Some 11,700 people in Venezuela recovered their vision in January, after being operated on thanks to Operation Miracle, a project boosted by that nation and Cuba, aimed at helping people of scant economic resources to recover their sight.
The international coordinator of this program, Manuel Pacheco, told the press in Caracas that, from this figure, 10,831 were operated on by Cuban specialists working in Venezuela, while 861 were patients seen by doctors from that South American nation. Pacheco added that another 363 Venezuelans are waiting to be operated on in their country, between this week and February 1st.
He highlighted that, as well, 456 Latin Americans, coming from Honduras, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Ecuador, will also be operated on.
The joint work by Cuban and Venezuelan specialists, he stressed, made it possible to operate on patients, and to begin the surgery procedures with those found during the travelling campaigns to identify potential patients, held in 2008, Prensa Latina news agency reports.
So far, more than 1,384,300 people from 33 nations, including Cubans, have been operated on under this eye program, the CubaCoopera Web site reports. From this figure, 1,212,098 are foreigners, 265,443 of whom have been operated on in Cuba. The rest underwent surgery in 57 eye centres, with 88 operating rooms equipped with high technology, donated by the archipelago to 15 nations.
In Third World countries, the main causes of blindness are cataract, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, infectious diseases, and Vitamin A deficiency
from Juventud Rebelde
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
5 Latin American Presidents attend WSF
Some 60,000 activist members of social movements throughout the world and hundreds of indigenous people rallied on the streets of Belem, Brazil, during the opening of the World Social Forum (WSF) on Tuesday, AFP reported.
Drums and singing flooded the city in a rally full of slogans and multicolour flags from every corner of the world.
Despite the rain, the rally began, under the motto “Another world is possible,” and the variety of participants showed the cultural plurality of the event, in which some 100,000 activists and five Latin American presidents will take part.
The heads of state attending the forum are Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil), Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Fernando Lugo (Paraguay) and Michele Bachelet (Chile).
The activists also called on the international community to support the cause of the Palestinian people and to protest against the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. They also defended the right of humanity to life, and advocated protecting the environment.
The forum was created in Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul) in 2001. In 2009, and for the first time since its creation, the gathering began this time without the cry of “Bush Go Home.” Instead, people expressed their hopes about the new US president, Barack Obama.
The WSF will session parallel to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where leaders of the most powerful countries of the world will meet to analyze the economic crisis, the environmental situation and the scarcity of food throughout the planet.
According to Prensa Latina, more than 2,400 events will take place during the forum in the national universities of Pará (UDPA) and Rural de Amazonia (UFRA).
The WSF had been previously held in Brazil in 2002, 2003 and 2005. In 2004 it took place in India, and in 2006 it was celebrated in three countries simultaneously, Mali, Pakistan and Venezuela. In 2007, it was held in a single country, Kenya, and in 2008, it was celebrated as an Action Day of World Mobilization in more than 80 countries.
from Cuban Youth paper, Juventud Rebelde
Drums and singing flooded the city in a rally full of slogans and multicolour flags from every corner of the world.
Despite the rain, the rally began, under the motto “Another world is possible,” and the variety of participants showed the cultural plurality of the event, in which some 100,000 activists and five Latin American presidents will take part.
The heads of state attending the forum are Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil), Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Fernando Lugo (Paraguay) and Michele Bachelet (Chile).
The activists also called on the international community to support the cause of the Palestinian people and to protest against the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. They also defended the right of humanity to life, and advocated protecting the environment.
The forum was created in Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul) in 2001. In 2009, and for the first time since its creation, the gathering began this time without the cry of “Bush Go Home.” Instead, people expressed their hopes about the new US president, Barack Obama.
The WSF will session parallel to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where leaders of the most powerful countries of the world will meet to analyze the economic crisis, the environmental situation and the scarcity of food throughout the planet.
According to Prensa Latina, more than 2,400 events will take place during the forum in the national universities of Pará (UDPA) and Rural de Amazonia (UFRA).
The WSF had been previously held in Brazil in 2002, 2003 and 2005. In 2004 it took place in India, and in 2006 it was celebrated in three countries simultaneously, Mali, Pakistan and Venezuela. In 2007, it was held in a single country, Kenya, and in 2008, it was celebrated as an Action Day of World Mobilization in more than 80 countries.
from Cuban Youth paper, Juventud Rebelde
Communist Party of Israel Election Manifesto
Hadash and the Communist Party launches new election campaign focused on fight fascism and racism
Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality – Communist Party of Israel) launched its new election campaign today (Monday, January 26, 2009) ahead of the nearing general elections, and has chosen to focus on fight against fascism and racism.
The Jewish-Arab front's new campaign slogan is "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies. Hadash – the opposite of Lieberman." Yvette Lieberman is the leader of the racist Yisrael Beiteinu party.The campaign will also feature several videos showing Jewish and Arab youths and a website.
"We are the secured room for all those who fear the onslaught of 'Liebermanization'," said Hadash chairman, Knesset Member Mohammad Barakeh. "Unfortunately, 'Liebermanization' is not limited to the man himself and has permeated through Israeli society."
The party feels that the racism suffered by Israeli Arabs is growing by the day, citing the Central Elections Committee's decision to disqualify two Arab parties, a decision later overturned by the High Court of Justice – as a prominent example.
The move, said the party, was part of a long-term trend aimed at demonizing the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel portraying it as the enemy. That sentiment, said a party source, was the reason for the new, aggressive counter-campaign.
"This trend is destructive to the Israeli society," said MK Dov Khenin. "That is why Hadash, which is the complete opposite of Lieberman, decided to rally all the democratic and liberal forces in Israel against racism and 'transferism.' We know that there are plenty who oppose Liebermanization."
"The racist discourse seems to be increasing with corruption. The saying that fascism is the scoundrel's last resort, fits Lieberman and his followers like a glove," added Barakeh
"I'm worried about the big picture. The mandates his is expected to get are a manifestation of Liebermanization within Israeli society. The fight against racism goes beyond the election campaign. Unfortunately, it is evident in every aspect of our lives."
Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality – Communist Party of Israel) launched its new election campaign today (Monday, January 26, 2009) ahead of the nearing general elections, and has chosen to focus on fight against fascism and racism.
The Jewish-Arab front's new campaign slogan is "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies. Hadash – the opposite of Lieberman." Yvette Lieberman is the leader of the racist Yisrael Beiteinu party.The campaign will also feature several videos showing Jewish and Arab youths and a website.
"We are the secured room for all those who fear the onslaught of 'Liebermanization'," said Hadash chairman, Knesset Member Mohammad Barakeh. "Unfortunately, 'Liebermanization' is not limited to the man himself and has permeated through Israeli society."
The party feels that the racism suffered by Israeli Arabs is growing by the day, citing the Central Elections Committee's decision to disqualify two Arab parties, a decision later overturned by the High Court of Justice – as a prominent example.
The move, said the party, was part of a long-term trend aimed at demonizing the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel portraying it as the enemy. That sentiment, said a party source, was the reason for the new, aggressive counter-campaign.
"This trend is destructive to the Israeli society," said MK Dov Khenin. "That is why Hadash, which is the complete opposite of Lieberman, decided to rally all the democratic and liberal forces in Israel against racism and 'transferism.' We know that there are plenty who oppose Liebermanization."
"The racist discourse seems to be increasing with corruption. The saying that fascism is the scoundrel's last resort, fits Lieberman and his followers like a glove," added Barakeh
"I'm worried about the big picture. The mandates his is expected to get are a manifestation of Liebermanization within Israeli society. The fight against racism goes beyond the election campaign. Unfortunately, it is evident in every aspect of our lives."
Attacks on women in India
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the followings statement:
Mangalore Attack: Take Firm Action
After the brazen and criminal attack on young women by the Shri Ram Sene in Mangalore, the BJP state government has not acted firmly in taking action against this Hindu extremist outfit.
It may be recalled that this extremist group was responsible for a series of attacks on churches in Mangalore and targeting Christians in other places. The failure to take firm action in these instances and the efforts to soft-pedal their activities by the Home Minister then have emboldened the group.
The Polit Bureau demands that all the leaders of the Sene be arrested and immediate steps taken to proscribe the organisation's activities.
Mangalore Attack: Take Firm Action
After the brazen and criminal attack on young women by the Shri Ram Sene in Mangalore, the BJP state government has not acted firmly in taking action against this Hindu extremist outfit.
It may be recalled that this extremist group was responsible for a series of attacks on churches in Mangalore and targeting Christians in other places. The failure to take firm action in these instances and the efforts to soft-pedal their activities by the Home Minister then have emboldened the group.
The Polit Bureau demands that all the leaders of the Sene be arrested and immediate steps taken to proscribe the organisation's activities.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Naomi Klein - Boycott Israeli Goods
It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.
In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions -- BDS for short -- was born.
Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause, and talk of cease-fires is doing little to slow the momentum. Support is even emerging among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the antiapartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves.… This international backing must stop."
Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of us still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. And they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tools in the nonviolent arsenal. Surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counterarguments.
1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. The world has tried what used to be called "constructive engagement." It has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures -- quite the opposite. The weapons and $3 billion in annual aid that the US sends to Israel is only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the first non–Latin American country to sign a free-trade deal with Mercosur. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45 percent. A new trade deal with the European Union is set to double Israel's exports of processed food. And on December 8, European ministers "upgraded" the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a reward long sought by Jerusalem.
It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's flagship index actually went up 10.7 percent. When carrots don't work, sticks are needed.
2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes of South African apartheid in the occupied territories: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza was "infinitely worse than apartheid." That was in 2007, before Israel began its full-scale war against the open-air prison that is Gaza.
3. Why single out Israel when the United States, Britain and other Western countries do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan? Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the BDS strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work.
4. Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less. This one I'll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But when I published The Shock Doctrine, I wanted to respect the boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, including the wonderful writer John Berger, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus. Andalus is an activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go to Andalus's work, and none to me. In other words, I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis.
Coming up with our modest publishing plan required dozens of phone calls, e-mails and instant messages, stretching from Tel Aviv to Ramallah to Paris to Toronto to Gaza City. My point is this: as soon as you start implementing a boycott strategy, dialogue increases dramatically. And why wouldn't it? Building a movement requires endless communicating, as many in the antiapartheid struggle well recall. The argument that supporting boycotts will cut us off from one another is particularly specious given the array of cheap information technologies at our fingertips. We are drowning in ways to rant at one another across national boundaries. No boycott can stop us.
Just about now, many a proud Zionist is gearing up for major point-scoring: don't I know that many of those very high-tech toys come from Israeli research parks, world leaders in infotech? True enough, but not all of them. Several days into Israel's Gaza assault, Richard Ramsey, the managing director of a British telecom specializing in voice-over-internet services, sent an email to the Israeli tech firm MobileMax. "As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with yourself or any other Israeli company."
Ramsey says that his decision wasn't political; he just didn't want to lose customers. "We can't afford to lose any of our clients," he explains, "so it was purely commercially defensive."
It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it's precisely the kind of calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long denied, to Palestine.
Naomi Klein (Printed in ‘The Nation’)
In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions -- BDS for short -- was born.
Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause, and talk of cease-fires is doing little to slow the momentum. Support is even emerging among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the antiapartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves.… This international backing must stop."
Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of us still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. And they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tools in the nonviolent arsenal. Surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counterarguments.
1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. The world has tried what used to be called "constructive engagement." It has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures -- quite the opposite. The weapons and $3 billion in annual aid that the US sends to Israel is only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the first non–Latin American country to sign a free-trade deal with Mercosur. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45 percent. A new trade deal with the European Union is set to double Israel's exports of processed food. And on December 8, European ministers "upgraded" the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a reward long sought by Jerusalem.
It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's flagship index actually went up 10.7 percent. When carrots don't work, sticks are needed.
2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes of South African apartheid in the occupied territories: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza was "infinitely worse than apartheid." That was in 2007, before Israel began its full-scale war against the open-air prison that is Gaza.
3. Why single out Israel when the United States, Britain and other Western countries do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan? Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the BDS strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work.
4. Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less. This one I'll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But when I published The Shock Doctrine, I wanted to respect the boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, including the wonderful writer John Berger, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus. Andalus is an activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go to Andalus's work, and none to me. In other words, I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis.
Coming up with our modest publishing plan required dozens of phone calls, e-mails and instant messages, stretching from Tel Aviv to Ramallah to Paris to Toronto to Gaza City. My point is this: as soon as you start implementing a boycott strategy, dialogue increases dramatically. And why wouldn't it? Building a movement requires endless communicating, as many in the antiapartheid struggle well recall. The argument that supporting boycotts will cut us off from one another is particularly specious given the array of cheap information technologies at our fingertips. We are drowning in ways to rant at one another across national boundaries. No boycott can stop us.
Just about now, many a proud Zionist is gearing up for major point-scoring: don't I know that many of those very high-tech toys come from Israeli research parks, world leaders in infotech? True enough, but not all of them. Several days into Israel's Gaza assault, Richard Ramsey, the managing director of a British telecom specializing in voice-over-internet services, sent an email to the Israeli tech firm MobileMax. "As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with yourself or any other Israeli company."
Ramsey says that his decision wasn't political; he just didn't want to lose customers. "We can't afford to lose any of our clients," he explains, "so it was purely commercially defensive."
It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it's precisely the kind of calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long denied, to Palestine.
Naomi Klein (Printed in ‘The Nation’)
Venezualan Foreign Affairs Press Statement
The Bolivarian government led by President Hugo Chávez celebrates, together with the Venezuelan people, the victory of our brother Evo Morales and the Bolivian people in the Constitutional Referendum held on January 25th, 2009.
As soon as the results of the Constitutional Referendum were announced, President Hugo Chávez called President Evo Morales in order to convey the acknowledgement and congratulations of the Venezuelan people for this new victory.
This triumph ratifies the course of independence and equality set by the Bolivian people, and it consolidates the efforts made by President Evo Morales to promote a peaceful and democratic revolution in the face of those who have tried to destroy it with conspiracies and violence.
The approval, for the first time in the Bolivian history, of a Political Constitution of the State, which was debated on, worked on and voted on by the people, gives great lessons to those who say they do not understand the democratic revolution undergone by our continent, thus making possible the revival of principles such as sovereignty, independence and social justice, which were trampled for decades.
During their telephone conversation, Presidents Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales also agreed to meet on the occasion of the ALBA Summit, to be held in Caracas soon, in order to boost grandnational projects, guarantee the economic development, the social happiness of our people, and realize the words of our Liberator:
“The unity of our people is not a simple pipe dream of men, but an inexorable decree of destiny.”
Caracas, January 25th, 2009
As soon as the results of the Constitutional Referendum were announced, President Hugo Chávez called President Evo Morales in order to convey the acknowledgement and congratulations of the Venezuelan people for this new victory.
This triumph ratifies the course of independence and equality set by the Bolivian people, and it consolidates the efforts made by President Evo Morales to promote a peaceful and democratic revolution in the face of those who have tried to destroy it with conspiracies and violence.
The approval, for the first time in the Bolivian history, of a Political Constitution of the State, which was debated on, worked on and voted on by the people, gives great lessons to those who say they do not understand the democratic revolution undergone by our continent, thus making possible the revival of principles such as sovereignty, independence and social justice, which were trampled for decades.
During their telephone conversation, Presidents Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales also agreed to meet on the occasion of the ALBA Summit, to be held in Caracas soon, in order to boost grandnational projects, guarantee the economic development, the social happiness of our people, and realize the words of our Liberator:
“The unity of our people is not a simple pipe dream of men, but an inexorable decree of destiny.”
Caracas, January 25th, 2009
CYM Press Statement - 90th Anniversary 1st Dail
The first all-Ireland Parliament met on 21 January 1919 in the Mansion House in Dublin. The composition of the Dail was the Republican TD's who abstained from the British Parliament following the 1918 general election.
Republicans won 73 of the 105 seats a clear indication of the people's aspiration for a united, independent and progressive Ireland. The members of the Dail set about issuing a Declaration of Independence, which sought international recognition of their mandate as elected representatives of the Irish people. The only foreign state to recognise Dail Eireann and the Irish Republic was the socialist state of Soviet Russia. The Dail issued another document that day, the Democratic Programme. This programme, socialist in content, declared that "the Nation's sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the Nation, but to all its material possessions, the Nation's soil and all its resources, all the wealth and all the wealth- producing processes within the Nation, and ... that all right to private property must be subordinated to the public right and welfare."
The Connolly Youth Movement believes this document to be of extreme importance, such is its relevance to the current economic and political crisis and such are its recommendations on how an economy should be run in a democratic society. Unfortunately, this proposed programme for government has never been implemented nor made a reality for the people of this island.
The aspiration for a democratically controlled economy that benefits the people of Ireland and not a handful of imperialist elites has long been a demand of working people. Amid the current crisis, though it is complex, it is easy to see how we got here. Since the partition of Ireland and the victory of the counter-revolution in the civil war, successive Irish governments and direct rule governance, have sought to protect property and the powerful against democracy whilst refusing to focus on the people. Natural resources have been give away for nothing, public services are being privatized and the highest earners pay less tax than middle- income families.
The Connolly Youth Movement proposes an alternative, a "Democratic Programme for Today". The CYM calls for:
A state bank, providing secure provision of loans and protection of savings and pensions, with union representation on its board
Nationalization and control all natural resources, to be used for the benefit of all, with profits reinvested in the economy
Redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation of the wealthy
Support and encouragement of union membership and participation as another essential channel of democratic debate and enforcement
Equal access and publicly responsive state services in essential areas, such as health, education and transport
The regulation, monitoring and taxation of any transnational company producing profits from our country or its people
The Connolly Youth Movement is demanding on this important anniversary and midst this crisis that people mobilise for the implementation of this Democratic Programme.
National Executive Committee,
Connolly Youth Movement
Republicans won 73 of the 105 seats a clear indication of the people's aspiration for a united, independent and progressive Ireland. The members of the Dail set about issuing a Declaration of Independence, which sought international recognition of their mandate as elected representatives of the Irish people. The only foreign state to recognise Dail Eireann and the Irish Republic was the socialist state of Soviet Russia. The Dail issued another document that day, the Democratic Programme. This programme, socialist in content, declared that "the Nation's sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the Nation, but to all its material possessions, the Nation's soil and all its resources, all the wealth and all the wealth- producing processes within the Nation, and ... that all right to private property must be subordinated to the public right and welfare."
The Connolly Youth Movement believes this document to be of extreme importance, such is its relevance to the current economic and political crisis and such are its recommendations on how an economy should be run in a democratic society. Unfortunately, this proposed programme for government has never been implemented nor made a reality for the people of this island.
The aspiration for a democratically controlled economy that benefits the people of Ireland and not a handful of imperialist elites has long been a demand of working people. Amid the current crisis, though it is complex, it is easy to see how we got here. Since the partition of Ireland and the victory of the counter-revolution in the civil war, successive Irish governments and direct rule governance, have sought to protect property and the powerful against democracy whilst refusing to focus on the people. Natural resources have been give away for nothing, public services are being privatized and the highest earners pay less tax than middle- income families.
The Connolly Youth Movement proposes an alternative, a "Democratic Programme for Today". The CYM calls for:
A state bank, providing secure provision of loans and protection of savings and pensions, with union representation on its board
Nationalization and control all natural resources, to be used for the benefit of all, with profits reinvested in the economy
Redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation of the wealthy
Support and encouragement of union membership and participation as another essential channel of democratic debate and enforcement
Equal access and publicly responsive state services in essential areas, such as health, education and transport
The regulation, monitoring and taxation of any transnational company producing profits from our country or its people
The Connolly Youth Movement is demanding on this important anniversary and midst this crisis that people mobilise for the implementation of this Democratic Programme.
National Executive Committee,
Connolly Youth Movement
CPI Remembers Bob Doyle
It was with great sadness that we learnt of the death in London of Bob Doyle, who was an active participant in the Spanish Anti-Fascist War, 1936–39, and the last surviving member of the Connolly Column of the International Brigade.
Bob was born in North King Street, Dublin, where he grew up in a family of five children. In his adult life his commitment to world peace and social justice was an example to all. Right up to his death Bob travelled throughout Ireland and Europe, speaking at many meetings so as to inform and inspire the younger generation to honour the International Brigaders and to stand up for social justice and world peace. He remained a committed anti-fascist, peace activist and communist to the end and was active in politics up to a very short time before his death. He lived his long life without regrets. He recorded his life’s work in a wonderful autobiography, Brigadista: An Irishman’s Fight Against Fascism.
We offer our sympathy to his family, and we salute his memory.
Ba faoi bhrón a chualamar faoi bhás Bob Doyle i Londain, rannpháirteach gníomhach i gCogadh Frithfhaisisteach na Spáinne, 1936–39, agus marthanóir deireanach de Cholún Uí Chonghaile sa Bhriogáid Idirnáisiúnta.
Rugadh Bob i Sráid an Rí Thuaidh, Baile Átha Cliath, áir ar fhás sé suas i dteaghlach de chúigear clainne. Ina shaol mar dhuine fásta b’eiseamláir do chách a dhúthracht do shíocháin dhomhanda agus do chóir shóisialta. Go dtí a bhás thaistil Bob ar fud na hÉireann agus na hEorpa, ag labhairt ag an iliomad cruinnithe chun an t‐aos óg a chur ar an eolas agus a spreagadh chun na Briogáidithe Idirnáisiúnta a onórú agus chun seasamh ar son na córa sóisialta agus na síochána domhanda. Ba fhrithfhaisistí, ghníomhaí síochána agus chumannaí dúthrachtach é go dtí an deireadh, an‐ghníomhach sa pholaitíocht go dtí tréimhse ghearr roimh a bhás. Chaith sé a shaol fada gan aon aiféala. Rinne sé taifead d’obair a shaoil i ndírbheathaisnéis iontach, Brigadista: An Irishman’s Fight Against Fascism.
Déanaimid comhbhrón lena chlann, agus beannaímid a chuimhne.
Communist Party of Ireland
Bob was born in North King Street, Dublin, where he grew up in a family of five children. In his adult life his commitment to world peace and social justice was an example to all. Right up to his death Bob travelled throughout Ireland and Europe, speaking at many meetings so as to inform and inspire the younger generation to honour the International Brigaders and to stand up for social justice and world peace. He remained a committed anti-fascist, peace activist and communist to the end and was active in politics up to a very short time before his death. He lived his long life without regrets. He recorded his life’s work in a wonderful autobiography, Brigadista: An Irishman’s Fight Against Fascism.
We offer our sympathy to his family, and we salute his memory.
Ba faoi bhrón a chualamar faoi bhás Bob Doyle i Londain, rannpháirteach gníomhach i gCogadh Frithfhaisisteach na Spáinne, 1936–39, agus marthanóir deireanach de Cholún Uí Chonghaile sa Bhriogáid Idirnáisiúnta.
Rugadh Bob i Sráid an Rí Thuaidh, Baile Átha Cliath, áir ar fhás sé suas i dteaghlach de chúigear clainne. Ina shaol mar dhuine fásta b’eiseamláir do chách a dhúthracht do shíocháin dhomhanda agus do chóir shóisialta. Go dtí a bhás thaistil Bob ar fud na hÉireann agus na hEorpa, ag labhairt ag an iliomad cruinnithe chun an t‐aos óg a chur ar an eolas agus a spreagadh chun na Briogáidithe Idirnáisiúnta a onórú agus chun seasamh ar son na córa sóisialta agus na síochána domhanda. Ba fhrithfhaisistí, ghníomhaí síochána agus chumannaí dúthrachtach é go dtí an deireadh, an‐ghníomhach sa pholaitíocht go dtí tréimhse ghearr roimh a bhás. Chaith sé a shaol fada gan aon aiféala. Rinne sé taifead d’obair a shaoil i ndírbheathaisnéis iontach, Brigadista: An Irishman’s Fight Against Fascism.
Déanaimid comhbhrón lena chlann, agus beannaímid a chuimhne.
Communist Party of Ireland
CPI Statement on 1st Dail
Yesterday the Government marked the ninetieth anniversary of the first Dáil Éireann. The fact that they could not even organise to book a room on the actual day is of itself symptomatic of the shambolic state of this Government and our country.
The first Dáil proclaimed and asserted national democracy and the sovereignty of our people, their unfettered control over their destiny and their ownership of all the country’s natural resources, and proclaimed the equality of all citizens.
Ninety years later the Irish political establishment, which lays claim to the legacy of the Democratic Programme adopted by the first Dáil, presides over a society in which the majority of our children suffer in overcrowded schools, our people wait in endless queues for deteriorating medical services, and families once again face the scourge and trauma of mass emigration, while a minority enjoy the benefits of wealth and privilege. This minority can sit comfortably in private clinics awaiting private medical treatment; their sons and daughters will go to schools that are well resourced, with smaller class sizes, and believe it is their unquestionable right and privilege to attend third-level colleges.
This Government oversees a growing economic crisis, increasing inequality, the control of our natural resources by transnational corporations, and the use of Shannon Airport as a transit point for people bound and gagged on torture flights and as a stopping-off point for American armed forces on their way to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The neutrality of the state is almost gone. Power has been ceded to an unelected bureaucracy in Brussels, and we retain very few of the attributes of a sovereign state or people.
Several different political parties are represented in Dáil Éireann but they share a single ideology. The dreams and aspirations of the mass of working people, robbed as they from 1919 of a better life and of a democratic, sovereign and independent country, continue to be denied equality, justice, and fairness. Our country and our people continue to be divided and dominated. Power, then as now, rests with the elite. History has repeated itself, this time as farce.
22nd January
The first Dáil proclaimed and asserted national democracy and the sovereignty of our people, their unfettered control over their destiny and their ownership of all the country’s natural resources, and proclaimed the equality of all citizens.
Ninety years later the Irish political establishment, which lays claim to the legacy of the Democratic Programme adopted by the first Dáil, presides over a society in which the majority of our children suffer in overcrowded schools, our people wait in endless queues for deteriorating medical services, and families once again face the scourge and trauma of mass emigration, while a minority enjoy the benefits of wealth and privilege. This minority can sit comfortably in private clinics awaiting private medical treatment; their sons and daughters will go to schools that are well resourced, with smaller class sizes, and believe it is their unquestionable right and privilege to attend third-level colleges.
This Government oversees a growing economic crisis, increasing inequality, the control of our natural resources by transnational corporations, and the use of Shannon Airport as a transit point for people bound and gagged on torture flights and as a stopping-off point for American armed forces on their way to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The neutrality of the state is almost gone. Power has been ceded to an unelected bureaucracy in Brussels, and we retain very few of the attributes of a sovereign state or people.
Several different political parties are represented in Dáil Éireann but they share a single ideology. The dreams and aspirations of the mass of working people, robbed as they from 1919 of a better life and of a democratic, sovereign and independent country, continue to be denied equality, justice, and fairness. Our country and our people continue to be divided and dominated. Power, then as now, rests with the elite. History has repeated itself, this time as farce.
22nd January
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Mariela Castro on Cuba
'Cuba will stay socialistic'
Daughter of Cuba's President Raul Castro, Mariela Castro, reflects on what will happen once all the Cuban living legends of the revolution are gone.
Check it out below on You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9EInIlVbQ4
Daughter of Cuba's President Raul Castro, Mariela Castro, reflects on what will happen once all the Cuban living legends of the revolution are gone.
Check it out below on You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9EInIlVbQ4
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain 25th Anniversary
25th Anniversary of the PCPE
Ignored by the institutions and the bourgeois mass-media, but very present in the class struggle, the Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE) celebrates its 25th anniversary on January 15th.
On January 13, 14 and 15th, 1984, thousands of communists from the different peoples and nations from Spain took the step to start the recuperation of the vanguard revolutionary organization of the Spanish proletariat. That was a Congress that broke with the liquidationist trend that Euro-communism had imposed in the ranks of Spanish communism, and opened the path to recover future scenarios of revolutionary struggle in Spain. After years of uncertainty among the communist militants because of the treason suffered with the acceptance of the so-called Transition by the PCE, it was created the Party that, based on the defence of Marxism-Leninism, knew how to defend the principles that are our essence as Spanish communists: Republic, Internationalism and Socialism.
These have been very difficult years, in which capitalism has imposed its world hegemony with a high degree of violence and in which, from the solitude derived from having to explain what is evident, we had to feed ourselves from our ideology in order to continue intervening politically and socially. In the class struggle and in the solidarity with the countries that have continued building Socialism and with the peoples that fight against imperialism and for their liberation, our Party has grown as an organization that has a higher capacity of political intervention, a higher ideological capacity and a higher degree of Leninist organicity.
This is the reality that allows us to state that the PCPE and all our militants, with the development of a project that is not assimilable by the system, and in an international scenario of struggle which is different and more favourable, is able to successfully fight the battle against the capitalism in crisis in the arena of the class struggle. The Spanish oligarchy and its social-democrat and reformist managers only conceive the hypothetical overcoming of the capitalist crisis in the scenario of the European Union. We know that only the adoption of a series of measures oriented to satisfy the interests and needs of the social majority and strategically oriented to the construction of Socialism will be able to change the reality of repression and cut of liberties and rights that we are suffering.
Because we know that we are being observed, not only by the working class, the popular strata and the youth of the peoples and nations of Spain, but also by all the sister Parties with whom we advance, more everyday, in the process of boosting the necessary international reference of the communists, we will resolutely face the challenges that the revolutionary struggle will put in front of us in the future.
Long Live The Communist Party of The Peoples of Spain!!!
Ignored by the institutions and the bourgeois mass-media, but very present in the class struggle, the Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE) celebrates its 25th anniversary on January 15th.
On January 13, 14 and 15th, 1984, thousands of communists from the different peoples and nations from Spain took the step to start the recuperation of the vanguard revolutionary organization of the Spanish proletariat. That was a Congress that broke with the liquidationist trend that Euro-communism had imposed in the ranks of Spanish communism, and opened the path to recover future scenarios of revolutionary struggle in Spain. After years of uncertainty among the communist militants because of the treason suffered with the acceptance of the so-called Transition by the PCE, it was created the Party that, based on the defence of Marxism-Leninism, knew how to defend the principles that are our essence as Spanish communists: Republic, Internationalism and Socialism.
These have been very difficult years, in which capitalism has imposed its world hegemony with a high degree of violence and in which, from the solitude derived from having to explain what is evident, we had to feed ourselves from our ideology in order to continue intervening politically and socially. In the class struggle and in the solidarity with the countries that have continued building Socialism and with the peoples that fight against imperialism and for their liberation, our Party has grown as an organization that has a higher capacity of political intervention, a higher ideological capacity and a higher degree of Leninist organicity.
This is the reality that allows us to state that the PCPE and all our militants, with the development of a project that is not assimilable by the system, and in an international scenario of struggle which is different and more favourable, is able to successfully fight the battle against the capitalism in crisis in the arena of the class struggle. The Spanish oligarchy and its social-democrat and reformist managers only conceive the hypothetical overcoming of the capitalist crisis in the scenario of the European Union. We know that only the adoption of a series of measures oriented to satisfy the interests and needs of the social majority and strategically oriented to the construction of Socialism will be able to change the reality of repression and cut of liberties and rights that we are suffering.
Because we know that we are being observed, not only by the working class, the popular strata and the youth of the peoples and nations of Spain, but also by all the sister Parties with whom we advance, more everyday, in the process of boosting the necessary international reference of the communists, we will resolutely face the challenges that the revolutionary struggle will put in front of us in the future.
Long Live The Communist Party of The Peoples of Spain!!!
Israeli Students Call Barak a 'murderer'
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has cancelled his visit to the Tel Aviv University after being called a 'murderer' by the students.
Barak canceled his visit to Tel Aviv University's Law Department, after a graffiti sprayed on the walls of the building called him a 'murderer', Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported Monday.
The incident came after Israel launched a unilateral all-out military offensive against the Gaza Strip, killing at least 1,300 people including women and children.
The graffiti was drawn on the entryway to the Law Department ahead of the defense minister's visit.
CP of Israel
Barak canceled his visit to Tel Aviv University's Law Department, after a graffiti sprayed on the walls of the building called him a 'murderer', Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported Monday.
The incident came after Israel launched a unilateral all-out military offensive against the Gaza Strip, killing at least 1,300 people including women and children.
The graffiti was drawn on the entryway to the Law Department ahead of the defense minister's visit.
CP of Israel
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Resistance breeds hope, passivity only breeds despair.
BAILING OUT THE RICH
The National Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland, at
its first meeting of the new year on the 17th January , called on the
labour movement to resist any and all attempts to place the burden of
the growing economic crisis on the backs of workers, small businesses,
family farmers, pensioners, the sick, and the youth.
There is a constant and growing stream of attacks from the Government
and their hired guns, the bankrupt establishment economists who have not
one single idea about the nature or the extent of the economic crisis
enveloping our nation.
The present Government, all the establishment parties and the employers’
organisations have declared open war, ideologically and on the shop
floor, on working people’s wages, working conditions, and pensions. The
constant assault on health, education, transport and other public
services is now a daily feature of the mass media, coupled with the
employers’ organisations, such as IBEC and the Construction Industry
Federation, attempting to use the crisis to take back rights won by
workers over decades, including shift allowance, overtime payment,
pensions, and service increments.
The Government is running to the rescue of its financial backers,
exposing Irish workers to possible hundreds of millions in debt. They
have virtually doubled the national debt overnight. This is socialising
the debts while capital remains firmly under private ownership and
control. Working people are being asked to bail out those secret
visitors over the last decade who were wined and dined in the Fianna
Fáil tent at the Galway Races.
We have experienced over a decade and half of unprecedented economic
growth, and what have working people gotten from it. Over crowded and
run down schools, a health service that is not able to cope, a public
transport system underdeveloped, homeowners saddled with over priced
homes, tens of thousands of empty homes while the numbers of homeless
grows by the day. The divide between the rich and the poor is greater
now than ever before. Growing inequality is the order of the day.
There is a growing list of company closures, including Dell and
Waterford Crystal, as well as the announcement of substantial reductions
in the number of workers in such companies as Google, Seagate, F. G.
Wilson, and Nortel.
The decision by the Fianna Fáil coalition Government to nationalise
Anglo-Irish Bank has exposed the Irish people to unknown millions of
euros of debt. This is corporate welfare on a scale unimaginable. This
bank has been overexposed to the untrammelled greed of property
developers in speculative investment, not only here in Ireland but
around the globe.
The labour movement needs to organise now to resist these growing
attacks. Pensioners, teachers, pupils and parents have shown that
resistance produces results. The defence of public services is also a
defence of public-service workers’ terms and conditions of employment.
The political and economic forces that arrogantly told us there was no
other way for the last two decades now claim to have the panacea for the
growing economic collapse.
The state sector in the economy provides stability and is the biggest
purchaser of goods and services. Its many workers put millions of euros
into the economy every week. Allowing these attacks to succeed will only
further damage an economy already tottering on the brink and will plunge
tens of thousands of working-class families into deeper financial
straits than those in which they already are.
Public money should not be used to bail out bankers, speculators and
failed politicians but should be invested in the immediate establishment
of a state development bank to begin the necessary steps to rebuild our
economy and develop our infrastructure in a targeted and planned way.
Centred on the control and planned development of our natural resources
by the state. The strategy of over reliance on transnational
corporations is coming unstuck.
There needs to be a serious debate within the wider labour movement in
relation to the restrictions on our ability to take economic and
political decisions resulting from EU treaties. It is clear that EU
economic priorities are shaped and determined by the big economic powers
at the heart of the EU. We need to have an open and frank discussion in
relation to the repatriation of powers that a small open economy needs
in order to give us more flexibility in dealing with our growing
economic problems.
There is an urgent and growing need for an all-Ireland approach to
economic and social development. The reliance on foreign capital has
failed our people, north and south. We need to maximise the control of
capital so as to ensure that the economic and social priorities of
working people are met, not just those of corporate and political elites.
This Government is risking the livelihood, the homes and the future of
millions of working people. It is time for a different direction. It is
time those who created the crisis were made to pay for it, not working
people.
Our country and our working people are being sacrificed to bail out the
corrupt and bankrupt economic and political elite. Resistance to the
attacks on workers’ wages and conditions is the only forward. Resistance
breeds hope, passivity only breeds despair.
The National Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland, at
its first meeting of the new year on the 17th January , called on the
labour movement to resist any and all attempts to place the burden of
the growing economic crisis on the backs of workers, small businesses,
family farmers, pensioners, the sick, and the youth.
There is a constant and growing stream of attacks from the Government
and their hired guns, the bankrupt establishment economists who have not
one single idea about the nature or the extent of the economic crisis
enveloping our nation.
The present Government, all the establishment parties and the employers’
organisations have declared open war, ideologically and on the shop
floor, on working people’s wages, working conditions, and pensions. The
constant assault on health, education, transport and other public
services is now a daily feature of the mass media, coupled with the
employers’ organisations, such as IBEC and the Construction Industry
Federation, attempting to use the crisis to take back rights won by
workers over decades, including shift allowance, overtime payment,
pensions, and service increments.
The Government is running to the rescue of its financial backers,
exposing Irish workers to possible hundreds of millions in debt. They
have virtually doubled the national debt overnight. This is socialising
the debts while capital remains firmly under private ownership and
control. Working people are being asked to bail out those secret
visitors over the last decade who were wined and dined in the Fianna
Fáil tent at the Galway Races.
We have experienced over a decade and half of unprecedented economic
growth, and what have working people gotten from it. Over crowded and
run down schools, a health service that is not able to cope, a public
transport system underdeveloped, homeowners saddled with over priced
homes, tens of thousands of empty homes while the numbers of homeless
grows by the day. The divide between the rich and the poor is greater
now than ever before. Growing inequality is the order of the day.
There is a growing list of company closures, including Dell and
Waterford Crystal, as well as the announcement of substantial reductions
in the number of workers in such companies as Google, Seagate, F. G.
Wilson, and Nortel.
The decision by the Fianna Fáil coalition Government to nationalise
Anglo-Irish Bank has exposed the Irish people to unknown millions of
euros of debt. This is corporate welfare on a scale unimaginable. This
bank has been overexposed to the untrammelled greed of property
developers in speculative investment, not only here in Ireland but
around the globe.
The labour movement needs to organise now to resist these growing
attacks. Pensioners, teachers, pupils and parents have shown that
resistance produces results. The defence of public services is also a
defence of public-service workers’ terms and conditions of employment.
The political and economic forces that arrogantly told us there was no
other way for the last two decades now claim to have the panacea for the
growing economic collapse.
The state sector in the economy provides stability and is the biggest
purchaser of goods and services. Its many workers put millions of euros
into the economy every week. Allowing these attacks to succeed will only
further damage an economy already tottering on the brink and will plunge
tens of thousands of working-class families into deeper financial
straits than those in which they already are.
Public money should not be used to bail out bankers, speculators and
failed politicians but should be invested in the immediate establishment
of a state development bank to begin the necessary steps to rebuild our
economy and develop our infrastructure in a targeted and planned way.
Centred on the control and planned development of our natural resources
by the state. The strategy of over reliance on transnational
corporations is coming unstuck.
There needs to be a serious debate within the wider labour movement in
relation to the restrictions on our ability to take economic and
political decisions resulting from EU treaties. It is clear that EU
economic priorities are shaped and determined by the big economic powers
at the heart of the EU. We need to have an open and frank discussion in
relation to the repatriation of powers that a small open economy needs
in order to give us more flexibility in dealing with our growing
economic problems.
There is an urgent and growing need for an all-Ireland approach to
economic and social development. The reliance on foreign capital has
failed our people, north and south. We need to maximise the control of
capital so as to ensure that the economic and social priorities of
working people are met, not just those of corporate and political elites.
This Government is risking the livelihood, the homes and the future of
millions of working people. It is time for a different direction. It is
time those who created the crisis were made to pay for it, not working
people.
Our country and our working people are being sacrificed to bail out the
corrupt and bankrupt economic and political elite. Resistance to the
attacks on workers’ wages and conditions is the only forward. Resistance
breeds hope, passivity only breeds despair.
'Left' wins elections in El Salvador
Preliminary results indicate El Salvador's former Marxist guerrilla
movement, the FMLN, has won Sunday's parliamentary elections. The
leftist party has, however, failed to gain an absolute majority and
will have to form a coalition.
President Elias Antonio Saca's conservative ARENA party, which has
been in power for 20 years in El Salvador, came second in the poll.
Despite its good overall performance, the FMLN lost the post of mayor
in the capital, San Salvador.
Sunday's parliamentary elections are being seen as indicating how
March's presidential election will go. Opinion polls give the FMLN
candidate for president, Mauricio Funes, a clear lead over his
right-wing rival, Rodrigo Avila.
As a guerrilla movement, the FMLN was involved in a civil war with El
Salvador's government from 1980 to 1992. An estimated 75,000 people
were killed in the conflict.
movement, the FMLN, has won Sunday's parliamentary elections. The
leftist party has, however, failed to gain an absolute majority and
will have to form a coalition.
President Elias Antonio Saca's conservative ARENA party, which has
been in power for 20 years in El Salvador, came second in the poll.
Despite its good overall performance, the FMLN lost the post of mayor
in the capital, San Salvador.
Sunday's parliamentary elections are being seen as indicating how
March's presidential election will go. Opinion polls give the FMLN
candidate for president, Mauricio Funes, a clear lead over his
right-wing rival, Rodrigo Avila.
As a guerrilla movement, the FMLN was involved in a civil war with El
Salvador's government from 1980 to 1992. An estimated 75,000 people
were killed in the conflict.
Communist Party of Israel Statement
700 have been detained in public demonstrations held in Israel against war crimes in the Gaza Strip
Over 700 citizens and residents of Israel, mostly Arab-Palestinian, have been detained since Israel began its military attacks on the Gaza Strip on 27 December 2008. Detentions were made in the wake of public demonstrations, held primarily in northern Israel, Tel-Aviv-Jaffa and also in the southern city of Bee-Sheva; against Israel’s war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
In addition to the detention of demonstrators, Israel conducted interrogations and preventative detentions of Palestinian leaders in Israel. The Chairperson of the National Democratic Assembly (Balad), Awad Abd al-Fatah, spent a night in detention and was subsequently released without charges. The Secretary of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash), Ayman Odeh, was interrogated by the GSS (Shin-Bet), as were leaders of the Abna al-Balad, Muhammad Canaane and Raja Aghbariya.
The violation of the right to freedom of expression of citizens and residents in Israel is part of two separate but interrelated campaigns being waged by the Israeli government: the (further) marginalization and de-legitimization of Arab-Palestinians national minority in Israel, and the concealment of protest within Israel against the attacks on Gaza.
On 12 January, Israel’s Central Elections Committee acquiesced to a request by the radical right wing National Unity political party to ban two Arab parties from participating in national elections scheduled for February. The Elections Committee, a partisan body composed of representatives of the political parties, voted overwhelmingly to ban the parties. The Labour Party representative on the committee, Eitan Kabel, also voted "by patriotic reasons", for the ban despite his party’s decision not to support it. Although analysts predict that Israel’s Supreme Court, to which a petition in this matter was submitted today (Monday, January 19, 2009), will overturn this partisan and racist decision.
The detentions are additionally part of Israel’s mostly successful campaign to conceal internal popular protests against Israeli attacks on Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people throughout Israel, both Arabs and Jews, have taken to the streets in public protest against Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Protests throughout Israel have occurred almost every day since Israel commenced attacks on 27 December; the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee has organized three massive demonstrations in Palestinian towns and villages in northern and southern Israel, attending by over 200,000 people, and the Coalition against the War has initiated local and national demonstrations with tens of thousands of participants, mostly members of Hadash and the Communist Party of Israel, in Tel-Aviv and other mayor cities. The concerted campaign by the Israeli government and Zionist political parties from the “left-wing” Meretz through the far right has succeeded, however, in creating a local and international illusion that there exists no opposition to the military attacks within Israel.
Over 700 citizens and residents of Israel, mostly Arab-Palestinian, have been detained since Israel began its military attacks on the Gaza Strip on 27 December 2008. Detentions were made in the wake of public demonstrations, held primarily in northern Israel, Tel-Aviv-Jaffa and also in the southern city of Bee-Sheva; against Israel’s war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
In addition to the detention of demonstrators, Israel conducted interrogations and preventative detentions of Palestinian leaders in Israel. The Chairperson of the National Democratic Assembly (Balad), Awad Abd al-Fatah, spent a night in detention and was subsequently released without charges. The Secretary of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash), Ayman Odeh, was interrogated by the GSS (Shin-Bet), as were leaders of the Abna al-Balad, Muhammad Canaane and Raja Aghbariya.
The violation of the right to freedom of expression of citizens and residents in Israel is part of two separate but interrelated campaigns being waged by the Israeli government: the (further) marginalization and de-legitimization of Arab-Palestinians national minority in Israel, and the concealment of protest within Israel against the attacks on Gaza.
On 12 January, Israel’s Central Elections Committee acquiesced to a request by the radical right wing National Unity political party to ban two Arab parties from participating in national elections scheduled for February. The Elections Committee, a partisan body composed of representatives of the political parties, voted overwhelmingly to ban the parties. The Labour Party representative on the committee, Eitan Kabel, also voted "by patriotic reasons", for the ban despite his party’s decision not to support it. Although analysts predict that Israel’s Supreme Court, to which a petition in this matter was submitted today (Monday, January 19, 2009), will overturn this partisan and racist decision.
The detentions are additionally part of Israel’s mostly successful campaign to conceal internal popular protests against Israeli attacks on Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people throughout Israel, both Arabs and Jews, have taken to the streets in public protest against Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Protests throughout Israel have occurred almost every day since Israel commenced attacks on 27 December; the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee has organized three massive demonstrations in Palestinian towns and villages in northern and southern Israel, attending by over 200,000 people, and the Coalition against the War has initiated local and national demonstrations with tens of thousands of participants, mostly members of Hadash and the Communist Party of Israel, in Tel-Aviv and other mayor cities. The concerted campaign by the Israeli government and Zionist political parties from the “left-wing” Meretz through the far right has succeeded, however, in creating a local and international illusion that there exists no opposition to the military attacks within Israel.
90th Anniversary of 1st Dail
The first all-Ireland Parliament met on 21 January 1919 in the Mansion House in Dublin. The composition of the Dail was the Republican TD's who abstained from the British Parliament following the 1918 general election.
Republicans won 73 of the 105 seats a clear indication of the people's aspiration for a united, independent and progressive Ireland. The members of the Dail set about issuing a Declaration of Independence, which sought international recognition of their mandate as elected representatives of the Irish people. The only foreign state to recognise Dail Eireann and the Irish Republic was the socialist state of Soviet Russia. The Dail issued another document that day, the Democratic Programme. This programme, socialist in content, declared that "the Nation's sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the Nation, but to all its material possessions, the Nation's soil and all its resources, all the wealth and all the wealth- producing processes within the Nation, and ... that all right to private property must be subordinated to the public right and welfare."
The Connolly Youth Movement believes this document to be of extreme importance, such is its relevance to the current economic and political crisis and such are its recommendations on how an economy should be run in a democratic society. Unfortunately, this proposed programme for government has never been implemented nor made a reality for the people of this island.
The aspiration for a democratically controlled economy that benefits the people of Ireland and not a handful of imperialist elites has long been a demand of working people. Amid the current crisis, though it is complex, it is easy to see how we got here. Since the partition of Ireland and the victory of the counter-revolution in the civil war, successive Irish governments and direct rule governance, have sought to protect property and the powerful against democracy whilst refusing to focus on the people. Natural resources have been give away for nothing, public services are being privatized and the highest earners pay less tax than middle- income families.
The Connolly Youth Movement proposes an alternative, a "Democratic Programme for Today". The CYM calls for:
A state bank, providing secure provision of loans and protection of savings and pensions, with union representation on its board
Nationalization and control all natural resources, to be used for the benefit of all, with profits reinvested in the economy
Redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation of the wealthy
Support and encouragement of union membership and participation as another essential channel of democratic debate and enforcement
Equal access and publicly responsive state services in essential areas, such as health, education and transport
The regulation, monitoring and taxation of any transnational company producing profits from our country or its people
The Connolly Youth Movement is demanding on this important anniversary and midst this crisis that people mobilise for the implementation of this Democratic Programme.
National Executive Committee,
Connolly Youth Movement
Republicans won 73 of the 105 seats a clear indication of the people's aspiration for a united, independent and progressive Ireland. The members of the Dail set about issuing a Declaration of Independence, which sought international recognition of their mandate as elected representatives of the Irish people. The only foreign state to recognise Dail Eireann and the Irish Republic was the socialist state of Soviet Russia. The Dail issued another document that day, the Democratic Programme. This programme, socialist in content, declared that "the Nation's sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the Nation, but to all its material possessions, the Nation's soil and all its resources, all the wealth and all the wealth- producing processes within the Nation, and ... that all right to private property must be subordinated to the public right and welfare."
The Connolly Youth Movement believes this document to be of extreme importance, such is its relevance to the current economic and political crisis and such are its recommendations on how an economy should be run in a democratic society. Unfortunately, this proposed programme for government has never been implemented nor made a reality for the people of this island.
The aspiration for a democratically controlled economy that benefits the people of Ireland and not a handful of imperialist elites has long been a demand of working people. Amid the current crisis, though it is complex, it is easy to see how we got here. Since the partition of Ireland and the victory of the counter-revolution in the civil war, successive Irish governments and direct rule governance, have sought to protect property and the powerful against democracy whilst refusing to focus on the people. Natural resources have been give away for nothing, public services are being privatized and the highest earners pay less tax than middle- income families.
The Connolly Youth Movement proposes an alternative, a "Democratic Programme for Today". The CYM calls for:
A state bank, providing secure provision of loans and protection of savings and pensions, with union representation on its board
Nationalization and control all natural resources, to be used for the benefit of all, with profits reinvested in the economy
Redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation of the wealthy
Support and encouragement of union membership and participation as another essential channel of democratic debate and enforcement
Equal access and publicly responsive state services in essential areas, such as health, education and transport
The regulation, monitoring and taxation of any transnational company producing profits from our country or its people
The Connolly Youth Movement is demanding on this important anniversary and midst this crisis that people mobilise for the implementation of this Democratic Programme.
National Executive Committee,
Connolly Youth Movement
Friday, January 16, 2009
Peoples Struggle in Greece
Interview with Gen. Sec. of Greek Communist Party, KKE
“The molotov cocktails (fire-bombs) and looting of the hooded
individuals, whose steering center is linked with the state secret
services and centers abroad, have absolutely no relationship with the
mass rage of the pupils, the students, the people in general,”
Communist Party of Greece (KKE) leader Aleka Papariga stressed in an
exclusive interview with ANA-MPA, adding that the recent events were
exploited in order to turn attention away from and disorient the mass
moblisations of the youth and the people against authoritarianism and
the anti-popular policy.
Papariga reiterated her harsh criticism of the Coalition of the Radical
Left (SYRIZA), stressing that the KKE has fundamental differences with
that party in strategy, ideology and policy.
On the prospect of early general elections, the KKE leader stressed
that it would barely ripple the water if the unhappiness with the
ruling New Democracy turned into a vote for main opposition, PASOK,
To a question on whether the KKE would vote for the
establishment of a parliamentary preliminary investigation committee on
the Vatopedi Monastery-State land transactions affair, Papariga
explained that if presumptive evidence of criminal responsibility
arose, her party would back the establishment of such a committee.
Replying to questions, Papariga said that the state suppression and the
hooded troublemakers «are on the same side.» They are connected,
mutually fuel each other and their target is to terrorise the working
people and the youth, to confront the organised labor and popular
movement, Papariga said.
She attributed the killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in
the Exarhia district of Athens by a police bullet on Saturday night to
the result of escalating authoritarianism, reinforcement of the
repression mechanisms and their operation, the nexus of reactionary
laws and the «Euro-terror laws» created by the governments of ND and
PASOK. «The molotov cocktails (fire-bombs) and looting of the hooded
individuals, whose steering center is linked with the state secret
services and centers abroad, had nothing to do whatsoever with the mass
rage of the pupils, the students, the people in general. On the
contrary, they were exploited in order to turn attention away from and
disorient the mass moblisations of the youth and the people against
authoritarianism and the anti-popular policy. An effort was made, and
is being made, by the government, and not only to intensify the
repressive measures,» she said.
The KKE found itself opposing them with its political positions and actions.
«We blocked and cancelled certain plans. And we are vigilant,» Papariga
said, adding that the «mass-turnout strike rallies by PAME throughout
Greece and the demonstrations of the pupils, with their mass turnout
and precautions, proved that mass organized action can confront
suppression and terrorism, they proved that 'the spontaneous' can be
converted into 'the conscientious and organized.'»
To another question, Papariga said that the scandals, the repression,
the threats and blackmail faced daily by the working people in their
places of work were various sides of the anti-popular pollicy, and the
result of the «Euro-one-way path» served up by ND and PASOK, of the
strategy that serves capital profit and competitiveness and aggravates
the problems of the working class, the youth, the popular strata.
She said that the people's rage and indignation, which obviously intensified,
prompted by the murder of the 15-year-old, was not
enought to halt the negative trends for the people. Nor, she
continued, could any results arise from some struggles that simply
use pressure tactics.
Papariga said that the measures taken in recent years, and the «much
worse» measures being planned, such as a 70-hour work-week, in the report
on separation of spare time into active and inactive that was voted on favorably
by ND, PASOK and SYN (Coalition of the Left, Movements and Ecology) in the
European Union, which was a vital need to capital.
The movement, in its current state, cannot face those problems, she
said, adding that a restructuring of the labor movement was necessary,
given that only through organised struggle, a popular alliance against
the government policy and the parties that serve the interests of the monopolies,
could have positive results for the people. This was why
strengthening of the KKE -- which with its strategy and action was
formulating the terms and opening the road for the expression of the
people's counter-attack -- was needed.
To another question, Papariga said that the KKE firmly believed that
the working class of the cities and the countryside has the power to
change things, provided that they acted and fought for their rights in
the workplace itself, and created its own anti-monopoly alliance.
The working people should not be afraid. Those who should be afraid are
capital, the EU and its parties, she said, because the crisis was a
crisis of the capitalism they serve. The working class has for years
been paying the price for increasing the profits of capital, she said,
adding that the working class has no reason now to pay the price of
capital's crisis as well. The people must make use of their experience. The
parties that lied to them about Maastricht, about the Euopean Monetary
Union, are lying to them now too, Papariga said.
Whether it is the bankers who are boosted, as proposed by the
government, or the industrialists, as proposed by PASOK, the outcome
for the people is one and the same. The outdated or administrative
proposals put forward by SYN are not the solution. The young people,
the popular strata, must permanently turn their back on their policies
and dogmas. Only in that way will they be able to confront the
worst that is yet to come, Papariga stressed.
“The molotov cocktails (fire-bombs) and looting of the hooded
individuals, whose steering center is linked with the state secret
services and centers abroad, have absolutely no relationship with the
mass rage of the pupils, the students, the people in general,”
Communist Party of Greece (KKE) leader Aleka Papariga stressed in an
exclusive interview with ANA-MPA, adding that the recent events were
exploited in order to turn attention away from and disorient the mass
moblisations of the youth and the people against authoritarianism and
the anti-popular policy.
Papariga reiterated her harsh criticism of the Coalition of the Radical
Left (SYRIZA), stressing that the KKE has fundamental differences with
that party in strategy, ideology and policy.
On the prospect of early general elections, the KKE leader stressed
that it would barely ripple the water if the unhappiness with the
ruling New Democracy turned into a vote for main opposition, PASOK,
To a question on whether the KKE would vote for the
establishment of a parliamentary preliminary investigation committee on
the Vatopedi Monastery-State land transactions affair, Papariga
explained that if presumptive evidence of criminal responsibility
arose, her party would back the establishment of such a committee.
Replying to questions, Papariga said that the state suppression and the
hooded troublemakers «are on the same side.» They are connected,
mutually fuel each other and their target is to terrorise the working
people and the youth, to confront the organised labor and popular
movement, Papariga said.
She attributed the killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in
the Exarhia district of Athens by a police bullet on Saturday night to
the result of escalating authoritarianism, reinforcement of the
repression mechanisms and their operation, the nexus of reactionary
laws and the «Euro-terror laws» created by the governments of ND and
PASOK. «The molotov cocktails (fire-bombs) and looting of the hooded
individuals, whose steering center is linked with the state secret
services and centers abroad, had nothing to do whatsoever with the mass
rage of the pupils, the students, the people in general. On the
contrary, they were exploited in order to turn attention away from and
disorient the mass moblisations of the youth and the people against
authoritarianism and the anti-popular policy. An effort was made, and
is being made, by the government, and not only to intensify the
repressive measures,» she said.
The KKE found itself opposing them with its political positions and actions.
«We blocked and cancelled certain plans. And we are vigilant,» Papariga
said, adding that the «mass-turnout strike rallies by PAME throughout
Greece and the demonstrations of the pupils, with their mass turnout
and precautions, proved that mass organized action can confront
suppression and terrorism, they proved that 'the spontaneous' can be
converted into 'the conscientious and organized.'»
To another question, Papariga said that the scandals, the repression,
the threats and blackmail faced daily by the working people in their
places of work were various sides of the anti-popular pollicy, and the
result of the «Euro-one-way path» served up by ND and PASOK, of the
strategy that serves capital profit and competitiveness and aggravates
the problems of the working class, the youth, the popular strata.
She said that the people's rage and indignation, which obviously intensified,
prompted by the murder of the 15-year-old, was not
enought to halt the negative trends for the people. Nor, she
continued, could any results arise from some struggles that simply
use pressure tactics.
Papariga said that the measures taken in recent years, and the «much
worse» measures being planned, such as a 70-hour work-week, in the report
on separation of spare time into active and inactive that was voted on favorably
by ND, PASOK and SYN (Coalition of the Left, Movements and Ecology) in the
European Union, which was a vital need to capital.
The movement, in its current state, cannot face those problems, she
said, adding that a restructuring of the labor movement was necessary,
given that only through organised struggle, a popular alliance against
the government policy and the parties that serve the interests of the monopolies,
could have positive results for the people. This was why
strengthening of the KKE -- which with its strategy and action was
formulating the terms and opening the road for the expression of the
people's counter-attack -- was needed.
To another question, Papariga said that the KKE firmly believed that
the working class of the cities and the countryside has the power to
change things, provided that they acted and fought for their rights in
the workplace itself, and created its own anti-monopoly alliance.
The working people should not be afraid. Those who should be afraid are
capital, the EU and its parties, she said, because the crisis was a
crisis of the capitalism they serve. The working class has for years
been paying the price for increasing the profits of capital, she said,
adding that the working class has no reason now to pay the price of
capital's crisis as well. The people must make use of their experience. The
parties that lied to them about Maastricht, about the Euopean Monetary
Union, are lying to them now too, Papariga said.
Whether it is the bankers who are boosted, as proposed by the
government, or the industrialists, as proposed by PASOK, the outcome
for the people is one and the same. The outdated or administrative
proposals put forward by SYN are not the solution. The young people,
the popular strata, must permanently turn their back on their policies
and dogmas. Only in that way will they be able to confront the
worst that is yet to come, Papariga stressed.
Corporate Welfare and Socialised Debt
We are living in a time of unapologetic and undisguised corporate welfare. The government ‘bailouts’ of financial institutions and other industries represent hand outs with few conditions to the very people who are directly responsible for the current global crisis of capitalism. While the necessary investment could not be found for hospitals, schools, infrastructure and real wage increases for workers, billions if not trillions could be conjured up overnight to cover the debt created by greedy and unaccountable institutions.
Various governments have attempted different strands of the same policy. They have recapitalised – injected billions into – institutions of their choice, they have part or fully nationalised – bought the major shareholding in – companies and institutions again of their choosing, they have guaranteed the debt and risk – shouldered the responsibility of non-payment – again of their favoured businesses. All these policies have done little to address the fundamental crisis we face, a crisis due to the anarchy of the capitalist productive system in this case started by finance capital.
Whether in the form of nationalisation or government guarantee one thing is common to all capitalist responses to this crisis. Ordinary tax payers and citizens are shouldering the responsibility for the irresponsible and unaccountable actions of an inherently unstable and unjust economic system. Those at the top who have creamed off billions in rewards and bonuses are being protected and guaranteed by those at the bottom who have for years have not received any meaningful increase in standard of living as workers have increasingly been swayed by the relentless advertising of so-called cheap credit (of which we are now seeing its not so cheap cost).
The one common theme across western countries has not been, as some people mistake it for or dishonestly call it, socialism but in fact they very opposite it has been the socialisation of debt. That is, society forced to take on the cost and risk of the bad debt of individual private institutions without these institutions being owned socially. Citizens incur the cost and shareholders receive the profit.
Nationalistion from a ‘right-wing’ perspective as this is, national socialism as it has previously been called, has not been carried out to save jobs (as we have seen with the job losses suffered in Northern Rock post nationalisation by the British Government amongst many other examples) nor has it been carried out so that profits will be socially owned and re-invested in social infrastructure. No, this form of nationalisation is being carried out to stabilise the system so that all can be re-privatised again and the economy can go back to ‘business as usual’.
Indeed, so delighted have the Banks been with this action Anglo Irish Chairman Inow former Chairman) Donal O’Connor said, ‘The Government's commitment to make further capital available ensures that the Bank will continue to be a sound and viable institution. We are very grateful to the Government for this clear demonstration of support.’ And it sure must take something for a private Bank to thank government for state intervention in their internal financial affairs!
Connolly Youth Movement
Various governments have attempted different strands of the same policy. They have recapitalised – injected billions into – institutions of their choice, they have part or fully nationalised – bought the major shareholding in – companies and institutions again of their choosing, they have guaranteed the debt and risk – shouldered the responsibility of non-payment – again of their favoured businesses. All these policies have done little to address the fundamental crisis we face, a crisis due to the anarchy of the capitalist productive system in this case started by finance capital.
Whether in the form of nationalisation or government guarantee one thing is common to all capitalist responses to this crisis. Ordinary tax payers and citizens are shouldering the responsibility for the irresponsible and unaccountable actions of an inherently unstable and unjust economic system. Those at the top who have creamed off billions in rewards and bonuses are being protected and guaranteed by those at the bottom who have for years have not received any meaningful increase in standard of living as workers have increasingly been swayed by the relentless advertising of so-called cheap credit (of which we are now seeing its not so cheap cost).
The one common theme across western countries has not been, as some people mistake it for or dishonestly call it, socialism but in fact they very opposite it has been the socialisation of debt. That is, society forced to take on the cost and risk of the bad debt of individual private institutions without these institutions being owned socially. Citizens incur the cost and shareholders receive the profit.
Nationalistion from a ‘right-wing’ perspective as this is, national socialism as it has previously been called, has not been carried out to save jobs (as we have seen with the job losses suffered in Northern Rock post nationalisation by the British Government amongst many other examples) nor has it been carried out so that profits will be socially owned and re-invested in social infrastructure. No, this form of nationalisation is being carried out to stabilise the system so that all can be re-privatised again and the economy can go back to ‘business as usual’.
Indeed, so delighted have the Banks been with this action Anglo Irish Chairman Inow former Chairman) Donal O’Connor said, ‘The Government's commitment to make further capital available ensures that the Bank will continue to be a sound and viable institution. We are very grateful to the Government for this clear demonstration of support.’ And it sure must take something for a private Bank to thank government for state intervention in their internal financial affairs!
Connolly Youth Movement
Monthly Review - Editorial on Crisis
This year marks the eightieth anniversary of the 1929 Stock Market Crash and the beginning of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in the history of capitalism. However, while the Great Depression has been very much in the news of late, this is not due so much to this anniversary as to the fact that for the first time since the 1930s an economic crisis has arisen on a scale and of a nature that invites direct comparison with that earlier deep downturn, which threatened the entire system and ended in the Second World War.
The dominant economic interpretation of the Great Depression was recently evoked by Harvard historian Niall Ferguson (“The End of Prosperity?,” Time, October 2, 2008), who wrote: “The underlying cause of the Great Depression—as Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz argued in their seminal book A Monetary History of the United States: 1877–1960, published in 1963—was not the stock-market crash but a ‘great contraction’ of credit due to an epidemic of bank failures.” It was Friedman and Schwartz’s Monetary History that led to the eventual widespread acceptance of the notion that the Federal Reserve Board could have prevented the Great Depression—if only it had opened the monetary floodgates in time to prevent the severe contraction of credit. This was later transformed into the dogma that the Fed through its overly passive approach to monetary policy caused the Great Depression.
But the idea that “the underlying cause” of the Great Depression was monetary was certainly not taken seriously in the 1930s nor was it ever supported by Keynesian or Marxian economists. Rather this view became prevalent only after the mid-1970s stagflation crisis, which led to the hegemony of monetarism and other conservative economic outlooks. It was associated with the belief that the Great Depression had nothing whatsoever to do with what economists call the “real economy” (the sphere of production/income). According to the monetarist view, in a paper-money economy a severe debt-deflation such as appeared in the 1930s could always be prevented—if all else failed—simply by printing money. Ironically, the foremost proponent of this view today is the current chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke—nicknamed “Helicopter Ben” for his suggestion that reflation could invariably be induced in a crisis through the functional equivalent of Milton Friedman’s famous “helicopter drop” of money.
But confronted at present with the possibility of a new Great Depression, the Federal Reserve Board has been doing everything it can to stop the crisis by throwing money and liquidity at the problem. Since September, the Fed has enormously expanded the monetary base (currency plus bank reserves) with no discernible effect in arresting the economic decline. The result: it has become evident that in conditions of “depression economics” this amounts—in an old Keynesian adage—to pushing on a string. “The thesis of the Monetary History,” Paul Krugman concluded from these facts, “has just taken a hit” (Krugman, “Was the Great Depression a Monetary Phenomenon?,” New York Times blog, November 28, 2008). Indeed, the present economic disaster cannot be solved through monetary means at this point, since we are now face to face with the result of decades of financial leveraging on top of a stagnating economy. There is therefore no way of avoiding the weaknesses that have built up in the real economy.
This is the basic message conveyed by Rutgers historian James Livingston, in a widely circulated piece, entitled “Their Depression and Ours,” that appeared in two parts on the Politics and Letters Web site on October 6 and October 13, 2008. As Livingston wrote (replying directly to Ferguson and Bernanke):
"There is another way to explain the Great Depression, of course. It requires looking at the changing structure or “long waves” of economic growth and development, digging all the while for the “real” rather than the merely monetary factors. This explanatory procedure focuses on “the fundamentals,” and typically treats the financial system as a tertiary sector that merely registers the value of goods on offer—except when it becomes the repository of surplus capital generated elsewhere, that is, when personal savings and corporate profits cannot find productive outlets and flow instead into speculative channels…
The “underlying cause” of the Great Depression was not a short-term credit contraction engineered by central bankers who, unlike Ferguson and Bernanke, hadn’t yet had the privilege of reading Milton Friedman’s big book. The underlying cause of that economic disaster was a fundamental shift of income shares away from wages/consumption to corporate profits which produced a tidal wave of surplus capital that could not be profitably invested in goods production—and, in fact, was not invested in good production….
This [the 1920s] was the first decade in which a measurable decline of net investment coincided with spectacular increases in nonfarm labor productivity and industrial output (roughly 60% for both)…
At the very moment that net investment became unnecessary to enforce increased productivity and output, income shares shifted decisively away from wages, toward profits."
Livingston went on to ask the critical question of how this shortage of net investment outlets and resulting surplus capital was related to the hyper-expansion of credit/debt—both with regard to the financial euphoria prior to the Great Depression and the speculative mania that preceded today’s Great Financial Crisis:
What could be done with the resulting surpluses piling up in corporate coffers? If you can increase labor productivity and industrial output without making net additions to the capital stock, what do you do with your rising profits? In other words, if you can’t invest those profits in goods production, where do you place them in the hope of a reasonable return?
The answer is simple—you place your growing surpluses in the most promising markets, in securities listed on the stock exchange, say, or in the Florida real estate boom, particularly in view of receding returns elsewhere. You also establish time deposits in commercial banks and start issuing paper in the call loan market that feeds speculative trading in securities.
At any rate that is what corporate CEOs outside the financial sector did between 1926 and 1929. They had no place else to put their increased profits—they could not, and they did not, invest these profits in expanded productive capacity, because merely maintaining and replacing the existing capital stock was enough to enlarge capacity, productivity, and output.
This is similar, Livingston tells us, to what is happening today: “So the current crisis does bear a strong resemblance to the Great Depression, if only because its ‘underlying cause’ is a recent redistribution of income toward profits, away from wages and consumption” and the resulting undermining of effective demand, generating stagnation tendencies and financial euphoria.
The dominant economic interpretation of the Great Depression was recently evoked by Harvard historian Niall Ferguson (“The End of Prosperity?,” Time, October 2, 2008), who wrote: “The underlying cause of the Great Depression—as Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz argued in their seminal book A Monetary History of the United States: 1877–1960, published in 1963—was not the stock-market crash but a ‘great contraction’ of credit due to an epidemic of bank failures.” It was Friedman and Schwartz’s Monetary History that led to the eventual widespread acceptance of the notion that the Federal Reserve Board could have prevented the Great Depression—if only it had opened the monetary floodgates in time to prevent the severe contraction of credit. This was later transformed into the dogma that the Fed through its overly passive approach to monetary policy caused the Great Depression.
But the idea that “the underlying cause” of the Great Depression was monetary was certainly not taken seriously in the 1930s nor was it ever supported by Keynesian or Marxian economists. Rather this view became prevalent only after the mid-1970s stagflation crisis, which led to the hegemony of monetarism and other conservative economic outlooks. It was associated with the belief that the Great Depression had nothing whatsoever to do with what economists call the “real economy” (the sphere of production/income). According to the monetarist view, in a paper-money economy a severe debt-deflation such as appeared in the 1930s could always be prevented—if all else failed—simply by printing money. Ironically, the foremost proponent of this view today is the current chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke—nicknamed “Helicopter Ben” for his suggestion that reflation could invariably be induced in a crisis through the functional equivalent of Milton Friedman’s famous “helicopter drop” of money.
But confronted at present with the possibility of a new Great Depression, the Federal Reserve Board has been doing everything it can to stop the crisis by throwing money and liquidity at the problem. Since September, the Fed has enormously expanded the monetary base (currency plus bank reserves) with no discernible effect in arresting the economic decline. The result: it has become evident that in conditions of “depression economics” this amounts—in an old Keynesian adage—to pushing on a string. “The thesis of the Monetary History,” Paul Krugman concluded from these facts, “has just taken a hit” (Krugman, “Was the Great Depression a Monetary Phenomenon?,” New York Times blog, November 28, 2008). Indeed, the present economic disaster cannot be solved through monetary means at this point, since we are now face to face with the result of decades of financial leveraging on top of a stagnating economy. There is therefore no way of avoiding the weaknesses that have built up in the real economy.
This is the basic message conveyed by Rutgers historian James Livingston, in a widely circulated piece, entitled “Their Depression and Ours,” that appeared in two parts on the Politics and Letters Web site on October 6 and October 13, 2008. As Livingston wrote (replying directly to Ferguson and Bernanke):
"There is another way to explain the Great Depression, of course. It requires looking at the changing structure or “long waves” of economic growth and development, digging all the while for the “real” rather than the merely monetary factors. This explanatory procedure focuses on “the fundamentals,” and typically treats the financial system as a tertiary sector that merely registers the value of goods on offer—except when it becomes the repository of surplus capital generated elsewhere, that is, when personal savings and corporate profits cannot find productive outlets and flow instead into speculative channels…
The “underlying cause” of the Great Depression was not a short-term credit contraction engineered by central bankers who, unlike Ferguson and Bernanke, hadn’t yet had the privilege of reading Milton Friedman’s big book. The underlying cause of that economic disaster was a fundamental shift of income shares away from wages/consumption to corporate profits which produced a tidal wave of surplus capital that could not be profitably invested in goods production—and, in fact, was not invested in good production….
This [the 1920s] was the first decade in which a measurable decline of net investment coincided with spectacular increases in nonfarm labor productivity and industrial output (roughly 60% for both)…
At the very moment that net investment became unnecessary to enforce increased productivity and output, income shares shifted decisively away from wages, toward profits."
Livingston went on to ask the critical question of how this shortage of net investment outlets and resulting surplus capital was related to the hyper-expansion of credit/debt—both with regard to the financial euphoria prior to the Great Depression and the speculative mania that preceded today’s Great Financial Crisis:
What could be done with the resulting surpluses piling up in corporate coffers? If you can increase labor productivity and industrial output without making net additions to the capital stock, what do you do with your rising profits? In other words, if you can’t invest those profits in goods production, where do you place them in the hope of a reasonable return?
The answer is simple—you place your growing surpluses in the most promising markets, in securities listed on the stock exchange, say, or in the Florida real estate boom, particularly in view of receding returns elsewhere. You also establish time deposits in commercial banks and start issuing paper in the call loan market that feeds speculative trading in securities.
At any rate that is what corporate CEOs outside the financial sector did between 1926 and 1929. They had no place else to put their increased profits—they could not, and they did not, invest these profits in expanded productive capacity, because merely maintaining and replacing the existing capital stock was enough to enlarge capacity, productivity, and output.
This is similar, Livingston tells us, to what is happening today: “So the current crisis does bear a strong resemblance to the Great Depression, if only because its ‘underlying cause’ is a recent redistribution of income toward profits, away from wages and consumption” and the resulting undermining of effective demand, generating stagnation tendencies and financial euphoria.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Irish Demands Re-Palestine
Justice Demands:
Sever diplomatic relations with Israel
The recall of the Irish Ambassador from Israel
End EU collaboration with Israel
Sanctions against Israel until it abides by UN resolutions regarding the occupied territories
Support the Irish trade unions policy calling for a Boycott Israeli goods
End all cultural and other ties with Israel
Bring Palestinian wounded from Gaza to Ireland for medical treatment
Irish Government should sponsor Palestinian students from Gaza to finish their studies in Ireland
Sever diplomatic relations with Israel
The recall of the Irish Ambassador from Israel
End EU collaboration with Israel
Sanctions against Israel until it abides by UN resolutions regarding the occupied territories
Support the Irish trade unions policy calling for a Boycott Israeli goods
End all cultural and other ties with Israel
Bring Palestinian wounded from Gaza to Ireland for medical treatment
Irish Government should sponsor Palestinian students from Gaza to finish their studies in Ireland
Palestinian People's Party Statement
The Palestinian People's Party expresses outrage and complete condemnation, at the horrific and inhuman attacks by Israel on Gaza and call upon all the fraternal parties, democratic forces and organizations to take immediate action to condemn Israel’s actions and to call for an immediate end to Israel’s attacks on Gaza. Despite the UN Security Council call for a ceasefire, the brutal Israeli bombing of Gaza continues and the international community must now take concrete action to end the grossly disproportionate and deliberate aggression by Israel.
More than 800 Palestinians have now been killed and 3,500 have been injured since Israel's aerial bombardment began on Saturday 27th December 2008. This massive attack on an impoverished and largely defenseless civilian population must be condemned as unlawful and representing massive violations of international humanitarian law, especially by the leaders and public opinion of those countries party to the Geneva Conventions and to international human rights instruments. The situation is a catastrophe for the Palestinian people living in Gaza and action must be taken by the international community, to stop Israel’s war and aggression against Gaza.
Many of those killed have been civilians. Just one example is the Israeli bombardment that killed 42 Palestinian Civilians in the UN school in the Jabalia refugee camp. Such civilian deaths as an inevitable and foreseeable consequence of air attacks on a densely populated area comprise a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are as such a war crime.
We further refer to the earlier collective punishment of the people of Gaza by Israel. The Gaza Strip has been completed sealed off, with no-one able to leave or enter. This led to massive shortages of basic necessities - food, medicines and fuel. There has also been disruption to electricity supplies and to clean water supplies. The siege has left Gaza with a health system in a state of near collapse, and hospitals lacking medicines and essential equipment. With the onset of the brutal attacks on Gaza, hospitals and emergency services have been left struggling to treat the large numbers of victims and greatly exacerbating the already catastrophic situation for the people of Gaza.
In view of the horrific events of the past days, we now call on the International community, and mainly the progressive, democratic and left forces and parties to:
(1) Call, in the strongest possible terms, for an end to Israeli aggression and violence against the people of Gaza;
(2) Condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza as massive violations of international humanitarian law and as such war crimes and crimes against humanity;
(3) Call upon the international community to support the call for an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza and lifting the Israeli Siege; and for an international mechanism to force Israel to stop its aggression.
(4) Call for and work with members of the United Nations Security Council to bring about a new resolution under Chapter VII, that considers the attacks on Gaza by Israel, a threat to the peace and security in the region; and enforcing international sanctions against Israel. This step becomes necessary after the Israeli rejection of the Security Council resolution 1860 in spite its weakness;
(5) Support and actively work towards a meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, with a view to hold Israel accountable for the war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed in Gaza and to enforce the obligations of the High Contracting parties to ensure respect for the Geneva Convention by Israel in circumstances where grave breaches are being committed;
(6) Call for the European Parliament to refuse to endorse any extension of existing agreements with Israel and to use its influence to prevent any upgrades of EU benefits to Israel until it abides by its international legal and humanitarian obligations.
(7) Call for all the Parties, popular organizations and democratic forces to go on in expressing solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian People through demonstrations, sit-ins…etc…, and all kinds of popular activities.
Palestinian People's Party
More than 800 Palestinians have now been killed and 3,500 have been injured since Israel's aerial bombardment began on Saturday 27th December 2008. This massive attack on an impoverished and largely defenseless civilian population must be condemned as unlawful and representing massive violations of international humanitarian law, especially by the leaders and public opinion of those countries party to the Geneva Conventions and to international human rights instruments. The situation is a catastrophe for the Palestinian people living in Gaza and action must be taken by the international community, to stop Israel’s war and aggression against Gaza.
Many of those killed have been civilians. Just one example is the Israeli bombardment that killed 42 Palestinian Civilians in the UN school in the Jabalia refugee camp. Such civilian deaths as an inevitable and foreseeable consequence of air attacks on a densely populated area comprise a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are as such a war crime.
We further refer to the earlier collective punishment of the people of Gaza by Israel. The Gaza Strip has been completed sealed off, with no-one able to leave or enter. This led to massive shortages of basic necessities - food, medicines and fuel. There has also been disruption to electricity supplies and to clean water supplies. The siege has left Gaza with a health system in a state of near collapse, and hospitals lacking medicines and essential equipment. With the onset of the brutal attacks on Gaza, hospitals and emergency services have been left struggling to treat the large numbers of victims and greatly exacerbating the already catastrophic situation for the people of Gaza.
In view of the horrific events of the past days, we now call on the International community, and mainly the progressive, democratic and left forces and parties to:
(1) Call, in the strongest possible terms, for an end to Israeli aggression and violence against the people of Gaza;
(2) Condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza as massive violations of international humanitarian law and as such war crimes and crimes against humanity;
(3) Call upon the international community to support the call for an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of the Israeli army from Gaza and lifting the Israeli Siege; and for an international mechanism to force Israel to stop its aggression.
(4) Call for and work with members of the United Nations Security Council to bring about a new resolution under Chapter VII, that considers the attacks on Gaza by Israel, a threat to the peace and security in the region; and enforcing international sanctions against Israel. This step becomes necessary after the Israeli rejection of the Security Council resolution 1860 in spite its weakness;
(5) Support and actively work towards a meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, with a view to hold Israel accountable for the war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed in Gaza and to enforce the obligations of the High Contracting parties to ensure respect for the Geneva Convention by Israel in circumstances where grave breaches are being committed;
(6) Call for the European Parliament to refuse to endorse any extension of existing agreements with Israel and to use its influence to prevent any upgrades of EU benefits to Israel until it abides by its international legal and humanitarian obligations.
(7) Call for all the Parties, popular organizations and democratic forces to go on in expressing solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian People through demonstrations, sit-ins…etc…, and all kinds of popular activities.
Palestinian People's Party
A founding declaration of the Popular Movement against the EU in the Czech Republic
The Popular Movement against the EU rises from the need of the citizens of the
The aim of the Popular Movement against the EU among others is to inform the citizens of the
- The European Union means agreements enforced to the peoples of European countries by the largest monopolies. The aim of the EU is to maximize profit of the monopolies by all possible means at the expense of the working people and nations in the European Union and in other countries of the world.
- The European Union means imperialist wars which are initiated by it or in which the EU actively participates. The EU participates in wars and aggressions committed by the
- The European Union means schools and universities which serve the interests of the monopoly corporations, text-books containing historical lies and non-scientific claims, displacement of public and free education system by introduction of fees paid for education and thus creation of social screen placed between the population and education system, formation of preconditions for acquiring of the higher education and expertise only by a certain elite.
- The European Union means unemployment interrupted by episodes of short-time work and accompanied by constant social uncertainties. The rights of the working people are „transformed“ by agreements like a Lisbon Treaty and by directives like a Bolkestein directive into costs that must be minimized according to the will a interests of the monopolies.
- The European Union means a freedom of movement of the capital, services and a limited freedom of movement of the working people. The legal securities as well as other social conquests of the working people are being limited.
- The European Union means a goal-directed destruction of agriculture in its member states through directives, measures and prohibitions so that the foodstuff self-sustainability and independence of the particular countries was eliminated.
- The European Union means limitation of the democratic rights and freedoms in the name of the so called „war on terrorism“ and through its anti-communist campaigns.
- The European Union means a demonstrative disregard to the popular will like it is in the case of the referendums on the so called Constitution of Europe and its brush-up version – a Lisbon Treaty in France, Netherlands and then in Ireland as well as the limitation of the expression of the people through the referendums, enforcement of acceptance of the principles and goals of the monopolies paraded as the European goals.
The Popular Movement against the EU is convinced that due to the mentioned reasons it is necessary to oppose the European Union. It is necessary together with the citizens of other European states to reject the policy and plans of the monopolies and of the European Union which serves them. The future of the
'Sao Paulo Proclamation: Socialism is the Alternative
The world is facing a grave economic and financial crisis of large proportions: a capitalist crisis, which cannot be dissociated from its own nature and from its unsolvable contradictions, that is probably the gravest crisis since the Great Depression commenced by the 1929 crash. As always, the workers and the peope are the main victim.
The current crisis is an expression of a deeper crisis intrinsic to the capitalist system, which demonstrates capitalism’s historical limits and the need for its revolutionary overthrow. The current crisis also poses an enormous threat of social and democratic regression and provides, as history has shown, a basis for authoritarian and militarist movements, which demand more vigilance from the communist parties and all democratic and anti-imperialist forces.
While billions in public resources are mobilised to save those responsible for this crisis—big capital, high finance, and speculators—workers, small farmers, middle strata and all those who work for a living are suffocating under the weight of monopolies and will experience still more exploitation, unemployment, lower wages and pensions, insecurity, hunger, and poverty.
Powerful ideological diversionary campaigns are seeking to conceal the true origins of the crisis and to block the way to solutions that would be in the interests of the popular masses, which favour a new balance of power and a new international order in favour of popular forces, international solidarity, and friendship among peoples. The main capitalist powers, starting with the United States, the European Union, and Japan, by means of the international organisations under their rule—the IMF, World Bank, European Central Bank, NATO, and others—and also manipulating the United Nations to suit their needs, are frantically working on “solutions” that are themselves the seeds of new crises and are attempting to rescue the system in the short term and to reinforce the mechanisms of imperialist exploitation and oppression.
Resorting to scapegoats and insisting on false and failed options for the “regulation,” “humanisation” and “reform” of capitalism, they seek to change appearances while keeping things the same. The parties supporting capital hastily accepted the dogmas of the “Washington consensus,” which has fed the brutal speculative financing of the economy. Social democracy, disguising its compliance with neo-liberalism and its transformation into a pillar of imperialism, attempts a belated return to a Keynesian-type “regulation” that leaves intact the class nature of power and the relations of property, seeking precisely to avoid affirming the revolutionary alternatives for the workers and the peoples. But that perspective is not inevitable.
As other moments in history have shown, the workers and the peoples, if united, can determine the course of economic, social and political events, squeeze important concessions out of big capital in the interests of the masses, curb advances towards fascism and war, and open the path to deep transformations of a progressive and even revolutionary character.
The international outlook is one of increasingly sharp class struggle. Humankind is passing through one of the most difficult and complex moments in history—an economic global crisis that coincides with an energy and food crisis and a serious environmental crisis; a world of deep injustices and inequalities, wars, and conflicts. The scene is of a historic crossroads, in which two contradictory tendencies are being manifested: on one side lie great dangers to peace, to sovereignty, to democracy, to people’s and workers’ rights, and on the other side lie immense potential for struggles and the advance of the cause of the emancipation of workers and peoples, the cause of social progress and peace, the cause of socialism and communism.
The communist and workers’ parties that gathered at their 10th Meeting held in São Paulo salute the popular struggles emerging around the world against imperialist exploitation and oppression, against the increasing attacks on the historical achievements of the labour movement, against the militarist and anti-democratic offensive of imperialism.
Emphasising that neo-liberalism’s bankruptcy represents not only the failure of a policy of management of capitalism but the failure of capitalism itself, and confident of the superiority of the communist ideals and project, we affirm that the answer to the emancipatory aspirations of workers and peoples can only be found in a rupture with the power of big capital and with the imperialist blocs and alliances and through deep transformations of a liberating and anti-monopolist character.
With the conviction that socialism is the alternative—the road to a real and total independence of peoples, the way to affirm workers’ rights, and the only way to put an end to the destructive crises of capitalism—we call upon the working class, the workers and peoples across the world to join the cause of communists and revolutionaries and, united around their class interests and just aspirations, to take into their own hands the building of a future of prosperity, justice and peace for humankind. In this sense, conditions emerge for the convergence of the people’s struggles and resistance in a broad movement against the capitalist policies applied in the crisis and the imperialist aggressions that threaten peace.
Certain of the possibility of another world, a world that is free from class exploitation and the oppression of capital, we declare our commitment to continuing the historical path to building a new society free from class exploitation and oppression, that is, socialism.
The current crisis is an expression of a deeper crisis intrinsic to the capitalist system, which demonstrates capitalism’s historical limits and the need for its revolutionary overthrow. The current crisis also poses an enormous threat of social and democratic regression and provides, as history has shown, a basis for authoritarian and militarist movements, which demand more vigilance from the communist parties and all democratic and anti-imperialist forces.
While billions in public resources are mobilised to save those responsible for this crisis—big capital, high finance, and speculators—workers, small farmers, middle strata and all those who work for a living are suffocating under the weight of monopolies and will experience still more exploitation, unemployment, lower wages and pensions, insecurity, hunger, and poverty.
Powerful ideological diversionary campaigns are seeking to conceal the true origins of the crisis and to block the way to solutions that would be in the interests of the popular masses, which favour a new balance of power and a new international order in favour of popular forces, international solidarity, and friendship among peoples. The main capitalist powers, starting with the United States, the European Union, and Japan, by means of the international organisations under their rule—the IMF, World Bank, European Central Bank, NATO, and others—and also manipulating the United Nations to suit their needs, are frantically working on “solutions” that are themselves the seeds of new crises and are attempting to rescue the system in the short term and to reinforce the mechanisms of imperialist exploitation and oppression.
Resorting to scapegoats and insisting on false and failed options for the “regulation,” “humanisation” and “reform” of capitalism, they seek to change appearances while keeping things the same. The parties supporting capital hastily accepted the dogmas of the “Washington consensus,” which has fed the brutal speculative financing of the economy. Social democracy, disguising its compliance with neo-liberalism and its transformation into a pillar of imperialism, attempts a belated return to a Keynesian-type “regulation” that leaves intact the class nature of power and the relations of property, seeking precisely to avoid affirming the revolutionary alternatives for the workers and the peoples. But that perspective is not inevitable.
As other moments in history have shown, the workers and the peoples, if united, can determine the course of economic, social and political events, squeeze important concessions out of big capital in the interests of the masses, curb advances towards fascism and war, and open the path to deep transformations of a progressive and even revolutionary character.
The international outlook is one of increasingly sharp class struggle. Humankind is passing through one of the most difficult and complex moments in history—an economic global crisis that coincides with an energy and food crisis and a serious environmental crisis; a world of deep injustices and inequalities, wars, and conflicts. The scene is of a historic crossroads, in which two contradictory tendencies are being manifested: on one side lie great dangers to peace, to sovereignty, to democracy, to people’s and workers’ rights, and on the other side lie immense potential for struggles and the advance of the cause of the emancipation of workers and peoples, the cause of social progress and peace, the cause of socialism and communism.
The communist and workers’ parties that gathered at their 10th Meeting held in São Paulo salute the popular struggles emerging around the world against imperialist exploitation and oppression, against the increasing attacks on the historical achievements of the labour movement, against the militarist and anti-democratic offensive of imperialism.
Emphasising that neo-liberalism’s bankruptcy represents not only the failure of a policy of management of capitalism but the failure of capitalism itself, and confident of the superiority of the communist ideals and project, we affirm that the answer to the emancipatory aspirations of workers and peoples can only be found in a rupture with the power of big capital and with the imperialist blocs and alliances and through deep transformations of a liberating and anti-monopolist character.
With the conviction that socialism is the alternative—the road to a real and total independence of peoples, the way to affirm workers’ rights, and the only way to put an end to the destructive crises of capitalism—we call upon the working class, the workers and peoples across the world to join the cause of communists and revolutionaries and, united around their class interests and just aspirations, to take into their own hands the building of a future of prosperity, justice and peace for humankind. In this sense, conditions emerge for the convergence of the people’s struggles and resistance in a broad movement against the capitalist policies applied in the crisis and the imperialist aggressions that threaten peace.
Certain of the possibility of another world, a world that is free from class exploitation and the oppression of capital, we declare our commitment to continuing the historical path to building a new society free from class exploitation and oppression, that is, socialism.
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