Chile: 40 year anniversary.

40 years ago this week I was at a Labor Party conference in Ireland. The news came in. The US military and CIA thugs had carried out their military coup in Chile. The US economic thugs at the University of Chicago, known as the Chicago Boys, drew up the agenda and the Chilean working class entered a nightmare of mass killings and mass poverty. All in the name of and organized by US capitalism and its profits and power and control.

It is these same thugs who lied to get the US people to agree to attack Iraq and Afghanistan. It is these same thugs who are now trying to convince the US people to attack Syria. It is sickening to watch talking head after talking head leave out any mention of the use by the US of chemical weapons in places like Vietnam and Iraq.

There are a few lessons to be learnt.

You cannot believe a word that comes out of the mouth's of the capitalist representatives and powers. They will say whatever they think will further their cause. They will not mention anything they think might hurt their cause. They insist that Syria hand over chemical weapons but there is never a word about the massive stock pile of nuclear weapons in the hands of the Zionist regime next door in Israel.

There is another lesson to be learnt from remembering the Chilean coup. Social democracy and the Stalinist parties and forces at the time were adamant that Allende was carrying out the right policy by not confronting the Chilean capitalist state, by leaving the Chilean capitalist state intact. A few of us disagreed and said the the Chilean capitalist state organized and backed by US capitalism would not respect the vote of the Chilean people. They would organize a coup. We explained that capitalism only believes in what we could call bourgeois democracy. That is it only tolerates democracy if capitalism and the capitalist class rules. As soon as it begins to lose its control then it will move to other means, military coups, civil wars, fascist methods. This remains true today. US and world capitalism are gearing up to confront the international working class and put it down in blood if it can. See the full body armor and automatic weapons on the cops surrounding peaceful pickets here in the US on this blog a few days ago.

The international working class must be clear on this. It only has a future if it organizes to overthrow the capitalist state and overthrow capitalism. We have to end the system and its state apparatus entirely and replace it with a democratic socialist world.

Sean.

The US government and state terrorism

We share this piece for our reader's interest.  Reprinted from AlterNet.org

5 Acts of Terror By the People We Chose to Protect Us

Americans are led to believe in a terrorist threat that may or may not exist while the corporate/military/political complex creates 'terror' to safeguard the assets of the rich.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/ Suzanne Tucker

September 8, 2013  |  

Every clear-thinking American knows that education and jobs are needed more than armed guards in poor neighborhoods. But average Americans are led to believe in a terrorist threat that may or may not exist, and that in any case is greatly exaggerated, while the corporate/military/political complex creates new forms of terror to safeguard the assets of the rich.
1. War Terror

It started with our leaders comparing notes on Iraq:

Cheney 08/26/02: There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Cheney 09/14/03: We never had evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon.

Powell 02/05/03: Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agents.
Powell 09/13/04: I think it's unlikely that we will find any stockpiles.

Bush 05/29/03: We found the weapons of mass destruction.
Bush 10/08/04: I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons.

In the first  Iraqi war, two air missions per minute were conducted over 43 days, with the equivalent of  seven Hiroshima bombsdropped on a largely defenseless country. Much of the slaughter was caused by  "dumb bombs" that fell on civilian areas. U.S. troops attacked retreating Iraqi soldiers with cluster bombs and  napalm as American pilots, adopting metaphors such as 'turkey shoot' and 'fish in a barrel,' conducted target practice from above. Some Iraqis were  buried alive by bulldozers that spread tons of sand over them.

In the end, at least  190,000 Iraqi lives were destroyed in a war that cost over $2.2 trillion. A  Johns Hopkins study puts the tally much higher, with an estimate of 650,000 Iraqi deaths.

2. Drone Terror

In Pakistan, civilians can hear the  droning in the sky all day long. Said one resident: "I can't sleep...when the drones are there...I hear them making that sound, that noise. The drones are all over my brain." A humanitarian worker added, "I was in New York on 9/11...This is what it is like."

When bombings kill townspeople, their family and friends are often afraid to run to their aid, because standard procedure is to bomb the first responders. Afterwards the funerals are sometimes bombed.

A Pew survey reported that  75%of Pakistanis consider us their enemy. A former advisor to General Petraeus stated, "Every one of these dead noncombatants represents an alienated family, a new desire for revenge, and more recruits for a militant movement.." Indeed, militant groups have rapidly been forming, such as  Lashkar, which has been attacking U.S. troops across the border in Afghanistan. The sentiment goes beyond Pakistan. A spokesperson for Yemen, also  under attack, told a U.S. Senate committee, "What radicals had previously failed to achieve in my village, one drone strike accomplished in an instant: There is now an intense anger and growing hatred of America."

The disease is spreading. There are now 737  U.S. Military Bases around the world, and over 2.5 million military personnel. Since 9/11 about 100 new  generals and admirals have been added to the ranks of top brass, all with private jets and chefs and guards and secretaries and drivers.

Africa, already swollen with a U.S. military presence, is under further  siege by the Pentagon.  The Economist speaks of "Afrighanistan," calling it "the next front of the global war on terror."

3. Unconstitutional Terror

The Fourth Amendment guarantees the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

Since 9/11, numerous measures have been employed in the name of national security: The Patriot Act, Homeland Security, the National Security Agency, and the National Defense Authorization Act. The  Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has facilitated the monitoring of foreign communications in the name of anti-terrorism.

Internet privacy has been threatened by  proposals like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Privacy is at risk with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), passed in the House.

In addition, new  techniques such as Iris Scans, License Plate Recognition,  GPS devices in pharmaceutical products, and  Facial Recognition Technology invade our privacy.  Drones are flying over our homes. The National Security Agency is building a  data centerbig enough to store every email, text, phone call, web search, and video in the United States. With the Electronic Communications Privacy Act  on its side, government is authorized to take anything it can get.

4. Terror against Opponents of Unconstitutional Terror

In 1778 the Continental Congress created the first  whistleblower protection law by declaring "it is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds, or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states."

In 2008 Barack Obama campaigned with a  pledge to "strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government."

But Bradley Manning was found guilty of espionage for reporting extreme cases of war misconduct. And Edward Snowden faces prison for reporting abuses of the 4th Amendment by the NSA.

The hypocrisy continues with the proposed  Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act, which would have made it an act of terror to report on the terrorizing of animals. And with the efforts of  TransCanada Corporation to convince law enforcement agencies that pipeline protestors are terrorists.

Going even further, FBI documents  reveal that the agency repeatedly monitored Occupy Wall Street activities, viewing them as possible acts of  terrorism.

5. The Terror of Poverty

The largely imagined threat of foreign attacks is diverting billions of dollars into a  Homeland Security fund that safeguards the assets of the rich, while the  poverty rate for black children has risen to almost 50 percent, and  unemployment among blacks has almost doubled the rate of whites.

Meanwhile, paranoia has infiltrated our schools. As K-12  education has been cut by $20 billion over f ive years, and as funding for guidance counselors and school psychologists has dropped to all-time lows, the Department of Justice's COPS Office has awarded over $750 million for the hiring of more than 6,500  police officers for schools, even though studies show that placing armed police in schools actually increases physical dangers to youth.

People burdened by economic oppression and authoritarian rule can begin to understand Frederick Douglass' bitter words to his own country, on behalf of the American slave:  To him your boasted liberty [is] an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery.

Canada. Unifor's Founding Convention: The Predictable and the Unexpected

The piece below was sent to us from a retired CAW member in Canada. Not being in Canada it is hard to determine how much of a good thing this merger might be. The author points out that when it comes to organizational details, nothing has changed and women, a huge section of the working class and union membership throughout the world are visibly absent. Sister Hinshelwood points out that there was some progress in that she received 17.49% of the vote in a challenge for the union's first national president and correctly pointed out that the bosses' austerity agenda cannot be halted without international solidarity. This is not an insignificant result and shows the potential for a genuine fighting opposition developing in Unifor.The most important thing of course is whether the strategy and tactics of this new union and its leadership are going to change. What is the leadership going to do differently from what has been done in the past? Will the present world-view of the union hierarchy, that the market and capitalism is the answer to all things, be discarded and a working class offensive be built that can drive back the austerity agenda and open up a new period of struggle?

By Lindsay Hinshelwood

Over the Labour Day weekend two of Canada's largest industrial unions, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP), merged to become the country's largest private sector union, Unifor.

At this founding convention, facilitated by retiring CAW President Ken Lewenza, the new union leadership moved forward by engaging in exactly the same kind of rhetoric it engaged in the day before when the CAW held its final convention: the usual "we fought for this, we fought for that." So if we ask the question "what kind of union is Unifor likely to be?" I'm going to say it will be just a larger, more tightly controlled Old Boys' club.

I had the privilege of being a first-time delegate at this merger convention and I wasn't expecting anything more than the same words I've been hearing for the 15 years I've been a CAW member. I expected sycophants giving their orchestrated standing ovations and speeches as expected. But the unexpected happened: the delegates offered some criticism and even some democracy, rarities in these patriarchal organizations that are traditionally plagued with appointed reps, nepotism and tokenism.

A sister, Kerry Ann Taylor, from the former CEP Local 232 spoke out about the lack of women and people of colour in the presentation of the new union. This led other delegates to say that it was only the Old Boys playing starring roles, and that this was the underlying culture of this historical event: the CAW leaders, all men, were controlling the democracy. This set the stage for the elections of the new national leaders of this new union, as Dave Coles, retiring President of the CEP, opened the nominations.

The anointed prince for the position of Unifor's first National President was the CAW's Jerry Dias. He is a careerist official who has been a union representative for most of his working life in the CAW, a self-titled "rank and file man" who spent most of his time in office. Then a challenger was

nominated by Bruce Allen, militant activist and Vice President of former CAW Local 199. After a compelling introduction he nominated me for National President, not only the first rank-and-file member to contest the top position in Unifor or the CAW before it but also a woman.

Instead of controlled democracy we had democracy forced from the floor. This developed further: when Coles wouldn't allow the candidates to speak, the delegates spoke out and demanded it. I received 17.49% of the vote, a great indication that many delegates were not happy founding a new union on old guard practices. I campaigned on a platform that we must be the change we want to see, with One Member One Vote for national officials and nominations open to the rank-and-file. My leaflet stated "Lindsay Hinshelwood recognizes that solidarity knows no borders and the struggle

against the austerity agenda cannot be effectively fought just in this country. She does not endorse reducing workers to being competitors, competing for lower wages, undercutting each other and impoverishing all, rather she believes in forging international solidarity."

With the election over and the other 24 nominees acclaimed, it was time to review and adopt the new Constitution and Vision, and this is where the union remains the same. There are few changes in the policies and procedures except that the role that the Public Review Board played in the CAW, as a body to which rank-and-file workers can make appeals, becomes diminished. The new vision implies that concessions are sometimes necessary, a frightful statement coming from the collaborationist, concession- seeking CAW officials. There is a plan to somehow include workers who work in non-unionized workplaces or who do not have jobs. This is a twisted irony for the Unifor members who are low-waged supplemental workers on General Motors' assembly lines who pay union dues but are not protected under the collective agreements.

Overall, the microphones were stacked with servile officials harping on about how good the union has been for them and these performances were always met with thunderous applause. However, there were also many delegates who addressed the floor on issues which concerned workers, issues which Dias just glossed over.

The merger does come with a glimmer of hope for change, and that will come from future delegates and members who demand change, contest the tradition of appointments and acclamations for national level positions, continue to publicize their critique of the union and raise the issues which concern them. The delegates of the founding convention forced a historic election, which has been more or less ignored by the new Unifor. I fear the driving down of workers will only accelerate before any progress is made.

Lindsay Hinshelwood is a member of Unifor Local 707 (Ford Oakville). She has been referred to as "the most outspoken critic of the CAW."

Syria, Middle East, World balance of forces:Coming apart at the seams?

by Sean O' Torrain

Over the past years tens of millions of people have taken to the streets of the world to protest the conditions in which they are forced to live by the capitalist offensive. These movements have not all been conscious but they have been full of anger and rage. At the same time increased tensions have developed between the major capitalist powers. During the decades of the cold war the world had a certain equilibrium based on the balance between US imperialism and its rival Stalinism. With the end of the Soviet Union this equilibrium began to collapse. With the move of China towards capitalism this also weakened this equilibrium and moved the world not towards more stability but towards more tensions and more instability. The staggering arrogance of US imperialism is that with its massive debt and while at the same time driving down its own working class into poverty it has continued to believe it can still rule the world. It can still have its new world order, it can still have its "full spectrum domination." I could be premature. I remember the many times in my own revolutionary past when I and other Comrades announced that we were at a "turning point," but with the present events around Syria things are definitely looking a little shaky for imperialism's offensive.

I would like to raise two points for consideration. US imperialism has backed itself into a corner over Syria. I believe it has to strike Syria or its credibility and influence in the region will be very significantly weakened. As well as other factors that would result if it did not strike would be that this would increase the likelihood of its proxies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia and others plus the many militias going off half cocked on their own. Maybe Israel bombing Iran. If the vote goes against Obama to strike Syria this will enormously weaken US imperialism's authority over the whole region and increase the tendency of the many regimes and militias in the area to go it alone. Even if Obama wins the vote it will be only by a slim margin and this too will weaken US imperialism in the region.

When looking at the crisis developing in the entire Middle East and the coming apart of the entire region I find it useful to keep in mind Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution. The weak capitalist classes in the entire Middle East were not able to pull together and develop cohesive capitalist nations. Arab capitalism in spite of its tremendous oil wealth was not able to develop a cohesive Arab capitalist state. Imperialism instead cut the area to pieces and installed dictator after dictator to rule the many states it created. This is now coming apart. But because the working class, which was held back by Stalinism and Social Democracy, is not organized for the international socialist revolution, the result looks like being sectarian conflict and the redrawing of the map of the Middle East along sectarian lines. In my opinion only a united revolutionary international movement of the working class throughout the entire region can prevent this.

One way or another US imperialism will be weakened, is being weakened in the present situation. This is strengthening Russian imperialism, and also strengthening the Chinese regime as it drives for increased influence and control in Central Asia, Africa and Latin America. This in turn will increase tensions between China and Japan.

If US imperialism strikes Syria it is hard to say what will happen in any detail. But from what happened in Libya we can have a good idea. That country is in a shambles and oil production has plunged from 1.4 million barrels a day earlier this year to just 160,000 barrels a day at present. Rival militias rule. Strike or no strike I believe that Syria is sliding inevitably into all out prolonged sectarian civil war.  And with this a further leap forward in the destabilization of the entire Middle East.

The other point I would like to raise is this. And it gives ground for optimism. There is a tremendous opposition amongst the US masses for any strike at Syria. For the first time in a long time and to an extent not experienced in a long time and also assisted by social media, the US masses are having their say. US politicians are being inundated with emails, and posts demanding they oppose any strike.

For Comrades who read our blog,  weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com,  you will have seen the recent photo of US cops in full body armor and armed with automatic weapons surrounding unarmed peaceful protesters calling for a $15.00 an hour minimum wage and union rights at a Walmart store. There have been protests and strikes in 60 cities in the US recently for the minimum wage to be doubled to $15.00. There is anger developing in the US on a myriad of issues, health care, jobs, racism, sexism, police brutality, political corruption, climate change, pollution, fracking, attacks on education. These are all issues related to and originating from the offensive of the US capitalist class against its own working class. US imperialism cannot keep on as it is doing, funding its wars and occupations abroad, and allowing its own working class at home to have the living standards it has. It is going after its own working class now in a serious way. We need to remember that when the Occupy Movement emerged it was confronted immediately with cops in full body armor in every city and of course using chemical weapons against the protesters. US imperialism has been preparing to take on its own working class now for decades.

Most US politicians are desperately trying to work a way to vote for bombing Syria. The reason they are having such difficulty is that the US masses have moved very strongly against any strike. Solve the problems at home, spend the money on Detroit, on education on health care, on jobs, not on spending billions on bombing Syria. The mood of the US masses is now against the interests of US imperialism on an issue of very great and international significance. This is a major development. It looks very like we could have arrived at the point where the US masses are saying: we are not prepared to fund US capitalism's wars and occupations abroad when we are being driven into poverty here at home.

Whether this is happening now and will be maintained we will see, But happen it will. It might be now over the issue of bombing Syria. Whenever it happens at some stage the US masses will take to the streets and say enough is enough, spend the trillions on the problems at home and not on defending US corporations' interests abroad. When this happens the world balance of forces will change. This is not to say there will not be great confusion and as well as movements towards revolution as well as movements towards counter revolution in such a process. But what it is to say is that the masses will take to the scene of history in the major capitalist countries such as the US and act to take on the capitalist offensive. The US working class will enter the scene of history with all that this will mean. One affect it will have will be the shock wave it will send through the ranks of the US capitalist state, both its military and its state apparatus at home.

Whenever this happens it will be up to those who oppose capitalism to overcome our own weaknesses and find the road to building this mass movement into a conscious organized movement to end capitalism and establish a democratic socialist world.

Bloomberg: de Blasio's campaign racist and class warfare

The "racist" campaign literature

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

You gotta laugh at politics in America.  The race for mayor of NYC is heating up. Present mayor, Michael Bloomberg who is owner of Business Week magazine and is described in the media as a “self made”billionaire, has accused one of the candidates hoping to replace him of running a “racist” campaign based on “class warfare.” In an interview with New York Magazine Bloomberg said that Democrat Bill de Blasio’s is "in some ways ... a class-warfare campaign……..class-warfare and racist.”.

What the hell is a “self made” billionaire anyway?  Is there a collectively made billionaire? A billionaire by committee? What does “self made” mean? Is there anyone that believes you can accumulate billions of dollars all on your own, working lots of overtime and stashing away savings. But I must let that sidetrack me.

When asked what is racist about Democrat Bill de Blasio’s campaign, Bloomberg says, according to the Associated Press, "Well, no, no, I mean he's making an appeal using his family to gain support. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone watching what he's been doing. I do not think he himself is racist. It's comparable to me pointing out I'm Jewish in attracting the Jewish vote."

Is Bloomberg Jewish? I’d never have thought it. Bill de Blasio is married to a black woman and apparently his campaign ads have featured his family. Have we ever seen such a thing in American politics, a candidate having their partner, kids and dog on stage with them or in campaign ads with them?

I would say its one of the standard sickening practices we see every election time as these people try to appeal to the conservative elements in society showing that they are “normal” people in a normal god-fearing marriage, a man, a woman, two kids and a dog.

The real issue is not that de Blasio has an interracial family. It’s that he’s striking a bit of a populist tone. He’s not obscuring the fact that there is a class war, that’s the problem.  De Blasio has attacked Bloomberg for not doing enough to help the poor and that New York has become “two cities”, one for the rich and one for everyone else. De Blasio is well aware of the mood out there in the aftermath of the Great Recession and is tapping in to the anger and hatred for the rich that lies beneath the surface, but so is Bloomberg which is why he has reacted so strongly.  Bloomberg, a coupon clipper, is the 7^thrichest man in the US worth about $27 billion. He is as detached from American working class life as Putin is.

He comes to the defense of his coupon clipper colleagues, many of whom live in NYC. But first he attacks the poor in NYC, “By most of the world’s standards, you ain’t poor,” he says reminding us that when compared to most places in the world “…our poor are wealthy.”  You see, you don’t have to be bright to be wealthy and won a major magazine.

Bloomberg is quite hurt by de Blasio’s assault on the NY City’s billionaires as they contribute so much to the city in the form of tax revenue. "The way to help those who are less fortunate is, number one, to attract more very fortunate people. They are the ones that pay the bills. The people that would get very badly hurt here if you drive out the very wealthy are the people he professes to try to help," Bloomberg says.

He gets a little madder and reveals to us his real view of the world when he says that “…this city is

Bloomberg, worth $27 billion

not two groups, and if to some extent it is, it's one group paying for services for the other." We should all be grateful to the Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trumps and Warren Buffets of this word for giving us miserable wretches an existence.

The fact that poverty and unemployment and all the negative aspects of their so-called free market hits black folks, as a percentage of the population, far worse than most groups, with the exception of Native Americans perhaps, is definitely an issue when a white candidate with a black wife, a multi-racial family, is speaking about how the world actually is, is raising the class divide as Jesse Jackson did in his first presidential campaign before the Democratic Party hacks gave him a good talking to before the national convention. Plus, the Great Recession has hit a lot of people who thought they were safe; pointing fingers at the 1% in this climate is a dangerous game.

De Blasio has been getting a lot of support from the black community according to reports but I’ll wager it is predominantly for his populist rhetoric.  Were his wife to take a cue from Bill Cosby and chide black folks for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and going out there and “gettin’ it” as opposed to complaining all the time, there’d be no accusation of racism from Bloomberg then.

I saw a plug for “Crossfire” on TV tonight as I was flipping through channels and it had two Democrats and two Republicans in the plug and it was making the point about issues and differences being discussed.  But there is not significant difference between these two parties on the fundamentals.  They both agree that workers and the middle class must pay for their crisis and would both oppose a real candidate that made the class war that is forced on us daily an issue. It’s as if there is only a Democratic and republican view of the world.

This support that Occupy initially got and the support that de Blasio is getting is an indication of the mood that exists in society and that a genuine mass party of working people could have significant success in the political arena.  The 128 million or so of Americans that didn’t vote in the last election cycle aren’t all asleep, they have simply given up, recognizing correctly that on the basic issues, food, shelter, health care, workplace and civil rights, both parties are against them.

As for Bloomberg threatening that if you attack those “more fortunate” we will have no services or they’ll leave town, our response is that we won’t let you, or we won’t let you with all the money you’ve stolen from those who work and create the wealth in society. His solution to poverty, he says, is to make more rich people.

Every human being deserves a secure and productive life.  A society that cannot provide that is not a civilized society.  It is not simply the billions they waste on predatory wars and such that we must take and allocate more efficiently in a humane sense, but the personal billions they have stashed away, what they call private money or their “personal” wealth.  They never earned that money; it’s a collective product. Michael Bloomberg should be guaranteed a decent and secure life, and most socialists and ordinary workers would agree, just not off the backs of the rest of us.  We would guarantee them what they deny us.