A calendar for the year 2008, dedicated to the struggles of the international working class for peace and socialism.
Featuring notable dates, short biographical sketches, plus poetry, speeches, and writings by
Che Guevara, Clara Zetkin, Norman Bethune, James Connolly, Emiliano Zapata, Nikos Beloyannis, Dolores Ibarruri, V.I. Lenin, Pablo Neruda, Gladys Marin, Tim Buck, Nazim Hikmet, Ho Chi Minh, and Salvador Allende.

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The Spark!

Theoretical and Discussion Bulletin of the Communist Party of Canada

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FEBRUARY 16-29
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MARCH 1-15
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FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION AND THE RIGHT TO STRIKE

(The following article is from the February 1-15, 2008 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.

By Sam Hammond

In everyday life we tend to throw language around pretty loosely. That's OK because language is a very creative medium. However in the areas of analyses or research, the more articulate, precise and definitive the language, the more creative is the result.

     Often on contract negotiating committees, one of our members would tell the people on the other side, "we're not slaves you know !" Of course they knew this very well, perhaps with a sense of historical loss, because a slave would never be sitting across the table debating the sale of "labour" and "labour power" or its rate of enumeration.

     By definition, the slave is a wholly owned production unit kept and maintained to produce, and disposed of when no longer able to do this. Owned outright by the master, the slave is controlled under the law of the state. The slave can be bought and sold, and any offspring are the property of the master.

     The journey from the first slave society, through feudalism, to the present capitalist form of exploiting society has been a relatively short one when compared to the long evolution of human social development. No matter who we are descended from, there is almost certainly slavery in our past. Like most phenomena, there are still unpleasant leftovers and attitudes that have clung to us and will until we get rid of exploitation entirely.

     That is why we must be careful when throwing around words like freedom and democracy, because very little is absolute and most things come in degrees. Of course the degree of freedom or democracy is extremely important, and its use as a measuring device tells us where we are in this journey to emancipation and how far we have to travel.

     In capitalism, workers seek to sell their labour. A stated oral or contractual exchange is reached: so much applied labour for a stated reward. The capitalist, on the other hand, seeks to purchase not the worker's labour, but his or her labour power, which is an open ended grab at their entire physical and mental ability to produce at a fixed rate.

     This is at the heart of most labour disputes - press manning in the printing trades, speedup in the assembly plants, the right to ownership and patent in the research and creative fields. Any contractual partnerships or contractual recognition of corporate agendas effectively give up the workers' side of this equation, and allow open-ended access to their labour power. Usually this means speed-up and increased work load under the guise of efficiency.

     A workforce that cannot withdraw its labour at will is either enslaved or oppressed. Free people have this right to strike, to campaign for support and to give it to others of their class. We do not have this right unqualified, but we are not slaves, so we are definitely oppressed.

     The right to withdraw labour is enshrined in Charters and Statutes where they exist internationally as "Freedom of Association and the Right To Free Collective Bargaining." These documents can be found in the United Nations, the International Labour Organization, The Charter of Fundamental Rights (European Union), Article 19 in the Constitution of India, the program of the South Asian Human Rights Documentation Committee and on and on. Most of these are Charters and not Constitutional Rights. They reflect a universal demand of workers everywhere that reflects degrees of success or failure. This struggle for the right to strike has a history and must have a future.

     Canada has been a major participant in the United Nations since 1945, and since 1919 in the International Labour Organization. Of the ILO's 185 Conventions, Canada has only ratified 30. Of the thirty Conventions developed since 1982, Canada has ratified only three.

     Since 1982 provincial and federal governments in Canada have passed 175 pieces of legislation restricting, suspending or denying collective bargaining and the right to strike for Canadian workers. Since that year, unions in Canada have filed more complaints with the ILO's Freedom of Association Committee than labour organizations from any of the other 178 ILO member states.

     Freedom of Association is the right to conduct unified concerted action and/or support unified concerted action. Without this ability it is almost impossible to organize. Who would go to the bother of creating a labour organization without the ability to conduct struggle or campaign for social improvement?

     This is the most fundamental challenge facing labour. Research for future articles is uncovering evidence of major looming assaults on the right to association and the right to strike, both in Canada and the USA, especially under the guise of so-called "war on terror", "national security", and "necessary public services". Teachers, medical workers, transportation, longshore and warehousing workers are all being targeted. Each of these areas, and others, has its own peculiarities and applications, thus the need for research.

     Pending future articles, let us close with an excellent quote from a brother named Hashubhai Dave of the Indian Workers Union, reprimanding the Indian Parliament: "Strikes and demonstrations are a democracy's hard fought weapons against oppression. They cannot be wished away by a Supreme Court, which has hitherto supported their disciplined use. What is at issue is democracy itself. Strikes empower the disempowered to fight injustice in oppressive cases when no constructive option is left. It took one and a half centuries to discipline strikes into responsible governance. This cannot be wiped out in a few sentences which should not have been written." One class, one universal language.

     (Hammond is a former labour activist and currently chairs the Communist Party's Central Trade Union Commission.)

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MANLEY REPORT BACKS PUSH TO EXTEND AFGHAN MISSION

By Kimball Cariou

To nobody's surprise, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has accepted the Manley commission's recommendation to extend Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan. His announcement comes with one proviso, that "NATO allies help reinforce the effort". But it is widely expected that such a deal is already in the works.

     The count of Canadians killed in Afghanistan has now reached 78; if casualty rates recorded in 2006-07 continue, another thirty or more Canadian soldiers are likely to die each coming year in the front lines of the US/NATO occupation of the country. And as Afghan MP Malalai Joya stressed during her speaking tour in Canada last fall, western military forces back the corrupt, brutal and reactionary "Northern Alliance" warlords who run the present government, accomplishing little to achieve their alleged goals of bringing equality and democracy to Afghanistan.

     Perhaps not wanting to look too eager, Harper waited almost a week before issuing his first official comments on the report issued by the so-called "independent blue-ribbon panel" headed by John Manley, the staunchly pro-US former foreign affairs minister.

     Clearly pleased with the main thrust of the report, Harper announced on Jan. 28 that "the government accepts the panel's specific recommendation of extending Canada's mission in Afghanistan if certain conditions are met." This refers to a call for sending at least 1,000 more NATO combat troops to Kandahar province. Harper said his government will launch a "diplomatic effort before the April NATO meeting in Bucharest to meet those conditions."

     The panel rejected all options which involve a pull-out of Canadian troops as scheduled in February 2009. Instead, it proposes an indefinite extension, supposedly combined with a gradual refocus on reconstruction and then withdrawal as more Afghan troops are trained. The report sets "benchmarks" to be achieved in a vague timetable of two to three years.

     By way of "criticism," the panel claimed that successive governments have "failed to adequately explain to Canadians why Canadian troops are in Afghanistan, and urged an "improved" communications strategy. In other words, the panel members started from the position of support for the combat mission, and concluded that the role of the government and military is to overcome the opposition from a majority of Canadians who believe the mission should end next year.

     Reaction was mainly negative from organizations which have a clearer picture of the true situation in Afghanistan.

    "The Manley report says many of the right things, but its recommendations are potentially a recipe for more, not less, insecurity for Afghans," said Gerry Barr, President of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC), a coalition of almost 100 Canadian NGOs.
     Barr said that too much of the report is devoted to beefing up the international military presence, as if the conflict could be resolved militarily: "We know that is unlikely.... So, if we are truly concerned about the lives and safety of our men and women in uniform, then we have to invest much more heavily in bringing the conflict to an end."

     He pointed out that peace efforts must take into account the conflict's roots in history, in regional geopolitics, and in legitimate grievances over the sharing of resources and political power.

     He also expressed disappointment that the Panel did not address the consequences of military delivery of aid. "Canadian NGOs on the ground in Afghanistan have emphasized, again and again, that this practice turns both aid workers and Afghans into war targets and often has no long term security or development benefit," Barr said.

     There is no exit strategy for Canada without negotiations, pointed out the Group of 78, the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee, and the World Federalist Movement, in their joint response to the report. The groups said that Canada needs to shift its focus to the facilitation of Afghan-led political negotiations and reconciliation.

     While these NGOs welcomed the report's reference to national reconciliation, Ernie Regehr, co-founder of Project Ploughshares, noted that "The report's concept of reconciliation is based on the model of amnesty, rather than a comprehensive process to address fundamentally conflicting interests."

    "In the description of the Taliban, the authors of the report acknowledge that the current fight is a continuation of the old civil war, and they say reconciliation must be `eventually' achieved - yet how to encourage and support a peace process is not elaborated on and no innovative recommendations for the way forward are made," said David Lord, Director of CPCC.

Another group of NGOs stressed that Afghanistan needs development that is "coordinated, not co-opted." CARE, Oxfam, and World Vision expressed concerns with the development recommendations in the report, arguing that "Afghans desperately require effective, community-owned development that is coordinated, not co-opted by military strategy."

    The groups note that the report emphasizes rapid-impact development projects, chosen for military reasons which provide few lasting benefits to Afghans and often endanger civilians and aid workers. They also criticised the recommendation that more project-based bilateral aid should go to Kandahar at the expense of other regions. The Kandahar-driven strategy, said World Vision Canada president Dave Toycen, leads to an uneven distribution of aid, creating grievances in other parts of Afghanistan.

Mark Fried, advocacy coordinator of Oxfam Canada, said that "The military has neither the expertise nor the staying power to engage in the long-term development that Afghans need and want. Quick impact projects are all too frequently synonymous with ineffective aid."

     Michael Byers, a respected foreign affairs analyst who holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at UBC, declined to appear before the "Independent" Manley panel. Initially positively-inclined, he quickly realised that the word "independent" was a "misnomer," since it would be "difficult to find five people more likely to recommend an extension of the mission than Mr. Manley, Derek Burney, Jake Epp, Paul Tellier and Pamela Wallin."

     In a widely-reprinted December article, Byers noted that the Panel members were hand-picked by the prime minister, and were "inordinately dependent on the government." Their options effectively excluded alternative policies, such as negotiating with the Taliban, or replacing NATO troops with UN peacekeepers.

     "Although it pains me to say it, the Manley panel is a sham," concluded Byers.

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FALCONER MISSES ROOTS OF SCHOOL VIOLENCE

By Johan Boyden

Canada's largest public school board just released a report on school violence. While the subject is Toronto, the media have brought it to country-wide attention.

     The report pans the Tory "Safe School Act" and directly implicates the crisis of public school funding in this real problem. At the same, it presents a misconception of how schools fit into communities, sensationally advocating some deeply mistaken solutions instead of a much needed jobs and anti-poverty strategy.

     "The Road to Health, A Final Report on School Safety" has become known as the Falconer report, after the investigation panel's chair, lawyer Julian Falconer (also on Maher Arar's legal team). The panel was assembled after the tragic shooting death last May of a 15-year-old African-Canadian student, Jordan Manners, in his high school hallway.

     The report reveals systemic gender violence against young women, uncovering the gang-rape of a young Muslim woman at Manners' school. It also reports systemic violence against youth of colour, and found that one-third of students at Toronto's aboriginal school are suspended. The picture of students as "walking wounded" has startled many.

     So has the report's strangeness. Take the opening comment that, in the following 1,000 pages of "detached systemic discussions" in the report, "it is all too easy to forget why we are here..." Really? Easy for whom? The panel members? Jordan Manners' family? His teachers or classmates? The report's main conclusion is to fix the blame on the school system's "culture of silence" - yet Falconer also found the overwhelming majority of students feel safe at school.

     Media reports have focused on Falconer's calls for school uniforms, police and "sniffer dogs" in schools, and other "get tough" measures. "This is moves us in exactly the wrong direction," Education Action Toronto stated recently. "Would people accept random searches of their home by police officers?" another writer asked.

     In many ways, these policies have already been tried, tested and failed - in the US. A few years ago, I attended a talk in New York on school discipline. In this mega city, armed police patrol the hallways of the schools in black neighbourhoods. Although African American youth are only 17% of school population, they account for 34% of the suspensions.

     Historical inequities - segregated education, concentrated poverty, and racial disparities in law enforcement - feed the one-way path from school to jail. The a "school to prison pipeline" is one of the most "urgent challenges in education today," says the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

     Why is this going on? Criminal justice policy in the US long ago rejected rehabilitation over jail sentences. Why address root causes of crime when some are born criminals? Falconer correctly says that was the mistake of the "Safe Schools Act," and then produces more recipes out of the same cook book.

     As Stephen Seaborn with the Campaign for Public Education told me, "the media [is] focusing on quick solutions, [and] many people are missing the key message of this report." Seaborn points out that Falconer specifically calls on the McGuinty Government to increase and protect school funding, demands "consistent with positions taken by the Campaign for Public Education, Toronto education workers, teachers and parents over many years."

     Buried in the report is the conclusion that "Government policy from the mid 1990's into amalgamation emphasized cost-saving measures intended to dismantle key support structures for marginalized communities."

     Today, the school board is "nowhere near sufficiently funded to manage" the diverse students it serves, and can't provide enough social workers, hallway monitors or child and youth workers.

     This is a Canada-wide problem. After decades of federal and provincial policies of P3 privatization, budget cutbacks and calculated attacks on teachers unions, local school board autonomy and students, public schools aren't getting enough money to even pay the bills. Young people and education workers are under attack, along with our right to good quality, universal, accessible, public education.

     Here, then, is a central and strange problem. Falconer hits the nail at least partly on the head, pointing to under-funding as a major culprit - not, as today's racist corporate media says, "young black thugs." But he then goes on to propose many measures which will make school violence a lot worse.

     In no small part, this strangeness arises from Falconer's desire that schools somehow isolate themselves from the social reality of their communities. But schools are bound to reflect their communities. Can they become little islands of safety? Even if they are as regimented as youth jails, are prisons free from racism, sexual abuse, weapons, drugs or fear?

     Violence in schools has social causes: racism, national oppression, alienation, poverty, unemployment and lack of control over how we live and work. If you are a non-white high school student, you are going to experience racial oppression. Combine this with poverty and the "growing income gap" among families, the crisis of industrial manufacturing jobs and inaccessible housing. This is the picture of a society where "it is easier to get a gun than a job."

     Of these problems, Falconer reminds us that "matters going beyond academics must also be overcome in order to address the fundamental needs of youth who come to school unable to learn because of their challenging lives outside of school." But in all the talk about his report, the real "culture of silence" obscures the need for a sharp break with the current direction: to establish a new funding formula and give billions more to schools; to create good, well-paying jobs, and affordable housing; to enforce equity in hiring and change racist immigration laws; and for community control over policing which could end racial profiling.

     That is a much harder problem, however. It would require strong criticism of the McGuinty Liberals, who in many ways have either produced inadequate policy solutions, or expanded the Harris corporate agenda. To his credit, Falconer hinted at the problems, but seems quite unwilling to grasp the nettle and start to pull out its roots.

     Will his 1,000 pages be remembered for getting solid results, or for provocative phrases? The report does not include a budget estimate for its many initiatives.

     Students and families not only want safe schools, they want a safe workplaces, safe air and water, safe food and products to buy, and safe places to live and relax. What stands in the way of all this is the insane drive for profits, and corporate control over public policy. This must be confronted. Otherwise, we will continue to build a "school to prison pipeline" here as well.

     (Boyden is a writer and youth activist in Toronto.)

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IS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE TO "BUBBLE CAPITALISM"?

By Kimball Cariou

Mid-January saw panic in global markets. Hundreds of billions of dollars were "lost" as stock prices plunged, only to be partly regained the next day, then "lost" again by yet another decline. There is no accurate way to forecast the future of this roller coaster ride. What is certain is that capitalism will continue to be racked by booms and busts, and that working people will pay for the fluctuations of the system.

     One of the first such crashes was the "tulip mania" in Holland. In 1623, a single tulip bulb could cost a thousand Dutch florins, six times the average yearly income. A good tulip trader could earn six thousand florins a month, much as today's stockbrokers rake in millions by trading shares and currencies without ever creating anything of real value.

     By 1635, a sale of 40 bulbs for 100,000 florins was recorded. Thousands of people sold their possessions to speculate in the tulip market. Then in February 1637, traders could no longer get inflated prices for their bulbs, and they began to sell. Many were left holding contracts to purchase tulips at prices far higher than those on the open market, while others owned bulbs worth a fraction of the price they had paid. Investors were ruined, and the Netherlands went into an economic depression.

     (This illustrates the phenomenon of "fictitious" wealth. For example, I happen to own perhaps a thousand comic books purchased during my misspent youth. On paper, this collection is valued at about $5000. But since there are far more sellers than buyers, they remain packed in boxes, nearly worthless in real terms.)

     Modern versions of tulip-mania include the Japanese "bubble." In 1989, land prices hit $139,000 US per square foot in the Ginza district of Tokyo. Fifteen years later, the same real estate went for one-percent of its former value, and housing prices in Tokyo had fallen by ninety percent. An estimated $20 trillion US was wiped out by the combined collapse of Japanese real estate and stock markets.

     The "dot.com bubble" of the mid-1990s saw wild speculation in share prices of internet-related companies. That bubble burst in March 2000, wiping out $5-7 trillion worth of inflated "assets" of technology companies. The NASDAQ index, where many of these shares are traded, fell from 5048 (double its level a year earlier) to about 1200 by October 2002. The NASDAQ is currently around 2200, still below its late-1990s level.

     And now, another bubble has burst, with serious implications for the Canadian economy. The U.S. "sub-prime crisis" is named for one particular feature of the collapse. Millions of low and middle-income Americans are losing their homes, unable to afford rising mortgages. Many were enticed to purchase homes or take out second mortgages, by lenders offering special low ("sub-prime") interest rates for the initial loan period. When the higher rates kick in, "homeowners" who work at WalMart or Burger King can't keep up the payments.

     During the 1990s, "cheap" credit became available more quickly than new homes were built. U.S. housing prices rose much faster than overall inflation rates. Buyers were told that purchasing a home was a guaranteed way to increase their net assets, since housing values would "never drop". This falsehood generated a self-fulfilling prophecy, until the bottom fell out of the housing market, a critical factor plunging the United States into the recession which economists now agree has begun.

     David Rosenberg, the chief North American economist for Merrill Lynch, warns that U.S. house prices will fall by another 25 percent, wiping out $6 trillion in "housing wealth." Housing starts will slide 30 per cent from current levels, corporate profits will drop by 15 percent this year, and 2.5 million jobs will be slashed, leading to "the worst consumer recession since 1980."

     Tory politicians and right-wing pundits argue that the US recession won't affect Canada. But since 25% of the goods and services produced here are sold south of the border, a sharp decline in the US economy will obviously hit Canadians. The impact will be especially hard in sectors where workers are already facing massive layoffs, including manufacturing and forestry.

     A more fundamental question is whether it's possible for capitalism to find a way to prevent such massive disruptions - and whether there is an alternative.

     Answering the second part of the question is one way to start. The socialist economies built during the last century, first in the USSR and then in a dozen or more other countries, were definitely such an alternative. Based on public ownership of productive wealth, and on economic planning for social needs rather than private profit, these economies featured rapid historical growth rates, and none of the cyclical crises which mark capitalism.

     This is certainly not to argue that the socialist economies solved all the problems facing working people. But despite a range of difficulties and shortcomings (largely related to imperialist aggression and interference) these economies did provide full employment, virtually free housing and health care, and a high degree of social equality. Today, socialist Cuba is recognized as the global leader in environmentally sustainable development.

     "Advanced" capitalist societies, on the other hand, are marked by sharp contradictions: a wealth of consumer goods created by workers who can't afford to buy, astronomical incomes for a few, and utter poverty for millions. Speculative economic booms are inevitably followed by collapse and chaos. Perhaps most worrisome, since capitalist profits depend on constant expansion, the system is driven by ever-increasing exploitation of labour power, destruction of the natural environment, and wars to seize control of resources.

     The real issue today is not to guess the severity of the impending economic crisis. It's how the working class can fight back against the attempts of the capitalists to make us pay the full costs of this debacle - and then how to replace their crisis-ridden system before it destroys the planet.

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HEU REACHES TENTATIVE DEAL ON BILL 29

PV Vancouver Bureau

Six years after the Campbell Liberals ripped up their collective agreement, health care workers in British Columbia have reached a tentative agreement to resolve their dispute with the provincial government.

     Announced on Jan. 28, the settlement is the outcome of a Supreme Court of Canada ruling last June, which struck down portions of Bill 29 and ordered the government to negotiate with the Hospital Employees Union and its union partners in the Facilities Bargaining Association. The Court struck down three sections of the 2002 legislation, which eliminated contracting out protections in health care and community social services collective agreements. But the court did not dictate the ultimate outcome, giving the provincial government a year to deal with the repercussions. Nor did it reverse the 15% pay rollback imposed on health care workers by the Campbell government in 2004.

     HEU's leadership is recommending that members support the agreement in votes that will take place this month.

     The deal includes $68 million in compensation for workers impacted by Bill 29 in the past, and another $7 million for retraining. A joint committee chaired by Vince Ready will oversee the compensation process.

     The agreement gives the union the tight to negotiate on contracting out in the future. Prior to the retendering of currently contracted out services, unions can now make a case to return work in-house.

     HEU secretary-business manager Judy Darcy says the agreement benefits current HEU members by delivering expanded rights and options in the future, and provides redress for workers impacted by Bill 29.

     "Our victory in the Supreme Court was of fundamental importance to Canadian workers and has already made a big difference in other provinces," says Darcy. "But the court did not specify an outcome in their decision. We were left to work out the details with a government that insisted on an unfettered right to contract out, and that rejected any responsibility to provide redress to members who were impacted by Bill 29.

     "Despite this, we've expanded options for members who may be laid off under the existing cap and secured new rights to challenge contracting out in the future. We've also negotiated compensation for members whose rights were violated and who have already waited too long for justice without another drawn-out court battle."

     The agreement was announced six years ago to the day that the B.C. Liberals imposed Bill 29, breaking Gordon Campbell's promise in the 2001 provincial election to honour collective agreements. This deal, says Darcy, means that the HEU "won't be bargaining with one arm tied behind our backs" in 2010, when the current agreement expires.

     Workers laid-off under the existing 700 FTE cap, first negotiated in 2006 and maintained in this agreement, will have more options to remain employed in health care. They can now apply for vacancies in a different health authority, and can also access retraining funds.

     "These are significant retraining funds that will ensure that the public's investment in skilled, experienced workers is preserved," says Darcy. "Skills shortages are crippling the health care system. The retraining fund will help make sure that our members fill those vacancies."

     Darcy says that "health care workers in B.C. took this fight to the highest court in the land and won recognition that our collective bargaining rights are fundamental rights. Today, we have secured recognition for those whose rights were violated and we've gained expanded rights that we can use to defend members' jobs and public services. And in 2010, we will go to the bargaining table without legislative restrictions on what we can negotiate."

     Provincial Health Minister George Abbott said the deal resolves the issues that arose from the Supreme Court decision, but still maintains that the broken contracts were "unworkable."

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THE "MISSION" - CANADA'S AFGHAN ADVENTURE

By Anthony Black

Much like Washington's invasion and occupation of Iraq - which began in Act 1 as an operation to "root out weapons of mass destruction", changed wardrobe in Act 2 to "bringing democracy to the heathens", and transmogrified seamlessly in Act 3 to "blaming the chaos on the victims" - so too has the "mission" in Afghanistan morphed in its stated aims from one outrageous lie to the next.

Osama Who?

Operation Enduring Freedom thus started out ostensibly as a campaign of righteous vengeance to bring Osama bin Laden to heel; a campaign whose logical status would have been slightly less risible had, first, any of the alleged 9/11 hijackers been Afghani (14 of the 19 were Saudis, 1 was Egyptian, 2 were Lebananese, and 2 were from the United Arab Emirates); second, had the isolationist Taliban had any prior knowledge of the attack (it was planned in Germany); and, third, had not the Taliban agreed to turn bin Laden over to an independent, international court of justice upon seeing evidence of his guilt (an offer spurned by the Bush regime, a fact, thereafter, entirely elided from the "free press").

     But, of course, the missing "Osama bin Laden" was no more the point of this colonial/imperial exercise than had been the missing "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. And so, slowly but surely, "Osama" vanished from the mission's raison d'etre - almost as if he had never been. So began Act 2.

To Order: One Demonization Campaign

Having conveniently failed to capture bin Laden - a contrary result which would, in any case, have put a certain damper, you understand, on the fraudulent "war on terror" - the Bush regime and its allies didn't skip a beat in proffering a new and improved rationale for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, i.e. regime change. After all, the Taliban were, by all accounts, an unsavoury lot dedicated to denying women's rights and blowing up archaeological monuments and such, so it seemed like a propaganda winner all the way 'round.

     The only fly in the ointment, of course, was that the Taliban were actually our former allies. Indeed, they were part of the mujahideen, the famous "freedom fighters" lionized in headline after headline on virtually every front page of every newspaper throughout North America and Europe for an entire decade (the '80's). Not only that, but the Taliban had, despite their obvious theocratic and anti-progressive drawbacks, a thing or two going for them. Thus, they had brought not only peace and stability (after a brutal civil war and period of total lawlessness following the exit of the Soviets) but had also virtually wiped out Afghanistan's poppy cultivation and so its contribution to the world heroin trade. Moreover, their former anti-Soviet comrades-in-arms, the so-called Northern Alliance (our present allies) were, if anything, more bloodthirsty - and certainly less disciplined - than the Taliban. It was these warlords, for instance, who, vying for control of Kabul in 1993/4 following the Soviet departure in 1989, decimated the city and killed a cool 50,000 or so civilians.

     Still, these trifles could not deter an august free press on the war path. The Taliban would have to go and if the historical context and the facts didn't quite fit the moral case at hand - in truth, didn't fit it at all - well, to hell with them.

Brzezinski's Chessboard

Now mind you, these changing rationales and justifications for the invasion and then occupation of Afghanistan - now since mutated into the amorphous mouthwash of "women's rights", "peace", and "reconstruction" etc. - in no way reflected the mission's actual military aims. There the strategy was, from the beginning, all of a piece, i.e. 1) to secure the country as forward base for the projection of military power into Central Asia, 2) to provide a stepping stone (in cahoots with the invasion of Iraq) towards the retaking of Iran and, 3) to permit the building of a gas and oil pipeline from the Caspian Basin through to Pakistan and thence to the Arabian Sea. And, of course, none of these aims were a secret in the sense that there aren't plenty of official documents to substantiate them. There are. Nor were they obscure in the sense of their not being part of a logically transparent narrative. They were entirely transparent.

     Indeed, to see just how explicit some of these global strategic motives can be one need only repair to that Cold War classic, "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Geostrategic Imperatives" by Zbigniew Brzezinski wherein the beginning of the whole modern Afghan debacle is laid out in black and white.

     In "The Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski (Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, and star consultant to several US Administrations) boasts of how he lured the Soviets into Afghanistan in order to bleed them in their own version of Vietnam. To this end Carter, in July 1979, authorized $500 million to set up what was basically a terrorist organization - comprised of a ragtag group of feudal warlords, drug barons and Muslim extremists - dedicated to overthrowing the secular Afghan government. It was only following the implementation of this armed destabilization campaign that the Soviets, partly in response to calls from assistance from Kabul and partly to protect their own strategic interests, "invaded". The CIA subsequently cranked up the "mujahideen" resistance by funnelling them billions of dollars worth of arms largely through the auspices of the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) apparatus.

     Ten years on, the country in ruins and a million or so Afghanis dead, Brzezinski's plan bore ultimate fruit. The Soviets, exhausted from the Nazi holocaust, 70 years of world capitalist economic siege, 40 years of having been arms raced to death by the US and, now, from having suffered la piece de resistance of their own "Vietnam" - finally collapsed. The United States, released from the strictures of Cold War containment, immediately embarked on an ambitious project of imperial expansion which included, successively, the Invasion of Panama, the First Gulf War/Massacre, the Invasion of Somalia, and the destabilization, bombing and ultimate destruction of Yugoslavia.

     Meanwhile, back in the rubble, the mujahideen were fighting it out amongst themselves for control of Afghanistan. Following a brutal civil war one faction, the Taliban (named after a group of religious students, "talibs"), finally gained the upper hand and formed a fundamentalist theocratic and rigidly patriarchal state. Nonetheless, they also brought order to the country and so it wasn't long before United Oil Company of California (Unocal) came calling in aid of building the vital, and long sought after, pipeline from the Caspian through to the Arabian Sea. Negotiations were proceeding apace when, unexpectedly, in the spring of 2001 - and just months before 9/11 - they broke down. Unocal immediately made submissions to Congress suggesting that "regime change" would be most desirable. The rest, as they say, is history.

The "Just War"

What I always found particularly fascinating about the initial invasion of Afghanistan was the manner in which it was reported. Never have I seen such a look of unrestrained glee in the eyes of so many of our TV news men and women as they detailed the slaughter of the Taliban. One got the distinct impression of morally deficient children lauding the annihilation of insects. In truth, militarily, that's more or less what happened.

     We'll never know exactly how many Afghanis were killed in the first wave of the attack. No one seems much to care in any case. Figures of 10,000 or so have been bandied about, but these are almost certainly a gross underestimate. As the Irish filmmaker Jamie Doran detailed in his documentary, "Afghan Massacre: Convoy of Death", there were, following the siege of Kunduz, roughly 3,000 or so prisoners murdered by US Special Forces and their Northern Alliance cadres in one instance alone. In another incident, at Mazur-i-Sharif, upwards of 800 Taliban prisoners were killed - most with their hands tied behind their backs, and by US helicopter gunships firing down at them in a closed compound - whilst "attempting to escape". In the latter case there was a clear line of evidence linking statements by the Bush Administration (i.e. in regard to not taking prisoners etc) to the massacre. The ever servile press filed it, as per usual, first under "blaming the victim", then under "total amnesia for disturbing facts".

     Such, then, is the moral fibre of the collaborative enterprise that Canada has signed onto in its present occupation of Afghanistan.

Colonial Aftermath

Following the initial, and as it turns out highly tenuous, "pacification" of the country, the usual and expected colonial machinations were deployed. Thus, by late 2002 the 1500 kilometre Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline deal had been signed. Harmid Karzai, an ex-Unocal consultant, was eventually installed, via rigged elections, as the new puppet ruler of Afghanistan. The majority of the "elected" MPs of the new government turned out to be, surprise, ex-drug and feudal war lords, and stand accused of having carried out massacres, mass rape, and assorted war crimes.

     The Northern Alliance have continued on their merry way, reviving poppy cultivation such that, today, Afghanistan supplies 80 to 90% of the world's heroin. As for the much ballyhooed "rebuilding" effort, only 3% of all the foreign aid spent in the country has been for reconstruction. Canada, for its part, has now spent over $4 billion dollars on its Afghan mission - and 90% of that has been directed towards military ends. Indeed, much of the rest is for bloated contracts to Western corporations with little or no accountability. Meanwhile, the civilian casualties have, since the invasion began, mounted into the thousands per year - and this is likely a gaping underestimate if one factors in the dismal infant and nutritionally related mortality rates. Women's rights, moreover, though "legally" sanctioned, remain in reality as bad as they ever were under the Taliban; this compounded by the complete lack of security leading to endemic rape.

     Finally, one especially baneful aspect of Canada's involvement in this ongoing colonial war crime is that it is fuelling, not only Canada's military integration into the United States war machine, but our general political and economic integration as well.

     Still, when all is said and done, Hillier and Harper can pound their little chests. They have their little war, and can hold their heads high where it counts - in Washington.

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"$10 NOW" DEMAND AT FEB. 16 RALLY

Young working people and students in the Vancouver area are increasingly faced with the dilemma of how to pay the rent and other living expenses, at a time when thousands of jobs pay poverty-level wages.

     On Feb. 16, the Young Workers Committee of the Vancouver & District Labour Council will tackle this issue head on, with a Feb. 16 rally to demand an increased minimum wage from Gordon Campbell's Liberal government.

     A recent message from the Young Workers Committee says, "After voting themselves a $22,000 pay raise this spring, the Liberal government still refuses to increase the minimum wage for B.C. lowest paid workers to a mere $10 an hour. Today many minimum wage workers, even at full time, find themselves below the poverty line.

     "We support the B.C. Federation of Labour and other groups which are cooperating to win a wage increase for the 115,000 British Columbians who earn $8 per hour as well as 135,000 more workers who earn less than $10. We also demand an end to the ageist `training wage' which targets young workers with wages well below poverty levels, $6 per hour. Furthermore, we demand another increase to $11 per hour one year later, and the implementation of an indexing formula so that, like elected provincial politicians' earnings, workers earnings will continue to increase with the cost of living."

     The rally for "$10 Now" is set for 1 pm, Saturday, Feb. 16, at Gordon Campbell's Point Grey constituency office, 3615 W. 4th Ave. The VDLC Young Workers Committee urges all supporters of youth and labour rights to take part. For more information, contact Stephen von Sychowski, Chair of the Committee, by email at vs.stephen@gmail.com, or tel. 778-231-4635.

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ZERO TOLERANCE FOR RACIST AND SEXIST ATTACKS AT YORK U

PV Ontario Bureau

York University was in an uproar in late January after news that the offices of the Black Students Alliances (YUBSA) on campus were defaced with racist graffiti such as "all n____s must die" and "N____s go back to Africa."

     The latest incident came on the heels of three sexual assaults, a brutal attack on a Student Centre employee, and two other cases of racist vandalism on campus in recent months. This has evoked an outpouring of demands on the university administration to strengthen public safety for students and staff.

     On January 24, YUBSA organized an emergency protest to demand immediate action from the administration, including a through investigation and an independent safety audit of the campus. YUBSA also demanded that students of colour participate on administrative committees to combat racist and sexist oppression at the university.

     The York University Club of the Communist Party and the York Young Communist League issued a statement "standing 100% behind the efforts of the York University Black Students Alliance (YUBSA) and all progressive students and workers in condemning racist hate crimes and sexual assaults."

     "These acts again expose the myth that York is somehow above or separate from Canadian society. Genocide, colonization, national oppression, racism, sexual assault and sexism, discrimination against immigrants, homophobia and other forms of oppression have and continue to play a major role in the functioning of Canadian capitalism."

     The Communists on campus called for the implementation of a comprehensive program of anti-racism and anti-sexism training and public education, and mandatory anti-oppression courses offered through the university.

     "To work and learn in a safe environment without harassment, assault and discrimination is a basic right, just as accessible, universal, affordable and good-quality education is also a right for all. Our university must confront and resist racism, sexism and all forms of discrimination, ensuring that all students feel safe on campus," said the statement.

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THE GREAT ESCAPE

People's Voice Editorial - Feb. 1-15, 2008

It's the greatest jail-break in history. On January 23, 1.4 million Palestinians were liberated from the largest prison ever built, when the barrier separating Gaza from Egypt was toppled by Hamas members. As this issue goes to press, many Gazans are still crossing into Egypt to purchase desperately needed food and other supplies, defying attempts to keep them in their massive concentration camp.

     And that's exactly the term for life in the 360 sq. km. area. Even after Israel was finally compelled in 2005 to withdraw its settlers and armed forces, Gaza's airspace and borders remained under Israeli military control. Israel's vicious economic blockade was gradually tightened, turning a humanitarian disaster into utter catastrophe when electricity and water were cut off.

     Yet Canada's minority Conservative government has never uttered a peep about the horrors inflicted by the Israeli occupation - sky-high unemployment, shortages of food and medicines, huge numbers of civilian deaths at the hands of the Israeli military. To Canada's eternal shame, Prime Minister Harper cut off humanitarian aid to Palestine when the Hamas movement won free elections in the West Bank and Gaza two years ago. The Harper government is complicit in genocide, by helping to tighten the noose around the necks of the Palestinians.

     Now, that noose has been temporarily loosened. The events in Gaza make it clear that peace and justice will never come to the Middle East until all Arab lands seized by Israel are returned to the Palestinians, in accordance with United Nations resolutions. Israel's "separation wall" must be demolished, and Palestine must be allowed to become a free and sovereign state, with its capital in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians driven from their homes in 1948 must be allowed the right to return. Nothing less will lead to the end of this terrible conflict.

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CANADA'S RICH GET TAX BREAKS

People's Voice Editorial, Feb. 1-15, 2008

Believe it or not, Canada's wealthy elite are taxed at a lower rate than their counterparts in the United States. A recent study by economist Andrew Jackson points out that the top U.S. tax rate is 35 per cent on incomes more than $326,000, and 33 per cent on incomes more than $150,000. Canada's top rate is 29 per cent on incomes of more than $116,000. The study also shows that income inequality is growing rapidly as Canada's richest one per cent take home an increasing share of pre tax income. This sliver of the population also received a disproportionate share of recent income tax cuts.

     It's also worth remembering that corporate tax rates have been sharply reduced in recent decades, under the Chretien/Martin Liberals, and now under the Harper Conservatives. It's a pattern that goes back much further; during the post-WW2 era, corporate taxes accounted for the lion's share of government revenues in Canada. Today income taxes make up the bulk of government revenues, a share which is increasingly being shifted away from the ultra-rich and onto the backs of middle and lower-income earners.

     And this is certainly not because the rich are suffering. The top one percent of Canadian earners took home 8.6% of the national income in 1992, rising to 12.2% by 2004.

     Meanwhile, right-wing Canadian governments have fought a largely successful campaign to cut spending on social programs. Their convenient argument, of course, is that Canadians "can't afford" more social spending. But most Canadians disagree. A 2006 Environics Research poll found that 82% of Canadians support closing tax loopholes for wealthy individuals, and that 70% favour increasing taxes on the wealthy. It's an issue that should be right up front in the coming federal election.

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INDIA'S CPI(M) CALLS FOR STRONGER LEFT UNITY

By B. Prasant, PV correspondent in India

In the draft political resolution to be discussed at its 19th Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) calls for a farther strengthening of Left unity across the country to help the ongoing struggle against imperialism, communalism, and terrorism. The Party Congress will be held in Coimbatore, in the southwestern state of Kerala, starting in late March. About 800 delegates will take part, with the largest contingent from Bengal, where the CPI(M) has been the major force in that state's Left Front government for three decades.

     The CPI(M) is critical of the Congress-led UPA government in Delhi, but does not stand for withdrawal of support at the present juncture, since that would allow the religious fundamentalists of the BJP-RSS to return to office. (These political forces are based on the divisive and reactionary concept of India as a "communal" Hindu nation - Editor.)

     There has been a strong debate within the CPI(M)'s provincial units for some time about the raison d'être of continuing to lend political support to the Congress in the union [federal] government.

     The draft resolution emphasises that "there is no alternative to the bourgeois-landlord system's policies but the Left Democratic Alternative." The CPI(M) "will endeavour to build" a stronger "Left and democratic platform, which can meet the aspirations and defend the interests of all sections of the working people."

     The resolution robustly defends the decision of the Central Committee of the CPI(M) to continue supporting the increasingly marginalised and anti-people Congress-led UPA governance at the federal level. The document takes cognizance of the political-ideological difference between the BJP and the Congress, underlining that the CPI(M) considers the latter as a secular bourgeois party, though the Congress is notorious for vacillation when the communal forces take the offensive.

     The CPI(M), however, leaves no doubt that it will combine its support for the UPA regime in Delhi with "appropriate tactics" for further isolating and defeating the BJP. The caveat is set in place firmly that the CPI(M) "will not enter into any alliance or united front with the Congress."

     Noting the worsening political and economic situation of the country - unemployment, food shortages, growing communal, sectarian, and terrorist violence - the CPI(M) demands an alternative to the Congress and BJP-led combinations. In the CPI(M)'s opinion, the Left must take the initiative in this regard.

     For this to be a ground-level practicality, it is necessary to forge a Left-led third alternative to the mainstream political parties. Such a platform must be based on a consistent anti-communal outlook; it must address the problems faced by the people, as a strong political advocate of every kind of pro-people economic measures, while fighting the onslaughts of imperialism-driven globalisation and liberalisation.

     The CPI(M) believes that to be a viable political proposition, any "third alternative" must make provisions also for social welfare and for strengthening the public distribution system of commodities of common consumption; and it must be a consistent defender of national sovereignty as well as an advocate of an independent ("non-aligned") foreign policy.

     Speaking about Left unity, the CPI(M) is aware of the situation in Bengal, where there have been varying forms of dissenting views of some Left Front constituents, like the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Forward Bloc, over the Bengal LF government's policy of industrialisation.

     Envisaging the tough battles ahead, the CPI(M) has called upon the Bengal unit of the Party to take the lead, as the strongest contingent of the Left in the country, to ensure that the Left Front is strengthened and not weakened in the days to come.

     The draft political resolution leaves no doubt that the CPI(M) stands fiercely opposed to India emerging as the "junior strategic and logistics ally" of US imperialism. In mobilising the Indian people against the hegemonic forays of US imperialism into the political-economic fabric of India, the CPI(M) will continue to strengthen the worldwide anti-imperialist struggle for multi-polarity.

     The CPI M) has identified the following task-based slogans for the Party Congress:

* struggle to defend national sovereignty, resist the neoliberal policies, defend the interests of the working people, and work for alternative policies.

* spare no effort to isolate the BJP-RSS combine who spearhead the communal forces in the country.

* mobilise all the patriotic and democratic sections to thwart US imperialist designs to convert India into its strategic ally.

* champion the cause of the dalits, tribal people, women, minorities, and other oppressed sections for social justice.

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HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN HAITI STILL DETERIORATING

Members of the Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN) are concerned that a deteriorating human rights situation in Haiti is being ignored in Canada.

     "There are a number of very disturbing events in Haiti during the past five months that have gone totally ignored and unreported in Canada," said Kevin Skerrett, a CHAN coordinator, on Jan. 17.

     "On August 12 last year, one of Haiti's most prominent political and human rights spokespeople, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine, was kidnapped. He has not been heard from since," said Skerrett. "In late October, journalist Guy Delva of Reuters was obliged to flee the country with his family because of death threats he received on his cell phone and threatening conduct by persons unknown. He has since returned to Haiti, but now must depend on extensive personal security.

     "Most recently, Amnesty International has issued three separate urgent action appeals on behalf of political rights activists in Haiti - on December 18, January 9, and January 11. They also issued a follow-up urgent action appeal on January 11 concerning the dire conditions of Haitians working in the agriculture industry in neighbouring Dominican Republic."

     Skerrett noted, "Considering that Canada claims its extensive assistance of the police and justice agencies of the Haiti government are a great success, we are entitled to ask how `success' is measured."

     Speaking in Vancouver, CHAN coordinator Roger Annis expressed disappointment with Canadian politicians for their silence on human rights in Haiti. "I was a member of a human rights delegation that Lovinsky Pierre Antoine was accompanying when he disappeared on August 12. Imagine our disappointment three days later when I was told by the Canadian embassy in Port au Prince that they were not concerned about his disappearance. Can you imagine Canada making such a declaration if a prominent Burmese democracy activist were to be kidnapped?"

     The Haitian non-governmental organization, Plateforme des organisations haitiennes des droits humains (Coordinating Body of Haitian Human Rights Organisations), reported last October that the number of prisoners in Haiti's jails has doubled since the period preceding the foreign intervention that removed Haiti's then-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, from office in February 2004.

     "No one in the Canadian government is paying the slightest attention to the recent concerns expressed by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations," said Annis. "As our delegation observed, Haiti is living through an unprecedented economic, social and political calamity. (We) want a serious inquiry into the circumstances of Canada's involvement in Haitian affairs. We want the spotlight placed on the failure of the agencies of the Haitian government funded by Canada to protect human rights, notably the police force and the justice ministry. We want the resources of the United Nations and Canada to be made available for inquiry into the threats and disappearances of human rights activists."

     According to the September 2006 issue of the UK medical journal The Lancet, there were four thousand political killings in Haiti between February 2004 and late 2005 committed by the Haitian National Police and the United Nations-sponsored military occupation force. Although political repression on this scale has eased, the latest threats to rights activists show that democracy as Haitians knew it before February, 2004 has not been restored.

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AN EPIPHANY GIFT

Reflections by the Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro Ruz, Jan. 14, 2008

The wires made the announcement ahead of time. On Jan. 6 we learned of Bush's trip to the Middle East, just as soon as his very Christian Christmas holiday break was over. He would be going to Muslim territory, lands having a different religion and culture from that of the Europeans, who converted to Christianity, declared war on the infidels, in the 11th century A.D.

     The Christians themselves killed each other, both for religious reasons and national interests. It seemed that everything had been overcome by history. Religious beliefs remained that should be respected, the same as their legends and traditions, whether Christian or otherwise. On this side of the Atlantic, as in many parts of the world, children anxiously awaited every 6th of January, gathering enough hay for the camels bringing the Three Wise Men. I also shared in these hopes during the early years of my life, asking those three fortunate Wise Men for the impossible, with the same wishful thinking that some compatriots expect miracles from our determined and dignified Revolution.

     I am not physically apt to speak directly to the citizens of the municipality where I was nominated for our elections next Sunday. I do what I can: I write. For me, this is a new experience: writing is not the same as speaking. Today, that I have more time to inform myself and to meditate about what I see, I have barely enough time to write.

     One always expects good tidings; bad tidings tend to surprise and demoralize us. Being prepared for the worst is the only way to be prepared for the best.

     It seems unreal to see Bush, the conqueror of other peoples' raw materials and energy resources, setting out guidelines for the world careless about how many hundreds of thousands or millions of people die or how many clandestine prisons and torture centers must be created to attain his objectives. "Sixty or more corners of the world" must expect pre-emptive attacks. Let us not shut our eyes; Cuba is one of those dark corners. The head of the empire said that in just so many words and I have warned the international community of this on more than one occasion.

     In Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, a few miles from Iran, AP says that "The President of the United States, George W. Bush said Sunday that Iran is threatening the security of the world, and that the United States and Arab allies must join together to confront the danger before it's too late. Bush has accused the Teheran government of funding terrorists, undermining stability in Lebanon, and sending weapons to the Taliban, the Afghan religious militia. He added that Iran is trying to intimidate its neighbours with alarming rhetoric, defying the United Nations and destabilizing the region as a whole by refusing to be open about its nuclear program."

     "Iranian actions threaten the security of nations everywhere" Bush said. "Therefore, the United States is strengthening our long-range commitments to security with our friends in the Persian Gulf and calling on our friends to confront this danger."

     "Bush spoke at the Emirates Palace Hotel, built at a cost of 3 billion dollars, and where a suite costs $2,450 a night. It is one kilometer from end to end and has a 1.3 kilometer white sand beach. According to Steven Pike, spokesman of the of the US Embassy in the United Arab Emirates, every grain of sand on this beach was imported from Algeria."

     The entire world knows that he wants war against Iran, it is his war. Furthermore, he promises that U.S. troops will remain in Iraq for at least 10 more years.

     What is worse is that the main candidates of the two parties in line to succeed him are incapable of remedying this. Not one of them dares to even slightly contest this imperial practice, which is based on the excuse of fighting terrorism, an evil engendered by the system itself and its colossal and unsustainable consumerism, while striving for the impossible: sustained growth, full employment and no inflation.

     These were not the dreams of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Abraham Lincoln; nor were they the dreams of those great dreamers throughout humanity's turbulent history.

     Whoever has the time to read and analyze the news coming in on the Internet, cable and in books, can ascertain the contradictions to which the world has been driven.

     In an article run by El Pais, a widely read Spanish newspaper, the subject of the prices of food and fuel are dealt with. Signed by Paul Kennedy, professor of history and director of International Security Studies at Yale University and one of the country's most influential intellectuals, the article states that "oil is the greatest element of dependency for the United States in terms of external forces. By the mid-18th century, Great Britain had the largest shipbuilding industry in the world. Yet, as its yards were launching hundreds if not thousands of sailing ships each year, certain English inventors were creating the magic of the steam engine, which used vast amounts of energy secured in the especially bituminous depots of South Wales. The steam and coal engine carried the British Empire onward for another 150 years."

     Later on he indicates the point of view that is most interesting for us: the ever-greater interconnection between oil and foods. The reasons are well-known: the enormous energy demands of the large Asian economies and the inability of the wealthiest countries "the United States, Japan and Europe" to reduce their consumption.

     "But global soy bean demand is also spiralling upward, again, chiefly due to the rising consumption in Asia; China's tens of millions of pigs devour an awful amount of soy bean meal in a year. The soy bean futures prices are 80 percent higher this year (December 2007) than last (2006). No one can be certain of that, but the continued increases in overall world population, and the surge in real incomes for more than two billion people over the recent past, will surely translate into ever-greater demand for the world's protein: for more beef, more pork, more chicken, more fish, and thus for more grains to feed them."

     The Yale professor might as well have added: more eggs and more milk, since their production requires considerable amounts of fodder. But a little later, he alludes to an article published in The Economist, the main newspaper of European finance, describing it as "highly detailed, impressive and very scary"; it is entitled The End of Cheap Food. "That magazine began its food-price index way back in 1845. The price index is higher today than in anytime in its entire 162 years."

     Brazil, which is now self-reliant in fuel and has abundant reserves, will doubtlessly escape this dilemma. Stretching on a plateau at 300 to 900 meters altitude, it is 77 times bigger than Cuba. This sister republic enjoys three different climates. Almost every food can be grown there. It is not hit by tropical hurricanes. Together with Argentina, they could save the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, including Mexico, although they could never guarantee security for them because they are at the mercy of an empire which will not allow that union.

     Writing, as many people know, is an instrument of expression that lacks speed, tone and the intonation of spoken language, and it doesn't use gestures. It also takes several times our scarce available time. Writing has the advantage that it can been done at any time, day or night, but one doesn't know who will read it; very few can resist the temptation to improve it, to include what was not said or to cross out what was said; sometimes one has the urge to throw it all in the waste basket since you don't have the interlocutor there in front of you. All my life I have transmitted ideas about events as I was seeing them, from the darkest ignorance until today when I have more time available and I have the possibility of observing the crimes being committed against our planet and our species.

     To the youngest of our revolutionaries, in particular, I recommend to be extremely demanding with themselves and to observe an iron-clad discipline. They should avoid being ambitious for power, presumptuous or boasters. They should be watchful about bureaucratic methods and mechanisms and avoid succumbing to simple slogans. They should recognize bureaucratic procedure for the worst obstacle they are and use science and computation without falling prey to the excessively technical and unintelligible jargon of the elitist specialists. They should always be hungry for knowledge; and perseverance, and both physical and mental exercises should be part of their lives.

     In this new era in which we live, capitalism is not even a useful instrument. It is like a tree with rotten roots, from whence only the worst forms of individualism, corruption and inequality sprout. Nor should we give away anything to those who could be producing and who don't produce, or who produce very little. Reward the merits of those who work with their hands or their minds.

     Just as we have universalized higher education, we must also universalize simple physical labor; it helps us to at least carry out a part of the infinite investments demanded by everyone, as if there was an enormous reserve of money and labor force. Be especially wary of those inventing State enterprises with just any excuse and then managing the easy profits as if they had been capitalists all their lives, sowing egoism and privileges.

     Until we become aware of such realities, no effort can be made, as Marti would have said, to "timely prevent" that the empire which he saw surging up, living as he did in its entrails, may destroy the future of humanity.

     We must be dialectic and creative. There is no other possible alternative.

     We are grateful for Bush playing his part as one of the Wise Men, visiting the place where the son of the carpenter Joseph was born, if truly someone knows where the exact spot of that humble crib is, where the Nazarene was born. The leader of the empire bears the gift, this time, of tens of billions of dollars to the Arab countries to buy weapons that come from the industrial-military complex; and at the same time, two dollars for every one supplied to them to arm the state of Israel, where the United Nations agency which tackles the subject assures us that 3.5 million Palestinians have been deprived of their rights or expelled from their territory.

     His obsessive instrument is to threaten the world with nuclear war. Only he is capable of bearing this Epiphany Gift.

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WHAT'S LEFT

VANCOUVER, BC

My Name Is Rachel Corrie - co-produced by neworldtheatre and Teesri Duniya Theatre, based on the writing of Rachel Corrie, 7 & 9:30 pm, Jan. 25-Feb. 3, Havana Restaurant, 1212 Commercial Dr., for tickets 604-231-7535.

Protest the Giveaway of Rivers and Hydro Power - rally 1 pm, Sat., Feb. 2, Robson St. side of Art Gallery; evening forum 7 pm, Ukrainian Auditorium, 154 E. 10th Ave. Presented by Council of Canadians, 604-688-8846.

Unite to Defeat the Tory/corporate assault, public forum with CPC leader Miguel Figueroa - 7:30 pm, Thur., Feb. 7, Centre for Socialist Education, 706 Clark Drive, for info call BC Committee CPC, 604-254-9836.

Shutdown the Olympic Countdown, protest VANOC luncheon at the Hyatt Regency - gather 12 noon, Mon., Feb. 11, at the Art Gallery, for info contact: 604-682-3269 x8009.

Annual Women’s Memorial March - Thursday, Feb. 14, 12 noon, from Carnegie Center, Main & E. Hastings.

$10 Minimum Wage Now! - rally Sat., Feb. 16, 1 pm, Gordon Campbell’s constituency office, 3615 W. 4th Ave. Organized by Vancouver & District Labour Council Young Workers Committee, for info call Stephen, 778-231-4635, email vs.stephen@gmail.com.

Left Film Night, “Five Ring Circus”, documentary on the Vancouver 2010 Olympics - 7 pm, Sunday, Feb. 24, Centre for Socialist Education, 706 Clark Drive, call 604-255-2041 for details.

Anti-war rally, marking 5th anniversary of US/UK war against Iraq - organized by StopWar peace coalition, gather 12 noon, Sat., March 15, Vancouver Art Gallery, for info visit http://www.stopwar.ca.

StopWar.ca coalition - next meeting Wed., Feb. 13, 5:30 pm, Maritime Labour Centre, 1880 Triumph St. See http://www.stopwar.ca for updates.

KELOWNA, BC

Unite to Defeat the Tory/corporate assault, public forum with CPC leader Miguel Figueroa - 7 pm, Wed., Feb. 6, Room C-368, Okanagan University College, for info call Mark, 250-860-6108.

WINNIPEG, MN

Manitoba-Cuba Solidarity Committee - meets Mon., Feb. 4, 7 pm at Workers Organizing Resource Centre, 280 Smith St. Info: 783-9380.

Peace Alliance Winnipeg - meeting Tue., Feb. 5, 7 pm at Workers Organizing Resource Centre, 280 Smith St. to discuss plans for March 15 day of anti-war action.

Young Communist League-UW campus club - meets every 2nd Wednesday, 5:30 pm, U of W buffeteria (4th floor top of escalators). Next meetings Jan. 23 & Feb. 6. E-mail us at ycl_manitoba@ycl-ljc.ca

YCL movie nights on U of W campus - to get on the notice list for time, room, and films, just e-mail us at yclmovienight@hotmail.com.

EDMONTON, AB

“Everything you ever wanted to know about Communism, but were afraid to ask,” - question period with Naomi Rankin, Alberta leader of the Communist Party, Friday, Feb. 1, 4 pm, Student Group Lounge, U of A Student Union Bldg. Hosted by the Young Communist League.

Unite to Defeat the Tory/corporate assault, public forum with CPC leader Miguel Figueroa, 7 pm, Monday, Feb. 4, Student Union Bldg. Alumni Room, University of Alberta, call 780-465-7893 for info.

Edmonton Young Communist League - meets regularly at Remedy Cafe, 8631-109 St., 5 pm on the second Friday each month. Discussion topics and suggested readings on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=3559215104.

TORONTO, ON

Housing and homelessness, adding up the costs, counting the benefits, Friday, Feb. 8, 9-11.30 am, 519 Church Street Community Centre, call 416.972.1010, Wellesley Institute.

Jose Marti Dinner and Dance - Sat. Feb. 2, 300 Bloor St. W. (1 block from St. George Subway), dinner 7 pm, cultural event 8:45, dance with band “Sol De Cuba,” 9:15 and 10:30 pm, advance paid ticket $25 ($30 at door), $10 for dance only starting at 9:15 pm. To reserve tickets, mail cheque to CCFA Toronto, PO Box 730 Stn. F, Toronto M4Y 2N6. For info, Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association, 905-951-8499, or Elizabeth Hill, 416-654-7105.

Norman Bethune Day celebration - Sat., March 1, 290 Danforth Ave, media sponsor People’s Voice. Tickets $5, door prize one-week all-inclusive trip for two to Cuba. Info: 416-469-2446.

MONTREAL, QC

Vigil against occupation of Palestine - Fridays, noon to 1 pm, at Israeli Consulate, corner of Peel and Rene Levesque. For info: Palestinians And Jews United, 961-3928.

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People's Voice deadlines:
FEBRUARY 16-29
Thursday, February 7
MARCH 1-15
Thursday, February 21
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706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, V5L 3J1, pvoice@telus.net

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February 1-15, 2008 Volume 16 - Number 3 $1

The Spark!

New issue of Rebel Youth hits the street

February 1-15, 2008
Volume 16 - Number 3
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