches until midnight, without guaranteeing full-time staffing to cover all service hours. Further to this, the library has been eliminating full-time positions over the last decade, with over 200 equivalent positions lost since amalgamation in 1998.

Finally, management is spending millions of dollars implementing self-checkout technology, the aim of which is to eliminate more jobs over the coming decade.

Union members are not taking these attacks lying down. Taking the LBCO’s successful public campaign as inspiration, the union launched a public campaign in September, with a website and Facebook group, flyers and buttons to be distributed to library users, as well as information pickets outside branches throughout October.

The public response has been universally positive, with hundreds of letters going to the City Librarian’s office demanding a fair contract.

It is hoped that organized public pressure and union solidarity will embarrass management into a deal—one that guarantees job security and extends full-time opportunities to the part-time workforce. If that fails, the Toronto Public Library will be shut down for the first time in its history.

For more information, visit www.peoplemakelibrarieswork.ca.

FLAT FEES

by G. FRANCIS HODGE Faced with university administrations trying or making them pay for budget shortfalls, students across Ontario are converging on November 5 to demand a drop in fees.

On May 25, the Governing Council of the University of Toronto approved a plan to introduce flat fees for undergraduates in the Faculty of Arts and Science. Flat fees will mean that every full-time student in Arts and Science will pay the same fee, regardless of wheather they take three, four or five courses.

The University has acknowledged that there is little benefit to students in the flat fee plan beyond the incentive to enter the workforce faster. Shelley Melanson, chair of the Canadian Federation of Students, Ontario Division, said “Forcing students to pay for courses they are not taking is nothing more than a cash grab. Students are being used to pay off the university’s debt and make up for chronic underfunding and government shortfalls.”

AUTOWORKERS

Ford Workers in US reject concessions, CAW accepts by ritch whyman Ford workers in the US have rejected the push by the United Autoworkers Union (UAW) leadership and Ford Motor Company for concessions.

The union negoitiated a deal with Ford that involves mirroring the concessions granted to GM and Chrysler. Wage freezes, lower rates for new hires, more co-pays for benefits and a no-strike clause are in the new agreement. This comes on the heels of Ford workers accepting millions of dollars in concessions less than a year ago.

The UAW has called votes across its Ford workplaces in the US. The UAW represents 41,000 ford workers.The first votes, in Cleveland and the Detroit area narrowly accepted the concessions by margins of only 62 and 51 per cent, after a heavy push by the UAW leadership. Since then, the majority of Ford locals voted “no” to the new contract. The Sterling Axle Plant voted 80 per

cent against, the Livonia Transmission Plant voted 52 per cent against and workers at the Kansas City Plant rejected the offer by 92 per cent.

In Detroit, massive UAW Local 600 voted overwhelmingly against the deal. Gary Walkowicz, a bargaining team member from Local 600, told the media that anger was growing and that “if they want a pattern agreement they should bring GM and Chrysler back up to where we’re at.”

The opposition to the deal by rank-and-file members was helped by the building of communication networks and sharing of leaflets between locals opposed to they deal. In several places, UAW national leaders were booed off the stage when they tried to sell the contract.

The Canadian Autoworkers (CAW) leadership, called for votes on a new deal over the first weekend in November. The deal didn’t include a no-strike pledge, nor rollbacks on current employees wages or pensions. It did include rollback in vacation time, and lower rates and co-

pays for pensions for new hires.

The deal also accepts the closure of the St. Thomas plant and vague promises of more work at the Oakville plant. The deal means the loss of 1,400 jobs in St. Thomas at Ford directly and the potential of 6,000 more jobs from feeder plants not owned

by Ford.

At the Oakville ratification meeting, the union leadership dominated the microphone and cut-off any opposition from the floor. When workers spoke against the deal they were quickly wrapped-up, while those in favour were given almost unlimited time.

The threats from both the company and the union about leaving Canada all together left many Ford Canada employees feeling they had no choice but to accept. Those workers who tried to build a “no campaign”, shouldn’t be demoralized. The votes against the contract in the US provide many lessons for how to fight back. These lessons can be used to build for a fight against Ford when the contract expires in 2012.

HANDY DART DRIVERS ON STRIKE

by IAN BEECHING On October 24, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATM) Local 1724, held a rally of 300 drivers, riders and supporters in Burnaby, British Columbia.

Local 1724 represents 500 drivers throughout the lower mainland who operate HandyDart (a specialized buss service for people with disabilities). The rally announced a strike that began on October 26.

Union local President Dave Watt made it clear that this strike was not only for HandyDart drivers, it was also about stopping the company from profiting on the

disabled and to provide better service.

HandyDart was recently contracted-out by the government-funded transit authority TransLink to a forprofit American corporation, MVT. Since MVT took over, passengers have had to wait up to an hour longer for trips in order to put a few more dollars in the company’s pockets.

MVT wants drivers to abandon their pension plans and forfeit a guaranteed 7.5hour day. The company has been attempting to fire employees who were on longterm disability and maternity leave before it took control.

According to union activ-

ist Mark Beeching, the company began harassing drivers from the start. Unannounced to the union, MVT followed workers in unmarked vehicles, pulling drivers over and asking for drivers licenses before the company took control of the service.

Union solidarity at the rally was strong from the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) representing city bus drivers and the Justice for Janitors Campaign of the Service Employes International Union (SEIU). New Democrat MLAs Raj Chouhan and Harry Bains spoke at the rally, passionately giving the NDP’s full support to HandyDart drivers.

STRIKING SUDBURY STEELWORKERS SPREAD THEIR MESSAGE by jesse mclaren Three thousand Sudbury steelworkers, who have been on strike for more than three months against mining giant Vale Inco, have hit the road to build solidarity.

When Vale officials were scheduled to ring the bell at the opening of trading at the New York stock exchange,

two dozen striking steelworkers were set to travel down to New York City to protest the event. Vale subsequently cancelled their appearance.

Meanwhile, other delegates have travelled to make links with miner’s groups in Australia and New Caledonia, maintaining a blog “Solidarity Down Under”.

Closer to home, dozens

CF61 FIGHT GAINS MOMENTUM

by STEVE CRAIG The Toronto Dominion Centre workers will finally get their story heard at the Ontario Labour Relations Board. Bad faith bargaining charges were filed against the Cadillac Fairview Corporation on June 5.

The company maintained that they followed all applicable labour laws throughout the negotiations. The company filed numerous objections causing the hearings to be delayed.

Finally, the preliminary matters have all been dealt with and the hearing dates our now being set.

Every one of the Company’s objections on substantive matters was defeated. The Company argued it should not have to provide all documents

relevant to the case and that separate applications be filed for each additional infraction. On all these claims, they lost.

The workers are very pleased that their complaints have been validated and are looking forward to the full hearings in which all the details can be reviewed. Many worker and teacher groups have expressed interest in attending the upcoming public hearings to show support and solidarity for the locked-out and terminated workers.

In the meantime, CF61 workers will maintain their 24-hour picket line at 66 Wellington Street West.

Preparations are being made to hunker down for the upcoming cold weather.

of steelworkers, facing the prospect of scab labour by Vale Inco, attended a rally at Queen’s Park, Toronto, in support of anti-scab legislation. The Bill, introduced by the NDP and aimed a reinstating previous anti-scab legislation scrapped by Mike Harris, was ultimately defeated in the legislature.

For more information, visit www.fairdealnow.ca.

BUSH VISIT PROTESTS As former-US president George Bush travelled Canada to speak to the wealthy, hundreds protested the “Conversation with Bush”.

Inside the venue, the leader of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was greeted with standing ovations, while outside, hundreds gathered to denounce the world’s number one terrorist.

In Saskatoon, 300 people gathered with signs such as “Harper, Bush: Twins”, and in Edmonton hundreds gathered with signs such as “Bush lied, 1,000s died.”

In Montreal, 1,000 people threw shoes and chanted: “George Bush terrorist” and burned an effigy of the hated expresident.

STICKING WITH THE UNION

Carolyn Egan

Workers without jobs walk the line Workers Without Jobs, an organization of laid-off Steelworkers, demonstrated in front of the president’s office at the University of Toronto.

They were there to show their support for part-time faculty who have been offered a contract significantly poorer than other university employees.

Though industrial workers and university faculty may not seem to have a lot in common at first glance, these steelworkers felt that it was important to walk the line in support of all workers under attack.

The university newspaper picked up the story and it gave real confidence to the CUPE members who are preparing for strike action.

Steelworkers left a message for the president: that there are over 6,000 of them presently laid-off and they are prepared to fight along side workers who aren’t being given a fair deal. They said that he should expect to see them again if he forces the teachers out on strike.

They had earlier picketed at Vale Inco’s headquarters in support of 3,500 striking miners in Sudbury, Port Colbourne and Voisey Bay. Miners then went on to the CEP line at the Toronto Dominion Centre where workers have been lockedout since the summer.

Solidarity

This example of union solidarity has become a more typical response to strikes and lock-outs since the Stewards Assembly was held in Toronto in the spring.

One of the key strategies that came out of that historic assembly was the need for solidarity when workers were fighting. The most significant example was the tremendous support shown to city workers when both outside and inside workers, totaling 24,000,

struck though the summer.

The response was strong from both public and private sector unions and helped turn the tide. Community support was strengthened and a decent contract was won through solidarity and the fact that the strikers wouldn’t back down.

The strike rate is still quite low in Canada but it’s double what it was a year ago, and there are significant struggles taking place.

In Ontario alone, there are over 5,500 steelworkers on strike. Toronto library workers have taken a strike vote and are building support among the broader community. A real campaign has been launched, and the libraries have become centres for the surrounding communities and are well-loved by their readers.

Toronto has one of the most widely used library systems in North America and a campaign to involve library users in the campaign can really strengthen their hand in bargaining.

The issues include the needs of part-time workers who make up a significant portion of the workforce.

Walk the line

In today’s tough times, when workers walk the line, it is critical that support and solidarity be built. This can give strength to the strikers and show the boss that they have broad support. It can help maintain the lines, and make the difference between a win and a loss.

Corporations and governments are trying to ride out the recession on the backs of workers, and concessions given now will never be won back.

Striking workers are often the most militant sections of the working class, and anything we can do to support them will give confidence to others who are faced with cutbacks and concessions.

WAR MUSEUM WORKERS ON STRIKE by jessica squires

About 400 workers at the War Museum and the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa-Gatineau have been on strike since September 21. The workers, represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada, want

job security and fair wages.

Their employer is refusing to talk about job security in a workplace where over two thirds of work is done by temporary or casual workers, some of whom have years of service.

Solidarity has been strong.

Join the International Socialists Mail: P.O. Box 339, Station E, Toronto, ON M6H 4E3 E-mail: membership@socialist.ca / Tel: 416.972.6391

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November 2009 Socialist Worker 11

global CLIMATE protests demand strong action by john bell

First the good news: the vast majority of Canadians want to see their government take stronger action to reduce carbon emissions that cause global warming.

According to a Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll, two-thirds of respondents say that rich countries like Canada and the US should be required to set “higher and harder targets” for greenhouse gas emissions than developing economies like China and India. It is the developed nations that have created the crisis, so it should be up to them to lead the way in solving it.

Canadians are in sync with people all over the world in demanding serious climate change action. October 24 was an international day of action to raise awareness on the issue, organized under the banner of 350.org.

Neither the name nor the timing of the event was arbitrary. The number 350 refers to 350 parts per million, which represents the upper safe limit of carbon in the atmosphere if we hope to keep temperatures from rising to catastrophic levels. And the date was chosen to put pressure on foot-dragging politicians in the lead up to crucial climate treaty negotiations to take place in Copenhagen in December.

On the day over 5,200 events took place in 181 countries—from public rallies and teach-ins to street theatre events. More than 100 of those events happened in Canada, highlighted by thousands rallying in Ottawa’s Parliament Hill and Toronto’s provincial legislature.

October 24 was the most extensive, coordinated political event in human history and a brief look at the event website (www.350.org) puts to rest the myth that climate change is a concern only for middleclass whites.

Now the bad news: the Harper Tory government does not care what the Canadian majority wants. Both Harper and his Environment Minister, Jim Prentice have publicly stated it is “unrealistic” to expect any new treaty. No wonder: Canadian representatives are demanding that Canada be allowed to make smaller emission cuts than other developed

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nations, that emerging economies like China and India should shoulder the blame, and that Canada not be forced to produce a plan showing how it will achieve even anemic Tory reduction targets.

And the majority of Michael Ignatieff’s Liberal MPs voted with the Tories to block passage of Bill C-311, an NDPproposed law that would force the government to set sciencebased, hard targets for carbon reduction.

No wonder Canada has been voted the “Colossal Fossil”— the nation with the worst environmental record coupled with the worst government

policies—at the last two annual climate summits. It is also no wonder that representatives of 130 nations walked out on a presentation by the Canadian delegate at pre-Copenhagen discussions in Bangkok early in October.

At the very centre of Canada’s environmental crimes is the Alberta Tar Sands. This is the dirtiest industrial megaproject on the planet. It is solely responsible for the rapid rise in Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, even as our Kyoto commitments were supposed to reduce them. And it has become a specific target for protests at home and abroad.

Three times in recent weeks, Greenpeace activists have targeted tar sands operations for peaceful civil disobedience actions. They succeeded in temporarily shutting down polluting facilities, and won headlines around the world focusing attention and anger on Harper’s favourite industry.

The response of Alberta’s Tories was to threaten to use anti-terror laws against activists.

In Ottawa, young climate activists in the gallery disrupted Parliament to protest Tory and Liberal collusion to block passage of Bill C-311. Rather than focus on

the issues, much media coverage aimed at discrediting the protesters because a few of them had links to environmental groups or were NDP members.

Pointing the finger at the sham democracy played out in parliament by partisan heckling and posturing, one young protester told the press, “It seemed like we were not interrupting anything.”

As long as parliament continues to ignore the will of the majority, and the health of the planet, peaceful civil disobedience against climate terrorists like the Tories is completely justified—and needed.

Afghan MP speaks out against occupation by paul stevenson Malalai Joya will be on a speaking tour of Canada from November 14 to 28.

This comes at a particularly important time for the anti-war movement, on the eve of a possible troop extension and with more and more Canadians opposing the mission.

Joya has been called the bravest woman in Afghanistan for speaking out against the brutality of the drug lords and warlords who dominate the Afghan parliament. Her stance has resulted in five assassination attempts over the past few years, but her notoriety and influence has increased over that time.

She has been a thorn in the

side of the NATO supported government because she is outspoken about the crimes that have been committed by the warlords.

During the course of the civil war in Afghanistan— after the Russian withdrawal and before the Taliban takeover—the capital, Kabul, was the site of massive bloodshed as various factions fought for control. Kabul, which had largely remained intact during the Russian occupation was destroyed. 65,000 people were killed and thousands more were some tortured and maimed.

Those factions became the proxy army for the US during the 2001 invasion and have since entrenched themselves as the new

rulers of the country.

Those warlords have brought even more pain to the people. Lawlessness is the norm in most of the country, while the warlords act with impunity.

The civil war was also the beginning of the erosion of women’s rights. The warlords brought in most of the anti-woman laws that exist today. The notorious department of vice and virtue, a wing of law enforcement generally ascribed to the Taliban, was actually brought in during the civil war.

The fact that NATO continues to bomb Afghans to extend the control of the drug lords is one of the main reasons why the resistance to the occupation

grows daily. Joya brings a unique and vital contribution to the discussion of why foreign troops need to be removed. Her understanding of Afghan history is crucial for anyone who thinks that the folly of the NATO occupation must continue.

In her new book, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Life of an Afghan Woman who Dares to Speak Out, Joya summarizes the lessons of history for any would-be invaders: “Our history teaches that if you betray our people and try to occupy our country by force of arms you will meet our resistance and you will fail.”