Workers Vanguard No 853 - 02 September 2005

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    50No. 853 E'@J]>C.701 2 September 2005

    Unions: Shut Down Northwest!S o l i d ~ r i t y Action Can Win This One!Victory to Northwest

    'AMFA St -k Ihe >trike b) -1.400 Northwest Air- ,li?es mechanic, and cleaners. members r e.l the Alrcratt MechanIc" FraternalAssociation (AMFA L is a crucial battlefor every airline union and the entirelabor movement. When the AY!FA rankswalked out un August 20. the carrier setin motion a long-planned. massive operation to bust the ' union. bringing inmore than 1.000 scab mechanics. 'Jorthwe,t has suffered from delays. cancellations and grounded planes. but it is farfrom crippled-a resul t of the outrighttreacher) of the leaders of the other airline union,. \\'hich are ~ c a b b i n g on the,trike. The capitalist medi'l ~ : i C l , l t "boutNorthweq's "briiii,1i1t" plannin2,' uf theLllll,m-buqing 'Jpcration ;ll1U \\ h;\t It portencb fpr all airline unions and the rest oflabor. But all their plans would go lkmn,[w tubi" if airline union, t('iiu\\ cd the",lel1lcnuiIT uni()n \\atchwords: Picketlilies mean don't cruss! Oi;e 01ur. 5c\.~ a g c h:indk'fS. cleaners. n i ~ h l ;UtenJanlsclIld CUSIOJ11t:r , t T \ icc agenh.

    'Jonh\\est provoked the \trike by insisting that AMFA accept the elimination of more than half its jobs. includingoutsourcing all facilities and groundequipment maintenance and cleaning andcustodial \"ork, on top of a 2 6 percent cutin wages. higher health imurance premiums. reduced ~ i c k pay and a freeze onpensions. Overall. the company \\ ants tosqueeze S 1.1 billion out of its workforce.

    Airline unions have enormous socialcontinued Oil page 13

    Terror bombing destroys busterminal in Shi'ite neighborhood, B a g h d a d , A u g u ~ 1 7 ,

    war. we pointed out (WV No. 807. IAugust 2003):"The ignoble real purpose of the war and

    subsequent occupation is to plant theAmerican nag in the oil-rich Near Eastas an assertion of U.S. dominance overall semicolonial countries and imperialistrivals. This baldly imperialist aim hasbeen wrapped in the guise of a crusadeto erect a secular. democratic Iraq toserve as a beacon for freedom in theregion. This is an opium pipe dream. In afundamental way there is no 'Iraq: acountrv the boundaries of which werecreated in the divvying up of the spoilsby the British and French imperialist

    contillued Oi l page 12

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    Of Constitutions and CalmBy the time you read thesc words. pcrhaps thenew Constitution of Iraq w'ill hm c been written. andaccepted by the political leaders of the countr), Perhaps there will still be conflict.At any rate. given the inordinate attention devotedto the subject. American political leaders are promoting the myth that thc writing and signing of thc IraqiConstitution will bc a signal shift in their marchtowards dcmocracy.We are led to believe that the creation of such a

    document portcnds the era of progress in thc country.But the Iraq that exists. chaotic. dangerous. andindeed, dcadly. to Iraqi. American and foreigner alikc.will be the very same place a day, a week. a month. orperhaps for years afterwards.It is commonplace for Americans, especially today.to look at the US Constitution as the work of demigods; of men who were not quite human. They are

    reverently referred to 'in terms that reflect America'sdeep civil religion, as the 'Founding Fathers,' or, mostoften, simply as 'The Founders.'One of these men who was among them certainly

    didn't think of his contemporaries that way. AsThomas Jefferson. in the last days of his Presidency,wrote to James Madison:

    "Some me n look at constitutions with sanctimoniousreverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant. too sacred to be touched, They ascribe to theme n of the preceding age a wisdom more than

    human and suppose what they did to be beyondamendment. I knew that age well: I belonged to it.and labored with it. It desened well of its countrY, Itwas very like the present. but without the experienceof the present: an d fort) yean. in government isworth a centurY' of hookreadin(!: and thi, they wouldsay thcm'dves. were they t o ~ rise from t h ~ dead,"[Quoted in Jack Rakove. Origina/ 1111'(ll1illgl: Po/ir;('.Ialld Idl'as in thl' J'v1akillg of the COllstitution (S ,y ' :Knopf. 1996). p, 3671.

    Constitutions. even the US one. aren't mannapassed down from Heavcn. They are political document-s. written by men (and sometimes women).designed to set down founding principles,Nor do they always mean what thcy say, for howelse can one explain the American practice of adding

    amendments to the Constitution, and then virtuallyignoring them for better than a century?The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, commonlyknown as the Reconstruction Amendments, were

    passed by the Congress and ratified by the Statesbetween 1865 and 1870. In many states, like Georgia,South Carolina, and Mississippi, for example, it wasas if such Amendments didn't exist. Although theseamendments abolished slavery, protected citizenshiprights, and embraced voting rights, these and otherStates enacted laws which violated their meaningand spirit. Slavery became peonage, and in someplaces, through the Black Codes, excuses to incarcerate Blacks and bind them to service to landowners.

    Voting, and other citizenship rights were cruel jokes,violated by such local practices as 'grandfatherclauses,' which meant. unless your grandfather voted.you couldn't.It took social movements, like the Civil Rights

    Movement of the 1960s, to create a Voting Rights Actin 1965.But. if the 15th Amendment had any meaning. if itwere followed, there would've been no need for sucha law, nor a need now, to renew its provisionsFor 100 years, vinually half of America ignoredthe Constitution that it swore to uphold. protect anddefend.As many of w, saw in 2000. in Florida, so-calledconstitutional righb are slippery things. How many tensof thousands of African-Americans. ]c\I ,. Haitians. andothers. had their votes stolen'?

    And A m e r i c a n ~ expect lralj to emerge as a biblicalGarden of Eden once its Constitution is writtenThis. at best. is sheer wishful thinking: at worst.it's imperial arrogance.Iraq, today. is a nation in chaos. It \1 ill be in chaostomorrow,The problem isn't language: it's reality. It is theoccupation that is in place to install photogenic puppets to rule on behalf of the Americans.No Constitution will change that.

    2 I August 200502005 Mllmia Aim-Jamal

    Send u r g ~ n t I y needed contributions for Jamal'slegal defense, made payable to "National LawyersGuild Foundation" and earmarked for "Mumia,"to: Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, 130Morningside Drive, Suite 6C, New York, NY 10027.I f you wish to correspond with Jamal, you can

    write to: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM8335, SCI Greene,175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg, PA 15370.

    -'t" Revolutionary Leadershipan d the Class Struggle .,.'0"-,,,",- .,C Cove r- U , e . E ~ ; ~ J ! . ! ' ! l C ~ " ' ; ' 1 ~ ; j ; i ; ' "

    TROTSKY

    The capitalists' relentless drive tq extractmore profits from lah()}; /1'0171 taking awaymedicol care and other hard-earned gains tooutright union-bll.itillg, engenders st/'/{gglesby the \\orking c/O.I,I to heat hack thesea1lucks. III the late 1930s, james Burnham.then a leading American Trotskyist spokes/I/(/n, explained that the task j()r Marxistsis to il1lervenl' into the class struggle illorder to point the way toward the Ol'erthrowof the capitalist order through socialistrel'olution.

    LENI:-.I

    London Cops ExecutedJean Charles de MenezesJuly), The cop murder of de :vlenezes isprecisely what Blair and Bush's "war onterror" is all about-expanding the state'sdeadly powers of repression against thcpopulation domestically.

    The program of the proletariat, accepted by revolutionists since the publication ofthe Communist Manifesto, can be summed up in two slogans: for workers' power andfor socialism. Naturally the immediate tactic of the proletariat is not on all occasionsthe struggle for state power: that is possible only in a revolutionary crisis. But at alltimes and on all occasions the fundamental program remains the same-for the overthrow of capitalism, for workers' power and for socialism. This program expresses thebasic class conflict in modern society; records the Marxist understanding that the problems of society can be solved only by socialism, and that socialism can be achievedonly through the conquest of power by the proletariat. The duty of the revolutionaryparty, the conscious vanguard of the proletariat, is to keep this full and fundamentalprogram always to the fore and always uncompromised, In its program, the revolutionary party thus sums up the independence of the proletariat as a class, and asserts itsindependent historical destiny,

    "We may be poor but wc are notthat stupid." said Giovani de Menezes,the brother of Jean Charles de Menezes,who was gunned down in the subwayby London police on July 22. RejectingBritish officials' insulting blood moneyoffer to the family of 15,000 ($27,000),he said, "We will not exchange moneyfor my brother's life." The fury and disgust expressed by the family of the slain27-year-old Brazilian immigrant are growing daily, as millions now know, due toleaks to the press, that the British government's cover-up of the horrifying policekilling was a complete pack of lies.Barely two days after the killing, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir IanBlair blandly asserted that the "shoot-tokill-in-order-to-protect policy" continuedin place across the country, going on toadd, "I think we are quite comfortablethat the policy is right but these are fantastically difficult times" (Scotsman, 25

    Just about every single "fact" given outby police following the killing of deMenezes, who they initially claimed wasa terrorist suspect, has turned out tobe a lie, He had no rucksack (where abomb supposedly could have been hidden), he was not wearing a bulky paddedjacket, he did not run from police, he didnot jump over a ticket barrier. Actually, asthe Guardian Unlimited (17 August) reported, documents from the IndependentPolice Complaints Commission show that"M r de Menezes was filmed on CCTVcameras entering the station at a normalwalking pace and even picking up a freecopy of the Metro newspaper. He waswearing a denim jacket."

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    -James Burnham, "The People's Front: The New Betrayal,"Pioneer Publishers (1937)

    ! 1 ! ! ! ! ! ! J ! . . ' l ! ! . I ! L ! ~ ! ! . 1 ! . . IRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Ray Bishop

    EDITOR: Alan WildeEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Rosemary PalenqueCIRCULATION MANAGER: Susan FullerEDITORIAL BOARD: Kathleen Harris (managing editor), Helene Brosius (letters editor),Linda Jarreau (production manager), Bruce Andre, Jon Brule, Helen Cantor, Paul Cone,George Foster, Walter Jennings, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour, Alison SpencerThe Spartacist League is the U,S, Section of the International Communist League(Fourth Internationalist),Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and Skipping the last issue in December, by the SpartacistPublishing Co" 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY tO007, Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212)732-7861(Business), Address all correspondence to: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected] c subscripti ons: $10,00/21 issues. Periodi cals postage paid at New York, NY POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116,Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The closing date for news in this issue is 30 August.

    No. 853 2 September 2005

    continued on page 10

    Workers Hammer ReutersLondon, July 25: Outrage over coldblooded cop execution of Jean Charlesde Menezes.WORKERS VANGUARD

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    , ~ I s r a e l i Troops, Settlers Out of All the Occupied Territories!AUGUST 28-0n August 4, just beforeAriel Sharon's evacuation of settlers fromGaza, an ultra-chauvinist settler supporteropened fire on a busload of Arabs innorthern Israel, killing four and wounding several others. Two weeks later, a settler in the West Bank went on a bloodyrampage, murdering four Palestiniansthere. In the past week, Israeli forces carried out another massacre in the WestBank refugee camp of Tulkarm, killing atotal of five people alleged to be Palestinian militants. Gaza remains enclosedby an electrified fence, and the West Bankis carved up by a ghetto wall and crisscrossed by military checkpoints and militarized Jewish-only highways. Hunger,disease, misery and hopelessness plaguethe Palestinian population of the Occupied Territories. This is the true face ofZionist Israel's vaunted "disengagement."The road to today has been one ofdecades of Zionist land theft abettedby the perfiery of the nationalist leadersof the Palestinian people. In 1971, thePalestine Liberation Organization (PLO)declared itself opposed to accepting aPalestinian state on anything other thanall the area known as Israel and theOccupied Territories. Three years later,the PLO came out for a West Bank"mini-state," which was posed as a transitional step toward a "democratic, secularPalestine." In 1988" the PLO explicitlyaccepted the existence of the inherentlyexclusivist Zionist state, and in 1993 thePLO and fsrael signed a U.S.-brokeredagreement, the Oslo Accords, in whichthe PLO agreed to police the OccupiedTerritories on behalf of the Zionist rulersin exchange for Palestinian "autonomy."Today, the government ofAriel Sharon,the butcher of the Sabra and ShatilaPalestinian refugee camps in Lebanonin 1982, has determined that Israelinational interests are best served by withdrawing approximately 8,000 settlersfrom the Gaza Strip-an area about thesize of the New York City borough ofQueens-and four settlements in the WestBank. This is being done as vastly morenumerous settlements are built in theWest Bank and East Jerusalem by devouring ever more Palestinian land. Onceagain demonstrating the bankruptcy ofpetty-bourgeois nationalism, today thePalestinian Authority talks of "buildingour country" in Gaza: a tiny, dusty parcelof land that will still confine 1.3 millionimpoverished Palestinians, encircled andunder the thumb of the Israeli military.Sharon's vice prime minister, EhudOlmert, emphasized that the Israeli military would now be better situated to policethat desolate ghetto. After quoting Olmertthat the pullout "will not reduce the capability of the Israeli security forces torespond," the New York Times (I I August)commented, "Without Israeli settlers inGaza, [Olmert] suggested, the army could-strike even harder."The removal of the Gaza settlers bySharon, implementing a policy earlierproposed by the Labor Party, was toutedas a step forward for the oppressed Palestinians not only by imperialist spokesmenbut by leftist cheerleaders for the socalled Palestinian "resistance." The Workers World Party (WWP), the pseudosocialist organization that initiated theANSWER antiwar coalition, hails the"victory of the steadfast Palestinian resistance" for "the fact that Israel is forced towithdraw" (Workers World, 18 August).The WWP enthuses: "The mood of continuing resistance in Gaza is visible insigns there that read: 'Today Gaza, tomorrow Jerusalem and the West Bank: and'Resistance wins-let's go on!'" Havingearlier promoted more left-wing, secularvariants of Arab nationalism, WWP nowcheers a "resistance" dominated by theanti-woman, anti-Semitic Islamic reactionaries of Hamas.Newspapers and TV depicted weepingsettler families and reluctant Israeli soldiers, juxtaposed with scenes of jubilant,2 SEPTEMBER 2005

    Zionists QuitGaza Ghetto

    Gaza: One of many Palestinian homes demolished by Israeli occupationforces in 2004.

    For a Socialist Federationof the Near East!flag-waving Palestinians. Palestiniansundoubtedly relish the departure of thehated settlers from Gaza after 38 years.However, they are not as euphoric asone might conclude from the Westerncapitalist media (and the likes of WorkersWorld). A l2-year-old boy said that hishope for the future is "to go upstairs": theIsraeli army took over the upper twofloors of his home five years ago. An oldwoman stated, with what the reporterdescribed as "the language of diminishedexpectations": "God willing, we hope forthe best, for us and them. We only ask theUnited Nations and UNRWA [UN refugee agency] to build us a sewage line"(Middle East Report Online, 19 May).It is necessary to demand the complete,unconditional withdrawal of all Israelitroops and settlers from all of the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalemand the Golan Heights, as well as theimmediate removal of all anti-Arab fortifications-including the military checkpoints, the walls and fences and the apartheid highway network. WWP and thePalestinian nationalists notwithstanding,it is totally fatuous to believe that the current "disengagement" from Gaza willlead to a Palestinian state including theWest Bank and East Jerusalem. Sharonmade this clear by embarking on a massive new settlement construction programin the West Bank at the same time that theGaza evacuation was under way.Even were the Palestinians able toachieve a statelet on these territorieseconomically unviable and under Israelisuzerainty-this would hardly be a realization of Palestinian self-determination.Genuine self-determination for the Palestinian people is impossible without thedismantling of both the Zionist state ofIsrael, whose very existence is premisedon the oppression of the Palestinian people, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, whose population is about 60 percent Palestinian.Unlike various "leftist" enthusiasts forArab nationalism, we have always insistedthat national emancipation for the Palestinians must not come at the expenseof the right to national existence of theHebrew-speaking people. Given the interpenetration of the Hebrew-speaking andPalestinian Arab populations-two peoples laying claim to the same territory-

    the only just resolution to the nationalquestion lies in the revolutionary overthrow of all the bourgeois regimes in theregion. Only through the creation of aplanned economy in a socialist federationof the Near East can conflicting claimsover land and water be equitably resolvedand all languages, religions and culturesbe placed on an equal footing.The Israeli pullout from Gaza and ahandful of West Bank settlements is acaricature of the "Gaza-Jericho first" dealthat was the first step of the 1993 Oslo"peace" accords, which created the Palestinian Authority. In an article headlined"Israel-PLO Deal for Palestinian Ghetto,"we wrote that this deal "does not offereven the most deformed expression ofself-determination" and "would place thePLO's seal on the national oppressionof the long-suffering Palestinian Arabmasses" (WV No. 583, 10 September1993). We added:"This grotesque bargain over the subjugated Palestinian people marks a water

    shed in the Near East. By its act, thePLO has invited fundamentalist reactionaries like Ramas to pose as the onlyfighters against the Zionist occupation.Petty-bourgeois Arab nationalism hasbeen shown to be the bankrupt andimpotent dead end that it always was."Implemented by the Labor governmentofYitzhak Rabin, this deal led directly tothe doubling of the settler popUlation inthe Occupied Territories in subsequentyears. The Palestinians who had earliermanaged to eke out a living as low-wagelaborers in Israeli construction and agri-

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    culture were now largely confined to theirsegregated villages and squalid refugeecamps and cut off from their livelihoods,replaced by migrant labor from EastEurope and Southeast Asia. A populationthat had once been among the most educated and cosmopolitan in the Near Eastis today increasingly under the swayof Islamic reaction. Whereas the firstIntifada in the late 1980s gave rise to aplethora of women's organizations thatchallenged traditional values. Palestinianwomen are now, especially in Gaza.increasingly forced to wear the veil andmany have been murdered in "honor"killings.Today, Hamas is maneuvering to gainmaximum political capital for itself asthe Fatah moyemem of Mahmoud Abbas.Yasir Arafat's successor. grows increasingly discredited and despised. Over thepast year. Hamas candidates won an estimated 60 percent of all seats in localgovernment elections in Gaza and theWest Bank, and in the West Bank townof Qalqilya, Hamas' slate took all 15positions, which was seen as "a protestnot only against Fatah's history of mismanagement but also against Fatah'spowerlessness to prevent the encirclement of the town on all sides by Israel'swall" (Middle East Report Online, 21August). Hamas also intends to run inlegislative elections projected for nextJanuary.The suicide bombings carried out bysuch groups as Hamas against innocentIsraeli civilians-as opposed to attackson the Israeli military and their armed settler auxiliaries-are criminal acts of terror that serve only to seal any fissures inIsraeli society. The starting poin t for thosefighting for social justice and nationalemancipation for the oppressed Palestinians must be that Israel, like the neighboring Arab countries, is a capitalist societywith a class divide between the bourg,eoisie and the proletariat. The proletariatincludes not only European-derived Ashkenazi Jews but the more downtroddenNear Eastern Sephardic Jews and a deeplyoppressed Palestinian Arab minority.The inherently oppressive Zionist statemust and can only be swept away fromwithin, through a proletarian revolutionuniting Palestinian and Hebrew-speakingworkers against the common class enemy.For this to come about will likely requirethe prior victory of socialist revolutionelsewhere, under the banner of proletarian internationalism. But if the Hebrewworking class is to fight for its own liberation from capitalist exploitation, itmust champion the national rights of thePalestinian people. In turn, the Arabworking masses will not be won to a perspective of proletarian revolution if theyare not broken from Arab nationalism andanti-Semitism. What is crucially necessary is the forging of revolutionary Marxist parties throughout the Near East, tempered through the most uncompromisingstruggle no t only against fundamentalistreaction of all religious stripes but alsoeven the most secular or "progressive"brand of nationalism. There is no otherway. Defend the Palestinian people! Fora socialist federation of the Near East!.

    II , . ,. .' ' ' .. For a Workers PartyBat Figbts for a Workers Government!

    .For SoCialist RevolutionI in the Bastionof World Imperialism!Organizational Rules and Guidelinesof the Spartacist League/U.S.

    Opponents of the RevolutionaryInternationalist Workers Movement12 _4'000 ...- ~ ~ C " , - ' J n G P O . _ Y _ . N Y 1 0 1 ' 1

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    We print belmr the first part ofal l article trallSlated from Espartaco No. 24 (Summer 2005). pub-lished by our comrades of theGrupo Espartaquista de Mexico.The article centrally deafs with theattempt In Mexican presidentVicente Fox of he National AcriOlIPOl'ty (PA/V) alld a section of thef(JI'Illcr rufing Institlltionaf Rc1'O-II/tiolla!"\' Part\ (PRI; to srripAndr(;.1 Monllcf Lr)flc Obrado}' ofthe Party o{ the Demlcrotic Re\'(!-illlion (PRJ)) of his political immll-nity. a proccss called d e s a f u ~ r o . illorder to efiminate him from l1extyear's presidelltiaf race.

    PART ONELast May. while polls showedthat Mexico City's mayor. PROer

    A m l r ~ s Manuel L6pez Obrador(A\1LO). was growing in popu

    .-

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    present themselves to the masses as afriendlier alternative and a viable vehicleto achieve the felt democratic demands ofthe population (the right to education,national emancipation vis-a-vis Americanimperialism. etc.). A large part of AMLO'spopularity comes from his statementsagainst the privatization of the energy sector. To a certain degree, Lopez Obradorhas translated his democratic-nationalistrhetoric into popular measures, such as anacclaimed subsidy to the elderly and tosingle mothers and investment in projectsof public education and urban infrastructure-timid and elementary measureswhich in the context of the brutal austerity of the PRI and PAN seem truly significant. This is a dangerous illusion.The working class should not have illusions in AMLO. The particular positionsthat distinguish him from other bourgeoispoliticians (constant denunciations of neoliberalism, opposition to privatization ofthe energy sector. etc.) are purely conjunctural: they are either electoral campaign promises or measures to defuse thepotential for workers struggle. Nationalist populism and economic neoliberalismare simply alternate policies of the capitalist system, often followed by the sameindividual according to the demands of .the moment. As we said in our 7 Aprilleaflet: " I f he wins the presidency, thevery support Lopez Obrador has amongthe workers movement would place himin a better position to carry forward theprivatization of the electric and oil sectors, which the ineffective Fox has notbeen able to a c h i e v ~ . " The same understanding is behind thesupport AMLO has among important capitalists such as Carlos Slim-the richestman in Latin America. who bought theformerly state-owned communicationsmonopoly Telmcx-and statements suchas that of the p r e ~ i d e n t of the MexicanBanks Association. Marcos Martinez Gavica. Clearly referring to Lopez Obrador,MartInez Gavica comme nted on the day ofAMLO's inauguration that a "left" politician represents no obstacle to the country'sdevelopment: "He can even be a guarantorto further advance reforms in order to makethe national economy more competitive"(La Jornada, 5 March). And when thesepeople talk of "reforms" and "capacity tocompete," they invariably refer to privatizations and anti-worker measures. Not onevote to the capitalist parties! For the politi-cal independence of he working class! Fora workers party to fight for workers rule!From Lazaro Cardenas toLopez Obrador:The Nationalist Sleeping Pill

    The history of Latin American capitalism has been one of constant oscillationsbetween "free trade" openness on the onehand and nationalist populism on theother. After decades of "neoliberalism,"in recent years there has been a shift

    iveMexican president Lazaro Cardenasnationalized oil industry in 1938.throughout South America back towardnationalist populism. However, this shiftin the political climate and balance off o r c e ~ is not in itself anti-capitalist. In asense, it strengthens the forces of LatinAmerican capitalism by solidifying theties of the working class to its ownnational bourgeoisie. which is well practiced in demagogic denunciations of'l-'lallStreet and Washington. As we said inEspal"rac() No. 20 (Spring-Summer 2003)."The only c(ll1stants in this inhumane2 SEPTEMBER 2005

    wheel of fortune are SUbjugation to imperialism and the human misery of millionsof peasants and workers."The fundamental role of the PRD hasbeen to derail the inevitable daily and spontaneous struggles of the Mexican massesinto the sterile framework of electoral ballots. Its goal is to stabilize volatile Mexicancapitalism and renegotiate the terms of itssubordination to imperialism. It was tellingthat, at the April 7 demonstration againstthe desafuero, Lopez Obrador's speech putparticular emphasis on maintaining thepeaceful character of the demonstrationsand respecting state institutions. His speech

    ... @ - ' \ " ' ~ ~ ~ \ i { ; : ~ ~ ! : ' ,

    took advantage of the conjuncture-withthe existence of the Soviet Union asa counterweight to the imperialists-toexpropriate the British and American oilmagnates; he also humiliated them bygiving asylum to the Bolshevik Trotsky,the organizer, together with Lenin, of theOctober Revolution and the founder ofthe' R'ed Army and the Fourth International. Cardenas' aim was to consolidatethe Mexican capitalist state and check theexcessive ambitions of the imperialists,and this required the support of the working class. In 1940, living in Lazaro Cardenas' Mexico and months before being

    The Image BankU.S. combines harvesting wheat (above). Children of Indian migrant farmworkers from Oaxaca. NAFTA has devastated millions of Mexican peasants.

    had an effect not only on the crowd but alsoon the big bourgeoisie, which sighed inrelief. Even the stock exchange recoveredafter his speech.

    The PRD emerged as a disenchantedfaction of the PRI that sought to returnto that party's "golden years." Thus, inhis book Un Proyecto Alternativo deNacion [An Alternative Nation Project],Lopez Obrador writes in reference to thePRI governments before Echevetrfa that"although we suffered the endemic evil ofinequality, Mexico grew constantly at arate of almost 7 percent a year and withmacroeconomic stability in prices andpublic finances." In order to polernicizeagainst "neoliberals," AMLO uses theexample of .. Gustavo Dfaz Ordaz andAdolfo Lopez Mateos, among others. Theformer is infamous for the [1968] Tlate-101co massacre, while the latter was responsible for the brutal crushing of thegreat railroad strike of 1957-S 8, althoughmany (like the leadership of the SME[Mexican Electricians Union]) rememberhim only for the nationalization of theelectric industry. But that is what bourgeois nationalist populism means: thecombination of concessions to the workers and oppressed and brutal repression.with the goal of disciplining the workingclass and pushing forward the interestsof the bourgeoisie. Also revealing. thoughcertainly not surprising for ~ l a r x i s t s . is hisreference to the "endemic evil of inequality:' What workers need to understand isthat inequality, exploitation and oppression are endemic to the rule of capital.It is worth analyzing briefly the politicsof the icon of Mexican bourgeois nationalists, Lazaro Cardenas. During his presidential period. Cardenas carried out a seriesofdemocratic reforms, such as nationalization of oil and railroads and land distribution. Marxists defended these measuresagainst right-wing attacks. The expropriation of oil in particular represented. in thewords of Russian re\'olutionary Leon Trotsky. "the only effective means of safeguarding national independence and theelementary condition, of democracy:'On the eve of \'v'orld War II. Cardenas

    Quinones/SF Examiner

    assassinated by a Stalinist henchman,Trotsky explained in "The Trade Unionsin the Epoch of Imperialist Decay":

    "Inasmuch as the chief role in the back-ward countries is not played by nationalbut by foreign capitalism, the nationalbourgeoisie occupies, in the sense of itssocial position, a much more minor position than corresponds with the development of industry. Inasmuch as foreigncapital does not import workers but pro-letarianizes the native population, thenational proletariat soon begins playingthe most important role in the life of thecountry. In these conditions the nationalgovernment, to the extent that it tries toshow resistance to foreign capital, iscompelled to a greater or lesser degree tolean on the proletariat."This quote explains quite succinctly theessence of the decades of PRI bonapartistrule in Mexico, during which the state,due to the inherent weakness of the bourgeoisie, often appeared to stand abovecompeting class interests and relied oncorporatism-tying political, social andtrade-union organizations to the state.

    By making these concessions, Cardenas not only used the working class as apowerful card to play against his localand imperialist bourgeois rivals. but hemanaged to co-opt it and to then put itunder the iron leadership of the CTM[Mexican Labor Federation] bureaucracy. Cardenas was no 'socialist." Whennationalist demagogy was not enough, hedidn't hesitate before unleashing repression against the workers. For example. in1940 he sent the police to break anoil strike in Azcapotza1co. Despite hisnationalist rhetoric. by the end of hisadministration the Mexican economydepended on the U.S. more than everbefore. "Tat a" Ca rdenas was, in fact. thefounder of what Mario Vargas Llosa evocatively called the "perfect dictatorship"of the PRI, which was to last 60 years.

    Bourgeois nationalism was the mainideological glue that made possible Cirdena s "historic alliance," i.e . the subordination of the working class to the PRM [Partyof the Mexican Revolution. predecessor tothe PRI]/PRI. Nationalism is the notionthat in the end we are allivlexicans and the

    key question is to push the nation forward.Today, the PRD mimics Cardenas' nationalist rhetoric. This is only a smokescreento cover capitalist exploitation. The proletariat will successfully struggle to achieveits historic interests inasmuch as it breakswith this bourgeois ideology and realizesthat it is an international class, with common interests independent of nationalityand counterposed to those of the nationaland foreign bourgeoisies.An AlternativeSubordination Project

    In his bookAn Alternative Nation Proj-ect. which in reality is little more thana great collection of commonplaces andpipe dreams about how Mexico willbecome a paradise of .,ocial justice oncethe PRD holds the reins of its destiny,AMLO presents a series of proposals tosolve one of the country's oldest and mostburning problems: the land. But his program to "reactivate the countryside" is abad joke. The goal is "to harmonize andsupport, at the same time, subsistenceagriCUlture, production for the internalmarket and production for export." Howto achieve it? He writes:"It would be necessary to promote thestrengthening of the subsistence agriculture economy in communities. The purpose is to promote traditional productiveactivities with small grants ...

    "There are exceptional cases in indigenous communities where they producealmost everything they consume. Thereis also. for example. what has historically happened in towns like those ofTlaxcala. where the peasants. in smallplots of land. grow corn. with good pro-ductivity. and have sheep. goats andcows in their yards. and a loom insidethe house." -The Tlaxcala peasants do so well that theyrisk their lives to migrate massively to theU.S.! Additionally, AMLO says: "Thegovernment action we propose must beoriented granting credit through verbalagreements for the purchase of animals,grain and seeds. work materials, suppliesand all that is destined to strengthenproductive activities and traditional technologies." What does "traditional tech-

    nologies" mean? Pulling plows with starving oxen? Using mud to build chinampas[Aztec artificial islets used for growingcrops on the old Texcoco lake]?Mexican agriculture, which is in largepart subsistence, cannot compete with thehuge industrial farms of the u . ~ . , , ~ c b in addition cover immense e K p a n s e ~ 9ffertile land that simply do not eXIst inMexico. To give one example of the enormous differences, here there is one tractorfor every 100 people involved in agriculture, while in the U.S. there are 1.5 tractors for every rural worker. Makingthe Mexican countryside productive doesnot require "traditional technology" butmodern technology: tractors, irrigationsystems, processing plants, fertilizers andscientific education for the peasants, Butthis goal is impossible within the framework of underdeveloped capitalism; tomake it a reality, a workers revolutionbacked by a peasant insurrection is necessary, to expropriate the bourgeoisie and thelandowners. This perspective cannot beseparated from the struggle to extend therevolution to the colossus in the north,which would make it possible to obtainthe technology necessary to pull the countryside out of backwardness and misery.The national emancipation the masseslong for and AMLO promises prpsupposes a modern industrial economy. nu tMexican capitalism cannot rid itself ofimperialism. Thus, regarding the maqui-ladora industry, AMLO holds:

    "W e propose direct dealing with entrepreneurs to stop the migration of Inllqui-fadmas. It is true that in China or otherparts of the world there are more relativeadvantages. above all the low cost oflabor. but it is possible to offer otherincentives and to re-evaluate the importance of the proximity of our country tothe \\orld's largest market:'The only way to make the maquiladoraindustry competitive is to make labor evencheaper. to offer greater fiscal advantages tothe blood-sucking investors and to continuethe draconian labor regime established bythe so-called "protection contracts."[TO BE CONTINUED]

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    Schwarzenegger Goes AfterUnions, Blacks, Immig{ants

    Defeat Anti-WorkerAssault in California!*rorizo/EPA

    Nurses and teachers atMay 25 S a c r a m ~ n t o rallydenounce threatenedcutbacks by GovernorSchwarzenegger.

    Break with the Democrats-!for a Class-Struggle Workers Party!

    OAKLAND-California trade unionistsare alarmed and outraged over the offensive against public employee unions,education and social services being spearheaded by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tens of thousands of teachers,nurses, firefighters and other unionmembers turned out in Los Angeles andSacramento on May 25 to demonstratetheir determination to fight against it.Schwarzenegger's special statewide November election is designed to push throughattacks on the unions and social services.Last December, Schwarzenegger tauntednurses protesting his attempt to imposereduced nurse-to-patient ratios, callingthem "special interests" and boasting, "Ikick their butt." But Schwarzenegger hasbeen hounded all over the state by angryteachers, nurses, students and others. Sustained protests helped drive the governor'sapproval rating down to 31 percent by lateJune. On July 20, a state judge orderednurses to postpone a one-day strike protesting reduced nurse-to-patient ratios atUniversity of California hospitals.The capitalists are increasingly brazenin their drive to destroy unions. WilliamHauck, president of the California Business Roundtable, told the San FranciscoChronicle (16 May) that a ballot measurehe backs to increase teacher probationterms may be "no panacea" but is a stepin the right direction: "Ideally, we wouldhave no tenure or collective bargaining."In a conference call with big Schwarzenegger donors, the contents of which wereleaked to the press in June, the governor'saides promised to create a "phenomenonof anger" against public employee unions(Los Angele.1 Times. 5 June).While the convulsive labor battles ofthe 1930s forged powelful unions in theprivate sector. most public employees werenot even unionized until three or fourdecades ago. Since then, many well-payingunion manufacturing jobs in the U.S.have vanished, devastating large sections6

    of the unionized industrial working class.Capitalists have gone on a union-bustingoffensive, with the result that today onlysome 12 percent of workers are unionized-8 percent in the private sector.Workers have shown no lack of determination and courage in fighting againstthis offensive. However, the union bureaucracy has sabotaged strikes and acquiescedto the growth of non-union jobs whileappealing fruitlessly to "friends of labor"in the Democratic Party. which is noless a capitalist party than the Republicans. Now the bourgeoisie is going afterpublic employee unions, which by 2004accounted for some 37 percent of publicsector workers. This is one of the fewareas that black people can still hope toget well-paying union jobs.An article in Business Week (13 June),under'the scare-mongering title "SinkHOLE! How Public Pen sion Promises AreDraining State and City Budgets," outlined the capitalists' theme: "Outside ofgovernment workers, very few employeeshave these kinds of deals anymore." Thedefined-benefit pensions won by the unionsafter World War II are being widely

    replaced with 401(k)s, shifting the onus ofretirement security from the company tothe individual workers. So, now that pensions have been devastated in the privatesector, public workers are painted as"greedy" because they have not yet beendriven down to the same level.At issue is not just defense of theunions, wages and benefits of public sector workers. The ruling class is removingobstacles to further savaging everythingfrom public education to what's left of the"social safety net." Hospitals in poor,black and immigrant areas like L.A.'sKing/Drew Medical Center are under theax, while Schwarzenegger helps Bush cutMedicaid. In San Diego, a nearly $2 billion pension shortfall, which led to theresignation of Republican mayor DickMurphy last month, is the pretext forthreats of massive cuts in city services.

    . MObilize Union Power!How to fight against this assault? California union officials are conducting apurely electoral campaign centered onTV ads and lobbying the state legislature.

    But union power does not come from

    Costantini/SF ChronicleMay 17: Oakland high school students and teachers march to City Hallprotesting layoffs and closures.

    spending the membership'S hard-earneddues money on backstabbing "friends oflabor" in the Democratic Party and slicklobbyists. Union power derives from theability of the workers to collectively withdraw their labor power and bring operations to a halt. None of the Yast wealth thatflows through California p o r t ~ mowswithout workers organized in strategic.multiracial unions like the InternationalLongshore and Warehouse L'nion. Yetstrike action. stopping the flow of profits.the last thing to be considered hy thee x i ~ t i n g leadership of the labor mowment. \\ hose entire o u t l ( ) ( ) ~ is h a ~ e d onappealing to the capitalist state-the gO\ -ernment apparatus and repressiw forces(cops. courts. prisons I that administer andenforce the laws protecting the capitalisb' private property and profih.The labor hureauc'rah are once againhitching workers to the cart of the Democratic Party. under the guise of "stoppingSchwarzenegger." In fact. Schwarzenegger is emholdened to attack the unionshead-on as a direct result of the betrayalsof the union tops. In the 2003 recall election that put Sch\\arzenegger in office.union officials backed the widely hatedDemocratic incumbent Gray Davis. Onlydays after the election. Los Angeles transit workers and Southern California UFCWgrocery workers struck. while a potentialstrike by 50.000 L.A. County and OrangeCounty workers loomed.Instead of spreading the widely popular grocery strike to other states wherecontracts were expiring and linking upthese struggles, the bureaucrats workedhand-in-glove with Democratic politicians to get transit workers back to workand isolated the grocery workers at a critical juncture. At every step, the labor topssabotaged the grocery workers' determined five-month struggle. The millionsthe AFL-CIO gave to the Democratsshould have been given to the UFCW tohelp them win their hard-fought strike. Avictory for the grocery workers wouldhave resounded among workers throughout the country and could have been thespringboard for organizing the anti-uniongiant Wal-Mart, a crucial task facing thelabor movement.The obstacle to wielding union poweris the labor bureaucracy-a parasitic layerin the trade unions based on the privilegedupper strata of the working class-with itsties to the Democrati c Party. Whether represented by the AFL-CIO's John Sweeney or the SErU's Andy Stern, who ledthe recent split of several unions from theAFL-CIO, the labo r tops push the lie thatthe interests of capital and labor can bereconciled. In the course of the class battles to come, it is necessary to forge a newleadership in the unions based on a perspective of mobilizing the power of laborindependently of all the agencies and representatives of the class enemy. What isrequired is the forging of a party thatfights to bring the power of the workers tobear in defense of all the oppressedwomen, blacks, immigrants, gays. Sucha revolutionary workers party wouldlead workers to the understanding that tomeet and safeguard their fundamentalneeds requires overthrowing capitalistrule, a system that is increasingly irrational on so many levels-from thedecaying social and industrial infrastructure to the imperialist war against andoccupation of Iraq.Teachers, Schools Under AttackTeachers are the main immediate target of Schwarzenegger's campaign. Oneof the three main ballot initiativesbacked by the governor, the so-called"California Live Within Our Means Act"(Proposition 76). would gut the provisions established in 1988 by the p a ~ -sage of Proposition 98. which put afloor under education spending. Prop. 76would also allow the governor to unilaterally cut state spending across the board.including tearing up state e m p l o y e e ~ ' union contracts to cut pay and benefits.Proposition 74, demagogically titled the"Put the Kids First Act" would increasefrom two to five the number of years ittakes teachers to reach permanent status(i.e., increase the length of probation).

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    Widespread seniority and tenure provisions give teachers a degree of jobsecurity, which makes teachers more difficult to intimidate. The Governator andhis backers want to destroy tenure as astep toward destroying teachers unions,whose lobbying for public school funding has impeded attacks on education forworking-class youth.Schwarzenegger launched his campaign by sounding his central themepass my measures or the Democrats willraise taxes. "Don't you dare touch Proposition 13:' he declared. adding demagogically that the Democrats would "maybe

    take these poor people's homes away"(501/ Francisco Chronicle. 15 June). :\ s wesaid in "Oakland Teachers Under Attack:Defend Public E d u c a t i o n ~ Free, QualityEducation .1'or All'" (\\iF No. 846. 15April):"The sc\crc cri,is in California', publiceuucation d:.ttcs from the 1')"78 Propo,ition ! tax revolt. when white. middleclass properly 0\ \ ners voted a cap onproperty taxes. Prop. 13 wa, a de factoracist n.:ferenuum :.timed against spenuing tax dollar,' on social programs [11:.ttbenefit.:d blacks and other minoritie,-Clconvenient scam designed to pIt pett:b ( ) u r ~ e o i s hOllleO\\ners aeaimt Llnionsand gUlcrnmcnt Ilorker"i. The real benef i c i a ~ i e ~ . vv ere large commercial propert)'mIllers.California spending per pupil hasplunged from 18th among all states in1977 to 44th today. This has intensifiedthe savage inequalities of the racist capitalist system. under which rich white suburban kids get the best schools mone y canbuy-private or puhlic-while poor andminority inner-city students end up insqualid, decaying schools. In July, Democratic legislators-with the support of theCalifornia Teachers Association (CTA)

    misleaders-made a budget deal withSchwarzenegger to drop some $3 billionowed to the schools under Prop. 98.

    HoyJose Raul Pefla with daughterSuzie, both killed by cops onJuly 10 in Los Angeles.According to the CTA, this means about"$25,000 less for every classroom in thestate" (California Educator. May 2005).A spokesman for the Labor BlackLeague for Social Defense, which is fraternally allied with the Spartacist League,pointed out at a March town hall meetingin Oakland that was called to opposeattacks on the local public schools andteachers union:"The Deiftocrar, as well as the RepLlbli

    cans represent an American capitalistclass that is no longer interested in educating the children of working people.blacks and minorities. To the capitalists,black ghetto youth in particular aren'(wanted except as cannon fodder:'The kind of workers party we need wouldmobilize the power of labor to defendteachers and the education of workingclass, black and immigrant youth. Thatmeans a fight for full rights for black p eople and for everyone else in jobs, housingand schools! Free quality, integrated public education for all! Defeat the racistassault on affirmative action!

    To counteract widespread respect forteachers and nurses, Schwarzenegger istrying to tap the same racist fears andbigotry that pushed through Prop. 13. Hemade a big show of embracing the racist,anti-immigrant Minutemen border vigilantes earlier this year. There is an unmistakable racist edge in whipping up a "phenomenon of anger" against unionizedpublic workers, who are disproportionately black.

    Schwarzenegger also hopes to gain2 SEPTEMBER 2005

    5,000-strong UFCWgrocery workersstrike rallyin Los Angeles,December 2003.

    .8o.t::a.

    from the mohilization of anti-abortionfanatics like the Ameriean Life League/Crusade for Life. who targeted women'shealth clinics in the San Francisco BayArea in July. A reactionary "parentalnotitlcation" initiative on the ballot. Proposition 73. would both effectively banabortion for many women under the ageof 18 and enshrIne in the Slate constItution the anti-abortion dogma that fetusesare "unborn children" from the time ofconception. The attacks on abortionrights are part of a campaign of promoting social reaction aimed at regimentingand intimidating the entire popUlation. Aworkers party would mobilize workers todefend abortion clinics and fight to makeabortion and contraception available ondemand as part of free. universal, qualityhealth care for all.Democrats: Sweet-TalkingEnemies of Workers, Blacks,Immigrants

    The Democrats, who control the statelegislature, operate within the sameframework as the Republicans-a publicspending "crisis" that requires sacrificesby the workers. The difference is that theDemocrats mask the demand for sacrificewith rhetoric about "fairness." Californiais not "out of money." The state is still thefifth-largest economy in the world. Thequestion is not how to spread around themisery capitalists inflict on workers andthe oppressed to be more "fair." The question is by whom and for what purposethe wealth and resources of society aredirected: will it be by a tiny layer of capitalists who amass ever-greater piles ofwealth and send workers to fight and diefor their profits in imperialist wars, or bythe workers who produce the wealth andwho have both the interest and the abilityas a class to organize society to meet theneeds of the vast majority through expropriating the capitalist class?It is no accident that Democratic mayors of major California cities. despite aveneer of liberalism, are front-line enforcers of budget cuts and layoffs. In Oakland, Jerry Brown presides over theassault on public schools and teachers.In San Francisco. Gavin Newsom haslaunched an offensive against civil service job protections, targeting city andschool district workers and their unions,on behalf of the downtown capitalists.while posing as a friend of the hotelworkers in their ongoing contract battle.The Democrats also clamor for "Iaw andorder"-the standard code word for brutal racist police occupation of the ghettosand barrios-and back the "wa r on terror."While initially taking aim at immigrantsfrom Islamic countries, the "war on terror"also targets the rights of blacks and otherminorities and the labor movement.No one personifies the role of theDemocrats better than Antonio Villaraigosa. The former speaker of the CaliforniaState Assembly and a former organizer forUnited Teachers Los Angeles, Villaraigosabecame the first Latino mayor of LosAngeles in 133 years when he beat fellowDemocrat James Hahn in a June runoff.Villaraigosa proved his worth to the bourgeoisie in 2003 when he joined handswith the union tops to engineer the selloutof the L.A. transit strike, which was pivotal in stemming a spreading wave of

    labor struggle. V i l l a r a i g o ~ a ' s victory hasbeen lauded by the union tops as something akin to a Second Coming. Joiningthem are self-proclaimed socialists likethe Workers World Party (WWPl. \vhosepaper Workers World (I June) raved:"There couldn't he a more critical time tohave a \'ocal immigrant-rights advocateand offspring of Mexican immigrants atthe helm in City Hall."The illusions fostered by reformistslike the WWP are fatuous and inimical tothe task of mobilizing labor and minorities in their own defense. The day afterhis election. the "progressive" Yillaraigosa. who was backed by former Republican mayor Richard Riordan. metwith police chief Bratton. who continuedthe cops' racist war on black youthwhen he took over the department. At hisinauguration, where he was joined onthe platform by Schwarzenegger, AI Goreand Jesse Jackson, Yillaraigosa put supporting the cops first on his agenda, saying "We can find the resources and thepolitical will to hire more police officers"(Los Angeles Times, 2 July). This meansmore racist cops like those who shot todeath black l3-year-old Devin Brown inSouth Central last February. On July 10,only days after Villaraigosa's inauguration, the LAPD SWAT team blew away a19-month-old Latino baby, Suzie Pena, inWatts as they gunned down her father ina hail of bullets.Black, Immigrant, Labor RightsGo Hand in Hand

    Villaraigosa is being lauded as the manwho will forge a new black-Latino alliance. But the capitalist system for whichVillaraigosa proclaims himself the posterboy ("I am proof that the United States isa country of opportunity and liberty," hedeclared in Spanish at his inauguration)means grinding oppression and exploitation of the black and Latino masses.There are 90,000 homeless in Los Angeles County, nearly 40 percent of whomare black. The area has lost some 150.000manufacturing jobs since 2000. In EastL.A . the unemployment rate for blackteens reaches 66 percent. Latino immigrants have moved into the L.A. area inlarge numbers. where they work for lowwages at the kind of jobs historicallydone by blacks. while facing raids by lamigra and attacks by racist vigilantes.The resulting tensions between blacksand Latinos recently broke out in clashesat L.A.'s Jefferson High School.The ruling class exploits these tensionswith the help of Latino nationalists whopush anti-black racism and black politicians pushing anti-immigrant chauvinism; white workers are incited to directtheir anger at both blacks and Latinos.This is the divide-and-conquer policy thatthe capitalist rulers have used for nearlytwo centuries.

    Under both Democratic and Republican plans to "regulate" immigrant labor,immigrants are intended to become virtual indentured servants, working for nextto nothing, shutting up and being deportedwhen the capitalist state wills it. Labormust fight for full citizenship rights forall immigrants and to organize the unorganized. The answer to growing unemployment is not to fight over a shrinkingnumber of jobs, but to fight for jobs for

    all. A workers party would fight for asliding scale of wages and hours-toreduce the workweek with no loss in payto provide a decent jo b to everyone whoneeds one. It would work to organizeworkers on both sides of the Mexicanborder, championing the defense of theMexicmI masses against the rapaciousU.S. imperialist rulers.At the same time, Latino as well aswhite workers must be won to the understanding that the fight for black liberationis central to the struggle against the entiresystem of capitalist exploitation in theU.S. The oppression of black people, firstas slaves and then as an oppressed castebased on skin color. pervades Americansociety. Historically. the capitalish usedblacks as a "reserve arm) of labuL" lasthired and then. in a business downturn.first fired.U.S. capitalists now believe that theyhave no particular use for the masses ofthe black popUlation. As a consequence.in California blacks make up 6.5 percentof the population but nearly 30 percent ofthe prisoners. On June 1, the state openeda new 5716 million prison. the latest of 22new prisons in a system that holds t\ \ icethe number of prisoners it \\as designedfor. So foul are the conditions in the"edungeons that on June 30 a federal judgetook O\'er the prison medical s;. stem. citing "outr ight deprav ity in the rendering ofmedical care."'This state of affairs cries out for thedestruction of the social system that generates it. Black workers-particularly thoseconcentrated in unions-are a strategiccomponent of the working class. wherethey have potential social power. A revolutionary workers party would fight forlabor to make every struggle againstblack oppression its own. For black liberation through socialist revolution!For a Workers Government!In opposing Schwarzenegger's movesearlier this year to go after state workers'pensions, Democrats and union tops highlighted their defense of the cops, whowould also have been affected. (The governor put these proposals on hold fornow due centrally to police opposition.)Indeed, cops and prison guards prosperedunder fQrmer Democratic governor GrayDavis, as part of the massive expansion ofprisons nationwide over the last couple ofdecades, largely due to the racist "war ondrugs." While California teachers' salaries are the lowest of the five most populous states, the Democratic legislature andDavis gave the California CorrectionalPeace Officers Association a 34 percentpay raise over five years.Cops and prison guards use their"unions" to fight for stricter laws. morejails and. in general, better "conditions"to repress workers and brutalize the ghettoand barrio poor. If unionists strike in theirown defense, the role of the cops andcourts will be to break their strike. However, not only have public employeeunions like SElU and AFSCME signedup every cop, security guard and prisonguard they can. but the notoriously brutalprison guards have been placed front andcenter by the labor bureaucrats in theircampaign against Schwarzenegger. "Having them as an extremely active partnerhas really helped broaden the coalition,"said Gale Kaufman of the union-backedAlliance for a Better California. A classstruggle labor movement would break frGmthe policy of organizing the racist, strikebreaking cops: Police, security guards andprison guards out of the unions!In fighting for jobs. schools and othernecessities, workers must learn to rely ontheir own independent strength, championing the cause of all the oppressed ina common struggle to overthrow capitalist rule. The Spartacist League aims tobuild a multiracial revolutionary workersparty that fights for a workers government to expropriate the capitalists asa class, abolishing private ownership ofindustry, transportation and banking. Victory in this struggle in the U.S. and worldwide will enable those who create thewealth to build a society based on production for social need, liberating all humanity from racism, exploitation and war..

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    Spartacus Youth ClubEducational Work-In

    For two weeks this June, members ofSpartacus Youth Clubs from around theU.S. and youth from other InternationalCommunist League sections participatedin an educational and maintenance workin at the ICL center in New York. Modeled on similar events in the 1990s and200 I. the w ork-in not only se rved to carryout important tasks of physical maintenance of our party facilities, but also tocounter the pernicious view jncu1cated bybourgeois society that there is a "naturalorder" dividing people into either intellectuals or manual laborers. The exaltation of intellectual labor as distinct fromand superior to manual labor is a key partof the bourgeoisie's justification for thevast inequalities of capitalist society.A Marxist organization that fails tocombat the division between mental andmanual labor would not only reproducesome of the worst features of capitalistsociety, but by the same token limitits effectiveness and political capacity.This was captured by Spartacist Leaguenational chairman Jim Robertson at anSLfU.S. conference in 1994:"In order to change the world, you haveto be able to change it, not merely learnsomething to write about it. ...

    "So if you cannot, in an educated way,work with your hands, you are ineffectual. And if you don't know what to dowith your hands, you are an ignorantperson, and you are certainly not aphysical scientist or an engineer ... ."A good journeyman, without the engineering or scientific overview, necessarily bumps against a conceptual ceiling and must be frustrated. I think thatBukharin, in one of his speculative books,suggested that with the victory of theworking class and the development intohigher stages of socialism, the last residue of previous class-divided society tobe shattered would be the monopoly ofthe petty-bourgeois-derived intellectualskills. and that after that we. increasinglyunited as a species. would be on the roadto communism:'-"'Maintenance and theCommunist Movement': WVNo. 605, 2 September 1994

    During the work-in young comradesworked on over 20 different projechranging over the full spectrum of manualand mental labor-from intricate archivaltasks to drywall installation, from lightsheet metal work to filing projects. Theyouth received rave reviews for their professionalism and enthusiasm. In somecases, youth members were able to devisenew procedures to streamline the projectsas they proceeded. Rotating shifts ofwork were broken up by educationalpresentations and discussions spanning awiJe range of topics. Indicating the success df the work-in, a number of youth,inspired by their time in the center,decided that they wanted to make the leapto party membership.Revolutionary Continuity:A Theme of the Work-In

    A theme of the work-in was the preservation of our party history as part of thestruggle to maintain continuity betweenour revolutionary Marxist predecessorsand future generations of Marxists. Several major projects were carried out at thePrometheus Research Library (PRL), aworking research facility that is the central reference archive of the SpartacistLeague. The PRL's collection includesthousands of books, reels of microfilm,.documents and bulletins, centering on,8

    Training a New Generationof Revolutionaries

    " '"rrm " . " , . ~ _'- ' t " , , ' ~ ' Young Spartacus PhotosAbove: SYCers hear presentation at Workers Vanguard bound volumesession during work-in. Below: Assembling shelving at Prometheus ResearchLibrary.

    but not limited to, the history of the Communist and Trotskyist movements. Asfighters for new October Revolutionsaround the world, we are not passivecommentators on Trotskyist history. ThePRL serves to assist in the task of the general education and political arming ofICL members, which means learningfrom both the victories and mistakes ofprevious generations of revolutionaries.Preserving the pr ogrammatic. positionsderived from the hard-fought struggles ofthe past is a major challenge for revolutionaries in the wake of the destruction ofthe Soviet Union, a defeat that has led toa historic regression of consciousness inthe workers movement. A key task forour party in this period is to resist theintense pressures of "death of communism" ideology, which has, as Trotskynoted of reactionary periods, thrownpolitical thinking back to stages longsince passed through.As Trotsky noted in his 1937 work."Stalinism and Bolshevism": "In theseconditions. the task of the vanguard is

    A",..

    above all not to let itself be carTied alongby the backward flow: it must swimagainst the current. I f an unfavorablerelation of forces prevents it from holding the positions that it has won, it mustat least maintain its ideological positions ... It is the only means of preparingfor a new tremendous surge forward withthe coming historical tide." Impartingthis understanding to youth comradeswas a central component of both the educational classes and the maintenanceprojects at the work-in. In addition toassisting with crucial archival work atPRL, youth comrades assembled andinstalle d several 12-foot -tall shel vingunits to expand the space for the PRL'scollections. Another project involvingpreservation of our history was the preparation of bound volumes of our presssome 20 youth comrades carried out thepainstaking task of collating issues ofWorkers Vanguard to produce the 2004bound volume.Other major projects included theclean-up and organizing of Central Office

    holdings of periodicals and press published by ostensibly Marxist organizations around the world. Comrades alsoassisted in a much-needed reorganizationof the physical layout of the press composition department to create more space forproofreading. fact-checking and computer equipment. Comrades learned anumber of skills by working with themaintenance department, from painting.plastering and drywall installation to theuse of basic hand and power tools,Comrades brought to bear a variety oflife experiences as students and asworkers. demonstrating in a small waythe Leninist conception of a revolutionary workers party-a fusion of declassedradical intelligentsia with the mostconscious elements of the working class.Especially in a student-based youthorganization, there is a constant struggleagainst both aspects of the bourgeoisdivision between the "doer" and the"thinker": the petty-bourgeois "star" conception, rooted in egotism and the struggle for prestige, and the no less pernicious denigration of self-worth drummedinto the working class and oppressed,centered around the notion that there arethose who just do the "grunt" work whileothers come up with the bright ideas. Weaim to build a party that rejects thesebourgeois prejudices in practice; thisincludes fighting against manifestationsof women's oppression which paralleland intersect the mental-manual division.The very concept of "women's work"the household drudgery and child-rearingto which women are largely relegated-isan expression of this. as are views suchas those of the Harvard University president who recently questioned women' s"intrinsic aptitude" for science. Our organization fights to counteract the degradation women face in capitalist society byhaving women comrades participate inall aspects of party work and seekingespecially to train them to become leaders of our party. In this respect. it wasparticularly satisfying for some youngwomen comrades to learn importantmaintenance skills for the first timethrough the work-in, and. for those whoalready had such skills. to help leadsome of the major projects.Educational Classesand Workshops

    Over a dozen educational presentations and workshops were held during thework-in. The theme of revolutionary continuity and the struggle for programmaticintegrity ran through various classes: onthe origins of the Spartacist League; onour work during the Vietnam War eraaround the early New Left and the Students for a Democratic Society: and onthe history of Marxist struggle againstpopular-frontist strategies that programmatically subordinate the working classto the bourgeoisie. of which our principled political opposition to the WorldSocial Forums is a current example.Other educationals covered the history ofour legal and defense work and of ourtrade-union work, linking this history tocurrent tasks. Educationals on China andon our campaign in the 1980s against theU.S.-backed mlljahedin who fought theSoviet Red Army in Afghanistan focused

    continued 011 page IIWORKERS VANGUARD

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    ========= Young Sparlac--u---S I F = = = = = = = = = = =Churches, Charities. and CIA Cash

    Social Forum Con GameWe reprint beloH' a Young Spartacusarticlefrom the Spartacus Youth Group inBritain, puhlished in Workers HammerNo. 191 (Summer 2005), newspaper of

    the Spartacist League/Britain, section ofthe International Communist League.

    W O R K E R S I I A M M E R ' ~ I f the "Make Poverty History" campaign [agains t "Third World" poverty]had anything to do with actually challenging the scourge of poverty. AIDS. illiteracy and all-sided misery and destitutionfor the peoples of Africa, would it beendorsed by Tony Blair and [Chancellor

    of the Exchequer] Gordon Brown? Thesebutchers of Iraq are trying to rebuildLabour's popularity with voters at homeand to refurbish the image of blooddrenched British imperialism. Behindthem is a whole cabal of celebrities, religious charities, NGOs, trade-union bureaucrats and reformists like the SocialistWorkers Party (SWP) championing the"Make Poverty History" fraud.Not everyone is taken in by Tony Blairand Gordon Brown's new-found concernfor the poor. A letter in the Glasgow Her-ald (6 June) wryly noted: "GordonBrown's genuineness abouteradicating poverty is asgenuine as, and in directproportion to, his willing-ness to lead a demonstra-tion of bankers, financiersand stockbrokers along thestreets of Edinburgh with abanner proclaiming 'Longlive the Cuban Revolution!'" As for imperialisthypocrisy about aid to the"Third World," we endorsea characterisation of bourgeois charity written byEngels in 1845. Addressingthe English bourgeoisie, hewrote it was "as though yourendered the proletarians aservice in first sucking outtheir very life-blood andthen practising your selfcomplacent, Pharisaic phi- Contact uSLinks

    for co-opting "anti-globalisation" protestare the World Social Forum (WSFl andEuropean Social Forum (ESF), which areled and organised by much the sameforces that are leading "Make PovertyHistory." Starting in 2001, these SocialForums have been used to defuse thewave of mass protests-against the G8,World Trade Organisation, IMF and otherimperialist agencies-exemplified by theSeattle protest in 1999. The purpose wasto draw radical youth away from pitchedconfrontations wi-th the forces of the capitalist state and to corral them behind the"democratic alternative" of parliamentary'reformism, while pretending that thesetalking shops were "non-parliamentary."Far from heing met with the tear gas, watercannons and bullets of the capitalist state,as happened in Genoa in July 2001, theVVSF and ESF have been backed andbankrolled by various agencies of theimperialist rulers.This is because the Social Forums andthe so-called "anti-capitalist" movementin fact pose no fundamental threat tocapitalist rule. Their organisers buy intothe predominant myth of the "post-Soviet"world: that class struggle against the capitalist order is a thing of the past; the working class is irrelevant as a factor for social

    biggest petroleum company. PetrobrasThe 2002 ESF was financed by thecity of Florence and the 2003 Paris ESFfunded by the Chirac government. The2004 London ESF was bankrolled andhosted by the New Labour mayoral officeof Ken Livingstone, supporter of theimperialist bombing of Serbia and cheerleader for the police terror against "anticapitalist" protesters on May Day 2000.The Social Forums have also allbeen dominated by the misnamed "NonGovernmental" Organisations (NGOs).Of course these organisations, sanctionedby and receiving much of their fundingfrom churches and capitalist states, arehardly independent from the governments to which they are answerable.Charities have long been the "humanitarian" face of imperialist interventionand of multinational companies lookingto pillage 'Third World" economies.Prominent NGOs at the Social Forumshave included Oxfam, War on Want andChristian Aid. The major sponsorof NGOsaround the world is the United Nations,which itself was set up to give a humanitarian veneer to the depredations of imperialism, particularly American. In this tradition, the World Social Forum in PortoAlegre in January 2003 received a mes-

    the World Social F o r u m ~ have not been sowelcoming to those seen as potentiallythreatening the interests of imperialism.The statement in the WSF Charter ofPrinciples that "neither party representatives nor military organizations shall participate in the Forum" has been used toexclude the Zapatistas as well as the FARC(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia). Even the Madres de Plaza de Mayo,an organisation of mothers of leftistswho were "disappeared" during the 1976-1983 Argentinian military dictatorship,was excluded from the 2002 WSF. On theother hand, a warm welcome has beenextended to various heads of capitalistgovernments-who preside over "specialbodies of armed men" more commonlyknown as the capitalist state.An insightful article titled "The Economics and Politics of the World SocialForum" in Aspects of India's Economy(September 2003) by Rajani X. Desaicaptured the purpose and nature of theSocial Forums:

    "While several political forces fightingfor a change of the system [have] beenexcluded from the WSF meets, droves ofpolitical leaders of the imperialist countries have been attending. Not only doesthe WSF as a body receive funds fromagencies which are tied to imperialist

    He Who Pays The Piper...interests and operations, butinnumerable bodies participating in the WSF too aredependent on such agencies.The implications of this canbe seen from the history ofone such agency, Ford Foun-

    Consultation fo r l"'...... . SubscribeVenezuela has al Govemodostarted RioGrande doSul

    ESTADO QUE TRA8AUiA UMIDO

    ChristianliAidWe believe in life before death

    dation, which has closelycollaborated with the US Central Intelligence Agency internationally. and in India hashelped to shape the government's policies in favour ofAmerican interests:'Left Cover forClass Collaboration

    The fact that the Worldand European Social Forums have been all butbought and paid for by vari

    ~ a n t h r o p y upon them plac- 2005 Organisinglllg yourselves before the PETROL EO BRASILEI RO S.A. Committee launched a FORD FOUNDATION

    ous capitalist governmentsand agencies is no big dealfor the SWP. As SWP leader(and prominent spokesmanon Social Forum platforms)Alex Callinicos shamelessly put it. "We all understood that a mass SocialForum needs money andmoney means compromises" (International Socialist Tendency DiscussionBulletin, January 2005).

    world as might\.' benefac- f :J : I I donatlonsofldantyJ ..... PETROBRAS th campaign whIch the goal Sttengtnen demoetat*t: valiJ$c. r ~ d u ( e pov&rry and lnju.sttC$,tors of humanity when yougive back to the plundered I --victims the hundredth part Workers Hammer GraphiC

    p,omott int&rnatioo&t cooperation aod advante hum an achievement

    f h t bit th I" World Social Forum's slogan is "another world is possible." But whose world? Above: Some of theCC w d ~ ' e 1 n ~ ~ h ' " our e k ~ ' agencies that have sponsored and funded the Social Forums.on l twn 0 1, e or lngClass in England). "Suck-ing out the life blood" from the world'sworking masses and oppressed is whatthe G8 [group of eight major capitalistcountries] is all about.For those who want to protest againstthe G8 meeting but don't want to goalong with the "we are the world" roadshow, there is the iron fist of state repression. For months, the tabloids and othermedia have echoed police forces inscaremongering about "violent" anarchists attacking the G8 summit. An armyof 10,000 cops has been mobilised: afive-mile-long fence has been erectedaround the five-star hotel in Gleneagles[Scotland] where the meeting will takeplace: and reportedly the U.S. is stationing an aircraft carrier full of Marines offthe west coast of Scotland.Here are the methods the capitalist rulers use to deal with any perceived protestagainst their rule-state repression on theone hand and political co-optation on theother. Foremost among the mechanisms2 SEPTEMBER 2005

    change and the best that can be achievedis to give the system a "human" face. Thetruth is that the capitalist system is asdependent as ever on the working class,which has the po wer to overthrow capitalism. To achieve this, the working classmust become conscious that its own interests are irreconcilable with those of thecapitalists. The Social Forums are an obstacle to this class-consciousness.Social Forums andState Funding

    The European and World Social Forums have all been funded by capitaliststates in the countries where they wereheld and received official backing fromeither bourgeois municipal governmentsor mayoral offices. The list of sponsorsfor the WSF has included not only thegovernment of the city of Porto Alegre,the state government of Rio Grande doSui and the federal government of Brazil but also the Banco do Brasil and its

    sage of support from UN secretary general Kofi Annan.As the old saying goes, "He who paysthe piper calls the tune." And while all theSocial Forums rail against the truly savage and deranged Bush administration inthe U.S., among those funding the WSFare none other than foundations such asthe Rockefeller Brothers Fund and theFord Foundation. The Rockefeller foundation was used to clean up the Rockefellers' reputation following the 20 April1914 massacre in Ludlow, Colorado inwhich 20 people-including childrenwere killed by company guards and militia during a bitter struggle by the mineworkers union. The Ford Foundationcame to prominence in 1936 at the heightof the industrial struggles in the carindustry in the U.S. Following World WarII it became a conduit for CIA funds foranti-Communist causes around the world.While funded by some of the mostnotorious agencies of U.S. imperialism,

    Indeed! Such sentimentsare hardly peculiar to Callinicos. The firstWorld Social Forum in 2001 was partlyorganised by the fake-Trotskyist UnitedSecretariat (USec). Here young radicalswere schooled in administerin.g fiscalausterity for the capitalist state throughmock "participatory budgets." The capitalist benefactors who funded the WSFgot their money's worth. Today the Workers Party CPT) of Brazilian presidentLula-with the aid of a "comrade minister" who is a member of the USec-areadministering the capitalist state in BraziLslavishly abiding by the dictates of theIMF through pushing austerity on animpoverished population.At the most recent WSF in January,Lula was roundly booed by many of theattendees who oppose his open panderingto and collaboration with the IMF andWorld Bank. But the truth is that Lularepresents the politics and programme ofthe WSF on the level of state power. Thiscontinued on page 10

    9

  • 7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 853 - 02 September 2005

    10/16

    Social Forum...(continued from page 9)is what is known as the popular front: aclass-collaborationist political bloc ofworking-class organisations with capitalist agencies in which the politics of theworking-class component of the bloc aresubordinated to the politics of the bourgeoisie, to the defence of the bourgeoisstate and capitalism. Like Lula's gmernment in Brazil, popular fronts are calledupon by the rulers to sell austerit;. to the'.yorkers more effectively than the discredited bO,urgeois parties can.With LuI a now d iscredited due to hisattacks on Brazilian workers and peasants, the new hero of the 2005 WSF \vasVenezuelan prc,idcnt Hugo Cha\'ez. Thiswas quite a turnaround because at thc2003 \VSF, while he was fighting theattempts of the FS . govcrnment to overthrow him, he was not im ited and notgiven an official space when he turned upanyvvay. Chavez's popularity among theoppressed in Venczuela comes from the'fact he has used the oil revenues to introducc rcform, that have benefited thc poor.and he is not seen as a lackcy of the C .S.But these are not evcn basic structuralreforms. much less a social revolution.and are subject to the tluctuations ofworld oil prices. C h ~ h ez is a bourgeoisnationalist who rules for capitalism inVenezuela.Nationalist popUlism and economicneoliberalism are merely alternative policies of the rule of the same capitalistclass. It is a fact that Chavez is reviled bymany of the big landowners and capitalists in Venezuela as well as the neocons inthe Bush administration, who in April2002 backed a military coup against him.But more rational representatives ofimperialism see Chavez, with his popularappeal, as a man who can be trusted toprotect their investments.Chavez's defeat of the 2004 recall referendum against him was welcomed as aguarantor of "stability" by such mouthpieces of imperialism as the FinancialTimes and the New York Times. As wewrote in Workers Vanguard No. 831, 3September 2004:"The immediate perspective that isurgently posed is not only to oppose U.S.imperialist incursions into Venezuela andelsewhere, but to fight to shatter the sup-port of the workers moyement to eitherChavez or the opposition. and to forgea revolutionary internationalist workersparty to lead the working class to power.This requires an intransigent fight againstnationalism in Venezuela. which obscuresclass divisions in the country. Only thevictorious struggle for working-class rule,i.e" socialist revolution throughout theAmericas. will cmure land to the landless and enable the oil workers and otherproletarians to enjoy the wealth createdby their labor."In presenting bourgeois nationalists likeChavez as fighters against '"globalisation," the Social Forums provide a serviceagainst the fight for socialist revolution,

    Cover-Up..(continued from page 2)

    Police officials recently revealed to theLondon Observer (21 August) that thesurveillance team following de Menezes'"felt that he was not about to detonate abomb, was not armed and was not actingsuspiciously." However, a second, armedpolice unit then entered the carriage wherede Menezes was seated. He stood up andthey grabbed him. While he was helddown, they opened fire. Seven shots to thehead, another in the shoulder, while hewas helpless: The death of Jean Charlesde Menezes was a cop execution, pureand simple. The homicidal maniacs of AIQaeda assert their right to kill anyone inthe name of Allah. What is the excuse of"Her Majesty's" government and its cops?

    The murderous and arrogant caretakersof the tattered British empire, from Tony10

    lill!';hEi If); eta! 'Ibinding the working class to their "own"national capitalist class. In fact-the reasonwhy the World Social Forums have allbeen hosted in "Third World" countriessuch as Brazil and India has been to maskthe class antagonism between the working class of these countries and their nativebourgeois exploiters. The message hasbeen that the bourgeoisie of the "GlobalSouth" can be relied upon to join with "thepeople" and fight against "globalisation."But the main concern of the capitalists ofthe "Third World" to defend their profits. for which they arc dependent on theimperialists and require the maximumexploitation of the ,x,orking class.With the same guai of binding theexploited to their exploitcrs. the ESFpushes the illusion of a humane "SocialEurope" under capitalism. contrasting itto the ""neoliberal" model representcd bythe U.S. and Britain. It is the promotionof this \isioh of a "Social Europe" that

    bureaucrats, another IFTU representative,Abdullah Muhsin, backed the imperialistoccupation by helping to ensure thedefeat of a motion calling for early withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.Workers Power Induced by ItsOwn Hypnosis

    In its pamphlet Anti-Capitalism: Summit Sieges and Socicil Forums (2005),Workers Power's League for the FifthInternational (L5I) poses as a left critic ofWSF organisers like Bcrnard Cas,en andSusan George of XfTAC. an organisationfounded to campaign for a tax on international financial transactions and against"neoliberalism." Despite the fact that itsoffices are staffcd by French CommunistParty and LiSec supporters. ATTAC doesnot pretend to oppose capitalism. It is athoroughly bourgeois organisation whichboasted of its close ties to the Lionel Jospin popular-front government. Yet regard-

    Brazilian president Lula and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez meet inCaracas, February 14. Darlings of the World Social Forums, Lula and Chavezadminister capitalist system of exploitation and repression.has attracted to the ESF the pro-capitalisttrade-union leaders as well as socialdemocratic politicians across the continent. The political perspective of theEuropean Confederation of Trade Unionswas expressed by its general secretary atthe 2000 Nice EU Summit protests:"There needs to be the incorporation ofthe trade unions and NGOs into thedecision-making structures in Brussels ...We agree that Europe must become morecompetitive, yes. But the new Europemust also contain a dignified quality oflife for all its citizens" (quoted in "'TheEconomics and Politics of the WorldSocial Forum"). Becoming "more competitive" means extracting greater profitsfrom the sweat and toil of the workingclass. The bureaucrats of the BritishTrades Union Congress (TUC) endorsedthe 2004 London ESF and used it as anopportunity to provide a platform for theIraqi Federation of Trade Unions' (IFTU)Sobhi AI-Mashadani, a stooge of theimperialists' stooge government in Iraq.This followed the Labour Party conference where, at the behest of the union

    Blair on down. are defending their policeki lIers. As cries are ra ised for the resig nation of the police chief, Sir Ian Blair,London mayor Ken Livingstone (a NewLabour dissident once known as "RedKen") said Blair "is the best news thatLondon policing has got" (Guardian, 24August). After the murder, Livingstonehad patiently explained the new realitiesto his constituents. "If you are dealingwith someone who might be a suicidebomber, if they remain conscious theycould trigger plastic explosives or whatever device is on them. And thereforeoverwhelmingly in these circumstances itis going to be a shoot-to-kill policy" (NewYork Times, 24 July).Britain's rulers assert the ir right to killanyone suspected of evil intent, especiallyif their skin is even slightly dark, withoutwarning or reason. It is the imperialist rulers who are the biggest terrorists on theplanet..

    ing Cassen and George, the L5I argues:"We don't need to arrange any artificialsplit from them. But neither do we needto fear a split with them. Ifwe go forwarddeterminedly, they will desert at once."By an "artificial split," the L5I means asplit along class lines. The L5I is notopposed to class collaboration; it simplywants a more militant popular front.Indeed, the crackpot conception of theL5I, Workers Power, and its youth groupRevolution, is that they can build notonly a "'movement" but even a "revolutionary" party out of these cross-class,state-funded alliances: "the anticapitalistmovement, the workers' movement, themovements of the racially and nationallyoppressed, youth, women, all must bebrought together to create a new Internat ional-a world party of socialist revolution" (Anti-Capitalism: Summit Sieges andSocial Forums). While crying foul againstright-wing bureaucratic dominance, Workers Power seeks to gain "'democratic structures" within the Social Forums to engineer the movement's transformation. Iturges the utilisation of "initiatives like theAssembly of Social Movements to propose permanent delegate-based, elected,co-ordinating bodies that can prepare theway for a structured Congress in whichorganisational and policy proposals can bedebated out, amended and adopted."Left out of Workers Power's equationis any political fight in opposition to thewhole purpose of these Social Forums,which are premised on the maintenanceof the capitalist system, merely trying togive it a more "democratic" and "humanitarian" face-lift. But even Workers Poweris forced to admit that these Assemblieslack a conception of the "capitalist system as the enemy," "the working class asthe force" and "socialism as the only possible basis for the 'other world' it aims tobuild" (Workers Power, March 2005).

    The reality of class-collaborationismwas starkly brought home at the first ESFin Florence in 2002. The L5I gushed:"The sheer intoxication of being 'tousensemble' (all together) meant that evendyed-in-the-wool reformists spoke likerevolutionary firebrands. Everyone was

    carried forward too by the urgency ofdoing everything possible to stop GeorgeBush's war on Iraq." "Everything possible" included an explicit appeal toEurope's imperialist rulers to oppose U.S.plans to invade Iraq, signed by a gamut ofthe European left including the SWP,Workers Power and Revolution at a Brussels meeting preparatory to the FlorenceESE It said: "We call on all the Europeanheads of state to publicly stimd againstthis 'MIL whether it has UN backing ornot. and to demand that Geor!!:c Bush...abandon his war plans'" (Lihem::ionc. 13September 20(2). This wretched appealto the "pcace-lo\ing" European capitalistrulers only senes to bind the exploited totheir exploiters.The prime mo\ers behind the FlorenceESF were mass Italian reformist partie,such as Rifondazione Comunista (RC)and Democratic Left (DS). In the 1990s,DS formed part of the "Oli\'e Tree" coalition gm'ernment that administered antiimmifrant terror and se\ere attacks on the\\orking: class on behalf of Italian imperialism. L'ntillate 1998. RC formed a tacitcoalition with DS. The ESF prm idesthese (onsummate popular frontists \vitha chcap way to rebuild support so thatthey can return to government. Likewisethe Paris ESF was organised by the Communist Party (PCF) and Alain Krivine'spseudo-Trotskyist Ligue CommunisteRevolutionnaire (LCR \.


Workers Vanguard No 322 - 28 January 1983

Workers Vanguard No 322 - 28 January 1983

Workers Vanguard Smash Klan/Nazi Terrorl

Workers Vanguard Smash Klan/Nazi Terrorl

Workers Vanguard No 188 - 13 January 1978

Workers Vanguard No 188 - 13 January 1978

Workers Vanguard No 203 - 28 April 1978

Workers Vanguard No 203 - 28 April 1978

Workers Vanguard 618 - 10 March 1995

Workers Vanguard 618 - 10 March 1995

Workers Vanguard 622 - 05 May 1995

Workers Vanguard 622 - 05 May 1995

Workers Vanguard No 17 - March 1973

Workers Vanguard No 17 - March 1973

Workers Vanguard No 284 - 3 July 1981

Workers Vanguard No 284 - 3 July 1981

Workers Vanguard No 211 - 14 July 1978

Workers Vanguard No 211 - 14 July 1978

Workers Vanguard 616 - 10 February 1995

Workers Vanguard 616 - 10 February 1995

Workers Vanguard No 1 - October 1971

Workers Vanguard No 1 - October 1971

Workers Vanguard No 482 - 21 July 1989

Workers Vanguard No 482 - 21 July 1989

Workers Vanguard No 16 - February 1973

Workers Vanguard No 16 - February 1973

Workers Vanguard No 433 - 24 July 1987

Workers Vanguard No 433 - 24 July 1987

Workers Vanguard 619 - 24 March 1995

Workers Vanguard 619 - 24 March 1995

Workers Vanguard No 287 - 14 August 1981

Workers Vanguard No 287 - 14 August 1981

Workers Vanguard 605 - 2 September 1994

Workers Vanguard 605 - 2 September 1994

Workers Vanguard No 310 - 23 July 1982

Workers Vanguard No 310 - 23 July 1982

Workers Vanguard 617 - 24 February 1995

Workers Vanguard 617 - 24 February 1995

Workers Vanguard No 7 - April 1972

Workers Vanguard No 7 - April 1972