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NEWS & LETTERS, JUNE 2003
Readers’ ViewsTHE WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH It's getting so that war is becoming permanently
entrenched in our daily living, as if it was part of the "normal"
rhythm of life. George Orwell predicted the need for permanent war to keep
capitalism alive. But you are saying we can answer with "revolution in
permanence." In the meantime we are experiencing permanent anxiety. --Frank, Wisconsin The anti-war movement has to rethink, redecide and act
anew about its role in getting the U.S. out of Iraq now and stopping Bush's
other planned conquests. --Lawyer, New York In retaliation for the French refusal to go along with the invasion-rape of Iraq, President Bush needs to order the immediate removal of the Statue of Liberty off U.S. property and deport it back to France from whence it came. She's just a fake symbol now, taking up space. At the same time, it should be noted that the reason the sun does not set on the American empire is that God no longer trusts America's rulers in the dark. --Incarcerated citizen, Texas It seems ingenious that you can make an economy out of dropping bombs and having to build more. --David, California A grim but important source of information on the Iraq war is found at www.iraqbodycount.org which keeps a count of reported civilian deaths resulting from the Iraq war. Stated methodology is basically monitoring a range of on-line news sources and including fatalities reported by more than one source. They give maximum and minimum figures, reflecting differences between the reports. As of April 24 the toll stood at minimum: 1,933; maximum: 2,380. This does not include members of armed forces on either side, or deaths caused indirectly by the war, like from disease caused by polluted water, lack of hospital treatment and so on. Naturally it can't include any unreported deaths. --Richard Bunting, Oxford, England U.S. forces are now occupying Iraq, the second largest oil producer, by overthrowing the dictator they helped to install 25 years ago. What would happen if the Iraqi workers went on strike and refused to produce any oil? That would cause U.S. capitalism to have problems with the flow of capital around the world. The ideologues dream about controlling the world, but it could be strangled by Iraqi oil workers. --Iranian exile, California I read that workers at the Basra refinery, Iraq's second largest--and the only one that produces the cooking fuel needed to make meals and boil water--staged a protest on May 9 to demand elections to choose their managers. They don't accept the British army officer who replaced the former Ba'ath party manager. It is an important action, especially if it proves to be the beginning of other actions by workers fighting to rebuild Iraq their own way. --Observer, Chicago N&L is one of the few sane voices in an otherwise dismal landscape. There is something incredibly eerie about the way preparations for war were going on together with drawing up an administrative blueprint for post-war Iraq. We were also witnessing preparations for the "humanitarian disaster" to follow--all as part of an integrated logistical exercise. And millions of people in the streets all over the world seemed utterly powerless to stop or even slow down this military-cum-humanitarian juggernaut--the "new military-humanism" indeed. --Subscriber, Wisconsin I was introduced to N&L at a peace rally here and found the letters and articles thought-provoking and informative. I have been trying to find ways to stop Bush's never-ending so-called "campaign against terrorism" and have come across two possible ways. The fastest might be to boycott products of corporations that have donated money to Bush or profited from the "war." The second would be to form a coalition of not-so-powerful but idealistic political parties that could take over the Democratic Party by the next presidential election. We have to find ways to stop the Bush administration. --E.C., Eugene, Oregon The times we live in are not just retrogressive anymore,
but desperate, when activists are deemed "radical" for simply
expressing their defense of documents of the greatest colonial powers in
history, whose beautiful expressions of humanitarianism always exceeded their
content. I made a sign to greet the Commander-in-Chief the morning he had
greeted his soldiers' homecoming dressed in his bomber jacket, fighter pilot's
helmet and John Wayne smirk. My sign read "U.S. Constitution, the UN
Charter, and Geneva Conventions are NOT irrelevant." Over 500 people, with
many signs, came to protest Bush's triumphant return. We were kept at least a
mile away from Bush, in an empty, closed-off street. --Health worker, California The press has had a field day blasting Jayson Blair for making up or plagiarizing his stories. But are they so far above it? Does giving credit to their source make their story true, when the primary if not the only source for them is the State Department? Where is the outrage that what they have been reporting as objective truth are administration statements of the "immanent danger" that Iraq posed which have proved to be a fantasy? Now that the supposed weapons of mass destruction we were given as the reason for the war have not been found, we are told that isn't important. The "embedded reporters" were providing a ringside seat of a gladiator fight rather than any real truth about the war. --Disgusted with the press, Oakland, Cal. REVOLUTIONARY ANTIGONE After reading David Black's article on "Helen
Mcfarlane: Antigone in Victorian England" in the April issue, I kept
thinking that Antigone possessed a unique revolutionary quality in her ability
to subjectively analyze and dissect the cause and effect of the oppressed
people. She understood not only the power of ideas but their depth. It was
apparent in the way she embarked on two crucial aspects of life: 1) that no man
knows when he would be required to uphold the higher law embedded in his
existence above all state law, and 2) that there is a greater death than
physical death. Antigone was fully aware of her coming demise as are all true
revolutionaries who follow the dictates of their own mind. Nonetheless they know
that autonomy means freedom and no material kind of acceptability could bring
that about. --Prisoner, California THE VALUE OF LIFE The EPA got in trouble by using cost-benefit analyses of clean-air regulations that put a lower dollar value on the lives of people over 70. That's bad but how can we accept putting dollar values on people's lives to begin with? The whole thing is a scam to justify destroying the lives and health of the working class and people of color in the name of profit. --Environmental activist, Tennessee While the world watched the fiasco here of high school seniors beating up and dousing junior girls with excrement and animal entrails, the truth of the story became even more bizarre. Despite the fact that a number of girls were injured seriously enough to be hospitalized, many in the affluent white suburb where it occurred banded together to protect the guilty parties--including parents who fueled the fury with three kegs of beer. After all, they said, what's the big deal?--"it's only an annual hazing ritual, a rite of passage to 'adulthood' that's been going on here for more than 20 years." How sadly prophetic that a so-called rite of passage to an adulthood under capitalism should include the attempted destruction, humiliation and degradation of human beings--especially women. --Mary Jo Grey, Chicago ISRAELIS & PALESTINIANS The Israeli occupation began in June 1967 and has persisted for the past 36 years, with unremitting harm to Palestinians and Israelis alike. For the sake of both peoples, the time has come to end it. Three events are upcoming toward that end: 1) The Coalition of Women for Peace will be launching 10
days of events from May 30 through June 8, beginning with a mass Women (and Men)
in Black Vigil in Tel Aviv. 2) An international conference of Women in Black
will be held in Italy Aug. 28-31. 3) A women's International Human Rights March
will be held in Israel and Palestine Sept. 4-25. We invite people of good will
throughout the world to hold solidarity actions with us during this period
calling for an end to the Israeli occupation. --Gila Svirsky, Jerusalem I was especially moved by Brown Douglas' article on "Remembering Rachel Corrie" in the May issue of N&L. It moved me because of her strength in her beliefs. She had the courage and determination that we all need to stand firm and not allow governments to walk over us as if we are just something lying in their way. They must be forced to realize that we will not stand for their atrocities. --New reader, Ohio The May N&L had it exactly right in the picture it ran with the article on "Hegel's Absolutes and the crisis of Marxism" which showed "the ugly wall" in Berlin, built by the ruthless, vicious, police state totalitarian rulers of East Germany. Just so, exactly what is to be said about the ugly wall being built by the current rulers in Israel? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. --Within the Gulag, Texas HUNTING FOR NEW BEGINNINGS It was good to see the special section on the
philosophic moment of Marxist-Humanism (N&L May 2003) at a time when the
world so desperately needs new beginnings in thought and reality. Dunayevskaya
insists that organization be worked out together with the dialectics of
philosophy. It gets to the heart of what is missing when the Left stops at first
negation and therefore cannot get beyond the ground of existing society, or even
paralyzes itself by rejecting the dialectics of the subject and all absolutes,
as that was developed in the two essays of that special section. --Franklin Dmitryev, Memphis I have been reminded anew of what the wonderful poet, radical lesbian feminist and social activist, Audre Lorde, said about the contradictions we have to overcome today. It was in her acceptance speech when she was named the state poet of New York in 1991 but speaks even more loudly to us today. Here is what she said: "What does it mean to be a poet in a country where more money per minute, every minute, is spent on armaments than is spent to feed the starving children? Where the price of one stealth bomber, already outmoded, is more than the entire federal appropriation for all the arts? What does it mean that a black, lesbian, feminist, warrior, poet, mother is named as the state poet of New York? It means that we live in a world full of the most intense contradictions, and we must find ways to use the best we have-- our selves, our work--to bridge those contradictions." --Lorde fan, New York HOT HOUSE ASSAILED The Hot House is a nonprofit organization that has functioned in Chicago for 16 years as the center for international performance and exhibition. On May 9, between performances of the legendary Cuban band Orquesta Aragon, it was closed down by the City of Chicago which claimed that the licenses under which they had operated for years were inappropriate for this kind of performance. While the Hot House management and staff are confident that they can show the city will be found in error, the first week of the shutdown cost them thousands of dollars in lost revenue, threatens to bankrupt the organization and has put the entire staff out of work. They are asking for contributions as well as letters of support they can compile and present to the City. Letters can be faxed to 312-362-9708. Cash contributions will be tax-exempt and can be mailed to: Hot House, 31 East Balbo, Chicago, IL 60605 NATIVE AMERICAN VIEW ON 'ANNIHILATION' I thought you'd be interested in some excerpts of an article that appeared in a small paper here in Oklahoma: "Some friends and I were talking about the war with Iraq and I was totally on board with the fact that Saddam needed to be taken out and his people freed from their oppression. But when someone said 'They should just nuke the whole country' and another agreed and then another, I never felt so nauseous in all my life. I kept thinking of Hitler, Mussolini, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and every atrocity against humanity that I had ever read or heard about. "Maybe it's because a part of me is Native American that I feel so strongly about total annihilation. That race was nearly run off into extinction by settlers of the new world. Then came the smear on humanity that was slavery. Some advocates of change say that Affirmative Action is little more than a guilt trip. I say that's the way it should be. We make choices and have to live with the consequences. That's how we learn and grow. Anything else translates into being so stupidly afraid of change that we eventually drive ourselves into extinction." --Reader, Oklahoma LABOR QUESTIONS FOR TODAY Here in the South-Central area, support and even
enthusiasm for the war in Iraq is combined with anxiety over government deficits
and unemployment. Newly graduating teachers have poor prospects of finding jobs.
The alleged benefits of being a "Right to Work" state (since September
2001) are contradicted by layoffs at major private employers in Tulsa and
Oklahoma City. I am always interested in the reports from N&L
supporters in Memphis and the southern U.S. area. The tendency for manufacturing
to migrate to non-union, lower-wage areas such as Alabama or Kentucky is often
justified by the argument that otherwise the same production would be exported
to China, Mexico or Central America. Maybe Karl Marx failed to anticipate the
growth and influence of mass retail chains such as Wal-Mart on the production of
goods. --Allan Mui, Oklahoma The purpose of having "Worker Centers" is multifaceted. Job training and education is one function but the initial function is to organize workers to only accept "just" wage levels. At today's rents and cost of living, the minimum wage needs to exceed $10 an hour. A second point in having centers is to regulate the employers by making them register. A big problem with day labor in the agencies and street corners is cheating people out of hours that they work. This problem is rampant with immigrant and other desperate workers. They are targeted for this type of exploitation because there is no enforcement mechanism to protect them. Along with this self-organization unions need to think outside the traditional box to create different categories of workers with short-term contracts appropriate to these "hiring halls" and specific services. We need to get enforcement of Wage and Hour laws and legislation like the Day Labor Ordinance passed by the Chicago City Council on May 1, 2002. It is presently completely unenforced to the delight of the day labor operators and their clients. --D. D., San Lucas Workers' Center, Chicago An important social justice victory was achieved in
Santa Fe when the city council approved a "Living Wage" ordinance in
the private sector. It is being legally contested by the business community. For
information on the details of this successful campaign contact Santa Fe Living
Wage Network, PO Box 9034, Santa Fe, NM 87502 or www.santafelivingwage.org. --Living Wage Supporter, Santa Fe ON THE BRITISH SCENE The recent success of the British National Party in the
local UK elections reveals a danger of underestimating what the racist and
fascist parties represent. There is also a danger in over-focusing on their
success and becoming demoralized to the extent that they walk to victory without
a fight. The gains for the BNP are the massive publicity generated in spite of
their small size. They want legitimacy and by emerging as the opposition to
Labour in Bumley they are beginning to get it. They may push the Labour Party
and society even further Right. It is not a new phenomenon; the National Front
was able to expand rapidly in the 1970s. The Anti-Nazi league claims they
smashed the fascists but the reality is that Thatcher came to power and it was
union organization that was damaged and the miners who got smashed. The problems
are now severe in the aftermath of the Iraq War with Islamic phobia, the
deterioration of public services and worsening work conditions. --Pat Duffy, England BLACK AMERICA The May issue's lead by Emmett and Toussaint was really
right when it comes to Black America's challenge to Bush's war and repression.
Those of us who protested the war here in Memphis were all struck by the fact
that so much of our support from those driving by was from African Americans.
The same is true when we stand on the corner protesting the death penalty. The
fact that both movements still remain overwhelmingly white shows how much work
the peace movement has to do. --Peace Activist, Memphis The article on Black America on the first page of the
May issue was powerful. It was a wonderful complement to the material about the
anti-war work reported on the last page of the same issue in "Our Life and
Times." I wish there had been a way to make sure every reader made this
connection. --Philosophy professor, Chicago THE CUBAN CRISIS The article about "Cuba's Clampdown" in the
May issue should have explained the situation more deeply, since the Yanqui
imperialist has been trying for years, along with the Cuban GUSANOS, to come
back to the old system. I know the Cuban autocracy is using the mask of being
socialist but the situation is not black and white. There are many confusing
issues inside the island and not all the opposing organizations are progressive.
Many who oppose the government are controlled by the Catholic Church and many
are financed by the Bastitianos in Miami. If the Cuban regime is overthrown in
the same manner the Soviet regime was overthrown in Eastern Europe, what kind of
government and economy will be established? Private capitalism or will the
revolution continue on and establish a real workers' state? We have to identify
our stand or we could sound like the ultra-rightists or the romantic
intellectuals. --Marcos, Los Angeles MESSAGE TO HILLARD Once more on the case of Timia Williams for whom April 2, 2001 was the worst day of her 11-year-old life when she was beaten by three racist Chicago cops for nothing. No justice has come her way ever since. Now we learn that Police Superintendent Terry G. Hillard is going to retire. He says he needs to spend time with his eight-month-old grand-daughter. I'd like to tell him he needs to spend 10 years and four months with her so when she turns 11 he can look her in the face and wonder whether she will get the same justice Timia got. Not a damn thing so far. --George Wilfrid Smith Jr., Chicago ANSWERING OUR APPEAL Enclosed is my check in response to your appeal. Your hard work and the valued contribution N&L makes is very much appreciated. If our "leaders" must stand "shoulder to shoulder" then we must stand even closer. --Longtime supporter, Britain We have to start talking to the working class at the national level. We have to stop merely talking to each other and get out into the streets to put our energies where our newsletters are. Please keep up the work in getting out the socialist philosophy. --A socialist for a new society, Arkansas Your work is of the highest importance to us. I want to
thank the donor who has made it possible for me to get N&L. I will soon be
out on parole and you can be assured that I will be in touch with you again. I
would like to contribute or assist this cause in some way but I have no funds
until I am out. You will hear from me as soon as I am. --Prisoner, Texas Editor's Note: Have you sent your contribution to help keep N&L alive? |
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