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NEWS & LETTERS, October-November 2006

READERS' VIEWS

POLITICAL, PHILOSOPHIC, AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVES FOR UPROOTING CAPITALISM

N&L provided an excellent overview of the struggle for freedom from within the working class in the Marxist-Humanist Perspectives thesis published in the August-September issue. One thing that needs pointing out, however, is that the Left has been where it is today before, in the period of the imperialist war for domination during the time of President Woodrow Wilson, known as World War I. The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 followed by the period known as the Red Scare sought to repress anti-imperialist activity at that time, much in the same fashion that Bush's "war on terrorism" is trying to do today.

The great difference is that these activities that came out of a previous time were aimed at the Left for a duration roughly the period of that war. The war ended. So did the U.S. attempts to turn back the Bolsheviks in terms of the presence of U.S. troops on Soviet soil. Not so with the "war on terror," a shadow war of indefinite duration. With no logical end, it heralds the beginnings of a more permanently corporate fascism without any end in sight. The Left must resist this tendency with all its strength and resolve. N&L has an important role to play in the struggle and I have no doubt will continue to be a voice of revolutionary resistance.

--D.T., Louisiana

The best part of "Theoretic Preparation for Uprooting Capitalism" (N&L August/September 2006) is the section discussing "the Transcendence of Value Production." It shows that the content of Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program has to become the basis for any effort to think out an alternative to capitalism. That's because it pinpoints the pivot for uprooting capitalism—getting rid of the law of value. We can try to change society however we want, but if we don't rid ourselves of the law of value, nothing will change.

--Student, Indiana

Your discussion of Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program inspired me to re-read the work. I was struck by Marx's precision. He says that in a socialist society "producers do not exchange their products." At first I was puzzled. How could any society not have the exchange of products? Then I realized he was saying that the exchange of products is replaced by the exchange of equal quantities of labor time. As he wrote in his Critique, "the same amount of labor which (the worker) has given to society in one form, he receives back in another." Marx is showing us with this what a society that has gotten rid of value production looks like.

--Old Radical, California

I can understand that some Marxists don't like Marx's discussion of a new society in his Critique of the Gotha Program but what I don't understand is why they don't just come out and say they disagree with Marx. It's not like it's against the law to disagree with Marx. It's better to say you disagree than claim you agree but then just ignore the content of what he has to say. 

--Teacher, Chicago

I thought it was great that you included in your Perspectives Thesis the statement by Raya Dunayevskaya that says if labor were directly social we wouldn't have capitalism. I wasn't aware that she had discussed a non-capitalist society in such specific terms. Could you point me to other writings by her in which she discusses this issue?

--Anti-war activist, Illinois

There have been calls for economic empowerment by the various symbols of New Afrikan leadership here in Amerika, positing this economic empowerment as the panacea to our racial oppression. For anyone to call for economic empowerment under capitalist production shows not only a fundamental lack of understanding of capitalism itself, but also serves to strengthen capitalist relations. Economic empowerment of the New Afrikan domestic colonies at best would amount to only a temporary amelioration in the basic day-to-day necessities of life for a relative few.

--Faruq, California

We see that in Latin America there is a reawakening of the growth of worker cooperatives and women's organizations spreading the vision of non-hierarchical organization. Now is the time to talk of how these could be steps to moving to where we want to go. Now would be the time to champion these little experiments of breaking free, rather than emphasizing their futility.

--Sociologist, Memphis

Is the danger now state disintegration? Or is it, in core countries, fascism and the merging of the state with corporate interests—and, in the periphery, the merging of states with religious fundamentalism?

--Concerned, Tennessee

The refusal of workers to pick up the old solutions, like statist reformism and Bolshevisms, is not a sign of backwardness, but of thinking rationally. If we are going to talk about getting rid of capitalism, we have to take on what that would involve. That's what your Perspectives Thesis focuses on, and that is what makes it so important.

--Dave Black, England

KATRINA ONE YEAR AFTER

One year ago, Katrina thrust the realities of U.S. society's racial and class divisions into the world spotlight. The almost universal acknowledgement that the response of the Bush/Cheney administration was callously negligent seemed to raise hopes that it might even give birth to a poor peoples' movement that would have national political implications. By today we realize that George Bush has succeeded in defining the social impact of Hurricane Katrina as a regional phenomenon, caused solely by the particularities of the politics and economy of south Louisiana. The Black population of New Orleans remains dispersed across Texas and the southern states. Economically disadvantaged and politically marginalized to begin with, the evacuated residents of New Orleans are now diluted into the population of their host cities and towns. They are considered to be one more urban problem for police, politicians and social workers to deal with. Meanwhile, back in New Orleans, the businessmen and real estate developers are free to move ahead with plans to rebuild a smaller city, one more tourist-friendly and welcoming to investment than ever.

--Kevin Michaels, Illinois

STRUGGLE FOR WOMEN'S LIBERATION

This year is the 30th anniversary of the passage of the anti-woman Hyde Amendment prohibiting the use of federal funds for abortion for poor women. The effect was and still is devastating. 12.8 million women of reproductive age have to depend on Medicaid for health care. When it was legal Medicaid funded about a third of all U.S. abortions. Today poor women have to choose between food, rent, or an abortion. There is no way to celebrate such an anniversary except to vow to work harder for women's freedom in the struggle to create a totally new world.

--Women's Liberationist, Illinois

While the women's movement seems strengthened around the world, as seen in what transpired on International Women's Day, it seems to be waning here the more the Christian Right gets entrenched in the debate. The Christian Right tends to demonize a woman's right to be independent and to have control over her body and mind without having to fear governmental interference.

--Concerned male, Wisconsin

I staffed the Women's Action Coalition table the other day at the Cooper Young street art fair here where part of our display was on getting the word out about emergency contraception, also called "the morning after pill." Everyone I spoke to was really angry that it will not be available over the counter to women younger than 18. They are supposedly too young to get this pill, but evidently not too young to get pregnant. Keeping young women from having this resource is a way to try to punish them for having sex, a punishment that can last a lifetime.

--Feminist activist, Memphis

The news about pharmacists being allowed to decide whether or not to prescribe the morning after pill infuriated me. There is no excuse for any group of service workers in entrusted positions to pick and choose their obligations based on so-called "moral" grounds. Should penicillin not be dispensed for patients with venereal disease due to sinful fornication? Should firemen not douse out fires of people who don't watch their kids who then set their houses ablaze? There must be some means of revoking the licenses of those who refuse to fulfill a lawful request. Could I deny taxi service to someone because I don't want him to go to a Christian Revival meeting since I'm an atheist? Couldn't I be hauled into court? Aren't injunctions possible to squash these kinds of actions that withhold service because it runs counter to one's tenets?

--Male taxi driver, Los Angeles

Some of the ruling class are scared we can't compete with other nations' rapidly developing science and engineering programs. The New York Times reported on a panel of academics who decided women are still discriminated against in the sciences and rejected the claim that there are "innate" differences in learning potential between men and women. Unfortunately, the panel feared the "loss of human capital" that occurs when women are discriminated against, rather than the loss of freedom that happens when gender inequality is institutionalized. We need a humanist science!

--Physics student, Tennessee

VOICES OF REASON FROM WITHIN PRISON WALLS

N&L tells the true story of how the immigrants and the working class have to stand up so the government and big business won't run over them in this so-called "Free Country." When the people stand up for their rights is when the government hides behind their laws and if there is no law that benefits them, they just make one up. Thanks too for giving us news about Latin America because I'm Mexican-American, more Mexican than American. I was saddened by the way the elections recently went in Mexico. The oligarchy are trying to steal the elections from the people. Right now Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is the only one willing to stand up in front of the world and tell about the true ways of the U.S.

--Prisoner, Delano, California

Thanks for providing those of us in prison with vital information that can't otherwise be found inside these walls. I make sure the paper makes its way to anyone in here who wants to keep up with what's going on in the rest of the world.

--Prisoner, Menard, Illinois 

Please accept the two pre-stamped envelopes I'm enclosing as a very small donation. They are paid for and can be mailed from and to anyplace in this nation. The Department of Correction in North Carolina used to allow inmates small "stick-on stamps" but somehow they found out we were mailing them out as donations and to buy books and magazines and stopped it. This is childish. Just one more way to cut us off from free society. I understand I broke the law, but the propaganda the DOC's of this country put out about the mentality of people in prison is a disservice to reality. I know some things have to be done. But other things are downright evil.

--Prisoner, North Carolina

I've enjoyed all the issues of the paper I've received this year, but especially enjoyed two articles on "The law of value in capitalist society" and "A new look at the Russian revision of Marx's concept of 'directly social labor.'"

Marx and Engels had the right concept for an idealistic and utopian society. Capitalistic rule as in the Western mindset is contradictory and an oxymoron. For me, the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya fall in line with the perceived ideals of society.

--Prisoner, Florida

What is truly revolutionary about your publication is that you not only seek to practice theory, but also to derive theory from practice. It is as universal in its scope as it is elegant in its simplicity. The integration of subject/object both defines and transcends my nascent concept of Marxist-Humanism. If for no other reason than your ongoing development of this holistic approach, N&L would still be a valuable contribution.

--Prisoner, Vacaville, California

I find N&L to be informative and a guide as to the direction we, as a people of African descent, should strive for in search of our true freedom in a capitalist society whose bloodline runs off the hard sweat of the poor and working class as well as the incarcerated. N&L lets me know the importance of having the right philosophy when a people are participating in a world struggle for equality.

--Prisoner, Pontiac, Illinois

If we aren't careful, just being Black will soon be against the law. As you read these words, another law is being introduced. The answer to how they decide what is right or wrong is easy. If they can convince you that what they're telling you is right and everything you do is no good, it is the key to their power. Our actions in history show we take nothing and turn it into something. Today's youth have the ability to mold themselves into tomorrow's leaders. We can help by instilling in them pride and resistance to B.S.

--Prisoner, Susanville, California

BUSH'S LETHAL AGENDA

The people in Lebanon didn't need a war. It's enough just to survive and the same is true for the people in Iraq. That's how it is for us in South Memphis, too. Bush's policies kill people, and the day-to-day struggle is a war in itself.

--African-American disabled worker, South Memphis

The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice conspiracy landed this country in another Vietnam. What bugs me is that no one is really addressing that. The U.S. has embarked on an untenable path, with young soldiers now committing atrocities of war, a war that should not have been started in the first place. And we still allow that draft-dodging weasel to talk about "staying the course."

--Prisoner, American Gulag

It is crazy to have the president of the U.S. trying to get legal justification for torturing prisoners. As someone who was incarcerated by the army and experienced cruel and unusual punishment, I can testify that what Bush is doing to justify torture is just insane.

--African-American activist, South USA

Someone who worked a minimum wage job may not know the word alienation but would know the feeling of exploitation and would know in their hearts what it means not to have control over their own life. Someone from Korea can understand Blacks whose community has been poisoned by the Defense Depot of Memphis, despite language difference, because it is a common human experience. We're talking of humanity and people with the ability to feel and to be hurt. Bush's main qualification was that he had no feelings for people.

--Environmental justice activist, Memphis

Bush is killing more and more men, women and children, and has destabilized a whole region of the world based on lies. How is it that he has not been impeached? Have we become so used to such transgressions that we would rather talk about a case of illicit sex in the Oval Office as an impeachable offense instead of the murder of civilians based on lies and hidden political agendas? This is a philosophical Kosova and Rwanda all over again, where everyone knows that things are wrong and yet everyone seems to be waiting to see who is going to say something first.

--Robert Taliaferro, Wisconsin

CHINA'S CULTURAL REVOLUTION

The Editor's note that accompanied the article on "Tragedy of China's Cultural Revolution" (August-September 2006) pointed out that it was excerpted from an article by Dunayevskaya that had appeared in N&L in 1966, "World Significance of China's Self-Created Turmoil." Reprinting it now, to mark the 40th anniversary of the launching of the Cultural Revolution, not only underlines how right on target was that analysis at the very beginning, but how much it contributes to the ongoing discussions today. I remember reading it when it first appeared and feeling how it prepared me to understand not only what would soon follow those world-shaking events, but what developed in the full four decades after. It has great importance for the ongoing discussions today.

--Octogenarian, Illinois

One of the things I have never understood about China'a Cultural Revolution is how any artist could have been or can be a supporter of a movement which so stifled freedom of expression. Is not the ability, the freedom, to express oneself artistically, and genuinely, part of what we seek in the new and human society to which we are still looking forward?

--Perplexed, Chicago

FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Josh White is an independent journalist working in San Francisco who refused to turn over unpublished video take-outs to a federal grand jury investigating a July, 2005 anti-G8 demonstration. He has been charged with civil contempt for refusing to testify at his hearing and jailed until further notice. He could be held for up to a year although he was never convicted of any crime. He is being held on civil contempt in order to coerce him to testify and turn over his unpublished work product to a federal grand jury. We encourage everyone to support Josh while he is being held at FCI Dublin. If we keep on fighting there is a chance we can win his release. For information: http://freejosh.pbwiki.com

--Support Committee, California

THE BRITISH SCENE

The affection with which Blair is held in neo-conservative America is not shared in the hearts or the poll forecasts of the UK. The animosity between Blair and Brown has ignited. The resignation of several government ministers drove Blair to apologize to the country for the naughty Labor Party and make a vague departure promise. The media frenzy may spark other issues such as Iraq, pensions, and union disputes such as in rail. What should the left be attempting to do? As Rosa Luxemburg articulated it, the future is either socialism or barbarism. As Labour gives up or sells cheaply the collective assets of the past, it also attempts to enslave the future. We would be stupid to hope that a Labor Party regeneration will aid the masses.

--Pat Duffy, Britain

TROUBLES FOR YOUTH

Youth in Michigan, caught up in the whirlwind of poverty, violence, despair and perversion that characterizes the cesspools we call cities, are given a Machiavellian choice. It is either jail, and the ruination of their young lives, or the Michigan Youth Challenge Academy, a grueling course in military indoctrination. Upon graduation, many "opt" for enlistment in the military.

The effect of disproportionate unemployment on the youth, especially minority youth, used to be called the "economic draft," but this is an entirely new phenomenon. It is a conscious strategy of the ruling capitalist class to head off an outright military draft, with the threat to the present hierarchical society posed by massive anti-war protest that would follow, as during the Vietnam War. Where once the cities and towns of this area were known as the "arsenal of democracy,"  now they are being turned into giant cannon fodder factories. As can be seen by this new development, that journey will be greatly shortened for these young people.

--Ex-Postal Worker, Michigan

WORKERS OF THE WORLD

The IWW Starbucks Workers Union has announced that employees at the Logan Square Starbucks store in Chicago have joined the union, becoming the first outside New York City to do so. They issued a set of demands that included a living wage, guaranteed hours and the reinstatement of IWW baristas fired for organizing activity. Starbucks is often praised for offering generous benefits but the union contends the workers face low wages and barriers to health care and other benefits. Starbucks insists none of its U.S. stores is unionized because the IWW is not formally certified by the NLRB, but last March the company settled an unfair labor practice charge that they had violated federal law by prohibiting workers from sharing written union information or wearing union buttons. They were forced to post notices explaining workers' rights to organize.

--Union supporter, Chicago

The "Workshop Talks" column in the August-September N&L spoke about U.S. health care being managed by an I.T. worker in India. It has its echo here with a $70 billion project for the UK health service. This excludes the 10% for private health care in the NHS budget. Big bucks for the bosses and their friends, suffering and death for patients. Unemployment for doctors and nurses. Workers of the world need a voice.

--Nurse, Britain

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