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| Theoretical and Discussion Bulletin of the
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The Spark!
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(Contents)
(Home)
1)
ELECTION POSTPONED: UNEMPLOYED DEEP-SIXED
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Liz Rowley
Rising poll numbers weren't enough to get the Liberals to stand up for
the unemployed, who have been thrown overboard yet again. The Liberals
haven't done much about the 363,000 jobs lost in Canada since last
October, other than badmouth the Tories. On the several occasions
they've had to bring the government down, they've ducked. And the
reason is: they don't have an alternative plan.
Ostensibly about the unemployed, the deal
struck in mid-June to keep the Harper government afloat was actually
about optics and the appearance of doing something - lots of flash, no
substance. What Michael Ignatieff got was a panel of three Liberals and
three Tories to study the EI system and report back in September, plus
another chance to force a fall election.
What they dropped was all talk of a 360 hour
Canada-wide EI qualifier that would have improved accessibility for at
least some of the army of unemployed in Canada.
The deal saved the Liberals from having to
fight an election on the issue of jobs and incomes, where they would
have had to come clean about their unwillingness to do anything
substantially different from the Tories. But it sank thousands who are
losing their homes, savings and assets in the daily struggle to stay
afloat.
In fact the country is drowning in
unemployment, with real joblessness well over 3 million and rising.
Those who lost their jobs last fall, when the Tories said Canada was
completely insulated from the global credit crisis, are running out of
EI today. Welfare rolls in Ontario are now so swollen as a result of
massive job losses in manufacturing (243,000 in 8 months) and the
catastrophic holes in the Employment Insurance system, that cities
can't cope. Provincial social assistance rates make it impossible to
pay rent and eat. Hunger and misery are the order of the day for
hundreds of thousands across Canada.
And the situation is likely to get much worse
over the summer as the economy continues to deteriorate.
Canadians need political parties and a
Parliamentary majority that will stand up and fight for full employment
policies and a strong social safety net. We need Employment Insurance
that provides much higher benefits to all the unemployed for the full
duration of unemployment, without waiting periods. We need a Guaranteed
Annual Income above the poverty line, substantially increased minimum
wages and public pensions. But the Liberals have absolutely nothing to
offer.
Thanks to journalist Linda McQuaig, Canadians
now know a little more about the Liberal Party and how its policies are
determined in this time of deep economic crisis.
The tape of Natural Resources Minister
Lisa Raitt speaking to an aide about the medical isotope crisis also
included a much more interesting section. Describing a meeting of
corporate CEOs last January, Raitt said on the tape:
"They did it again at the Canadian Council of
(Chief) Executives, there was three presidents of major banks who stood
up in the room... and said, `Ignatieff, don't you even think about
bringing us to an election. We don't need this. We have no interest in
this. And we will never fund your party again.'"
The Liberals backed the budget, which included
the $200 billion bank bailout and set the framework for the massive
corporate bailouts and attacks on wages, pensions, jobs, benefits and
labour rights and standards that define this government's approach to
the global capitalist crisis.
This is the real reason why the Liberals have
nothing different to say to workers and the unemployed about Employment
Insurance and the catastrophic fall in jobs, purchasing power and
living conditions. They have nothing to offer.
A People's Coalition
The economic and political situation in Canada cries out for a
broad-based and massive coalition of labour and people's forces, in the
streets and on the hustings, fighting for a people's alternative agenda
of peace, jobs, sovereignty, and democracy.
The rising strike movement in the country
clearly shows that working people are ready to fight to defend and
improve the jobs, services, standards, and rights that are under
ferocious attack by corporations and their reactionary governments.
What is missing is leadership.
The CLC and organized labour must seize the
initiative and convene a summit of labour and people's organizations
from across English-speaking Canada and Quebec to organize a
coordinated fightback - a common front of struggle to block and tackle
the corporate offensive and move labour and its allies from the
defensive to an offensive position.
Labour must be at the core of a massive
grassroots movement that puts people into the streets, a movement like
the Days of Action in Ontario a decade ago, but broader, stronger, and
on an all-Canada basis. The basis of unity must be opposition to the
corporate offensive, and a set of policies that put people's needs
ahead of corporate greed.
Labour Councils can play and should play the
central role, starting now, working with their community partners and
pressing the CLC and Provincial Federations to start organizing.
There's no time to lose.
Sooner or later Canadians will face another
election. The options for working people will be much better if a
People's Coalition is built now to impact on the politics of the
campaign - and to help change the direction of politics in Canada.
(Rowley is
the Ontario leader of the Communist Party.)
2)
NATIONAL STEEL CAR STRIKERS HOLD OUT FOR FAIR CONTRACT
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
PV Ontario Bureau
Hamilton - Strikers at National Steel Car have just rejected another
offer from the company that continues to seek wage and benefit cuts,
after three months on the picket line.
"We're not going back until we get a fair
contract," strikers told People's
Voice on June 21.
The only freight rail car manufacturer in
Canada forced its workers out on April 6 after demanding a 25% wage and
benefit cut, the elimination of seniority rights, and a four-day work
week. Outraged, the workers rejected the offer by a vote of 95%,
saying they had already taken a pay cut with the imposition of the four
day week two weeks earlier.
"Is this a strike or a lock-out? It's a
lock-out, but it's a strike," picketers said, asking they not be
identified, fearing reprisals when they go back to work.
Citing a significant drop in orders, Steel Car
CEO Greg Aziz told workers the situation was the same as the auto
industry, and the cost of labour, estimated at $31 an hour, had to
drop.
But while he was crying poverty, Steel Car's
parent company, National Industries, had invested $350 million in a new
plant in Alabama, which workers are concerned is going close the
Hamilton operation sooner or later. More than half the current work
force is on long-term layoff, and 1700 have been permanently laid off
since 2006.
The average hourly wage is $20/hour. An
additional bonus of approximately $3.50/hour with speed-up yields
increased production. Workers say the bonus system is the cause of many
horrific accidents and deaths in the plant, and the company regularly
cheats workers by paying out less than is earned on the bonuses.
"They should do away with the bonus system -
it's wrong, it's arbitrary and they can't keep track of it - and just
pay us $24 an hour," said one striker.
But the company had other plans, negotiating a
work-sharing deal with the federal government whereby workers work a
four day week, and eventually qualify for Employment Insurance.
Meanwhile the company cuts its payroll costs by 20%.
"There's nothing in our contract about a four
day work week," said one angry striker, pointing out that the short pay
doesn't cover the bills. "There's a 40 hour work week in Ontario. Where
did four days come from?"
The change will also leave workers short or
ineligible for pension credits because of previous and continuing
layoffs, while reducing already inadequate pension payouts to retirees
and threatening those on the verge of retirement. Their union, Local
7135 USWA, wants to reduce the number of hours required to get the
pension credits, and increase pension payouts. The pension plan has a
current surplus of $43 million from which the company has "borrowed"
extensively. Some say the funds have gone into the new house built by
Aziz, literally "a castle... his barn's bigger than my house."
In mid-June, almost 10 weeks out, workers
rejected a second offer by almost 70%. This time the employer was
offering a 10% pay cut. Now the word is the company is offering a wage
freeze.
The strikers are deeply angry with just about
everything about this employer. And it's a visceral anger. "It's all
about money. They don't give a shit about us." And the epithets fly.
"They think they're going to starve us out,
but they forget that people adjust. We're not going back until they
take all this off the table."
The strikers may be closer to a settlement.
National Industries has had a lot of orders in recent weeks - too many
to handle in Alabama where machinery is still being installed. That's
part of the reason Aziz has been forced to backtrack on the wage and
benefit cuts, say strikers.
Getting back to work with a living wage and
benefits, an intact seniority system, a five day work week with 40
hours pay, and a pension plan that benefits workers is the main
objective now.
The strike has the support of the Hamilton
Labour Council, USWA locals including Local 1005 Stelco (US Steel), and
the Communist Party.
Communist Party spokesperson Bob Mann said
Hamilton City Council should speak up and demand the federal government
take action to protect Steel Car workers and the jobs hanging in the
balance.
"This is the race to the bottom, and it should
be illegal", he said, adding the CPC continues to fight for plant
closure legislation, and a labour of rights to protect workers from
employers like NSC.
3) BORDER
GUARDS ARMED - BUT NOT IN AKWESASNE
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Helena Astride
Border guards across the country are now carrying guns, in keeping with
the increasing degree and number of armed security workers. The
Canadian Border Security Agency (CBSA) has a long history of harassing
vulnerable persons at border crossings. Not surprisingly, minority
groups who have experienced the masochistic play of particularly
power-hungry border guards are quietly in opposition to this
development.
One community deeply affected by this weapons
build-up is the Indian Reserve of Akwesasne: a Mohawk community that
spans Ontario, Quebec and New York. Like many non-native border towns,
the local economy is integrated; families live on both sides and border
crossings are frequent. Unlike non-native border towns, the
semi-autonomous state of Indian Reserves provides grounds for residents
to have a higher level of control over what occurs on their territory.
The Akwesasne community is finding unity in
its demand that at minimum, border guards working in their community -
several of whom have committed acts of violence and intimidation
towards women and children - cannot be permitted to sling guns on their
hip.
For a month in advance, the community told the
guards, the elected officials, the federal government bureaucrats that
they were unwilling to accept the arming of guards set for the start of
June. On the eve of potential protests against what the federal
government diminishes to a mere policy change, guards (members of the
Public Service Alliance of Canada) walked off the job, leaving the
border closed.
The Mohawk Nation has a proud historic role as
guardians of the eastern door: to let up a cry and struggle to protect
Haudenosaunee (Longhouse) people from attack from this direction. At
Akwesasne, the band council is presently following the direction of the
traditional government to be peaceful, to negotiate not in Ottawa, but
on their own land. They have asked for solidarity, for unity in action,
from other Haudenosaunee communities.
The Mohawks of Tyendinaga Indian Reserve, home
to news-maker Shawn Brant and a number of militants, heralded the call
and shut down a bridge in support. From Six Nations Indian Reserve a
small group of women and children hiked over 40 kilometers slowing
traffic on a major freeway to bring media attention to the issue.
In the Six Nations, area local media for the
first time noted that arming of guards was occurring across the
country. Police escorted the marchers on their long walk from Hamilton
to Brantford. In Tyendinaga police spilled a substantial amount of
blood before arresting 14 protesters. Water hoses were at the ready in
this country community to wash away the evidence of the attack.
At Akwesasne, the mood is similar to the first
days of a militant strike action: jovial, friendly and full of
visiting. The border remains closed and politicians in all three
jurisdictions are clamouring over how to force the issue. Yet the slow
diplomatic style of the traditional government, which continues to
develop a multi-generational approach to resolving the problem of
imperialist economy and colonialist ideology, remains in favour of
peace.
While the provincial and national police, the
state troopers and hired militias focus narrowly on following orders
for increasing violence, the warriors, like the union militants and
community leaders, are developing their own dynamic abilities: to keep
the peace, to teach, to speak publicly, to repossess lost lands and
human rights, taking care in confrontations of all kinds and daily
promoting the welfare of the people.
4) HAMILTON COPS
ANNOUNCE SURVEILLANCE OF PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENTS
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Drew Garvie
On May 19, Hamilton Police Services presented its "Year End Hate Crime
Report" for 2008, attempting to justify the surveillance of youth and
people's movements under "hate crime" pretenses.
According to the report, "several upcoming
international, national and local events have been identified as having
the potential to impact hate-bias related crime incidents in Hamilton.
These include the [anti-]2010 Olympics [campaign], the 2010 G8 Summit,
the anarchist movement and the current economic climate". The report
goes on to say that organizing taking place around these events will be
actively "monitored".
The document also includes picture examples of
graffiti aimed at police in its section referring to "areas of concern"
on which the Hate Crimes Unit should focus. This section also refers to
the "targeting of corporate sponsors" around the Olympics and
cross-Canada "Native land claims issues" as they are raised in the
context of the 2010 British Columbia Olympics, held on non-surrendered
Indigenous land.
Is this a brazen attempt by the Hamilton
Police to justify their criminalization of youth and people's movements
by vague references to concern over increased incidents of hate crimes?
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this
announcement is that it uses anti-hate crimes language in a
manipulative way. Hate crimes are a very real concern. But the explicit
intent to criminalize the progressive forces who have always been at
the forefront of anti-racist struggles and struggles for religious
tolerance and gay rights, demonstrates the twisted logic underlying the
document.
You might say that history has shown that, in
the context of an economic crisis, the danger of hate crimes increases.
Various marginalized groups become scape-goats in order for the
capitalist class to obscure the true root causes of the crisis -
capitalism itself. Interestingly, the Hamilton Police do point to the
economic crisis as an "area of concern" but only cite "anti-government
and anti-establishment reaction" to "job losses".
This begs the question: is a movement that
understands the systemic roots of the crisis at risk of being charged
with "anti-government/anti-establishment hate crimes" when they point
to the real cause of job loses?
The Hamilton police study needs to be put in a
broader context of repression faced by youth and allies across this
country when they attempt to organize for their rights. As Rebel Youth
has reported, students have been arrested and placed under restrictive
bail conditions after taking action against sky-rocketing tuition fees
(ie. fourteen arrests brought on by a sit-in at U of T in 2008);
Aboriginal activists have been charged when they try and fight for land
rights (i.e., Caledonia or Shawn Brant of Tyendinaga) or just "hanging
while native"; and community members have been rough-handled and
arrested when they demonstrated against the selling off of our Health
Care system (Dr. David Henry and two others, May 2009 in Fort Erie just
the other week).
Clearly, with this public document, the
Hamilton Police have shown that they are determined to do their part in
repressing movements that fight for peace, human rights, equality and
social progress.
It is time to step-up demands that our public
resources be spent on combating real hate crimes in our communities.
For that to take place, current anti-hate crime laws must be
strengthened and enforced, not least hate crimes against the LGBITQ
community which are all too often ignored by police. Further, police
must end racial profiling and municipal police, the OPP, RCMP and CSIS
be put under public, civilian control.
At the risk of committing a "hate crime"... No
2010 Olympics, No G8 summit and just settlements to land claims NOW!
(Drew Garvie
is an activist and member of OPIRG Guelph who campaigns to end the
repression of youth and people's movements.)
5) MUNICIPAL WORKERS
STRIKE IN TORONTO
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Liz Rowley
Toronto - 24,000 CUPE members struck here on June 22, after City of
Toronto negotiators refused to lift 100 pages of concessions off the
table, or to meet the 3% plus wage increase already paid to other
unionized city workers, including police, firefighters, and the housing
and parking authority.
"This is about getting a fair deal similar to
what everyone else got. No other city workers had to negotiate huge
concessions," said Ann Dembinski, President of Local 79, representing
18,000 inside workers. "We deserve the same collective agreement as
other workers. The mayor is using the recession as an excuse to rip our
collective agreement into pieces... On those issues we've never been
close and we're not remotely close now."
Mayor David Miller, twice elected with the
support of the labour movement, has made the city unions the scapegoat
for the global economic crisis and the chronic underfunding of Toronto
and other cities by the Ontario and federal governments.
"The world has changed," Miller said. "The
city has extremely serious budget challenges. One needs only to look at
our welfare rolls to understand that... we have to negotiate in the
real context of our current financial circumstances - particularly this
year and next."
During the budget debate in January, the Mayor
opposed freezing Council's salaries, instead raising them to $99,153
plus expenses. Right after that he got converted, freezing the salaries
of the City's non-union employees, and now unionized workers.
Local 416 President Mark Ferguson,
representing 6,200 outside workers, noted fruitless negotiations have
continued for six months after the expiration of the last collective
agreement. The City's last offer is "complete garbage", and a vicious
attack on workers, he said.
"We believe it's been their intent to put us
out on the streets all the way along," Ferguson said. "The contempt
that the City holds for city workers, through the proposals that are on
the table, is much worse than we saw in 2002," when civic workers faced
Tory Mayor Mel Lastman and a Tory government in Queen's Park which
brought in back to work legislation after just two weeks on strike.
The concessions demanded by the City include
eliminating the current system which allows workers to bank sick days
and cash them out on retirement or leaving, with a short-term
disability program. The cost of the current system has been grossly
inflated by the employer in order to reduce public support for the
strike.
Another key issue is seniority. The City wants
to lay off senior employees and retain junior employees, "proposals"
that would see people who have worked for many years not being able to
qualify for their jobs, Ferguson said.
Job security, schedules and benefits are also
at issue. Only half of the members in the two bargaining units are
full-time workers; the other half are part-time.
Meanwhile, CUPE Locals 82 and 543 have been on
strike against the City of Windsor since mid-April. Municipal employees
are faced with an employer more interested in prolonging the strike
than in negotiating a collective agreement. The key issues in Windsor
are wages and part-time work. Once again the employer is citing the
global economic crisis as the reason for demanding concessions.
CUPE has laid charges of bargaining in bad
faith against the City and a new mediator was being sought in late June.
Around the province, municipal workers are
facing city and town councils willing to push employees out on strike
in an effort to whip up hostility against public sector workers and
their unions, and to "save" money on undelivered municipal
services. The blogs are full of vicious attacks on the wages and
benefits of the lowest paid civic employees, and increasingly this
frenzy is showing up in assaults on picketers. In Windsor, there are a
reported two to three incidents per day of cars gunning through picket
lines and injuring strikers.
The Communist Party (Ontario) passed
resolutions of solidarity and support for striking Windsor workers at
its June 14-15 Provincial Committee meeting in Toronto. Another
resolution was adopted on June 23 by the Ontario Provincial Executive
in support of striking Toronto civic workers.
"What happened to autoworkers last spring is
now the pattern in bargaining everywhere, with unionized wages,
pensions and workers becoming the main target," says a CPC(O)
statement. "Workers didn't cause the global economic and credit crisis,
but they're being forced to pay for it through vicious attacks on their
jobs, wages, pensions, benefits, and working conditions, not to mention
the loss of purchasing power, services, and the increased sales and
property taxes they will soon be forced to pay. The banks, who
contributed big time to the current crisis, got $200 billion in
bailouts last winter; workers are being taken to the cleaners now to
fund that bailout and other corporate bailouts too."
The CPC (Ontario) is calling for unity of
public and private sector unions and their allies, to defend workers'
jobs, wages and pensions, to mount a counter-offensive to rebuff the
corporate agenda and secure adequate public funding for healthcare,
education, cities, and social programs, and to rebuild an
environmentally sustainable manufacturing and industrial base in
Ontario.
"What we need now is unity of the labour and
democratic movements to defeat this vicious attack on wages and living
standards. A united fightback is decision in successfully turning the
situation."
6) WOMEN "LESS THAN
STIMULATED" BY TORY ECONOMIC UPDATE
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
PV Vancouver Bureau
The Conservative government's economic plan fails to provide the
infrastructure that women in Canada need to weather an economic crisis,
according to a June 11 response from a broad coalition of women's
organizations.
"Yesterday's economic update is just more
evidence of how out of touch the Harper minority government really is
with families across Canada - otherwise we would have heard more about
social infrastructure and initiatives that make a difference for
women," said Jody Dallaire of the Child Care Advocacy Association of
Canada, speaking for the Ad Hoc Coalition for Women's Equality and
Human Rights.
"The reality is that traditional
infrastructure projects like bridges and roads tend to create jobs in
male-dominated sectors. There is no part of this economic update that
places women in these non-traditional jobs."
The update also fails to identify areas of
social infrastructure that not only create jobs for women, but create a
stronger social safety net. Investments in child care and social
programs, for example, would get working families on a better footing
to participate in the labour market. Canadian families are currently
facing a massive child care crisis because the Conservative government
dismantled child care agreements and federal funding transfers for
child care are now drying up.
"Putting money into a public childcare plan
would create thousands of jobs in a female-dominated sector and ensure
that women are not penalized for bearing children by providing access
to the labour market," said Sue Calhoun of the Canadian Federation of
Business and Professional Women's Clubs.
The Conservatives' refusal to implement
significant Employment Insurance reform, at a time when unemployment
rates are soaring, means that women who have lost their jobs in the
recession continue to be far less likely than men to be able to access
EI. Two out of three women who pay into EI aren't eligible to receive
it. Nor are most women in a position to qualify for Conservative tax
cuts and incentive measures that claim to stimulate economic recovery,
such as the home renovation credit.
Furthermore, the Conservatives' recent passage
of Bill C-10 has eroded the right to pay equity for public sector
workers. "This will not help women as they struggle with the economic
crisis, on the contrary!" said Aalya Ahmad of the Ad Hoc Coalition.
"We've said it before: this government's track record shows it
deliberately opposes measures to advance the economic equality of half
the population."
Visit the website of the Ad Hoc Coalition for
Women's Equality and Human Rights / La Coalition spéciale pour
l'égalité des femmes et les droits de la personne, http://www.womensequality.ca,
http://www.egalitedesfemmes.ca.
(The following
editorial
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
People's Voice Editorial
PM Stephen Harper has voiced his government's deep displeasure with the
repression of opposition forces in Iran - even while preventing
Iranians from taking refuge in the Canadian embassy in Tehran. But
perhaps Mr. Harper has finally awakened to the widespread abuses of
human rights and democracy in our world. If so, we urge him to look at
some of his close allies.
If the Conservatives truly abhor attacks on
civilians, perhaps they will condemn the actions of the Israeli
military, which has killed thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese
people during Mr. Harper's time in office. If the Prime Minister's
new-found concerns include the lives of trade unionists, maybe he will
cancel the free trade agreement reached with the Colombian regime, the
number one murderer of labour activists across the planet. And if he
genuinely wants to reduce nuclear proliferation, he should check out
the dangerous nuclear-armed menace on our southern border - the United
States - or Israel, which also bristles with such weapons.
The Harper/Tory hypocrisy is truly endless.
This government lectures others about the rule of law, while routinely
ignoring "unfavourable" court rulings. This pattern is so extreme that
we were shocked when the PM recently agreed to accept the Federal Court
order to allow Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik to return home from Sudan.
(Of course, Mr. Harper refuses to accept another ruling to repatriate
child soldier Omar Khadr from the US Guantanamo Bay concentration camp!)
In truth, however, Mr. Harper is among the
handful of far-right leaders who backs the idea of military-imposed
"regime change" in Iran, and his words are calculated to stir up public
support for this horrifying action. The people of Iran are quite
capable of restoring democracy and human rights without the "help" of
NATO bombs and bullets. Canadians can help by dumping the Harper Tories
and electing a government which understands the need for a
comprehensive global struggle for peace and social justice.
8)
KILLING INTERNET PRIVACY
(The following
editorial
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
People's Voice Editorial
In the latest move to impose police state tactics, the Harper
government wants to give police wide access to snoop on Canadians.
Introduced on June 18, Bills C-46 and C-47 would allow police to access
information on Internet subscribers, such as name, street address and
e-mail address, all without a search warrant. If adopted, the
legislation will force Internet service providers to freeze data on
hard drives to prevent subscribers under investigation from deleting
evidence. Telecommunications companies would have to invest in
technology enabling them to intercept all the Internet communications
they handle. Police would be allowed to remotely activate tracking
devices already embedded in cell phones and certain cars, and to obtain
data about where Internet communications are coming from and going to.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson claims that
police forces need "21st century tools" to deal with changing times.
But there is no evidence of any need to gut civil liberties. Police
forces already have the option to seek a judge's warrant to monitor
communications. If you aren't alarmed yet, consider this: suppose the
Tories moved to allow police to intercept any mail sent to your home,
copy the contents, reseal the envelopes, and finish the delivery. How
is unchecked email snooping any different?
In essence, this legislation is based on the
assumption that Canadians are all potentially criminals who must be
closely monitored, with no fundamental right to engage in private,
confidential communications. In the name of the so-called "war on
terror" and "war on drugs," many governments are going down this
terrifying road, and not just in the United States. For example,
Sweden's intelligence bureau is now allowed to track "sensitive" words
in international phone calls, faxes and e-mails without a court order.
C-46 and C-47 are further steps on the path to
fascism. This legislation must be defeated when Parliament reconvenes!
9)
WHY THE GM TAKEOVER IS NOT "SOCIALISM"
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Kimball Cariou
The bailout/takeover of General Motors by the US and Canadian
governments certainly marks a historic point in the trajectory of
global imperialism. But contrary to the fears of some and the hopes of
others, it does not signify a transition to a socialist North America.
For decades, GM stood at the pinnacle of
capitalism, with annual sales exceeding the gross domestic product of
many countries. In 1954, Harlow Curtice, the company's president,
famously said, "General Motors has no bad years, only good years and
better years." Another GM President put it this way: "What's good for
General Motors is good for the country, and vice-versa." How the mighty
have fallen!
On the other hand, the collapse of General
Motors confirms the validity of Marxist theory, which stresses that
capitalism is a system which features both expansion and contraction.
The inter-imperialist struggle for supremacy and profits inevitably
results in victory for some capitalists and defeats for others. Such
gains and setbacks often lay the groundwork for new struggles and even
wars to redivide the planet's resources and labour force for the
purpose of exploitation.
While key groups of capitalists are usually
based primarily in one country, using their control of the capitalist
state to gain advantages over rivals, there is also a tendency towards
"internationalization" of capital. GM, for example, has always been a
U.S.-based corporation, but it has huge investments abroad, and joint
interests with other capitalists around the world. While GM slashes
North American operations, it is expanding rapidly in countries such as
Brazil, where the transnational is investing another $2.5 billion by
2012.
Here at home, the news that the U.S. and
Canadian governments are taking a majority ownership position in GM has
led to much bleak humour. Finally, the world's biggest auto producer is
publicly owned - making every taxpayer a capitalist!
But none of us will receive dividends for our
"shares," and the government "owners" do not even have voting rights on
GM's board. This is not a case of true public ownership - we are still
workers, not bosses.
After decades of reaping enormous profits from
the sweat of autoworkers, the owners and management of GM have driven
this gigantic corporation into the ground. Despite recent losses, the
big shareholders have done extremely well over the years.
The same can't be said for GM employees. Much
has been said about so-called "overpaid" GM workers, but every dollar
of their wages and benefits is earned through mind-numbing,
back-breaking labour, much of it on the assembly line. In fact, the
rate of exploitation in auto plants has been among the highest in the
world, measured by the ratio of company profits against the wages of
autoworkers. Their gains were achieved by organizing unions and strikes
against bitter repression by the bosses, the state, and the police. Now
those gains are being wiped out, as wages, pensions and other benefits
are squeezed out of their collective agreements.
The spate of recent takeovers of banks and
other corporations, geared to protect the interests of big capital,
also reveals the weaknesses of capitalism.
Communist Party of Britain leader Rob
Griffiths wrote about this issue last fall, while the right-wing press
was howling that the takeover of failing banks meant a return to
so-called "Labour Party socialism."
Griffiths noted that state ownership of
industries, services or enterprises can take several forms. One is
capitalist nationalization, where the state power acts to maintain
capitalist society, by taking privately owned assets and facilities
into public ownership. It does so not to change the economic and social
basis of society, or to dispossess the capitalist class, but rather to
maintain or develop a function which is important to the development of
capitalist society. He gives the example of coal and railways which
were nationalized by the British Labour government of 1945-51. Here in
Canada we could point to the case of government-owned hydro industries
which were essential for the development of capitalism. The attitude of
the working class to such decisions depends on their particular
features. Such takeovers can lay the basis for progressive governments
to reduce the power of private capital, which is one reason why the
Communist Party of Canada campaigns for public ownership of the energy
industry, natural resources, and the big banks.
But such nationalizations are also examples of
state capitalism, measures which the ruling class considers necessary
to expand its collective profiteering or to stabilize its own system.
The GM "takeover" is in this category, especially since this move is
being used to attack a powerful section of organized workers, with the
aim of weakening the entire working class.
"Democratic nationalization" is a different
category. The Communist Party of Canada often calls for "public
ownership under democratic control." This takes place when the working
class and revolutionary movements are on the offensive. Left
governments in Chile and Portugal in the 1970s carried out democratic
nationalization of key industries, and a similar process is taking
place in Venezuela and Bolivia today.
As Griffiths says, "Once the significant
organs of state power are under the control of the left, to be
reorganized, abolished or replaced by new ones, measures of socialist
nationalization can be carried through. These involve wholesale
dispossession of the capitalist class with minimal if any compensation,
the introduction of extensive industrial democracy, integration into
macroeconomic planning and so on.... Democratic nationalization will
only be achieved as part of the struggle of the working class and its
allies for state power. The election of a left government of socialist,
Labour and Communist MPs would likely mark the beginning of that
process. The record of this current New Labour government shows how far
we have to go. Economically, though, state capitalist measures continue
to prepare the ground for fundamental change."
Such fundamental change is as necessary in
Canada as in Britain or the United States. The current global economic
crisis is an opportunity to fight for such policies.
10) "REPRESSION AND
LIES WILL NOT STOP THE IRANIAN PEOPLE"
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
Statement by the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of
Canada, June 22, 2009
Despite waves of state repression, millions of citizens have taken to
the streets across Iran to protest the rigged Presidential election
which took place on June 12th. The Communist Party of Canada stands in
solidarity with Iranian workers and people in their efforts to expose
and overturn these fraudulent elections, and with their demand for new,
fair and democratic elections, for the release of all those wrongly
arrested and detained, and for the prosecution of all those responsible
for the crude attempt to falsify the outcome and for the subsequent
state violence.
Not only is the current round of elections at
issue; the entire electoral process in Iran is a mockery, designed by
the theocratic regime to thwart the people's will and to maintain
control by the religious leadership at any cost. All parties and
individual candidates must be pre-approved by the ruling clique, and
secular and other forces critical of the Ahmadinejad regime and the
governing religious order are banned, and subject to repression,
imprisonment, and even execution.
Immediately following the June 12 vote, the
"Council of Guardians" and its "Supreme Religious Leader" Khamenei
declared the elections "fair and democratic", and announced the victory
for the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, despite overwhelming
evidence to the contrary. When this sham `seal of approval' failed to
dissuade the people for rising up in protest, Khamenei made a tactical
retreat, pledging a limited vote re-count. At the same time, the ruling
"traditionalist right" mobilized its supporters and launched numerous
attacks on opposition forces, such as the bloody June 14 attack on the
student residences of Teheran University which left dozens killed and
many more injured and detained by the authorities.
Then the ruling "Council of Guardians"
announced that 3 million more votes were "counted" than were actually
cast by voters - three million! - and yet despite this admission,
continued to uphold the bogus re-election of Ahmadinejad.
The Tudeh Party (Iran's Communist Party)
denounced the fraudulent elections and the vicious repression that
followed. In its June 13 statement, Tudeh's Central Committee stated:
"The obvious poll rigging and fixing of
millions of ballots... shows that the spiritual leader and his armed
militias are the organizers of the state sponsored violence against the
will of millions of Iranians... All social and political forces of the
country should declare the poll's results as void and use all means to
voice their protests against this deception perpetrated by the
Spiritual Leader and his armed cronies. Accepting these election
results would be a betrayal of the people's vote and would be
tantamount to collusion with a deceitful and backward regime."
Some in the peace and anti-imperialist
movement internationally have wrongly concluded that because the
Ahmadinejad regime has been targeted by U.S. imperialism and its
regional gendarme, the Zionist state of Israel, and because certain
bourgeois and pro-Western forces figure among the opposition, that they
should remain silent, or worse, even support the reactionary regime.
This simplistic arithmetic, based on the flawed notion that "the enemy
of my enemy is my friend", is fundamentally flawed.
The Ahmadinejad regime is not at all a
progressive or "pro-worker" government, even if at times, it has sided
with anti-imperialist forces internationally. It is a vicious,
reactionary regime which has repeatedly attacked workers'
organizations, students and secular forces, including imprisonment,
torture and murder against its opponents over the past thirty years of
its rule.
But its days are numbered. All out in support
of the popular forces of Iran in their just struggle!
11) COMMUNIST PARTY
CONDEMNS THREATS AND SANCTIONS AGAINST N. KOREA
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
June 22 statement by the Central Executive Committee of the Communist
Party of Canada
A blockade would be an of war against North
Korea, and that war will escalate global nuclear proliferation and
thwart the goal of nuclear disarmament.
The escalation of tensions on the Korean
peninsula should alarm all Canadians who value peace, disarmament and a
better world. The U.S. and its allies are attempting to place the blame
for the deteriorating situation on the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea (DPRK), following its recent missile and underground nuclear
tests.
"But responsibility for the growing war threat
on the Korean peninsula rests squarely with the United States and other
imperialist countries, such as Canada. The recent U.S.-sponsored
Security Council resolution (#1874), which imposes further economic
sanctions on the DPRK and authorizes" the boarding and inspection of
ships trading with North Korea, will further aggravate the tense
situation, raising the number of possible ways a war could be sparked.
The DPRK has repeatedly stated that the forced
boarding and inspection of ships on the high seas under the aegis of
the so-called "Proliferation Security Initiative" (PSI) would be
tantamount to a declaration of war.
The PSI is being peddled as a way to "help
control North Korea's development of dangerous material." It is
precisely this constant striving to "control" and ultimately crush
North Korea that is at the root of the conflict.
Washington's aggressive `Korea' policy has
nothing to do with any genuine concern about nuclear proliferation. It
was, after all, the United States which covertly assisted Israel's
development of a nuclear arsenal, and which later supported both India
and Pakistan in developing nuclear weapons.
U.S. policy toward North Korea hinges on two
primary concerns. First, to reverse its humiliating defeat during the
Korean war almost sixty years ago; and second, its determination to
maintain a virtual monopoly of nuclear weapons and other weapons of
mass destruction.
Washington steadfastly refuses to sign a peace
treaty with the DPRK that would that would formally end hostilities
dating back to 1953. It has repeatedly violated agreements made during
various rounds of the "six party" talks, and has worked non-stop to
isolate North Korea, rather than seek a course of peaceful and
cooperative relations between the two states.
Worse, the United States has threatened to use
nuclear weapons against North Korea nine times during and since the
Korean War. The U.S. maintains 30,000 troops in South Korea and 250,000
in the Pacific. It routinely carries out massive and extremely
provocative military exercises within kilometres of DPRK territorial
waters, and can launch nuclear weapons against North Korea from the
Yellow Sea.
For six years, the Bush administration
threatened to carry out "regime change," naming North Korea one of
three "Axis of Evil" countries. Despite this, North Korea participated
in talks to end its nuclear programs and normalize relations with the
United States, based on mutual respect and non-interference in a formal
peace treaty.
These talks ended when the U.S. under the
previous the Bush administration unilaterally demanded inspection
measures which were completely unacceptable to any sovereign country.
Speaking for the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton demanded North
Korea end its nuclear programs before relations would be normalized.
The language of imperialist diktat favouring the continuation of a
state of war. went further in April, when Clinton said that future
talks were "implausible, if not impossible."
And yet all we hear in a one-sided way in the
media is that North Korea is now refusing to participate in talks!
In such hostile circumstances, it should
hardly come as a surprise that the DPRK would take measures to defend
its sovereignty by strengthening its defence capacity, including its
decision to produce nuclear weapons.
The Communist Party of Canada shares the broad
concerns of the peace movement and indeed all humanity about the urgent
need to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. However,
Washington's use of the 1970 Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a
pretext to escalate pressure on the DPRK is completely hypocritical and
deceitful, given that the U.S. has refused to take any meaningful steps
to eliminate its own overwhelming nuclear arsenal, which is also a
serious violation of the NPT.
U.S. imperialism is making an issue of North
Korea's nuclear weapons the same way it used Iraq's alleged possession
of dangerous weapons, as a baseless and illegal pretext for invasion.
The unjust sanctions imposed by imperialism on North Korea may cause
starvation and hardship for many years, much like it did in Iraq.
Renewed U.S. hostilities against North Korea
would harm efforts to both curb proliferation and achieve universal and
comprehensive disarmament.
The world's peoples are faced with an
increasing drive by the U.S. and its imperialist allies to consolidate
and extend its military-strategic domination to every corner of the
earth. This is the real danger to peace in the world today, one which
needs to remain the focus of all efforts of the peace forces
internationally.
Our Party also condemns the Harper
government's support of Washington's aggressive policies and actions
against North Korea. Rather, Canada should call on the United States to
sign a peace treaty with North Korea to finally end the Korean War.
Canada must also withdraw from the PSI immediately and respect the
sovereignty of North Korea and all countries in the region.
Finally, we demand that Canada call for the
removal of all U.S. military forces from South Korea and the
Asia-Pacific region and that it support talks for a regional nuclear
weapons-free zone and the abolition of all nuclear weapons.
12)
HAPPY PRIDE '09, CANADA!
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
The Communist Party of Canada and the Young
Communist League proudly salute LGBTQ workers and activists, Egale and
other community advocates throughout Canada and in Quebec, safer
queer-positive schools, and corporate-free space on Pride Day!
We say: No Pride in the international
criminalizing of sexual orientation, sexual expression and gender
identity! No Pride in War or Corporate Plunder!
Pride events this summer are celebrating
welcome progress towards greater equality and social justice.
Communists are active players in Canada's various LGBTQ and queer*
identified communities. Together we stand proudly in solidarity with
all LGBTQ allies and activists marking Pride 2009.
Globally celebrations are marking the
anniversary of the "Stonewall Riots" in Manhattan. A show of working
class resistance, the first scuffles were reported to be initiated by
local homeless and unemployed queer youth - patrons of the Stonewall
Inn. 40 years on we are bombarded with both encouraging and alarming
headlines:
* Many more queer-positive environments are available to us in the
public realm.
* Initial but promising signs on the left to re-integrate the fight for
justice and the fight against homophobia.
* Increasing numbers of trade unions now have active Pride and LGBTQ
caucuses.
* High schools are launching gay-straight alliances, safe school spaces
and "Pride proms".
* Sex-reassignment surgery is at least partially covered under some
provincial health insurance plans.
These legal, political and cultural victories
are the hard-won results of decades of efforts by the LGBTQ community
and allies.
However,
* California has overturned the same-sex marriage ruling, despite
equality gains in other states and in Canada.
* The Harper Tories still hope to reverse queer rights if they win a
majority government.
* The Right continue to scapegoat the LGBTQ community and racialised
groups, to divide working class resistance against finance capital,
corporate bailouts and global environmental plunder.
* The politics of Pride events are skewed by corporate sponsorship, and
with a handful of notable exceptions, military opportunism
And there's more. Despite Canada's welcoming
image,
* queer youth in Toronto and Montreal seeking asylum from persecution
in other countries are being extradited.
* HIV-positive men still face barriers to travel across the Canada-US
border
* LGBTQ secondary students, (over two-thirds in a recent survey) report
feeling unsafe at school, (compared to 1 in 5 straight students).
* Prosecutors are unwilling to prosecute vicious gay-bashings in
Vancouver as hate crimes.
Globally,
* violent public expressions of homophobia are on the rise.
* the struggle to end the decriminalization of sexual orientation and
sexual expression faces stubborn resistance.
* working class queer people suffer especially vicious discrimination,
and as women and racialized communities bear the severe brunt of
neoliberal economic and social policies.
* ILGA, the association of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersexed
peoples reports that 90 United Nations member states still criminalize
consensual same-sex acts among adults.
* In seven countries, legal punishment for homosexuality still includes
the death penalty.
* In many countries, such laws drive women, men and youth underground
to hide from fear of exposure and censure.
But important progress for LGBTQ equality is
being achieved in countries such as Cuba, South Africa and Nicaragua.
The myth that queer rights can only be won in wealthy capitalist
countries is shattered by these advances, and by the reality that
homophobic and racist concepts are exported from North America and
Europe.
Despite the cultural and legal shift in favour
of equality and diversity, homophobia and transphobia remain
tenaciously powerful within the Canadian state. Behind his mask and 50s
sweaters, Stephen Harper's anti-equality positions are clear. The Tory
leader:
* voted against same-sex marriage.
* has left his options open on abortion if he wins a majority.
* snubbed the 2007 international AIDS conference in Toronto.
* has appointed anti-choice, anti-gay judges to provincial courts.
* includes "Focus on the Family" zealots among top Tory advisors.
* pushes through regressive tax changes to promote the patriarchal
family model.
* has gutted Status of Women Canada and bars the use of government
funding to promote equality.
* criminalized youth by raising the age of consent to 16 and limited
young people's access to condoms and abortions.
* allows Canada Customs to seize literature ordered by bookstores which
serve the LGBT community.
At a time when the so-called "war on terror"
is used to remove civil liberties for racialized communities, we need
to remind each other that "an injury to one is an injury to all." Just
like racism, sexism, and national chauvinism, homophobia and
transphobia are weapons to divide working people. Despite this effort,
most Canadians support equality and human rights. These must now be
expanded to include full legal and political protections for sexual
orientation and expression, and gender identity.
This demand is a vital part of the wider
movement to drive the Harper Tories out of power. Today the ruling
class is using the economic meltdown to carry out a vicious assault on
working class and unemployed queers and the entire labour movement. A
cover as well to reverse hard-won social equality gains. A broad
democratic and social resistance is going to be needed to block and
reverse this corporate agenda. Together, we must build a powerful
coalition around a genuine people's alternative to this crisis - a
common front of Aboriginal peoples, youth and students, women, seniors,
immigrant and racialized communities, environmentalists, labour, peace
activists, the LGBTQ community, farmers, and many other allies.
Ultimately, this struggle in our communities
and workplaces, and at the ballot box, will defeat the right and open
the door to a people's coalition government. The goal of the Communist
Party is to win fuller social freedom and genuine people's power in a
socialist Canada, where our economy will be owned by all and
democratically controlled. It will then become possible to eradicate
the intersecting forms of exploitation and oppression which we face
today, while defending our sovereignty and protecting our common
environment.
(* a note on "queer": Queer is a term widely
used by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, inter-sex, queer,
questioning and two-spirited communities to describe the richly diverse
community as a whole. The word unifies all the identities into one
inclusive term. It was meant to "take back" an otherwise derogatory,
and formerly spiteful word.)
13)
CONTINUING THE DEBATE ON YOUTH ISSUES
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Johan Boyden
"Don't blame it on my eyes, blame on my youth," Sammy Davis Jr. once
sang - but a bad infection in the organs of vision has frustrated
writing my column. Never mind. My last two articles have created some
online debate. Now I reply.
"As a student heavily involved in student
government and who helped coordinate our students' union's tuition
campaign last year, I resent the claim ("Student Movement Today:
Tactics and Priorities," PV June 1-15) that the Canadian Federation of
Students is the only way for students and that the Canadian Alliance of
Student Associations is a right-wing plot to sabotage students. Student
issues and access to education are too important to get hung up on
ideology."
Respectfully, the history is there to be
googled. CASA's advocacy approach flows from their "line of compromise"
politics. Their founder recently authored a US think-tank report
calling for a 25% tuition increase across Canada! Likewise, the ideas
students demand of the capitalist state are dialectically connected to
their struggle in the streets - a mobilized membership is the muscle
backing up a student's alternative agenda. This struggle is inseparable
from ideology.
[T]he underlying issue is not "We should be
profiling these kids who don't fit in", but why must they fit in? ("The
Stereotype of Dangerous Youth", PV, June 16-30.) Not fitting in isn't a
prerequisite to becoming a reclusive, trigger happy psycho. There are
plenty of kids who have flipped out at school who appeared to be
perfectly normal children. ... Why should all children be the same and
carry the same thoughts and beliefs? That's like asking for two
identical bunches of bananas at the grocery store. It doesn't work. The
only limitation that inclusive teaching faces is funding, but now we're
getting into another issue (because funding should NOT be a problem
when it comes to education or health care, but apparently the BC
government thinks otherwise).
The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives
estimates that in British Columbia during 2004-05, $300 million would
have been needed to maintain the same level of education funding as the
1990s, adjusting for inflation. But in 34 out of 92 BC school districts
funding is frozen; overall it is decreasing. The BC Teachers'
Federation has also just documented that cash-strapped School Districts
are hiring new administrators, not teachers. This is indicated by the
decreasing teacher/administrator ratio in 42 districts from '04-05 to
'08-09 (like negative 30% in Kootenay Columbia District). However, with
over 175 public BC school closures since 2002, when the Campbell
Liberals took office, some districts like Prince Rupert have positive
results: both groups have lost jobs.
Re: "Dangerous Youth" I don't think racial
profiling has anything to do with social malaise or a fetish of
violence in terms of a cause. It has to do with one group of people
repressing another and keeping them subordinate, not letting them get
ahead. You could have upbeat social conditions and unarmed police but
that would not solve the problem of racial profiling. Racial profiling
is where racial fears are used to target people of a subordinate group
and shake them down for anything that will stick. As long as there is
white supremacy there will be racial profiling....
Discussing racial profiling together with
other forms of stereotyping was, I agree, awkward. A recent Huffington Post article by Rinku
Sen, publisher of ColourLines
magazine, talks about the murders of Stephen T. Johns (a black security
guard at the Holocaust Museum killed by an anti-Semite) and also
abortion clinic physician George Tiller (shot by a man with roots in
the "racial purity movement").
"There's been lots of discussion about why
hate crimes are rising and how to prevent future tragedies, yet we've
largely missed the relationship between extremist racism and the less
obvious version," Sen writes. "Social psychologists ... tell us that
notions of the innate goodness of white people and the equally innate
badness of people of colour are so deeply embedded in our minds that
we're totally unaware of making such judgments."
Differences aside, Canadian and US history is
the partly bloody tale of a ruling class fostering racism. What danger
is posed to that ruling class by non-aboriginal workers, especially
white workers, inseparably linking the national grievances of Natives
with their own liberation, and considering Aboriginal people's
militancy proudly worth emulating?
More
discussion at http://www.Rebelyouth-magazine.blogspot.com.
14)
VISIT TO A COLOMBIAN POLITICAL PRISONER
(The following article
is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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 Liz
Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Vinnie Molina, President of the Communist Party of Australia, June
17, 2009
Since the 1980s human and labour rights in Colombia have been in
crisis. Thousands of trade unionists and members of the political
opposition have been murdered. Journalists, student leaders, human
rights defenders, indigenous activists and progressive lawyers have
also been killed and/or disappeared.
Under the current government led by Alvaro
Uribe the Colombian conflict has intensified. His supporters argue the
current regime has brought greater security but this has been at a high
cost. Forced displacement has increased, extra-judicial executions,
known as "false positives" have gone up and more trade unionists are
being murdered each year.
During this time the number of political
prisoners in Colombian jails has also soared and human rights groups in
Colombia say this effort is to restrict democratic debate and discredit
political opponents. Political prisoners are often held for long
periods awaiting trial or given extra long sentences after unfair
trials based on fabricated evidence or the use of false witnesses.
There are legal provisions in Colombia
allowing for legal, economic, health and educational benefits or even
amnesties for certain crimes be given to individuals under the "Paz y
Justicia Program" if they cooperate with authorities. These individuals
often become unreliable witnesses used by prosecutors, the armed forces
or DAS (Department of Administrative Security) who frequently interfere
with their testimonies. Evidence has been found in a number of cases
that witnesses had also been coached.
It is estimated that currently there are over
7,200 political prisoners of who 87 of are held at the Buen Pastor
Women's Prison in Bogota.
Recently I saw for myself the reality of the
situation for some of the political prisoners in Colombia. Their crime
is political opposition to the Colombian government and for this they
face long waits in overcrowded and dangerous prisons, in a country
where witnesses and even lawyers are subject to threats or death.
Political prisoners in Colombia miss out on privileges granted to
white-collar, Mafioso or paramilitary prisoners.
On the Friday I had to register, including
being photographed and finger printed at the El Buen Pastor Prison for
Women, to visit Liliany Obando the next day. Standing in a long line
outside the prison I began to get an idea of what conditions might be
for the women inside.
People were trying to bring foam mattresses
and other essentials. I wondered what their mothers, wives, lovers and
daughters have been sleeping on. The answer for political prisoners, as
I found out the following day, is possibly the floor in a 2.5m by 2m
cell shared between three women. There is only one bunk bed meaning one
inmate sleeps on the floor.
There are 87 prisoners held under the
strictest security in an area called "Patio Six". They are political
prisoners; some are peasant women, driven from their land which has
been turned over to large-scale industrial agriculture, in particular
plantations of African palm to produce bio-fuels. (There are from the
3.5 million people out of a total population of 45 million displaced in
Colombia). The crime of these women was to participate in the struggle
for the rights to their stolen land, for the right of access to
education and health and the right for literacy for their children.
Others are trade union activists, human rights
defenders and academics, women who in their social and political
analysis of their homeland find they do not agree with the ideology and
methods of the current regime and exercise their rights to raise that
debate and advocate for a new Colombia with peace and justice for all
Colombians.
Liliany Obando is one of these women. Liliany
is a sociologist, human rights campaigner, a film maker and a trade
union activist and consultant working for FENSUAGRO, the National Rural
Workers Federation. In recent years she has spent time working on
academic research. Her work has taken her to Canada, the US and
Australia in an effort to raise awareness of the situation faced by the
Colombian trade union movement. This work angered the Colombian regime,
which is trying to present the international community with a false
picture of what is occurring in Colombia and to cover up the abuses.
Liliany has been held at El Buen Pastor since
being detained on August 8, 2008. Twenty soldiers stormed the home she
shared with her two children, now five and fourteen. Since her mother's
arrest this five year old girl has lost her ability to cry. Repeatedly
Liliany's constitutional right to home detention for heads of family
has been denied. Her elderly mother must now take care of the two
children who went through a terrifying situation seeing their mother
taken in such a violent manner, done in complete contempt of the trauma
to two innocent children.
Visiting the prison is not easy. The queue of
visitors starts to form around 2 am. When I arrived at 7 am I was the
200th person in line. The gates open at 8 am and entry is stopped at 12
noon. The risk of being there late is not making it through the gate by
12 noon and missing out on a visit which means waiting another week.
Once inside there are multiple checkpoints to go through which takes a
couple of hours and visits end at 3:00 pm.
The difficulty of the process to visit is a
further humiliation to the prisoners. One case I heard of was of a
three year old girl who arrived angry to see her mother after she was
searched and had her pants torn. She said that she wouldn't come back
because she was afraid of the guard. She didn't want to come back.
Further pressure is put on prisoners by moving them to prisons far from
their homes, limiting access of their relatives who do not have the
necessary funds to travel. The psychological stress this causes the
women often leads them to agree to false charges against them.
After passing examination by dogs and
interrogations by guards I finally arrived at Patio Six or as the women
refer to it the "Bermuda triangle".
I am amazed at the stories I hear regarding
sentences of up to 38 years for young women. I saw an 18 year old girl
who got sentenced to three years for distributing leaflets against
government policy at a university; stories of children being born there
and then having to be separated once they are two years old.
The conditions are hard. Each political
prisoner gets a ration of soap, shampoo and even toilet paper for a
month, there are no areas for exercise and the lighting and ventilation
are poor. In comparison, paramilitary prisoners or prisoners of crimes
have more humane conditions which more closely resemble prisons in
Australia.
I personally felt powerless to see how a
government can try to silence the opposition by incarcerating them. The
weakness of the Uribe regime is exposed by the inhumane practice of
repressing dissent to remain in power.
After almost 12 months in detention, July 1
has been set as the date for the preliminary hearings against Liliany
Obando on the charges of rebellion and terrorism.
In Colombia the level of political persecution
and violation of human rights is so excessive that international
pressure is necessary to raise awareness and maintain pressure to try
and hold the abuses back.
In Australia, the trade union movement,
community and social groups have joined the world wide campaign to free
Liliany Obando and other political prisoners. For example Peace and
Justice for Colombia (PJFC) have led the campaign by condemning her
detention and incarceration. It has also written letters asking the
Uribe government to respect Liliany's constitutional rights to home
detention. Several trade union leaders and politicians have given
testimony of Liliany's activities for human and labour rights while she
visited Australia in 2007.
We urge all peace loving people to join the
campaign and put pressure on the Uribe government to put an end to the
repression to political opponents.
There is a need for a humanitarian exchange of
political prisoners as a first step for a political solution to the
deep social and armed conflict in Colombia. These are the key demands
that Colombians such as Liliany Obando advocate for. For more
information on the campaign visit http://www.freeliliany.net.
On June 2, 2009 an appeal seeking an
extraordinary remedy (casacion) to quash a malicious terrorism
conviction was lodged with the Colombian Supreme Court by student
activist Principe Gabriel Gonzalez Arango. According to Human Rights
First in New York the case could be a turning point in the
criminalisation of human rights defenders in Colombia.
Human Rights First senior associate Andrew
Hudson was quoted as saying the appeal would provide a historic
opportunity to "overturn years of arbitrary detention and unjust
persecution against Gonzalez. The Supreme Court should send a strong
message that it will not tolerate abuse of the judicial system to
intimidate and silence human rights defenders."
This is the first case seeking such a remedy
from the Supreme Court and a strong decision in favour of Gonzalez
could help many other Colombian activists wrongly convicted on trumped
up charges.
Gonzalez was sentenced to seven more years in
prison after a trial that relied on evidence from two unreliable
witnesses, one of whom admitted to providing statements under duress
from prosecutors.
The Gonzalez appeal is based on a violation on
his rights to be informed that a preliminary investigation against him
was under way and, secondly, that witness evidence was obtained from
ex-combatants receiving re-integration benefits from the state.
(The following article is from the
July 1-31, 2009, 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.)
NANAIMO, BC
People’s Voice Moncada Day Picnic - 530 Wakesia Ave., with guest Sam Hammond, BC Communist Party organizer. For full details call Gilberto, 250-754-4277.
SURREY, BC
Annual People’s Voice Walk-A-Thon -
Sun., August 9, starts 11 am
at Bear Creek Park, near
parking lot at 140 St. & 88 Ave. For details see ad on page 2 or call Harjit, 604-543-7179.
VANCOUVER, BC
Left Film Night - Sat., July 25, 706 Clark Drive. At 7 pm, “638 Ways to Kill Castro” documentary on CIA plots); followed at 8:40 pm with “The Waiting List”, Cuban comedy film. Free admission, refreshments on sale, for info call 604-255-2041.
Moncada
Day Celebration, hosted by Canadian-Cuban Friendship
Association - 2 pm,
Sunday, July 26, Chilean Co-op,
3390 School Ave. (near
Kingsway & Joyce). For
details, call Ray, 604-254-1350.
WINNIPEG,
MB
Pastors for Peace,
farewell presentations for this year’s Manitoba caravan to Cuba
defying the U.S. blockade. Tue., July 7, 7:30 pm, Charleswood Mennonite Church, Haney & Eldrige. Info MB-Cuba Solidarity Ctee., 783-9380.
SASKATOON, SK
Political discussion & beer, all welcome to join Saskatoon CPC
members - third Monday of
every month, in the tv room at Amigo’s, 632-10 St. East.
TORONTO, ON
CCFA
Toronto Island Cruise, celebrate Moncada Day - Sat., July 25, check in 11:30 am, disembark by 4 pm. Live Cuban Music with Pablo Terry & “Sol de Cuba”, lunch included, for info/tickets call Sharon, 905-951-8499.
HAMILTON, ON
Solidarity House classes - at 779 Barton St. East (parking at rear). Wednesdays 7-9, Introduction to Spoken Spanish, $10 suggested donation - bring your dictionary! Saturdays 12-2 - Das Kapital, video & discussion.
Our Vancouver Editorial Office will be closed June 29-July 19.
$50,000
FUND DRIVE
Nearing the finish line
(The following
article is from the July 1-31, 2009, 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.)
We are happy to report more good progress towards completing the 2009 PV Fund Drive. Since the previous issue, we have raised another $3787 towards our $50,000 target. This brings us to $40,112, or 80.2% of our goal. The biggest single fundraiser on our annual calendar, the annual PV Walk-A-Thon in Surrey, is coming up on August 9. We urge Lower Mainland readers to mark this event on your calendars; see the ad on this page for details.
Ontario is still in the lead this time, with $20,390 turned in, or 92.7% of their $22,000 provincial target. Alberta remains in second place at 85.5%, or $2053 out of $2400 raised, just ahead of Saskatchewan’s
82.5% ($660 on their $800 target), followed by Manitoba at 67.2% ($1615 out of $2400). British Columbia is back in the race after putting the drive on hold during the recent provincial election; our B.C. supporters are now at 66.2%, with $13,628 turned in towards their $20,600 target. Our Quebec supporters have sent in $115 out of their $500 target, and we have received $205 from the Maritimes. Another $1445 has been raised by friends overseas and other supporters.
Thanks go out to all the
volunteers who helped
organize our 17th Annual
Victory Banquet on June 20 at
the Russian Hall in Vancouver. The
food was fantastic, YCL comrades
performed a powerful radio
play (“Seven Jewish Children”), and the crowd heard from our own Hugo Rojas as well as several talented young local musicians. It was a great night for the working class press!
On a sadder note, we regret to
inform our readers that Nat Sherlock, who was instrumental in organizing the mailing of People’s Voice for
several years after our
launch in 1993, died peacefully
on June 18. The obituary on
page 11 of this issue gives some
idea of Nat’s role in the working
class movement over a period
of some 65 years. He will be
deeply missed by many comrades and
friends. Donations in his
memory will be reported in our
August issue.
As you know, we are once again offering something in
return for your
generous solidarity. This year’s “PV Shopping Bag” includes the
following:
- a 12-month complimentary PV sub (keep it or give it
to a
friend);
- People’s Voice
2009 Calendar;
- People’s Voice
“Karl Marx” Tshirt (tell us what
size);
- a surprise music CD - pick classical, oldies, or
folk.
Here’s
how it works. For a $100 donation, you will receive your choice of one
of these items. For each additional $100, you can choose another item
from our Shopping Bag. For a donation of $1000 or more, take the entire
Shopping Bag, and we will also give a lifetime subscription to you or a
friend.
Remember -
People’s Voice is your
newspaper, your voice in the information wars. Your contribution helps
us build it bigger and better!
Here's
my contribution to the PV Fund Drive!
Enclosed please find my donation of $_____
to the 2009 People's Voice Press Fund
Drive.
Name __________________________________
Address ________________________________
City/town ______________________________
Prov. ________ Postal Code _______________
Send to: People's Voice, 133 Herkimer St.,Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P
2H3
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