|
|
| Theoretical and Discussion Bulletin of the
Communist Party of Canada |
|
The Spark!
The
latest issue of The Spark! theoretical journal, is now on sale for $5 at Communist Party offices (see p. 8) or People’s Co-op Books, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver.
Articles
include
- “Introduction to a General Theory of Culture” (Barry Lord);
- “Political & Economic Realities Behind Colombian Labour Relations” (Sacouman, Moore & Brittain);
- “Treaty Process & Indian Nationalism” (Ray Bobb);
- “Lenin: Heritage of the Socialist Market Economy” (C.J. Atkins);
- “Nature of the State Under Bush & Harper” (Stephen Von Sychowski);
- plus reviews, editorials, and more.
|
People's
Voice deadlines:
APRIL 1-15
Thursday, March 19
APRIL 16-30
Thursday,April 2
Send submissions
to PV
Editorial
Office,
706 Clark Drive, Vancouver,
V5L 3J1, pvoice@telus.net
|
People's
Voice finds many "Global Class Struggle" reports at the "Labour Start"
website, http://www.labourstart.org. We urge our readers to
check it out!
|
*
* * * *
People's Voice
Canadian
Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement #205214
ISSN number
1198-8657
People's Voice is
published by
New Labour Press
Ltd
PV Editorial Office
706 Clark Drive,
VANCOUVER, B.C.
V5L 3J1
Phone:604-255-2041
Fax:604-254-9803
email: pvoice@telus.net
Editor:
Kimball Cariou
Editorial
Board: Kimball
Cariou, Miguel Figueroa,
Doug
Meggison, Naomi Rankin, Liz Rowley, Jim Sacouman
* * *
* * *
Letters
People's
Voice welcomes your letters
on
any subject covered in our pages.
We
reserve the right to edit for length and clarity,
and
to refuse to print letters which may be libellous
or
which contain unnecessary personal attacks.
Send
your views to:
"Letters
to the Editor",
796
Clark Dr., Vancouver, BC V5L 3J1,
or pvoice@telus.net
People's
Voice articles may be reprinted without permission,
provided
the source is
credited.
* * * * * *
The
Communist Party of
Canada, formed in 1921,
has a proud history of fighting for jobs, equality, peace,
Canadian independence, and socialism.
The CPC does much more than run candidates in elections.
We think the fight against big business and its parties
is a year-round job,
so our members are active across the country,
to build our party and to help strengthen people's movements
on a wide range of issues.
All
our policies and
leadership
are set democratically by our members.
To find out more about Canada's party of Socialism,
give us a call at the nearest CPC office.
*
*
* * * *
Central Committee CPC
290A Danforth Ave Toronto, Ont. M4K 1N6
Ph: (416) 469-2446
fax: (416) 469-4063 E-mail
info@cpc-pcc.ca
Parti
Communiste du
Québec
3891, avenue Barclay, app. 5
Montréal (Québec
H3S 1K9
E-mail: pueblo@sympatico.ca
B.C.Committee CPC
706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, V5L 3J1
Tel: (604) 254-9836
Fax: (604) 254-9803
Edmonton
CPC
Box 68112, 70 Bonnie Doon P.O.
Edmonton, AB, T6C 4N6
Tel: (780) 465-7893
Fax: (780)463-0209
Calgary
CPC
Unit #1 - 19 Radcliffe Close SE
Calgary AB, T2A 6B2
Tel: (403) 248-6489
Saskatchewan
CPC
mail@communist-party-sk.ca
Ottawa
CPC
Tel: (613) 232-7108
Manitoba
Committee
387 Selkirk Ave., Winnipeg, R2W 2M3
Tel/fax: (204) 586-7824
Ontario
Ctee. CPC
290A Danforth Ave., Toronto, M4K 1N6
Tel: (416) 469-2446
Hamilton
Ctee. CPC
265 Melvin Ave., Apt. 815
Hamilton, ON.
Tel: (905) 548-9586
Atlantic
Region CPC
Box 70 Grand Pré, NS, B0P 1M0
Tel/fax: (902) 542-7981
http://www.communist-party.ca/
* *
* * * *
News
for People, Not for Profits!
Every
issue of People's Voice
gives
you the latest
on the
fightback from coast to coast.
Whether
it's the struggle for jobs or peace, resistance to social
cuts,
solidarity
with Cuba, or workers' struggles around the world,
we've
got the news the corporate media won't print.
And
we do more than that
- we report and analyze events
from a revolutionary perspective,
helping to build the movements for justice and equality,
and eventually for a socialist Canada.
Read
the paper that fights
for working people
- on
every page, in every issue!
People's
Voice
$25
for 1 year
$45
for 2 years
Low-income
special rate: $12 for 1-year
Outside
Canada $25 US or $35 Cdn for 1
year
Send
to: People's Voice, 133 Herkimer St..,
Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3
REDS
ON THE WEB
http://www.communist-party.ca
http://www.ycl-ljc.ca
http://www.solidnet.org
(Contents)
(Home)
1) FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT MUST BLOCK STELCO LAYOFFS
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
PV Ontario Bureau
US Steel announced on March 3 that it
will close its newly acquired steel mills at the Hilton Works in
Hamilton, and the Lake Erie Works in Nanticoke, laying off 1500
workers. This is a breach of its contract with Investment Canada,
signed less than 18 months ago, in which it guaranteed pensions, jobs
and new investment in exchange for the right to buy out the last
Canadian-owned steel company.
Steelworkers
Local 1005
President Rolf Gerstenberger sharply criticized the federal government
for allowing the takeover. He says the government has stood by while
first Stelco, and now US Steel, have plundered the Canadian operations,
leaving steelworkers, their families and community the victims of a
massive corporate shakedown.
"They did it
because they
could", Gerstenberger said, adding the labour movement needs more power
to stop them. "If they know we're going to fight for it - that's our
guarantee, that's what can stop them".
The union is
planning a mass
meeting in Hamilton on March 21, to consult with members and determine
a course of action which may include sending a delegation to Ottawa. In
the meantime, the union is mobilizing community support through public
displays like mass protests on Hamilton streets.
Ontario NDP
leader Andrea
Horwath, who is from Hamilton, is campaigning for a Buy Canadian policy
which she says will create a market for Canadian-made steel and send
Hamilton steelworkers back to work.
Ontario
Communist Party leader
Liz Rowley said the federal and provincial government must stop the
closure and hold the company to its agreement with Investment Canada.
"This is
about Canadian jobs,
Canadian sovereignty and the future of manufacturing and secondary
industry which requires basic steel and a basic steel industry in
Canada," said Rowley. "Either the federal and provincial government
force US Steel to live up to the agreement they signed and keep
production in Canada, or better yet they take over the operations and
run it as a Crown corporation under public, democratic control."
US Steel is
consolidating its
operations in Gary, Pittsburgh, and Birmingham, closing other US plants
as well as its Canadian operations.
The Hamilton
and Lake Erie
operations produce steel used in construction, the auto and appliance
industries, and the capital goods sector.
Citing
"market conditions" for
the indefinite closure, to last until the recession is over, and the
breach of the agreement with Investment Canada, US Steel is heading
into scheduled contract negotiations with USWA Local 8782 at Nanticoke
in a few weeks, and is urging Local 1005 at the Hilton Works to join
in. Local 1005's contract runs until 2010, and they have declined the
invitation, while Local 8782 has sought help from USWA International
President Leo Gerard in Pittsburgh.
Clearly, the
company's intent is
to wrest concessions from the union as a condition for re‑opening its
Canadian operations, using the indefinite closure as the battering ram.
Wages, which are about $8 an hour higher in Canada than in the US, and
the defined benefits pension plan, are in the company's sights.
US Steel has
already declared
defined benefit pensions "too costly," with a $60 million liability
annually for 8,000 pensioners in Hamilton. There are only 300
pensioners at Nanticoke, which is less than 30 years old, and is the
most productive steel works in North America. Located in a rural area,
many of the workers in Lake Erie started their working lives at Stelco.
US Steel knows this, and hopes the threat of a permanent closure will
scare these workers and break their resolve to refuse concessions.
The hard nut
for the company
will be the Hilton Works, which has a workforce with a history of
struggle going back almost 100 years, including the 1946 strike, which
along with the Ford strike in 1945 brought the closed shop to Canada.
Printer-
friendly article
2) WILL WE LET CANADIAN STEEL BECOME A
MEMORY?
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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 Sam Hammond, Chair of the Central
Trade Union Commission, Communist Party of Canada
For one hundred years the only people
who could ever close Stelco were the workers. Now carrying the new (and
still odious) name U.S. Steel, this giant steelmaking works will grind
to a halt by April when the coke ovens cool and cease to produce. This
is not because of a labour dispute. Hamilton and Nanticoke are to be
closed by a capitalist system trying hard not to implode and fall on
its own sword.
The city of
Hamilton, home of
this mill, is one of the birthing sites of Canadian industrial trade
unionism. The wordsmiths of capital and the sirens of despair will be
working overtime with finger pointing and behind the hand tales of
"working class greed", too fat pensions and too rigid unions. The
"community leaders" and the entrepreneurial vultures who slaver after
the ruins of manufacturing will talk of retraining and diversification.
Balderdash.
For the last
thirty years, the
plans for the destruction of Canadian manufacturing, the transfer of
everything of value to foreign ownership and the corresponding loss of
sovereignty have become daily news. Cautiously at first, with all the
guile of a false suitor, Tories and Liberals lied us into free trade.
The bourgeoisie sold us by the pound, not for wealth, but for the
promise of wealth. For the opportunity to become junior partners in the
plunder of the world, they opened us up to "deep integration", NAFTA,
TILMA, Atlantica and other fancy names for treason. There are other
workers suffering as well. Beyond our borders the victims are stacking
up in the millions, victims of the same capitalist class, of
imperialism and its built-in cycles of suffering and impoverishment.
In a country
where trees grow,
where the rivers run, where the earth offers up everything needed to
sustain and develop life, where one of the world's most capable working
classes lives, where science and technology is world class: why must we
be poor? Why must our factories close because of decisions made in a
foreign country? Why must Canadian cities and their people wither and
die because we lack the authority in our own land to take back our
resources, to use our factories to manufacture vehicles, appliances,
trains and the material for schools, housing, and hospitals?
The experts
will spew out
predictions full time, and the right-wing think tanks of capital will
overheat with feverish activity. Don't be fooled. They were the paid
musicians of courtship that wooed us into this dilemma, and they only
know one song.
What we need
is a whole new
symphony, one that leads to a better future. We need to take these
industries and resources, in fair and mutual agreement with Aboriginal
peoples, and put them to work under public ownership and control, for
the restructuring of our manufacturing and infrastructure, for the good
of our people. We can produce anything for our domestic market, and
anything the rest of the world needs, forging fair trade agreements
with others. This is the only way we can provide a future for our youth
and support the same efforts in other countries for a more equitable
world.
This is the
only sustainable way
to rebuild our manufacturing, our transportation, our extraction
industries. Otherwise, even if they're rebuilt, it will not be for us
and we will not benefit. We must own and control, and this means public
ownership and control.
Does this
sound like socialism? Well, take your choice.
Printer-
friendly article
3)
TORY BLITZKRIEG AGAINST AUTO WORKERS
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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 Sam Hammond
The Harper government has launched a
new attack on the Canadian working class, aimed directly at the CAW.
After a deadhead budget proposal that brought the country to a
political crisis, a narrow escape hiding under the skirts of the
Governor-General, a "just enough to appease the Liberals" limp into the
parliamentary new year with a do‑nothing program, the Harperites have
finally made a decisive move. That move is an insult to every working
class person in this country.
In a crisis
where the
perpetrators have been generously rewarded for their crimes, where not
one banker or corporate CEO has been asked to return a single penny
from billions in bonuses and stock options they gave themselves, where
not one politician has been asked to curtail expenses, where the
government has given itself a generous $3 Billion slush fund that
doesn't have to be accounted for, they dare to demand that autoworkers
and retirees return pension benefits, give back monetary items, freeze
wages and cut health benefits.
This attack
will shrink the
consumer spending of 10,000 auto workers, diminish the domestic market
and spin‑off into decreased health benefits for 10,000 families and
probably more pensioners. This is surely not a demand for the present,
because it will escalate everything that brought us into this crisis.
No! This is a demand for the near and distant future, for the neo‑con
dream of a fettered and compliant working class, either bereft of
unions or possessing unions that have been forced into the role of
junior partners in the drive to maintain and nurture the status quo.
The opening
shot is against the
proud CAW at General Motors. Ford hasn't asked for a bailout, but for
sure they will want contract parity with GM. What will the CAW do?
Chrysler waits in the wings with an empty pail extended, another set of
concessions?
This all
takes place without a
defined benefit from government. The demand is made and the concessions
offered before any evidence of reward, before any knowledge of an
outcome. This is not bargaining, it is something else, and the
implications for Canadian Labour are enormous in scope and deadly in
content.
Remember
that in the midst of
this debacle, under the cover of saving an industry and jobs, GM is
investing tens of millions of dollars in Brazil to build state of the
art production facilities. Ford already has the most technologically
advanced assembly plant in the world operating in Brazil.
If the CAW
agrees to take
concessions to produce cheaper than US workers, what will it do to
produce cheaper than Brazilian workers when the dial moves? This is not
solidarity; it is competition, the enemy of workers that seeks to put
us into antagonistic relations in a race to the bottom for the
sustenance of corporate greed. The antithesis of competition is
solidarity and unity, the historical foundation of trade unionism.
On March 10
and 11, as this
newspaper goes to press, 10,000 auto workers will vote on the
concessions. Those most vulnerable, the pensioners, will get no vote.
Those who deferred their wages into pensions and benefits through tough
bargaining and strikes will get no vote. Those who built the CAW will
get no vote. But even if these 10,000 active workers turn down the
concessions, (unlikely in the absence of a back‑up plan), the problem
remains. What is to be done to restore the Canadian manufacturing
base?
If it wants
to survive as an
independent force representing the class interests of working people,
the labour movement needs to come up with a program of reconstruction
that all people can fight for. Then battered autoworkers can really
have a choice, can reject concessions for the "labour alternative."
That alternative must include the nationalization of resources to be
used for the building of a repossessed, publicly-owned manufacturing
base. The first step in building that Labour Alternative could be
rejection of concessions and a definite "no" to the Harperite agenda.
Printer-
friendly article
4) WORKING PEOPLE DIDN'T
CAUSE THE CRISIS
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada
Maybe you work in the Alberta oil
patch, or an auto plant in southern Ontario, or a call centre in New
Brunswick. You could be a forestry worker, a bank teller, or a
university teaching assistant. Wherever you live, your future is on the
line as the global economic crisis sweeps across Canada, and layoffs
and shutdowns spread like a wildfire. You could already be one of the
1.3 million Canadians "officially" unemployed, or one of the millions
who survive on part‑time, temporary, low wage jobs. Perhaps you are
among the two‑thirds of jobless workers who aren't eligible to collect
benefits from the EI fund built up from your pay deductions.
And the
crisis is just
beginning. At least 50 million workers will lose their jobs across the
world this year. Production has dropped by up to fifty percent in some
countries, and food shortages are spreading. A real global economic
recovery could be years away. Who created this mess? Who should pay for
the crisis? What policies can help working people instead of the rich?
So who's responsible?
It would be
easy to pin the
blame for the economic meltdown on a few greedy individuals. It's true
that a handful of global billionaires and gigantic transnational
corporations have artificially inflated and manipulated the values of
real estate, high tech, stocks, commodities, even national currencies.
"Bubble capitalism" has reaped enormous fortunes for the ultra‑rich,
while billions of working people and the poor ended up deeper in debt.
The
neoliberal policies of
right‑wing governments made matters worse, through privatization,
deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, and social program cuts. They
claimed these neoliberal policies would increase everyone's wealth.
Instead, the gap between the rich and working people has widened to
staggering proportions, and labour and democratic rights are under
increasing attack.
Capitalism
always heads towards
crises. Individual capitalists and corporations, competing for higher
profits, seek to maximize their return on investment by cutting labour
costs; this process always cuts spending power, leaving working people
without the necessary income to purchase the goods and service we
produce. Throughout history, this cycle results in frequent economic
crashes, followed by recoveries. Every time, workers pay the price,
while the bosses end up getting richer.
Are we really in the same boat?
We are told
that "everyone's in
the same boat" during this economic depression. Maybe if it's the
Titanic - the wealthy have plenty of lifeboats while most of us are
locked below decks. In Canada, as in most countries, the first response
by pro‑capitalist governments was to "bail out" corporations facing
financial ruin - the same corporations which reaped record profits for
years, at the expense of taxpayers and workers. While millions of
working people lose their jobs, homes, and pensions, fat cat CEOs still
get huge bonuses and bloated salaries. The Tory budget introduced in
late January hands billions of dollars to corporate shareholders, while
most working people laid off by these companies can't even collect EI.
Same boat, all right!
What should be done?
Instead of
making workers pay
for the crisis through wage cuts and unemployment, those who have
enjoyed billions in profits must pay. We need to unite and fight for an
emergency program to protect jobs and incomes for working people, and
put Canada back to work. Such an anti‑crisis plan should include
measures to:
* expand EI to cover all workers for
the full duration of unemployment, with benefits at 90% of former
earnings;
* protect and expand manufacturing
industries on the basis of a comprehensive industrial policy, and
introduce plant closure legislation;
* place a moratorium on evictions and
mortgage foreclosures and utility cut‑offs due to unemployment;
* increase the minimum wage to
$15/hr. and take other steps to raise incomes and stimulate domestic
consumption;
* take emergency action to improve
the social and economic conditions of Aboriginal peoples;
* invest in a massive public
construction program to build affordable social housing, rebuild
Canada's infrastructure, and protect the environment;
* shift the tax burden from working
people onto the corporations and the wealthy;
* protect universal public
healthcare, education and other social programs, including a publicly
administered system of quality, affordable childcare with Canada‑wide
standards; and
* immediately withdraw from the
disastrous war of occupation in Afghanistan and cut military spending
by 50%.
These
immediate anti‑crisis measures should be strengthened by more
transformative steps, including:
* nationalize the big banks,
insurance and other financial institutions and place them under public,
democratic control;
* nationalize the energy industry to
guarantee domestic supply and to provide the material basis to rebuild
Canadian industry and create hundreds of thousands of jobs, especially
in renewable energy and mass transit;
* place the "Big Three" automakers
under public ownership and democratic control, and build a reliable,
fuel‑efficient Canadian car;
* immediately withdraw from NAFTA,
and adopt a diversified, multilateral trade policy based on mutual
benefit; and
* introduce a liveable, guaranteed
annual income (GAI), and a shorter work week with no loss in take‑home
pay.
Such a plan
would move our
country in a fundamentally new direction, by placing the needs of
working people and our environment before corporate greed, establishing
a foreign policy based on peace and disarmament, and reversing the
erosion of our sovereignty.
How can we achieve these goals?
We can't
move in this direction
by meekly accepting pay cuts and job losses - that's the lesson from
the last "great depression". We need a massive campaign to block the
Tory‑corporate attack and to demand pro‑people alternatives. Instead of
summit meetings with corporate leaders, we need people's summits,
bringing together the organized labour movement, Aboriginal peoples,
youth and students, women, farmers, seniors and all democratic forces
engaged in the struggle for peace, the environment, and equity rights,
to unite and fight back at this crucial moment.
We need to
build a real People's
Coalition, in the streets and communities and at the electoral level,
to curb the power of the corporations and resolve the crisis in the
interests of working people.
The
Communist Party of Canada,
the party that led the crucial working class struggles during the
"Dirty 30s", pledges to do everything in our power to help build such
struggles. We urge you to take up these issues in your unions, your
workplaces and schools, your communities. If you agree with our
proposals, contact us today. Join and build the party that combines
today's urgent fightback with the vision of a socialist future, one in
which unemployment, hunger, exploitation, oppression, war and
environmental degradation will be ended forever!
These figures don't lie!
* The richest 10% of Canadian
families with children earn over 80 times more than the poorest 10% of
families, who earn less than $10,000 per year on average.
* Canadian households used to save
about 20% of their after‑tax income. Today, the savings rate averages
zero, and personal debt is at an all‑time high.
* About 2.2 million Canadian workers
(16% of the total, including 19% of women workers and 12% of men) had
jobs in 2005 that paid less than $10 an hour. Thirteen per cent of all
jobs in Canada pay less than $8 an hour.
* Corporate profits as a percent of
GDP rose from less than 5% in 1992 to historic highs of over 14% by
2005, and remain at this record level.
* Total annual operating profits of
corporations in Canada rose from $40 billion in 1992, hitting the $100
billion mark by 1997, $150 billion by 2003, and up to $216 billion in
2008.
* Corporate taxes as a percentage of
total profits have fallen from the 35‑40% range during the late 1980s,
down to less than 25% in recent years.
* After adjustments for inflation,
wages for full‑time Canadian workers were virtually stagnant from 1992
to 2005, at about $730 per week.
* Workers' share in the overall
"economic pie" has declined sharply, from 68% in 1992 to 61% by 2005.
Meanwhile, the share going to profits rose from 22% up to 33%.
(Data from
Statistics Canada and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)
Printer-
friendly article
5) BC HAS HIGHEST CHILD
POVERTY IN CANADA
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
"Gordon Campbell... promised the
Deputy of Children and Family Development, and the Deputy Minister of
Human Resources if they succeeded in cutting their budgets they would
personally, Chris Haynes and Robin Siceri, receive a bonus of
$15,401..." Source: Monday Magazine, January 23, 2003
The
following commentary, "The
poor will not always be with us," is from the BC Association of Social
Workers, March 2, 2009:
Despite the
biblical injunction
that the poor will always be with us, there is nothing inevitable about
poverty. It is a social choice. For years the official response to
poverty has been that a strong economy will cure it. But we have had
years of strong economic growth and record unemployment and yet poverty
is not going away. It is increasing.
British
Columbia has the highest
average wealth in Canada. It also has the highest rate of poverty, 13%
of our population. The average poor person in BC is earning $7,700
below the minimum needed for food, clothing and shelter. Many of these
poor are not on welfare; they are working full time at minimum wage
jobs that cannot support them. 546,000 British Columbians live below
the poverty line and a quarter of them are children. While child
poverty across Canada has decreased in recent years, it has been
increasing in BC and now stands at 21.9%. Gandhi called child poverty
the worst form of violence and given that, we are doing an immense
amount of violence to our children. British Columbia has had the
highest rate of child poverty in the country for five years running and
the government has no plans for reducing this number.
This is not
because it can't be
done. Five other provinces either have plans in place, and are
achieving some success, or are considering their own plans. We need our
own plan in this province, a plan that is detailed and on which the
government can be held to account. British Columbians want such a plan.
Over 90% believe that we too can reduce poverty in our province and 87%
would like to see both the federal and provincial government set
targets and timelines to do it.
Helping the
poor is not charity;
it is a sound social investment, the cost of which is not outside our
reach. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives estimates the price
tag of bringing all of BC's poor up to the poverty line at $2.4 billion
a year, less than our provincial government's budget surplus in every
year since 2004. But this is not necessarily a public expense. Much of
it could be covered by employers paying a living wage. While we will be
going into deficit for the next few years, the numbers show that a
provincial poverty‑reduction plan is still within the realm of
affordable possibility. This is especially so because these social
expenditures will reduce costs in others. We are already paying higher
health costs because of poverty. Over 78,000 British Columbians used
food banks on a monthly basis last year. More than a third were
children. The cognitive development of children suffers when they are
hungry and creates school failure and early dropout. Lack of legitimate
opportunity leads to increased crime and the social costs associated
with that. Through it all, the unremitting stress of poverty continues
to extract the price of fractured families. We all pay those social
costs.
Housing
shortages add to the
problem. There are over 13,000 British Columbians on the waiting list
for public housing. A Simon Fraser University study revealed that
11,750 people with severe addictions and/or mental illnesses were
"absolutely homeless" and that this group cost the government $644
million in health, social and correctional services each year. It would
have been cheaper to house them. A study by the Ontario Association of
Food Banks made a similar connection. It found that the cost of poverty
to the government was between 10 and 13 billion dollars and the cost to
Ontario as a whole was up to $38 billion. Poverty is too expensive to
keep around. We need to get rid of it.
By
supporting a comprehensive
poverty reduction program we can help people get off welfare faster,
earn enough to stay above the poverty line if they are working full
time and not encounter all the health, social and criminal justice
system costs we are paying for now because we are not paying attention
to their root cause; poverty. But the plan has to be comprehensive and
coordinated. Here are some of the basics:
1. Let the working poor support their
families by giving them a living wage. Increase the minimum wage to
$10.60 an hour, higher in the high‑cost cities, and index it. Also
increase the number of Employment Standards officers to make sure
employees are fairly treated.
2. Ensure that the poorest British
Columbians are living at the poverty line and not way below it by
increasing income assistance rates by 50%.
3. Start building at least 2,000 new
units of social housing.
4. Support parents' ability to work
by building a comprehensive system of quality, publicly‑funded child
care.
5. Increase the number of grants to
allow low‑income students to finish post secondary training. Let people
on income assistance go to school without losing benefits.
Most of all,
government should
set themselves targets and a timetable to achieve them. It is estimated
that we could reduce poverty by 75% over the next decade. If we gave
reducing poverty the same attention we are giving to raising the
Olympic banner, we could do it, and the legacy would be far more
lasting. There has been much talk of working our way out of recession
by rebuilding our public infrastructure. Why not start with our human
infrastructure?
Printer-
friendly article
6) CHANGING LEADERS IN ONTARIO
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
People's Voice Editorial
Elected on March 7, Andrea Horwath is
the first woman to lead the NDP in Ontario, and the only candidate with
the backing of the OFL, Steel, and CUPE. The youngest of four
candidates, Horwath was a community organizer and city councillor
before becoming the MPP from Hamilton Centre in 2004.
A big step
forward? Maybe. It's
hard to find specifics about her program, other than support for a
provincial system of quality public child care and investment in public
transit. Her rejection of corporate tax cuts seemed like a no‑brainer,
but some other candidates advocated them. Like two other candidates,
she opposed Mike Prue's sensible proposal to rethink NDP support for
Catholic school funding in favour of a single public school system.
In the
Legislature, Horwath soon
went after the Premier about the bloodletting in the manufacturing
sector. A good start, but the self‑described "leader with urban
sensitivity and working class grit" will need some hard‑edged policy to
curb the power of the corporations, and a strategy for uniting in
action outside the Legislature with all those opposed to the corporate
agendas of the Liberals and Tories.
She'll have
her chance, as the
Ontario Tories replace the hapless John Tory, finally defeated in a
by‑election after losing the 2007 campaign on a platform of full
funding for private and religious schools. Good riddance to the
hysterically anti‑labour Tory with his anti‑people agenda, who was not
reactionary (or successful) enough for the extreme right core of his
party. The signs point to a convention dominated by "common sense
revolutionaries" of the Mike Harris strain. Frontrunners include
Christine Elliot (wife of Jim Flaherty), Randy Hillier, leader of the
Ontario Landowners' Association (dedicated to "the protection of
private landowners and property rights"), and Tim Hudak (a Harris
cabinet minister and husband of Deb Hutton, top organizer, ideologue,
and member of the Harris "Kitchen Cabinet").
Hard times
are here, and more is
coming. Unity, unity and more unity is the only thing than can beat
back the right, and win. We hope Sister Horwath sees it, and fights for
it too.
Printer-
friendly article
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
People's Voice Editorial
The nauseating performances by RCMP
officers at the Braidwood inquiry into the October 2007 tasering death
of Robert Dziekanski underline the importance of winning genuine public
control over this rogue force. At times during recent testimony,
observers were torn between tears and laughter at the absurd
fabrications presented on the witness stand. If one was to take the
words of the four Mounties who killed Mr. Dziekanski at face value, the
police in Canada would have carte blanche to use any amount of force to
attack any civilian at any time, since there is always some way to
imagine a "potential deadly threat." In reality, of course, many more
people are killed and wounded by cops than vice-versa, with members of
racialized communities the most frequent targets of police violence.
As the
February 2010 Winter
Olympics in Vancouver draws nearer, the implications of uncontrolled
security services are truly frightening. Over 11,000 troops and police
will be at the Olympics, trained to use force to quell any perceived
threat to this corporate carnival. The labour movement and all
democratic forces should step up the demand to put these uniformed
thugs on a tight public leash before the Olympics hits town.
Printer-
friendly article
8) CAMPUS CLAMPDOWN A
DESPERATE TACTIC
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
Youth Fightback Column
Ronnie
Kasrils nailed it.
"I've been
quite taken aback by
what is happening here," the veteran South African Jewish Communist,
ANC member, fighter against apartheid, and former government minister
said. He was speaking at Toronto's Israeli Apartheid Week in early
March. "These university presidents, and your government, are locked in
a time warp. They don't get it. Being anti‑Israel, or anti‑Zionism does
not in any way equal anti‑Semitism.
"But this
fact is lost with the
presidents of various universities. It's lost on the Jason Kenneys.
They still hold on to that notion if you `cry wolf,' and say this is
anti‑Israel and therefore anti‑Semitic, that this will still carry any
weight. And what I say in dialogue with Zionists, is that around the
world this claim is really something that is now over. It is finished.
Finito."
Kasrils
could have been
referring to his month‑long wait to get a Canadian visa, which cost an
extraordinary $1,600 South African Rand despite a letter of invitation
from CUPE (Ontario). But he was actually talking about the fact that
everywhere he spoke at Israeli Apartheid Week events - Toronto,
Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, etc. - organizers experienced a clamp‑down.
In an open
letter to these
institutions, Toronto's Educators for Peace and Justice outlines
numerous attempts to silence debate. They are glaring:
- Statements from 19 university
presidents in the summer of 2007 to foreclose debate on the academic
boycott of Israel, citing "academic freedom."
- Visits to Israel by eight
university presidents in the summer of 2008, with no equivalent
outreach to Palestinian institutions.
- Efforts to ban the use of the term
"Israeli Apartheid" at McMaster University in February‑March 2008,
overturned only through a campaign of protest.
- Discipline against students
involved in peaceful protests for Palestinian rights at York University
in March in 2008.
- Attempted discipline against a
faculty member who addressed a rally against Israeli Apartheid at York
University in 2008.
- A pattern of cancelled room
bookings for meetings concerning Palestinian rights at the University
of Toronto and York University in 2008.
- The use of fees to cover security
costs to impede campus meetings about Palestinian rights.
- The imposition in February 2009 of
an exorbitant fine of $1000 on Students Against Israeli Apartheid, plus
an additional fine of $250 against the group's spokesperson, by the
York administration.
- The censoring by Carleton
University administration of an Israeli Apartheid Week poster on the
basis that it could incite others to violate the Ontario Human Rights
Code.
- The disciplining of a professor at
the University of Ottawa who has been outspoken in support of
Palestinian Human Rights.
The gross
inequality experienced
daily by Palestinians has appalled the world, but not our government,
or the administrators of many Canadian universities. (YouTube "Canadian
University Complicity in Apartheid.")
Of all
places this is happening
on campuses, where freedom of inquiry must be a cardinal principle of
democratic, quality education. What do such paternalistic and hostile
attitudes towards students contribute? The rights of youth and students
should unquestionably include organizing free from administration and
outside restrictions and interference.
This new
heavy‑handed approach
is desperate. Last year, Hillel tried to ban a pamphlet in the U of T
library published by a Communist Party containing this quote: "The most
typical example of the unity of racism and chauvinism is Zionism -
weapon of world reaction, shock force of anti‑communism, enemy of the
national liberation movement of the Arab people, and foe of working
Jews all over the world."
No wonder
the Palestinian
solidarity struggle is an issue of great prominence in the Canadian
youth and student movement. The young people who spend hours
organizing, making banners, and fighting censorship are loud, noisy and
insistent, because they have justice on their side.
They can
lack restraint, but
never energy. They tend to march with seven league boots and take no
prisoners. Some find this spirit a little offsetting. Get used to it.
Five years
ago Israel Apartheid
Week kicked‑off its first event in Toronto. Now it happens in over
forty cities internationally. As Kasrils said, "This movement is
building a wonderful pillar of resistance. What we're doing here is
vital. And we must never stop until Palestine is free."
Printer-
friendly article
9) GOOD CAPITALIST, BAD
CAPITALIST?
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
has denounced the unfettered capitalism of the past three decades and
called for a new era of "social capitalism". In an essay in The Monthly
magazine, Rudd outlined plans to "fix capitalism". "Ironically it now
falls to social democracy to prevent liberal capitalism from
cannibalising itself," he wrote.
The "Culture
and Life" column of
The Guardian, published by the
Communist Party of Australia, printed
the following commentary on this development.
Prime
Minister Rudd's discovery
of the ugly face of capitalism should have been a reason to celebrate:
a national leader acknowledging the inherent rottenness of the private
property/private profit system. But, of course, Rudd was doing no such
thing.
His
criticisms were not aimed at
the system itself, only at the "bad apples" that threatened to spoil
the remainder of the barrel. Far from attacking capitalism itself, his
remarks were designed to show explicitly that not all capitalists were
uncaring, greedy, profiteers.
By sticking
the boot (however
gently) into the profiteers, Rudd was really promoting the social
democrat notion that capitalism has a gentler, more humane side. To
believe that a system based on exploiting workers can in any way be
seen as humane is to engage in self‑delusion, but it is a belief that
the ruling class very much wants working people to accept.
The ruling
class would not last
long if they acknowledged that the majority of the population - the
workers, small farmers, owners of small businesses, pensioners and
self‑funded retirees - were all exploited, now would they?
Instead, the
ruling class spends
a lot of time and energy convincing the mass of the people that they,
and the capitalist owners of finance and industry, are "all in this
together" and have a common stake in keeping the economy buoyant.
Canny
employers give trifling
quantities of shares in their companies to their employees; employers
draw on workers' super funds as a source of investment capital; in all
sorts of ways, subtle and unsubtle, workers are encouraged to think of
themselves, not as members of the working class, but as members of the
middle class which is perceived as somehow socially superior.
The
fluctuations of the stock
market, that really reflect the activities of so‑called investors
gambling on the rise and fall of share prices rather than reflecting
actual production and industrial performance, are reported on the news
every night as though every viewer were an investor. But they are never
reported in terms of what the figures mean for the workers in a
particular industry, despite the fact that the action of employers
reacting to the rise or fall of share prices can have a catastrophic
effect on workers.
Of course,
however much they
dress it up, workers are not part of the ruling class; they are not "in
business", they do not scoop the cream off the top before paying a part
of what is left to their lowly employees.
When
imperialism finally
overthrew socialism in the Soviet Union in 1991, capitalist pundits
nodded sagely and proclaimed that it proved that capitalism was the
ultimate form of social development and there could be no further
development: it was, they said, "the end of history".
Such
unscientific nonsense was
soon dispelled: the overthrow of socialism failed to spread from
Eastern Europe to Asia, Africa or Latin America. Even in the former
Soviet Union itself, three Republics soon returned to the Soviet form
of government and society.
Communist
parties and the goal
of Communism continued to gain ground, until today forty percent of the
world's people live in countries where the Communists either are the
government or take part in the government. (Remember that next time
someone tells you the Communists are "dead".)
This
continuing shift in the
world towards the Left is crucial to understanding Rudd's criticism of
what he would like us to believe are the "excesses" of extremist or
rogue capitalists. The bourgeoisie can no longer ignore or deny the
growing mass support globally for progressive leaders, policies and
programs.
Through
propaganda, distortion
and lying, the bourgeoisie will try to represent those progressive
policies as part of its own agenda. But even when the people are taken
in by such ruses, they eventually will see through them and, with the
help of the Communists, discover the correct path once again.
The greed,
waste and, let's face
it, inefficiency of capitalism prevents it from ever satisfying
humanity's needs and aspirations. Only socialism is capable of doing
that.
As more and
more people come to
understand that basic fact, capitalism is steadily losing its grip on
the world. The global financial crisis has added impetus to people's
questioning of the prevailing social system.
Capitalism's
only solution to
the crisis, giving great wads of public money to the major capitalist
institutions, does not sit at all well with the people, whose pensions,
jobs and mortgages are being threatened, or have even been destroyed,
by the greed of those same institutions.
Rudd's role
is to convince
people that the crisis is the work of "bad" capitalists and that there
are "good" capitalists around who can be trusted with our money.
Meanwhile, capitalism's strategy in this crisis is to maintain its
profitability, by laying off workers or closing plants and by getting
the State to use public money to prop up capitalist corporations.
As the State
uses public money,
the working people's money, to pull these ailing corporations out of
the hole they've dug themselves into, the rescued capitalists expect to
resume where they left off. They have no intention of using their
profits to repay the public money they were given: that was to "help
the economy to get back on its feet".
The people
will be expected to
be grateful to the big banks and other corporations for their
"dedication" to reviving the economy. Surely it would by churlish of
the people to want their money, their jobs and their houses back too?
Or would it?
Somehow, I don't think so.
Printer-
friendly article
10) THE AFGHAN QUAGMIRE: IMPERIALISM STAYS
THE COURSE
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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 Kimball Cariou
After Canadian taxpayers have paid
more than $11 billion for our military mission, Stephen Harper has
publicly conceded that the NATO war in Afghanistan is "unwinnable." But
despite his admission, Harper is now waffling on recent commitments
that Canadian troops would be withdrawn by 2011. The PM seems to be
hedging his bets as the so-called "surge" of 30,000 more US troops
enters Afghanistan.
The death
toll for Canadian
soldiers in the occupation has now hit 111, after more road attacks
against military vehicles. Public opinion in Canada remains solidly
against extending the occupation, which will enter its second decade by
2011.
But the
decisive factor in this
war will be the Afghan people, who are deeply war-weary and sickened by
the deaths of thousands of civilians. Opposition to the "surge" tactic
is growing stronger inside Afghanistan, where support for a diplomatic
and political end to the fighting is growing.
Most of this
crucial story gets
little coverage in Canada's mass media, which remains utterly focused
on Canadian casualties and "feel good" reports on the noble endeavours
of "our brave troops."
An excellent
source of real news
about Afghanistan is found on the website of StopWar.ca, Vancouver's
broad-based anti-war coalition. A blog compiled by StopWar activist
Dave Markland presents daily news that rarely makes it into the
Canadian media. Here are some recent examples.
Al Jazeera
reported on Feb. 26
that "secret" Taliban talks, taking place in Dubai, London and
Afghanistan since the beginning of the year, have proposed the return
of Gulbaldin Hekmatyar, the former Afghan prime minister, who has been
in hiding for seven years. During the 1980s, Hekmatyar was a prominent
leader of the US-backed feudal forces fighting the progressive
government in Kabul, which had strong Soviet support. He is the leader
of the Hezb‑i‑Islami forces, which fight alongside the Taliban and are
now considered a terrorist organisation by the United States.
James Bays,
Al Jazeera's
correspondent in Kabul, said: "The plan is to widen these talks and to
bring in elements of the Taliban."
This is not
the first time that
such talks have been attempted. Last year, Ahmed Jan, an intermediary
for the Taliban and tribal elders from Helmand province, was sent to
Kabul for talks with the government. Al Jazeera reports that Jan was
arrested after US officials discovered talks were to take place, and is
now being held in US custody at Bagram military base.
What about
public opinion
regarding the "troop surge"? As Markland says "it seems that the
majority of people in Pashtun areas (i.e. the targets of our hearts and
minds campaign) oppose the surge."
A recent
article by Anand Gopal
in The Christian Science Monitor
quotes Afghan MP Shukria Barakzai, who
says she has an "innovative amendment" to Washington's planned surge:
"Send us 30,000 scholars instead. Or 30,000 engineers. But don't send
more troops - it will just bring more violence."
Gopal says
that a growing number of Afghans, especially in the Pashtun south,
oppose a troop increase.
"At least
half the country is
deeply suspicious of the new troops," says Kabul‑based political
analyst Waheed Muzjda. "The US will have to wage an intense
hearts‑and‑minds campaign to turn this situation around."
Much of the
opposition comes
from provinces which seen the most fighting and where the new troops
will be deployed. A group of 50 mostly Pashtun MPs recently formed a
working group aimed at blocking the arrival of new troops and pushing
for a bilateral military agreement between Kabul and Washington, which
currently does not exist.
"I can't
find a single man in
the entire province who is in favor of more troops," Awal Khan, a
tribal leader from Logar province, told the Monitor reporter. "They
don't respect our tradition, culture, or religion."
The Markland
blog gives regular
examples of civilian casualties, a major grievance among the Afghan
people. A recent NATO press release tells of one such tragedy: "On the
morning of 1 March an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
vehicle rolled over resulting in the death of an Afghan citizen. The
accident occurred in Jalalabad City, Nangarhar province at
approximately 10:30 am, when the ISAF vehicle swerved to prevent a
collision with a local vehicle that had pulled out in front of the
convoy. The Afghan male killed in the accident was riding a bicycle in
the vicinity..."
But far more
often, civilian casualties are the direct product of police and
military action.
Here is the
February death toll compiled by Markland:
* Feb. 5‑6: US‑led coalition forces
in Zabul kill 6 civilians in an attack which targeted insurgents, say
Afghan officials.
* Feb. 6: US‑led coalition forces
shoot and kill one man and wound a woman and child at a checkpoint in
Khost province.
* Feb. 11: A provincial spokesman
says NATO airstrikes kill four civilians in Logar province.
* Feb. 12: Five children are killed
as Australian special forces battle militants while searching a house
in Uruzgan province.
* Feb. 15: Unverified reports say
three civilians are injured (one fatally) when NATO troops and
insurgents clash in Sangin district, Helmand.
* Feb. 16: In Herat US forces kill
12‑16 civilians in air attacks. An American investigation claims that
13 civilians and three militants were killed.
* Feb. 17: Two civilians in a vehicle
are killed by NATO‑led troops on patrol in the Maywand district of
Kandahar.
* Feb. 22: A motorcyclist is shot and
injured by NATO troops in Sangin district of Helmand.
* Feb. 23: Villagers report that
Canadian weaponry killed three children in Panjwai district.
* Feb. 23: A number of civilians are
injured in a clash between NATO forces and insurgents in Sangin
district, Helmand. Reuters later reports that more than one of them
died.
Late last
year, the top Canadian
soldier in Afghanistan, Lt.‑Gen. Michel Gauthier, said "The insurgents
are on their back foot, have been, and that's in part why we went
almost three months without casualties. They did get a couple of ‑ I
would say lucky ‑ attacks on us..."
Since then,
about a dozen more
Canadian soldiers have died. But Gauthier is not the first
over-confident imperialist in Afghanistan. Here are a few more quotes:
"I'm not
making a prediction,
but I think temporarily they're on their back foot, and we need to keep
them there." ‑ Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Sept. 29,
2004.
"[The
Taliban] have been set on their back foot recently." ‑ Canadian General
Rick Hillier, Sept. 29, 2006.
"[Canadian
soldiers] believe
they need to keep the Taliban on their back foot until they can help
the Afghans build their own army". ‑ Rick Hillier, Dec. 26, 2007.
"[T]he
Taliban are on their back
foot with the recent arrival of aggressively on‑the‑offence U.S.
Marines". ‑ Rosie DiManno, Toronto Star, May 19, 2008.
"It's become
apparent that the Taliban are very much on the backfoot." - British
Brigadier Gordon Messenger, June 1, 2008.
History will
tell who is on the
"back foot". In the meantime, as the Canadian Peace Alliance and Echec
a la Guerre say in their call for April 4 protests against NATO,
after
more than seven years of occupation, there is still no end in sight to
the killing in Afghanistan, and the war is expanding into Pakistan,
threatening to create massive social and political instability.
Printer-
friendly article
11) LEE MYUN BAK'S FIRST YEAR
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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 Sean Burton, Busan, South Korea
I must admit that the global crisis
afflicting capitalism today took a while to register in South Korea. I
had heard of some concerns, like fellow foreigners worrying over the
diminished value of the currency, but also the fears of private school
owners that student enrolment would decline. Reading the
English‑language news told me that the South Korean government was
doing comparatively little in response to the crisis. President Lee
Myun Bak's statements seemed to mirror the confidence of Stephen Harper
back in October of 2008. Perhaps it just took a little longer for South
Korea's capitalists to feel the pinch.
Lee held his
first of a handful
of emergency economic meetings in January. It was such an emergency
that it apparently warranted holding the meeting in a brand new
underground bunker of Cheongwadae, the 250,000 square meter
presidential estate. Lee's big suggestion was setting up 50 trillion
won (about 33 billion USD) in loans for businesses. Yes, what a
surprise: business gets a break and, once the corporate adjustments
begin, workers go broke (or must deal with stiffer working conditions).
It was claimed that the meeting was held in such a fortified location
because it was wired to concentrate economic data, and surely not due
to the violence that has become commonplace between South Korean
politicians. Whatever the case, the venue is a strong symbol of the
divide between the South's rulers and its people.
It is now
the first anniversary
of the Lee administration. Lee's pro‑corporate policies have earned him
great praise from the business community. They say that he has dealt
with the crisis effectively, and taken principled stances on other
issues, including the mass protests against his government last summer.
The media also claims that Lee has restored "a sense of identity and
order in Korean society after 10 years of leftwing rule", as an
editorial in the English edition of Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.
That rather
glowing assessment
of Lee's first year in office is at odds with other statistics
mentioned in the very same editorial. A recent poll suggests that 75%
of South Koreans did not think Lee had achieved anything. Only 28%
agreed with the assessment quoted above, and even fewer people think he
is handling the economy well. The fact that several protesters were
killed during a clash with anti‑terror police units several weeks ago
has only infuriated the people further.
As reported
in previous months,
disgust for Lee is widespread in South Korea. This is a country where
workers' rights face an uphill battle, where real history is suppressed
as "too left wing", and where significant numbers of school children
can't afford a lunch. The suicide rate is one of the highest in the
world, and most families live in cramped conditions due to high living
costs. Even civic groups that are not in line with the new government
agenda are having funding scrapped. Those are not random facts: they
are related to the very system of capitalism in South Korea itself.
Many Koreans are at least partially aware of this. The country's
history of working class militancy is proof enough.
South
Korea's rulers, as well as
the country's social democrats, like to distract the people from
fighting the established order by pointing to North Korea. They could
always say, "North Korea tried to create a worker's state, look at how
horrible and tyrannical it is".
That is
simple anti‑communism.
One should, I think, follow Michael Parenti's suggestion to consider
having "a receptive but not uncritical mind" vis a vis the "much
maligned reds and other revolutionaries". Whatever one may think of
North Korea and its current policies and problems, it was founded with
strong support from many Koreans, it served the interests of the Korean
working class, and it made great achievements in numerous fields, and
even outperformed the South economically for years.
That should
be contrasted with
the brutal occupation of the South and the suppression of political
freedom in the immediate post‑war years by the US military and its
allies in the Syngman Rhee clique and subsequent post‑war governments.
That kind of history, according to a retired South Korean historian, is
"polluting the minds of the children". Wouldn't it just be awful if
those children grew up thinking it might be worthwhile to give
socialism a shot in the South as well?
Lee Myun Bak
and his Grand
National Party's propaganda machine are trying to tell everyone that
everything is going to be fine, though maybe after a short bumpy ride.
It's the same nonsense spewed forth from other major capitalist
countries, including Canada. They will never admit that such crises are
an intrinsic part of the capitalist system, and they will continue to
suppress opposition to that system. The for‑profit solutions they offer
will only exacerbate the exploitation of workers everywhere, both in
the short term and the long term.
Printer-
friendly article
12) VICTORY FOR
WORKERS IN GUADELOUPE
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
From a People's Voice Special Correspondent
A 44-day general strike in the
Eastern Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, officially a French Department,
has ended with most of the demands of a coalition of trade unions, left
wing parties, NGOs and others being met. Reports indicate a minority of
activists are holding out for 100 per cent satisfaction.
The strike
was led by a
collective called LKP (Lyianni Kout Pwofitasyion, meaning in the local
French dialect "Stand up against Extreme Exploitation"). At press time,
sympathetic support actions in other French "Overseas territories" (the
neighbouring island of Martinique and Reunion in the Pacific Ocean)
were continuing.
Among the
150 demands in
Guadeloupe were an increase in the minimum wage of 200 Euros (about
US$252) per month for lower paid workers, roll back of prices on 53
basic food items, removal of taxes on agricultural items like
fertilizers and cattle feed, and permanent contracts for temporary
workers. The increases will be footed by the French government, which
had sent top officials to the islands.
Guadeloupe's
economy, based on
agriculture and tourism, was virtually shut down. Hotels cancelled
bookings and gas stations were closed, among other stoppages.
Sympathetic farmers provided fruits and vegetables to needy families.
At the
height of the labour
action in February, protest and solidarity demonstrations of up to
65,000 were held in the capital Pointe-à-Pitre. Guadeloupe's
population
is 410,000. In Martinique, which has a similar population, a demo of
25,000 took place.
The French
state sent 450 "riot
police" and this served to heighten tensions. A union member, Jacques
Bino, was shot dead in circumstances still to be revealed in court.
LKP
spokesperson Elie Domota was
quoted in the Paris daily Liberation
that the French government had
"chartered planeloads of cops to `casser du negre' (`break the
niggers')".
The racial
dimension was
commented upon by the international press. Part of the strike was to
protest the continued grip on the economies of the islands by the
descendants, popularly known as "bekes", of the old slave owners.
However, the main issues were at a bread and butter level, with some
concerns raised about the need for more democracy at the economic
control level.
A top level
delegation from the
Communist Party of France visited the islands to speak with
collective's leaders and offer solidarity. A statement read in part:
"(French President) Nicolas Sarkozy and his government have a
contemptuous and irresponsible attitude towards Caribbean people. How
many more deaths will it take for (him) to regain his lucidity and
finally give satisfaction to the claims of the trade unions?"
In 1934, the
editor of the CP
newspaper in Martinique, Andre Aliker, was assassinated. Massive
demonstrations followed his death, bringing together islanders from all
walks of life. It led to the French Popular Front government of that
time supporting the formation of the first trade union on the island,
the CGTM. Among those in the LKP coalition today is the local CP.
Among those
offering solidarity
in the recent workers' action was Christine Taubira, a Member of
Parliament in French Guiana, also a French Overseas territory. Taubira,
who was actually in Guadeloupe, is quoted in the http://www.hindu.com
website
as saying "...the strike leaders are not anti‑white racists."
The Central
Confederation of
Workers in Brazil was among those sending solidarity messages, as did
Bobby Clarke of the Clement Payne Labour Union in Barbados. There was
no apparent reaction from the Barbados‑headquartered Caribbean Congress
of Labour, the umbrella group for unions in the English-speaking
Caribbean islands.
Printer-
friendly article
13) COMMUNIST &
WORKERS' PARTIES JOINT STATEMENT ON PALESTINE
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
The Communist and workers' parties
and liberation organizations listed below, having convened on the eve
of the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) in Athens,
wish to express their strong condemnation of the barbaric ground, naval
and aerial aggression launched by Israel against Gaza which began in
late December 2008. This brutal assault on Gaza lasted some 22 days and
resulted in the death of over 1,350 citizens, wounded thousands of
innocent civilians including women, children and the elderly, and left
a massive trail of destruction of homes, properties and infrastructure,
depriving the residents of Gaza of the most basic services.
The parties
also express their
grave concern for the resulting humanitarian tragedy, and outrage at
the intentional targeting of schools and civil institutions, including
the UNRWA school in Jabalia Camp.
The Israeli
attack on Gaza is in reality an aggression against the entire
Palestinian people.
Based on the
above, the signatories wish to declare the following:
(1) We salute the heroic
steadfastness of the Palestinian masses of Gaza, and stress the
fundamental right of the Palestinian people to resist the occupation, a
right recognized by the U.N. and international law. We demand the
immediate lifting of the siege of Gaza, the re‑opening of borders, and
the rapid reconstruction of all that was damaged or destroyed by this
wanton aggression;
(2) We reaffirm our support for and
solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle to regain
their legitimate and inalienable national rights, including the right
to self‑determination and the establishment of an independent and
sovereign state with Al‑Quds (East Jerusalem) as its capital, as well
as the right of return for all Palestinian refugees in accordance with
U.N. Resolution 194;
(3) We strongly condemn the
perpetuated construction of the racist wall as well as of the colonial
settlements in the occupied West Bank which are in flagrant conflict
with all the relevant UN decisions. We demand the immediate remove of
the wall and of the settlements as well as the immediate release from
custody of all the freedom prisoners in the Israeli detention.
(4) We call on the U.N. Security
council and other international organizations to conduct a
comprehensive and thorough investigation of the grave human rights
violations and war crimes committed by the Israeli army during this
assault on Gaza, including its use of internationally prohibited
weapons against the civilian population. The parties also call for the
formation of special legal commissions to file "war crimes" charges
against the Israeli authorities before the International Court of
Justice, the International Criminal Court and/or national juridical
structures;
(5) We urge all sections of
Palestinian national movement to work seriously and in a responsible
manner toward ending the internal split and re‑establishing Palestinian
national unity. In this regard, the parties confirm the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (PLO) is the legitimate and the internationally
recognized* *unified address of Palestinian people, and call for
reactivating the role and status of the PLO with an open door to all
those Palestinian national forces desiring to join it;
(6) We declare our intention to help
build the international campaign to support Gaza and demand emergency
assistance from the international community for its reconstruction.
Finally, the
signatories commit to the following action measures on behalf of their
organizations and members:
(1) to step up their solidarity
actions with the Palestinian people internationally and within their
respective countries;
(2) to pressure their respective
governments to cancel the military and some political accords with the
State of Israel;
(3) to organize and send, at the
earliest opportunity, a joint party delegation to the occupied
Palestinian territories to express our common solidarity with the
national struggle of the Palestinian people;
(4) to convene an international
symposium in solidarity with the Palestinian people, to be held in
Damascus before the end of 2009;
(5) to organize a joint caravan of
material aid to Gaza; and
(6) to hold an International Day of
Action in Solidarity with the Palestinian people, with particular focus
on the demand to break the siege of Gaza.
The
signatories extend an
invitation to other Communist and Workers' parties and organizations to
endorse this statement, and urge the Working Group of the International
Meetings of Communist and Worker's Parties (IMCWP) to work out the
details of implementation of the above program of action, in
consultation with the Palestinian and Arab member‑parties.
List of Parties and Organizations
Co‑signing this Statement - February 17, 2009
1. Communist Party of Albania
2. PADS, Algeria
3. Communist Party of Belarus
4. Workers' Party of Belgium
5. Party of Bulgarian Communists
6. Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB)
7. New Communist Party of Britain
8. Communist Party of Canada
9. Colombian Communist Party
10. Communist Party of Bohemia and
Moravia (Czech Republic)
11. Communist Party of Egypt
12. Socialist Worker's Party of
Croatia
13. Communist Party of Cuba
14. Communist Party in Denmark
15. Communist Party of Denmark
16. French Communist Party
17. Communist Party of Macedonia
18. German Communist Party
19. Communist Party of Greece
20. Hungarian Communist Workers' Party
21. Communist Party of India (Marxist)
22. Tudeh Party of Iran
23. Communist Party of Israel
24. Party of the Communist
Refoundation, Italy
25. Party of the Italian Communists
26. Jordanian Communist Party
27. Socialist Party of Latvia
28. Lebanese Communist Party
29. Communist Party of Luxembourg
30. Communist Party of Malta
31. Party of Communists, Mexico
32. Political Movement "People's
Resistance", Moldova
33. New Communist Party of the
Netherlands
34. Communist Party of Norway
35. Democratic Front for the
Liberation of Palestine
36. Palestinian Communist Party
37. Palestinian People's Party
38. Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine
39. Peruvian Communist Party
40. Communist Party of Poland
41. Portuguese Communist Party
42. Socialist Alliance Party, Romania
43. Romanian Communist Party
44. Communist Party of the Russian
Federation
45. Communist Party of the Soviet
Union
46. Communist Worker's Party of
Russia - Party of the Communists of Russia
47. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
48. Communist Party of Slovakia
49. South African Communist Party
50. Communist Party of Spain
51. Communist Party of the Peoples of
Spain
52. Party of the Communists, Catalonia
53. Communist Party of Sri‑Lanka
54. Syrian Communist Party
55. Communist Party of Syria
56. Baath Party, Syria
57. Communist Party of Tajikistan
58. Communist Party of Turkey
59. Labour Party (Turkey)
60. Communist Party of Sweden
61. Union of the Communists of Ukraine
62. Communist Party of Venezuela
63. Polisario Front
64. World Federation of Trade Unions
Printer-
friendly article
14) WFTU CALLS FOR APRIL 1 DAY OF STRUGGLE
(The
following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
Unions affiliated to the World
Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) met in Lisbon in December to discuss
the world financial crisis and advance a set of demands. The assembled
WFTU affiliates set Wednesday, April 1, 2009 as an international date
for workplace and community actions and demonstrations.
Jose M.
Oliveira of the SNTSF,
the Portuguese national railway workers union, hosted the meeting,
together with Jose Dinis from FEVICCOM (Ceramic and Glass Workers) and
Augusto Praca of FESHAT, the Federation of Agricultural, Food,
Beverage Hotels and Tourism of Portugal. Forty delegates representing
25 countries and international organizations attended the Lisbon
meeting, along with representatives from the ILO, the World Peace
Council, and the World Federation of Democratic Women.
George
Mavrikos, head of WFTU,
stated that, "This meeting is another piece of evidence that workers
across the world are resisting and creating the conditions for massive
struggles. The opponents of workers are not invincible. Invincible are
the people who know how to fight for their rights."
The meeting
called for an
"International Mobilization of workers and progressive forces of the
world, demanding the crisis be paid by those who generated it and not
by workers or peoples who are victims of neoliberalism."
A statement
from the meeting
stressed that the working class and peoples of the world, victims of
anti‑labor polices, are demanding deep changes to build, consolidate
and defend the political, economic and social alternatives to
capitalism and the neoliberal model of globalization. Only the united
action of workers and progressive forces, it said, can prevent further
exploitation and precarious work; win the redistribution of wealth and
better wages; end child labor; block layoffs; defend social and labor
rights; reduce working hours without reducing wages; strengthen trade
unions; fight all forms of discrimination against women, youth,
immigrants, etc.
The meeting
also called for more
fundamental changes, including nationalization of banks and other
strategic sectors such as energy, and placing food sovereignty under
social control.
The
delegates demanded an end to
wars, and no more funding to NATO and military weapons, with this money
to be invested in the production sector for the creation of jobs and
the development of the peoples. They urged the immediate end of
military occupation and unconditional withdrawal of foreign troops from
Iraq, Palestine and other Arab territories and Afghanistan, and full
respect for sovereignty and self‑determination of the peoples.
Formed in
1945, the WFTU has
historically represented sections of the international trade union
movement which orient on strategies of militancy and class struggle. At
the most recent WFTU congress, which met in Havana in 2005, over 800
delegates representing organizations with 400 million members took
part.
Printer-
friendly article
15) WHAT'S LEFT
(The following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
END NATO’S WAR
Rallies across Canada
on April 4 to protest NATO's war in
Afghanistan, see http://www.acpcpa.ca
for local events.
VANCOUVER, BC
Left Film Night - Saturday, March 14, two films on
women in
the Spanish Civil War (in Spanish, w. English
subtitles):
- 7 pm,
Carol’s Journey (“El Viaje de Carol”),
- and 9
pm, Freedom Fighters,
(“Libertarias”), at the Centre for Socialist
Education, 706
Clark Drive. Call 604-255-2041 for details.
The
Fight for EI and Jobs, public forum with Communist Party leader Miguel Figueroa
- Sunday,
March 15, 7 pm, Centre for Socialist
Education, 706 Clark Drive. Call
604-254-9836 for details.
Spaghetti Dinner - 5 pm, Sunday, March 29, Van East Club
CPC annual
fundraiser for People’s Voice, followed by film at 7 pm, at 706 Clark
Drive. Tickets $12, call 604-255-2041.
Grand
March for Housing - Sat.,
April 4, starts 12 noon from Peace
Flame Park, south end of
Burrard Bridge, organized by City-Wide
Housing Coalition.
REGINA, SK
The Fight
for EI and Jobs, public forum with Communist Party
leader Miguel Figueroa - Sunday, March 22, 1:00 pm, Unitarian Church, 2700 College.
WINNIPEG, MB
Manitoba Cuba
Solidarity Committee monthly meeting - Mon., March 16, 7 pm, Workers Organizing Resource Centre, 280 Smith St., 783-9380.
The Fight
for EI and Jobs, public forum with Communist leader
Miguel Figueroa - Wed., March
25, 7 pm, Millennium Public
Library Buchwald Room, ph.
204-586-7824.
Presentation
on Migrant Workers with speaker Gustavo Mejicanos
- Tue., March 24, 11 am
at Univ. of Manitoba Centre campus
area. Wed., March 25, 6 pm,
Univ. of Winnipeg Bulman Centre.
Info: lg31@mts.net
BRANDON, MB
The Fight
for EI and Jobs, public forum with Communist leader
Miguel Figueroa - Thur., March 26, 7 pm, Knowles-Douglas Centre, Elephant Room, Brandon University.
TORONTO, ON
Report from Greek
Communist Party Congress, by CPC leader
Miguel Figueroa - Friday, March 27, 7:30 pm, GCDO, 290 Danforth Ave. Sponsored by Belogiannis Club CPC, Friends of the CPG, Veterans of the Greek Resistance, and Greek Canadian Democratic Organization. Call 416-469-2446 for info.
Hemingway’s
Hot Havana, starring Brian Gordon Sinclair - Sat., March 28, Winchevsky Centre, 585 Cranbrooke Ave., doors 7:30, performance 8 pm. Suggested donation $15 (proceeds to Cuba Hurricane Relief). Cosponsored by United Jewish People’s Order and Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association; call Elizabeth 416-654-7105.
Almighty Voice and His Wife,
play by Daniel David Moses, director Michael Greyeyes - at Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson
Ave. The
Davenport Club CPC invites you to the
April 4 performance, 8 pm. For tickets ($20), please contact
Dave at
416-535-6586 or mckee.dave@sympatico.
FIGUEROA TOUR
CPC
leader Miguel Figueroa’s speaking
tour will continue in
- St. Catharines (March 30-31),
- Guelph (April 1),
- Ottawa (April 2-3),
- and Montreal (April 3-5).
For details, call 416-469-2446.
Printer-
friendly article
(Contents)
(Home)
$50,000 FUND DRIVE
Early donations top $2400
(The following
article is from the March 16-31, 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.)
The first
wave of cheques and donations
for our 2009 Press Fund Drive
has begun to arrive. By March
6, a few days after our direct
mail appeal went out, we have
received a very welcome $2421
from readers. Full details will
follow in our next report, including updated provincial totals.
The front
page of this issue is a vivid
illustration of the important role
of the working class press. For
decades, the ruling classes of Canada
and the United States, seeking
to maximize profits and control
of resources, have sought to
turn Canadians into “hewers of wood
and drawers of water” for the
Yankee war machine. The devastation of Canada’s industrial base and the sellout of natural resources (already stolen from the Aboriginal peoples), are part of this treacherous process of continental integration, which weakens the working class and reduces any genuine Canadian sovereignty to a shadow.
The
so-called “temporary” closure of
the historic Hilton Works in
Hamilton and the Lake Erie Works
in Nanticoke is the latest tragic
chapter in this long tale of deindustrialization.
But the working class and its
allies will not surrender
quietly. People’s Voice and
its predecessor publications have
stood shoulder to shoulder with
the steelworkers of Hamilton and
their families since the 1920s, and we are with them today. Keep an eye on these pages for reports on this new, critical battle for our future.
As you know
from our recent mailout, 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!
Check out
the LeftEvents column on page
11 for details of some
upcoming fundraising events
organized by our supporters across
Canada.
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
|
MAY DAY 2009
GREETING ADS
To mark May Day 2009, People's Voice will print
greetings from a wide range of labour and people's
organizations in our May 1-15 issue, which will be
distributed at events across Canada. The deadline for
camera-ready ads is April 19; if PV is preparing the
layout, the deadline is April 17. Please check with us
about the format if your ad is being sent electronically.
Ad rates (based on 5 column page):
Send greetings to People's Voice at:
706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, V5L 3J1
Fax (604)254-9803 E-mail: pvoice@telus.net
One column-inch.......................................$10
One column x 2 inches..............................$20
Two columns x 2 inches............................$35
Two columns x 3 inches............................$50
Two columns x 5 inches............................$75
Three columns x 4 inches....................... ..$90
Two columns x 7 inches...........................$100
Three columns x 7 inches........................$150
|
