Wind Power Bad for the Economy?

A gem today from our friends on the right wing:

Officials are also expressing concerns about wind power’s role in the Texas electric grid. Wind accounted for 8.7 percent of the grid’s energy for the first eight months of this year. But some officials recently complained that the turbines bring down wholesale electricity prices because their fuel — wind — is free, and the production tax credit reduces the price further, so sometimes it is even negative. As the theory goes, this cheap energy cuts into the profitability of companies that operate natural gas- or coal-fired power plants, making them disinclined to build new plants, which are needed to keep the lights on.  

So first they try to discredit alternative energy as unviable (remember, Mitt can't operate his car with a wind turbine on top of it).  Then when it is demonstrated that it actually works, and in a big way, the true reason for their opposition - it will hurt the oil and fossil fuel companies that line their pockets.

Who cares about slowing global warming, energy independence or just simple clean energy when the profits of oil baron's might be at stake!

References: 1) KATE GALBRAITH. 13-Sep-2012. An Expiring Tax Credit Threatens the Wind Power Industry. Texas Tribune/New York Times

Too Big To Fail Fail

The failure of "Too Big to Fail" was highlighted recently by Sandy Weill, former CEO of Citigroup.  On CNBC's "Squawk Box" he called for the breakup of the big banks.  Hindsight is 20-20, but its shocking that these intelligent captains of business can't take the time to study history and understand the rationale for why regulations like Glass-Steagall were put in place in the first place. I suppose at the end of the day, the 1% are starting to realize that, after they've squeezed all the money out of the 99%, no matter what the effective tax rate is, they will be the only ones with the money to pay in, so they will be stuck with the bill.

On Wednesday, Mr. Weill called for a wall between a bank’s deposit-taking operations and its risky trading businesses. In other words, he would like to resurrect the regulation that he once fought.
“What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking,” Mr. Weill, the former chief executive of Citigroup, told CNBC. “Have banks do something that’s not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that’s not going to be too big to fail.”¹

References: 1) 25-Jul-2012. De La Merced, Michael J. Weill Calls for Splitting Up Big Banks. New York Times.

Rayon McIntosh Goes Down Swinging

The "Daily What" reports:

Fast-Food Fracas of the Day: A McDonald’s cashier with a history of violence was charged with two counts of felony assault after bashing in the head of a customer with a metal rod.

The entire disturbing incident was caught on camera, and posted to YouTube.

31-year-old Rayon McIntosh was arguing with two female customers over the authenticity of a $50 bill they paid with, when one of women slapped him. She then proceeded to walk behind the register while the other customer jumped over the counter.

Obviously all of these people are ultimately responsible for their own actions, nevertheless I have a few observations: 1) why do people have to counterfeit money to buy McDonalds food? Why is a 31 yr old man working at McDonalds? Why is disrespect and aggressive, rude behavior a social norm? It is hard for white, non-destitute individuals to imagine the grinding pain and hopelessness of these people's situation; it's even harder to imagine a way to change society so fundamentally that we stop producing them.

As Che Guevara wrote in "Socialism and The New Man" (p205,258):

to build the new man.… It is not a matter of how many kilograms of meat one has to eat, nor of how many times a year someone can go to the beach, nor how many pretty things from abroad you might be able to buy with present-day wages. It is a matter of making the individual feel more complete…

So the point being: YES! Lock up violent criminals today... But at the same time, build the society of tomorrow which eliminates the production of violent criminals in the first place. That society shall not one based on greed and disparity, but on love, equality and social justice.

Art: Salvador Dali: Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943)

Five Minutes to Dawn

Below is an excerpt from a pamphlet handed out by Kasama members at the Occupy Wall Street march.

It is no longer five minutes to midnight. After Arab Spring leaps to Spain, and Greece, and on to New York’s Wall Street, it suddenly feels like five minutes to dawn.

For so long, all of the things that leave people crying at night: the numbing global poverty itself, the painful loneliness of atomized non-community, the discarding of the old and the young, endless war for dominance, global structures of empire, the ravaging of nature, the manufacture of ignorance, intolerance and bigotry, the rape and casual daily brutality toward women — all of these things have seemed untouchable and permanent.

Now suddenly…a different day is approaching — where we can increasingly see and act in in startling ways, with rippling new impact. Ears perk up. Sights are raised. The pulse quickens. Suddenly we recognize the faces of others — once unknown to us — animated and awake with a common spirit. The powerful look discredited and vulnerable.

Morning is coming…. Go and wake the sleeping ones.

Full PDF of pamphlet: Five Minutes to Dawn

Bourgeois pundits ponder Marx

Repost from Louis Proyect:

Over the past few months there has been a bumper crop of articles in elite publications such as the Financial Times making the case that Karl Marx was right—or mostly right. This is understandable given the perilous times we are living through. The kind of Panglossian message found in Fukuyama’s End of History is ill-suited to a world edged on the precipice of economic ruin, largely beyond the capability of the world bourgeoisie to resolve.

Full post

London Riots

From Indymedia London:

Parts of London are still burning after an enormous third night of riots, during which the flames have spread to Birmingham, Nottingham, Bristol and Liverpool. There is huge controversy over the conflagration, and the media establishment is doing its best to condemn, rather than try to understand. As a communist, this is not enough for me. These riots are the sudden bursting to the surface of social tensions that have been building up for many years - tensions that are rooted in the crisis of capitalism.

http://london.indymedia.org/articles/9843

I'm a Cadre

From "The Real Split in the International" Thesis 36, by Debord and Sanguinetti:

"Today, the cadres are the metamorphosis of the urban petty bourgeoisie of independent producers that has become salaried. These cadres are themselves very diversified as well, but the real stratum of upper cadres, which constitutes the model and the illusory goal for the others, is in fact held to the bourgeoisie by a thousand links, and integrates itself into that class more often than not. The vast majority of cadres are made up of middle and small cadres, whose real interests are even less separate from those of the proletariat than were the real interests of the petit bourgeoisie - for the cadre never possesses his [sic] instrument of work. But their social conceptions and promotional reveries are firmly attached to the values and perspectives of the modern bourgeoisie. Their economic function is essentially bound up with the tertiary sector, with the service sector, and particularly with the properly spectacular branch of sales, the maintenance and praise of commodities, counting among these commodity labor itself. The image of the lifestyle and the tastes that society expressly fabricates for them, its model sons, greatly influences the sectors of poor white-collar workers or petit bourgeois who aspire toward their reconversion as cadres, and is not without effect on a part of the current middle bourgeoisie... The cadre, always uncertain and always deceived, is at the center of modern false consciousness and social alienation. Contrary to the bourgeois, the worker, the serf and the feudal lord, the cadre always feels out of place. He always aspires to more than he is and can be. He pretends and, at the same time, he doubts. He is the man of malaise, never sure of himself, but hiding it. He is the absolutely dependent man, who believes that he must demand freedom itself, idealized in its semi-abundant consumption. He is ambitious and constantly turned towards his future - a miserable future, in any case - while he even doubts that he is occupying his current position as well...."

A last, a valid description of my job and role in capitalist society! Now to figure out what to do about it!

Jimmy Carter calls for end to Blockade of Cuba

Jimmy Carter seems to be the last president who genuinely believed in peace and reconciliation. His continuing work demonstrates more of the same:

MIAMI - Former President Jimmy Carter, during a three-day visit to Cuba this week, called for a release of the Cuban Five and an end to the long-standing U.S. blockade against the island nation.

"I believe that the detention of the Cuban Five makes no sense," Carter said in a March 30 press conference in Havana, as reported by Granma, the newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party. "There have been doubts expressed in U.S. courts and by human rights organizations around the world. They have now been in prison 12 years and I hope that in the near future they will be freed to return to their homes."

[...]

During Carter's presidency, he removed travel restrictions on Americans going to Cuba. As for now, Carter stated his conviction that "we should immediately lift the trade embargo the United States has imposed against the people of Cuba," because "it impedes rather than assists in seeing further reforms made."

Margolis, Dan. Carter calls for Cuban 5 release, end to blockade. People's World.

Venezuelan Workers March for Workplace Democracy

It is fascinating to see self-organized workers in Venezuela openly and peacefully making radical demands. This is a country where a little over a decade ago the working class and poor had no rights and were at the mercy of the police and military. Where as recently as 2002 (during the US backed coup attempt), reactionary police elements fired with impunity into crowds of demonstrators with automatic weapons and sniper rifles. Nevertheless, the working class is conscious of its rights and role in creating and defending a better future for itself.

In the United States the working class is beginning to awaken and fighting against take-backs, notably public sector workers in Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri and elsewhere. However, the great majority still sleeps, especially in the private sector, and is in constant fear of retribution through job elimination whether by downsizing or outsourcing. Coupled with a culture of consumption and crushing debt, they feel trapped and as if they have no choice but to go along with the system.

The elites in America continually reduce the relative wages that trickle-down to the working class while at the same time extending more and more consumer debt. The people are placated with more access to credit, perceiving it as a substitution for wage increases. Through this process the majority of the population becomes entwined in a class wide form of debt-bondage, passed down from generation to generation.

There is a better way and, at this juncture in history, it is the working people of Venezuela are showing it to us. Can we open our eyes long enough to understand?

Thousands of Venezuelan workers took to the streets of Caracas on Thursday to demand immediate improvements in workplace democracy and to insist on the final passage of a radical new labor law that has been held up in the National Assembly since 2003. According to organizers from Venezuela’s National Workers’ Union (UNETE), the march was intended to reiterate the national union’s “critical support” for the government of Hugo Chávez and to push for greater consolidation of Chávez’s proposed “21st century socialism” on job sites nationwide.

“We want to deepen real worker control, advance in the efficiency and efficacy of the [publicly-owned] companies, and we want and end to impunity. All of these demands are an obvious part of the revolutionary project,” said UNETE National Coordinator Marcela Máspero.

[...]

“The working class is who has been called upon to construct socialism,” said Rosa Grimau, spokesperson for the Promotion Committee of the Socialist Workers’ Council within the National Assembly. “That’s why we ourselves must consolidate a force that makes proposals in line with elevating the quality of working conditions throughout the country,” she said.

Socialist Workers’ Councils are one of over 10,000 proposals that have been made in ongoing discussions for a new Organic Labor Law, under discussion since 2002.

[...]

Mérida, March 31st 2011 (Venezuelanalysis.com)

Video of the march with interviews:

Police Refuse to Remove Protestors in Madison

Unionized police and firemen have refused to remove the strikers occupying the Wisconsin Capitol building. The capitalist media is characterizing this as a "failure of the authorities to remove the protesters" and making jokes about "Motel 6 Madison" and "Big Labor Slumber Party."

Perhaps the "journalists" employed by the media should check in with the actual police officers to see what they think. From the Madison Professional Police Officer's web page:

The Association of Madison Police Supervisors joins other labor organizations in opposing Governor Walker's proposed budget repair bill. This proposal will do little to help the State's budget problems, but will have a drastic impact on thousands of hardworking public servants. The public employees who would be impacted by this proposal provide vital services to citizens every day and are an essential part of Wisconsin's economy. Their work is critical to the quality of life in our communities.

While the bill exempts most public safety employees, the impact on fire and law enforcement supervisors – who are not fully covered by Wisconsin's Municipal Employee Relations Act – is less clear.

Wisconsin has a long history of collective bargaining with public employees. The current State budget problem can be addressed under existing law and without reversing decades of tradition. Pursuing such a drastic change to Wisconsin law with no time for reasonable debate, discussion or contemplation is a disservice to our citizens.[1]

The IWW is calling for a general strike in support of the protesting workers[2]. Meanwhile, Republican and Democratic governors across the US are taking aim at public sector workers in an attempt at massive union busting in the name of fiscal responsibility.

The reality is that these same people are unwilling to take on the root problem - namely that the top 10% wealthiest citizens, and corporations, are not paying their fair share of taxes. In addition, the state governments are spending huge portions of their budgets on interest payments for massive and generally meaningless projects simply designed to funnel money to specific business interests while not improving the welfare or economic vibrance of the communities footing the bill.

The media serves the interests of the ruling classes and at every turn makes a mockery of the efforts of working people to carve out a decent existence, and most especially when they decide not to take it anymore.

Without an independent, non-corporate media, democracy cannot exist, and working people suffer. The only alternative is for working people to create their own media, their own information networks, and fight back against injustice, lies and distortions on their own terms, based on what they know to be right, not what they are spoon-fed by right-wing demagogues.

See also: http://www.local311.org/

Socialist Students Protest Cuts in Britain

The scale of opposition has terrified those in power. Most of the population supports the student protests. The Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament have already announced that EMA will be saved in their areas.

This is a victory for the movement throughout Britain, and shows that the pressure is having a real effect.

Cameron and Clegg have been forced to come out and argue the case for their cuts to try to stop what little support they have left from slipping away.

The movement must oppose any cuts in education or any public service, and fight for an end to means testing of EMA and its use as a punishment.

Robinson, Ben. Student movement - organise and escalate. Socialistworld.net.

Cost of an iPad?

The modern electronics industry from Apple to Dell is generating billions in profits and lots of toys for consumers. And the Chinese workers, under the corrupt dictatorship of the so-called "Communist" Party, are paying the price. Is it worth it?

Twelve workers have committed suicide so far this year at the factory that makes Apple iPads. Four others survived, gravely injured, and 20 were stopped from killing themselves by the company. All the dead were between 18 and 24 years old.

Foxconn - the city-sized factory in the Shenzhen free trade zone, southern China - employs 400,000 mainly migrant workers. They work 70 hours a week for about 50 cents an hour under a military-style administration and harsh working conditions.

Foxconn also supply Dell, Hewlett Packard and Sony and is one of the largest producers of computers and consumer electronics in the world.

One worker said: “We are extremely tired, with tremendous pressure. We finish one step in every seven seconds, which requires us to concentrate and keep working and working. We work faster even than the machines.

“Every shift (ten hours), we finish 4,000 Dell computers, all the while standing up. We can accomplish these assignments through collective effort, but many of us feel worn out.”

A week ago an undercover team infiltrated the plant. They told the Daily Telegraph: “Hundreds of people work in the workshops but they are not allowed to talk to each other. If you talk you get a black mark in your record and you get shouted at by your manager. You can also be fined.”

The company are constructing nets around the seven storey dormitories from which workers have been jumping. They have also hired 70 psychologists and brought in Buddhist monks.

Sweatshop

Terry Gou, the Taiwanese billionaire chairman of Foxconn’s parent company Hon Hai, had toured the plant with journalists only hours before the latest death. “This is not a sweatshop”, he told them.

Apple’s sales were £30 billion last year. The company’s audit of its own “supplier responsibility codes” shows that 102 facilities flouted the “rigorous rules” on working hours, 39% broke rules on workplace injury prevention and 30% broke guidelines on toxic waste disposal. There were also violations on child labour and falsified records. Will Apple cancel these contracts? I wouldn’t hold your breath.

The modern, high tech, trendy image of Apple has proved to be a veil behind which hundreds of thousands of workers are brutally exploited in barbaric conditions.

Chinese workers need independent, democratic, campaigning trade unions to fight for decent pay and conditions and for an end to the tyranny of these workplace prisons.

Sharpe, John. Workers' suicides: The human cost of an iPad. Socialistworld.net.

Rachel Corrie Boarded

The Irish aid ship MV Rachel Corrie, named after the young American idealist who was killed by Israeli forces in 2003 (Rachel Corrie was crushed by a bulldozer operated by the IDF which was destroying homes in Gaza), was boarded by Israel's military and taken over at 9am GMT this morning. As reported by the International Solidarity Network:

Just before 9am GMT this morning, the Israeli military forcibly seized the Irish-owned humanitarian relief ship, the MV Rachel Corrie, from delivering over 1000 tons of medical and construction supplies to besieged Gaza. For the second time in less then a week, Israeli naval commandos stormed an unarmed aid ship, brutally taking its passengers hostage and towing the ship toward Ashdod port in Southern Israel.

05-Jun-2010. International Solidarity Network (ISN)

Helen Thomas, 89 year hold White House correspondent for the UPI, and apparently the only main-stream American journalist with balls, had this exchange with Robert Gibbs in relation to the massacre of civilians by Israeli forces earlier in the week aboard the Mavi Marmara:

ROBERT GIBBS: The Security Council deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries resulting from the use of force during the Israeli military operation in international waters against the convoy sailing to Gaza. The Council, in this context, condemns those acts which resulted in the loss of at least ten civilians and many wounded, and expresses its condolences to their families. The Security Council requests the immediate release of the ships as well as civilians held by Israel.

REPORTER: So that would seem to cover President Obama’s personal feelings, while some of the allies are looking for a stronger statement from him directly.

ROBERT GIBBS: Well, again, I—this is supported not just by the United States but by the international community.

REPORTER: In light of what happened with the Gaza aid flotilla, is the President considering at least backing international calls to lift the blockade on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli forces?

ROBERT GIBBS: No. Well, look, obviously, as we have said before, we are concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and continue to work with the Israelis and international partners in order to improve those conditions. And as the UN Security Council statement says, obviously it’s an untenable situation.

HELEN THOMAS: Our initial reaction to this flotilla massacre, deliberate massacre, an international crime, was pitiful. What do you mean you regret when something should be so strongly condemned? And if any other nation in the world had done it, we would have been up in arms. What is this sacrosanct, iron-clad relationship, where a country that deliberately kills people—

ROBERT GIBBS: Well, again, Helen, I—

HELEN THOMAS: —and boycotts, and we aid and abet the boycott?

ROBERT GIBBS: Well, look, I think the initial reaction, regretted the loss of life, as we tried and still continue to try to gather the relevant—

HELEN THOMAS: Regret won’t bring them back.

ROBERT GIBBS: Nothing can bring them back, Helen. We know that for sure, because I think if you could, that wouldn’t be up for debate. We are—we believe that a credible and transparent investigation has to look into the facts. And as I said earlier, we’re open to international participation in that investigation.

HELEN THOMAS: Why did you think of it so late?

ROBERT GIBBS: Why did we think of...?

HELEN THOMAS: Why didn’t you initially condemn it?

ROBERT GIBBS: Again, I think the statements that we released speak directly to that.

Hurray for Helen Thomas. Gibbs on the other hand, as is usual for him, stumbled and mumbled through this conversation with the backbone of a jellyfish. Ridiculously enough, he even made a policy point saying that, if we could resurrect the slain civilians, "that wouldn't be up for debate"; bold stuff...

Meanwhile, eyewitness accounts from civilians on board the attacked ship are supporting the early reports, broadcast by satellite from the Mavi Marmara. The basic storyline is as follows:

1. The nighttime assault began with helicopters firing into a crowd on the deck
2. At least one civilian was killed and many others wounded
3. Passengers on the Mavi Marmara raised a white flag
4. The helicopters continued firing upon the people
5. Panic stricken, the people began picking up pipes and sticks
6. Commandos began to descend from the helicopters, firing upon the people with impunity
7. Ultimately the people were subdued and the violence ceased
8. No weapons were found on board
   

Estimates are now that one person was killed per minute. From an eye witness account:

Israeli commandos shot passengers at the rate of one a minute during the bloody raid on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, a Briton on board the main vessel has said.

Ismail Patel, chairman of Leicester-based Palestinian rights group Friends of Al Aqsa, said one of the nine people killed during the assault was shot just two feet in front of him.

He said the commandos had a "shoot to kill" policy during the initial phase of the attack on the Mavi Marmara, with live rounds being fired on the vessel from a helicopter hovering above.

Mr Patel, who has now returned to Briton after attending the funerals of his shipmates in Turkey, told a press conference in Westminster the gunfire on the vessel lasted around an hour.

Despite Israeli claims of armed resistance, Mr Patel said those on board acted in self-defence using whatever was at hand.

His voice choked with emotion, Mr Patel said: "We now can calculate that they shot one person every minute.

"One person was shot every minute. There were nine fatalities, over 48 people with gunshot wounds, six are unaccounted for."

04-Jun-2010. Roberts, Adrian. One killed every minute Morning Star.

Israel is now claiming the peaceful boarding of the Rachel Corrie was executed in the same manner, with far different results, as the Mavi Marmara. However, there are many differences.

First and foremost, the ship was detained and boarded in broad daylight. Secondly, there were far fewer passengers aboard, and third, no shots were fired during the assault.

Similar to the previous incident, Israeli naval commandos did storm the ship and physically brutalize the passengers in international waters, an act of piracy under international law.

Pablo Picasso: Communist

Pablo Picasso is well known as one of the most famous artists of the 20th century. His name is virtually synonymous with the term Modern Art. During his 75 year career, he created thousands of paintings, prints, and sculptures. His influence on the art of th 20th century is undisputed, and he has been recognized as the greatest art genius of the twentieth century.

He was also an active, thoughtful and expressive Communist.

"Communism for me is closely bound up with my entire life as an artist," Picasso said. And in a 1954 interview, "I am a Communist and my painting is Communist painting."

From the article Picasso: Peace and Freedom:

In a visually sophisticated age, Picasso often used Cubist space and Expressionist distortion and simplification to express feelings and ideas. But at a time when Western critics argued that the only "advanced" painting was abstract, he resolutely continued making representations of the visible world. Sometimes gently, often fiercely, always directly, he condemned oppression, cruelty and bigotry, celebrated life and humanity and called for justice, peace and freedom.

Liverpool, Tate. Picasso: Peace and Freedom Morning Star.

Israel Slaughters Activists

In a late night raid yesterday, heavily armed IDF paratroopers boarded and attacked activists on ships part of the Freedom Flotilla in international waters. The flotilla was headed for the Gaza Strip carrying relief supplies. Early reports indicate nearly 20 activists where killed.

International journalists on board the flotilla for weeks reported there were no weapons, and broadcast live footage documenting the assault. Once the IDF pacified the ships, however, they instituted a media blackout.

The activists are now being held and, according to Sherine Tadros of Al Jazeera "undergoing extensive security checks" at a "detention center." Of over 600 volunteers on board, already at least 450 have been arrested and jailed. In addition to peace activists, multiple politicians, journalists, film-makers, authors and average citizens were on board. Citizens representing countries from Israel, the United States, Canada, Europe (UK, Ireland, Germany, Greece, Holland, etc.) and the Middle East (Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, etc.) were on board.

The flotilla was carrying humanitarian supplies for the symbolic relief of the Gaza Strip, which has been under a blockade by Israel since 2008. Goods and supplies are kept from entering Gaza from anywhere, and Egypt has also closed its border to Gaza citizens, under pressure from the United States government, a staunch ally of Israel.

With over 1.5 million people living in Gaza, which has been subjected to repeated attacks by the Israeli military including the destruction of food supplies, fuel supplies and infrastructure, Gaza can be described as nothing else but an apartheid ghetto. The strategy of the conservative Israeli government seems to be intended to starve out the Palestinian people of Gaza.

Sadly, the majority of Gazan's are or are descendants of refugees from other parts of Israel due to the many racial conflicts and ethnic cleansings that have taken place since the 1948 Palestinian War up to this very day.

Links:

• 31-May-2010. Kennedy, Maev. Gaza Freedom flotilla carried world-renowned names and veteran activists Guardian UK
  
• 31-May-2010. Deadly Israeli raid on aid fleet Al-Jazeera
  
• 1-June-2010. Maass, Alan. Israeli murder on the high seas Socialist Worker.Net
  
• 31-March-2010. Bagley, Richard. Israel murders Gaza aid activists Morning Star

200,000 Protest Unemployment in Spain

With a 38% unemployment rate after the construction boom busted as a result of the global financial crisis, Spain is at a turning point:

Last Saturday 12 December, 200,000 people attended a mass demonstration in Madrid organised by Spain’s biggest trade unions, the UGT and CCOO. The demonstration represented the first opportunity for the working class and young people in Spain, a country devastated by the crisis, with over 4 million unemployed, plummeting living standards, to give a national expression of the boiling anger that has developed in the last period. Despite a relative blackout in the capitalist media in the build up to the demonstration, the massive turnout, with thousands-strong delegations from all of the Spanish state’s regions, was an impressive show of strength. However, a striking feature of the demonstration was the veritable gulf separating the protest’s participants from the union leaders, as far as militancy and the willingness to fight is concerned.

14-Dec-2009. Byrne, Danny. 200,000 take to the streets in Madrid. Socialist World.Net

Evo Morales Reelected in Bolivia

President Evo Morales of Bolivia, the first indigenous president elected in the post-Columbus Western Hemisphere, has been reelected to a second term. His MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) party also captured a two-thirds majority in the Bolivian congress, according to the Los Angeles Times. In light of the turmoil caused by the para-military resistance by the Bolivian elite minority, and forces of international capitalism, this election is a true victory for democracy and the people of Bolivia, Latin America, and the world.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez congratulated his Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales for his landslide electoral victory on Sunday saying it was a victory for all of Latin America.

“Yesterday there was jubilation throughout the continent,” Chavez said Monday during his speech at the First International Conference celebrating 10 years since the adoption of the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela.

Chavez said he was sure Morales would continue “fighting without rest to diminish poverty” and improve the welfare of his people, “based on indigenous philosophy.”

Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, was re-elected with 63% of the vote, 35% ahead of his nearest rival Manfred Reyes Villa.

8-Dec-2009. Janicke, Kiraz. Chavez: Morales’ Electoral Victory in Bolivia, a Victory for Latin America. VenezuelaAnalysis.com

Towards a Fifth International

Excerpts from an article by Alan Woods reporting from the first congress of the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela). The emphases are mine:

At the opening session of the PSUV congress Chavez made a very radical left-wing speech, calling for the setting up of a new international, explaining that it was necessary to destroy the bourgeois state and replace it with a revolutionary state, but also referring to the bureaucracy within the Bolivarian movement itself. It was clearly a speech that reflects the enormous pressure from the masses below who are getting tired of talk about socialism, while real progress towards genuine change appears to be frustratingly slow.

[...]

The main emphasis of the first part of his speech was the need to set up a new revolutionary international, which he referred to as the Fifth International. Chavez pointed out that Marx had set up the First International, Engels participated in the founding of the Second International, Lenin founded the Third International and Leon Trotsky the Fourth, but that for different reasons, none of these Internationals existed today.

[...]

Chavez pointed out that the state in Venezuela remained a capitalist state and this was a central problem for the revolution. Waving a copy of Lenin’s State and Revolution (which he recommended all the delegates to read), he said that he accepted Lenin's view that it was necessary to destroy the bourgeois state and replace it with a revolutionary state, and this task remained to be carried out.

23-Nov-2009. Woods, Alan. First Extraordinary Congress of the PSUV - Chavez calls for the Fifth International. In Defense of Marxism.

Love Police

Please check out this video compilation of clips by the ‘Love
Police’ (Also known as the ‘Everything is OK guys’).
In my opinion, this is the most effective form of truth
activism because it uses humor, which helps to temporarily
bring down people's mental barriers, allowing glaring truths,
injustices and hypocrisies to become self evident.

Please do everything you can to circulate this video far and
wide. Post it in blogs, bulletins, forums, chain emails…
Upload it to your YouTube channel… Use your imagination…

- Operation Mind Seed

Vivá Venezuela!

Obama has failed to fulfill the hopes of the majority of the global population. He has not and will not change foreign policy for the better - the United States remains an imperial power bent on exerting its political and economic will on a global basis.

The most recent round of Venezuela/ALBA bashing is full of lies, half-truths and is nothing more than pure propaganda. Whether it be FOX, the NY Times, or the Washington Post, all of these media outlets and many others are marching to the same orders - a smear campaign by the international elite against Venezuela/ALBA and, by extension, socialism in general.

Nevertheless, the facts are clear. From an article by professor Anthony DiMaggio:

[Hugo] Chávez's popularity, as American journalists begrudgingly admit, is based upon his willingness to put the needs of Venezuela's poor masses ahead of those of business elites. This does not mean that he's a saint or that political repression should not be a serious concern for those living throughout the hemisphere. No political leader deserves a blank check to consolidate political power. But what seems to escape U.S. leaders is that Venezuelan democracy assigns the task of holding leaders accountable to the people of Venezuela, rather than to "enlightened" U.S. elites.

Chávez's "Bolivarian Revolution" is indeed wildly popular in amongst Venezuelans. He is succeeding in promoting a plethora of social welfare programs paid for by the country's oil export revenues. Chávez is spearheading efforts to promote gender equality, government sponsored health care, universal higher education, increased state pension funding, land redistribution, and an expansion of public housing, amongst other programs. Chávez's welfare revolution is significantly improving the lives of the citizenry. A 50 percent increase in social welfare spending from 1999-2005 (in the first 6 years of Chávez's presidency) was accompanied by decreases in infant mortality, an increase in school enrollment an increase in individual disposable income, and a decrease in poverty. From 1997-2005, the national poverty rate fell from 56 to 38 percent of the population. By 2005, an estimated 50 percent of the Venezuelan people enjoyed government health care, while the same number also enjoyed government food subsidies. The Bolivarian Revolution, one should remember, also took place under fairly stable economic growth, ranging from 6-18 percent of GDP a year from 2004-2008. This trend stands on its head the assumptions of U.S. reporters that socialist policies are a major obstacle to economic stability and prosperity.