From reader Emil Shaw:
Every time I read an article by Sam Webb it stimulates my thinking. His article on marginalization of the left and the Communist Party has caused me to think of what are some of the other factors for this marginalization.
For one thing: since the days of the 1930’s, the people’s movement has progressed in their knowledge of strategy and tactics, even if the Communists’ participation was being sidelined by red-baiting and McCarthyism. For another, I have found out that people will listen to you if you have something concrete to say or to contribute to the various problems confronting people’s coalitions in their struggle against the monopolies.
But to be able to be in a position where people will listen to you, one has to be in the coalition, participating in their day to day work. To be on the sidelines doesn’t work. To yell “socialism” doesn’t work, in particular when the party and our international comrades, do not have a clear idea of what we are talking about, since the days of the demise of the Soviet Union. New paths towards an egalitarian and just social order are being written with the efforts of the people in Latin America and Asia. But this story is not yet completely told, depending on the degree of U.S. interference and also the degree of solidarity we can generate within the U.S. labor and people’s movement.
There are comrades who still feel that all we have to do is to follow the example of Charles Chaplin in his film “Modern Times” where he walks down the street, picks up a red construction flag, waves it around and all the workers from different work sites put down their tools and follow him in a procession. Times are different now.
Despite the red-baiting, masses of workers are looking for answers to their day to day problems. If we can help to fill this void, then we will have helped to contribute to the people’s coalition instead of just holding their hands and commiserating with their misfortunes.
One issue that begs clarification is the question of “What is the middle class?” Since the federal election the major media discussion has been on protecting the middle class. However the concept of the middle class is used with Keynesian standards of income, rather than scientific Marxist standards of individuals’ relations to social production. Our contribution to this discussion talking place in the labor and people’s movement could be to help clarify what is the working class and what is the people’s movement.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
My take on the issue of marginalization
Monday, August 3, 2009
HONDURAS UPDATE AUG 3 2009
By Emile Schepers
Here is the latest on Honduras, as of 10 PM Monday August 3, 2009
1. NEW OAS DELEGATION TO TALK TO MICHELETTI. The Organization of American States is meeting on Wednesday to discuss sending a new delegation to talk to coup leader Roberto Micheletti on Wednesday, Aug. 5, to see if they can talk him into backing off his refusal to consider a return of president Zelaya. Potential members of this delegation include regional foreign ministers. The inititive was announced aftr a meeting among OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, Spanish First Vice President Teresa Fernandez and the Secretary of the Ibero-American Summit, Enrique Iglesias. Earlier, Micheletti has specifically asked for Iglesias to be send in as a negotiator. Micheletti says he agrees to some of the points that Arias, as mediator, has suggested for agreement, but not to the return of Zelaya as president. Since all the other points in the two proposals that Arias has presented are concessions to the coup regime, this is going to be a non-starter from the point of view of Zelaya and his supporters.
2. ZELAYA TO MEXICO, BRAZIL. This week president Zelaya will be going to Mexico City on Tuesday to meet with Mexican president Felipe Calderon, and then possibly to Brazil to meet with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and/or other Brazilian officials. The agenda is to shore up opposition to the coup and support for Zelaya’s return to the presidency.
3. CORREA CALLS FOR NON-RECOGNITION OF HONDURAN ELECTIONS. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa is going to ask the Organization of American States to formally un-recognize the coming national elections in Ecuador because as he says “Any election under a de facto regime has no validity”. The elections are scheduled for November 29 and the parties evidently have already selected their candidates, but it is clear that parties and candidates of the left are not going to be allowed to campaign openly or perhaps even be on the ballot. This will leave basically the Liberal Party and the National Party in the running, both of which are considered right wing bodies.
4. NO CHANGE IN H RES 430. There are no new sign-ons today either on H RES 630, which denounces the coup and calls for Zelaya’s restoration to power, or H RES 619, which applauds the coup and calls for the Obama administration to recognize the Micheletti regime. Congress is in recess, but that should be an opportunity to visit your representatives in their district offices.
That’s all for now.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
HONDURAS UPDATE AUGUST 2 2009
By Emile Schepers
There were not huge new developments over the weekend, but the clock is ticking. Here is what I have for now:
1. ADDITIONAL FATALITY FROM REPRESSION OF TEGUCIGALPA DEMONSTRATION. The body of another schoolteacher, Florencio Rivera Barrientos has been found in Tegucigalpa, with 25 stab wounds. Mr. Rivera had been arrested after a memorial service for a colleague, Roger Vallejo, who had been fatally wounded in a demonstration last week. The teachers' union in Honduras has strongly supported the return of president Zelaya and has been on strike since the coup. The US press is saying there have been 3 fatalities of Zelaya supporters since the coup, but others say there have been up to 9, excluding the possibility that there are ones nobody knows about yet.
2. OBAMA REPEATS DESIRE FOR ZELAYA TO FINISH HIS TERM. President Obama, interviewed by the Spanish language U.S. TV network UNIVISION, reiterated on Sunday his wish that president Zelaya be returned to power to finish out his term, and that clean elections be held in Honduras. He also repeated the position articulated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Zelaya's movements toward crossing the border are not useful and that every effort should be made to work through the Costa Rican mediation process (which, however, has bogged down due to Micheletti's refusal to consider a return of Zelaya). Much of the Latin American left in and out of power is suspicious of the mediation by Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, because they don't like Arias for his support for neo-liberalism and his anti-communism, and because they strongly suspect that the Arias mediation is designed to, or at least has the effect of, running out the clock on Zelaya and making sure that the November 29 elections (which Micheletti wants to reschedule for earlier) can go forward without the participation of left wing candidates, i.e. merely be between the candidates, already selected, of the two right wing parties, the Liberal Party and the National Party. This means that the eventual return of Zelaya is not the only issue at play here, and explains the haste and urgency of the Honduran left.
3. DEMONSTRATIONS, BOYCOTTS PLANNED. The National Resistance Front Against the Coup is calling for an international boycott of Honduran products. New demonstrations will be organized in the coming week.
4. THERE WERE NO NEW SIGN-ONS FOR H RES 630 TODAY. We have to keep contacting our representatives on this, as well as finding ways to keep the Honduras issue in the eye of the public.
All for now, more Monday Aug 3 2009
Sea Stories and Other Dirty Lies
I am grateful to the British facility with language for not having any tattoos anywhere on my skin, and for one of the best movies of recent times.
In 1961, I got blind drunk and went to a dark tattoo parlor somewhere in Singapore that only the cab driver could find. I had decided to certify my naval service in exotic surroundings. Fortunately for me, two talkative British seamen were waiting in line ahead of me.
In those days, I considered myself not only a good sailor but an exceptionally fluent one, having learned to swear at an early age in rustic Oklahoma, refined my vulgar skill in the West Texas oil fields, and carefully copied every trash-mouth lowlife I had ever known. In just a minute of listening to the two Limeys, though, I realized that I was a first-day kindergartener in swearing. Another minute or two, and the shock from the sheer depravity of their language began to make me sick to my stomach. I staggered back to the taxi. It might have been the gin, or it might have been my fear about being tattooed, but I have always thought it was the British mastery of foul language that literally saved my skin.
The British claim to have originated English. Whether they did or not, they have certainly had longer to practice than we have. That’s why “In the Loop” is the funniest and most significant satire of late and possibly the best since Johnathan Swift, or at least since “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” which was also about government officials and, I believe, was secretly British.
The theater was packed for the matinee on the third day of showing in Dallas. The five o’clock crowd, lined up and waiting when we came out, would easily fill the theater again. The reason for the big crowds, we surmised, might be explained another way than just that word-of-mouth had done its magic. We decided that the same people were watching the movie over and over, because no one could possibly have caught every joke in one sitting, and probably not in two or three.
If all the droll humor ever aired in season after season of “The Office,” both American and British versions, were packed into 106 minutes, and all the jokes from twenty seasons of “Saturday Night Live,” they might equal the humor compressed into this one movie. Of course, it wouldn’t be as funny, because it wouldn’t be as, well, as nasty.
A few prim people got up and left after the first swearing in, so to speak, of the characters in the film. Early leavers weren’t so remarkable as were the people leaving in a huff after 10 minutes, 20 minutes, or halfway through the film. The people who left, but didn’t leave right away, were not puritanical, no-cussing filmgoers. They were people who could stand some foul language in the movies, especially if it helped make the point, and the swearing in this movie not only carried the message but, to a significant extent, was the message. Different people left at different intervals because they had different tolerance levels for filth. They couldn’t take it. They maxed out on slime talk, just as I had done those many years past in Singapore.
I understand that “In the Loop” is actually a composite of a successful BBC series called, “The Thick of It,” with the same director and some of the same actors.
Why would anyone make such a TV series or movie? What possible purpose could writers have in assembling such foul, dirty, corrupt, venal, egotistical, tyrannical, cowardly, and traitorous fictional government officials? The filmmakers were attempting to portray the Americans and British officials involved in providing fake British intelligence to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
That’s my only criticism of the film. They weren’t filthy enough.
Roger Revisited
The editorial below was written by an aspiring new activist in North Texas. He was four when "Roger and Me" first premiered, but was sufficiently impressed on his recent viewing of the DVD to put his emotions into a strong review.
Older activists will disagree with his conclusion that nothing has changed since Michael Moore made his powerful first documentary, but no one can deny that "Roger and Me" was far more prophetic than anyone could have wanted.
Roger and Me: 20 years later
This may show my age, but my wife and I watched “Roger and Me” for the first time last night -- twenty years after it was released. If you have not watched this debut film By Michael Moore then you need to.
This documentary centers around Flint, MI where General Motors started. In the 1980’s. GM closed down plants across the nation, including most in Flint. This was a major economic source in Flint. Because of this, the unemployment rate went to 33%, crime and evictions skyrocketed, and no one in GM would answer for it.
It is interesting watching this after GM went through the its bankruptcy this year, begging for money earlier, laying off union workers and blaming them for what had happened. And the similarities are so shocking, I swore to God that I actually had seen it all before. Thing was, I had.
Watching the news over the last year, I had seen nearly the same thing. GM hasn't changed. It didn't change after that happened in the 80’s, and it hasn't changed today. But the interesting parallels are not from GM 20 years ago and of today, but of the Corporate machine. Watching the film, you see the hopelessness of people as they are getting evicted; caring what few belongings they can and their children crying as they have to vacate their home. Those same people on the phone, trying to negotiate with their landlords. One mother called the landlord and told him about Moore’s camera crew and he stopped the eviction. She then tells us that she had to do repairs to the home that may well have cost more than her rent, just to stay dry.
You find out later she was evicted three days later. Watching, you cant help but think that maybe this is happening again today, but not only evictions, but foreclosures too. That what is happening in this film is really happening now; not just because of GM, but because of the banks, the health insurance industry, Wall Street. You sit there watching and wonder if the nation saw this twenty years ago, why is it happening again? And on a larger scale? Why the banks that came and begged for money- for TAX PAYER MONEY- are making record profits again and still giving out their contractually obligated bonuses.
Like Roger Smith did twenty years ago when he fired all those workers and moved the work to Mexico. Like the health insurance industry does when it denies care to a painting that could cost the company a bit of money.
What surprises me the most is that not only did this happen before, and everyone knew about it because it was on the nightly news, but it seems like a good chunk of the population refuses to acknowledge that it ever happened before, or why it happened before. Some of that group actually believe that it was the union that did it, but they are the ones who lost their jobs. These same people defend the helpless Executives because it is not their fault that they make so much money at the cost of other peoples jobs and well-being. They defend it, saying it is their right to make so much money and those workers don’t want to work anyway.
It is this kind of statement that makes me wonder what would happen if the workers took a day off. As a class, we all need to go on strike one day. Just one day. The Gay community did it, and it showed their impact on society. Why not the working class? Why not one third of the working class? Or a quarter? Seeing this made me mad as Hell that we are not fighting more for what we truly want and need. There are pockets here and there, but I have not seen anywhere near the protesting the populations in the UK, France, and Germany have done this year. That we, as a class, are just as apathetic as we were twenty years ago (the movie shows what was planned as a huge protest to the last plant closing where only four people showed up), makes me even madder. And sad.
What is stopping us from sitting outside The Hill and protesting? What about a civil demand for the floor on in Congress or the Senate? Why is no one mentioning Single Payer anymore when the “Public Option” is still feeding private insurance? What have we learned in the last twenty years? Has anything really changed?
Saturday, August 1, 2009
HONDURAS UPDATE AUGUST 1 2009
HONDURAS UPDATE AUGUST 1 2009
By Emile Schepers
There is not a huge amount of new stuff to report at close of day Saturday, August 1. There are no new diplomatic initiatives, unless they are “behind the scenes”. The priority actions for us are still to get some steam behind H RES 630, which condemns the coup and calls for Zelaya’s restoration to power, in the House of Representatives, and to organize whatever kind of forums, press conferences, demonstrations etc. we can to back up the demands of the Honduran working class and people. Other than that:
1. As mentioned above, H RES 630 is the priority. It now has 44 cosponsors. That is the good news. The bad news is that the reactionary resolution, H RES 619, which applauds the coup and demands the Obama administration recognize the Micheletti regime, has been gaining on it, with a current 41 cosponsors. Most of the cosponsors on H RES 630 are from the Progressive, Hispanic and Black caucuses. The ones on H RES 619 are “the usual suspects”: Right wing Cuban exiles from South Florida and their allies, anti-worker pre-Neanderthals and fascists. But we have to realize that the WHOLE of the Republican Party is supporting Micheletti and the putchists, while BY NO MEANS ALL of the Democrats have yet come out in support of condemning the coup and restoring Zelaya.
2. One person has died as the result of the violent repression of pro-Zelaya demonstrators in Honduras yesterday, a schoolteacher. There have been acts in memorial at which Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, has been one of the main speakers.
3. On the website of Telesur (www.telesurtv.net) there is an interview this evening with president Manuel Zelaya which I summarize in English as follows: The violence that has resulted from the coup in Honduras should serve as a lesson for the international community, because it shows the need to create mechanisms to combat those who usurp authority by force. He criticizes people on the right wing in Nicaragua who have denounced his presence and that of Honduran refugees (perhaps about 500) in that country, saying that “What Nicaragua is doing is a gesture of hospitality, of immense love”. He denied he is forming an armed militia in Nicaragua to invade Honduras (as the right wing pro-coup press in Honduras has been saying), he said that he is creating a force not to create violence but to oppose violence. He criticized the anti-Chavez campaign in Honduras, and praised the Venezuelan president. He intimated that the claims that Chavez runs him are to hide the fact that the putchists overthrew him because he had the intention of discussing the problems of the country peacefully through the ballot box. He warned U.S. President Barack Obama that “the bad example of Honduras…is an example which could break up (descomponer) Latin America, put the security of the hemisphere at risk and also even the U.S. people”. He recalled that those in the United States’ extreme right, such as former Asst. Secretary of State Otto Reich, who have come out openly in favor of the coup, and that the plotters of the coup were the “hawks of Washington, agents of the CIA”. He said he is meeting with president Felipe Calderon of Mexico next week