Socialist Worker 514

www.socialist.ca

MAKE HARPER PAY lWar in Afghanistan lAttacks on civil liberties lClimate crimes lJob losses lPensions lCuts “EVERYBODY KNOWS that Parliament was prorogued in order to shut down the Afghan inquiry”, said Tom Flanagan, former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

No one could have said this with more authority. While Harper and pundits claimed that Canadians don’t care about the torture of Afghan detainees transferred by the Canadian Forces to Afghan authorities, the past few weeks have shown otherwise.

Within days of Harper proroguing Parliament, people across the country were up in arms, organizing rallies and meetings expressing their disgust.

Even before Harper prorogued Parliament, the vicious attacks launched by the Tories on Richard Colvin, a career bureaucrat who brought to light the issue of the torture of Afghan de-

tainees, shocked many people. But his decision to suspend Parliament until after the Olympics, to avoid the scrutiny of the parliamentary committee looking into the detainee scandal, detonated a simmering anger.

Harper faces a tidal wave of criticism from every direction, and the Conservative minority government seems to be in freefall, bleeding support and now neck-and-neck with the Liberals in the polls.

Harper’s shameful performance at the Copenhagen summit has only fuelled this growing movement, along with anger at declining pensions, growing poverty and the lack of jobs. But there is also another worry fuelling the mobilization across the country. Parliament is seen as one of the few spaces where democracy exists in society. That space has gotten smaller and smaller,

and now Harper and his friends at the right-wing Fraser Institute are musing about Parliament being a hindrance and superfluous.

If Parliament can be shut down to cover up a scandal, it raises questions in many people’s minds about the meaning of democracy, and the need for an alternative to this stunted, shallow sham of a democracy.

This is the biggest crisis to hit the Conservatives since their election in 2006. And just a few months ago, it would have seemed impossible that the Tories could drop so quickly in support.

The inspiring mobilization that has happened thus far shows the potential for building a real fightback to make Harper and the Tories pay for ignoring the will of the majority of Canadians on Afghanistan, on climate change, on jobs and so much more.

no. 514 January 2010

A people’s history of Québec pages 6&7 Haiti catastrophe Page 3 100,000 feared dead in massive earthquake

Planet betrayed Page 4 John Bell on the Copenhagen climate change negotiations

Unions march for climate justice Page 11 Carolyn Egan on the massive Copenhagen climate rally

Revolutionary jams Page 5 But this also takes place against the backdrop of continued economic crisis, whose ravages are far from over. Harper has vowed to bring in an austerity budget in the next Parliament to make workers bear the burden of the crisis. The cuts have already started—with funding slashed to NGOs such as KAIROS—and more are on the way.

The political fight taking place now will not only play itself out in the next election, but most importantly in the economic struggles ahead.

The contours of resistance today help us gauge the possibilities of resistance tomorrow.

This is why the union movement, social justice organizations, anti-war activists, environmentalists and socialists must go all-out to make this movement as big and as militant as possible.

Join the rallies against prorogation

Saturday, January 23 • www.noprorogue.ca • Cities everywhere

Sibel Ataogul interviews Tom Morello & Boots Riley

Ontario college teachers Page 11 Pam Johnson covers the recent strike vote

Civil liberties Page 8 Jessica Squires interviews rights advocate Roch Tassé

CPMA No. 58554253-99 ISSN No. 0836-7094 $1 or $2 at newsstands

Community finally wins new school

Hundreds protested the HST in downtown Vancouver.

Despite public outcry, the Liberal government in BC also harmonized taxes.

by amelia murphy-beaudoin

After a ten-year battle, the Attawapiskat First Nation, a remote community on the west coast of James Bay, will have an elementary school.

The community has been without one since 2000, when it closed due to concerns over the effects of contaminated soil and gas fumes from a diesel spill that occurred on the property after the school was first built. Children in Attawapiskat were schooled in portables on top of a massively contaminated site.

The community was feeling increasingly disillusioned by the broken promises of Indian and Northern Affairs (INAC) and the willful ignorance of the federal government.

The matter came to a head in September 2007 when INAC advised Attawapiskat that the school was not in INAC’s Ontario region five-year capital plan.

Federal Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney has expanded his rampage against free speech in Canada.

Tax harmonization will hit poor, First Nations hardest by p.r. wright On July 1, 2010, Ontario consumers will be paying a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) of 13 per cent that will blend or “harmonize” the current eight per cent Provincial Sales Tax (PST) and the current five per cent federal Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The controversy stems from the fact that some items previously exempt from the April 2008 vigil for new school. PST such as gasoline, home heating fuel, vitamins, hair Residents of Attawapiskat cuts, adult footwear and new would not give up this fight, homes will now be subject to and they won because of the blended tax, increasing their perseverance. The the cost of these goods by community continues to 8 per cent. lobby the government McGuinty claims that the on the ongoing crisis of HST will be “revenue neuhousing, water and sewage, tral” because it is combined the standard of education, with tax cuts and some oneand the profound poverty off rebates to low and modest of the community. income Ontarians. However, only those who file income tax claims will be able to realize the income tax offsets and those falling most often into the category of non-filers are First Nations and the poor.

There have been mixed reactions on the left and the right to the introduction of the HST. Although the federal Conservatives have long-promoted the measure, provincially both the by peter hogarth Conservatives and the NDP The bleeding of the oppose the HST.

Far right gaining ground in Alberta

Alberta Progressive Conservatives continued in the first week of January.

The Wildrose Alliance tripled its number of elected members on January 4 when two Progressive Conservatives—backbencher Rob Anderson and former cabinet minister Heather Forsyth—left the Tories to join the new party.

This is the latest step in the Wildrose’s attempt to form a political alternative to the right of the Conservatives.

Benefiting from strong support from the oil and gas industry, who have turned against long time Alberta premier Ed Stelmach for his oil and gas tax hikes, the Wildrose has seen a steady rise in popularity as once oil-rich Albertans grapple with recession and low oil prices.

This move makes the Wildrose the third largest party in the Alberta legislature, as the NDP hold only two seats.

Tories on rampage against free speech

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) corroborates the government’s claims of revenue neutrality, though with the caveat noted above that those not filing income tax claims will not receive the promised income redistribution. The CCPA also says that the wealthy will in fact pay more under McGuinty’s HST scheme.

In this context, some on the left have argued against opposing the HST, since doing so inevitably reinforces a generalized anti-tax mood among the general population, mak-

ing it difficult in the long-run for the government to increase taxes to the extent necessary to support the restoration and expansion of public services.

But if the HST scheme is revenue neutral, why then, would the Ontario government implement the move?

The complexity lies in the fact that the GST is seen as a “value added” tax rather than simply a “sales tax”. With the PST, every transaction subject to it pays the PST. This means that manufacturers wind up paying PST first on the value of their raw

Housing activist runs for MPP by james clark Cathy Crowe, a long-time and well respected housing activist and anti-war campaigner, recently won the nomination for the NDP in the Toronto Centre by-election slated for February 4.

The by-election is quickly turning into a referendum on the McGuinty Liberals who face growing opposition to their Tory-lite agenda, especially their ongoing cuts to public services and their threat of fire

sale privatization of Crown corporations.

Crowe will take on former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray who will stand for the Liberals.

Crowe is a founding member of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee which was instrumental in the 1990s in having homelessness declared a national disaster. She was also a driving force in the creation of the Housing Not War campaign that called for military spending to be redirected to social housing.

materials purchased and then again on the total value of their new product. The GST is a “value-added” tax, so manufacturers pay tax on only the new value added. Because the HST will be administered the same way as the GST, the Certified General Accountants of Ontario estimates that Ontario businesses will save as much as $5 billion.

It is this windfall that the McGuinty government is counting on to stimulate the economy and create jobs in Ontario.

Yet while the HST has dominated headlines, little has been said about the nearly 30 per cent cut in the Ontario corporate tax rate. There is no doubt that the Ontario government is already planning to offset these corporate tax cuts and the resulting loss of provincial revenue by making workers pay the price.

The Ontario government is situating itself to sell-off crown corporations like the LCBO and introduce restraint into the public service. In the face of disproportionate handouts to the private sector, the absence of meaningful support to working people facing joblessness, and the potential for more devastating cuts to come, workers—like those in Ontario public colleges— are right to resist. Their fight is ours.

Vancouver cuts social services to fund Olympics by ian beeching Late September, the BC government announced a $2.8 billion dollar deficit leading to an austerity budget with severe cuts to social services, including some $360 million in health care cuts.

Meanwhile, the cost to taxpayers for the 2010 Olympic Games has continued to soar. Olympic spending has increased by over $8 million dollars, to reach $40.7 million; an overall increase of 26 per cent to the budget.

The provincial government continues to hack at health care, announcing a $1 million dollar cut in Vancouverarea community-based HIV/ AIDS funding for 2009-10.

Funding has also been reduced for Aids Vancouver, the Dr. Peter Centre, Youthco and the Positive Outlook

2 Socialist Worker January 2010

Program at Vancouver Native Health Society.

“Fewer HIV/AIDS programs will absolutely result in increased infection rates.

Yet, currently, there are no apparent provisions within the province’s budget to deal with the extreme financial burden of new infections on the ministry of health,” said Dr. Mark Tyndall, program director, epidemiology, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, and head of the division of infectious diseases.

These cuts come in light of the $900,000 that the government spent on buying primetime Olympic tickets for government employees and their “business partners”.

Security

Costs for security alone have risen from the original $175 million estimate to a whopping $900 million. Of this, the

provincial government is expected to pay $252.5 million with a catch. The federal government will transfer less for provincial infrastructure over the next three years in exchange for increasing funding for security.

Vancouver municipal government under Vision Vancouver, a party which gets 64 per cent of its funding from corporations, has followed the provincial government’s lead in budget cuts.

Vision will be balancing its budget by cutting 158 municipal jobs; shaving hours from full-time, part-time and temporary workers, with cuts to parks, engineering, community centres, fire and rescue, and protective services in order to save the city $18 million in 2010.

Olympic spending has shown that all levels of government agree it is more im-

portant to have one big international party for the wealthy than to take care of the needs of its own citizens, while the development of Olympic facilities takes place on BC land that largely remains non-surrendered indigenous land.

Protest

Resistance to the games continues to build as overwhelming protest from Vancouver residents managed to stop $764,000 of the $1.3 million that was to be chopped from the operating budget of the Vancouver Public Library.

In Toronto and Guelph, the relay was delayed and forced to change both courses due to protest. The torch was rerouted around Six Nations of Grand River and the Oneida First Nation near London due to road blockades and opposition to the RCMP-accompanied procession.

In December, the Tories cut all funding to KAIROS, Canada’s largest faith-based human rights and humanitarian organization, ending a 35-year relationship.

Kenney boasted about the cut to an audience in Jerusalem, suggesting that KAIROS is an anti-Semitic organization because of its advocacy on Palestine.

He later denied any role in it when critics in Canada denounced the move as an attack on dissent.

Not long after cutting funds to KAIROS, the Tories cut funding to Alternatives, a popular NGO based in Quebec, again suggesting that its work on Palestine solidarity is evidence of anti-Semitism.

The government also cut funds to the Canadian Arab Federation almost a year ago in light of its criticism of Harper’s cheerleading for Israel’s war on Gaza.

These cuts represent a long and increasingly well documented campaign of intimidation by the Tories, led

by Kenney, against any and all groups that don’t toe the government’s line, especially when it comes to criticism of the mission in Afghanistan or the ongoing siege of Gaza.

The Tories’ attack on respected diplomat Richard Colvin, who blew the whistle on the abuse of Afghan detainees, is another such case.

But the Tory attack on free speech has not been met without resistance.

A number of Federal Court cases are challenging Harper and Kenney, including the ban last spring on British MP George Galloway. The attacks have drawn together a wide range of organizations and groups that are in the process of mounting political and legal campaigns to defend free speech and civil liberties in Canada.

Activists need to support these initiatives wherever they appear, and link together all those who have been under attack in a common movement that stops the Tories in their tracks.

Socialist Worker e-mail: reports@socialist.ca web: www.socialist.ca letters: letters@socialist.ca reviews: reviews@socialist.ca listings: listings@socialist.ca phone: 416.972.6391 All correspondence to: Socialist Worker P.O. Box 339, Station E Toronto, ON M6H 4E3 Published every four weeks in Toronto by the International Socialists.

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Next paper deadline: Wednesday, January 27

PALESTINE

INTERNATIONAL

Egyptian state halts Gaza Freedom March by salmaan abdul hamid khan

100,000 feared dead in Haiti

by Derrick o’keefe The news from Haiti on January 12 was almost too much to take.

The Haitian people have suffered enough throughout their history. Having given humanity the gift of turning the words liberté, égalité, fraternité into reality with a heroic and successful slave rebellion in the late 18th century, they have been punished, scorned, exploited and abused ever since.

Most recently, in 2004, their democratically-elected President JeanBertrand Aristide was overthrown, with the US, France and Canada engineering this regime change that has

systematically targeted the political expression of the poor majority.

And now this. A devastating earthquake has levelled the capital of Portau-Prince. Whatever the death toll, and initial reports sound catastrophic, let us never forget that this natural disaster is all the more deadly because of the social, economic and political disaster that has befallen Haiti. Its causes are to be found not in the Heavens but in the halls of power in places like Washington DC, Paris and, yes, Ottawa.

There are already a number of appeals for emergency donations and aid. There must be a massive and generous response. But also, Haiti must not be forgotten, and people

must learn about the historical causes of the country’s ongoing plight.

Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay has announced that aircraft and warships are on their way, “Canadian Forces began mobilizing very quickly (overnight) with respect to anticipated needs in Haiti.” It’s important to emphasize that Canada and the UN’s military operation in Haiti over the past five years has failed to improve the humantarian situation whatsoever. Peter Hallward, author of Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment, argues in the Guardian that is because it was never the intention of the UN mission:

“The international community has been effectively ruling Haiti since the 2004 coup. The same countries scrambling to send emergency help to Haiti now, however, have during the last five years consistently voted against any extension of the UN mission’s mandate beyond its immediate military purpose.

“Proposals to divert some of this ‘investment’ towards poverty reduction or agrarian development have been blocked, in keeping with the long-term patterns that continue to shape the distribution of international ‘aid’.”

Ever wonder where some of the bank bailout money came from? According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), it came from the Afghan opium trade.

The study headlines the role of the Taliban in the Afghan opium trade, but buried deep in the study is the admission that the Taliban receives less than 15 per cent of its funding from drugs and that it likely only benefits from 4 per cent of the Afghan drug trade. Poppy farmers, for instance, take about 21 per cent of the drug trade’s earnings.

According to the UNODC, “the

remaining 75 per cent is captured by government officials, the police, local and regional power brokers and traffickers—in short, many of the groups now supported (or tolerated) by the United States and NATO are important actors in the drug trade.”

When in power, the Taliban ban on poppy cultivation, resulted in Afghanistan going from providing 75 per cent of global opium to zero almost overnight—a drop of 4,000 metric tons.

This demonstrates just how much the NATO invasion has transformed Afghanistan into a “narco-state”, to use US Drug Enforcement Administration parlance.

While the Taliban has never been the major beneficiaries of the Afghan drug trade, there have certain-

ly been others. In particular, Western banks have used drug money to lubricate the interbank credit system during the 2008 credit crisis. According to the UNODC report, somewhere between US $400-$500 billion in drug money has found its way into the banking system.

In fact, Antonio Maria Costa, UNODC executive director, was quoted as saying that drug money may have recently rescued some failing banks: “interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities,” and there were “signs that some banks were rescued in that way.”

“At a time of major bank failures, money doesn’t smell, bankers seem to believe,” he wrote in UNODC’s 2009

World Drug Report.

In addition to the death, destruction and destabilization of the region, the war has facilitated a massive growth in the Afghan poppy trade. From 200 tons in 1980, Afghanistan last year produced 6,900 tons and now controls 90 per cent of the global opium trade.

Upwards of 1.5 million Afghans are employed in poppy cultivation.

This reveals an irresolvable contradiction for the US: the more they attack the drug trade, the more they attack their own allies, some of whom—like Hamid Karzai’s brother—are on the US’ payroll. And most of all, it hurts poor Afghan farmers who rely on the poppy trade to sustain their livelihood. It is they who will fill the ranks of the insurgency.

Charges against Blackwater mercenaries dismissed by paul stevenson On December 31, a US federal judge dismissed charges against Blackwater (now Xe Services) mercenaries, who killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007.

The dismissal brought condemnation from Iraqi politicians and reinforced the belief that private soldiers are operating above the law. This is not the first time “private contractors” have been accused of crimes. The US House of Representatives released a report in 2007, which said that Blackwater was an, “out of control outfit indifferent to Iraqi civilian casualties”.

The US government is not interested in delving into the many

crimes of Blackwater. To open the door to prosecution for war crimes would mean opening dozens— perhaps hundreds—of cases and would compromise what is seen as a useful clandestine army that can be used for “black ops” in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the anger from the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki plays well in Baghdad, his government is fast becoming a dictatorship that would make Saddam Hussein proud. Maliki has been engaged in a systematic campaign to gain control of Iraq’s security and intelligence services, and to crush opposition to his rule.

Maliki has formed two elite militia squads that report only to him—the Baghdad Brigade and

the Counter Terrorism squad. The Baghdad Brigade, which is known to Iraqis as the “dirty squad”, rounds up opponents during nighttime raids throughout the capital.

Torture

Those unfortunate enough to be rounded up by these forces are routinely tortured. The UN Assistance Mission in Iraq reports that torture of Iraqi prisoners is widespread and there is no accountability for these crimes.

All this adds up to a renewed insurgency and ongoing violence in Iraq. Although US and UK troop casualties have fallen since the “withdrawal” to bases in June of 2009, the country is still suffering from the impact of the invasion.

‘War on terror’ will bring more misery to Yemen

by Siân Ruddick

For more information, visit the Canada Haiti Action Network’s website, at www.canadahaitiaction.ca.

Afghan opium trade money part of US bank bailouts by shawn whitney and bradley hughes

Over 1,000 activists from 43 different countries, including 50 delegates from Canada, gathered in Cairo on December 26 to mark the one year anniversary of the Israeli siege of Gaza, which left 1,400 Palestinians dead.

The Gaza Freedom March, a broad, international coalition of activists, was attempting to march from Cairo to Gaza where they were scheduled to join 50,000 Palestinians in a peaceful attempt to demand an end to the illegal Israeli siege.

Citing “security concerns”, the Egyptian state blocked their entry into Gaza. The activists, who staged a number of peaceful demonstrations in Cairo, were immediately met with riot police and forcefully contained.

Viva Palestina, an International Aid convoy headed by British MP George Galloway, was also initially barred from crossing into Gaza before gaining entry.

The March may not have succeeded in entering Gaza, but it did succeed on other grounds. It has further exposed the hypocrisy within the Egyptian government and the lack of sympathy that Hosni Mubarak really has toward the people of Gaza; a revelation that must not sit well with the greater Egyptian population.

In three separate incidents in August, October and December of last year, almost 400 Iraqis were killed and 1,500 wounded. Since the invasion in 2001, one million people are dead, two million are still internally displaced and the majority of the population lives in squalor. Furthermore, unemployment is at 50 per cent and corrupt politicians pocket millions of dollars in aid and oil money.

The US government and media have largely stopped talking about Iraq, but the powder keg in the country will hamper US plans for an exit in 2011. They cannot let the state of Iraq descend into complete chaos mainly because there is far too much money to be made in the Iraqi oil fields.

Yemen has become the latest “rogue state” to be targeted in the US-led “war on terror”.

Evidence has emerged to suggest that the US launched two cruise missile attacks on December 17 that killed up to 160 Yemeni civilians. This attack took place before the failed attack on a US flight by a student who claimed he had trained with al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Obama’s administration said that it plans to more than double the US’s “security assistance”—military aid—to the country. A recent US Congress budget document explained the aims of increasing spending on Yemen: “Military assistance will increase the capacity of the Yemeni Special Forces and Coast Guard to conduct security missions… while helping achieve US counterterrorism goals.” The US military already trains Yemeni “security forces”.

The regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen is incredibly corrupt and has an appalling human rights record. The country is ravaged by civil war and instability—the result of decades of imperialist interference in the region. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world. Education levels are comparable with some of the poorest nations in Africa, while unemployment soars.

US intervention will breed greater violence and misery.

The former US Ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, recently told the Toronto Star, “If we go in and make this our war… it is suddenly going to become a war against us and we will lose it.”

January 2010 Socialist Worker 3

TALKING MARXISM

INTERNATIONAL

Abbie Bakan

Parliament and power Harper’s Tories hold a minority of public support.

Yet they have the authority to prorogue Parliament, effectively eliminating even the minimal structures of accountability on offer. What do socialists say about the role of parliamentary democracy in capitalist societies?

There are two main views about parliamentary—or electoral—democracy in the history of the socialist movement. According to a framework developed by the late US Marxist, Hal Draper, these can be described roughly in terms of socialism from above, or socialism from below.

In the “from above” category, we see two main strands: social democracy and Stalinism.

Social democratic theory sees the liberal democratic state as a neutral body. Contemporary social democratic parties, like the NDP or the Labour Party in the UK, concentrate the better part of their energies on parliamentary practice, as this is seen as essential to progressive change. While this is not always the stated goal, it is the defining feature of social democratic parties in liberal democracies.

Social movements, student activism and trade union struggles become instrumental, a means to an end: parliamentary representation. “Extra-parliamentary” work is only seen as influencing “political” goals like elections, parliamentary debates or legislation. While members of social democratic parties may have different views, the overall strategies, and their leaderships, focus on the “parliamentary road”.

Stalinism

Copenhagen: the planet betrayed by john bell

not a legally binding treaty as Kyoto was designed to be. There are no binding, science-based emission reduction targets for industrialized nations. Each country is allowed to choose whatever “base year” it wishes against which to measure its “cuts”. There is no mandated timeline allowing nations to be judged by their performance. There is vague wording about transfer of funds from rich nations to the Global South to help adapt to climate change and reduce their own emissions; there are no hard dollar commitments from any nation.

You can tell a lot about the “Copenhagen Accord” by who likes it and who doesn’t.

speak volumes about how ineffective it really is,” said Bruce Cox, executive Director of Greenpeace Canada.

A majority of climate scientists, environmentalists and leaders of developing nations bearing the brunt of global warming condemned the Accord and the whole Copenhagen process.

“The so-called Copenhagen Accord is a failure of political will—it fails the basic test for an acceptable outcome— the agreement is not fair, it is not ambitious, and it is not binding,” Greenpeace Canada Climate and Energy Coordinator Dave Martin wrote from Denmark.

When it became clear that NGO members inside the negotiations might join delegates from the Global South in protest, organizers revoked credentials for up to 80 per cent of the delegates.

Those remaining inside report that, unlike at past negotiations, they had virtually no access to their own national negotiating teams.

Brutal riot police prevented accredited delegates from walking out of the convention centre to join protesters in the streets.

Not content to betray hope for a new climate change treaty, the big powers sabotaged democracy as well.

A second form of the “socialism from above” view has been expressed in the Communist Parties influenced by the Stalinist period of the USSR. This period dates from 1929, when Stalin’s first five-year plan definitively marked the counter-revolutionary assertion of a state capitalist accumulation project. It continued to 1989, surpassing the formal end of Joseph Stalin’s rule (after his death in 1953), but ending with the collapse of the centralized state accumulation model of earlier decades.

Over this period, many Communist Parties internationally, particularly in western Europe, sought electoral representation as an increasingly central element of their orientation.

During the Algerian war of independence (1954-62), for example, the Communist Party of France (PCF) saw the anti-colonial resistance as a divisive force, a distraction from “the peaceful road to socialism”. According to Daniele’s Joly’s study, The French Communist Party and the Algerian War, PCF leader Maurice Thorez stated in his political report of 1959: “At present the possibility of transforming Parliament from an instrument of bourgeois domination into one of socialist change within the country is to be accepted on the condition that a powerful popular movement led by the working class and its party is associated with the parliamentary struggle.”

This narrowing of the lens led to a shameful position for a party claiming to represent the liberation of all the exploited and oppressed.

Fortunately, other progressive forces emerged to defend the Algerian resistance, not least represented by Frantz Fanon.

His extensive writings, including The Wretched of the Earth, continue to inspire anti-colonial and anti-racist activism to this day.

Re-elected Morales continues fight against neoliberalism

Marxists

by jessica squires

The history of movements that put their faith in the capitalist state is a tragic one, often despite the best of intentions. Numerous progressive forces that have held illusions in radical change from above have fallen to the pressures of corporate and military control.

Marxists in the anti-Stalinist, emancipatory tradition, however, start from a different view of liberal democratic institutions like parliament. And they have a different view of socialism.

Socialism—real socialism in this view—is based on the self-emancipation of the working class. While taking seriously democratic reforms wrenched from capitalist ruling classes, this approach does not see the state as neutral but as part of the system.

The “from below” perspective dates back to the analysis of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the Communist Manifesto.

Susan George, a political economist and a critic of international corporate capitalism, extended this analysis to the international arena, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. As she stated in a 1999 issue of Le Monde.

“The only explanation seems to be, as Marx and Engels put it, that ‘modern state power is merely the executive committee charged with managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie.’

This ‘bourgeoisie,’ now embodied in huge transnational industrial and financial corporations, makes itself heard loud and clear by ‘state power’ via multiple lobbies.”

Marxists since Marx’s time have devoted much attention to understanding the changing role of the state in capitalist society over the long period of liberal democracy. In the 60s and 70s, theorists such as Herbert Marcuse, Paul Sweezy, Louis Althusser and Ralph Miliband—while holding diverse views about how the state operates—were influential in shaping radical currents that looked to mass movements rather than parliament as the key to changing power.

These discussions continue today in new forms, not least provoked by arrogant Prime Ministers like Canada’s Stephen Harper.

To really bring the likes of Stephen Harper to account, we need a new form of democracy and a new society, one based on socialism from below. And to get from here to there, we need to look to the masses of workers and students who, collectively organized, can create a new form of power that can change the world.

4 Socialist Worker January 2010

The December climate change negotiations at Copenhagen were a disaster for the planet and our future.

The biggest industrial nations—coincidentally the biggest polluters of greenhouse gas—blocked all forward progress. Delegates from the developing world, especially Africa, were shunted aside and ignored. A brief walkout of African delegates had no effect.

In the end, leaders from the US, China, India, South Africa and Brazil sat in closed session and banged out a two-and-a-half page document they called the “Copenhagen Accord”­. The US, China and India are the top three coal producing nations; South Africa is number five; Brazil is busy razing its rain forests to (among other things) access oil reserves.

Obama, Wen, Singh, Zuma and Lula tossed their “accord” on the table and left Copenhagen declaring “success”.

The full United Nations Conference of Parties “noted” the document but did not ratify it. The conference then ended in disarray and discouragement.

What’s actually in it? The Accord is

Movement towards Socialism (MAS) supporters were elated in December with the re-election of indigenous leader Evo Morales to the office of President of Bolivia with 62 per cent of the vote (his closest rival got just 28 per cent).

Since taking power in 2006, Morales has fought back against neoliberal policies that had devastated the country’s economy and indigenous population’s lives.

Morales explicitly campaigned

Fossil of the day

Leaders of the fossil fuel producing economies like it. Stephen Harper— whose government was voted the “Fossil of the Day” ten times during the Copenhagen talks—is “comfortable” with it. Nothing in the Accord stands in the way of full-speed-ahead exploitation of the tar sands.

“The fact that our Prime Minister, a former oil man, feels ‘comfortable’ with the deal reached in Copenhagen should

against a return to neoliberalism, calling instead for more change.

During his first term the opposition’s majority in the senate meant many laws proposed by MAS were blocked, including anti-corruption laws. In this election, MAS also took the majority of seats in the senate.

Climate justice

Morales is an outspoken advocate for climate justice, not sitting idly by waiting for the richest countries to address climate change.

He took a leadership role in the

recent UN climate change talks in Copenhagen, calling for an increase in temperature globally of no more than one degree Celsius, and calling for climate reparations to be paid by developed countries.

He has also announced he will host an alternative climate conference in April of 2010, to address the issues of climate debt—the idea that rich nations have caused climate change which will disproportionately negatively affect the poorer nations, who are also least able to afford to manage the effects.

BC’s Pacific Rim implicated in murder of anti-mining activists by jessica squires The people of El Salvador have been fighting for years against the environmental impacts of mining activities by, among others, Canadian mining company Pacific Rim.

Last month, a third activist was murdered, leading to suspicions that Pacific Rim is involved in picking off its opponents.

Pacific Rim owns the El Dorado gold mine and several other proposed mining projects located near the communities to which the murdered activists, Alicia Sorto, Ramiro Rivera and Marcelo Rivera, belong.

Up until now, the mines have been unable to operate because organized resistance—community education, marches, rallies, and street occupations—has convinced the government to deny permits.

These murders are not new to Latin America and other areas around the world.

In December, police action in Papua New

Guinea was connected to Barrick Gold; in November, Mariano Abarca Roblero, a prominent Mexican anti-mining activist, was shot to death in Chiapas; in September, two Maya Qeqchi were killed and more than a dozen injured in two attacks connected to HudBay Minerals’ nickel mine in El Estor, Guatemala; the list goes on.

Meanwhile in Canada a Liberal private member’s bill, Bill C-300, An Act Respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas Corporations in Developing Countries, seeks to assure that Canadian extractive companies follow human rights and environmental best practices when they operate overseas.

Introduced in February 2009, the Bill, if passed, would implement enforceable human rights, labour and environmental standards for Canadian companies receiving government support, with a complaints mechanism and sanctions for companies that are found to non-compliant.

It was being debated in the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Inter-

national Development until Harper prorogued parliament. Although private member’s bills do not die with a prorogation, if there is a spring election, the Bill will die.

Insisting it would harm the economy and place Canadian mining companies at an international competitive disadvantage, the government and the mining industry have waged a propaganda campaign in the House of Commons and on Bay Street.

At committee, the government used testimony from high-profile corporate law firm Fasken Martineau, Who’s Who Legal’s 2009 Law Firm of the Year for Global Mining. The firm’s witnesses included former Federal International Trade Minister James Peterson.

The activities of Canadian mining companies abroad and at home are devastating to indigenous communities and the environment. The least we can do is insist on the adoption of Bill C-300, and raise it publicly however possible, despite the prorogation of Parliament.

A

lmost 10 years after Rage Against the Machine has disbanded, Tom Morello continues to rock his own brand of radical funk.

His latest project teams him up with fellow commie and Bay Area MC Boots Riley, from critically acclaimed rap group the Coup. Together, they are called the Street Sweeper Social Club.

You have had quite a few projects on your plate since Rage. Tell us about SSCC.

TM: Boots Riley and I have known each other since 2003, when we played the Tell Us the Truth Tour with Billy Bragg and Steve Earle and others. He also opened for the Nightwatchman tour, and during that time, I realized what a brilliant lyricist he was. So when Audioslave broke up, I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, to join a band called Street Sweeper Social Club, that was going to sing revolutionary party jams. He still hasn’t said yes but he’s hanging around for the fancy catering and bus rides I guess…

All the bling that Tom Morello can offer…

TM: Ha ha ha, yeah.

BR: I think it is an extension of what I’ve been doing with the Coup.

I want to keep putting out music that has my ideas in it and create art to encourage people to join a movement that can change society. This is just the latest generation of that.

What do you think about all this talk that Barack Obama’s election has somehow changed the political climate and that things will get “better” now?

TM: Well, I wouldn’t agree with that. I think the bar has just been set so low in the past eight years that it’s a great relief that we’ve elected a man who can read above third-grade level. But having said that, I believe that any progressive, radical or even revolutionary change always comes from below. We have to continue to fight and struggle to build the kind of world we’d like to see.

BR: There was a big movement to elect Barack Obama and and, unfortunately, people will give him time and let him do the work that he is doing, which is working for the same interests that George W. Bush was working for. The actual reality is that we have more homeless and jobless people and more people in lower-paying jobs. We are still in war in two countries, one where they are planning to send more troops to. He is definitely working in the interest of these finance corporations and in the interest of the ruling class. I don’t think much is going to change in the way of that.

Tom Morello (left) and Boots Riley

Revolutionary jams for a new generation Socialist Worker’s Sibel Ataogul spoke with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Boots Riley, a Bay Area MC, about their recent collaboration, Street Sweeper Social Club.

What do you think about the current economic state? Many refer to it as a crisis; do you agree?

TM: Well, first of all, I wouldn’t call it a crisis; I would call it a crime.

I’m in favour of bailing out people, not banks. This crime that has been perpetrated demands accountability.

It’s interesting that you call the economic situation a crime. Many socialists would say that it’s an inevitable occurrence of the capitalist system.

TM: I think the crime and the inevitability are one in the same. This kind of crime is an inevitable part of the system. Usually, when you watch Fox News, or another network like that, people are always bent out of shape about welfare mothers, etc.

But when these captains of industry see their greed and malfeasance torpedo the global economy and they come with their hands outstretched to ask for millions to bail them out, the reactions are very different. I think that the crisis is much more inherent to the system rather than related to a particular administration.

BR: We need to first discuss it from the point of view of the average person. I live in West Oakland and people there were in an economic crisis way before it was called a crisis. Basically, though, the excess in greed has come back to haunt

‘There is only one job for a revolutionary artist, really, and it is to tell the truth’

the system in a really big way. We also have to mention, though, that one of the reasons that we got into this crisis is that the movement has failed to connect to the people.

For instance, a crisis happened in manufacturing industries in North America and people complained that jobs were being taken to areas where people are paid much lower, but the working class was not organized in order to prevent that or connect with the people where the work was being moved to. We have failed to have our finger on the pulse of the people.

We need to establish that connection in order to make real change.

The whole idea of boycotts and “voting with your dollar” are concepts that came out in the post-radical era to make people think that they are in a movement and that they are part of the change, while in reality they are succumbing to the system.

And how do you see the role of a revolutionary artist in such a context?

TM: That’s an interesting question.

Where I am at a great disadvantage is that I am very much a Luddite when it comes to technology. I mean people ask me if I am in favour of downloading music for free and my answer is: I wish I knew how to download music for free, I’d stop paying 99 cents a tune on iTunes!

But, seriously, there is a certain level of democratization in the musical marketplace that is still sorting itself out. I never took those complaints about Rage Against the Machine being on a major label as opposed to an “indie” seriously. I have had plenty of friends on “indie” labels who have absolutely been fucked by their petit bourgeois masters. It’s not ‘cause they got a cooler haircut that they’re not scamming you.

But I do believe that there is a possibility for democratization in

TM: There is only ever one job for a revolutionary artist, really, and it is to tell the truth, the musical truth and the lyrical truth as we see it and to try to build a bridge between the ideas and the art and the practical action in trying to reshape the world.

BR: I think our role is to make people understand that they are the ones who are going to bring about real change and that the only way to do this is to join an organization. You can’t make the change by yourself, by just stopping shopping at Wal-Mart. The only way to change the system is to join radical, militant union movements that start by having the working class put in a position to take back some of the power and build from there.

Going back to the music industry, we know that Rage is on a major label and in the early 90s it seemed to be the only way to get the music to the masses. But nowadays, bands seem to have a lot more options, be it YouTube or MySpace or other web-based networks. Has that affected the way your own music is distributed?

the distribution of music where let’s say you and I put together a band tomorrow, we’d have the same web distribution capacity as, say, Metallica. And I think there’s something really cool about that.

You call your music “revolutionary party jams”; will you be lending your services to rallies and protests?

TM: I always get inundated with requests to do rallies and protests and I’m sure we will. We’re a new band and our first show was at the School of Rock in Hollywood, in front of 11 year-olds, and our second show was at the Sing Sing maximum security prison in upstate New York, so I think we’ve covered both ends of the spectrum there (laughs).

I think we’re pretty much ready for whatever comes our way, be they protests or, you know, goth kids.

BR: We want to keep doing the same things that we have been doing. We’re going to be promoting the album and touring, we got a video but the idea is to lend our services to people that are involved in a viable movement. That’s the whole reason why we are doing this.

So yes, you’ll see us at rallies and demos, but hopefully you’ll hear the music and it will cause you to go to the rally or the strike or to organize a work stoppage or whatever it is that you can get involved in.

Sibel Ataogul is a union lawyer, activist and artist based in Montreal. For more info on Street Sweeper Social Club, visit www.streetsweepersocialclub.com.

January 2010 Socialist Worker 5

A PEOPLE’S HIST

oppressed within Canada Benoit Renaud looks at the historic roots of Québec’s oppression within Canada,

its history of labour and national struggles, and the prospects for resistance in the upcoming public sector negotiations.

S

ocialists distinguish between the nationalism of oppressors and the nationalism of the oppressed. Because we are internationalists we argue for full equality between nations.

Workers’ unity, a force that can overthrow capitalism and oppression in all forms, cannot be built without workers in an imperialist or oppressor country supporting the right of self-determination of the oppressed nation.

Most debates around whether Québec is oppressed or not centre around symptoms of overexploitation: a higher unemployment rate and lower salaries of unilingual Francophones compared to unilingual Anglophones; ownership of relatively few large businesses by French Canadians, etc.

While these economic indicators are indeed symptoms of national oppression, they are not at the heart of the matter.

Let us define oppression rather as a historically constructed collective fear. In that sense, the people of Québec (le peuple québécois) are very clearly oppressed. This is not an irrational fear, but one rooted in collective experience.

Throughout its history, the unique society established on the banks of the St. Lawrence has been reminded regularly that it should be afraid of, and not even consider the possibility of, deciding its own fate.

When the transcontinental Seven Years War (1756-1763) led to the conquest of New France by British armies, many farms were burned simply to terrorize the peasant population. The departure of most members of the French elite and the support of the Catholic Church then allowed foreign rule to be maintained for a few decades without much difficulty.

Resistance

‘The new party on the left, Québec solidaire, identifies itself clearly as supporting independence’

In 1837 and 1838, a movement demanding self-rule and responsible government was crushed militarily.

Twelve of those arrested for armed resistance were hanged and about 50 more exiled to Australia.

The Church again supported the British authorities by excommunicating the leaders of the rebellion. It was only 30 years after this second conquest that Confederation was established, without any democratic process.

In 1918, troops fired at an unarmed demonstration against conscription in Québec City, killing 5 and wounding many. In response, to the increasingly virulent antiFrench sentiment being stirred across Canada over the issue of the war, a single member of the provincial legislature dared ask if the people of Québec might not consider forming their own country in order to free the rest of Canada from so many undesirables.

But it was only in the 1960s, once the fight for Québec autonomy was taken up by an initially

progressive government, that the ideas of sovereignty and independence were brought back into mainstream political debate.

The rise of that new movement for “separation” and the increasingly repressive response to it on the part of the State is what led to the October Crisis of 1970 and the implementation of the War Measures Act. Two kidnappings by a dozen FLQ activists were the pretext to send the military into the streets of Montréal, round up 500 union, socialist and “indépendantiste” activists and intellectuals, and raid 3,000 homes.

Since then, no major wave of repression has been necessary. Fear alone—in other words the integration of the oppressive State into the minds of the masses—has been enough to prevent the growing movement for statehood from being successful, but barely.

In May 1980, 40 per cent of the population of Québec voted Yes to negotiating a new deal with the rest of Canada. Fifteen years later, 49.5 per cent (with a record turnout of 93.5 per cent) voted for sovereignty combined with an economic partnership.

Following that very close call, in 2000 the House of Commons adopted the “Clarity Act”: in the event of a third referendum on sovereignty, the federal government would decide what is a clear enough question and a strong enough majority. The bar

Canadian Forces patrol the streets of Montreal after the War Measures Act was invoked.

6 Socialist Worker January 2010

Union leaders march in a Common Front demonstration.

could now be raised indefinitely just above the level of support garnered by the movement for separation.

Polls today show around 40 per cent support for sovereignty “if a referendum were held today”, in spite of a complete lack of momentum for the Parti Québécois, which has governed the province during four full terms (1976-1985, 19942003) and is a proven supporter of neoliberal capitalist mainstream politics.

Québec solidaire

The new party emerging on the left, Québec solidaire, identifies itself clearly as supporting independence and sees a constituent assembly as the main instrument to achieve a truly democratic selfdetermination.

Once again, on top of the support given to the Yes side by all major unions and mass organizations in 1995, this demonstrates that the most politicized sections of the Québec working class see the fight against national oppression as a very important issue.

It also shows that the future of that struggle now rests with the left, not with the fatigued and confused Parti Québécois.

The results of the recent QS convention show that combining that struggle with those for social justice, peace, equality and a deeper democracy is what Québec solidaire will be about for the predictable future.

TORY OF Québec

Françoise David (centre) addresses the Québec solidaire congress in November.

Why Québec Solidaire matters

Québec’s Common Front then and now

T

his spring, there could be a major struggle between the Québec government and its 500,000 public sector workers, representing 12 per cent of the active work force. With an economic crisis and large deficits resulting mostly from tax cuts, this could be a major political confrontation.

Most unions representing these workers have formed a common front (CF), with a unified set of demands and a commitment not to raid each other’s members. The CF is asking for wage increases of 11.25 per cent over three years. The government is offering seven per cent over five years including benefits. This would mean a wage freeze for most workers.

Five years ago, the same government legislated all those contracts and adopted a very harsh series of laws denying workers’ right to resist in any way, leaving many people feeling bitter. It was one of the main reasons the Charest government was reduced to a minority status in the 2007 election. These union busting laws will sunset at the end of March.

Will the public sector unions fight with determination against the government, as they did in the 1960s and 70s, or will they cave in as has been the case ever since?

A militant history

During the 1960s, with the “Quiet Revolution” came the expansion and gradual unionization of the public sector, taking over health and education services from private providers, notably the Catholic Church.

Many strikes accompanied this process of organizing. The highest point of that struggle was the 1972 general strike, when three union leaders were sent to jail

for defying an injunction during the public sector struggle.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of private sector workers came out in solidarity. In some small towns, including Septîles, workers on strike literally took control of their communities, in what began to look like revolutionary workers’ councils.

There was a turn towards better relations between public sector workers and their employer with the election of the first Parti Québécois government in 1976.

That government included several former union activists and claimed to be on the side of the workers. However, it passed an anti-scab bill and made every effort to avoid a major confrontation as it prepared its referendum on sovereignty.

After the defeat of the 1980 referendum a recession hit hard and the formerly center-left government turned against its base.

Wage cuts and brutal back-towork legislation ended the round of negotiations of 1982. Thousands of workers left the PQ, feeling betrayed and demoralized.

The union movement adopted a new doctrine, dubbed “concertation conflictuelle”: it would strive to reach an agreement with the government but not renounce mobilization to win concessions. This was a break from the radical language of the mani-

‘This spring, there could be a major struggle between the Québec government and its 500,000 public sector workers’

festos published in the early 1970s. Since then, some rounds of bargaining have led to negotiated settlements, others to legislated contracts. There has always been some mobilizing, but never a determined struggle like the one of 1972.

What now?

There are reasons to hope for massive resistance to this new round of attacks. The economic crisis has discredited the ideology behind tax cuts, user fees and privatization.

Mass mobilizations, from the March of Women in 2000 to the anti-war rallies in 2003 and the student strike in 2005, have created new generations of activists. Some are now in the union movement.

There is a gradual accumulation of frustration going back to the defeat of 1982, which some people still employed in the public sector experienced.

And there is the emergence of a political alternative on the left, Québec solidaire, with a voice in the National Assembly. QS member Amir Khadir was alone among 125 Assembly members to express complete support for the demands of the Common Front.

QS will campaign broadly over the next few months on the issue of public finance, responding to the next round of neoliberal demands with proposals for a better distribution of wealth and a defence of public services.

If there is a major confrontation between these workers and the government, who knows what could result? The Charest government barely got a majority of seats in December 2008, with a record low turnout. Not many people truly support this government. A mass strike could lay the ground work for building a new kind of majority for a new kind of society.

Québec solidaire (QS) was founded in February of 2006 in the merger of two organizations: l’Union des forces progressistes (UFP) and Option citoyenne (OC).

UFP was itself the product of a coming together of three political organizations: le Rassemblement pour une alternative politique (RAP), a network of individual activists, many from the unions or former Parti québécois activists; le Parti de la démocratie socialiste (PDS), the transformation of the former Québec NDP, which included members of Gauche socialiste; and the Québec Communist Party.

The Québec NDP became the PDS in the mid 1990s after taking a position in favour of Québec independence in the aftermath of the failure of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords. RAP was formed in 1996, following the sharp right-wing turn of the PQ government under Lucien Bouchard.

At first, RAP didn’t want to challenge the domination of the PQ on the left and only supported a handful of independent candidates in the 1999 election. Meanwhile PDS ran close to a hundred candidates. After that election, those in RAP who continued to support the PQ left the group, leaving those determined to build an alternative. This opened the door to discussions with PDS and the Québec CP. In April 2001, a by-election in the Montréal riding of Mercier became an opportunity for several strands of the left to come together and support Paul Cliche, a retired union staffer. He won 24 per cent of the vote, giving momentum to the discussions towards uniting the left.

UFP was founded in the spring of 2002, about a year after the mass mobilization in Québec City against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). From the beginning, UFP brought together socialists, union activists and young “altermondialistes”. The International Socialists joined UFP soon after the founding conference and became one of the recognized “political entities” within the party.

In April 2004, Amir Khadir was the UFP candidate in Mercier, where he increased the total number of votes to 5000 (from 4000 in 2001).

Option citoyenne was established as a political movement aiming to unite the left in 2004-2005, after the election of the first Charest government. Its members were generally involved in social movements and not political groups. Many of them had never been involved in electoral politics. A majority were women and its most well known leader was Françoise David, former president of the Fédération des femmes du Québec (FFQ).

Why didn’t the OC activists simply join UFP? Essentially, because they came to electoral politics later and through a different route. The turning point for them was the World March of Women of 2000, when

the PQ government rejected most of their demands. David then asked the disappointed and angry crowd if it wasn’t time to create a new party and got a very enthusiastic response.

In 2001-2002, following a spectacular rise in the polls for the conservative Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), David and several other activists from community groups, women’s organizations and others formed D’abord solidaires (Solidarity First), a political movement dedicated to blocking the rise of ADQ and their reactionary ideas.

This group still exists as a tool for political education and reflection.

But a section of it decided to take the step of engaging in electoral politics directly at the national level.

That is where Option citoyenne came from.

OC and UFP complimented each other wonderfully in terms of backgrounds and social composition. UFP brought the historic components of the Left, many young activists and a foothold in the union movement. OC brought many women and the experience of decades of anti-poverty and community struggles. Environmentalists were also present in both groups and were among the first to work together.

Together, they had about 4,000 members. Since 2006, the membership has ranged between 4,000 and 7,000 immediately after its first general election in March 2007.

Québec solidaire represents the coming together of activists from all progressive movements in Québec with the common goal of building a political alternative to the three parties of the right (Liberals, PQ and ADQ). But more than that, it embodies a history of struggles against neoliberal capitalist policies from the 1990s to today.

By engaging in these struggles thousands of individuals, many of them leaders in their respective movements, saw the importance of contesting elections and challenging the hegemony of established political parties.

But this diversity also brings significant challenges. After four years and about 10 national meetings, it is still difficult to reconcile very different political cultures when decision-making processes are concerned. Discussions on broad political questions are still a challenge for people coming from such a diversity of backgrounds.

QS is neither a radical anticapitalist formation like the French NPA, nor a social-liberal clone of the NDP. It is a hybrid formation with elements of both these poles and lots of other things in between.

Where it goes is an open question which will be resolved not in abstract analysis but in action, by those involved in building the party.

It came from the movement, and its continued success depends on that same movement.

January 2010 Socialist Worker 7

CIVIL LIBERTIES CLIMATE CRISIS

Copenhagen: an ending and a new beginning The Copenhagen climate change negotiations are a huge setback for the planet. But that isn’t all that happened there. There was also the first manifestation of a new movement fighting for the planet.

While the rulers of the world plotted how to wrap their defence of “Business As Usual” in a new brand of greenwash—they call it the “Copenhagen Accord”—a new constellation of forces was coming together in the streets, more than 100,000-strong.

Here’s how British socialist and environmental activist Jonathan Neale described it: “The march was long, loud, cold, bouncy and energetic, about half Danes and half foreigners.

I moved up and down the line, and everywhere people were chanting. This time the slogans were about climate, not some other issue, and they sounded and felt organic, rising up from the movement. Every type of person was there.

“No one had expected 100,000. For the activists gathered from around the world, this was the largest climate demonstration they had ever seen, by far. From then on we knew a new global movement was possible.”

The new, global movement must build on the unity and solidarity found in Copenhagen: we need to bring together the wisdom of the Indigenous peoples movement, the expertise of environmental NGOs, the audacity of the direct action activists, the patience of faith communities, and the crucial economic power of the labour movement. It must be a movement that sees that healing for our world cannot be divorced from justice and equality for all humanity.

The rulers of the world have sent us a clear message: they will defend their profits and privileges even if it means disaster for the Earth and her inhabitants. Our response has already begun.

The call by Bolivian president Evo Morales for a People’s World Conference on Climate Change, April 20 to 22, will be the first step in consolidating and expanding the movement. And the G8 and G20 summits scheduled for late June in Toronto and Huntsville will be another key step in strengthening our side in this fight. Copenhagen shows that the rulers of the world will not act for the planet. But it also shows that people working together, in new and different ways, can force them to act.

PROROGATION

NDP needs to step it up As people continue to mobilize against Harper’s decision to prorogue parliament, the NDP sits on the sidelines, missing the boat on this important political opportunity.

Within days of prorogation, individuals across the country were setting up Facebook groups and websites protesting the undemocratic actions of the Harper Conservatives. Currently, organizing for national rallies is in full swing.

The NDP, on the other hand, not only took a full week to respond to this unprecedented crisis, but continues to miss a key opportunity to fight Harper on several fronts: the coverup of the torture of Afghan detainees, the government’s appalling actions at the Copenhagen climate talks, the attacks on civil liberties, inaction on dealing with the economic crisis and more.

While ordinary people are mobilizing against Harper and holding him to account, the NDP issues statements about the need to get back to work, focusing exclusively on their narrow parliamentary role, missing the deeper issues which are increasingly mobilizing people. They are not articulating the level of anger and growing bitterness that is so obviously there all across the country.

While undoubtedly many NDP activists have thrown themselves into building the movement against prorogation, as long as the party chooses to sit on sidelines of this major movement they will not make any gains. NDP MPs and the party infrastructure need to use every means possible to build the rallies on January 23 and beyond. But more than that, they must sharpen up their demands to match the mood of the country: an immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan; hard CO2 emission reduction targets to match what science demands; an end to massive corporate tax breaks; expand EI benefits; a national strategy for good, green jobs.

On January 23, thousands of people will be putting forth an alternative agenda. The question on many people’s minds is, will the NDP step it up in time to make a difference to the outcome of this fight?

CIVIL LIBERTIES

‘War on terror’ to blame Following the failed bombing of a US airliner on Christmas day, Transport Minister John Baird warned airport security to “exercise increased vigilance” due to new information about a potential attack in Canada.

Little information was provided regarding the nature and source of the information, however, the impact of the warning will add to curtailing of civil liberties and escalating Islamophobia. Raising public fear of “potential” attacks is used to justify the ever-expanding “war on terror” from Iraq and Afghanistan, to include Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine and Iran.

Missing from the discussion is any questioning of the reason behind terrorist attacks. The reality is, the “war on terror” has made the world less safe. War, occupation, air strikes, sanctions and the use of torture have spread devastation and misery to millions, deepening people’s bitterness and hatred toward the US and other NATO members like Canada.

New airport scanners and increased racial profiling are distractions: the real solution is an end to war and occupation.

8 Socialist Worker January 2010

Abousfian Abdelrazik arrives at Pearson Airport after spending nearly six years exiled in Sudan.

Civil rights post 9/11 Roch Tassé of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group spoke with Socialist Worker’s Jessica Squires about civil liberties since 9/11,

and prospects for the campaign to defend human rights in Canada.

rights, freedom of speech and freedom of association, academic freedom and independence of the press, the rights of refugees, and the right to fundamental justice and due process.

Since 9/11, how have the attacks on civil liberties evolved?

After the events of September 11, 2001, Muslims were the target of significant attacks on their human rights and civil liberties best illustrated by the thousands detained for months in US jails and deported, and by the US rendition program under which Canadian citizen Maher Arar was sent to torture in Syria.

In Canada, the Muslim community became the object of intense surveillance and “visitations” by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Security certificates were issued against five Muslim men. Abdullah Almaki, Ahmad Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin were detained and tortured in Syria and Egypt as a result of careless labeling and information sharing by Canadian intelligence and police agencies. Thousands of others became the victims of racial profiling at airports and border crossings, and many were denied the right to travel to the US. Then, after the incremental implementation of the so-called Canada/ US Safe Border Agreement, many non-Muslim travellers started to encounter extra scrutiny at the border, including denial to board a plane or to enter the country (both in Canada and the US). Academics have been denied access to lecture in US institutions and US peace activists have been denied entry into Canada. Those targetted at the border include anti-globalization and labour activists as well as international partners of Canadian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

The most recent high profile case is that of US journalist Amy Goodman who was interrogated for several hours by Canadian border officials in December 2009 as she tried to enter BC to give a lecture in Vancouver.

Asylum seekers and refugee claimants have also been victims of these new border security measures. All these incidents point to an increasing attack on privacy and mobility

Do you think the situation is improving or getting worse?

The situation is likely going to wosen in the coming months in light of new air travel security measures imposed by the US at the beginning of January and endorsed by Canada, including enhanced body screening at airports, the profiling of travellers from 14 designated countries and the Canadian government’s plan to bolster its no-fly list program to make it acceptable to the US. There is also proposed legislation in Parliament for the surveillance of internet communications.

Meanwhile, the government refuses to implement the recommendations of the O’Connor Commission, which called for an integrated complaint-andreview mechanism over the operations of agencies involved in national security, including the Canadian Border Service Agency, which presently operates without any oversight whatsoever.

What can individuals and groups do to defend civil liberties in Canada?

‘Asylum seekers and refugee claimants have also been major victims of new border security measures’

In recent months, the judicial system, through significant rulings in security certificate cases, the case of Omar Khadr and the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik, has shown signs of pushing back to re-establish respect for the rule of law. So perhaps we should make better use of court challenges to mitigate the impacts of measures that impede on civil liberties.

But more importantly, Canadians should pressure parliamentarians to play a more active role with these so-called “anti-terrorism” measures.

It might be time to advocate for an in-depth overall review of all security legislation and measures adopted over the last decade. It is not only our civil liberties, but our right to be governed democratically that is at stake.

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50

LEFT JAB

REVIEWS

John Bell

Canada­—love it or leave it

Avatar an anti-imperialist fairy tale Film H Avatar H Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver H Directed by James Cameron H Reviewd by Sibel Ataogul Avatar, the $300 million extravaganza by Hollywood heavyweight James Cameron, was marketed first and foremost as a CGI fantasy.

Cameron had not directed a film since the classic tear-jerker Titanic became the highest grossing movie of all time.

Some critics speculate that he actually had to invent the technology to realize his vision for his most recent box office smash.

All the elements were in place for another run-of-the-mill blockbuster that would offer beautiful visuals but little in the way of substance or meaning. Then mainstream critic Roger Ebert revealed that, besides being breathtaking and innovative, Avatar also promoted “a green message and an anti-war message”.

Cameron himself didn’t refute Ebert’s interpretation. In fact, Cameron revealed in an interview with PBS that he deliberately drew parallels with the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and colonial America. Not long after, conservatives began to bash the film, and progressives took more notice of it.

So is Avatar a socialist action buff’s wet dream? Well, it’s definitely anti-imperialist and pro-environment, and sometimes, that’s quite enough.

The story is relatively simple. In the not-so-distant future, a private corporation hires army personnel to invade Pandora, an alien planet that happens to hold reserves of an extremely expensive metal, in order to extract and sell it. The problem stems from the fact that an in-

digenous population lives right on top of the richest reserves, and is openly hostile to the invasion.

Fighting on all fronts, the corporation has also hired a team of scientists who research the planet and try to establish links with the natives in order to advance the corporation’s “hearts-and-minds” campaign.

These scientists explore the planet using avatars, which are basically remote-controlled replicas of the natives mixed with human DNA that the scientists themselves have to mentally inhabit.

When one of the scientists gets killed before he even begins his mission, the corporation hires his twin brother, Jake Sully, a young Marine who is paralyzed from the waist down, but still a soldier in his mind, to replace him and, obviously, inhabit his avatar.

Sully goes in, fully committed to doing his masters’ bidding of getting the natives kicked off the precious reserves, but ends up not only falling in love with a native but also turning into a war resister in the most direct sense of the term.

Cameron is no fan of the Iraq War, and is even less a fan of the terror terminology used by the US and its allies to justify the invasion.

When the colonel, the corporation’s hired goon who is leading the attacks against the natives, mentions the need to resort to pre-emptive strikes before the native resistance grows too strong and

vows to fight terror with terror, it becomes clear what Cameron is really criticizing through this movie.

It is nearly impossible to describe just how beautiful and believable the magnificent, lush and detailed planet of Pandora is. Suffice it to say that, about an hour into the film, one begins to wonder if Cameron actually discovered a hidden planet, filmed it and is simply pretending that it is CGI. Friends who came to the movie with me were adamant that, while technically breathtaking, the script of the movie was too simplistic to be taken seriously.

However, despite the fact that some characters are pretty predictable and there is the obligatory sprinkling of cheesy oneliners, I found it incredibly effective in establishing an emotional and intellectual connection with the audience.

Its harrowing war scenes are absolutely unaffected by the surreal setting, and it vibrates at times with the pain felt by the natives at the sight of the destruction waged by the invading forces.

Moreover, the anti-war and pro-resistance message is as clear as it is current.

The natives finally unite in order to fight off the invasion, and their response after victory is to kick the troops out, clean and simple.

So there you go. Someone has finally made an anti-imperialist fable complete with kick-ass action scenes and beautiful visuals where the good guys really do win. Turn off your inner cynic and just enjoy it. You’ll thank me later.

A rebel’s guide to bashing sexism Book H Sexism and the system: A rebel’s guide to women’s liberation H By Judith Orr H Bookmarks 2009 H Reviewd by Tania Ehret In Sexism and the system: A rebel’s guide to women’s liberation, Judith Orr distills her knowledge of a vast history of women’s struggles into a simple and eye-opening book.

As a young feminist, I found the history of class societies and their emergence, which led to a gender and family hierarchy, to be extremely informative.

The description of how class societies came about gives hope to a world where oppression seems inherent and stopping it seems like a never-ending battle.

The book goes on to outline the main obstacles facing women in Britain today (which can be applied to Canadian women), including the struggle for child care and pay equity, and against violence. The neat and easy writing style provides a positive framework in which

any new feminists, both women and men, can learn and grow as they shake the shackles of the system. Orr reveals how men, as well as women, are held captive by gender roles, proving the necessity of the social revolution we dream about.

The detailed information on women’s oppression and how our current economic situation perpetuates it, is drawn primarily from the British experience.

Consequently, this book does not go into great detail regarding the impact of imperialism on the specific conditions for women in the Global South or the importance of women’s movements in the developing world and their positive relationship to liberation struggles in advanced capitalist countries.

No short book can cover everything,

and Orr’s book is an introduction, not the final word.

On an angry day when the height of gender oppression feels taller than the highest mountain, I would recommend this book to soothe the pain and convey the truth—that there is nothing inherent about women’s oppression.

If there is one message that is important in taking away from this book, it would be that women’s struggles should not be seen as second in-line to class struggles. Successful struggles will have women in the forefront, not waiting for a future revolution for our needs to be met.

A better world will never be won as long as women are oppressed.

Sexism and the system is available to purchase a Resistance Press Bookroom, 427 Bloor Sreet West (open Saturdays) or online at www.bookmarks.uk.com.

Lately, some so-called Canadians have had the nerve to publicly state they are “ashamed” of their country.

Naomi Klein, Maude Barlow, Toronto Mayor David Miller, NDP leader Jack Layton and other assorted traitors used the Copenhagen climate change treaty negotiations as a platform to tell the world that they are ashamed of Canada’s environmental record.

Then there is that backstabbing Richard Colvin, the former Canadian diplomat who charges that the Canadian government and military brass knowingly abetted the torture of Afghan detainees.

That means he is insulting our brave boys and girls in uniform, and insulting our glorious flag in the bargain.

It is high time to tell these traitors to pack their bags and go: Canada, love it or leave it. Instead of wiping their feet on our Maple Leaf (granted it is tough getting that tar sand off the bottom of your shoe) now is the time to rally round our glorious flag, born from glorious struggles and proudly borne aloft in our nation’s glorious wars.

Okay, so maybe it is true that for most its first 100 years, Canada just borrowed Britain’s Union Jack flag and couldn’t be bothered to dream up an original pennant.

And yes, it is true that the flag we all love today was the product of a partisan, parliamentary faction fight that raged in 1964. At the time there was a minority government led by Liberal Lester B. Pearson and the flag was chosen in the time honoured way: by committee.

Opposition Tories, led by John Diefenbaker, bitterly opposed the red Maple Leaf design, and veterans groups and patriotic organizations lustily booed it.

What a difference 45 years and a few jolly wars can make.

Today, it is the very same folks who wrap themselves in the flag they once spit at.

No less an expert than Professor Jack Granatstein, academic go-to guy for the militaristic right-wing, a pundit who never met a war he didn’t like, slams all the above-named traitors in a Globe and Mail op-ed piece: “It is one thing to write in American newspapers (as Stephen Harper once did) against Canadian government policy. But it is another level of misbehaviour entirely to attack government policy from the corridors during a difficult international negotiation.”

Jack correctly concludes: “Enough. Fight at home if you must, but let the government do the job it was elected to do.”

Harper

How true. The moment we step beyond our borders we must cease our disloyal sniping at Mr. Harper, who after all was chosen by fully 22 per cent of eligible Canadian voters in the last election. Quislings who have a problem with that should pack up and get out. Let us loyal Canadians keep our family disputes in our own house.

By that I don’t mean hashing out our disputes in our own House. Proud and loyal Canadians naturally support Mr. Harper’s proroguing of parliament until after the Olympics.

Only traitors want to spoil this glorious party by droning on about torture and the climate and such. And surely no proud

Canadian cares whether the games are held on unceded First Nation territory. Why don’t those disgruntled Indigenous Peoples just go back where they came from.

Besides, proroguing isn’t just about getting ready to watch our glorious athletes kick ass­(unlike those disloyal junior hockey players who lost their big game—why don’t they go find some loser country to play for?!). Mr. Harper says he needs time to work on fixing the economy, printing new giant novelty cheques for Tory ridings and whatnot. How can he do that if Parliament is in session? Only traitors want to expose the fact this government can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.

Let us stop mincing words.

Proud, loyal Canadians don’t care that their Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, generals and (with one exception) diplomats gave the thumbs up to the detention and torture of Afghan civilians, many of whom had absolutely no connection to Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Those who do raise the issue insult our soldiers and our flag in a time of war. And behind it all, they have the nerve to want the whole sorry Afghan adventure to end now. They actually think parliament should be a place where a government is held accountable for its actions. What a traitorous idea.

Canadian-sanctioned torture—love it or leave it.

Climate change

Proud, loyal Canadians don’t care that their prime minister, environment minister and government negotiating team did all they could to scuttle any new climate change treaty in Copenhagen.

Proud, loyal Canadians defend the exploitation of the tar sands to the death.

That shouldn’t be too hard to do since most of the deaths in question will take place in Africa, Asia, New Orleans and other inconsequential locations.

In fact, proud, loyal Canadians don’t even believe in global warming, since to do so runs contrary to the Saudi Arabification of our 21st century economy. Hey, does Saudi Arabia even have a parliament to prorogue?

Only traitors put the interests of the planet and the majority of her inhabitants (including the majority of us Canadians, as if that matters) ahead of the profits of our petro-elite.

Made-in-Canada climate change—love it or leave it.

Proud, loyal Canadians applaud their Prime Minister and his minority government when Mr. Harper suspends what little pretence of democracy we have left in this country. Democracy implies holding your government accountable for its actions. The very idea smacks of sedition, especially when its actions have been as shortsighted and venal as Harper’s have been.

Only traitors would think that the wishes of the majority—who are opposed to the war in Afghanistan, who are ashamed of Canada’s environmental record, and who want to be seen as a country that defends human rights instead of trampling them—should be respected.

Canadian autocracy— love it or leave it.

Hey, where’d everyone go?

January 2010 Socialist Worker 9

WHERE WE STAND

international socialist events

Pro-choice activists defend Morgentaler abortion clinic in Toronto, 1990.

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.

At war with democracy: how can we stop Harper?

Tues, Jan 19, 7pm Speaker: Michelle Robidoux Bahen Centre 40 St. George Sreet Room 2145 Info: 414-972-6391

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.

Ethical consumerism: can changing the coffee you buy change the world?

Wed, Jan 20, 2pm Bahen Centre 40 St. George St Room 4010

Socialism for the 21st Century

One-day conference Sat, Jan 30, 12pm Bahen Centre 40 St. George St

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.

Who benefits from women’s oppression? by faline bobier The vision of liberation that was raised by the women’s liberation movement of the late 1960s and 1970s still seems a far-off dream, despite major reforms and changes in women’s lives.

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.

Over the past forty years, women have won important victories around paid maternity leave, pay equity, the striking down of Canada’s abortion law, among many others.

Yet women still face inequality: Women, on average, still perform more than 70 per cent of domestic work, as well as the majority of caring for children and elderly parents.

Women also earn 23 per cent less than men in the workplace.

What accounts for the persistence of women’s oppression? Are men to blame? Is it true that men benefit from the oppression of women? Or is the oppression of women rooted in the capitalist economic system?

Some feminists in the early years of the women’s movement found the cause of gender inequality in a system of patriarchy—which operates outside the capitalist system and in which all men are pitted against all women.

But this theory of patriarchy fails to account for the very real changes women have experienced in their lives over the past century, and the increasing class nature of the oppression they face.

It is true that individual men are the ones who carry out some of the most obvious forms of oppression against women—rape, sexual assault and domestic violence, for example. It is not society that commits these acts.

But are the majority of men doing this most of the time? Of course not.

Oppression

Nuclear family

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

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 January 2010

Most violence against women occurs inside the “nuclear family” structure.

This is also true for violence against children and adolescents, which occurs inside the family, and which is perpetrated by both male and female adult family members.

The institution of the nuclear family is still incredibly important for modern day capitalism and it is women’s role inside the family that is at the heart of the continuing oppression of women both inside and outside the family.

Even when women work for a wage outside the family home, which is the case for most working class families and the majority of women today, their

primary responsibility is still seen as being that of caregiver and “heart in a heartless world”.

Because of the ideology of sexism, perpetuated by the dominant structures in society, women are often financially dependent on male partners and do not earn enough on their own to be able to support themselves and their children if they need to leave a violent domestic situation.

Families can rarely be that “heart in a heartless world”, especially in an era of economic crisis, cutbacks and job loss.

Life for many families continues to get harder. There is much poverty in working families, where wages are so low they can’t cover basic costs. This creates pressure-cooker conditions for all members of families.

The ideal of the family—the “idyllic” image of husband, wife and two adoring children—does not match the reality. This rigid ideal also does not allow for the real families that people create for themselves inside lesbian and gay relationships, as common-law couples, or completely outside of the couple relationship.

Yet the ideological and economic role of the family remains of central importance to capitalism.

It is the place where the next generation of workers are fed, clothed, socialized, educated, loved and cared for to ensure that they turn into young adults fitted to sell their labour power to capitalists.

This is why politicians like Stephen Harper speak warmly of family values, at the same time as they create the conditions that put tremendous pressure on the individuals trying to survive inside these “perfect” families.

But what the Tories won’t do is take the very simple steps that could make a difference right now.

What about putting increased funding into shelters for battered women, into affordable child care for working families, into creating real sustainable jobs for both working class men and women, instead of spending billions on a war which is creating death and destruction for ordinary Afghan citizens abroad and tragedy for Canadian soldiers and their families at home? These would be concrete steps towards helping to alleviate the real hardships faced by working class and low-income women.

But capitalist governments won’t deliver these things, unless we fight back against their attempts to make or-

dinary workers and their families pay for the global meltdown.

In any rational society, caring for children would be one of the most valued jobs and would be shared among a range of people as well as the biological parents. This would enable parents to have some space and it would also enable the many people who love children to take a share in this role.

Under capitalism, because the tasks associated with child rearing are privatized inside the nuclear family, with people given inadequate resources to sustain themselves and their families, violence can become an outlet for extreme frustration and despair.

And because the ideology of sexism justifies paying women less in the workforce it also reinforces ideas about women’s inferiority and makes them more vulnerable to discrimination and violence in the wider world.

Capitalism needs women’s oppression to both take care of its needs for labour at little or no cost to the system, and to divide the force in society which has the power to resist the ravages created by the system – the working class.

It is not individual men who benefit from women’s oppression. Entire working class and poor families suffer because of the way in which capitalism has structured our lives.

When we look at the gains women have made over the past few decades, it is clear that these were won through united action by ordinary people, women and men together. And most often, they were resisted by ruling class men and women.

For example, when postal workers struck for women’s right to paid maternity leave, women managers in the post office opposed it.

When the pro-choice movement mobilized across the country to defend abortion clinics when they came under attack, it was women and men who linked arms in front of the clinics to stop the bigots from shutting them down.

We need to look beyond individual relations between men and women, to the larger structures that shape these relations. Capitalism is a class system which systematically fosters and maintains divisions to keep itself afloat.

Sexism is real, and women’s oppression is real. Understanding that it is a powerful tool for the system, but one which does not benefit workers—men or women—is key to the success of any resistance.

OPEN SATURDAYS, 12-3pm

RESISTANCE PRESS BOOK ROOM

427 Bloor Street West, suite 202, Toronto | 416.972.6391

Revolution on my mind: Black power in the 1960s Tues, Feb 9, 7pm Speakers: Norman Otis Richmond & Carolyn Egan 40 St. George St Room 2145

OTTAWA

At war with democracy: how can we stop Harper?

Thurs, Jan 28, 7pm University of Ottawa info: gosocialists@yahoo.ca

VANCOUVER

Hierarchy & class

Mon, Jan 25, 5:30pm Langara Students’ Union Pub

What could socialism look like?

Wed, Jan 27, 4:30pm Langara College, rm B144 100 W. 49th Ave.

anti-prorogue events TORONTO

Rally for democracy

Sat, Jan 23, 1pm Yonge-Dundas Square

OTTAWA

Rally for democracy Sat, Jan 23, 1pm Parliament Hill

VANCOUVER

Rally for democracy Sat, Jan 23, 1pm Vancouver Art Gallery

For more events, visit www.noprorogue.ca

peace & justice events TORONTO

Palestine report-back

Thurs, Jan 21, 7:30pm Speakers: Libby Davies, Richard Nadeau & Borys Wrzesnewskyj Oakham House 63 Gould St info: www.nowar.ca

Climate Justice Now: Report-back from Copenhagen

Thurs, Jan 28, 7pm Speakers: Thomas Clayton Muller, Carolyn Egan, Dave Martin, Kimia Ghomeshi & Brett Rhyno Steelworkers Hall 25 Cecil St

MISSISSAUGA

War resister film screening Thurs, Jan 21, 7:30pm Mississauga Central Library, room CL-3 301 Burnhamthorpe info: www.resisters.ca

You can find the I.S. in: Toronto, Ottawa, Gatineau, Vancouver, Victoria, Montreal, London, St. Catharines, Mississauga, Scarborough, Halifax, Belleville & Kingston e: iscanada@on.aibn.com t: 416.924.9042 w: www.socialist.ca For more event listings, visit www.socialist.ca.

reports@socialist.ca INFINITY RUBBER

Steelworkers continue fight against corporate greed by peter hogarth The workers at the Infinity Rubber plant in Etobicoke have been on strike since December 1, braving the extreme cold to fight back against predatory demands from management.

In November 2008, Infinity Rubber Technology Group Inc. approached the members of United Steelworkers Local 526L and requested a $2 an hour wage reduction, citing a tough economic climate.

The members agreed to the reduction, planning to eventually get back what was given up.

However, the most recent round of negotiations saw the company requesting a $5 an hour wage cut and a demand that workers pay 50 per cent of the cost of group insurance benefits.

None of the union’s proposals were considered and proposals from the company sought to gut the collective agreement and take away years of hard-fought gains.

In response to this corporate greed, the workers at Infinity Rubber have taken strike action and are refusing to work.

Most of the striking employees have worked at the company for 20 or 30 years. For some of them, it was their first and only job since arriving in Canada.

Those who began working at the plant in 1979 were making roughly $5 an hour; if management gets the cuts that they want, wages would have only increased by $10 over 30 years for grueling and highly demanding work.

Claudio Wastavino, an employee since 1979, emphasized that this is the first real confrontation since he has worked there. He stated: “we are standing up for ourselves for a good reason and we are all in this together on this picket line.”

MUSEUM STRIKE ENDS by jessica squires After a bitter 86-day strike, 420 workers at the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Canadian War Museum ratified a new collective agreement.

The strike was marked by creative tactics such as displays of photos of the strikers, concerts, and solidarity marches and rallies.

The new collective agreement provides workers with more job security and protection from contracting out, including the use of attrition to minimize job loss, the creation of seven new permanent part-time positions to be filled based on employees’ seniority, and the possibility for full-time temporary employees to become permanent after 24 months.

These last two items were the key demand of the strikers, a clear stand for solidarity among the workers.

OPSEU

College workers vote to strike

by PAM JOHNSON On January 13, Ontario college faculty, members of the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU), voted to strike.

In an unprecedented and heavy-handed move, the colleges imposed working conditions on teachers using a new provision in the College Collective Bargaining Act (CCBA).

Ironically, this 2008 legislation was designed to give part-time and sessional teachers the right to collectively bargain.

The main issues for teachers are class size and workload—the same issues they went on strike for in 2006.

In arbitration, teachers won changes that would have improved their workload.

Those gains were on the

CF61 FIGHT by steve craig The locked-out and terminated CF61 workers continue their fight back against their employer, Cadillac Fairview, into the winter months.

Spirits were riding high after the workers received the unanimous support of the Ontario Federation of Labour during their Convention, followed by a rally attended by more than 1,000 people.

Workers also finally received word that the Labour Board hearing dates had been scheduled for April 2010.

Although disappointed to have to continue picketing through the winter, the workers were happy to have a date to look forward to.

However, Cadillac Fairview, fed up with the presence of the picketers pressured the City of Toronto into taking away their winter shelter.

Workers continue to receive strong support of the teacher stakeholders and have redeployed to spread by leafleting Cadillac Fairview shopping malls across Ontario.

CLIMATE ACTION by melissa graham On December 12, the Toronto Climate Campaign organized an indoor rally to coincide with other international climate actions to demand that Canada stop sabotaging the UN climate talks.

Entitled Planet First – People First, the rally included a live feed from Canadian delegates from Copenhagen, speeches, musical performances, video interviews of people’s opinions on climate change, and an eco fair.

Throughout the rally, participants chanted slogans such as: “Harper—climate criminal”, “coal, nukes—no solution / we are sick of your pollution” and “clean water, healthy kids / windmills, not toxic spills” urging all Canadians to hold Harper accountable for crimes against the climate.

The rally was followed by a candlelight vigil at Queen’s Park, which was attended by several hundred people.

negotiating table when the colleges walked away in December after union negotiators refused to accept a contract offer that would gut work rules.

The colleges refused to put their concessions offer to a vote knowing it could fail.

This has forced teachers to a strike vote in what the union is rightly calling union-busting tactics by the colleges.

This may just be the tip of the iceberg for public sector

workers in Ontario. Premier Dalton McGuinty has signaled his intent to cut public services to reduce the deficit.

College teachers took the first step to fight back with a strike vote.

Like Toronto city workers, who fought similar antiunion attacks, college teachers will need solidarity from the labour movement if they are pushed onto the picket lines.

FIGHTING CONCESSIONS AT DEBRO STEEL by peter votsch Members of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 252 have been on strike against Debro Steel in Brampton since November 23, 2009.

Debro wants to pay new employees $5 less per hour, thereby creating a two-tier wage structure. They also want to eliminate the sick day bank and replace it with a sick day buy-out plan.

Workers at Debro have a strong history of standing up to the employer, including a three-week strike in 2006 that won important gains.

Entering the seventh week of

the current strike, the picket lines are solid and little work is underway in the plant.

On December 15, Debro workers and supporters from other CAW locals and CUPE members held a successful secondary picket at Brannon Steel, also in Brampton, which has been taking some of Debro’s work during the strike.

It is militant tactics like this, coupled with solidarity from other unions that can win this strike against yet another corporation attempting to use the current economic crisis to rollback the hard won gains of the labour movement.

MANITOBA MIGRANT WORKERS MAKE GAINS United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada Local 832 members at Maple Leaf in Brandon, Manitoba have secured a contract that provides landmark protection for migrant workers.

Under the new contract, the company is responsible for quickly processing paperwork leading to permanent residency

status, taking the burden off the worker.

In addition, the company will provide translators whenever required and pay for translation of the collective agreement and the employee handbook.

Finally, terminated workers will be allowed to stay in the province awaiting arbitration, which reduces fears of filing grievances.

HUNDREDS MOURN DEATHS OF WORKERS On January 7, hundreds gathered in Toronto to mourn four migrant workers who fell to their deaths on Christmas Eve. The event, organized by Justice for Migrant Workers and No One Is Illegal— Toronto, united community members, unionized workers and other supporters.

Underneath the deadly scaffold that broke and killed the four workers, speakers denounced the unsafe conditions to which migrant workers

are subjected.

“This is a matter of immigration status; those men who died falling from that building died solely because they were migrant workers,” said Naveen Mehta from UFCW Canada.

Organizers called on the Ministry of Labour to fight for status for all, guarantee compensation of injured workers, demand that migrant workers not be targeted for deportation, and ensure access to health care for all workers.

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY CELEBRATED IN OTTAWA by jessica squires On December 10, International Human Rights Day, in 2003, Mohamed Harkat was detained under a security certificate.

He spent months in solitary confinement and eventually was released under the strictest conditions in Canadian history. A few short months ago, his conditions were significantly relaxed, allowing his wife Sophie to stop acting as his full-time jailer.

On December 10, 2009, the Harkats and about 65 supporters and campaigners for other civil liberties issues gathered at the Ottawa Public Library to hear speeches and music. Roch Tassé

of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group read a litany of attacks on civil liberties since 9/11, and concluded by saying we must keep up the fight because we are starting to make headway with the courts.

Denis Lemelin, president of CUPW, also spoke, stating that the best way to fight terrorism is to abolish security certificates, respect people’s rights and end the war on Afghanistan.

Co-sponsored by the Ottawa Centre NDP, the event also featured Mike Larsen, researcher at the York Centre for International and Security Studies, and, as moderator, Hilary Homes of Amnesty International Canada.

STICKING WITH THE UNION

Carolyn Egan

Unions march for climate justice one of their top concerns, demanding that their governments take action.

Essentially, the United Nations shut down the voices of those who brought opposing points of view.

Copenhagen rang with the chants of over 100,000 people as they marched for six kilometers from the heart of the city to the Bella Centre where the UN climate change talks were being held.

The demonstrators came from around the world, including campasinos from Latin America and First Nations people from western Canada, trade unionists from Bangladesh, South Africa and Japan.

Young social democrats from Denmark were loudly singing the Internationale.

The trade union contingent was decked out in green hard hats and there were thousands from the city itself, happily welcoming delegates from the Global North and South.

Negotiations

Many came, hoping against hope, that their governments would reach a new global climate treaty that would set new and effective targets on global greenhouse gas emission reductions. But at the end of the conference, no such deal was reached.

The “Copenhagen Accord” contains no emission targets, nor is it legally binding.

No country is bound by the accord and there are no reduction targets or any timelines for reduction.

Countries such as Bangladesh and the Solomon Islands may cease to exist, submerged underwater, if things proceed as they are.

In the second week, most non-governmental delegates were excluded from the conference centre. This included the international trade union delegation and environmental groups.

Business representatives, on the other hand, were granted access because they were often part of government delegations.

This was a blatant example of the lack of respect for the peoples of the world, who have made environmental issues

Tar sands

The government of Canada came under particular criticism for its rape of the earth in the name of profit and its unstinting support of corporate power.

The Indigenous Environmental Network held a rally inside the centre earlier in the conference that targeted the Alberta tar sands. Canada consistently won Fossil of the Day awards and in the end was the top award winner, beating out the United States.

There were intense protests in the final days of the conference because of the critical need for governments to take action and the fact that so many who had travelled from around the world were being entirely excluded from the proceedings.

Thousands of young people were arrested by heavy-handed police and military, and then detained.

Justice

One thing that many of the protesters learned from their experience in Copenhagen was that they cannot rely on governments to meet their needs.

Working people and their allies have to keep up the struggle and fight for environmental justice.

It was inspiring to witness the huge numbers of protesters in the streets and the alliances built among trade unions and activists from the Global North and South.

Conferences are an opportunity to come together internationally, but we have to continue the fight at home for environmental justice and good, green jobs for all.

We have to broaden the environmental movement so that it truly speaks for all of us.

Join the International Socialists Name: Address: City/Province: Phone: E-mail: Mail: P.O. Box 339, Station E, Toronto, ON M6H 4E3 E-mail: membership@socialist.ca / Tel: 416.972.6391 January 2010 Socialist Worker 11

GOVERNMENTS PREPARE WAR ON PUBLIC SERVICES

by P.R. WRIGHT Statistics Canada data confirmed what most workers are already feeling: the so-called economic recovery is not for ordinary working people.

Optimistic economists predicted that economic activity during the December holiday season would create some 20,000 new jobs. Instead, labour market data for that month showed that Canada shed 17,000 jobs and thousands more joined the ranks of the “self-employed”. This statistical sleight-of-hand brings the net job loss to 2,600.

Particularly hard-hit were women, aged 25 to 54, where employment fell by a massive 24,000 in just one month. Public sector employment fell by 22,000, reflecting federal and provincial governments’ strategy to cut the public service through attrition, despite the fact that demand for government services continues to grow, especially for employment-related services.

Statistics Canada reports that there were still 323,000 fewer jobs in December 2009 than there were in October 2008 when the global crisis swept Canada. Currently, 1.6 million people are officially unemployed. Since October 2008, the number of people in the category “self-employed” increased by 87,000, while the number of government workers fell by 23,000.

Self-employment is a broad, unverified category where “self-employment” could mean literally anything—paid work for an hour, a week, or a month. Clearly, precarious work is displacing decent, full-time work.

Since mid-2009, news-

papers have been reporting the end of the recession despite persisting unemployment. Stock markets have improved; for instance the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) has climbed 56 per cent since March 2009 and the Scotia Bank says that the aggregate commodities index (All Items Index) has increased by 17.3 per cent since April 2009. According to the Scotia Bank: “Elements of the Asian-led ‘super-cycle’ have returned, with the China juggernaut leading the way. Despite a deep global recession in early 2009, China’s imports of many key base metals and iron ore quickly moved to record highs, reflecting ‘strategic’ stockpiling by China’s State Reserve Bureau at bargain prices and then re-stocking by manufacturers.

“The revving up of China’s industrial activity from a low of only 3.8 per cent yr/yr in January and February to 8.3 per cent in March and then 19.2 per cent in November has catapulted base metals into four of the top five best performing commodities of 2009.”

that a Chinese housing bubble is forming and that its own stock market is significantly overvalued.

Any sharp “corrections” in China could spell trouble for countries like Canada, where optimism in the Chinese “super-cycle” is partly responsible for the growth in Canadian commodities, especially oil, gas, metals and minerals.

Corporate taxes

In the meantime, the Ontario and federal governments have drastically reduced corporate taxes for business. It has been estimated that the McGuinty

government’s 28.5 per cent corporate income tax cut to be phased in between now and 2013 will save Ontario businesses some $10 billion (and deplete government tax revenue).

As a result, Ontario will have the lowest corporate income tax rate in North America and, according to the government’s own website, by 2012 will set a record low for G7 nations.

Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty want us to believe that we’re all in the tough times together. Yet while corporations receive billions, there’s “no money” to expand

the social safety net for workers without jobs—many of whom have exhausted their inadequate Employment Insurance entitlements or never qualified in the first place. In Ontario alone, the number of people on social assistance increased by over 62,000 between November 2008 and 2009.

Budget cuts

To make matters worse, governments at all levels are preparing to implement austerity measures by cutting public sector jobs and selling public assets. Nationally, Via Rail and Canada Post are in

Stephen Harper’s crosshairs.

Provincially, the Ontario Liberals are preparing the ground to sell the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO).

History has shown that gutting jobs and selling crown corporations have never translated into improvements for working people.

Whether Parliament is sitting (as in Ontario) or not sitting (as in Ottawa), it will be up to working people to resist the cuts, build solidarity, and fight for an agenda that expands public services and builds the green infrastructure we need to create good, green jobs for all.

CRISIS IN AFGHANISTAN

Caution

Yet there is a growing note of caution regarding the situation in China. Many economists believe that China’s impressive growth rate has been largely fuelled by the massive Chinese stimulus package that was introduced last year during the worst of the economic crisis.

When this stimulus runs its course, weak demand within the G7 but most notably in the US, for Chinese exports could yet create a crisis of overproduction and tip the world back into recession.

There is further speculation

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2009 Afghan civilian death toll highest since war began by paul stevenson The Afghan Human Rights Monitor reports that 2009 was the deadliest year for the children of Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.

From January to December, about 1,050 children were killed. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan found that civilian deaths in general had also spiked to more than 2000 in 2009.

With 30,000 additional US troops being deployed to the south, the situation is about to get much worse.

In December 2009, Western forces committed some of the most brutal

attacks since the invasion.

In Laghman province, 13 people were killed by a US air strike in early December and four more were killed in Baghlan province on December 29.

The worst incident came on the night of December 27, when ten civilians were taken from their homes

by US forces in Kunar province and killed.

The US denied that those killed were civilians, instead claiming they were insurgents. However, an investigation by Afghan authorities found otherwise. The head of the investigation, Asadullah Wafa, told the New York Times: “They gathered eight school students from

two compounds...and shot them with small arms. In total, ten were killed; eight were school students and one was an elderly man.”

The violence sparked protests in Kabul and Jalalabad on December 30.

Hundreds of protesters, mainly university students, blocked roads, burned an effigy of Barack Obama and chanted “Death to America”.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for NATO to find any allies in Afghanistan.

A recent Pentagon report on the Afghan National Army was devastating, revealing that although NATO plans to one day hand over control to the Afghans,

“corruption, nepotism and untrained, unmotivated personnel make success all but impossible.”

The report also found that as many as 50 per cent of recruits desert the army and many who remain are described as “mentally, physically unfit and drug addicts”.

This is not a surprise.

Being made cannon fodder to serve an unpopular occupying force can no doubt cause many to search for a way out.

It is more obvious than ever that NATO plans in Afghanistan are crumbling.

The question is how many more people will be killed before the West is kicked out.