First Labour Union Formed at Chinese Wal-Mart Store

Illustration from DesignWorks

From the AP, via KFSM:

BEIJING -- An official Chinese news agency says the first labor union at a Wal-Mart store in China has been formed following a lobbying campaign by the country's official union group. The official Xinhua News Agency reported today that 30 employees at a Wal-Mart store in the southeastern city of Quanzhou, in Fujian province, voted Saturday to form a union.

The news agency said a 29-year-old employee named Ke Yunlong was elected chairman of its seven-member committee.

The official All-China Federation of Trade Unions has been lobbying Wal-Mart tores Inc. for two years to organize employees of its 60 stores in China. The federation had accused the company of obstructing its efforts.

Wal-Mart opened its first Chinese outlet in 1996 and says it has 28,000 employees in China. It says it plans to add 18 to 20 stores on the mainland this year. Phone calls today to Wal-Mart's China headquarters in the southern city of Shenzhen weren't answered.

Conmemoró de Salvador Allende

"El Partido Socialista conmemoró el lunes 26 los 98 años del nacimiento del ex Presidente Salvador Allende. El acto -al que asistieron unas 200 personas- se realizó ante el monumento al ex Mandatario en la Plaza de la Constitución.

La ceremonia se inició con la lectura de una carta de quienes integraron el GAP y finalizó con un breve discurso del presidente del PS, senador Camilo Escalona, quien destacó la consecuencia política de Allende el 11 de septiembre de 1973, prefiriendo el suicidio a rendirse al ataque militar. Por otra parte, el timonel del PC, Guillermo Teillier, admitió ayer que su tienda no supo defender el Gobierno de Allende, tras ser “derrotados por la intervención norteamericana y por la oligarquía de nuestro país”.

Portal del Socialismo Chileno: Salvador Allende

IRAs Enable the "Ownership Society"

The American Spectator has a "compelling" article on how American free market capitalism actually reduces racism. Some highlights below:

[...]
We saw the marginalizing effects of socialism with the favoritism shown to Great Russians in the Soviet Union. We see it again today in France, Europe's grandest exponent of continental socialism, its cities in flames because of the lack of economic opportunity exacerbated by race discrimination that is in turn enabled by its stratified and heavily regulated economy. Ireland, Europe's most market oriented economy, has no such issues.
[...]
The American Spectator: Capitalism, Socialism and Race

It is interesting that the only IRA the American Spectator (AS) seems to be aware of is the one that involves stock market equities. Indeed, it boggles the mind to see that the AS is holding up Ireland as an example of racial peace in Europe! Perhaps they think that Fox News has us all too worried about those swarthy Muslims to remember the sad saga of class driven race violence that has wracked Erie for over 100 years.

And sorry AS, the USA is not less racist than European societies and it certainly does not owe any of the dubious progress that it has made to capitalism! Today in America, among males age 25 to 29, 12.6% of blacks were in prison or jail, compared to 3.6% of Hispanics and about 1.7% of whites (from a 2004 report on the US DOJ website, also see comments and thank you for the corrections). In addition, nearly every black political leader in America has been assassinated or discredited due to the effects of institutionalized racism.

This magazine and other publications like it are examples of why it is so very important for socialists and progressives to fight to gain access to the public debate. If we do not, this sort of pseudo-journalism filled with lies and distortion will define the terrain of human thought and continue to destroy our world.

A socialist perspective gives us the context, intellectual honesty and political bravery to fight racism by addressing its root cause - capitalism.

Carnival of Socialism #7

Presenting the Carnival of Socialism #7. This edition is presented under the clouds of expanding war in the Middle East. Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of discussion of current events in socialist circles.

Humantide starts us off with an article written just before the war in Lebanon started titled Neo-Con Dreams in Ashes as War Looms in Lebanon. In this post, the global neo-con project is called into question. Eli over at Left I on the News drops some analysis on the TV Coverage of the War. Jason Miller reminds us that loyalty to nationalism is a dead end which leads to the slaughter we are currently seeing in Palestine and Lebanon. His article over at Tom Paine's Corner is titled Betrayal of the Empire or Fealty to Humanity? Andrew Rihn at And Time Yet for a Hundred Indecisions posted some comments from Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela regarding the wars in the Middle East titled Chavez Speaks. Hot off the presses for Monday, Louis Proyect The Unrepentant Marxist brings us an update on the Zionist project with the apropos title WWIII.

In other news, Jim Jay covers the latest outcomes of the G8 Summit in Leningrad (oh yeah, I mean St. Petersburg). The title of his article How free is the market? at The Daily (Maybe). Dave Semple from the blog you are currently reading Fruits of Our Labour posted an article on the sad state of money influence in British politics titled Exposing the Money Game in British Politics. Ashik Malla from United We Blog! for a Democratic Nepal posted an analysis of the current political situation after the historic revolution this spring titled Spring Thunder In Nepal...Glorious but Inconclusive.

We also have some contributions from a more theoretical perspective. Kevin Carson at Mutualist Blog posted an article on professionalism titled Professionalism as Legitimizing Ideology. Delta at Freethought Weekly delves into economics with the post On the Notion of Property.

Finally on the lighter side, we have two more contributions. Donald at thesharpener has a post on the politics of game shows titled Ant and Dec's Proletarian Poke in the Face. And Dave over at The Red Mantis posted his version of the Top 15 Socialist Rock Songs in response to the silly National Review article.

Finally, I hope folks enjoy my GIMP creation for the carnival. I took the photo several weeks ago in a famous store in Times Square. I GIMPed out the original logo within the star, changed the color to red and added the hammer and sickle. Hope you like it! There is a smaller version on the left which I used to link to the main CoS web site. Of course it is in the public domain covered by a Creative Commons license (see the bottom of the page for details).

Call for Articles

Sunday July 23rd will see the next edition of the Carnival of Socialism here on FoOL. I have received a handful of articles thus far and am asking that all interested parties submit new or existing articles or posts for inclusion in the next edition. Please make your submissions via this link: Carnival of Socialism HQ

Alternately you may e-mail me submissions at ReasonInRevolt@gmail.com

What is to be Done?

Israel's disgusting and massively disproportionate assault on all its neighbors must be universally condemed. From the Peak Oil site:

[...]
Lebanon is mired in a terrifying labyrinth of death and destruction. Beirut's airport is bombed. Israel has imposed a sea blockade. Other than privileged Westerners who are being evacuated by air or sea, people have overnight become refugees. They are plunged into an exodus of hundreds of thousands crammed on rickety rural trucks, overcrowded buses, Red Crescent convoys and even Mercedes with Saudi license plates on a mad dash through Lebanese back roads to Syria.

Israel's lethal bombing is ubiquitous - raining hell over family homes in the Bekaa Valley, over the Liban Lait milk factory on the road to Baalbek, over a Greek Orthodox church, over civilian trucks carrying rice and sugar near the Christian village of Zaleh, over a civil-defense building in Tyre, over a paper mill, over a packaging firm, over a pharmaceutical plant, over the Lake Qaraoun dam, over bridges, water reservoirs, electric plants, gas stations, ambulances, even over Beirut's main Christian neighborhood.

Peak Oil: Lebanon Left for Dead
Information Clearing House: Uncensored photos from Lebanon

To quote V Lenin, "What is to be done?" The CWI's Kevin Simpson has released an extensive analysis on this topic with the following conclusions:

[...]
Undoubtedly the prospect of further conflict and war fills workers and young people around the world and particularly in the Middle East with dread because of the terrible suffering it could mean. However, capitalist wars and conflict will see further working class struggles against privatisation and attacks on workers living standards which have already taken place in countries like Iran, Egypt and Israel. Such movements will come to the fore again but with a different consciousness – one that is imbued with a desire for an end to bloodshed and a new society where the mass of the population control the huge wealth that exists in the region.

This perspective is based on historical experience. At the height of the internecine Lebanese Civil War in 1988, Lebanese workers across the sectarian divide took strike action against the collapse in the value of the minimum wage as a result of the galloping inflation caused by the conflict. Along the "green line", which divided Christian and Muslim Beirut, joint demonstrations took place on this issue. During the same period between half and one million Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv against the IDF invasion in Lebanon.

However, socialists and activists cannot simply sit back and wait for these developments in the future. A movement for revolutionary socialist change needs to be built, as a matter of urgency, across the region.

• No to the mass terror of the Israeli regime against the Lebanese people. End the bombing of Lebanon. Build mass international opposition to ‘collective punishment’ of the Lebanese people
• For the right of the Lebanese working class and poor peasantry to defend themselves against Israeli state aggression. No to indiscriminate bombing and shelling of civilian areas. For the setting up of cross-community, armed defence committees under the democratic control of the Lebanese masses. No to the concept of collective punishment of innocent civilians
• Release all political prisoners and captives. All imperialist forces out of the region
• For a mass movement of Arab and Palestinian workers, poor peasants and young people to overthrow the capitalist system which breeds war, poverty, mass unemployment and neo-liberal attacks in the Middle East. For a socialist confederation of Arab states based on a democratically planned economy, under workers’ control and management
• For a mass movement of Israeli Jewish workers to overthrow the Israeli capitalist regime which means endless wars and attacks on living standards. For a socialist Palestine and socialist Israel as part of a socialist confederation of the Middle East in which workers and poor peasants and not corrupt leaders will decide how society is run and where the national, religious and ethnic rights of all minorities will be guaranteed

Socialist Alternative: Israeli regime’s air invasion of Lebanon

European Left: To Stop Israel, To Work For Peace

The EL issued this statement on the 14th:

The Party of the European Left expresses its firmest condemnation of the ongoing military attacks and the now started war by Israel on Lebanon.

Destroying civil infrastructures, killing innocent people and putting the whole Middle East region on the brick of war is by no way an acceptable reaction to the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers - being only a pretext for the military aggression. This [action] clearly violates international law.

The EU having been [one-sided] during all these years to the Palestinian issue and with its silence only encouraging Israel [to go] ahead with its current policy, has now to take full responsibility for bringing about an immediate cease-fire and stopping the Israeli aggression on Lebanon and Gaza.

It is [high time] to change this attitude and to make a serious effort for a restart of the peace process. It is even more clear today: Europe and the EU can no longer ignore its political responsibility for guaranteeing peace to all people in the Middle East region.

Therefore the EL calls on the EU authorities and all European governments to act respectively in the scheduled meeting of the UN Security Council.

The European Parliament and all the political groups and parties have to take control over the next steps of the EU General Council and commission towards immediate ending the war and taking away the reasons for the permanent restarting of the spiral of violence in Palestine: Israel’s occupation and settlement policy [read Zionism kids! - RiR].

We, the European Left call on all democratic forces to mobilize in these days for peace and against war.

Tavira – Brussels, 14 July, 2006

Peace for all! An end to the bloodshed wrought by Zionism, a system that is aggresion by design!

2005 German Socialist Victory Anniversary

It is the one year anniversary of the Left Party victory in Germany. From Wikipedia:

In 2005 the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) formed an electoral alliance the Labor and Social Justice Party (WASG), a leftist faction of dissident Social Democrats and trade unionists, with the merged list being called the Left Party. In the 2005 federal election the Left Party received 8.7% of the nationwide vote and won 54 seats in the German Bundestag.

Wikipedia: Left Party Germany

The CWI is active in the WASG and has fielded several Trotskyist candidates through WASG.

However, when the WASG was set up last year, the party agreed not to participate in any coalitions or governments that carried out social cuts and privatizations. But the leadership is now proposing a merger with the PDS, which has taken part in regional coalition governments with the SPD in Berlin and elsewhere that have carried out major attacks on the working class. The PDS in Berlin has already declared that it intends to continue in a coalition with the SPD.

Justice: Fighting for Socialist Ideals Worldwide

Nevertheless, I think it is a wonderful and encouraging thing to see a socialistic party winning significant representation within a major capitalist power.

Populism?

Blogger k-punk gave a very good response in a recent debate on populism including Bat at Lenin's Tomb, Jon at Posthegemonic Musings, Le Colonel Chabert and Kenneth Rufo at Ghost in the Wire:

[...]

Defences of populism typically trade on an equivocation between populism and the popular. But as I argued in the last post, an unpopular populism is not only conceivable, it is the form which Capitalist post-politics takes in both Britain and the US at the moment. Conversely, and this is crucial, popular movements are not necessarily populist. Populism is, rather, the entrapment of popular movements within an already-existing representation. The masses are invited to rally under an ready-made image of themselves arising from lowest-common-denominator thinking. So my problem with populism is not, as Kenneth Rufo suggests, that it is not 'popusist enough' but that it has too little faith in the ways in which popular movements can exceed the circumscribed horizons of the populist.

It is not the demand itself which is characteristic of populism. It is stopping with the demand (and/or its satisfaction). All of which is why I don't have any problems with Bat's rather elegant overturning of situationist wisdom in the following passage:

'Here I'd suggest that the answer lies in the direct converse to the famous (and eminently hysterical) situationist graffito "Be realistic, demand the impossible!". Rather than formulate realistic but impossible demands, our "demands" must be unrealistic but nevertheless possible. And moreover they should be addressed diagonally, ie to both the ruling elite and the popular movement simultaneously, or more precisely, they should formally pose a demand addressed to the elite, but actually raise a slogan that engages and resonates with the movement – mobilising it and thereby subjectivating it from within.'

k-punk: Left hyperstition 2- Be Unrealistic, Change What's Possible

The main dialectic of the debate revolved around whether populism is pro-fascist or proto-communist. I would argue that it is neither and both. populism is an expression of grassroots political power. It can evolve in many directions. Both fascism and communism are possible outcomes, as history shows us. Is populism on the measure a force of progress or reaction? It is the project of the revolutionary vanguard to ensure that it is the former.

Wal-Mart On the Decline

From TPM House of Labour, check this out:

[...]
Even more to the point, the number of regular shoppers at Wal-Mart has fallen significantly. At the beginning of 2005, 69% of the population shopped at the company at least once or twice a month. That dropped to 51% by November.

Here's the shocking finding-- progressives have been able to create a significant shift in public opinion and shopping habits, a testament to the strong coalitions built in the last year.

Wal-Mart Loosing the PR War

Intifada, Intifada!

Basically, I have come to the understanding that Israel is totally in the wrong with regards to its treatment of Palestinians. It shocks me that it has taken so long.

A long time friend of mine, Daniel McGowan, asked me for help with his web site Deir Yassin Remembered about 12 years ago. I designed a nice site for him and put up all the content. I thought it was cool that Casey Kasem of American Top 40 fame was a Palestinian.

Over the years I've read about what was going on in Palestine and the various scenarios to "fix" the "problem." I learned about Zionism and its problems. I watched as the US began its massive anti-Muslim campaign. I followed Rachael Corrie's story and read her writings.

Not until Socialism 2006 during a rally where we chanted "Intifada! Intifada!" in response to the horrible treatment of the Palestinians by the world community as punishment for their electing Hamas (go democracy!) did I come to the political position in favor of Intifada and against Zionism.

Even during the chant I felt uneasy and nervous, seditious I suppose. But when I thought about the thousands who die each year because of their national identity, and I looked into the faces of those around me, it made me think of the Phil Ochs line from Day of Decision "You can do what's right, or you can do what you are told." Zionism is wrong and is killing innocent people - standing up against it is the right thing to do. Even by bourgeois standards what is happening in Palestine is wrong and evil. Collective punishment of civilian populations is against UN law.

As socialists we cannot be in favor of the reactionary politics of Hamas, Hezbollah or any other theocratic movements (Islamist, Christian or other). We are however compelled to recognize that the reason that regular Palestinians voted for Hamas is because of the genocide being visited upon them by Israel and the neo-liberal agenda. What is necessary is working-class solidarity of Israelis and Palestinians to overthrow the racist nationalism on both sides of the "security wall" and the establishment of a socialist democracy that protects the rights of all people, eradicating race hatred.

One of my favorite bloggers, BionicOc had this to say in a somewhat recent post:

[...]
The ongoing global abandonment of an occupied, brutalized people, the utterly disingenuous scapegoating of Hamas as the source of the current untenable situation, and most of all the deeply racist characterization of Palestinians as a pariah people devoted to the infamous 'cult of death', dedicated to the extermination of Jews, and the primary authors of their own misfortune: these are crimes in which we may be complicit or against which we can fight. There is no neutral position. Victory to the Intifada.

Bionic Octopus: Happy Catastrophemas

All are highly encouraged to read BionicOc's entire excellent post.

I will close with a definition:

Intifada: انتفاضة : Arabic word stands for shaking off or shivering because of fear or illness. It also means abrupt and sudden waking up from sleep or unconcerned status. Politically; The word came to symbolise the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation. The word also stands for the weakness of the Palestinian people and their suffering under the Israeli occupation

Mexico Election Corruption

The Texas Observer on June 30, obviously before the Mexican election "results" were announced ran an excellent piece on the election spectacle that has been going on. John Ross detailed an amazing number of dirty tricks, media manipulation and outright corruption used by the PAN to engineer their victory.

The New York Times last week ran stories talking about the "victory" for PAN candidate Felipe Calderón and even parroted the rhetoric of "healing the nation" and accepting the results and just "letting everyone move on."

Do the journalists at the Times really think that the bourgeois Mexicans who would vote for PAN have any way to fairly out vote the vast majority of Mexicans who are poor or working class (70 million below the poverty line) who would vote for PDR candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (ALMO)?

Do they forget that in 1988 PDR presidential candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas had multiple assistants assasinated? That after the election over 500 PDR activists and elected officials were murdered?

Perhaps they do not forget, maybe they never knew and they are lazy and only print press releases from PAN as if it were investigative journalism. Or maybe they do know but wish to cover up inconvenient truths.

The PAN and conservative parties around the world (Austarlia comes to mind) are all working hand-in-hand with the neo-con/neo-liberals whatever you want to call them in Washington and using the exact same techniques to gain and maintain power.

John Ross writes:

[...]

Not long ago we stood on the edge of Mexico City’s great plaza, the Zócalo, as the debate was about to begin. We eyed the dark thunderheads pushing up from south of the city. “Ojalá compañero,” sighed Luis, “It doesn’t happen again.”

Texas Observer: Deja vu in the D.F.

Unfortunately it has happened again. For instance, yesterday the copper giant Grupo Mexico fired ALL of its workers at La Caridad in order to break up a strike, no doubt feeling they have the green-light from PAN. Hopefully the end results this time around will be far less bloody and perhaps even justice will be served.

Tags: Mexico, election, fraud, corruption

Alice Cooper's Most Famous Line?

The Nation is running an obit of Frank Zeidler, 93, who served three terms as the Socialist (Socialist Party) mayor of Milwaukee, from 1948 to 1960.

John Nichols writes:

[...]

"Socialism as we attempted to practice it here believes that people working together for a common good can produce a greater benefit both for society and for the individual than can a society in which everyone is shrewdly seeking their own self-interest," Zeidler told me in an interview several years ago. "And I think our record remains one of many more successes than failures."

On a Friday afternoon in the spring of 1999, the contribution that Zeidler made to Milwaukee and to the world was honored by people who well understood the significance of what this American socialist did and what he continued to do as someone whose activism slowed only slightly as he passed through his 80s and into his 90s.

The Nation: The Last of the "Sewer Socialists"

Despite the horrible title (the Nation has to make sure no one thinks they are Socialists I guess), the obituary is very good, positive and gives both an excellent historical and personal perspective on the life of a man who "kept the red flag flying" in the US.

Some will remember that his tenure is immortalized in pop culture via the following exchange from Wayne's World:

Wayne Campbell: So, do you come to Milwaukee often?
Alice Cooper: Well, I'm a regular visitor here, but Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors. The French missionaries and explorers began visiting here in the late 16th century.
Pete: Hey, isn't "Milwaukee" an Indian name?
Alice Cooper: Yes, Pete, it is. In fact, it was originally an Algonquin term meaning "the good land."
Wayne Campbell: I was not aware of that.
Alice Cooper: I think one of the most interesting things about Milwaukee is that it's the only American city to elect three Socialist mayors.
Wayne Campbell: [to the camera] Does this guy know how to party or what?

In any case, whatever the intention of the script writers, when the red flag is flying again over Milwaukee and the entire world, history may look back and consider this to be Alice Cooper's most famous line.

A Spectre Haunts Columbia / Socialism 2006

A spectre haunts Columbia University, and the spectre is socialism!


This sister was very energetic during the rallies, as you can see.


Comrades raising their fists in solidarity, note the smiles.


This brother was on his feet the entire time and sparked the crowd.


Comrades dancing and chanting after singing the Internationale.

Fight to Build a Progressive Media Alternative

This is an elaboration of a point I made on the comment page for a post on Union-Firms-Markets titled "Losing Hearts & Minds or Lack of Political Power."

The premise of the post is that the right is able to take over any debate and turn it to their own ends. The conclusion seemed to be that the left will continue to loose group by defending so-called failed social programs that came out of the New Deal.

I disagree. We fight for and defend these programs because they are good and have good material results for the masses and the poor. We are good people, and we fight to defend programs which bring good into the world. To cede more ground to the right is defeatist and counter-revolutionary.

We must understand that the "debate" that happens on television, in the newspapers, radio and all other mass media is simply the sound of one hand clapping. It is, in the words of Guy Debord in Society of the Spectacle:

1:13

[The spectacle's] means are simultaneously its ends. It is the sun which never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the world and bathes endlessly in its own glory.

Therefore the project of progressives must be to develop a counter cultural media. We must educate people to simultaneously divorce themselves (as much as possible) from the media spectacle AND develop an informed critical eye of the spectacle so as to read between lines. Understanding what is omitted or maligned from within the media torrent reveals what the ruling classes fear the most - namely, a socialist working class consciousness.

The media spectacle omits, distorts, retards and alienates. Its purpose is to keep us afraid, weak, unorganized and alienated from each other, in our social relationships, our personal relationships and even in our relationships with our own bodies and minds. It teaches us to hate and fear and to feel disempowered.

It is clear from the history of the mass media and especially the internet media sphere including the blogosphere that another media is possible - one that does not conform to Marx's declaration that (in the German Ideology, 1845): "[the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas]."

Like our brothers and sisters in previous "epochs" we must today build a true alternative to the mass media and introduce the ideas of the working class to the broadest possible audiences. The fascists of all classes know this, it is time progressives learn it as well for the stakes are indeed very high.

Social Prevention Better Than Prosthelytizing

On Wednesday, July 5th, the New York Times ran a story by Jessica Kowal titled "Homeless Alcoholics Receive a Permanent Place to Live, and Drink," covering a program in Seattle which provides living space for homeless alcoholics. This program allows residents to live in the home without any strings attached, for instance, they do not have to go to church or AA meetings as a condition, nor do they have to stop drinking.

Many of the residents are chronic drunks, people who have been known to "beg, drink, urinate or vomit" in public. Conservatives have called the program "Bunks for drunks - [...] a living monument to failed social policy." Interesting choice of words. I would argue that chronic alcoholism is a living monument to a failed society - that is a society based on capitalism which creates the alinated conditions of existance that lead many to turn to alcohol as a solution - a solution which is all to available for all strata of society.

The Seattle program is based on a "housing first" philosophy which meets the essential material needs of people, such as housing, food and saftey, instead of trying to prosthelytize them as a starting point. This makes sense. Even management gurus such as Abraham Maslow tell us that biological (e.g. material) needs must be met first before people can begin to develop self-actualization needs such as spirituality. Maslow's "Heirarchy of Needs" was developed in the 1940s based on extensive scientific research, and correlates with the materialism analysis Marx made of society in general 50 years earlier.

The evidence is clear in this specific case as well. The program costs $13,000 per year for each resident. In 2003, Seattle tax payers paid over $50,000 for each resident for shelters and emergency room treatment, among other things. This as a direct result of the homeless having to live on the streets which inevitably leads them to far more dangerous situations. Not only that, but street living creates the material conditions for a particular type of individual conciousness which is highly alienating and abusive and invariably leads to more alcoholism or worse.

As socialists we should hail the Seattle program as a scientific step in the right direction. Giving people the fundamental foundations to rebuild their lives is essential to improving their lives and society as a whole. Giving people the proper material living conditions - food, shelter and medical - is the first step to reintegrating them into society. At the same time the streets of the urban landscape feel safer and more welcoming. This is a sharp contract with the so-called conservative position that people must sink or swim, and if they want any charity at all they must minimally pay lip-service to some sort of belief system.

Carnival of Socialism

Fruits of Our Labour will be hosting the 7th Carnival of Socialism coming this Sunday, July 23rd. This week's 6th Carnival of Socialism is hosted at the Red Baron.

The main site for the Carnival of Socialism contains links to previous carnivals, how to submit posts to be included, and how to get involved with spreading the good word of socialism through the blogging medium.

4th of July

Dave at the Red Mantis put up this post relative to patriotism and the Fourth of July. Here is a snippet:

However, I wish to offer this thesis: Patriotism and nationalism are two separate ideals, the latter being the more extreme and subsequently more dangerous of the two. Nationalism should be rejected by American citizens whereas we ought to embrace and reclaim the true definition of patriotism.

[...]

[Patriotism is] to simply be thankful that we live in a nation where as a citizen you have inherent rights, is patriotism. Patriotism isn't completely identifying yourself with your country, nor is it to pledge undying loyalty to it's leaders or decisions, nor is it the willingness to give your life for it. It's simply to be thankful that you live in a place where you have some degree of freedom and rights inherent to you as a human being.

The Red Mantis: On Patriotism; or Happy Fourth of July!

I agree with Dave that we should all be very thankful for any freedoms and liberties we may possess. We should also be thankful that the democratic revolution that happened in America in 1776 was a watershed moment in world history, ushering in the age of democracy. However, patriotism is indeed an expression of nationalism.

As socialists it is very important to understand how patriotism contrasts with internationalism. In 1914, Mary Marcy wrote the famous words "You Have No Country!" This was in an article for the International Socialist Review (ISR) titled "The Real Fatherland" from which the following passages are gleaned:

Patriotism means the love of the land in which you were born — that and nothing more. And why should you love that land any more than any other?

[...]

The land of your birth has done nothing for you. Conditions in Germany, France, Austria, England, Russia, and America are practically the same. Everywhere you
will find the workers earning barely enough to live on. Everywhere you will find thousands of men hunting jobs and no jobs. Everywhere you will find the rich protected and the poor driven out.

You have no country! Every national flag in the world means protection for the employing class, who appropriate the things produced by the workers. It has no message for those who toil.

There is only one flag worth fighting for and that is the red flag, which means universal brotherhood of the workers of the world in their fight to abolish the profit system.

[...]

This is the real Fatherland and this is Socialism!

Mary Marcy, The Real Fatherland

So we should be sure to enjoy the good feelings we get when we feel patriotic but more importantly extend them in brotherhood to all citizens of the world. The celebration must be about what makes us similar and brings us together, not about defining what makes us different, better or stronger than others. Happy 4th of July!

Socialism 2006 Media, Ed. 1

Attached is a video of part of Lynn Stewart's speak at Socialism 2006. I found this part particularly interesting. She was talking about the recent arrest of 7 Middle Eastern men in Florida and linking it with past attempts to smear folks who do not agree with the Government.

http://redstandard.org/reasoninrevolt/Home_Grown.mpg

AdWords for Socialism!

I have recently added a "donate" link to my blog and want to explain why. I have been experimenting with Google AdWords as a way to put socialist "text ads" into rotation. I have noticed that when one does a search for "socialism" or "Marxism" on Google, Technorati or any of the search engines you get a lot of anti-socialist propaganda.

I see this as an utter failure of socialist agitprop and wanted to see what options there are to combat this misinformation. I have a lot of experience building and marketing web sites with over 300 projects under my belt. Therefore I have used various labor based methods to get this site into the search engines. But my AdWords experiment has been by far the most successful. AdWords puts "text ads" onto Google searchs and onto "content providers" sites who participate in the network.

Here are the results of 1 week of using AdWords to promote socialism (and the link of course comes to this blog):

• 41,568 IMPRESSIONS
• 45 CLICK-THRUS
• $14.10
  

Of course I cannot afford to spend $15 a week on this by myself so for now will reduce my spend rate per day until (if) any donations come in.

But this is an excellent lesson for socialist organizations that a low cost way to promote their sites and spread positive messages about socialism exists and should be taken advantage of immediately.