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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2007 - January 2008Readers' ViewsContents:
VOICES OF LABOR FROM SOUTH AFRICA As an activist here in the Eastern Cape, I was very pleased to read Peter Hudis' analysis of the labor situation and economic problems facing the U.S. in the October-November N&L. His analysis was very cogent. We too face the problem of a union leadership that claims to be for the workers but then pulls them off the picket lines as soon as things get militant. What I did not know before is how serious a problem the U.S. faces in the near term economically. If even an advanced capitalist country like the U.S. cannot overcome these economic contradictions, how is South Africa going to be able to do it? --Activist, Durban, South Africa * * * Dr. Van Zly Slabbert, the erstwhile liberal and leader of the ProgressiveFederal Party (PFP), refuses to intervene in the suppression of free speech in one of his companies of which he is the non-executive chairperson. His company, Capacity Outsourcing, a labor broker at Independent Newspaper, is instituting disciplinary action against a shop steward of GIWUSA. The shop steward BonganiNtuli is charged with allegedly providing unauthorized entry for a union official and for attending an unauthorized union meeting on the premises of Independent Newspaper. Not only are workers' right to free speech being suppressed but their right to join a trade union of their choice is being violated since Capacity Outsourcing is forcing them to resign from GIWUSA In reality, though workers are legally contracted to Capacity Outsourcing they are very much still under the control, supervision and direction of Independent Newspaper, which is hiding behind the labor broker. These practices are similar to many other companies where labor brokers are used by employers. In fact, in South Africa employers are using labor brokers to create a workplace environment where job insecurity is at risk and wages are reminiscent of that under apartheid. We are calling on all progressive organizations/movements and individuals to rally behind the workers in their struggle against their exploitation and oppression at the hands of Capacity Outsourcing. a labor brokering company used by Independent Newspaper (Pty) Ltd situated at Sauer Street, Johannesburg. Write protest emails, fax or telephone Dr. Van Zyl Stabbert expressing outrage and demanding that he stop the violation of workers' rights. ( email: SaraC@adcorp.co.za julie.naran@caxton.co.za. fax :07 011 889-0638, tel: 007 11 889-0633. --Capacity Workers Support Committee, Johannesburg, South Africa. I have to thank you greatly for the latest issue of N&L I've just received. It is an excellent one! The balance of news items and theoretical pieces was struck just right. I was especially pleased to have Raya Dunayevksya's commentary on Castoriadis from July 1955. It was vintage Raya and most prescient. Excellent! --Robert Hill, UCLA * * * The Oct-Nov Raya Dunayevskaya column says much about the Marxist-Humanist concept of organization, revolving around the relationship of worker and intellectual, which she restates as "the role of the party." Calling for beginning to break down the division between mental and manual labor now, it deals a blow to those who would put that question off until after the revolution, or even later. Her stress on total opposition to the old order "not alone in theory but in practice" combines with a demand for theoreticians not to keep theorizing "in the old way," but to hear the movement from practice to theory. Her concept of organization simply cannot be grasped in separation from the need for intellectuals' self-discipline to hear all that the workers say, not just what the theorist is looking to hear. --Franklin Dmitryev, Memphis * * * I noticed an unfortunate error in the "From the Archives" column in the Oct-Nov issue, which I hope will be corrected on the website, and noted for your paper readers. A phrase about "N&L being a product of the unique combination of worker and intellectual" was inadvertently dropped in one line. It occurs in the paragraph that says "The working class stamps in the overall editing and the decentralization in the editing of the individual sections--Labor, Negro, Women, Youth--did not come about accidentally. They were the results of the decisions of a unique combination of worker and intellectual. NEWS & LETTERS, being a product of this unique combination of worker and intellectual is in its own small way to be sure, the practice of the breakdown of the most monstrous division of all--the division between mental and annual labor which has reached its apex in this epoch." --Careful reader, Tennessee * * * Dunayevskaya's writing is crystal clear, direct, written to be understood. Would that the rest of the paper were written at that level. Too often it is show-offy, dull, plodding, repetitive and obviously not written for the readers but for the writer's ego. Tougher editing might help. But I keep on reading the paper every issue, hoping to find one day another gem beside Raya Dunayevskaya's piece. I'm enclosing a check to renew my sub for two years and enclose an extra donation to help you continue your work. --Steady reader, San Francisco For years it was called the School of the Americas--SOA. Now it's called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. But it's still the site of the internationally notorious U.S. Army training school for Latin American military and security personnel. It's at Fort Benning and has drawn thousands to protest outside the gates every year, becoming the nation's largest annual gathering for peace and human rights. This year more than twenty thousand came and eleven people, ranging in age from 25 to 76, were arrested on federal criminal charges. The school has graduated hundreds of military officers who have led or participated in nearly every human rights atrocity in the hemisphere. Amnesty if only one of the many organizations that have called for its closing since discovering copies of torture manuals used at the school. In June of this year, 203 members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to close the school, but it was still six votes shy of winning a victory. Meanwhile some Latin American countries look like they may do it themselves. Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Uruguay and Venezuela have said they are withdrawing their militaries from the school. --Protest supporter, Illinois The treatment of the case of the "Jena Six" in the Oct/Nov "Black/Red View" column was the most balanced, rational commentary I had yet to see regarding the issue. For it's not just that it's wrong to attack anyone, the greater crime by far is the standing threat to imprison four of the five youngsters involved in an adult facility and bound to do "hard time." I have been in prison and it's no place for a 30 year old such as I was, much less kids. Prison is brutal and life is cheap inside. You need eyes in the back of your head and have to sleep with one eye open. For years after I got out I sat with my back to the wall in any public establishment. It took me until now (I'm 53) to undo the damage the joint caused. Teenagers should not do time in adult prisons. Period. Every young person put in prison convicts the whole rotten system. --Longtime Supporter, Louisianna While we watch in horror the terrible fires in the San Diego area, a wide range of the usual cast of coporate villains sand to make huge profits off of this disaster. While it is true that global warming has contributed to the disaster, it provides cover for the possible deliberate setting of these fires. The recent similar tragedy in Greece comes to mind, where protesters believed the fires were intentionally set by land developers. I am reminded of George Orwell's "1984" where the economies of the three major powers were dependent on the profitability of perpetual war and its destruction. There should be a major independent investigation. Major contracts for disaster relief should be carefully scrutinized. --Suspicious, Louisianna * * * The California wildfires have raised the issue of the growing use of elite insurance, which involves having private fire protection (Blackwater!) for the houses of the wealthy. This move to further privatization of social goods can only undermine the protection that everyone else experiences. In some ways I think the threat of environmentally related human harm might be reaching the tipping point in public consciousness around the change needed. It seems that things have only increased since earlier this year. --Allan, Memphis * * * Environmentalism essentially champions a technological revolution from the fossil fuel energy system to one of sustainability. That revolution will, however, leave intact a class of exploiters, in many cases the same ones. Yet this revolution is essential to the future wealth of the world's people. We are offered either salvation or a headstone to extinction. --DT, Louisianna Thank you for the wonderful work you do with N&L. I have enclosed $13, all I have in your currency, to continue my sub. Please use any extra for subs for the unemployed or for political prisoners. --Appreciative supporter, Alberta, Canada The first item in last issue's "Queer Notes" reported that three women were murdered because they were lesbians. That and the reporting of much harassment of LG South Africans, especially Black and mixed-race lesbians, illustrate the contradiction of what is legal and what human beings actual think and do. Yes, South Africa was the first nation in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation and, more recently, legalized same-sex civil unions. However, those laws have not necessarily changed the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of many human beings toward us LGBTQI folks. Only revolution, both within and without, can assure that all of humanity is treated with fairness and justice. --Struggler, Illinois * * * My main appreciation for your paper is that you cover the GLTB struggle. Most other papers don't do that. Because you do, it allows me to keep in touch with my struggle. --Prisoner, Pennsylvania * * * Thank you for providing me and others like me with the opportunity to see the world from a revolutionary perspective. N&L is one of the reasons I'm no longer homophobic because it has given me a better understanding of the oppression gay people are subjected to constantly. When you are oppressed, it's easy to oppress others, and it was easy for me to take out my frustrations on those whose social stigma was seemingly larger than mine. I have been a revolutionary for a while now, and that issue (accepting all people) was very difficult for me to grasp, the more because we live in a homophobic society . I allowed my personal beliefs to dictate how the whole picture should be looked at. It's impossible to declare freedom for all and declare war on all the forces of oppression and not apply it to all. This paper is deep as an absolute purveyor of truth and revolutionary justice. --Prisoner, Wisconsin Our library comprises a collection of books and periodicals of different theoretical backgrounds, and your Marxist-oriented NEWS & LETTERS enriches our collection, providing its own perspective on developments in world politics. NEWS & LETTERS is very helpful for our students and the researchers of our university. We will be grateful to continue our subscription. --Center for International Studies, Odessa National University, Odessa, Ukraine * * * We want to acknowledge your continued support in supplying us with NEWS & LETTERS, which we have been receiving since 2003. Having been nominated as the new chair for the Philosophy Development Committee (UNESCO/Kenya), I would like to express our gratitude and inform you of our continued struggles to liberate, educate and develop a participatory curriculum for Humanism and Philosophy. As such, we have registered a new organization dubbed "Project Nabuur" and appeal for your support in our creation of the resource center. We would welcome a donation of books by Raya Dunayevskaya, which we will put to use in our workshops and seminars. The particular books of special interest to us are THE POWER OF NEGATIVITY: Selected Writings on the Dialectic in Hegel and Marx and WOMEN'S LIBERATION AND THE DIALECTIC OF REVOLUTION: Reaching for the Future. I appreciate the timely publication of NEWS & LETTERS which keeps us up to date on all your publications. Could you also assist us by requesting from your readers more books for us on Marxism, Humanism, Labor and other questions to be used at our resource center? Your help will be highly appreciated. --Boaz Adhengo for Project Nabuur Initiatives P.O. Box 75986 -- 00200 * * * Readers: Can you contribute the books requested? This is the tenth anniversary of the California Nurses Association 18 month wave of strikes at Kaiser HMO in which they won some unprecedented rights over the care they provide. What makes this anniversary so timely is that nurses here are now striking again over the similar issues of speed-up and exhaustion. Nurses on the wards know laws are not enough and this issue of alienation in the health care work place isn't going to go away. N&L readers may be interested in the lecture <a href="www.tifcss. org/?q=node/2">"Health Care, Alienated Labor and Marx's Concept of the Future"</a> I gave Sept. 23, which is posted at the "Institute for the Critical Study of Society" website. It elicited quite a vigorous discussion of a Marxist approach to health care. --Ron Kelch, Oakland, Cal. * * * Each of the mainstream Democratic candidates for President, Edwards, Obama, and Clinton, have put forward what they call "affordable quality health coverage for all." But none of their plans will provide universal access to care. The private insurance system would remain in place with no fundamental change in what we have now and nothing is proposed that would even control the rising cost of health care as it just keeps getting worse for all. The kind of "fundamental" change that's allegedly being called for means an uprooting of the whole capitalist system and NONE of the candidates is going to be proposing that. --Sick of it, Chicago I just saw Robert Redford's well-intentioned "Lions for Lambs." The best line in the movie to me was how Redford, playing a professor, lectures to his apathetic students that "it's no longer about the politicians who got us into this war, it's about the rest of us who do nothing, fiddling while Rome burns." Rome has to mean Bhagdad, too, and not just Mainstreet U.S.A. This movie has all the requisite "told you so" criticisms of this god-forsaken war--how they lied about WMD, how the press embedded their noses firmly in the Pentagon, how we supplied Saddam with chemical weapons in the first place, how Saddam had nothing to do with Al-Qaida or 9/11, blah, blah, blah. It even has a good dig at Hillary's "If I had known then what I know now." But this is yesteryear's movie. It should have come out four years ago. Afghans in this movie are in the background. If we'd bring them into the foreground of our discussion, we'd see that the good ole American war had been eclipsed by an even worse war. Bush opened a Pandora's box which cannot be closed. Pull out? It's too late. --Critic, California In idly looking through the 2008 issue of the Guiness Book of Records at the checkout line I was stunned to see the bombing of MOVE in Philadelphia in 1985 listed as a suicide! The information was attributed to the Cult Information Center. The definition of "cult" may be in question, but the destruction of MOVE headquarters, the accompanying loss of an entire block of Philadelphia homes, and the loss of 11 MOVE members was clearly the work of the office of Mayor W.Wilson Goode. And it was not a suicide, it was murder. We folks who can remember back that far can remember being horrified at how far the city would go to rid itself of a group that was not disobeying the law, but had become a thorn in the side of the Mayor's office. The fact that Mumia would not shut up about how MOVE was being treated was a factor in the police's project to silence him. Mumia devoted one of his broadcasts to this lie. To object to all of this, we can all sign a petition at <a href="www.ipetitions.com/petition/OnaMove"> www.ipetitions.com/petition/OnaMove </a>. I think Guiness Book of World Records should be bombarded with objections. --Outraged, California Just when you think you've seen just about every degradation to women, you get another kick in the teeth. But this time the women kicked back. A jury awarded a former women's volleyball coach at California State University at Fresno an award of $5.85 million for school retaliation against her for her efforts to ensure gender equity in campus sports, based on title IX, as well as for discrimination based on her gender and perceived sexual orientation. Her contract had not been renewed in 2004 after 13 years despite a winning record of 263-167 and the highest winning percentage for the team ever in 2002. During those years she also advocated for equitable resources for women's teams and opposed gender-based hostility by some male coaches and their supporters, including the celebration of an "Ugly Women's Athlete Day." --Mary Jo Grey, Chicago Nobel Prize-winning scientist James D. Watson (one of the discoverers of the double helix structure of DNA) was one of my professors years ago. His recent racist comment that Caucasians are inherently more intelligent than Blacks was correctly denounced as soon as it was uttered. I see his remarks as revealing the alienation that underlies even the most brilliant thinking in capitalist society. Like all living things, humans evolved to survive in their environment, and variation among humans who evolved in different parts of the world are to be expected. But to then indicate that some humans (i.e. Caucasians) are more intelligent contradicts that fundamental concept of genetics and evolution. To be intelligent in a capitalist society means to be living an alienated life. So the most intelligent people living under capitalism are those who, like Karl Marx and Marxist-Humanists, envision a totally new, human society in which human potential can fully develop. --Science Teacher, Michigan Over the past 20 years I have had to endure a number of experiences from the SWP that have not been very pleasant. A few years ago they forced me to stop speaking at the London Social Forum by shouting and slow handclapping. At the most recent IS conference I was simply not allowed to speak by the chair. Recently there have been a round of expulsions. It's happening at the same time that millions of workers--Postal workers, Public sector, NHS and Rail workers--are all in struggle against their employers. A recent poll by Radio 4 on who was the most influential thinker of all time was won by Karl Marx by 80,000 votes. I would put the combined figure of the left activists at about 2,000. It would seem large sections of the population are to the left of the political groups. --P. Duffy, London * * * DON'T FORGET TO PUT NEWS & LETTERS ON YOUR HOLIDAY GIFT LIST! |
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