Canadian Dimension Feed

Appeal from Quebec: Solidarity and legal support needed

Max Silverman, Andrée Bourbeau, Emilie Charette and Emilie Breton-Côté — 2012-05-22T17:34:39+00:00

Sisters, brothers,

We write you during a dark time for democratic, human and associative rights in Quebec with the following appeal for your help and solidarity. As you have no doubt heard, the government recently enacted legislation that amounts to the single biggest attack on the right to organize and freedom of expression in North America since the McCarthy period and the biggest attack on civil and democratic rights since the enactment of the War Measures Act in 1970. Arguably, this recent law will unduly criminalize more law-abiding citizens than even McCarthy’s hearings and the War Measures Act ever could.

Among other draconian elements brought forward by this law, any gathering of 50 or more people must submit their plans to the police eight hours ahead of time and must agree to any changes to the gathering’s trajectory, starttime, etc. Any failure to comply with this stifling of freedom of assembly and association will be met with a fine of up to $5,000 for every participant, $35,000 for someone representing a ‘leadership’ position, or $125,000 if a union - labour or student - is deemed to be in charge. The participation of any university staff (either support staff or professors) in any student demonstration (even one that follows the police’s trajectory and instructions) is equally punishable by these fines. Promoting the violation of any of these prohibitions is considered, legally, equivalent to having violated them and is equally punishable by these crippling fines.

One cannot view this law in isolation. In the past few months, the Québec student movement - inspired by Occupy, the Indignados of Spain, the students of Chile, and over 50 years of student struggle in Québec; and presently at North America’s forefront of fighting the government’s austerity agenda - has been confronted by precedent-shattering judicial and police repression in an attempt to force the end of the strike and our right to organize collectively. Our strike was voted and is re-voted every week in local general assemblies across Québec. As of May 18th, 2012 our committee has documented and is supporting 472 criminal accusations as well as 1047 ticket and penal offenses. One week in April saw over 600 arrests in three days. And those numbers only reflect those charged with an offense, without mentioning the thousands pepper sprayed and tear gassed, clubbed and beaten, detained and released. It does not mention Francis Grenier, who lost use of most of ! an eye when a sound grenade was illegally thrown by a police officer into his face in downtown Montreal. It does not mention Maxence Valade who lost a full eye and Alexandre Allard who clung to life in a coma on a hospital bed for days, both having received a police rubber bullet to the head in Victoriaville. And the thousands of others brutalized, terrorized, harassed and assaulted on our streets. Four students are currently being charged under provisions of the anti-terrorist laws enacted following September 11th.

In addition to these criminal and penal cases, of particular concern for those of us involved in the labour movement is that anti-strike forces have filed injunctions systematically from campus to campus to prevent the enactment of strike mandates, duly and democratically voted in general assemblies. Those who have defended their strike mandates and enforced the strike are now facing Contempt of Court charges and their accompanying potential $50,000 fines and potential prison time. One of our spokespeople, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, will appear in Superior Court under such a charge for having dared say, on May 13th of this year, that “I find it legitimate” that students form picket lines to defend their strike.

While we fight, on principle, against this judicialization of a political conflict, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the struggle on the streets has been, for many, transferred to the courtroom and we must act to defend our classmates, our friends and our family. This defense needs your help. Many students have been denied access to Legal Aid to help them to defend themselves. This, while students filing injunctions to end strikes have been systematically granted Legal Aid. While sympathetic lawyers in all fields of law have agreed to reduced rates and alot of free support, the inherent nature of the legal system means we are spending large sums of money on this defense by the day.

It is in this context that we appeal to you to help us cover the costs of this, our defense. Not only must we help those being unduly criminalized and facing injunctions undermining their right to associate, but we must act now and make sure that the criminalization and judicialization of a political struggle does not work and set a precedent that endangers the right to free speech and free assembly.

If you, your union, or your organization is able to give any amount of financial help, it would make an undeniable difference in our struggle. In addition to the outpouring of support from labour across Quebec, we have already begun to receive trans-Canadian and international solidarity donations. We thank you for adding your organization’s support to the list.

If you have any questions, please contact us via email legal AT asse-solidarité.qc.ca. Telephone numbers can be given to you in a private message. You can also send you donation directly to the order of “Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante” (2065 rue Parthenais, Bureau 383, Montréal, QC, H2K 3T1) noting “CLASSE Legal Committee” in the memo line.

In solidarity,

Max Silverman

Law student at the Université du Québec à Montréal Volunteer with the Legal Committee of the CLASSE

Andrée Bourbeau

Law student at the Université du Québec à Montréal Delegate to the Legal Committee of the CLASSE

Emilie Charette

Law student at the Université du Québec à Montréal Delegate to the Legal Committee of the CLASSE

Emilie Breton-Côté

Law student at the Université du Québec à Montréal Volunteer with the Legal Committee of the CLASSE

When the Respectable Become Extremists The Extremists Become Respectable

James Petras — 2012-05-22T15:25:54+00:00

By any historical measure, whether it involves international law, human rights conventions, United Nations protocols, socio economic indicators, the policies and practices of the United States and European Union regimes can be characterized as extremist.

By that we mean that their policies and practices result in large scale long-term systematic destruction of human lives, habitat and likelihood affecting millions of people through the direct application of force and violence. The extremist regimes abhor moderation which implies rejection of total wars in favor of peaceful negotiations. Moderation pursues conflict resolution through diplomacy and compromise and the rejection of state and paramilitary terror, mass dispossession and displacement of civilian populations and the systematic assault on popular sectors of civil society.

The first decade of the 21st century has witnessed the West’s embrace of extremism in all of its manifestation both in domestic and foreign policy. Extremism is a common practice by self-styled conservatives, liberals and social-democrats. In the past, conservative implies preserving the status quo and at most tinkering with change at the margins. Today’s ‘conservatives’ demand the wholesale dismantling of entire social welfare systems, the elimination of traditional legal restraints on labor and environmental abuses. Liberals and social democrats who in the past, occasionally, questioned colonial systems have been in the forefront of prolonged multiple colonial wars which have killed and displaced millions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.

Extremism both in terms of methods, means and goals has obliterated the distinctions between center left, center and rightwing politicians. Moderate opponents to policies subsidizing a dozen major banks and impoverishing tens of millions of workers are called the “hard left”, “extremists” or “radicals”.

In the wake of the extremist policies of public officials, the respectable, prestigious print media have engaged in their own versions of extremism. Colonial wars that devastate civil society and materially and culturally impoverish millions in the colonized country are justified, embellished and made to appear as lawful, humane and furthering secular democratic values. Domestic wars on behalf of oligarchies and against wage and salaried workers, which concentrate wealth and deepen despair of the dispossessed are described as rational, virtuous and necessary. The distinctions between the prudent, balanced, prestigious and serious media and the sensationalist, yellow press have disappeared. The fabrication of facts, blatant omissions and distortions of context are found in one as well as the other.

To illustrate the reign of extremism in officialdom and among the prestigious press, we will examine two case studies: US policies toward and the Financial Times and New York Times reportage on Colombia and Honduras.

Colombia: The “Oldest Democracy in Latin America versus “the Death squad Capital of the World”

Following on the heels of euphoric eulogies of Colombia’s emergence as a poster boy in an April issue of Time,and in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, the Financial Times ran a series of articles including a special insert on Colombia’s political and economic “miracle,” “Investing in Colombia”.According to the FTs leading Latin American journalist, one John Paul Rathbone, Colombia is the “oldest democracy in the hemisphere.” Rathbone’s rapture for Colombia’s President Santos extends from his role as an “emerging power broker” for the South American continent, to making Colombia safe for foreign investors and “exciting the envy” of other less successful regimes in the region. Rathbone gives prominence to one Colombia business leader who claims that Colombia’s second biggest city “Medellín is living through its best of times.” In line with the opinion of the foreign and business elite, the respectable print media describe Colombia as prosperous, peaceful, business friendly-charging the lowest mining royalty payments in the hemisphere – a model of a stable democracy to be emulated by all forward-looking leaders. Colombia under President Santos, has signed a free trade agreement with President Obama, his closes ally in the hemisphere. Under Bush the trade unions, human rights and church groups and the majority of Congressional Democrats were successful in blocking the agreement on the bases of the basis of Colombia’s sustained human rights violations. When Obama embraced the free trade agreement, the AFL-CIO and Democratic opposition evaporated, as President Obama claimed a vast improvement in human rights and the commitment of Santos to ending the murder of trade union leaders and activists.

The peace, security and prosperity eulogized by the oil, mining, banking, and agro-business elite are based on the worst human rights record in Latin America. With regard to the murder of trade unionists Colombia exceeds the entire rest of the world. Between 1986-2011 over 60% of the trade unionists assassinated in the world took place in Colombia, by the combined military-police-paramilitary forces, largely at the behest of foreign and domestic corporate leaders. The “peace” that Rathbone and his cohort at the Financial Times praise is at the cost of over 12,000 assassinations and arrests, injuries, disappearances of trade unionists between January 1, 1986 and October 1, 2010. In that time span nearly 3,000 trade union leaders and activists were murdered, hundreds were kidnapped or disappeared. President Santos was the Defense Minister under previous President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010). In those eight years,762 trade union leaders and activists were murdered, over 95% by the state or allied paramilitary forces[9].

Under Presidents Uribe Santos 2002 – 2012 over 4 million peasants and rural householders were displaced and dispossessed of their homes and their lands were confiscated and taken over by landlords and narco-traffickers. The terror tactics employed by the regimes counter-insurgency strategy served a dual purpose of repressing dissent and accumulating wealth. The Financial Times journalists ignore this chapter in Colombia’s “resurgent growth.” They are especially enthused by the security that ensued because large-scale foreign investment, over $6 billion dollars, in 2012 flowed into mining and oil regions that were formerly troubled by unrest.

Leading drug lords, who were closely linked to the Uribe-Santos regime, and were subsequently jailed and extradited to the US have testified that they financed and elected one-third of the Congress people affiliated with Uribe-Santos party in what Rathbone refers to as Latin America’s “oldest democracy.” According to Salvatore Mancuso, ex-chief of the former 30,000 member United Self-Defense of Colombia paramilitary death squad, he met with then, President Uribe, in different regions of the country and gave him money and logistical support in his re-election campaign of 2006. He also affirmed that many national and multi-national corporations (MNC) financed the growth and expansion of the paramilitary death squads. What Rathbone and his fellow journalists at the FT celebrate as Colombia’s emergence as an investor’s paradise is writ large with the blood and gore of thousands of Colombian peasants, trade unionists and human rights activists. The gory history of the Uribe/Santos reign of terror has been completely omitted from the current account of Colombia’s “success story.” Detailed records of the brutality of the killings and torture by Uribe/Santos sponsored death squads, which describe the use of chain saws to cut limbs from peasants suspected of leftist sympathies, are available to any journalist willing to consult Colombia’s leading human rights organizations.

The death squads and military act in concert.The military is trained by by over one thousand US Special Forces advisers.They arrive in a village in a wave of US supplied helicopters, secure the region from guerillas and then allow the AUC terrorists to savage the villages, killing, raping and dissemboweling men, women and children suspected of being guerilla sympathizers.The terror tactics have driven millions of peasants out of the countryside

Allowing the generals and drug lords to seize their land

Human rights advocates (HRA) are frequently targeted by the military and death squads. President Uribe and Santos first accuse them of being active collaborators of the guerillas for exposing the regime’s crimes against humanity. Once they are labelled, the HRA became “legitimate targets” for armed assaults by the death squads and the military who act with complete impunity. Between 2002-2011, 1,470 acts of violence were perpetrated against HRA, with a record number of 239 in 2011, including 49 assassinations during the Presidency of Santos. Over half of the murdered HRA are Indians and Afro-Colombians.

State terrorism was and continues to be the main instrument of rule under Presidents Uribe and Santos. The Colombian “killing fields” according to the Fiscalia General include tens of thousands of homicides, 1,597 massacres, thousands of forced disappearances between 2005 – 2010.

The practice, revealed in the Colombian press, of “false positives” in which the military kidnaps poor young men, dresses them as guerrillas and then assassinates them, comes across in the respectable US print media as evidence of Santos/Uribe’s military successes against the guerrillas. There are 2,472 documented cases of military false positive murders.

Honduras: New York Times and State Terrorism

The New York Times featured an article on Honduras, emphasizing the the regime’s “co-operation” with the US drug war. The Times writer Thom Shanker speaks of a partnership based on the expansion of three new US military bases and the stationing of US Special Forces in the country.

Shanker describes the successful operation of the Honduras Special Operations forces guided and directed by trainers from the US Special Forces. Shanker mentions a visit by a delegation of Congressional staff members who favorably assessed the local forces respect of human rights, and cites the US ambassador in Honduras as praising the regime as an “eager and capable partners in this joint effort”.

There are insidious parallels between the NY Times white wash of the criminal extremist regime in Honduras and the Financial Times’ crude promotion of Colombia’s death squad democracy.

The current regime headed by President Lobo — which invites the Pentagon to expand its military control over swathes of Honduran territory — is a product of a US backed military coup which overthrew an elected liberal President on June 28, 2009, a point Shanker forgets to mention. Lobo, the predator president, retains control by killing, jailing and torturing critics, journalists, human rights defenders and landless rural laborers seeking to reclaim their lands which were violently seized by Lobo’s landlord backers.

Following the military coup, thousands of Honduran pro-democracy demonstrators were killed, beaten and arrested. According to conservative estimates by Human Rights Watch 20 pro-democracy dissidents were murdered by the military and police. Between January 2010 and November 2011 at least 12 journalists critical of the Lobos regime were murdered.

In the countryside, where NY Times reporter Shanker describes a love fest between the US Special Forces and their Honduran counterparts, between January and August 2011,30 farm workers in northern Honduras Bajo Aguán valley were killed by death squads hired by Lobo backed oligarchs. Nary a single military, police and death squad assassin has been judged and jailed. Coup leader Roberto Micheletti and President Lobo, his successor, have repeatedly assaulted pro-democracy demonstrations, especially those led by school teachers, students and trade unionists and have tortured hundreds of jailed political dissidents. Precisely in the same time span as the NY Times publishes its most euphoric article on the friendly relations between the US and Honduras, the death toll among pro-democracy dissidents rose precipitously: eight journalists and a TV commentator have been killed over the first 4 months of 2012. In late March and early April of 2012 nine farmworkers and employees were murdered by pro-Lobo landlords. No arrests, no suspects, impunity reigns in the land of US military bases. The Times follows the Mafia rule of omega-silence and complicity.

Syria: How the FT Absolves Al Qaeda Terrorists

As western backed terrorists savage Syria, the Western press, especially the Financial Times, continues to absolve the terrorists of setting of car bombs killing and maiming hundreds of civilians. With crude cynicism their reporters shrug their shoulders and give credence to the claims of the London-based terrorists propaganda mongers, that the Assad regime was engaged in destroying its own cities and security forces.

As the Obama regime and its European backers publically embrace extremism, including state terror, targeted assassinations and the car bombing of crowded cities, the respectable press has followed suit. Extremism takes many forms — from the omission of reports on the use of force and violence in overthrowing adversary regimes to the cover-up of the wholesale murder of tens of thousands of civilians and the dispossession of millions of peasants and farmers. The educated classes—the affluent, reading public—are being indoctrinated by the respectable media to believe that a smiling and pragmatic President Santos and elected President Lobo have succeeded in establishing peace, market-based prosperity and securing mutually beneficial free trade and military base concessions with the US — even as the two regimes lead the world in the murder of trade unionists and journalists. Even as I read, on May 15, 2012 that the US Hispanic Congressional caucus has awarded Lobo a leadership in democracy award, the Honduran press reports the murder of the news director of station HMT Alfredo Villatoro, the 25th critical journalist killed between January 27, 2010 and May 15, 2012.[24]

The respectable press’s embrace of extremism, its use of demonological terminology and vitriolic language to describe imperial adversaries is matched by its euphoric and effusive praise of state and pro-western mercenary terrorists. The systematic cover-up practiced by extremist journalism goes far beyond the cases of Colombia and Honduras. The reportage of the Financial Times Michael Peel on the NATO led destruction of Libya, Africa’s most advanced welfare state, and the rise to power of armed gangs of fanatical tribal and Islamic terrorists, is presented as a victory for a democracy over a “brutal dictatorship”[25]. Peel’s mendacity and cant is evident in his outrageous claims that the destruction of the Libyan economy and the mass torture and racial murders which ensuied NATOs war, is a victory for the Libyan people.

The totalitarian twist in the respectable press is a direct consequence of its toadying to the extremist policies pursued by the western regimes. Since extremist measures, like the use of force, violence, assassination and torture, have become routinized by the incumbent presidents and prime ministers, the reporters have no choice but to fabricate lies to rationalize these crimes, to spit out a constant flow of highly charged adjectives in order to convert victims into executioners and executioners into victims. Extremism in defense of pro-US regimes has led to the most grotesque accounts imaginable: Colombia and Mexico’s Presidents are the leaders of the most thoroughly narcotized economies in the hemisphere yet they are praised for their war on drugs, while Venezuela the most marginal producer is stigmatized as a major narco pipeline.

Articles with no factual bases, which are worthless as sources of objective information, direct us to seek for an underlying rationale. Colombia has signed a free trade agreement which will benefit US exports over Colombian by over a two to one ratio. Mexico’s free trade policy has benefited US agro-business and giant retailers by a similar ratio.

Extremism in all of its forms permeates Western regimes and finds its justification and rationalization in the respectable media whose job is to indoctrinate civil society and turn citizens into voluntary accomplices to extremism. By endlessly prefacing “reports” on Russia’s Putin as an authoritarian Soviet era tyrant, the respectable media obviate any discussion of his doubling of living standards and the 60% plus electoral triumph. By magnifying an authoritarian past, Gaddhafi’s vast public works, social welfare programs and generous immigration and foreign aid programs to sub-Sahara Africa can be relegated to the memory hole. The respectable press’s praise of death squad Presidents Santos and Lobo is part of a large scale long term systematic shift from the hypocritical pretence of pursuing the virtues of a democratic republic to the open embrace of a virulent, murderous empire. The new journalists’ code reads “extremism in defense of empire is no vice.”

Time for big ideas: Imagine Canada after Harper

Murray Dobbin — 2012-05-21T21:08:27+00:00

Stephen Harper, too, shall pass into history, recorded as one of the most destructive, personally malignant personalities ever to have soiled the Canadian political landscape.

But in the meantime, Canadians are so distracted by his political blitzkrieg through the agencies, policies, programs and institutions that make Canada what it became over five decades, that we are in danger of losing our imagination regarding what is truly possible in this country. While it may seem counter-intuitive, now is the time for Canadians who actually believe in government and nation-building to be contemplating big ideas - the ones that will take us the next step to equality, economic stability and environmental sustainability. Why? Because if we don’t try to get what we want we won’t even get what we need.

Is this just pie in the sky - are Canadians actually open to big ideas? Absolutely. Here are just a few of the signs.

Five signs Canadians aren’t afraid of big ideas

First: CARP, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (with a membership 330,000), has just witnessed a sea change in its members’ voting intentions. For most of the past year just over 50 per cent of them chose the Conservatives. But suddenly, two issues reversed that, giving the NDP (which had consistently run a distant third) first place with 39 per cent and the Harperites 31 per cent. The first issue was the changes to the OAS. But the “political game changer,” according to Susan Eng, vice-president of advocacy for CARP, was the omnibus bill. Eighty-five percent opposed bundling so many legislative changes into a single bill. Seniors, a key part of Harper’s broader base, apparently care about democracy even more than their own safety net.

Sign number two: perhaps we should call it free market fatigue, as increasing numbers of Canadians are questioning the Conservative ideology of minimalist government and a free hand for corporations. As I detailed in my last column, large majorities of Canadians are calling for higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations and are willing to pay more themselves to preserve what we have. And they see the tax issue tied directly to that of inequality - the new top-of-mind issue.

Number three: The Alberta election which seemed for weeks to be heading towards the election of a Harper clone reversed course as Albertans suddenly paid real attention. This wasn’t just a vote against bigotry - though it was that, too - but a vote for good government, something the iconic Tory Peter Lougheed reminded voters of just in the nick of time.

Four: The re-election of Liberal and NDP governments in Ontario (where the NDP did well, too) and Manitoba respectively was not just a vote for incumbency - it was a vote for rational governance and against libertarian recklessness. So will be the almost certain election of the NDP in BC next year.

Five: The Quebec student rebellion. Deep rooted rebellions are always messy and imperfect but while many are uncomfortable with the scenes of violence the students are absolutely right to be protesting tuition fee increases. And now the demonstrations are as much about human rights and the reactionary government of Jean Charest as they are about tuition fees. They are sustained by tens of thousands of our fellow citizens prepared to make real sacrifices for what the rest of us pay lip service to: equality.

But this is also a good example of the role of big ideas. Why wouldn’t we be demanding zero tuition fees - so that all education is free and paid for collectively? We are now, as a nation, well over twice as wealthy per capita (in real, inflation adjusted dollars) as we were when Medicare was established in 1967. The money is there - and in a democracy the people get to decide how those resources are used. We owe the Quebec students (and their hundreds of thousands of supporters in civil society groups) a huge debt of gratitude for shaking us out of our ideology-induced political torpor.

Their message: a better world is possible, but only if we fight for it.

Thinking about a sustainable economy

Our preoccupation with Harper’s outrages, though totally justified, is distracting us from imagining the kind of world we really want to build. Ironically, the projection of extremely low economic growth for the foreseeable future actually provides an imposed opportunity to examine what we desperately need to do anyway - begin to put together plans for a sustainable economy, a redefined prosperity that is not based on unfettered growth in the private sector - the economy of stuff.

If ever there was a time to move in this direction it is now - with corporations sitting on over $700 billion in cash which they refuse to invest because their own policy preferences and reckless behaviour has destroyed demand for private goods and services. Perhaps a tax on idle capital would make sense - a declaration by government that if the private sector can no longer allocate capital investment in the interests of the country and its citizens, then we will take some of it back and allocate it ourselves as public investment. It’s not that we don’t need investment. A no-growth economy is actually a misnomer, for what its advocates are really talking about is a different kind of growth - the kind that only governments can create: mass transit, green energy, a national food strategy, child care, pharma care, home care, culture and anti-poverty programs including affordable housing.

Capitalism will be around for a while yet, but its current incarnation, the savage capitalism of Wall Street and deregulation, needs to be put to rest. The Canadian corporate sector has proven over and over again that it is utterly inept at improving its performance, its investment in research and development and its willingness to take risks and thus improve its productivity. The experiment with government “getting out of the way” of business has been an abject failure.

That should bring back the big idea of a much more planned economy - a robust, imaginative industrial strategy that directs the allocation of private capital to where it is most productive, produces the most and best jobs and provides stability and balance to the economy (NDP leader Thomas Mulcair is on the right track with his Dutch disease analysis). It is the other half of the capital allocation equation. The CAW has taken the lead amongst private sector unions with a 10-point plan to promote the long-term growth of the auto industry. First on the agenda is a national auto policy.

Continuing with the theme of public investment it is long past time that we use the powers of the Bank of Canada to lend to governments (including provincial and municipal governments) at virtually zero interest rates (just enough to cover administrative costs). The insane practice of accumulating a massive public debt by borrowing from private banks ranks as perhaps the most perversely destructive practice of the past forty years.

Democracy and reclaiming the commons

Policies and programs administered by government bureaucracies will not give us what we want - especially given that these bureaucracies are now populated more and more by people dedicated to dismantling government itself. The big idea that will make the difference is a radical, deeply rooted democracy that includes the obvious reforms needed to the electoral system but involves far more than that. Participatory budgeting, institutionalizing citizen participation in the design and delivery of social programs, government subsidies for citizen study circles (as they have in Sweden where some 300,000 such circles are reported each year) which promote education, political literacy and discussion about the kinds of programs and policies people actually want should all be on the agenda.

That’s just a start - add to them yourself by simply using your imagination about what kind of world you would like to wake up to. How will these things ever come to pass? I have no idea - except that unless we think about them, imagine them, and talk about them amongst ourselves it is an absolute certainty that we will never achieve any of them. It is a question of choosing between despair over the historical accident of Stephen Harper and hope rooted in what we know in our hearts to be possible.

In the end it is all about reclaiming the commons - robbed from us by the one per cent and the perverse ideology of neo-liberalism. Maybe we could begin with a small step in that direction - by reinstating Sunday closing. I know, there are lots of objections (its initial roots in Christianity being one) but imagine there actually being a day when you couldn’t buy more stuff. We could bring back an ancient commons tradition: talking to each other.

Review: Imagined Communities

Scott Neigh — 2012-05-19T16:47:32+00:00

[Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition. London: Verso, 2006. (Original edition published in 1983.)]

A quirky book that takes as one of its starting points the historically lousy job that the liberal and marxist traditions had done of theorizing nationalism, Imagined Communities became a widely-read classic with the revival of scholarly and popular attention to the topic that occurred in the 1990s. Anderson’s tendency to make shorthand references to people and events that assume a familiarity with European history that most of us in North America lack, and his tendency to include quotations in languages other than English without providing translations, are occasional irritants, but the combination of lively writing and a grounded, innovative approach makes this book still worth reading three decades after its original publication.

To say that nations are “imagined communities” gets at the idea that we will never meet the vast majority of people with whom we share that identification, and there are huge differences amongst us along any number of axes, yet we still manage to imagine ourselves as shared members of the same collective entity: the nation. And nationalism is best approached not by treating it as a political ideology like certain other ‘-isms’ such as liberalism or marxism, but as deeply intertwined with the nation as a social form — it’s an attachment to that form and to that way of imagining human collectivity.

Previously dominant forms of collective imagining included the religious community — Christendom, the Umma, etc. — and the old dynastic realm, which was both socially organized and imagined much differently from the contemporary nation-state. The nation and corresponding attachments emerged, Anderson argues, through the conjunction of shifts in how we see time and the social world, the emergence of print technology, the increased importance of vernacular languages, and the imperatives of capitalism. He writes, “What, in a positive sense, made the new communities imaginable was a half-fortuitous, but explosive, interaction between a system of production and productive relations (capitalism), a technology of communication (print), and the fatality of human linguistic diversity” (42-3).

Though many scholars before and since this book treat Europe as the home of nationalism, Anderson points out that it first emerged in the Americas in the rebellions of creole elites in Latin America and the future United States against the empires from which they sprang. While, in the Latin examples, the tightening grip of Madrid and the emergence of liberal ideas played a role in creating the conditions for rebellion against the empire, they were not themselves sufficient. Creole elites in each Spanish jurisdiction shared common experiences, common journeys through space and through social contexts and institutions, and common limitations of their roles within the empire, which created shared consciousness and a shared commonsense about a ‘naturally’ existing “we” clearly distinct from the imperial core despite shared language and culture. As well, the emergent newspapers created a widely-shared social ritual that also organized people’s consciousness and sense of belonging in ways that not only built a “we” that corresponded to the existing imperial administrative units but also helped to cement a new notion of the social world as discrete social units moving through linear, ‘empty’ time.

The next form of nationalism to emerge was popular nationalism in Europe, starting from about 1820. Certain shifts making this possible hard already largely occurred. For instance, a sense of ongoing social transition over time — that is, a sense of history — emerged in Europe during the Enlightenment. During the same era, the encounters of European explorers and traders with peoples on other continents normalized the idea of humanity as plural. These helped to make it plausible that at a later moment it would become conceivable to see the natural form of global social organization as being different national units moving forward in parallel. Additionally, language had become an object of study, particularly of historical study, and the languages that had held together the previous religious imaginaries — Latin, in the Western European case — came to be seen as just one more language among many and their sacred place was eroded. For purely practical reasons, empires came to take up vernacular languages for their administration rather than Latin.

In this context, both the model of nationalism from the Americas plus the example of the French Revolution could be taken up and adapted in popular ways in Europe. In the Americas, nationalism did not emphasize shared and distinct language in defining a nation, as both the empire and the colonies which rebelled shared the same tongue. In Europe, much popular nationalism was organized around vernacular languages and deliberate efforts to create national print-languages as part of forging linguistic minorities in the continent’s polyglot imperial territories into nations. Capital-driven print technology played a major role in this, as did the efforts of language-oriented scholars. This helped forge reading publics, which at the time were some mix (depending on the area) of nobility, landholders, professional, bureaucrats, and capitalists. In the Americas, at least at first, there was no particular effort to use nationalism to inspire lower-class investment in the national projects, whereas this was true from the start in Europe.

Partly in reaction to the rise of popular nationalisms, and the corresponding emergence of a sense that linguistic national communities should exist autonomously in a collection of equals, the imperial entities of Europe countered with official nationalisms of their own as deliberate policy. From the start, as a “willed merger of nation and dynastic empire” (86), these official nationalisms always contained a tension between the particular emerging (but often concealed) nation at the heart of the empire and the larger imperial project, but they still often had a major impact in shaping the practices and consciousness of those subject to them.

The final form of nationalism that Anderson identifies was that in the emerging, postcolonial states in the 20th century. Postcolonial nationalisms, he says, were generally a mix of populist enthusiasm and careful calculation by the newly sovereign states. The postcolonial states inherited a great deal from the colonial states they succeeded, not just geographic scope but also the journies of education and administration in which elite consciousness was formed and the various categories and practices instilled under empires which formed consciousnesses that continued into the post-imperial period. He traces the colonial emergence of technologies like the census, the map, and the museum for developing totalizing observation and classification in the colonies and the connection of an abstracted narrative claiming continuity with the distant past, all of which carried over in various ways into postcolonial state practices.

Anderson also points out that even revolutionary seizure of the state, as in the Soviet Union or China or Vietnam, tends to result in those who seize it having their choices and their path to a large degree conditioned by the already-existing state form. One of the many ways this is true is with respect to nation and nationalism. He uses this to explain what at the time of the original writing was the emerging phenomenon of war between actually-existing socialist states that looked much like any other inter-state wars.

There’s lots to like, here. Lots of the arguments Anderson makes are plausible. The emergence of a new social form and related imaginative identification through the accidental conjunction of certain changes sounds plausible. The emergence of shared consciousness and shared imagination through shared practices also sounds realistic. The modularization and adaptation of the social form once it exists in the world also sounds very life-like. In addition, one theme that emerged in my recently-completed class in postcolonial theory is that many postcolonial theorists posit a role for the novel in the shaping of consciousness without saying much about how that might happen, whereas Anderson generally connects texts to changes in consciousness through particular kinds of practices. All of that said, though, he stops short of doing the work necessary to demonstrate that this is what did happen. Certainly the correspondence between elite journeys in the Spanish colonies in the Americas, and later in different ways in European colonies in Africa and Asia, and the actual national attachments that emerged (with no other real correspondence to pre-colonial social organization or imagination) is a strong enough correlation that we should take it seriously. But there must be ways to document this emergence more thoroughly in terms of the shifts of consciousness observable among the people involved.

I have a few other quibbles as well. For instance, he has a short chapter presenting a theory of racism, and basically arguing that it isn’t as inherent to nationalism as many left and liberal European intellectuals of the 1970s and 1980s would have argued. He points out that the organization of racial oppression bears more resemblance to the organization of class oppression than it does to the organization of nation and of national sentiment, and argues that instances of racism and nationalism being integrated are an imperial imposition and not inherent to the national form. I think there are some reasonable points here — the relationship between racism and class oppression, for instance — but I think it drastically underestimates the persistence of race as a feature of national identification in former imperial centres and in former settler colonies like Canada.

Related to that, I think much more needs to be said about the interplay of capacity to imagine self as part of a nation and one’s place within the social relations that constitute that nation. How are subordination within and exclusion from nations socially organized, and how does that relate to how they are imagined?

It is intriguing to think about how these ideas might relate to Canada, something he does not mention at all but the sort of thing I’m going to be thinking about rather a lot in the next few months. It seems like the emergence of an English-dominated Canadian nation and nationalism is in some ways quite distinct from any other in the Americas in that it involved a gradual, mutual separation from the imperial core rather than a more contentious break. My sense is that many of the Canadian founding elites were not creole, unlike in the U.S. and Latin America, but were born in the metropole. The Canadian state was also to a certain extent created as a distinct and no-longer-purely-colonial entity for imperial administrative and political convenience rather than any kind of overwhelming local pressure that it be so. I think these things might help explain the odd juxtaposition of pseudo-national consciousness that was clearly integrated into and subordinate to, at least in its dominant strand, an unapologetic imperial consciousness for almost a century. That was not displaced by a more clearly national consciousness until the 1960s.

In any case, this is an important book for me to have read — well, re-read, actually — as I move into what is going to be a fairly heavy reading course organized around thinking critically about English Canadian nationalism. I was initially a bit resistant to the idea of reading something I’ve already read, but am now convinced it was a good idea, and would certainly recommend engagement with Anderson’s work to anyone trying to think about such questions.

[Scott Neigh is a parent, activist, and writer based in Sudbury, Ontario. This post originally appeared on his personal blog, as have many other book reviews. Scott has two books of Canadian history entered through the words of activists coming out in late 2012.]

Charest declares war on Quebec’s students

Richard Fidler — 2012-05-18T16:56:16+00:00

“It’s a declaration of war on the student movement,” said Martine Desjardins, leader of the FEUQ. “They’ve just told the young people that everything they have done, everything they have created as a social movement for 14 weeks will now be criminal.”

“It’s a bill designed to kill the student associations, but also to silence an entire population…. This law is far worse for freedom of expression than the 75% increase in tuition fees might be for accessibility to education,” said Léo Bureau-Blouin, leader of the FECQ.

Bill 78, tabled late in the evening last night by Quebec’s Liberal government, is draconian legislation. Here are its main provisions, which as I write are still being debated in the National Assembly after an all-night session.

It suspends the academic sessions in all colleges and universities affected by the student strike. They will resume in August, and the scheduled fall sessions will be postponed to begin in October.
It forces professors — most of whom have supported the students — to report to work by 7:00 a.m. on August 17 and to resume teaching. All staff must, as of that date, perform all normal duties “without stoppage, slowdown, decrease or alteration in his or her normal activities,” and must not engage in any “concerted action” in violation of these clauses.
It prohibits any attempt, by act or omission, to prevent access by anyone to an educational institution which he or she has the right or duty to access.
No picketing that might inhibit such access may be held within 50 metres of the institution.
It virtually bans demonstrations for the next year. Organizers of demonstrations, it says, must tell police how many demonstrators will be involved (!) and their intended route at least eight hours before the demonstration begins, and must comply with any police order to change the location or route. Student associations will be held collectively liable for any damage caused to a third party as a result of the demonstration.
Violations of these provisions will be punished by fines of between $7,000 and $35,000 for each leader, employee or representative of a student association. The associations as such may be fined between $25,000 and $125,000, with double these fines for repeat offenses. Individual offenders may be fined $1,000 to $5,000 per day.
Student associations deemed responsible for any disruption of courses within an institution may be deprived of their check-off of dues from student fees, as well as their premises and facilities, during one semester for every day of such disruption.

With this law, Quebec is “sliding toward authoritarianism,” said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, co-spokesman for the CLASSE, the major student association that represents about half of the strikers. This is a law that “challenges fundamental liberties” and “recognized constitutional rights,” he added.

Pointing to the bill’s attack on the rights of association, demonstration, and speech, Opposition leader Pauline Marois compared the bill with the federal War Measures Act, used by Trudeau to jail hundreds of Québécois in October 1970. Premier Charest, the PQ leader said, “has no further moral authority or legitimacy to govern.”

Amir Khadir, the Québec solidaire member of the National Assembly, attacked Charest for constructing “a police state around the academic community and threatening all those who work in education with his judicial, police and financial bludgeons.”

“This is a dark day for Quebec,” said QS president Françoise David. “Tonight we solemnly appeal to the student movement, the popular movement, the committed artists, the socially responsible lawyers and jurists, the trade unions, the parents worried about the escalation in violence, to put up a determined and concerted resistance in order to make this law unworkable….”

Earlier in the day, leaders of the FEUQ and FECQ held a news conference accompanied by Marois, Khadir, and other MNAs in a last-minute appeal to the government to negotiate in good faith with the students. Significantly, they were joined by Laurent Proulx, a leader of the “green squares,” a student group that has initiated many of the anti-strike injunction proceedings in the courts. He said his “movement of socially responsible students” supported the position of the former head of the Quebec Bar, who had publicly called for mediation, not a special law, to resolve the tuition fee protest.

Also attending the news conference was Robert Michaud of the “white squares for social peace” movement, formed by concerned parents in the aftermath of the extreme police violence in repressing a pro-student demonstration in Victoriaville early in May.

However, their efforts to head off Charest’s repressive legislation have failed. It now remains to be seen whether these forces can respond to the law with the “concerted resistance” that Françoise David calls for.

The mass demonstration planned for next Tuesday, May 22, in Montréal will be an early opportunity to initiate this defiance.

Richard Fidler blogs at Life on the Left.

Quebec government bludgeons student strikers with emergency law

Richard Fidler — 2012-05-17T22:27:47+00:00

Quebec premier Jean Charest announced May 16 that he will introduce emergency legislation to end the militant student strike, now in its 14th week, that has shut down college and university campuses across the province. The students are protesting the Liberal government’s 75% increase in university tuition fees, now slated to take place over the next seven years.

The special law, Charest said, will suspend the current session for the striking students and impose harsh penalties for those who in the future attempt to block physical access to campus premises or “disrupt” classes. It will not include the terms the government offered following a 22-hour marathon negotiating session May 4-5 — although, as we shall see below, we have not heard the last of some of those provisions. That offer was rejected overwhelmingly by the students in mass meetings held during the past week. In all, 115 associations representing 342,000 of Quebec’s 400,000 college and university students voted to reject it. Of these, more than 150,000 students are still on strike. (Detailed voting results in french are here.)

The law will effectively end the present strike, but without resolving any of the underlying issues. The immediate goal of the strike was to stop the tuition hike, but the strike also revived a major public debate over long-standing proposals in Quebec to expand access to university education through abolition of fees and to roll back the increasing subordination of higher education to market forces and private corporate interests. The government turned a deaf ear to the students on all these questions.

“The Liberals have spit on an entire generation,” said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, a spokesman for the CLASSE, the largest student association. “It is a repressive and authoritarian law. It restricts the students’ right to strike, which has been recognized for years by the educational institutions.” The CLASSE has called for a massive march of students and their supporters, to be held May 22 in Montréal. It hopes the numbers mobilized in the streets will be comparable with the estimated 200,000 who came out on March 22 and the even greater number who assembled on April 22, Earth Day.

Equally outraged was the president of the national teachers union, the Fédération nationale des enseignants et enseignantes du Québec (FNEEQ-CSN), Jean Trudelle. “They talk of accessibility as if was simply a question of opening the doors,” he said. The president of the university professors’ union, Max Roy, likewise denounced the government for failing to take the students’ concerns seriously.

Charest’s announcement came less than two days after education minister Line Beauchamp suddenly resigned not only from the cabinet but from her seat in the National Assembly, admitting that she was no longer “part of the solution” to a crisis that has shaken the government. Arrogant and obdurate to the end, Beauchamp said she had “lost confidence in the willingness of the student leaders to search for solutions and… a genuine way out of the crisis.” Premier Jean Charest promptly replaced her with Michèle Courchesne, a former education minister.

“The problem for us has never been Ms. Beauchamp,” said CLASSE spokesman Nadeau-Dubois. “The problem is the hike in tuition fees. And it is not by changing the minister…that the present crisis will be solved. The crisis will be solved when they agree to talk about the reason why the students are on strike, that is, the increase in tuition fees.”

Charest’s self-imposed crisis

The minister’s resignation underscored the depth of the crisis the Charest government has brought upon itself. For months it tried to trivialize the strike, ignoring the students’ demands, refusing to negotiate, evidently hoping the movement would exhaust itself, especially as the current spring session approached its end with no resolution in sight. But even as they faced loss of their session credits if the strike continued, the students for the most part held firm, successfully mounting defiant mass pickets at many campuses and frustrating more than 30 court injunctions to reopen the institutions, often in the face of massive police violence and multiple arrests. Well over one thousand students have been arrested — a total that far exceeds the previous record arrests in the 2010 G20 protests in Toronto — and many face criminal charges for disruptive tactics or defiance of police orders to disperse.

In recent weeks they have marched each night, usually in the thousands, through the streets of Montréal, in colourful impromptu demonstrations that play cat-and-mouse with police attempts to control their route. It is the “Printemps érable” — the “maple spring” that is the Quebec version of the Occupy movement — in this case occupying the streets of the province’s metropolis.

Although the government and the corporate media have worked relentlessly in recent months to turn public opinion against the students, there were signs that the students’ militant resistance was opening breaches in this strategy. A Léger Marketing poll published May 11 reported that 71% of those interviewed think the government has “mismanaged” the conflict. Another Léger poll found that Francophones (more than 80% of the province’s population) and those under 55 years of age tended to hold the government and not the student associations responsible for the failure to settle the crisis.

The portrayal of the students’ struggle as a self-serving attempt to avoid paying “their fair share” of education expenses is falling flat on its face. Le Devoir columnist Michel David was simply stating the obvious when he concluded: “If so many young people are prepared to sacrifice their session, it is manifestly because they feel they are defending a cause that goes beyond their individual interests.”

As David noted, the strike is showing signs of becoming one of those epochal moments in Quebec’s evolution, a “catalyst,” as he put it, for a burgeoning movement of protest challenging the current direction of the society. His take on this is worth quoting at some length:

“Any society periodically experiences a conflict that captures the imagination and then becomes a sort of landmark. In recent decades Quebec has been marked by the asbestos strike, the strike of the Radio-Canada producers, or the strike by the United Aircraft workers.

“The student strike could well become one of these landmarks. What was initially claimed to be a mere budgetary item has had a catalytic effect on the frustrations of those who are fed up with hearing the ‘lucides’ associate the social-democratic values inherited from the Quiet Revolution with opposition to change or the status quo. […]

“It is true that the gradual rehabilitation of the ‘solidaire’ discourse in public opinion began before the student conflict. The world financial crisis, which has spectacularly enhanced the role of the state, the movement of the ‘indignés,’ and the right-wing policies imposed by the Harper government have disturbed people, but the red square [the red felt flash worn by striking students] has clearly favoured the link with what was once called the ‘forces vives,’ the living forces of the society.”

Like any mass struggle of such scope, the student strike has also challenged the existing political forces in Quebec society to declare where they stand. The only party strongly supporting the students, the left-wing Québec solidaire, calls for free education from kindergarten to university.[7] Responding to Charest’s announcement May 16, Amir Khadir, the QS member of the National Assembly, declared his party’s solidarity “more than ever, on the side of the students” and promised to fight any attempt to criminalize dissent. And he added:

“Québec solidaire strongly believes that … the student movement in Quebec has won, in that it has changed Quebec. The movement has won through its intelligence, its unity, by putting a freeze on tuition fees and even free university education at the centre of the debate on education, and education at the centre of political debate.

“Whatever the decision of the student movement on its conduct in the face of the special legislation, we are going to respect it. We are going to accompany this movement and defend it as best we can. Whatever happens in the coming months, the students’ struggle is not finished, and will enter new stages, and our party will be in solidarity with it.”

Ranged solidly against the students are not only the Liberals but the new right-wing Coalition Avenir Québec led by former Parti Québécois minister François Legault, who has been calling for increased police repression and other measures to break the strike.

Somewhere in the middle is the official opposition party, the PQ, which appears to be caught between two stools. PQ members of the National Assembly sport the red square badge of support for the students, to the obvious irritation of Premier Charest and his ministers. But PQ leader Pauline Marois calls only for an “indexed freeze” on current tuition fees — somewhat less than what the PQ congress of April 2011 demanded: a restoration of the freeze at 2007 levels until a summit on higher education is held and legislation is adopted governing tuition fees and incidental fees.

However, at the opening of the PQ national council in early May, Marois said that in the forthcoming elections Québécois will have to choose between “everyone for himself” and the “culture of mutual assistance.” Could she be looking over her left shoulder at Québec solidaire?

Doing unionism differently?

Also tested in this struggle have been the major social institutions of the 99%, Quebec’s trade unions, which continue to represent almost 40% of the province’s workers and a substantial majority of its public and parapublic sector employees. The union centrals are coming under increasing criticism for their approach to the strike — one of lukewarm and largely symbolic support to the students, but at crucial points of doubtful assistance. Details are now emerging of the role played by the leaders of the major union centrals in the May 4-5 negotiations between the students and government, to which they were invited as “advisors” to the students.

Although all three (FTQ, CSN and CSQ) told the ministers they supported the student demands — the CSN said it had supported free tuition for 40 years — it appears from the CLASSE account that the union leaders:

accepted the government move to focus a “solution” to the strike on reduction of university expenses, possible reductions in incidental fees, but not tuition fees;
counselled the students more than once not to “go too far” in their demands;
joined with the government negotiators in rejecting a student request after more than 12 hours of meeting for a break in which to get some rest and consult mutually on details of the proposed agreement;
later lauded the government offer — while the government termed it an “agreement,” the unions termed it a “road map” toward a settlement — as “good news” for the people of Quebec.

Writing in the left-wing online journal Presse-toi-à-gauche, a publication not in the habit of criticizing the union leadership, René Charest noted the similarity between this “road map” and the sweetheart public sector union agreement negotiated by the union leadership in 2010. The latter agreement made a possible wage increase — mainly at the end of the contract, five years later — contingent on the union’s ability to demonstrate sufficient growth meanwhile in Quebec’s GNP.

“The negotiated agreement on the tuition fee hike, for its part, said it would have to be demonstrated that there were possible savings in order to decrease the incidental fees. In both cases, these agreements acknowledge that the financial framework is insufficient to meet the requirements of the contending parties. … [T]he Liberal government’s device was to tell the students: Pay up or help us rationalize the university: either way, it’s win-win for the entrepreneurial state. You could say the same thing about the union movement in the public sector: ‘If you want to earn more help us reorganize the public finances.’ […]

“What is the role of the union movement in this social struggle being led by the student movement? We don’t really know what happened in the corridors, although some journalists have begun to publish some interesting facts. One thing is clear, however. There has been no real dialogue between the student movement and the union movement since the beginning of this strike, or else we would not have had this tragicomic episode. Yet a strategic dialogue could have begun two years ago when the Coalition contre la tarification et la privatisation des services publics began the battle against the [first] Bachand budget. […]

“And this strategic dialogue could have taken place after the CSN congress last spring. We recall that a member of the Montreal hospital union came to defend a proposal for a social strike against the neoliberal measures of the Charest government. She hadn’t even finished her speech when the hall erupted. A standing ovation, no less! Two or three delegates from the CSN apparatus (central council and FNEEQ) spoke in favour. Then Pierre Patry, a member of the executive, spoke in support, along the following lines: we will support the students and then debate the mandate for the social strike. The next day the new president Louis Roy called for discussing the need for the social strike in the workplaces. Since then, we have heard no echo of this call for a social strike.

“It is not too late to do the right thing. The student movement has no need for mediators or facilitators. It needs the solid support of the union movement as a whole. Perhaps it is time to think of doing unionism differently. That is, to lead a union struggle that is plugged into the social struggles and vitality of the mobilization, and not to the fossilized bureaucratic structures of the entrepreneurial state.”

Professors join in denouncing May 5 ‘agreement’

It should be noted that, contrary to what I reported previously on the basis of press reports, the university professors’ union was excluded from the May 4-5 negotiations and did not support the government “agreement.” In a news release published on May 9, the FQPPU complained that it was therefore prevented from expressing the views of the professors, “whose work will nevertheless be indispensable when courses resume.” And it concludes: “In view of the absurdity of this situation and the trivializing of the issues that has appeared in recent months, the FQPPU does not support the agreement announced on May 5.”

An op-ed commentary on the terms the government had offered, co-signed by FQPPU president Max Roy, published in Le Devoir May 9, gave a “fail” grade to “this travesty,” and called the proposed provisional council “a bad joke” that would “trade off problems of university mission and orientation as simple problems of management.” Furthermore, it would “completely obliterate the meaning of what we do, the preservation of a university that is a genuine collective good, a genuine public service for our entire community.” The proposal as a whole, the authors noted, “offers an accounting solution to a problem that must be resolved in terms of a ‘societal choice’.”

Given the social polarization that resulted, many have questioned why the Charest government has held so stubbornly to its decision to hike the fees — even while advertising repeatedly that the increase, spread over seven years and minus a tax credit, would add only “50 cents a day” to the student bill. In fact, even free post-secondary education, as demanded by many students and professors, would cost barely 1% of the total government budget, according to most estimates.

It seems that shifting the costs of higher education increasingly to the students is as much a principle for the government’s post-secondary education planners as abolishing those fees is a principle for many students and professors. Why is this? Some indication may be gained from articles by Pierre Dubuc, editor of L’aut’journal, who draws on research by Philippe Lapointe, a leader of the CLASSE. Dubuc summarizes the research in an article in the May 17 on-line issue of L’aut’journal. Here is the article, in my translation.

Charest wants to transform Quebec into a “Right-to-Study State”

by Pierre Dubuc

Maintaining the increase in tuition fees, suspending courses and disqualifying student organizations. With its special law, the text of which is unknown at time of writing, the Charest government continues its effort to integrate Quebec universities in the world university network in accordance with the neoliberal principles of the Bologna process, and transform Quebec into a “Right-to-study state” on the model of the “Right-to-work states” of the southern United States.

In the agreement of last May 6, now obsolete, the minister Courchene slyly introduced, in article 2, the creation of a Permanent Universities Council with a mandate to examine “in light of the best practices” such topics as “abolition and creation of programs, internationalization, partnerships between the universities and the communities, continuing education, the quality of training, research, support and university bodies.”

Close observers of the universities saw in this clause — which has no obvious link to the issue of tuition fees — a desire by the government to comply with the Bologna process. The latter derives its name from a conference held in Bologna in June 1999 in which 29 European countries signed a document that envisaged the creation of a European common space for higher education.

This process is divided into three major reforms. First, standardize studies into three cycles. Second, establish a single system for calculating university credits that are transferable between institutions. Third, institute quality assurance, under the management of agencies external to the universities.

In Quebec, the first two reforms are already in place, apart from the non-compliance of the CEGEP ( Collèges d’enseignement générale et professionnelle) network, hence the repeated calls for its abolition — most recently from the CAQ of Sirois-Legault — and its restructuring on the model of the “colleges” in English Canada.

In Europe, this reform, which is modelled on the American universities, presents education as a personal investment. It is accompanied by a substantial increase in tuition fees, with repayment proportional to income: exactly the measures put forward by the Charest government.

In this big global market, education is an industry and the universities are enterprises fiercely competing to attract international students. The Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec (CREPUQ) has identified, among its priority objectives, the need to “increase the resources to attract foreign students.”

Unsurprisingly, in the middle of the current conflict, the rectors of our universities did not hesitate to go to Brazil to recruit students. The Brazilian government has just announced that more than 100,000 Brazilian students will attend foreign universities over the next four years, at the expense of their government. Canada plans to attract 12,000 and the Quebec universities want “their fair share” of this windfall.

The international market in foreign students is expanding rapidly. In 2008, 3.3 million students were educated in countries other than their own. This is a 154% increase over a five-year period. And of course there is a strong demand for courses in English, which explains the inauguration of courses in English by the University of Montréal, its business school the HÉC and even UQAM, the Montréal campus of the University of Quebec.

In Quebec, the number of international students has risen from 9,135 in 2003 to 26,191 in 2010. Today, in the Quebec universities, close to one student in ten is an international student.

For the Quebec universities and government, the international students “pay” much more than Quebec students, if we make an exception for students from France or other countries with which Quebec has agreements.

Overall, the university fees demanded of foreign students are about seven times higher than those paid by Quebec students. So why not replace Quebec students, ousted by the hike in tuition fees, with students from other countries?

But the fees paid by the international students, even subsidized, do not cover the actual costs of many courses such as medicine, engineering, etc. So we subsidize, through our taxes, a portion of the costs of these students, most of whom will return to their countries at the end of their studies.

Of course, there are other financial advantages for the host countries in accepting international students. They have to be housed, clothed, fed, entertained, etc. But the question is posed: Do these economic spinoffs and the tuition fees they cover compensate for the amount of the subsidy we pay to them?

The presence of international students is, to be sure, a source of cultural enrichment and Quebec has a duty, as a rich country, to welcome students from poor countries. We already have agreements with these countries that codify the disinterested assistance with give them.

However, the current market in international students is something else. It has all the characteristics of an industry and it illustrates perfectly the commodifying of education in the epoch of globalization.

Evidently, the Charest government gives precedence to positioning our universities in the global hall of fame over the schooling of the Québécois.

Unfortunately for it, and fortunately for us, the students do not see it that way. Through their courageous and determined struggle against the tuition fee hike they are challenging the very foundations of this liberal vision of education.

For the government, the issue goes beyond the amount of the tuition fees. Thus it resorts to a special law in which primacy is given to individual rights over collective rights, in which a student’s “right to study” prevails over the collective decision of a student assembly.

This is exactly the situation experienced by workers and unions in the so-called right to work states, those former slave states in the South, where collective agreements are illegal and the unions are condemned to operate in the underground. Is that the fate that awaits the student organizations?

That the Charest government is attacking the right to association should be no surprise to us. There is a lock-out at the Rio Tinto Alma plant because the government opened the door to contracting out with the amendments to section 45 of the Labour Code in 2003. It let the company violate the spirit of the anti-scab law through the hiring of numerous management personnel prior to the conflict, and it allows Hydro-Québec to purchase the kilowatts of electricity freed up by the stoppage of two thirds of production.

The students’ struggle must be the struggle of all Québécois, of all their organizations. It should be taken to the political level and become part of the struggle for the emancipation of the Quebec people.

We will be unable to establish free tuition and improve our social programs while we continue to pay 20% of the tens of billions awarded by the federal government for the operation of the tar sands, the Ontario automobile industry and the purchase of the F-35 fighter planes.

The fight against neoliberalism has its specific national features. In Quebec, it proceeds through national independence. That alone has the potential to shake the structures of domination, to liberate the creative forces, and to be the leaven of social transformation at the level of North America.

Richard Fidler blogs at Life on the Left.

Labour Struggles in the New Age of Austerity

Mick Sweetman — 2012-05-17T20:54:43+00:00

The first months of 2012 hardly represented a new beginning for the working class in Canada and internationally. From the riots and general strike in Greece to the lockout of Electro Motive Diesel in London, workers have found ourselves under severe attack.

This winter offensive by employers is a continuation of the same attacks that workers have faced since the meltdown of the global financial markets in 2008. When we hear that the European banks have a new bailout package for Greece, we have only to remember the massive aid packages the US government gave to Wall Street at the outbreak of the crisis to know that the rich will be bailed out while we get sold out.

Lockouts in Ontario and Québec

New Year’s Day was an ominous start for labour in Canada with 465 workers locked out of the Electro Motive Diesel (EMD) locomotive plant in London, and another 800 aluminum smelter workers in Alma, Québec, also locked out by Rio Tinto Alcan (RT A). In both cases the company had been recently sold to a giant international corporation, Caterpillar in EMD’s case and Rio Tinto in Alcan’s, with an anti-union reputation.

Another similarity was the companies’ demands that the workers accept massive wage cuts. In Caterpillar’s case they sought to directly slash by up to 50 percent the wages paid to hourly employees, while with RT A wages would be cut dramatically by the contracting out of work done by union members as they retire.

RTA received generous subsidies of public money in a secret agreement with the Québec government. A news story by Robert Dutrisac in Le Devoir, based on documents obtained by the Gazette, blew the lid off the deal, which was signed in December 2006 by Alcan and transferred to Rio Tinto when they bought Alcan in July 2007.

In the agreement, Hydro-Québec is obligated to purchase excess electricity at 4.5 times the cost estimated for RTA to produce it. In February Hydro-Québec paid RTA $15 million for electricity that the crown corporation doesn’t need, a 50 percent increase from what it paid in January. If the lockout continues, Hydro-Québec could be on the hook for an estimated $175 million a year. In addition to paying the company for excess electricity, the agreement also gave RT A additional “tax assistance” worth $112 million, and an interest free loan of $400 million repayable over 30 years in exchange for $2.1 billion in company investment. But the heart of the secret agreement is a clause called “force majeure.” Usually reserved for situations such as war, insurrections and earthquakes, it is extended for RTA to also include “labour disputes, strike, picket or lockout.” This clause would suspend RTA from its legal obligations to the province. However, in the case of a labour dispute the company does not have to prove it was diligent in correcting the effects of a force majeure, as the agreement says that in such cases the settlement is left at the discretion of the affected parties.

In essence this means that not only is Rio Tinto potentially off the hook for its obligations in a lockout, it can idle production at the smelter and sell the electricity produced by its power plants at a profit, at a guaranteed rate.

To top it off, this is a time where available aluminum for sale on the world market far exceeds the demand by manufacturers, and producers all over the world are cutting back on production and shutting down mines and smelters in an effort to deplete their stock and drive prices back up. Since the lockout started, prices for aluminum on the London Metals Exchange have jumped from US $300 to US $2,173 per tonne. According to Dutrisac, the Alma plant produces roughly 435,000 tons of aluminum a year and the price increase would rake in an extra $130 million, or more than $1 billion in profits for all of Rio Tinto’s smelters combined.

Days of Action

In response to this situation, the Syndicat des Métallos Local 9490 (United Steelworkers) called for a massive rally in Alma on March 31. This mirrors the “day of action” in London that the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) called on January 21, when thousands of trade unionists were bussed in from across Ontario to rally in the snow-covered Victoria Park in support of the locked out EMD workers.

In addition to the day of action organized by the OFL, the members of the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW) Local 27 also enjoyed energetic support from Occupy London (Ontario) and other members of the community. Occupy London was setting up tents on the picket lines in early January while temperatures dropped to below -20 Celsius and the cold wind cut right through winter clothes on the isolated industrial road.

Two months before, on November 9, CAW Local 27 and the OFL had joined Occupy London when the city moved to evict the group from Victoria Park. While that didn’t stop the eviction of Occupy London’s camp, it lay the basis for increased identification and solidarity with the labour movement as part of the “99 percent.”

Occupy Calls for Global Solidarity

Just a week into the lockout, Occupy London issued a press release for global solidarity actions against Caterpillar Inc., calling on Occupy activists to join the mass day of action and organize solidarity actions. Occupy London activist Anthony Verberckmoes was given a prime opportunity to speak from the stage at the day of action rally. He didn’t mince his words.

In addition to laying out the political and logistical support that CAW Local 27 had given Occupy London during their camp in the fall, Verberckmoes also said: “We think we also offer a bit of a lesson in occupying today. We used civil disobedience and we used direct action. We didn’t rely on the political institutions to get us what we want because we’ve lost faith in them. They’re not serving us anymore, they’re not giving us what we need, they’re selling us out. We think we need to take back our factories, we need to take back our schools, we need to take back our political institutions. We should be taking the streets, standing up, drawing a line in the sand and saying ‘no more!’”

Part of this militancy among the young activists of Occupy might be related to the fact that the unemployment rate for youths in Canada aged 15–24 reached 14.7 percent in February, with unemployment rising for the fifth consecutive month. That is equal to an additional 27,000 unemployed young workers in February alone. The national unemployment rate for all workers in Canada is 7.4 percent, according to Statistics Canada.

Like their brothers and sisters in Alma, the workers at EMD were facing a multinational company with immense wealth and resources. In 2011 Caterpillar’s total assets were a staggering $81.446 billion. When Caterpillar bought EMD in 2010 they paid $820 million to Greenbriar Berkshire, a US equity group, who had previously purchased the company from General Motors in 2005 for the bargain-basement price of $201 million.

However, at the same time that Caterpillar was taking ownership of EMD, their wholly owned subsidiary Progress Rail was busy building a new locomotive manufacturing plant in Muncie, Indiana.

There were two possible reasons for the opening of a new plant in Muncie. First, the “Buy American” policies of the US Department of Transportation; and second, the introduction of right-to-work legislation in Indiana that would remove the unions’ security clause that requires all workers at union shops to pay union dues. Opponents of the law point to lower wages and benefits in the 22 states with similar legislation. The anti-union bill was signed into law by Governor Mitch Daniels on February 1.

Two days later on February 3, less than two weeks after the London day of action, Caterpillar announced that it was closing the plant. There were rumblings of a possible plant occupation from CAW’s National President Ken Lewenza immediately after the announcement, but it was always framed as a last resort in the case that Caterpillar refused to negotiate a closure agreement with the union.

Hospital Occupied in Greece, General Strike in India

Canada is far from the only place in the world where occupations of workplaces have been not only discussed but also acted on. In Greece, where the economy has been in free-fall and youth unemployment is just over 50 percent, physicians and workers occupied the General Hospital in Kilkis on February 20 and started running it under workers’ control.

In response to the massive economic crisis, including the cutting of 11,000 hospital beds, the occupiers’ first statement said: “The workers at the General Hospital of Kilkis answer to this totalitarianism with democracy. We occupy the public hospital and put it under our direct and absolute control. The GH of Kilkis will henceforth be self-governed and the only legitimate means of administrative decision making will be the General Assembly of its workers.”

A follow-up statement issued on February 26 by Leta Zotaki, a member of the workers’ general assembly and president of ENIK (Union of the Doctors of Greek National Health Care System in Kilkis), was even more explicit about where the hospital workers were putting the blame:

“The debts are created by bankers who create money out of thin air and collect interest, just because our governments gave them the right to do so. And they keep saying that for those debts it is you and me and our children and grandchildren that will have to pay with our personal and national assets, with our lives. We do not owe them anything. On the contrary, they owe the people a great part of the fortunes they made thanks to the political corruption.”

Meanwhile, in India 100 million workers staged a massive general strike on February 28. Nine major union federations called the strike under the Coordination Committee of Central Trade Unions. The major demands of the strike were for the Indian government to contribute 50,000 more rupees (US $10 billion) to social security for informal workers, to establish a national minimum wage, to address the rising cost of living, to bring increases to pensions, and to stop privatizing public companies.

Unrest in China

China has also seen a recent upsurge of working-class unrest. Perhaps most dramatic was the Wukan Village uprising where in December 2011 local residents expelled Communist Party officials and took control of the village, near China’s industrial centre in Guangdong Province.

The spark for the December uprising was the death of village representative Xue Jinbo in police custody on December 11. Police claimed that Xue died from a cardiac arrest but relatives who identified his body claimed that there were signs of torture and visible bruising.

The origin of conflict was what villagers claimed was a land-grab in September. They accused party officials of selling land to real estate developers without proper compensation to the local residents.

Evictions and other displacements of people from the land in China was found to be a leading cause of the 180,000 reported “mass incidents” in 2010, which include protests and riots according to the Research Centre for Social Contradictions in Beijing.

Labour costs in China are on the rise. According to an article in the Economist headlined “The end of cheap China,” the investment bank Standard Chartered published a survey of 200 Hong Kong-based companies in the Pearl River Delta that showed wages rising by 10 percent in the past year. There may be heightened class conflict in the country as employers seek new ways to increase profits such as speed-ups and increased automation.

Tipping the Balance of Power

This truly is a time of international class struggle. The reality of pitting massive international companies against local trade unions clearly requires a new response by the labour movement. The slogan of “one day longer” simply doesn’t make sense when economic power is so strongly in the hands of the corporations. Instead it should be replaced with “The longer the picket line, the shorter the strike!”

There are encouraging signs of the Canadian labour movement catching up to the militancy and coordination of unions internationally. However, to truly challenge the power of companies like Caterpillar and Rio Tinto will require a lot more than busing in activists for a one-day rally to listen to speeches.

Ultimately it will require the ability of workers in Canada to emulate workers internationally and organize general strikes, workplace occupations, social unrest and international solidarity that is capable of tipping the balance of power back into the hands of the working class.

Mick Sweetman is a Toronto-based labour journalist.

This article appeared in the May/June 2012 issue of Canadian Dimension magazine. SUBSCRIBE NOW to get a refreshing and provocative alternative delivered to your door 6 times a year for up to 50% off the newsstand price.

Nefarious details in the Cuban Five case

Saul Landau — 2012-05-17T14:52:16+00:00

I sit on a gray plastic chair, facing a tiny, gray, plastic table and another empty, gray, plastic chair, waiting for Gerardo Hernández in the visiting room of the maximum-security federal pen in Victorville, California. Next to me, in similar seating arrangements, a middle-aged black man speaks to a woman, presumably his wife; other black men talk to their spouses. Two kids run from the children’s room to their Dad to get a caress.

Four guards chatter and observe the visitors and inmates. No contraband must be exchanged and no “excess touching.”

Gerardo emerges and reports to the guards. We hug. Gerardo talks about ideas to force the National Security Agency to release its vectored map of the Feb 24, 1996, shooting of two “Brothers to the Rescue” planes by Cuban MIGs. The government charged Gerardo with conspiring to commit murder because he allegedly passed the flight information to Cuban authorities knowing they would shoot the planes down (how would a Miami-based agent know of high level decisions in Havana?). The government offered no evidence.

The Cubans maintain the MIGs fired their rockets at the intruding planes over Cuban air space. U.S. authorities insist it happened over international airspace. If the NSA map sustains Cuba’s claim then Gerardo, who purportedly delivered the date and time of the fatal flights to Cuban authorities, committed no crime. The prosecutors offered no proof that Gerardo delivered this information. Hollywood would portray the Miami courtroom scene with the prosecutor telling the jury: “I don¹t got to show you no stinkin’ proof.”

Indeed, Gerardo’s defense lawyer showed that Basulto, the head of Brothers to the Rescue, had already announced the date of the flights, and several U.S. officials also knew of his plan. The FAA had even advised Cuban authorities of the impending flights. Facts don’t matter when a jury and judge understand that a wrong decision could result in their houses getting burned down.

The NSA refused defense attorneys’ subpoenas to deliver their vectored maps during the trial and appeals: “National Security,” the two deadly words not found in the Constitution or the Bible, constituted their reason (excuse) for not delivering the documents. What could force the NSA to comply? We had no answers, but the question will linger.

Other questions still bothered me. What had motivated the FBI to arrest him and his fellow Cuban agents? After all the Cuban agents had fed the Bureau juicy morsels related to terrorist activities, including the location of a boat on the Miami River loaded with explosives. The FBI commandeered the boat before it sailed for Cuba or blew up in Miami.

“Héctor Pesquera,” replied Gerardo. He became the Agent in Charge of the Miami Bureau and immediately focused his attention away from the terrorists and onto the anti-terrorists. After the jury handed down guilty verdicts at the trial of the Cuban Five, Pesquera proudly boasted to a Miami radio station that “he was the one who switched his agents’ focus from spying on the spies to filing charges against them.” (See, Stephen Kimber, What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five)

Indeed, Pesquera persuaded justice officials to refocus attention from exile terrorists in South Florida and onto the Cuban intelligence agents who had penetrated the terrorist groups. The case “never would have made it to court” if he hadn’t lobbied FBI Director Louis Freeh directly. (Kimber, p. 286)

Ann Bardach reinforced the view of Pesquera’s key role in turning the FBI from investigating terrorists to investigating anti-terrorists. Bardach and Larry Rohter wrote two stories in the New York Times in July 1998, in which Posada Carriles, a notorious Cuban-American terrorist admits his mastermind role in a series of bombings in Cuba to discourage foreign tourism. One of these bombing killed a young Italian tourist whose father is suing the United States for sponsoring terrorism.

Bardach told me about her surprise when Pesquera answered her question on Posada by saying “lots of folks around here think Posada is a freedom fighter.” Pesquera, friendly with ultra-right exiles, terminated the investigation of Posada, and shredded his file. Even as Pesquera focused the FBI on destroying the Cuban agents web, thus reducing the Bureau’s information supply on terrorism, 14 of the 19 participants in the 9/11 attacks trained in the area without FBI scrutiny. Pesquera seemingly escaped scrutiny for his apparent lapse. (Trabajadores, May 22, 2005)

Gerardo and I switched subjects to Alan Gross’s interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Gross, convicted in Cuba of activities designed to undermine the government, which AP reporter Desmond Butler documented, whined about his life in prison, the food, his window had bars on it and he had only been able to receive visits from U.S. Senators, Members of the House, Foreign Presidents, religious groups and a day with his wife. He complained conditions in the Havana military hospital were downright prison-like.

Worse, ignoring Desmond Butler’s reporting and former National Security Council official Fulton Armstrong’s devastating op ed in the Miami Herald, he proclaimed his innocence, insisting he only wanted to help the Jewish community get better internet access. For this he smuggled in equipment (documented by Butler) and got paid almost $600,000 from a company contracted by USAID. And Blitzer, who should win the journalism award for best stenographer, didn’t ask him about any of the facts Butler and Armstrong had raised.

We hugged goodbye. Gerardo raised a triumphant fist before returning to his cell. I walked into the dry desert wind, to the car and the road, down 5,000 feet and 40 miles to the Ontario, California airport with a chance to think about justice and injustice, again.

Whatever Happened to the Saskatchewan NDP?

John W. Warnock — 2012-05-11T16:16:04+00:00

From 1944 through 2007, politics in Saskatchewan was dominated by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and its successor the New Democratic Party (NDP). But the NDP was soundly defeated by Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party in 2007 and routed in 2011. Today they hold only nine seats in the legislature. The vote for the NDP fell from 275,000 in 1991 to 169,000 in 2007 and 127,000 in 2011. The party membership has dropped from 46,000 in 1991 to around 8,000 today. The provincial Liberal Party has all but disappeared; in the 2011 election they got fewer votes than the Greens. The Saskatchewan Party received 64 percent of the popular vote and the NDP only 32 percent. The NDP may never again form the government in Saskatchewan.

Obviously, the Saskatchewan NDP needs to seriously re-evaluate the political direction it has taken since 1991. The move to the right to embrace the neoliberal model has been a failure. Thus it is a good time for a book of serious papers which examine ongoing problems and set out an alternative policy direction. The child poverty rate in Saskatchewan stands at 19.6 percent, tied with BC as the highest in Canada. James Mulvale and Kirk Englot explain how a progressive provincial government could implement a feasible strategy for poverty reduction.

Saskatchewan has a very high percentage of senior citizens with increasing health-care costs. The Aboriginal population is growing fast. Daniel Beland stresses the need for major training and support programs. The province cannot meet the needs of the people while putting its highest priority on cutting taxes. Bohdan Kordan concludes that recent provincial governments have had little interest in introducing multicultural policies to welcome new immigrants, even with the shortage of skilled workers and jobs unfilled. There are long waiting lists to get into training programs at our technical institutes.

Saskatchewan has a horrendous record when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. In 1997 Roy Romanow’s NDP government introduced a resolution in the legislature denouncing the Kyoto Protocol and insisting that no compulsory controls be placed on emissions. They shut down the Energy Conservation and Development Commission, which had produced excellent studies on projects suitable for the province.

When faced with the challenge from the New Green Alliance and the few environmental organizations in the province, Lorne Calvert’s government finally came up with a set of goals for reductions, but there was no attempt to actually implement any serious program. Scott Bell and Jamesy Patrick outline a general path that could be taken. But they do not confront the reality of the situation in the province, where neither of the two major parties has ever had any commitment to doing anything which would reduce the consumption of fossil fuels.

Saskatchewan has the longest and deepest experience with CCF–NDP governments. So it is somewhat surprising to discover that this tradition is almost absent at the level of municipal government. The alliance of developers and builders rules. There is no history of planning municipalities for the general welfare. Ryan Walker’s excellent essay on “equitable urbanism” shows how urban planning and development should be in human-scale development.

But the reality today in Saskatchewan’s larger cities is the worst of suburban development: overpriced, oversized single detached houses, linked to “power centres” where large transnational firms congregate, creating a huge black hole which sucks capital out of the community. Junkscapes are the norm. Heritage buildings are torn down. Older, affordable apartments are converted to condominiums. There is no concern for people who want to rent, seniors, people who have moderate or low incomes, the disabled, or the many with few resources who come to our urban centres from reserves. As Walker makes clear, our urban development is the opposite of smart growth. Charles Smith’s article on the impact of neoliberalism on the trade union movement is one of the best in the collection. He contrasts the open support that workers got from the CCF government of T.C. Douglas with the refusal of the NDP under Romanow and Calvert to in any way enhance the rights of labour. The first priority of the Romanow government was to build a special partnership with the business community. They refused to introduce any pay equity legislation. They legislated SaskPower employees and nurses back to work.

Labour must cease its practice of unquestioning support of the NDP and work in the broader community, Smith argues. It is surprising that he overlooks the example of the very successful role that labour played in helping to build and finance the Saskatchewan Coalition for Social Justice.

The shift in agricultural policy from the social democratic activist support of the CCF–NDP through the Blakeney government (1944–81) to the neoliberal program of the subsequent governments is covered by Darrell McLaughlin and Daniel DeLury. The Romanow– Calvert governments (1991–2007) were aggressive in their support for agribusiness. Calvert’s government even lifted the restrictions on foreign and corporate ownership of farmland. The alternatives set forth are those we generally associate with the Food First movement. In the era of climate change, it is democratic justice, stewardship and decentralized control that are required.

The failure of the NDP governments to address the status of Aboriginal peoples in the province is well covered by Bonita Beatty and Priscilla Settee. The democratic alternative to neoliberalism is set forth by Settee, who draws on traditional Cree principles which stress community life, well-being for all, sharing, a deep respect for nature and animal life, and a commitment to the betterment of humankind. Local ownership and import substitution are required, as well as the democratization of our important institutions.

The weakest paper in the book is by David McGrane, a look at the province’s tax policy from 1991 to 2011. He laments the “limited academic research” on the subject while ignoring Phillip Hansen’s Taxing Illusions (Fernwood, 2003), an excellent study which compares the tax policy of the CCF–NDP governments through Woodrow Lloyd with that of the Romanow period.

McGrane argues that the Romanow–Calvert governments were “ideologically committed to increasing economic equality” and “redistributing wealth.”

But as Paul Gingrich has shown, under the Romanow– Calvert governments Saskatchewan experienced a dramatic increase in income inequality. This is the government that froze welfare rates between 1991 and 2006. McGrane does note that Brad Wall’s government reversed a key policy of the NDP governments when it raised provincial grants to school boards and municipalities. They also removed a large segment of low income earners from the taxation rolls.

The overall position of McGrane follows that of University of Regina professor Howard Leeson: we have seen the two major political parties “crowding the centre.” But most people would see a broad move to the right as both parties embraced the neoliberal agenda set by big business.

The papers in this book were first presented at a conference at the University of Saskatchewan in 2009. It coincided with the NDP choosing Dwain Lingenfelter, one of Romano’s key cabinet ministers, to replace Lorne Calvert. At the same time, the world was watching the collapse of the neoliberal model and of the social democrats’ Third Way. There are some very good alternatives presented in these papers. The key question, of course, is who is going to implement them. Certainly not the NDP as we know it.

Do No Harm?

William Charney — 2012-05-10T21:39:10+00:00

“Do no harm,” an ancient injunction in the field of medicine, is at risk of being forgotten in the delivery of health care in North America today. In fact, medical errors, pharmaceutical errors and hospital acquired infections (HAIs) combined are a scandalously significant annual cause of death for Americans and Canadians. According to Joe and Teresa Graedon in their new book Top Screwups Doctors Make And How to Avoid Them, medical mistakes constitute the leading cause of death when all categories are taken into account, including medical error, hospital-acquired infections, drug error, misdiagnosis, post-operative infections, fatal drug reactions in nursing homes, unnecessary surgeries, and preventable lethal blood clots in veins. Combined, they result in over 788,000 deaths per year: a mortality rate higher than heart disease (616,000) and cancer (562,000). According to the Centers for Disease Control, 2.4 million Americans died in 2007 from all causes, making health-care associated causes accountable for approximately one third of all deaths in one year.

According to the Canadian Adverse Events Study (Baker Study), the most quoted study in Canada regarding medical error, of the 2,406,700 patients admitted to hospital in 2009–10, 7.5 percent or 180,503 patients had an adverse event, and of these 16 percent or 28,880 patients died as a result. The Public Health Agency of Canada statistics on infection show that 10.5 percent of Canadian patients (252,704) will acquire a hospital infection, with 3.6–5.6 percent resulting in death. If we combine the Baker Study data and PHAC data, we can extrapolate that between 37,977 and 43,031 deaths occurred in connection with health-care delivery, making these two categories combined the third leading cause of death in Canada. Given the high rates of non-reporting, the real numbers are undoubtedly much greater than the reported numbers. And then there are the hundreds of thousands of patients who are harmed but not killed (morbidity versus mortality). Although these figures must be looked at in the context of the billion or so procedures performed annually, they nevertheless represent an epidemic of harm.

Systematic factors in medical error

What accounts for this epidemic of medical error?

There is no single cause, but rather a series of contributing factors. Let’s look briefly at some of these.

The profit motive: This is a key factor contributing to medical error in the US. The Journal of General Internal Medicine published a study in March 2000 entitled “Hospital Ownership and Preventable Events” showing that patients in for-profit hospitals are two to four times more likely than patients in not for-profit hospitals to suffer adverse events such as post-surgical complications, delays in diagnosis and treatment of an ailment.
Staffing: Inadequate staffing obviously increases the potential for medical error and has been linked directly to medical error and infection in the scientific literature. For each additional patient over-assigned to an RN , the risk of death increases by 7 percent for all patients. Patients in a hospital with a 1:8 nurse–patient ratio have a 31 percent greater risk of dying than patients in hospitals with a 1:4 nurse–patient ratio1.
Shiftwork affects patient safety in many ways. Longer shifts translate into a higher rate of medical error. Physicians-in-training who are scheduled to work long hours make 36 percent more serious medical errors with five times as many serious diagnostic errors. Fatigue-related error data is plentiful in the scientific literature. Fatigue-related preventable adverse events associated with death of a patient increased by +/- 300 percent in interns working more than five extended-duration shifts per month. This is often compounded by on-the-job injury to health care workers: in the US, 10 percent of health care workers apply for workers’ compensation every year with tens of thousands of lost days. Often an injured health care worker is not replaced, or replaced with a per-diem who is not as familiar with procedures and this too can contribute to medical error.
Hospital working conditions: It has been argued for quite some time that adverse working conditions (related to ergonomics, patient developmental flows, staffing, workload, scheduling, autonomy) have a negative effect on staff, leading to an increase in medical errors. With 62 percent of nurses leaving the profession because of the physical demands of the job, working conditions are contributing to both negative patient outcomes and nursing shortages.
Intimidation has a direct and indirect effect on medical error and negative patient outcomes. It applies especially to nurses who are often reluctant to speak up when they witness a physician making an error. A study of 1,700 nurses, physicians, clinical care staff and administrators found fewer than 10 percent address behavior by colleagues that routinely includes trouble following directions, poor clinical judgment, or taking dangerous shortcuts.Specifically, 84 percent of MDs and 62 percent of RNs and other clinical care providers had seen coworkers taking shortcuts that could be dangerous to patients. Fewer than 10 percent said they directly confront their colleagues about their concerns, and one in five MDs said they have seen harm come as a result. In one study verbal abuse from physicians was noted by over 90 percent of participants, and 76 percent witnessed negative nurse-to-nurse behaviours. Nurses reported that 71 percent of those behaviours resulted in medical error, of which 29 percent resulted in death.
Non- and under-reporting of error: Lack of real numbers hampers the research. The rates of under and non-reporting are extremely high, running any-where from 60 percent to 90 percent depending on the study cited. There are 27 states in the US with reporting regulations and none in Canada.
Legal rules/accountability: The legal system may be contributing to the overall problem of medical error. By not admitting error and maintaining silence due to fear of liability and litigation, doing professional root-cause analysis is compromised, which in turn compromises care.Accountability issues are constantly arising and being tested. Studies have shown that even getting health care workers to wash their hands between patients or after leaving bathrooms is not enforced, and there are low compliance rates.
Technology: Smart technologies in health care, such as Computerized Physician Order Entry, are being designed and implemented at great cost to intervene in administration errors, including smart infusion pumps and bar-code verification systems. But according to a recent US study, 98,000 people (mostly elderly) end up in emergency rooms every year due to medication error. And though new technology has been shown to reduce the rate of error, especially in the administration of pharmaceuticals, we must be careful not to rely solely on technology to tackle the problem of medical error.
Cost–benefit analysis: Attaching cost-per-facility to medical error is a challenge, especially when health care facilities do not understand the true science of cost–benefit of medical error and many reject the premise of “indirect cost.” This can lead to miscalculations and bad decisions. In the US, although the Society of Actuaries has stated that medical errors are costing the country $20 billion a year, the system is geared to treat preventive measures as a costly expenditure to be avoided instead of seeing prevention as contributing to profitability.

Admitting there is a problem

If medical error ranks as the first, second, or third leading killer in the US and Canada, then wide-scale action is warranted. At present, 27 states in the US have reporting regulations, but the compliance rates are abysmally low. No regulations currently exist in Canada, either federally or provincially, requiring hospitals to report medical error or infection apart from internal policies which vary from one institution to another.

Investing in systemic solutions

If we are right in assuming that the real causes of the epidemic of medical error are systemic, then changing the system will be expensive. But “expensive” is a relative concept. If, for example, increasing staffing would prevent a significant number of medical errors and/or infections, the dollar costs would be offset by decreasing costs of errors and infections. In the US, a bed sore can cost as much as $14,000 per case. Preventing three bed sores could pay for an extra full-time employee who would theoretically prevent the sores by turning the patient more frequently.

The statistical data on medical error make the case for systemic change. What is required is a broadbased social movement with health care workers of all types working with public health officials, legislatures, trade unionists, government agencies and funding agencies to write a plan of action to challenge and change the status quo of medical error. The plan would include addressing the problems of staff ratios, shiftwork, bullying, overbooking and overcrowding.

Some of the solutions are obvious: hiring more people, introducing substantive regulations on reporting medical error, creating accountability, and

The Syrian saga

John Ryan — 2012-05-10T15:26:51+00:00

The Syrian situation is extremely complex this being the result of its history, its diverse ethnic groups, its long-lasting repressive regime, and compounded by a decade-long desire of the USA and other Western countries for regime change in that country. And because of the latter factor, much of the mainstream media for the past year or more have misrepresented the turmoil and conflict in Syria, almost in the way it was done in preparation for the war on Iraq. The attack on Iraq was an unprovoked illegal war based on lies, but it had public support because of deliberate false media reports. Similarly, the Syrian situation is currently misunderstood by most Western observers, so much so that many would approve of military intervention by NATO, with or without UN approval.

A sobering reminder is that there was no UN Security Council approval for the war on Yugoslavia in 1999, or for the war on Afghanistan in 2001, or the war on Iraq in 2003 but the wars took place nevertheless.

The purpose of this paper is to try to provide sufficient documentation on the Syrian situation so that it could be shown that outside intervention in Syria, especially military intervention, is unwarranted and that it would lead to disastrous consequences for the Syrian people.

Kofi Annan’s attempt to broker a peace plan in Syria

Kofi Annan’s proposed peace plan obliged him to obtain an agreement to stop hostilities by both parties the Syrian government and the representatives of the thousands of armed opposition forces. Mr. Annan received a signed agreement from the Syrian government, but the opposition forces refused to sign any such proposal. When the Syrian government insisted that Mr. Annan obtain a comparable signed document from the opposition forces, i.e., the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian National Council, Mr. Annan refused to act on this request, and the media proceeded to pillory the Syrian government for insisting on a signed document. It is because of this breach of trust that as the April 10 deadline approached it appeared the peace agreement would collapse because until the opposition forces formally agreed to a cessation of violence, the Syrian army was not going to unilaterally withdraw from areas of contention. Apparently because of Russia’s intervention, the Syrian government agreed to go along with the peace proposal despite the lack of a formal agreement from the opposition forces. Hence as of April 12, there has been a basic cessation of violence, despite continuing incidents, with both sides blaming each other.

On April 14 the UN Security Council unanimously approved the deployment of a UN team of observers (eventually up to 300) to oversee the fragile truce.It also called on both sides to immediately “cease all armed violence in all its forms.” This provision, which was crucial to obtain Russia’s support, should make up for the lack of a signed document by the opposition forces to cease all acts of violence. However, Russia’s UN ambassador was dismayed that the provision for dialogue about the future political process “is something which unfortunately is missing.” Although US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the ceasefire was important, the US position was that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would “have to go,” a step which is not included in the UN resolution. With this being the adamant position of the US, the UN peace plan may have little hope of materializing into an actual diplomatic resolution.

If the UN peace proposal fails, this may very well become the convenient casus belli for NATO intervention.

The amount of Syrian support for the Assad government

The massive barrage of condemnation of the Assad government by the mainstream media would indicate that the bulk of the Syrian people must desperately want “regime change,” and would probably welcome Western intervention. However, on the contrary, this is not the situation. The most recent opinion poll in Syria was conducted in January 2012 by a Doha conference, funded by the Qatar Foundation; it is noteworthy that Qatar is fundamentally opposed to the Syrian government. Amazingly, the poll showed that 55% of the Syrian population were supportive of their president and did not want him to resign. One of the main reasons given by those wanting the president to stay in power was fear of civil war and the future of the country. This amount of support is actually quite remarkable it is substantially higher than the support for Mr. Harper or Mr. Obama or most other Western leaders. And yet Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton consistently maintain that “Assad has to go.”

The fact that a respectable opinion poll found that most Syrians are in favour of Bashar al-Assad remaining as president should surely be major news. However, it seems that when coverage of an unfolding drama ceases to be fair and turns into a propaganda weapon, inconvenient facts get suppressed. As such the news that the majority of Syrian people support their government, despite its repressive nature, was ignored by almost all media outlets in every western country whose government has called for Assad to go. This type of reporting is reminiscent of the news given to Iraq in the period prior to the American invasion.

Also, almost totally ignored in the Western media, is the fact that on March 15, the anniversary date of the beginning of the uprisings last year, instead of any significant opposition commemoration, there were massive demonstrations throughout Syria in support of the government, carrying placards and photos of Assad.

Millions of Syrian government supporters dashed through streets and main squares nationwide, to stage rallies in support of embattled President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday.

Casualty data of dead/wounded in Syria are unverified and suspect

Day after day, the media has featured reports of ever-rising casualty figures and atrocities committed by government forces data mostly attributed to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights—a pro-opposition group that reportedly receives funding from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Even the UN has used these data, as supposedly objective, valid and accurate.

A recent exposé of this organization, titled “A Torrent of Disinformation” by Aisling Byrne, includes this excerpt:

What appears to be a nondescript British-based organization, the Observatory has been pivotal in sustaining the claims of the mass killing of thousands of peaceful protesters using inflated figures, ³facts², and often exaggerated claims of “massacres” and even recently “genocide.” Although it claims to be based in its director’s house, the Observatory has been described as the “front office” of a large media propaganda set-up run by the Syrian opposition and its backers. The Observatory is not legally registered either as a company or charity in the United Kingdom, but operates informally; it has no office, no staff and its director is reportedly awash with funding. It receives its information, it says, from a network of “activists” inside Syria.

This is further corroborated by Stratfor, the private and conservative American intelligence firm with high-level connections, which reported that “most of the opposition’s more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue.”

The nature of the Syrian government

At present Syria has a population of 22 million and consists of a multi-ethnic society — 74% are Sunni Muslim, 10% Alawite, 10% Christian, 3% Shia Muslim, 3% Druze, along with smaller minorities of Kurdish, Armenian, Turkmen, and Cirassian populations.

After the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, the territory of Syria became a French colony, with Syria finally getting its independence in 1946. A series of coups ensued, ending with the formation of the Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party in the 1960s. The party was founded by a Christian, a Sunni and an Alawite; it embraces secularism and pan-Arab unity, and has attracted supporters from all faiths. In 1965 the government nationalized most of the biggest industries and banks and totally transformed the economy. Although progressive in terms of the measures carried out, this was not a form of democratic socialism power was in the hands of a bureaucratic elite, much as in the days of the Soviet Union. Even so, the nationalised economy provided important benefits to the people in terms of employment, access to basic commodities, housing and services, and hence the regime had broad support.

Hafez Al Assad, an Alawite, became president in 1971, and his son, Bashar Al Assad, took over in 2000. Despite its initial socialist pattern, over the years Syria has acquired a mixed economy, composed of large state enterprises and many private small businesses, and has conducted redistribution of agricultural land, winning the support of peasant farmers. Despite this, immense privileges were given the bureaucratic circles around the ruling sectors of the regime, and this has led to widespread discontent and demands for reform.

Although Syria is officially a parliamentary democracy and has an elected parliament, until now it has had an authoritarian government because the major powers are in the hands of the president and the executive council. Actually there has been some movement towards political reform in the last number of years, but there has been little substantial progress. Basically the regime’s survival is due partly to a strong desire for stability and its success in giving groups such as religious minorities and peasant farmers economic and social security.

There is ample cause for social unrest and mass protest in Syria: unemployment has increased in recent years and social conditions have deteriorated, largely as a result of IMF enforced economic reforms which served to enrich the ruling economic elite. However, although the protests that broke out in Syria starting March 2011 coincided in timing with the “Arab Spring” phenomenon, they were not indigenous spontaneous events as portrayed by the mainstream media. Canadian professor Michel Chossudovsky was in Syria at that time and has written extensively on the events, including this comment:

The “protests” did not emanate from internal political cleavages as described by the mainstream media. From the very outset, they were the result of a covert US-NATO intelligence operation geared towards triggering social chaos, with a view to eventually discrediting the Syrian government of Bashar Al Assad and destabilizing Syria as a Nation State.

Once the staged protests started, genuine demonstrations evolved, but these were quickly infiltrated by professional Al Qaeda mercenaries and acts of violence occurred, which resulted in a heavy-handed police and military suppression, although attempts were made to target the insurgents. The point is that only a small fraction of the public would support violent protests, since these by their very nature do not address the broader issues of social inequality, civil rights and unemployment. Moreover, the armed militants conducted terrorist acts of a sectarian nature which discredited them with the population at large. In essence, the majority of Syria’s population (including the opponents of the Al Assad government) do not support the “protest movement” which is characterised by an armed insurgency. Ironically, despite its authoritarian nature, there is considerable popular support for the government of President Bashar Al Assad, which is confirmed by the large pro-government rallies.

Despite the lack of basic support for violent demonstrations, the well armed and trained paramilitary forces have created a mini civil war, shooting at police, snipers shooting civilians, setting fire to government buildings, kidnapping and torturing people, and taking over parts of cities and regions. It soon became apparent that these armed opposition forces were headed and financed by expatriates and foreigners, and that the weapons were not of Syrian origin. Although this is largely denied in the Western media, the original demonstrations were quickly hijacked by outsiders, with a different type of agenda. An exception to the wave of media coverage is an account presented by an Australian journalist, Fiona Hill, who after being granted a visa travelled quite extensively in Syria this past winter. Here is her summary comment:

Massive reform of the political process is non-controversial in Syrians’ conversation, but I could not find any Syrian with anything positive to say about these two entities touted by the Western world as the best instruments for political reform in Syria. [Syrian National Council and Free Syrian Army] “Why would any country invite expatriates to form government?” Syrians kept asking me with exasperation. “Why would any civilian population put their faith in defected fighters with no discernible political platform?” I spoke to Sunnis, Shias, and Christians, to Kurds, Arabs, Circassians, Assyrians and Armenians. While many pointedly complimented the apparent good character of the president (referred to at such times as ‘Dr Bashar Al Assad’) all readily expressed in detail their disgust at poor governance for too long. “Whatever revolution there was is now destroyed by armed criminals and their masters,” sighed a Sunni man wearily.

In an attempt to deal with the turmoil and demands for change in the country, this past winter the Syrian government redrafted the country’s constitution and put it to a vote on February 26, 2012. Although the opposition groups boycotted the vote, 57% of those eligible to vote did vote and the revised constitution was approved by a margin of 89%. The adopted constitution includes 14 new and 47 amended articles which are designed to change the authoritarian nature of the government. With these reforms, the new law should hopefully put an end to five decades of one-party rule, and pave the way for free elections in the country. Based on the new constitution, parliamentary elections to the Syrian People’s Council were due to be held on May 7, 2012.

The nature of the Syrian opposition forces

The armed anti-Syrian forces reflect a variety of conflicting political perspectives united only by their common hatred of the independent secular, nationalist regime which has governed the complex, multi-ethnic Syrian society for decades. Included in their ranks are members of the Muslim Brotherhood, fanatical Salafists from Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda, and fighters from Libya. Moreover, numerous reports indicate that infiltrated in their ranks are members of the CIA, Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, and NATO military personnel.

A highly regarded American journalist, Eric Margolis, pointed out as follows:

Syria’s conflict is confusing. It began a year ago when insurgent groups slipped in from neighboring Lebanon. They were armed, supplied and trained by the CIA, Britain’s MI6, and Israel¹s Mossad. Their finances came from the US Congress, which voted in the 1980s to fund overthrowing Syria’s Assad regime because of its antagonism to Israel and support for Palestinians, and from the Saudis.

Moreover, in December of 2011 Stratfor’s Director of Analysis, Reva Bhalla, in discussions at the Pentagon, reported that:

After a couple hours of talking, they said without saying that SOF [Special Operation Forces] teams (presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground focused on reconnaissance missions and training opposition forces. One Air Force intelligence guy (US) said very carefully that there isn’t much of a Free Syrian Army to train right now anyway, but all the operations being done now are being done out of ‘prudence.’… the idea ‘hypothetically’ is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within.

Further from Eric Margolis:

These armed Syrian groups of mercenaries, Assad-hating Lebanese fascists, and CIA-cultivated anti-Assad exiles lit the fuse in Syria. Their attacks, mainly along the Lebanese border, ignited resistance by long repressed Sunni Muslim conservatives, bitter foes of the Assad’s Alawi-dominated regime. Alawi an offshoot of Iran’s Shia and Turkey’s Alevi tend to be poor, clannish and disliked by mainstream Sunni as heretics.

As to the funding of the opposition groups this has been openly done by Saudi Arabia, but it’s also been done by the USA. Thanks to a WikiLeaks revelation to the Washington Post, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a news conference on April 18, 2011, “We are — we’re working with a variety of civil society actors in Syria with the goal here of strengthening freedom of expression.” Millions have been allocated for various purposes, including the funding of the Barada TV satellite channel, which broadcasts anti-government news into Syria, as well training for journalists and activists, between 2006 and 2010.

What is constantly being reported in the media are the atrocities being committed Syrian government forces, but what is studiously never mentioned is the killing and the atrocities that have been committed by the armed opposition forces. The omission of any such reports continues to the present day even though a few weeks ago Human Rights Watch released a lengthy report on this matter and wrote an open letter to the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army revealing their extensive survey. An excerpt follows: [13]

Human Rights Watch has documented apparent crimes and other abuses committed by armed opposition elements. These crimes and abuses include the kidnapping and detention of security force members, individuals identified as members of government-supported militias (referred to locally as shabeeha), and individuals identified as government allies or supporters. They also include the use of torture and the execution of security force members and civilians. Some of the attacks targeting Shias and Alawites appear to be motivated by sectarianism. Abuses of this nature, including torture, taking of hostages, and executions by armed opposition members, have also been documented by the UN-mandated Commission of Inquiry in its February 2012 report.

There is also the report of the Arab League Observer Mission in Syria from December 24, 2011 to January 18, 2012, which cites “terrorist” activities by the opposition forces:

Immediately on arriving in Homs, the Head of the Mission met with the Governor of the city, who explained that there had been an escalation in violence perpetrated by armed groups in the city. There had been instances of kidnapping and sabotage of Government and civilian facilities. Food was in short supply owing to the blockade imposed by armed groups, which were believed to include some 3000 individuals…In Homs and Dera’a, the Mission observed armed groups committing acts of violence against Government forces, resulting in death and injury among their ranks. The observers noted that some of the armed groups were using flares and armour-piercing projectiles…Examples of those acts include the bombing of a civilian bus, and the bombing of a train carrying diesel oil. In another incident in Homs, a police bus was blown up, killing two police officers. A fuel pipeline and bridges were also bombed…Some of those attacks have been carried out by the Free Syrian Army and some by other armed opposition groups…However, the citizens believe the crisis should be resolved peacefully through Arab mediation alone, without international intervention. Doing so would allow them to live in peace and complete the reform process and bring about the change they desire.

The Australian journalist, Fiona Hill, referred to above, describes the kidnapping of an 18-year old conscript to the Syrian army:

Ultimately the young Sunni Muslim had been given four choices fight with his captors against the government and kill as many police, soldiers, security agents, and non-Muslims (i.e. non-Sunnis) as possible; take ammunition supplied by them to destroy key infrastructure and wreak havoc; pay a substantial ransom; or be killed on the spot.

Fortunately, the young man was released but only after his family managed to pay the abductors $8,000, a truly large sum of money in Syria.

Admittedly, the Syrian government forces have done their share of killing, but on the basis of authentic reports there is reasonable justification for the Syrian government to refer to the armed opposition forces as “terrorists.” However, there will not be a word of this in our mainstream media.

Many of the activists who began the uprising in Syria more than a year ago feel their peaceful push for change has been hijacked by the rebel Free Syrian Army. Because these activists oppose violence, they have been beaten up and threatened with death if the refuse to join the rebel army, so many have fled to Lebanon. A report in the Christian Science Monitor states:

They feel sidelined by the violent turn the conflict in Syria has taken since the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was formed last summer. “They have ruined everything,” Ashamy says of the FSA. “In the beginning we were all Syrians. Now many people see this as a purely Sunni Muslim insurgency. Our revolution has been stolen from us by people who have their own agenda,” says a singer who uses the pseudonym ‘Safinas’…”We are not violent people. We want to get back to the real thing. It was a clean thing when it started, but it has become something else now. I am against the regime, but I am also against the armed rebels…cooperating with Sunni jihadis from abroad…I know these people, and I know that many of them want to turn Syria into an Islamic republic if they get the chance.”

Background to the Russian-Chinese veto of a Security Council Resolution

Russia and China have been much vilified for vetoing a UN resolution on Syria, but the media was totally silent on how the veto could have been avoided. An excerpt from an article by Diana Johnstone explains this:

The cause of the veto was the determination of the West to push through a resolution that would have demanded withdrawal of Syrian government forces from contested areas without taking into consideration the presence of armed rebel groups poised to take over. Where the Western resolution called on the Assad regime to “withdraw all Syrian military and armed forces from cities and towns, and return them to their original home barracks,” the Russians wished to add: “in conjunction with the end of attacks by armed groups against State institutions and quarters and towns.” The purpose was to prevent armed groups from taking advantage of the vacuum to occupy evacuated areas…Western refusal to rein in armed rebels was followed by the Russian and Chinese veto on February 4.

Ironically, although on February 4 the West refused to accept Russia’s amendment to the UN resolution which would have required both the Syrian government and the armed opposition groups to end attacks on one another, this is exactly what had to be enacted by the UN in mid-March in order to come forth with the 6-point peace plan, that was headed by the UN envoy, Kofi Annan.

Prospects for the future

Hopefully this may not be the case, but there is every indication that the UN brokered peace negotiations in Syria will fail. In fact it appears that the entire US initiative in this regard may have been a ploy with the intent to derail the process by purposefully encouraging continuing opposition violence, but blame it on Syria, and thereby create a pretext to launch a full-scale civil war in Syria, backed up by NATO air assaults, with the purpose of overthrowing the Syrian government.

Regime change in Syria has been on the American agenda since the 1980s and openly so since 2002 when John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for George W. Bush, came up with a project to simultaneously break up Libya and Syria. Some of the reasons for this are cited by Eric Margolis, a longtime observer of this area:

Syria is a long-time ally of Iran. The Western powers and Israel are avid to tear apart Syria, thus dealing a severe blow to not only Iran, but Syria’s other allies, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas. Equally important, if Syria collapses, its highly strategic Golan Heights, annexed by Israel since 1967, will remain unchallenged in Israel’s hands. Golan is Israel’s primary source of ground water.

Based on his extensive study of the Syrian situation, Professor Chossudovsky concludes:

The objective of the US-NATO alliance is to ultimately displace and destroy the Syrian secular State, displace or co-opt the national economic elites and eventually replace the Syrian government of Bashar Al Assad with an Arab sheikdom, a pro-US Islamic republic or a compliant pro-US “democracy.”

In an irony that evaded the media, while Kofi Annan was in Syria trying to get President Assad to sign a UN peace proposal, the Orwellian named “Friends of Syria” met in Ankara to sign accords to provide almost unlimited financial and military assistance to the rebel groups known as the Free Syrian Army to better enable them to launch further violence in Syria.

As reported in the New York Times:

The United States and dozens of other countries moved closer on Sunday to direct intervention in the fighting in Syria, with Arab nations pledging $100 million to pay opposition fighters and the Obama administration agreeing to send communications equipment to help rebels organize and evade Syria’s military…the offer to provide salaries and communications equipment to rebel fighters known as the Free Syrian Army — with the hopes that the money might encourage government soldiers to defect, officials said — is bringing the loose Friends of Syria coalition to the edge of a proxy war against Mr. Assad’s government and its international supporters, principally Iran and Russia.

In effect, this formalizes the status of the Free Syrian Army as a mercenary force in the pay of the right-wing Gulf sheikdoms allied with US and Western powers. The USA’s posing, alongside the Saudi and Bahraini kings and the Qatari emir, as the liberator of the Syrian masses and champion of democracy is preposterous. These regimes, with US backing, deny elementary political freedoms to their own peoples and, in the case of Bahrain, the home of the US 5th Fleet, carried out the bloody suppression of a mass movement demanding democracy and equal rights. What hypocrisy!

As for the so-called “Free Syrian Army,” Professor Chossudovsky puts it in perspective:

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a creation of the US and NATO. The objective of this armed insurrection is to trigger the response of the police and armed forces, including the deployment of tanks and armored vehicles with a view to eventually justifying a military intervention, under NATO’s “responsibility to protect” mandate.

The Syrian National Council is also a construct of the US and NATO a clandestine organization consisting largely of the fanatical Muslim Brotherhood, with the primary intention of overthrowing the Syrian secular government. For good reason the large community of Christians and other minority groups are very fearful of their intentions.

With the USA’s long-standing commitment and the current supportive developments for the overthrow of the Syrian government, the UN’s proposed peace process may get derailed. As put forward by a commentator on the Syrian scene:

The last thing Hillary Clinton and her NATO co-conspirators want is to see a legitimate election take place in Syria in the next few weeks. It would make it nearly impossible for them afterward to claim the government of the country is illegitimate. So the endgame here is to make sure that election doesn’t take place and if it does, they need to make sure that it is as flawed as possible.

In support of this position, the armed opposition groups have almost ignored the UN-backed ceasefire — kidnappings and assassinations have been rampant these past few days mainly targeting government officials, prominent figures, and candidates for the upcoming elections. Kind of an odd thing for these so-called “democracy activists” to do, trying to keep candidates from participating in a forthcoming open election! Syrian media have reported that so-called “battalions of Mohammed,” a rebel group, have recently threatened to kill anyone who is listed as a candidate for the forthcoming parliamentary elections. The group said in a video uploaded onto YouTube that they would force the candidates to withdraw from the parliamentary elections. As of April 27 there have been 1300 acts of violence since the April 12 ceasefire deadline, including suicide bombings, by armed opposition forces to which Syrian forces have tried to respond, but the Western media keep placing the total blame on “Assad’s murderous regime.”

These actions are intended to provoke a military response from the Syrian government, which the Western powers and the Arab League will use to press their case for further military intervention. Hence it appears that the “peace plan” may have been designed as a thinly disguised manoeuvre to justify external intervention to overthrow Assad and install a pro-Western regime in Syria.

A small group of UN observers arrived in Damascus on April 15, and a protocol was later signed with the Syrian government for a total of about 300 members. On the arrival of the first group, a government spokeswoman and presidential adviser stated that Syria welcomes the monitors. “They will see acts of kidnapping, killing and destruction carried out by terrorists. Spreading these monitors in Syria benefits the country,” she said. She also stated that Syria would not uphold the ceasefire if armed elements of the opposition kept up their attacks. “It is Syria’s right to respond to any acts of aggression against Syrian forces, civilians or private property,” she said. On April 21 the UN Security Council approved the formation of a Supervision Mission in Syria, with plans to send 300 unarmed military observers and a team of civilian specialists to join the advance group already on the ground.

The Machiavellian plan for regime change in Syria may become unhinged if the UN observers are installed quickly and if they act in an impartial principled manner. It is only this that could save this area from premeditated war and disaster.

John Ryan, Ph.D., is a Retired Professor of Geography and Senior Scholar from the University of Winnipeg.

Defiant Quebec students reject shabby government offer

Richard Fidler — 2012-05-09T15:14:45+00:00

Quebec college and university students are now in the 13th week of their militant province-wide strike while voting by overwhelming majorities to reject a government offer that met none of their key demands.

After a 22-hour bargaining session involving ministers of the Charest government, university and college heads, and leaders of the major trade-union centrals, the student leaders agreed on May 6 to put the offer to a vote of their memberships without recommending acceptance.

If the offer (the French-language text is here) were accepted:

The 75% hike in tuition fees (now spread over seven years, but indexed) would remain, albeit with slightly liberalized access to scholarships and loans, and provision for repayment of loans geared to future income.

A provisional committee would examine university budgets and propose possible cuts. Each dollar cut would go to reducing incidental fees not related directly to tuition (admission, registration, sports services, technology, etc.).

The committee would include four students, but also fourteen other members: 6 university rectors, 4 trade union representatives as well as 2 representatives of business, 1 from the ministry of education, and a chair with a tie-breaking vote — the latter four all designated by the minister of education.

The committee would table its recommendations by December although if necessary its mandate could be extended by one more year. It might then be replaced by a permanent committee appointed by law, its composition undetermined at this point.

Pending the provisional committee’s conclusions, the students’ incidental fees would be deferred. However, these fees would apply retroactively to the students in any amount the committee is unable to cut from current expenses.

There is no assurance that the proposed committee would agree on budget cuts sufficient to reduce or eliminate the hike in tuition fees. Furthermore, the committee would be composed largely of members with a vested interest in opposing cuts in expenditures, especially in research and funding of pro-business courses.

Market prerogatives, not social need

Most importantly, the offer, if accepted, would trivialize the key demands advanced by the students throughout the strike movement: for an immediate freeze on tuition fee levels, increased access to quality education and a public debate on the long-ignored goal of free and universal education from kindergarten to university. It would force the students into a market-driven accounting exercise, striving to justify cuts in spending on infrastructures, research, courses and teachers’ salaries — just when students and professors have struck a responsive chord among many Québécois with their united campaign against the underfunding of public post-secondary education in the province.

Small wonder, then, that this miserable “offer” is being rejected overwhelmingly by students across Quebec. And thousands are continuing to march for hours each night through the streets of Montréal, in spontaneous demonstrations that began some two weeks ago in rejection of an earlier offer by the Liberal government.

In continuing their boycott of classes, which has shut down the majority of Quebec’s major post-secondary educational institutions, the students are courageously risking loss of credit for an entire semester. They have led an exemplary struggle, conducted since the beginning with mass democratic assemblies and decision-making. The three main student organizations — the CLASSE, FEUQ and FECQ — have maintained a united front in the face of repeated government attempts to divide them and isolate the more radical CLASSE from the other two groups.

They have withstood vicious media attacks on them as a selfish elite, and the exploitation of a few, isolated acts of violence against property (often by Black Bloc anarchists) to portray the students as little more than publicity-seeking vandals.

They have successfully defied more than a dozen court injunctions ordering universities to reopen and professors to teach.

And they have resisted massive police repression that has resulted in the arrest of well over 1,000 students and serious injury to some as a result of the cops’ use of rubber bullets, concussion grenades and tear gas.

Solidarity lacking

But by themselves — notwithstanding these heroic actions — the students have been unable to create a social relationship of forces sufficient to break through the unyielding opposition of the government and the business class it represents. They have won significant support from some community grass-roots groups, including a broad-based Coalition against privatization and user fees for public services. The Coalition was a prime organizer of the massive demonstration at the Liberal party’s general council meeting May 4-5, held in the town of Victoriaville in the futile hope of avoiding pro-student demonstrations in Montréal.

Notably missing, however, has been active solidarity from Quebec’s trade unions, whose million-plus members represent the largest social force with the potential economic clout to defeat the government and business assault on the students. The major centrals and many local unions have issued statements in support of the students, and some have contributed funds to their organizations. But they have made no effort to organize economic action, even a one-day general strike in support of the students’ demands as requested by the CLASSE. And now their central leaders appear to have been accomplices in the government’s latest manoeuvres with the students.

By the 12th week of the student strike, the government was coming under a lot of pressure not only from the students but from the university and college administrations, which feared they would be faced this fall with a double cohort of students in the wake of a cancelled semester — an enrolment overflow they are not equipped to accommodate. Furthermore, a mounting series of disclosures of scandals and corruption implicating government ministers in lucrative construction contracts, illegal party financing, and even possible connections with organized crime — as well as widespread criticism by First Nations and ecologists of Charest’s showcase Plan Nord program to expand mining in Quebec’s far north — have undermined the government’s legitimacy and fed rumours that Charest is planning to call an early election before the Liberals are outflanked by the opposition Parti Québécois or ultra-neoliberal Coalition Avenir Québec. However, the student unrest jeopardizes this scenario.

Charest’s manoeuvre

The government’s response was to call a meeting on May 5-6 with the rectors and student representatives in an ultimate attempt to bludgeon the students into a deal that would, it hoped, rescue its credibility and restore order in the schools. And in a shrewd move, it invited the presidents of Quebec’s three main union centrals, the FTQ, CSN and CSQ, to attend this summit, held simultaneously with the Liberal party’s general council meeting in Victoriaville.

The formula proposed by the education minister seems to draw in part on a proposal first advanced by the two relatively conservative student organizations. The FEUQ and FECQ had suggested that the tuition fee increase might be avoided through equivalent cuts in unnecessary expenditures by the universities.

The CLASSE, for its part, fought to maintain the focus on the fee hike and the broader perspective of free post-secondary education. However, its own proposal, adopted a few days later, noted that funds for higher education could be found through cuts in business-oriented research programs (not basic or theoretical research) and competitive advertising by universities; a moratorium on infrastructure expansion, including additional satellite campuses; and an immediate freeze on pay and hiring of senior university management personnel. The CLASSE also called for an “estates general” on the future of Quebec education, in which it said it would advance the demand for free education, which could be financed by a capital tax on financial institutions. And it drew attention to the huge profits being registered by the major banks, even amidst the economic crisis.

Although there were significant differences in the proposals of the respective student groups, there were clear parallels. The FEUQ and FECQ were retreating somewhat from the earlier focus on tuition fees. The CLASSE was clearly striving to maintain a united front while appealing to other forces in the community to engage in economic action in support of its overall demands.

A call for a social strike appeared on the CLASSE web site, although a discussion of this proposal, scheduled for debate at two successive meetings of its weekly congress, was postponed for lack of time. And, as mentioned, it received no response from the forces to which it was primarily addressed.

Students undefeated

Remarkably, Quebec’s major trade union leaders — experienced negotiators in hard-fought bargaining with businesses and governments — apparently advised the student leaders to accept the shabby offer presented to them by the Charest government. Although to date little has been said publicly about their role, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that their intervention did nothing to aid the students’ struggle and may in fact have undermined it.

Judging from this week’s votes rejecting the offer, however, hundreds of thousands of students have not been taken in. Their anger, and renewed mobilization, may even be preparing the way for a new advance.

While speculation on the ultimate outcome of this massive uprising is premature, it is already clear that even if the strike ends without major gains, the students have not been defeated. They have fought impressively, to the best of their ability. And they have ignited a major debate in Quebec society, challenging neoliberal prerogatives and opening the prospect of “another Quebec” in which access to education will be a basic social need, available to all irrespective of income, and not a commodity for which access and content is a function of big business exigencies. The students have set the parameters for the continuation of this important debate, which has facets that reach far beyond public education as such.

Reproducing Order

Elizabeth Comack — 2012-05-07T21:33:00+00:00

In its interim Report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TR C) noted that “Canadians have been denied a full and proper education as to the nature of Aboriginal societies. They have not been well informed about the nature of the relationship that was established initially between Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal peoples and the way that relationship has been shaped over time by colonialism and racism.” The TR C has been focused on informing Canadians about the troubled legacy of residential schools. But another area of concern is Aboriginal–police relations.

Colonialism Past: The North West Mounted Police

My own schooling exemplified the denial of a “full and proper education” referred to by the TR C. My schoolbook, Pages from Canada’s Story, told me that officers of the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) were “messengers of law and order” known as “Redcoats.” The text explains: “The matter of uniforms was given special consideration. Someone who knew of the Indian’s love of colour must have had a voice in the choice of the bright scarlet coat which … stood, in the eyes of the Indians, for order and justice.”

The book emphasizes the supposedly benevolent role played by the force. Commenting on their arrival at Fort Whoop-Up in 1874, the text quotes the Blackfoot chief as saying that the Redcoats “have protected us as the feathers protect the birds from the frosts of winter.” It goes on: “‘Before you came,’ said old Chief Crowfoot to Colonel McLeod, ‘the Indian crept along. Now he is not afraid to walk erect.’” The impression left on young minds was that the NWMP were a godsend to Aboriginal peoples.

In truth, the role of the force was to ensure the submission of Aboriginal peoples to colonial rule. The NWMP had powers that were unprecedented in the history of police forces to implement the government’s colonial policies. As the Manitoba Aboriginal Justice Inquiry (AJI) stated in 1991: “Whenever an Indian agent felt the need for assistance in enforcing government policy regarding Indian people, he called upon the Mounted Police. Indian children who ran away from residential schools were sought and returned by NWMP officers.”

The NWMP played a crucial role in the management and containment of Aboriginal peoples. At its core, this policing involved the “reproduction of order” — an order founded on colonialism and racism. Just as the impact of residential schools continues into the present, so too does this form of policing.

Colonialism Present: Policing Inner-City Communities

Colonialism has not disappeared; it has just taken on new forms. Social exclusion, violence, alcohol use, and being tangled in the net of the criminal justice system dominate the lives of too many Aboriginal people. Police are tasked with reproducing order within this colonial context.

In Winnipeg, policing is concentrated in the inner city, where poverty is prevalent and many Aboriginal people reside. These communities are reputed to be “disorderly spaces” proliferated by crime, violence, the drug and sex trades, and street gangs. Given that these troubles are the product of a colonial history and larger global forces, the police are confronted with an insurmountable task: to manage and contain the “disorder” so that the ranks of society are preserved. Compounding the situation is the manner in which Winnipeg police have responded.

Just as the AJI commissioners concluded two decades ago, reports of Aboriginal people about their experiences with police document “a problem of considerable magnitude.” When interviewed, Aboriginal men report being regularly stopped by the police because they “fit the description.” One 20-year-old man I interviewed said that he is stopped by police “once a week, guaranteed. I can’t even count the number of times where I’ve been stopped just for walking down the street wearing, like, all black or something.”

While Aboriginal men are assumed by police to be involved in the drug trade or a street gang, Aboriginal women are assumed to be involved in the street sex trade. As one commented, “They see a girl on a strip where prostitutes happen to roam, they automatically stereotype and think that every girl out there is doing the same thing.” Racialized frames that cast Aboriginal people as the “usual suspects” shape their interactions with police.

The result is troublesome police practices. Beatings and banishment from certain areas of the city figure prominently in Aboriginal people’s reports. Revelations emerged in Saskatoon following the freezing deaths of three Aboriginal men and the experience of Darrel Night about the issue of “Starlight Tours.” Aboriginal people report that the same practice occurs in Winnipeg. Not surprisingly, mistrust and animosity flow from such treatment.

Denial of a Fundamental Problem

Racism pervades the practice of policing in Canada in complicated ways. Although government-sponsored commissions have named it many times, efforts to address this fundamental problem are typically met with denials that it even exists.

Instead, mainstream society seems content to assign the job of ensuring its safety and security to the police. In the current neoliberal climate, calls to “get tough” on crime carry the promise of a quick solution. Implicit in the public support for these strategies is the assumption that they will be directed at “them” and not “us.” So if police require enhanced powers to arrest, detain or otherwise control the “criminalized,” then so be it. If policing leads to more aggressive tactics to manage welfare recipients, street gang members, or other “troublesome” members of society, then so be it. If these strategies extend to include whole communities of Aboriginal people, then so be it. Clearly, the order that the police are reproducing privileges certain racialized groups over others.

Expecting that police will do this “dirty work” enables the continued denial of racism and absolves the rest of us from social responsibility. Denial comes at considerable cost. As Joyce Green notes, “While racism is most violently experienced by Aboriginal people, it also maims the humanity and civility of those who perpetuate it, deny it or ignore it.”

The issue is not simply about how the police behave, however problematic that may be. Rather, the issue is much broader. It has to do with how racism is embedded in everyday experiences and institutional practices and implicated in our society’s prevailing patterns of marginalization.

One starting point, then, is to heed the call of the TR C: to become well informed about the nature of the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples — and the ways it has been shaped by colonialism and racism.

The Hunger Games

Scott Neigh — 2012-05-07T01:45:34+00:00

We are in a strange moment. It is a moment that calls out for resistance — the global retrenchment of class power through austerity; the increasingly bold political attacks on women in North America; the still-changing mix of attack on queers and accommodation with queers who are already privileged in other ways, combined with appropriation and re-organization; the quite different mix of re-organization, silencing, and attack on racialized people; the ongoing erasure of disabled people; so much more. And people resist. They live when they are told they should die, they help and love and co-operate when they are told they should consume and compete, they defy when they are told they should comply…at least sometimes. Collective expressions of that impulse are important to nurture where they happen but are unpredictable, scattered. So many spaces churn with isolated efforts to survive, leftover imagery from past struggles, and a kind of emptiness that cover real anger and real contemporary struggles of ones and twos and tens getting by, and sometimes managing to blunt the local manifestations of the knife. Those swirling images matter, I think — they are one of the few hooks that we have for this desire for things to be other than they are, this sense that they can be, when so many of us are not only detached from participatory, democratic spaces that can give collective form to the struggles that fill our everydays but, after decades of neoliberalism, even from the sense that it is possible to create such spaces in ways that could mean anything for our lives. We sense the swirling anger, the swirling images, but we have trouble making the leap to seeing them as genuine possibilities of radical imagination that we can struggle to make real, and instead relate to them more often as ghosts. Yet the desire persists, the need persists, for a world that is more just and free, as well as the echoes, at least, of past efforts to make it so. Hollywood can stir them up, remix them, sell them back to us. We know this because of how much work is done by the social organization of the news and entertainment media to convince us that these things don’t matter, that they are fun but without any real meaning or possibility.

This is the realworld cultural context in which Katniss Everdeen’s story is being told. I think a big part of her resonance in this moment is her passionate commitment to survival in the face of hardship, and her unflinching insistence in respecting human dignity, her own and other people’s, in the face of oppression that denies it. Not only that, but her story allows her to make such choices in moments where their resistant character is clearly visible to us, and where her choices have important material consequences (even if more of those will only become clearer in future instalments in the series). Insistence on survival and dignity in the face of all of the pressures not to survive and all of the pressures that deny our own humanity and push us to deny the humanity of those around us speaks to what we need so very badly in this moment. However, the way these things happen in the movie misdirects us, neutralizes their potential. It builds on what is messed up and awful in what is even as it remixes images of resistance and tunes them to our desires for something more, something better.

Who Katniss Must Be

One important way that The Hunger Games misdirects us is through what it says about who Katniss must be in order for her to win. Some of these elements are present in the story arc in both book and movie, and others are accentuated in the movie — I would argue because the extremely high level of capital investment in a feature film intending to be a “blockbuster” means a different kind of responsiveness to mass audience expectations (or their incorrect perception by studio execs) than the more modest outlay required for a book. In both, her chance at victory requires her to perform a certain kind of femininity as she tries to position herself, in the lead-up to the start of the games, to get sponsors. That is, being a certain kind of woman is shown as necessary to win. This happens in the book as well, but there it shown more clearly as an imposition, and Katniss is shown as more resistant. (Though see also this piece which points out that the way it is shown wavers between opposing imposition and opposing femininity itself — for instance, exaggerated femininity, and perhaps a kind of aesthetic queerness, is a primary way in which the Capitol is Othered for the viewer.) Another element of how this shifted with the change in medium is the way her fiery temper is made much more moderate in the movie. That is, for her to act in resistant ways that refuse to deny human dignity, she has to do it in a way consistent with how many people in the audience (and many studio execs) perceive as proper for a woman — she couldn’t be shown as too angry, or people might not like it.

Moreover, in both texts her victory is shown as depending on her being seen as involved in a heterosexual romance (one which even invokes the epitome of hetero romance, Romeo and Juliet, in a number of ways, including the threatened double suicide in the climactic scene). Again, the fact that this is imposition and the fact that she resists — that is, that heterosexual coupledom is not inherent and natural but is socially imposed as a condition necessary for a woman to be allowed to succeed — is much clearer in the book, though she ultimately complies there too. In the movie, I think it was deliberately portrayed such that those viewers who had read the book would read Katniss as deliberately faking it to survive, while those who hadn’t could just as easily read it as a genuine romance blossoming between her and Peeta. In the movie it seems like an almost invisible instance of the near-universal convention in which the successful conclusion of a movie requires the formation or triumphant preservation of a heterosexual relationship.

Another aspect of what the movie shows that Katniss must be in order for her to win is white. In the early stages of turning the book into a movie, online critics writing from an anti-racist perspective pointed out that Katniss is portrayed as racially ambiguous in the book — as not white and perhaps as mixed-race. There was a great outcry when Jennifer Lawrence was cast in the role. This is not, I should add, any comment on her skills — I think she is very talented and she really impressed me in this movie. The problem is that the producers decided that whiteness was necessary to tell the story they wanted to tell in ways that they thought would resonate with enough (white) people to make the movie financially successful. Another troubling moment related to Katniss’ whiteness and her heroic journey within the movie is the scene in which Rue dies. It is already clear by this point that Katniss’ immediate struggle in the games is meant to be read as connected to a larger, collective struggle of survival and dignity against the oppressive Capitol. In her final moments, Rue tells her “You have to win!” While there is certainly ample justification in the movie in terms of the interpersonal relationship between these two characters to make this a plausible statement for Rue to make, it still reads quite strongly to me as a moment meant to bestow a certain kind of legitimacy on Katniss, a kind of confirmation of the racial universality of the struggle of the white hero through a sympathetic Black character saying to do it for her. This universality, of course, is so often denied to non-white heroes in general, and was specifically denied to a non-white hero in this movie through the casting of Lawrence.

What Struggle Must Be

The movie, again in line with the book in some ways and more than the book in others, also politically misdirects us in what it tells us about what struggle must be.

Before expanding on that, it is important to note that there are ways that it portrays oppression and resistance that are interesting and that do allow us to think usefully about the world in which we actually live. The kind of spatialized mechanisms of control between a centre (the Capitol) and a periphery (the Districts), and the specialized roles in production played by the territories of the periphery, reformulate a very real and active aspect of how our current global social relations work. It even potentially makes this mechanism more visible to readers and viewers because it casts it all within a post-apocalyptic U.S. rather than as the relation between Europe/North America and the rest of the world which is made largely invisible in our realworld culture. The Hunger Games also shows in a number of different ways how horrible violence is ritualized and/or routinized and thus made invisible, particularly to those who are not subject to it. And, certainly, this is an important idea to explore, given the extent to which our lives in North America depend on massive violence that is largely invisible to us, and the extent to which good liberals will immediately reclassify you as someone not worth listening to when you try to point that out. As well, various points made by the “President Snow” character about the political role of the Games, such as giving oppressed people a hint of hope — not none, but not too much — resonate with the real world (see: Horatio Alger). And the division of those who benefit from oppressive social relations between a small number of conscious elite oppressors and so many others who more passively benefit but whose desires, structures of feeling, and interpretive practices are organized such that they can maintain a self-image as good, violence-free people yet react to resistance by the oppressed in ways that fully support the oppressive status quo and tacitly or explicitly support repressive and oppressive violence.

But there is a lot about how struggle is portrayed that is much more troubling. For instance, while there are moments where refusal of an oppressive status quo is shown as being an assertion of dignity, there are other moment where resistance is shown as being about virtue. Assertions of human dignity are an important aspect of struggle because it is core to that act to assert that all of us deserve it, even though we are flawed. An emphasis on virtue, however, reinforces an oppressive and culturally dominant idea that only those who are virtuous have a right to object to their oppression, and that ways of objecting to and resisting oppression must be such that virtue is maintained in order to be seen as legitimate. The bind of having to be passive or (an oppressive version of) perfect is yet one more way that resistance gets undermined.

As the previous section outlined, even Katniss’ instances of insisting on dignity are in part grounded in certain kinds of implicit claims to virtue through who it is shown she must be in order to be the resistant hero. But it becomes even more stark when you look for signs of oppression and resistance beyond Katniss herself. One powerful association of virtue in the dominant, white-supremacist imaginary in our society is with whiteness, and between sin or evil or corruption and non-whiteness, particularly Blackness. Part of how the movie constructs Katniss’ fellow citizens of District 12 as not only oppressed but virtuous in their oppression, therefore, is showing them as largely white and by invoking (sanitized) imagery from our past of hardscrabble, oppressed, poor white folk and white industrial workers. When they show snippets from other districts later in the movie, more multi-racial images of oppressed people are shown, but in the initial establishment of the movie’s framework, white members of the audience are pulled in to identify with those who are oppressed in part through the whiteness and ostensible virtue of the oppressed.

Interestingly, while they do show more breadth of racial backgrounds among the competitors in the Games and in the snippets of other districts, they still show a lot less racial diversity than a post-apocalyptic U.S. would actually have, following today’s trends — the virtual absence of people who are visually identifiable as Latina/o particularly struck me. This, too, is part of trying to generate identification between the movie-going demographic with the most money and the people the story needs the viewer to identify with. And, of course, when they show the beginning of forms of resistance that the movie-going demographic with the most money will find scary or offputting — when the riots start after Rue’s death — it is shown as a Black man that starts it, playing on racist stereotypes that associate violence and criminality with Black masculinity. (This is also in line with the way that Thresh is portrayed as meeting certain dominant, white, racist stereotypes of Black masculinity.)

A final aspect of this appeal to virtue rather than to assertions of dignity, I think, has to do with the relative apportioning of aesthetics and gender expression alluded to in the previous section. The citizens of District 12 are shown as having very conventional gender expression — the one fairly minor exception is Katniss, and she is disciplined to more conventional expression as the movie progresses — and the people of the Capitol are shown as hyperfeminine and queer-ish. Again, dynamics of oppression and resistance are mapped onto imagery that evokes culturally dominant ideas of what is virtuous and what is not.

That is not the only way that the movie misdirects the impulse, so important in our current moment, to see ordinary people standing up for themselves, for survival, for dignity. The social arrangement in the movie makes at least one aspect of oppression in the lives of the characters very stark and visible, both to the characters themselves and to the viewers of the movie — the domination of the Districts by the Capitol. What could be clearer than the lack of food and the sad lined faces in District 12 in the opening scenes? What could be more stark than the theft of children for a spectacle in which they must murder or be murdered? And while making it obvious and visible makes it easier for those of us viewing the movie to talk about, it also implies that for oppression to matter in the real world it must be similarly stark and obvious to viewers. Which, of course, is not going to be true for many viewers, particularly those of us with privilege of various sorts for whom the awful violence of realworld social relations can be very hard to see and very easy to rationalize away. Or another way in which this could be read by many viewers resonates with one particular tendency among a particular layer of newly politicized people — I’m thinking of a subset of those associated with the Occupy movement — which sees only the newly visible (i.e. since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008) problems and not the longstanding ones. Reinforcing the idea that what matters is what you can already see contributes to the way that this tendency often ignores problems dating back before 2008.

This way of portraying oppression and resistance also makes it appear as unidirectional — the only problem shown in the movie is the Capitol. While many movements past and present have also framed the world’s problems as emanating from a single axis of domination, and feature film storytelling is rarely noted for its portrayal of social complexity, there is also decades of evidence from many writers and many movements that the real world is never that simple and it is oppressive to pretend that it is. Even granting that the story being told needs to show the struggle against the domination by the Capitol as central, there is never a hint that Katniss’ experiences are also organized by gender oppression, say, or of the inevitable continuity of racial oppression in a post-apocalyptic North America. This, too, misdirects the identification with struggle generated by the movie.

Perhaps the most fundamental way that The Hunger Games movie misdirects us — and this is implicitly present in a number of the points I’ve already made — is that, through the identification it creates between privileged viewers and oppressed protagonists in a struggle portrayed in a particular monolithic, unidirectional way, it allows us not to see our own place in analagous struggles in the real world. The fact is, even granting the huge imbalances in how wealth and power and privilege are allocated within the continent, most of those of us who live in North America are, on a global scale, citizens of the Capitol, not of the Districts. Nothing about this movie encourages us to wrestle with that. And, of course, many in North America do live lives that are cast into struggle, but even so, the landscape of that struggle is much different and much more complicated than the struggle that is portrayed in the movie. Almost all of us are simultaneously oppressor and oppressed, along different axes. Even when there are moments in which the lines of a particular struggle are clear — the students of Quebec versus the Charest government’s austerity agenda or the Occupy Wall Street folk versus the big banks, for instance — the impulse to see self as wholly constituted by righteous opposition to external nasty is a guarantee that our work will reproduce major political problems and will thereby limit itself. We must start from our own complicity, and The Hunger Games makes it easy to not do that.

All of that said, I think I still enjoyed the movie more than the two people with whom I originally saw it (and whose critiques of it have certainly informed this piece — thanks SR and SC!). And, as always, noting all of these things is not so much a demand for political perfection from mass media pop culture artefacts, but more to point out the work that this particular artefact is doing because of how it is put together and the ways in which that is troubling and disappointing.

[Scott Neigh is a parent, activist, and writer based in Sudbury, Ontario. This post originally appeared on his personal blog. His books Gender and Sexuality: Canadian History Through the Stories of Activists and Resisting the State: Canadian History Through the Stories of Activists will be out in late 2012.]

Youth, austerity, and the changing meaning of opportunity

Matt Austman — 2012-05-04T14:44:40+00:00

In the wake of the Conservatives’ 2012 austerity budget, depressive politics have been elevated to a new level in Canada. The vulnerable and marginalized are once again the subjects of demonization, deemed a societal burden by public and private sector elites who are convinced that balancing a budget in five years is more important than ensuring food on the table for the disenfranchised.

It turns out it doesn’t help to have a finance minister who believes homeless people should be thrown in jail.

The middle class will continue to shrink as a result of the austerity measures, but the budget’s sword is not drawn on them. As John Ibbitson eloquently put it in his latest analysis of Harper’s majority, the Conservatives’ socioeconomic agenda is to foster the development of more middle-class suburban families. It is in this way, by fixating their economic policies on the development of the nuclear family, they hope to shift the meaning of opportunity for Canadians.

In order to achieve their ideal society, they exploit the notion of the ‘Canadian dream’ for everyone. But to achieve this they do not dare touch the rich, who they perceive as demi-gods of our economy. Instead, they seek to create more prosperity by attacking low-income earners – ‘motivating’ them to become more ‘productive’ members of society. This is achieved by attacking the commons via privatization.

As easy as it may be to argue that Harper is simply robotic and evil, hell bent on ruining Canada, he and the Conservatives likely do believe – contrary to all evidence – that pressing austerity onto the backs of low-income people will benefit society at large.

But so short sighted they are.

One of the largest demographics of low-income earners in the industrialized world are young people under age 30. Canada is no exception, although it is fairing better than parts of Western Europe where up to 50% of young people are unemployed. Youth here are still facing an unemployment rate double the national average.

Considering this, it’d be logical to think that the government would see the contradiction in attacking low-income earners. But the government only sees the problem as too much RED TAPE.

Precisely, the issue is of no real concern to the government because they conceive opportunity only in terms of GDP. GDP only measures monetary transactions. It does not measure social and environmental degradation. This is why they believe catering to corporations and expanding the natural resource industry at all costs is so critical to our future.

But their trickle-down economics only end up with a splash on the foreheads of a few.

Austerity is framed by the government and mainstream media in terms of creating more opportunity in the long run. In reality, however, it’s about creating a specific kind of opportunity. We see this in their obsession with expanding natural resource extraction, while trying to downsize public investment in other industries as a means of ‘leaving it to the market.’

Consequently, they are sending a simple message to the legions of unemployed youth: Get a trades or science based education, or don’t complain. There’s no room for ‘hand outs’ if you don’t.

The Conservatives’ attempt to shift the meaning of opportunity for youth is evident through almost every major initiative they’ve taken since gaining power: Massive cuts to Canada’s creative industries; the raising of the OAS from age 65-67; tightening EI benefits; cutting funding to humanities and social science research – all the while obsessing about cutting RED TAPE for corporations. There is to be no safety net, except for Canada’s wealthiest.

Youth will continue be taken to task by the right for the foreseeable future. This is because, plain and simple, politics is calculative. It’s no secret young people don’t vote anywhere near in numbers to middle-aged people and seniors. Democracy is ruthless when you don’t vote. But it’s even more ruthless when propaganda succeeds (how many parents voted Conservative last election based on the idea that eliminating the deficit in five years is critical to their children’s future?).

Youth tend to either not care, or be exclusionary in their arguments when taking the Conservatives to task in turn. But perhaps youth need a simpler message: Austerity is not about this or that program being cut, or tuition being increased somewhere. It’s about what we value as a society. It’s about the very meaning of opportunity.

The Conservatives are betting that their austerity measures will result in more disenfranchisement from the political system, increase worker productivity, and reduce the role of the commons in the economy.

Yet it is here where the greatest hope for youth lies. The neoconservative agenda cannot be sustained. While efficient propaganda campaigns continue to scare the baby boomer generation into believing austerity is necessary for ensuring the prosperity of future generations, it won’t work on today’s youth, as they will not have the material gains to believe it.

As the social and environmental deficit accelerate at a feverish pace, the hope for youth actually increases. If what’s happening in Quebec is any sign of what’s to come, and the youth begin to rally against these gaps in the coming years, it will make them exactly the opposite of the media narrative: A generation of realists.

Review: Science Fiction and Empire

Scott Neigh — 2012-05-04T13:36:57+00:00

[Patricia Kerslake. Science Fiction and Empire. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007.]

I’m deep in end-of-term mode at the moment, with one big paper and a few smaller things to finish before it’s done, and then book edits to deal with immediately after that. But I’m stealing a few minutes to do a quick review as I haven’t blogged in awhile.

The final paper that I’m writing this semester is looking at science fiction and other utopian and speculative forms through a postcolonial lens, with the intent of seeing if I can say anything about a role for speculative fiction in catalyzing anti- and postcolonial possibility in the cultural imaginations of those of us who are passive beneficiaries of empire. I’m quite cautious about making any but the most modest claims about this, but I’m starting from Edward Said’s observation in Culture and Imperialism that “the enterprise of empire depends on the idea of having an empire … and all kinds of preparations are made for it within a culture” (11, emphasis in original). The idea is that if preparations are made for empire (and Said was quite concerned with literary preparations in particular) then perhaps there is some role for analagous preparations in moving beyond empire. Not sure exactly what I’m going to say about that yet, but I read this book (somewhat selectively but intensively) as part of that work.

The book contains some quite useful ideas and engages with a range of texts that in some senses is quite broad — it includes many classics of the genre from the U.S. and the U.K. — but in other senses is somewhat narrow — it pays no attention whatsoever to the emergence of explicitly postcolonial science fiction or science fiction from formerly (or currently) colonized peoples. This tendency to focus on cultural production from the heart of the empire is not exactly unknown in postcolonial studies — just look at Said, for instance — but it is still a little disappointing. In any case, the book begins by looking at the role of the Other in science fiction, goes into some of the mechanisms through which empire is used in the genre, and then goes quasi-chronologically through several key moments, starting with sf from the classic imperial age and on through some very contemporary writers with different ways of relating to empire. There is definitely material in here that I’ll use — maybe some of the stuff on the Other, definitely the sense of sf being complicated and ambivalent in relation to empire but its potential as a tool for working through ideas and legacies of empire, probably some of the details of how that has worked at different moments.

I was unsurprised but disappointed that there was not a more materially grounded exploration of how exactly ideas in literature might have an impact upon a culture. Based on the readings in the course that I’m writing this paper for, it seems quite common for postcolonial literary scholars to be sure that their texts of interest are not only shaped by societies steeped in empire but go on to shape those societies in turn, but nobody quite spells out how that works in a convincing way.

Also, as useful as this book’s literary insights are, and as keen as its grasp of some aspects of historical empire, there were also a few politically dubious things that only showed up later in the book. I suppose an earlier clue was the complete absence of any recognition that colonial histories do not just include the formerly colonized (or neo-colonized) so-called Third World but also still actively colonized indigenous peoples in settler societies. But the last chapter of the book said some pretty awful things about empire as social phenomenon (as opposed to literary phenomenon) that boiled down to erasing the contemporary realities of empire and colonization, completely for indigenous peoples and almost completely around Iraq and Afghanistan and other contemporary Western exertions of imperial power outside the borders claimed by settler states. As well, she presents some half-baked and largely unsupported ideas about empire as a transhistorical and psychological essence of humanity — I may be exaggerating slightly, but it frames it in a way that downplays the role of social organization and implicitly reassures those of us who are complicit in it that, well, it’s just what humans do, and whatchagonnado.

Those problems aside, for the issues that are the actual focus of the book’s scholarship, it seems quite good. I’m sure I will make considerable use of it. On a more frustrating note, it also made me want to just set all of this school stuff aside and read some novels, and that’s not going to happen for awhile. (How can I have never read any Kim Stanley Robinson? That’s just not right!)

Guatemala: Decriminalization?

Dawn Paley — 2012-05-03T17:40:08+00:00

Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina has made headlines around the world for his suggestion that the U.S. led “War on Drugs” has failed, and that other options should be explored. Media fanfare around his position at the Summit of the Americas in Colombia has re-cast the retired hard line general as a progressive, innovative president. But according to analysts who spoke to Upside Down World, the President’s decriminalization plan is a smokescreen for increased militarization, and the rearrangement of Guatemala’s drug trafficking elite.

“My perspective is that [Pérez Molina’s] proposal is a smokescreen, something designed to distract from the confluence of problems of Guatemalan society, and particularly those of the rural peasant farmers,” Maximo Ba Tiul, a Mayan Poqomchi analyst and professor explained to Upside Down World. “What is in dispute is territory, and especially the territory of Indigenous peoples, and so while he’s consolidating his process of control he comes up with this, knowing full well that he can’t fight his friends and colleagues, and that he has no capacity to pressure the United States.”

When Pérez Molina flew from Guatemala City to Cartagena, he took the private jet of Multi Inversiones Company, one of the largest and most powerful business conglomerates in Guatemala. His speech at the Summit of the Americas was measured and diplomatic. He talked about poverty and disaster relief. Then he talked about how Guatemala is falling victim to a war that they didn’t “provoke or initiate” because of their geographic position between Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine, and the United States, the largest market for it.

Pérez Molina’s speech didn’t mention legalization, though he hinted at it by mentioning that tobacco and alcohol provoke less violence than other harmful substances. “We have to dialogue about whether we should continue doing the same thing we’ve done for fifty years to fight drug consumption, production and trafficking, even though we haven’t succeeded in eradicating said market,” he said.

The international media ate it up.

“Is the war on drugs over?” read a headline in Canada’s Maclean’s magazine in the lead up to the Colombia meeting, the article going on to suggest that Central American countries could go ahead and “legalize” drugs under the nose of the United States. Other establishment publications took more studied approaches. Foreign Policy asked why the United States can’t figure out something the rest of the world already knows: that the war on drugs isn’t working. The Economist caught up with Pérez Molina for an interview about broadening the debate around legalization. The New York Review of Books ran a well written piece that delved a little more into Pérez Molina’s background.

It’s hard to imagine how a former intelligence chief who preceded over one of the bloodiest regions in Guatemala during a period later described as genocide by the United Nations could so completely transform his image in a matter of months. But since Pérez Molina first mentioned legalization on February 11th, that’s just what’s happened on the international stage.

Inside Guatemala, however, Pérez Molina’s past isn’t so easy to ignore, even in the wake of his bold new proposal.

“Otto Pérez Molina arrives to the Presidency of the Republic with a curriculum stained by his past in counterinsurgency, his dark passage through military intelligence, and his tight links with the conservative business elite,” wrote Luis Solano, an economist and researcher, in November of 2011.

Pérez Molina described his own style of governance as one inspired by Colombia’s controversial ex-President Álvaro Uribe. He also promised to use Kaibiles, Guatemala’s elite special forces (whose defectors have been linked to the Zetas) in the war on drugs.

After his election, Pérez Molina tapped numerous retired military men from his party, called the Patriot Party [PP], to become ministers in his government. One of them, General Ulises Noé Anzueto Girón, the minister of defense, was accused of participating with eight others in torturing and killing Efraín Bámaca, a member of the since disappeared guerilla group Organization of the People in Arms (ORPA).

Beyond his connections with a powerful elite connected to the extractive industries and the energy sector, there are also important links between Pérez Molina’s government and a powerful sector of organized crime.

“Fernández Ligorría, a military man from [city of] Coban, was one of the most important figures in the Patriot Party, and was very close to the current president, Otto Pérez Molina,” a Guatemalan analyst told Upside Down World, asking to remain anonymous out of fear for his safety. Before his death in January of 2011, various media outlets described Ligorría as the head of the Mexican narco-paramilitary group Los Zetas in Guatemala. “One of his sons, José Fernández Chanel, is currently a sitting congressperson with the [Patriot Party].”

“It’s complicated, because a direct fight [against drug trafficking] on the part of the government would implicate confronting their own colleagues, ex-colleagues, and high ranking military officials,” the Guatemalan analyst told Upside Down World. “This could unleash wars of another kind, power disputes which could put at risk not only the stability of the government of Pérez Molina, but also the stability of the state itself.”

Military personnel from Coban make up an important part of Pérez Molina’s support base. Coban is in the department of Alta Verapaz, where former President Alvaro Colom declared a state of emergency in 2010, allegedly because of the presence of Zetas there. A state of emergency was later declared in Guatemala’s northern state of Peten, following the massacre of 27 (mostly Indigenous) farmhands in May of 2011, an act that was also blamed on the Zetas. Peten comprises one third of Guatemala’s territory, and contains important oil fields, plentiful water resources, and mega diverse tropical forests.

For all the talk of a new strategy in the drug war, on March 30, the Guatemalan defense minister announced the creation of a new, anti-narcotics military task force called “Tecun Uman” that will benefit from technical and financial assistance from the United States. Four days later, on April 3, Horst Walter Overdick Mejia, a drug trafficker affiliated with the Zetas who was active in Alta Verapaz and Peten, was captured in Guatemala by U.S. officials and Guatemalan authorities.

“After the arrest of Overdick, the narcos began to reposition, and the Zetas as well, under the careful and close watch of the military,” said Ba Tiul. “It’s not about controlling the narcos, but ensuring the business stays in their hands… as well as controlling social mobilization, which is very powerful.”

This article originally appeared in *Upside Down World” and can be viewed here

Extractive Capitalism and the Divisions in the Latin American Progressive Camp

James Petras — 2012-05-03T14:42:33+00:00

It can be argued that the concessions to the extractive MNC and local ‘leading’ classes assures stability, steady revenues and finances the incremental social expenditures which permit the re-election of the centre-left regimes. In other words a de facto alliance between the “top” and “bottom” of the class structure is the unstated bases for centre-left electoral successes despite the growing political divergence between the regimes and sections of the social movements.

The Progressive Camp

There is a general consensus that regimes in seven countries in Latin America form what can be called the progressive camp: Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru and Venezuela.

The identifying features usually attributable to regimes in these countries include (1) their past political trajectory: most are led by former leaders and activists from social movements, trade unions or guerrilla formations (2) their relatively independent foreign policy pronouncements especially regarding US intervention and sanctions policies (3) their ideology rhetoric rejecting US led regional bodies and favouring Latin American centred organizations (4) their populist electoral campaign programs regarding social equity, environmentalism and human rights (5) their vehement rejection of neoliberalism and traditional neo-liberal personalities, parties and privatizations (6) their strategic perspective that envisions a prolonged process of social transformation that emphasizes an agenda featuring modernization, developementalist priorities and high levels of investment oriented toward global markets (7) their prolonged political incumbency based on constitutional reforms permitting reelection justified by the need for completing the transformative vision.

The progressive camp has a self-image, projected inward to its electorate as representing a rupture or ‘historical’ break with the past, first with regard to the traditional neo-liberal oligarchy and secondly with the ‘statist’ left. In the case of Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela they frequently resort to rhetoric evoking “21st century socialism”. The potency of the appeal to radical novelty has a limited time span dependent on the degree to which the regimes pursue policies in variance with the preceding neo-liberal regime.

The’Left-Right Division’ as Represented by the Progressive Camp (PC)

The perceptions of the objective and subjective divergence between the progressive camp and the right vary according to whether they emanate from official sources or from a critical empirical investigation.

According to the ideologues of the “Progressive Camp” (PC) there are at least five major policy areas which reflect the radical rupture with the traditional neo-liberal right.

Nationalism: (a) the PC through renegotiations of contracts with extractive MNC secures a higher rate of taxation, increasing revenues for the national treasury; (b) via increased state investment it converts wholly owned private firms into public-private joint ventures; (c) through increases in royalty payments it lessens ‘foreign exploitation’; (d) through the greater presence of ‘local technocrats’ it increases national oversight of strategic economic decisions.
Foreign Policy: The progressive camp has pursued an independent, if not explicitly anti-imperialist foreign policy. The progressive camp has established several Latin American and Caribbean regional organizations which deliberately exclude the presence of North American and European imperial countries such as ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas) and UNASUR (Union of South American Nations). The PC has rejected sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Syria and Gaza and opposed the US backed NATO war against Libya. They criticized the US position at the Summit of the America’s meeting in april 2012 on at least three major issues – inclusion of Cuba, opposition to British colonial control of the Malvinas and the de-penalization of drugs. The PC has expressed its opposition to US hegemony, to IMF “structural reforms” and Euro-US control over international lending institutions. With the exception of Venezuela, the PC has diversified its export markets. For example Brazil exports to the US only 12.5% of its goods and services; Argentina 6.9% and Bolivia 8.2%.
Social Policy: The PC has increased social expenditures, especially toward reducing rural poverty; increased the minimum wage; approved salary and wage increases. In a few countries they provide easy credit and financing to small and medium businesses,have given legal title to land squatters and distributed plots of uncultivated public lands as a kind of ‘agrarian reform’.
Regulation: The PC has, with varying degree of consistency, imposed controls over the financial sector, regulating the flow of speculative capital and the volatility of financial markets. With regard to the extractive sector regulations have been relaxed to permit the large scale inflow of capital and the pervasive use of toxic chemicals and genetically modified seeds by agro-business. They have permitted the expansion of mining, agriculture and the timber industry into Indian and natural reservations. They have financed large scale infrastructure projects linking extractive enterprises to export outlets trespassing onto previously regulated, protected natural habitats. Regulatory norms have been harnessed to facilitate ‘productive’ extractive developmentalism and to limit the financialization of the economy.
Labour Policy: has been based on a ‘corporatist model’ of business-state-trade union (tri partite) negotiations and conciliation to limit lockouts and strikes and maintain growth, exports and revenue flows. Labour policy has been conditioned by the policy of limiting budget deficits, fixing wage increases, to the rate of inflation. In line with orthodox fiscal policies, pensions for public sector workers have been frozen or reduced especially among the middle and high end functionaries. Traditional job security guarantees have been maintained not augmented and severance pay has not been raised. Strikes by public sector workers, especially among teachers, medical staff and social service workers have been frequent and have led to government mediation and marginal gains. Government policy has been oriented toward protecting managerial prerogatives, while respecting and upholding the legal status, collective bargaining rights of trade unions. Within nationalized firms, state appointed directors rule, there is no move toward worker self-management or ‘co-management’-except in limited cases in Venezuela. The structure of labour relations follows the private corporate hierarchical model Labour has, at best, an advisory role regarding health and safety but no determining influences or investment within this corporate framework. Pressure via strikes and protest by trade unions have been necessary, frequently in alliance with community groups, to rectify the most egregious corporate violations of health and safety rules. While the progressive regimes publically eschew neo-liberal “ labour flexibility” policies they have done little to expand and deepen labour prerogatives over the labour and productive process.

The principle difference in labour policy between the progressive regimes and the traditional right is the open door to labour leaders, their willingness to mediate and grant incremental wage increases, especially of the minimum wage and generally, the reduction of harsh, violent repression.

Continuities and Similarities between Past Neoliberal and Contemporary Progressive Regimes

Writers, academics and journalists on the Right and Centre-left emphasize the difference between the progressive and the past neoliberal regimes, overlooking the large scale socio-economic and political structural continuities. A more nuanced, balanced and objective analysis requires that these continuities be taken into account because they play a major role in discussing the limitations and emerging conflicts and crises facing the progressive regimes. Moreover, these limitations, based on the continuities, highlight the importance of alternative development models proposed by popular social movements.

The agro-mineral export model has demonstrated profound strategic deficiencies in its very structure and performance. The promotion of agro-mineral exports has been accompanied by the large-scale, long-term entrance of foreign capital which in turn determines the rates of investment, the sources for inputs of machinery, technology and ‘know-how,’ as well as control over the marketing and processing of raw materials. The MNC “partners” of the progressive regimes have conditioned their involvement on the bases of (a) the de-regulation of environmental controls; (b) the termination of price controls and the introduction of international prices for sales to the domestic market; (c) freedom to control foreign exchange earnings and to remit profits overseas.

They also control decisions regarding the exploitation of mineral reserves. Expansion of production is dependent on their own global criteria rather on the needs of the ‘host’ country. As a result, despite the re-negotiated contracts, which the progressive regimes hail as a giant advance toward nationalisation, the cumulative losses in revenues and in rebalancing the economy are substantial. If one looks beyond the agro-mineral enclave the negative impact to further development are substantial. The very limited impact that the agro-mineral model has on the economy as whole has led to occasional conflicts between the MNC and the progressive host governments. A case in point is the conflict between the nominally Spanish oil company Repsol and the Argentine government of Cristina Fernández in April 2012. Repsol’s behavior illustrates all the pitfalls of collaboration with foreign overseas extractive corporations. Repsol refused to increase investments, claiming that local regulated prices reduced profit margins. As a result Argentina’s energy bill rose three-fold between 2010 and 2011 from $3 billion to $9 billion. Furthermore, Repsol repatriated its profits, paid high dividends to overseas stockholders and thus had little impact in creating domestic industries producing inputs or refineries to process petroleum. The attempt by the deceased President Kirchner to increase ‘national ownership’ by bringing in a local private capitalist, (the Peterson Group) had no positive impact, merely entrenching Repsol’s control. When Fernández took majority shares in order establish public control and increase local production, the entire Eurozone leadership led by the Spanish government and the Western financial press launched a virulent campaign, threatened litigation and predicted economic disaster. The problem of ‘inviting’ foreign MNCs to invest is that it is hard to disinvite them. Once they enter a country no matter how unfavorable their performance, it is difficult to rectify or undo the damage and move onto a new public centered model of development.

All the progressive regimes with the possible exception of Venezuela have signed long-term large-scale contracts with major foreign extractive multi-nationals. Apart from the increase in royalties these agreements do not differ greatly from contracts signed by preceding right-wing neo-liberal regimes.

Evo Morales signed a large scale exploitation contract with Jindal, and Indian multi-national to exploit the iron-mine Mutun with virtually all inputs — machinery, transport, etc. — imported and with very limited ‘industrializing’ of the raw iron ore – mostly simple iron nuggets. The bulk of Bolivia’s gas and oil is exploited by foreign MNC-public joint-ventures and is shipped abroad, leaving most of the 60% rural households without piped gas, and resulting in Bolivia’s importing most of its diesel.

Ecuador under President Correa, another leading progressive president, signed two big contracts with foreign oil groups in February 2012, despite the opposition of the majority of Indian organisations including CONAI. In Ecuador, as in Bolivia, big oil and gas companies, while raising objections to the renegotiations of contracts leading to an increase in royalty payments and an increased presence of public officials, retain a privileged position in crucial decisions regarding management, marketing, technology and investment. Despite claims to the contrary, the leaders of the progressive regimes sign off on these strategic agreements without consulting the communities affected. Decisions are based exclusively on executive privilege. The style and substance of the distribution of the powers and privileges in the oil and gas agreements between the progressive governments and the multi-nationals are no different than what transpired under previous neoliberal regimes. Moreover, in both Ecuador and Bolivia many of the technocrats and administrators who worked under the previous neoliberal regimes play a prominent role in running the joint venture.

While progressive regimes have pursued anti-poverty programs and have registered some successes in reducing poverty levels, they do so as a result of the growth of the economy not via the redistribution of wealth. In fact the progressive regimes have not pursued redistributive polices: income and land concentrations, including high levels of inequality remain intact. The hierarchy of the class structure has not been altered and in most cases has been reinforced by the inclusion of new entrants into the upper and middle class. These include many former leaders and activists from the lower middle and working class who have entered the government as well as new capitalists benefiting from state contract agreements with the progressive regime.

The financial system has remained intact and prospered under the progressive regimes, especially because of the regimes tight fiscal policies, built-up foreign reserves, control over government spending and low rates of inflation. Financial sector profits are especially high in Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. Brazil in particular has attracted large inflows of speculative capital from Wall Streets and the City of London because of its high interest rates relative to the rates in North America and Europe.

Alongside the concentration of ownership in the extractive and financial sector, the progressive regimes have not introduced progressive taxes to reduce the disparities of wealth. The income of the agro-business elites in Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Ecuador are several hundred times that of the bulk of subsistence farmers, peasants and rural labourers. Many of latter remain subject to brutal working and living conditions. In many cases the progressive regimes have done little to enforce the labour and health codes in the giant agro-business plantations while workers are subject to unregulated toxic chemical sprays.

If the configuration of ownership and wealth remains relatively unchanged from the neoliberal past, the progressive governments have accentuated the tendencies toward export specialization. Under the progressive governments the economies have become less diversified and more dependent on agro-mineral and energy exports,and more dependent on large scale long term foreign investments for growth. State revenue and growth are more dependent on primary product exports.

The free market policies of the progressive agro-mineral export regimes have stimulated the growth of large scale commercial activity.The commercial sector is increasingly influenced by the large scale entrance of foreign owned multi-nationals, like Walmart, who source their products overseas, undermining local small scale producers and retailers.

The appreciation of the currency has adversely affected traditional manufacturers and the transport industry causing significant job losses especially in textiles, footwear and automobiles in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Moreover, favourable polices promoting large scale agro-mineral exporters has been accompanied by a credit squeeze on local small business people, especially, producers for local markets who have been bit hard by the import of cheap consumer goods (from Asia). Farmers producing food for local markets have been downgraded in the drive to expand cultivation of export crops like soybean.

In summary, the progressive regimes have pursued a multi-faceted double discourse: an anti-imperialist, nationalist and populist rhetoric for domestic consumption while putting into practice a policy of fomenting and expanding the role of foreign extractive capital in joint ventures with the state and a rising new national bourgeoisie. The progressive regimes articulate a narrative of socialism and participatory democracy but in practice pursue policies linking development with the concentration and centralization of capital and executive power.

The progressive regimes preach a doctrine of social justice and equity and a practice of co-optation of social leaders and clientalism via poverty programs for the poorest sectors of society.

The progressive regimes have combined incremented income policies with large scale structural changes, benefiting the extractive-primary sector. Stability of the PC is utterly dependent on the increasing demand for raw materials, high commodity prices and open markets. The progressive regimes have successfully linked trade union and sectors of the peasant movement to the state and have undermined or weakened independent class organisations and replaced them with corporate tri-partite structures.

The progressives have successfully reformed or replaced the chaotic, de-regulated, conflictual, racialist policies of their predecessors and institutionalized “normal capitalism”. They have introduced rules and procedures favourable to institutional stability, fiscal discipline and incremental but unequal gains. In other words the parameters of neoliberalism are now effectively administered and legitimated by faux nationalism based on greater political autonomy and market diversification. Centralised executive decision making based on agreements which require extractive MNC to invest and develop the forces of production is legitimated by an electoral framework and a multi-class political coalition.

The domestic and foreign policies of the progressive extractive regimes reflect two contradictory experiences: their radical origins in the lead-up to taking power and their subsequent adoption of an agro-mineral developementalist export strategy, favoured by neoliberal technocrats. The “synthesis” of these two apparently “contradictory” experiences finds expression in the adoption of an independent, critical political position toward imperialist militarism and interventionism and economic collaboration with the agencies of economic imperialism, namely the signing of long-term and large scale contracts with US-EU-Canadian agro-mining and energy multi-nationals. In other words the progressive extractive regimes have ‘redefined’ or reduced imperialism to mean its state structures and policies rather than its economic components (MNC) which are engaged in the extraction of raw materials and exploitation of labour. In the same fashion, they redefine ‘anti-imperialism’ to mean opposition to political-military interventions and a ‘fair distribution’ of profits between the regime and its MNC “partner”. This redefinition allows the progressive regimes to claim popular legitimacy on the bases of periodical criticisms of the policies and practices of the imperial state while collaboration and agreements with the MNC allow the progressive regimes to retain support from domestic and overseas business interests. When a progressive regime, as is the case of Argentina ruled by Cristina Fernández, decides to “nationalize” or more correctly secure the majority shares in Repsol, the nominally Spanish oil multi-national, the entire financial press, the European Union and Washington denounce the move and threaten reprisals. In other words the unstated pact between the progressive camp and the imperial regimes is that political differences are tolerable but nationalist economic measures are not acceptable. Renegotiations of contracts to increase state revenues may cause a temporary suspension of new investments but not a political confrontation. However, the public takeover of a foreign extractive firm evokes predictable hostility and retaliation from the imperial states. The Argentine progressive regime’s embrace of a policy of economic nationalism was, however, enterprise and sector specific. The Fernández regime did not, and has no future plans, to expropriate other extractive firms, nor was the measure part of a general nationalist strategy to shift toward greater public ownership. Rather Repsol’s refusal to increase investments and production was increasing Argentina’s dependence on imported oil, which was deteriorating its balance of payments and foreign currency reserves. Repsol’s refusal to comply with Argentina’s developementalist agenda was based on the Fernández policy of maintaining the retail price of oil for the domestic market below the international price. Repsol’s decline in production was a way of leveraging the regime to lift price controls. However, a higher petrol price would have a negative impact on industrial and private consumers, raising costs and reducing the competitiveness of the Argentine exporters and domestic producers. In effect Repsol’s intransigence threatened to undermine the social and political balance of forces between labour and capital and between extractive exporters and popular consumers, which sustained the regimes majoritarian coalition. In brief the measure was nationalist in form but capitalist developementalist in content.

Even so the measure polarized the global economy between the imperial west and the Latin American left, with the usual imperial satraps in Latin America (Mexico’s Calderon and Colombia’s Santos) backing Repsol.

Divisions between the Progressive Regimes and the Social Movements

Prior to coming to power via electoral processes, the progressive leaders maintained close ties and actively supported and participated in the ‘street action’ and mass struggle of the social movements. They embraced the banners of economic nationalism, ecological conservation and respect for the natural reserves of the Indian communities, social equality and reconsideration of the foreign debt including the repudiation of ‘illegal debts’.

The social movements played a major role in politicizing and mobilizing the working and peasant classes to elect the progressive Presidents. This convergence was short-lived. Once in power the progressive regime appointed orthodox economic ministers to run the economy. They adopted the extractive strategy, shifted from a nationalist public sector economy , designed to diversify the economy, to a ‘mixed economy’ based on joint ventures with overseas extractive capital. First the Indian communities of Peru, Ecuador and some sectors in Bolivia went into opposition, on the bases that their interests were neglected and they were not consulted. Secondly sectors of the working class and public employees struck demanding higher salaries, an increase in public spending. Small farmers and manufacturers demanded economic stimulus for family farms and local industry rather than subsidies for agro-mineral MNC, fiscal orthodoxy and export strategies based on lower labour costs and neglect of the domestic market.

Radical trade union peasant and Indian leaders of the social movements called into question the entire agro-mineral extractive strategy, the distribution and administration of state revenues and expenditures. They reasserted their support for a social program embracing agrarian reform, including the expropriation of large plantations and the redistribution of land to landless peasants. Workers’ leaders called for an industrial policy to process raw materials in order to create manufacturing jobs. Some trade unionists called for the nationalisation of strategic industries and banks. However, despite some major protests, the bulk of the followers of the social movements and the majority of their leaders soon shifted from radical rejection of the extractive model to demands for a bigger share of the revenues. The progressive regimes attracted the bulk of the social leaders to tri-partite councils of conciliation to negotiate and secure incremental changes. The progressive regimes highlighted their opposition to neoliberalism. They redefined it as unregulated capitalism based on low royalties and underfunding of social programs. The progressive regimes successfully divided the social movements between utopian radical opponents and progressive reformists. In time of social strife, the progressive regimes evoked a “left-right alliance,” charging their social critics of acting on behalf of imperialism, impervious to their own collaboration with imperial based multi-nationals. Presidential appeals, a nationalist populist discourse and increased revenues which funded increased social expenditures weakened the left opposition. Moderate but sustained increases in anti-poverty programs and minimum wages neutralized the appeal of the radical leaders in the social movements. Despite the progressive regime’s break with its ‘radical egalitarian roots’ it was more than able to secure large scale mass electoral support, based on the overall dynamic growth of the economy and steady growth of income. Both were underpinned by long-term high commodity prices.

Popular extractivist presidents repeatedly won elections by substantial majorities and were able to mobilize sectors of the moderate social movements to counter anti-extractivist social movements. The high prices of commodities and multiple opportunities for exploitation of resources attracted foreign investors despite higher royalty payments. Foreign investors were attracted by the social stability ensured by the progressive regimes in contrast to the instability of the previous neo-liberal regimes. The progressive regimes thrived on economic ties with the MNC and an electoral alliance with the lower classes.

Case Studies of Extractive Capitalism and the Progressive Camp

While the seven regimes which form the progressive camp share a common development strategy based on the export of primary commodities there are significant differences in the levels of diversity of their economies, the nature and character of the commodities which they export, the degrees of social polarization and social cohesion and the size and scope of the opposition. In line with these differences there are also substantial differences in the degree to which the progressive and extractive model is sustainable or subject to upheaval or reversal.

The progressive camp can be divided in many ways: between those regimes based on charismatic leaders and extreme dependence on primary exports (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela) and those with developed industrial sectors and institutionalized political leadership (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay). There are also significant differences in the degree of class and ethnic conflict: Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador are experiencing significant mass resistance from substantial Indian communities, while in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, where the Indian population is sparse there is only isolated opposition. In terms of class struggles, Bolivia, has experienced wide spread protests by health, education, mining and factory workers. Venezuela has faced lockouts and boycotts organised by the economic elite (class struggle from above). Ecuador faced widespread protests from the police. Most of the rest of the countries (Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay) faced limited strikes largely on wage issues. With the exception of Bolivia, the major trade union confederations work closely and collaborate with the progressive regimes; in contrast the peasant and rural workers movements in Brazil, Ecuador and Peru have retained a greater degree of independence and militancy largely because they have been the most prejudiced by the agro-mineral export strategies. In Venezuela and Brazil landlord’s private armies have played a major role in combatting land reform beneficiaries with relative impunity.

The most pervasive and environmental degradation has occurred in Brazil, where millions of acres of rainforest have been cleared during the decade of Workers Party rule. Chemical exploitation of agriculture is strong in most countries especially in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay where soybean production has become a dominant crop. All the major agro-industrial exporters (Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay) rely on toxic chemicals and GM seeds with numerous cases of toxic consequences for indigenous residents and their natural habitat. The issue of toxicity and environmental degradation resulting from the giant mining and timber companies has been well documented in Peru, Ecuador and Uruguay . Overall, the greater the urban population and the more dispersed the rural communities adversely, affected, the smaller the environmental protest and the likelihood that NGO ecologists play a leading role in protest.

Since the extractive industries are outside of the major urban centres; since most of the major trade union confederations collaborate with the progressive regimes and secure incremental wage increases and since the overall economy has been growing and unemployment has declined, macro-economic imbalances, commodity dependency and related structural vulnerabilities have not resulted in major confrontations between labour and capital. The most contentious conflicts which have occurred have been between the orthodox neoliberal elites backed by US and European powers and the progressive regimes. Several cases come to mind.

On April 12, 2002 and in December – February 2003 the Venezuelan capitalist class backed by the US and Spain organised an abortive coup which was reversed and a petrol industry lockout that was defeated. An uprising in 2011 led by the police in Ecuador and an abortive coup in Bolivia were put down successfully, before they gained traction. A large scale agro business protest in Argentina in 2008 which paralysed the agro-export sector against an export tax ended with regime concessions.

In large part, these class struggles from above worked in favour of the progressive regimes because it allowed them to pose the issue as one between a popular democratic regime and a retrograde authoritarian oligarchy. As a result the progressive regimes were able to neutralise, at least temporarily, internal critics from the left. The defeat of “the Right” burnished the credentials of the progressive camp and raised their popularity.

While popular support was important in sustaining the progressive regimes against US and EU backed rightist destabilization campaigns, of equal or greater importance was the backing of the military, sectors of the business elite and extractive capitalists. The progressives by adopting “moderate policies” — including business subsidies and generous pay hikes to the military were able to divide the elite, retain support of the military and isolate the rightwing opposition. The rightwing has remained electorally marginal and provide very limited leverage for US-EU interference and influence over the progressive agenda.

The degree of “progressiveness” within the progressive extractive capitalist camp varies substantially.

The Chavez government has advanced an anti-imperialist and socialist agenda involving the rejection of US coups, wars and blockade of independent states:it has supported the re-renationalization of oil, aluminium and other raw material, mining and energy sources. Its extensive agrarian reform benefiting 300,000 families is aimed at food self-sufficiency. Universal free public health and higher education and subsidised basic food prices via publicly owned supermarkets; and large scale low cost public housing for the poor along with literacy campaigns and the formation of thousands of neighbourhood councils to adjudicate and resolve local issues have deepened and extended the the socialisation process

On a far lesser scale, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina have pursued independent foreign policies. Their partial and selective nationalizations are designed to increase revenues rather than as part of a long term, large scale strategy of transformation.They have not followed Chavez’s lead on agrarian reform and on greater enhancement of social spending on health, housing and higher education. They offer remote, public lands of dubious quality as “land reform”. They have been advocates of incremental changes involving wage and social benefits commensurate with the rise in revenues from commodity exports and in line with the rate of inflation, Bolivia and Ecuador have dislodged land squatters and defended the major agro-business land holdings. The least ‘reformist’regimes with the most dubious ‘progressive’ credentials are Brazil, Uruguay and Peru (under Humala) which have adopted a free market agenda;they actively promote large inflows of unregulated foreign investments, degrade millions of acres of the rain forests (Brazil especially) , promote agro-business and oppose agrarian reform in all of its forms, relying on the dispersion of peasants and landless to the cities, towns where they serve as a labor reserve for capital or join the low paying informal sector. These “moderate” progressive regimes have signed military accords with the US, and adopt a low profile in opposition to US imperial policies in the Middle East.Their “progressiveness” is found in their support of regional integration, their opposition to US hemispheric hegemonism (opposing the US coup in Honduras, blockade of Cuba and interference in Venezuela) and the diversification of overseas markets. Brazil leads the way in catering to Wall Street speculators and in government anti-poverty spending on minimum food baskets. Poverty reduction is matched by the spectacular growth of millionaires linked to the finance and agro-mineral export sector. The “moderate” progressives have the most egregious (and well documented) record of ongoing environmental degradation. In Peru, Humala has given the green light to mining exploitation threatening the livelihood of thousands of peasants and local business in Cajamarca; Presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rouseff, of the Workers Party, promoted the destruction of millions of acres of the Amazon rain forest and displacement of scores of Indian communities in a decade.In Uruguay the Broad Front Presidents Tabaré Vasquez and Mujica promoted the highly polluting Botina cellulose factory contaminating the Parana River despite mass protests.

In summary it is difficult to generalise about the performance of the progressive camp given the divergences in social and economic policies. But a “report card” of sorts can be drawn up.

All regimes have lowered poverty levels and increased dependence on agro-mineral exports and investments. All have signed and/or renegotiated contracts with extractive MNC’ few have diversified their economies. Those with a substantial industrial base (Argentina, Brazil, Peru) have suffered a severe decline in the manufacturing sector because of appreciating currencies and loss of competitiveness resulting from high prices for commodity exports. Incremental wage agreements have led to low level social conflicts in the cities (except in Bolivia) but displacement of peasants and degradation have intensified conflicts in the interior between rural communities and the MNC leading to state repression (Peru).

The social impact of the progressive regimes has the widest variation, with Venezuela registering the most far-reaching structural changes and the rest lacking any vision or project for redistributing wealth, income or land. Their common support for regional integration is matched by important divergences in accommodation to US military policy. Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, the members of ALBA reject military treaties , while Brazil, Uruguay and Peru have signed military agreements with the Pentagon.

The overall economic performance is mixed . Brazil’s economy, especially its manufacturing sector,is stagnating with zero or negative growth in 2011-2012, Venezuela is recovering but with over a 20% rate of inflation ,while the rest of the PC is experiencing steady growth but increasing dependence on commodity exports to the Asian (China) market.

Alternatives to the status quo extractive economies vary enormously. In Venezuela the regime has made diversification a high priority; the Brazilian and Argentine regimes are taking protectionist measures to promote industry with limited success especially as their policies are countermanded by the real expansion of acreage for soybean production and exports. Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia talk of diversification but have avoided taking measures to shift to food production and family farming and have yet to take concrete measures to stimulate local industry via a publicly funded industrialization policy.

Alert! Episode 214

2012-05-03T13:00:22+00:00

On Mayday Noam Chomsky urges activists to focus their attention not simply on the economy and the environment, but how the market system underlies the fiscal and environmental crisis. Clayton Thomas Muller discusses the diverse strategies of First People’s against colonial structures that destroy their livelihoods and their environment. Nae Burrows describes the successful living-wage campaign in British Columbia.

Tommy and the Division of Labour

Glen Harper — 2012-05-02T11:43:07+00:00

In the window factory we had two routers, the machines that bored holes into the window frames for the moving parts and for the pieces that secured the glass in place. Routering was a simple process for the operator. All the operator had to do was insert one corner of the frame into an opening in the machine about waist level, where it would line up with the bore bit as it drilled upward, and then step on a pedal to activate the machine. After the first corner was bored out, the operator simply rotated the window frame and repeated the process. Once all four corners were finished, he or she set down the frame near the machine and started working on the next frame. Then the operator did another frame, and another frame, and another frame.

For two hours the operator stood at the machine and rotated frames and stepped on a pedal, and after a 12 minute break came back to the machine and carried on for another two hours before lunch break. Following lunch, the worker returned to the machine again and continued to rotate frames and step on a pedal for four more hours, interrupted only by one more 12 minute break. How could anything go wrong? The whole process had been made as simple and as efficient as possible. Anybody could do it, and one person was supposed to be able to process approximately 120 frames in one shift.

One day however something did go wrong with the process. Some of the window frames coming down the production line were damaged. There were gouges around the bore holes in the corners, and also gouges and scratches on the face of the frames. The frames were rendered useless, and new frames would have to be cut. It seemed that the operator, a man named Tommy, was not placing the frames into the router machines correctly. Instead of carefully lining up the corner of each frame with the bore bit – frame after frame, day after day, week after week, and month after month - he was just recklessly jamming the frames into the machine. It was almost as if Tommy was angry, and deliberately damaging the frames with the aim of costing the company money.

Certainly that was what the company argued when they suspended him for one week without pay; though after filing a grievance through the union, the suspension was reduced to three days. Of course he was angry, and deliberately wrecking the window frames. What else could any human being do in response to a job that not only produced windows for our homes and other buildings, but turned a person insane? Tommy was not at fault for the damaged window frames. The real fault was in a system of manufacturing that expected a human being to function with all the intellect and soul of a machine.

I knew exactly how Tommy felt. Just up the floor from the routers was the cleaning station. The welding process created an edge of vinyl on the face and the inside of the frame. Cleaning involved trimming off the edges at all four corners with a chisel. You braced the corner of the frame against an edge on the table, and chiselled from the inside to the outside of the corner until the surface was flush. When a corner was done, you rotated the frame and chiselled the next, and the next corner, and the next, and then again for the inside. All day long you rotated and flipped over window frames and chiselled corners. You did nothing else.

For nine months I worked at cleaning, standing still and performing the same simple movements endlessly. I remember driving into work in the morning and feeling this sense of dread engulf me. “My God”, I would think to myself, “I have to do this same shit all day again”. I would look around behind me at the stack of frames that I had to clean, or look at the clock at any time before the last 15 minutes of my shift, and my heart would sink. By the time business slowed down I just begged to be laid off. Even trying to survive on pogey - only $175 per week for me - was better than cleaning more window frames.

Another fellow that understood how Tommy felt was Junior. When I returned to work after my first layoff, I came up to ask Junior how he was doing. While I had escaped the grind for four months, he had remained behind doing the same task over and over again. “Still stuck in this hell hole”, he said. He placed springs into the window frames all day long. Pat seemed even more frustrated than Junior when I spoke with him around the same time. On some of our models, a piece of extrusion was overlaid on either the face or the back of the window frame. Pat and another fellow would screw on one piece with electric screw drivers, then flip the window over on the table, and do it again, and again.

Screwing down vinyl was their only function, and I was not surprised to hear Pat say that he felt like hitting people who talked with him, or that he was taking anti-depressant medication. Then there was Andy, who worked in the screen department. Now Andy seemed a little crazy to begin with, but this condition was not helped by a job that consisted of installing the mesh into countless window screens all day. On some occasions he could be seen talking to himself, and a few times throwing window screens at people who would ask him a question.

The whole production process consisted of the same simplified and repetitive tasks carried out by Tommy and the other guys. In the saw department, some guy pushed one end of a window frame insert into a spinning bore bit, and then the other end. He did nothing else all day. Two other workers in the saw department pushed strips of rubber tubing into the back side of the frame all day. Over in the glass department somebody attached two sheets of glass together with a heavy-duty caulking gun. All day he would fill in one edge with a rubber compound, and then step on a pedal to rotate the pane and fill in the next edge.

Somebody else in the glass department trimmed the excess rubber off the window pane and stacked it onto a moveable cart. Two other people did nothing but attach strips of white metal together in the shape of a cross, which was inserted in between the glass on some panes. Another, on the assembly line, placed strips of padding inside the frame to cushion and hold the glass in place, while the guy next to him sealed off the frame with regular caulking. In all of these tasks there was no teamwork, no moving around or beneficial exercise, and no thought. By the end of the first week you thought that you were going to walk off the job.

So the staff rebelled, constantly. A loud buzzer was the only way that the company could ensure that we did not leave early for our breaks, or return late. Half of the staff in the plant lined up early to punch out. No doubt the other half of the staff would have lined up early as well if they were situated closer to the punch clock. It got so regular that the plant foreman finally called a meeting and said he would turn the clock back 10 minutes if the problem continued. Periodically the plant foreman called us all together and said that “Absenteeism was becoming a problem again.” Practically everyday, and certainly every week, we were missing staff across all work areas in the plant.

They did not even bother to fake being sick, just skipped work for the day, or days. Again the foreman called us all together and threatened to fire people if they did not call into work to explain their absence. Then there was the staff turnover at the plant. Every week I saw new faces among the employees. Sometimes people would disappear after only a few hours on the job. They would make it to first break or lunch, and then walk out of the plant without even bothering to inform the supervisor. If the company was going to be miserable to us, then we were going to be miserable to them.

Beyond the drudgery, this system of manufacturing caused still other problems for the worker, such as mistakes on the job. During the first half hour of the shift your eye and hand coordination was sure as you worked with your tool, or operated your machine, or installed a part. Then your mind drifted, and your attention became divided between the task at hand and a whole other imaginary world. Soon you inhabited this imaginary world entirely, and your body was just mechanically going through the motions. In my case, I would think about past events and change my defeat into victory, or dream up scenarios in which I was the hero. More fun still was imagining telling the boss to go to hell.

A short time later I would dig the chisel into the face of the frame and be jolted back into reality. To the foreman, this sort of mistake was always worker incompetence. At least that is what he told me when Todd, a guy working next to me, dug the chisel into his hand one day and required stitches. Moreover, the company required us to sign each frame as a way to track our individual mistakes and take any disciplinary action. To us, this sort of mistake was inevitable in performing a task that did not even remotely engage your brain. The very simplicity of the task did not make the work easier, it made the work harder.

Injury was another problem for the workers in this system of production. One push of a chisel along the corner of a window frame is hardly a strain on the muscles or joints of a worker. But when you multiply this one motion by approximately twenty-four to clean one full frame front and back, and multiply it again by one hundred and twenty frames, which was our daily quota, you were chiselling two thousand eight hundred and eighty times in one day. Moreover, that count was for a skilled worker. In the first two months at least, I struggled with my lack of manual dexterity and went well beyond only twenty- four motions per frame.

Shortly after I arrived in the cleaning department, two out of six cleaners had gone out on Worker’s Compensation for wrist injuries, and a third person had so severely aggravated pre-existing injuries that he developed carpal tunnel syndrome in both of his wrists. Al was his name, and his doctor told him that he would have to get surgery to repair the damage. As for myself, I faired little better than the others. An injury to my right shoulder, sustained from working in the shipping department the year before, had not recovered, even after a four-month layoff from work. Cleaning window frames over nine months made the injury worse, so much worse in fact that my shoulder has never fully recovered from this time in my life.

Many workers also experienced problems with drugs, be it alcohol or narcotics. One of our best workers at the cleaning station regularly smoked marijuana. When he worked on one of the assembly lines, his supervisor would ask him if he had smoked up before work. “Yes”, he said, “and I’m going to smoke up tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day”. One of the other fellows used to show up for work smelling of alcohol, and a third fellow, only in his mid twenties, was trying to overcome alcoholism. These men had other problems in their lives as well, but a big reason for their use of drugs and alcohol was the job. Other fellows in the saw department smoked up in their cars during lunch break, inspite of the fact that they worked with dangerous saws all day.

Sometimes the only way to get through a day, let alone a week or month, was to numb yourself. In my own case, only my writing kept me sane. I would bring a piece of paper into work with some ideas and set it on the work table when the supervisor was absent. As I chiselled, I would try to swirl these ideas around in my brain in the hope of producing a complete sentence, which I would write down immediately if possible. When this approach did not always work, I really wished that I believed smoking pot was acceptable.

A fourth additional problem for the worker was economic degradation. Our pay at the factory, from $7–9 per hour for 90 percent of the staff, was already criminally low. I was a single man with no dependants, and I struggled to maintain a squalid bachelour pad at $350 per month, and an old car that was already paid off. My savings were never more than a few hundred dollars, and my weekly treat was two beers at the bar, and a sub sandwich on Saturday along with a copy of The Globe and Mail. For the guys who were supporting a family it must have been a real grind.

So if you were forced to go out on Worker’s Compensation because of an injury, or took a layoff at the end of the season, you sank into financial quicksand. Worker’s Compensation gave you only 80 percent of your gross pay, and as we used to say to each other at work, “eighty percent of nothing is still nothing”. Unemployment Insurance was even worse at 60 percent of your gross pay, in Moncton, New Brunswick anyway. During one layoff period, I remember eating spaghetti without sauce every night for a week, and dropping my car insurance. If you skipped work because of the drudgery, or quit the miserable job and had no unemployment insurance behind you, it was even worse.

This system of production also caused problems for the company. The regular absenteeism, high turnover of staff and injured workers could not help but impact production. Indeed, production fell so far behind that the company made overtime work mandatory. At first, the saw department was hit with twelve-hour shifts from Monday to Thursday, with Friday off, which added one full extra day of work. After a small scale rebellion the twelve-hour shifts were eliminated, but the overtime work continued, merely spread out over five days. The company also forced us to make up for statutory holidays. Whenever there was a statutory holiday, we had to come into work on the Saturday to prevent production from falling even further behind. On other Saturdays we were not forced to come into work, but the company was often looking for volunteers.

Work quotas were increased as well in the effort to maintain production. At the cleaning station the quota was increased from eighty to one hundred and twenty frames in one shift in only two years. Moreover, we had to mark down our numbers on a piece of paper and submit them to the supervisor daily. If your numbers were low, the supervisor came back, stood beside you and said that “there was a problem”. We did not finally catch up on production until nine months later, and only because the building season and the demand for windows was winding down.

Quality Control was another problem for the company in this system of production. How can you maintain high quality manufacturing with such a considerable turnover of staff? At any given time we functioned with a significant number of un-skilled or partially skilled workers. When I first arrived at cleaning I went slowly and still damaged a lot of frames. It was at least two months before I was reasonably competent with a chisel. The mind drift from repetitive work also undermined the quality of manufacturing. When as much as ninety percent of your staff struggles with monotony, the product is going to suffer.

Soon the company became so frustrated that it posted notices around the plant called QC On The Line:

It disappoints me to find that some of the windows that are going down the line are still not the way that I nor you would like them to appear in our home. We must make an effort to improve the quality of the product….We have a chance to produce the best quality windows in Eastern Canada but you must be willing to commit to this. Management has taken a firm stance on quality….but a chain is only as strong as its weakest link…

The notice went into detail for the different positions around the plant, and exhorted us in the strongest moral tone to take pride in our work and put quality first.

The company was hit hard by wasted labour and material in this system of production. If a mistake in the work was minor, more often than not it could be fixed. A hole in a non-important spot on the frame could just be filled with some caulking. A shallow scratch in a frame could be cleaned up by squirting on some solvent and rubbing with sandpaper until the surrounding surface was flush with the bottom of the scratch. The frame did not always look the best, but it still passed through the rest of production and all the company lost was some employee work-time. If the mistake was substantial, however, it could not be fixed.

This was especially the case in the saw department, where we did the rougher work. A gouge or deep groove in the face of a frame could not be sanded down without noticeably altering the appearance. A bad gouge on the inside of the frame would interfere with the placement of parts further down the line. A frame that was improperly welded together could not be adjusted. In each case a whole new frame had to be made, which entailed using more material, re-cutting the material, re-welding the material and re-cleaning the material. These sorts of mistakes used to happen so often in the saw department, that one day the supervisor posted a sign for the record lowest number of re-cuts.

The company had to contend with un-necessary operational costs as a result of this system of production. Overtime work is paid at the rate of time-and-a-half. Instead of paying a worker seven dollars and twenty five cents for one hour of work, the company had to pay out ten dollars and eighty seven cents. All of the overtime work as a result of absenteeism, staff turnover, and injuries, meant that the company had to pay out much more money to get the same job done. The other increased operational cost was Worker’s Compensation. In New Brunswick, employers cover the cost of compensation based on the type of industry and associated risk of injury. The more injuries there were among staff, the higher the premiums paid by the company.

At the cleaning station alone the injury problem became so acute that the company called in consultants. One consultant, who clearly had never spent a day of her life in a factory, concluded that we needed to stretch at the start of our shift. The second consultant, a nurse, showed us how to stretch. Not surprisingly, nothing at all was said about the problematic nature of the work itself, or the fact that the quota had been raised from eighty to one hundred and twenty frames. Company money was paid out to the consultants, and the staff continued to suffer injuries, at the cleaning station and elsewhere.

So why do we have this system of work? Why do we force so many workers at so many factories to stand at a work station and endlessly carry out the same simple task? It is not for the benefit of the worker. After one week he or she wants to quit from the sheer the drudgery, not to mention the problems from mistakes, injuries, drugs, and poverty. It is not for the benefit of the company. The owners or managers have to deal with staff disciplinary problems, reduced production, lower quality products, and un-necessary operational costs. Indeed, the whole system is rotten to the core for both the worker and the company.

Not even more money for the worker would make a difference. While this sort of work, as mentally taxing as any, should be well paid, all the money in the world would not have made it more human. You could have paid me $50 per hour, instead of the $7.25 that I was making, and I still would have gone crazy after a whole year, let alone for the rest of my life. The only right course of action is to abolish this miserable system of production. Our people need to produce our goods in a way that allows them to think, feel, and act with a sense of real purpose in life.

It is not going to be easy though to change this system of production. Despite all of its problems for the worker and the business, this system does accomplish one objective; it perpetuates our system of class here in Canada in the most brutal way. In a matter of hours the worker involved with such labour knows that they are being oppressed, that they are considered garbage. A person feels right to the centre of their bones that this system of production has been designed so that a few people can look down on the many. The company owners and managers are not about to change this system and lose their feeling of superiority.

Change must come from the workers who have to endure the drudgery and sense of inferiority. At a minimum we must push for a rotational system of work. For example, in the saw department a person could shift through the routers, cleaning, chop saws, specialty saw, supersaw, welders, and finally frame preparation. Under this plan there would an interval of several months before Tommy or anyone else would have to stand at the router again all day. Moreover, the worker would get to work different muscles, and exercise different mental skills. The new system would not be flawless, but it would be a lot better than what we have now in so many factories across Canada, and most importantly, Tommy and others would not feel the urge to damage the product they help build.

The Civil Wars in the U.S. Labor Movement

reviewed by Peter Brogan — 2012-05-01T19:23:17+00:00

When I went to the 2009 Labor Notes ‘Trouble Makers’ conference in Dearborn Michigan I never expected to be thrown into the middle – quite literally – of a dispute between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the California Nurses Association (CNA). But this is exactly what happened when I helped fellow conference participants push SEIU members and staff out of the banquet hall in which CNA president, Ross Ann DeMoro, was to address conference attendees. Immediately after the fracas, I went outside and spoke to one of the SEIU members that we had just pushed out of the hall. She told me that they were there to protest a bunch of union busters. Clearly this member had been misled, I thought, as I explained to her what the conference was actually about and that most of the folks attending were union members and activists [quite a few SEIU members, in fact] who had come together to share their experiences of struggle and talk about ways that we can all support each other and rebuild a labour movement from the bottom up, one capable of truly transforming American society, so that the interests of working class folks are put ahead of corporations.

The tumultuous back story to this event and how the rapidly shifting grounds of the U.S. labour movement has continued to be rocked by internal divisions and contradictions, is masterfully examined by the veteran labour journalist and activist, Steve Early, in The Civil Wars in the U.S. Labour Movement: Birth of a New Workers’ Movement or Death Throes of the Old? Although Early sets his analysis of the most recent rounds of intra-union warfare in the American labour movement within the broader political and economic context of the U.S. scene, offering a searing critique of the attempts at labour law reform championed by the union movement, the principle focus of Civil Wars are the conflicts in and around the SEIU. In focusing the book in this manner Early successfully illustrates both the strengths and limitations of the organizing and transformations that have occurred over the past decade in the U.S. labour movement, led by the SEIU and other unions like UNITE-HERE.

Representing over 2 million workers, largely in the low-wage healthcare, service, and building maintenance industries, SEIU has been held up as one of the most dynamic unions in the U.S. labor movement. Indeed, as organized labour has continued its downward spiral—only 12.2 % of the U.S workforce is unionized— “Big Purple” has brought nearly 800,000 new members into its ranks in recent years. Moreover, with a membership that is 40% people of color and 60% women, SEIU has focused on organizing some of the most economically vulnerable sectors of the workforce – those who have been systematically discriminated against in the labour market and historically neglected by the trade union movement.

It is because of this record of organizing success and its focus on the most marginalized elements of the working class that many progressive academics and labour activists have seen SEIU (and the breakaway, but now all but defunct Change to Win federation) as a model and hopeful inspiration for the revitalization of the labour movements of both countries. Early takes a number of these folks to task for their uncritical boosterism of SEIU and CTW.

Seeking to reverse the decline in the strength and influence of unions in the United States – and in Canada – Stern and his allies argue that unions must prioritize “organizing the unorganized”—the vast majority of U.S workers—and must increase union density at any and all costs. Greater union density, the argument goes, will increase labor’s power to set standards within regional markets and industries. In turn this will provide the political leverage necessary to alter the legal environment that currently makes organizing sodifficult for workers in the United States. While SEIU has doubled the money it spends on organizing, to its credit, in the past four years it has also significantly centralized power and resources into the hands of a few top officers. In the name of streamlining its organizing efforts, SEIU has carried out a widespread program of merging locals, opening call centers to service current members (ostensibly to free up staff and resources for new organizing and political work), and signing “neutrality” or other partnership agreements with employers, usually from positions of weakness that have led to the exchange of major concessions (like the right to strike) for union recognition.

The importance of focusing on these new “innovations,” as Early does in Civil Wars, is significant because such practices have been seen, to our detriment, as pointing the way forward for the union movement in both the United States and Canada. Civil Wars offers a searing critique of these practices, which are central to a dangerous new form of corporate unionism—one that rejects class struggle in favor ofcooperation with employers and pro-corporate politicians, marginalizes workers and members from union life, and embraces the transnational corporation as its organizational model.

One of the most important organizational experiences explored, and unabashedly championed by Early, is that of The National Union of Healthcare Worker (NUHW), launched on January 29 2009 by Sal Roselli and other former leaders and activists of the California-based United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW), affiliated with the SEIU. The New union was founded after Roselli and the entire elected leadership of UHW was removed by SEIU international vis-à-vis a trusteeship. In Civil Wars Early powerfully demonstrates that this takeover was orchestrated by Andy Stern, then president of SEIU (now since replaced by one of his protégés from the SEIU executive board, Mary Kay Henry), and the leadership at SEIU because UHW, under the leadership of Roselli and other dissidents, had been struggling to radically transform the autocratic – increasingly corporate – structure and organizing approach of the SEIU.

Without going into the details of the reform efforts of UHW and other dissidents in SEIU, it is worth highlighting the two fundamental principles that have been at the heart of efforts to change the direction of SEIU. They are: (1) a rejection of dealsthat marginalize workers and make serious concessions with employers in order to increase membership in the short term; and (2) a recognition that the central focus of rebuilding the labor movement needs to be the development of democratic and accountable unions with an active and empowered membership. At its core the reform agenda is about bringing organized and unorganized workers back to the center of their own struggles.

It is easy to see how such a perspective might be characterized as reflecting some kind of “romantic view” or “knee jerk preference” for organizing from below. But Early is quite cognizant of this critique and offers a credible response to it throughout the book by demonstrating that having members in charge of their own unions hasconsistently led to greater improvements in the lives of union members and the broader working class, while also acknowledging that sometimes innovative changes and strategies for labour do come from “above,” (indeed, Early himself admits to introducing such changes while he was a staff representative at the Communications Workers of America).

Rather than listening to generic focus groups and polling (as has been past practice in some unions discussed in Civil Wars), Early insists that we would do better to listen to workers who have actually taken part in organizing drives. A major tensions within these diverging views onwhat it takes to win organizing drives and improve conditions for workers revolves around the notion that we need to be more cooperative and avoid “confrontational tactics” with employers, rather than figuring out ways to “get people ‘working together’ with their co-workers “to solve problems” and, thus, demonstrate how a union might actually function for the betterment of its members. Here, Early provides invaluable criticism of the notion that our goal in organizing should be to stress that “conflict ends when the campaign ends,” and that our ultimate goal should be to foster a more cooperative relationship with employers.

Of the major lessons Early draws from labour’s recent civil wars the most important revolve around the challenges to private sectors organizing in the United States; if large scale membership recruitment into unions is to take place today, labour will need to continue to develop ways to by-pass the constraints imposed by labour law. For Early, however, the crucial thing is that unions pursue such alternatives from a position of strength. Perhaps the most important lesson Early highlights in his concluding chapter is that what most animates workers to struggle is a “sense of organizational ownership, a willingness to take risks and make sacrifices because the union they were trying to build, extend, defend, or reclaim inspired strong allegiance based on relationships of trust and mutual respect.” If we take nothing else from Civil Wars, it should be that: “Workers do not unite and fight – for organizing rights, a first contract, a better contract, or a better functioning and more democratic union – unless they have reason to believe in each other and the leadership that has emerged from their own ranks…And fewer still will support union growth campaigns that ‘by-pass the Board’ if, as John Wilhelm notes, if they are by-passed too.”

Civil Wars is a masterful exploration of the dynamics of the U.S. labour movements and will surely prove to be a classic of participatory labour journalism. In it, Steve Early doesn’t just make a principled argument for union democracy and rank-and-file militancy; he demonstrates that they are the key to organizing the unorganized and revitalizing working class resistance in an age of global capitalism. Labor activists and scholars will find this book invaluable.

Rogues Like These

Editorial — 2012-05-01T15:00:13+00:00

It has the makings of a B-grade political thriller: a mysterious “Pierre Poutine” uses a disposable “burner” cell phone and an anonymous prepaid credit card to buy a series of automated outbound phone calls designed to harass voters in key ridings and mislead them about where they should vote in the May 2011 federal election. The drama here lies in the sheer scale of the skulduggery. Fraudulent robo-calls have been reported in over 100 ridings, and more than 31,000 Canadians have complained to Elections Canada. While Harper’s Conservatives claim to have no knowledge of this attempted sabotage of electoral democracy, the robo-call company has strong links to the party, which also seems to have disproportionately benefited from the deception. To date, at least one Conservative staffer has resigned over the scandal.

The sad fact is that the robo-call scandal should hardly come as any surprise since, to advance their agenda, Harper’s Conservatives will evidently use any and all means at their disposal to circumvent and subvert carefully crafted regulations and rules of fair play. This was patently clear in Harper’s proroguing of parliament on two occasions and in his attempts to have his MPs stymie the work of parliamentary committees through procedural chicanery.

Dismantling regulation: attack on the Wheat Board

In a revealing series that should send shudders down the spines of all thinking Canadians, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) has been documenting the ongoing dismantling of the country’s regulatory system. One of the harbingers of Harper’s demolition derby was, of course, its attack on the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), which protects smaller prairie grain farmers from discrimination by a handful of giant transnational grain companies. Without that mechanism, less privileged farmers must sell below market price. While still a minority government, the Conservatives trotted out a bag of dirty tricks to weaken the Wheat Board, including tampering with the elections of the CWB board of directors, before finally gaining the majority it needed to disembowel the CWB altogether, effective August 2012.

In a recent contribution to the CCPA series, aptly titled Disaster in the Making, researcher Trish Hennessy traces the trend in recent decades towards deregulation, driven by incessant influence-peddling. She underscores the particular zeal with which the Harper regime is eviscerating the regulatory framework, from financial rules to food safety. And since that report was published, the Conservatives have pursued their demolition work, turning the sledgehammer on the refugee system, with the aim of impeding the entry of Roma asylum-seekers in particular.

Gutting environmental protections and gagging scientists

Another prime target of the Tory wrecking crew is environmental regulation, which poses some pesky obstacles to the savage (but lucrative) destruction of the natural world. The gutting of the Fisheries Act shows the depths to which Harper’s government will sink to give industry — in this instance the oil industry — a free hand. The decision to downgrade the requirements in the Act so that rather than protecting all fish habitat it affords protection only to fish that are of “economic, cultural or ecological value” was motivated by the desire to accelerate approval of pipeline projects. That elicited a collective cry of alarm from more than 600 Canadian scientists. But it is plain, particularly in light of such manoeuvres as the gagging of scientists employed by the federal government, that the Harper regime harbours contempt for scientific opinion.

The March budget served as another occasion for environmental deregulation, this time in an effort to further undermine the environmental assessment process, with Flaherty announcing time limits on reviews of natural resource projects such as the Northern Gateway Pipeline. The modus operandi is obvious: when Harper and his friends in industry find the rules constraining, the rules are to be bent, broken or scrapped altogether.

“Industry self-regulation”: Harper appointments and conflict of interest

Under the guise of that oxymoron “industry self-regulation,” business is being given an ever-expanding role in the regulatory process to the detriment of public safety, the environment and any other interests that may need protection from the predations of profit-seeking.

This facet of the Harper government’s corruption finds its culmination in the practice of recruiting wolves to watch over the sheepfold. One of the most scandalous examples to date was the 2009 appointment of Bernard Prigent, vice-president of Pfizer Canada, to the governing council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Researchers (CIHR); in stunning disregard of the rules concerning conflict of interest, Harper named Prigent to the CIHR council while he was a registered Pfizer lobbyist whose precise objective was to influence policy at the CIHR.

And there is reason to suspect a vast amount of covert industry–government collaboration that flies in the face of strictures against conflict of interest. A recent example, unearthed by Canadian Dimension’s own Martin Lukacs, is the secret committee set up to coordinate lobbying efforts for the Tar Sands. Formed in 2010, it comprises representatives of the federal and Alberta governments as well as the president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the foremost oil industry lobby group.

A new low

Undemocratic and underhanded behaviour by our two traditional governing parties is nothing we haven’t seen before, but the Harper Conservatives are taking things to an unprecedented low. It’s as though we’re trapped in an inverted version of the 1962 thriller The Manchurian Candidate. In that piece of fiction, a seemingly normal president is a secretly brainwashed ideologue; in our reality, the ideological extremism of our leaders is undisguised while far too many citizens appear to think that all is well and normal.

We can hope that relentless scrutiny and exposure of their many misdeeds will erode Conservative support. And indeed the popularity of the Harper government has begun to decline since the May election, down about 10 points according to a March 22 Environics poll, placing the Conservatives on an equal footing with the NDP. Whether this is attributable to public perception of bad conduct or is largely a response to the more immediately felt pain of Conservative financial and social policies, such as pushing back the retirement age, is hard to say. Whatever the case, many more Canadians must start to see the Harper regime for what it is if we hope to contain the irreversible injury it is inflicting upon the health and welfare of the nation.

Front Page image by Sweet one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetone

State of Play

Simon Tremblay-Pepin and Eric Martin — 2012-04-30T15:27:52+00:00

The opposition between the government and an important social movement like the student movement is reminiscent of a game of chess. Two organizations face off, each unravelling complex strategies both to confound their adversary and to reach their objectives.

Pregame: building the opposition

In the fall of 2011, the stakes were laid in mobilizing against the $1,625-per-year hike in fees that the government announced a few months earlier. If a strike campaign was to take place in the winter, its way needed to be paved in the fall. The government had the upper hand during the pregame. For many years, an imposing public relations campaign had shouted from every rooftop that the hike was necessary. Public opinion, and more crucially students’ own opinion, was initially far from won over by the idea of a strike against tuition fees.

Pregame is crucial. If one of the two players does not manage to place all their pieces on the board, the game is already lost. To pass the test, the students needed to consolidate their anti-hike sentiment (and to add a pro-strike rumour), but at the same time stage a show of strength. A major-scale demonstration was planned for November 10. Student unions managed to muster 30,000 people energetically mobilized against the hike. On campuses, conferences, workshops and information sessions increased throughout the term, allowing a well-organized antihike militant base to constitute itself. Sitting down to start the game, the student unions were not at a disadvantage, though they had not gained a starting advantage either.

Opening: legitimizing the strike

The opening unravelled in a classical fashion, with little originality on either side. More militant unions were the first to advance, and the government promptly claimed it would not budge. The intelligence of the first organizations on the picket line enabled a more rapid rise of the movement. Rather than immediately organizing actions, the activists instead spread throughout the province to encourage striking by mobilizing and informing their colleagues. This move allowed support for using a strike as leverage to spread like wildfire.

The government answered this first departure from the classical game plan with a strategy uncommon in Québec but very well known in the United States: astroturfing. This tactic, contrasted with “grassroots,” consists in creating fake social movements in the hopes of gaining favourable media coverage. Young Liberals set up an organization, the Mouvement des étudiants socialement responsables du Québec (MESRQ), or Socially Responsible Student Movement of Québec, which opposes the strike and stands in favour of the hike. It was a very effective strategy from a media standpoint, because the handful of students sporting the green square were more visible in front of cameras than in their general meetings.

This simulated “dissent” took place at the exact moment the strike movement was gaining traction. Its legitimacy was therefore contested. The move which ended the opening took place on the set of a very popular program, Tout le monde en parle (Everybody’s talking about it), watched by more than a million viewers. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, spokesperson for the CLASSE (a coalition of unions gathered around the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante [ASSÉ], or Association for Student Union Solidarity) debated with the very “socially responsible” Arielle Grenier. Her claim to fame was to have presented herself in the papers the preceding week as a victim of intimidation. Though the CLASSE’s spokesperson did well, it was mostly Arielle Grenier’s failure that greatly undermined the MESRQ’s credibility, and consequently raised the credibility of the strike.

The heart of the game: shows of strength

After Tout le monde en parle was aired, the student movement had to demonstrate its strength and the efficiency of the strike as leverage whilst the government had to convince, for its part, of its determination not to back down.

The student movement’s gamble paid off. Student unions on strike were increasing in numbers and actions quickly multiplied. The danger within was now that of potential cannibalism of student organizations amongst themselves. In the past, the student federations — less radical — had not shied away from condemning more radical actions often taken by ASSÉ activists. However, it is clear that, in part because of the leadership role that the CLASSE played in the movement, the federations chose not to denounce these actions, but rather to complement them with softer events. Thus the whole of student organizations participated in mobilizing actively for a big demonstration on March 22. It ended up being a huge success, with more than 200,000 participating. In the media, a number of commentators also started to take the side of students and to support their movement.

However, students were not the only ones to hold their ground. The minister of education was certainly not beaten hands-down. She managed to defend her hike with relative success in the media and to show that the government offered financial help to lower income students. Though students showed guts, they did not, as in 2005, force the minister of education out of the cabinet.

Endgame to come

After the March 22 demonstration, the government started showing muddled signs that it could draw back. A move, played by the premier himself (who had so far however avoided exposing himself excessively), implied that upgrading financial aid for students was perhaps conceivable. A few days later, the minister sang to the same tune, insisting that while the hike itself was non-negotiable, she was open to discuss improvements to grants and loans.

On the student movement side, while the strong strikers’ base is routinely renewing its strike mandates, a few peripheral unions have already started abandoning ship, giving the media the traditional opportunity to claim that the movement is losing momentum.

Who will take advantage of the adversary’s unprotected flanks? The student movement, with its tenacity and ingenuity, has so far proven more skilful than the government, but we are very far from a checkmate! In the endgame, as we know, a simple but decisive move is enough to change the outcome of the game.

Government ends negotiations with Quebec’s striking students

Richard Fidler — 2012-04-26T21:39:39+00:00

On Wednesday, April 25, Education minister Line Beauchamp abruptly ended the negotiations with the student leaders to which she had reluctantly agreed two days earlier — before they had even got to the key issue of the $1625 fee hike. She refused, once again, to negotiate with the CLASSE, the largest student union, which represents about half of the 180,000 students now on strike in Quebec’s post-secondary colleges and universities. That effectively ended the negotiations, since the other two student unions refused to break their united front with the CLASSE and fall for the government’s blatant attempt to divide them.

The minister’s pretext this time was even flimsier than her earlier refusal to meet with the CLASSE. She claimed that an announcement of a demonstration that appeared on the CLASSE web site constituted a breach of the 48-hour “truce” on civil disobedience actions she had imposed on the students as a condition of the talks. However, the demonstration in question was not organized by the CLASSE, and had been announced on many websites, including Profs contre la hausse, which represents the thousands of professors who are supporting the students.

The strike is now at an impasse. The students are determined to continue their protest; thousands took to the streets of Montréal within hours of the minister’s announcement. And they are being joined by pupils in a growing number of high schools. But the two-month long strike by more than one third of Quebec’s college and university students has not sufficed to win even preservation of the status quo, a freeze on current tuition fees, let alone the free post-secondary education sought by the CLASSE.

The Liberal government’s hard line, supported by the far-right opposition party Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), reflects their determination to preserve the entire neoliberal package represented by the recent federal Conservative and provincial Liberal budgets. It is not the expense of higher education that motivates them — that’s a mere bagatelle compared with many other state expenditures. They are determined to extend the user-pay ideology into additional social sectors, to provide more openings for the privatization of educational facilities, and to roll back the mounting public support for free education at all levels including university — one of the original goals of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. Even a freeze on tuition fees, as won by the students in some previous mobilizations, is now seen as an acknowledgement of this principle of gratuité scolaire. And in the background is the downward pressure on Quebec’s relatively advanced, if limited, welfare state exerted by market forces bolstered by “free trade” agreements like NAFTA and the pending deal between Canada and the European Union.

It is now clear that in order to succeed the students must be joined by additional forces. Above all they need the active mobilization of the trade unions, the only social force that can quickly and qualitatively change the relationship of forces at the point of production and provision of services. The CSN (Confédération des syndicats nationaux – Confederation of national trade unions) has voted in convention in favour of a 24-hour social strike by its 300,000 members; a good start could be made on May First, the now traditional labour day in Quebec celebrated by all the major unions, usually with a giant demonstration in Montréal. Unfortunately, there is no visible militant wing in the unions at present challenging the inertia of the union bureaucracy.

However, the issue has been debated recently in some circles in Quebec, including some unions. The following document was produced in 2010 by the committee on the social strike established by Quebec’s Coalition against privatization and user fees for public services. It is republished in the current (April 24) issue of the web journal Presse-toi-à-gauche as a contribution to the discussion on the next steps facing the unions and social movements in the broadening and deepening mobilizations this spring against the neoliberal agenda of the government headed by Premier Jean Charest. It could provide fuel for the debate on the current political situation scheduled to be held at the delegated convention of Québec solidaire this coming weekend. Here are some major excerpts; my translation from the French.

— Richard Fidler

Why discuss a social strike?

The Coalition against privatization and user fees for public services was formed to fight the neoliberal intentions of the Charest government, which is moving to reinforce the regressive nature of the revenues collected by the government while decreasing the resources devoted to social services, and thus opening the door to the private sector in many of the fundamental tasks that the government is supposed to assume. The coalition now groups more than one hundred community agencies, trade unions and popular organizations.

In this context, the Coalition adopted the following proposal at its meeting of May 31, 2010:

“To begin thinking about the social strike in all the member organizations. That the members of the Coalition mandate the committee considering the social strike to produce a tool to accompany the groups in their thinking.”

The task is not to discuss the intrinsic value of the social strike, but to do so in relation to the present conjuncture. Is it relevant and feasible in the present struggle against the orientations of the Charest government?

What is a social strike?

A social strike is the widest possible stoppage of work and activities by workers in the public and private sectors as well as by other social movements, students, women working in the volunteer sector, etc. It does not fall within the legal bargaining framework of a collective agreement. It has objectives of a broad social and/or political scope. Unlike many European or South American countries, Quebec — like the rest of Canada and the United States — does not have a great tradition of social strikes. There are many reasons for this, but it is no doubt explained in part by the present statutory framework. The type of trade-union organization we have in Quebec, with the Rand formula, also plays a role in configuring the way in which big social struggles are organized. Notwithstanding, we find some notable exceptions in history.

A. The May 1972 strike of the public sector workers

Although it was within the context of bargaining a collective agreement, the strike of the public and parapublic sector workers in May 1972 in Quebec had many characteristics of a social strike. Its objectives were social in their scope (a mininum weekly wage of $100). The walkout extended to a section of the private sector. And the actions used — for example, occupations of cities or media — went beyond the traditional frameworks.

B. The general strike of October 14, 1976

The general strike of October 14, 1976 was organized on a Canadian scale. It had a clear political objective, the withdrawal of the wage-freeze Law C-73 adopted a year earlier by the federal government under Pierre-Elliott Trudeau, which affected the entire working class. It mobilized workers in private and public sectors, and was supported by many social movements. In all, more than 1 million workers staged a one-day walkout in 150 cities across Canada.

C. The 2004 debate on the general strike against the initial policies of the Charest government

In 2004, a proposal for a one-day general strike to oppose the orientations and laws adopted by the Charest government immediately upon taking office was debated in the local unions affiliated to the major trade-union centrals, and many of these unions adopted strike mandates. A discussion was also begun in the Réseau de vigilance, the erstwhile coalition formed to oppose the direction taken by the Charest government, about the relevance of extending the strike to other sectors, such as the community milieu, and to make it a social strike. The idea of a general strike was abandoned given the requirement posed from the outset of obtaining the participation of all the union centrals, which proved impossible. We might mention, however, that the mandate had been achieved in some centrales. A question for further discussion: Do we all agree on the proposed definition of a social strike? What form might it take in our milieu? […]

Is the social strike feasible in the present context?

A number of conditions must co-exist if a social strike as defined earlier can take place successfully. It is necessary to have the support of the largest possible number of groups in all sectors, including the trade unions. In the case of the latter, the participation of the public sector is essential if it is to have the bandwagon effect on the private sector. The social strike is impossible, however, without the participation of a least a section of the union centrals. The anger must be sufficient to justify the risks that will be taken. The government, or some of the measures it intends to take, must be considered illegitimate by broad segments of the population. The traditional means of struggle must have revealed their limitations; the social struggle must come in the wake of a mounting series of actions or appear to be justified by a breakdown in democracy.

Questions to discuss

Do we think all of the conditions set out above must exist in order for a social strike to be considered feasible? Do they in fact exist in the present context? If not, can they be assembled within the near future? […]

Alert! Episode 213

2012-04-26T13:12:53+00:00

Political Sociologist Trevor Harrison explains why Alison Redford’s PC’s won the Alberta election after all and what it means for Alberta and Canada. Political activist/blogger Richard Fidler updates the Quebec student strike and discusses the importance of the demand for zero tuition fees by the student group CLASSE. Rabble.ca editor Derrick Okeefe talks about the fallout of the NDP victory in two BC byelections last week and the intense resistance to the Kinder Morgan pipeline led by mayors along the BC coastline along with first nations and environmentalists.

Expect more from your government

Murray Dobbin — 2012-04-26T01:48:01+00:00

Something is happening in Canada that seems, in the context of a majority Harper government, counter-intuitive. Harper continues implementing his right-wing revolution by fiat, and Preston Manning’s “democracy” institute says Canadians actually want “less” government and more individual responsibility. Yet a flurry of polls in the past few weeks and months suggest two dramatic counterpoints to this self-serving narrative.

First, in a development that is virtually unprecedented, inequality has become, by far, Canadians’ top concern displacing the perennial front-runner, Medicare. And closely related are a number of polls showing that Canadians in large majorities think wealthy people and corporations should pay more taxes. They are even willing to pay more themselves.

How these attitudes will play out over the longer term is hard to predict. Other trends are not so encouraging.

The trouble with normal, Bruce Cockburn told us, is it always gets worse. And that’s the danger in times like this when we sit and the ratcheting back of democratic government and the things that it has provided. The longer term threat to democracy is that we become inured to the systematic assaults on it. It is easy to get demoralized with what one US writer called “surplus powerlessness.” Without an obvious short-term solution to the quasi-dictatorship of the Harper government the easiest response is to deny it is happening – and then get used to it.

No opposition party has so far said that they are committed to reversing all the reactionary and destructive actions of this government. Yet this is what we should be demanding of them.

The myriad assaults on the nation being implemented by Harper are really just the latest chapter in what has been a revolution of lowered expectations: a deliberate and systematic culture war on ordinary Canadians deeply held values about the role of government. Starting in the late 1980s with the FTA campaign corporations and their propaganda agencies like the Fraser Institute, set out to reverse the so-called welfare state, and the belief system it rested on. The slogan for the free-traders was simple and repeated endlessly: there is no alternative. Of course there were alternatives, just none that the corporate state was going to allow.

Neo-liberals and the Christian right have been engaged in a thirty year process of trying to change the political culture into something more akin to the individualism of the US. To do that they had to demonize government – the institution of collective action which distinguished us from our southern neighbours.

The free trade battle was followed by the deficit hysteria campaign promoting the spectre of hitting the (non-existent) debt wall, softening Canadians up for huge cuts to social spending (courtesy Paul Martin). Demonizing government and government workers (lazy, privileged, self-interested, overpaid) also prepared the ground for the laying off of 50,000 federal employees. And, of course, as programs were diminished so too was the average citizen’s trust in government.

Lastly was the whole question of taxes and tax cuts – the litmus test of a new political culture of smaller govt and individual responsibility. Framing taxes as a burden, and telling people they knew how to spend their money better than government, the Liberal and Conservative regimes handed out billions upon billions of tax cuts in their efforts to downsize democracy.

Yet the whole project is turning out to be a failure. Canadians’ values have changed very little since the 1960s and ‘70s. What has changed are people’s expectations of what is possible from government. We cling stubbornly to our values but no longer expect to see them reflected in government policies. Until now. Thanks in large part to the wonderful activists in the occupy movement, suddenly Canadians are emerging from this war on democracy with the beginnings of what it will take to turn things around.

There is growing evidence that for a majority of Canadians personal experience is beginning to trump propaganda. As they see services decline, inequality rise, infrastructure crumble and democracy erode, what they have always known comes to the fore – that a civilized society is fair and that you have to pay for it.

For 31% of Canadians to say (as they did in this Ekos poll) that inequality is their number one concern, placing fiscal issues at 9% means this sentiment has been growing for sometime. It just took the catalyst of the occupy rebellion to bring it forward.

And the many polls revealing we are prepared to pay more taxes is an obvious extension of that moral imperative. The Ekos poll showed 59% chose investing in social programs as the highest government priority, compared to 16% who wanted to keep taxes as low as possible.

The Broadbent Institute’s recent polling was even more encouraging. Seventy-seven percent identified inequality as a major problem undermining Canadian values, were willing to do their part to address it and believed it should be a government priority to deal with it. While a large percentage supported fairer taxes (with the wealthy and corporations paying more) a significant majority, 64%, were willing to pay more themselves to save social programs – 72% of Liberal and NDP supporters and even 58% of Conservative supporters agreed. The majority support held across regions, gender, age, education level, and family income.

When the provincial NDP in Ontario recently called for a modest 2% tax hike for those earning half a million dollars or more the public response was overwhelmingly in favour – by a margin of 78% in favour to 17% opposed. The Liberal government read the polls – and agreed to the tax increase to get the NDP’s support for its budget.

Even in Calgary – in the heart of anti-tax country – 55% supported increasing municipal taxes while only 10% called for a decrease.

The media seems completely caught off guard by these and other polls. The Globe and Mail did an interactive poll the day before federal budget and declared: “What stood out was the across the board call for higher taxes.” People were willing to see the GST restored to 7%. A columnist for the National Post worried that the arguments against taxing the wealthy were not very convincing – especially when the mainstream is supportive.

When it comes to tax cuts the message is clear: enough is enough. At the same time as the polling is showing these remarkable results, there are now several organizations calling for fairer taxes: Doctors for Fair Taxation, Lawyers for Fair Taxation and Faith Leaders for Fair Taxation. There is also a national group, Canadians for Tax Fairness (which I am associated with) and groups beginning to form at the provincial level – such as Nova Scotians for Tax Fairness. There is the Canadian section of the international Uncut anti-austerity movement, with fourteen local chapters across the country. NUPGE, the federation of provincial government employee unions has been running an amazing tax campaign called All Together Now for a couple of years.

The movement for equality and tax fairness is barely off the ground and it already has majority support across the country. Now the opposition parties have to show that they have the courage and the principles to respond to this progressive sentiment. If the Liberals and the NDP ever manage to form a coalition government the first item on which they should agree is the need tax fairness and sufficient revenue to restore the Canada we once had and go beyond it. The Ekos poll revealed that 60% of Canadians say they would be more likely to vote for a party that pledged to raise taxes on the rich.

For Canadians and opposition parties the time for lowered expectations is over. Expect more.

Get serious about Syria

Saul Landau — 2012-04-25T15:52:01+00:00

The Syrian conflict continues to boil – or boil over – when Syrian troops fired across the Turkish border on April 9, apparently killing either fleeing refugees or armed combatants. However, despite continued words of caution from the Pentagon and White House about getting into another messy Middle East war, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton pressed for more intervention. The Syrian Accountability Act of 2003 began the formal U.S. attempt to bring down Assad, but Clinton, the imperial princess, now demands Syrian President Assad resign in favor of the Syrian National Council (SNC). This hastily formed group composed of exiled Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members, and other groupings, many in exile, would, magically transform Syria via fair elections into a good democracy – and sheep will fly.

Washington’s humanitarian assistance fund for Syria escalated into non-lethal aid – sophisticated satellite communications equipment, and night-vision goggles so rebels could evade Syrian government assaults.

U.S. and Western media have underscored Assad’s butchery, but offered little of substance on the opposition and its often savage behaviour. Just weeks after the first March 2011 protests – Arab Springtime – the media disregarded eyewitness evidence of armed groups shooting at and killing members of Syria’s security forces as well as civilians. Brazilian reporter Pepe Escobar witnessed “the shooting deaths of nine Syrian soldiers in Banyas” as early as April 10, 2011.

By focusing only on Assad’s violence, Western leaders could promote a lopsided view of the conflict. In recent weeks, however, the media could not ignore all “photos and video footage of armed men with heavy weapons proudly declaring their stripes – some of them religious extremists advocating the killing of civilians based on sectarian differences.”

Suicide bombings took place in Damascus and Aleppo, and Al Qaeda called its minions to battle. The U.S. government ignored Al Qaeda’s role and refers only to the “good” SNC, the majority who appear to ally themselves with Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood.

At a March meeting in Istanbul, sponsored by Turkey and Qatar, however, an unlikely source of dissent emerged. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said: “We reject any arming [of Syrian rebels] and the process to overthrow the [Assad] regime, because this will leave a greater crisis in the region.”

Al-Maliki questioned the motives of Qatar and Saudi Arabia who “are calling for sending arms instead of working on putting out the fire.”

Iraq, he continued, opposed “arming” the Free Syrian Army and he feared, “those countries that are interfering in Syria’s internal affairs will interfere in the internal affairs of any country.”

Al-Maliki, who governs Iraq as a result of the U.S. invasion and devastation of that country, questioned equating a cause backed by Saudi funding with freedom.

“What’s wrong with the Free Syrian Army getting funding from Saudi Arabia? Or, when did Saudi Arabia ever support freedom?” he asked. These remarks were not featured in headlined stories; nor did TV or radio news provide coverage of al-Maliki’s statement. Until recently, we might have depended on Al-Jazeera, whose Iraq war coverage won it praise from journalists. However, the network’s Syria reports led some reporters to resign over the network’s biased reporting. Hassan Shaaban, the Beirut bureau’s managing director, resigned in March, “after leaked emails revealed his frustration over the channel’s coverage.” Shaaban had filed a story showing armed men fighting with the Syrian army in Wadi Khaled. Al Jazeera dropped the story. Two other Al-Jazeera staff quit for the same reasons.

Al Akhbar claimed Qatar’s foreign policy influenced the reporting on Syria. Al Jazeera maintains headquarters in Qatar and the royal family helped establish the network.

The question in Washington should be: will adding fuel to the violence make matters worse? Assad’s forces have defeated – with huge civilian casualties – the formal rebel uprisings, but the SNC could sponsor a prolonged terrorist war, which would increase civilian casualties, and not succeed in removing Assad or the Baath Party from power.

Logic and reason dictate that Obama should follow the Syrian majority. A February 2012 poll showed “55% of Syrians want Assad to stay,” [NOT] motivated by fondness for his government, but “by fear of civil war.” The polls also ascertained “that half the Syrians who accept him staying in power believe he must usher in free elections in the near future.” The YouGov Siraj poll on Syria commissioned by The Doha Debates, funded by the Qatar Foundation, connected to the royal family. The family has taken a hawkish position on Syria.

These facts have not oozed into State Department consciousness, where the rush for U.S. entanglement appears contagious. Good sense should command Secretary Clinton to help save the process former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan set in motion for a negotiated cease fire. The opposition and the Assad side negated the April 10 deadline. This means Syrians will pay a higher human toll. The suffering is already immense.

On April 14, the UN Security Council backed a deployment of the first wave of U.N. military observers to monitor the tentative cease-fire between the Syrian government and opposition combatants. Before the arrangements become final, Washington should weigh in now with Russia, China and the western powers – not Saudi Arabia and Qatar – to pressure both sides to stop shooting and start serious talking.

Massive student upsurge fuels major debates in Quebec society

Richard Fidler — 2012-04-25T14:38:32+00:00

A crowd estimated at 250,000 people or more wound its way through Montréal April 22 in Quebec’s largest ever Earth Day march. They raised many demands: an end to tar sands and shale gas development, opposition to the Quebec government’s Plan Nord mining expansion, support for radical measures to protect ecosystems, and other causes. And many wore the red felt square symbolizing support to the province’s students fighting the Liberal government’s 75 percent increase in post-secondary education fees over the next five years. The Earth Day march was the largest mobilization to date in a mounting wave of citizen protest throughout the province.

In the vanguard have been the students, now in the eleventh week of a strike that has effectively shut down Quebec’s universities and junior colleges. In recent days they have battled court injunctions and mounting police repression. Their resilience has astonished many Québécois and inspired strong statements of support from broad layers of the population.[1] Equally surprising to many has been the government’s stubborn refusal to even discuss the fee hike with student representatives.

Addressing the huge crowd assembled at the foot of Mount Royal, student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois answered the taunts against the students by Premier Jean Charest and his deputy, Education Minister Line Beauchamp:

“In recent days they have been calling Quebec students hoodlums, vandals, violent people. That’s false! What is more violent than selling the lands of indigenous peoples to some multinationals? What is more violent than polluting the air that our children are going to breathe? We are not violent, it is they who are violent!”

The crunch

e student strike — the longest in Quebec history — is now in a crucial phase. If it continues for more than a few days, an entire semester will be sacrificed by the students. Yet the strike has held firm. There are still more than 170,000 students boycotting classes and they are now being joined by some high school students.[2] The movement has been sustained by frequent mass assemblies and debates as well as off-campus mobilizations. On March 22, more than 200,000 students and supporters marched through the streets of Montréal while throughout Quebec some 300,000 students struck their campuses.

Although the police have kept a low profile in the largest student actions, they have been emboldened by the government’s intransigence and the complicity of courts and academic authorities. During the past week, the cops have viciously attacked peaceful student demonstrations and arrested hundreds. Popular reactions in talk shows and letters to the editor indicate that many citizens are shocked at the repression, especially in regions outside the Montréal metropolitan area.

In Gatineau — a city adjacent to Ottawa, the federal capital — some dissident students at the regional campus of the Université du Québec (UQO) got a superior court judge to issue an injunction ordering professors to resume normal classes and barring student pickets within 25 metres of the university facilities. On April 18, I joined about 200 students, professors and supporters protesting the injunction. After demonstrating in front of the main campus, we marched peacefully (albeit noisily) through city streets, heading toward a secondary UQO campus less than two kilometres distant. Suddenly the municipal police tactical squad closed in, surrounded us and kept us “kettled” in close formation for a couple of hours before arresting more than 160 of us. We are being charged with “obstructing traffic” — although it was the police who closed off the road!

The next day, a similar demonstration, joined now by supporters bussed in from Montréal, was attacked at various points by the provincial police riot squad using pepper spray and truncheons. After leading the cops on a cat-and-mouse march through the city streets, some students found an unlocked door in a university building, entered and peacefully occupied the cafeteria. The cops swarmed in and stood in battle array along the walls. The students remained calm in the face of this intimidating spectacle. They observed a moment of silence and then held an hour-long free discussion on reforming the Quebec education system. The police then announced that they would be charged with “public mischief,” a serious criminal offense. In all, some 150 students and supporters were arrested that day.

The police occupation of campuses, as in Gatineau, is unprecedented and has shocked the academic community, resulting in several public statements of protest from professors and their unions. And even non-striking students have increasingly objected to the intimidating presence of police and massive private security forces on some campuses, including the University of Montréal.

A united front

Despite the provocation from government leaders and the cops, and the vitriolic verbal attacks on the students from much of the mass media — and notwithstanding a few minor incidents of attacks on property by a few unidentified agitators — the students have displayed a remarkably astute ability to remain united and strategically focused on the broader issues in their struggle.

When Education Minister Line Beauchamp, under mounting popular pressure, grudgingly offered to meet with student leaders (but not to discuss the fees increase), she ruled out meeting with the largest of the three groups, the CLASSE.[3] Her pretext? CLASSE leaders had not denounced violent attacks allegedly committed by a few students, including an incident in which her constituency office was invaded, staffers assaulted and some furnishings destroyed. Leaders of the other two federations[4] refused to meet with the minister in the absence of the CLASSE, and pointed out that under the CLASSE’s democratic structure and procedures, its leaders had no mandate to issue such a denunciation pending a decision by its weekly congress to do so.

This common front of the student organizations was a major change from the previous student strike, in 2005, when the two more conservative federations had abandoned the CLASSE predecessor, the CASSÉE,[5] and bargained an agreement with the minister that was subsequently criticized by many students, not just CASSÉE supporters, as grossly inadequate. In part, the change this year reflects the much greater weight of the CLASSE, the most militant wing of the movement, in the strike. It now represents about one half of the strikers, and has provided much of the political leadership for the movement as a whole.

(At the regular weekly congress of the CLASSE leadership, April 22, the delegates adopted a resolution “denouncing any deliberate physical violence toward individuals,” while reaffirming their support of actions of civil disobedience such as occupations of parliamentary deputies’ offices or blockages of certain sites such as bridges, roads, etc. In doing so, they effectively called the minister’s bluff. At this point she has not responded.)

A ‘débat de société’

The CLASSE began preparing for the strike early in 2011, publishing several issues during the year of an on-line tabloid journal, Ultimatum, containing detailed, well-argued articles on the issues and extensive reports on local activities. Each issue, up to 44 pages at one point, included reports on the popular upsurges in the Middle East and elsewhere internationally, with an emphasis on the leading role of students and youth. The Occupy movement was prominently covered. When the strike began in February of this year, Ultimatum switched to a two-page format issued almost weekly with updates on the strike’s progress.

Largely thanks to CLASSE’s intervention the strike has managed to move the public debate onto the students’ terrain, raising basic questions about the role of public education and its importance to the whole of Quebec society as a collective service that should be financed out of general government revenues, not on the backs of students as “consumers.” Thus, while the strike movement’s immediate goal is to “block the increase” in fees, the students have successfully placed the campaign in the context of an ongoing fight for la gratuité scolaire, free and universal access to post-secondary education. As the students argue, this remains a still unrealized objective of Quebec’s “Quiet Revolution” of the 1960s.

The students’ case has been endorsed by the eminent sociologist Guy Rocher, a member of the Quebec government-appointed Parent commission in the 1960s that laid the basis for a massive overhaul of the province’s educational system, proposing an end to church control of the schools and the creation of a vast network of post-secondary educational institutions. In an interview published in Le Devoir, Rocher described free education as a “societal choice” that would cost only 1% of the Quebec budget. And the Parent commission, he recalled, said free post-secondary education was “desirable in the long term” and even proposed that the neediest students be given a salary while they studied.

In fact, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Canada is a signatory, provides that “Higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education” (Article 13(2)(c).

Aware that even stopping the current hike in fees requires a popular mobilization larger than what the students themselves can achieve, the CLASSE has called for creation of a broad united front of protest against the neoliberal offensive and linked the fees increase to a string of recent regressive measures. A statement issued for the April 14 march, “For a Quebec Spring,” stated:

“Cuts in social programs, lower taxes for corporations, record military expenditures, setbacks to women’s rights, massive layoffs, inaction on factory closings, raising the retirement threshold to 67 years, increase in education fees, imposition of the healthcare tax, increased electricity rates… The list of Liberal and Conservative injustices is a long one.”

Where are the unions?

And indeed, the students’ appeals have been supported by a wide array of organizations in civil society. The full list, regularly updated, can be found at the web site 1625$ de hausse, ça ne passe pas. But while all three trade-union centrals support the students and favour free education, they have so far failed to back their rhetoric with economic action – not even the one-day general strike in solidarity with the students promised by the CSN. A petition urging such action by the unions is now gathering mounting support. It urges the union leaders to speak out forcefully, to organize a “national mobilization, beginning perhaps with a one-day symbolic general strike across Quebec” and, if that proves insufficient to defeat the fee hike, to follow it up with stronger solidarity actions.

Meanwhile, the right-wing voices in the mass media — especially in English Canada — are becoming increasingly shrill in their attacks on the students. A case in point was a diatribe by Postmedia columnist Andrew Coyne, a regular member of CBC-TV’s “At Issue” panel, which the state television network presents as intelligent commentary on questions of the day. In an April 21 newspaper column, Coyne described the Quebec students as a “self-serving, self-satisfied, self-dramatizing collection of idiots,” and went on to propose that instead of paying the present 17% of the total cost of their education the students should pay the full tab — through a graduated tax on subsequent income! Such is the logic of the neoliberal “user pays” principle.

And the funding?

There is, of course, no truth whatever in claims that there is not enough money in current government budgets to support free education at all levels. The point was made quite compellingly in a statement by Cap sur l’indépendance, a network of groups agitating for an independent Quebec. It contrasted the projected revenues from the fee hike, $250 million, with the following documented unnecessary expenditures, among others:

Annual cost of Canadian monarchy: $49 million (Monarchist League of Canada, 2011)
Harper’s financing of oil companies since 2009: $3.5 billion (Suzuki Foundation, 2012)
Tax evasion of the five biggest Canadian banks (1993-2007): $16 billion (Lauzon and Hasbani, 2008)
Canada’s climate debt under Kyoto as of December 31, 2012: $19 billion (Le Devoir)
Canadian military expenditures (2007-08): $490 billion (Canada First Defence Strategy, 2008)

In fact, a single F-35 fighter plane ($482 million, according to the Auditor-General) would largely suffice to fund the re-investment in post-secondary education that Premier Jean Charest wants students to pay.

As Cap sur l’indépendance notes, all of the above are expenditures under the federal regime. No doubt many other needless expenses — and new revenue sources — could be found within Quebec government budgets. But it would be easier to tackle those in an independent Quebec, “in which we could flourish in all areas, starting with education.”

However, the major independentist party, the Parti Québécois, does not support free post-secondary education. Several weeks into the student strike, the PQ leadership promised only a freeze on student fees if elected — now a real possibility in the forthcoming general election, judging from opinion polls. Only the pro-independence left party, Québec solidaire, is solidly behind the demand for la gratuité scolaire.

The Student Movement: Radical Priorities

Matthew Brett — 2012-04-19T15:42:04+00:00

The student movement in Quebec is an incredibly important development, with implications that reach well beyond provincial borders. The movement emerged in response to a 75 per cent increase in tuition fees to be implemented over the next five years, but it has quickly evolved into something far more significant. “People are starting to realize that the real problem behind the rising tuition fees and the commodification of education is something related to a socioeconomic system that is behind it all,” said Frank Lévesque-Nicol, a spokesperson for a protest that was held on February 2, 2012. The student movement has rekindled the political imagination to a degree not seen since the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. This is the most troubling and dynamic period in recent Quebec history, and the possibility that this energy will foster fundamental social change is very real.

The student movement is being treated as a single-issue by the mainstream media, and while one of the core demands is indeed for tuition to remain frozen, students have consistently framed and fought their struggle in broader social terms. The movement today is one of resistance and social change. People are refusing to pay for decades of corporate tax cuts, deregulation, economic crises and environmental exploitation. And while the conditions in Quebec are unique, many of the basic principles apply across Canada and most of the industrialized world. A spirit of political agitation, resistance and civil disobedience is emerging that will likely broaden in the months and years ahead.

Austerity and Class Struggle

There are reasons for the timing and emergence of these movements. Decades of policies that favour multinational corporations and discipline the broader public have reached new heights with the global economic crisis. Rather than seeking to ameliorate these conditions in light of the ongoing crisis, powerful interests have decided to exacerbate these trends. The official rhetoric is that people have to pay their fair share as nations struggle to exit from the global crisis. But the reality is that the public sector has incurred the necessary expenses to keep neoliberal capitalism alive – effectively lifting these costs from the corporations and banks – while imposing its environmental and social costs upon the people.

The Quebec case is revealing in this respect. The turn to austerity is part of a broader ‘cultural revolution’ that would bring the ‘sacred cows’ of the province pasture, to use the words of provincial finance minister, Raymond Bachand. The sacred cows to which Bachand is referring are accessible education, health care and other social programs, but a cursory look at federal and provincial politics reveals that the true sacred cows are multinational corporations, resource industries and financial interests.

Minister Bachand received a warm welcome from corporate leaders when introducing the tuition hikes as part of the 2012-13 budget at a luncheon organized by the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal in April, 2011. Bachand took the opportunity to stress that corporate income taxes – among the lowest in North America – would remain untouched. Healthcare user fees would instead be introduced along with hydroelectricity fees and a 75 per cent increase in tuition fees. Universities will also be increasingly privatized under the Liberal education plan, as they would be required to significantly increase private funding and donations.

On the same day as the Board of Trade luncheon, tens of thousands of people were protesting against the budget in the middle of Montreal’s financial district. The contrast in this image was clear for all to see: a Liberal finance minister meeting with some of the wealthiest people in the province, while hundreds of thousands marched outside against the very policies being discussed in the luncheon. This image has come to typify the conduct of affairs in most liberal democratic societies. People are free to organize and protest, so long as they do not disturb the luncheon. The case for organized opposition and creative civil disobedience in these circumstances is compelling.

Broadening the Struggle

The speed with which the student movement broadened to a general social struggle is significant and worthy of replication elsewhere. Austerity budgets have been introduced in provinces and cities across Canada and the world, and the level of political organizing in opposition to these measures is promising. It is important to recognize that most of these initiatives are led by students and youth. As Noam Chomsky wrote in defence of the students in 1968, “the student movement today is the one organized, significant segment of the intellectual community that has a real and active commitment to the kind of social change that our society desperately needs.” The achievements of students and youth in the 1960s were significant, and they are certainly replicable, but the conditions and struggles being waged are radically different today.

These assemblies affirmed the merits of syndicalist organizing, as the strength and effectiveness of the movement in Quebec rests upon highly localized student associations meeting regularly in their communities to adopt collective decisions. The student movement began gaining visible momentum in January 2012, as college and university student unions across the province started to adopt unlimited general strike mandates during their general assemblies. These assemblies affirmed the merits of syndicalist organizing, as the strength and effectiveness of the movement in Quebec rests upon highly localized student associations meeting regularly in their communities to adopt collective decisions. Implementing the strike was most effective where students organized within their own departments, rather than through larger centralized unions. The smaller departmental associations then send delegates to weekly congress meetings organized by La Coalition large de l’ASSÉ (CLASSE), which must wait for local assemblies to adopt positions before moving forward. The model is proving very effective. This same approach should be emulated elsewhere – in university departmental groups and associations along with public and private sector workplaces, for example.

Students received a boost of support when two of the largest public sector unions publicly endorsed the student strike, calling on their membership to join the national protest in Montreal on March 22. The protest drew roughly 200,000 people and may have been one of the largest marches in Canadian history. It was around this time that the movement clearly became a general social struggle. Streetlamps, windows, storefronts and balconies are draped with red felt squares that have symbolized the Quebec student movement since 2004, and dozens of people don the square on their lapels in a show of solidarity with the movement. Students organized solidarity actions with locked out Rio Tinto Alcan workers and with hundreds of Aveos employees who recently lost their jobs, and actions were also organized in opposition to the Liberal government’s controversial Plan Nord, which seeks to exploit natural resources on indigenous lands.

A major action is planned for Earth Day on April 22 that will be organized along internationalist lines in solidarity with environmental struggles across the world. Several internationalist solidarity actions have taken place in France, England, South Korea and elsewhere. The actions are simply too numerous to list. Queer and feminist groups have also had a visible and articulate presence within the movement, and autonomous actions and mass events have become a daily occurrence.

State Oppression

For many who are participating in the movement, these events have marked a decisive shift from dissent to resistance. As social movements grow in power and influence, it is clear that they are being met with increasing levels of state and corporate propaganda, manipulation, surveillance, infiltration and physical police oppression and brutality. Traditional measures of order in liberal democratic societies like work discipline, personal and household debt, mass culture, propaganda and social conformity are proving insufficient today, and the state is increasingly resorting to force. I am writing here specifically of recent developments in North America and Europe, as the democracy uprisings and revolutions in the Middle East and Northern Africa are far more brutal.

The first thing worth noting is that these oppressive measures have been in place for a long time, but they have largely targeted black, Latino, aboriginal and other communities that are the first to feel the effects of austerity and oppression. Racial profiling and police shake-downs are all too frequent in major urban centres, with women and children generally left to suffer the consequences. What makes the recent wave of state oppression distinct is that police are now openly targeting political actors. Police oppression is only receiving widespread attention today because it is on dramatic display and because predominantly white youth are now on the receiving end. Whatever the case, the primary function of both racial and political oppression is to maintain the existing social order through force.

One potential measure of the influence that popular movements and dissident groups yield is the extent to which they are targeted and oppressed. Thus, organized labour and socialist groups were the primary targets for surveillance and oppression in the 1960s. Unions, artists, intellectuals and elected state leaders all became the target of state action. Today, police are largely targeting grassroots organizations and self-identified anarchist groups. Montreal police recently established the Guet des activites et des mouvements marginaux et anarchistes (the GAMMA squad), which roughly translates to “surveillance of marginal and anarchist group activities.” The most expensive and elaborate covert police infiltration operation in Canadian history largely focused on grassroots organizations during the G-20 summit in Toronto. There are important reasons that explain this historical shift in police oppression.

Globalization, industrial outsourcing and union-busting in the 1970s and 1980s have considerably diminished the power and influence of organized labour in North America. With unions no longer serving as the sole conduit for political organization, autonomous political groups have come to fill the void. Looked at in this light, the widespread emergence of grassroots community groups and anarchist organizations is largely the product of neoliberal capitalism. As Marx wrote, “what the Bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers.” These grassroots organizations are now some of the most active in terms of organizing, and there is a real need to establish strong links with these groups. They are at the forefront of political organizing today and on the receiving end of state oppression. One of the most important questions to ask moving forward is how to effectively organize within this increasingly oppressive climate.

Challenges and Priorities

There are some encouraging signs that social movements will continue to expand in the coming months and years. But the challenges are overwhelming, and there is also an emerging right-wing populism to contend with. There are nevertheless prospects and openings for serious change, and this is something new. The Occupy movement has effectively changed the contours of debate, and it has done so across a fairly broad stratum of society. It was unthinkable to hear mainstream commentators talking about capitalism, poverty and radical alternatives prior to the economic crisis and the Occupy movement. It is now possible to talk about these things in a meaningful way, and this is a political opportunity. While this is encouraging, it is certainly not irreversible. Efforts will be made to oppress, distort and co-opt this more radical discourse as the Occupy movement prepares to re-expropriate public spaces from the status quo. There is a need for supporters and participants of Occupy to dedicate time, energy and resources to insuring that the movement remains vibrant.

Another priority is the need to overcome fear and oppression in all its forms. State elites and media outlets are fostering rhetoric that is readily comparable with the McCarthyism of the Cold War era, according to Laurentian University sociology professor Gary Kinsman. The Conservative Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (or Minister of Deportation), Jason Kenney, has called the grassroots organization No One is Illegal a group of “hard-line anti-Canadian extremists,” while Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has singled out “environmental and other radical groups” as threatening to “hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.” Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have also been identified as “multi-issue extremist” groups. “The fact that they are even discussing lawful dissent under the heading of terrorist activity is obviously of immediate concern,” said Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s Abby Deshman of recent state and police rhetoric. Instilling fear in the population serves several useful functions: fear acts as a deterrent, discouraging people from engaging in political activity and civil disobedience. Fear also turns people to embrace authority and social order. There is a real need to find ways of overcoming this resort to fear.

Oppression is not merely taking the form of rhetoric. The Occupy and student movements were treated naively when they began, but youth are now pepper sprayed and beaten on a near-daily basis in Montreal and elsewhere. Police have begun to deploy riot squads immediately to dismantle actions, whereas some effort was made at conciliation in the past. “Our job, as police officers, is repression,” said the President of the Police Fraternity of Quebec, Yves Francoeur. “We do not need a social worker as a director, we need a general. After all, the police is a paramilitary organization, let’s not forget it.” It is wretched to say this, but the point has been reached where creative thinking is needed to figure out how to organize effectively in the face of increasing physical oppression.

One evident and encouraging trend following the crisis is the emergence of coalition-building initiatives that include unions, community organizations and more radical grassroots initiatives. The Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly (GTWA) is promising, and the Quebec coalition that was established to resist provincial austerity is proving active and effective. Most of these initiatives have a strong student and youth-base at their core, which has generally served to push passive unions into engaging in popular and militant actions. This is all encouraging. One can only hope that these coalitions grow stronger and that unions start taking our present circumstances more seriously. A clear weakness in the student and Occupy movements is lack of militant activity from public and private sector unions. There was widespread hope that the Quebec student strike would broaden into a general strike, but none of the public and private sector unions adopted strike mandates that were possible. Unions need to start taking more meaningful actions, as youth cannot go this alone. Coordinated strike activity across sectors with strong and creative solidarity work is arguably necessary.

People also stand to learn a great deal from the student movement in Quebec, as the organizing principles and strategies developed by the movement are dynamic and highly effective. A widespread social movement could emerge by using these same organizing techniques in other regions, provinces and at the federal level. The basis of this strategy rests upon organizing locally within our communities. The principles of direct democracy are taken seriously, as people organize in small groups where meaningful discussion and decisions can actually take place.

More than anything, these ongoing struggles resoundingly affirm the need for solidarity. Political organizing and action put immense pressures on the mind, the body, our emotions, our social relations and our energies. Personal contact, meaningful dialogue and care for one another are vital. A little fun also never hurt. New and lasting friendships are being developed by standing together in solidarity, and this is the greatest strength our movements have. In the face of immense power and increasing oppression, people and youth in particular are showing incredible creativity and resilience. •

Alert! Episode 212

2012-04-19T02:33:18+00:00

Researcher Jack Hicks decries the Conservative governments cut backs to NAHO and other Aboriginal Health initiatives. Trevor Harrison dissects the Alberta Provincial Election race. High school teacher and part time journalist Ben Sichel promotes Fare free transit in Halifax.

Overshadowing the Cartagena Summit: the militarization of Central America

Richard Fidler — 2012-04-14T14:24:27+00:00

Stephen Harper and Barack Obama will be attending the Sixth Summit of the Americas this weekend in Cartagena, Colombia. Expected to attend will be 33 heads of government representing all the members of the Organization of American States (OAS) except Ecuador, whose President Rafael Correa is courageously abstaining primarily on the ground that the summit excludes revolutionary Cuba, still denied OAS membership by Washington.

Ironically, the Summit meets under the theme “Connecting the Americas: Partners for Prosperity.” However, Obama made it clear that he would not attend the summit if Cuba was represented, and the host president, Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos, bowed to this dictate.

The Cartagena summit follows on the heels of the inaugural summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a regional alliance comprised of all OAS members except Canada and the United States. A potential rival to the OAS, CELAC includes Cuba, of course. Its summit, which was held in Caracas in December, was hosted by one of CELAC’s principal architects, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

In the following article André Maltais, the well-informed Latin American specialist of the Quebec online and print newspaper L’aut’journal, draws attention to some disturbing developments in Central America and Mexico that overshadow the Cartagena summit. My translation from the French.

– Richard Fidler

The Militarization of Central America

L’aut’journal, April 12, 2012

by André Maltais

Last December 5, the 23rd Summit of the Tuxtla Mechanism of Dialogue and Concerted Action, which includes Mexico, Colombia and the Central American countries, met in Merida, Mexico. The Summit normally discusses the progress of the Mesoamerica Project (formerly Plan Puebla Panama), a network of transportation infrastructures and a set of economic development projects designed to counterbalance the IIRSA (Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America).

But the Summit’s final document put the emphasis on a very fashionable theme: the region’s security problems and the fight against drug trafficking.

This was the ingredient that was missing, writes the Argentine political journalist Mariela Zunino, for the Mesoamerica Project clearly to become what it is — in addition to a new escalation of dispossession and appropriation of territory, a U.S. geostrategic plan that tells all of Latin America that Washington has absolutely not turned its back on the continent.

In fact, if the countries of the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Peru and Colombia) are hesitating to align themselves candidly with the United States, another, more resolute front against Latin American integration is now open to the north of the continent. And, in addition to Mexico, it now includes almost all of the states of Central America.

The free-trade agreements (CAFTA, NAFTA) and U.S. military bases like those in Honduras and Panama have already limited the leeway of the countries of Central America.

But the Central American portion of the Merida Initiative, the Mexican Plan Colombia to counter the drug cartels, has now become the CARSI (Central American Regional Security Initiative), a new security initiative sponsored by the United States, which is pressuring the weak states of Central American to assign their local armed forces to the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime.

As the CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) notes, these are the same armed forces which, in the 1980s, urged on by the United States, tortured, assassinated, burned villages and committed so many other horrors against the human rights of their own population, especially in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

The CARSI also requires that U.S. military personnel train the local security forces under a program that the Pentagon refuses to make public, and with trainers it refuses to identify. This training is given at the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA), which since 2006 has operated at Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador.

The 2009 election in El Salvador of President Mauricio Funes, the candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a former guerrilla force turned political party, has not prevented flagrant interference by the United States in the country’s affairs.

In recent months, threatened with cuts in a U.S. development assistance program (the Partnership for Growth: El Salvador), President Funes replaced two senior officials belonging to the FMLN — Carlos Ascencio, the national civil police chief, and Manuel Melgar, Minister of Justice and Public Security — with two generals who are graduates of the School of the Americas and, of course, more disposed to cooperate with the new U.S. regional security initiatives.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the “left-wing” president announced on March 23 that his country’s armed forces were now going to fight delinquency and the drug cartels, thereby imitating the presidents of Mexico (Felipe Calderón), Honduras (Porfirio Lobo) and Guatemala (the former genocidal general Otto Pérez Molina).

So things are going very well for the United States in Central America, a region which, as Cuban journalist Oliver Zamora Oria notes, has always been geographically important for them, notwithstanding the negligible economies of the component countries.

While the guerrillas have disappeared, drug trafficking and violence, in addition to being profitable businesses for the U.S. banks and security industry, are now excellent pretexts for a permanent Pentagon military presence in the region. This need for permanence, says Oria, explains why the United States is not seriously trying to reduce their enormous domestic consumer market, which spurs drug production in Central America and the Andean countries.

The Costa Rican commentator Andres Mora Ramírez says the U.S. military never abandoned Central America after the peace agreements of the 1990s. It maintains military bases, training centres, air and sea patrol agreements, joint operations and exercises, donations of equipment, sales of weapons, etc. This ongoing threat, after the terror of the 1980s, has allowed the swing to the right in political life.

Expectations for improvements in social welfare and human development have been dashed, while new political elites and regional economic groups have aligned the countries in the region with the postulates of neoliberalism, fake free trade and U.S. geopolitics.

So much so that in a time of South American integration and the supposed global decline of the U.S. superpower, all the political regimes in the Central American countries are, in fact, right wing — with the sole exception of Nicaragua, which is attempting to swim against the regional current amidst immense obstacles and the numerous contradictions of President Daniel Ortega’s “Christian and solidaristic socialism.”[1]

Since 2006 the countries of the UNASUR, the Union of South American Nations, have observed without reacting the militarization of Central America and of a country as large as Mexico. A few days after the first meeting of the CELAC, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Washington announced, while signing the free-trade agreement with Colombia, the creation of an operational centre for fighting narco-terrorism at Champerico, Guatemala, and the creation of a new military academy in Panama.

The CELAC was to bring together all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean with the exception of Canada and the United States. However, two Central American countries have boycotted it: Costa Rica and El Salvador.

Last month the U.S. vice-president Joe Biden went to Mexico to remind each of the candidates in next July’s presidential election that President Calderón’s strategy of war on the drug cartels is untouchable.

Biden continued on to Honduras where he feels at home since the coup d’état of 2009. He met with the Central American presidents in order to nip in the bud an initiative by President Pérez Molina of Guatemala who was proposing to decriminalize the production, marketing and consumption of drugs.

The Guatemalan president was trying to win the support of the Central American presidents with a view to adopting a common position to present at the Summit of the Americas this month, in Cartagena de Indios, Colombia. Many voices had been raised in support of Pérez Molina, including those of Brazil’s former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and Colombia’s president Juan Manuel Santos.

But once Biden left, the governments of El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama announced that they would not support any Guatemala proposal for legalization of drugs.

As Laura Carlsen, director of the Mexico-based Americas Program, says, these presidents still prefer a system in which their peoples pay in blood and lives to fill the pockets of the U.S. defense industry contractors and spread the Pentagon’s influence in their region.

Why anti-pipeline organizing isn’t just another protest

Nick Montgomery — 2012-04-12T15:57:53+00:00

By now, the details of the proposed Enbridge pipeline (and its disastrous social and ecological implications) are well-documented, so I’ll spare you. Most people reading this are probably convinced that the pipeline is a horrible idea that should be stopped. This article is more about the how than the why of Enbridge organizing: how are communities responding to the pipeline, how they organizing themselves, and how do their strategies converge and diverge? What constitutes effective resistance, and what’s being resisted? How can pipeline organizing connect different communities and struggles?

The argument here is pretty simple: the creative, grassroots, solidarity-building efforts going on in pipeline organizing differ from conventional environmentalism, and that’s a great thing, because conventional environmentalism sucks. The how of anti-pipeline organizing looks much different when people move beyond traditional strategies of environmental organizing and campaigning. I’m talking about organizing efforts in Victoria because that’s where I live and what I know about, but there are parallels everywhere. Like all alternatives, the creative departures are partial and emergent, so there’s no way to talk about all pipeline organizing. So here are some examples of the exciting currents of anti-pipeline organizing that are creating and sustaining community resistance:

1) Pipeline organizing is about more than protest. This Sunday, April 15th there’s a rally and teach-in to contest the proposed Enbridge pipeline. The rally is the conventional part, and it’s what usually happens after rallies that make them so sad: everyone goes home (Sunday will be different). Everyone is familiar with protest conventions: everyone meets in front of a building, chants slogans, marches to a different building, there are some impassioned speeches, we chant at the building for a while… and then we all go home.

Protests can create excitement, a sense of unity, and they can be fun. But they don’t create much space for people to think through problems together, or to figure out what to do next, and how: often that work is reserved for the ‘campaigners’ (the people who organize the rally and make all the decisions) and the rest of us are just a big mass to be mobilized and then dispersed. April 15th will be different: after the rally, there’s a whole series of workshops and panel discussions on topics like alternative energy, direct action, anti-oppression, indigenous solidarity and much more. Maybe most importantly, there will be space for people to form working groups, so that we can be more than just a momentarily-mobilized mass together. These kinds of practices create space for people to get involved in meaningful ways. This is the same thing that made the “#OCCUPY” movement so important (and so threatening): beyond the vague denunciations of the 1%, there was genuine space for people to come together and talk to each other, connect the ‘big’ political problems with everyday life, and figure out how to take action together.

2) Pipeline organizing is about more than Enbridge. The diverse workshop themes reflect the insight that this is about much more than Enbridge, or other pipelines, or oil. They help dispense with the fantasy that we are all the same and that there’s a single enemy out there: they create space to talk about oppressions that divide communities, connecting everyday life to the pipeline and the institutions that support it. They connect the pipeline to much longer historical processes like colonialism and enclosure that make the pipeline possible, and they remind us that these processes are ongoing rather than something that happened ‘back then.’ This unsettles conventional environmental narratives that we are the good guys, often pointing to the embarrassing fact that this ‘we’ is often settlers who benefit from continuing colonization and resource extraction. The implications of colonialism and our involvement in it is a problem to be worked through, which makes collective space and discussion all the more urgent. Workshops include speakers who unpack colonialism and connect it to resource extraction.

This Sunday’s rally doesn’t seem to include your standard roster of speakers: the prominent politicians and environmental NGO directors are nowhere to be found. Why?

3) Pipeline organizing is community-based and non-professionalized. Centuries of capitalism, colonialism, and heteropatriarchy has left most Canadians pretty stunted in our politics, and mainstream environmentalism is no exception: it tends to funnel us back into practices that promote isolation, individualism, and dependence on government and politicians. Plus it’s kind of boring. Over the past 3-4 decades, environmentalism has become professionalized and institutionalized in NGOs that need to demonstrate quantifiable success through measurable goals (how many petition signatures? Did you achieve your campaign objectives? How many donations did your campaign receive?)

This kind of environmental politics can be effective, but in a very limited way: it’s great at generating a coherent and unified message, getting favourable coverage in mainstream media, and gathering a huge list of names for email updates. Sometimes this can achieve short-term objectives: if a government thinks it will cost them too many votes, they might change their minds about a particular project. Derrick Jensen is famous for mocking this kind of politics, where protests and press coverage can become ends in themselves, making it harder to imagine other forms of resistance…

Mainstream environmental politics is about the masses: mobilizing the masses, disseminating information to the masses, and urging the masses to undertake discrete, individualized action (send a letter to your MP and tell them you oppose the pipeline!). But that’s about it: the masses stay masses, with few opportunities to talk to each other, formulate problems collectively, and figure out how to do stuff together. In contrast, (parts of) anti-pipeline organizing in Victoria is creating space for horizontal and diverse political responses. It’s not focused on criticizing or dismissing more conventional environmentalism, but instead on creating space for other, more creative forms of environmentalism to take root.

These spaces aren’t just about building a group of people who oppose the pipeline in principle: they’re spaces for figuring out collectively how to organize, oppose, and stop the pipeline—and how to dismantle the institutions and structures that support and reinforce it. And these spaces are way more inspiring and fun than protests and petitions. Anyway, that’s why I’m showing up on April 15th: because after we’re done chanting slogans, there’s space to sit down together, learn from each other, and do politics collectively. Hope to see you there!

Nick Montgomery is a Victoria-based writer who blogs at Many Politics.*

Alert! Episode 211

2012-04-12T14:59:25+00:00

Broadcaster/writer Steve Lendman makes a strong case against NATO intervention in Syria. Feminist and community activist Adrie Naylor explains why Harper’s austerity agenda hurts women particularly hard.

Bella Bella: Peaceful protest unnerves regulators

Ingmar Lee — 2012-04-09T16:48:10+00:00

I was demonstrating along the Bella Bella airport road with my family when Canada’s “National Energy Board Joint Revue Panel” (JRP) entourage arrived in the Heiltsuk First Nation’s village yesterday. Bella Bella is situated on BC’s primaeval and pristine Central Coast, at the heart of the ‘Great Bear Rainforest.’

The JRP had come, purportedly, to hear people’s views on the gigantic Tar-Sands pipeline project that Canada’s Neocon Prime Minister Stephen Harper is most anxious to force across BC. The pipelines would deliver unrefined Tar-Sands bitumen, -the dirtiest oil anywhere- to a future gigantic Oil Port on the Pacific Coast at Kitimaat. From there a half million barrels-per-day would be loaded on 200-per-year Giga-Tankers the size of the Empire State Building and delivered through the treacherous rock-pile that is the BC coast to Harper’s favourite new market, -China. Harper has been shamelessly trumpeting the scheme over the past year, saying that as the USA economy has now gone bankrupt, it is in Canada’s national interest to diversify its oil markets and start shipping it over to China instead.

It was a cheerful, boisterous, colourful crowd of about 200 people, with Chiefs, elders and kids-probably at least half the crowd were children. I didn’t hear any insulting language, -and we, and all the people near us waved our placards as the RCMP-led convoy passed by. Everyone in the crowd knew that the JRP had been politely invited to join in the community Feast later in the day, and everyone expected that they would join us in the Bella Bella Community Hall, to listen to all the wonderful speakers.

It took the crowd about 20 minutes to hike back down the road into town, and when we got to the government dock, we saw all the Heiltsuk chiefs, resplendent in their full regalia, along with every important community member, standing there watching the JRP entourage getting whisked away to an adjacent island on the Shearwater Corporation boat. The whole cowardly entourage had suddenly departed Bella Bella, and refused their invite to the Feast. This is totally rude and insulting behaviour. Everyone there felt punched in the gut, utterly shocked!

So then we all marched up and filled the Hall, where we later learned that the JRP had cancelled all the hearings, citing that they had felt “intimidated” by the absolutely peaceful demonstration! The Bella Bella intervenors had spent untold hours of time and money in preparing their submissions, delegations had arrived from all the neighbouring communites, -Owikeno, Nuxalk, Kitasoo Xias Xais, and Gitgaat Chiefs and dignitaries had arrived, many of the kids at the Bella Bella School had undertaken a hunger strike and the community had put in an enormous effort, organizing and preparing for the event, and now their input has been outright cancelled, -right on schedule with the retroactive reductions in environmental hearings for major projects as announced in the recent budget. More than 4000 people have signed up to speak out, but Harper has pulled out all the stops to stigmatize and demonize anyone who opposes the scheme.

If HarperCon government has already formalized these “retroactive changes” to the Enbridge review process as we have heard they intend to do (in the Budget), I haven’t yet seen how they propose to do that, but I cannot imagine a more clumsy and stupid way to go about cutting off public comment. The final insult was that although the JRP claims to have been “frightened away” by the peaceful, family-oriented demonstrations at Bella Bella airport, they had no worries whatsoever at all about drinking late into the night, with the locals at the Shearwater Bar.

Although I am one of the 4000 who have registered to speak at the hearings, I known that this is a totally corrupt, farcical charade that will ultimately rubberstamp the “Stephen Harper Pipeline/Tanker Scheme.”

I am disgusted by the environmental groups that have lent a chimera of dignity to the corrupt NEB process by their participation in this rotten staged process. I cannot for the life of me understand any reason they might give for sitting there, other than the significant money they get for doing so. Clearly, for any real environmentalist, NO is all there is to say about the scheme of pumping a half-million barrels of dirty-oil per day across the province, to be loaded onto these ridiculous tankers, -thereby guaranteeing an inevitable oil disaster which will destroy all of Canada’s Pacific coast and beyond.

All along I have believed that this horrible process should have been utterly boycotted right from the start. People should not have to waste their time defending their lands and waters from this hideous Harper monstrosity through this contrived, farcical and corrupt process.

Harper is desperate to get his dirty oil pipeline and tankers, has demonstrated that he will employ any number of ugly, twisted lies and dirty tricks to forward his Neocon agenda, including cheating elections as is now being revealed in the emerging “Robocalls Scandal” in which thousands of Canadians where phoned and mis-directed to wrong or non-existent polling stations during last year’s federal election. More and more details of the mushrooming scam are being revealed on a daily basis.

I think that one measure by which we can gauge the huge level of opposition to this project that exists in British Columbia, is by looking at that stupid entity which lives and breathes polling statistics, namely BC’s own Neocon Christy Clark provincial government. Of course, any idiot knows that a poll will always answer favourably according to whom pays for it, nevertheless even corporate polling consistently demonstrates that more than 80% of British Columbian’s oppose oil and gas development off our coast. Clearly by her calculations, in spite of how much she must be sweating and itching to get BC signed on to the Stephen Harper Pipeline/Tanker Scheme – to try to do so would be political suicide. Harper visited BC on numerous occasions during last year’s election, and never mentioned a peep about the project, -and now he says it’s a national emergency. HarperCon, which relies on dirty tricks and the general corruption of what passes for democracy in Canada to get elected, doesn’t give a rat’s ass what the people of BC care about.

Nevertheless, this most clumsy and stupid act of cowardice just seen at Bella Bella, just might have cost Harper his pipeline.

Podcast of my comments on this issue on CFUV “Gorilla Radio.”

Photo: Used under Creative commons licencing. Ryan McFarland: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zieak/

Alert! Episode 210

2012-04-05T03:37:35+00:00

Political scientist and Canadian Dimension collective member Dennis Pilon discusses what the federal budget reveals about Stephen Harper’s Plan for Reshaping Canada. Canadian Dimension collective member Andrea Levy talks about CD’s new issue that focuses on de-growth.

Review: Bodies and Pleasures

Scott Neigh — 2012-03-30T03:43:16+00:00

[Ladelle McWhorter. Bodies and Pleasures: Foucault and the Politics of Sexual Normalization. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1999.]

Those of us on the left are often not very good at talking about the living of life at the individual level. There are a number of different ways that it is done badly among us, by different people or at different times. From some, you see a refusal to think about it at all, and a focus that is entirely on change at the social level, as if the collectives that can create such change are not made up of people and our practices or as if our politics should have no bearing on our lives outside of meetings and actions. From others, there is a focus on lifestyle choices that ends up patrolling in-group/out-group boundaries (often in quite racist ways) and/or that imports a very asocial, individualistic moralism into our groups and communities and movements in ways that are divisive and that form the basis of usually-silent but highly destructive hierarchical purity politics. And of course there is lots that is loving and communicative and accepting and supportive in how we live our lives and relate to each other as well, but even that is often similarly detached from really thinking through how we act beyond the level of “be kind to each other.”

Bodies and Pleasures is an account of Ladelle McWhorter’s reading of the work of Michel Foucault in the context of both her own experiences of sexual regulation and the evolution of her understanding of the social world. As such, I experienced it as important in two overlapping but distinct areas. One relates to her account of her struggles against sexual normalization. Our lives are very, very different in a lot of ways, but there were moments in reading those parts of the book when I felt that jolt of recognition you feel when you read something you’ve experienced but never put into words before. The other area of importance of this book is that it offers some conceptual tools that might — might — be useful for those of us involved in movements and committed to social change as we think about everyday practices of living, particularly if we want a critical approach that is not already three-quarters of the way down the path to lifestylism, moralism, or privilege-based exclusion.

In volume 1 of his History of Sexuality, Foucault argues that the commonsense idea that we live in a sexually repressive culture is only true in a very narrow and specific sense, and that in fact in the last 150 years there has been a great proliferation of spaces and ways and compulsions to talk about sexuality. This proliferation of talk has been part of the emergence of selves that are in large part defined by sexuality, of sexual subjects, in a way that did not exist before, and also part of the emergence of a complex of relations and practices through which such selves are administered. A distinct sphere of life labelled “sexuality” has emerged out of previously disparate and unconnected sensations, practices, impulses, and ideas. It is one instance among a number in which norms have been created, and individuals are assessed relative to those norms and disciplined to better fit those norms, as part of producing and controlling populations. A central aspect of this has been the production over that period of “the homosexual” as a defined and subjugated type of human being — that is not the only axis along which such sexual regulation operates, but it is an important one.

McWhorter first read that particular work of Foucault’s in her early 20s, in the early 1980s, and it spoke profoundly to her. Throughout her early life, in many different ways, in many different spaces, she had faced individuals in positions of power and broader social arrangements that pressured her to confess to being a particular type of sexual entity — the type labelled “homosexual” — and thereby to become knowable and known as a particular kind of not-quite-human being, as someone who in so many moments would have their complexity and ethical fullness and even basic freedom denied because of that status. She knew keenly before she had the language to express it what it meant to be pinned to that category, so she resisted as best she could being sorted, being labelled, being subjected to the particular forms of oppressive social regulation. This was never about doubt or hesitation about her sexual and romantic relationships with women, but rather a keen and deeply felt objection to the ways in which that forced her production as a certain kind of subject.

She charts the course of her resistance over different phases of her life, as well as the growing depth and sophistication of her understanding of Foucault. She discusses what it means to try and understand the world genealogically, in Foucault’s sense — to constantly call into question and seek the historical and social roots of every category, and so have no solid, simple, humanist place for the knowing subject. She engages with some of the key criticisms that have been levelled at Foucault’s work over the years, in particular the assertions that his analysis leaves us with no ground for making moral judgements, no way to exert agency, and no way to ground political collectivity. I don’t think she settles all of those questions once and for all, but she successfully shows that his work cannot just be dismissed on those grounds. She addresses modes of resistance, again with reference to her own journey. She talks about the body — one of the key elements in her title, and one of the key elements in her understanding of Foucault’s thoughts about resistance. She also talks about the other element of each, pleasure, and about some specific practices of what she describes as “self-overcoming” grounded in bodies and pleasures.

The useful stuff in her account of her struggles against sexual normalization takes a couple of different forms. I’ve mentioned before that one way to periodize my life would be to distinguish between the time before counter-normative sexual and relationship practices were even imaginable for me, versus after they became imaginable and gradually became more a part of my lived practices along a couple of distinct axes. The moments of recognition that I experienced in reading this book apply more directly to the later period, but I don’t feel particularly inclined to elaborate on that at this point. The perhaps more distant but interesting relevance is to the earlier period, where my practices, desires, and imagination were thoroughly normative along every axis. Even so, I felt the pressure to become known in sexual terms as oppressive. Partly, given my intense shame around sexuality, this was around being pinned to being a sexual subject at all, never mind that it was a thoroughly privileged sexual subject at that point. More interestingly, I now recognized, it was resistance to being pinned to a particular version of masculinity that I desperately, urgently wanted no part of. It’s not that I’ve ever had even any inkling of myself as doing gender in any way other than masculinity, but at that point in my life, based on my observation of the media and the people around me, I understood (even if I would have been unable to articulate) masculine desire for women as having a necessary connection to ways of doing masculinity that were about treating women and subordinate men badly. I felt that being known as a (thoroughly normative and privileged) sexual subject would have pinned me to gender in a way that repelled me. (Though I’m sure it worked the other way too — part of why I wanted no part of that particular way of doing gender was because it was, by definition to me at that point, the only way of doing gender I had ever encountered which experienced and acted on desire, given that my understanding at the time was that no women and only bad men felt/acted on sexual desire, and that was shameful.)

The more general utility of this book for making choices about everyday practices of living has to do with the way she builds towards talking about the two elements in her title, bodies and pleasures. For her, the significant thing about bodies is understanding them as Foucault does, not as the Cartesian correspondent of “mind” but as a united whole that is capable of developing new capacities over time in response to disciplinary pressures. This capacity of bodies is the basis for the various social technologies through which disciplinary power, often in conjunction with judicious applications of pain, has been applied over the last 200 years develop capacities that are in some sense “useful” to various institutions, and that ensure the docility of those of us who are thus disciplined — it has made us good workers, good soldiers, good consumers, and so on. However, she argues that this same capacity in bodies can be turned in more liberatory directions. That is, through how we live our own lives, we can cultivate new capacities in our bodies through deliberate, disciplinary choices that are based not in cultivating pain but in cultivating capacity for pleasures, and that are directed not towards some external end but are purely directed towards expanding our range of possibilities. Pleasures may or may not have content that we currently understand as sexual, but they are deliberately oriented differently from dominant ways of pursuing sexual desire. She gives, as examples of disciplines of pleasure, gardening and dancing from her own life, and of sadomasochistic sexual practices, hallucinogenic drugs, and the writing of philosophy from Foucault’s life, and illustrates the ways in which each of these have functioned as practices of self-overcoming, of change that changes self while the relations and practices around self remain the same but that change self in ways that will (or at least might) lead that self to be an origin point of challenge and changes in those surrounding relations and practices. The examples she gives are meant not to be taken up directly but as illustrations, and she encourages those who wish to experiment with such ways of being to find their own disciplines of pleasure.

This sounds like it could easily become very self-involved and even narcissistic, and I’m not at all convinced that it is guaranteed to avoid those pitfalls. Nonetheless, it is based on the idea that deliberate cultivation of self in this manner can be a path towards us being other than we have been socially produced to be; towards us overcoming those limits into which we have been trained but which are not (or are no longer) about avoiding direct, tragic consequences; towards us challenging those relations and practices which oppressively discipline us. The idea, I think, is that the non-utilitarian grounding in pleasure will provide both the energy to motivate us and the source for logics of acting that differ from the discplinary (and capitalist) logics which permeate our lives today. To me, this resonates strongly with John Holloway’s idea of creating cracks in capitalism, as it provides an answer as to where the non-capitalist logics that are to shape those cracks are to come from. McWhorter admits that there is nothing sure about what will come from following ethical disciplines of pleasure, though I think she’s right that there is at least a reasonable chance that following such disciplines will, sooner or later, bring you up against normalizing disciplines and therefore carry you into struggles to create change. I think what for me makes her analysis worth taking seriously is the fact that it applies to areas of life that we make decisions about, that we enact practices in, regardless of whether we do so with political intent, so it is at least worth seeing if there are ways that we can take up her ideas that are consonant with our other political commitments. In retrospect, certain ways that I have related to writing and certain ways that I have related to sexuality could, in complicated and contradictory ways, be understood as disciplines of pleasure that have contributed to change in self.

There are a few other things to be wary of in McWhorter’s analysis. For instance, she doesn’t really deal with the ways in which some of what Foucault has to say in History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 is quite Orientalist. And she doesn’t really deal with the fact that experiencing the moment of confession and consequent sexual identificaiton and classificaiton as the originary moment one’s oppression is premised, more or less, on being white — which isn’t to say that racialized people don’t experience that moment in all sorts of horrible ways, but because of the unchosen visibility that is inherent to most forms of racial oppression it is highly unlikely that it will be experienced as the first moment of oppression in the same way. And I think the examples she gives of how disciplines of pleasure lead her towards more collective political involvement — she uses the Foucauldian term “governmentality” — deserve more attention. She is quite right in arguing that we shouldn’t just dismiss her conventional-seeming participation in legislatively oriented efforts to oppose attacks on queer lives in the Southern state in which she lives and works, given that they are very much relevant to the space that ordinary people have to survive and thrive there, but I think attaching her sophisticated understanding of power to an equally sophisticated understanding of movements and what they are and what they can do would be very useful.

In any case, I think this book is worth reading and it contains ideas that are worth taking up, given that it deals with levels of practice that those of us who identify with movements normally don’t do a good job of thinking about, and given that the critical but open-ended character of her answers seem at least potentially resistant to the risks of lifestyleism, moralism, and exclusion. Is any of what she says certain? Definitely not. But it feels worth experimenting with to me.

Massacres and PTSD

Saul Landau — 2012-03-30T02:24:24+00:00

Western media has focused attention on Sgt. Robert Bales’s background. He allegedly murdered 16 Afghan civilians, 9 of them children, near Kandahar. After the bloodbath, Bales returned to his base and confessed.

The media delved into Bales’s childhood, his marriage, and even his role on the high school football team. Reporters underlined his recent financial stress, war-related traumas, and possible alcoholism – as possible explanations for carrying out his butchery.

Did PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) drive this father of two children, who said he enlisted to protect his country after 9/11, to commit such an atrocity? A common problem for multiple tours of duty veterans, but not a satisfying explanation!

TV provides endless biographical portraits of this “unfortunate” 38-year-old guy reluctantly serving his fourth tour of duty. He witnessed fellow soldiers dying and losing limbs from the perverted use of improvised explosive devices planted by the Taliban. Dirty tactics. (We use clean tactics, like bombs from the air, missiles from the ground and air, bullets and artillery fire – and don’t forget those cool helicopter gun-ships and slithery drones.)

Then came contradictory news. Bales had cheated an old couple out of their life savings when he worked for a brokerage firm in Ohio, and may have joined the army to escape prosecution. Maybe not Mr. Nice Guy?

Bales’s lawyer says his client cannot remember the events, setting the stage for a “diminished capacity” defense.

“Diminished capacity” better describes the politicians who started and continued the war in Afghanistan and the Republican presidential aspirants who want to escalate the war and start a new one with Iran.

True, Bales served three tours of duty in Iraq and resented the very people he was supposedly helping. Bales pejoratively called them “Hajjis.” Imagine four tours of duty! It had to be PTSD that drove him crazy.

Wait! Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans who have lost their families and homes to U.S. bullets, bombs and missiles also suffer from PTSD. Why don’t they go on more rampages? How many Pakistani villagers have died from drone strikes? Why haven’t we witnessed similar rampages from those war victims?

Bales, however, has ample precedent in U.S. military history. The demonized Indians got slaughtered for almost a century. In 1898, President McKinley wanted to convert to Christianity the “heathen” Filipinos. “God told me to take the Philippines,” he told incredulous reporters, but didn’t tell him where to find the Philippines.

After Admiral George Dewey reported that he had captured Manila, McKinley went to his globe. “I could not,” he later confessed, “have told where those damned islands were within 2,000 miles.”

Not important. Doing God’s work doesn’t entail knowledge of geography or ethics. When residents of Balangiga, a village on Samar Island, ambushed a U.S. military unit and killed forty soldiers, Gen. Jacob H. Smith ordered his men to execute every villager over age ten. Filipinos estimate 3,000 died. General Smith’s punishment? Forced early retirement!

President Truman ordered the air force to drop two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities — the massacre of massacres. And he didn’t have PTSD.

In June 2000, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung asked President Clinton to investigate the June 1950 mass killing of Korean refugees by U.S. soldiers near a railway bridge at No Gun Ri.

In March 1968, U.S. soldiers raped and killed more than 300 unarmed Vietnamese villagers at My Lai — the most dramatic of the atrocities committed in Vietnam. In Iraq, U.S. soldiers went “crazy” in Haditha and also killed civilians in Falluja.

Should these incidents have won support from the U.S. public for the “poor killers?” Isn’t it time the media slapped itself in the face and restored sanity to its notion of balanced reporting? Wars create killers and killers then kill — anyone. But if they do it in uniform they rarely get punished.

The U.S. government deployed Bales to Afghanistan to do his part to defend U.S. security and bring stability and democracy to Afghanistan. The Afghan people did not invite the troops, nor did their government.

Some U.S. soldiers resented the fact that Afghan troops they had trained then killed U.S. servicemen. They felt frustrated when Afghans demonstrated over U.S. soldiers burning Korans and peeing on Afghan corpses. Some Afghans responded violently: six NATO soldiers, including two Americans, paid the fatal price.

Those ungrateful people! We came to help and this is the way they behave! The U.S. soldiers who seek revenge and forego military discipline get labeled as crazy, not “homicidal Sergeants.” (Robert Fisk, “Madness is not the reason for this massacre,” The Independent, March 17)

The U.S. has lost the war in Afghanistan. After eleven years of U.S. occupation, preceded by Taliban brutality, preceded by U.S.-backed war-lords, who took over from a communist government supported by Soviet military occupation, Afghanistan is also full of people with PTSD.

The U.S. still pretends that their trained killers can also win hearts and minds. Will Washington learn outgoing Secretary of Defense Bob Gates’ lesson? “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to send a big American land army into Asia, or into the Middle East or Africa, should have his head examined.” (Quoted by Maureen Dowd, NY Times, March 21)

To stop future massacres, send Bales back to Afghanistan for trial. Let’s see how “diminished capacity” plays in Kandahar — the scene of the crime.

Saul Landau’s latest film is Will The Real Terrorist Please Stand Up.

Mourning Mulcair’s Win

Murray Dobbin — 2012-03-29T16:39:13+00:00

There will be lots of soul searching and head scratching going on this week about what happened with the NDP leadership race. The mechanics of the convention, the interesting lack of deal-making, and how the balloting progressed are all fodder for those who enjoy going through the entrails of leadership conventions. Others will be analyzing the various campaigns of the frontrunners, looking for weaknesses to explain how they could collectively have let Thomas Mulcair, the right-wing Liberal, pro-Israel, political bully become head of their party.

Two things shocked me about this race and its final two days. The first is that so many NDPers, part of a tightly-knit, hyper-loyal political culture steeped in progressive values could so casually elect a man who contradicts so many of their principles. Besides the disastrous result for the party and all progressives in the country, the election of Mulcair raises profound questions about the health of the party. There are two possibilities, neither attractive. One is that NDPers, like increasing numbers of Canadians in general, simply don’t read as much and that information about Mulcair did not get through to them. To what extent did NDPers devote time and energy to finding out about the candidates? In general, what is the state of member education and engagement in the party?

More worrisome is the possibility that many thousands of NDP members had indeed heard the negative aspects of Mulcair’s politics and voted for him anyway. That’s a very different problem. It reflects what I have observed about the NDP for decades now: its decreasing emphasis on policy and philosophy and the increased — political machine driven — preoccupation with winning seats in elections, often out of context of the political moment and oblivious to unintended consequences. One prominent NDPer I spoke to responded to my shock that he was supporting Mulcair with a sort of football game enthusiasm. “I think he can take on the bastard [Harper].”

Facing a ruthless tough guy? Get your own ruthless tough guy. And possibly create a monster you can’t control. It is as if policy, philosophy, and vision for the country have simply been devalued to the point where they are an afterthought or some vaguely interesting historical relic. There seems to have been a kind of “We’ll worry about policies later, let’s pick someone who can win first.”

The second shocker was the low turn-out. Around 50 per cent of the members, who have been inundated with campaign efforts for months now, bothered to vote. What happened? It was incredibly easy to vote and the conventional wisdom about the NDP is that it has the most enthusiastic and committed members of any party. Maybe not.

How will Mulcair’s “negatives” play out now that he is leader? These are significant negatives: his vicious, public attack on Libby Davies in 2010 showed unforgivably bad judgment. His failed negotiations with the Harper Conservatives for a cabinet position should by itself be a deal breaker for what it reveals about Mulcair’s ethics. When finance critic, he barely said a word about Harper’s destructive economic policies, and so one has to suspect he was in basic agreement. He boasted in 2007 about having slashed the work force of the Quebec environment department by 15 per cent, referring to himself as first and foremost a manager. That fits with his history of union-bashing — and support for NAFTA — while in Quebec’s Liberal cabinet.

It is impossible to predict what Mulcair will do on the whole range of issues that have people extremely worried. It could come down with serial games of chicken. How hard will the caucus fight, for example, on the Palestinian question? Will the caucus be willing to allow a fight to get out into the public? Mulcair has demonstrated that he is more than willing to do so, the consequences be damned. Do you protect the party from bad publicity or do you protect it from having its policies gutted?

Mulcair’s rigid fiscal conservatism may be another problem that comes up very quickly. Mulcair’s economic views are closer to Harper’s than they are to Jack Layton’s or any other recent NDP leader. How convincing will he be in attacking deficit slashing if he actually believes in it?

On the fair taxes front we will get nothing from Mulcair unless, again, the caucus uses all its power and authority to forces the issue. The strongest progressive voices in such a conflict may just find themselves in the shadow cabinet, making it tricky to criticize the party leader — and your “cabinet” boss.

On the critically important issue of Quebec, NDPers hoping that Mulcair is the man to retain what Jack built may quickly be disappointed. You would be hard-pressed to find a social activist in Quebec who thinks Mulcair is a progressive. He is widely disliked. With the Bloc resurgent, open rejection of Mulcair’s leadership by NGOs and movement groups could be disastrous. The scores of Quebec MPs have no social base of their own, and the vast majority have no riding associations. The party needs to build that base to keep its seats and Mulcair could be a barrier.

It all seems to be starting off well enough and we can hope that now that he has the position he wants, Mulcair will work hard to ensure unity — which one would assume is in his interest, too. He has kept Libby Davies as deputy leader and has said there will be no house cleaning of the party staff, most of whom opposed his candidacy.

Whatever happens, it will likely happen sooner than later.

Mulcair’s victory: A new direction for the NDP?

Richard Fidler — 2012-03-29T15:06:45+00:00

There is a lot of speculation going the rounds about whether or to what degree Thomas Mulcair will change the direction of the federal New Democratic Party. Mulcair, as everyone who pays attention to Canadian politics knows by now, emerged the winner in the NDP’s contest to replace deceased leader Jack Layton. In the fourth and final vote at the March 24 convention in Toronto, Mulcair scored 57% against runner-up Brian Topp’s 43 percent. The election of the party’s most prominent Quebec MP was no big surprise, especially in Quebec where it was widely considered the logical outcome to the NDP’s upset gains in last year’s federal election when the party won 59 of the province’s 75 MPs — 60% of the NDP’s parliamentary caucus, making the party the Official Opposition and thus a credible contender for government for the first time in its history. But what does the election of this former Liberal mean for the future of the NDP? The answer is not entirely clear, although clues abound.

Modernization?

Mulcair himself revealed little of his particular agenda during the leadership contest, nor was he strongly challenged to do so by the competing candidates, all of whom were promising to pursue “Layton’s legacy.” Mulcair spoke vaguely of “modernizing” the party, of ditching old rhetoric about “working people,” and of the need to demonstrate the NDP’s competence in “managing the economy.” But there was enough evidence on the record to arouse concerns about his commitment to social justice issues long championed by the NDP. Columnist Murray Dobbin, an NDP sympathizer, noted some of these during the campaign, describing him as a “big ‘L’ Liberal at heart, who is barely out of synch with the one per cent the occupiers have targeted.”

Dobbin pointed to Mulcair’s support of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, anathema to the labour movement and environmentalists. “The NAFTA,” Mulcair said in a recent interview, “is the first international agreement that had provisions dealing with the environment. You can’t throw out the baby with the bath water.” Dobbin commented:

“The FTA and NAFTA were the single most damaging political acts the country has ever had to endure — unleashing two decades of suppression of wages, the rapid depletion of natural resources, falling productivity, the loss of several hundred thousand of the best jobs in the country, and despite Mulcair’s naïve declaration, the virtual end to any new environmental legislation by the federal government (after it lost two NAFTA challenges).”

But the NDP long ago abandoned any pretence of opposing NAFTA. Nor has it campaigned against the pending free-trade agreement with the European Union, currently being negotiated in secret. As for Mulcair’s concern for environmental issues

“In 2007, Kady O’Malley interviewed Mulcair and asked him to describe himself as a politician. He replied: ‘Above and beyond anything else, I’m a public administrator and a manager. I chaired Quebec’s largest regulatory agency [the Office des Professions] and reduced staff there and brought in management schemes to make things more effective…. When I was minister of the environment, I reduced by 15 per cent the budget of the ministry.’…”

Palestinian solidarity activists are understandably alarmed at Mulcair’s unconditional support for Israel. His campaign co-chair was former MP Lorne Nystrom, now a director of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the Israel lobby’s main pressure group. While co-deputy leader of the federal NDP, Mulcair publicly humiliated the other deputy leader, Vancouver MP Libby Davies, forcing her (with Layton’s complicity) to recant in Parliament her historically accurate statement that Israel has been occupying Palestinian land since 1948.

Although he may not have solicited their support, Mulcair appeared to be favoured for leader by some elements not known for their NDP sympathies.

Journalist and activist Derrick O’Keefe, examining the lists of donors to the NDP leadership campaign on the Elections Canada website, found that among those contributing to Mulcair’s candidacy were billionaire financier Gerald Schwartz, the CEO of Onex Corporation and a co-founder of CanWest Global Communications. Schwartz and his wife, book chain magnate Heather Reisman, founded the Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers, which provides money to cover tuition and living expenses for non-Israelis who serve in the Israeli army. “In 2006,” O’Keefe noted, “the couple made headlines by abandoning their traditional support for the Liberals in favour of the Conservatives after Stephen Harper had given full-throated support to Israel’s operation against Lebanon.”

Contributing to Mulcair’s leadership campaign as well was another Onex director, Anthony Munk, who is also a director of Barrick Gold Corporation, the Canadian mining giant founded by his father Peter Munk. Barrick is a prime target of environmentalists and indigenous struggling in many countries against its pillage of local communities and natural resources.

Also noteworthy was the especially sympathetic coverage given to Mulcair’s campaign in the journals of Canada’s major newspaper chains, Postmedia (successor to CanWest) and Groupe Gesca, a subsidiary of the Desmarais family’s Power Corporation.

What about the Liberals?

However, there was no indication of major policy differences among the candidates during the five public debates the party held. In fact, the one question that attracted the most media attention was whether the NDP would or should now orient toward formal alliance or even merger with the federal Liberals. This speculation has increased now that Liberal interim leader Bob Rae, the former NDP premier of Ontario, shares the Opposition front benches with ex-Liberal Mulcair in the federal parliament.

Although Mulcair may, as alleged by many, be keen to remake the NDP into some version of Tony Blair’s “New Labour,” and thus an appropriate candidate to replace or merge with the Liberals, the NDP is determined at this point to firm up its position as a “government in waiting,” hoping to replace Stephen Harper’s Tory majority government in the next election three years from now. And the Liberals are still struggling to recover their historic position as Canada’s “natural governing party.” But there is no secret about NDP readiness to ally with Liberals if that will help ease their way into government.

In 2008, Layton signed a formal coalition agreement with the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to defeat the Tory minority government. Such an arrangement has no traction at present, when there is no prospect of defeating the Tory majority in a parliamentary vote. However, among the membership of the NDP there is no substantial opposition in principle to closer ties with the Liberals. This was revealed in the leadership vote, in which every member of the party was entitled to cast a ballot, listing the candidates in their order of preference. About half the party membership of 131,000 voted on the first ballot, the only one with all the candidates listed. Thus it was a fair indication of the sentiments of the party activists.

On this first ballot, the top three candidates, accounting for two-thirds of the total vote (Mulcair 30%, Topp 21% and Nathan Cullen 16%), were those most closely associated with collaboration with the Liberals. Brian Topp, for instance, was a primary architect of the 2008 coalition agreement and has even written a book about it. Cullen’s most notable contribution to the debates was his proposal that the NDP hold joint nomination meetings with the Liberals in future to try to come up with common candidates. Mulcair’s Liberal connections are well documented. No wonder MP Pat Martin did not have to carry out his promise (threat?) to run himself if no candidate promoted eventual merger with the Liberals!

And Quebec?

And then there is the Quebec question, historically the NDP’s Achilles heel. On this, too, there was no real discussion during the leadership candidates’ debates because none of them differ with the party’s firm defense of the federal regime. And least of all Thomas Mulcair. Although he was a long-time Liberal, and reportedly once considered joining the Conservatives, there is one constant in his political career: hostility to “separatism,” the movement for Quebec independence that is supported by the vast majority of progressive opinion in Quebec. Mulcair is a former director of legal affairs at Alliance Quebec, the federally-funded Anglophone lobby that has fought repeated court battles against Quebec’s Charter of the French Language (Law 101).

No one in Quebec expects the NDP to support Quebec independence. In 2011, however, the party managed to win the support of most of those voters in Quebec who were looking for some alternative to the Harper Tories in Ottawa, and it did this simply by indicating greater openness than other federalist parties to Québécois language concerns and tipping its hat to the right of self-determination — promising to recognize a majority vote for sovereignty in a Quebec referendum. Mulcair was not the author of these positions, which are set out in a document now known as the Sherbrooke Declaration, adopted prior to his transition to the NDP. However, he was one of the architects of the 2008 coalition agreement with the Liberals. That agreement was contingent on a promise by the Bloc Québécois not to vote with the Tories to defeat a Liberal-NDP minority government for at least six months. The NDP’s success in bringing the pro-independence Bloc onside at that time — even behind a coalition agreement that would have made Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, author of the hated Clarity Bill, the prime minister — may have fostered the image in Quebec of Layton’s NDP as a federalist party that was relatively sympathetic to Quebec. In fact, the Tories reinforced this perception by attacking the accord primarily on these grounds.

Will these positions be sufficient to consolidate and build the NDP’s shaky Quebec structure? During the leadership contest, the party managed to increase its membership in the province to just over 12,000, less than 10% of the total party membership in Canada, and a far cry from Mulcair’s hope of recruiting at least 20,000 new members. Since its electoral rout in 2011 the Bloc Québécois has regained support, and in a recent poll was neck-and-neck with the NDP. The Bloc boasts three times the membership of the NDP, and enjoys the collaboration of the formidable Parti québécois election machine.

The BQ’s new leader Daniel Paillé acknowledges that an NDP with Mulcair as leader will be a major challenge for his party, but argues, with justice, that the NDP will soon reveal its true colours by defending “Canadian” interests against those of Quebec. Le Devoir columnist Michel David perceptively notes, however, that Mulcair has “an argument that the Bloc Québécois cannot use: he is a position to replace the Harper government.” How this plays out in the next period will depend very much on whether the Quebec nationalist movement manages to overcome its current crisis of perspectives and resume its forward march — in which case the NDP, focused as it now is on winning parliamentary seats in English Canada, will be faced with some major political dilemmas.

There was a foretaste of these tensions in one of the leadership debates. When candidate Peggy Nash suggested that federal enforcement of the Canada Health Act (an umbrella law imposing medicare funding conditions on the provinces, which have jurisdiction over health care) might have to be adjusted to accommodate Quebec concerns, the other candidates quickly dissociated themselves from her comment. That was the closest the debates came to addressing “the Quebec difference.” Nash, a former official in the Canadian Auto Workers union, probably had in mind the readiness of the Canadian unions to accommodate their Quebec affiliates, according them a large degree of autonomy. The NDP has never displayed similar flexibility to its Quebec membership.

Marginalization of labour

This leadership convention registered the further marginalization of labour in the NDP. In the last leadership convention, which elected Layton in 2003, the affiliated trade unions were allocated 25% of the votes; this was consistent with a series of provisions in the party constitution and practices historically that had given the unions a weighted presence in party leadership bodies. Following that convention, however, the party removed this provision and moved toward a full one-member-one-vote (OMOV) system for choosing a leader. The move was motivated in part by changes in federal party financing laws in 2003 and 2006 (with NDP support) which banned union donations to federal parties. In return the NDP, like the other parties, gained access to new state subsidies. In addition, individual donors are allowed tax deductions of up to 75% of the amount of their contributions to party finances, a “tax expenditure” that constitutes in effect another form of state funding. The NDP is now dependent on such funding for the bulk of its activities.

As Murray Cooke has noted, these changes in funding, and the adoption of OMOV, resulted in “a relative marginalization of the federal [parliamentary] caucus, the powerful provincial wings, unions and local party activists.” And he adds:

“Firmly in control of the party, Layton was able to moderate, simplify and carefully package the NDP message. He simply ditched many controversial policies. During the 2004 election, he single-handedly dismissed the NDP’s longstanding support for pulling Canada out of NATO. With each campaign, Layton would focus on a small number of modest reforms. Increasingly, the NDP would speak for “middle-class” Canadians. By the 2011 election, the NDP was proposing to reduce the small business tax to reward “job creators.” Certainly, the 2011 platform was a more moderate program than anything ever offered under any previous federal NDP leader….”

The marginalization of the party’s labour base did not start with Layton, of course. In the neoliberal phase of capitalism of recent decades, many unions have loosened their ties with the NDP, and not just at the NDP’s behest. A notable example has been the flirtation with the Liberals of leaders of the Canadian Auto Workers, a union that in past years was respected by militants as a foremost fighter against bosses’ pressure for concessions in union contracts. These trends reflected a more general shift to the right in Canadian politics under the neoliberal onslaught on wages, working conditions and social programs.

Of the nine candidates who ran for NDP leader this year (two dropped out during the campaign), only one — Peggy Nash, a former CAW leader, and one of only two women candidates — came from the union milieu. It is worth noting, however, that she was the first ever candidate for the party leadership from trade union ranks. Notwithstanding, Nash lacked support from some major union leaders in the party, and in the end finished in fourth place with 12% support on the first ballot.

An alternative approach?

Perhaps most ominously, while union ties to the NDP have slackened they have not been replaced by closer collaboration between the party and grassroots organizations in the front lines of the fight against the capitalist offensive. Among the leadership candidates, only Niki Ashton (5.7% on the first ballot) alluded (indirectly) to the Quebec students’ inspiring upsurge for greater access to education.

The NDP can at times be a useful asset for militants in the extra-parliamentary arena. Last June the party’s newly-elected MPs mounted a parliamentary filibuster in opposition to the Harper government’s suppression of the postal workers’ right to strike; some MPs participated in public solidarity rallies. These actions helped to publicize the workers’ cause and the party’s standing rose still further in the polls.

Governments in Ottawa and across the country are now targeting public sector unions and services, as well as the poorest and most vulnerable in society — from welfare moms to pensioners — in pursuit of a shared agenda of tightening austerity and cutbacks. The NDP faces mounting challenges in the period ahead — on the economic, social, constitutional and international fronts — but with Mulcair at the helm the signs point to a continuing shift of the party to the right.

Overall, the NDP emerges from this leadership convention poorly armed to confront the crisis. Its leaders are clearly hoping to ride into government in three years on a program that differs only modestly from the right-wing Tory agenda. True, it might prove sufficient in electoral terms. But it will not do much to build the mass movements that are needed to oppose and overcome the neoliberal assault.

Alert! Episode 209

2012-03-29T01:35:35+00:00

From Chiapas Mexico, Vancouver journalist Dawn Paley talks about the murder of Bernardo Vasquez, a community leader who led the protests against a Canadian mining company, Fortuna Silva in San Jose del Progresso,Oaxaco. From the streets of Montreal, Stefan Christoff talks with students and profs about the historic strike against tuition hikes. Judy Rebick explains why she thinks the election of Thomas Mulcair as leader of the NDP is a setback for the NDP and for progressive politics.

The Massacre of the Afghan 17 and the Obama Cover-Up

James Petras — 2012-03-28T17:45:46+00:00

After the cold-blooded murder of the 17 Afghan villagers in Kandahar province the US military and the ever-complicit Obama regime constructed an elaborate cover-up, exposing the Administration up to charges of conspiracy to suppress the essential facts, falsify data and obstruct justice: All are grounds for criminal prosecution and impeachment.

This massacre is just one of several hundred committed by US armed forces according to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. It could ruin the Obama presidency, by putting him on trial for conspiracy to obstruct justice and arguably send him to jail for war crimes.

Obama’s deliberate lies about the events surrounding the massacre and the fundamental responsibility of the high military command for the crimes committed by its troops underscores the breakdown of the occupation of Afghanistan, the very centre-piece of Obama’s war policy. The President of the United States has personally played a major role in the cover-up. From a political vantage point, the executive conspiracy charge has wider and deeper implications than the massacre itself, as horrible as it is.

The Massacre, the ‘Official’ Story (1st version) and the Cover-Up

According to the US military command in Afghanistan and the Obama regime, at 3am on March 11, 2012 a deranged soldier walked off a Special Forces Base in rural Kandahar Province and without command authority entered two villages (two miles apart), shot and killed 17 unarmed civilians, mostly women and children and wounded an unspecified number of villagers; then he doused their bodies with gasoline, set them on fire and hiked back to base to surrender himself to his commanders. This surrender, the Pentagon claims, was recorded on video and no less than the President of the United States, Barack Obama, vouched for its authenticity as conclusive proof for the story of a lone, unbalanced mass murderer. The military command quickly whisked the initially unnamed murderer out of the Afghanistan to the maximum security federal prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and only then identified the madman as a 38-year old, multi-decorated, 11-year army veteran, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. The US has rejected all attempts by the Afghan President, the Afghan Army Chief and members of the Afghan Parliament to interview Sgt Bales, gather testimony and bring the suspect to trial in Afghanistan.

According to an independent Afghan parliamentary investigation led by Sayed Ishaq Gillami, and initial investigations by General Sher Mohammed Karimi of the Afghan Army, who interviewed residents of the two villages, there are significant contradictions in the US military’s and President Obama’s “official story.” Eye witnesses have testified that up to 20 soldiers were involved, aided by a helicopter. What they described was typical of a US Special Forces’ night time raid, which involved the systematic breaking down of doors, rousing the sleeping families and shooting Afghan victims.

Gordon Duff, senior editor of Veterans Today, finds the villagers’ version of events quite plausible for the following reasons: The villages, where the murders occurred, were two miles apart, making it highly unlikely that a lone, fully armed solder could haul a multi-gallon jerry can of gasoline from his base to the first sleeping village, break down the doors of one or more homes, commit the murders, douse and burn his victims and then proceed on foot two miles further on to the second village, shoot, kill and burn the next set of unarmed villagers and then walk back to his base and surrender.

It makes far more sense that a heavily armed group of Special Forces troops, engaged in village ‘pacification’ operations, left their base in military vehicles, passed through the gate in the wee hours of the morning, on a routine official operation, authorized by the bases military command and something went wrong. What was supposed to have been a typical midnight assault on a “pacified” village in search of Taliban supporters, turned into the mass murder of children and their mothers in bed with virtually no adult males (husbands, fathers, uncles or brothers) present to protect them. Typically, all Afghan farmers keep weapons in their homes, but these villages had been disarmed by the Special Forces and the adult men had either been detained in earlier sweeps or were in hiding from just such brutal operations in the expectation that their wives and children would not be attacked.

Whatever triggered the mass murder of mothers and children in their night clothes in those villages in Kandahar, one thing is clear: the President of the United States conspired with the US military command to obstruct justice in the cover-up of a heinous war crime, a felony punishable with impeachment.

When the implausibility first ‘official’ story became embarrassingly evident to the most superficial observer, the Obama ‘cover-up’ crew released a new version on March 26: According to the revised version of events, the lone, deranged Sgt. Bales committed the first massacre in the early morning hours of March 11, walked back to base for breakfast and lunch and then walked out again to a second village for another round of mass murder – before returning and turning himself in to his commander posing for the video.

Why the Obama Cover-Up: Military Demoralization and the Iran War

Why would President Obama engage in such a clumsy cover-up further eroding US relations with the Afghan President Karzai, the Afghan military and especially the Afghan people? Why would he risk charges of conspiracy to protect war criminals by insisting on an easily refutable cover-up?

The story of the alleged assassin, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, provides some leads about the larger crisis facing the imperial military. Bales is a ‘decorated’ soldier rewarded for his three tours of combat duty in Iraq and his more recent Afghan assignment where he would have participated in similar types of Special Pacification Operations among civilians in the countryside in Afghanistan. In the days after news of the massacre leaked out, a furious Afghan President Karzai claimed that “hundreds” of similar massacres had been perpetrated by US and NATO forces and had gone unreported in the Western media and unpunished. Karzai has repeatedly called for an end to US Special Forces’ night raids on sleeping villages. But, until now, there had been no need for a US Presidential cover-up up. With the approaching US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the growing expressions of militant Afghan nationalism, the Obama regime must hide the true nature of the occupation. Washington’s Afghan clients can no longer ignore US war crimes against innocent children and women and other non-combatants. This is especially true in the so-called ‘pacified’ villages where the adult Afghani men have already been arrested in sweeps or driven into hiding and with the few remaining, disarmed and ‘under the control’ of the US Special Forces.

Considering even the US official story, why would the Special Forces commanders in charge of the Sgt. Bales base ignore the loud bursts of gunfire and screams of women and children in a village within 100 meters of its perimeter at 3 am? According to their official version, the base command only became aware of the massacres when Sgt. Bales walked back to base, raised his hands high for a video-op and confessed to killing and desecrating the bodies of 17, mostly children and women.

Obama has tried to sell the confession video as proof of the ‘official version’ of events to a skeptical Afghan President Karzai who contemptuously demanded the ‘alleged’ video be turned over for a detailed examination for authenticity. Obama’s refusal to release the video tends to confirm his role in the cover-up.

Obama’s contention that a ‘lone unbalanced gunman’ committed the crime is completely self-serving and exposes serious and deep structural problems with the war in Afghanistan. US combat troops in Afghanistan are demoralized and angry because their military commanders have marched them into a cul-de-sac—a dead end. They are engaged in a long, losing war where every dead US soldier is accompanied by scores who are maimed, blinded and mentally traumatized. In Obama’s war, the wounded are patched up and recycled back into the same meat grinder in an increasingly hostile environment, where rape, torture, maiming and murder become their only ‘recreation’. Sgt. Bales was coerced into multiple tours of duty in Iraq and then shipped off to Afghanistan, contrary to his expectations of a promotion and an end to overseas combat assignments.

There is a huge gap between the world of the political warlords in Washington and their accomplices among the warmongering lobbies and that of the soldiers who risk their lives in imperial wars of occupation. These dispensable soldiers are repeatedly deployed to brutal colonial wars thousands of miles from their homes to confront an ‘enemy’ they cannot possibly understand. They end up brutalizing the families, friends, neighbors and compatriots of the elusive Afghan anti-colonial fighters—who are everywhere. Back in the Washington none of the political war-mongers ever experience the pain and suffering of a prolonged war, which for any soldier on the battlefield, is ever present, everywhere. Soldiers, like Sgt. Bales, operate in a very hostile environment where, a roadside bomb or a grenade thrown from a motorcycle, or even a ‘trusted’ Afghan ally, who might turn his gun on his US ‘mentors,’ are omnipresent threats to their ever returning home in one piece.

Obama has to conspire with the Pentagon in covering up this mass murder, defending the officers in charge of these ‘pacified’ villages, because there are no alternatives, no back-ups, no new recruits eager to engage in the 12th year of war in Afghanistan. There are only the re-cycled killers, willing to pursue their career in Special Forces involving kill and destroy operations. Furthermore, Obama cannot rely on the international allies who are rushing to withdraw their own troops from this quagmire. And Obama has a problem with his allied Afghan warlords and kleptocrats, who managed to run off with over $4.5 billion dollars in 2011 (half of the entire state budget) (Financial Times, 3/19/12, p. 1). President Obama cannot allow an entire garrison, including their commanding officer to be put on trial for the war crimes in this massacre. Holding anyone, besides the hapless Sgt. Bales, accountable for the massacre would incite a general rebellion within the armed forces, or, at a minimum, further demoralize the elite Special Forces who are expected to man these long-term engagements after the regulars withdraw, which in the case of Afghanistan could last until 2024.

This issue has implications far beyond Afghanistan: Obama has developed his entire new counter-insurgency strategy centred on the easy entry and bloody exits of US Special Forces targeting over 75 countries. The Special Forces figure prominently in Obama’s military preparations for Syria and Iran, which have been developed at the behest of his Zionist overlords.

In the final analysis, the entire imperial military apparatus of the Obama regime, while formidable on paper, depends on the ‘Special Operations’ formations. As such, they are the centrepiece of the new imperial warfare, developed as a response to the demands for reduced ground forces, budgetary constraints and growing domestic discontent. Their actions are designed to leave no witnesses and no embarrassments. They may be the butchers of children, women and unarmed civilians but they are the White House’s butchers.

Despite all their crimes and cover-ups, the Obama regime’s priority is to defend the empire with whatever personnel is available at his disposal. So while Sgt. Bales is in Leavenworth, the Afghan elite cry injustice, the families in Kandahar mourn their dead and the Taliban plan their revenge.

On the domestic front, Obama faces strong popular opposition to the costly unending wars, which have destroyed the US economy, and growing anger and demoralization in the armed forces. As a result of the massive popular discontent among the American people with politicians of both parties who have recklessly sent troops into anachronistic colonial wars, which serve the interest of foreign powers, the President has issued an executive decree, allowing him to assume dictatorial powers in order to militarize the entire economy, its resources and its work force. On March 16, 2012 Barak Obama issued an Executive Order-National Defense Resource Preparedness in order to sustain the global empire.

Clearly prolonged colonial wars cannot be sustained through the consent of the citizens and such wars cannot be prosecuted according to military manuals and the Geneva Conventions. At this point, only Presidential rule by decree can secure compliance of the citizens at home and only massacres and cover-ups can sustain the colonial occupations abroad. But these are desperate and temporary: When the extreme measures have run their course there will be nothing to fall back on and nothing can save the president of a collapsing empire from the revolt of its citizens and soldiers.

NDP Leadership Race from a Gendered Lense

Greer Woolsey — 2012-03-28T17:32:37+00:00

One womyn is too young, the other is too old: Is age really the factor in the NDP leadership race?

In the past NDP leadership race there were only two womyn out of the original nine leadership candidates: Niki Ashton, 29-year-old MP of Churchill, Manitoba, and Peggy Nash, 60-year-old MP of Parkdale-High Park, Toronto.

Those numbers alone are disappointing. But what is even more disappointing, are the discourses that surrounded both womyn during the leadership race. Both seemed to be on either ends of the age spectrum that contributed to the general memberships’ hesitation vote for them, with Ashton being too young and Nash being too old. However, I don’t think that age is the whole story.

Through my many conversations with NDP members, particularly young members, Ashton was quite often people’s second or third choice on the ballot. But even though Ashton ran an innovative, professional and polished campaign, performed very well in all of the televised debates, and being fluently bilingual in both English and French, the majority of members were still reluctant to throw their full support behind her. That was evident by the 5.7% of the vote that she picked up on the first ballot.

In the media, there was mixed reaction to Ashton’s legitimacy as a candidate, with some journalists acknowledging the strength of her debate performances and policy positions, where other journalist didn’t even bother knowing anything more about Ashton other than her age, writing her off immediately as a non-contender in the race. The underlying tone to the reaction to Ashton was that a twenty-nice year old womyn could not have much substance to her campaign and therefore was not worth the time to review. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Although my goal is not to criticize any leadership candidates, as I think that each leadership candidate has their strengths and their weaknesses, however if one leadership candidate were accused of lacking substance, either explicitly or implicitly, it would be Martin Singh.

The only policy commitments that Singh really emphasized were the establishment of a national pharmacare program and supporting small businesses. As much as I don’t think that either of those are bad ideas, his campaign left much to be desired on many important fronts like the environment, the growing income gap, the inequality that Canadians continue to face based on gender, race, sexuality, ability, etc, the creation of diverse employment opportunities, foreign policy and the role of Canada’s military.

Despite this, Singh took 5.9% of the vote on the first ballot. When comparing Ashton and Singh’s experience, the substance and presentation of each campaign, and the fact that Singh was not an elected member of parliament, that vote breakdown makes little logical sense.

I don’t think that NDP members have a hard time picturing a young person as the next leader of the official opposition, as Nathan Cullen is only 39. However members seem to be deeply hesitant about a young womyn being the leader of the opposition, and potentially the next Prime Minister.

That was really what the NDP leadership race was about. Which candidate could members see defeating Stephen Harper in 2015 and becoming the next Prime Minister of Canada? Well this time around it definitely wasn’t a young womyn.

And apparently it wasn’t an older, more experienced womyn either. Despite the quality of Peggy Nash’s campaign; from the branding, to the communications and social media, to her endorsements, to her debate performances and to her policy proposals. Nash only picked up 12.8% on the first ballot and 16.8% on the second ballot, removing her from the running.

Even though many candidates talked about how to get young people involved in the political system and in the NDP, Nash actually walked the walk, being publically supported by a strong contingent of young people, womyn and members of the LGBTQ community. In fact, Nash had young people soengaged in her campaign, the majority of her campaign staff were young people themselves.

As a labour negotiator, Nash has proven her ability to be tough in the necessary circumstances as well as be balanced. She has also held prominent critic positions such as Industry, Finance, and Public Works and Government Services and gone toe-to-toe with some of Harper’s toughest Ministers.

Despite all that proven experience, there were still underlying concerns among the membership that that she wouldn’t be strong enough to take on Stephen Harper in the House. I even had one male friend describe her as a sweet grandmother rather than a leader of the official opposition.

Despite Mulair’s similar age, there were never any questions of his ability based on his age or a comparison to him being a grandfather figure, rather than the potential leader of the NDP.

Even though NDP members have elected a womyn leader before, it was never under such crucial circumstances in the party’s history and members have never been thinking about their leader in terms of the next Prime Minister of Canada.

In Canada, the only womyn who have been elected leaders of provincial parties that have formed government are in right-wing parties. The take-home message is that womyn can be in position of tremendous power, as long as they won’t try to change the very structure of power that privileges men and leaves womyn (as well as racialized people, queer people, etc) with an inherent disadvantage.

In analyzing the quality of all the leadership candidates’ campaigns and the experience of each candidate, I don’t know what Niki Ashton or Peggy Nash could have done differently to do better in the leadership race, besides having a penis of course.

It is much more acceptable to question someone’s age, because it can be written off as a concern about someone’s experience or energy to do the job, however indicating a lack of support for a candidate based on gender could never be said out loud.

That is why the discourse surrounding both womyn leadership candidates was about their age and not their gender. However, characteristics of oppression often intersect and complicate the way that we look at and understand discrimination.

This article is not intended to criticize leadership candidates, or claim that the most left party in Canada is not progressive enough. Its intent is to highlight the large amount of work that we need to do as country to break down the subconscious stereotypes that keep womyn in a lower social and economic position than men.

Just because womyn make the same minimum wage as men, can leave the house without their father or husband’s permission, or get an education (if they can afford the tuition fees), does not mean that sexism is not alive and well in Canada. Actually, the lack of womyn elected in to the House of Commons, a clear position of power, (especially before the NDP’s orange wave) as well as how the NDP leadership race played out, is a clear indication that sexism most certainly is.

Greer Woolsey is a white, lower-middle class, queer questioning womyn feminist who is a member of the NDP

Too Many People?

review by Judy Deutsch — 2012-03-27T21:13:13+00:00

Ian Angus and Simon Butler ’s new book about population control, or “populationism” in the widest sense, is invaluable for people concerned about climate change, climate justice, environmental racism, and system change. Angus and Butler are clear about the urgency of drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and that there is simply not time for the detours, deflections, and damage caused by “population bomb” theories. Too Many People? is also good historical analysis: it exposes the illogical and unfounded assumptions about people that so persistently paralyze action on climate change.

What is “populationism”? Its basic logic is that the earth cannot sustain current population growth, so therefore addressing the environmental crisis requires reducing the population. This has been the implicit assumption of much mainstream environmentalism, both neoliberal and green economics, and the political thinking from left to right that remains within the capitalist spectrum.

This carefully researched and reasoned book is full of critical information that is too often neglected: “the vital correlation-or-causation distinction is rarely observed in arguments that claim to show population growth drives environmental destruction.” Examples of simplistic population assumptions are manifold. Reduction in China’s rate of population growth does not correspond with China’s increased rate of emissions — there are obviously many other factors. Barry Commoner, the first challenger of Ehrlich’s “population bomb” theory, points out that US greenhouse gas emissions far exceeded US population growth. A careful study of increased US car use did not correspond in any simple way with population growth, but with the emergence of two-car families when US suburban housewives joined the workforce and needed a car to get to work.

There are many gems in this book: the fallacies of blaming the consumer, such as Greenpeace blaming consumers for the Exxon Valdez; the fallacy of using “we” to make simplistic generalizations about human behaviour which obscure the institutions and people truly responsible; Garrett Hardin’s profound misanthropy (too many people “using the commons as a cesspool,” requiring “relinquishing the freedom to breed”); the top-down approach to women’s reproductive rights and the fascistic methods to reduce population in India, Peru and China, supported by the World Bank and by the United States. Even if there were a direct correlation between population and emissions such as suggested in the IPAT formula (Impact=Population times Affluence times Technology, in which each person is an equally emitting unit), reducing population could never occur quickly enough to sufficiently reduce emissions, except through mass executions. Populationists generally focus on the poorest people (generally women of colour), whose greenhouse gas emissions are lowest.

This book is part of the extensive work on climate, capitalism and eco-socialism. Capitalism’s greenhouse- gas emitting and resource-depleting industries, the agro-industrial complex, capitalism’s “free” environmental services, all need to end. Angus and Butler’s next work could expand on their discussion of militarism and eco-fascism. It is the eco-fascist, racist side that is most dangerous, particularly as projections of human insecurity based on “too many people,” on starving hordes invading our borders or taking our resources (often on their own land) become the rationale for expanding the military and closing borders. In their last chapter, “Populationism or Ecological Revolution?”, they list crucial transformations of the most destructive features of capitalism, including “ceasing all military operations at home and elsewhere; transforming the armed forces into voluntary teams charged with restoring ecosystems and assisting the victims of floods, rising oceans, and other environmental disasters.” This could be done, and it has been done before.

This article appeared in the March/April 2012 issue of Canadian Dimension magazine. SUBSCRIBE NOW to get a refreshing and provocative alternative delivered to your door 6 times a year for up to 50% off the newsstand price.

Understanding the Victory of Thomas Mulcair

Judy Rebick — 2012-03-26T04:54:37+00:00

Most of the mainstream media, with the help of the Mulcair and Topp campaigns, constructed the leadership battle at the NDP convention as a battle between those who wanted to move to the centre to win government and those who wanted to win maintaining the “traditional” social democratic values of the NDP.

Brian Topp’s bold sounding declaration that he was a proud social democrat made those of us who have spent decades on the left of the party cringe. Isn’t the NDP a social democratic party? Hasn’t the history of the party been the struggle between a democratic socialist left, best represented by the Waffle but succeeded by a series of progressive groups ending with the New Politics Initiative, with the social democratic establishment. Is that establishment now in the position of opposition pushing the party to the left? If it is true, it is depressing on the one hand and deliciously ironic on the other.

What is left out of this narrative is that there is a new force in party that I would consider the new left and it was best represented in this campaign by Nathan Cullen. Cullen’s language was very close to the politics of the New Politics Initiative. He speaks of social struggles and the alliance between the party and First Nations and environment groups. He speaks from the heart without the spin has infected almost everyone else. He is at heart a democrat. This left is less sectarian. Many of them supported strategic voting in past elections and this time the more strategic electoral alliance with the Liberals. I don’t agree with them on that but there is no question that they are the most progressive force in the party right now and the one closest to the social movements who are flooding into the streets and the parks across North America.

The strength of Cullen’s campaign came from the power of this youthful movement represented by Lead Now’s support for his proposal on an electoral alliance as much as from his winning personality and charisma. No-one mentioned that Lead Now got 9,000 people to join to the NDP to support what they call “co-operation.” There were days when the women’s movement had this kind of power in the party reflected especially in Audrey MacLaughlin’s victory as leader. Peggy Nash’s unjust defeat early in the balloting showed that this movement is much less a force today.

It is too bad that Peggy Nash or Paul Dewar didn’t seize the chance of an alliance with this group or that Brian Topp, seeing that he couldn’t win, didn’t throw his support to Cullen who could have won. But then I think the party establishment represented by Topp, with a couple of important exceptions like Libby Davies, are more worried about Cullen’s politics than Mulcair.

The other narrative promoted by the Mulcair campaign, Chantal Hebert and Gerry Kaplan is that a defeat of Mulcair would have been seen as a slap in the face to Quebec. After all polls showed that Quebecois massively supported Mulcair as the leader of the NDP and he had majority support from the Quebec caucus of the party and a lot of endorsements and financial contributions from outside the party.

This is more complicated. It may be true that the initial reaction to the vote will be positive and that most media in Quebec supported Mulcair but there is also intense criticism of him here. What people in the NDP don’t seem to understand is that the massive move from the PQ to the NDP in the last election was less a move to federalism and more a move to the progressive party most Quebecois thought could defeat Harper. If the NDP moves to the right of BQ under Mulcair, it risks losing a lot of that support. Since no one, including Chantal Hebert, has any idea what the Quebec electorate will do in the next federal election, supporting Mulcair or opposing him for this reason makes no sense. It is positive that the NDP membership showed that they understood the importance of the gains in Quebec by giving their support only to the candidates who are fluent in French.

The third narrative is what has been called a whisper campaign against Mulcair. It was a pretty loud whisper turned into a shout by Ed Broadbent. No one can get along with this guy. He is a bully who doesn’t brook opposition. Kind of like a certain Prime Minister we know. It was also suggested that Mulcair had nothing to do with the victory in Quebec. Quieter but just as widespread was the knowledge that not a single woman who has worked with him for more than a few months was supporting him. Some of these whispers are true from what I can tell. On Quebec, he did establish a foothold in the province but he was not a major player in recruiting candidates or organizing the last election campaign. He is however, the only one of the leadership candidates who is known in Quebec.

NDPers don’t like whisper campaigns, which is to their credit. They may also have figured that we need a bully to face a bully or that Brian Topp’s lack of charisma or ability to connect with a crowd was as big a problem as Mulcair’s authoritarian streak.

My view is that the NDP has elected an old-style patriarchal politician who has the same politics vis-à-vis Quebec as the pre-Jack NDP, seeing sovereigntists as bitter enemies instead of potential allies, is more of a liberal than a social democrat and who will move the party to the right especially on international issues, including free trade and Israel, two issues at the centre of Harper’s agenda.

I didn’t participate in this campaign because I see the hope for change in the new movements that are emerging around the globe rather than in electoral politics. That is where I am putting my energy these days but it always helps if the social movements can see their reflection in the social democratic political party. This hasn’t been true in Europe for a long time which is why we see just a dramatic contradiction between what is happening in the Parliament there and what is happening in the streets.

In Canada, whatever the weaknesses of the NDP, we have always managed to have a strong alliance between them and the social movements. That alliance strengthened the women’s movement, the anti-war movement, the labour movement and others. I fear under the leadership of Thomas Mulcair, that alliance will be lost and it will be a loss for all of us.

Tom Mulcair: For Sure

James Laxer — 2012-03-22T14:23:47+00:00

First, with all due respect to party elders, the NDP has been moving to the centre for decades, most rapidly over the last six or seven years. The idea that we must come together to protect threatened NDP values from Tom Mulcair is a bit rich. I’ve looked at the platforms of all of the candidates, and while I will concede that there are differences, all candidates share what I would call a centre-left perspective.

If ideology isn’t a major factor, then leadership and the break through in Quebec become the overriding considerations. It is clear from polls that Mulcair has a much better shot at hanging onto the seats in Quebec than anyone else. Brian Topp doesn’t have a seat and who knows how long it will take for him to get one, let alone whether Quebecois will accept him as one of their own.

Broadbent’s foray into the campaign has been a disaster that inclines me even more to support Mulcair. His line, that Mulcair had nothing to do with last year’s breakthrough and that it was all planned on Laurier Avenue, leave me speechless…. He gives no credit to Quebecois and their long-established progressive tradition. It boggles the mind. As for the idea that only people born with a picture of J.S. Woodsworth in their crib should be eligible to run for the leadership, get real. In Quebec, the most interesting political leaders have been in more than one party. And now they’re coming to the NDP. Broadbent’s line means that no one in the Quebec caucus has been around long enough to qualify to run for the leadership.

Quebec will change the NDP as well as the NDP changing Quebec, something devoutly to be desired.

I believe that with Mulcair the party moves ahead. He has enormous political talent, and his progressive credentials are impeccable. I’m sick and tired of the whisper campaign against him for being bad tempered. With all due respect, the distemper has been coming from those who oppose him—-and I don’t mean the candidates. With any of the other candidates, we open the door to the Bloc and Bob Rae.

As a socialist and long time critic of the NDP, you can count on me to continue to critique the party from the left as I have been doing for decades.

But this weekend, the challenge is clear. The NDP needs to embrace Quebec as Quebec has embraced the NDP by choosing Tom Mulcair.

Homeless Hotspot

Tyler McCreary — 2012-03-21T21:16:54+00:00

There has been substantial debate, and much virtual ink spilt, over the Homeless Hotspot program in Austin, Texas. The program is relatively straightforward from the title: 13 homeless men and one woman with mobile wireless internet hotspots in their pockets hawking internet access on street corners. Launched at SXSW, the premier gathering of hip indie rockers, it has been read by many as the corporate horror-tech future to come, where poor people are little more than machines designed to serve as human infrastructure to extend the privilege of the few.

A old friend wrote me asking my opinion. He believed that the criticism was condescending, particularly given that the workers seemed to appreciate the jobs they were being given, which seemed far less demeaning than the work typically available to the most impoverished parts of society. He wanted to know if he was missing something.

I think it is important to consider the voices of the people involved, but I also think the program needs to be contextualized in an understanding of the political, economic, and culture milieu in which the program has developed. I cannot speak for the homeless, but I can speak about a few considerations that should inform how we think about the political, economic, and cultural context.

First, I think as a job, there are aspects of homeless hotspots program that are dehumanizing. As the copy inscribed upon their shirts pronouncing “I am … a 4G hotspot,” the program does literally transform people into part of the technological infrastructure.

There are two counter-arguments presented. This program gives homeless folks jobs, and jobs that, it can argued, contribute to humanizing homeless people. They are not simply hotspots but also people. The shirts not only pronounce their function but also their name: “I am Clarence / a 4G hotspot” for instance. This, so the argument goes, works against the prevailing dehumanization of homeless folks, as beyond consideration, less than people. We are confronted with their name.

However, a job is not simply a gift, it is part of an economic relationship, and most often an exploitative one. People are working for money, but inevitably their work is helping someone else make money, build brand image, etc … The exploitative nature of people making less than the full value of their work, is particularly clear in the homeless hotspots program. The homeless people who volunteered for the program are not paid as employees but rather provided a stipend of $20 dollars a day plus their earnings from wireless sales. The fact their work is worth more is evident in the fact that the company organizing this service had initially proposed a higher figure (remarkably and criminally acting against the interests of the population they are committed to serve, Front Steps, the homeless outreach program partnering in providing homeless hotspots, negotiated the stipend down).

Further, the homeless hotspot program is not only exploitative of homeless labour, it is also a commodification of homeless people’s identities and marginalization. It is literally marketing homeless people’s experience of impoverishment. In so doing it allows a bunch of hipsters — a subculture built on the appropriation of marginalized cultures as a way to be cool — to purchase a connection with homelessness. They can hear homeless people’s stories and via their personal connection to a homeless person get connected to the internet.

Homeless people as a condition of their work are being required to share their personal histories. While this program gives hipsters the opportunity to act cool and subversive, supposedly inverting the dehumanizing way most urban folks relate to homeless people, it also provides a means for them to reinforce their privilege. They are again appropriating marginalized identities as a resource to play cool.

However, this critique that homeless people should not have rent themselves out to carry around modems somewhat neglects the rather uncomfortable reality that these people are indeed homeless. Homelessness is not a condition that will be alleviated by banning the practice of providing them with opportunities on the basis that these opportunities are exploitative. But these jobs are not a panacea either. We need to address the fact people are homeless and forced by economic necessity to sell their labour in whatever way they can. Thus, beyond challenging another new way capitalism makes people into machines, we need to fight against the economic and political structures that leave some living on streets.

Alert! Episode 208

2012-03-21T19:15:43+00:00

Judy Rebick, Murray Cooke and Dennis Pilon compare how the NDP would change under the leadership of Mulcair, Topp, Nash and Cullen. Greenpeace climate change campaigner Keith Stewart responds to the recent report claiming that coal and natural gas, not the tar sands are the real villains of global warming.

Nathan Cullen would get my vote

Murray Dobbin — 2012-03-21T14:06:21+00:00

There are so many factors that NDP members have to look at when choosing who to vote for in their leadership race that I don’t envy them (I am not a member). How do you weigh the various elements: policies, philosophy, engaging personality, ability to take on Stephen Harper in the House, co-operation with the Liberals, and support for proportional representation? Are they likely to bring people together or cause divisions within the caucus and party? Are they their own person – do they have enough depth and self-confidence to stand on their own or are they too dependent on staff for their persona?

All of these factors are critical ones and all the potential winners – Peggy Nash, Brian Topp, Thomas Mulcair, Nathan Cullen, and Paul Dewar – have their strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, one of the reasons it is so difficult to predict a winner is that there many good candidates in this race. Most have a good set of policies all are committed to bringing in proportional representation. They are all smart.

But there are two other factors created by the current political moment which is dominated by a radical, right-wing libertarian with a majority in Parliament. The unprecedented threat to the country represented by Stephen Harper puts these two leadership traits at the top of the list to consider when NDPers mark their preferential ballots.

In my assessment only Nathan Cullen makes the grade and if I had a vote he would get it.

One of those traits is whether or not the candidate is stuck firmly in the old mold of the traditional politician. You know what I mean – calculating every word, dividing the audience into sectors to be massaged, being careful not to attract too much attention – or too little – by anything they say, saying the right things even if you know they aren’t committed to them, word-smithing to the point where they never say anything bold. And not saying things you know from other evidence that they believe. In short, all the things that contribute to Canadians’ cynicism about politics.

These traditional traits of politicians and those running for leadership arise primarily out of the culture of the party in question. Thousands of hours spent in hundreds of meetings with people equally dedicated to the party create these politicians. It is the source of excessive partisanship and it is reinforced by political staffers. In ordinary times these characteristics were not so problematic. Today, they could be fatal.

If the NDP is going to win on a political landscape characterized by Stephen Harper’s misanthropic politics at one end and the liberationist politics of the Occupy movement at the other, whoever wins the leadership had better be doing politics differently right out of the gate after March 24th . If they don’t – and I would bet money on this – the NDP will fail to maintain its current status in the House of Commons and certainly will not move beyond it. The next NDP leader absolutely must be able rebuild ordinary Canadians’ trust in politics and government. If they can’t do that, it won’t matter a whit if they can “take on” Stephen Harper in question period or have great policies.

Canadians have developed an unerring instinct for flim-flam in politics. One whiff of phoniness or calculation and you’re off the bus. There is not a phony bone in Cullen’s body – he breaks the mold.

The second, and closely related trait whose absence should be a deal-breaker, is whether or not the candidate is willing to put the country first and the party second. Of course they all claim to do this but the proof is in the pudding and only Cullen is clearly and genuinely committed to this principle. The reason this is important should be obvious to anyone who paid attention to the last three elections and the rise of Stephen Harper. Hyper-partisan politics put Harper where he is today – a calculating, narrow politics that decided on when to pull the plug Harper minority governments based almost exclusively on how many additional seats the NDP could win.

Watching the NDP make these calculations it was almost as if the possibility of Harper winning a majority never even entered into the calculation. The euphoria at NDP headquarters on election night last May when there should have been tears over a Harper majority demonstrated the price we pay for this kind of simplistic, almost cultish partisanship. We are losing our country as a result of it.

I happened to catch Nathan Cullen at his brief appearance in Powell River where I live. He talked about doing politics differently – building his campaign support at and among the grass roots, rejecting the traditional game of quickly getting MPs and other party luminaries lined up, being more NDP than the next candidate. It is apparently working – he has had the momentum in terms of member donations since mid-February. It took Jack Layton many years to develop the rapport with people that made him so popular. Cullen has it in spades without having to learn it – he is almost the anti-candidate.

It’s not just that he is instantly likable but when he speaks it is clear he has the country in mind and is acutely aware of the threat that Harper poses to the nation. He simply states: “We cannot have eight years of this man …who is not a conservative but a radical libertarian.” It took amazing courage to promote the idea of co-operating with the Liberals and Greens, pre-election, in a party that values loyalty almost more than anything else. It isn’t likely to happen – but the message was crystal clear: this time’s its different because the very existence of the country is at stake.

I was impressed by Cullen’s grasp of economic policy, the impact of trade deals and the change in corporate culture with the advent of globalization. But mostly I was just taken by how easy it seemed for him to be honest without having to try. On the partisan question he argued, I think correctly, that especially when it comes to young people, party loyalty just doesn’t matter the way it used to. Listening to him, with that perpetual optimistic grin, the thought came to me that this is perhaps the only candidate who could successfully engage with an Occupy crowd. When he speaks he is addressing all progressive Canadians, not just party members – and that’s contrary to convention, too.

Cullen – quick, witty and passionate – emphasizes the need to engage Canadians in a positive vision, saying he doesn’t want to just sit in a corner constantly going after the latest Harper outrage. And here, perhaps, he has the key to reviving Canadian democracy and politics. Harper has been nailed hard on several issues in recent weeks, from the email-snooping fiasco to robo-calls scandal and his poll numbers have not budged an inch. People’s expectations of politicians are a new and dangerous low. Politics as usual will get us the usual results. Doing it differently at least gives us a chance.

If that’s what you want, a chance to save the country and rebuild it, vote for Nathan Cullen.

Republicans implode; I’m uneasy

Saul Landau — 2012-03-17T14:30:23+00:00

Republicans implode; I¹m uneasy > >

By Saul Landau

Republicans implode; I¹m uneasy-Saul Landau³

Romney now flaunting his wealth to impress voters! (The Onion)

I smiled weakly when liberal Democrat friends guffawed last week over verbal foibles of Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.

It was sort of funny when Romney said: “Michigan’s trees are just the right height,” and ‘I Have Some Friends Who Are NASCAR Team Owners.” And his wife “drives a couple of Cadillac’s.” Both at the same time?

Romney, yearly income of $42.7 million, joked with unemployed workers in Florida last June that he, too, was also un-employed.

Santorum’s attack on the dead Kennedy struck me as less than hilarious.Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religious equality in the White House, Rick said, made “me want to throw up.”

Newt (Lunacy) Gingrich and his moon colony? Not funny. One wit dismissed Gingrich as a squeezed pimple with “the pus forming at the top of his head (white hair).”

Then came Limbaugh who offered a startling description of Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke. Denied the right to testify before Congressman Darrell Issa¹s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Women’s Access to Birth Control, Fluke then addressed a Democratic Steering and Policy Committee session about common concerns among women. Fluke said women needed access to contraception (now very costly). Some states want to outlaw it. She demanded medical insurance cover the costs.

“What does that make her?” asked Limbaugh on his radio show. “It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception.”

Rush said since his tax money would pay for her sex he wanted her to watch videos of her having sex online.

On March 3, Rush apologized on air for his name-calling. “My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.”

Then Rush complimented himself on his 20 years of “illustrating the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.”

Then he went on to un-apologize. “I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit?”

Rush apologized again and lost more sponsors. Some stations have dropped his show. All he’s got left are 15 million listeners, far more than any liberal radio or TV personality.

Limbaugh personifies extremist Republicanism which has become just Republicanism. His insulting of women cost him sponsors, but it also underlined themes of the major Republican candidates: against contraception, abortion, gay marriage. This, liberals logically deduced,should cost the Republicans the election in November.

Not so fast! Since October, Obama’s job-approval rating has oozed upward, but remains under 50%. On key issues like health care and the economy, the majority disapproves of his performance.

A late February Gallup/USA Today poll had swing-state voters choosing Romney over Obama. In strategic states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Iowa, Obama has difficulty moving to the 50% mark. And 60% claim the country is “on the wrong track.” (Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg News, March 6)

In 2008, McCain and Palin amassed almost 60 million votes. Not all of those who cast Republican ballots were men who thought loading the dishwasher meant getting their wives drunk; or who signed up their four year olds for lifetime NRA membership.

The political core issue who gets what from the budget has devolved into social issues. Republicans stress the biblical virtues of owning endless amounts of guns; saying no to climate change; making abortion a capital crime; erasing affirmative action, and eliminating activist (liberal) judges.

Republican candidates encourage low-income supporters to focus on the peripheral, not on their own core interests. Try to imagine adults living on less than $2 per person per day almost 1.5 million, and 2.8 million children and listening to Republicans debate! (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, March 5, 2012)

Comedy? Insanity? Or read the sub-text: ‘save our white country from that African-born, snobby socialist and his commie Jew advisers.” (Gingrich calls Obama the “food stamp president,” who had a guru named Saul Alinsky, a Hebrew resonating name indicating communist tendencies. (In fact, Alinsky’s biggest backer was the Catholic Bishop of Chicago.)

The preachers of peripheral focus have somehow twisted the minds of tens of millions of low-income Republican voters to demand the government stay out of their Social Security and Medicare.

Republican apparatchiks have also reduced Democratic registration on voter rolls in strategic places. Phony voter ID rules and other scams abound. On Tuesday March 6, polling station officials turned away a former Democratic Tennessee Congressman and his wife because of an order from the Republican Secretary of State. Such hanky panky leads to fewer Democratic voters; the Romney-Santorum chances rise.

The February-March verbal screw-ups will fade from national memory as will Rush “The Real Republican” Limbaugh’s misogyny. Gas prices? Economic downturn? War? Don¹t count on a Democratic landslide or even an Obama victory. It will require lots of work.

Saul Landau is a filmmaker, activist and a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. His latest film is Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up.

Mining activists killed in Mexico

Theresa Wolfwood — 2012-03-17T14:20:24+00:00

We are in Oaxaca, Mexico and hope to meet community activists opposing the destruction of their community life and environment by a Canadian mining company. The activist we planned to meet, Bernardo Vasquez Sanchez, was killed last night, March 15, 2012, and his brother and cousin were wounded. This mine, locally called Trinidad, is operated by Minera Cuzcatlan, a subsidiary of Canadian Fortuna Silver mines. It is in San Jose el Progreso, in the Ocotlan Valley, south of Oaxaca

For more information about this tragedy see this report.

For information about this company can be found here.

According to this website, the mine achieved commercial production in September 2011.

In 2011, the mine produced 490,555 ounces of silver and 4,622 ounces of gold. For 2012, San Jose is expected to produce 1.7 million ounces of silver and 15,000 ounces of gold.

The company has initiated plans to expand mine and processing plant treatment capacity and when completed, San Jose is expected to annually produce approximately 3.2 million ounces of silver, 25,000 ounces of gold, or 4.6 million silver equivalent ounces. Life of mine average cash operating cost, net of by-products, is estimated at US$7.84 per silver equivalent ounce.

This is not the first death of a community activist opposed to the operation of this mine. Another community leader was killed & one injured in January, 2012.

Globally, Canadian mining companies are accused of bribing local politicians and officials in order to operate without proper community consultation and without social or environmental concern. As a result, local activists are killed and injured, and many more are subjected to threats and beatings.

Please write to express your concern and shock about these deaths and attempted deaths to:

Ralph Rushton, Fortuna Silver Mines Corporate Office, 650-200 Burrard Street Vancouver, BC V6C 3L6 T: .604.484.4085 info@fortunasilver.com

Also to:

The Honourable Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway. Phone: (613) 995-0183 Fax: (613) 996-9795 E-mail: faste@parl.gc.ca

Please forward this call for urgent action to others who would respond as well.