Che Guevara Lives!'s topics - tribe.net

Organic Agriculture in Cuba

Steven — Sun, 31 May 2009 22:23:28 GMT

Good Article on Organic Agriculture in Cuba

http://www.foodfirst.org/archive/media/news/2002/susagcasestudy.html

Some notes by me:

The counter-revolution in the USSR and Eastern Europe left Cuba in a very difficult situation. Trade from those countries dried up and the U.S. economic blockade continued. The Cubans went into that Special Period with creativity, science, and a continuation of socialist methods of food distribution. Socialist food distribution has been credited by relief agencies for preventing a massive humanitarian disaster. In addition, Cuba's moves to organic farming have bettered the food situation greatly and are indeed inspiring in terms of what is needed for the earth.

An example in the negative was North Korea in this same time period. The North Korean leadership was facing a similar situation to Cuba with the fall of the Soviet Union and a heavily industrialized agricultural sector, but instead turned to capitalist methods of food distribution in 1995 which was a major cause of massive starvation. This combined with a series of floods that destroyed 40% of crops in 1995-96 followed by drought in 1997. An estimated 600,000 or more Koreans died of starvation from 1995-1999. The food situation in North Korea remains precarious. While no capitalist country has been capable of doing what Cuba has done, North Korea, as it produces capitalistic reforms, has also been incapable of doing what needs to be done to solve their food crisis.

The U.S. government has wanted to overthrow the Cuban government ever since they carried out a land reform against Rockefeller's United Fruit Company, but the Cuban people continue to struggle forward in the face of economic blockade and U.S. sponsored terrorism. In addition to organic farming, Cuba has carried out a major campaign to reduce carbon emissions, which earned mention from the World Wildlife Fund a couple years ago as Cuba being the only country in the world to be doing what is needed on global warming.

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che is dead - get over it! Pick a worthier hero, Bob Marley, your father, your uncle ...

Sat, 30 May 2009 17:14:24 GMT

He's guilty by association, he teamed up with a manipulator and a villain. Too bad for Che, blurred vision; had he continued to be a Doctor he'd still be a hero.

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Che Chic is S@#t

chriz — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:22:09 GMT

Hello all you Che Gurillas with your walmart bought T-shirts.Sure Battista was an A23hole.Well so was che.So is Castro.Having to listen to one of his speaches-hed make em talk at Guantonamo bay.

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Dreaming the NEW American Dream

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:12:56 GMT

California poets Ava Bird & Rex Butters, and....

Santa Cruz artist Russell Brutsche - Karen Kwiatkowski of Virginia

Protests to stop immigration raids ... and more.
____________________

http://www.newamericandream.net

The New American Dream

What's New?

* Karen Kwiatkowski column
* Ava Bird poetry
* Rex Butters poetry
* Gary Mennie poetry

Columns:
Sherwood Ross — why not shut down a few prisons in the United States as well?
Mickey Z — Americans are cowards, too comfortable, will never-ever-not-in-one-million-years revolt-or-even-bother-to-stand-up — no matter what the rich folks do to them.
Lydia Sems — It's The American Dream that is the problem.

and more from Jack Saunders ...

Resistance:
* Planned civil disobedience in Minnesota to stop raids against immigrants
* Protests at Creech AFB against U.S. drone terroristic activity
*100 days of protest against Guantanamo to culminate

All this, Northern Exposure, The Big Lebowski, Paradise by the Dashboard Lights ... a certificate for free toast ... and more.

Join us.

The New American Dream
Dude.
... because ... Sister Mary Anne told us, "There are no wrong questions, if you don't know the answers."

... from the Dream Team

http://www.newamericandream.net

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New Middle East Culture & Politics Tribe

Steven — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:13:49 GMT

New Middle East Culture & Politics Tribe

This group is open to all who want to discuss Near East and Middle East culture & politics and imperialist intervention in a meaningful way.

Those who want to argue using personal attacks, lies, slander, red baiting, and ridicule instead of addressing the issues will be banned from the group. People with a history of doing so in other groups will not be allowed entry into this group.

In addition, it is fine to question the legitimacy of any and all religions, but racism and attacks on entire oppressed groups such as Palestinians and Kurds is not allowed.

Join Near and Middle East Culture & Politics:
http://tribes.tribe.net/neareast

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New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:25:52 GMT

New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate [oil pipeline] interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama and McCain are proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO THE BIPARTISAN OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN!!!!

NO TO OBAMA and MCCAIN'S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

*~U.S. and Allies Out of Afghanistan!!~*
http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

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Cuban government backs calls to combat homophobia

Sun, 18 May 2008 17:41:48 GMT

Cuban government backs calls to combat homophobia
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer

Saturday, May 17, 2008

PDT HAVANA, Cuba (AP) --

Cuba's gay community celebrated unprecedented openness — and high-ranking political alliances — with a government-backed campaign against homophobia on Saturday.

The meeting at a convention center in Havana's Vedado district may have been the largest gathering of openly gay activists ever on the communist-run island. President Raul Castro's daughter Mariela, who has promoted the rights of sexual minorities, presided.

"This is a very important moment for us, the men and women of Cuba, because for the first time we can gather in this way and speak profoundly and with scientific basis about these topics," said Castro, director of Cuba's Center for Sexual Education.

Mariela Castro joined government leaders and hundreds of activists at the one-day conference for the International Day Against Homophobia that featured shows, lectures, panel discussions and book presentations. A station also offered blood-tests for sexually transmitted diseases.

Cuban state television gave prime-time play Friday to the U.S. film "Brokeback Mountain," which tells the story of two cowboys who conceal their homosexual affair.

Prejudice against homosexuals remains deeply rooted in Cuban society, but the government has steadily moved away from the Puritanism of the 1960s and 1970s, when homosexuals hid their sexuality for fear of being ridiculed, fired from work or even imprisoned.

Now Cuba's parliament is studying proposals to legalize same-sex unions and give gay couples the benefits that people in traditional marriages enjoy.

Parliament head Ricardo Alarcon said the government needs to do more to promote gay rights, but said many Cubans still need to be convinced.

Things "are advancing, but must continue advancing, and I think we should do that in a coherent, appropriate and precise way because these are topics that have been taboo and continue to be for many," Alarcon told reporters.

Some at the conference spoke of streaming out into the streets for a spontaneous gay-pride parade, but others urged caution.

The gay rights movement should be careful not to "flood" Cuban society with a message that many are not ready to hear, physician and gay activist Alberto Roque cautioned.

And Mariela Castro said gay activists should opt for more subtle ways to chip away at deep-seated homophobic attitudes.

Defending equal rights for Cubans, of all sexual orientations, is a key principal of the Cuban revolution led by her uncle Fidel Castro, who overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, she said.

"The freedom of sexual choice and gender identity (are) exercises in equality and social justice," she said.

Distributed by Liberation News, Subscribe free:
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Join the Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

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Police Break 60 Year Old Homeless Woman's Arm

Sat, 10 May 2008 18:59:49 GMT

[Donna Deiss is a politically active homeless woman in Santa Cruz, who was also an advocate for tenants rights before she was unfairly evicted. The homeless in Santa Cruz, as well as activists who criticize the local government, are often victims of police harrassment, false arrests, and police violence. -Steven Argue]

60 Year Old Homeless Woman Says Police Broke Her Arm
by Robert Norse
Saturday May 10th, 2008
Donna Deiss called in last night to report that yesterday around 5 PM, Officer La Moss (Badge #114) assaulted her, broke her arm, and then put her in handcuffs when he attempted to question her at Three Tree Lot near Lighthouse Field. Deiss was taken to the Watsonville hospital, had to wait hours for x-rays, whichconfirmed her arm was broken.
Deiss reported the following to me in a phone message last night and an e-mail this morning:

She was talking with friends yesterday on Westcliffe Drive near her RV. An undercover police officer, whom she later identified as Officer LaMoss, arrived in a black unmarked car and said he wanted to talk to her and others in the group. She read La Moss a statement from the ACLU about the rights of community members vis a vis the police and walked to her RV.

The cop followed her. She got in and tried to close the door. Le Moss, not saying she was under arrest or detained, reached in and grabbed her right arm, pinching the skin as he twisted it behind her back, breaking it. She screamed her arm was broken, but his response was to call for backup. 4 more police cars arrived. She continued screaming for 911 and finally paramedics showed up.

The police said they were impounding her RV, which she lives in.

She was taken to Watsonville hospital, waited hours for x-rays and painpills. She is charged with battery and an additional charge. X-rays confirm her arm was broken. She needs an attorney and community support.

This is an account from Donna Deiss (with someadditions from her friend Shane). Donna has previously been harassed by rangers as part of the 'clear out the hippies' campaign at Three Tree Lot and the other lots around Lighthouse Fields. Recently the City's Parks and Recreation Department had its 'No RVs' signs painted over by state Rangers, for apparently violating state law and policy regarding parking (i.e. RVS are allowed to park).

See related stories: 'Harassment of Homeless in RVs, a Letter from Donna Deiss' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/10/08/18452903.php ,

'Superintendant Hammack Stonewalls on RV Ban in Coastal Parking Lots' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/12/18447267.php , and

'Coastal Access Denied to Motorhomes and Trailers in Santa Cruz' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/08/30/18444952.php for related stories.

HOMELESSNESS AND POLITICAL REPRESSION, THE GREEN PARTY FAILS THE TEST IN SANTA CRUZ by Steven Argue
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2001/12/5085.shtml

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ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:19:53 GMT

[Liberation News is in agreement with the following article of the Internationalist Group and both have also actively advocated these kinds of industrial actions.]

For Workers Strikes Against the War!

ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan

In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. In a February 22 letter to AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, ILWU International president Robert McEllrath reported that at a recent coast-wide union meeting, "One of the resolutions adopted by caucus delegates called on longshore workers to stop work during the day shift on May 1, 2008 to express their opposition to the war in Iraq."

This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. It is doubly important that this mobilization of labor's power is to take place on May Day, the international workers day, which is not honored in the U.S. Moreover, the resolution voted by the ILWU delegates opposes not only the hugely unpopular war in Iraq, but also the war and occupation of Afghanistan (which Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain all want to expand). The motion to shut down the ports also demands the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the entire region, including the oil sheikdoms of the strategically important Persian/Arab Gulf.

The Internationalist Group has fought from the moment U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in September 2002 for American unions to strike against the war. Despite the fact that millions have marched in the streets of Europe and the United States against the war in Iraq, the war goes on. Neither of the twin war parties of U.S. imperialism - Democrats and Republicans - and none of the capitalist candidates will stop this horrendous slaughter that has already killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The only way to stop the Pentagon killing machine is by mobilizing the power of a greater force - that of the international working class.

The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. The ILWU should be commended for courageously taking the first step, and it is up to working people everywhere to back them up. Wherever support is strong enough, on May 1 there should be mass walkouts, sick-outs, labor marches, plant-gate meetings, lunch-time rallies, teach-ins. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down!

Now is the time for bold class action. Opposition to the war is even greater in the U.S. working class than in the population as a whole, more than two-thirds of which wants to stop the war but is stymied by the capitalist political system. In his letter to Sweeney, the ILWU president asked "if other AFL-CIO affiliates are planning to participate in similar events." Labor militants should make sure the answer to that question is a resounding "yes!"

There should be no illusions that this will be easy. No doubt the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) bosses will try to get the courts to rule the stop-work action illegal. The ILWU leadership could get cold feet, since this motion was passed because of overwhelming support from the delegates despite attempts to stop it or, failing that, to water it down or limit the action. And the U.S. government could try to ban it on the grounds of "national security," just as Bush & Co. slapped a Taft-Hartley injunction on the docks during contract negotiations in the fall of 2002, saying that any work stoppage was a threat to the "war effort," and threatened to occupy the ports with troops!

The answer to every attempt to sabotage or undercut this first labor action against this war, and against Washington's broader "war on terror" which is intended to terrorize the world into submission must be to redouble efforts to bring out workers' power independent of the capitalist parties and politicians. If the ILWU work stoppage is successful, it will only be a small, but very important, beginning that must be generalized and deepened. It will take industrial-strength labor action to defeat the imperialist war abroad and the bosses' war on immigrants, oppressed minorities, poor and working people "at home."

ILWU in the Forefront of Labor Action Against the War

Workers strike action against imperialist war isn't new - it just hasn't happened here for a long, long time. During World War I there were huge mass strikes in Germany against the battlefield carnage, culminating in the downfall of the kaiser in November 1918. A year earlier in Russia, working-class opposition to the war led to the overthrow of the tsar and the October Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky's Bolsheviks. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International call today for transport workers to "hot cargo" (refuse to handle) war shipments. In the early 1920s, Communist-led French dock workers did exactly that, boycotting ships carrying war materiel to suppress a colonial rebellion in the Rif region of Morocco, as they
also did during France's war in Indochina in the 1950s.

In the U.S., the ILWU struck in 1948 amid Cold War hysteria and in defiance of the "slave labor" Taft-Hartley Act to defend its union hiring hall against the bosses and government screaming about "reds" in the union leadership. In 1953, at the height of McCarthyite witch-hunting, the ILWU called a four-day general strike in Hawaii of sugar, pineapple and dock workers over the jailing of seven union members for being communists. During the Vietnam War, socialist historian Isaac Deutscher said that he would trade all the peace marches for a single dock strike. The ILWU was the first U.S. union to oppose the Vietnam war, but during war and especially during the 1971 strike union leader Harry Bridges refused to stop the movement of military cargo. (Ship owners made use of this by falsely labeling cargo as "military" to evade picket lines and undermine the strike.) This betrayal went hand in hand with a "mechanization and modernization" contract that slashed union jobs.

As the U.S.-led imperialist invasion of Iraq was looming, in January 2003 train drivers in Scotland refused to move a freight train carrying munitions to a NATO military base. The next month, Italian railroad unionists and antiwar activists blocked NATO war trains by occupying the rails. In the United States, ILWU dock workers were a target of "anti-terrorist" government repression, as police fired supposedly "less than lethal" munitions point blank at an antiwar protest on the Oakland, California docks, injuring six longshore workers and arresting 25 people (who eventually won their legal case against the police). And every year since the war started, the San Francisco/Oakland ILWU Local 10 has voted for motions for labor action against the war. Usually they were voted down at caucuses and conventions of the ILWU, but not this time.

Last May, Local 10 longshoremen and Local 34 ships clerks refused to cross picket lines set up by the Oakland Teachers Association and antiwar activists, defying arbitrators' orders by refusing to work ships of the notorious antiunion outfit, Stevedoring Services of America (see "Oakland Dock Workers Honor Picket, Shut Down War Cargo Shipper," The Internationalist No. 26, July 2007). In the aftermath of that action, the union issued a call for a Labor Conference to Stop the War that would "plan workplace rallies, labor
mobilizations in the streets and strike action against the war." The Call to Action stated:

"ILWU Local 10 has repeatedly warned that the so-called 'war on terror' is really a war on working people and democratic rights. Around the country, hundreds of unions and labor councils have passed motions condemning the war, but that has not stopped the war. We need to use labor's muscle to stop the war by mobilizing union power in the streets, at the plant gates and on the docks to force the immediate and total withdrawal of all U. S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq."

As the conference date approached, the union was the target of several police attacks, including a vicious cop assault on two black dock workers from San Francisco working in the port of Sacramento. Some 250 demonstrators from every ILWU local in Northern California rallied in their defense outside the courthouse. Their trial to be set march 18 at a hearing will encounter even larger demonstrations.

The Internationalist Group and its union supporters helped build and attended the October 20 conference, along with some 150 labor and socialist activists from the Bay Area, elsewhere in California and across the country. At the meeting, a particular focus was resistance to the Transportation Workers Identification Card (TWIC), which threatens minority workers and the union hiring hall, and which the Democratic Party in particular has been pushing in order to carry out a purge of dock workers in the name of the "war on terror."
Not long after that conference, a federal judge ordered Local 10 elections canceled and replaced by a Labor Department-run vote, on the eve of 2008 contract bargaining. Federal agents even invaded the union hall to enforce their order. This action is a threat to the independence of all unions.

This set the stage for the recent longshore-warehouse caucus, which voted a motion for a 24-hour "No Peace, No Work Holiday" against the war. The resolution was introduced in Local 10 by Jack Heyman, who also presented the motion for the 24 April 1999 coast-wide port shutdown demanding freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther and renowned radical journalist who has been on Pennsylvania's death row for the last quarter century. Although the union tops maneuvered to prevent Heyman from being elected as a delegate to the Coast Caucus, the motion passed in Local 10. At the Caucus, the delegate from Local 34 referred to the October Labor Conference to Stop the War as the origin of the motion.

At the close of the Caucus on February 8, there was a vigorous debate on the resolution. The union tops tried to stop it, to no avail. They kept asking, "are you sure you want to do this action." The delegates overwhelmingly said "yes." Even conservative trade unionists, including veterans of the Vietnam War, were getting up saying the government is lying to us, we've had it with this war, we've got to put a stop to it now. So instead the bureaucrats tried to gut the motion, which was cut down from 24 hours to 8, and changed into a "stop-work" meeting (covered by a contract clause) instead of a straight-out shutdown, thinking that this would lessen opposition from the employers. In the end there was a voice vote and only three delegates out of 100 voted against.

The efforts to undercut the motion continue, as is to be expected from a leadership which, like the rest of the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy, seeks "labor peace" with the bosses. In his letter to Sweeney, ILWU International president tried to present the action as an effort to "express support for the troops by bringing them home safely," although the motion voted by the delegates says nothing of the sort. Playing the "support our troops" game is an effort to swear loyalty to the broader aims of U.S. imperialism. It aids the warmongers, when what's needed is independent working-class action against the system that produces endless imperialist war. Yet despite the efforts to water it down and distort it, the May 1 action voted for by the ILWU delegates is a call to use labor's muscle to put an end to the war.

Mobilize Labor's Power to Defeat the Bosses' War!

For the West Coast dock workers union to shut down the ports against the war means a big step forward in the class struggle. The Internationalist Group has uniquely fought for workers strikes against the war, when all the popular-front "peace" coalitions dismissed this and even some shamefaced ex-Trotskyists refused to call for it, saying it had "no resonance" among the workers (see our October 20007 Special Supplement to The Internationalist, "Why We Fight For Workers Strikes Against the War [and the opportunists Don't]"). With signs, banners and propaganda we have sought to drive home the central lesson that it is necessary to defeat the imperialist war abroad and the bosses' war "at home" by mobilizing the power of the workers movement independent of and against the capitalist parties.

That means fighting the war mobilization down the line. First and foremost, this means actively joining the struggle for immigrant rights as the government turns undocumented working people into "the enemy within." Class-conscious workers should demand full citizenship rights for all immigrants. Last year, San Francisco Local 10 voted to stop work and join marches for immigrant rights on May 1, but this was opposed by the employers PMA and sabotaged at the last minute by the union tops. Shamefully, Local 13 in Los Angeles, a majority Mexican American port, made no protest when police attacked immigrant rights protesters that same day. Today, as the ICE immigration police stage Gestapo-style raids across the country, organized labor should take the lead in organizing rapid response networks to come into the streets to block the raids. Despite the campaign by the capitalist media and politicians to whip up anti-immigrant hysteria, there is widespread disgust among American working people toward the jackbooted storm troopers who are terrorizing immigrant communities.

At the same time, the unions should use the power to put a halt to the attacks on civil liberties which are part of the home front of the imperialist war. Driver's licenses with biometric data, TWIC identification cards with "background checks," warrantless spying and phone tapping, setting up special military tribunals for "trials" in which defendants are denied the right of habeas corpus, to know the "evidence" or even the charges against them - all these are part of a drive that is in high gear pushing the United States toward a full-fledged police state. There have been scores, perhaps hundreds of resolutions by unions and city, county and state labor bodies against the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, showing that labor activists are well aware of the danger. But just as is the case with the countless union antiwar resolutions, there has been no labor action. It is commonplace in the labor movement to bemoan the lack of real action when Reagan broke the 1981 PATCO air traffic controllers' strike, paving the way for massive union-busting, takeaways and racist attacks all down the line. Let's not let the labor bureaucrats bury the vital struggles of today.

Now is the time to turn words into deeds, to speak to the capitalist rulers in the only language they understand. The imperialist war parties must be defeated by a class mobilization of the working people at the head of all the oppressed. The ILWU motion to stop work on May Day to put a stop to the war can provide working people everywhere with the opening to turn from impotent protest to a struggle for power. For that the key is to build a class-struggle workers party fighting for a workers government, for socialist revolution here and around the world, that will put an end once and for all to the system of endless war, poverty and racism.

This is an Article of the Internationalist Group:
www.internationalist.org

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Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:29:19 GMT

Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

The Democrats and Republicans are the paid agents of the oil, armament, and insurance industries. Their continued rule of America will assure a future of more imperialist war, a healthcare system that doesn't work, and no meaningful action on global warming (the single biggest threat to the future of humanity and a healthy planet).

The Cool Earth Party is being established on the principles of revolutionary democratic socialism. We call for an end to the dictatorial power of the wealthy through the nationalization of major industries and for the establishment of a planned economy run to meet human and environmental needs. This socialist society must be established within the framework of full democratic freedoms and multi-party proportional democracy. To be truly Democratic all parties running in elections will be legally guaranteed equal time in the media, big campaign spending will be outlawed, and electronic voting machines (which are presently used to rig American elections) will be eliminated.

Upon taking power the Cool Earth Party will establish a system of socialized medicine for the United States, end all U.S. military occupations of other countries, end U.S. military aid to repressive governments, and nationalize the auto and energy industries to carry out immediate emergency measures to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

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Biofuel Caused Hunger Brings Down Haitian Prime Minister

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:07:45 GMT

In this Liberation News Mailing:

1. Biofuel Caused Hunger Brings Down Haitian Prime Minister
2. UK Protests call for Biofuel Targets to be Scrapped
3. Other Suggested Reading

********************
Movement to cap food prices brings down Haiti's prime minister
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
By: Silvio Rodrigues
(Reprinted with permission of the Party for Socialism and Liberation)

Food crisis sparks mass demonstrations

Pressured by mass protests and riots against rising food prices, Haitian lawmakers dismissed Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis in hopes of defusing the crisis. Just days before, 16 of 27 Haitian senators signed a letter calling for the resignation of Alexis.

Demonstrations began on April 2 in Les Cayes, but quickly spread to other areas of the country. For several days, Haitians erected barricades of burning tires and old cars in the streets.

On April 8, thousands of Haitians marched to the presidential palace to protest the sharp increase in food staples and to demand the resignation of the President René Préval. (Utah Independent, April 8)

Demonstrators rammed the palace gates with a rolling dumpster in an attempt to storm the building. U.N. occupation forces in jeeps and assault vehicles responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Soon, the U.N. troops were overwhelmed by the size and fury of the crowds, who turned their anger against the surrounding stores. (Times Republic, April 8)

Opposition lawmakers spearheaded the vote against Alexis, a close ally of Préval, in hopes of mitigating popular anger and capitalizing on the crisis. Youri Latortue, nephew of former prime minister Gerárd Latortue, played a key role in the opposition campaign. Gerárd Latortue became prime minister following the 2004 coup against Aristide, working hand in hand with Washington and its imperialist allies. (Reuters, April 10)

Whether the opposition’s move will be effective remains to be seen. About 25 demonstrators gathered to chant "Aristide or death" outside the parliament following the vote. ""Alexis left? What's the difference?" asked a Haitian chicken vendor. (International Herald Tribune, April 12)

Alexis’ dismissal will do little to fill the stomachs of hungry Haitians. The poorest Haitians live on less than $2 a month. The country suffers from scarce arable land and imports most of its food, including more than 80 percent of its rice. (CTV News, April 12)

Cookies made from dirt, salt and shortening are a staple of the Haitian diet, costing only around 5 cents as of January. Doctors say that relying on the cookies for sustenance can be dangerous; for Haitians, they alleviate the pain caused by hunger. (National Geographic, Jan. 30)

The rising price of foodstuffs is a global phenomenon—protests have erupted in Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Burkina Faso and elsewhere.

The crisis springs from the inherent anarchy of capitalist production. Producers make economic decisions that affect the lives of billions with only their own short-term gains in mind. Among other factors, the growing demand for ethanol has shifted agricultural production away from food crops.

Because capitalists must constantly seek the most profitable alternatives in order not to be driven out of business by their competitors, they are unable to avoid such crises—or to offer a way out of them, for that matter. Subsidies or international "aid" are at times provided to temper popular unrest when it threatens imperialist interests.

It is hard to say whether such "relief" would appease the ire of Haitians at the present juncture. For the impoverished masses, the food crisis was the catalyst for an explosive outburst of deep-rooted hatred for the occupation. The February 2004 coup that toppled Aristide left an indelible mark in the consciousness of a people already well-familiar with imperialist intervention.

René Préval was elected to the presidency in 2006, supported by poor Haitians largely because of his past association with former president Aristide. At the time, two years had passed since the coup and Haiti was already under U.N. occupation. Some sectors of progressive and liberal opinion believed that the 2006 "democratic" elections indicated that things were getting better.

The imperialist occupation under the U.N. flag has continued throughout Préval’s presidency. One only remains in power under occupation by adhering to the framework stipulated by the occupiers. The Préval government has not—and cannot—end the imperialist occupation.

With neither the government nor the opposition offering a way out, poor and working Haitians are growing increasingly reliant on the most powerful force for change—themselves.

***************
UK Protests call for Biofuel Targets to be Scrapped

16 April 2008 joint press release by Biofuelwatch and Global Forest Coalition

London-There were demonstrations in London yesterday and groups across the UK also protested against the introduction of mandatory biofuel blending.

Outside Downing Street speakers from Friends of the Earth, Global Forest Coalition, GM Freeze, campaign against Climate Change and Biofuelwatch condemned the government's decision to go ahead with its biofuel policy against overwhelming evidence of catastrophic impacts on climate, communities, biodiversity and food security.

Other protests were held outside the constituency offices of Ruth Kelley, Secretary of State for Transport, and Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Environment. More protests took place at BP and Tesco fuel stations. BP and Tesco are two of the companies with significant investment in biofuels (also called agrofuels) from large-scale monocultures. They have been strongly lobbying for mandatory biofuel blending.

"The UK has chosen to ignore a vast mountain of evidence that biofuels are contributing to hunger, climate change, deforestation and human rights abuses," said Dr. Rachel Smolker, main author of "The Real Cost of Agrofuels." She continued, "Perhaps they are counting on new technologies using cellulose from wood and grasses, but these won't sidestep the problems either. Whatever feedstocks are used will result in further expansion of industrial monocultures, possibly including genetically engineered trees. The bottom line is that there is a limited amount of land available, a large population to feed and a desperate need to preserve remaining biodiverse ecosystems. Instead of focusing on improving efficiency and reducing consumption, the UK is mandating further destruction."

Almuth Ernsting from Biofuelwatch adds, "Protests against the agrofuel industry and this government's biofuel policies will not end. The government is talking about vague 'sustainability standards', whilst agrofuels are causing ever greater harm to the climate, to forests and other ecosystems, to communities in the global South, to biodiversity worldwide, and to food sovereignty and food security. We need a moratorium on all agrofuel incentives and targets to prevent those catastrophic impacts."

On 8 April, twenty-nine UK and international groups wrote to the UK government, calling for an agrofuel moratorium and demanding a suspension of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, and opposition to new EU biofuel targets - both the proposed 10% biofuel target in the Renewable Energy Directive, and the inclusion of biofuels in the draft new Fuel Quality Directive. Around 200 organisations from North and South have signed a call for an EU moratorium on agrofuels from large-scale monocultures, and there are separate calls for a U.S. agrofuel moratorium and for an African agrofuel moratorium, as well as growing number of declarations from the Southern groups that are deeply concerned about the impacts which biofuel policies in Europe, including in the UK, are having on their communities, food sovereignty and environment.

Contact:
Almuth Ernsting, Biofuelwatch, +44-1224-324797 (UK, any time)
Orin Langelle, Global Forest Coalition, +1.802.578.6980 (U.S., any time)

*************************************
3. Other Suggested Reading:

Biofuels and The Internationalization of Genocide
by Fidel Castro
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/abril/mier4/14refexf.html

Clinton and Obama: Failures on War and Global Warming
by Steven Argue
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/10/18478172.php

US Marines occupy Haitian capital amid charges Aristide was kidnapped
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/hait-m02.shtml

***************
Subscribe free to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

"Tribe" Backs Anti-Palestinian Racists

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:07:16 GMT

Message from "Free Palestine End Zionism" moderator:

This is being sent to you because you were a member of my tribe, Free Palestine End Zionism. I would like you to know that I was notified today by a representative of tribe.net that my tribe was "anti-semitic" and that they removed it!

I am sending this so you will know why the tribe does not exist any more and so you will bear witness to the evident censorship and lack of the freedom of speech on tribe.net, plus the fabricated excuse to silence my tribe.

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Final Nails in Racist Homophobe Ron Paul’s Campaign Coffin

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:56:36 GMT

Final Nails in Racist Homophobe Ron Paul’s Campaign Coffin

By STEVEN ARGUE

Since I wrote the article:

The Ron Paul “Revolution”, an Extreme Rightwing Threat
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/05/18470186.php

New information has surfaced regarding Ron Paul’s pro-fascist agenda.

That information is discussed in the following January 7, 2008 MSNBC interview conducted by Tucker Carlson with the New Republic’s Jamie Kirchick. In it he gives an inside look into his controversial piece on presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, due to hit newsstands on Friday.

http://antironpaul.com/

The following are newly released copies of Ron Paul’s extreme right newsletter to which Jamie Kirchick refers:

http://www.tnr.com/downloads/March1990.pdf
http://www.tnr.com/downloads/January91.pdf
http://www.tnr.com/downloads/October1990.pdf
http://www.tnr.com/downloads/June1990.pdf
http://www.tnr.com/downloads/August1990.pdf

In addition to these revelations, in New Hampshire Ron Paul also failed to repeat anything close to the 10% vote he achieved in Iowa.

Somewhat surprisingly, there are a large number of liberal minded anti-war people who have urged a vote for Ron Paul.

They are liberal "support the lesser viable evil" types that see Ron Paul as more viable than any anti-war Democrat (arguably Kucinich and Gravel).

Additional questions have always existed if Ron Paul really was viable, or if he really was a lesser evil. New Hampshire and the latest revelations ought to put both questions to rest.

But for me there are always more important questions than if a candidate is viable or a "lesser evil". I think that building a long-term movement for real change is much more important than backing a candidate of any degree of evil. For me that includes deflating illusions in the corporate politicians of the Democrat and Republican Parties, getting out information on candidates to the left of the Democrats (the real anti-war and anti-corporate candidates), and urging further actions such as protests, strikes etc.

Simply put, there is nobody worth supporting in the racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-worker, anti-poor, and capitalist Republican Party. Never has been, never will be. Get over it. In fact, there is nobody in the corporate Democrat and Republican Parties that are worth supporting. I discuss some of the candidates that may be worth supporting in the following article:

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States,
And the Struggle to Achieve It
By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/02/18469739.php

And just for fun, here's the Ron Paul Time Machine!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7884Z6-FiMY

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 3 replies

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States, and the Struggle to Achieve It

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 01:36:16 GMT

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States,
and the Struggle to Achieve It

By Steven Argue

As someone without healthcare, I support the idea of socialized medicine for the United States. Socialized medicine will bring healthcare to everyone. Besides legitimate self-interest, my personal position comes from being an advocate for social justice with a vision of an egalitarian society. As such, I not only see universal access to healthcare as a basic human right, I also see that socialized healthcare will mitigate some of the racial and class inequalities in our society. In addition, socialized medicine is cheaper than the costs of current system of for-profit capitalist healthcare. It also looses the profit motive of insurance companies to deny needed procedures. From this knowledge, and these personal convictions, I am strongly in favor of socialized healthcare in the United States like that established in Europe as well as established in Cuba with the 1959 revolution. Short of a fully socialized healthcare system I see that the single payer system (i.e. socialized health insurance run by the government), like in Canada, would be a significant step forward for the United States.

In the United States there’s a lot of confusion on terminology. With a system of socialized medicine hospitals are directly owned by the government and doctors are government employees. It’s a universal system where everyone is covered and all health care is paid for by the government. Under a single payer health care plan, health care is universal and paid for by the government, but it is a system still largely based on private hospitals and private physicians.

Two main arguments are encountered when discussing socialized medicine. One argument is that it will cost too much. The second argument is that socialized medicine doesn’t work to provide adequate healthcare. Neither argument stands up to scrutiny.
Socialized medicine and single payer medicine actually cost less than the United State’s current for profit capitalist health care system. Both statistics and common sense back this up.

According to statistics from 2003, the United States spends $5,711 per capita per year for health care while Canada spends about half of that, $2,998 per capita per year (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2007). In fact, the costs per capita are much cheaper in every other developed country with some form of socialized healthcare. In other examples Sweden spends $2,745, Germany $2,983, and the United Kingdom $2,317 (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2007). In addition, Cuba , with their well known socialized healthcare system, spent only $251 per capita on healthcare in 2006 (United Nations World Health Organization, 2006).

The reason socialized insurance is much cheaper and more efficient than private health insurance is because single payer eliminates the health insurance racket with all of its waste in capitalist profits, paperwork, and overpaid CEOs. In addition, such insurance practices as routinely denying needed medical procedures to keep profits up are eliminated, thus reducing capitalism as being the cause of death.

Socialized healthcare does work. It is working very well in Cuba. Cuban life expectancy in 2006 was 77.6 years, while the life expectancy of the United States for that same year was slightly less, 77.5 years (United Nations Development Program, 2006). It is interesting that poor Cuba with a history of poverty before their 1959 socialist revolution, and a devastating U.S. imposed economic blockade since, is able to provide good healthcare for everyone through socialized medicine. Cuba, unlike the United States, does not let people die in the emergency rooms without treatment, turn sick people away from receiving healthcare because they lack insurance, or allow insurance companies to decide, based on profit motive, whether the insured actually receive the care they paid for and need. The Cubans have done this by taking the profit out of illness and injury and providing healthcare as a basic human right.

Canada, like Cuba, has a higher life expectancy than the United States. In 2004 the life expectancy of Canada hit 80.2 years (Statistics Canada, 2004). With Canada’s socialized health insurance system, like Cuba’s socialized medical system, every single person is covered. In the United States 45.8 million Americans do not have health insurance (U.S. Department of Health and human Services, 2005).

On another key indicator of health, infant mortality, the United States is also nearly the worst in the developed world, only worse than the recently turned capitalist country of Latvia (Green, 2006). The infant mortality rate in the United States in 2002 was 7.0 deaths before the age of one per every 1,000 live births (Center for Disease Control, 2005). In comparison, other advanced countries with forms of socialized medicine and socialized health insurance have lower infant mortality. This includes rates per thousand births in Japan of 3.2, Germany with 4.4, Italy with 4.5, France with 4.6, and the United Kingdom with 5.6 (Treasury Board of Canada, 2003).

Cuba, with their system of socialized medicine has an infant mortality rate of 6.2 per thousand live births, a rate much lower the United States rate of 7.0 per every thousand live births (BBC News, 2002). This is also lower than every other Latin American country (BBC News, 2002).

The only other country in the Americas with an infant mortality lower than Cuba is Canada with their system of socialized health insurance. The Canadian infant mortality rate in the year 2000 was 5.3 (Treasury Board of Canada, 2003).

In addition, a United Nations report on the status of Native Americans in Canada has credited Canada’s relatively recently established socialized health insurance system with drastically reducing an extremely high infant mortality among Native Americans (United Nations, 1993). In 1979, that death rate for Canadian Native Americans was 27.6 per thousand live births, but by 1999 it had dropped to 8.0 deaths per thousand live births (Treasury Board of Canada, 2003). These improvements coincide with Canada’s passage of the Canada Health Act in 1984 that brought their socialized insurance system to the entire country at that time (Health Canada, 2002).

For Blacks in the United States between 1995 and 2002, the infant mortality rate was 13.9, more than double the rate of 5.9 for whites in the same time period (Center for Disease Control, 2005). Canadian statistics are a strong indication that a socialized insurance system in the United States could both decrease the infant mortality rate of the general population and dramatically decrease the infant mortality of oppressed and impoverished minorities such as Blacks, as it did for Canadian Native Americans.

The statistics show that socialized medicine is cheaper, saves lives, and helps alleviate class and racial inequalities in healthcare.

Prospects for Socialized and Single Payer Medicine

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has declared, "It's time to provide quality affordable health care for every American, and I intend to be the president who accomplishes that goal finally for our country" (CNN.com). This is the same promise that Bill Clinton made when he ran for office in 1992.

After being elected, in Bill Clinton’s first State of the Union address, he said, “And on any given day, over 37 million Americans -- most of them working people and their little children -- have no health insurance at all.” Yet, despite Bill Clinton’s campaign promise of universal health care, his defeated proposal to congress would not have provided health care to every American, nor did it address the other fundamental problems of private health insurance. After his health care proposal was defeated, Clinton dropped the issue. In fact, the Bill Clinton administration was opposed to a bill for single payer health care introduced by Wellstone, Conyers, and Mcdermott that actually would have provided universal health care. By the time Bill Clinton left office, an additional three million more Americans were uninsured.

Today Republican candidate Mitt Romney has declared of Hillary Clinton’s promised health care plan, “It’s a European-style socialized medicine plan, that’s where it leads–and that’s the wrong direction for America” (Shulte).

Yet, unfortunately, Clinton’s plan has nothing in common with socialized medicine, neither of the European variety, nor the Canadian single payer. Her plan is to keep the broken and expensive capitalist system of health care, a system that keeps the insurance industry in charge of life and death questions of whether or not we receive health care when we need it.

In addition, the Clinton plan would make the purchase of health insurance by America’s uninsured mandatory for those who do not get insurance from their employer and who do not qualify for government assistance. Yet, the problem for America’s nearly 50 million uninsured is not that we don’t want to have insurance, the problem is that we can’t afford it. Clinton’s plan of making us criminals for not purchasing health insurance will not resolve this fundamental problem.

By making the purchase of health insurance mandatory Clinton makes the false claim that hers is a plan for universal health insurance as compared to the plan of Obama. Neither would provide universal health care. John Edwards has taken the absurdity of forced insurance purchases one step further, detailing a plan that would include the necessity of showing proof of health insurance at the time of paying taxes, with penalties for those who do not provide that proof.

In a similar fashion as Mitt Romney, Republican contender Rudolph Giuliani has extended false accusations of socialized medicine to other Democratic hopefuls stating, “Whether it’s HillaryCare or ObamaCare or EdwardsCare, the idea that it’s not socialized medicine is a trick. It’s a massive growth of government control of medicine” (Rovner).

The truth, however, is that the only presidential candidates of the Democrat and Republican Party that are for single payer health care are Democrats Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, and none are for full socialized medicine. The other major candidates, who oppose single payer, enjoy massive contributions from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

In addition to being excluded from money, the Kucinich and Gravel campaigns have also been excluded from debates. Most recently, for the 2008 election, CNN and the Des Moines Register made the decision to exclude both Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel from a key debate in Iowa. Yet Biden and Dodd, who are behind Kucinich in the national polls, but who reject single payer health care, were allowed into the debate. This kind of undemocratic shenanigan is to be expected of CNN, a corporate media source that was forced to publicly apologize for a number of lies they told about Michael Moore’s pro-socialized medicine film “Sicko”.

While Kucinich has alienated the corporate power structure with his stand for single payer health care, he has also alienated much of his natural base by voting for Bush’s “War on Terror”, voting for the U.S. travel ban against Cuba, and by voting against Mumia Abu-Jamal.

In 2001 Kucinich voted in favor of the US travel ban against Cuba. The travel ban does not allow U.S. citizens to spend any money in Cuba, basically making travel to Cuba illegal. It is under the travel ban that Michael Moore has been harassed by the U.S. government for bringing sick 9/11 rescue workers, who were unable to receive medical treatment in the United States, for medical treatment in Cuba. The United States has had hostile relations with Cuba ever since the 1959 Cuban revolution overthrew the U.S. backed Batista dictatorship, nationalized the United Fruit Company owned by the Rockefeller family, ended Jim Crow style racist segregation, and began providing free socialized health care and education.

In contrast to Kucinich’s support for U.S. measures against Cuba, Mumia Abu-Jamal recognizes the gains Cuba has made in areas such as health care. Of the U.S. and Cuban health care systems, Mumia Abu-Jamal stated May 2nd, 2003:

“What about the human right to health care? In the US, you can obtain excellent health care if you can afford it. Cuba, meanwhile, boasts the largest number of doctors per capita on earth. They provide medical care to people all around the world. Indeed, there are more Cuban doctors working in other countries than the UN’s World Heath Organization. Millions of men, women and children in this country have no medical insurance and no real prospect for decent medical care.” (Abu-Jamal 5/2/03)

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States whose trial, according to Amnesty International, was not fair and “did not comply with international justice standards” (Amnesty International). Yet, in 2006 Kucinich voted to condemn the French City of St. Denis for naming a street after Mumia. The resolution boldly proclaimed Mumia’s guilt, despite international recognition of the injustice dished out to Mumia, and despite the fact that the courts are still reviewing the case. Despite the injustice represented by this resolution and despite 31 members of Congress voting against it, Kucinich voted for it.

Showing a similar lack of support for the needs of the people, Kucinich voted for Bush’s so-called “War on Terror”. This was a vote that effectively gave Bush the power to invade any country at any time. That vote could have been used for anything, and was used by Bush to invade Afghanistan. Likewise, despite pretending to be a peace candidate, Kucinich’s calls for a strong and efficient military do not address the fact that the United States is the most aggressive and dangerous nation in the world.

The tremendous lack of judgment on these three votes alone, along with Kucinich’s promotion of the pro-war, anti-single payer health care, and corporate controlled Democrat Party, have alienated the left from Kucinich’s campaign.

Presidential candidate Mike Gravel doesn’t have a recent voting record, but was actively opposed to the Vietnam War in Congress, voting to cut off funding for the war, and helping to release the Pentagon Papers that exposed many wrong doings by the U.S. government in Vietnam. On the issue of health care, Gravel states on his website that he proposes “a universal healthcare system that provides equal medical services to all citizens, paid for by a retail sales tax (a portion of the Progressive Fair tax)” (Gravel website). Yet, sales taxes are not fair taxes. They are regressive taxes that charge the poor a much higher percentage of their income than they charge the rich. While it is true that the rich are not paying their fair share under the current tax system, Gravel’s proposal is even worse.

Sadly for those who think solutions could come from the Democrat Party, Kucinich and Gravel are the best the Democrat Party could produce.

While the mainstream of the American political establishment rejects any form of socialized medicine, all political parties to the left of the Democrats and Republicans support some form of socialized medicine. This is true from the Green Party and Reconstruction Party to the various socialist parties who run candidates, including the Peace and Freedom Party, Socialist Action, Socialist Party, Workers World Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Freedom Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, and Socialist Equality Party.

Breaking from the pro-war anti-health care Democrat Party is former Georgia Democratic Congressperson Cynthia McKinney. In a video news release declaring her candidacy for president she says, “The Democrat is no different from their Republican counterparts, eat out of the hands of corrupt lobbyists and feed at the same corporate tough” (McKinney). McKinney is running for president on the Reconstruction Party ticket as well as in the Green Party primaries.

On health care McKinney states, "I've supported every universal single payer health care plan. She goes on to state, “People who rail against `socialized medicine' in Canada and the UK have to explain why life expectancy is longer in Canada and the UK, why infant mortality is lower in Canada and the UK" (Deeth). McKinney further denounces the war in Iraq stating that the money being squandered could be better used on social programs such as rebuilding New Orleans, child nutrition, and health care, stating in part, “one billion dollars a day can provide medical care for the 47 million Americans who don’t have health insurance” (McKinney).

Another Green Party candidate, Kent Mesplay, declares on his website:

“Medical attention is a human right not yet recognized by the United States government. Nearly every other industrialized country on the planet has National Health Care. We are tied with South Africa for last place. In the same manner that we have a socialized military that at best provides for some aspects of our physical security, single payer health insurance is necessary to ensure that all people within our borders receive at least a basic level of medical and dental care.” (Mesplay).

While this may be a good position on single payer health care, it ignores the fact that the U.S. military does not provide physical security to the people of the United States, but is instead used to kill and terrorize the people of the world for the security of the profits of American corporations.

Also supporting single payer health care, Green Party candidate Kat Swift states:

“Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and other prominent Democrats are the greatest obstacle to universal health coverage. Except for a few mavericks like Rep. John Conyers [D-Mich.], who has regularly introduced single-payer bills, Democrats have joined Republicans in favoring HMO and insurance corporations over guaranteed publicly-financed quality health care for every American. It's a safe bet that the 2008 Democratic nominee will -- like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry before them -- follow the same pattern.”

Likewise, Green Party candidate Jared Ball, a Black free-lance journalist and college professor who calls for freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, and all political prisoners states, “Medicine for profit cannot be sustained as a model of managing health care for any progressive society” (Ball).

To the left of the Green Party is Elaine Brown, a former Black Panther Party member and activist for social programs for the poor and for prison reform. On health care she declares herself for, “Full and free health care for everyone, as exists in most civilized countries.”

Elaine Brown was a candidate for nomination as Green Party candidate for president until, on December 28, 2007, she broke with the Green Party, pointing out it was a capitalist Party and accusing the Green Party of racism. In her public statement Brown declared, "In effect, the present Green Party leadership promotes a kinder, gentler capitalism, a moderated racism, an environmentally-sustainable globalism, which I cannot support." On racism in the party she declared she intended to use her campaign “to bring large numbers of blacks and browns into the Party, particularly from the hood and the barrio” but that the Green Party “hierarchy seemed utterly fearful of the prospect of a massive influx of blacks and browns into the Green Party". Brown has given no indication that she now intends to continue her run as a candidate to the left of the Greens.

To the left of the Green Party are socialist candidates that call for full socialized medicine, like in Europe and Cuba, but who also see that single payer health care would be a step forward. These include likely Socialist Equality Party candidate Bill Van Auken, who calls for full socialized medicine, and says of the Canadian Single Payer system as an imperfect form of “socialized medicine”.

Likewise Peace and Freedom Party candidate and Socialist Party USA nominee for vice president, Stewart Alexander states,

“I favor a fully socialized medical care system, with as a first step a single-payer system similar to Medicare, but covering people of all ages. I favor eliminating the "co-pays" that are such a burden, and keep people from seeking needed care. We should take the profit out of the health-care system, and fully fund it. (The money now spent on health care in the USA is about twice as much per person as is spent in Western Europe, with less effective delivery of care. No additional money would actually be needed, but taxes on the wealthy few should be used initially to help fund improvements.) Eventually, I favor a fully-socialized system, funded from the surplus of the socialized economy, with an emphasis on prevention and public health.” (Alexander)

Also advocating full socialized medicine is Socialist Party USA nominee and Peace and Freedom Party candidate Brian Moore. In the California Voters Guide he states that he would, “establish guaranteed minimum income, housing and socialized healthcare for all”.

Not mentioning socialized medicine, but supporting single payer, Party for Socialism and Liberation nominee and Peace and Freedom Party candidate Gloria La Riva states, “The three main focuses of my campaign will be to oppose the racist attacks on immigrants; to propose a massive jobs program and increased social spending as an alternative to anti-crime hysteria and new prisons; and to give strong support for Single Payer Healthcare” (La Riva).

While generally being a good activist party, a strong concern among many on the left towards the Party for Socialism and Liberation is their uncritical support for undemocratic communist models, a problem that will cause many to instead vote for non-Stalinist candidates such as Stewart Alexander or Brian Moore in the Peace and Freedom Party primaries, or for other anti-Stalinist socialist parties that may run candidates such as the Socialist Equality Party, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Action, or the Freedom Socialist Party.

In contrast to some of the anti-democratic positions of Gloria La Riva’s party, presidential candidate Stewart Alexander states,

“Socialism is the common ownership of the means of production, but I like to be more specific. There are, have been, and can be many forms of socialism, but I believe that the best, strongest and most beneficial form of socialism, the kind of socialism I personally work for, is common ownership of the economy coupled with its democratic control by working people.” (Alexander)

Obviously, there are clear alternatives to the capitalist Democrat and Republican Parties that are working hard to promote a workers agenda that includes either fully socialized medicine or single payer healthcare. Yet, almost all of the unions of the United States remain committed to endorsing and financing Democrats and only Democrats in elections. A good number of unions, such as the SEIU, even endorse Democrats that are opposed to single payer health care and help fund the same campaigns that are being funded by the big insurance companies. These endorsements of the anti-worker politicians of the Democrat Party are a blatant violation of the interests of the membership. Such endorsements hurt attempts at building alternative parties that represent workers interests, and hurt the ability of workers to protest and strike against such politicians that are not representing our interests. Some other unions, such as the California Nurses Association, take the stand of only endorsing candidates who support single payer health care. This is a step forward, but many on the left see that a full break by labor from the corporate controlled Democrat Party will be necessary.

Ultimately, what is needed is the building of a spirit of resistance among workers, the unemployed, and students, where we no longer passively agree to politicians and union leaders who pretend to be lesser evils, but are rarely even that. We must challenge and change the organizations we are part of, and when that fails, break away and build new ones. Most importantly, we must fully resurrect the use of political strikes and demonstrations to force the bosses and government to give us what we need, as is often done in countries with socialized medicine such as France. It is this kind of resistance that won socialized healthcare in Europe after the Second World War, and it will be this that will bring socialized medicine to the United States.

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

References:

Abu-Jamal, Mumia. "Mumia 5/2/03 Taped Commentary on Cuba." Radio4all and Prisonradio.org. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.iacenter.org/polprisoners/maj_cuba03.htm. Internet.

Alexander, Stewart. “Presidential Candidate Questionnaire” Socialist National Committee, Socialist Party. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://vote-socialist.org/p08/questionnaires/alexander.html. Internet.

Ball, Jared. “Healthcare.” Jared Ball for President Website. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.jaredball.com/?cat=12. Internet.

“Clinton Unveils Mandatory Health Insurance Program” CNN.com. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/17/health.care/index.html. Internet.

“Concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Canada”. 6 March, 1993. United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Jt9OTyVZWTYJ:www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/280a3783f5a26d09c12563e80058b47e%3FOpendocument+infant+mortality+ canada +%22united+nations%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=16&gl=us. Internet.

“Cuba Records Lowest Infant Mortality Rate”. BBC News. 3 January, 2002. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1739773.stm. Internet.

Deeth, John. "Cynthia McKinney Brings Green Campaign to Iowa City." Iowa Independent. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.iowaindependent.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=3D80FCACF0E1EC162CC087F14BCF9BC5?diaryId=1610. Internet.

Green, Jeff. “U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world, report says”. 10 May, 2006. CNN.Com. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/index.html. Internet.

Health Canada, Government of Canada. 25 November, 2002. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/nr-cp/2002/2002_care-soinsbk4_e.html. Internet.

“How Mike Stands on the Issues.” Mike Gravel ’08 Website. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.gravel2008.us/issues. Internet.

“Human Development Report”. 2006. United Nations World Health Organization. Accessed 23 September, 2007. Available from: http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/52.html. Internet.

La Riva, Gloria. “Gloria La Riva for Governor”. California Online Voting Guide. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://calvoter.org/archive/94general/cand/governor/lari/larispeech3.html. Internet.

Mesplay, Kent. “Healthcare”. Kent Mesplay for President. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.mesplay.org/healthcare.html. Internet.

McKinney, Cynthia. “Cynthia McKinney Announces Campaign for Presidency” McKinney for President 2008 Website. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.runcynthiarun.org/node/25. Internet.

“Overview of the Uninsured in The United States, An Analysis of the 2005 Current Population Survey”. 22 September 2005. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed 23 September, 2007. Available from: http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/05/uninsured-cps/index.htm. Internet.

“Presidents Report, Canada’s Performance 2003”. 2003. Treasury Board of Canada. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/report/govrev/03/cp-rc-PR_e.asp?printable=True. Internet.

“Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Infant Mortality --- United States, 1995-2002”. 10 June 2005. MMWR Weekly. Center for Disease Control. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5422a1.htm. Internet.

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“Snapshots: Healthcare Costs”. Kaiser Family Foundation. January 2007. Accessed 23 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm. Internet.

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“USA: Mumia Abu-Jamal -- Overturning of death sentence falls short of full justice” 19 December, 2001. Amnesty International. Available from: http://www.amnesty.org/en/alfresco_asset/9e6893af-a3f9-11dc-9d08-f145a8145d2b/amr511832001en.html. Internet.

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posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

U.S. Backed Turkish Government Bombing Iraqi Kurds

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:41:00 GMT

With the genocidal U.S. backed Turkish government now bombing Iraqi Kurds, I thought it would be a good idea to repost my following article. -Steven Argue

Kurdish Culture, Repression, Women’s Rights, and Resistance

By Steven Argue

The Kurdish people number at an estimated at 25-30 million people. They live in eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwest of the Zagros Mountains in Iran, and in Armenia. They also have a large émigré population in Western Europe. With 4-5 million people and 15-20% of the population the Kurds are the largest non-Arab minority in Iraq (CIA Iraq, 2007). They are also the largest non-Turkish minority in Turkey comprising 20% of the population (CIA Turkey, 2007). The Kurdish speaking people are 9% of the Iranian population (CIA Iran, 2007). In Syria, the Kurds are the largest minority with about 1.75 million people comprising about 10% of the population (Lowe 2006). The rise of nationalist xenophobia and war in Armenia after the fall of the Soviet Union has pushed most Kurds out of Armenia, but around 30,000 Yezidi Kurds remain comprising about 1% of the population (CIA Armenia, 2007).

The language of the Kurds, called Kurdish, is distinct from the Persian of Iran, the Arabic of Iraq and Syria, and the Turkish of Turkey. Thus the common language of the Kurds both separates them from the dominant cultures in the nation-states where they live and unites the Kurdish people as a nationality without a nation-state.

While being distinct the Kurdish language is most closely related to Persian, yet the origins of the varied Kurdish culture is partially influenced by the absorption of characteristics of the differing nationalities and cultures that have historically surrounded them.

In terms of religion the Kurdish people are mostly Muslim with both Shia (primarily of the Alevi sect), Sunni (primarily Shafi’i). There is also a large Sufi influence among many Kurdish Muslims, often cited as a moderating influence on Islamic fundamentalism. A small number of Kurds are also Yezidi Muslims and Christians. The Kurds also have a history that has included secular and atheist political leaderships.

The differing Kurdish religious identities have, at times, been a political factor both in divisions among the Kurdish people and in divisions, which distinguish them from the dominant nationalities. The strong Kurdish national identity is based on mutual language and a history of oppression. These factors hold the Kurds together as a people.

For the Kurdish people outrageous acts of oppression in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, and Syria have included mass murder, suppression of language rights, exploitation of Kurdish resources with nothing but poverty given in return, deprivations of national citizenships, and the brutal suppression of political representation.

Despite the oppression the Kurdish people have faced, they continue to speak their language and organize politically and, at times, militarily to fight back everywhere they continue to live as a native population.

The Kurdish people are, in fact, the largest national minority in the world that has no homeland. Yet, it is largely their mutual language as well as their mutual oppression and a large amount of mutual poverty (despite some class differences) that continues to unite the Kurdish people. They desire borders that would change the map of the Near East. A better understanding of the Kurdish people is a key to understanding the entire region.

Kurdish Language and Literature

While being most closely related to Persian; the language of the Kurds, called Kurdish, is distinct from the Persian of Iran, the Arabic of Iraq and Syria, and the Turkish of Turkey. Historically many Kurdish intellectuals have written both in Kurdish in as well as in the languages of the dominating cultures (Blau 2007).

Despite a long history of oppression that includes the banning of the written and spoken Kurdish word, the Kurdish people have a rich literary history. Ell Herirl (1425-1495) is the first well-known Kurdish poet (Blau 2007). He, like the many patriotic Kurdish poets that followed, wrote of his love of Kurdish lands and its women (Blau 2007).

Up until very recently the Kurdish language was brutally suppressed everywhere in its native range except the Soviet Republic of Armenia. Armenian Kurds enjoyed special status as an ethnic minority in the Soviet Union including special programs for economic development. The Kurdish language, far from being banned, enjoyed sponsorship through state-sponsored Kurdish radio, a Kurdish newspaper, and Kurdish cultural events. After the fall of the Soviet Union Armenian Kurds lost language rights and other protections and most Kurds have been forcefully deported or have fled to Germany and other west European countries as well as to Russia (Mehrdad [date?]).

In Turkey, the Kurdish language was illegal up until 1991 when political and armed struggle forced the Turkish government to recognize some Kurdish language rights. Kurds and international human rights organizations, however, still complain of an oppressive situation imposed by the Turkish government (Human Rights Watch 2006).

In Iraq, Saddam Hussein, as a U.S. backed ally at the time, is famous for committing mass murder against the Kurdish speaking population. Today Kurdish literature is still repressed with a number of Kurdish journalists jailed by what the Kurdish leftist opposition considers to be a puppet government of the United States and central government.

Iranian policy forbids the Kurdish language and has attempted to assimilate the Kurds into the dominant Persian culture. Besides the state of war between Iraq and the Kurds in the Iran-Iraq war, there was also a state of war between the Iranian government and Iranian Kurds at that same time. More recently in 2005 the Iranian government opened fire on Kurdish protesters with attack helicopters killing 20 and wounding 200 (Amnesty International 2005). Despite the attempts by the Iranian government to stomp out Kurdish culture, Kurdish literature and histories are available in Iran in both Kurdish and Persian (Blau 2007).

In Syria, the written Kurdish language has been banned since 1958. In 1987 that ban was extended to Kurdish music and Kurdish videos (Amnesty International 2005). Hundreds of thousands of native Syrian Kurds have no citizenship rights, the Kurdish flag is illegal (but still flown), and numerous acts of repression have been documented.

Due to the fact that Kurdish culture is horribly repressed in all of their native lands, today it is the Kurdish Diaspora living in Europe, the United States, and Australia that create most of the new Kurdish literature. This includes poetry, children’s books, newspapers, and magazines. Sweden, with a very enlightened policy towards immigrant populations, encourages Kurds and other groups to continue their languages and cultures and allocates a large amount of money to the relatively small Kurdish population for Kurdish language publications (Blau 2007). In addition works in the Kurdish language are being produced in other countries where funding is harder to come by.

The tenacity of Kurdish culture owes much to its extensive historic roots, pride of its people in their literature and language, and refusal to die in the face of attempts at forced assimilation and brutal repression.

Kurdish Modes of Production and Their Development

Kurdish lands are rich and productive, and they sustain the Kurdish people both through pastoral activity as well as through agriculture (Izady 1992). The gathering of wild nuts, berries, and truffles are also important sources of food and income for the Kurdish people, especially in forested regions (Izady 1992). In addition some of the Kurdish lands are rich in oil resources, but the Kurds have been denied access to this oil wealth.

It is established that a number of domestic animals as well as cereal crops used around the world were first domesticated in Kurdish lands (Izady 1992).

Kurdish pastoralism takes place primarily in areas not suitable for agriculture because they are too high in elevation, to steep, or too low in precipitation (Izady 1992). Pastoral activities were once nomadic, but now encompass only lands within a few days of permanent dwellings. As a result some lands that were traditionally grazed are no longer used (Izady 1992).

Kurdish lands grow large amounts of wheat, barley, rice, cotton, tobacco, sugar beets, olives, corn, sunflowers, soybeans, fruits, and nuts. Many of these are cash crops sold to other areas of the Near East where there is far less arable land (Izady 1992).

In many areas of Kurdistan agriculture is still practiced with ox, mule, or donkey drawn wooden ploughs (Jaff 2007).

A merchant class of Kurds has arisen since the 1950s making a living off of capitalist exchanges (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

While participating in the broader economy, household families are the most basic economic unit for rural Kurds. Such households are patrilocal containing the first son and his wife and their children. Households participate in reciprocal non-capitalist labor exchanges and share what the household earns. Urban Kurds often continue this family communal structure, but it sometimes falls apart in the face of wage earners no longer wishing to share their income (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

Many rural Kurds also seasonally participate in construction labor in the cities, bringing additional income back to their families (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

Reciprocal exchanges are not just confined to households. They also take place between neighbors and kin in a village, and are expected. These communal exchanges also take place among urban Kurds (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

In addition tribal Kurds are expected to work for landlords and tribal leaders, with durations of labor not clearly defined (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

The labor structure in Kurdish villages reflects the labor-intensive, technologically primitive, agriculture forced on them by the neglect of the oil rich nations many Kurds are part of. Meanwhile, due to discrimination, the petroleum and mining operations in Kurdish areas rarely hire Kurds (Jaff 2007). This contributes to Kurdish poverty in regions that are rich in natural resources; fueling resentment and separatist desires.

Kurdish Sexuality, Birth, Domestic Life, Descent, and Kinship

The Kurdish people are organized in patrilineal clans (Refugee Health 2007). As such there is patriarchal control of marriage and property, with women treated in many ways like property. In addition, political status is often the product of patrilineal descent (Refugee Health 2007). It is a male dominated culture where female sexuality is repressed and women are oppressed.

Rural Kurdish women are allowed to mingle with males, but they are not allowed to make their own decisions regarding sexuality or husbands (Hassanpour 2001). Marriage for Kurdish women is a form of bondage traditionally decided upon by the male members of her family (Hassanpour 2001). These decisions have often been made in the girl’s childhood, and sometimes even before she is born (Hassanpour 2001). In Kurdish Iraq such practices of arranged marriage have been on the wane for a number of years, but family permission and payments for brides are still the rule (Refugee Health 2007).

Rural Kurdish marriages are patrilocal (Hassanpour 2001). The family receiving the bride pays the family she came from (Hassanpour 2001). This price is seen as payment for the labor that will be lost when she moves to live with the groom’s family (Hassanpour 2001). To hold onto the wealth of the village marriages within the village are preferred and marriages between first cousins are often arranged (Refugee Health 2007). Families also sometimes exchange sons and daughters with the same family to save on expenses (Refugee Health 2007).

The male families of urban Kurds do not pay a bride price at the time of marriage. Yet if the male decides to divorce the woman, his family is contractually obliged to pay her family. Urban Kurdish women are also not permitted to ask for a man’s hand in marriage, nor decide to divorce. Divorced women do not have a right to custody of the children (Hassanpour 2001).

Polygamy also sometimes occurs amongst Kurds. In such cases the wives are ranked in status by their age (Hassanpour 2001). While polygamy is not the norm, up to four wives are allowed (Refugee Health 2007).

Like marriage, men hold women’s sexuality under a strict ideal of shame and constraint, including virginity before marriage (Hassanpour 2001). This “ideal” is upheld under the threat, and use of, male violence against women. Such violence includes beatings, pouring acid on faces, shaving heads, and even “honor” killings where women are murdered to by family members to bring back the family’s good name (Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch 2007).

While Kurdish women may be murdered for adultery, no similar treatment is dished out to Kurdish men for the same act (Hassanpour 2001).

Kurds tend to see having large families as the ideal. This grows out of the material need for more laboring hands in the rural areas where most Kurds live, as well as from religious beliefs that consider birth control immoral by Islamic law. Yet there are growing numbers of young couples that ask aid workers for birth control. The birth of a child is celebrated with a feast. (Refugee Health 2007)

While the Kurdish people are oppressed and denied many fundamental rights, Kurdish women are doubly oppressed. While some Kurds have claimed better treatment of women than most of the Islamic world, treatment of Kurdish women does appear to have many similarities to those of the dominating cultures. One difference with Iranian treatment is that Kurdish women are not forced to wear the veil and are generally allowed freer movement than in many traditionally Muslim societies including Iran (Refugee Health 2007).

In Iraq, however, Kurdish women are not historically better off. Currently the Kurdish nationalist parties in power, working with the U.S. occupation, have done much to undermine the gains made for women’s rights during the rule of Saddam Hussein. Under Saddam Hussein’s secular government, Iraqi women had many rights found nowhere else in the historically Islamic world except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Over 50% of Iraqi doctors were women. Iraqi women were allowed to walk unescorted in the streets, to drive, to freely criticize men, and the right to work and control their own funds. Today the Kurdish parties that the U.S. has put in control of Iraqi Kurdistan are working towards adding brutally anti-woman Sharia (Islamic Law) to the constitution that would strip women of more rights. Similar moves are being made by the U.S. imposed central government in Iraq.

In Turkey, it is well documented that the Turkish government has routinely used rape as a weapon in the their counter-insurgency measures against Kurdish separatists (Hilton 2002).

There are many historical examples of Kurdish nationalists and communists speaking out for women’s rights (Hassanpour 2001). Additionally Kurdish parties in Iraq that advocate women’s rights, such as the Worker’s Communist Party of Iraq, have been excluded by the U.S. occupation from participation in elections. Besides in Iraq, the use by the United States of rightwing misogynist Islamic forces against socialists and nationalists with progressive stands on women is well established, with the U.S. bankrolling of the Mujahideen holy war against women’s rights in Afghanistan in the 1980’s being another well known example.

Kurdish women, with the exception of those that lived in Soviet Armenia, have not had the benefit of the feminist movements of the west nor the social revolutions of the Soviet Union and China that greatly advanced women’s rights in those societies. While not achieving perfection, the Chinese and Soviet revolutions outlawed forced marriages and made other giant strides towards women’s equality including in the areas of women’s education, employment, and reproductive rights.

While outsiders may find it easy to judge Kurdish treatment of women, it is worth noting that up until now the Kurdish nation has been denied the right to make any fundamental decisions regarding any policies in their land without outside control. Given the record of the dominating countries, including the United States, it appears that it is only within the context of Kurdish self-determination that the problems of women’s oppression can be solved by the Kurdish people themselves.

Kurdish Political Organization

The Kurdish people have organized themselves into many political organizations that advocate language rights, freedom from the social chauvinism and violence of the dominant cultures, Kurdish independence, and in many cases socialism. These Kurdish political organizations often exist in direct contradiction to widespread feudal village structures and the oppression of women.

The Kurdish Worker’s Party (KKP), one of the main Kurdish resistance groups in Turkey, sees the continuation of feudal political structures on the village level as being the result of oppression and exploitation from the Turkish State. The following emic from the program of the KKP spells out this point of view:
"National oppression exercised by Turkish state through massacres, compulsory resettlement and forced immigration goes on brutally. This oppression manifests itself economically in the fact that Kurdistan is a domestic market for Turkey, plundered and destroyed; politically in the fact that the Kurds are under the oppression of a foreign state, and denied of national sovereignty; and socially and culturally in the national humiliation and cultural backwardness created by continuing tribalism, widespread ignorance and forced assimilation." (The Kurdish Worker’s Party Programme)

The KKP is one of nineteen different Kurdish parties in Turkey (Turkey 2004). Of these thirteen have been declared illegal by the central government, including the KKP (Turkey 2004). On the other hand the Democratic People’s Party, one of the few legal Kurdish parties, does participate in Turkish elections (Turkey 2004). They are a member of the reformist and generally pro-capitalist Socialist International. Parties with stronger political programs for Kurdish independence and for socialism are banned and communities identified with them have faced brutal counter-insurgency methods that have included massacres, the raping of women, and execution of leaders.

In Iraq, two Kurdish parties, working with the U.S. occupation, rule Iraqi Kurdistan. These are the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and three minor Kurdish parties that have participated in an electoral alliance with the PUK and KDP called National Democratic Kurdish List. In the Kurdish area the National Democratic Kurdish List received 89.55% of the vote in the 2005 elections (Iraq 2005).

While the 2005 vote may appear to show widespread support among Iraqi Kurds for the KDP – PUK –USA government, other reports contradict this. Mass protests have erupted in Kurdish areas against the occupation-imposed lack of electricity and water (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007). In response the KDP – PUK –USA government has used violence against protesters and arrested a number of journalists (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007). Involved in these protests is the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq, a political party with members across Iraq of all ethnicities that supports Kurdish rights. In Kurdistan the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq has protested U.S. policy on Kurdistan where they point out that although the Kurdish people in Iraq had gained a high level of economic independence in the last two decades, U.S. policy has in effect annexed Iraqi Kurdistan back into the central government (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007).

Unlike the KDP and PUK, the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They did this while also opposing the government of Saddam Hussein. In addition the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq, at great risk to their lives, is carrying out a campaign in Kurdistan against the imposition of Sharia (Islamic Law) through the constitution of the puppet KDP and PUK government. They see this as horribly anti-woman and also argue that it will also further increase sectarian violence (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007).

Syria has fourteen different Kurdish political parties (Syria 2004). These organizations are banned in a country where it is illegal to even raise the flag of Kurdistan, yet Syrian Kurds continue to struggle for a homeland.

Iran has five different Kurdish political parties (Iran 2004). These have been involved in a number of uprisings against the central government in the last few years that have faced brutal repression (Kamala 2004). One of these organizations leading the uprisings is the Kamala (Revolutionary Organisation of Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan), a socialist grouping that has been organizing armed struggle against the central Islamic regime. As strong advocates of women’s rights the Kamala were the first Kurdish organization to integrate women into their armed forces (Kamala 2004).

Prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution the Kamala was also one of many leftist and pro-woman organizations struggling against the brutal U.S. imposed monarchy of the Shah of Iran, but in a great tragedy for women and for Kurds, it was chauvinistic Islamists that got the upper hand (Kamala 2004). In their assessment of the Islamic regime the Kamala states, “The Iranian regime has imposed the a series of discriminative policies in Kurdistan, which has ultimately resulted in the military occupation of Kurdistan, widespread poverty amongst this massive population, the suppression of Kurdish culture, drug addiction (especially amongst youth), religious suppression, forced migration, imprisonment, terror, torture, and the Killing of whoever opposing these tyrannical policies."

Armenian Kurds have suffered as well. While Kurds were given special language rights in Soviet Armenia, after the capitalist counter-revolution Kurds in Armenia faced mass violence and forced deportations. I have found no evidence Kurdish political organization in Armenia today.

The fate of Armenia’s largely ethnically cleansed Kurds is what has been attempted by all other countries that dominate the Kurds, elimination of the Kurdish question through violence and forced assimilation. Yet there is stubborn resistance in the will of the Kurdish people that refuses to give up. Instead many Kurds become resistance fighters that are bold enough to see a redrawn map where Kurdistan gains its independence from Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. In addition many are also bold enough to see that future as one that ends feudal backwardness, promotes education, builds socialism, and brings equality for women.

The Socialization of Kurdish Children in Language and Culture

The defining trait of Kurdish culture is their language. The education of Kurdish youth in their native tongue is an essential component, not only in the preservation of Kurdish culture, but also simply in giving the best education to young Kurds. The reason for this is that young people often have many difficulties learning when they are taught in a foreign tongue.

In the early part of the 20th century British colonial authorities in charge of education in Iraq referred to the Kurdish language as “vernacular”. Their educational model was one of teaching in the Kurdish language only at the primary school level, with all higher education in Arabic (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

In 1926 the famous Kurdish nationalist Huzni Mukriyani suggested in a fictional conversation between a Kurdish father and son that ignorance was better than being taught in a foreign tongue. The father states, “My dear son, I like education and I am not an enemy of knowledge and enlightenment, but it is better for you to remain ignorant than to be unaware of your identity, not to study in your language and to serve the strangers...” (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

This emic view of Huzni Mukriyani’s of the over riding importance of children learning in Kurdish wasn’t just based on a nationalistic or romantic desire for cultural preservation, but also grew out of the practical desire of having Kurdish children be able to understand the language they were being taught in. This point was driven home in another line of the fictional conversation where the father states to his son, “You had better become a shepherd, [Or] do ploughing for me. These are better than taking lessons and not understanding them” (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

In the 1950’s, in Iraqi Kurdistan, demands by the Kurdish community for more education in Kurdish began to bear some fruit, but many instructors had difficulty teaching in Kurdish because they had been instructed in Arabic (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

In Turkey, Iran, and Syria education in the Kurdish language has been even more wanting. The Kurdish language was illegal in Turkey up until 1991 and education in the Kurdish language is still lacking (Human Rights Watch 2006).

Yet, as an oppressed people without many educational opportunities, Kurdish children continue to learn their language from their families and communities even when formal education is lacking. Thus, the Kurdish language continues to be passed on to the children, partly out of necessity, partly out of a nationalistic pride and refuses to die or be forcefully assimilated.

Religion In Kurdistan, Belief and Disbelief

Kurds practice a variety of monotheist religions including a number of varieties of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. In addition some Kurdish nationalist movements led by socialists have a strong history of atheism and secularism.

The wide variety of Kurdish religions is due, in part, to the absorption of differing religions from surrounding nationalities. These religions have moved through the region over differing historical times. The predominance of Islam began in the seventh century when most Kurds were converted (Encyclopedia Britannica 2007).

Most religious Kurds are Muslim of the Sunni denomination (Encyclopedia Britannica 2007). Kurdish Sunnis predominantly belong to the Shafi’I sect. Another Islamic denomination found among the beliefs of the Kurdish people is the Shia, primarily of the Alevi sect. A small number of Kurds are also Yezidi Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

There is also a large Sufi influence among many Kurdish Muslims, often cited as a moderating influence on Islamic fundamentalism in many areas, including the oppression of women. Others see that religious moderation; to the point it does exist among the Kurds, is the result of heavy influences from atheistic socialist forces leading many of the struggles against Kurdish national oppression.

While information on the rarest and most obscure religions is often very easy to come by, demographic assessments of atheism are difficult to nearly impossible to obtain for much of the world. This lack of important anthropological data is due, in part, to the fact that atheists are oppressed in much of the world and afraid to identify themselves when attempts are made at collecting such data. But, in addition, there is a glaring shortage of writings that attempt to look at the role of atheism on individual cultures. Perhaps this is due, in part, to the universality of atheism and its lack of quaint provincial deities, sects, or rituals as are found in the thousands of religions of the world.

A look at the political programs the socialists that are playing a leading role in the nationalist liberation movements of Kurdistan does, however, reveal a strong influence of atheism and secularism in their advocacy of women’s rights and opposition to Islamic Law.

It is a tendency found in many mainstream anthropological writings to play up the role of various religions in different societies while ignoring the influences of atheism. Yet it has been atheistic leadership that has led major advances in women’s rights for much of the world’s population. Well known examples are the Chinese and Russian revolutions that outlawed forced marriages, bride prices, and other manifestations of female slavery still suffered by most Kurdistani women.

Likewise it is popular groups with atheistic programs, such as the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) in Turkey, that advocate full emancipation for women. As the PKK states in their program:

“All laws reflecting male domination should be annulled. Violence against women, all forms of control on women’s bodies and lives resulting from outdated custom and traditional habits, and bride’s price should be forbidden.” (KKP Program, 2003)

This program of the PKK is in stark contrast to the harsh anti-woman positions of the Islamic capitalist governments of Iran, Turkey, and Iraq.

While there is good reason to study the role of religions in various societies, anthropological studies are often incomplete if they ignore the role atheism. Kurdish society is no exception where religious belief is mixed with a strong peppering of disbelief.

U.S. Imperialism and the Kurdish Question

While the regime of Saddam Hussein was no friend to the Iraqi Kurdish people, this of course has nothing to do with why the United States government hated Saddam Hussein. This hatred by the U.S. capitalist government is not based on humanitarian concerns. They hated Saddam Hussein for the good things he did, such as the nationalization of Iraqi oil that benefited the people of Iraq by keeping oil wealth in the country for social programs and benefited of the Iraqi economy.

America’s so-called concern for human rights can be seen in the past US interventions in Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party first came to power in 1963. Immediately after taking power, based on lists provided by the CIA, they rounded up 5,000 leftists and trade-union leaders and murdered them. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait we were shown pictures of Iraqi Kurds killed by poison gas in the U.S. media. What we were not told is why the US was silent when this was happening and the fact that the US supplied the gas to kill the Kurds and to kill Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war. While we are now told of the Iraqi repression of the Kurdish people we are not told of how the Turkish government is carrying out the same policies of genocide against the Turkish Kurds, and doing it with U.S. weaponry.

In addition to these proxy genocides by the U.S. government on the Kurdish people the U.S. government has participated directly in the war on Kurds. This occurred on February 15, 1999 when U.S. forces kidnapped Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan and turned him over to the genocidal Turkish government. Subsequently Abdullah Ocalan was sentenced to death for his role in defending Kurdish territory in Turkey from the murderous Turkish military. This U.S. kidnapping was admitted on CNN TV by former Turkish President and ethnic cleanser Suleyman Demiral.

Today, in Iraq, the basic question of Kurds getting a piece of the oil wealth is not on the imperialist agenda. Instead they are pushing through their puppet governments and outside pressure for the oil wealth to be privatized and turned over to U.S. corporations.

Many of the Kurds know that their national interests will never be served by the “liberating” forces of Turkey and Iran or British and American imperialism. This will only be established by the Kurds themselves and by the alliances they build with other anti-imperialist forces. British imperialism divided Kurdistan, a country with its own unique language and culture, into a minority inside the nations of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran. Today the Kurds are the largest nation without a homeland in the world. Imperialism, with its motto of divide and conquer, never has and never will solve the Kurdish question. A free and united Kurdistan will only be born through a sweeping socialist revolution that overthrows the capitalist regimes of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria while challenging the military dictates of the United States.

The mutual language and oppression shared by the Kurdish people has solidified the Kurdish identity, even though they have differing religions, and even though they are spread out into five different countries of origin where they are an ethnic minority in each.

Facing violence and attempts at forced assimilation there is stubborn resistance in the will of the Kurdish people that refuses to give up. Instead many Kurds become resistance fighters that are bold enough to see a redrawn map where Kurdistan gains its independence from Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. In addition, many Kurds are also bold enough to see that future as one that ends feudal backwardness, promotes education, builds socialism, and brings equality for women.

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Hilton, Isabel. 28 May 2002. Turkey’s Record in Kurdistan is a Grim Warning for Afghan Women. The Guardian. Accessed 5 April 2007. Available from:
http://www.rawa.org/turkey2.htm

Human Rights Watch. Questions and Answers: Freedom of Expression and Language Rights in Turkey. 2006. Accessed 2 March 2007. Available from: http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/08/turkeyqa041902.htm. Internet.

Iran. Leftist Parties of the World. 15 July 2004. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.broadleft.org/ir.htm

Iran: Amnesty International calls for an urgent investigation into the killing of demonstrators. 5 August 2005. Amnesty International. Accessed 3 March 2007. Available from: http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGMDE130432005. Internet.

Iraq. Leftist Parties of the World. 02 October 2005. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.broadleft.org/iq.htm

Izady, Mehrdad. Kurdish Literature. Accessed 2 March 2007. Available from:
http://www.kurdishacademy.org/english/literature/literature.html. Internet.

Izady, Prof. M.R. 1992. Kurds, A Concise Handbook. Accessed 6 April 2007. Available from: http://www.kurdistanica.com/english/economy/agriculture/the_agriculture.html

Jaff, Dr, Akram. The Fractured Economy of Kurdistan. Accessed 6 April 2007. Available from: http://www.kurd.org/about/economy.htm

Kamala. 2004. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.komala.org/

Khan, Adnan. Kurds Matter. Maclean's, 12/25/2006, Vol. 119 Issue 51, p31-32.

Klein, Janet. Kurdish nationalists and non-nationalist Kurdists: rethinking minority nationalism and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1909. Nations & Nationalism, Jan2007, Vol. 13 Issue 1, p135-153.

Kurdish Families - Kurdish Family And Households. 2007. Accessed 6 April 2007. Available from: http://family.jrank.org/pages/1025/Kurdish-Families-Kurdish-Family-Households.html

Kurdish Refugees From Iraq. Refugee Health. Accessed 5 April 2007. Available from:
http://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/kurdish_refugees.htm

Kurds. 2007. Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed 16 May 2007, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9275335

Kutschera, Chris. A sanctuary in Kurdistan. Middle East, Jan2007 Issue 374, p62-63.

Lowe, Robert. The Syrian Kurds: A People Discovered. Middle East Program. Chatham House. Jan2006,

Olson, Robert. Turkey's Policies Toward Kurdistan-Iraq and Iraq: Nationalism, Capitalism, and State Formation. Mediterranean Quarterly, Winter2006, Vol. 17 Issue 1, p48-72

Questions and Answers: Freedom of Expression and Language Rights in Turkey. 2006. Accessed 2 March 2007. Available from: http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/08/turkeyqa041902.htm. Internet.

Repression of Kurds in Syria is widespread. Amnesty International. March2005. http://web.amnesty.org/wire/March2005/Syria.

Syria: Kurds in the Syrian Arab Republic One Year After the March 2004 Events. 10 March 2005. Amnesty International. Accessed 2 March 2007. Available from: http://web.amnesty.org/library/pdf/MDE240022005ENGLISH/$File/MDE2400205.pdf. Internet.

Syria. Leftist Parties of the World. 22 June 2004. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.broadleft.org/sy.htm

Talabany, Nouri. The Kurdish Case. Middle East Quarterly, Winter2007, Vol. 14 Issue 1, p75-78.

The Communist Party of Kurdistan (KKP) Program. 2003. Denge Kurdistan. Accessed 16 May 2007. Available from: Available from: http://www.dengekurdistan.com/index.asp?ziman=eng

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The plight of the Kurds. Economist, 1/27/2007, Vol. 382 Issue 8513, p52-52.

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Worker-Communist Party of Iraq. 03 April 2007. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.wpiraq.net/english/index.htm

Yeğen, Mesut. Turkish nationalism and the Kurdish question. Ethnic & Racial Studies, Jan2007, Vol. 30 Issue 1, p119-151.

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 1 reply

The Socialist Kurdish PKK Reject the Soviet Model

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 01:23:34 GMT

Turkey is now bombing and shelling Kurds in Iraq once again under the excuse of trying to destroy the PKK. This is a continuation of the horrible oppression and repression faced by Kurds that I wrote about in:

Kurdish Culture, Repression, Women’s Rights, and Resistance
http://people.tribe.net/steveargue2/blog/9e471dea-4791-4fb7-afe6-7a23f092e9dc

One of the criticisms I faced from those backing the repression against the Kurds was the fact that the PKK is a revolutionary socialist organization. An attempt was made to equate the leadership of the PKK with Stalin.

Yet, here is part of what the PKK says about the Soviet Union and socialism in their program:

"The Soviet Union has disappeared, the Soviet Bloc has dissolved itself, and there have been major developments in the socialist movement. The phase of Soviet-dominated socialism is finished. That was a phase of primitive and brutal socialism. Now, a new phase of socialism has begun, namely its rich phase. Our party is the embodiment of one of the most significant socialist movements during this new phase, and we plan to live up to our duties in our revolutionary work."

I have not seen a detailed analysis by the PKK of the Soviet model, but I see their rejection of that model as encouraging. The PKK are a popular group among Turkish Kurds that have gained that support through their struggle for socialism against the horrible oppression and repression faced by both Kurds and women in inside of Turkey. No matter what the position of the PKK on the Soviet Union or anything else, I support the Kurdish right, as an oppressed people, to self-determination.

The Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, were swept to power in a popular revolution that called for an end to the war with Germany, land reform, and socialism. Besides the betterment this revolution meant for the workers and peasants in general, including access to healthcare and education, giant strides forward were made for oppressed nationalities, Jews, women's rights, and gay rights. Before the revolution, under Czarist rule, Jews were routinely slaughtered in the thousands in government-sponsored pogroms. Peasants were the property of feudal landlords, and huge numbers of drafted young peasants were dying in the inter-imperialist war with Germany. This all ended with the Russian Revolution. In addition, gay rights and the right to abortion were legalized for the first time in any country with the birth of the Soviet Union and backward anti-woman practices such as bride-price and forced marriage were made illegal. Priorities were made of literacy and meeting the basic needs of the people. These were huge advances made by a revolution that had inherited a poor economically backward nation, soon to be further devastated by civil war and the invasion of many imperialist armies.

Yet, Rosa Luxemburg, a key leader of the German and international communist movement, while praising the advances made by the Russian Revolution, did not excuse the lack of democracy in the Soviet Union. She saw the Marxist concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in a completely different way than Lenin and Trotsky. She saw this simply as the toiling majority becoming the dictators over the capitalist minority that once held power. For that majority to actually be in charge, however, they would need democratic organs, universal suffrage, and democratic rights. For Lenin and Trotsky, the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" fit more into bourgeois models of individual dictatorship by those in power. As Rosa Luxemburg states in her 1918 work, the “Russian Revolution”:

Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only a bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders with inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule [...] a dictatorship, to be sure, but not dictatorship of the proletariat [...].

A different position by Lenin and Trotsky more in league with that of Rosa Luxemburg would have produced a much better and more open society that would have made Stalin's type of rise to power through skullduggery, corruption, and terror within the ranks of the party much more difficult.

Rosa Luxemburg did not see the question as being counterpoised between bourgeois democracy (democracy for the rich as we have in the United States) on the one hand (defended by "socialists" who had betrayed socialism and become administrators of capitalist exploitation and war), and dictatorial communism on the other. Instead, she rejected both and fought for a socialist society with nationalized industries where the working class has democratic control.

It is this essential banner of democratic revolutionary socialism that is being revived in the struggle for human rights against brutal U.S. backed capitalist dictatorships and other capitalist governments in the struggle for human rights such as language rights, women's rights, medicine, food, clean drinking water, for environmental survival, an end to U.S. imposed wars, and an end to capitalist and imperialist exploitation. Forward in the struggle for democratic revolutionary socialism!

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

News Analysis: The Battle in Bolivia

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:07:25 GMT

I thought that this article was pretty good. Missing is the fact that the nationalization of energy in Bolivia that has taken place under Evo Morales, nationalizations that were demanded by massive militant struggles of the working class, are probably the biggest issue in racist bourgeois and U.S. imperialist opposition to the Morales government. -Steven Argue

******
News Analysis: The Battle in Bolivia
By Roger Burbach, New America Media (12-04-07)
reprinted in the Berkeley Daily Planet (!)

While international attention is focusing on President Hugo Chavez and the Sunday referendum on the Venezuelan constitution, a conflict that is just as profound is shaking Bolivia. Evo Morales, the first Indian president of the country, is forcing a showdown with the oligarchy and the right wing political parties that have stymied efforts to draft a new constitution to transform the nation. He declares, “Dead or alive I will have a new constitution for the country by December 14,” the mandated date for the specially elected Constituent Assembly to present a constitution for the country to vote on by popular referendum.

A violent conflict that left three dead and hundreds injured erupted over the past weekend in the city of Sucre where the Constituent Assembly has been meeting. After more than a year of obstructionism by the right wing parties, Morales’ Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and its allied parties that control 60 percent of the Assembly’s vote, approved the broad outlines of a new constitution designed to alleviate economic inequalities, codify a new agrarian reform program and end the apartheid system that the indigenous population has lived under for centuries.

The “New Left” presidents that have emerged in Latin America in recent years reflect a social insurgence that is challenging the old political leadership and demanding an economic alternative to the neo-liberal policies of Washington that favor foreign interests and the multinational corporations. Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador and even Chilean leaders are carrying out social and economic reforms, although with the possible exception of Ecuador under President Rafael Correa, these reforms are taking place with little or no defiance of their country’s dominant business and financial interests. Upheavals verging on a revolution are taking place in Venezuela and Bolivia.

In Bolivia the upheaval is very different from Venezuela’s in that it is lead by the Indian majority against the historically dominant “k’aras,” meaning whites and mestizos. The opposition to Morales is lead by the eastern city of Santa Cruz where the business elites and the right wing parties exercise political and economic control. In Sucre and some of the other major departmental (state) capitals where the whites and lighter-skinned peoples tend to concentrate, Santa Cruz has recruited allies, particularly among young university students who are acting as shock troops to confront indigenous organizations and members of the Constituent Assembly.

In Sucre, the opposition demanded that the new constitution move the executive and congressional branches of government from La Paz to Sucre, which used to be the center of government until the late 19th century. This was clearly a spoiler strategy that plays heavily to racist sentiments – as La Paz and its nearby sister city of El Alto are at the heart of the country’s majority Indian population that supports Morales and mobilized in 2003 to topple a “k’aras” president in La Paz who murdered Indian demonstrators in the streets.

When the Assembly passed a draft of the new constitution last weekend, the opposition violently took over the streets and all the major public buildings in Sucre using dynamite and Molotov cocktails, demanding the resignation of “the shitty Indian Morales.” Parts of the city were in flames as the Assembly members fled, followed by the police a day later, who had been ordered not to use live ammunition against the mobs.

The right wing and the business organizations in Santa Cruz and allied cities are threatening to declare autonomy and even talking of secession. A special assembly convoked by the Santa Cruz Civic Committee declared that it would only recognize Sucre as the “location of all the powers of the state.” Branko Marinkovic, a major business magnate and the head of the Santa Cruz committee, declares, “The fight has begun for our autonomy and liberty…. ” Along with Santa Cruz, civic committees in five other major departmental capitals are calling for an economic boycott to withhold basic consumer commodities from the market and sow economic chaos. A move is afoot by the Civic Committees to “declare de facto autonomy” on December 14.

A massive mobilization of the Indian population in La Paz and the western highlands is taking place in support of Morales and the new constitution. Even in the eastern departments where the opposition controls the major cities, rural indigenous organizations are on the move, including in the department of Santa Cruz. The leader of Bolivia’s largest peasant workers confederation, Isaác Ávalos, is calling for a blockade of the cities, declaring, “we will seize their lands …if they impose de facto autonomy.”

“We are at a national impasse,” says Miguel Urisote, a political analyst and director of the Land Foundation, an independent research center in La Paz. “The right wing led by the Santa Cruz oligarchy is in open rebellion, but Morales, the Movement Towards Socialism and the popular movements will not back down. The military is supporting the president.

The radical upsurges in Venezuela and Bolivia have very different roots. In Venezuela, where over 80 percent of the population lives in the cities, it is primarily an urban upheaval that predates the rise of Hugo Chavez. In 1989, the “Caracazo” threw the existing political order into crisis when tens of thousands of people from the outlying slums of Caracas descended on the center of the city where the rich lived. The social and economic transformations of the past eight years under the presidency of Chavez have been carried out in tandem with the popular classes. The main battle has centered over the control and distribution of oil revenues, while in Bolivia the struggle over land and the right of the Indians to grow coca plants are major areas of conflict.

While a close rapport exists between Chavez and Morales, the transformations in each country will assume distinct trajectories. They are part of the broader process of social change occurring at different paces and intensities throughout Latin America as the old models of the 20th century and the historic dominance of the United States are disputed.

Roger Burbach is director of the Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA) and a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

New CIA Operation To Overthrow Chavez Exposed

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 17:10:20 GMT

CIA Operation "Pliers" Uncovered in Venezuela

Psyop aims to destabilize Venezuela and overthrow President Chavez

By Eva Golinger
11/29/07 "Global Research," --- - An internal CIA memorandum has been obtained by Venezuelan counterintelligence from the US Embassy in Caracas that reveals a very sinister - almost fantastical, were it not true - plan to destabilize Venezuela during the coming days. The plan, titled "OPERATION PLIERS" was authored by CIA Officer Michael Middleton Steere and was addressed to CIA Director General Michael Hayden in Washington. Steere is stationed at the US Embassy in Caracas under the guise of a Regional Affairs Officer. The internal memorandum, dated November 20, 2007, references the "Advances of the Final Stage of Operation Pliers", and confirms that the operation is coordinated by the team of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) in Venezuela. The memo summarizes the different scenarios that the CIA has been working on in Venezuela for the upcoming referendum vote on December 2nd. The Electoral Scenario, as it's phrased, confirms that the voting tendencies will not change substantially before Sunday, December 2nd, and that the SI (YES) vote in favor of the constitutional reform has an advantage of about 10-13 points over the NO vote. The CIA estimates abstention around 60% and states in the memo that this voting tendency is irreversible before the elections.

Officer Steere emphasizes the importance and success of the public relations and propaganda campaign that the CIA has been funding with more than $8 million during the past month - funds that the CIA confirms are transfered through the USAID contracted company, Development Alternatives, Inc., which set up operations in June 2002 to run the USAID Office for Transition Initiatives that funds and advises opposition NGOs and political parties in Venezuela. The CIA memo specifically refers to these propaganda initiatives as "psychological operations" (PSYOPS), that include contracting polling companies to create fraudulent polls that show the NO vote with an advantage over the SI vote, which is false. The CIA also confirms in the memo that it is working with international press agencies to distort the data and information about the referendum, and that it coordinates in Venezuela with a team of journalists and media organized and directed by the President of Globovision, Alberto Federico Ravell.

CIA Officer Michael Steere recommends to General Michael Hayden two different strategies to work simultaneously: Impede the referendum and refuse to recognize the results once the SI vote wins. Though these strategies appear contradictory, Steere claims that they must be implemented together precisely to encourage activities that aim toward impeding the referendum and at the same time prepare the conditions for a rejection of the results.

How is this to be done?

In the memo, the CIA proposes the following tactics and actions:

Take the streets and protest with violent, disruptive actions across the nation
Generate a climate of ungovernability
Provoke a general uprising in a substantial part of the population
Engage in a "plan to implode" the voting centers on election day by encouraging opposition voters to "VOTE and REMAIN" in their centers to agitate others
Start to release data during the early hours of the afternoon on Sunday that favor the NO vote (in clear violation of election regulations)
Coordinate these activities with Ravell & Globovision and international press agencies
Coordinate with ex-military officers and coupsters Pena Esclusa and Guyon Cellis - this will be done by the Military Attaché for Defense and Army at the US Embassy in Caracas, Office of Defense, Attack and Operations (DAO)

To encourage rejection of the results, the CIA proposes:
Creating an acceptance in the public opinion that the NO vote will win for sure
Using polling companies contracted by the CIA
Criticize and discredit the National Elections Council
Generate a sensation of fraud
Use a team of experts from the universities that will talk about how the data from the Electoral Registry has been manipulated and will build distrust in the voting system
The CIA memo also talks about:
Isolating Chavez in the international community
Trying to achieve unity amongst the opposition
Seek an alliance between those abstentionists and those who will vote "NO"
Sustain firmly the propaganda against Chavez
Execute military actions to support the opposition mobilizations and propagandistic occupations
Finalize the operative preparations on the US military bases in Curacao and Colombia to provide support to actions in Venezuela
Control a part of the country during the next 72-120 hours
Encourage a military rebellion inside the National Guard forces and other components
Those involved in these actions as detailed in the CIA memo are:

The CIA Office in Venezuela - Office of Regional Affairs, and Officer Michael Steere
US Embassy in Venezuela, Ambassador Patrick Duddy
Office of Defense, Attack and Operations (DAO) at the US Embassy in Caracas and Military Attaché Richard Nazario
Venezuelan Political Parties:
Comando Nacional de la Resistencia
Accion Democratica
Primero Justicia
Bandera Roja
Media:

Alberto Federico Ravell & Globovision
Interamerican Press Society (IAPA) or SIP in Spanish
International Press Agencies

Venezuelans:
Pena Esclusa
Guyon Cellis
Dean of the Simon Bolivar University, Rudolph Benjamin Podolski
Dean of the Andres Bello Catholic University, Ugalde
Students: Yon Goicochea, Juan Mejias, Ronel Gaglio, Gabriel Gallo, Ricardo Sanchez

Operation Tenaza has the objective of encouraging an armed insurrection in Venezuela against the government of President Chavez that will justify an intervention of US forces, stationed on the military bases nearby in Curacao and Colombia. The Operation mentions two countries in code: as Blue and Green. These refer to Curacao and Colombia, where the US has operative, active and equipped bases that have been reinforced over the past year and a half in anticipation of a conflict with Venezuela.

The document confirms that psychological operations are the CIA's best and most effective weapon to date against Venezuela, and it will continue its efforts to influence international public opinion regarding President Chavez and the situation in the country.

Operation Tenaza is a very alarming plan that aims to destabilize Venezuela and overthrow (again) its legitimate and democratic (and very popularly support) president. The plan will fail, primarily because it has been discovered, but it must be denounced around the world as an unacceptable violation of Venezuela's sovereignty.

The original document in English will be available in the public sphere soon for viewing and authenticating purposes. And it also contains more information than has been revealed here.

For the full text in Spanish, see: Operación Tenaza: Informe confidencial de la CIA devela plan de saboteo al referéndum del 2 de diciembre http://www.aporrea.org/tiburon/n105390.html

********

[Note: The following article appeared in Issue No. 2367 (Nov. 29 to Dec. 5, 2007) of Informations Ouvrières (Labor News), the publication of the Workers Party of France. The translation is by The Organizer newspaper.]

Venezuela: What's at Stake in the Dec. 2 Referendum?

By ANDREU CAMPS

A referendum on the reforms to the Venezuelan Constitution proposed by President Hugo Chavez will be held Sunday, December 2nd. The reforms involve 33 articles of the Constitution and include such questions as the right of the president to seek re-election, the place and role of communal institutions, the unity of the national territory, and the control by the State of the nation's natural resources.

U.S. imperialism and the Venezuelan oligarchy have been waging a virulent campaign for many months now against Article 230 of the Constitutional Reform, which stipulates: "The term of office of the president is seven years. The president of the Republic can be re-elected for a new term in office." This is a formulation that does not limit the number of terms a president can serve.

These attacks against the Constitutional Reform process are the continuation of an uninterrupted campaign waged by these right-wing forces against Hugo Chavez ever since he took office -- a campaign that includes two attempted coup d'etats (which were defeated by the mass mobilizations of the Venezuelan people), two lockouts imposed by the powerful bosses' federation (Fedecamaras), and an attempt to remove Chavez from office via a binding referendum in August 2005 (an attempt that also was defeated by the uprising of the people).

Again, over the past weeks, we have witnessed multiple armed confrontations in the universities, followed by an open provocation by the King of Spain during the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago [about which we reported in the last issue of our paper].

The People Will Vote for National Sovereignty

No one can doubt that on December 2nd, the Venezuelan workers, youth and people will vote against this new attempt by the reactionary forces to deny them their sovereignty and to overturn a government and president they have freely elected.

They will vote against the attempts by the oligarchy and all the reactionary forces to return Venezuela to its previous role as a servant of Washington.

They will vote to continue the nationalizations, so that their State oil company, PDVSA, does not return to the claws of the imperialist masters, so that the funds generated by the exploitation of the nation's natural resources can continue to benefit the working people and youth of Venezuela.

They will vote for Article 302 of the Constitutional Reform, which states: "The State reserves itself the right -- for reasons of sovereignty, development and national interest -- to exploit the nation's oil and gas resources and to produce and control all services and goods of public interest and strategic character. The State will promote national manufacturing, making use of the raw materials derived from the exploitation of the country's natural resources."

This means that Venezuela will not only be an exporter of raw materials, it will export finished and semi-finished products, including oil-based products.

They will vote so that, according to Article 303, "PDVSA and all its affiliates and concessions can not privatized -- neither fully nor partially."

They will vote, as stipulated in Article 307, to ban all large business interests whose actions are contrary to the social interests of the nation."

They will vote, as stipulated in Article 318, so "that the national monetary system seeks to attain the essential objectives of the socialist State and of the people's well-being, above all other considerations. The Executive Branch and the Central Bank of Venezuela, in full coordination, will set the counry's monetary goals. ... The Central Bank has no autonomy. Its functions are subordinate to the national economic policies and to the Plan of National Development."

This means that Venezuela will reclaim its sovereignty over its Central Bank, which has, up till now, been in reality under the control of the International Monetary Fund.

The mass of the population will vote December 2nd for national sovereignty and for a total break with all forms of subordination to imperialism.

----

Sidebar Article:

Control Over Oil and Gas Resources at the Center of the Constitutional Debate

The current Constitution of Venezuela was adopted through popular consultation in 1999, after the election to a Constituent Assembly in July of that year. The Constituent Assembly was convened after the victory by Chavez in the December 1998 presidential election.

In November 2001, under the implementation provisions of the newly adopted Constitution, the government decreed the full control by the State over PDVSA, the large corporation in charge of oil and gas extraction in Venezuela. This was a corporation that functioned hitherto as a sort of state within a state, with 70 percent of its profits invested in 200 corporations based in the United States.

This affirmation by the Chavez government of the national character of PDVSA was one of the main factors that led the U.S. Embassy, with the support of the Spanish Embassy, to carry out an attempted military coup on April 11, 2002 -- an attempt that was smashed by the revolutionary mobilization of the Venezuelan people.

Since the last election, the Chavez government has forced the multinational corporations that discover new oil fields to become mixed-capital enterprises, with majority ownership and control by PDVSA, thereby reinforcing the role of State in the extraction of the nation's oil resources Up till that point, these oil fields were not under State control.

A large percentage of the proceeds from Venezuela's hydrocarbons, now controlled by the State, can thus be invested in social programs -- called "missions" by the government -- such as education, healthcare, public housing and basic urban infrastructure.

These billions of dollars, no longer in the coffers of the multinational corporations, are now NOT under the aegis of the IMF and World Bank. This is what imperialism finds intolerable. -- A.C.

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 1 reply

Dictators in the Empire's Employ by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:10:00 GMT

Dictators in the Empire's Employ
[col. writ. 11/18/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

With the teeth of the Pakistani dictatorship now bared, we are beginning to see a mirror image of most of U.S. history throughout the last century.

Although perhaps best seen in the vicious wars of Latin America, it is a fact that the U.S. government supported brutal, violent dictatorships on every continent, almost always against popular, and especially workers movements.

Although most Americans would be hard pressed to actually recall the names of 4 U.S. backed dictators of the 20th century, it is a safe bet that the people who tried to survive in those countries will remember them for the rest of their lives.

From Haiti's infamous Duvaliers, to Cuba's Batista, there were no dictators too wretched, too violent, too vicious for the U.S. to support.

There's a good reason why when President Lyndon B. Johnson took the Oval Office after John Kennedy's assassination, he told one of his aides, "We've been running a damned branch of Murder, Inc. in the Caribbean."*

That's because Washington was essentially internationalizing its program of repression and McCarthyism, according to at least one Latin American country. Scholar (and former diplomat) Clara Nieto wrote, in her remarkable 2003 work, Masters of War, the story of how the U.S. got almost the entire continent to go its way:

At the Tenth Inter-American Conference requested by {former State Dept. chief John} Dulles and held in Caracas in 1954, he easily persuaded the meeting to adopt a declaration condemning international communism and advocating hemispheric solidarity and mutual defense against "Communist aggression." The chancellor of Guatemala, Guillermo Toriella, warned that on "the pretext of combating Communism, fundamental principles of democracy can be contravened, violations of human rights justified, and the principle of non-intervention infringed upon." The declaration, he argued was "the internationalization of McCarthyism." The majority - all dictatorships - supported it; Argentina (under Peron) voted against it and Mexico abstained. Costa Rica did not attend the meeting, since Jose Figueres refused to participate in this "assembly of dictators in a country governed by the most brutal and corrupt of them all, General Perez Jimenez" {C. Nieto, pp.138-139}.

Thus, generations were subjected to the terrorism of their own governments, their own armies, paid, and trained by the Americans. These U.S. trained terrorists launched wars against their own people; students, teachers, trade unionists, writers, intellectuals, priests, Indians, and beyond.

Yet, that was then. What now?

Despite all the gas and rap about "freedom", "democracy", and the like, the U.S. is, once again, depending on a dictator who has essentially shut down the Supreme Court, whipped lawyers in the streets, waged fraudulent elections, exiled his political opponents, and ruled with an iron fist. The differences between Burma and Pakistan could be measured in inches.

Yet, none of this really matters to the White House. What matters is what has always mattered. That the dictator do the bidding of his imperial masters - the people be damned.

There's a reason why Latin America has elected predominantly anti American governments in the past decade, and it had nothing to do with the easy media fiction that Hugo Chavez made them do it. For millions of people, they remember the so called 'secret wars' waged by armed puppets of the Americans-and they want no more of it.

Dictatorship 2 -- Democracy 0.

--(c) '07 maj

*[Source: Nieto, Clara, Masters of War: Latin America and the U.S. Aggression (From the Cuban Revolution Through the Clinton Years) {New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003} ]

*********
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States, framed and in prison, with what could be the final decision on his legal appeals possibly coming down soon. That decision could give Mumia his freedom, a new trial, life in prison, or execution. It is time to turn up the heat against this injustice.

Free Mumia!

For more on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal read:

Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked
(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07/19/18436405.php

Subscribe to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

40 years after Che's death, his image is a battleground

djapollo2k — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 01:42:13 GMT

International Herald Tribune
40 years after Che's death, his image is a battleground
By Marc Lacey
Monday, October 8, 2007

SANTA CLARA, Cuba: Aledia Guevara March, the 46-year-old daughter of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, says she can bear the Che T-shirts, the Che key chains, the Che postcards and Che paintings sold all over Cuba, not to mention the world.

At least some of the purchasers truly cherish Che, she says. On Monday she was surrounded by thousands of Che fans wearing his image here in Santa Clara, where her father's remains are kept, and where she sat in the front row of a ceremony to mark the 40th anniversary of his death.

Acting President Raúl Castro attended. A message was read from his older brother Fidel, who ceded power in August 2006 after emergency surgery, likening his former comrade in arms to "a flower that was plucked from his stem prematurely." But amid all the ceremony, what really gets to Guevara is the use of the man she calls "Poppy" in ways that she says are completely removed from his revolutionary ideals, like when a designer recently put Che on a bikini.

In fact, 40 years after his death Che is as much a marketing tool as an international revolutionary icon. Which raises the question of what exactly does the sheer proliferation of his image - the distant gaze, the scraggly beard and the beret adorned with a star - mean in a decidedly capitalist world? Even in Cuba, one of the world's last communist bastions, Che is used to make both a buck and a point. "He sells," said a Cuban shop clerk, who had Che after Che starring down from a wall full of T-shirts.

But at least here he is also used to inspire the next generation of Cubans, brought up in classes dealing with everything from medicine to economics to political science. Schoolchildren invoke his name every morning, declaring with a salute, "We want to be like Che." His quotations are recited almost as often as those of his revolutionary comrade in arms, Fidel Castro.

"Che is part of all our thinking," said Juan Vela Valdés, the Cuban minister of higher education, who introduced a concentration in Che while he was rector at the University of Havana.

A movie showed at Santa Clara University on the eve of Monday's ceremony went so far as to compare Che to Jesus, both in appearance and in ideals.

But Che's mythic status as a homegrown revolutionary does not extend everywhere, even if his image does. When Target stores in the United States put his image on a CD carrying case last year, critics who consider him a murderer and symbol of totalitarianism pressured the retailer to pull the item.

http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=7806519

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Other people wname

Guy — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:13:29 GMT

quite a bit

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Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked (Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 04:25:35 GMT

Top Ten “Fry Mumia” Myths Debunked
(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

By Steven Argue

The following is the first in a series of ten articles I have written answering the top ten myths being circulated by those who advocate execution or continued prison for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

(Myth #1) “Five eyewitnesses saw Mumia shoot officer Faulkner.”

In the preliminary hearings, Mumia made requests for a line-up. This is not the kind of move one does if they are guilty. Part of Mumia’s reasoning was that eyewitnesses that were lying would have a harder time with their conscience if they actually saw him in the flesh.

Interestingly enough, the prosecution didn’t want a line-up and argued their point saying that none of the witnesses had actually seen Mumia shoot Faulkner. Judge Sabo denied the line-ups on these grounds. Yet two “eyewitnesses”, Cynthia White and Robert Chobert, did claim they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner, so Mumia was unfairly denied a line-up.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number One…
Prosecution Star Witness Cynthia White

Despite the false claims by the prosecution used to deny a line-up, Cynthia White did testify that she saw Mumia with a gun in his hand, that she saw him shoot Faulkner twice in the back, and that she saw Mumia standing over Faulkner as shots were being fired. Overwhelming physical and eyewitness evidence proves that this was perjured testimony.

The prosecution’s version of events, largely dependent on White’s testimony, claims that Mumia stood over Faulkner repeatedly shooting and missing until he hit Faulkner’s head. Yet the physical evidence says this is not true. No divots or marks were left on the sidewalk from these missed shots. Later articles will explore this and other physical evidence further.

As a prosecution witness, Cynthia White gave two extremely different versions of events at two different trials. One version was given at William Cook’s trial, and a differing version at Mumia’s trial. At Cook’s trial she said there was a passenger in Cook’s VW. At Mumia’s trial she claimed there was no passenger.

In the case of Mumia, eyewitnesses have said that the passenger in Cook’s VW was one of the actual killers. Yet Mumia was not riding in the VW and the prosecution claims that Mumia was the lone killer. So in Mumia’s trial, it was useful for the prosecution to disappear the passenger from the testimony, despite White’s other testimony that there was a passenger. These two differing versions, obviously including perjured testimony, were cynically used by prosecutors to fit differing prosecutions.

There is also physical evidence of a passenger in the VW, evidence that was illegally suppressed by the prosecution for 13 years. That evidence was an ID found on the body of Officer Faulkner. It was in the name of Arnold Howard. As a result of this evidence, Arnold Howard was arrested by the police and tested to see if he had fired a gun the night of the shooting. Arnold Howard told the police that he had loaned his ID to Kenneth Freeman. (Transcript for August 11, 1995, pp. 130-131.)

In addition, Arnold Howard testified at that post conviction hearing that Kenneth Freeman was also arrested that night, and that Howard personally witnessed a woman picking Freeman out of a line-up. Like Arnold Howard’s ID, police reports of this arrest and line-up of Kenneth Freeman have also apparently been suppressed, but in this case have never been released.

The VW driver, William Cook, also placed Kenneth Freeman as the passenger in the VW. In Cook’s signed declaration of what happened he also says Freeman was carrying a .38 that night. Cook went on to say, in that declaration, that after the shooting,

“Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] talked about a plan to kill Faulkner. He told me that he was armed on that night and participated in the shooting. He was connected and knew all kinds of people. I used to ask him about it but he talked but never said much. He wasn't a talker. I didn't see Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] for a while after that. Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] had been in Germany in the army. That night he was wearing his green army jacket.”

Eyewitness William Singletary says that a man in a green army jacket got out of the VW, shot Faulkner, and ran. Mumia Abu-Jamal was not wearing an army jacket that night and not riding in the VW. Nor did Mumia run away, he was shot and ran nowhere. The jacket Mumia was wearing is in evidence and it is a red quilted ski jacket with a couple blue stripes. Nor was William Cook, the driver of the VW, wearing a green army jacket.

The prosecution’s version of events denies anyone on the scene wearing a green army jacket. Besides Singletary and Cook, five other eyewitnesses also put a man in a green army jacket on the scene. These were stake out Officer Forbes (the putative first officer to arrive), Officer Stephen Trembetta, Robert Magiltan, Michael Scanlan, and Arnold Beverly, who has confessed to being one of two people that killed Faulkner. Beverly states in his confession that he was also wearing a green army jacket that night as well.

In addition, the prosecution’s version of events denies anyone running from the scene.
Six eyewitnesses contradict this by saying they saw men running from the scene. These would have been the real shooter or shooters. Those eyewitnesses are Dessie Hightower, William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, Arnold Beverly, and William Cook.

So the prosecution’s star witness testified for the prosecution that there was a passenger at Cook’s trial, and said there was no passenger at Mumia’s trial. Eyewitness testimony and physical evidence suppressed by the prosecution shows there was a passenger wearing a green army jacket that shot Faulkner and ran. That passenger, Kenneth Freeman, murdered Officer Faulkner either by himself or with the help of Arnold Beverly. On May 14, 1985, according to the testimony of Arnold Howard, Kenneth Freeman’s naked corpse was found outside in the cold handcuffed. No investigation was carried out on Freeman’s death and the coroner reported the cause of death to be a heart attack.

So it is established, with her contradictory stories, that Cynthia White was not telling the truth. This would be bad enough. But, in fact, none of the nine eyewitnesses that testified at the trial and subsequent hearings can remember seeing Cynthia White at the immediate scene at all. None, this includes the other prosecution witnesses.

William Singletary states that he saw her earlier down the street. When he saw her she said, “Hey, how you doing? It's cold out here.” Then noticing his car she said “a brand-new Cadillac Eldorado, 1982 model, wow, that's a great car! You ain't that bad-looking either. But I don't date black guys.” To which Singletary says he responded, “And I don't date prostitutes.” Singletary says that she then walked down the street and didn’t actually see the shooting. ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

In fact, Cynthia White confessed to both Pamela Jenkins and Yvette Williams that she did not see the shooting and that the police put the screws to her to lie. In addition, a mountain of testimony shows a clear pattern by the police to try to get similar perjured testimony from other people.

In a hearing after the trial Pamela Jenkins testified, “I know that Cynthia White worked as a prostitute in the Center City area, specifically at Locust and 13th Street, during 1980 and 1981, and that she was a prostitute, police informant, and turned tricks for the police officers in the district.”

If in fact Cynthia White was a police informant, and this information was withheld from the defense by the prosecution, that alone would be legal grounds for a new trial, but it gets much worse.

Jenkins testified at hearings in 1997 that Police Officer Thomas Ryan tried to make her testify that she saw Mumia shoot Officer Faulkner at the original trial, even though she was not at the scene of the shooting. Jenkins, 15 and a prostitute, was the girlfriend of Officer Ryan at that time. She also testified that she worked both as a prostitute for police and as a police informant for the corrupt Center City Police.

Jenkins also testified that Cynthia White told her in late 1981 that she was also being pressured to testify against Mumia, and that White was afraid for her life.

In a signed affidavit Jenkins states,

“Tom Ryan, Richard Ryan and other police officers pressured me and asked me if I had seen the shooting of the police officer and whether I had been in the area of the shooting that night. When I said 'no' they pressured (me) some more and asked me was I really sure that I hadn't been on the street that night and seen the shooting. It was clear to me that Tom Ryan and Richard Ryan wanted me to perjure myself and say that I had seen Jamal shoot the police officer."

Despite showing a clear intention by the police to frame Mumia, no jury has been allowed to hear Jenkins’ testimony in Mumia’s case. Not only is Pamela Jenkin's testimony essential evidence of a deliberate police conspiracy to frame Mumia by manufacturing perjured evidence, it also helps to destroy the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness, Cynthia White.

Jenkins' credibility has, however, been bolstered by the fact that she was a key witness used to unravel the massive police corruption in Center City District. Her testimony was instrumental in reversing the decisions of hundreds of cases and helped lead to the removal of the entire team of cops that led the “investigation” of Mumia’s case due to their corruption and mob connections.

Other eyewitnesses have said the same thing as Jenkins. In a signed affidavit Yvette Williams has stated,

“I was in jail with Cynthia White in December of 1981 after Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. Cynthia White told me the police were making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal shoot Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who did it.”

Later in the Affidavit Yvette Williams states,

“When Lucky [Cynthia White] told me she didn’t even see who shot Officer Faulkner, I asked her why she was “lying on that man” [Mumia Abu-Jamal]. She told me it was because for the police and vice threatened her life. Additionally, the police were giving her money for tricks. “The way she talked, we were talking “G’s” [$1,000.00]. She also said she was terrified of what the police would do to her if she didn’t say that Mumia shot Officer Faulkner. According to Lucky, the police told her they would consolidate all her cases and send her “up” (Muncy), a women’s prison, for a long time if she didn’t testify to what they told her to say. Lucky told me she had a lot of open cases and out-of-state warrants and was scared of going to Muncy. She was scared that her pimp “would get pissed off” at all the money he was losing when she was locked up, and off the street. She was afraid that when she got out he would beat her up or kill her.”

According to legal papers filed by the defense,

“in the days after the shooting, [White] was arrested at least twice for prostitution. Her picture was posted in the 6th District with instructions for arresting officers to 'Contact Homicide'. Each time police picked White up and took her statement, she revised her story [on Faulkner's shooting]. Without explanation, bench warrants against her were not prosecuted.”

Pamela Jenkins has publicly asked Cynthia White to tell the truth stating:

“We know we can bring this down to a nutshell if you just come forward. We've all lost a lot by coming forward, I've lost somebody I love dearly... Just do it this one time, one favor, that's not asking a lot. Then maybe you can clean up your past, like the rest of us are doing.”

The prosecution does seem to be afraid of Cynthia White coming forward to tell the truth, and have presented false testimony of evidence that she is dead. In a hearing in Judge Sabo’s court, a Philadelphia police detective testified that the FBI had "authenticated" that a corpse had the same fingerprints as White. Yet the fingerprints the DA withheld at that time, and later finally produced for the now cremated corpse, don’t match the fingerprints of Cynthia White.

Cynthia White’s own mother stated that the same corpse was not Cynthia White. Other eyewitnesses, that the defense attempted to have testify, testimony denied by Sabo, had seen Cynthia White alive and walking around during the time she was supposed to be dead. Yet instead of hearing defense witnesses that stated that Cynthia White was alive, the only testimony Sabo would allow was the false testimony of the Philadelphia detective claiming “authenticated” fingerprints. Sabo snapped, “As far as I’m concerned she’s dead. I’m making a ruling. We’re finished.” Evidence has never meant much in Judge Sabo’s court, if the prosecution says she’s dead, she’s dead.

So the evidence on Cynthia White shows that she could not have seen the shooting; that Mumia was wrongly denied his right to a line-up; that the police intimidated White and others to testify against Mumia; that the police that “investigated” Mumia have been kicked off the force for corruption; that Cynthia White had a motive to lie; that the police possibly withheld information that Cynthia White was a police informant; that the DA illegally withheld physical evidence for 13 years that showed that White’s testimony was perjured and that showed that Mumia did not commit the crime; that the DA knowingly used testimony from White that was perjured; and that claims of the prosecution and police were accepted without evidence or witness rebuttal in Judge Sabo’s court.

Essential Eyewitnesses Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number One, Pamela Jenkins

I include Pamela Jenkins in this list, not because the “fry Mumia” camp includes her among the eyewitnesses that supposedly saw Mumia kill Faulkner, but because they don’t, and why they don’t. As was shown in the section on Cynthia White, the police tried to pressure here into testifying that she saw Mumia kill Faulkner, even though Jenkins was not at the scene of the shooting, but Jenkins refused to do it. The honesty of Jenkins is the only reason why the prosecution did not use her, and this also why she is not mentioned in the “fry Mumia” literature as seeing Mumia shoot Faulkner.

Essential Eyewitnesses Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Two, Veronica Jones

Veronica Jones also is not mentioned in the fry Mumia literature, but she is also a very important eyewitness. Jones, while being called by the defense in 1982, testified for the police and prosecution.

Before the trial, Veronica Jones gave a completely different version of events than was contained in an earlier police report. In her original version of events, contained in a report she gave to police, Veronica Jones said she saw two men running from the scene. Yet at the trial the two men running were missing from her testimony. This came as a complete surprise to the defense because Mumia’s supposed attorney, Anthony Jackson, did not even bother to interview witnesses before the trial. Earlier in the trial Mumia was denied his legal rights when his attempt to fire Anthony Jackson was denied by Judge Sabo.

Jones retracted her 1982 court testimony in 1996, saying that her original police report was the truth, and that she was coerced by the police into saying she didn’t see anybody running from the scene. She gave this testimony despite being forcefully reminded by Judge Sabo that her testimony could be seen as an admission of perjury and could land her seven years in prison. She was in fact arrested from the witness stand, but for a bounced check from a different state, being served with an insufficient warrant by out of state New Jersey State Troopers.

Despite the police harassment, and a review of her entire criminal history on the witness stand, including her life as a prostitute, Jones brought her children to court to learn from her mistakes. She explained that she was relieved to be setting things straight because what she did to Mumia with her false testimony had been eating her up inside over all those years.

On the stand, admitting to perjury, Jones explained that she was awaiting trial for an unrelated robbery charge in 1982 when police detectives approached her in her cell offering to give her a deal by changing her story as a witness in Mumia’s case. She had originally stated that she heard two shots, looked around the corner, and saw two men running from the scene. The two men running fit the version of William Singletary where he saw someone else shoot Mumia and run, but it didn’t fit the police/prosecution story being woven against Mumia. Mumia was unable to run because he was shot.

She explained that the deal offered by the police was that she could go to prison for five to ten years and loose custody of her two young children or she could get out of the predicament by lying for the police saying that nobody was running from the scene.

Despite the importance of the testimony of Veronica Jones in Mumia’s case, both in corroborating eyewitnesses that say the actual killer or killers ran from the scene, and as another witness testifying to a clear pattern of police intimidation to acquire falsified testimony, Sabo ruled in 1996 against her testimony being heard by a new jury trial.

Likewise, in the original trial, Sabo ruled in favor of prosecution objections when Veronica Jones was already admitting to being the target of the police in their attempts at gaining false testimony:

"I had got locked up [together with other prostitutes] I think it was in January [1982]. […] I think sometime after that incident. They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it, intentionally. They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn’t do that."

As Jackson continued this questioning Veronica Jones said, “we had brought up Cynthia [White]’s name and they told us we can work the area [as prostitutes] if we tell them [what the police wanted to hear].” At this point Judge Sabo ruled in favor of prosecutor McGill’s objections and would only allow further questions of Veronica Jones on what she saw the night of the shooting. As from the beginning of the trial, ruling after ruling has declared, police misconduct is not open to scrutiny and a court of law is no place for evidence of Mumia’s innocence.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Two, Michael Scanlon

The use of Michael Scanlon’s name in “fry Mumia” literature as a witness to Mumia committing the murder is nothing but the purest cynicism. Michael Scanlon did not identify Mumia as the person who shot Faulkner, and could not say that the person he saw shoot Faulkner was Mumia. At the trial, when asked by prosecutor Mcgill, “Are you able to identify anybody, either the driver, or the man who ran over and shot the police officer?” Scanlon replied, “No, sir.” (trial transcript, 6/25/82).

Michael Scanlon’s testimony actually puts further holes in the prosecution’s story by placing someone in a green army jacket in the immediate scene of the shooting around the VW. According to the prosecution only Mumia, Cook, and Faulkner were present at this location, but the evidence shows that one or two people were present wearing green army jackets that killed Faulkner before Mumia arrived. The jackets Mumia and Cook were wearing are in evidence and they do not resemble green army jackets.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Three, Albert Magiltan

Like Scanlon, Magiltan is used in the “fry Mumia” literature as a witness to Mumia committing the murder, and like Scanlan, Magilton did not identify Mumia as the person who shot Faulkner. When Magiltan was asked at the trial, "you don't know who fired the shot at him, do you?" Albert Magiltan responded, "I never said I did, no." (trial transcript, 6/25/82). Magiltan didn’t even see the shooting.

Magilton did, however, report to defense investigators that he saw a person run from the parking lot wearing a green army jacket. This fits the confession of Arnold Beverly, who says he ran out from the parking lot, wearing a green army jacket, to shoot Faulkner.

Essential Eyewitness Ignored By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Three, Police Officer Stephen Trombetta

Police Officer Stephen Trombetta reported that the suspect was wearing a green army jacket as opposed to Mumia’s red and blue ski jacket.

In addition, Trombetta rode with Mumia in the van to the hospital. Inspector Alfonso Giordano, the senior officer on the scene in charge of the Mumia “investigation”, reported that on that van ride Mumia had confessed to shooting Faulkner. Giordano was removed from the Philadelphia Police and prosecuted for corruption immediately after Mumia’s trial. P.O. Trembetta was with Mumia during that entire van ride and, in direct contradiction to Giordano’s claim of a confession, reported that Mumia made no comment.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Four, William Singletary

While William Singletary did sign a statement saying that Mumia did it, he later stated that he signed that statement under the duress of police threats. Of that statement he says, “That's what they made me say, I stayed in there [in a police interrogation room] from 4:30 to 9:30 a.m. and when I left, I felt like I had been raped.”

William Singletary has since stated, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen got out of the car and shot him [Faulkner]. When Mumia came on the scene, we [Singletary and another man] were on the police radio trying to radio for help." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

Despite signing the statement, Singletary refused to lie for the police during the trial. Yet the “fry Mumia” camp often cite Singletary as an eyewitness against Mumia stating that his statement (that he says the police typed up and told him to sign) was so similar to those of the other “eyewitnesses” that his first signed statement had to be the truth and that what Singletary has been insisting for the past 25 years is a lie.

Singletary says that he is willing to take a lie detector test, but he is afraid of coming to Philadelphia. He says the Philadelphia police harassed his business to the point that it went under while also threatening him and warning him to get out of town. He did eventually move to North Carolina and says, “I'm not coming to Philadelphia unless y'all got Wells Fargo and Lords of London" for protection.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Four, Robert Chobert

In his initial report taken by Inspector Alfonzo Giordono, five minutes after the shooting, Robert Chobert stated that the man that shot Mumia ran away. Mumia, who was shot at the scene, never did any running.

Later, Robert Chobert changed his story to that of the prosecution. The shooter no longer was running away and the jury was never allowed to hear Chobert’s original report.

Robert Chobert, a convicted arsonist that was driving on a suspended license and was on felony probation at the time of the shooting, has also recanted his testimony according to a sworn statement by Mark Newman.

At the time of Mumia’s trial, Chobert was on felony probation for the firebombing of a school. Revocation of that probation could have meant over 20 years in prison. Chobert was in fact violating that probation by unlawfully driving his taxi on a suspended license that night. Thus, Chobert would have been easily manipulated by the police and/or by the prosecution.

Under penalty of perjury, Mark Newman stated in a signed affidavit that, “Chobert told me that he did not see anyone standing over a prone Officer Faulkner, firing shots at the officer. Chobert said that what actually happened was that he was sitting in his taxi when he heard gunfire.” And that he did not actually see the shooting.

According to that signed affidavit of Mark Newman, Chobert didn't see Mumia shoot Faulkner, wasn't parked behind Faulkner as he said he was at the trial, and that Chobert gave the police that false testimony they wanted to avoid having his parole revoked.

Physical evidence, as well as eyewitness testimony, proves that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner's as Chobert claimed in court. This evidence includes 31 recently released photos taken by photojournalist Pedro Polakoff just minutes after the shooting. These photos clearly show that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner’s police car as Chobert had claimed in court.

This corroborates the testimony of Mark Newman when he states, "Chobert told me that on December 9, 1981, he had actually been parked, in his taxi, on 13th Street, north of Locust (contradicting his trial testimony that he was parked behind Officer Faulkner's police car on Locust St., east of 13th Street.)" This is also relevant to Chobert not having the vantage for seeing the shooting.

Newman’s testimony is also corroborated by Chobert’s legal troubles and a clear pattern by the police to offer similar deals to other witnesses including three eyewitnesses, Pamela Jenkins, William Singletary, and Veronica Jones, stating publicly, and Cynthia White also stating privately, that they were coerced, threatened, or otherwise offered deals by the cops to give false testimony.

The police officer that got the “identification” of Mumia from Robert Chobert was Alfonzo Giordano. In the original police report that has the shooter running from the scene, Robert Chobert is said by Giordano to say it was the guy from MOVE that did it. Giordano was removed from the force and prosecuted for corruption related to the mob, a corruption probe that turned over many other police/prosecution convictions. In addition, Giordano had been involved in political operations against Philadelphia MOVE and the Black Panther Party. As such, Giordano would have instantly recognized Mumia, a former Black Panther and an independent journalist that had exposed police wrong doing against MOVE.

In a revealing set of moves Giordano was never called as a witness at Mumia’s trial. This despite Giordano providing testimony at Mumia’s preliminary hearing of a “confession” in the van, despite his being the senior officer at the scene, despite his supposed firsthand identification of a witness, and despite his testimony of finding the “murder weapon”. During the trial Giordano was removed from active duty and assigned to a desk. The first working day after the trial was over Giordano resigned from the Philadelphia police force. In 1986 Giordano copped a plea on federal charges based on receiving tens of thousands of dollars in illegal payoffs during the 1979-80 period but didn’t spend any time in jail.

In addition to Giordono’s corruption, under racist Police Chief Frank Rizzo, Giordono was in charge of the Stake Out Unit of the Philadelphia Police that carried out repression against the Black Panther Party from 1968 –1970. Giordono also played a supervisory role in the 1977-78 police barricade and attack on the MOVE organization under Mayor Frank Rizzo. That police attack had followed earlier murders by the Philadelphia police of MOVE members and followed a long starvation blockade by the Philadelphia Police against the MOVE headquarters. In the police attack two MOVE members were shot, nine MOVE members were framed by the Philadelphia Police, MOVE children were stolen, and, as film footage shows, Delbert Africa was kicked and stomped by the police as he lay on the ground. In addition, Officer Ramp was shot and killed.

While nine MOVE members were railroaded to prison for the death of Officer Ramp, the evidence does not fit. The one bullet that killed Ramp came from behind and had a downward trajectory. Yet Ramp was facing the MOVE headquarters where MOVE members were in the basement and any bullets would have had an upward trajectory and hit him from in front.

Presiding over the kangaroo court that convicted the MOVE 9 was Judge Malmed. Shortly after the trial and conviction of the MOVE 9, Mumia, as an independent journalist, called in to a talk radio show where he asked Judge Malmed, “Who shot James Ramp?” Judge Malmed honestly answered, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

In the attack on MOVE the police and Mayor Rizzo claimed that the first shots came from the MOVE headquarters, but the independent eyewitnesses including a number of journalists present, confirm what MOVE members and the physical evidence says, that the first shot came from across the street and not from the MOVE headquarters.

At Mayor Frank Rizzo’s victory press conference on the 1978 police attack, Frank Rizzo directly threatened Mumia Abu-Jamal when Mumia asked him a question. Mumia was present as a freelance journalist and asked the gloating Rizzo, “What about the brutality?” Instead of answering Mumia’s question Rizzo responded angrily with a threat: “They believe what you write, and what you say, and it's got to stop. And one day, and I hope it's in my career, that you're going to have to be held responsible and accountable for what you do.”

In addition to commanding this attack against MOVE, Giordono, earlier, then under Police Chief Rizzo, carried out surveillance of leftists including the Black Panther Party.

With Mumia having been a former member of the Black Panther Party and a high profile critic of police actions against MOVE, there is no question that officer Giordono would have instantly recognized Mumia at the crime scene. This would be one of the motives for Giordono to want to falsify testimony and other evidence to pin the murder on Mumia.

A number of other well-known political frame-ups have occurred in the United States. The prosecution of Mumia fits the pattern of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program against the Black Panther Party, where local law enforcement worked with the FBI in murdering some BPP leaders in cold blood, such as Fred Hampton in Chicago, and knowingly framed and prosecuted other innocent BPP members, such as Geronimo ji Jagga in LA who spent 30 years in prison before he was exonerated of the false charges against him and freed.

A possible additional motive for framing Mumia can be found in the confession of Arnold Beverly. Beverly stated, “I was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the center city area.”

Things that Beverly said are corroborated by, among other things, police corruption, three separate FBI investigations of police corruption in the Center City area at the time, evidence of fear that Faulkner was an FBI informant, evidence that Faulkner was an FBI informant, and the murder of other witnesses involved in cases against the Center City Police at that time. One of those murders was of Bertram Schlein, an eyewitness that testified against Central Division Chief John DeBenedetto. A suspect in that murder was Kenneth Schwartz, a former police officer and reported associate of Inspector Alfonzo Giordono.

A former Philadelphia Police Officer turned mob hit man, Ronald Previte, has testified as government informant on mob killings. Previte stated that during his ten years as a Philadelphia cop he “learned more about being a crook” than any other time in his life.

If the police were in fact involved in the murder of Police Officer Faulkner, this would mean that they would not be interested in finding the actual killer. They would want to pin the murder on someone else, and who better in the eyes of Giordano than his journalistic critic, Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Whatever the exact motive or motives, the mountain of police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct in this case proves that the criminal “justice” system both had (and has) no interest in finding the real killer or killers while at the same time desiring to execute an innocent man.

It is funny that when presented with this evidence, “fry Mumia” fanatics counter that if it was indeed a frame-up, why was it so sloppy. Why would Giordano have included that the shooter was running away in his original report? The irony is that if the frame-up wasn’t so sloppy we’d be asked why the case is so airtight. Yet I think that answers to the question of why there are so many loose ends lies in the fact that the police were accustomed to being sloppy and getting away with it. Even though the truth of the shooter running away was included in the original report, this was no problem for the police or prosecution, since the judge did not allow the original report into court anyway. All that was allowed was the lie that Chobert saw the shooting and that it was Mumia that did it.

The deeper irony is that when the “fry Mumia” fanatics admit that there are so many loose ends, they are admitting that Mumia is innocent by the essential legal standard of “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Five, Dessie Hightower

College student Dessie Hightower saw someone running from the scene. This is what Hightower told police 80 minutes after the shooting, and Dessie Hightower has never changed his story. Hightower’s report of one or more people running is the same as eyewitnesses William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, Arnold Beverly, and William Cook. This corroborates William Cook when he said, “Freeman ran from the scene after Officer Faulkner was shot”. It also corroborates William Singletary when he says, “The passenger [Freeman] in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen got out of the car and shot him [Faulkner]” and ran. Hightower also said that he saw no gun in Mumia’s hand.

Supposed Witness To Mumia Shooting Faulkner Number Five, Robert Harkins

Harkins was not seen as a credible witness by the prosecution at the trial. Harkins was never called to testify at the trial against Mumia by the prosecution. Yet in “fry Mumia” literature the name of Robert Harkins has begun to occasionally pop up as an additional supposed eyewitness to Mumia shooting Faulkner. Like other supposed eyewitnesses of the “fry Mumia” crowd that “saw Mumia shoot Faulkner”, Harkins did not identify Mumia as the shooter.

The Harkins testimony is at odds with the physical evidence and that of all of the other eyewitnesses, including prosecution witnesses. Harkins, a known child molester, could have easily been manipulated by the police and prosecution, as was done with other eyewitnesses. If so, the police and prosecution succeeded in destroying a potential defense witness, but did not produce a useful witness for their frame-up.

Essential Eyewitness Despised By “Fry Mumia” Fanatics Number Six, Terri Maurer-Carter

Terri Maurer-Carter, an official court stenographer in the courts where Mumia was framed, has come forward stating in a signed affidavit,

“Judge Sabo and another person were engaged in conversation. Judge Sabo was discussing the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. During the course of that conversation, I heard Judge Sabo say, ‘Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger.’ There were three people present when Judge Sabo made that remark, including myself.”

These words Maurer-Carter heard from Sabo sum up the blatant nature of the racist and political crime carried out by Sabo, the prosecution, and the police against Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Conclusion

There are a large number of other important eyewitnesses that will be looked at in future articles, but let us review a few key points of what has already been established.

“Fry Mumia” fanatics claim that Mumia shot Faulkner. Yet, not a single eyewitness saw Mumia shoot Faulkner. Cynthia White and Robert Chobert claimed they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner, but neither saw the shooting. Michael Scanlon, Robert Harkins, and Robert Magiltan, despite “fry Mumia” lies, never claimed they saw Mumia shoot Faulkner.

Four eyewitnesses say in no uncertain terms that Mumia did not shoot Faulkner. These are William Singletary, William Cook, Arnold Beverly, and Mumia Abu Jamal.

Five eyewitnesses contradict the prosecution’s version of events by saying they saw men running from the scene. These would have been the real shooters or shooter. Those eyewitnesses are Dessie Hightower, William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, and William Cook. The prosecution version of events denies anyone running from the scene.

Five eyewitnesses have stated that they were threatened, coerced, or otherwise offered favors for testimony against Mumia. These are Veronica Jones, William Singletary, Pamela Jenkins, Cynthia White, and Robert Chobert.

The prosecution’s version of events denies anyone on the scene wearing a green army jacket. Yet all evidence points to one or two men on the scene wearing green army jackets shooting Faulkner. Seven eyewitnesses saw a green army jacket. Those that saw green army-jackets were William Singletary, William Cook, stake out Officer Forbes (the putative first officer to arrive), Officer Stephen Trembetta, Michael Scanlan, Robert Magiltan, and Arnold Beverly.

Kenneth Freeman, the real killer, or one of the real killers, was linked to the crime scene by physical evidence that was illegally suppressed by the prosecution for 13 years.

Not only did nobody see Mumia shoot Faulkner, the body of evidence shows overwhelming prosecutorial, police, and judicial misconduct pointing to a clear frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and backing Mumia’s claim that he is innocent.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States, with what could be the final decision on his legal appeals possibly coming down this summer. That decision could give Mumia his freedom, life in prison, or execution. It is time to turn up the heat against this injustice. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!

This is the first in a series of ten articles on the top ten “fry Mumia” myths that will be published at Liberation News.

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Copyright Liberation News, noncommercial verbatim distribution of this article in its entirety, including this notice, is allowed without special permission. Publication in any commercial form may require payment and requires special permission.

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Estelle — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:28:49 GMT

Their music provides the energy to lyrics that Che himself would be proud of, and they know their history! Estelle Langis, Arcadia

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 3 replies

Beyond Rightist Lies, The Real Legacy of Che Guevara

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:41:56 GMT

Beyond Rightist Lies, The Real Legacy of Che Guevara

By Steven Argue

I posted the following response at the “Activists” site in defense of the legacy of Che Guevara. A series of writings have been posted in opposition to Liberation News at that site.
http://allactivists.tribe.net/thread/95ca19a9-4594-4204-95c2-88cd31a8c00e

And Glen the troll strikes again. On another site he was blaming "progressives" for homelessness and public urination. In reality it is capitalism that causes homelessness.

Here Glen makes the absurd statement, "I'm sure all those peasants Che murdered were happy for the help."

Che never murdered any peasants, but he did save a lot of their lives. He started out as a doctor traveling throughout Latin America, giving medical care to the poor.

Che Guevara was in Guatemala as a doctor in 1954 when the CIA overthrew the Democratically elected Arbenz government. That government was seen as a threat to the profits of the Rockefeller family's United Fruit Company because Arbenz advocated land reform. So U.S. imperialism overthrew Arbenz and put a long series of military dictatorships in power that tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of peasants and kept the people in extreme poverty. At the time of the CIA intervention in Guatemala, Che advocated that Arbenz should arm the people to resist, but Arbenz was not a revolutionary socialist and refusing to arm the people was his downfall.

Later Che was in Mexico when he met a dissident in exile, exiled by the U.S. backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba. The name of that young dissident was Fidel Castro. The Batista dictatorship had murdered tens of thousands of people, many of them student activists.

Castro and Che and a number of other Cuban revolutionaries set out in a boat called the Granma from Mexico for Cuba, armed and ready to lead the insurrection against Batista. The day they were set to arrive a general strike was called in Cuba, but the Granma got caught in stormy waters and arrived three days late. When they arrived Batista knew they were coming and most were killed. Che, Fidel, and a few others managed to escape and make their way into the rural Cuban mountains. There the peasants fed them and they began to build the revolutionary army that overthrew Batista in 1959.

Upon taking power the Cuban revolution, as in any true revolution, liquidated the old power structure. A new revolutionary government was built and the murderers and torturers of the Batista government were put on trial. Eight hundred were executed for their crimes.

Before the Cuban Revolution, Rockefeller’s United Fruit Company owned much of the land. Peasants starved in the off-season and lacked medical care and access to education. When the Cuban revolution came to power in 1959, Fidel Castro’s promise of land reform was quickly carried out. This made Cuba an enemy of the United States government, and the Cubans have never been forgiven since. Later a broader socialist revolution in the economy was carried out.

In addition to land reform the Cuban revolution has provided free access to good healthcare, education for kids even in the most remote rural areas, free education through the university levels, an elimination of hunger, an end to legal discrimination and segregation that existed against Blacks, women’s rights including birth control and free abortion on demand, environmental policies that the World Wildlife Fund says are the only passing policies on global warming in the world, and a promotion of culture.

For the vast majority of the Cuban people today their lives are much-much better than they were under the Batista government. They are a highly educated people doing much better. For a small minority, the wealthy, that profited from the misery of capitalism, their lives got worse. Most of them are now living in Miami. In Cuba, the Cuban people still come out in their millions at rallies in support of the revolution and socialism.

Che didn’t kill peasants, he doctored them, and when he decided that wasn’t enough, he fought along side them to better their conditions.

After helping lead the Cuban Revolution, Che was caught and murdered by CIA and Green Beret trained, equipped, and led Bolivian soldiers in 1967.

Yet the model of Che’s revolutionary self-sacrifice and dedication continues to live on and inspire new generations of socialist revolutionaries. Likewise, Che’s dedication to socialism, including providing medical care to the poor, lives on with the Cuban revolution.

It is interesting that tiny poor Cuba under a U.S. economic blockade is able to provide good healthcare for everyone. Cuba, unlike the United States, does not let people die in the emergency rooms without treatment or turn sick people away from receiving healthcare because they lack insurance. Cuba has taken the profit out of illness and injury and provide healthcare as a human right.

Likewise, while the United States is sending military troops to set up death squad governments in Iraq and Haiti and to intervene in Afghanistan, the Phillipines, and prop up the death squad government of Colombia, Cuba instead sends doctors. Cuban doctors save lives. They are on the ground in a number of countries providing regular care, and they are also sent to countries in emergencies. A few years back Cuba sent doctors to Central America after a bad hurricane and saved many lives. Likewise they offered to send doctors to New Orleans immediately after Katrina, they were well trained in dealing with that type of situation and would have saved lives, but Bush refused to let them in. A similar thing happened with the Nicaraguan government refusing entry, but that government let the Cuban doctors in due to protests.

While I have important arguments with the Cuban government in saying that revolutionary socialism must be democratic, it would be the height of socialist sectarianism not to recognize the significant gains that have been made through the Cuban revolution.

U.S. Hands Off Cuba!

End the Economic Blockade!

For The Right of US Citizens to Travel To Cuba!

U.S. Out Of Guantanamo!

For National Healthcare in The United States!

End US Imperialism Through Socialist Revolution!

Subscribe to Liberation News:
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posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 2 replies

The Fight For Single Payer and National Healthcare

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:08:27 GMT

The Fight For Single Payer and National Healthcare

By Steven Argue

As an advocate for social justice and someone with no healthcare, I am strongly in favor of national healthcare like in Cuba, and short of that a single payer system would be a significant step forward.

National healthcare does work. It is working very well in Cuba. It is interesting that tiny poor Cuba under a U.S. economic blockade is able to provide good healthcare for everyone. Cuba, unlike the United States, does not let people die in the emergency rooms without treatment or turn sick people away from receiving healthcare because they lack insurance. Cuba has taken the profit out of illness and injury and provide healthcare as a human right.

Likewise, while the United States is sending military troops to set up death squad governments in Iraq and Haiti and to intervene in Afghanistan, the Phillipines, and prop up the death squad government of Colombia, Cuba instead sends doctors. Cuban doctors save lives. They are on the ground in a number of countries providing regular care, and they are also sent to countries in emergencies. A few years back Cuba sent doctors to Central America after a bad hurricane and saved many lives. Likewise they offered to send doctors to New Orleans immediately after Katrina, they were well trained in dealing with that type of situation and would have saved lives, but Bush refused to let them in. A similar thing happened with the Nicaraguan government refusing entry, but that government let the Cuban doctors in due to protests.

And Canada, also unlike the United States, has better healthcare where everyone is covered. Lately the NAFTA agreement has unfortunately been intervening against the Canadian single payer system, but it is still a much better system of healthcare than in the United States. Single payer is much cheaper and more efficient than the health insurance racket. Unfortunately the Democrats and Republicans are subservient to the insurance, pharmaceutical, and for-profit hospital industries. Single payer eliminates the health insurance racket with all of its waste in profits, paperwork, and overpaid CEOs. And despite the cries of the extreme right neo-cons and libertarians, none of the major candidates have any plans to make any significant change to the healthcare racket in America.

It will take a major struggle against the corporate power structure to gain single payer healthcare. The main force that has the potential strength to do so is organized labor, a force that could shut down production to make our demands.

Unfortunately many of the unions that are supposed to represent labor are in the back pockets of the corporations and the Democrat Party. Instead of fighting for single payer healthcare the SEIU recently held rallies for Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland), Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada), Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota). None of these corporate politicians support single payer healthcare.

This is bad enough, but Dawn Lee, spokesperson for the SEIU, says the SEIU takes no position on HR 676, a single payer bill introduced by Conyers.

There are unions, such as the California Nurses Association (CNA), that support single payer. But until the labor movement breaks its love affair with the corporate Democrat Party, and begins to once again rely on the militant action of the rank and file, as it did in the 1930’s, we will not only not gain single payer healthcare, our standard of living will continue to decline by every other indicator as well, while massive corporate profits soar.

Pass HR 676, single payer for the United States!

Pass SB 840, single payer in California!

Put union dues into strike funds instead of the Democrat Party!

For mass action and a general strike for single payer healthcare!

End the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba!

Preserve Canadian Single Payer, Repeal NAFTA!

Steven Argue for Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 3 replies

Pro-War Democrats Battle for the Presidency

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 13:44:27 GMT

Pro-War Democrats Battle for the Presidency

By Steven Argue

Every four years the American people are subjected to the farce of bourgeois democracy, a “democracy” where only the candidates chosen by the very wealthy have any chance of being elected. That season of nicely dressed pathological liars and false hopes is now upon us.

Since the corporate media of the United States has long ago abandoned any semblance of reporting on anything of substance about candidates such as voting records and actual political views, it is up to the journalists of the left press and Indy-media to do so.

A front-runner in the race is pro-war Democrat Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton has voted for every war the United States has carried out since she came into office in 2000. Those pro-war votes include the Iraq war. She also voted to take away our civil liberties by supporting the “Patriot Act” and its renewal. Hillary Clinton, like many Democrats, pounds the war drum for the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans. In addition she voted for the anti-immigrant wall.

In her recent successful run for Senate Hillary Clinton amassed more than 22 million dollars, making her the biggest campaign finance recipient running for Senate in the country. Her money came from such corporate interests as drug and hospital conglomerates, Wall Street finance interests, real estate developers, and rightwing corporate media mogul, Rupert Murdoch.

Barack Obama

Another front-runner and “rising star” of the Democrat Party is Barack Obama. Like Hillary Clinton, Obama has voted for the Patriot Act by voting to renew it in 2006. He also voted for the racist anti-immigrant wall as well as the “guest worker” program that denies immigrants rights, but allows them to come to this country to be exploited and under-paid. Obama also voted for the so-called “Class Action Fairness Act” that makes it harder for the people to sue corporations.

One might think that Obama, as a black man in racist America, might have something to offer on issues dealing with the suffering caused by the racist police state, mass incarceration of the poor, lack of healthcare, and dramatic drop in the standard of living of the multi-racial working class and poor. Instead Barack Obama plays into racist stereotypes, blaming the victims of racist America rather than the corporate criminals, stating:

"Such wisdom might help us move beyond ideological bickering and serve as the basis of a renewed effort to tackle the problem of inner-city poverty. We could begin by acknowledging that perhaps the single biggest thing we could do to reduce such poverty is to encourage teenage girls to finish high school and avoid having children out of wedlock. . ." Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, pps. 255-256

The inner cities of America have, by and large, been abandoned by the same capitalists that got rich off of the jobs they have now exported, just as the victims of hurricane Katrina were left to die by this same racist system. Yet the best thing to do according to Barack Obama is for black girls to stop having children out of wedlock.

In his book Uncle Obama not only lets this racist system off the hook, but he praises one of the worst anti-working class reforms of the Clinton administration stating, "we should also acknowledge that conservatives-and Bill Clinton-were right about welfare as it was previously structured." Bill Clinton’s welfare reform has caused homelessness, hunger, and less access to other basic necessities for the poor in America, but Barack Obama says Bill Clinton and the conservatives were right.

Both Obama and Clinton have voted for war appropriations. The fact that they both decided at the last minute to vote against war appropriations in the most recent vote on supplemental war appropriations is a symptom of the fact that the war has not gone as planned. The war has not gained the desired oil loot for U.S. corporations and has caused a number of growing problems for U.S. imperialism including internal dissent in the United States. And while Clinton and Obama have finally voted against war appropriations this time, their pro-war Democrat Party garnered plenty of other votes to keep the imperialist war going.

In his book, Barack Obama makes clear his support for the billions being squandered on lining the pockets of the military contractors stating, “given the depletion of our [military] forces after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will probably need a somewhat higher [Pentagon] budget in the immediate future just to restore readiness and replace equipment.” (Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, p 307).

Joe Biden

Another Democrat candidate is Joe Biden. Unlike many Democrat presidential candidates that have tried to distance themselves from the war that they voted for to begin with, in the most recent vote on war appropriations Joe Biden voted with the majority of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate putting billions of dollars towards the continued U.S. imperialist slaughter of the Iraqi people.

John Edwards

Another presidential candidate with a pro-war record is John Edwards. Edwards voted for the war against Iraq and campaigned as a vice presidential candidate on the pro-war John Kerry ticket. At that time both candidates defended their votes for the war. John Edwards has since apologized for his vote for unprovoked military aggression and mass murder (without using that wording and without recognizing that his vote for war was a criminal act).

Yet when Edwards was running for the position of vice president in 2004 this what he had to say on his pro-war vote:

“We need to stick to this [defending their Iraq war votes]. We should stand by our votes, say we would vote that way again. If you admit a mistake, it shows weakness in time of war. That's what the Republicans want us to do.” (John Edwards's changing tune on the Iraq vote, Scot Lehigh, The Globe, April 17, 2007)

Bill Richardson

Another candidate trying to paint himself as an antiwar candidate of the people is presidential candidate and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Richardson doesn’t call for immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, but instead calls for a slow withdrawal. In the early 1990s he did vote against the U.S. war to reinstate the anti-woman pro-U.S. corporate oil monarchy in Kuwait, but later said he regretted that vote. In addition Richardson is a strong supporter the pro-corporate anti-worker NAFTA, GATT, and WTO.

As U.N. Ambassador under Clinton, Richardson enthusiastically endorsed and continued the brutal sanctions against Iraq. When asked in a recent interview on KUNM (a Santa Fe public radio station) as to whether or not the deaths of half a million Iraqi children due to the sanctions was worth it he answered "yes".

On the death penalty Richardson, like many Democrats, says it is a good thing. Hundreds of inmates in the United States have had their convictions overturned as a result of new DNA evidence being brought to light, with some of these being death penalty cases. Still prosecutors have fought against the use of DNA evidence to overturn old convictions, even when the lives of innocent people are on the line. In racist America, death penalty juries are always more likely to convict because all who oppose the death penalty are excluded from these juries, making them juries that are more biased towards supporting the prosecution. Blacks often face all or mostly white death penalty juries. These are juries likely to contain a number of people who think that all Black people are criminals, making these jurors incapable of weighing the evidence and understanding the concept of reasonable doubt even in those rare circumstances when the evidence is fairly presented.

Why would anybody support the death penalty being carried out by a system that has been proven to make so many mistakes? The answer lies in the fact that the death penalty is an instrument of terror used by the American ruling class against the working class, poor, and people of color. On the one hand when such innocent people are executed it has no importance to the likes of Joe Biden because to them the lives of the poor and people of color are cheap. But for the ruling class, the added bonus of the death penalty is when it is used in political cases to silence dissent such as with the executions of Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg, the Haymarket martyrs, and the threatened execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. As governor, the fact that Bill Richardson has no problem with the death penalty means that he already has blood on his hands.

Dennis Kucinich

Likewise Dennis Kucinich is portraying himself as the standard bearer of peace, love, and liberalism, but has voted in favor of the frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The resolution Kucinich voted for falsely claims, “Mumia Abu-Jamal stood over Officer Faulkner and shot him in the face, mortally wounding him…” Yet this is not what the eyewitnesses said. For instance eyewitness William Singletary says, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen [that Faulkner had stopped] got out of the car and shot him. When Mumia came on the scene, we [Singletary and another man] were on the police radio trying to radio for help." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

In the last presidential election Dennis Kucinich portrayed himself up as an anti-war candidate of the Democrat Party. Yet on his web site the Kucinich campaign stated that Kucinich, “Supports a strong and efficient military. He believes that the current practice of procuring ever more costly weapons has the effect of weakening military readiness. As the cost of new weapons systems rise, the cost of merely replacing aging weapons with new ones becomes prohibitively expensive. As a result, U.S. military forces shrink, while they become at the same time more expensive to maintain and more prone to failure.”

So Kucinich advocates more frugal and efficient spending on imperialist terror and murder.

This is the same position taken by two U.S. generals waging the war in Iraq. During the U.S. invasion of Iraq General Stanley McCrystal complained, "It was enough for the enemy to show a little resistance and some creative thinking as our technological superiority begun to quickly lose all its meaning. Our expenses are not justified by the obtained results. The enemy is using an order of magnitude cheaper weapons to reach the same goals for which we spend billions on technological whims of the defense industry!"

Similarly General Richard Mayers commented on precision-guided munitions, "The rate of their use is incompatible with the obtained results. We are literally dropping gold into the mud!"

The contradiction here was purely limited to the difference between the pure profiteering of the military industrial complex and the desire for actual cost effective results for imperialist victory on the battlefield.

Dennis Kucinich spoke to a gathering of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action claiming, "We [he and the congress] did not authorize an eye for an eye. Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan. We did not authorize the Administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases. We did not authorize war without end. We did not authorize a permanent war economy. Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy."

Yet that is exactly what Kucinich and the rest of the congress, with the exception of California Democrat Barbara Lee, agreed to with their votes authorizing Bush’s endless war on the world. The entire Democrat Party in both the Senate and Congress, with only one exception, voted for Bush's war.

Since a different vote was later taken authorizing the US war in Iraq, the most practical application of this vote by Kucinich was to authorize the US war in Afghanistan.

In stark contrast to Kucinich’s vote for war Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote on March 2002:

“When U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about an "endless war," some took it as mere political speech, or rhetoric designed to gain the top spot on the evening network news. I did not. "W" is an agent of his class, the wealthy oil merchants of the land, and his intentions are to press for an ever-wider war in all corners of the earth, to make the world safe for capital exploitation and unbridled commerce. This will eventually become a war that reaches into a slew of countries in the Middle East, on behalf of the rich and powerful elites who rule. Make no mistake: this is a war that has nothing to do with democracy. The U.S. enters the region, armed to the gills, not to defend democracies, but to defend theocracies; to defend kings, princes and sultanates; to defend U.S. access to vast oil resources in the region.” Mumia Abu-Jamal

The U.S. war in Afghanistan has in fact killed tens of thousands of civilians and brought the Afghan nation back to the chaos of fragmented warlord rule last seen after the various U.S. trained and financed Mujahideen forces defeated the Soviet backed PDPA government.

The day after the September 11 attack this author wrote:

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen (from which the Taliban were later formed). With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing woman for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2002

Kucinich, the “peace candidate”, as much as he may now want to deny it, voted for the war in Afghanistan and played his part in making it happen.

On the war in Iraq Kucinich now states, "There is only one way in which the United States will withdraw from Iraq, prior to the end of President Bush's term: Congress must vote to cut off funds." (Rep. Kucinich, The Huffington Report) This position not only ignores the role of the people of the United States, Britain, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere rising up and resisting the war and imperialist occupations, but it is also is being put forward by a politician that voted for the war in Afghanistan, wants a leaner meaner imperialist military, voted for the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and who has worked hard to bring the anti-war movement back into the pro-war Democrat Party.

Some may argue that Kucinich is not perfect, but he’d make a better president than Bush. Yet it is unlikely that Kucinich has any intention of winning the presidency. His role is one of bringing the anti-war movement and others who are breaking from the establishment and the twin parties of war and racism back into the fold of the pro-war Democrat Party. Kucinich makes this point clear when he states, "The Democratic Party created third parties by running to the middle. What I'm trying to do is to go back to the big tent so that everyone who felt alienated could come back through my candidacy" (Counter Punch, April 2003).

Yet that tent Kucinich speaks of is one that, despite its name, is not democratic. It is a tent dominated by big capital and the politicians subservient to it. It is under this tent that the ruling class would like to swallow up the legitimate opposition of the people towards war and turn us into the water boys for the “responsible” politicians of the Democrat Party.

It is such "responsible" politicians, including Kucinich, that voted in their vast majority to back the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal. It is outrageous that that the Democrat party would vote in its House majority to condemn a French city for daring to make an issue of this racist legal lynching, while at the same time doing nothing about the liar and killer, Bush. But then again that should be no surprise either since the Democrat Party voted in its majority for the war in Iraq.

Hillary Clinton

In a press conference on August 21, 2006 George Bush Jr. finally admitted what Liberation News has been pointing out since before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. Yet Bush had used a supposed connection as a pretext for the U.S.’s unprovoked aggression against Iraq. In addition, Bush Jr. also admitted that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

Most of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, Hillary Clinton included, supported going to war with Iraq. Today Hillary Clinton has no remorse for that murderous decision stating, "Obviously, I've thought about that a lot in the months since. No, I don't regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade." Hillary Clinton: No regret on Iraq Vote, CNN.Com

In trying to let themselves off the hook many Democrats claim that Bush “did not fairly represent intelligence”. Feeble cries by these politicians today that their votes for war weren’t their fault because they were lied to by Bush not only make them look stupid, they are an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Clinton, however, is worse in not even distancing herself from this “justified invasion” and “weapons of mass destruction” lies.

While the Democrats helped promote the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had no right to defend itself, Liberation News pointed out that it is the United States that has the weapons of mass destruction. Instead we supported the right of Iraq to acquire the weapons necessary to defend themselves from U.S. aggression. There can be little doubt that if Iraq had acquired those weapons they might not be in the mess they are now.

Yet for Bush Jr. and Hillary Clinton Iraqi weapons were never the real motive for mass murder in Iraq. The capitalist ruling class, and their Democrat and Republican representatives, thought that they could use their superior military power to quickly move into Iraq and establish by force a stable neo-colonial puppet regime, and then make massive profits from the privatization of the Iraqi economy, especially oil. It is the failures of this imperialist plan, in the face of Iraqi resistance and growing unpopularity at home, that has forced some Democrats to try to rethink, or at least distance themselves from, the Bush policies they have supported.

Just as Liberation News opposes the U.S. occupation and corporate looting of Iraq, we also denounced the starvation blockade that was carried out through the UN by the Bill Clinton administration. That blockade, partially due to the capitalist nature of the Iraqi economy under Saddam Hussein, cost the lives of about a million people, many of them children. While a socialist economy like that of Cuba could have made sure that everyone in Iraq had food, blame for this mass murder should also be put on the Bill Clinton administration. Likewise, it was this Clinton starvation blockade that also weakened Iraq for the Bush invasion.

Today, while the U.S. occupation of Iraq has murdered well over 655,000 people and the U.S. starvation blockade of Iraq murdered a million or more, the U.S. government and its puppets in Iraq had the nerve to put Saddam Hussein on trial, and execute him, for propaganda purposes. Yet the worst crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime were also carried out when he was directly backed by the United States. In the 1980’s the U.S. was giving massive military assistance to Iraq to help Saddam Hussein commit genocide against Kurds and carry out a bloody war with Iran at a time when Saddam Hussein was being used as an asset of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. Likewise the CIA helped Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party come to power, supplying them with the names of 5,000 socialists and labor leaders that the Ba’athists subsequently rounded up and executed.

Yet to those who claimed that an invasion of Iraq would be a chance for the U.S. to finally set things straight and set up a democracy in Iraq, Liberation News responded before the U.S. invasion saying:

“In the 1970s Iraq nationalized its oil fields. This helped the Iraqi people by taking a chunk of the profits made off of oil out of the hands of the international oil monopolies and instead keeping them in Iraq. This money helped pay for free healthcare and education. As such this was a socialist measure carried out by Saddam Hussein’s capitalist government. It was also a measure that stood up to the interests of the rich and powerful nations. For both reasons socialists supported the nationalization of Iraqi oil while those measures infuriated the imperialists...

“While defending Iraq against imperialist attack and supporting their right to defend themselves socialists also recognize that Saddam Hussein is a capitalist leader and that the Iraqi people have their own scores to settle with him. Yet any government set up by a US occupation army will not be democratic and will only lead to the privatization of the resources that American oil monopolies intend to steal...”

“U.S. imperialism will never solve the question of women’s liberation in the Middle East. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Over 50% of Iraqi doctors are women. Iraqi women are allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They are allowed to drive. Iraqi women can even freely criticize men. In addition Iraqi women have the right to work and control their own funds. This is in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive U.S. backed governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where women have no rights what-so-ever.

“The U.S. ruling class hates governments like Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela who use the profits of their oil resources partly to benefit the people with social programs. Likewise they love governments like that of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that strip the people of all their rights and keep the oil profits in the hands of the international oil monopolies and their corrupt local servants. Today in the United States we face unemployment, homelessness, and a lack of health care. The billions of dollars the U.S. will squander on killing Iraqis to steal their resources should be spent to benefit the working class and poor of the United States instead.” -From Liberation News: What Is Socialism, and Why We Oppose The Invasion of Iraq

What was predicted is reality. Those predictions were not from a crystal ball. They were accurate because they were based on the past behavior of U.S. imperialism. Today in Iraq the U.S. has set up a puppet Islamic government with functioning death squads and torture chambers. Socialists have been excluded from participating in elections and unarmed demonstrators have been shot down and murdered in the streets by U.S. troops and troops of the puppet Iraqi government. The puppet Islamic government also opposes women’s rights and women’s rights have deteriorated dramatically since the U.S. invasion. The rebuilding of basic infrastructure, such as electricity, has lagged way behind what was rebuilt by Saddam Hussein after the massive U.S. bombardment of Iraq in 1992.

With the exception of the privatization of Iraqi oil, all of the predictions have shown themselves to be true and the only reason that Iraqi oil isn’t completely under the direct control of U.S. oil monopolies now is because of the union resistance of 23,000 organized oil workers as well as the general resistance by the Iraqi people to the idea of Iraq’s resources being looted by U.S. corporations.

For the working class in the United States there is ever growing frustration with a war that is costing many lives and billions in dollars while needed programs for healthcare, jobs, the environment, and disaster relief do not get the funding they need. Just as the new imperialist masters of Iraq have shown a criminal lack of interest in the rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure, so too they left the people of New Orleans.

Yet for the ruling class their failure in Iraq is not in the murderous, undemocratic, and anti-woman puppet regime they have set up and the money that has been squandered in doing it, but in the failure of that regime to deliver the stability needed to acquire the oil loot. They complain that oil production in Iraq is below prewar levels and the occupation by U.S. and British troops serve as targets for the insurgency.

The words of Hillary Clinton, an icon of Democratic Party liberalism, makes abundantly clear that what she opposes is not the oil war itself, but the fact that Bush is not winning it:

“Let us not confuse the leadership’s failures with either the remaining mission in Iraq or the war on terrorism or with our support for our troops. What we have here is a failure of leadership to accomplish that mission. What was hailed as our shortest war has now become one of our longest. What was hailed as a model of democracy teeters on the brink of complete anarchy. What was the leadership that quickly claimed credit for success has been lethargic in the face of misjudgments and setbacks.” Hillary Clinton

As a result of imperialism’s failure in Iraq some Democrats that voted for the war like John Kerry have called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of this year. Yet the Kerry-Feingold plan actually calls for keeping troops in Iraq that are "critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces." The Kerry-Feingold plan also calls for "an over-the-horizon" troop presence in the region that could come to the aid of a failing puppet government in Iraq as well as intervene elsewhere in the so-called war on terror. (Lawmakers begin Bitter Debate on U.S. Troop Withdrawal Plan for Iraq, FOXNews, online report, June 2, 2006)

Hillary Clinton even opposed the Kerry-Feingold plan and voted against it arguing against any withdrawal timeline.

Unlike Hillary Clinton and the leading Democrats, Liberation News sees nothing good that can come from the continuation of the U.S. war against Iraq. The U.S. occupation of Iraq is doing nothing for anybody except the capitalists that are profiting from the war and the tax dollars of the American people. We call for no support to the Democrats and we demand: Iraq to the Iraqis! U.S. Out Now!

Liberation News calls for ending the war through building the mass movement in the streets; striking against arms producers; hot cargoing war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks; and building towards a general strike against the war. Likewise we support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war. We support students, such as those at UC Santa Cruz that have repeatedly driven military recruiters off campus. And we call for building the socialist movement to end imperialism through socialist revolution.

The Role of Peace Action (Formerly Sane / Freeze)

Hillary Clinton’s record is clearly pro-imperialist war. Yet the group “Peace Action” gives Hillary Clinton the passing grade of voting for peace 89% of the time. Other Democrats are given similar scores by these political hacks.

“Peace Action” is deceiving the anti-war vote. Why? Because Peace Action is a pillar of the status quo that sees no alternative to delivering votes to what they see as the “lesser evil” Democrat Party, even when the Democrats are equally pro-war. This strategy has made “Peace Action” an obstacle to peace and a pillar of the status quo of war.

Every few years the ruling class of the United States parades its selected representatives in front of the American people to give us the chance to vote for their so-called “lesser” and “greater evil” representatives in the Democrat and Republican Parties. The corporate media and liberal pro-war groups like “Peace Action” ignore the real anti-war candidates and back pro-war Democrats by misrepresenting their records to the people.

Liberation News urges all of the super-exploited workers that go door to door raising money for the Peace Action bureaucracy to quit your meaningless jobs and look for better work while looking for ways to hook up with the real anti-war/anti-imperialist movement that is marching in the streets. Likewise we urge all of the liberal and leftist minded people that give money to Peace Action to stop doing so and instead participate in the mass anti-war movement in the streets with your bodies, minds, and your money if you can afford it.

No to the twin parties of war and oppression! Yes to the independent organization and mobilization of working people!

Obama, Clinton, and Richardson, Supporters of Racist Israel

Hillary Clinton, like many Democrats, has pounded the war drum for the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans. The U.S. gives Israel billions of dollars in military aid every year and Senator Clinton’s vote backs that money for death. Israel is a racist settler state established in 1949 that has denied the original inhabitants, the Palestinians, many basic rights, often including the basic right to live. Besides denying Palestinians the same rights to travel, jobs, housing, and education as allowed Jews, the racist and religious Zionist State has used massacres and other forms of terror, wars, and torture to drive out the original Palestinian inhabitants.

Likewise Israel is always at war with its Arab neighbors. Israel’s recent attack against Lebanon where their aerial bombardment of the civilian population murdered 1,150 people and destroyed vital infrastructure is only the latest such terrorism by Israel. Yet Hillary Clinton recently told a pro-Israel rally “We will stand with Israel because Israel is standing up for American values as well as Israeli ones.”

She’s got it wrong, the mass murder and racism of Israel are in league with the values of American ruling class, as has been seen in Iraq, but these are not the values of the American people.

Claims of Israel being the victim, bombing and invading Lebanon on the pretext of two Israeli soldiers taken prisoner do not hold water in light of the fact that Israel is holding 2,000 Lebanese prisoners in their torture chamber dungeons from their previous invasion of Lebanon. In addition numerous reports say those two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanon, not in Israel. Those reports are from such sources as AP, Hindustan Times, and AFP.

On Israel “anti-war” Richardson shares Hillary Clinton’s views stating, “I am firmly committed to one of the United States' closest and most important allies - the State of Israel. Throughout my career, I've steadfastly supported Israel, obtaining a consistently pro-Israel voting record in Congress and defending Israeli interests as Ambassador to the United Nations.”

Barack Obama also backs racist Israel stating, “The United States and Israel share important interests - promoting a peaceful Middle East, combating terrorism, and encouraging reform in the Arab and Muslim world.” Likewise as a senator he has backed the massive military aid the United States gives Israel every year and says he will continue this policy as president stating he will, “insist on fully funding military assistance to Israel”.

For Socialist Democracy!

Let me be clear on this point, Obama and Clinton, and the rest of the pack will not betray us. They cannot betray us because they were never with us. Under the current politics most Americans would never have heard their names if they were on our side.

A truly democratic society would eliminate corporate control of the elections by nationalizing the corporate media and allowing all candidates equal access to the airwaves, cable, and print. Likewise a truly democratic society would carry out a sweeping “campaign finance reform” through the nationalization of the means of production (using that wealth for human and environmental needs rather than decadence and deception).

Up against the likes of Hillary Clinton, with her millions of dollars in corporate bribes, a sympathetic corporate media, growing police state, and increasing electoral fraud, it will take a socialist revolution to bring democracy to the United States.

How we can all resist:

Tell the truth!

Build the mass movement in the streets!

Strike against arms producers!

Become ungovernable!

Hot cargo war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks!

Build towards a general strike against the war!

Support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war!

Drive military recruiters off campus!

No tolerance or excuses for the pro-war, racist, and capitalist Democrat Party!

Build the socialist movement to end imperialism, racism, environmental destruction, and capitalism!

End U.S. imperialism through socialist revolution!

Subscribe to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 2 replies

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COMANDANTE !!!

synnovemathe — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 17:16:52 GMT

If you tremble indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine

CHE

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

If You like Che............

Killa Cham — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 07:24:05 GMT

http://www.zmag.org/

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 2 replies

Interesting About May Day 2007

Paul — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:56:16 GMT

I thought it was interesting to note, in most newspapers that showed footage of the May Day parades in Havana...they wished Castro good health and to get well....but EVERYONE was wearing Che t-shirts, hats, carrying Che banners, flags, it was OBVIOUS who the Cubans REALLY loved. Some have compared Che as the "20th Century Lord Byron"-the young idealist/revolutionary who died young helping others to achieve justice (as did Byron in Greece where he died).

I have even seen in Union City/North B ergen, NJ (strong anti Castro "emigre" communities) Che skateboards and t-shirts are starting to pop up in the stores. I saw a guy wearing a Che t-shirt enblazoned with "EL CHE", very colorful, walking down Bergenline Avenue. Not too long ago to do that would've been suicidal to do. Now Che's "invaded" the strongest anti-Castro stronghold in the USA outside of Miami.

Perhaps, whether one believes in what Castro has done or not, Che has "evolved" beyond politics or ideologies. Just look around the Union City area today. Paul

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Czech Republic Outlaws Advocacy of Socialism

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 06:06:20 GMT

Czech Republic Outlaws Advocacy of Socialism

Liberation News strongly condemns the outlawing of the advocacy of socialism in the Czech Republic. From the outlawing of abortion in Poland to the genocide that was carried out in Croatia under the newly resurrected flag of Nazi occupation, to a dramatic drop in the life expectancy in the former Soviet Union, the lie of democracy and a better life under capitalism is being exposed. While Eastern Europe’s bureaucratic command socialism had many flaws, capitalism is much worse. The struggle today is to learn from the mistakes of the past and struggle forward for a democratic socialism to end the dictatorial power of the wealthy, for a redistribution of the wealth, and for a planned economy run to meet human needs, end wars for vulgar profit, and save the planet from looming environmental catastrophe. The fact that saying such things in the “democratic” Czech republic is now illegal flows from the fact that capitalism has always been the dictatorship of the extremely wealthy and the big imperial powers. Forward to democracy and socialism!

Steven Argue for Liberation News
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

International Appeal

(Please fill out endorsement coupon below, and please help us circulate this appeal widely)

Against the Banning of the 'KSM' Youth Organisation (Czech Republic)

On October 12, 2006, the Home Office of the Czech Republic decided to dissolve a Czech communist youth organisation called the 'KSM'.

And what crime had it committed? Its statutes are in favour of "collective ownership of the means of production". In the text announcing and explaining this decision, the Home Office declares:

"Paragraph 2 of the KSM's program declares: "The KSM declares it is in favour of going beyond capitalism in a revolutionary way and replacing it by collective ownership and social conditions that could bring about social democracy" ...

"The above statements found in the KSM's program involve the KSM in activities that are not compatible with the protection of every individual, which can be read in article 11, § 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Liberties. To attempt to deny the right to private ownership of the means of production is incompatible with elementary democratic principles. It ensues from paragraph 2 of article 9 of the Czech Republic's Constitution that it is unacceptable to change the democratic foundations of the legal democratic state. It is thus necessary to reject any attempt that could bring about the violation of the Constitutional decisions recalled above and which ensue from principles also asserted in the European Convention for the protection of human rights and
fundamental liberties."

The Home Office has rejected the KSM's argument that it does not intend to achieve its aim by any means that are undemocratic or illegal. The Home Office goes on to state:

"The KSM answers that it is only aiming at the ownership of means of production and not at ownership in general. Š That argument cannot be taken into account, because the law, as it is expressed in article 11, § 1 of the Charter, concerns all types of ownership, without distinction, whether such private property be intended for production or not. There can thus be no question of accepting 'the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and replacing it by collective ownership'."

So it is that the Home Office of the Czech Republic, a member country of the European Union, reinforced by a European Convention, purely and simply outlaws all idea of collective property of the means of production. And it puts forward this European Convention to justify its decision to ban an organisation that has not been found guilty of any action whatsoever, but simply advocates in its program the future perspective of collective ownership of the means of production.

There is no mention of any political activity the KSM might be engaged in that could provide the grounds for justifying the Home Office's decision. The outlawing of the KSM flouts even the most elementary democratic rights; such a decision would simply cross out more 150 years of the history of the labour movement.

This decision is an attack on democracy by forbidding an organisation, whatever that organisation may be, from putting forward a political program and attempting to win over a majority of the population to its goal of collective ownership of the means of production.

This decision, with the simple stroke of a pen, would seek to deny 150 years of the history of the labour movement, and even of democracy itself -- because ever since 1848, the labour movement and the various supporters of socialism have made obtaining collective ownership of the means of production an essential part of their analyses and program.

Following this decision, the Home Secretary of the Czech Republic is thus forbidding, in the name of the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Liberties, any organisation whatsoever from having the right to adhere to Marx and Engel's Communist Party Manifesto, which asserts: "communists can summarize their theory in one single formula: abolition of private property; the property that exploits working for a salary".

The Home Secretary is thus forbidding any organisation whatsoever to claim to have its roots in the Socialist Encyclopaedia written before the First World War by socialists such as Compère-Morel, Bracke, Pierre Brizon, Hubert-Rouher, Jean Longuet, Paul Louis, Charles Rappoport, Sixte-Quenin, Jean-Baptiste Séverac, the future deputy general secretary of the French Socialist Party, the SFIO, that, summarizing half a century of socialist ideas and action in various
countries throughout the world, declared the "necessity for collective ownership", explaining that: "Individual ownership was defendable when the instrument of labour was personal, it must become collective when production also becomes collective. It is only in its collective form that ownership can become something that is universal and become for each individual not a theoretic right, but something certain, a reality."

The Home Secretary is thus forbidding any organisation whatsoever to claim to have its roots in the literature of Jules Guesde, Jean Jaurès, Rosa Luxemburg, Léon Blum, the founders of Czech Social-Democracy, members up to 1918 of the Austro-Hungarian Social-Democratic Party, who declared the necessity for collective ownership.

The French Workers' Party founded by Jules Guesde asserted right away in its founding congress in October 1879: "The Congress declares that all possible means must continue to be used, so as to obtain collective ownership of all labour instruments and all the production workforce. It insists on the necessity for the proletariat to form its own class political party and to break away completely from the bourgeoisie." (Paul Louis, Le Parti socialiste en France, Encyclopédie socialiste, pp 11-12 (The Socialist Party in France,
Socialist Encyclopaedia).

Jean Jaurès demanded "the coming of a new order in which ownership, ceasing to be individual and private, will become social" (26th November 1900). As for Léon Blum, he declared: "Socialism is a movement of ideas and action that leads to a complete transformation of the regime of ownership, the transformation of an economic regime founded on private ownership into a regime founded on collective or common ownership" (27th December 1920). On September 1st 1946, he still asserted: "We are the Socialist Party and our aim is to achieve revolutionary transformation of the social structure, i.e. of the production and ownership regime."

Otto Bauer, one of the founders of the Austro-Hungarian Social-Democratic Party, of which the Czech Social-Democracy was also a part until 1918, declared in a text about "the slow revolution": "Collectivisation of the State economy starts with large industries collectivisation starts with expropriation: the State brings in a law by which it declares that the current owners of large industries are no longer the owners. Collectivisation has a dual aim: on the one hand, improvement of the situation of the blue-collar and white-collar workers in the collectivised branch of industry and on the other hand, making available for the community the revenues that until then had been going to the capitalists" (1919).

The Home Secretary is forbidding any organisation whatsoever to even make reference to nationalisation decrees voted, for example, just after the Second World War by the British Labour Party government, by various coalition governments such as the French government, in which there was even a Christian-Democratic Party (the MRP), or by various Social-Democratic or Labour governments.

The collective form of ownership has indeed appeared, from time to time throughout history, as being a necessity, and not only within the trend of socialist ideas. So it was that in 1894, the writer Leo Tolstoy in his "Advice to those receiving orders" proposed to bring up in Russia "the question of expropriation of land, with or without compensation, so as to nationalise the land thereafter". Would the Czech Home Secretary ban the distribution of such works in the name of the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Liberties?

The Czech Home Secretary has made this decision at the same time as directors of large companies are massively cutting back on jobs throughout the world, thereby threatening the very lives of the laid-off workers, with scorn for the interest of society in general, simply in the name of the private financial interests of the owners and of the dividends for the large shareholders.

The Czech Home Secretary has made this decision at the same time as a policy of privatisation and dismantling of State services and of nationalised companies is being implemented, resulting in the suppression of tens of thousands of jobs in all countries that are members of the European Union, in the name of "free and un-tampered competition", as demanded in the Maastricht Treaty.

- We, the undersigned, remark that this banning is a first application, detrimental to fundamental liberties, of the Council of Europe's resolution 1481 condemning "communism".

- We, the undersigned, denounce the ban against including the call for collective ownership of means of production in the program of a political organisation, in the name of a Convention supposedly defending human rights and fundamental liberties, and we denounce the dissolution of the KSM which the Czech Home Secretary has deduced is thus necessary.

- We, the undersigned, denounce this measure, which is in response only to the demands of those who own capital, but is hypocritically masked as being in defence of individual liberties -- for it is an intolerable attack on political democracy, on freedom of opinion, of thought, of expression and of organisation, and we demand that it this ban be annulled.

First Endorsers

ALLAIN Auguste (France); ANTONINI Daniel, international secretary of the 'Pole of Communist Renaissance in France' (France); AUDEJAN Noëlle, author (France); BARDIN Georges, internationalist militant, former French Resistance fighter (France); BARROIS Jean-Pierre, Senior lecturer at Paris-XII University, anti-war activist (France); BEDÖ János (Hungary); BELISSA Marc, University Lecturer (France); BLANCHARD Daniel, former member of 'Socialism or Barbarity' (France); BLANCHARD Arnold, former member of 'Socialism or Barbarity' (France); BLANCHARD Helen, former member of 'Socialism or Barbarity' (France); BODIN Martine teacher-trade-unionist (France); BOMBARDIERI Bernadette, 'Free-Thinker' (France); BORISOV Todor, president of the Bulgarian Workers' and Peasants' Party (Bulgaria); BOURHIS Gilles, CNRS-trade-unionist (T.N.: Scientific research) (France); BREITBACH Ulrich, member of the Union of German writers and of the Union of German journalists, Ver.di Trade Union (Germany); BREMOND Hansi, 'Free-Thinker' and political militant (France); BRICMONT Jean, University Lecturer (Belgium); CANALI José, working-class militant, communist, trade-unionist (France); CAUMIERES Philippe, teacher qualified in philosophy (France); CHABERT Raymond, pensioner (France); CHALLIER Alain, sculptor (France); CHENET Jacques, 'Free-Thinker' (France); CHUBERRE Hervé (France); CLESSE Pascal, 'Free-Thinker' (France); CUENCA Jean (France); DE MONTLIBERT Jean, emeritus professor of sociology (France); DERUETTE Serge, Lecturer in political science at Mons University (UMH), (Belgium); DOUJON Jean-Pierre, University Lecturer (France); DOUPSIS Georges, 'Free-Thinker'; DUBOIS Françoise, retired teacher; DUBOIS Pierre, visual artist (France); ELIARD Michel, Sociologist, University Lecturer (France); EXCOFFON Sylvain, University Lecturer in history (France); FABRE Marguerite, working-class militant, 'Free-Thinker' (France); FABROL Emile, 'Prométhée', communist site, militant in Vitry (France); FAYET Jean-François, PhD (France); FERNANDES Grégory, student in Lyon, RYA militant (France); FERRAT Jacques, teacher (France); FLAMMANT Thierry , history teacher (France); FOGLER Tibor (Hungary); FRATANOLO Janos, president of the Hungarian Workers' Party 2006 (Hungary); GAVOIS Marc-Olivier, history and geography teacher (France); GIRAUDON Liliane, author (France); GLEIZAL Jean-Jacques, University Lecturer in Grenoble (France); GÔME Gérard, trade-unionist (France); GOTLIB Igor, regional coordinator of Alternatives - St-Petersburg (Russia); GROS Dominique, retired law teacher (France); GUERRIEN Bernard, Lecturer in economy at Paris-I University (France); GUITTON Michel, 'Free-Thinker' (France); HEBERT Alexandre, anarchist-trade-unionist (France) ; IMSIROVIC Pavlusko, militant of the Labour Political Alliance, former political prisoner, condemned in the "Trial of six people" (ex-Yugoslavia); JAKOCS Dániel (Hungary); JEKOV Todor, president of the Labour-Peasant Party (Bulgaria); JOBIC Christian (France); JOHNSTONE Diana, journalist, author (USA); JONY Iván (Hungary); JULIEN Stéphane trade-unionist (France); KASTLER Claude, emeritus professor of Stendhal University in Grenoble (France); KOSTIOUK Rouslan, doctor of history, Saint-Petersburg (Russia); LABRASCA Frank, University Lecturer, trade-unionist (France); LACROIX-RIZ Annie, historian (France); LARUE LANGLOIS François, author (France); LAVALLEE Ivan, State Doctorate in Science (France); LEFEBVRE Michel, trade-unionist SNES (France); LEMASLE Arnaud (France); Françoise LONDON-DAIX (France); LOSURDO Domenico, Lecturer in History and Philosophy at the University of Urbino (Italy); MAITTE Hervé, CGT trade-unionist (France); MARCELE Philippe (France); MARIE Jean-Jacques, historian, responsible from 1976 to 1980 for the French edition of 'Listy', the newspaper of the Czech Socialist Opposition, founded by Jiri Pelikan (France); MARTIN Roger, author, French Communist Party militant (France); MATHIEU Olivier, teacher and trade-unionist (France); MOLENAT Jean-Pierre emeritus director of research at the CNRS (France); MOQUETTE Yvan, trade-unionist (France); MORELLI Anne, university lecturer (Belgium); NOEL Bernard, author (France); O'CONNOR Emmet, (Ireland); PAPP Julien, historian (France); PATRIZIO Marie-Ange, psychologist (France); PAUWELS Dirk, ergonomist, manual therapist, physiotherapist (Belgium); PESTIEAU Jean, Lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium); PLANTIVEAU Gérard, trade-unionist (France); POINTCHEVAL Jacques, 'Free-Thinker' (France); POULAIN Philippe, visual artist (France); PASLAR Vitaly, member of the Komsomol (Moldavian Republic); POLIANSKI Mikhail, member of the Komsomol (Moldavian Republic); POULAIN Philippe, visual artist (France); POUPKINE Vassia, (Russia); PRAT Didier, author, compositor, musician (France); PRENEAU François, trade-unionist (France); PROST Laurent (France); QUENTIN Bernadette, employee of PTT-FT (France); REMBOTTE Gilles, trade-union militant (France); REZNIK Aleksandr, of the "Student Solidarity" Union, State University of Perm (Russia); RIVAL Michel, retired primary school teacher, French Communist Party militant (France); ROBINET Marie-Line, DDA Val de Marne (France); ROCHEFORT Jacques, assistant (France); ROQUES Monique, teacher (France); ROUET Jean-Jacques, municipal councillor in Fondettes (37) (France); ROY Pierre, historian, 'Free-Thinker' (France); RYJKINE Mikhaïl Ivanovitch, assistant of the Elected Member of the Douma of the Russian Federation of Kibirev (Russia); SANTOLINI Arnaud, teacher, researcher, trade-unionist (France); SEPPECHER Pascal, teacher, (France); SEREZAT André, (France); SERGERE Julien, education assistant (France); SERNICLAY Clément, French Assistant in Zurich (Switzerland); SAVASTIN Liudmyla member of the Komsomol (Moldavian Republic); SERGERE Julien, education assistant (France); SYBELIN Yannick, hospital trade-unionist (France); VERCRUYSSE Pierre, CGT trade-unionist (France); VAN CAMPEN Marc, early-retired steel worker, Charleroi (Belgium); VIARD Jean, retired CGT trade-unionist (France); WEBER Michel, Doctor in Philosophy (Belgium); WEINSTEIN Max, pensioner, former French Resistance fighter (France); WHITEHEAD Fred, historian and 'Free-Thinker', Kansas (USA); ARGUE Steven, Liberation News (USA).

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posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Temple of Sound Release New Album in USA on May 8th 2007

neilsparkes — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 11:59:12 GMT

Temple of Sound Release New Album in USA on May 8th 2007
Temple of Sound sign with
Namaste Records/Koch Records

Temple of Sound release their fifth studio album "GlobalHead" on Namaste Records(A Division of The Machat Company)/Koch Records in the USA on May 8th 2007.
The album features 12 tracks written and produced by Neil Sparkes and Count Dubulah AKA Temple of Sound featuring guest appearances by Natacha Atlas, Jah Wobble, Ben Baddoo, Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali, Abdullah Chhadeh and Hukwe Zawose.

Temple Of Sound are an internationally established production and performance duo at the forefront of dance, dub and world music.
The duo is comprised of Neil Sparkes - vocalist, percussionist, programmer, poet and painter; and Count Dubulah , guitarist , bass player, programmer and editor.
Together Sparkes and Dubulah (ex Transglobal Underground) helped create the style of Global Dance Groove and Mash Up that has become a world wide genre, embracing and developing World Music to become much in demand as musical collaborators, performers and producers.

Production work for a hitlist of World, Dance and Dub artists continues to push the barriers of World music forward . These include Natacha Atlas (Beggars Banquet), nominated for Best Album in World Music Awards 2007 and Los De Abajo (Real World).

"There is a palpable sense of excitement about Temple of Sound. They are buzzing with ideas and a sheer creativity that they are translating into great and innovative sounds. Temple of Sound are an unstoppable force at the cutting edge of global culture."
- Global Rhythm Magazine USA

Full Track Listing and Audio Tracks to Come Soon On MySpace!

www.myspace.com/neilsparkesandthelasttribe

www.myspace.com/templeofsound

www.myspace.com/loungeclash

www.myspace.com/benbadooneilsparkesbougarabou

www.templeofsound.co.uk

For additional info on the KOCH Records label and its roster of artists, please visit www.kochrecords.com

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

The Meaning of Che

Guy — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 22:59:53 GMT

Che was shot in the center of his chest and his hands cut off. It hurt.
But it also shows the karmic connection he had to Christ.
He was chosen to take on the Christ energies and activate them into what we needed.
From Che's perspective we lived in a fascist and threatened world where a lower standard of justice would allow children to starve while big gluttons had their fill.
From my own work with Che's energy, I have learned that he had special mind skills which allowed him to avoid authorities who would harass or stalk him. It also hurts to do it, its not comfortable to the body.
He has also the great ability to not let the left hand know what the right is doing, this is the essence of his siddhi ability.

There is great significance in the center of the chest, for both Christ and Che. This was the ripping point for Christ upon making his sacrifice on the cross. The pain of the world all went into that point like the bullet Che received by the CIA.
For me there is great significance in the center of the chest. For me it is where the soul is located. While meditating in '99 I activated that point thru introspection and saw the infinite glowing light of bliss of the Divine. After a 7 year period of purification, I received a confirmation that I am CHE. Since then I have had recognition from Buddhist monks and people in the Hindu tradition. I don't really want to be Che, but I am a good person and I value like in the same as him and have the same inclinations to being in nature, along with more uncanny similarities I'll gladly describe if you contact me.

I'm a tribal leader and am ready to globally activate world peace and ecological restoration. The way is simple but most difficult for the corrupt elites who will need to swallow their pride so to speak if we are to make progress. What I need is recognition and support. Please contact me and we can give this world back to the righteous, and both unify and separate those who don't get along. Take care of yourselves my children.

Rai

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

A Global Appeal against patents on conventional seeds and farm animals

synnovemathe — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 10:45:22 GMT

HI,

we can speak abput Che during years but I think could be a great idea to take action, at least I think so.

Synnöve

THE GLOBAL APPEAL

A Global Appeal against patents on conventional seeds and farm animals

A joint Open Letter addressed to

Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office,
Government Representatives,
The Executive Boards of Agrobusiness Companies

Keep out patents on conventional seeds and animals
For several years, patents on genetically modified seeds and animals have been granted worldwide. The damaging impacts on farmers, who are deprived of their rights to save their seeds, and on breeders who can no longer use the patented seeds freely for further breeding, are well known.

In Canada and the US, for example, the multinational seed company Monsanto has sued many farmers for alleged patent infringements.1 The same company has also filed court cases against importers of Argentinean soy to Europe.2 Furthermore, the possibility of patenting seeds has fostered a highly concentrated market structure with only 10 multinational companies controlling about half of the international seed market. Many farmers organisations and NGOs around the world are fighting against these patents. Because genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are still not grown in most countries, or only used in a small number of crops, the negative impacts of these patents are not being felt everywhere.

However, there is an alarming new trend for patents not only to be claimed on GMOs (such as Round-up ready soybeans), but also on conventional plants. For example, patent claims have been made for soy beans with a better oil quality3 covering parts of the plant genome when used in conventional breeding and technologies to improve conventional breeding (such as marker assisted breeding).

Some of the most threatening examples in this context are patent applications from Syngenta which claim huge parts of the rice genome4 and its use in breeding of any food crops that have similar genomic information to rice (such as maize and wheat).

The European Patent Office has also granted a patent on aphid resistant composite plants which are based on marker assisted breeding5. Other recent patent applications by Monsanto on pigs are also related to normal breeding methods6, indicating the increasing danger of agricultural genetic resources becoming monopolised by a few multinationals on a global scale.

Soon the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office will decide on another patent of this kind - for a method of increasing a specific compound in Brassica species7.

This decision will determine the patentability of conventional seeds in Europe.

Whereas patents on conventional plant varieties are normal practice in the US, many other countries, especially developing countries, do not grant patents on plants or animals. But as the recent history shows, the standards defined and used at the European, Japanese and US patent offices influence international regulations (the WTO agreement on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights, TRIPS , and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, WIPO). Patent offices all over the world are pushed to adapt their regulations and practices either through the international regulations or by bilateral agreements. India, for example, has just passed a third patent amendment in order to adapt its law to the TRIPS regulations.

This frightening new trend in patent policy will affect many more farmers and breeders, than has been the case with GMO patents. Any remaining farmers rights and breeders' access to plant varieties and animal breeds for breeding purposes, will disappear everywhere. These patents will destroy a system of farmers' rights and breeders' privileges that has been shown to be crucial for the survival of farmers and breeders, for food sovereignty, and for the preservation of biodiversity in agriculture. The vast majority of farmers in developing countries are small-scale farmers, completely reliant on saving and exchanging their seeds.

In order to secure the continued existence of independent farming, breeding and livestock keeping and hence the food security of future generations, we, the undersigned farmers, researchers, breeders and civil society organisations from all over the world, restate our rejection of any patents on life, and urge policy makers and patent offices to act swiftly to stop any patents being granted on conventionally bred plants and animals and on gene sequences for use with conventional breeding technique, as well as on methods for the conventional breeding of plants and animals. We also urge companies not to apply for any patents of this kind.

http://www.no-patents-on-seeds.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=27&lang=en

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Anti-imperialist Protests Against Obama, Clinton, McCain, Farr, and Others

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 18:14:14 GMT

In this mailing:
1. Santa Cruz California action against Sam Farr
2. Antiwar Protests Against Obama, Clinton, McCain and Others

Protest To Bring The Troops Home Now!

Friday Feb. 16,
Santa Cruz County Building, 701 Ocean Street

Sit in at Representative Sam Farr’s Office to Demand:

Cut Off The War Funds!

Sam Farr has voted a number of times for the billions of dollars that have been used to wage war and murder hundreds of thousands in Iraq. He has promised to vote against the $93 billion emergency war appropriations bill that Bush has forwarded to congress, but Farr still consistently supports and votes for massive general appropriations for the military budget. These are votes for war.

The People of Santa Cruz Demand No Money For War!

This protest is part of the growing national movement demanding that representatives, like Sam Farr, that claim to oppose the war stop funding it.

Money For Jobs, Healthcare, Housing, and Education! Not a cent for war!

People holding all political philosophies in opposition to the war are welcome. This includes those that think that Democrats like Sam Farr can be persuaded or pressured into opposing the war as well as others that want to expose the Democrats as useless and put forward mass action, strike action, direct action, green, anarchist, and socialist alternatives towards ending the war.

This is being organized as a nonviolent event, but we cannot guarantee the conduct of the Santa Cruz Police.

Friday Feb. 16, Santa Cruz
Meet 1:00 PM on the front steps of the county building, 701 Ocean Street.

Sponsored by Liberation News
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

******
Project Occupation has been staging protests/sit-ins/demonstrations nationwide targeting the offices congresspersons that support the Iraq war by funding it.

In addition the Troops Out Now Coalition will be marching on the offices of Hillary Clinton on March 17 starting at Times Square (43rd and Broadway) at 1 PM. For more on Hillary Clinton's pro-war record see: Pro-War Hillary Clinton, What Are The Alternatives?
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/77262.html
Here are some actions that have already happened or are underway:

St. Louis has an feature about an action at Rep Russ Carnahan's office:
http://www.stlimc.org/newswire/display/2840/index.php

Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) DC Offices
http://wmass.indymedia.org/newswire/display/1711/index.php

Barrak Obama’s and Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) offices in Chicago
(which resulted in 8 arrests)
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2007/02/82702.shtml

The San Francisco offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA). For more on Senator Diane Feinstein's pro-war record read: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/08/28/18302034.php

The Portland office of Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR). More actions are planned (or underway)
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/02/353477.shtml

Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Seattle, WA
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2007/02/257544.shtml

Rep. Mike Honda in the South Bay (by Raging Grannies!)
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/08/18359668.php

Rep Matsui in Sacramento, CA
http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2007-01-28-22-10-01-news.php

De Moines, IA
http://www.kcci.com/news/10965748/detail.html (very brief)

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Congress Votes 368-31 to Back Mumia’s Racist Frame-up

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 19:18:29 GMT

By Steven Argue

On December 6th Congress voted 368 to 31 to back the racist frame-up of Mumia Abu Jamal by condemning the decision of the French city of St. Denis to name a street after the innocent death row inmate. This anti-Mumia resolution, HR 1082 (also called HR 407), asks the French government to intervene against the city.

Voting against the resolution were members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Congressperson Robert Scott. He argued that the case was still being decided in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and that it was inappropriate for Congress to take a position.

In reality Mumia’s case is such a blatant and outrageous frame-up that it should be considered the responsibility of Congress to intervene on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal in particular and against the racist death penalty in general. Yet under the current racist government of Democrats and Republicans Robert Scott is correct in opposing Congress’s intervention. As Pam Africa, chair of the International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, has pointed out, “the House action is designed to weigh in on and promote an atmosphere in the U.S. judiciary that is prejudicial to Mumia's receiving any form of justice today.”

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals will be hearing arguments in January. This is Mumia’s final appeal. It will decide if Mumia is set free, given a new trial, held in prison for life, or executed.

The resolution falsely claims, “Mumia Abu-Jamal stood over Officer Faulkner and shot him in the face, mortally wounding him…” Yet this is not what the eyewitnesses said. For instance William Singletary says, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen [that Faulkner had stopped] got out of the car and shot him. When Mumia came on the scene, we [Singletary and another man] were on the police radio trying to radio for help." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

31 Democrats in Congress voted nay while 151 voted for the resolution. All Republicans voted for the resolution as did fake Vermont “socialist” Bernard Sanders (really just a rightwing social democrat).

Those voting against were Abercrombie, Clay, Cleaver, Conyers, Cooper, Davis (IL), Grijalva, Hinchey, Honda, Jackson (IL), Johnson, E. B., Kilpatrick (MI), Lee, McKinney, Meeks (NY), Nadler, Oberstar, Owens, Pastor, Payne, Rangel, Rush, Scott (VA), Serrano, Stark, Towns, Udall (NM), Velázquez, Waters, Weiner, and Woolsey.

Joining in the racist lynch mob voting for the blood of an innocent black man was Democrat House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi. She has also announced that she and the other Democrats will continue funding the war in Iraq. In voting against Mumia Abu-Jamal Nancy Pelosi has voted for the death of an actual anti-war and anti-racist leader of the people, while her career has been firmly planted atop the corpses of over 650,000 dead Iraqis by her continuation of the slaughter.

Also voting for the lying resolution backing the frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal was Dennis Kucinich.

In the last presidential election Dennis Kucinich portrayed himself as an anti-war candidate in the Democrat Party. Yet on his web site the Kucinich campaign stated that Kucinich, “Supports a strong and efficient military. He believes that the current practice of procuring ever more costly weapons has the effect of weakening military readiness. As the cost of new weapons systems rise, the cost of merely replacing aging weapons with new ones becomes prohibitively expensive. As a result, U.S. military forces shrink, while they become at the same time more expensive to maintain and more prone to failure.”

So Kucinich is a frugal spender for imperialist murder.

This is the same position taken by two U.S. generals waging the war in Iraq. During the U.S. invasion of Iraq General Stanley McCrystal complained, "It was enough for the enemy to show a little resistance and some creative thinking as our technological superiority begun to quickly lose all its meaning. Our expenses are not justified by the obtained results. The enemy is using an order of magnitude cheaper weapons to reach the same goals for which we spend billions on technological whims of the defense industry!"

Similarly General Richard Mayers commented on precision-guided munitions, "The rate of their use is incompatible with the obtained results. We are literally dropping gold into the mud!"

The contradiction here was purely limited to the difference between the pure profiteering of the military industrial complex and the desire for actual cost effective results for imperialist victory on the battlefield.

Dennis Kucinich spoke to a gathering of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action claiming, "We [he and the congress] did not authorize an eye for an eye. Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan. We did not authorize the Administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases. We did not authorize war without end. We did not authorize a permanent war economy. Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy."

Yet that is exactly what Kucinich and the rest of the congress, with the exception of California Democrat Barbara Lee, agreed to with their votes authorizing Bush’s endless war on the world. The entire Democrat Party in both the Senate and Congress, with only one exception, voted for Bush's war.

Since a different vote was later taken authorizing the US war in Iraq, the most practical application of this vote by Kucinich was to authorize the US war on Afghanistan.

In stark contrast to Kucinich’s vote for war Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote on March 2002, “When U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about an "endless war," some took it as mere political speech, or rhetoric designed to gain the top spot on the evening network news. I did not. "W" is an agent of his class, the wealthy oil merchants of the land, and his intentions are to press for an ever-wider war in all corners of the earth, to make the world safe for capital exploitation and unbridled commerce. This will eventually become a war that reaches into a slew of countries in the Middle East, on behalf of the rich and powerful elites who rule. Make no mistake: this is a war that has nothing to do with democracy. The U.S. enters the region, armed to the gills, not to defend democracies, but to defend theocracies; to defend kings, princes and sultanates; to defend U.S. access to vast oil resources in the region.”

The U.S. war in Afghanistan has in fact killed tens of thousands of civilians and brought the Afghan nation to back to the chaos of fragmented warlord rule last seen after the various U.S. trained and financed Mujahideen forces defeated the Soviet backed PDPA government.

On September 12, 2001 this author wrote: “Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen (from which the Taliban were later formed). With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing woman for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests.”

Kucinich, the “peace candidate”, as much as he may now want to deny it, voted for the war in Afghanistan and played his part in making it happen.

On the war in Iraq Kucinich now states, "There is only one way in which the United States will withdraw from Iraq, prior to the end of President Bush's term: Congress must vote to cut off funds." (Rep. Kucinich, The Huffington Report) This is a good position, but it is also being put forward by a politician that voted for the war in Afghanistan, wants a leaner meaner imperialist military, voted for the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and who has worked hard to bring the anti-war movement into the pro-war Democrat Party.

Some may argue that Kucinich is not perfect, but he’d make a better president than Bush. Yet it is unlikely that Kucinich had any intention of winning the presidency when he ran. His role was one of bringing the anti-war movement and others who are breaking from the establishment and the twin parties of war and racism back into the fold of the pro-war Democrat Party. Kucinich makes this point clear when he states, "The Democratic Party created third parties by running to the middle. What I'm trying to do is to go back to the big tent so that everyone who felt alienated could come back through my candidacy" (Counter Punch, April 2003).

Yet that tent Kucinich speaks of is one that despite its name, is not democratic. It is a tent dominated by big capital and the politicians subservient to it. It is under this tent that the ruling class would like to swallow up the legitimate opposition of the people towards war and turn us into the water boys for “responsible” politicians.

It is such "responsible" politicians, including Kucinich, that voted in their vast majority to back the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

It is outrageous that that the Democrat party would vote in its House majority to condemn a French city for daring to make an issue of a racist legal lynching, while doing nothing about the liar and killer, Bush. But then again that should be no surprise either since the Democrat Party voted in its majority for the war in Iraq.

The Democrat Party was also involved in the frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal from the beginning. Democrat Ed Rendell was the Philadelphia district attorney that successfully worked to frame Mumia Abu-Jamal in 1982. Later, with a lynch mob attitude created by the lies of the corporate press, he successfully ran for mayor of Philadelphia on a platform that included promoting the murder of Mumia Abu-Jamal. He was Mayor from 1992-1999. Bill Clinton then helped get him the position of chair of the National Democratic Committee. Since 2003 he has been the Governor of Pennsylvania. In addition Ed Rendell is a member of the Fraternal Order of Police that is calling for Mumia’s blood while his wife is an appellate judge on the Third Circuit US Court of Appeals that is going to hear Mumia's appeal. Besides framing Mumia, Rendell also presided over the police bombing of the MOVE home in Philadelphia in 1984, resulting in 11 deaths and 65 homes destroyed.

California representative Sam Farr [D] was among the eight that voted “Present”, choosing not to vote for or against the resolution. This despite Sam Farr sending this author a letter promising to back the Congressional Black Caucus’s position, that having been a position in support of framed political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Sam Farr also sent a copy of a letter that he sent to the Congressional Black Caucus with the same promise. These promises, as it turns out, were nothing but lies.

This vote by the racist US Congress was also an affront to the people of St. Denis that have chosen to support and honor Mumia. Would Sam Farr stand aside in a similar way if a resolution came before him that called for action against his constituents in the City of Santa Cruz, where the city has also passed resolutions in favor of Mumia Abu-Jamal?

Mumia is innocent, and much of the world knows it.

Here is the response the City of St. Denis had to earlier attempts to coerce them into ending their support for Mumia Abu-Jamal:

“The city hall of Saint Denis denounces the manipulations of certain ultra-conservative pressure groups, and reasserts its commitment in favor of Mumia Abu-Jamal

“The city hall of Saint Denis re-affirms yet again its support to the women and men who are demanding Mumia Abu-Jamal be treated with fairness and justice. The picket this 30th day of November 2006 has been organized to protest against the pressure brought to bear on the city of Saint Denis by members of the American extreme right in order to bring about the cancellation of our decision to name one of our streets after an African American militant who has been unfairly incarcerated and sentenced to the death penalty.

“This ultra conservative pressure group, based in Philadelphia, has not hesitated to make use of the grossest manipulations. Thus, the widely disseminated information according to which the city of Philadelphia is suing the cities of Saint Denis and Paris, because of their commitment in favor of Mumia Abu-Jamal - is nothing but a lie. The Mayor of Philadelphia, as well as the president of its city council, informed the city of Saint Denis that they never intended to file any kind of suit, and have absolutely nothing to do with this campaign.

“This manipulation was unmasked, and it should be know that the Philadelphia politician who initiated it, though a member of George Bush's party, was defeated during the recent American elections.

“Whatever the case may be, the city hall of Saint Denis is proud to have named a street of this city in honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has become one of the symbols, of the struggle for justice and the abolition of the death penalty in the US and throughout the world.

“It is not the first time that an international mobilization has taken place in favor of American citizens who are unfairly sentenced in their own country. Such was the case for Nicola Sacco, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, between 1920 and 1927, for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who died on the electric chair in 1953, and subsequently in 1972 for Angela Davis initially sentenced [sic, she was actually never sentenced] for murder, before being acquitted of all charges.

“The city hall of Saint Denis will steadfastly pursue the struggle to save Mumia Abu-Jamal, so that this man incarcerated for a quarter of a century for a crime he has always claimed he did not commit - be reinstated in his human rights.

“Saint Denis 30th of November 2006”

The people of the world should not forget this hypocritical act of the US Congress, a governing body of a nation that falsely claims to uphold the values of human rights on a world scale. Likewise this once again exposes the need for the American people to build a socialist alternative to racist and repressive Democrat and Republican Parties.

As Mumia Abu-Jamal says, “Conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires. But what history really shows is that today's empire is tomorrow's ashes, that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to acquiesce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit...”

Mumia stands up for unions, against war, against racism, equality for gays and lesbians, for the poor, and against the many injustices of the so-called criminal justice system. Mumia speaks up on many of the issues ignored, lied about, or glossed over by the corporate media and the corporate politicians. We need Mumia, yes we need him alive, but we also need him free. Yet all of the evidence shows that Mumia won't get justice in America unless we turn up the heat.

********************
For a complete listing of individual votes see: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll527.xml

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States on death row. For more information on Mumia's case and how to get involved, check out the following web sites:

Yet Another Witness Comes Forward and Refutes The Frame-Up Of Mumia
Abu-Jamal! By Steven Argue
http://www.freemumia.com/policecoercion.html

Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.laboractionmumia.org/

International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.mumia.org/freedom.now/

Free Mumia Coalition, NYC
http://www.freemumia.com/

San Francisco Free Mumia Site
http://www.freemumia.org

Chicago Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.chicagofreemumia.org/

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

JUST CLICK

Killa Cham — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 08:08:53 GMT

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/index.html

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 1 reply

No to Angelides and Schwarzenegger! Yes to Janice Jordan!

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 00:34:59 GMT

No to Angelides and Schwarzenegger!

Critical Support For Janice Jordan, Peace and Freedom Party Candidate For Governor

By Steven Argue

Last night’s debate between Phil Angelides and Arnold Schwarzenegger was a grueling hour of corporate politics. Angelides leveled criticisms against Schwarzenegger for cuts to education under his governorship. Schwarzenegger countered by asking where Angelides was when Democrat governor Gray Davis was making cuts to education and asked why Angelides supported those cuts under Davis. Schwarzenegger went so far as to ask why Angelides didn’t join in the student protests for education that had marched by his office under Davis.

It was a valid criticism, yet Schwarzenegger never supported those student protests either and as Angelides pointed out, he has made his own cuts to education.

On a similar note Angelides criticized Schwarzenegger for his praise for the racist anti-immigrant vigilantes called the “Minutemen” while in the same breath calling for a "guest worker" program that would create a new class of super-exploited worker with no political rights. Under the same type of program in the past U.S. bosses often failed to even pay Mexican workers for their hard labor. The fact that Angelides and the Democrat Party are now calling for this kind of legalization of indentured servitude place them firmly in the same racist camp as Schwarzenegger.

What was missing from the debate was the voice of an official candidate that will be on the ballot in November, but was excluded from the debate by the California Broadcasters Association. This candidate, Janice Jordan of the Peace and Freedom Party, could have chimed in that she did in fact support the protests against the cuts of both Davis and Schwarzenegger and that she opposes both the racist Minutemen and the racist guest worker program. But she was excluded from the debates, showing once again the bias of the corporate media as a pillar in preventing true democracy in America.

A truly democratic society would eliminate corporate control of the elections by nationalizing the corporate media and allowing all candidates equal access to the airwaves, cable, and print. Likewise a truly democratic society would carry out a sweeping “campaign finance reform” through the nationalization of the means of production (using that wealth for human and environmental needs rather than decadence and deception).

It will take a socialist revolution to bring democracy to America.

Liberation News sees the participation of socialists in the corrupted electoral politics of America as a critical platform in explaining how we differ from the capitalist Democrat and Republican parties. Likewise all of the undemocratic measures that are used against us, which will only intensify as we grow stronger, expose the parallel need for a revolutionary program to accompany any socialist electoral activity.

The Peace and Freedom Party is primarily an electoral party that speaks of the need for socialism, but generally avoids talk of the only step that will bring socialism, a step that can be summed up in one word: revolution. Revolution is about abolishing the current racist anti-worker and anti-poor police, military, and judicial system and carrying out a sweeping redistribution of the wealth.

Likewise the campaign literature the Peace and Freedom Party hand out at demonstrations often contain good criticisms of the Democrats and Republicans and outline a good platform for social and economic emancipation, but are usually missing another key component that will make putting human and environmental needs before profits possible in a socialist society. That being the nationalization of industry including oil (and other energy), “defense”, auto, the banks, the railroads, chemical, and the agricultural monopolies.

It is due to this lack of a true socialist program in the Peace and Freedom Party, and lack of any campaign statements from Janice Jordan countering it, that Liberation News can only give critical support to the campaign of Janice Jordan.

In giving this critical support to Janice Jordan we recognize that the social reforms called for by the Peace and Freedom Party do still have a revolutionary component in that they go far beyond anything that the capitalist class of the United States will ever allow short of their total overthrow. In giving critical support we intervene to denounce the undemocratic actions of the corporate media and capitalist campaign financing used against the campaign of Janice Jordan, but unlike the Peace and Freedom Party, we take those undemocratic actions to their logical conclusion: the ultimate need for socialist revolution.

While giving critical support to Janice Jordan’s campaign for governor, Liberation News is withholding support for the Peace and Freedom Party’s candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Stewart Alexander. Alexander’s campaign is spreading illusions in the Democrat Party. In his campaign statements Alexander pretends that the Republicans represent corporate interests and that the Democrats do not, their problems being "sitting on the fence" and an unwillingness to spend "political capital". This is nonsense; the Democrat Party is just as much a corporate party as the Republican, both in its financing and in its program.

In another campaign statement Stewart Alexander opposes the Peace and Freedom Party’s platform that calls for immediate withdrawal from Iraq from the right. In the statement he claims that the Peace and Freedom Party needs to draw up an exit strategy from Iraq. Yet immediate withdrawal is an exit strategy. It is an exit strategy that takes no consideration of continuing to prop up the undemocratic puppet death squad government the U.S. established, nor does it consider the logistical needs of keeping troops fighting and dying in Iraq to defend military hardware as it is evacuated. Troops are to be evacuated immediately by air, sea, and land the same way they were sent in; and the biggest cause of the bloodshed in Iraq will be gone. This is the exit strategy.

Liberation News calls for U.S. troops out now! Build the mass movement! For the labor movement to break from the Democrat Party of war and exploitation and to end the war through building the mass movement in the streets; striking against arms producers; hot cargoing war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks; and building towards a general strike against the war. For the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war. For student actions against recruiters, such as those at UC Santa Cruz that have repeatedly driven military recruiters off campus. For building the socialist movement as part of the anti-war resistance today and to ultimately end U.S. imperialism through socialist revolution.

While Phil Angelides and Arnold Schwarzenegger will carry out austerity connected to the U.S. war in Iraq and the economic problems of capitalism, neither the Democrats nor Republicans offer any solutions to the problems of war and capitalism because they support both.

Vote Janice Jordan for governor!

Money for social and environmental needs, not for war and capitalist profit!

For socialist revolution to end imperialism and establish democracy in the United States!
On other state offices Liberation News critical support to the following Peace and Freedom Party candidates:

Gerald Sanders for State Treasurer

Margie Akin for Secretary of State

Liz Barron for Controller

Jack Harison for Attorney General

Tom Condit for Insurance Commissioner

Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

mirror Liberation News:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Liberation-News/

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

TRIBUTE TO CHE

Ella — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 05:24:30 GMT

Commemorating CHE GUEVARA
7:00 pm SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8, David Strong Bldg. Room C103 @ UVIC

Featuring: The Motorcycle Diaries
This film tells the true story of a 23-year-old medical student from Argentina, Che Guevara, who motorcycled across South America with his friend Alberto Granado in 1951-52. The journey turns into an eye-opening one for Ernesto as it shapes and molds his life to create the future revolutionary leader, Che Guevara. Based on Che's own diaries.

Admission by donation

Sponsored by: Goods for Cuba Campaign & Vancouver Island Public Interest Research Group

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

New web community!

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 02:07:29 GMT

Hey all,

just wanted to let interested parties know about the activist web community my friends and I are trying to get off the ground. Its focus is alternative politics, science, and philosophy, as well as, user arts and literature.

We have recently created a new web forum and are really looking to boost the member levels to get some great debates going.

If you are interested, please visit: www.redguerrilla.info

Thanks Everyone!
Gavin

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Pro-War Diane Feinstein, What Are The Alternatives?

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 15:45:44 GMT

Pro-War Diane Feinstein, What Are The Alternatives?

By Steven Argue

In California pro-war incumbent Democrat Diane Feinstein has a lead of around 20% over Republican challenger Richard Mountjoy. There are also three socialist candidates running in California for the Senatorial seat now held by Feinstein. Of these, the two that Liberation News is giving critical support are Jeff Mackler of Socialist Action and Marsha Feinland of the Peace and Freedom Party. In addition International Socialist Organization (ISO) member, Todd Chretien, is running as a Green Party candidate.

Feinstein has voted for every war the United States has carried out since she came into office in 1992. Diane Feinstein also voted to take away our civil liberties by supporting the “Patriot Act” and its renewal. She voted for the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Effective Death Penalty Act speeding up the government’s ability to carry out the racist death penalty and ignore evidence of innocence. And she has supported expanded wire tapping as well as a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning.

Feinstein is a capitalist politician, representing a capitalist party. She also has a personal net worth of 50 million dollars, so she benefited directly when she voted to eliminate the estate tax. Ironically Feinstein has also stated, “Food stamps for the poor are cut ... so that millionaires can have a tax cut.'' Indeed, while this statement was directed at the Republicans, it also applies to her. (Feinstein Urges Regime Change, San Francisco Chronicle, March 21, 2006)

Diane Feinstein, like many Democrats, has pounded the war drum of the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans.

And just as she is no defender of human rights in the United States she has voted for continued military support to the right wing death squad government of Colombia.

Diane Feinstein: Supporter of Imperialist War

In a press conference on August 21, 2006 George Bush Jr. finally admitted what Liberation News has been pointing out since before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. Yet Bush had used a supposed connection as a pretext for the U.S.’s unprovoked aggression against Iraq. In addition, Bush Jr. also admitted that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

All of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, Diane Feinstein included, supported going to war with Iraq. As anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has pointed out, “She voted for the war. She continues to vote for the funding. She won't call for an immediate withdrawal of the troops." (Cindy Sheehan May Challenge California Senator AP, Jan. 26, 2006) Cindy Sheehan’s son was a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq.

In trying to let herself of the hook Diane Feinstein claims that Bush “did not fairly represent intelligence”. Feeble cries by these politicians today that their votes for war weren’t their fault because they were lied to by Bush not only make Feinstein look stupid, they are an insult to the intelligence of the American people.

While the Democrats helped promote the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had no right to defend itself, Liberation News pointed out that it is the United States that has the weapons of mass destruction. Instead we supported the right of Iraq to acquire the weapons necessary to defend themselves from U.S. aggression. There can be little doubt that if Iraq had acquired those weapons they may not be in the mess they are now.

Yet for Bush and Feinstein Iraqi weapons were never the real motive for mass murder in Iraq. The capitalist ruling class, and their Democrat and Republican representatives, thought that they could use their superior military power to quickly move into Iraq and establish by force a stable neo-colonial puppet regime, and then make massive profits from the privatization of the Iraqi economy, especially oil. It is the failures of this imperialist plan, in the face of Iraqi resistance and growing unpopularity at home, that has forced some Democrats and Republicans to try to rethink, or at least distance themselves from, the Bush policies they have supported.

Feinstein herself has directly profiteered from the U.S. imposed misery in Iraq. Her husband, Richard Blum, is a billionaire investor that together with CEO Ronald Tutor own investment companies that hold 75% of the voting stock in a company called Perini. On March 12, 2004 Perini was awarded a $500,000,000 contract for rebuilding the electrical infrastructure of southern Iraq. So Feinstein is profiting from the U.S. bombing of the Iraqi infrastructure as well as its inefficient rebuilding by private U.S. contractors. Perini also received the contract for the construction of facilities to support the First Brigade of the Afghan National Army. These include barracks, dining facilities, a power plant, a water treatment facility and a wastewater treatment plant. Diane Feinstein not only voted for the wars and occupations that made these contracts possible, she also sits on the Appropriations Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence. (Perini Corporation, The Center For Public Integrity)

Just as Liberation News opposes the U.S. occupation and corporate looting of Iraq, we also denounced the starvation blockade that was carried out through the UN by the Clinton administration. That blockade, due to the capitalist nature of the Iraqi economy under Saddam Hussein, cost the lives of about a million people, many of them children. While a socialist economy like that of Cuba could have made sure that everyone in Iraq had food, blame for this mass murder should also be put on the Clinton administration. Likewise, it was this Clinton starvation blockade that also weakened Iraq for the Bush invasion.

Today, while the U.S. occupation of Iraq has murdered over 100,000 people and the U.S. starvation blockade of Iraq murdered a million or more, the U.S. government and its puppets in Iraq have the nerve to put Saddam Hussein on trial for propaganda purposes. Yet the worst crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime were also carried out when he was directly backed by the United States. In the 1980’s the U.S. was giving massive military assistance to Iraq to help Saddam Hussein commit genocide against Kurds and carry out a bloody war with Iran at a time when Saddam Hussein was used as an ally of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. Likewise the CIA helped Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party come to power supplying them with the names of 5,000 socialists and labor leaders that the Ba’athists subsequently rounded up and executed.

Yet to those who claimed that an invasion of Iraq would be a chance for the U.S. to finally set things straight and set up a democracy in Iraq, Liberation News responded before the U.S. invasion saying:

“In the 1970s Iraq nationalized its oil fields. This helped the Iraqi people by taking a chunk of the profits made off of oil out of the hands of the international oil monopolies and instead keeping them in Iraq. This money helped pay for free healthcare and education. As such this was a socialist measure carried out by Saddam Hussein’s capitalist government. It was also a measure that stood up to the interests of the rich and powerful nations. For both reasons socialists supported the nationalization of Iraqi oil while those measures infuriated the imperialists...

“While defending Iraq against imperialist attack and supporting their right to defend themselves socialists also recognize that Saddam Hussein is a capitalist leader and that the Iraqi people have their own scores to settle with him. Yet any government set up by a US occupation army will not be democratic and will only lead to the privatization of the resources that American oil monopolies intend to steal...”

“U.S. imperialism will never solve the question of women’s liberation in the Middle East. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Over 50% of Iraqi doctors are women. Iraqi women are allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They are allowed to drive. Iraqi women can even freely criticize men. In addition Iraqi women have the right to work and control their own funds. This is in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive U.S. backed governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where women have no rights what-so-ever.

“The U.S. ruling class hates governments like Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela who use the profits of their oil resources partly to benefit the people with social programs. Likewise they love governments like that of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that strip the people of all their rights and keep the oil profits in the hands of the international oil monopolies and their corrupt local servants. Today in the United States we face unemployment, homelessness, and a lack of health care. The billions of dollars the U.S. will squander on killing Iraqis to steal their resources should be spent to benefit the working class and poor of the United States instead.” -From Liberation News: What Is Socialism, and Why We Oppose The Invasion of Iraq

What was predicted is reality. Those predictions were accurate because they were based on the past behavior of U.S. imperialism. The U.S. has set up a puppet Islamic government with functioning death squads and torture chambers. Socialists have been excluded from participating in elections and unarmed demonstrators have been shot down and murdered in the streets by U.S. troops. The puppet Islamic government also opposes women’s rights and women’s rights have deteriorated dramatically since the U.S. invasion. The rebuilding of basic infrastructure, such as electricity, has lagged way behind what was rebuilt by Saddam Hussein after the massive U.S. bombardment of Iraq in 1992.

With the exception of the privatization of Iraqi oil, all of the predictions have shown themselves to be true and the only reason that Iraqi oil isn’t completely under the direct control of U.S. oil monopolies now is because of the union resistance of 23,000 organized oil workers as well as the general resistance by the Iraqi people to the idea of Iraq’s resources being looted by U.S. corporations.

For the working class in the United States there is ever growing frustration with a war that is costing many lives and billions in dollars while needed programs for healthcare, jobs, the environment, and disaster relief do not get the funding they need.

Yet for the ruling class their failure in Iraq is not in the undemocratic and anti-woman nature of the puppet regime they have set up and the money that has been squandered in doing it, but in the failure of that regime to deliver the stability needed to acquire the oil loot. They complain that oil production in Iraq is below prewar levels and the occupation by U.S. and British troops serve as targets for the insurgency.

As a result some Democrats that voted for the war like John Kerry have called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of this year. Yet the Kerry-Feingold plan actually calls for keeping troops in Iraq that are "critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces." The Kerry-Feingold plan also calls for "an over-the-horizon" troop presence in the region that could come to the aid of a failing puppet government in Iraq as well as intervene elsewhere in the so-called war on terror. (Lawmakers begin Bitter Debate on U.S. Troop Withdrawal Plan for Iraq, FOXNews, online report, June 2, 2006)

Senators Harry Reid and Carl Levin have put forward a similar proposal, rendered meaningless with similar loopholes to Kerry-Feingold’s, but their proposal calls for the [partial] withdrawal of troops by the end of 1997.

Diane Feinstein supported the Levin-Reid proposal. Defending the proposal Feinstein said, “Our amendment is not about cutting and running. Rather, our amendment acknowledges that staying the course is a strategy that shows no promise of success, and it is time to change that strategy.” (Video clip shown on CNN’s O’brien Show, online transcript, June 23, 2006)

Unlike Feinstein, Liberation News sees nothing good that can come from the Levin-Reid proposal of staying at full war with the Iraqi people for another year and then carrying out a possible partial Iraqification of the war the year after. We disagree with Feinstein when she says, "We all know we can't cut and run, what I'm talking about is changing the nature of this mission. We have to say to Iraq that it's time for your soldiers and police forces to take over.'' (Feinstein Urges Regime Change, San Francisco Chronicle, March 21, 2006)

The U.S. occupation of Iraq is doing nothing for anybody except the capitalists that are profiting from the war and the tax dollars of the American people. We demand: Iraq to the Iraqis! U.S. Out Now! On this issue we agree with the campaigns of Jeff Mackler of Socialist Action, Marsha Feinland of the Peace and Freedom Party, and Todd Chretien of the Green Party that are all calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq:

“More than 2,250 young American troops and over 100,000 Iraqis have died with no end in sight. If we want to stop the dying and respect the Iraqi people's right to run their own country, then we must immediately withdraw all American military forces from Iraq and the surrounding countries.” -Todd Chretien, California Senate candidate of the Green Party

“Immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East!”
Marsha Feinland, California Senate candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party

"Immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq! War is an inherent part of capitalism and the ultimate solution to the internal contradictions of the profit-driven and competition-driven system. The U.S. military-industrial complex is organized and designed to maximize profit rates for the corporate few and to serve the imperial economic and political interests of the war-making class—regardless of the capitalist party in power. Socialists acknowledge our fundamental obligation to challenge the U.S. war-makers and their twin parties and to defend the rights and struggles of all those who resist imperialist domination and oppression.” -Jeff Mackler, California Senate candidate of Socialist Action

Liberation news agrees with these calls for U.S. troops out now. In addition we call for the labor movement to break from the Democrat Party of war and exploitation and to end the war through building the mass movement in the streets; striking against arms producers; hot cargoing war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks; and building towards a general strike against the war. Likewise we support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war. We support students, such as those at UC Santa Cruz that have repeatedly driven military recruiters off campus. And we call for building the socialist movement to end imperialism through socialist revolution.

The Role of Peace Action (Formerly Sane / Freeze)

Diane Feinstein has never seen a pending imperialist war she didn’t like. In her entire time in office she has voted for them all. Likewise Feinstein voted for the “Missile Defense System” and other “defense” boondoggles meant to line the pockets of the military industrial capitalists. Yet the group “Peace Action” gives Feinstein the passing grade of voting for peace 89% of the time.

“Peace Action” is deceiving the anti-war vote. Why? Because Peace Action is a pillar of the status quo that sees no alternative to delivering votes to what they see as the “lesser evil” Democrat Party, even when the Democrats are equally pro-war. This strategy has made “Peace Action” an obstacle to peace and a pillar of the status quo.

Every few years the ruling class of the United States parades its selected representatives in front of the American people to give us the chance to vote for their so-called “lesser” and “greater evil” representatives in the Democrat and Republican Parties. The corporate media and liberal pro-war groups like “Peace Action” ignore the anti-war candidates and back pro-war Democrats by misrepresenting their records to the people.

Liberation News urges all of the super-exploited workers that go door to door raising money for the Peace Action bureaucracy to quit your meaningless jobs and look for better work while looking for ways to hook up with the real anti-war/anti-imperialist movement that is marching in the streets. Likewise we urge all of the liberal and leftist minded people that give money to Peace Action to stop doing so and instead participate in the mass anti-war movement in the streets with your bodies, minds, and your money if you can afford it.

In response to the reformist call of, "Anybody But Bush," Socialist Action candidate Jeff Mackler aptly replied, "No to the twin parties of war and oppression!" and "Yes to the independent organization and mobilization of working people!"

Feinstein, Supporter of Racist Israel

Diane Feinstein, like many Democrats, has pounded the war drum for the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans. The U.S. gives Israel billions of dollars in military aid every year and Senator Feinstein’s vote backs that money for death. Israel is a racist settler state established in 1949 that has denied the original inhabitants, the Palestinians, all basic rights. Besides denying Palestinians the same rights to travel, jobs, housing, and education as allowed Jews, the racist Zionist State has used massacres and other forms of terror, wars, and torture to drive out the original Palestinian inhabitants.

Likewise Israel is always at war with its Arab neighbors. Israel’s recent attack against Lebanon where their aerial bombardment of the civilian population murdered 1,150 people and destroyed vital infrastructure is only the latest such terrorism by Israel. Yet when Senator Bill Frist introduced a bill backing Israeli / U.S. aggression in Lebanon Diane Feinstein voted for it along with Senate Democrat colleagues John Kerry (Mass.), Barack Obama (Ill.), Harry Reid (Nevada), Maria Cantwell (Wash.), and Edward Kennedy (Mass.).

Claims of Israel being the victim, bombing and invading Lebanon on the pretext of two Israeli soldiers taken prisoner do not hold water in light of the fact that Israel is holding 2,000 Lebanese prisoners in their torture chamber dungeons from their previous invasion of Lebanon. In addition numerous reports say those two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanon, not in Israel. Those reports are from such sources as AP, Hindustan Times, and AFP.

In contrast to Diane Feinstein and her pro-war Democrat colleagues, here is what the candidates to the left of her have to say:

“Israel is a racist state. It has separate laws for Arabs and Jews. The leader of the South African trade union COSATU recently stated that he thinks that the Palestinians face worse conditions than Blacks faced during South African Apartheid. There will never be peace in the Middle East as long as the Zionist state is given a blank check from the United States to treat the Palestinian people as less than human. Israel is part of the American empire and is key to US plans for permanent domination of the Middle East. If we ever want to see our troops come home from Iraq, then the anti-war movement must fight to cut off all American aid to Israel.” -Todd Chretien, California Senate candidate of the Green Party

“As a Jewish American, I chose to run for U.S. Senate partly as an act of conscience in support of the rights of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories. The wall which impedes people from conducting a normal life must come down. Israel should abandon the settlements and retreat to its pre-1967 borders. I do not condone any violence against civilians, and favor full rights for all people in any state…End U.S. aid to Israel until it withdraws to its 1967 borders.” -Marsha Feinland, California Senate candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party

“For a democratic and secular Palestine! End all U.S. aid to apartheid Israel! Stop the bombing of Lebanon and Gaza! For a united socialist federation of the Middle East! Socialists reject the legitimacy of the Zionist colonial settler state of Israel, just as we do all colonial settler states. We see no difference between the imperialist colonization of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East of yesteryear and today’s U.S.-backed Zionist conquest and occupation of Palestine. Israel today serves as the chief U.S. instrument for the imperialist domination and exploitation of the Middle East”. -Jeff Mackler, California Senate candidate of Socialist Action

All three candidates of the left take the correct and most important position of ending U.S. aid to Israel, but there are important differences in building an international movement.

While Todd Chretien holds a good position on Israel, the Israeli Green Party is a Zionist capitalist party that holds the position of deputy mayor of Tel Aviv. In a recent letter to the Green Party of the United States by Green Party chairman and deputy mayor, Pe’er Visner, the closest he got to recognizing any crimes by the Israeli government was saying, “We are “sorry” that the Israeli army prevents Palestinian suicide bombers from “expressing” their “human rights” to bomb themselves among Israeli citizens.” This racist response to the suffering of the Palestinian people should serve as a warning to Green Party members in the United States of what happens to parties that fail to put forward a revolutionary program for the overthrow of capitalism as well as fail to be a tribune for all of the most oppressed and exploited in society.

Unlike Marsha Feinland of the Peace and Freedom Party, Liberation News does not call for a withdrawal of Israel to its conquered borders of 1967. We instead call for pushing Israel back to its 1948 borders for a democratic, secular, and socialist Palestine within the 1948 borders with a separation of religion and state and equal rights for Palestinians and Jews including the Palestinian right to return, a society to be formed by the multi-ethnic working class through socialist revolution.

This is our context of demanding an end to U.S. military aid to racist Israel as well as to the repressive capitalist governments of Egypt and Jordan. Such a cut off is not intended to pressure Israel into a better two state “solution” as Marsha Feinland asks the U.S. government to do, but to allow the people of the Near East self-determination and revolution without the interference of billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to murderous regimes.

Jeff Mackler, in seeing Socialist Action as part of an international socialist movement with an international revolutionary program, has proposed a similar revolutionary program to that of Liberation News, but missing a key ingredient:

“Zionism is an ideology of racism and apartheid segregation. It is a deathtrap for the Jewish people, a central source of almost 60 years of war and oppression of the Palestinians. Socialist Action supports the creation of a democratic and secular Palestine, where Jews and Arabs can live together as equals in a new society, a society predicated on the immediate right of return of all dispossessed Palestinians. In this society, revolutionaries will fight for the construction of an egalitarian socialist state.” -Jeff Mackler, California Senate candidate of Socialist Action

Missing from this formula is the understanding that only socialist revolution, led by (a) secular multi-ethnic socialist party or parties will be capable of solving the national and democratic questions of Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. The capitalists and their parties, be they Kadima, Likud, Labour, Shas, Hamas, Fatah, or the Hashemite King Hussein of Jordan base their rule on capitalist exploitation and are incapable of providing any real solutions. Liberation News disagrees with the idea that democratic secular revolution should occur now and provide the basis for a later struggle for socialism, pointing out that this is the essence of Stalin’s Two-Stage Theory of Revolution when we instead hold high the banner of Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution.

It was this Stalinist Two-Stage Theory that provided the political basis for the Communist Party of South Africa putting all of their resources into building the African National Congress (ANC) as the democratic alternative to the racist apartheid government of South Africa. Yet by building a political party and movement that supported the continuation of the capitalist system they created a new capitalist party that now rules South Africa for the rich white capitalists at the continued expense of the super-exploited and poor black majority workers, minus overt racist laws. Strikes for healthcare and other workers’ demands have been broken by the ANC for the capitalists, HIV-AIDS goes untreated, and the massive mineral wealth of South Africa continues to go into the pockets of the capitalists instead of their potential of benefiting the workers, environment, and world revolution.

So when is the Communist Party of South Africa going to set about fighting for the next stage of the revolution? The answer is never. They are now part of the capitalist apparatus and part of the problem. It will take the other socialist parties of South Africa, the Trotskyist parties, to lead the socialist revolution.

While Stalinism has done much to stifle workers’ democracy in the deformed workers states under Stalinist control, it has also greatly sabotaged the world socialist revolution through Stalin’s Two-Stage Theory. Socialist Action is not a Stalinist organization, but they appear to have adopted part of their program.

So what would be Socialist Action’s ANC for Palestine? Fatah? They’ve already discredited themselves. They’ve sold the Palestinian people out with the Oslo Accords placing the Palestinian people on tiny Bantustan’s without a real basis for an economy. Would their ANC be Hamas? The imposition of Islamic law could hardly be considered a democratic secular revolution. Would they then suggest that Palestinian and Israeli socialists build a party with a purely democratic secular program, abandoning the socialist program as the Communist Party of South Africa did? Let’s drop the nonsense, build for the socialist revolution! For a democratic, secular, and socialist Palestine!

Liberation News rejects Stalin’s Two-Stage Theory of Revolution. We instead hold up the banner of Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution. It was through this theory that Trotsky explained that the democratic and the socialist revolutions are inseparably linked.

Yet the differences between Liberation News and Socialist Action as well as our differences with the Peace and Freedom Party on these questions do not prevent us from giving critical support to both in this election.

The Role of the Green Party

While Todd Cretien of the Green Party has good immediate positions on the war, Liberation News does not support Green Party candidates because the Green Party is a capitalist party. In Santa Cruz, where the Green Party has elected their party member Tim Fitzemaurice to office, Tim Fitzemaurice has backed the fears of local shop owners by voting for anti-homeless laws such as the law that makes it illegal for the homeless to sleep at night. While criminalizing those who cannot pay the high rent Fitzemaurice refuses to take a stand for rent control. Likewise Tim Fitzemaurice has refused to take any stand against police violence used against anti-war protesters in 1999 and other repressive measures against activists including my arrest and beating for distributing literature and the police murder of homeless activist John Dine. Recently Fitzemaurice did take a stand against police infiltration of the organizers of a Santa Cruz anti-war parade, but his stated reason for doing so was an attempt to maintain the credibility of the Santa Cruz police.

Tim Fitzemaurice is not a leader for change in Santa Cruz. He is instead a pillar of the status quo. This is the future of all political parties and politicians that do not have a clear program for the overthrow of the capitalist system.

The Green Party is clear in their program. They state that they are for a system of small capitalism. Yet the small capitalists commonly have a smaller profit margin and often exploit workers worse than the big capitalists. In opposition to such a vision of small and inefficient capitalist exploiters, Liberation News looks to labor struggle and the nationalization of industry under workers’ control as the way to fight and neutralize the corporate exploiters and bring justice for the working class.

On a national level the Green Party generally is not even seeking power, but pressure and reform of the Democrat Party. Yet the policy of many Greens in promoting votes for Democrats when the vote between the Democrat and Republican is close only promotes further illusions in the Democrats. Likewise promising votes to Democrats when it looks close does nothing to pressure the Democrats and their super rich backers to move to the left.

It was a massive and fighting labor movement led to large extent by socialists that forced the American ruling class and Franklin Delano Roosevelt to carry out the New Deal reforms in the 1930’s. This was out of fear of further unrest and potential revolution. It is the position of Liberation News that the most meaningful reforms do not come from reformism, such as that of the Green Party, but from revolutionary and working class struggle.

While making these criticisms Liberation News does recognize that there are differences between the program of Todd Chretien and that of the Green Party. If Todd Chretien was also speaking out for the Green Party to adopt a socialist program we could possibly give him support, but he is not. By running as a candidate and being a spokesperson for a party with a capitalist program Todd Chretien is helping build that capitalist party and program, so we must respectfully withhold our support.

Critical Support To The Socialist Candidates

Liberation News is giving critical support to Jeff Mackler of Socialist Action and Marsha Feinland of the Peace and Freedom Party. These are two socialist parties that hold socialist programs (for the most part) and are also active in the anti-war, free Mumia, and labor movements. To a large degree they represent the kind of political alternative that Liberation News promotes in opposition to the Democrats and Republicans.

Jeff Mackler of Socialist Action

Jeff Mackler is a long time socialist that has done much in organizing protests against imperialist wars, for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, for socialism, and other leftist causes.

Jeff Mackler and other expelled members of the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) were part of establishing new groups that continued on in some of the better traditions of the SWP, a party that led the 1934 Teamster’s Strike (a turning point in U.S. labor history), a party that was a major leader in the anti-war movement of the 1970’s and 1960’s, and a party that helped establish the world Trotskyist movement and expose the crimes of Stalinism.

Yet Jeff Mackler’s group, Socialist Action, was also born with a few programmatical errors. One was their abandonment of Trotsky’s concept of Political Revolution. The call for political revolution in the deformed workers states, such as the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, was a call for overthrowing the repressive Stalinist bureaucracy and institutionalizing workers’ democracy without overthrowing the nationalized planned economy itself. While Trotskyists call for political revolution in the deformed workers’ states, we also defend those socialist economies from imperialist attack and internal counter-revolution. The failure of Socialist Action to understand the true nature of the counter revolutionary movements in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Afghanistan led to important mistakes.

In supporting Solidarnosc in Poland Socialist Action backed a political movement that had a clear program for capitalist counter revolution and joined ranks with the CIA, the Pope, and Ronald Reagan in backing Solidarnosc’s rise to power. After taking power Solidarnosc’s program became even clearer with the outlawing of abortion (that used to be free on demand) and privatizations of the economy that led to 50% unemployment. Yet despite how clear it is today that Solidarnosc led a capitalist counter-revolution as opposed to a socialist political revolution (that would maintain the socialist economy, but oust the Stalinist bureaucracy and institute workers’ democracy) Socialist Action has not changed their position on Solidarnosc.

On Black liberation we at Liberation News advocate Richard Fraser’s Theory of Revolutionary Integrationism as opposed to the Black Nationalism promoted by Socialist Action. Socialist Action’s advocacy of Black Nationalism has brought them to the point of even promoting the religious and pro-capitalist Nation of Islam of Louis Farrakhan. Liberation News sees the promotion of Black Nationalism as a dead end. There is no geographical area that we can point to on a map and say by its demographics that it would make sense to set up Black nation there. Even if it were possible or desirable to set up a separate Black Nation in the United States the pain and suffering such an adventure would cause in terms of dislocations of the working class would not be worth the price. Liberation News, in contrast, calls for the overthrow of the racist capitalist system and the building of an egalitarian socialist society that guarantees racial equality, full employment, and access to health care for all.

Liberation News does, however, see Socialist Action’s campaign for Senate as a supportable campaign that, despite its mistakes, is promoting socialism as the alternative to the capitalist Democrats, Republicans, and Greens.

Here are some of the demands that Mackler is putting forward with his campaign:

1) Immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq! No U.S. aid to Israel! Israel out of Lebanon and Gaza! Shut down Guantanamo! U.S. hands off Cuba and Venezuela! End the Cuba blockade!
2) Tax the rich, not working people! Jobs at top union wages for all! Shorten the work-week with no cut in pay! For a revitalized and fighting labor movement! For a Labor Party!
3) Human needs before capitalist profits! Nationalize so-called bankrupt corporations under workers’ control.
4) Free quality health care and education for people of all ages! Build schools not jails! Quality affordable housing for all!
5) An emergency program to combat global warming! End our dependency on fossil fuels! No to nuclear power and weapons!
6) Stop the attacks on civil liberties! Repeal the Patriot Act! End police brutality! Support the right of marriage for same sex couples!
7) Defend a woman’s right to control her own body! Ready access to abortion is a fundamental right!
8) Immediate amnesty, legalization, and equal rights for all immigrants! No to La Migra! Demilitarize and open the border! Self-determination for oppressed nationalities! Affirmative action with quotas to remedy past discrimination! Support to Black and Latino independent political action!
9) For a government of, by, and for working people and the oppressed! For socialism!

While Liberation News agrees with many of these slogans we see a couple as too transitional. We do not see any good reason for limiting calls for nationalization to so-called “bankrupt corporations”. Perhaps this is in imitation of the economic crisis of Argentina and the many “bankrupt corporations” that have been taken over and run by workers as part of a miniature workers’ economy that employs about 10,000 Argentinean workers.

Liberation News sees no reason for limiting the nationalization of companies to those that the capitalists don’t want anymore, companies that the capitalists are no longer making super profits from. The exploitation of workers’ and the environment have produced all wealth, and the revolutionary movement of the working class wants it all back! We want the railroads, the banks, the health care industry, and of course oil! Only a society with a planned economy can meet the needs of the working class, can end war for capitalist profit, and can begin to save the environment. Revolution takes bold vision; we want it all; leave the conservatism to the Democrats and Republicans!

Imperialism has caused the poverty of Mexico, and an open border is the only right thing to do. Yet an open border would be coupled with a massive influx of immigrants and should be combined with the call for a socialist economy that guarantees jobs for all. Only socialism can solve the national question.

Jeff Mackler’s campaign for senate, despite its errors, does help show the way forward by pointing to socialist demands and solutions.

Due to the undemocratic laws of the state of California making it very difficult for third parties to gain ballot access Jeff Mackler will not be on the ballot so if you choose to vote for him you will have to write in his name.

Marsha Feinland of the Peace and Freedom Party

The Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) is the only socialist party in California that does have ballot status. Liberation News is also extending critical support to the PFP candidacy of Marsha Feinland. Here are key points of Marsha Feinland’s campaign:

1) Withdraw troops and advisors from Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and Colombia
2) End aid to Israel until it withdraws to its pre-1967 borders
3) Raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour
4) Create universal health care with a "single payer" (Canadian type) system- no insurance company profits
5) Shorten the work week with no loss in pay and guarantee paid vacation time for all workers
6) Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act - restore the right to strike and end "right to work" laws
7) Abolish the death penalty
8) End the phony "war on drugs" - legalize marijuana and decriminalize drug use
9) Fully fund the U.S. government share of education costs, particularly special education
10) End the war on children - stop the government mandated testing craze in public schools
11) Protect the National Forests and other public and native lands from corporate exploitation
12) Abolish the Senate and the Electoral College - one person, one vote

In this platform Marsha Feinland raises a number of good points, including opposing the undemocratic nature of the Senate itself stating, "Abolish the Senate and the Electoral College - one person, one vote." This is in reference to the way that the senate has equal numbers of representatives from each state, regardless of that state’s population. On a similar issue Diane Feinstein has been criticized by activists in Washington D.C., a district where the people do not get representation in the Senate, for supporting Washington D.C. school vouchers that were undemocratically crammed down their throats.

In the United States more than 45 million Americans have no health coverage. These include 9 million children. Millions of others have inadequate coverage. It is a crime that the richest nation (rich due to imperialist exploitation of the world) leads in medical technology, but has the worst access to healthcare of any developed nation. Marsha Feinland’s call for single payer healthcare of the Canadian model, covering everyone and getting rid of the insurance industry middlemen would be a welcome change. And yes, despite the propaganda, government programs are always more efficient than private profiteering with its stockholders, overpaid CEOs, and advertising. But the Cuban model with nationalized healthcare and no private hospitals or pharmaceutical companies profiteering from illness works even better. It is this healthcare model that Liberation News advocates.

In fact Marsha Feinland’s platform is not just missing a full socialized medicine program, it is missing another key ingredient. Besides calling for eliminating the private insurance industry through single payer, nowhere in her platform or other materials does she call for the nationalization of the capitalist economy. She has no reference to the expropriation of big oil, industry, and finance capital or even any calls for the nationalization or municipalization of the generation, distribution and sales of electric power. Without such a socialist program it will be impossible to neutralize the power of the capitalist class and meet the needs of the working class.

Liberation News also strongly disagrees with the Peace and Freedom Party’s practice of endorsing Democrats in city elections. In Santa Cruz this has meant that the Peace and Freedom Party has helped elect some of the most anti-worker, anti-homeless, and pro-police oppression Democrats such as Mike Rotkin. Rotten Rotkin publicly opposed the bus drivers when they went on strike, is currently campaigning against a city initiative to raise the minimum wage, has voted for and supported every anti-homeless law in Santa Cruz, and has backed the police in every act of repression, violence, and spying that they have carried out against the left in the city. The local PFP may not support Rotkin anymore, but they did help get him elected, and they continue to help elect other Democrats and Greens in Santa Cruz that have virtually identical programs to that of Rotkin. Liberation News says: No to support for Democrats or Greens in local or national elections! Yes to the socialist candidates!

It will take a massive working class movement for good socialist candidates to actually win elections. An important element of this will be breaking the labor movement from the Democrat Party. By backing the candidates worth voting for today we at Liberation News feel that we are helping build the foundations of that movement today and into the future as people get more and more fed up with capitalist exploitation and wars. Ultimately the ruling class will use ever more violence to try to maintain their grip on power and a revolution will be necessary for the working class to actually seize power and transform society.

Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Marsha Feinland, California Peace and Freedom Party Candidate for Senate:
http://feinlandforsenate.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Jeff Mackler, California Socialist Action Candidate for Senate:
http://www.socialistaction.org/macklerforsenate/index.html

Todd Cretien, Green Party Candidate for Senate:
http://www.todd4senate.org/

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Guerrilla (NEW Che Movie)

Federico ViCaDi — Wed, 17 May 2006 04:22:30 GMT

The new CHE movie is now officially called "Guerrilla"
It will be released in January of 2007.

Here is the Poster:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Guerrilla_Movie_Poster.jpg

The portrait was painted by Miguel Rincon Rincon A leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement Imprisoned in Callao Naval Base, Peru

Wikipedia: Guerrilla (film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_%28film%29

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Link To The Writings Of Che Guavara

Sun, 02 Apr 2006 15:34:34 GMT

Link To The Writings Of Che Guavara

http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/index.htm

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

New Witness Confirms Existence of Chinese Concentration Camp, Says Organs Removed from Live Prisoners

mentalfreedomne1 — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 04:24:10 GMT

Please help to end this horrible persectuion. knowledge is our greatest weapon, please share this information. together in peace we can make a difference. Falun Dafa is a peaceful meditation practice that teaches putting others before yourself, kindness, always telling the truth and being tolerant of others. We are literally being killed for being good people. The national media has done very little to help us because of trade issues with China. It is up to us to let the world know. Please help us.

By Ji Da
The Epoch Times Mar 17, 2006
www.theepochtimes.com

The witness, a former employee at the Liaoning Thrombosis Treatment Center of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, and says the bodies of Falun Gong practitioners are cremated immediately after the organs are removed. (The Epoch Times)
[High-resolution image ] A former employee of Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine told The Epoch Times during a recent interview that the Sujiatun Concentration Camp in China was actually a part of a hospital. The concentration camp has engaged in taking organs from Falun Gong practitioners when they were still alive and selling the organs. Since 2001, the concentration camp has secretly detained approximately 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners, none of whom have been able to leave the camp alive. The hospital removed many kidneys, livers, and corneas from the practitioners. After the organ removal, the practitioners were thrown into an incinerator, which was converted from a boiler. Their ashes were dumped together with burned charcoal.

Organs from Three Quarters of the 6,000 People Were Removed
Those whose organs were removed were in various states of health. Because many of the victims were illegally detained, there was neither an arrest warrant nor identification as to who these people actually were. Often after their organs were removed, nobody claimed the bodies. Sometimes their bodies were picked up by crooks who pretended to be their family members.

About three-quarters of the 6,000 people died after their hearts, kidneys, corneas, or skin was removed; their bodies were then burned. This witness, whose family member participated in the removal of Falun Gong practitioners' organs, said that approximately 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners remain in the hospital. She was afraid that the authorities would kill all of them to destroy evidence.

The Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine is located at 49 Xuesong Road, Sujiatun, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, China. It was the first hospital in China to specialize in the heart, the brain, and surrounding blood vessels. The hospital is composed of several organizations, including the Liaoning Traditional Chinese Medicine College Teaching Hospital and the Shenyang Thrombosis Treatment Center.

Concentration Camp Details
The hospital site is 21,087 square meters, with 17,564 square meters of building area. It employs 460 people in 24 departments and 20 specialized offices. Information from the Chinese government shows that the hospital was established in December 1988, and was formerly named the Shenyang Research Institute of Thrombosis and Liaoning Province Thrombosis Treatment Center of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine. In June 1998, it was renamed China Traditional Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center.

The Chinese Business Morning View said in a story on July 4, 2004, that a farm worker died of abnormal causes in Sujiatun, Shenyang and was later cremated. The death certificate was provided by the Chinese Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center in Sujiatun. The news caused a stir in China.

Epoch Times: Did the hospital's medical staff inside the concentration camp know about this?

Answer: This hospital has a small number of officials and some doctors involved secretively in the operation of organ harvesting. Some other staff in the hospital knew about this, but this is absolutely a taboo [to talk about]. They all are afraid of being killed or courting trouble, so they all avoid the issue. Only those highly trusted doctors could be chosen to be the surgeons for organ harvesting operations.

ET: Were Falun Gong practitioners alive when their organs were harvested? Did their families know about this?

Answer: Falun Gong practitioners who were imprisoned there came mostly from Dabei Prison, Masanjia Labor Camp, and other prisons in Shenyang, or they were Falun Gong practitioners arrested in parks or residential homes. Because they refused to denounce Falun Gong, they were arrested without formal warrants, and their families did not know their situation. Many did not even have their names [recorded]. In addition, since the Chinese authority exercises a policy of "not being responsible" for killing Falun Gong practitioners, the death of Falun Gong practitioners is not a very big issue for prisons. The Chinese Communist Party persecutes Falun Gong, [but] these medical personnel were told Falun Gong practitioners were facing death because they killed people, or they were sentenced to death because of crimes, or they had become insane from practicing Falun Gong.

Those Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were harvested came from several types.

Organs harvested from live bodies are worth far more than organs taken from dead bodies. Many Falun Gong practitioners were still alive when their organs were taken. After their organs were cut out, some of these people were thrown directly into the crematorium to be burnt, thus leaving no evidence. For some others, after their organs were stolen, the doctor sewed up the wound and asked the family or family representative to give a signature for cremation. Family members did not know at all that the dead had their organs taken out.

Furthermore, there were some healthy Falun Gong practitioners in prisons in other areas who were injected—without their knowledge—with psychoactive drugs that made their minds confused. They then were transferred to Sujiantun concentration camp to suffer further torture, till in the end their organs were harvested and their bodies were cremated in secret.

Among the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were harvested, some were weak and some were healthy. Since most of them were illegally arrested, there were no arrest warrants or identification cards. After their organs were taken out while they were still alive, no one came to claim their bodies; or [sometimes] people using fake identities claimed their bodies.

None of these people have come out [of the concentration camp] alive; three-quarters of these 6,000 people have died, having their hearts, kidneys, retinas, and skins harvested and their bodies disposed of. I think now about 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners are still in this hospital, and I am afraid now that the authority will destroy all evidence and kill them.

Question: How did you know these things? Were you yourself a doctor involved in organ harvesting?

Answer: I worked at the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Shenyang. This is exactly where this concentration camp is located. One of my family members was involved in the operation to harvest Falun Gong practitioners' organs. This has brought great pain to our family.

Question: Please tell us what you knew about.

Answer: From 2001, our hospital started to detain Falun Gong practitioners. At the beginning, these people were detained in the single-storey houses in the back yard of the hospital. Later, the hospital authorities demolished the single-storey houses, and it was unknown where in the hospital the Falun Gong practitioners were transferred. Many staff of the hospital discussed in private that these Falun Gong practitioners had been secretly transferred to the underground chambers of the hospital. According to some people working inside the hospital, the hospital has a huge system of secret underground chambers.

At the time when we went to work there, the person in charge of logistics and purchasing in the hospital said that the quantity of disposable sterile gloves used for operations and daily supplies that the hospital authorities asked to be purchased had increased dramatically. The logistics people estimated based on the scale of purchases at that time that there were at least 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners detained in this hospital.

These Falun Gong practitioners were not detained in the 4-story building under the in-patient department and administration at the front of the hospital, in order to keep the hospital staff from seeing them at all. We only occasionally saw Falun Gong practitioners being sent on a mobile intensive care bed to the first floor for physical examinations. These people were very weak. For the majority of the Falun Gong practitioners, nobody knew where they were being secretly kept. While they still did not know where these people were kept, some staff inquired to the hospital authorities about why so much food and so many sterile gloves and daily supplies were purchased. The hospital authorities said, "You only need to do your job well. There is no need for you to ask any other questions."

Starting in 2001, a family member of mine participated in organ-harvesting operations. My family member tried to keep me from knowing about this at the beginning. The hospital authorities selected doctors they trust in different aspects to perform the secretive operations. After a period of time, I found that my family member was in a lot pain, often had nightmares, and appeared panic-stricken. After repeated inquiries, this family member told me the truth. The leader of the hospital had asked my family member to participate in the organ harvesting operations on Falun Gong practitioners as early as 2001. It was 2003 when my family member confessed. A few years after, my family member felt so much pain from participating in this incident that it was impossible to continue with the evildoing. My family member decided to go abroad to get away from this matter.

My family member also told me: "you don't understand my suffering; those Falun Gong practitioners were alive. It might be easier for me if they were dead, but they were alive."

Question: Were there any other doctors from the hospital taking part in the operations of cutting out Falun Gong practitioners' organs?

Answer: I know there were some. All these things have been carried out secretly. Many doctors at our hospital involved were practicum doctors transferred from other hospitals. Because the government does not want to be responsible for Falun Gong practitioners' bodies and lives, their lives are treated as garbage by the regime, and their bodies were used in experiments by new doctors doing their practitcums.

Many doctors came and left the hospital because they suffered a lot after having been involved in these kinds of things. They either requested to be transferred to other places, or changed their names. Some might have been killed to eliminate the evidence, their identity files were taken out from the hospital's filing system, or their names were changed. Nobody knows where the doctors have gone.

The hospital staff all know that the rear part of the hospital is forbidden. It is always watched. The staff avoids talking about the place.

Question: It is said the hospital is equipped with an incinerator. The person whose organs were removed will be burned when he or she is still alive. Is that true?

Answer: The employees in our hospital call this place "the incinerator." Actually, it is a boiler room. Some poor farmers from nearby places were hired to work in the boiler room. They were penniless when they first came here. But they could scrape up some watches, finger rings, necklaces, and so on. The amount is not small. It is said by the employees in the hospital these jewelry and watches were collected from the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs had been removed when they were about to be thrown in the boiler to be burned. It is also said by the employees in the hospital, some were still alive when being thrown into the boiler.

Question: Do they get injection of anesthetic when in surgery?

Answer: Yes. There is a cap to the anesthetic quantity used in mainland China's hospitals. Generally, the supply of anesthetic was determined according to the accommodation of the hospital. To the public, the number of patients in our care appears to be very small, and publicly reported number of surgical procedures performed is quite low. But the equipment and articles used in surgery are abundant. Because the amount of anesthetic is limited, these secret surgeries could not use the normal anesthetic doses. In order to save anesthetic, they economized on the anesthetic used in surgeries on these Falun Gong practitioners. The amount of anesthetic used was very small. However, many whose organs were removed were still alive. You can imagine the pain suffered by the Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were removed.

Question: Are there any survivors among the 6,000 people detained since 2001?

Answer: Nobody has come out alive. The number of them gets smaller and smaller. The Falun Gong practitioners detained at Sujiatun are fewer now than before. But I believe that the sin of removing the organs of the Falun Gong practitioners is still continuing.

Question: Where are these organs usually sold to? Do the higher authorities in the government know about this?

Answer: They are mainly sold to Thailand, but I believe they are also sold to other regions of the world. Nowadays, there are many patients in China who need human skin, corneas, and kidneys for organ transplant surgeries. Many patients have to wait in line to purchase organs. Currently, a kidney can be sold up to the price of 30,000 to 100,000 U.S. dollars. The profit from selling organs is simply too great. The people who benefit from this are not only the top leaders of hospital and the officials of the Chinese Communist Party's Heath Department. This is a crime present across the entire nation. People ranging from government officials to doctors to organ sellers are all involved in this and are profiting greatly.

Question: Why did they target Falun Gong practitioners as the source of organs?

Answer: Because relatives of many Falun Gong practitioners don't even know that their family members were arrested. So if the Falun Gong practitioners are killed, there will be no one to come and claim their dead bodies.

Question: Why did you want to expose this? This may bring great danger to you.

Answer: I know that there are many Falun Gong practitioners who are currently detained at the hospital. I would like to expose this to the international community, so those who are not yet killed can be saved. Also, I would like to expose this as an atonement for my family.

I am not a Falun Gong practitioner. But as a former staff member of the hospital, I have the responsibility to expose the truth, and let the world to save those Falun Gong practitioners who are still alive. Organs of some Falun Gong practitioners are still living on patients' bodies. I would like to call on all society to pay attention to this issue and stop this shocking crime.

you can find out how you can help at www.fofg.org

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Che movies

Cybornian3rdIgAtO — Fri, 04 Jun 2004 05:30:10 GMT

Who's seen a movie called "CHE" Starring Omar Shariff, this cat was woeful in that!
1) He looked nothing like Che
2) They didn't even follow true accounts of what happened (as usual)
3) They left out so much important information.
4) He was made out to be a fucking villan!!
5) The Americans saved the day..

That is the only Che movie I can think of, discounting Docos and tv specials.

peace, roq

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 13 replies

New Che Movie in the pipeline!!!

anco — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 15:22:58 GMT

I just visited the site:
www.the handsofcheguevara.com. There´s a brilliant documentary film in the pipeline!
I think it is the same film that was mentioned in another posting on this site where the IMDB was quoted.

Anco

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

EMAIL CAMPAIGN AND NATIONAL VENEZUELA SOLIDARITY DAY

djapollo2k — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 19:52:39 GMT

EMAIL CAMPAIGN AND NATIONAL VENEZUELA SOLIDARITY DAY:
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2005
THE TIME IS NOW!

Let's stop Bush Administration plans to bring down democracy in Venezuela!

The Latin America Solidarity Coalition (LASC) is calling for a National Venezuela Solidarity Day for Friday, December 2, 2005, the anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine.

LASC is also calling for a prolonged email campaign to let Congress and the White House know that US policy in Venezuela and Latin America is unacceptable, and an attack on real democracy.It is time for people in the United States to come together and demand an end to centuries of interference in the hemisphere!

Here are three easy ways you can participate:

ONE: Join our email campaign to Congress and the White House.( you may start sending now)
TWO: Help organize a Venezuela Solidarity event in your community on or near December 2nd.
THREE: Organize a delegation to visit your Senators and Representatives while they are home for the holidary recess

CLICK ON THIS LINK TO SEND THE FOLLOWING EMAIL TO CONGRESS AND THE WHITE HOUSE :

http://www.pephost.org/HandsOffVenezuela

-Dear Senator/Representative/President Bush:

We demand that Congress and the Bush Administration::

Stop interfering in Venezuela's elections and sovereign affairs!

Cease and desist from invading Venezuela or sponsoring any more coup attempts!

Close the School of the Americas and the NationalEndowment for Democracy due to their illegal and disruptive activites in Venezuela and throughout Latin America!

We are appalled at the attempts by the United States Congress and the Bush Administration to interfere in affairs of the sovereign nation of Venezuela. We are dismayed that these actions are aimed at overthrowing legitimately and democratically chosen government.

The Venezuelan people have elected Hugo Chavez as their president twice, and reaffirmed that choice in a recall referendum that was funded with US tax dollars. The Venezuelan people have elected Bolivarian majorities to the National Assembly and ratified a Bolivarian constitution. All sides in Venezuela agree on one point ,the masses of people are more involved in democratic processes there than at any time in history.

The government of Venezuela poses no threat to the United States--unless real democracy itself is a threat!

The Chavez administration has worked closely with private oil companies, and has kept an open flow of oil to the US. Indeed, when the United States suffered a massive electrical blackout in the Northeast, and again, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Chavez administratio offered shipments of cheap oil. In the case of Katrina much needed medical personnel and supplies were also offered. The way the Bush administration and the US Congress have treated the people of Venezuela is a shame and a disgrace.

Graduates of the US Army's School of the Americas led the coup attempt against Pres. Chavez. There is ample evidence that plans for the coup were discussed in advance with US State department and military personnel. The misnamed National Endowment for Democracy and USAID funded groups behind the coup, the unpopular recall referendum, and the illegal lockouts and work stoppages designed to cripple the Venezuelan economy.

The United States cannot claim to care about world democracy while at the same time acting to undermine it. Therefore, as people of the United States and the Americas, we demand the US federal government cease and desist from all efforts to overthrow or manipulate the Venezuelan government and the people's popular choices.

Sincerely

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IS YOUR COMMUNITY ORGANIZING AN EVENT FOR THE NATIONAL VENEZUELA SOLIDARITY DAY?

If your community is already organizing something, be sure to let us know when and where your event will be. All; nformation will be posted on our websites at www.lasolidarity.org , www.handsoffvenezuela.org and www.ushov.org

And be sure and let us know if you are organizing a delegation to visit your Representatives and Senators.If your community is not already participating, but is interested in doing so--let us know who and where you are and we'll do what we can to get you in contact with other organizers in your area. We'll also connect you with resources and get you an organizer's kit. Ideas for possible events could include: vigils or demonstrations at federal building, the office of a Senator or Representative, a park or major intersection, or other ;public sites; a lecture, film showing, or cultural event;, an informal post card party--get folks together for potluck and have them write letters or post cards to Congress in solidarity with Venezuela. Or maybe you have an idea we haven't thought of that we could share with others

For more information, email, call, or visit our websites
at :jpj@lasolidarity.org

www.lasolidarity.org , www.ushov.org and www.handsoffvenezuela.org

202-544-9355

NATIONAL VENEZUELA SOLIDARITY DAY SPONSORS INCLUDE:

ActionLA, Alliance for Global Justice, Bend-Condega Friendship Project ,Bolivarian Circle Alberto Lovera-New York, Bolivarian Circles-Boston, Colombia Action Network, Committee in Solidarity with the People El Salvador, Ecumenical Program in Central America and the Caribbean, Global Exchange, Hands Off Venezuela Campaign,Hitec Aztec Communications, Interconnect, Latin America Solidarity Coalition (convening organization), Marin Interfaith Task Force on the Americas, Mediteranean League, Mexico Solidarity Network, Nicaragua Network, Nonviolence International, Office of the Americas, PCASC/CBLOC, Pan African Roots, Puerto Rican Nationalist Youth, Rochester Committee on Latin America, Quixote Center, School of the Americas Watch, Seattle/Cuba Friendship Committee, Turnwind, US Peace Council

WE ALSO WANT TO STRONGLY ENCOURAGE COMMUNITIES TO THINK ABOUT SENDING A DELEGATION OR INDIVIDUALS TO THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM IN CARACAS, VENEZUELA, IN JANUARY 2006. For morel nformation about the World; Social Forum, visit: www.globalexchange.org .

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Companero: the life & death of Che Guevera

Fri, 01 Jul 2005 15:22:52 GMT

Just finished reading it ... (took me long enough) ... what should i read next? I appreciated that this bio was favorable without ignoring his faults. I started reading it shortly after seeing the Motorcycle Diaries. Despite having a degree in history, I truly know not enough about our southern neighbors, and what i do know is frequently biased by the yankee imperialist sources ... input would be appreciated (yeah, I forgot the question too)

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 1 reply

New Chè Movie

Cybornian3rdIgAtO — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 21:01:39 GMT

The Motorcycle Diaries, if it's half as good as the book, it should be a great watch.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318462/

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 14 replies

Trotsky Tribe

johnhell — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 19:25:31 GMT

Join the Leon Trotsky tribe at http://trotsky.tribe.net

Che was a supporter of Trotsky who is credited with idea of Permanent Revolution, which Che voiced so loudly in his all but too short existence.

Like Che, Trotsky attempted to export the Russian Revolution. Unlike Che, Trotsky was kicked out of Russia, or at least he fell out of favor with the Communist gov't headed by his long time rival Stalin. Che never did fall out of favor with Fidel, even if the two didn't agree on communist styles.

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 1 reply

What's Cookin' with the Rising Revolution?

*Spring* — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 23:01:59 GMT

So it's the day after Election Day, and i'm sadly unsurprised by the outcome ~ I am however, hopeful that many of us will be MOVED by the pervasive darkness that has comandeered our country to ACT ~ To BELIEVE THAT ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE, to take responsibility and recognize the power and potential within ourselves, to let our every action be in the direction of LIGHT ~ and to come together, organize, RESIST, and make manifest the power, the love, the beauty and the dreams that live within us and all around us ~ So IT IS!!

To my Bay Area Posse: what's cookin in the way of protests/demonstrations etc??? When/where and who organizes these things anyway????

Blessings ~

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 3 replies

I recommend Action

Killa Cham — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 08:47:36 GMT

any questions?

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

ACTION AGAINST BUSH

Killa Cham — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 08:40:31 GMT

Many people are angry about what is happening in America. The question is: What are you going to do about it?

You see, people have been conditioned into thinking that they have no power. This is everywhere mind you. There are some societies in which people’s freedoms are respected, but America is not one of them, as is much of Africa, and other countries.

People have degenerated themselves to impotent followers. There are no more leaders. The info-matrix has relegated those who speak up for their rights as destructive anarchists. People do not realize that they have the power in masses.

I am proposing that people organize a 10 million-person march. I am proposing that people work together to organize something huge that yells out freedom will be preserved.

This will take a lot of cooperation and organization on everyone’s part.

I am also proposing the following:

That the 10 million also protest by not paying taxes as a form of protest.
That a new election is carried out with international observers
That Saddam Hussein and George Bush are both tried at The Hague
That Halliburton refund the money it was awarded, and is investigated for its illegal activities.
That both Republican Secretaries of State are investigated for abuses of power, at The Hague
That peace be brought to Iraq, and American troops, and companies leave Iraq now.
That foreign companies take over the reconstruction efforts, and no US companies get contracts.

The Ubiquitous March:
Is organized for one day in which internationally millions of people will protest George Bush. They will March down to their local government offices, and hold peaceful rallies, speeches and disseminate information: Information on the war, information on governmental irregularities, and more. It taxes action. Just waiting and complaining will not do anything. If Bush won, another election will establish so, remember the Ukraine? An international march demanding the following will garner attention, and force action.

Here’s the info,

You Decide.
Do something, or do nothing. The choice is yours.

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

ZEAL WANES

Sat, 23 Oct 2004 01:17:11 GMT

... a wake-up call from www.zealwanes.com

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Sean O'Hagan essay on Che in The Observer

hisforhybrid — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 15:59:00 GMT

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1258340,00.html

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Cher Guevara lives, too!

zenzen — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 18:24:54 GMT

http://www.tribe.net/tribe/servlet/template/pub%2CViewPhoto.vm/context/tribe?page=2&currentoffset=9&parentid=7cbd9d55-0555-405b-98f8-8e7915c22b27

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 1 reply

new Che fashion

Felis is half back — Fri, 28 May 2004 13:06:52 GMT

What do you think about the new Che merchandizing stuff ?
... him on t shirts, lighters, stationaries, and what next, washing powder (revolution in your landry) and cheeese (che cheeseand smile)...

f.

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 25 replies

District 9 race: Ammiano kicks himself in the teeth

Eleonor — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 06:40:32 GMT

District 9 Race: Ammiano kicks himself in the teeth at his kick-off campaign rally

By Idelfonso Rodriguez

I lived in the Mission District for over a decade. I know the activists, the cafes, and the people. Therefore, when I dressed up and went to the restaurant where Ammiano was having his kickoff campaign rally on June 27 for Supervisor in District 9, I had high expectations. I thought I would find a great number of neighbors there to ask questions, have input for this article.
http://www.sf-frontlines.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=762&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Happy Birthday Companjero ...

Mon, 14 Jun 2004 22:02:59 GMT

Ernesto "Che" Guevara born June 14th Nineteen Hundred and Twenty Eight..

Murdered by the C.I.A on October 9th Nineteen Hundred and Sixty Seven

Happy Birthday my Brother you are still very much Alive !

p.s.

Other Great Men Murdered by the C.I.A

JFK
MLK
RFK
Malcolm X
John Lennon
Tupac....

do the research !

The C.I.A is the most corrupt and evil organization in the history of America

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 2 replies

What Che or Che related books have you read ?

Cybornian3rdIgAtO — Wed, 02 Jun 2004 05:52:58 GMT

I highly recommend "Venceremos" - Speeches and writtings of Ernesto Che Guevara - , You get a real insight into the psyche of a revolutionery in the crucial moments of his life and in the shaping of the cuban revolution.

Also the "Motorcircle Diaries" is a great read of Che and his Friend traveling the Americas for the first time.

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 4 replies

new pics

Felis is half back — Sun, 23 May 2004 15:04:04 GMT

New pics posted, what about yours ? :)

f.

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 0 replies

Welcome to Che Guevara Lives!

guitahadam — Wed, 19 May 2004 10:56:21 GMT

What will the next revolution will be all about? :)

posted in Che Guevara Lives! - 10 replies