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| Theoretical and Discussion Bulletin of the
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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.
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(Contents)
(Home)
1)
VOTERS BLOCK TORY MAJORITY
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
Commentary on the Oct.
14 federal election, by the Central Executive Committee, Communist
Party of Canada
The governing Conservatives under PM
Stephen Harper managed to improve their standing in the new Parliament
after the October 14 general election, but fell short of the majority
which they and their corporate masters were so determined to achieve.
This was a victory for the majority of Canadians, who succeeded in
preventing the Harper Tories from having a completely free hand.
Despite their claims, the Tories have no mandate to impose their
right-wing agenda on the country.
When the
stock markets crashed
halfway through the campaign, the early lead for the Tories faded. But
much credit for blocking Harper must go primarily to voters in Quebec
who, thanks to an effective mobilization by women's organizations and
the artistic community, prevented the Conservatives from gaining the
extra seats required to reach their coveted majority. Public exposure
of the real Tory agenda (gutting social spending, attacks on democratic
rights and youth) helped to shut the Tories almost completely out of
major urban centres, except in Alberta.
The
Conservatives will most
likely attempt to "bulldoze" legislation through the House as if they
indeed had a working majority, as they did during the previous session.
Whether the opposition parties - especially the weakened and divided
Liberals - will be willing or prepared to stand up to the Tories will
largely be determined by the degree to which the labour and people's
forces succeed in uniting and mobilizing their ranks to resist the
Tory/corporate offensive outside Parliament.
Harper and
his Conservatives ran
a most arrogant, manipulative campaign, hiding their full political
agenda from public view and only releasing their formal platform in the
final week before the vote. They mercilessly and dishonestly attacked
the Liberals' "green shift" policy as a tax grab, and whipped up a
vicious fear-mongering attack against "young offenders". But despite
such deceitful tactics, they only managed to increase their popular
vote by one percent (to 37%); however because of the "first past the
post" electoral system and the collapse of the Liberal vote (from 30%
down to 26.2%), the Tories were able to capture a number of new seats
due to splits in the anti-Tory vote.
The NDP
campaign also benefitted
from the Liberals' difficulties and focused its attack on Harper's
pro-corporate record, managing to gain seven additional seats (to 37),
although their popular vote edged up only fractionally to 18%. The
biggest vote gains were scored by the Green Party under Elizabeth May,
increasing from 4.5% to 6.8%, but the Greens still failed to win any
seats.
Most notable
was the further
decline in the overall turnout to 59% of registered voters, the lowest
in Canadian history. The drop was even higher in terms of eligible
voters, due to the effective disenfranchisement of hundreds of
thousands - mostly tenants and youth - not included in the seriously
flawed "permanent voters list" and those prevented from voting by
tightened ID requirements at the polls. This continuing decline in
voter participation reflects not only increasing cynicism about the
electoral process and the unwillingness of the major parties to stray
from the neoliberal agenda; it also brings the demand for proportional
representation to the front burner of electoral reform.
The election
was marked by
flagrant efforts by the corporate-controlled mass media to "black out"
coverage of the smaller political parties, including the Communists.
Despite this, the Communist Party and its 24 candidates mounted a
spirited campaign to popularize its "people before profits" alternative
platform, scoring some increases in a number of ridings, and winning
many new members and supporters.
The
political terrain is now
quite murky as the country enters into a deep and likely protracted
economic crisis and recession. The post-election battle lines will most
likely centre around the struggle to block the attempts of finance
capital and its big businesses parties - in the first instance, the
Conservatives - from foisting the burden of the crisis onto the backs
of the working class and working people. The challenge now for the
labour and democratic movements will be to move the struggle back into
the streets, workplaces and communities across Canada. For its part,
the Communist Party will do everything possible to help build such a
united and militant fightback.
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2)
SAFEGUARD JOBS AND INCOMES FOR CANADIANS
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
As global stock markets lurched into
serious decline at the end of September, the Central Executive of the
Communist Party of Canada issued a statement warning that "Stephen
Harper's claim that the Canadian economy is on `a solid footing' looks
utterly foolish..."
The Party
went on say that "In
reality, Canada is on the brink of a Dirty Thirties depression, thanks
largely to the neo-conservative policies pushed by Harper, Bush, and
other advocates of `unfettered capitalism.'"
Instead of
more
self-congratulating Tory speeches, the statement said, Canada "needs
emergency measures to protect working people from the pending economic
disaster spreading from our largest trading partner, the United States."
Pointing to
declines in exports,
consumer spending, residential housing construction, and investments in
plant and equipment, and the loss of almost 400,000 manufacturing jobs
in recent years, the Communist statement says that working people are
"struggling to stay afloat, compelled to take low-wage, part-time
service sector employment to pay the bills. No wonder that Canadian
households now carry $1.25 in debt for every dollar of disposable
income."
At the same
time, corporate
profits shot up another 8.3% in the second quarter of 2008, largely due
to corporate gouging for gas and home heating fuel, which feeds the
spiral of declining disposable incomes for working families.
"The
emerging crisis has been
worsened by deregulation, privatization, brutal cuts to the social
safety net, and huge tax breaks for the rich and the corporations,"
says the Communist statement. "In Canada and other capitalist
countries, the needs of the people have been ruthlessly sacrificed as
right-wing governments help big business rack up ever larger profits.
By removing any meaningful restrictions on the predatory business
practices of big capital, these policies sucked untold billions from
the pockets of working people and into the bank accounts of the rich.
"Now the
chickens have come home
to roost, and the list of victims of this economic binge grows longer
every week: Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers,
the American International Group, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia. Losses are
mounting into the trillions of dollars, and the `bailout' just voted
down in Washington [adopted in amended form a few days later] would put
the burden squarely on the backs of working people, guaranteeing an
even deeper crisis in the very near future. Now there are ominous
warnings that `a hurricane of bad credit card debt will start crashing
ashore in the United States.' In other words, the worst is yet to come.
"Politicians
who claim that
Canada is `insulated' from this catastrophe are lying. And those who
want to shovel more truckloads of taxpayers' dollars into the coffers
of the corporations are simply pushing the same policies which helped
generate this crisis in the first place.
"The
capitalist economic debacle
presents grave dangers, but also an opportunity to debate fundamental
changes in Canadian society. This is a time to say `NO' to corporate
greed, and `YES' to Canadian sovereignty and independence, `YES' to the
needs of the Canadian people."
The
Communist Party leadership
called for an immediate action plan to protect the Canadian economy and
Canadian jobs, pensions, social programs and living standards,
including:
- immediate withdrawal from NAFTA, a
halt to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) negotiations, and
the adoption of a diversified, multilateral trade policy based on
mutual benefit;
- nationalization of the energy
industry to guarantee domestic supply and to provide the material basis
for the economic rebuilding of Canadian industry and the creation of
hundreds of thousands of jobs;
- protections for Canadian working
people through the immediate introduction of plant closure legislation
to stop the exodus of manufacturing jobs, legislation to protect
workers' wages and pensions, and the expansion of EI to cover all
workers for the full duration of unemployment;
- an immediate increase in the
minimum wage to $15/hr. to help raise all wage levels and stimulate
domestic consumption;
- sweeping progressive tax reform
based on ability to pay, and the revocation of all corporate tax
breaks, hand-outs, write-offs and deferrals at every level - measures
that will shift the tax burden from working people onto the
corporations and the wealthy;
- emergency measures to protect and
extend public healthcare, education and other social programs,
including the establishment of a universal system of quality public
child care;
- a massive public investment program
to construct affordable social housing, to rebuild Canada's decaying
infrastructure, in environmental protection and conservation, and in
job creation programs for youth; and
- immediate withdrawal from the
disastrous war of occupation in Afghanistan, and a 50% cut in military
spending.
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3)
RESPONDING TO THE MELTDOWN
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
People's Voice
Editorial, Oct. 16-31, 2008
As this issue goes to press,
capitalist spin doctors and politicians are hailing the latest victory
over the crisis gripping world financial markets. Indeed, after the
European "bailouts" announced over the Oct. 11-12 weekend, stock prices
rebounded as the week began. But the Dow Jones was soon wafting
downward, putting a damper on premature celebrations.
Sober-minded
economists note
that since the sub-prime mortgage crisis began, successive "rescues"
have grown ever larger, but also much shorter. The $700 billion package
adopted by U.S. lawmakers in early October was followed by the worst
week in Wall Street history. The European intervention might provide
temporary stability to the markets. Or maybe not; some investors warn
that stock markets have yet to hit bottom. Either way, most realistic
analysts predict the most severe slump in decades.
Present-day
capitalism has been
buoyed by a series of "bubbles," fantastic over-valuations of assets
which inevitably collapse. Now we are paying the price, and the
declines in housing values or pension funds will not reverse anytime
soon. Millions of North American homeowners and seniors are worth much
less than they believed a few months ago. Already saddled with historic
levels of consumer debt, working people face rising unemployment and
shrinking possibilities to meet their mortgages and credit card
payments. Some bourgeois economists even admit that the Marxists were
right: the ability of capitalism to produce commodities has far
outstripped the purchasing power of the highly exploited working class,
sparking the recent meltdown.
Unfortunately, those who hope
that capitalism will magically disappear in a puff of smoke are wrong.
It's true that the system is in deep trouble, but it will take huge
popular struggles to defeat attempts by the ruling class to make
working people pay the full cost of this crisis, and then to wrest
power from the corporate elite. All the more reason for the labour and
people's movements to step up the fightback now, instead of waiting
while things get much worse.
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4) NEXT ROUND: CANADA-EU
TRADE DEAL?
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
People's Voice
Editorial, Oct. 16-31, 2008
Once again, Canada is being dragged
into a far-reaching agreement that threatens our economic sovereignty,
without any hint of public consultation.
The Council
of Canadians reports
that "The Canada-European trade deal, described as groundbreaking by
Quebec premier Jean Charest and as `deep economic integration' by a
senior EU official, is said to favour full access by European Union
countries to billions of dollars of Canadian government procurement
budgets and include areas of provincial jurisdictional responsibility.
Investment, services and energy issues have been cited as part of the
deal, raising questions of whether it will include the controversial
NAFTA dispute-settlement mechanism and proportional-sharing provisions."
According to
a poll conducted by
Strategic Communications, 77 percent of Canadians wanted the draft text
of this deal made public before the October 14 election. But Stephen
Harper has not released the draft text and internal study of the deal,
which will be the focus of talks in Montreal just three days after the
election.
This
deceptive strategy is
nothing new for the Tories, who know that in the wake of NAFTA,
Canadians have very serious doubts about the value of pro-corporate
economic agreements. The majority of Canadians want to re-negotiate the
NAFTA deal, which appears to be the model for negotiations towards an
EU-Canada trade deal. If NAFTA is any indication, such a deal will
create a more favourable environment for big capital, but at the
expense of jobs, the environment, social programs, public services, and
Canadian sovereignty. No federal government has any mandate to pursue
such a deal, especially after an election in which the entire issue was
covered up. The veil of secrecy around these negotiations must be torn
aside immediately by an upsurge of public anger.
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5) DEFEHR FURNITURE AXES
HUNDREDS
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
PV Manitoba bureau
WINNIPEG - It's like a scene from an
old Depression era movie. DeFehr Furniture Ltd. is closing down one of
its two factories in Winnipeg, and another in Morden, Manitoba. Early
reports said 80-85 would lose their jobs (65 in Morden, 15 in
Transcona), but it has turned out to be much larger. The move tossed
out 326 workers and laid off 42 "temporarily" as the Logic division
plant in Transcona is closed and operations merged with its last
Winnipeg factory in East Kildonan. That's 368 workers, or nearly half
of the 900 workers employed.
DeFehr was
split off from
Palliser Furniture in 2004 as part of a restructuring - meaning a big
axe for jobs and the change to piecework from the former hourly wage
system for production workers at DeFehr. Palliser has remained afloat
without the heavy ballast of the DeFehr casegoods division (desks,
beds, dressers etc.), but much of its production is in four Mexican
plants as compared to two Canadian upholstery plants in Winnipeg.
Palliser is
owned by Art DeFehr.
The casegoods division was sold to Art's brother Frank, and passed on
to Frank's son Andy DeFehr. Meanwhile, DeFehr Furniture Ltd. slowed the
bleeding but still lost money. According to workers on the floor,
management remained top heavy and expected all cuts to be borne by the
production worker level.
A high
Canadian dollar, the
housing market crash in the U.S. and the credit crisis has made it hard
for furniture retailers and manufacturers to find money to operate. The
corporation was granted court credit protection while it
"restructures," i.e. purges workers and likely speeds up production
lines and cuts wages and piece rates yet again.
Early
newspaper reports say that
workers with over 25 years experience will find jobs in the remaining
factory. But office and factory floor workers are not unionized. Many
are new immigrants and refugees.
The NDP
government only shrugged
after years of propping up the company with loans and tax dollars. The
minister responsible, Andrew Swan, is working with a faith-based job
agency, Opportunities, for Employment to help the sacked workers. Swan
suggested that the former DeFehr workers can become farm labourers, (we
assume to be exploited yet again).
A former
employee posted on a
web site that workers with 20-plus years were let go with no severance
package, just the 12 weeks notice or hopefully 12 weeks pay in lieu of
notice required by law.
Another post describes management
lying to workers in an assembled meeting that their jobs were secure,
not once, but twice the previous month while court protection was
sought. With credit protection secured, Sept. 29 saw a sudden parade of
workers going to the office to get their pink slips and escorted to
their lockers. This parade, a repeat of past layoffs, spoke volumes of
the betrayal as any severance evaporated. One comment up was that the
only furniture DeFehr will still make in Canada will be pallets and
skids!
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6) "THE EMPEROR OF
DEREGULATED GLOBAL CAPITALISM HAS NO CLOTHES"
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
Statement on the
economic crisis by Canadian Labour Congress President Ken Georgetti
OTTAWA, Oct. 6, 2008 - Canadian
working families will bear the brunt of a deep economic crisis caused
by a self-serving and arrogant corporate bosses, aided and abetted by
complacent, and do-nothing governments. Our jobs and our pensions are
at risks. Today, we demand nothing less than a fundamental change of
course.
Immediately
after the election,
whoever is Prime Minister must develop an emergency national action
plan with input from labour. This must include measures to audit,
re-regulate and shore up our battered financial system, and concrete
measures to save and create jobs through major public investments and
changes to unfair trade deals.
We cannot
leave it to those who
got us into this mess to get us out of it. For years our corporate and
political elites have been telling us that the economy was
"fundamentally sound", even though our wages were stagnating, good
manufacturing and forestry jobs were being lost in the tens of
thousands, and ordinary working families were going deeper and deeper
into debt just to stay afloat.
The
financial crisis brought on
by an utterly irresponsible and transparently self serving elite of
bankers and outright corporate criminals now clearly threatens to drag
us into a global depression. Those in Canada and around the world who
proclaimed the virtues of deregulated global finance and do nothing
governments stand naked and discredited.
We can
pretend that all of the
damage was done by Wall Street. But it was Canada's own financial
insiders who were behind the Asset Backed Commercial Paper debacle, and
Canada's own Minister of Finance who refused to get involved,
preferring "a market led solution" which left huge holes in our pension
plans.
The Canadian
banks and their
economists assure us today that our own financial system is sound. We
hope this is the case, but we have had no independent auditing of the
risks to the system, and no clear idea of the impact of this crisis on
our pension plans and on the savings of working families.
No one today
can parrot
yesterday's official line that the "fundamentals" of the Canadian
economy are sound. The meltdown of our Canadian stock market over the
past two weeks has been even worse than in the US. Far from providing
us with a cushion, our once booming resource sector now seems headed
for just as deep and punishing a crisis as the hard-hit manufacturing
sector which has now shed more than 300,000 jobs.
At one
level, we are paying the
price of a hugely inflated credit bubble, the product of government
regulators failing to reign in the excesses of self-serving global
financial elites who personally pocketed billions getting us into this
mess.
But the
roots of this crisis lie
deeper. In a world, where workers wages have been stagnant while
corporate profits and executive pay have soared to obscene levels, the
only source of growth has been debt fuelled spending. In Canada today,
as in the US, family debt is at a record high because our economy has
not worked for working people.
The economy
will not be fixed by
Wall Street bailouts, or by platitudes about the need for a steady hand
on the tiller as we go into the abyss. Unemployment will soar if
governments, at the national and international level, do not take real
measures to fix the real problem of stagnant wages and huge trade
imbalances.
It is simply no longer an option for
governments to stand back and do nothing, and pretend that all is well.
The Emperor of deregulated global capitalism has no clothes.
This
financial debacle demands a fundamental change of direction now to
protect working families' interests.
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7) PRIVATE CLINICS
ERODING PUBLIC HEALTH CARE
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
A groundbreaking new report
investigating 130 for-profit surgical, MRI/CT and "boutique" physician
clinics across Canada presents evidence of 89 possible violations in
five provinces of the Canada Health Act's requirement for equal access
to health care and prohibition on extra-billing patients.
Released by
Health Coalitions in
several provinces, the report details the for-profit health industry
that has emerged over the last five years, and the first forays of U.S.
private health companies into Canada.
Report
author, Natalie Mehra,
Director of the Ontario Health Coalition, called upon the federal
government to live up to its responsibility to protect Canadians from
extra-billing and two-tier health care:
"We found
evidence that
for-profit clinics are eroding the fairness and equality of Canada's
health system that is supposed to provide access to necessary hospital
and physician services based on need, not wealth," said Mehra. "A
significant proportion of for-profit surgical and diagnostic clinics
are billing provincial health plans and also charging extra fees to
patients to maximize their revenues and profits.
"The charges are
unaffordable for all but the wealthiest Canadians. Clinics told us they
charge $13,000 to $20,000 or more for knee surgery, $1,200 to $2,000 or
more for cataract surgery, and hundreds to thousands of dollars for
MRIs.
"For-profit clinics are
also taking specialists, health professionals and operating room nurses
out of local public hospitals to serve less urgent patients, often for
extra fees. Despite claims about reducing wait times, we found direct
evidence that poaching staff out of local hospitals by for-profit
clinics worsened shortages in local hospitals, forcing the hospitals to
reduce MRI hours. We found evidence of staff poaching out of local
hospitals by for-profit clinics in Nova Scotia, Quebec, British
Columbia, Ontario and Manitoba.
"Ironically, while some
provinces are considering introducing for-profit clinics for the first
time, we found that Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba - under governments
of varying political stripes - all have rolled back their experiments
with for-profit MRI/CT clinics or surgical clinics, opting instead to
build capacity in the public non-profit health system where access is
improved on an equitable basis. In Ontario and Manitoba, the for-profit
cancer and cataract surgery clinics revealed direct evidence of higher
costs per treatment than non-profit clinics. This should serve as a
warning to provinces like Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia,
Saskatchewan and British Columbia where more for-profit privatization
of health care is being considered.
"We found
that the for-profit
clinics overwhelmingly locate in large urban centres where there are
more wealthy people to buy their health care procedures, raising
concerns about worsening access in rural areas," she added.
"Particularly regarding the
physician clinics that charge thousands of dollars per patient per
year, there should be grave concern that their low caseloads and their
high costs imperil access to care for the majority of people. In cities
like Montreal, where Statistics Canada reports patients have the worst
shortage of family doctors in the country, there is a high incidence of
`boutique' physician clinics selling executive health care for hundreds
or thousands of dollars per year per patient. Yet the vast majority of
people could not afford these services. This low volume high cost
approach of `boutique' physician clinics is simply not sustainable and
threatens health care access for many more people if it is allowed to
spread."
Mehra urged
stronger pressure on
federal party leaders to halt two-tier health care, and on provincial
governments to ensure improved and equitable access to health care,
based on medical need, not high incomes.
The full
report in English and a French summary are available at http://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
or http://www.healthcoalition.ca.
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8) CUPE LEADERS CALL
FOR "FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE"
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
Canadian Union of Public Employees'
President Paul Moist and National Secretary Treasurer Claude Genereux
have issued an urgent statement on the current financial crisis.
The CUPE
leaders point out that
"together with our sister unions, the Canadian Labour Congress, other
allies, and international labour organizations, we have spoken out many
times about economic policies and neglect that have created an economic
system that is unequal, unsustainable and unstable. It has now gone
beyond its breaking point and requires a fundamental change in
direction and reform."
Moist and
Genereux note that
this crisis is widely acknowledged as the worst since the Great
Depression in the 1930s, "and the situation is expected to get worse.
The economies of most industrialized countries in North America and
Europe are now expected to descend into a recession over the next few
years."
The Canadian
economy and public
sector employers will not be immune to these problems, they point out.
"Many people have already seen steep declines in the value of their
pensions and investments. Private sector employers will face cutbacks,
spending and employment and investment will decline in some areas and
governments will face slowdowns or drops in their revenues."
The CUPE
leaders note some of
the roots of these problems, including the unsustainable housing market
boom "fuelled and exacerbated by speculation and fraud in very lightly
regulated parts of the financial sector... The housing boom and bust
itself was based on an economic and financial system that has become
increasingly unequal, unsustainable and out of control."
"Hundreds of
billions were made
in escalating corporate profits in Canada and not re-invested back into
the economy," they point out, adding that "tens of billions were handed
out each year in lavish bonuses to Wall Street financiers to reward
speculation and excessive risk" while working people struggled to keep
up with the rising cost of living.
For years,
they say, "CUPE and
our allies have been telling politicians, government officials and
anyone else who would listen that their neo-conservative economic
policies of de-regulation, privatization, tax cuts, corporate trade
deals, and cuts to public programs were not only socially unjust, but
also economically harmful and dangerous... We were dismissed as
economically naive and afraid to embrace the demands of global
financial capitalism. Now we are seeing the results of their economic
policies - and it's not pretty."
But the
worst may be coming,
they point out, since "right-wing ideologues and business opportunists
are already exploiting this crisis to force through even more tax cuts,
public spending cuts, and other emergency measures... These types of
measures will make the economic situation much worse."
Instead,
CUPE is calling for
measures that will provide for greater economic stability and a better
quality of life, including re-regulation of the financial industry to
protect the investments and pensions of ordinary Canadians, and tax
reform to reduce the incentives for speculation and fraud. "Canadian
pension funds were sold over $13 billion in rotten Asset-Backed
Commercial Paper investments, of which they are likely to lose
one-quarter to one-half in value," according to Moist and Genereux,
noting that Canadian pension funds have lost more than $100 billion
from the financial market meltdown.
Governments
should adopt a
"pro-active response to the economic slowdown," says CUPE, by
maintaining and expanding public services to protect families and help
the economy avoid a deeper downturn.
Rejecting
right-wing arguments,
CUPE urges governments to "run deficits in a sensible counter-cyclical
economic manner through an economic downturn." Canadians need "forward
investments in our future" and expanded Employment Insurance benefits,
social assistance, and public pensions.
CUPE calls
for action to
strengthen the economy, such as increased funding to rebuild public
infrastructure, a strong focus on energy efficiency and renewable,
strategies to rebuild the manufacturing and forestry sectors, and
investments in public health care, research and development and
education.
Throughout
this struggle, say
Moist and Genereux, "we need to stand tall, be realistic about the
conditions we face, but also make it utterly clear to our politicians
that their neo-conservative economic policies have become bankrupt. It
is time to build a better future on the foundation of a more just and
sustainable economy."
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9) COPE CANDIDATES OFF
AND RUNNING
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
PV Vancouver Bureau
Determined to continue playing a
vital role in Vancouver civic politics, over 300 members of the
Coalition of Progressive Electors took part in COPE's nomination
meeting on Sept. 28. After a long afternoon of voting, the COPE
nominees for City Council were incumbent David Cadman and former
councillor and community activist Ellen Woodsworth.
Only one
ballot was needed to
pick COPE's five school board candidates, including veteran incumbents
Al Blakey and Alan Wong, along with former trustee Jane Bouey, teacher
and former president of the Vancouver Secondary Teachers Association
Bill Bargeman, and Alvin Singh, who has organized students and parents
concerned about the lack of earthquake upgrading of Vancouver's aging
elementary and secondary schools.
For Park
Board, incumbent Park
Commissioner Loretta Woodcock and former park board chair Anita
Romaniuk were elected by acclamation.
"With this
nomination COPE is
going into the election as a united party where all candidates have the
support of a majority of the membership," said Cadman. "That is unlike
the NPA where the Executive choose the candidates who are then rubber
stamped at their meetings."
COPE's
campaign will be
co-managed by long-time organizer Ivan Bulic and Rachel Marcuse, the
youngest organizer of a major civic campaign in Vancouver history.
"When I
moved back to Vancouver
after four years at McGill, I was astounded at the changes," said
Marcuse. "Young working people can't afford to live here, and I
realized we need to bring progressive government back to Vancouver.
COPE has worked hard for issues that are important to young people -
affordable housing, transit, environment and preserving strong, diverse
neighbourhoods."
The campaign
will include the
usual lawn signs, ads and door-knocking. But Marcuse also plans to use
Facebook, Youtube, streaming video and mobile texting that speak to
youth and are revolutionizing campaigns like those of US Democratic
hopeful Barack Obama.
One of
COPE's strengths will be
its team of highly-respected School Board candidates, who are taking
advantage of divisions and weaknesses within the NPA. Only two NPA
incumbent trustees are standing for re-election, and their control of
the Board over the past three years has been shaken by recent events.
For example, the NPA trustees have refused to explain why schools in
Premier Gordon Campbell's Vancouver riding given priority for
earthquake upgrading.
"NPA
trustees are running away
from this issue as fast as they can," said COPE candidate Bill
Bargeman. "We are seeing, once again, the lack of accessibility and
openness by NPA trustees on key issues."
The COPE
campaign office is now
open at 585 East Broadway. To join the campaign, call COPE volunteer
coordinator Kate Van Meer-Mass at 416-315-2365 or email
kate@cope.bc.ca.
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10) SINGUR,
INDUSTRIALISATION, & THE BENGAL LEFT FRONT GOVERNMENT
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By B. Prasant, PV
correspondent in India
A huge ruckus has been thrown up in
the corporate media in India and elsewhere, that "poor helpless
farmers" are being robbed of their agricultural land, their only source
of livelihood, by the Bengal Left Front government for the sake of
catering to big business and big capital.
Singur
comprises a cluster of
small villages in the district of Hooghly, about 60 km from Kolkata. As
part of its pro-employment and pro-poor industrial policy, the Left
Front government, at the head of which is the Communist Party of India
(Marxist), has chosen to build up industries in this area. The central
government would not help, and the state government does not have the
resources. Thus, private capital has been invited, but under conditions
stipulated by the state government.
The state
government acquired a
Tata Motors project that would produce a US $2,500 small hatch back car
called Nano. Big and small farmers, absentee landlords, and sundry
smallholders including shop owners, populate the 998 acres of farmland
that has been taken over. The land plot also includes residential
houses, mostly single-storied.
Agriculture
here is no longer
profitable. Thanks to population pressure (with a politically stable
government and the state domestic product on an increasing curve,
Bengal has been undergoing a "baby boom" for the past thirty years)
land plots have become smaller and smaller, not viable to produce
enough to allow the farming families even the basic necessities.
The state
government came
forward with an attractive compensation package, providing more than
200% of the market value of the land. By merely keeping the money in
banks, even for short-term deposits, the land-loser families would have
more than four times the annual income that they earn from farming.
There was
more. Each land-loser
family would be ensured of at least one high-paying job in the Tata
factory itself, the necessary training to be provided free by the state
government.
The Tata
project would require
setting up a series of ancillary and downstream engineering units,
which would provide direct employment to the unemployed youth of the
area, including members of the families of land-losers. Excitement
spread across Singur and the Hooghly district because an industrial hub
was in the making. Employment would rise, to be followed by more
industrial capital.
But the
opposition parties, with
the covert and overt support of the central government, foreign-funded
NGOs, and various US agencies operating in Communist Bengal, would have
none of it. They put together a rag-rag outfit of right reactionaries,
left sectarians, Maoists, religious fundamentalists, and rich landlords
to foil the project. The attempt is still going on.
The chief
demand of this
campaign is that land be given back to the farmers, most of whom show
no interest. Those not willing to accept compensation (mostly on
political grounds) are less than one percent of the entire population
who have accepted the compensation-rehabilitation package.
These
elements have beaten up
the Tata employees, and threatened local youth against joining the Tata
enterprise. They have attacked showrooms and offices of the state's
industries department. They have organised demonstrations blocking the
Tata factory, which was 95% completed, with the entire workforce plus
the ancillary projects ready to roll out the cars come the festive
season in mid-October.
At this
stage, during the week
starting on September 15, the Bengal LF government announced further
incentives to the land-losers: more funds, more jobs, and assurance of
employment even for farmers who are actually migrant labourers. The
impasse goes on.
Still, the
Indian and the
western media kept shedding crocodile tears for the "poor, suffering
farmers." The Tatas, in their turn, took the opportunity to threaten to
take their projects elsewhere to Congress-run states, the chief
ministers of which have made loud appeals to the Tatas to "come away
from Communist Bengal."
The Bengal
government and the
CPI(M) hoped that statewide campaign-movements involving hundreds of
thousands of people from almost every section of society could bear
enough pressure on the irresponsible opposition parties and their
backers in and outside of the country to stand down and let the factory
go online.
Sadly, Ratan
Tata announced
rather casually at a hastily convened media conference that the Tata
group would not wait for a people's response to the right-wing
depredations.
Having
extracted the full
benefits from the Bengal Left Front government, including
infrastructural facilities, low land prices, payment of compensation to
the land-losers at a high rate, and a steady supply of specialised
motor parts vendors as part of the ancillary network, security, and
free access to the highest echelons of the cabinet of ministers, are
concerned, and more), the Tatas have now chosen to leave for greener
pastures. As we file this report, they are in the midst of negotiations
with Gujarat (where the right-wing state government distinguished
itself by allowing religious fundamentalists to run riot against
Muslims and Christians), Orissa (where another right-wing government
has recently supported by default the killing of Christian priests and
the raping of nuns), and Karnataka, where another tight wing government
rules the roost having come to office after an open rigging of the
elections held earlier in the year. As the people of Singur go through
a period of terrible uncertainty, Ratan Tata even managed a sick joke
at their expense, smilingly assured the media conference that he "had
to leave" because the opposition could "pull the trigger effectively."
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11) THE AFGHAN WAR:
MURDEROUS, EXPENSIVE AND UNWINNABLE
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Kimball Cariou
All the latest developments and news
back up the desire of the majority of Canadians to get out of the war
in Afghanistan sooner rather than later. Increasingly, the war is being
exposed as incredibly bloody, hugely expensive, and utterly unwinnable.
A new study
by University of New
Hampshire professor Marc W. Herold finds that at least 3,200 civilians
have been killed by NATO and US action in Afghanistan since 2005.
Herold says
NATO's use of air
power is growing in Afghanistan, raising risks for civilians. Released
on the anniversary of the October 7, 2001 launch of the invasion of
Afghanistan, the report also states that the total numbers of civilian
deaths is underestimated by groups such as Human Rights Watch, and that
the international military and media attach low value to Afghan life in
the accounting of events.
The Afghan Victim
Memorial Project run by Herold found between 2,699 and 3,273 civilians
were killed in direct action by international forces in Afghanistan
from 2005 to October 2008. By his own estimate, the Project's figures
are also underestimates, because NATO often mislabels civilians as
"militants" and because many injured civilians later die without being
added to the total by the media and NGO reports.
"By relying upon aerial close
air support attacks, US/NATO forces spare their pilots and ground
troops but kill lots of innocent Afghan civilians," says Herold. "Air
strikes are 4-10 times as deadly for Afghan civilians as are ground
attacks."
In some
cases, the families have
received compensation, but these payouts have been far lower than in
other wars. The US military gives families of its victims at most
$2,500 as a condolence payment, not "compensation" which would admit
wrong-doing. Canadian condolence payments to Afghans since 2006 range
from $1,100-9,000, Herold says.
This
compares to $1.85 million
paid for victims of the 1988 bombing of a flight over Lockerbie,
Scotland, and $150,000 per victim of the 1999 US bombing on the Chinese
embassy in Belgrade that killed three Chinese and wounded 23 other
people.
Herold's findings are certainly
backed up by other sources. The Afghan war blog maintained by
Vancouver's StopWar.ca (http://www.stopwarblogspot.blogspot.com),
for example,
counted between 139 and 184 civilians killed by NATO attacks in August
2008, on top of 147 to 161 in July, based on all available reports. The
death toll during these two months was more than double the monthly
average of 71 during the period covered by Herold's study.
The
scandalous increase in
civilian deaths comes as the Canadian public becomes more aware of the
total cost of the Afghan occupation mission.
One new
report says the total
price tag will hit as much as $18 billion by the time troops are now
scheduled to be withdrawn in 2011, or about $1,500 for every household
in Canada. Released on Oct. 9, the report by Parliamentary Budget
Officer Kevin Page reported says the real extra cost of the Canadian
military mission is billions of dollars more than Ottawa has estimated.
Page found
that the Department
of National Defence has not reported to Parliament the same costs it
records on its internal books, and that government accounting methods
make it hard to place a separate price tag on the Afghan mission.
"Although
Canada is in the
seventh year of the Afghanistan mission, Parliament and Canadians have
not been provided with accurate and comprehensive departmental cost
estimates," Page said.
The
Department of National
Defence reports to parliament are two years behind its internal books,
and more than $2-billion higher, Page reports. His office, unlike the
government, includes the cost of replacing military equipment deployed
in Afghanistan. These "incremental" costs - the extra cost of being in
Afghanistan over and above what would be spent otherwise - have run
between $5.9 billion and $7.4 billion between 2001 and 2008. As the
Globe and Mail newspaper reported, "Once all costs, including veterans'
benefits and foreign aid are included, the total is $7.7 billion to
$10.5 billion. If Canadian troop levels remain the same, the military
mission will cost another $5.7-billion by 2011" and the total costs
will rise to somewhere between $13.9 billion and $18.1 billion, the
report concludes.
These
estimates are below the
$22 billion figure said to be contained in an upcoming study by David
Perry, a former deputy director of Dalhousie University's Centre for
Foreign Policy Studies. Some of Perry's findings were discussed at a
Sept. 16 conference attended by military leaders and analysts from
Canada, the U.S. and several Asia-Pacific nations.
Perry's
estimates include $7
billion for the incremental cost of the war from late 2001 to 2012,
everything from ammunition and fuel to the salaries of reservists and
contractors; $11 billion for long-term health care of Afghan war
veterans and related benefits; $2 billion for mission-specific
equipment, such as Leopard tanks, howitzers, counter-mine vehicles to
aerial drones and six Chinook helicopters; and $2 billion to replace
the military's LAV-3 fleet, which will soon be worn out "from the wear
and tear of Afghanistan."
On top of
all this news, there
have been several statements and articles from highly-placed Western
experts warning that the war cannot be won, and that negotiations with
the Taliban are the only way to move towards stability in the country.
Views along
these lines from Sir
Sherard Cowper-Coles, currently the British ambassador to Afghanistan,
were published recently in the French weekly Le Canard Enchainé, based
on a diplomatic cable written by Francois Fitou, the French Deputy
Ambassador in Kabul.
Fitou
reported to French
President Sarkozy's office and his own Foreign Ministry that
Cowper-Coles believed that "American strategy is destined to fail" in
Afghanistan.
According to
Fitou, the British
diplomat said, "The current situation is bad. The security situation is
getting worse. So is corruption and the Government has lost all trust.
Our public statements should not delude us over the fact that the
insurrection, while incapable of winning a military victory,
nevertheless has the capacity to make life increasingly difficult,
including in the capital. The presence - especially the military
presence - of the coalition is part of the problem, not the solution.
The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would
collapse without them. In doing so, they are slowing down and
complicating an eventual exit from the crisis (which, moreover, will
probably be dramatic)."
Reinforcing
the NATO military
presence insurrection would be counter-productive, he said, since this
"would identify us even more clearly as an occupying force and it would
multiply the number of targets (for the insurgents)."
A similar
analysis appeared in
Britain's Sunday Times newspaper on October 5, quoting Brigadier Mark
Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has just
completed its second tour of Afghanistan. He told The Times that in his
opinion, a military victory over the Taliban was "neither feasible nor
supportable."
The Times
also reported that the
United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Kay Eide, told a recent news
conference in Kabul that "I've always said to those that talk about the
military surge ... what we need most of all is a political surge, more
political energy... We all know that we cannot win it militarily. It
has to be won through political means. That means political
engagement."
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12) COMMUNIST PARTY
DEMANDS IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
Responding to the growing chorus of
statements by leading NATO officers and diplomats that the war in
Afghanistan requires a political solution, the Communist Party of
Canada has called for "a military ceasefire - the cessation of all
military operations - and immediate withdrawal as the best way to end
the bloodshed.
"The Harper
Conservative
government has ignored public opinion in Canada for too many years,
continuing Canada's involvement in the imperialist occupation, but they
will be even more bloodthirsty and out of touch with reality if they
push ahead with a conflict that cannot be won. Indeed, NATO's
definition of `victory' continues to change from one year to the next.
"A military
victory by
Afghanistan's resistance forces would only come after much more
bloodshed. But now it is acknowledged by growing numbers of
intelligence agencies and military experts that resistance to NATO's
occupation will never be crushed and is growing stronger...
"A ceasefire
at this time is the
quickest and most reliable way to reduce the number of needless
casualties from NATO's occupation, an occupation which is opposed by a
majority of Canadians. The Communist Party demands that the Government
of Canada call on NATO to agree to a ceasefire and immediate withdrawal
as the best way to end the bloodshed...."
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13) "I OBJECT LEE MYUN BAK"
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Sean Burton,
September 25, 2008, Busan, South Korea
A lesson in English grammar is not
typically political. Indeed, language classes tend to avoid politics,
and for good reason. When one who speaks little or no Korean is trying
to teach English to a group of elementary school Koreans, potentially
complicated language has to be discarded.
But one day
during my first week
of teaching, I experienced a pleasant surprise. One of the new English
words being learned was the verb "object". Along with the other words
in the lesson, the children had to create sentences of their own that
used the word.
When I was
checking their
grammar, I noticed that several students had written "I object Lee Myun
Bak" as their sentence. They had forgotten to place "to" after object,
but the sentence could be understood. Lee Myun Bak, the current
president of South Korea, has far greater opposition then I first
thought. Great indeed, if hostility to him extends even to elementary
school students.
South
Koreans staged protest
after protest in the capital city of Seoul through the summer of 2008.
Some protests drew in well over 100,000 participants. They were staged
primarily over Lee's plan to resume importing U.S. beef, cut off as a
result of the latest mad cow outbreak. Mad cow, or as many of my
students call it, "crazy cow", is not reason enough to draw people into
the streets in such numbers.
Widespread
distrust of the
government is such a reason, as I wrote in the August issue of People's
Voice. In short, Lee is a typical right-wing leader, elected
during one
of Korea's lowest election turnouts, and pursuing the usual
pro-corporate and pro-American policies. That included his resumption
of U.S. beef imports, as well as an upcoming free trade deal with
Canada. Several of his cabinet members were forced to resign over
corruption charges earlier in the year. No wonder South Koreans are
angry.
The term
"crazy cow" continues
to be uttered by students at my school, and it isn't hard to guess what
they're getting at. And something else happened recently that indicates
how fresh the opposition remains. At the beginning of September, I took
over a class for another English teacher while he was visiting his home
in the U.S. The Korean teacher who also teaches that class had told
them that their old teacher was coming back soon. The class said they
didn't want the old foreign teacher back instead of me. Evidently, he
had said the protests were stupid, and had an argument with the class
on the topic, limited by his language skills. While telling me this,
the Korean teacher made it clear that she was not pleased, and that the
American teacher should "take his job more seriously".
These are
experiences at one,
tiny English school. I would not have expected children to have such
political hostility. There's a good chance they just repeat what their
parents or older relatives are saying. That they still speak of these
things long after the protests have ended indicates that it has been
taken to heart. They appear to have a sense that Lee Myun Bak's
policies are dangerous for ordinary South Koreans, those who don't
stand to gain anything from expanded economic ties to the U.S.
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14) IRAN'S "FAMILY
PROTECTION BILL" WILL HARM FAMILIES
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Charles Brickdale
Throughout much of Iranian society
there are growing demands for greater legal equality for women in every
part of life: marriage, divorce, the custody of children, employment
and social life. The regime's response is the Family Protection Bill
which is an attempt to stop any further improvements in the position of
women and to keep them in a firmly subservient status.
The Bill
faces determined
opposition from women's rights activists, human rights campaigners and
a number of political parties. Nonetheless, it has passed through most
of the necessary stages of the Parliamentary process and is close to
receiving final approval.
The Bill
attacks women on three key fronts, polygamy, temporary marriages and
divorce.
Husbands
will no longer have to
seek the permission of the first wife before marrying a second wife (he
may, of course, marry up to four wives). All he will have to do is
demonstrate to a court that he has the resources to support more than
one wife and that he will treat all his wives with fairness. The lawyer
Shirin Ebadi says of this provision, "upholding justice among wives is
a paper exercise which will lead nowhere. As far as financial resources
are concerned, a wealthy man can submit his accounts and marry two,
three or four women. This bill panders to rich men's lust."
Temporary
marriages will be made
easier in that they will no longer have to be registered. Among several
major concerns raised by this proposal is the fact that it leaves in
limbo the status of children born to temporarily married parents.
Divorce will
be made more
difficult - but only for women. As the law stands, men can divorce a
wife without stating a reason, whereas a woman must seek the permission
of a court and demonstrate that she has acceptable grounds for divorce.
The new law will make more complicated the procedures that wives have
to go through.
Why has the
regime chosen to
bring in such a Bill at this time? There are two main reasons. Firstly,
it is a response to the growth of the women's movement and the
increasing pressure for radical changes in the lives and legal status
of women. Reversing advances made by women has always been an objective
of the most reactionary elements of the regime; now they seek not
merely to preserve the status quo but to worsen the situation.
Secondly, the huge wealth accumulated by some people over the last few
decades will enable them to take advantage of the enhanced legal laxity
on polygamy.
A government
that wants to
promote healthy family life must promote equality before the law and
equality of respect and status between men and women and make the
safeguarding of children its first priority. The Family Protection Bill
does none of these things. It further subordinates women to the whims
of unscrupulous men and makes it even more difficult for many wives to
achieve any improvement in their conditions. This is not the road to a
society of free and fulfilled individuals, families and communities.
(This article is from CODIR,
which is involved in issues of peace and human rights in Iran. Here is
a weblink to the article: http://www.codir.net/women/index.html#27.)
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15) GREEK COMMUNISTS SPEAK
OUT ON ECONOMIC CRISIS
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
Statement from the
Communist Party of Greece (KKE), October 2, 2008 (slightly abridged)
The crisis of the economies of the
USA and the EU member states, which broke out in the form of
bankruptcies in the financial sector, prove the anarchic nature of
capitalist development. The decay and parasitism of the current economy
is caused by private and stock ownership of the means of production,
the daily purchasing and selling of shares (and of securities which
promise future profits), conducted through banks, insurance companies,
and stock markets.
Crisis
phenomena were, are and
will be the inevitable fate of all capitalist economies. This proves
capitalism is not almighty.
No
management policy can relieve
the system of its inherent decay, no matter whether the state bails out
the over-indebted banks and other companies, or leaves it to the market
to decide upon their bailout or depreciation.
Irrespective
of the ultimate
depth and range of the current economic crisis, the managers of the
system tremble before the danger of not being in a position to control
the consequences that can endanger their political stability.
The rising
exploitation of
workers and the pressures against the self-employed, in order to
increase and accumulate profits, surround and strangle the economy. The
danger also affects well-paid employees in the financial system and
middle strata, which previously boosted their income through bonds,
mutual funds, shares etc. Certainly, it threatens ordinary employees
with the loss of their jobs and savings.
What the
bourgeoisie considers a
threat to its economic and political stability is a hope for labour and
peoples' forces. It is crucial not to lose sight of the only real way
out: united, they should attack the wounded beast, not give it time to
heal its wounds, or room for recovery. What is absolutely needed is
social ownership of the means of production, the central planning of
social production, and workers' and social control, which requires an
overthrow at the level of power.
This is
neither doomsaying nor
an exaggeration. We do not argue that a crisis equal to the one in 1929
has already come. However, the ability of the bourgeoisie to apply
state regulations, in order to save the system by misleading and
trapping labour and peoples' forces, has lost the dynamic it had after
the end of World War II.
We call upon
the people to turn
their back on deliberately misleading views about the regulation,
rationalisation and humanisation of capitalism, which demonise
neo-liberalism in order to save it.
Today, we
might not have
developed the conditions to overthrow capitalist power, but conditions
signal the possibility of accelerated developments in favour of the
peoples...
The ND
(right-wing) government
is determined to proceed with so-called reforms favouring big capital,
the monopolies. PASOK (social democrats), the main opposition party,
does not suggest an alternative solution... It misleads and spreads
illusions promoting obsolete theories, arguing about a fair wealth
distribution in capitalism. The developments in the economy have shown
once again that bourgeois alternatives suggesting a different
management of the system are totally contradictory and against the
people's interests.
KKE once
again urges the people to counterattack and fight for:
* Rental subsidy for the unemployed
and the youth. Interest free housing loans to young couples for
obtaining main residence.
* Stop the auction sales of workers'
properties due to housing loan debts. The right of the banks to attach
properties and auction the main residence of the loanees must be
abolished.
* Abolish the compounding of interest
for all loans.
* Freeze the loans contracted by
unemployed workers.
* State action to provide modern and
safe houses at low prices.
* Increase incomes to meet the
needs
of the people, including 1,400 Euros basic salary, 1,150 Euros minimum
pension, unemployment benefit at 80% of the basic salary for the
duration of unemployment. Dismissal pay for all.
* Abolish the value added tax on fuel
used for heating or vehicles, for the peasants' households and the
peoples' consumption in general.
* Prevent robbery of pension fund
reserves, not just protection of investment in "structured bonds".
The KKE
appeals to workers,
peasants, the self-employed, the progressive movements of the youth and
the women to counterattack and fight jointly for the people's urgent
needs; to abandon the parties that support the EU one-way road, and to
support KKE, the party that guarantees the only real economic and
political alternative solution for the people.
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16)
WHAT'S
LEFT
(The
following
article is from the October 16-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice,
Canada's
leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers
- $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business
Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
ANTI-WAR RALLIES, OCT. 18-19
EDMONTON: Rally at Churchill Square, 1 pm, Sat., Oct. 18, http://www.ecawar.org
FREDERICTON: Rally 1:00 pm, Sat., Oct. 18, Officer’s Square, corner of Regent & Queen St. Contact: info@frederictonpeace.
org
MONTREAL: Gather 1 pm, Oct. 18 at Radisson Metro, march 1:30 pm to Longue-Pointe military base. Organized by Collectif
Echec à la guerre.
OTTAWA: Gather 1 pm, Oct. 18, Tabaret Hall Lawn. Organized by Ottawa Peace Assembly.
TORONTO: Rally 1 pm, Sat., Oct. 18, Queens Park (south lawn), see http://www.nowar.ca for info.
VANCOUVER: Rally Sunday, Oct. 19, 2-4 pm, from Vancouver Art Gallery, Georgia & Howe St. Organized by StopWar.ca.
WINNIPEG: Sat., Oct. 18, rally
at Vimy Ridge Park, march 2:30
pm to U. of Winnipeg,
forum 3:30 pm at the
Bullman Centre in Centennial
Hall.
VANCOUVER,
BC
Cuban Hurricane
Relief, social and concert, Peretz Centre, 6184 Ash
St. - 7 pm, Sat., Oct.
18, donation $10, organized by
Peña Latinoamericana, sponsored
by CCFA and Cuba solidarity
groups.
Come Sing With Us! Tuesday - Oct. 21, 7:30 pm, the Druzhba (Friendship) Choir of the Federation of Russian Canadians invites those interested in singing in Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and other languages, at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave. No auditions, no fees, call 604-254-9932 or 298-1513.
Homage to
Digna Ochoa, documentary on human rights activist
assassinated in Mexico - Friday, Oct. 24, 7 pm, Rhizome Cafe, 317 East Broadway. Organized by Building Bridges and Cafe Rebelde collectives.
Housing Justice Panel - 6-8 pm, Friday, Oct. 24, DTES Women Centre, 302 Columbia. Contact Power of Women Project, 604- 681-8480 x 234.
Left Film Night - Sunday, Oct. 26, 7 pm, 706 Clark Drive, “Incident at Restigouche,” documentary on the 1981 arrests of Mi’kmaq fishermen. For info, call 604-255-2041.
Revolution
Then and Now, videos on the October 1917 Revolution, discussion on
challenges for today - 1-4 pm, Sat., Nov. 1, by donation, Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave. Call BC Ctee., Communist Party of Canada, 604-254-9836.
Anti-War
Conference, marking 90 years since WW1 - Nov. 8-9-11 at the Maritime Labour Centre. Organized by the World Peace Forum, see article on this page for details.
Left Film Night - returns
Sunday, Oct. 27, 7 pm, at CSE, 706 Clark Drive. Call 604-255-2041.
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.
WINNIPEG,
MB
Canadian Peace
Congress convention - Oct. 25-26, Workers Organizing Resource Centre, 280 Smith St., mezzanine level. Info: Manitoba Peace Council 792-3371.
Cuban
hurricane relief fundraising dinner - Sat, Oct. 25, 8 pm at Phase 2 Cabaret, 575 Portage Ave. Tickets $15, meal included. Info 772-7274. Manitoba Cuba Solidarity Committee, Latin American Arts Council, Cuba Association.
Bailouts
and bankruptcies - the economic crisis - Mon., Oct. 27, 7 pm, with professors Rbt. Chernomas, Fletcher Baragar, Henry Heller, John Loxley and Cy Gonick. Millennium Library, info 802-7056.
TORONTO,
ON
War-Free Schools,
forum challenging Harper’s plan to recruit Canada’s
youth to war in Afghanistan - Friday, Nov. 7, 7 pm, Multipurpose Room, Ryerson Student Campus Centre, 55 Gould St. (Dundas subway). Organized by Educators for Peace & Justice and peace, solidarity and anti-racist groups. For information, contact http://www.operationobjection.org.
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