Papandreou Elected Head of Socialist International

"With your help, we will all work hard to keep the flame of social democracy burning. A flame of hope for this challenging world."

More than 350 leaders and representatives from some 110 political parties and organizations gathered in Athens for the Council meeting of the Socialist International (SI) on 30-31 January 2006.

Athens News Agency (ANA-MPA) reports (link here):

Athens, Jan 30, 2006. [...] George Papandreou was unanimously elected as the new president of the Socialist International, during a meeting here on Monday of the organisation's council.

Papandreou was the uncontested candidate for the position, following his official nomination by a SI working group, headed by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero. The working group's recommendation was unanimously adopted in a show of hands vote.

In addressing delegates, Papandreou, the former Greek foreign minister, outlined what he called a vision for a better world and the central role that socialists have in such a prospect.

The PASOK leader cited an emphasis on greater freedom and democracy around the world, greater security, prosperity, equality and opportunities, but distinctly less poverty and hunger. "This will be a world that is more peaceful, with more cooperation," he said.

Papandreou added that the means humanity has at its disposal today can eradicate poverty, stop the "green house" effect, guarantee gainful employment, reduce infant mortality, improve healthcare, achieve equality between the sexes, include immigrants in local societies and stop the trafficking of drugs, weapons and people, among others.

Moreover, he outlined seven priorities for the organisation during his presidency, including:

• "democratisation of globalisation", noting that it is impossible to "have true democracy in the world when there is a massive accumulation of capital and power in the hands of the few; when multinationals challenge the power of democratically elected representatives of the people; and when mass media is controlled by vested interests and big business"
• Developing regional cooperation;
• Uniting citizens in common action, saying that socialists must today "redefine the balance between productivity, social justice and freedoms", while he again voiced his support for the "Scandinavian model", as he said;
• Relations between political parties and citizens;
• Cooperation with the "society of citizens" and the creation of new alliances;
• Gender equality, and finally,
• Building peace around the world and resolving crises, especially terrorism.
  

"We won't eradicate terrorism unless we tackle the reasons that cause it (terrorism)," he underlined.

Recommended (Socialist) Reading

Lately, I've been reading a lot which my comrades may find of interest. I find pleasure in reading, or media consumption in general, when 1) the content changes the way I thought about something, 2) when I learn something new, or 3) the content is entertainingly clever, which in my case tends to mean bitingly ironic social critique.

The January issue of the Monthly Review (Vol. 57, No. 8) contains three excellent and relevant cover stories all of which I highly recommend.

The first "The New Geopolitics of Empire" by John Bellamy Foster gives us the historical context of geopolitics and describes how it is being implemented today as explicit US policy, and specifically as constituted by PNAC and the Bush administration. The basic foundation of the theory is that all states are in constant competition with each other and must continually expand, both economically and militarily. The theory focuses on the geography of this realpolitik defining the geography as the stage. Sadly but not surprisingly, this is a very anti-humane worldview (states are the actors, not people) and further was a very influential concept with the Nazis.

The second is "What Will We Do?" by Ursula Huws. In part, this article is a discussion of individual identity as related to job categories and skill sets. This article also makes the argument that the current drive towards a "knowledge worker" global economy is, at its root, the creation of a global reserve army of labor. She describes historical trends to contextualize the current landscape of labor and touches on all the contemporary topics such as outsourcing and the heretofore decline of industrial unionism.

The third is "What Was The Matter with Ohio?" by James Straub. This fascinating article is an analysis of the shift in working class politics from the left to the right in the US, one outcome of which was Ohio going to Bush in the 2004 election (note: I am personally convinced that the evidence is more than complete to show that the Diebold voting machines had a lot to do with the election results). He describes how the evangelical churches have become a haven for a working class stripped of its jobs as industrial jobs are shed in Ohio by the hundreds of thousands. Straub tells the story of Ohio populism and progressive politics and its role as a catalyst for worldwide unionism, all of which has been devastated by the movement of industrial production to the Mad Max capitalism of the periphery areas, such as the Asian Rim. He quotes one of Karl Rove's strategists as describing the evangelical churches as the "new unions" - places where people find solidarity and where their politics are molded. Unfortunately these institutions are completely reactionary and focus the working class resentment along racial and gender lines. Not surprising considering they are largely funded by the ultra-right wing corporatocracy.

The Jan-Feb 2006 issue of ISR (International Socialist Review, Issue 45) has many interesting articles, a series of which focused on the California execution of Stan “Tookie” Williams changed my mind and opened my eyes. Especially relevant as February is “Black History Month” in the US, the articles tell the story of Stan Williams, his role in the Los Angeles gangs, arrest and conviction, and the incredible amount of work he did from jail to work to keep youths away from drugs and out of gangs. I encourage all to read the articles and (re)open your eyes to the truth of class warfare waged along race lines in America.

Finally, two book reviews from the Jan 13. Texas Observer (Vol. 98, No. 1) described a Texas I’d never know about – the Mexican-American radical communist-anarchists of El Paso at the turn of the last century (1890s-1920s). Ringside Seat to a Revolution by David Romo tells the story of El Paso during these times. Romo is a native of El Paso and he delves in the multiple micro-histories using psychogeographic techniques to weave a compelling and rich tapestry of a city experiencing dramatic social change.

In The Hummingbird’s Daughter, Luis Alberto Urrea is a novel, telling the story of his great-aunt Terresita Urrea, a famous healer and the Joan of Arc of the Mexican Revolution. Urrea was an inspirational figure in Mexico but had to flee to El Paso due to persecution by the Mexican Army. She was said to have healed over 10,000 people on one occasion, and many revolutionary fighters claimed that her apparition appeared during battles to lead them to victory.

Most of these articles should be available online, but I fully recommend subscription to any or all of the above mentioned publications.

Net Freedom Now

Some relevant propaganda, I encourage you to sign the petition:

What if …

• AT&T and Verizon blocked you from viewing your favorite podcasts and blogs?
• BellSouth cut off your net phone because you weren’t using their service?
• Comcast forced you to download MP3s from their store while slowing other music sites?
  

This threat is more real than you might think. Right now, the major communications companies are planning to discriminate against the online content and services that they don’t yet control.

http://www.netfreedomnow.org

Where to Buy Books

It is apparently common knowledge that Amazon.com is, like the other large companies of note in the post 1990s era (i.e. Wal-Mart, Verizon Wireless, Starbucks), extremely anti-union. What is book shopper to do, online or off?

Well, one of the places I've discovered when I visit NYC is called May Day Books located at 155 1st Ave. May Day is an anachist collective operated by unpaid volunteers. May Day has carved out a tiny space within the "Theater for New York City" but as you can see from the picture it is quite cozy. You will find books, zines, music, and videos that you are unlikely to find anywhere else. They even have Zapatista coffee! Check out their web site here: http://www.maydaybooks.net

For online shopping, I just today came across another anarchist collective called AK Press. AK has several locations in the US and England and relationships with some of the top publishers of alternative media. AK describes themselves as:

AK Press is a worker run book publisher and distributor organized around anarchist principles. All decision-making, including which titles we distribute and what we publish, is made collectively. Our goal is to make available radical books and other materials, titles that are published by independent presses, not the corporate giants, titles with which you can make a positive change in the world.

I found their site really easy to use and they had a lot of great books I was looking for but could not find elsewhere. Check them out here: http://www.akpress.org

For a more mainstream but unionized and pro-labor bookseller, there is Powell's. Although they do not carry very much of the alternative press publications, they do carry the majority of the mainstream books and a good selection of academic books you won't find elsewhere. They also have a decent used book selection. Check them out here: http://www.powells.com

Finally, another great place to browse is Colophon Books in Ithaca, NY. Downtown Ithaca is a book-lovers paradise with seven independent book sellers all more-or-less within walking distance of each other. Unique for an American city, central downtown Ithaca is setup as a walking mall called the Commons, with many great restaurants, shops and, of course, book stores. Colophon is interesting because they specialize in unique and macabre books including out-of-print, small print run and import publications. I picked up some beautiful Arthur Machen titles there printed using traditional methods; the form of the books appropriately echoing the beauty of the writing.

They are located at 205 N Aurora St, and you can check them out here: http://www.colophonbooks.us

Uncle Tom Kofi

"Any group that wishes to participate in the democratic process should ultimately disarm because to carry weapons and participate in a democratic process and sit in parliament, there is a fundamental contradiction and I'm sure they [Hamas] are thinking about that too." - Kofi Annan

I agree 100% Kofi. I hope this means that the UN is going to call for a global ban on weapons for all democratic countries and parties in the world.

Oops, sorry - this rule only applies to sand-niggers or other revolutionaries, tough luck Hamas!

(Thanks to BionicOc for bringing this to my attention)

Starbucks Workers Action!

Sean at tothebarricades.blogspot.com gives us a first hand account of the strike picket action against Starbucks in NYC. This is an excerpt from his post quoting the WSJ:

Details of Starbucks' woes at the National Labor Relations Board are also cited in the report. The company is set to stand trial on a wide range of charges including the termination of IWW member and former Starbucks barista Sarah Bender for exercising her right to join a union. Indeed, Starbucks' union-busting approach- high-priced anti-union consultants, propaganda, threats, and retaliation- is very similar to Wal-Mart's.

"The fact that some light has been shed on Starbucks' employment practices is a testament to the power of all the grassroots activists around the world that make up the Starbucks Workers Union community," said Daniel Gross, a barista and IWW organizer. "Never before has such a fundamentally anti-worker company done so well in creating a socially responsible image. With all the facts pointing to Starbucks as a poverty wage employer teeming with uninsured workers, the importance of a strong organization of baristas could not be more clear."

More here...

Lenin On Bolivia

Lenin at leninology.blogspot.com wrote an excellent post on Bolivia today. An excerpt follows, but I encourage you to read the whole thing:

Curiously enough, while much was made of Bachelet's victory in Chile introducing the first woman president to the country, comparatively little has been said about the fact that Morales is the first Indian president in Bolivia. It isn't that Bachelet's being a woman is insignificant - it just may be the only significant thing about her victory. Whereas Morales background intersects with the whole variety of reasons why he was elected. In short, this is the first Indian political leader Bolivia has had, in a country with an Indian majority, since Spanish colonialists conquered the area in 1525. It was the Indian population that provided an army of slave labourers to augment the "international help" in exploiting the silver mines. It was the colonial elite that controlled the country even after the colonists had been kicked out in 1809 - and a weak elite it was, too, susceptible to invasion and the loss of territory on all sides. It is fairly safe to say that this elite would have been dispatched a lot more rapidly and properly buried had it not been for US intervention. For although the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement had, following the 1952 revolution in which it ousted much of the old landed oligarchy and expropriated the mines, begun the process of consolidating the rule of the domestic middle class, it did create the conditions in which dual power could subsist. That was terminated by a CIA supported military coup in 1964, which saw Rene Barrientos take power until 1969, during which time miners had their wages cut and were massacred at Catavi. There was a short-lived left-nationalist regime under Gen. J.J. Torres in which workers's self-government was created in a popular assembly, and - yes - that too was supplanted after a mere two years by yet another CIA backed coup in 1971. General Banzer, after seven years of rule, was followed by a succession of military dictators known for their corruption, illicit narco-trafficking, and extraoardinary brutality. Subsequently, a sequence of liberalising governments allowed the country's nationalised assets to be bought off in large chunks by foreign investors - the so-called 'capitalisation' programme. Gen. Banzer won power electorally in 1997, with a mere 22% of the vote, and proceeded to crack down hard on the coca growers whose militancy had dogged previous governments, privatise industry, and renege on his pledge to suspend the privatisation of the oil company. All in accordance with the wishes of Washington. In 2001, he gave way to a former IBM employee, who in turn gave way to another 'technocratic' neoliberal. However, by then the genie was out of the bottle again - in 1998, the World Bank refused to guarantee a loan to finance water services in Cochabamba unless the utility was privatised and the costs passed on to consumers. In 1999, consortium led by Bechtel won the contract, and immediately doubled the price of water, which meant that for many it cost more than food. The World Bank kindly announced that it supported the full-cost pricing and declared that none of its loan could be used to subsidise water for the poor. In 2000, mass strikes and demonstrations broke the government and Bechtel were ordered out.

More here...

Onward, Christian soldiers!

I just found this old IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) song, made in response to World War I. I'm sure you will all understand why its irony is poetic even 100 years later (Note: I am a Christian, just not one who justifies murder with the Cross):

Christians at War (John F. Kendrick - 1916)

Onward, Christian soldiers! Duty's way is plain;
Slay your [Christian] neighbors, or by them be slain,
Pulpiteers are spouting effervescent swill,
God above is calling you to rob and rape and kill,
All your acts are sanctified by the Lamb on high;
If you love the Holy Ghost, go murder, pray and die.

Onward, Christian soldiers! Rip and tear and smite!
Let the gentle Jesus bless your dynamite.
Splinter skulls with shrapnel, fertilize the sod;
Folks who do not speak your tongue deserve the curse of God.
Smash the doors of every home, pretty maidens seize;
Use your might and sacred right to treat them as you please.

Onward, Christian soldiers! Eat and drink your fill;
Rob with bloody fingers, Christ okays the bill,
Steal the farmers' savings, take their grain and meat;
Even though the children starve, the Savior's bums must eat,
Burn the peasants' cottages, orphans leave bereft;
In Jehovah's holy name, wreak ruin right and left.

Onward, Christian soldiers! Drench the land with gore;
Mercy is a weakness all the gods abhor.
Bayonet the babies, jab the mothers, too;
Hoist the cross of Calvary to hallow all you do.
File your bullets' noses flat, poison every well;
God decrees your enemies must all go plumb to hell.

Onward, Christian soldiers! Blight all that you meet;
Trample human freedom under pious feet.
Praise the Lord whose dollar sign dupes his favored race!
Make the foreign trash respect your bullion brand of grace.
Trust in mock salvation, serve as tyrant's tools;
History will say of you: "That pack of Goddamn fools."

Socialist MP3s

I just stumbled across an interesting site with free downloads of socialist songs (MP3 files) and thought I'd share.

The site is called "Songs of Irish Labour" maintained by Helena Sheehan, a comrade who is a university professor at Dublin City University. Helena covers a wide range of socialist songs and tells her personal story of struggle as a socialist living through the past couple of decades.

Dr. Sheehan also maintains a page specifically about the song "The Red Flag" which can be found here. The Red Flag was written by labor activist Jim Connell 1889 and is a lovely and inspiring song.

What else? She has a bunch of links to other labor song sites, including the following:

• The Internationale: sound clip
• Sheffield Socialist Choir (3 sound clips)
• Union Songs
• Union Sites
• Other Music Sites
• Billy Bragg
• Tommy Sands
• Pete Seeger Phil Ochs Labi Siffre
• Bob Marley Alistair Hulett
• FoFMbM On The Web
• Industrial Worker -- Music/Song Songs of the IWW
• Liberator: The Songbook
• DSA Songs
• Ripe for Revolution
• Folk Music Home Page
• Artists
• Mudcat Cafe / Digital Traditions Folksong Database

So, check it out!

Socialist World Map Project (v2.0)

Based on recent events I have updated the Socialist Map of the Western Hemisphere. I also have decided to show occupied or colonized countries as "grey" on the map since these types of countries are not self-governed and the people have no real representation or political power.



Political events of note:

• Evo Morales (MAS Party) elected president of Boliva (18 December, 2005)
• Michelle Bachelet (Socialist Party) elected president of Chile (15 January, 2006)

I have not closely looked at all of the nations in the western hemisphere for electoral changes or other events so if there are corrections please let me know. I will update this map if I come across anything or anyone give me updates.

The map designates countries based on a spectrum defined here (previous version of map) and the research was done using Wikipedia cross-referenced with mainstream news sources and the the CIA World Factbook.

Obviously, my definition of socialist for the purpose of this mapping project does not mean that a given nation is organized as a truly socialist society.

Anyone interested in helping me with the rest of the world please let me know.

Yummy, Del.icio.us Linkrolls

OK I admit it - I am hooked on web 2.0 and the social software revolution. I will not deep-dive into that right now because I want to talk specifically about one web 2.0 technology, namely del.icio.us.

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking tool which allows one to create a bookmark list and add tags to the bookmarks. These bookmarks are saved in a large online database shared by everyone else who uses the tool, and all of the tags and bookmarks are cross-referenced.

Four key advantages include 1) the ability to access your bookmarks from any device, 2) the ability to categorize the bookmarks for easy referencing, 3) the ability to see who else is bookmarking the things you are -and- to share your bookmarks with others, and 4) the ability to publish your bookmarks (e.g. for instance via RSS or linkrolls).

A linkroll in del.icio.us is defined as a list of links (bookmarks) which are associated with a particluar tag, and creating delicious linkrolls is simple!

First you have to have a del.icio.us account and create some bookmarks and tags. Then you simply go to this link http://del.icio.us/help/linkrolls and choose some preferences. A code snippet is provide for you to copy-and-paste into your webpage or blog and you are done! Whenever you add more bookmarks to that tag they automagically appear in the linkroll.

On this blog I have two delicious linkrolls on the right hand column, one is associated with my tag "fol" and the other "uncapitalist". I cannot tell you how thrilled I am with this tool and by the way, it is totally free! Needless to say, I am cancelling my Blogrolling.com account...

A Speech from a Real President

We in the USA have been inflicted with many presidents over the years. We have heard many speeches and learned in school and from the media that American democracy is "of, by and for the people." We learn from our president about "freedom" and the importance of "patriotism" although we are often left not quit sure what those things are. We are subjected to the lunatic gibbering of lunatics on a regular basis when our presidents are asked to engage in intellectual debate. We had a man with Alzheimer, albeit a tragic disease, representing us as our leader and literally worshipped as a national hero (even though he went by the nickname "Dutch," oddly enough). We have a president who refers to the richest 1% of the nation as "his base" with glee while sending the less fortunate to be ground into hamburger overseas (although as presidents go, he is far from unique in this regard, war and kowtowing to capital are national pastimes for American presidents).

So, ever wonder what it would be like to have a real president? One who had convictions he could intelligently elaborate upon? One who took representing "the People" seriously?

"Evo, what do you and the MAS understand by 'socialism,'" I asked him, when I was invited by the Executive Committee of the Bolivian Labor Central (COB). "To live in community and equality," he answered. "Fundamentally, in the peasant communities they have socialism. For example, if we speak of land. I come from the ayllu of the Department of Oruro. Clearly, where I live at this moment, in the East in Chapare, there are no ayllus. It is individual parceling, and there arise very serious problems, because it leads to small holdings, which you don't see in a peasant community where the land is communal."

"Does the socio-economic model of the MAS resemble more that of Lula, Cuba, or Hugo Chávez?" I insisted. "I believe it is something much deeper," he answered. "It is an economic model based on solidarity, reciprocity, community, and consensus. Because, for us, democracy is a consensus. In the community there is consensus, in the trade union there are majorities and minorities.

"Inside this official democracy of Bolivia they do not respect the thought, sentiments, and the sufferings of the national majorities. And within this framework we are seeking a communitarian socialism based on the community. A socialism, let's say, based on reciprocity and solidarity. And beyond that, respecting Mother Earth, the Pacha Mama. It is not possible within that model to convert Mother Earth to merchandise. In Bolivia with the agrarian reform it is better to be a vaccinated cow than a human being. For a vaccinated cow there are 25 hectares and for a human being there is nothing."

Read more here...

Evo Morales, Communitarian Socialism and the Regional Power Block
By Heinz Dieterich
Jan 14, 2006, 18:12

"I am a woman, a Socialist, separated, agnostic, all the sins together"

Chile has elected Socialist Michelle Bachelet as its first woman president. Like many others, Bachelet suffered torture and imprisonment for her political beliefs under US supported state-terrorist Pinochet. F*ck the fascist reactionaries and their culture of fear and death.

Viva la revolution!

Love the Liberal

Bill over at "Reasons to Be Impossible" reminds us of the problems of the liberal position with the following amusing lyrics. I doubt you'll hear this sung anytime soon at a MoveOn wine-and-cheese meet-and-greet:

I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I'd lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I go to civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don't talk about revolution
That's going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
I'm glad the commies were thrown out
Of the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
As long as they don't move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

The people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crane?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I read New Republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know, I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

I vote for the democtratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I go to all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
I'll send all the money you ask for
But don't ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to the socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
But I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

Lyics by the late, great Phil Ochs (on Amazon here).

Election Rigger Linked to Diebold

The post:
Bob Ney (R-OH, at least for now), involved with Abramoff (who is involved with DeLay, Bush, and countless others including Norquist and Ralph Reed), is now showed to be heavily involved with Diebold, which was involved in Bush's "victory" in Ohio and is now involved in some heavy-duty securities litigation (as a defendant).

Read more at Agitprop.

The good news:
It looks like Ney is going down like a domino for his part in various corrupt schemes.

The bad news:
The federal government is threatening to sue New York state to force the state to "modernize" it's voting machines, despite the widely reported problems with electronic voting machines (see here, here, here and here).

Socialist Governments Lowering Taxes

The irony could not be sweeter:

The Republican-controlled Senate is at least temporarily incapable of extending the 15 tax rate for dividends and capital gains - even though the policy has helped trigger strong growth and job creation. Yet while the United States is mired in the swamp of class warfare economics, socialist governments in Europe continue to lower tax rates.

Read more here...

Chile to Elect Socialist President

More good news from Chile. Nearly an entire continent has gone "red" in a few short years. Next up?

From the Houston Chronicle:

SANTIAGO, CHILE - Chileans will choose a new president Sunday, likely making a woman their leader for the first time and helping to consolidate Latin America's shift to the political left.

Michelle Bachelet, a socialist and the candidate for a coalition that has governed Chile since the end of Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship, is a strong favorite to win the election on promises to keep the booming economy on track.

Sebastián Piñera, the billionaire leader of a rightist alliance that has been in opposition for 15 years, has seen his support dwindle in the last stretch of the race as he failed to rally big business and impoverished women voters.

"There are no more obstacles in Bachelet's road to La Moneda," sociologist and political commentator Eugenio Tironi said in a newspaper editorial, referring to Chile's presidential headquarters.

If she wins, Bachelet will bolster a leftist tendency in Latin America, where socialist Evo Morales won the presidency in Bolivia last month, joining leftists leading Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Bachelet, 54, was imprisoned and tortured at the beginning of the dictatorship. She first captured the Chilean imagination when as former victim of Chile's armed forces she became an unlikely defense minister in 2002 under popular President Ricardo Lagos.

Read more here...

Bolivia Elects Socialist President

Evo Morales and the MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) party have come into power in Bolivia.
This is another case of people power achieving what was once thought to be impossible.

A few years ago Bolivia was firmly controlled by right-wing neo-liberals. Extensive privatization was occurring. Petroleum was being pumped out of the country at an incredible pace, while the local population was left with no fuel or sky high prices, and no share of the profits.

International parasites mostly based in the USA and backed by onerous IMF policies, had descended on Bolivia to take over previously state-owned operations. They went so far as to "offer" privatized water and laws had been passed making it illegal for people to collect and drink rainwater (forcing them to pay for this ubiquitous resource).

Their reign is over. With strong ties to Hugo Chavez and the ever increasing momentum of class awareness in South America, we can watch with great expectation for Morales to roll back the reactionary policies of the IMF and pro-business policies of his predecessors.

Political Affairs Magazine reports:

In the 18th December 2005 Bolivian presidential elections Evo Morales received 53% of the vote -- 1,158,431 out of the 2,185,960 votes cast. His Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) defied media predictions that he would obtain only 35% of the vote -- which would have left the Bolivian parliament to decide on who the new president would be.

Podemos, the main right wing, pro-IMF and pro-US party, led by Harvard-trained Jorge Quiroga received 30% of the vote. With the Movimiento Indigena Pachakuti’s (MIPI) vote, the left parties together secured 55% of the vote. When we consider the scandalous exclusion of 1,000,000 voters from the electoral register – people who happen to live mainly in MAS strongholds -- then the defeat of Bolivia’s pro-neoliberal forces takes on an even greater significance. The MAS also did extremely well in the parliamentary elections.

In his election campaign manifesto Morales included measures with wide popular support such as the legalisation of coca leaf production and the nationalisation of the gas industry.

Evo Morales will become the second president of indigenous background in the history of Latin America. (The first was Benito Juarez, in Mexico during the second half of the 19th century). A new page has opened in the history of Bolivia, where the election of Evo Morales to the presidency means that the country’s majority indigenous population (60% of the population) have an historical opportunity of beginning to redress the centuries of exclusion, discrimination, poverty and brutal exploitation to which they have been subjected by the dominant white elite.

Read more here...

People's Power In Nepal

Last night I read an excellent article in the Monthly Review written by Parvati regarding the emerging "new state" driven by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) or CPN(M). The article describes the goals and challenges of the new state which has suceeded in overturning the reactionary feudalistic state in over 80% of the national territory.

An excerpt:

While communications about the military successes of the People’s War in Nepal have been regularly disseminated, little information has been made available at the international level about the achievements of people’s power in the country. This article aims to rectify this situation somewhat by highlighting the emergence of people’s power side-by-side with the progressive dissolution of the old monarchical state (ruling since 1769), with particular reference to achievements made in the Central Command area, which includes the main base area, Rolpa.

Read more here...

The State of Minimum Wage

The New York Times’ States Take Lead in Push to Raise Minimum Wages details (as the headline implies) how the US federal government is behind individual states in increasing minimum wages. The federal minimum wage currently stands at $5.15 an hour, raised in 1997 from $4.75. Here in New York state, the minimum wage just increased to $6.75, and will increase again on January 1, 2007 to $7.15. Washington state enforces the nation’s highest minimum wage at $7.35 per hour (plus the “rate [is] adjusted for inflation”).

Despite the Times’ optimism*, the wage figures really aren’t that sunny. 26 states have a minimum wage that match the federal minimum, 2 states have a minimum wage that are below the federal standard, and 6 states have no minimum wage law at all -– meaning that only 16 states exceed the Federal standards.

Even worse (and now I’m really bursting this “positive left blog” mission) are the minimum wages in "American territories." The Department of Labor states that:

Minimum wage rates in American Samoa are set by a special industry committee [read: corporate lobbyists] appointed by the U.S. Department of Labor, as required by [The Fair Labor Standards Act]. The rates are set for particular industries, not for an employee's particular occupation. The rates are minimum rates; an employer may choose to pay an employee at a rate higher than the rate(s) for its industry [but why would they?].

Wages in American Samoa range from $2.57 per hour to $4.09, depending on the industry. Goods manufactured there can be legally marketed as “Made in the USA” -- it is, after all, a US territory. Similarly, the American Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) has a minimum hourly wage of $3.05.** (Puerto Rico and Guam match the federal minimum wage, while the US Virgin Island fall below it, although the DOL says they match the federal minimum "in practice.")

Now, if you were a money hungry, mega-corporation interested in keeping shareholders while appearing patriotic to the public, would you manufacture your t-shirts in Washington state ($7.35) or American Samoa ($2.68)?

Remember, you’re a corporation and therefore have no soul.

OK, maybe that's a bit harsh. But I’ll wrap things up by quoting the Times' article (emphasis mine):

Opinion polls show wide public support for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which falls far short of the income needed to place a family at the federal poverty level. Even the chairman of Wal-Mart has endorsed an increase, saying that a worker earning the minimum wage cannot afford to shop at his stores. ***

---
*Following Jayson Blair and Judy Miller, optimism is the one of the few things going for them.

** Or, $3.15, depending on the source. More on working conditions in CNMI .
Additionally, here's an excerpt from the the cover piece in Islands Business, "The Pacific islands region’s leading current affairs and business magazine published monthly":

Partially independent from the United States, but ultimately completely
dependent on it, the Northern Marianas is an unhappy country. The locals are outnumbered by foreign “guest workers” and suspect Asian businessmen. The garment industry has collapsed and tourism figures dived when Japan Air Lines ended flights to it from Japan, the key tourism market, a few months ago.

The ineffective government is broke and in December could not buy the fuel needed for power stations. Saipan, the main island, was being hit by constant blackouts as power stations were shut down. The government is sueing for US$100 million it claims it is owed by the United States government. The outlook for Northern Marianas? Bleak.

***The chairman further noted that Wal-Mart is running a blue light special on irony.

MTA Strike Update

A recap from The Village Voice:

The final words of the lead [New York Daily] News editorial said it all: "Now, after devastating New York, (the union) has won." That's because besides snaring raises, a day off for MLK, improved healthcare in return for a 1.5 percent premium, and protecting pension benefits, the union won a payback for contributions that older members made to the system during a pervious contract. The checks could run to $14,000 a worker, which ought to cover those members' Taylor Law fines for the strike—and then some.

And as long as we're tallying union victories, don't forget the intangible edge the union has gained in future contract fights by striking during this one. The threat of a strike is one of the chips a union has at the table, and as one subway substation worker told me on the picket line last Thursday, sometimes you have to act on a threat to make it real.

Of course, few victories are total. The TWU will have to deal with its fines and other legal consequences before it is strong enough to wage another strike, and the next contract will expire after the holidays, giving the workers less leverage. Some union members -—worried about the precedent set by the health care payments—- don't think the TWU won at all. And budget watchdogs' worries about pension costs are valid—not because of the specifics of the TWU deal, but because pensions in general are the next great looming policy crisis.

All the same, "irrational" and "dead end" -—like their cousin "thuggish"-- are adjectives that look less and less applicable to the strike as it fades in the rear-view.

MTA Strike

Well, it's official: the Transport Workers Union. Local 100 (TWU), which works run NYC's MTA, went on strike at 3 am this morning. And as much as I'd be frustrated to commute in NYC right now (which I used to do) kudos to the TWU for standing up for their rights. A little inconvenience is nothing compared to workers fighting for fair wages and benefits. Unfortunately, because it's "illegal" for mass transit workers to strike, the 38,000 bus and subway employees will incur fines of two days pay for each day on strike.

According to New York Socialist Alternative:

On the eve of the negotiations, the MTA provocatively voted to squander $1 billion in surplus funds to make sure that there would be no money for pay increases or health and pension benefits for the workers. [On] Friday night, the MTA final proposal called for below inflation wage increases, pension and work rule givebacks and for new TWU members to pay 1% of their salary for health benefits!

Bloomberg's administration intervened in the negotiations in an attempt to intimidate and threaten the transit workers with retaliation and use of the anti-labor Taylor Law. The mayor's legal department has gone to court seeking an injunction that would impose huge additional fines on individual workers as well as the penalties on the Taylor Law against the members of Local 100. The MTA is threatening that not only union offibut alsoutalso rank and file workers would be jailed if there was a strike -- clearly a threat to bust the union!

Bloomberg, Pataki, Wall Street and the MTA bosses clearly have decided to viciously attack the transit workers as part of the overall plan to roll back the gains that workers and their unions have made in NYC in the past 70 years. As for the transit system, the aim is to fund the MTA solely through fares and interest-bearing bonds rather than taxes on businesses and transit subsidies as it used to be in the past.

Furthermore, the attack on TWU on pensions (for retirement at 62 after 30 years rather than after 25 years as is now) will open the door for what is intended to be a gutting of the public employee pensions and health benefits - with billions of dollars being funneled into the pockets of big business. Another attack is the demand for "broadbanding" (forcing workers to do additional tasks) which opens the way for the future destruction of thousands of jobs.

The transit dispute has touched a raw nerve among working people in the city who sense that this dispute is about the growing attacks on living standards, working conditions and the basic democratic rights of workers in the most unionized city in the country. Millions of workers in New York face a rising cost of living at a time when wages and benefits are under attack. It is disgusting to observe the big business media portray transit workers (or teachers, government employees or any union workers) as"overpaid" and "under-worked" while the billionaires and financial lords ofthe city are growing richer and richer.

In the 25 years since the last transit workers strike, when the system was shut down for 11 days, workers in New York City and across the country have seen the loss of millions of good jobs and a steady decline in wages and benefits.[...]

There should be a call to roll back the fare to $1 as a step toward a free transit system and for a program of massive investment to upgrade the entire transit system -- paid for by taxes on the rich and big business. This should be part of a program and movement that campaigns to put the needs of working people (healthcare, childcare, education, transportation, housing, a clean environment,) before war and corporate profits.

A clash with the 38,000 transit workers in New York City, the financial capital of the world, [pits] MTA and Bloomberg but also corporate America and the Bush administration against working people in this country. The implications [are] enormous as it could be seen as a way for all workers to resist against the corporate agenda of Bush and Wall Street in the US and internationally and could open the way for workers to build their own political party to challenge the dictatorship of big business.

Additionally disturbing is the venom being hurled at the striking workers -- regular people trying to earn a fair wage. Among the comments, found in this AP story:

"MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow called the strike 'a slap in the face' to all New Yorkers." (And yet a $2, one-way subway fare is not.)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg: "This is not only an affront to the concept of public service, it is a cowardly attempt by Roger Toussaint [TWU President] and the TWU to bring the city to its knees to create leverage for their own bargaining position."
(This position is, not surprisingly, being echoed in the strike coverage on Bloomberg's business news site, Bloomberg.com -- news coverage served with a steaming side of bias.)

"'I think they all should get fired,' said Eddie Goncalves, a doorman trying to get home to Queens after working an overnight shift." (I wonder if Goncalves is a member of Service Workers Local 32B/32J, of which a number of doormen are members.)

Join the TWU at these picket locations:

BRONX
Gunhill Depot: 1910 Bartow Avenue
Pelham Barn/Westchester Sq. Yard: Eastchester Rd. & Water Street
Zerega CMF: 750 Zerega Avenue
180th Street Yard: 1151 East 180 Street
West Farms Depot: 1100 East 177th Street
Concourse Yard: 3119 Jerome Avenue
Jerome Yard: Jerome Ave. & Van Courtlandt Ave.
239th St. Barn: 4570 Furman Avenue
240th St. Barn: 5911 Broadway
Eastchester Depot: Interstate 95 at Exit 13
Yonkers Depot: 59 Babcock St.
Tiffany Iron: 1170 Oakpoint Avenue

BROOKLYN
East New York Depot/Shop: 1700 Bushwick Avenue
Flatbush Depot: Flatbush & Utica Ave.
Coney Island Yard: Avenue X & McDonald
Ulmer Park Depot: Cropsey Ave. & Bay
Jackie Gleason Depot: 871 Fifth Avenue
Pitkin Yard: 1434 Sutter Avenue
Livonia Shop: 824 Linwood Shop
Atlantic Ave/Bergen Street Shop: 1415 Bergen Street
Linden Shop: 1500 Linden Blvd.
Cozine: 50 Cozine Avenue

QUEENS
Fresh Pond Depot: 56-99 Fresh Pond Road
Jamaica Barn: 7815 Grand Central Parkway
Jamaica Depot: 114-15 Guy R. Brewer Blvd.
Corona Barn: 126-53 Willets Point Blvd.
Triboro Coach Depot: 8501 24th Avenue
College Point Depot: 128-15 28th Avenue
Maspeth CMF:
Woodside Electronic Shop: 33-33 54th Street

MANHATTAN
Kingsbridge Depot: 4065 10th Avenue
207th St. Yard: 3961 10 Avenue
Manhattanville Depot: 666 West 133rd St.
100th Street Depot: 1552 Lexington Avenue at 100th Street
Michael J. Quill Depot: 525 11th Avenue
West 53rd St Power/RCC: 53rd St. btw 8/9
126th Street Depot: 2460 Second Avenue

NYU Grad Student Strike Poster

Intellectual Property Socialism

SAP shows its true (capitalist) colors. Open source is a non-distributed model of development much akin to anarchism, which is subset of socialism. Read on:

'Intellectual property socialism is the worst that can happen to any IP-based society,' says an SAP executive

A senior executive at SAP has criticised the open source development methodology by claiming that it does not promote innovation, according to reports.

Shai Agassi, president of the product and technology group at SAP, said in a speech at a club in California that Linux is not innovative, according to an article on technology news site VNUNet this week.

"We all talk about how great Linux is," Agassi reportedly said. "But if you look at the most innovative desktop today, Microsoft's Vista is not copying Linux, it is copying Apple."

SAP will not make its software open source as it would no longer have an incentive to innovate, Agassi said.

"Intellectual property [IP] socialism is the worst that can happen to any IP-based society," he said. "And we are an IP-based society. If there is no way to protect IP, there is no reason to invest in IP."

More...

I am currently reading a book on Enterprise Services Architecture written by SAP guys. It is very good. However, I find it very amusing that they have tried to trademark EA and SOA concepts with silly sloganeering like the Netweaver "platform." Clearly SAP in traditional capitalist fashion thinks it is fine to steal other peoples ideas and use IP law to claim them as their own. So what we see SAP doing here is executing Primitive Accumulation (or perhaps more precisely, IP-rimitive Accumulation).

As Marx explains in Capital Vol I:

This primitive accumulation plays in Political Economy about the same part as original sin in theology. Adam bit the apple, and thereupon sin fell on the human race. Its origin is supposed to be explained when it is told as an anecdote of the past. In times long gone-by there were two sorts of people; one, the diligent, intelligent, and, above all, frugal elite; the other, lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living. The legend of theological original sin tells us certainly how man came to be condemned to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow; but the history of economic original sin reveals to us that there are people to whom this is by no means essential. Never mind! Thus it came to pass that the former sort accumulated wealth, and the latter sort had at last nothing to sell except their own skins. And from this original sin dates the poverty of the great majority that, despite all its labour, has up to now nothing to sell but itself, and the wealth of the few that increases constantly although they have long ceased to work. Such insipid childishness is every day preached to us in the defence of property. M. Thiers, e.g., had the assurance to repeat it with all the solemnity of a statesman to the French people, once so spirituel. But as soon as the question of property crops up, it becomes a sacred duty to proclaim the intellectual food of the infant as the one thing fit for all ages and for all stages of development. In actual history it is notorious that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, briefly force, play the great part. In the tender annals of Political Economy, the idyllic reigns from time immemorial. Right and "labour" were from all time the sole means of enrichment, the present year of course always excepted. As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic.

In themselves money and commodities are no more capital than are the means of production and of subsistence. They want transforming into capital. But this transformation itself can only take place under certain circumstances that centre in this, viz., that two very different kinds of commodity-possessors must come face to face and into contact; on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence, who are eager to increase the sum of values they possess, by buying other people’s labour-power; on the other hand, free labourers, the sellers of their own labour-power, and therefore the sellers of labour. Free labourers, in the double sense that neither they themselves form part and parcel of the means of production, as in the case of slaves, bondsmen, &c., nor do the means of production belong to them, as in the case of peasant-proprietors; they are, therefore, free from, unencumbered by, any means of production of their own. With this polarization of the market for commodities, the fundamental conditions of capitalist production are given. The capitalist system pre-supposes the complete separation of the labourers from all property in the means by which they can realize their labour. As soon as capitalist production is once on its own legs, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a continually extending scale. The process, therefore, that clears the way for the capitalist system, can be none other than the process which takes away from the labourer the possession of his means of production; a process that transforms, on the one hand, the social means of subsistence and of production into capital, on the other, the immediate producers into wage-labourers. The so-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production. It appears as primitive, because it forms the pre-historic stage of capital and of the mode of production corresponding with it.

So we see what SAP is doing. SAP wishes to transform public domain work done on EA and SOA (social production) into intellectual property or IP (capital which SAP owns). It is primitive in this context because you see above how violently SAP is behaving. Also they are not paying for this social production, they are stealing it. Seeing that it exists in the "commons" they first must destroy the legitimacy of "open source" by attacking its very nature. In this way they can transform the work into IP and get around having to honor the guardians of social production, such as GNU licenses and Creative Commons licenses.

Only by removing these safeguards can SAP "legally" lay claim to these products of social production and thereby capitalize them for their own profit.

Boycott for Peace

I stumbled across this today and thought it was so great I had to repost it. The source site is the Vermont Boycott For Peace.

---

BUYcott

Since we launched the statewide boycott campaign, many people have e-mailed the Vermont Boycott for Peace seeking alternatives to the companies targeted for boycott by the international community. We have compiled the following list of businesses in Vermont and beyond that provide similar, and in some cases equivalent, services and products. Please check back periodically to look for additions to the list. To recommend a company or local business as an alternative to a boycott target, please e-mail us at info@vermontboycottforpeace.org.

Note: Those companies followed by an asterisk (*) were reviewed by Co-op America’s screening team for a variety of social and environmental criteria. In addition to applying their own standards, Co-op America drew information from many Vermont-based and national organizations, including:

Organic Trade Association (www.ota.org)
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (www.peta.org)
Sustainable Energy Resource Group (serg.uvweb.org)
Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (www.vbsr.org)


SOFT DRINKS (COKE AND PEPSI)

Boycott all products produced by Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

Instead, buy your soft drinks from one of two Vermont micro\ producers of GREAT soft drink products!

WaNu (pronounced "way-new") all-natural sodas have NO preservatives, no high fructose corn syrup, and no yeast. They use only the highest quality all-natural ingredients in their lite sodas, sports drinks, and "tritionals." WaNu beverages are made with roughly half the sugar of the average soda, but they have all the flavor, and they make some terrific-tasting varieties of the old favorites like birch beer and cream soda! Best yet -- you can buy online and get WaNu beverages delivered to your door from their online store. Click here to find out more.

WaNu Beverages
Vemront Vase Waters LLC
49 Commerce Drive
South Burlington, VT 0540

phone: (802) 863-8656

Try also the new line of Vermont microsodas produced by Pop Soda. The new company, based in Moretown, VT, has created a yummy line of all-natural, handcrafted soft drinks. Click here to find out more about Pop Soda.


CREDIT CARDS (MBNA)

Boycott the Working Assets credit card owned by MBNA

Instead, consider a Scholastic Plastic Visa from Albina Community Bank*

Albina Community Bank -- a mission-based, minority-owned, federally certified community development financial institution -- issues the Scholastic Plastic Visa credit card from which the bank donates a percentage of all purchases either to the Portland Schools Foundation or (at the cardholder’s request) to five Portland, OR, high schools to reduce the cost of after-school activities. Click here to read about the Scholastic Plastic Visa™ card. Member FDIC. Equal housing lender.

Albina Community Bank
2002 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Portland, Oregon 97212-3722

phone: (503 288-7280
fax: (503) 282-4681
e-mail: rmckean@albinabank.com

Consider supporting the Alternatives Federal Credit Union*

The Alternatives Federal Credit Union is a nonprofit community development financial institution that reinvests money in the community through innovative programs. Savings, free checking, share certificates, IRAs, and Visa credit cards available. Investors earn market rates on insured deposits. Savings federally insured to $100,000 by NCUA. Click here for more information on the Alternatives Federal Credit Union. Equal housing lender.

Alternatives Federal Credit Union
125 North Fulton St.
Ithaca, New York 14850-3301

phone: (877) 273-2328
fax: (607) 277-6391
e-mail: afcu@alternatives.org


GAS/OIL COMPANIES

Boycott ExxonMobil and Chevron Texaco

Buy Citgo

The overarching, long-term goal to which the Vermont Boycott for Peace is dedicated involves reducing our vast addiction to fossil fuels in favor of renewable sources of energy. In the short term, however, we boycott Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco in favor of Citgo gas, since Citgo does not import from the Middle East (rir: and is not owned by a gang of plutocrats).

Of the top oil producing countries in the world, only Venezuela is a democracy with a president, Hugo Chavez, who was elected on a platform of using his nation's oil revenue to benefit the poor.

Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a *wholly owned* subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. When you buy your gas at Citgo, you are contributing to billions of dollars that Venezuela's democratic government is using to provide health care, literacy and education, and subsidized food for the majority of Venezuelans.

PAPER PRODUCTS AND OFFICE/DESK SUPPLIES

Boycott Kinkos (owned by FedEx) and UPS Stores

Buy from Conservatree*

Conservatree was first established as a paper distribution company in 1976 and today is also a nonprofit organization dedicated to converting paper markets to environmental papers. Click here to visit their website for an extensive choice of environmentally friendly papers in small quantities or large.

100 Second Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 721-4230
fax: (509) 756-6987
e-mail: paper@conservatree.org

Buy from Office Quarters* in St. Albans

Office Quarters provides a comprehensive stock of office supplies, including binders and business cases; calendars and planners; desk accessories; writing instruments; printers and accessories; art, drafting, and school supplies; and much more.

387 Lake Road
St. Albans, VT 05478
(802) 660-3013


PHONE COMPANIES (AT&T)

Boycott AT&T

Sign up with Working Assets

While the Working Assets credit card is a service we ask you to boycott because it is owned by MBNA, we do encourage people to look into Working Assets as a phone service provider, since a portion of the dollars you spend every month goes toward charitable causes. Click here to visit the Working Assets website.


GENERAL FAIR-TRADE, ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE BUSINESSES

Peace & Justice Store: Burlington, VT

This unique, socially responsible, not-for-profit retail store is part of the Peace & Justice Center on Church Street in Burlington. The mission of the Peace & Justice Store is to promote social change through education and to provide alternative, meaningful products and educational materials that foster cooperation, equality, and a sustainable society. Click here for more information about the store and its fair trade policy, or directions.

The Union Mall: Sweatshop-free shopping

When you vote with a dollar, it always get counted! Click here to visit the Union Mall, designed to make it easy for consumers to help empower workers around the world. The site has gathered every retailer they could find that sources exclusively from union shops or worker-owned cooperatives in an attempt to change the global garment industry by creating successful alternatives to the sweatshop suppliers of retail clothing.

Co-op America’s Green Pages online

Click here to learn more about the largest directory of qualified green businesses available online! Search for more than 25,000 products and services from 2,000 green companies.

Nerds Still On Strike!

The NYU strike is still on. Specter of Marx, from Nerds On Strike! (http://nerdsforgsoc.blogspot.com/) posted the following response to Sexton's media-savvy torpedo aimed at sinking the unionization effort.

After considerable mulling, here is my intial response to President Sexton's most recent dictum (and I use the word "dictum" since this is not in truth a simple "letter" or "correspondence," as there is no comparable avenue for its intended audience to respond, comment, or engage in dialogue). Point/counterpoint style:

1) “We recognize that for some of you there is an unfortunate disparity between the ideal and the reality.”

Agreed, and these admitted disparities are exactly why GAs need union representation in our collective dealings with the university.

2) “Moving closer to this ideal, however, will be difficult without restoring an atmosphere of mutual respect and good faith within the University community.”

Strike or no strike, mutual respect and good faith between NYU and its GAs have been irreparably damaged, as has the larger sense of community at NYU. This is predominantly the fault of university administrators who have attempted to intimidate GAs with threatening and condescending memos, and who have unilaterally refused to acknowledge GAs’ democratic wishes and bargain in good faith. As President Sexton himself notes, “…the burden is on the University to create an environment of trust as we aim to achieve the ideal.” Clearly, NYU has not only failed to cultivate such a milieu in the past, but has failed to assume its "burden" altogether by blaming GAs for the strike and vilifying them as selfish and irresponsible.

3) “While we must await the Working Group’s proposals [regarding grievance procedures sans third-party arbitration], we are open to any suggestions they may have regarding how members from the academy outside the University might play a role in this process.”

I have a suggestion: allow GAs to have union representation. I would imagine that such is not a legitimate suggestion given the administration’s refusal to hear GAs’ voices over the past year, which leads me to conclude that the university’s “openness” is disingenuous. Moreover, my peers and I would be fools to sign onto a program whose details were of the “we’ll just have to wait and see” variety. As the cliché goes, the devil is in the details. This is why we are asking NYU to sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate a new union contract with us in good faith.

4) “Because graduate assistants are also our students, those on strike have continued to receive their stipends, they have continued to receive free tuition, and they have continued to receive free health insurance.”

This statement is a blatant sleight of hand, to which I take great personal and political umbrage. I have been an employee of the university for the past 2+ years, and have worked diligently as a TA for over 4 and a half semesters. My benefits, including my compensation, have not and will never be “free,” as I have given the university my labor in return. Once again, President Sexton demonstrates exactly why GAs need a union: to legitimize and defend our rights as workers in our dealings with the university.

5) “While I do not condone what has been done by those who have been striking, their actions have caused us to take a hard and unflinching look at ourselves and our practices, and these self- examinations will lead to significant, enduring improvements.”

If this is indeed true, then the strike has not only had a large, lasting, and positive effect on NYU (despite the administration’s adamant claims otherwise), but that this is testament to the power and necessity of GSOC. President Sexton claims that our “points have been made and heard,” but I would argue that they haven’t at all in light of recent events, this correspondence as written proof. “Such disruption must not continue,” Sexton states, and this we can all agree on. No, this strike should not and must not continue, President Sexton; that is why you need to assume your rightful “burden” to maintain a peaceable and productive atmosphere on campus and NEGOTIATE NOW.

SEIU Houston Janitor Victory

The SEIU organizing drive among janitors in Houston is a success! What's interesting about the victory--other than the fact that it brings in 5,000 new members in the hard-to-organize South--is the way the victory was pulled off.

Check out these two paragraphs:

The service employees, which led a breakaway of four unions from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. last summer, has used several unusual tactics in Houston, among them lining up the support of religious leaders, pension funds and the city's mayor, Bill White, a Democrat. Making the effort even more unusual has been the union's success in a state that has long been hostile to labor.

"It's the largest unionization campaign in the South in years," said Julius Getman, a labor law professor at the University of Texas. "Other unions will say, 'Yes, it can be done here.' "

More...

Starbucks Union

Again, thanks to Sean at ToTheBarricades.BlogSpot.com:

New York, NY - 25 Starbucks baristas and supporters wearing union pins and hats surrounded the store manager at the Union Square location in Manhattan tonight to announce their membership in the IWW Starbucks Workers Union (www.starbucksunion.org). The workers, joined by union baristas from two other New York Starbucks stores, demanded a guaranteed minimum of 30 hours of work per week and an end to Starbucks' unlawful anti-union campaign. The Union will assail Starbucks with a wide array of actions until the demands are met.

One of the workers, 23 year-old Tomer Malchi, served the store manager with a document detailing the demands and several other workers directed comments at the boss to be relayed to more senior management. Suley Ayala, a mother of four who has worked at Starbucks for three years, was one of the workers who spoke. She explained after the event: "it should go without saying that we can't live on ten, eleven, or twelve hours of work some weeks. The 30 hour guarantee is absolutely necessary to make ends meet and Starbucks knows it."

The workers were motivated to organize in part because of Starbucks' status as one of the few companies in the world with no full-time employment for non-managerial employees. An initiative of Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, the part-time scheme forces workers to contend with a constantly fluctuating number of work hours, and therefore, constantly fluctuating income. For example, a Starbucks barista could receive 35 hours of work one week, 18 hours the week after, and as low as single-digits in the following week. The world's largest coffee chain sacrifices employees' financial security in the name of cost-control and "flexibility." This comes from a company whose mission statements talks of, "provid[ing] a great work environment."

Starbucks barista Mike Velasquez spoke of the personal reasons underlying his decision to join the Starbucks Workers Union. "My daughter is my first priority period," he said. Anything that comes in the way of that is going to have a problem. Starbucks falls into that category."

Myth v. Reality

Given the reality of working at Starbucks, the company's creation of a socially responsible image is testament to its public relations prowess. The company boasts of providing health care eligibility even for its part-time workers (never mentioning that all of its retail hourly workers are part-time). The fact is that an employee must work 240 hours each quarter to become eligible for health insurance. Because of the lack of guaranteed hours, meeting the quarterly hour requirement is far from assured. For workers who do qualify there are still the premiums, co-pays, and deductibles, and these are costs extremely difficult to manage for employees making six, seven, or eight dollars an hour. Incredibly, Starbucks, the self-proclaimed leader on the issue of employee health care, will not release the number of retail hourly workers that actually receive company health benefits. Even Wal-Mart releases that number. In fact, the recently leaked memo from Wal-Mart that advocated increasing part-time employment to cut health insurance costs is ancient history at Starbucks. Howard Schultz made that move years ago- but he degraded all jobs to part-time.

The workers demanded respect for the right to organize in the face of a relentless anti-union campaign launched by the company in 2004 after the formation of the Starbucks Workers Union. The company has already been hit with a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board for threats, bribes, and surveillance in their attempt to defeat the union.

"I am so pleased to welcome the Union Square East baristas to the Starbucks Workers Union," said Pete Montalbano, a union barista at an East Village Starbucks and himself a recipient of anti-union discrimination. "Given the widespread discontent at the company, it comes as no surprise that more and more workers are making the decision to go union."

Starbucks, known for inundating neighborhoods with its stores, is an extremely profitable company. On November 17, the company announced that quarterly earnings had jumped 21% to $124 million. Chairman Howard Schultz who also owns the Seattle Supersonics is doing well too with an estimated net worth of $700 million.

The IWW's unique solidarity union structure allows any Starbucks worker to join at anytime and begin the fight for a better life at work. Since its founding, the Starbucks Workers Union has pressured the company into a .50 cent an hour wage increase, an unprecedented holiday bonus, and steps toward alleviating the rampant repetitive strain injuries among baristas.

"Companies like Starbucks, Borders, Wal-Mart, the Gap, and McDonald's have gotten a free pass from the labor movement for far too long. Retail workers at some of the world's most profitable companies deserve better than a poverty existence for our hard work," remarked Daniel Gross, an IWW member and Starbucks barista. "The only solution is a fighting union."

The Nausea

I ran across the site www.thenausea.com last night while doing some research on war atrocities, specifically the Fallujah massacre. Nausea is a not-for-profit effort to document war crimes and crimes against humanity on the web. The pictures, videos and documentation is shocking. Particularly saddening (ok, sickening) to me is the documentation in the China section, especially the pre-Communist era photos. Say what you want about Mao, at least he outlawed beheadings. Not that Tiananmen is much more encouraging. Also, the pictures of the recent massacre of Muslims by Hindus in India (2,000 murdered) is unbelievable. How people can act this way to each other is beyond my comprehension.

Talking Chavez Doll

Yippie! I know what I want for Christmas!

CARACAS, Venezuela - Shoppers at Venezuela's biggest mall are snapping up talking dolls of President Hugo Chavez and a merchant says they've become popular among supporters and foes alike.

The doll sports the Venezuelan leader's signature red military beret and at the pull of a cord repeats a revolutionary slogan: "It's your dream, it's your hope, and it's your job to be free and equal."

More...

U.S. forces used chemical weapons in Fallujah

Sean at ToTheBarricades brings us this news. This is precisely the sort of evil that is a direct outcome of imperialism, the most advanced stage of capitalism. What can be said for a form of social organization that not only allows these things to happen, but promotes them? We are all responsible for this. Guilt will not help. Only international solidarity and an end to racist nationalism will end the attrocities of imperialism.

U.S. forces used chemical weapons in Fallujah. This was reported by unembedded journalists like Dahr Jamail long ago. It was circled on the internet, but not widely enough. It is now a big story in the global media, because a filmmaker went ahead and did their work for them. But, you guessed it, is not being discussed in the United States. They could have dropped an H-Bomb on Fallujah and it wouldn't make it past the blogosphere at this point. Maybe this story will make it somewhere off the front page in the New York Times, but it would surprise me if it got any further.

and...

If you haven't seen the film, Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre, which is getting a lot of attention in countries with a free press, watch it here.

Socialism on Amazon

A creative way to hack the system, one which I think more progressive groups should be thinking of by the way, is being used by the "World Socialist Party of the U.S.". Try searching for socialism on Amazon.com and you will see keyword adds come up for these guys. Very nice!

It is important to note that a lot of right wing organizations have been doing keyword buys. This is a great example of progressive guerilla agitprop being used effectively. And no, not guerilla marketing either; marketing is for products and it is a capitalist concient to transform every damn thing into a commodity. Society is not just another capitalist commodity, quite the opposite, capitalism is a virus on society.

Anyhow, it would be interesting to see what comrades find when they do keyword searches on the major search engines - try "socialism" or "labor" for instance, and see what Google AdWords or Overture results you get. If you are so inclined, leave me a comment with the results.

Nerds On Strike!

As many folks know, the grad students at NYU are on strike because the administration of NYU, taking queue from the reactionary anti-labor policies of the Bush Administration, feels that they do not have to recognize nor negotiate with the union.

So, even after 4 years of contract negotiations, NYU is not recognizing the union and their president wants to "kill" the union. (shades of the horrible tactics being used against the UAW at Delphi).

Check out the NYU Grad Student strike blog: http://nerdsforgsoc.blogspot.com

NYU faculty have their own blog here: http://fdnyu.blogspot.com

Get Rid of These Capitalist Ways

"I believe we need to get rid of these capitalist ways," said Steven Honickel, 14.

High school students in Parsippany, New Jersy (USA) voiced their opinions on who should be the next governor of New Jersey, and selected Socialist candidate Tino Rozzo.

PARSIPPANY-- The winner of Parsippany High School's student poll for governor wasn't Republican Doug Forrester or Democrat Jon Corzine.

Socialist Party candidate Tino Rozzo, at 21.6 percent, narrowly edged Corzine and three other contenders in a survey of 270 freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors last week.

Rozzo, whose platform includes a $12-per-hour minimum wage and a "socialized healthcare system under workers and community control," would seem an unlikely favorite at a high school in relatively wealthy, Republican-dominated Morris County.

Still, he had some proud backers among students attending today's 1 p.m. debate in the high school's auditorium, with students standing in for five of the candidates running for governor.

[More...] (copyright dailyrecord.com)

There is a growing notion among all people in all nations, regardless of the constant anti-socialist propoganda, that capitalism is failing - has failed.

How is it, that people are coming out and expressing this? With constant oppression of the views of socialism, especially in the capital of Capital, the USA, how is it that high school students have an awareness that there is something fundamentally wrong with capitalism?

Personally I think that it is because the science of socialism reflects a deeper truth about human nature and the need for cooperation and desire for social good. Whether based on a strictly Marxist humanism, or the finer points of Christian teaching the result is the same and speaks to our hearts.

The dog-eat-dog world of capitalism is a failure for mankind and the only way out is democratic socialism.

(This article is cross-posted at the Uncapitalist Journal)

Eyewitness Accounts from France

"What is intolerable in a civilized society is not the revolt of those whose children, brothers and friends are hunted down and killed. What is intolerable is the arrogance of the authorities, of irresponsible police, of the State which is waging war against the poor."

Again, thanks to Sean at tothebarricades.blogspot.com, eyewitness accounts from the rebellion in France here...

Chavez Restyles Venezuela With '21st-Century Socialism'

"I'm not afraid of socialism and never have been," said Rivas Silvino, who works in a diaper factory run by workers and managers under a state co-management plan. "The world is afraid. I say, don't be afraid."

From an article by Juan Forero:

CARACAS, Venezuela - Firmly in power and his revolution now in overdrive, President Hugo Chavez is moving fast to transform Venezuela's economy by bucking free-market planning with what he calls 21st-century socialism: founding state companies, seizing abandoned private factories and establishing thousands of cooperatives and worker-run businesses.

[...]

Many of the president's grandest plans are put into practice at the year-old Ministry for the Popular Economy. Planners there have already created 6,840 cooperatives that employ 210,000 people nationwide, many producing for the state.

[...]

The new measures - which include the seizure of factories, mines and fields the government says are unproductive - are playing well domestically. Mr. Chavez has an approval rating topping 70 percent.

[More...]

After 200 years of exploitation under colonialism and capitalism, Venezuela is moving in a new direction. Bravo to Chavez and the Bolivarans for striking out in a new direction and leading the way towards global emancipation.

NYU GRAD STUDENTS ON STRIKE

Sean, at tothebarricades.blogspot.com has such an excellent post on the upcoming NYU grad student strike, that I had to crosspost it (below). A call to action - contact President Sexton and demand that the NYU administration meet the demands of the union: John.sexton@nyu.edu or (212) 998-2345.

---

NYU Grad Students, through GSOC/Local 2110 UAW, have authorized a strike this morning which will result in a complete stoppage of work by graduate students in response to the administration's refusal to renew their contract, which expired on August 31, 2005 (the National Labor Relations Board, composed largely of apointees from a reactionary Bush administration, determined, contrary to a 2000 ruling, that universities do not have to negotiate with graduate student unions). A contract "offered" to the union by the administration in August was "little more than a public relations stunt" which acquiesced to none of the principal demands in an acceptable fashion.

The previous contract - the first given to graduate students at a private university - granted graduate students higher wages (a 40% increase), health benefits, childcare support, procedures for grievance resolution, workplace democracy, and generally improved working conditions; not, as the administration claims, to attempt to dictate academic policy or engage in other nefarious activity. The contract benefitted not only students but the entire university as students from across the country went to NYU thanks to the improved conditions obtained via the union. So, NYU's decision will ultimately hinder its struggle to compete with ivy league universities, as well.

The administration has been responding to pressure with bad faith and boldfaced lies. A recent email sent to undergraduates (which received an obscenity laden reply from myself) portrayed the union as "disruptive" troublemakers, controlled by mysterious and ill-meaning "auto workers" interfering with education, and its grievances as unwarranted petty complaints (with Sexton going as far as to say that grad students make over $50,000 a year! The actual average is around $19,000, which is roughly at the poverty line - it was much less before the contract). An excerpt:

In our opinion, the Auto Workers union is embarking on a regrettable and unfortunate course: regrettable because it fails to respect the significance of your efforts to pursue your education, and unfortunate because such an action will not result in recognition of the UAW to represent our graduate assistants. We understand that the possibility of a job action is the last thing you need at this point in the school year. We want to reassure you that the University will maintain your academic progress.

A rally, with over a thousand attending washeld on August 31st, the day the contract expired, but was met not with dialogue but with a violent state crackdown, leading to dozens of arrests. "Open meetings" with President Sexton have seen him crassly refuse to discuss union issues, claiming that "the University's decision is final." The most recent such meeting, with a strike imminent, saw him in nothing less than rage.

The graduate students and their union have the overwhelming support of undergraduate students, faculty, and the rest of the NYU community. The administration must now show what its priorities are through its response to the strike.

Below is the e-mail sent out to all GSOC members today:

Attention GSOC members:

We have voted by an 85% majority to authorize a strike. The strike will
begin on Wednesday, November 9th.

The GSOC Organizing Committee is calling for:
· All members of GSOC/UAW Local 2110 who are working this fall as TAs, RAsand GAs to withhold our labor, starting Wednesday, November 9 until the NYU administration negotiates a second contract with us. Being on strike means not teaching, grading, advising, performing GA or RA work or any other task which is part of our TA/RA/GA responsibilities.

· All GSOC members, whether working this fall or not, to join our picket line and refuse to do the work of striking colleagues.

Picket shifts and strike logistics will be announced shortly. We will be in contact regularly, and every GSOC member should stay informed via the “strike center” on our website: www.2110uaw.org. It is important that all members maintain updated contact info so that we can reach everyone quickly when necessary.

Our resounding strike vote is the culmination of months of organizing, and a demonstration of our membership’s resolve to win a fair second contract. NYU’s recent anti-union emails show that they are on the defensive and feeling the pressure of our campaign. Despite the administration’s anti-union spin, our support from the NYU community is growing daily:

· Over 200 full-time and adjunct faculty have already requested to move their classes off campus to honor our picket line.

· Over a dozen departments as well as the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and
the Tisch School of the Arts have passed resolutions in support of GSOC.

· Over 250 faculty have signed a statement of neutrality, pledging to respect the right of GSOC members to strike without facing intimidation or retaliation.

· Hundreds of undergraduates have pledged support. Under the leadership of GUS (Grad/Undergrad Solidarity), undergrads are urging their professors to move classes off campus and encouraging their parents to demand that NYU recognize our union.

· The Washington Square News has repeatedly published editorials, articles and commentaries supporting our union and calling on the administration to negotiate.

· Members from other shops in Local 2110 and several members of the grad union at Yale have come to work on our strike. We have the full support of the UAW, and union solidarity will make our strike stronger.

The stronger our strike is, the more effective it will be. We urge all GSOC members to volunteer time this week and this coming weekend to help prepare for the strike. There are dozens of ways in which you can help, including making signs, helping to re-locate classes, phone banking, etc. Reply to this email or call the GSOC office at 212.387.0220 to find out what you can do to help win rights, respect and union recognition.

In solidarity,
The GSOC Organizing Committee

Voice your support! Contact President Sexton and demand that the NYU administration meet the demands of the union: John.sexton@nyu.edu or (212) 998-2345.