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NEWS & LETTERS, OCTOBER 2003Readers' ViewsBEYOND CAPITALISM? Raya Dunayevskaya’s article on “The Cooperative form of labor vs. abstract labor” (August-September 2003 N&L) has a lot to do with the question of what happens after revolution. Where she wrote that the only way a fundamental change in society can be achieved is for workers to “engage in a self-activity so different from their present work as to make the scientists outside the plants as unnecessary as the capitalists inside the factory,” I kept thinking of a recent forum here on “Beyond Capitalism?” where people were asking how can we get beyond capitalism? Her essay gives a glimpse of what “beyond capitalism” would look like when “an entirely new mode of labor in an entirely new form would appear.” I see this challenging all those who think they can make capitalism benign. It can’t be done as long as value production continues. --Women’s Liberationist, Memphis I used to read a lot of fantasy novels that stretch your mind about doing things differently, like those by Ursula LeGuin. They showed people doing things that trashed the separation between mental and manual labor. Why do we have to go to a sci-fi fantasy for a vision of doing things differently? The archives column laid out the problems we confront very well. --Tom, San Francisco The question of freely associated labor, as opposed to the despotic plan of capitalism and the crises it generates, is more relevant today than ever. The recent auto contract negotiations reflect the contradictions we face today, where ever-increasing pressures of production continue to exploit and depress the workers. We can’t know exactly what kind of society freely-associated labor would produce, but I think we can be certain it would not be characterized by the kind of fear capitalism generates today. --Retiree, Detroit BUSH AND THE GAG RULE Now President Bush has cut off funding to organizations providing reproductive health care to refugees, denying basic health services to women who have fled their countries to escape the horrors of civil wars and chaos. He accomplished this by quietly expanding the global gag rule that prohibits foreign organizations (that use their own, non-U.S. money to perform, counsel, refer, or advocate safe abortion services) from receiving U.S. family planning assistance administered by the State Department. Until now, the global gag rule that Bush reinstituted the very first day he took office has applied only to family planning programs funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. This comes on top of the news earlier this month that he had defunded the Reproductive Health for Refugees Consortium, because of the participation of a British-based reproductive health provider which also provides abortion. Disregard the fact that. This group was funded to provide HIV prevention services in Angola that have nothing to do with abortion. --Outraged, Illinois LABOR’S HARD TIMES Hard times have really come again to the Smoky Mountains. Of all the factories near Maggie Valley where I live, only Champion Fibers is still open, and that’s with only a skeleton crew on one shift. This area has been built around tourists since World War II, but this year they closed down the “Ghost Town” attraction, and you can get a motel room for $14 or less, instead of the $60 or more one used to cost. The economy has left the county strapped for cash. They raised the taxes on one fellow living out of town in a shack on just a big garden plot from $40 last year to $460 this year. I’m grateful I have my pension. --Musician, North Carolina When Berkeley Bowl produce store fired Arturo Perez, another worker who was active in the unionization efforts there (see “Firing spurs Berkeley Bowl union rally," August-September N&L), another walkout was staged by about 17 cashiers and other workers. They came out wearing United Food and Commercial Workers T-shirts and greeting members of the community who were shouting, “Bring Arturo back!” We’re hoping Berkeley Bowl gets the message that they cannot succeed against this alliance of workers and the community. --Supporter, Oakland Burma is a country known for its abysmal human rights record. British American Tobacco (BAT) is not only one of the last multinational corporations to operate in Burma—but does so openly as partners of the Burmese military. The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) is calling on BAT to withdraw from Burma. They have received the support of human rights groups and trade unions all over the world. But BAT will not budge. After all, profits are at stake. I’m trying to help build the campaign against them by passing this message on and asking others to do the same with their co-workers and fellow union members. --Pat Duffy, Britain The men and women of the Chicago Transit Authority rank-and-file looked like a sea of blue in their uniforms at their rally outside CTA headquarters at Merchandise Mart Plaza on Aug. 8. They had been working for three years and eight months without a contract and clearly had had enough. Some brought their children—and passengers on buses and elevated trains passing by gave thumbs-up to their shouts of “No contract, no service!” The security force had to put their hands in their ears because of the deafening chants for a “Fair Contract!” They kept up the clapping and chanting for several hours. Nearly two months later, negotiations are still going on. As one CTA employee put it, this is a story still "to be continued." --George Wilfrid Smith Jr., Chicago Here’s a statistic that makes you stop and think: Every year around two million workers die because of their jobs. Every day more people die at work than died in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the modern world, it seems that the workplace has become a real weapon of mass destruction. --No statistician, Chicago MARTIAL LAW IN ACHEH Thank you for your solidarity work for my beloved homeland. Many innocent Achehnese in villages throughout Acheh are suffering from barbarous acts by the Indonesian military. Since the activists have been arrested or fled for their lives, the military (TNI) is forcing the remaining groups to appear as if they support the military operation and the martial law that was imposed. In the villages, the TNI forces women to accompany soldiers into battle, claiming they will help to collect the bodies of the villagers killed. In fact, TNI uses them for human shields. There is an enormous ignorance about the human tragedy among Indonesian communities. Your article in the August-September issue of N&L was excellent because, while the focus was on Acheh, you tried to cover the independence movements in other parts of Indonesia as well, such as Papua, Maluku, and East Timor. In the relocation camps, a humanitarian disaster is developing among the tens of thousands of internally displaced refugees. Malaria and skin diseases are rampant. The last humanitarian aid organization left Acheh in September and none are allowed in. --Student, Acheh Editor’s note: Readers wanting more information or to send donations for humanitarian aid should contact mutualaid@earthlink.net or achehcenter@yahoo.com. THE CANADIAN SCENE The political debate in Canada these days is over same sex marriage. Three provincial courts have ruled that it is discriminatory to deny same sex couples legal marriage, but right-wing provinces such as mine are fighting this tooth and nail. We have our own version of the Christian Right and they are cranking up the rhetoric. The Federal government has promised legislation, but we are also in the midst of a leadership change in the governing Liberal Party. All in all, it is an uncertain time for Canadian politics. Of course, while this debate rages, other questions on health care, education etc. are all down-played. What a surprise! --Researcher, Alberta, Canada Canada has been pressured by the U.S. to participate financially in the next version of “Star Wars.” You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that even if this project should succeed, there is no way that an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) could distinguish between five or six decoys and the actual warhead. More important, 9/11 proved that much more danger is lurking in suicide terrorists using box cutters and civilian airlines, against which ABMs are totally useless. Under these circumstances why all the bother about ABMs? I see the simple reason as the fact that Boeing, Raytheon and the other military hardware contractors have to increase their profits. Perhaps, to maintain its so-called friendship with the powers in the U.S., the Canadian government should negotiate an outright gift to Boeing, Raytheon and others who would benefit from the project. Of course, it would be better if the Canadian government priorities were the welfare of Canadians, homeless, children, healthcare, instead of the health and profit of the U.S. military contractors. --Georgio, British Columbia, Canada READING, WRITING, REVOLT The book by Elizabeth McHenry that John Alan took up in his column on ”Reading, writing, revolt” (August-September 2003) shed light on an important question. During the early 19th century, literacy and literature spanned all walks of life and culture. Some of the best “unknown” writing came from that time period--Black, Indian, Asian and white writings on a variety of topics. Black literacy poses a threat even today, especially on the new plantations—prisons. Black subordination is still an immutable concept within some aspects of the culture. Smart people of color in prison who are extremely literate can cause big problems—just like on the plantations of old. Slavery has not ended in this country, just rerouted to a different perspective. --Robert Taliaferro, Wisconsin John Alan’s Black/Red View column on “Reading, writing, revolt” and Terry Moon’s essay on women in Afghanistan spoke to each other. Alan showed that for Blacks in the U.S. “literacy was a dimension of the struggle to be free.” Moon shows the same is true for women in Afghanistan who, under the threat of death, had set up hundreds of clandestine reading and study groups in their homes—just as slaves had done in America. David Walker’s cry that racists think “God made Africans for nothing else but to dig the mines and work their farms” is echoed in the Afghan woman who said, “All our hopes have been consigned to the dustbin of history ... It is a pity they don’t recognize us as individuals, as fellow human beings.” --Women’s Liberationist, Memphis The rebellion in Benton Harbor appeared as a blip in the national news media and then it was gone. Your article on it in the August-September issue was important because it showed that the struggle continues. --Peace activist, Tennessee ISRAEL AND PALESTINE The best gift imaginable for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, was the news released just before Sept. 26 that 25 Israeli Air Force pilots had sent Air Force Commander, Dan Halutz, a letter saying: “We are opposed to carrying out attack orders that are illegal and immoral of the type the State of Israel has been conducting in the territories.” There are already dozens of pilots who refuse to participate in assassinations but get out of them quietly in private arrangements. The weakness of the list of refuseniks, so far at least, is that only two pilots of attack helicopters signed the letter. They are the ones who carry out almost all the assassinations. The letter asserts that the illegal and immoral actions they are refusing to carry out are “a direct result of the ongoing occupation which is corrupting all of Israeli society... fatally harming the security of the state of Israel.” They declare that they will continue to serve in any mission that is in defense of the state of Israel. To all of this, I say, Shalom. --Gila Svirsky, Jerusalem |
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