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| Theoretical and Discussion Bulletin of the
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The Spark!
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(Contents)
(Home)
1) UNEMPLOYED TO HIT
57 MILLION: OECD
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
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Special to PV
The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development has warned
that unemployment in the thirty largest capitalist states will continue
to rise into next year. The OECD's Employment Outlook 2009 says "There
are growing signs that the worst may be over and that a recovery may be
in sight. But the short-term employment outlook is grim."
Elsewhere in this issue, Sam Hammond presents
a Marxist
perspective on mass unemployment and its implications for the
capitalist state and the working class. But the data in this OECD
report is worth examining in detail, since it illustrates that recovery
for the bosses does not mean recovery for workers.
The official overall jobless rate in OECD
member countries has hit
a postwar record of 8.5%, thanks to 15 million layoffs since the end of
2007. Overall unemployment in the OECD countries may surpass 10 per
cent, which would mean 57 million out of work.
"Employment is the bottom line of the current
crisis," OECD
secretary general Angel Gurria said. "It is essential that governments
focus on helping jobseekers in the months to come." Of course, the
OECD's policy recommendations have two purposes: heading off an
explosion of working class anger, and ensuring that employers have a
sufficient pool of trained workers to exploit.
The OECD suggests that output growth will
resume in the first half
of 2010 and will be mild until late in the year. It admits that job
creation will lag significantly behind any pickup in output.
Unemployment in Canada is forecast to continue
to rise to almost
10% next year, from the current 8.7%. Since employment peaked in
October 2008, more than 486,000 full-time jobs have disappeared, many
in the manufacturing sector. The report warns that job losses in Canada
could be worse than during the recession of the early 1990s, the decade
of the "jobless recovery." While the unemployment rate peaked in early
1993, it took another eight years to fall below its pre-recession level.
Unemployment was quicker to rise in the United
States than in many
OECD countries due to the collapse of the housing bubble. Since
December 2007, payroll employment has dropped by 6.9 million in the US
and the unemployment rate increased by 4.8% to a 25-year high of 9.7%.
The OECD expects the US unemployment rate to remain over 10% through
2010.
Youth, low-skilled and racialized communities
have borne the brunt
of the crisis in the US. For teenagers, jobless rates jumped 8.6% to an
all-time high of 25.5%. Other groups seeing sharp rises include young
adults (up 5.9%), high-school dropouts (up 8.1%), Blacks (up 6.2%) and
Hispanics (up 6.8%). One in three unemployed persons in the US had been
jobless more than six months by August 2009, the highest since records
began in 1948.
The recession is also exacerbating "in-work"
poverty. Even before
the crisis, 12% of Americans living in a household containing one or
more workers had a disposable income of less than 50% of the median,
considered as relatively poor. The recession is also reducing the
paychecks of workers who face cuts in hours and wages. While the number
of unemployed persons in the US had risen to 14.7 million by June 2009,
9 million additional workers were limited to part-time hours even
though they would have preferred to work full-time.
Japan has experienced sizeable job losses. In
July, the
unemployment rate hit a record level of 5.7%, two percent higher than
at the end of 2007, as 1.3 million workers joined the ranks of the
jobless. The manufacturing and construction sectors have been most
seriously affected.
Youth participation in the labour force fell
by 350,000 in the two
years to July 2009. Since the "lost decade" of the 1990s, Japanese
youth have faced great difficulties in the labour market. The
unemployment rate for 15-24 year olds rose by 2.4% over the past 12
months, reaching 9.9% in July 2009. This mirrors the situation across
the OECD countries, as young people face jobless rates twice as high as
adults.
Japan has seen a steady increase in
"non-regular" (part-time,
temporary, daily and contract) workers, from 16% of the total workforce
in 1985 to over one-third by 2008. Such precarious workers are highly
vulnerable to job loss; the employment of temporary and daily employees
fell by 3.6% in the 12 months to July 2009, compared to a fall of 1.1%
for regular employees. Many non-regular workers in Japan are not
covered by employment insurance, but steps have been taken to extend
their eligibility for short-time work subsidies.
Even before the downturn, the working poor
made up more than 80%
of the poor in Japan, compared with 63% on average for OECD countries.
Around 11% of individuals living in households with at least one person
working are poor in Japan, the fifth highest level in the OECD after
Turkey, Mexico, Poland and the United States.
The UK unemployment rate, which reached 7.8%
in the second quarter
of 2009, and a post-war peak of 8.5% by July, is expected to approach
10% in the coming months.
As in other countries, British youth have been
particularly
affected. While the overall unemployment rate in Britain rose by 2.4%
during the past year, the increase was 5.8% for 16-17 year olds and
4.7% for those 18 to 24.
The OECD expects Ireland to be one of the
slowest-recovering
economies, and warns that unemployment rates could hit 15% by the end
of 2010. The collapse of the housing price bubble, compounded by the
global financial crisis and economic slowdown, caused sharp job losses.
From December 2007 to July 2009, 166,000 Irish workers lost their jobs,
and the unemployment rate rose by 4.7% to 12.5%, the second-highest
level in the OECD after Spain, shattering Ireland's "Celtic Tiger" myth.
Unemployment among temporary and part-time
workers in Ireland have
increased more than twice as fast as that of the total workforce.
Migrant unemployment surged in the early months of the crisis, then
slowed as many migrants returned to their countries of origin. Youth
unemployment did not rise much faster than total unemployment, but the
OECD notes that "this largely reflects the fact that many younger job
losers have left the labour market." By July 2009, over one-quarter of
workers under 25 found themselves unemployed.
Unemployment is expected to continue rising
well into 2010 in
France, and could approach 11% by the end of 2010 if the recovery
falters. Since the end of 2007, the French unemployment rate has risen
by 2% to reach 9.8% in July 2009. More than 600,000 workers have lost
their jobs.
Even before the current crisis, the youth
unemployment rate in
France was significantly above the OECD average. Now almost one in four
French youth are jobless.
The OECD notes that "extensive use of
short-time work schemes in
France help workers weather the storm. These schemes are a valuable
tool to prevent unnecessary layoffs due to temporary reductions in
product demand or access to credit. However, in long and deep
recessions they are likely to be less effective in preserving jobs and
more likely to become an obstacle to recovery, by putting a brake on
the reallocation of workers from declining to expanding firms. To avoid
protecting the `wrong' jobs and harming employment growth during a
subsequent recovery, it would be important to attach clear and credible
time limits to these measures." In other words, the main goal of the
capitalist state's employment policies must be to maximise corporate
profits.
At the outset of the jobs crisis, the poverty
rate among the
working-age population was 6.7% in France, or 2.3% lower than the OECD
average. The French social safety net reduces by two-thirds the poverty
risk among the whole working-age population, and by more than
three-quarters the poverty rate for jobless households.
However, the OECD urges action to prevent
"long lasting benefit
dependency for a significant proportion of the recipient population."
The report praises Sarkozy's "reform of the public employment service
(which) should strengthen the links between benefit recipiency, job
search and participation in employment programmes..."
Spain has experienced the sharpest increase in
unemployment in
OECD countries. Since December 2007, payroll employment in Spain has
dropped by almost 2.3 million and the unemployment rate increased by
9.7% to reach 18.5% in July. The rate is expected to approach 20% in
2010, which "implies that the largest part of the total expected
increase in unemployment in Spain has already taken place, while in
other European countries a significant further increase in unemployment
is expected going forward."
The job losses in Spain "would be
significantly larger if vigorous
macroeconomic measures had not taken place." State investment in
municipalities has contributed to the creation of nearly 400,000 jobs
(the majority of these are temporary), and has helped preserve many
existing jobs.
Employment in Spain's construction sector has
dropped by 25%. The
unemployment rate of immigrants was 28% in the second quarter of 2009,
more than 50% higher than the already very high overall unemployment
rate of 18%. Temporary employment accounted for close to 90% of all job
losses in the 12 months to June 2009. As in other OECD countries,
Spanish youth have been battered by the downturn, with one-third of
youth out of work at present.
By June 2009, over one million jobless had
been out of work for
more than one year, representing a quarter of overall unemployment.
Long-term unemployment has the worst impact on those over 45 year old
and other relatively disadvantaged workforce groups, who are "pushed to
the back of the hiring queue".
Unemployment is a key driver of poverty in
Spain. Prior to the
recession, close to 50% of jobless households in Spain were relatively
poor, compared with 37% on average across the OECD. This is
"particularly worrisome given the large numbers of unemployed persons
coupled with a sharp increase of jobless households not receiving
income support (over 1 million)." The Spanish government recently
granted a short-duration benefit for long-term unemployed workers who
have exhausted their benefits.
Korea's unemployment rate may have peaked in
June at 4.0%, since
the July rate was slightly lower at 3.8%. The June rate represented a 1
percent increase from its most recent trough in September 2008, but was
still only one-half the OECD average. As in many other OECD countries,
construction and manufacturing have been the hardest hit sectors in
Korea.
Korea adopted the largest fiscal stimulus
package in the OECD
area, at 6.1% of 2008 GDP, a move which is "playing an important role
in limiting employment losses" by an estimated 150,000 to 326,000.
On the other hand, wage restraint has been
harsher in Korea than
other countries. The "grand social compact" which was agreed to last
February set guidelines for employment retention in exchange for wage
concessions. In the public sector and larger enterprises, 422
concessionary agreements had been signed by the end of March 2009. No
figures are provided for the income losses suffered by workers as a
result of these concessions.
The unemployment rate for Korea's 15-29 year
olds not in full-time
education increased from 7.4% to 8.5% over the 12 months prior to July
2009.
2)
ECONOMIC RECOVERY? FOR WHOM?
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
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
It used to be in earlier society that a cobbler made shoes. After the
rise of capitalism with its class exploitation, relations of production
and market competition, the manufacture of shoes occupies thousands of
people.
This is because capital, in its drive to
cheapen production costs
and dominate markets, accelerates a division of labour into smaller and
smaller units, each with lesser but more specialized skills. In turn,
this accelerates the competition of labour, the competition between
workers, especially in an environment where there are large pools of
surplus labour (the unemployed) banging at the doors of workplaces and
offering cheaper rates than those already inside. It is precisely this
phenomenon that drives capital to cheapen labour and create
unemployment.
Capitalism, as it develops through its stages,
seeks to turn
everything into a commodity that can be sold in the marketplace. Thus
the market economy. In capitalism, labour power is purchased and traded
like any other commodity. Thus the "labour market" - the odious
expression for that part of our lives we hand over to gain wages to
sustain that other part of our lives.
Karl Marx pointed out that a commodity will
always find a price
above or below its cost of production, creating profit or loss for the
capitalist. If labour power is sold above the cost of its production
(the rearing and maintenance of children, education, housing, etc.)
workers will live and by proportion purchase small pleasures. If the
price of labour power falls below the cost of its production, workers
starve, and the horrible spectacle of deprivation, famine and disease
are the results.
Historically, it was the social and political
intervention in this
phenomenon by the working class that created the labour movement.
Workers banded together to gain economic benefit, developing
institutions with social-political and ideological goals. The two
dominant and competing ideological strains, developed within and
imported from without, have been reformism and revolution. Each at
different times and places has been dominant, but both are always
present in the class struggle. So there is a choice: which do we need
at the present time? More on this later.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD),
originating in 1947 to manage the post-war Marshall Plan and make sure
Europe was rebuilt along capitalist lines, was an economic parallel
with NATO and an instrument in the competition between the capitalist
and socialist bloc countries. The original 20 member states have now
expanded to 30 and reach into the southern hemisphere (Australia, New
Zealand) and Asia (Turkey). All the member states are committed to the
so-called free market economy (don't forget the labour market), the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Ironically, the OECD is a great research
source for anyone
studying economic trends and development; see our page 7 article on the
OECD's Employment Outlook 2009, for example. Even more ironically, like
most neo-liberal imperialist think tanks, the OECD extols the market
economy while also recently preaching necessary regulation and stimulus
injection. It points out the dangers of escalating permanent global
unemployment that will inevitably produce social resistance ending
in....? They won't say the phrase: revolutionary movements. Reformism
doesn't directly challenge capital, so it is only dangerous as a
spawning ground for revolutionary thought, a rejection of itself.
Like most imperialist word-speaks, the OECD is
desperately seeking
signs of recovery. If one automobile is sold or one nickel of profit is
turned, this is enough to signal a glorious recovery. At the same time,
parallel and concurrent, is the prediction of long term permanent
unemployment. For Canada, they predict official jobless rates of 10% or
more well into 2010 or even 2011.
So at the same time, we have the phenomena of
escalating
unemployment (read poverty, smashed families, homelessness, cheap
desperate labour and general impoverishment) and recovery (read resumed
profit, exploitation, wealthy industrialists and bankers).
Which one is correct? Both are, because
capitalism is a class
society, and the interests of one class are opposed to the interests of
the other. The present crisis is the product of capitalism, and also
the propellant towards the next more acute crisis, with an exponential
increase in human suffering, war and plunder and destruction of
environment. Without intervention, the future will be more of the
present.
But if capital is market driven, and the
market demands consumers,
how can there be a recovery with unemployment and cheap labour
shrinking the market, increasing the inability of the masses of people
to purchase?
This is the fly in the ointment that makes
capitalism a social
system that has outlived its historical usefulness. It has reached a
stage of imperialism, where stagnation is a permanent phenomenon, and
economic stimulation can only be regional and procured by the
cheapening of labour, the capturing of resources and markets through
war.
Some members of the working class think they
can survive and
prosper as junior partners, an "aristocracy of labour" amongst their
own class, living in a sea of cheaper labour, under-employed or
unemployed. This can only be transient and temporary, because their
acquiescence only helps escalate the objective nature of capital to
impoverish labour in general and drive its commodity price down.
In 1847, Karl Marx wrote in Wage-Labour and Capital about the
escalating division of labour and the effect of capitalist market
competition: "We have hastily sketched in broad outlines the industrial
war of capitalists among themselves. This war has the peculiarity that
the battles in it are won less by recruiting than by discharging the
army of workers. The generals (the capitalists) vie with one another as
to who can discharge the greatest number of industrial soldiers."
Downsizing, technology, speed-up, increasing
workload,
deteriorating work conditions, increased production and cheaper prices
with a smaller work force. Is this not Canadian manufacturing,
especially auto?
Both the reformist and revolutionary trends in
labour have
historically grappled with the competition between workers. That is
where the word union labour comes from, as opposed to individual
labour. That is where collective bargaining seeks to destroy individual
contracts. Reformism can be useful in the short term, but soon finds
itself shaped and channelled by the "carrot and stick" tactics of
capital into counterposing the interests of "members" to those of the
class as a whole.
This is not always done intentionally, indeed
it is resisted, but
is always a pressure from more powerful capital. To move beyond this
danger requires a larger outlook, a higher consciousness that embraces
and recruits the entire class towards some kind of social solution.
That is revolutionary ideology, an ideology that addresses itself to
the problem of eradicating the cause as a propellant towards a solution.
As a class, what do we need to resist and
maintain ourselves?
Competition or co-operation? Cannibalism, raiding and exclusion, or
unity and inclusion" That is the question that begs for a debate. What
do you think?
(Contact Sam
Hammond at newlabourpress@telus.net.)
3) COMMUNIST PARTY SLAMS
EI "REFORMS"
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
The proposed changes to the Employment Insurance (EI) system
announced
Sept. 14 by Federal Human Resources Minister Diane Finley have been
called an "insult" to both working and unemployed Canadians by
Communist Party leader Miguel Figueroa.
"It would be far too charitable to call this
meagre gesture
`lame'," says Figueroa. "In fact, this temporary fix will help barely
10% of the officially unemployed, and does absolutely nothing to reform
the broken EI system that already excludes coverage for over half those
currently out of work."
For those who have paid at least 30% of their
maximum annual
premium in seven of the last 10 years, the changes will mean a maximum
five additional weeks of coverage. To get the full additional 20 weeks,
a worker has to have paid in for 12 to 15 years. The measures are
temporary and will apply to new claims filed since January 2009 (if the
Bill is passed by Oct. 15), and will not apply to new claims filed
after Sept. 11, 2010. There are additional clauses that significantly
cut benefits for new claims filed after June 6, 2010.
"At a time when millions of workers are being
victimized by the
impact of a devastating crisis brought on by the speculative greed of
finance capitalists, and when billions upon billions of public funds
are ladled out to banks and corporations to rescue their sliding profit
margins, this feeble pittance is a sop, and a monumental insult to
working people," says Figueroa.
"One of the most insidious aspects to these
changes is that
workers who are most vulnerable to temporary and long-term layoffs -
those who have claimed 35 weeks or more in EI over the last five years
- and whose living conditions are therefore the most precarious, will
be completely excluded from additional coverage. This reflects an
underlying mentality that those workers who had previously suffered
bouts of unemployment have only themselves to blame."
"Finley's `anti-reform' Bill C-50 demonstrates
once again the
vicious anti-working class character of the Harper Conservatives, and
underlines the urgency of driving the Tories out of office at the
earliest opportunity," Figueroa added.
The Communist Party leader also criticized the
position taken by
the federal NDP to support the proposal, dubbing it "a step in the
right direction".
"Mr. Layton and his NDP caucus say that they
cannot `in good
conscience' vote against this pitiful measure. Everyone knows the truth
however; the NDP strategists are afraid that bringing down this hated
government might result in losing some NDP seats in a resulting
election. It was that partisan and mistaken calculation, not `good
conscience', which paved the way to this shameless and opportunist
retreat."
"Passivity and poll-gazing will not defeat the
Conservatives. What
is needed is the development of a fighting alternative to the
Tory/corporate agenda - a people's alternative that creates real
meaningful jobs for working people, that defends Canadian sovereignty,
that reverses the gutting of public services like health and education,
and gets Canada out of the war and occupation in Afghanistan now. That
people's program is needed to rally and galvanize the working class and
its allies to victory," says Figueroa.
"A real jobs program is the key, one which
reverses the sellout of
the Canadian economy to foreign capital and reverses the slide into
de-industrialization. With respect to the EI system itself, the
Communist Party has called for meaningful and significant changes which
would extend coverage for the entire period of unemployment at 90% of
former earnings, and remove the current two-week waiting period."
4) UNIONS, MICHAEL
MOORE BACK SUDBURY STRIKERS
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
Supporters from global labour movement were joined by filmmaker Michael
Moore in Sudbury on Sept. 19 in a major show of solidarity with about
4,000 Vale Inco strikers.
Vale Inco is 100% owned by the Brazilian
transnational Vale SA,
the second largest mining company on the planet, which took over Inco
three years ago. The company is trying force inferior pension plans and
seniority agreements on United Steelworkers members who have been on
strike since July in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ontario, and at
Voisey's Bay in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The guests in Sudbury included representatives
from the
International Trade Union Confederation, ICEM (International Federation
of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions), International
Metalworkers' Federation, and leaders of the AFL-CIO, Unite from the
UK, CUT and Sindimina from Brazil, and the National Union of
Mineworkers from Mexico. Together, they represent over 168 million
workers.
"Vale Inco is massively profitable, currently
has huge cash
assets, and increased its executive compensation by 121% in the last
two years," according to John Fera, President of USW Local 6500.
Academy Award winning filmmaker Michael Moore
also showed his
support for the strikers and the community by holding a special Sudbury
screening of his new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, to be released in
theatres on October 2. At the world premier of the film on Sept. 13 in
Toronto, Moore walked the red carpet with four striking miners and the
National Director of the United Steelworkers.
Facts and figures about Vale Inco reveal a
story of incredible
greed. The company has $22 billion US worth of cash assets as of last
March 31. It reported $13.2 billion US in after-tax profits for 2008.
Vale Inco has made twice as much profit in 2 years, as Inco made in
past 10 years. Vale Inco collected $4.1 billion US profit from its
operations in Ontario during 2006-2008, compared to Inco's tally of
$2.2 billion US in Ontario profits over 1996-2006.
Six of Vale Inco's executive officers were
paid $33 million US in
2008, while the average wage for Vale Inco workers is $29 per hour. The
workers formerly earned an hourly bonus averaging $4.86, which has been
eliminated. Labour accounts for less than one-tenth of Vale Inco's
costs.
Vale SA allows its Brazilian workers no
seniority rights, no
access to union representation, and no grievance procedures. Hired
mainly on a contract basis, the workers can be terminated at any moment
without cause. Health and safety standards are low, and a majority of
the workers are terminated for one reason or another after just three
to five years.
5)
SUPPORT STRIKING SUDBURY STEELWORKERS!
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
The Ontario Committee of the Communist Party of Canada, meeting
in
Toronto on Sept. 20, condemned the Vale corporation for its hostility
to Canadian workers and labour laws, and the threat it poses to the
Sudbury community with its decision to use scabs in a provocative and
dangerous effort to break the strike.
"We call on the Federal government to
nationalize the Canadian
operations of this multinational corporation without further delay,
repealing the 2006 agreement which allowed Vale to purchase the
Canadian owned Inco," said the Ontario Committee.
"Vale's purchase of the mines and operations
in Sudbury, Port
Colborne and Voisey's Bay should not have been permitted in the first
place, as the Sudbury mines are now wholly owned by foreign interests,
at the expense of Canada's sovereignty.
"Vale is a vicious multinational employer bent
on cutting the
wages, pensions, benefits and working conditions of workers employed in
one of the most dangerous occupations in the world. Their
aim is to
inflate bloated profits, and use the current downturn in nickel prices
to undermine free collective bargaining and slash the living standards
and quality of life of Inco
workers. "Vale is demonstrating its
sheer greed, and is in complete contravention of the rights of workers
in Canada, and the public interest.
"Federal and provincial governments must take
immediate action to
protect workers, instead of protecting the companies that are
exploiting them, and the resources that properly belong to all the
people of Canada.
"The Communist Party stands in full support of
the members of
Local 6500 USWA in their just struggle to defend their livelihoods,
their families, and their community. An injury to one is an injury to
all!"
6) LEGAL OBSERVERS TO
MONITOR 2010 OLYMPICS
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
PV Vancouver Bureau
The 2010 Winter Olympics come to Vancouver and
Whistler in just
over four months, but the uncertainties over civil liberties during
this event are growing.
VANOC, the organizing committee for the games,
claims that people
will be free to express their views during the Olympics. But the
release of documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests
paints a very different picture.
The Olympic Charter, for example, states that
"no kind of
demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted
in any Olympic sites, venues or other sports grounds."
Some would argue that this clause is intended
to prevent
disruption of competitions, although the Charter goes further by
banning any "publicity or propaganda" worn or used by the athletes
themselves - with the exception of commercial advertising.
This ban is clearly intended to prevent any
repeat of Mexico City
in 1968, when U.S. athlete Tommie Smith won the 200 meter race,
followed by Australia's Peter Norman and John Carlos of the U.S. On the
medal podium, the two U.S. athletes received their medals shoeless, but
wearing black socks, to represent black poverty. Smith wore a black
scarf to represent black pride. Carlos had his tracksuit top unzipped
to show solidarity with all blue collar workers in the U.S., and wore
beads in memory of lynching victims. Norman supported their action, and
all three wore Olympic Project for Human Rights badges.
But the restrictions imposed on Vancouver are
far more sweeping,
such as the "Host City Contract" signed in 2003 by then-mayor Larry
Campbell. This contract commits the city and Olympic organizing bodies
to "ensure that no propaganda or advertising is placed within the
Olympic venues or outside the Olympic venues in such a manner as to be
within the view of the television cameras covering the sports at the
Games or of the spectators watching the sports at the Games."
This clause empowers the 16,000-plus security
forces at the Games
to stop any unauthorized distribution of leaflets or newspapers, or
displays of banners or signs, anywhere near Olympic venues. Since key
venues are in the heart of downtown Vancouver, large areas of the city
could become "no free speech" zones.
In fact, the International Olympic Committee
document titled
"Brand Protection: Olympic Marketing Ambush Prevention and Clean Venue
Guidelines," specifically orders "12 to 20 (surveillance) teams
covering all venues and the city at any one time, with two shifts of
teams per day in venues or areas that require extra attention."
And it gets worse, since many streets will be
designated as
"Olympic corridors" for weeks before, during and after the Feb. 12-28
Games. This includes Hastings Street, which runs through the
poverty-stricken Downtown Eastside and other areas known for opposition
to the $6 billion spending spree to host the 2010 Games. The Centre for
Socialist Education which houses People's
Voice and the Communist Party
offices can easily be seen from Hastings; will this building be
compelled to remove any window posters critical of the Olympics? Will
residents of homes and apartments along these corridors face similar
restrictions?
One frequent reply to such questions is that
these rules are only
to prevent "ambush marketing" - a term for businesses which seek to
advertise during the Olympics without having paid the IOC for this
privilege.
At this point, nobody at VANOC or City Hall is
willing to explain
exactly how these restrictions will work. The cloak of secrecy is
justified in part by the need to prevent "terrorists" from learning
security plans. But in recent days, the Vancouver Integrated Security
Unit (VISU), which is overseeing security operations, has again stepped
up its harassment of critics of the Games.
In this situation, the Pivot Legal Society and
the BC Civil
Liberties Association are training legal observers to monitor the
Games. Participants will be trained to observe and record important
information on infringements of the rights to free speech and assembly,
unreasonable searches and seizures, etc. The legal observers may be
called upon as witnesses in resulting court cases.
The groups have also sent letters to VISU
asking for commitments
that agents provocateurs will not infiltrate anti-Olympic movements, as
happened during the August 2007 North American leaders summit in
Montebello, Quebec.
Upcoming legal observer training sessions will
take place on Oct.
11, Nov. 22 and Dec. 6, all at 2:30 pm, at the Britannia Community
Centre on Commercial Drive. For details, contact Pivot at 604-255-9700,
or register by e-mailing info@bccla.org.
7) SMELL OF DEFEAT IN
AFGHANISTAN
(The following
editorial is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
People's Voice Editorial
The smell of defeat is in the air for the disastrous US-led military
occupation of Afghanistan. An unusually blunt report by the top US
commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, says "we run the
risk of strategic defeat by pursuing tactical wins that cause civilian
casualties or unnecessary collateral damage. The insurgents cannot
defeat us militarily, be we can defeat ourselves."
The outright theft of the recent Afghan
election by US-backed
President Hamid Karzai may have dealt the final blow to dwindling
public support for the occupation. Even Globe and Mail columnist
Margaret Wente, a diehard war supporter, recently wrote: "Iraq was the
product of neo-con delusions. Afghanistan is in many ways the product
of liberal delusions. Both reflect the naive but arrogant belief that
outsiders can bring transformational change with good intentions and
democracy." (Of course, Wente is untainted by suspicion that control of
oil reserves is the true motive for the keen imperialist interest in
central Asia.)
But even these apologists can no longer ignore
the horrifying
evidence. Far from being on the side of the "good guys" in Afghanistan,
Canadian troops are simply hired thugs for the gang of criminal
warlords which currently has the support of the United States. Consider
the revelations that Afghan police and soldiers systematically rape
young boys at Canadian military bases, as reported by David Pugliese of
Canwest News Service - hardly an "anti-war" media source.
Remember that the next time Canadian troops
are saluted for their
courage by Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton. The time
to end this sickening war is now, not 2011.
8) KENNEY IMPOSING
FAR-RIGHT AGENDA
(The following
editorial is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
People's Voice Editorial
Racist, far-right policies are being imposed on the Canadian refugee
system by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, with the tacit approval of
the Harper government.
In a recent well-publicized case, Immigration
and Refugee Board
(IRB) member William Davis accepted the claim by white South African
Brandon Huntley, who would "stand out like a sore thumb" because of his
colour in South Africa, where there is supposedly an "inability or
unwillingness by the government and security forces to protect white
South Africans from persecution by African South Africans."
Abraham Sokhaya Nkomo, South Africa's high
commissioner to Canada,
rightly called this argument "outrageous" and has demanded that the
Harper government appeal the ruling to the Federal Court of Canada. The
only explanation in response has been the line that the IRB is an
independent tribunal that works at arm's length from the government.
The real story is that Jason Kenney has
repeatedly attacked the
validity of various refugee claims, while keeping silent on the Huntley
case. His actions are undermining the Board, according to critics such
as former IRB chair Peter Showler.
Kenney has publicly called U.S. war resisters
"bogus," and accuses
asylum seekers from Mexico of abusing the system. Absurdly, he says
that the Roma population face no state persecution in the Czech
Republic, despite frequent racist and fascist attacks on their
communities, and the fact that the IRB has approved most claims by Roma
applicants in recent years.
The pattern is clear. Minister Kenney is
engaged in a deliberate
effort to stack the deck against refugee claimants from countries and
peoples which do not meet Tory political standards. And there is a long
history of support for apartheid among key sectors of the current
Conservative government, such as accusations that Nelson Mandela was a
"terrorist".
Jason Kenney, like the rest of the Harper gang
in Ottawa, has to go, the sooner the better.
9) CLEAN UP THE
TORY/CORPORATE SLUDGE
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
(From a presentation by Young
Communist League General Secretary Johan Boyden on the environmental
crisis.)
We see ecological problems as deeply connected
with social
problems, and likewise the solutions. Perhaps nowhere is this clearer
than the climate crisis. Already, youth and students around the world
are mobilizing for December. That's when the world's countries, rich
and poor, meet in Copenhagen for the next climate conference.
Copenhagen will update the 1997 Kyoto protocol, establishing a binding
global agreement from 2012.
The colossal scale of global warming should
not detract from the
necessity for emboldened campaigning on other environmental fronts.
Peace is an environmental issue. Water pollution, the release of toxic
wastes, species extinction, unsustainable resource use, soil erosion,
and desertification all pose immediate dangers. Such poisons are
historically woven into the fabric of working class, Aboriginal and
racialized communities which will also be hit hardest by global warming.
Welcome to Hurricane Katrina. Welcome to the
future.
The urgency of the situation is captured in
the shift of the goals
leading into Copenhagen. The events the Kyoto process was supposed to
prevent are already beginning. Kyoto's targets placed the overall goals
at 2 degree Celsius increase. Now it is 3 degrees.
Overwhelmingly, youth and students reject the
status quo. To
August's United Nations international youth day slogan,
"Sustainability: our challenge, our future," you could add: "our bitter
inheritance." Students and trade union youth have recently formed the
Youth Climate Coalition. Planning a conference in Ottawa this October,
they call to surpass Kyoto's targets.
Our generation has seen the climate debate
shift: it can no longer
be denied or obscured as a long-term issue. The question now is: what
will be the content and direction of the response?
Many scientists insist that without radically
change in the near
term, we will reach an irreversible point. But scientific conclusions
are refracted through ideological prisms and class-based realities. In
Canada, business produces the vast majority of greenhouse gas
emissions.(Stats Can, "Canadian Environmental Sustainability
Indicators: Socio-economic Information", 2007, says 82% comes from the
"business sector".) Modest measures of environmental protection are
resisted by transnational corporations and their right-wing extremists
in Parliament and in the media. The Stern Review (2006), while
characterizing global warming as the "widest-ranging market failure
ever seen," rejected all solutions that are not "economically viable."
This brings the issue into sharp relief. Which
comes first:
nature, or profits? What social system has the capacity to arrest and
reverse this crisis?
If capitalism were compatible with solving the
climate crisis, and
companies could make more profits by charitably protecting the
environment, we would have seen green capitalism long ago. Corporations
don't need any help figuring out how to make more money. In contrast,
according to the 2006 Living Planet Report, published by the World
Wildlife Fund, socialist Cuba is the only country in the world that
enjoys "sustainable development."
But we don't have to wait until a socialist
revolution. The
strategy and tactics needed to win a better Canada and world start with
today's problems. That's why we need to break with dealing with the
environment like a charity issue. The claim that "the conscious
consumer is the best weapon against climate change" makes the main
enemy you. Drive a better car. Turn down your thermostat. Recycle.
How many reserve communities can even afford
municipal recycling?
How many people living in Toronto's Jane and Finch neighbourhood
already turn their thermostats way down? How many parents can't afford
childcare let alone eco-holidays? How many students are unable to
afford tuition, rent and dinner, let alone buy organic?
No wonder that historically oppressed and
working class
communities have seen the struggle to protect the environment as
"middle-class"! But there is a common link between exploitation of the
environment and exploitation of working people - the capitalist class
and their drive for profits. People's solutions to climate crisis must
target big business as the main enemy to a sustainable environment.
In fact, youth, workers and all people in
Canada have much to
gain. Can we unite the fight for Employment Insurance reform with a
green housing and industrial jobs strategy? Stopping plant closures
also means keeping factories under Canadian environmental regulations.
Could we connect the fight against the tar sands with the call for
democratic control of all energy and resources? Unlike market solutions
("cap and trade" or the carbon tax) public ownership allows democratic
planning for people's needs - and is a source of funding for renewable
energy and conservation programs, mass transit, free education and
childcare.
From our vantage point, meaningful
parliamentary advance - like
emergency legislation drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions -
isn't possible without the people's mass action. Finding the tactics to
move the most people forward is complex; media stunts aren't enough.
What's needed is a united mass movement of all progressive forces,
championing social and ecological alternatives.
As we head towards Copenhagen and possibly
another election, we
must turn up the political heat on Harper's Conservatives and the big
polluting corporations. More and more Canadians realize that the only
thing green coming out of these guys is sludge. Let's clean up that
sludge, pushing for a real democratic and ecological alternative.
10) WILDROSE VICTORY
A WAKE-UP CALL FOR ALBERTA
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Wayne Madden
When the Reform Party was formed in the mid-1980s, people dismissed it
as a protest party even after Deborah Grey was elected in a 1989
by-election. What happened after that? As people became more upset with
Mulroney's "Progressive" Conservatives, they turned to the Reform
Party, which became the Official Opposition after 1997. Reform morphed
into the Canadian Alliance and then swallowed the old Tories to become
the very right-wing Conservative Party that govern Canada today.
One wonders if Stephen Harper would be Prime
Minister today if other parties had taken the Reform Party more
seriously.
On Sept. 14, the Wildrose Alliance Party (WAP)
was elected in a
provincial by-election in Calgary-Glenmore. Many commentators dismiss
this as a mere protest vote against "Progressive" Conservative Premier
Ed Stelmach - a serious mistake.
Alberta's Tory government has been in power
for 38 years now. It
is tired and out of touch with popular opinion. Recent economic
problems only show the cracks in the party armour as it struggles to
deal with health care issues, royalties charged to energy companies and
the first provincial deficit in many years. The Liberal Official
Opposition has been largely ineffective. The NDP is more effective, but
the NDP record in other provinces, and the power of the energy industry
have made it almost impossible for the party to strike a chord with
most Albertans.
On the other hand, the WAP, formed in 2008
from a merger of the
Alberta Alliance Party (AAP) and the Wildrose Party is attracting
attention. In 2004, the AAP won one rural riding, electing Paul Hinman,
who narrowly lost his seat in 2008. Now, Hinman returns to the
legislature from an urban constituency, a month before a vote to elect
his successor as party leader.
The WAP proudly stands to the right of the
Tories, but how far?
There are some clues. Most of its extensive policy statements are
vague, open to different interpretations, for example: "build a
unified, universal and cost effective health services information
network that will improve and reduce long term costs."
The WAP would accelerate privatization of
government services and
erosion of workers' rights. They promise to "allow individual workers
the choice to determine their membership in labour organizations",
knowing full well that this option undermines the ability of workers to
negotiate effective collective agreements. The party would also "allow
competition to the Workers' Compensation Board", compromising the
quality of protection for injured workers.
Other policies include withdrawing from the
Canada Pension Plan
(setting up an Alberta Pension Plan), denying teachers the right to
strike, full funding for private schools, and a rather threatening
statement to "defend Alberta against intrusion by the federal
government by protecting the property,legal, constitutional and
democratic rights of Albertans."
Most ominous is a policy to "defend free
speech" by striking
Section 3 (banning use of hate speech and hate literature to cause
discrimination or contempt against persons or groups) from the Alberta
Human Rights and Multiculturalism Act.
Three candidates are seeking the WAP
leadership on Oct. 17:
Danielle Smith, Mark Dyrholm and Jeff Willerton. Most pundits believe
the race is between Smith and Dyrholm, but if the race is close,
Willerton could influence the policies of the winner.
Smith is considered the "libertarian"
candidate, giving business a
free hand, but also leaving people free to choose on social issues such
as reproductive rights and same-sex marriage. Dyrholm favours "social
conservative" policies and government run by business owners. Mike
Havery, his campaign chair, notes his membership in right-wing groups
such as Focus on the Family, Canada Family Action Coalition, the
Citizen's Centre for Freedom and Democracy, the Progressive Group for
Independent Business and the National Citizen's Coalition.
Perhaps Willerton gives the best indication of
the WAP's real
goals. He introduces himself on his website as "a writer, a
businessman, an advocate of free speech, one who has not drunk from the
Kyoto Kool-Aid and gives short shrift to those who peddle junk science
in the name of increasing your tax burden (i.e.: through carbon taxes)."
He promises to protect free speech by
censuring "the Alberta Human
Rights Commission for its history of abuses", opposes higher energy
resource royalties "to restore Alberta's "international reputation as a
safe place to do business", and promises referendums on separation
"each and every time a Liberal Government is elected or reelected in
Ottawa." He engages in red-baiting, calling Liberal leader David Swann
a "socialist" and referring to Brian Mason's former membership in the
Communist Party. One curious statement reads, "Democracy is two wolves
and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed sheep
contesting the results. What I'm offering you is simply the armour to
prevent the wolves from taking over again."
The "Willerton A-Z" alphabet extends this
red-baiting, calling
socialism and liberalism the "defective offspring" of Communism. Then
he attacks labour unions, noting that Dave Werlin headed the Alberta
Federation of Labour during the Gainers' strike of 1986. Praising the
anti-labour actions of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, he states:
"I'll just not soon be blackmailed by their (nurses, teachers, union
members) collectives."
While saying he is "not anti-Gay", Willerton
ties same-sex
marriage with polygamy, and writes, "Why is this (same-sex marriage)
destructive? Because gay marriage is a huge step toward the complete
normalization or mainstreaming of homosexuality... a lifestyle that
almost invariably leads to their premature, childless demise, robbing
society of both themselves and their progeny?" No wonder he opposes
provisions in human rights laws against hate speech!
These things cannot be ignored. While we must
defend true free
speech in a democracy, doing so does not include defending
irresponsible hate speech aimed at causing harm to others. Using "free
speech", Hitler advocated hate and fear against minorities and
opponents. He was regarded as a buffoon, but soon sections of the
German corporate ruling elite decided he was the leader who could block
the left from achieving power and switched their support from
"conservative" and "centrist" parties to him. Once achieving power,
true free speech was quickly criminalized, but hate speech continued
against Jews, socialists and communists, LGBT people and even many
Christians.
Even if the supposed "moderate", Danielle
Smith is elected leader,
the power of the right wing of the WAP will certainly assert itself in
policies and candidates. Progressive thinking Albertans must not ignore
the rise of the Wildrose Alliance Party.
11) Bill 177 - BACK TO
HARRIS TORY POLICIES
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
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
Supporters of local autonomy and democracy are organizing to defeat the
Ontario Ministry of Labour's Bill 177, which aims to transform locally
elected School Boards into being transmission belts for the
government's austerity and privatization policies.
Bill 177 closely tracks Harris Tory
legislation which was repealed
by the McGuinty Liberals in 2003-4. Under the new bill's regulations,
School Boards and Trustees that fail to comply can be put under
provincial supervision (trusteeship) and removed from office.
Instead of bringing in the needs-based
education funding formula
promised in the 2003 and 2007 Liberal campaigns, the government is
continuing to under-fund and privatize education.
As public pressure builds to deliver better
quality education and
services, School Boards are demanding more and better funding from the
province and the Ministry of Education.
The same thing is happening in Ontario
hospitals, where funding
cuts are creating long waits for emergency treatment and for
non-existent beds in closed wards. Operating at 98% capacity, hospitals
are over-crowded breeding grounds for super-bugs like C-Difficile.
Hospital boards are also demanding adequate funding, and an end to
balanced budget legislation which makes it illegal to run deficits or
borrow against capital accountants.
The province has vaporized mostly appointed
hospital boards,
despite public outcries. The same fate might happen to School Boards if
not for constitutional protections of the Catholic Boards, which the
courts have deemed also protect the public system. This was put to the
test by the Harris government when it sought to abolish locally elected
School Boards.
Thus, Bill 177 has been created to convert
School Boards into
bodies controlled and accountable to the Provincial government.
As the Communist Party of Canada (Ontario)
brief noted: "Bill 177
and its regulations are shot through with the central obligation of
School Boards `to ensure effective stewardship of the Board's
resources', `to effectively use the resources entrusted to it', to `use
the resources entrusted to it for the purposes of delivering effective
and appropriate education', and most Machiavellian of all, to `manage
the resources entrusted to it in a manner that upholds public
confidence'. (Appendix A: Bill 177 - Duties and Powers of School
Boards)"
Those Boards and Trustees which refuse to sell
budget cuts "in a
manner that upholds public confidence", will face the measures set out
in Appendix B: Section 11.1 - Provincial Interest Regulations, which
state that the Ministry can "require a board to adopt and implement
measures specified in the regulation to ensure that the board's funds
and other resources are applied (i) effectively, and (ii) in compliance
with this Act, the regulations and the policies and guidelines made
under this Act."
Ironically, the Minister responsible for this
Bill is Kathleen
Wynne, a former Toronto Trustee prominent in the fight against budget
cuts and trusteeship imposed by the Harris government. Knowing that the
public would fight Bill 177, Wynne organized "consultations" by email,
during July and August.
The Bill is being fast-tracked through the
Legislature in hopes
that the public won't have time to mobilize against it. Another tactic
is to distract attention from the real contents of the Bill by making
much of over-billing of personal expenses by some Trustees in the
Toronto Catholic Board. All of the questionable bills have been repaid,
and no charges were ever laid.
The Communist Party and others say this is a
fig leaf, not
comparable to the real corruption of Liberal and Tory appointees to the
Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission and to EHealth Ontario, where
millions of dollars are missing.
The over-billing by some Trustees is the
result of savage cuts to
honoraria by the Harris government, and caps by the McGuinty government
which force Trustees to service wards that are twice as large as
federal ridings, for a maximum of $20,000 a year.
The CPC (Ontario) is calling on the government
to withdraw Bill
177 and instead draft new legislation to restore and enhance the powers
of Ontario's local School Boards, including:
* a needs-based funding formula to guarantee adequate and stable
funding to public School Boards and a universal, quality system of
public education.
* remove education from the property tax, and fund education from
provincial general revenues.
* repeal balanced budget legislation affecting school boards,
hospitals, and municipalities.
* strengthen local autonomy and democracy for School Boards.
* restore the right of Boards and communities to set appropriate
honoraria and benefits for Trustees.
* provide status for School Boards and municipalities in the Canadian
Constitution.
* repeal Harris era "Secondary reform" and introduce a broad based
liberal arts curricula, including Canadian history, Aboriginal history,
and labour and women's studies.
* repeal standardized testing.
* fight for ESL funding, and fund Special Education to meet the needs
of all students.
* fund hot breakfast and lunch programs.
Now that school is back, education activists
are moving quickly to
mobilize parents, students and community to defeat this Bill, and to
make next fall's province-wide School Board elections a referendum on
Liberal education policy.
To move forward, the friends of public
education will have to
mobilize to field candidates with programs that call for a new
needs-based provincial funding formula and strong local autonomy and
democracy for School Boards and communities. Trustees must not only be
elected by communities, but be fully accountable to them as well.
- Liz Rowley
is the leader of the CPC (Ontario), and a former school trustee.
12) H1N1, PUBLIC HEALTH
AND RACISM INTERTWINED
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Kimball Cariou
The related issues of public health, racism, governmental incompetence
and corporate profiteering took a nasty twist in mid-September with the
news that northern Manitoba reserves have been sent body bags instead
of medical supplies to fight outbreaks of the H1N1 swine flu.
Residents of half a dozen Aboriginal
communities were outraged
when about 200 body bags were delivered in response to demands for
resources to fight a second wave of the H1N1 flu outbreak. The
shipments were seen as a dire prediction of official expectations of
the flu's impact on Aboriginal peoples, who were hardest hit by the
first outbreak last spring.
Leaders of the communities returned the bags
to a Health Canada
office in Winnipeg, calling the deliveries an insult. Each bag
contained full post-mortem kits including a chin strap, five tie-straps
and three identification tags. The shipments also included hand
sanitizers, masks and gloves.
Rod Harper, a spokesperson for the band
council of the Wasagamack
First Nation, 600 kilometres north of Winnipeg, said "What we had asked
for stockpiling were Advil, Tylenol, vaccine, not body bags."
"Is Canada giving up on the first nations?"
Garden Hill First
Nation Chief David Harper asked in an interview. "We're very offended.
It looks like Canada is giving up on us. Or is this the flu
preparedness that Canada talks about?" In many First Nations cultures,
to prepare for death is to invite death, he said.
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq was "disturbed"
to hear about the
shipments, and ordered an immediate inquiry, but she declined to
comment on who sent the body bags.
Aboriginal communities fear they are
unprepared for another wave
of the flu. The outbreak last spring affected relatively few Canadians,
but sparked a crisis on several Manitoba reserves. At one point,
Aboriginals comprised two-thirds of Manitoba flu patients on
respirators. The situation made it clear that after many years of
underfunding, Canada's health system could easily be overwhelmed by
H1N1.
Health Canada had been reluctant to send hand
sanitizer to
Manitoba reserves, absurdly claiming that residents would ingest the
alcohol-based gel. The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs has solicited
donations for 15,000 flu kits for northern communities, and the
Manitoba government has agreed to cover part of the cost. But Aglukkaq
claims that nursing stations on reserves are stocked with medical
supplies, and that the kits are not necessary.
Researchers think the new pandemic H1N1
influenza circulated
undetected in pigs for at least a decade before it jumped to people,
making a mutational shift. First detected in April, H1N1 was declared a
pandemic in June. It has spread quickly around the world but in most
cases causes only moderate illness. The disease has been worse in
low-income, overcrowded communities, such as many reserves in Canada.
So far, the version of pandemic H1N1 circulating is not mutating, which
could pose far more dangerous consquences, but experts expect it
eventually will begin to change.
As People's Voice reported in our May 16-31
issue, H1N1 may have
emerged from a giant pig factory farm run by a U.S. multinational in
Veracruz, Mexico. Such factory farms cram thousands of pigs into dirty
warehouses where they are sprayed with a cocktail of drugs. These
operations and their manure lagoons create perfect conditions to breed
dangerous new viruses like swine flu.
Smithfield Corporation, the largest pig
producer in the world,
owns the farm which may have been the source of the H1N1 outbreak. The
company denies any connection, but the World Health Organization has
warned that a new pandemic is inevitable. The European Commission and
the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization have cautioned
that the rapid move from small holdings to industrial pig production is
increasing the risk of development and transmission of epidemics.
Profits are involved in this issue in another
way, in terms of the
multinational pharmceutical corporations which produce vaccines. Some
opponents argue that widespread vaccination will not prevent the virus
from spreading, or that the extent of the danger posed by H1N1 is
overstated. Public authorities in Canada and other countries are
understandably reluctant to gamble that vaccinations are unnecessary,
given the potentially deadly impact of a larger outbreak over the
coming fall and winter.
It is true that the debate over how to respond
to global pandemics
is distorted by the "medical-industrial complex" which puts profits
ahead of health care workers and the public. At the same time,
Canadians are justifiably angry that underfunding of health care
weakens the system's ability to prevent and minimize the effect of
epidemics.
Whoever made the appalling decision to ship
body bags to northern
Manitoba did Canadians one favour; this racist act has launched a
serious debate around a wide range of troubling questions which need
solid answers.
13) PROSECUTORS RELUCTANT
TO TREAT GAY-BASHINGS AS HATE CRIMES
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Kimball Cariou
Despite violent gay-bashings in cities across Canada, police and/or
prosecutors are still reluctant to treat these attacks as hate crimes,
a designation which would require tougher sentencing for offenders.
In the latest shocking case, a Toronto gay
man's face was
shattered during a visit to Thunder Bay. Jake Raynard and two friends
were smoking outside a downtown bar after last call on Sept. 4 when a
man approached them for a cigarette and then became aggressive. As the
three friends walked away, a group of men followed them shouting
homophobic taunts. Suddenly, one of the group grabbed Raynard's friend
and started choking him. Raynard managed to help get his friends into a
taxi, but was blocked from entering. He ran through a nearby alley
towards a local restaurant as the men chased him, but was caught and
beaten with a brick.
According to reports, it took police an hour
to respond to the
calls of restaurant workers who found Raynard banging for help on their
windows. He had to undergo facial reconstruction for injuries including
a broken jaw, broken eye socket and broken upper
patella. A
Facebook page called "Unified Community around Jake Raynard" now has
more than 7,700 members, and over 1200 people took part in a support
rally on Sept. 11. Thunder Bay Police are still investigating; it has
not been decided if the incident will be labelled a hate crime.
Similar crimes have recently occurred in other
cities, including
two cases in Vancouver. In September 2008, Jordan Smith was holding
hands with his partner on Davie Street when the couple was met by a
group of men shouting homophobic slurs. One of the group, Michael
Kandola, is alleged to have punched Smith in the face without warning,
causing serious facial damage. Kandola's trial is set for next April,
but prosecutors have not decided whether this will be considered a hate
crime.
In another tragedy, 62-year-old Ritchie Dowrey
was punched in the
face at the Fountainhead Pub on Davie last March 13. The blow knocked
Dowrey to the floor, causing severe brain damage. His attacker, Shawn
Woodward, was reported by witnesses to have said "he's a faggot, he
deserved it". Woodward has been charged with aggravated assault, but
proceedings been postponed several times, and again, no decision has
been made on designating the attack as a hate crime.
"This story isn't just mine," says John
Raynard. "I'm sure there's
many other people out there who have encountered a lot of the same
problems that I have in my life, and have encountered hate-related
crimes and a lot of discrimination based on that. I would urge them to
come forward and make their stories known and have it so we can start
to heal as a community and start to move forward beyond this kind of
hate."
Commenting on recent calls for dropping hate
crime laws, Egale
Canada President Helen Kennedy has responded that "when a crime is
motivated by blind hatred, a crime such as that perpetrated against
Jake Raynard, it goes beyond any negotiable goal. It is the desire to
hurt, to denigrate, and to destroy. Any time someone is attacked for
their gender identity or sexual orientation they are not just assaulted
physically, they are treated as less than human, and that is what we
must fight every day with every breath to counter such brutality...
"Jake Raynard is not an object. Anji
Dimitriou, lesbian mother,
viciously attacked, is not an object. Tyli'a Mack, trans woman,
brutally murdered, is not an object. Ritchie Dowrey, gay man, viciously
attacked, is not an object. We are not objects; we are not fragments of
people. We are the many achingly beautiful faces of humanity and must
hold ourselves with pride. When anyone is attacked this way, when
anyone is reduced in this fashion, we must respond or we are all made a
little less... We demand that our governments, municipal, provincial
and federal, protect our rights and stand with us!"
14) A TASTE, BUT NOT A
COMPLETE MEAL
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
Norman Bethune, by Adrienne
Clarkson, Penguin Group (Canada), Toronto, 2009, ISBN 978-0670067312,
review by Liz Rowley
Adrienne Clarkson's new book on Norman
Bethune, at 190 small pages
of big-print, is interesting, mostly factual, and a contribution to the
literature about this extraordinary Canadian patriot and Communist.
But it's not the book that still reigns as the
authority on the
life and times of Norman Bethune - Ted Allen and Sydney Gordon's The
Scalpel, The Sword, published in 1952.
What's different is the class perspective that
Allen and Gordon
display in their retelling of the 1930s in Canada, and the much deeper
appreciation of the movement of which Bethune was a part and a leader.
Clarkson attributes Bethune's internationalism
and his travel to
Republican Spain and China, to his parents' Presbyterian religious
convictions, and their missionary zeal for religious conversions in
China. It was his childhood and his father's ministry that propelled
him to the anti-fascist cause, she asserts. In fact, Bethune's
work in Spain was the result of a decision taken by the Communist Party
of Canada that he should go there, and then return to undertake a
speaking tour to mobilize recruits and material support for Republican
cause.
Bethune was a member of the Communist Party, a
fact Clarkson deals
with as an oddity, not as a core part of his personality and world
outlook. She mentions his self-penned obituary, written when he was
battling tuberculosis: "Norman Bethune: Born a bourgeois, Died a
Communist", and his artistic renderings of himself in a hospital bed
reading Karl Marx. These, she suggests, are somehow the evidence of
oddity, perhaps brilliance, but not wisdom.
At a speaking engagement about her book, held
at a medical
symposium in Toronto last June, Clarkson said that had Bethune survived
the war in China, she was quite sure he would have soon left the
Communist Party of Canada.
Such statements are astonishing - baseless
conjecture, without
facts to back them up. Everything Bethune did was connected to the
Communist Party, and he is fact the Party's most celebrated member. His
views about the need for a system of socialized medicine in Canada, and
his work with others to develop a plan for how that system might be
achieved, were embraced and reflected in the Communist Party. He made
his home in the CPC because its policies and outlook (developed from
its birth in 1921) reflected his own ideas. More than anything, Bethune
raged against the class foundations of capitalist society, which were
the cause of war, exploitation, and oppression, and he fought for and
extolled the virtues of socialism.
This is what is missing in Clarkson's book -
well, almost missing.
A section near the end deals with Bethune's time in China with Jean
Ewen, a Canadian nurse and the daughter of prominent Canadian Communist
Tom McEwen. Along with Tim Buck and six other Party leaders, McEwen was
arrested in 1931 for sedition and jailed in Kingston Penitentiary. The
play Eight Men Speak is about them.
Clarkson focuses on Jean Ewen's anger at her
father "who was more
interested in socialism than in being a father", and on petty
criticisms of Bethune which reflect the abysmal conditions in which
they were forced to work medical miracles by dint of fascist occupation
and war. Bethune personified courage, valour and determination to save
lives without any thought to himself, and little to Jean. They were the
only doctor and nurse for hundreds of miles, and civilians and soldiers
alike were dying by the hundreds and thousands. Could it have been any
other way?
It seems unfair that Clarkson would choose to
spend so much time
on Ewen's memoirs. No doubt the hardships in China were real, and no
doubt Bethune had a strong personality (like Ewen's, it seems), and
little time for democracy on the battlefield.
What we get from Clarkson's telling is that
Bethune was an
extraordinary man, whom most Canadians aren't familiar with, and should
be. That he was a great Canadian, who fought fascism in Spain and China
(thanks mainly to his Presbyterian missionary upbringing), and that he
should be recognized by his country as a great anti-fascist. We also
learn that he was, oddly, a Communist; something that Clarkson tells
her readers was a passing thing, a brief encounter that he would have
shucked had he lived.
Allen and Gordon give a much fuller and truer
picture of Bethune's
life and activities. Yes, he was an anti-fascist, a Communist, a
humanitarian, an artist, a lover of life. And yes, his life was
complicated by his politics, including his personal life. He could have
stayed home, made a lot of money from his medical innovations, remained
married to a woman largely disinterested in his life and activities,
and made peace with the Canadian establishment.
But he didn't, and not because of his
Presbyterian parents. He
fought against fascism, but he also fought for socialism, for a new
world. He wasn't ordinary. He knew what the future looked like, and he
wanted the world to get there without passing through the fascist fire
that left 50 million dead. This is what Allen and Gordon more
accurately portray in The Scalpel, The Sword.
Read Clarkson's book for a taste; read Allen
and Gordon for the meat and potatoes.
15) "ALMEIDA LIVES
TODAY MORE THAN EVER"
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
Cuba declared Sept. 14 a National Day of Mourning in memory of
Juan
Almeida Bosque, who commanded the Third Front in the Rebel Army which
overthrew the dictator Fulgencio Batista. The 82-year-old "Commander of
the Revolution" died of a heart attack late in the evening of Sept. 12.
Tens of thousands of Cubans paid tribute to Almeida at the Jose Marti
Memorial in Havana, and much of the country's TV programming was
devoted to documentary footage of this remarkable revolutionary.
Born Feb. 27, 1927, Juan Almeida began work as
a bricklayer at the
age of eleven. In March 1952, as a law student at the University of
Havana, he met Fidel Castro, another aspiring attorney, and joined the
fight against the dictatorship.
Almeida took part in the armed attack on the
Moncada military
barracks in the eastern city of Santiago, on July 26, 1953. He and
other captured survivors, including Fidel and Raul Castro, were sent to
prison on Isla de los Pinos, later renamed Isla de la Juventud (Isle of
Youth). After being granted an amnesty in May 1955, Almeida accompanied
Fidel and other comrades to Mexico. There they formed a guerrilla army
which returned in December 1956 on the yacht Granma to launch their
battle from the Sierra Maestra region.
Almeida, the Castro brothers and Ernesto "Che"
Guevara were among
only 16 who survived the landing, in which most of the rebels were
killed by Batista's troops. "No one here gives up!" Almeida shouted to
Guevara at the time, giving the Cuban revolution one of its most
lasting slogans. As a guerrilla leader, Almeida later headed the Third
Front of military operations in eastern Cuba.
After Batista fled on New Year's Day 1959,
Almeida served in
various military posts, ranging from head of motorized units to chief
of the Rebel Army's Air Force. He later was named a vice minister and
chief of staff of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. He was a member of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, which held its
first congress in October 1965 after the merger of Fidel's July 26
Movement, the Popular Socialist Party (Cuba's original Communist
Party), and the Revolutionary Directorate.
Almeida served as a vice-president of the
Council of State, the
country's supreme governing body, and headed the National Association
of Veterans and Combatants of the Revolution. As well as his political
activities, Almeida was a composer of traditional Cuban music and a
writer. His books include the popular trilogy of reminiscences,
Military Prison, Exile, and Disembarkation. He cut back on public
activities in December 2003, suffering from heart problems, but
remained a member of the country's leadership.
Along with Ramiro Valdes and Guillermo Garcia,
he had been among
only three remaining Comandantes de la Revolucion, a title reserved for
top leaders of rebel troops under Fidel Castro's command.
A statement from the Cuban government called
Juan Almeida "a
paradigm of revolutionary strength, solid convictions, bravery,
patriotism and service to the people." He was given a military funeral
at a mausoleum near Santiago de Cuba.
Fidel Castro wrote in one of his "Reflections"
on Sept. 13, "I
have been watching for hours now on television the tribute that the
entire country is paying to Commander of the Revolution Juan Almeida
Bosque. I think that facing death was for him just another duty as so
many others he made throughout his life. He did not know, neither did
we how much sadness the news of his physical absence would bring to us.
"I was privileged to know that young black
militant worker who
would successively be the leader of a revolutionary group, a combatant
at the Moncada, a comrade in prison, a platoon captain at the time of
the Granma landing, an officer with the Rebel Army - held back by a
shot on his chest during the violent combat at Uvero - the Commander of
a column marching on to create the Third Eastern Front, and the comrade
sharing the leadership of our forces in the last successful battles to
overthrow the tyranny.
"I was an exceptional witness to his exemplary
conduct for over
half a century of heroic and victorious resistance in the struggle
against the bandits, during the Giron counteroffensive, the Missile
Crisis, the internationalist missions and the resistance to the
imperialist blockade.
"It was a pleasure to listen to some of his
songs, especially the
one particularly emotional where he bade farewell to human dreams in
response to the homeland's call to `win or die'. I was not aware that
he had composed over 300 songs in addition to his literary work, a
source of historical narratives and enjoyable readings. He defended
principles of justice that will be defended at any time and age while
human beings breathe on Earth.
"Let's not say that Almeida is dead! Almeida
lives today more than ever!"
16) YOUTH UNION
CONFERENCE PLANNED IN PERU
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50
CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
PV Vancouver Bureau
The First International Conference of young trade unionists will meet
Nov. 18-20 in Lima, Peru. The gathering will be hosted by the General
Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP) and the World Federation of
Trade Unions (WFTU), which have issued a call to all affiliated and
friendly organizations to participate.
The Call to the Conference stresses that "the
dictatorship of the
capitalist system has been intensified since the 70s". Since then, it
points out, the "gurus" of neoliberalism and their instruments
(International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization,
etc.) convinced neoliberal and social democratic political parties and
governments to implement widespread privatization and deregulation.
On the status of young workers, the Call warns
that youth
unemployment increased globally during 1995-2005 from 74 million to 85
million, an increase of 14.8%. Now, the number of unemployed young
workers is unofficially estimated to be over 100 million. The ILO says
in its 2006 report that 25% of the youth population in the world - over
300 million - live below the poverty line.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the number
of unemployed youth
increased from 7.7 million to 9.5 million during the years 1995-2005,
with the rate climbing from 14.4% to 16.6%. Today those figures are
increasing rapidly. Some 16.7 million young people in this region, or
35% of those who still have jobs, are below the poverty threshold
because of low wages, while 6.3 million live in extreme poverty.
Outsourcing is another major problem of young
workers. "Junk
contracts" are used to hire workers for medium and large enterprises at
minimal wages, without social or labour rights, unable to join trade
unions and subject to the agony of waiting for a new contract. "If this
continues," warn the conference organizers, "the future of the trade
union movement is in danger, mainly in underdeveloped countries."
This difficult situation has forced large
numbers of young men and
women from Latin America, Asia, Africa and the former socialist
countries to migrate to developed countries like the USA, Japan and the
European Union. Seeking work and better opportunities, these youth are
facing xenophobic treatment and denial of their rights as workers. They
receive miserable wages and are usually considered as "illegal" or
"undocumented". European Union governments have intensified their
persecution of immigrants, passing laws of expulsion and imprisonment,
under the pretext that they are stealing jobs from European citizens.
In recent years, thousands of young Mexicans
and Latin Americans
have been killed by the US police in the US-Mexico border. Those who
managed to enter US territory are frequently persecuted as criminals,
and arrested and deported.
The same happens with thousands of young
people, including
children, from countries in Africa and Asia. Many are dying almost
every day, drowning in the ocean in their desire to reach the coast of
Spain or Italy. Those who manage to arrive are arrested and deported to
their countries of origin. The capitalist system is concerned about the
free transit of goods and speculative capital, but has prohibited the
free transit of humans beings.
Created in Paris in October 1945, the World
Federation of Trade
Unions was at the time the only global labour organization. Its
consistent stand against war and for class struggle trade unionism led
supporters of US imperialism to divide the WFTU in 1949. In recent
decades, with the collapse of the socialist bloc, the WFTU was the
target of continuous demonization campaigns funded by pro-imperialist
forces.
But the WFTU has survived by reaffirming the
principles of unity
and class solidarity. The WFTU's most recent congress was held in Cuba
in 2005, and the federation continues to gain new strength. The youth
conference in Peru is an important expression of the renewed level of
activity by the WFTU and its affiliates.
(The following
article is from the October 1-15, 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for
U.S. readers and overseas readers - $50 per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133
Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
VANCOUVER, BC
Left
Film Nights - at the Centre for Socialist Education, 706Clark
Drive,
- Sunday, Sept. 27, 7 pm, The Power of Song, documentary on the life of Pete Seeger.
- In October see - Cocalero and Freedom Fighters (Las Libertarias), Sat., Oct. 17, 7 pm.
Free
admission, donations welcome,
info: 604-255-2041.
Civil Liberties and the 2010
Olympics, panel forum - Monday, Sept. 28,
7-9 pm, Fletcher Challenge Theatre, SFU Harbour Centre. Hosted by Am
Johal, chair of Impact On Communities Coalition.
StopWar monthly meeting, planning for
fall events - 5:30 pm, Wed., Oct.
7, at Maritime Labour Centre, entrance by parking lot, 111 Victoria
Drive, see http://www.stopwar.ca. Yard
Sale at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave., Sat., Oct. 17, 11 am-3 pm,
call 604-254-9932 for info.
In Our Own Voices, join the Downtown
Eastside Power of Women Group for
storytelling, poetry, reflection, and resistance - Sat., Oct.
24, 7 pm,
Rhizome Cafe, 317 E. Broadway, by donation $0-20.
TORONTO, ON
Trilateral Peace Conference - Oct.
2-4, AUUC Cultural Centre, 1604 Bloor
St. West, with speakers from Canadian Peace Congress, US Peace Council,
MOMPADE (Mexico), and MOVPAZ (Cuba). For full details and program,
email dmckee@canadianpeacecongress.ca.
Celebrate World Peace Council 60th
Anniversary - Sat., Oct. 3, 7:30 pm,
AUUC Cultural Centre, 1604 Bloor St. West, with guests from Cuba,
Mexico and the US, entertainment with Wally Brooker and Mark Sepic,
admission $10. For info email: dmckee@canadianpeacecongress.ca.
Cine Cuba, Cuban film festival
sponsored by CCFA-Toronto - Thursday,
Oct. 22 and Friday, Oct. 23, Revue Cinema, 400 Roncesvalles Ave.,
starts 7 pm, second showing 9 pm. For films check http://www.revuecinema.ca
and http://www.ccfatoronto.ca.
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.
BRAMPTON, ON
Will the Working
People Pay? Forum with Liz Rowley, member of the Central
Executive Ctee. CPC- on Sat., Sept. 26, in the party room at 210 Steeles Ave. W. (west of Shoppers World). Refreshments at 2 pm, speaker from 2:30. Everyone welcome, organized by GTA West Club.
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.
JOSHUA KEY TOUR
For info on speaking tour by war resister Joshua Key, and times and
places in these cities, call 204-792-3371.
- Kamloops (Sept. 25),
- Kelowna (Sept. 27),
- Vernon (Sept. 28),
- Grand Forks (Sept. 29),
- Lethbridge (Oct. 1),
- Medicine Hat (Oct. 2).
