Gaza flotilla attack: world unites in condemnation of Israel's actions, Ian Traynor and Dorian Jones in Istanbul The Guardian, Tuesday 1 June 2010

Gaza flotilla attack: world unites in condemnation of Israel's actions

Key strategic relationship with Turkey damaged and Netanyahu visit to White House cancelled


Brussels protest at Israeli flotilla attack

In a scene echoed around the world, a woman flashes a victory sign during a protest outside the Belgian foreign affairs building in Brussels. Photograph: Francois Lenoir/Reuters

Israel's calculated gamble in sending commandos to raid the Mediterranean flotilla looked likely last night to exact a high price, leaving it increasingly isolated internationally and diplomatically and losing the vital public relations war in the Middle East.

The first and biggest casualty of what appeared to many as a rash act of night time derring-do was Israel's relationship with what used to be its key strategic, regional and Muslim ally, Turkey.

Anger erupted on the streets of Istanbul and Ankara, with Israeli flags burned and the Netanyahu government advising Israelis to stay away from Turkey. Thousands took to the streets and marched on the Israeli consulate.

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, described the Israeli raid as "an act of inhumane state terrorism", while the foreign ministry spoke of "an act of piracy" and of "irreparable damage" to relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv.

Three of the six ships flew the Turkish flag, the convoy was organised by a Turkish charity, and several hundred of those on board the ships were Turks. "We had a very good relationship with Israel, but we have had all kind of difficulties in the past," said a senior diplomat in Ankara, Selim Yenel. "This tops them all."

Protesters scaled the high fences protecting the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, only to be repelled by security forces.

"I cried all night. What Israel did was murder and terrorism," said Mehmet Tas, a computer software student. "Turkey and Europe should unite and attack Israel."

The fury on the streets was mirrored by high-level rage. Ankara recalled its ambassador from Israel. Erdogan rushed home from a trip to Latin America to deal with the fallout. Observers predicted a possible breach in diplomatic relations.

"Israel has targeted innocent civilians," said the foreign ministry in Ankara. "It has shown yet again that it does not care about human lives or peace initiatives."

Noting that the dawn raid occurred in international waters, Ankara hinted at demanding legal redress.

The Turks convened an emergency meeting of generals and security ministers and called off military exercises with Israel, as did Greece.

The United Nations security council was expected to meet last night in New York over the incident.

"I heard the ships were in international water. That is very bad," said Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.

The Obama administration, while regretting the death toll, reserved judgment on apportioning blame.

"The United States is currently working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy," said White House spokesman William Burton.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, cancelled plans to visit Obama at the White House today.

Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity, Israeli ambassadors were summoned in Stockholm, Madrid, and Athens, while Spain, holding the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union, called a session of the EU's political and security committee.

Foreign governments deplored the loss of life and voiced outrage at the Israeli conduct. But amid a propaganda war between the Israeli government press machine and pro-Palestinian lobbies over who started the fight and whether any of the activists on board were armed, they were also wary of going further than verbal condemnation.

The common response in Europe was to condemn what was seen as Israel's disproportionate use of force. Even Germany, generally reluctant to criticize Israel because of the Holocaust, voiced horror at what Palestinian leaders dubbed a massacre.

"The German government is shocked by events in the international waters by Gaza," said a German government spokesman, adding that Israeli actions should observe the fundamental principle of proportionality. "A first glance suggests this basic principle was not adhered to."

Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign and security policy chief, said: "I have spoken to Israel's foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman to express our deepest concern about the tragedy that has happened. I said there should be an immediate inquiry by Israel into the circumstances."

Her demand for an Israeli inquiry was echoed by European governments, but at odds with several other calls for an independent international investigation.

Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, told Liberman that any investigation should be "comprehensive, transparent, and neutral".

While Israel generally prevents foreign politicians entering the Gaza Strip, Ashton was allowed in during her first trip to the Middle East in March. She called yesterday for a partial lifting of the blockade maintained by Israel and Egypt.

"I have also taken the opportunity to point out the importance of opening the crossings for humanitarian aid to go through, to ensure that ordinary people have a better existence than that which I saw."

William Hague, the foreign secretary, said that the three-year Israeli siege of Gaza should be relaxed. "I call on the government of Israel to open the crossings to allow unfettered access for aid to Gaza, and address the serious concerns about the deterioration in the humanitarian and economic situation and about the effect on a generation of young Palestinians."

The Russian government meanwhile expressed its deep anxiety over the incident. It described the assault by Israeli commandos as a gross violation of international law and called for a thorough investigation.

"Use of weapons against civilians and detaining ships in the open sea without any legal reason constitute obvious and gross violations of generally accepted legal standards," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement. It called for the "earliest possible lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza".

Tony Blair, envoy in the Middle East for the UN, US, EU, and Russia quartet, said: "We need a different and better way of helping the people of Gaza and avoiding the hardship and tragedy that is inherent in the present situation."

All the evidence suggests that Israel is calculating that it can brazen out the chorus of criticism and limit the substantive damage to its relations with Turkey.

Lisbon: Massive Demonstration Against Government Natália SANTOS, Source: Pravda.Ru, 29.05.2010

http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/29-05-2010/113571-lisbon_demonstration-0


Over three hundred thousand people (more than three per cent of the Portuguese population) marched today in central Lisbon in a mega-demonstration against the socially insulting policies of the conservative, right-wing Government provided by the Socialist Party, an insult to Socialism, an insult to Government and the epitome of laboratory politics practised by professional politicians who have never had a real job.



Three hundred thousand people for Portugal is a lot. In terms of the United States of America, it would be equivalent to nine million people. In terms of the UK, France, Italy, almost two million people.

The Portuguese people marched today in protest against the horrific social austerity package proposed by the ruling Socialist Party (which in fact is anything but Socialist) in a demonstration supported by the GCTP Union, the Portuguese Communist Party, Green Party and the Left Block.

The Portuguese people have been governed by the two main parties, the Social Democratic Party and the Socialist Party, sometimes in coalition with the Popular Party (Christian Democrats) since the “Revolution” of 25th April 1974. What they have witnessed since this putsch, has been a wholesale selling-off of the country, the destruction of its industries, the destruction of its agriculture and fisheries. In return for what?

Each and every new Government usually starts its term in office with the sickening phrase “We are going to ask for sacrifices from the Portuguese people”. This has been going on for three decades and where have these sacrifices led the people?

Now, the Socialist (joke!) Government of Prime Minister Jose Sousa (who calls himself Jose Socrates, as if he were some academic…another joke in Portugal) has announced an austerity package which is no more or less than an insult to the Portuguese people who have had to put up with these professional politicians practising laboratory politics, without any idea of what it is to work.

Hence the three hundred thousand (plus) people marching through central Lisbon this Saturday.

Under the able Government of Mr. Sousa (or Socrates, or whatever he wants to call himself) and previous Governments led by the Social Democrats (including the ten years that the former Prime Minister, now President of Portugal, Anibal Silva, who calls himself Cavaco Silva for some reason, led the country at a time when Euro-billions were pouring in and were subsequently wasted) the average salary in Portugal has reached a pinnacle of some 800 Euro per month. Supermarket food prices must be among the highest in Europe.

A normal mortgage plus insurance is 900 Euro, a normal rent in Lisbon is at least 400 Euro, more probably 600. Salaries for the recently employed have decreased by up to 40 per cent in the last 5 years, 50 per cent of the unemployed receive 419 Euro per month (167 loaves of bread), 75 per cent receive 428 Euros (171 loaves of bread).


This Government took away support measures for 187,000 unemployed persons on Thursday and the following day decided to announce more measures to support the financial system which has sent thousands of Portuguese into misery with its high interest rates. This Government announced on two occasions it would not raise taxes, and on two occasions promptly did.

This Government has done absolutely nothing whatsoever to help the Portuguese people, starved of hopes and expectations and squeezed more and more in a downward spiral of desperation, while successive cliques of politicians increase the salaries of Members of Parliament, increase travel subsidies and rape the people.

Today, 300,000 people said enough! Nobody asked for the European Union or its Convergence measures, nobody asked for the Treaties of Maastricht or Nice or Lisbon, nobody asked for the Euro, which saw prices sky-rocket in Portugal, while salaries have remained far behind.

The (National) Socialist Government of Mr. Jose Sousa in Portugal is an insult to socialism, an insult to Europe and an insult to the Portuguese people.

Natália SANTOS

GREECE/ Strike on May 20: Another successful battle of PAME, source: KKE Dynamic, May 28, 2010

http://inter.kke.gr/News/2010news/2010-05-20strike

Millions of strikers and tens of thousands of protestors, workers and young people, gave one more strong response to the anti-people offensive condemning the severe anti-people measures with their participation in the 9th successful strike of All workers' Militant Front (PAME) in five months.

Early in the dawn a few hundreds of strikers of PAME occupied the building of the Ministry of Labour denouncing the new round of anti-people measures by the government, the EU and the IMF. They hanged a banner on the building's façade bearing the slogan “Reject the measures”. The river of the strikers headed for the Ministry of Labour which has been the heart of the struggle of the class oriented forces. Public buildings were also occupied in other cities across the country.

Once again, despite the fact that the media tried to bury the strike demonstrations of PAME, the working people turned their backs on the compromised yellow union leaderships of GSEE-ADEDY (trade union federations in private and public sectors) and transformed the demonstrations of the class oriented forces to massive rallies that attracted the majority of the strikers.

In their speeches the representatives of the class oriented forces pointed out the recent announcements of the social democrat government about social security system. The new measures bring a dim future for the working people as they force the people to work more than 40 years, they increase the retirement ages, they reduce the pensions and transform them to a starvation allowance of 360 euros while at the same time they abolish the list of hazardous occupations.

At the same time, communists combined the strike with a significant ideological and political struggle against the propaganda of the bourgeoisie claims that strikes allegedly damage tourism and promotes vile anticommunism and propaganda against PAME. The class oriented forces revealed that when capital talks about tourist development, it means the development that benefits the monopoly groups; it means the “Greek tourist paradise” where workers work like slaves, while at the same time the Greek people experience the shrinkage of the duration of their holidays as well as of the number of the workers who can afford holidays.

The demonstration in Athens was held at the square of Omonoia, at the centre of Athens. Representatives of PAME, Αll Greek Antimonopoly Rally of the self-employed and the small tradesman (PASEVE), All Peasants' Militant Rally (PASY), Students' Militant Front (MAS) saluted the rally. Thereafter, in a militant atmosphere, the blocks of PAME headed for the ministry of Labour without giving any rise to the provocation of the mechanisms of the bourgeois system.

We should also note that the wave of multiform and touching solidarity of communist and workers' parties, trade unions, mass organisations, workers and young people continues growing.

The working people, the self-employed, the young people declared that the struggle will continue even more dynamically paving the way for the people's alliance, for the alliance of the working class and its allies.

e-mail:cpg@int.kke.gr

"Viva la Quince Brigada" (Long Live the Fifteenth Brigade) Christie Moore

"Viva la Quince Brigada" (Long Live the Fifteenth Brigade)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieNwb07tgG8

Dedicated to the bravery of the Irish Volunteers (1936-1939) who joined the 15th International Brigade supporting the Spanish Republic in the War of Spain against Franco´s fascist troops.

Many of those brave irish boys never came back to Ireland, giving the best of their youth to the spanish country....

VIVA LA QUINCE BRIGADA
Christie Moore

Ten years before I saw lhe light of morning
A comradeship of heroes was laid.
From every corner of the world came sailing
The Fifteenth Inlernational Brigade.

They came to stand beside the Spanish people.
To try and stem the rising Fascist tide
Franco's allies were the powerful and wealthy,
Frank Ryan's men came from the other side.

Even the olives were bleeding
As the battle for Madrid it thundered on.
Truth and love against the force af evil,
Brotherhood against the Fascist clan.

Vive La Quince Brigada!
"NO PASARAN" the pledge that made them fight.
"ADELANTE" was the cry around the hillside.
Let us all remember them tonight.

Bob Hillard was a Church of Ireland pastor;
From Killarney across the Pyrenees ho came.
From Derry came a brave young Christian Brother.
Side by side they fought and died in Spain.

Tommy Woods, aged seventeen, died in Cordoba.
With Na Fianna he learned to hold his gun.
From Dublin to the Villa del Rio
Where he fought and died beneath the Spanish sun.

Many Irishmen heard the call of Franco.
Joined Hitler and Mussolini too.
Propaganda from the pulpit and newspapers
Helped O'Duffy to enlist his crew.

The word came from Maynooth: 'Support the Fascists.'
The men of cloth failed yet again
When the bishops blessed the blueshirts in Dun Laoghaire
As they sailed beneath the swastika to Spain.

This song is a tribute to Frank Ryan.
Kit Conway and Dinny Coady too.
Peter Daly, Charlie Regan and Hugh Bonar.
Though many died I can but name a few.

Danny Doyle, Blaser-Brown and Charlie Donnelly.
Liam Tumilson and Jim Straney from the Falls.
Jack Nally, Tommy Patton and Frank Conroy,
Jim Foley, Tony Fox and Dick O'Neill.

Written in 1983
©Christy Moore
RG-Apr97

International Greetings: Communist Party of Canada to 29th National Convention CPUSA, May 26 2010

by: Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada/Parti Comuniste du Canada

http://www.cpusa.org/international-greetings-communist-party-of-canada/

Dear Comrades,

On behalf of the Central Committee and the members of the Communist Party of Canada, we are pleased to convey our warm internationalist greetings to your 29th Convention, and to all the party delegates and members participating in its work.

Your convention takes place at a most critical historical conjuncture. Wars of aggression and environmental devastation exact an ever-growing toll in terms of human suffering and the liveability of our planet. Social inequalities and disparities between the rich, imperialist countries and the vast majority of other states, and between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' within every country, continue to swell to the breaking point. Indeed, the global imperialist system finds itself in a deepening, intractable crisis in which contradictions are maturing in virtually every sphere of life - cyclical, structural, political, environmental and cultural.

Today in Canada we witness an accelerating offensive by finance capital and their governments to make the working class and the people pay for the economic crisis. The current target is centred on the public sector and on the wages and benefits of its workers. The ruling corporate and financial circles want to further erode public services and the 'social wage', and gain greater access through another devastating round of privatizations into lucrative sectors like healthcare, education, and pensions. They also aim to drive down the wages and conditions of public sector workers, putting more downward pressure on the wages of all workers in both public and private sectors.

The stage is what we have dubbed 'Round Two" of the crisis, and of course this 'austerity' offensive is also finding sharp expression in Europe as well, and sparking intense and militant resistance, especially in Greece and Portugal, as well as elsewhere in Europe. Without doubt it finds reflection as well in the United States.

This situation in turn raises ever more sharply the unique role and responsibilities of the Communists not only to help organize and unite the labour and people's forces, but also to help deepen their class consciousness and to propagate a comprehensive alternative to militarism, oppression and exploitation - the alternative of socialism.

We have every confidence that the 29th Convention will prove pivotal in determining the future of your party and the struggle for socialism in your country.

Comradely yours,

Central Executive Committee
Communist Party of Canada/Parti Comuniste du Canada

What the American Reformists Need To Learn from the Communists of Greece, written by Andrew Taylor, 25 May, 2010

Did anyone else listen to the entire opening Address of Chair Sam Webb at the just concluded Communist Party USA Convention? http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7091342 Was there actually no mention in the opening address of the 2 imperial wars of the USA in Afghanistan and Iraq? And did I miss the part where the Chairman provided a discussion of the current severe capitalist crisis in Greece and its meaning for the US communists and other working-people? Call me old-fashioned...but it is one world.

I watched the video and missed hearing the Greek Central Committee's letter ...that could have been my inattentiveness (but I'm quite alert to this sort of thing). However a delegate to the CPUSA convention read the KKE Letter to the CPUSA I blogged and wrote me saying: "Thanks for sharing this, I don't think they read the whole thing at the Convention." But a salient unimpeachable fact remains at center-stage. The Greek Party which has brought hundreds of thousands into the streets in militant protest against the austerity measure of Big Capital in the past month has written the American party leadership with a list of very serious concerns about the CPUSA's "retreats from ideological and theoretical principles" and "opportunist views". If you missed hearing or reading the Communist Party of Greece Letter to the CPUSA National Committee for your Convention here is the URL: http://inter.kke.gr/IntAct/KKEint/message-cpusa

And if it matters to any Sam Webb-loyalist what international communists other than the Greeks think Nat'l Board members may re-read Sam Webb's letter to the Canadian Party Leadership when he was kicking up sand about your 2 author's speech to our central Convention. (Certain New York CPUSA individuals seemed determined to leak the letter like the BP Oil Spill!) In Sam's letter he is the one who frankly acknowledges ideological differences between the perspectives of the Canadian and US parties before he launches his complaint. My point being, there is a growing divide in the global communist parties with the Communist Party USA being on the leading edge of right opportunism, disingenuous answers so vague as to be meaningless, and dancing around certain stark facts.

To appraise oneself of these facts as seen by fighting, militant Communists one need only read the Greek Central Committee critique provided by them to the CPUSA National Board. I quote their conclusion only:

"The existence of strong Communist Parties steadfast to the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, with a revolutionary program for the overthrow of the rule of monopolies, for building socialism - communism, is the foremost demand of our times.

"We look forward to learning the conclusions and the resolutions of your convention.

"With comradely greetings

~The Central Committee of KKE (Communist Party of Greece)

[URL:http://permanentred.blogspot.com/2010/05/communist-party-of-greece-kke-message.html]

Europe is a dead political project, By Étienne Balibar, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 May 2010

This is the beginning of the end for the EU unless it can find the capacity to start again on radically new bases

Within a single month, we have witnessed Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece announcing his country's possible default, an expansive European rescue loan offered to him on the condition of devastating budget cuts, soon followed by the "downgraded rating" of the Portuguese and Spanish debts, a threat on the value and the very existence of the euro, the creation (under strong US pressure) of a European security fund worth €750bn, the Central European Bank's decision (against its rules) to redeem sovereign debts, and the announcement of budget austerity measures in several member states.

Clearly, this is only the beginning of the crisis. The euro is the weak link in the chain, and so is Europe itself. There can be little doubt that catastrophic consequences are coming.

In response, the Greek protests have been fully justified. First, we have been witnessing a denunciation of the whole Greek people. Second, once again the government has betrayed its electoral promises, without any form of democratic debate. Lastly, Europe did not display any real solidarity towards one of its member states, but imposed on it the coercive rules of the IMF, which protect not the nations, but the banks.

The Greeks were the first victims, but they will hardly be the last, of a politics of "rescuing the European currency" – measures which all citizens ought to be allowed to debate, because all of them will be affected by the outcome. However, to the extent that it exists, the discussion is deeply biased, because essential determinations are hidden or dismissed.

In its current form, under the influence of the dominant social forces, the European construction may have produced some degree of institutional harmonisation, and generalised some fundamental rights, which is not negligible, but, contrary to the stated goals, it has not produced a convergent evolution of national economies, a zone of shared prosperity. Some countries are dominant, others are dominated. The peoples of Europe may not have antagonistic interests, but the nations increasingly do.

Second, any Keynesian strategy to generate public "trust" in the economy rests on three interdependent pillars: a stable currency, a rational system of taxes, but also a social policy, aiming at full employment. This third aspect is systematically ignored in most current commentaries.

Furthermore, all this debate concerning the euro monetary system and the future of Europe will remain entirely abstract unless it is articulated to the real trends of globalisation, which the financial crisis will powerfully accelerate, unless they are politically addressed by the peoples which they affect and their leaders.

We are witnessing a transition from one form of international competition to another: no longer (mainly) a competition among productive capitals, but a competition among national territories, which use tax exemptions and pressure on the wages of labour to attract more floating capital than their neighbours.

Now, clearly, whether Europe works as an effective system of solidarity among its members to protect them from "systemic risks", or simply sets a juridical framework to promote a greater degree of competition among them, will determine the future of Europe politically, socially, and culturally.

But there is a second tendency: a transformation of the international division of labour, which radically destabilises the distribution of employment in the world. This is a new global structure where north and south, east and west are now exchanging their places. Europe, or most of it, will experience a brutal increase of inequalities: a collapsing of the middle classes, a shrinking of skilled jobs, a displacement of "volatile" productive industries, a regression of welfare and social rights, and a destruction of cultural industries and general public services. This will precipitate a return to the ethnic conflicts which the European construction wanted to overcome forever.

We cannot, accordingly, but ask the question: is this the beginning of the end for the EU, a construction that started 50 years ago on the basis of an age-old utopia, but now proves unable to fulfil its promises? The answer, unfortunately, is yes: sooner or later, this will be inevitable, and possibly not without some violent turmoil. Unless it finds the capacity to start again on radically new bases, Europe is a dead political project.

But the breaking of the EU would inevitably abandon its peoples to the hazards of globalisation to an even greater degree. Conversely, a new foundation of Europe does not guarantee any success, but at least it gives her a chance of gaining some geopolitical leverage. With one condition, however: that all the challenges involved in the idea of an original form of post-national federation are seriously and courageously met. These involve setting up a common public authority, which is neither a state nor a simple "governance" of politicians and experts; securing genuine equality among the nations, thus fighting against reactionary nationalisms; and above all reviving democracy in the European space, thus resisting the current processes of "de-democratisation" or "statism without a State", produced by neoliberalism.

Something obvious should have been long acknowledged: there will be no progress towards federalism in Europe (the one that is now advocated by some, and rightly so) if democracy itself does not progress beyond the existing forms, allowing an increased influence for the people(s) in the supranational institutions. Does this mean that, in order to reverse the course of recent history, to shake the lethargy of a decaying political construction, we need something like a European populism, a simultaneous movement or a peaceful insurrection of popular masses who will be voicing their anger as victims of the crisis against its authors and beneficiaries, and calling for a control "from below" over the secret bargainings and deals made by markets, banks, and states? Yes indeed. I agree that it can lead to other catastrophes. But the risk is greater if nationalism prevails in whichever form.

In this part of the world, such forces were traditionally called "the left". But the European left is also now bankrupt. In the broader political space, stretching across borders, that is now relevant, it has lost every capacity to express social struggles or launch emancipatory movements. It has surrendered to the dogmas and rationales of neoliberalism. Consequently it has been ideologically disintegrated. Deprived of any strong popular support, those parties which represent it nominally are now powerless spectators of the crisis, for which they offer no specific or collective response.

We may well wonder, in these conditions, what is going to happen when the crisis enters its next phases? There will be protest movements, almost certainly, but they will find themselves isolated, and possibly they will become deviated towards violence, or recuperated by racism and xenophobia (which are already surging all around us). But the question also concerns intellectuals: what should and could be a democratically elaborated political action against the crisis at the European level? It is the task of progressive intellectuals, whether they see themselves as reformists or revolutionaries, to discuss this subject and take risks. If they fail to do it, they will have no excuse.


• This is an edited version of an article which will be published in full in the June issue of the online journal Theory and Event (Johns Hopkins University Press)

IS MARXISM RELEVANT TO ENVIRONMENTALISM ?, By Anna Pha, posted in :The Guardian, , republished in : May 16-31 issue of People's Voice

(The following article is from the May 16-31, 2010 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)

How often have you heard it said that Marxism has no relevance to the environmental crisis or that the environment is not a class question? After all, Marx and Engels were writing 150 years ago, long before the current environmental crisis.

Marx and Engels certainly did not have the benefit of the scientific knowledge that we enjoy today, nor were there such imminent threats as climate warming or loss of biodiversity. For example, the study of ecology - the interdependence of the various components of nature - really only emerged as a widely accepted science in the 1960s.

Engels studied the historical processes of the material world, the constant changes taking place and the impact of each change on other aspects of that world. In the Transition from Ape to Man, he says:

"Animals ... change external nature by their activities just as man does, if not to the same extent, and these changes made by them in their environment ... in turn react upon and change their originators. For in nature nothing takes place in isolation. Everything affects every other thing and vice versa, and it is usually because this many-sided motion and interaction is forgotten that our natural scientists are prevented from clearly seeing the simplest things."

"The animal destroys the vegetation of a locality without realising what it is doing. Man destroys it in order to sow field crops on the soil thus released, or to plant trees or vines which he knows will yield many times the amount sown. He transfers useful plants and domestic animals from one country to another and thus changes the flora and fauna of whole continents.

"More than this. Under artificial cultivation, both plants and animals are so changed by the hand of man that they become unrecognisable. The wild plants from which our grain varieties originated are still being sought in vain. The question of the wild animal from which our dogs are descended, the dogs themselves being so different from one another, or our equally numerous breeds of horse, is still under dispute....

"But all the planned action of all animals has never resulted in impressing the stamp of their will upon nature. For that, man was required.

"In short, the animal merely uses external nature, and brings about changes in it simply by his presence; man by his changes makes it serve his ends, masters it...

"Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human conquest over nature. For each such conquest takes its revenge on us. Each of them, it is true, has in the first place the consequences on which we counted, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel out the first."

How true! Humans had no idea that the extensive use of fossil fuels and other producers greenhouse gas emissions would burn holes in the ozone layer, induce global warming and bring the human race to the brink of extinction. This is the same process that Engels is describing. Of course Engels had no means to foresee the extent of revenge that nature would take on humanity.

Engels continues in the same prophetic vein: "The people who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor, and elsewhere destroyed the forests to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that they were laying the basis for the present devastated condition of these countries, by removing along with the forests the collecting centres and reservoirs of moisture.

"When, on the southern slopes of the mountains, the Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests so carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so they were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry in their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of water for the greater part of the year, with the effect that these would be able to pour still more furious flood torrents on the plains during the rainy seasons..."

This analysis stands the test of time.

"Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature - but that we, with flesh, blood, and brains, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other beings of being able to know and correctly apply its laws."

Engels looked not just at the impact on nature but on the social consequences of human actions. He looked at the impact of primitive communal ownership of land and the barest means of subsistence and compared this with higher forms of production and the eventual division of the population into different classes - the capitalist mode of production.

"The individual capitalists, who dominate production and exchange, are able to concern themselves only with the most immediate useful effect of their actions. Indeed, even this useful effect - as much as it is a question of the usefulness of the commodity that is produced or exchanged - retreats right into the background, and the sole incentive becomes the profit to be gained on selling."

The manufacturer Engels says, is "not concerned as to what becomes of the commodity afterwards or who are its purchasers".

Engels asks: "What did the Spanish planters in Cuba, who burned down forests on the slopes of the mountains and obtained from the ashes sufficient fertiliser for one generation of very highly profitable coffee trees, care that the tropical rainfall afterwards washed away the now unprotected upper stratum of the soil, leaving behind only bare rock?

"In relation to nature, as to society, the present mode of production is predominantly concerned only about the first, tangible success; and then surprise is expressed that the more remote effects of actions directed to this end turn out to be of quite different, mainly even of quite an opposite, character."

That narrow focus on immediate outcomes, on profits, is what drives capitalism. The process described by Engels was accelerated by colonialism and continues unabated today.

The result is desertification, salination, river-beds drying up, extreme weather conditions and the many other forms of environmental crisis that people around the globe have experienced.

The result is global warming, irretrievable loss of biodiversity, millions of people facing starvation and many plant and animal species, including human beings, facing the threat of extinction.

Marx also recognised the relationship between humans and nature: "man himself is a product of Nature which has been developed in and along with its environment". (A criticism of the Hegelian Philosophy of Law). If only the full implications of their writings had been further studied.

Marxist theory is a living tool, a scientific approach to interpreting and understanding the universe. Marxism is the application of scientific method to social, economic and environmental issues. Scientific method is not static but continually undergoes change reflecting our knowledge of the material world around us.

Communists bring something to the environmental struggle that many other groups do not; that is their class analysis of the causes of the crisis - capitalism. Based on that analysis they also identify the only basis of a lasting solution - socialism. They have an important role to play in tackling the pressing questions of climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development. Marxism serves all environmentalists, including communists, well.

MAY DAY COLLECTION SENT TO SUDBURY STRIKERS, by Liz Rowley, from the May 16-31, 2010 issue of People's Voice

Toronto participants in the People's Voice May Day celebration responded to the call to support Sudbury strikers against Brazilian multinational Vale Inco with a donation of $350. Another $350 was raised for People's Voice, which has helped expose Vale's union busting, and helped mobilize support for the strike since July 2009.

The gathering also passed a resolution calling on the provincial government to pass anti-scab legislation, and to force the company to negotiate the "fair deal" that miners, smelterworkers, and the community are entitled to.

Vale Inco, which has 97% of its global holdings outside Canada, is determined to kill the defined benefit pension plan that provides some measure of security for workers after a lifetime in their dangerous occupation. Even this plan has left some workers and mine widows unable to cope, because pensions were not tied to cost of living increases. Nor do they cover the costs of diseases such as black lung which are rife in mining towns like Sudbury.

Vale wants a defined contribution (DC) pension, akin to RRSPs, completely exposed to the ups and downs of the market. In the crash of 2008, hundreds of thousands of people lost substantial portions of their DC pensions and savings.

The company also wants to end the nickel bonus, a profit sharing arrangement whereby workers get a share of the increase when the price of nickel rises.

For the first time in its 100 year history, the Inco mines and smelters are being worked by scabs, as the company struggles to break the workers' resolve and their union, Local 6500 of the United Steelworkers. Strikebreakers and rent-a-cops have been recruited in Milton, a small farming community in Southern Ontario, as well as from Timmins, a hard rock mining town rocked by layoffs and mine closures. Others are being recruited from the unemployed and unorganized across the province, and flown into the mine and smelter sites by helicopter. The scabs are sleeping in the mine site offices, and flown out on regular rotations.

AFI Security cops are following strikers and their family members on trips to the grocery store, school, and so on. This intimidation is intended to wear down the families and convince strikers to accept the company's terms. In retaliation, strikers are picketing the homes and businesses of scabs, and listing their names at mine entrances and in public places. Strike supporters have organized extended pickets, holding up company trucks as long as three hours, much longer than the protocol which requires the union to let all traffic pass through the lines after twelve minutes.

In March, the office workers at Vale, members of a separate, composite USW local, voted nearly unanimously to accept a contract offer containing a $5,000 signing bonus, a wage increase, and other juicy enticements. Instead of joining in the big strike of miners and smelterworkers, the office workers, including senior staff, opted to take the bait and look after themselves. These are the same untrained and inexperienced employees the company has used since last July to work the mines and smelters. Serious gaps in Ontario's labour laws permit employers to redirect employees to work in their struck worksites. The deal was intended to put a wedge into the union, and it has done so. Strikers won't forget that they were left out in the cold by their brothers and sisters who cross the picket lines every day.

In April, public pressure finally pushed NDP Mayor John Rodriguez and the Sudbury town Council to enforce municipal by-laws that prohibit using company offices to sleep and house workers. A mass meeting at City Hall forced the Mayor and Council to speak up for the community.

But the company isn't producing much. Many of the trucks passing through the lines are empty. Production is fitful at best, intended mainly as a propaganda weapon to break down support for the union. There is a real danger of serious accidents in the mines, and chemical gas leaks or explosions from the smelters could affect the whole town. This itself is reason to compel the provincial government to step in and ban the use of scabs.

How to win against such a powerful company with such deep pockets? That's the question facing strikers and their supporters. Clearly there must be a greater mobilization of Canadian labour in support of the strike. Also at issue is ownership and control of Canada's natural resources, and Investment Canada's "free pass" to Vale to extract nickel and precious metals under any conditions.

The labour and democratic movements can demand that local MPPs and MPs act to force the company back to the table to negotiate a collective agreement, to ban the use of scabs, and to re-open the Investment Canada deal that allowed Vale into Canada in the first place. They can also put pressure on other businesses that deal with Vale, such as TVOntario which sells advertising to Vale on its nightly "Agenda" news program. Letters to the editor and calls to the talk shows are important.

After 10 months, with no end in sight, this is now everybody's fight. The outcome will ripple right through the mining and resource sector, either lifting up the fight to save pensions and good unionized jobs, or axe them.

The strikers are holding on, but they need all the firepower the labour movement can bring to bear. Working people across Canada need to know what's in the balance, and what they and their unions can do to help win.

The real solution is to nationalize Vale and put the operation under public ownership and democratic control. That would end what is effectively a lock-out, and result in a fair deal for striking workers. It would also return ownership and control of these rich mines and natural resources to the Canadian people. A noble idea, and one worth fighting for sooner, rather than later.

(Liz Rowley is the Ontario leader of the Communist Party.)

Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Message to the National Committee of CP, USA on occasion of their 29th party convention

http://inter.kke.gr/IntAct/KKEint/message-cpusa

13.05.2010

Communist Party USA,
National Committee,
New York
Athens, Thursday, 13 May 2010

Dear comrades

We would like to thank you for the information regarding your 29th party convention and to extend our greetings to the delegates. Our parties have met in the past in common struggles for workers’ rights, in the struggle against anti-communism, for the defense of socialism and the Soviet Union, for the unity of the communist movement on the basis of our revolutionary principles and traditions.

We are following as closely as we can the developments in the USA, the escalation of the aggression of US imperialism which lately has become quite obvious. The US is striving to respond to the trend of losing ground within the framework of the imperialist system by inciting regional tensions and conflicts, so that it can take advantage of its political and military supremacy in order to safeguard its interests and maintain its spheres of influence.

In Greece, the working class and the popular strata are facing a barbaric attack, on the pretext of the economic crisis; an attack which has been jointly unleashed by the social democratic PASOK government, the EU and the IMF, with the assistance of the conservative ND party and the open support of the nationalist LAOS party.

The remarkable resistance presented by the labor and popular movement is spearheaded by KKE which continually strives to reveal the real cause of the crisis, the sharpening of the basic contradictions of capitalism. Without the consistent exposure of the compromised and discredited in the eyes of the workers trade union leaderships of GSEE and ADEDY (the national confederations of the private and public sector respectively), without the decisive contribution of PAME (All Workers’ Militant Front), the national trade union front comprised of class oriented Federations, trade unions, labor centers and trade unionists, the labor movement in our country would have been disarmed, unprepared, and unable to fight back.

KKE calls upon the working class, the self-employed, the poor farmers, and the youth to engage in even stronger, more massive and organized actions in order to stave off the onslaught and pave the way for a different path of development. There can be no way other than the nationalization of the monopolies. The working class must take possession of the concentrated means of production and mobilize them with central planning and popular participation. This presupposes a struggle aiming for people’s power, for socialism-communism.

The fightback against anti-communism, the adamant defense of the historical contribution of the Soviet Union and socialist construction in the 20th century, of the identity and revolutionary traditions of the communist movement, take on particular importance today.

As long as the crisis of the international communist movement persists, as long as the situation does not improve and retreats from ideological and theoretical principles are not resolutely confronted, as long as the front against opportunist views that hinder the formation of a single revolutionary strategy against imperialism does not become strengthened, the situation will harbor the danger of an even greater backslide.

The existence of strong Communist Parties steadfast to the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, with a revolutionary program for the overthrow of the rule of monopolies, for building socialism - communism, is the foremost demand of our times.

We look forward to learning the conclusions and the resolutions of your convention.

With comradely greetings

The Central Committee of KKE

Why it is now necessary to create a pan-European labour – popular front of counterattack. (PAME)

PAME : ALL WORKERS MILITANT FRONT 12/05/2010

http://www.pamehellas.gr/fullstory.php?lang=2&wid=1155

Why it is now necessary to create a pan-European labour – popular front of counterattack.

The huge mobilizations in our country recently showed that the majority of workers, self-employed people and poor farmers are against the barbaric measures of the government, the European Union and the IMF.

PAME, expressing the class oriented trade union movement of our country, had revealed in time that the economic crisis is a European and a global phenomenon and not only a Greek one.

Workers are not responsible for this crisis.

The debt of Greece came from the tax benefits to big capital, its profitability, the excessive military expenses which served the plans of NATO, the capitalist path of development.

The industrialists, ship-owners, bankers, large skilled tradesmen are responsible for the crisis.

The asset of the large banks was increased from 275 billion euros in 2004 to 579 billion euros in 2009.

The off shore companies (of Greek interests) which are more than 10,000 trade about 500 billion euros tax-free annually.

The tax evasion of the 6,000 large companies which are known is 15 billion euros.

The companies that are in the stock market had 11.8 billion euros profits in 2009.

PAME struggles together with the poor self-employed and farmers so that the measures will not be applied, the people will not bankrupt; we struggle for a development that will meet peoples’ needs instead of serving capital’s profits.

720 billion euros was decided to be given to European banks at the Summit of the 16 member-states of the eurozone (in 2008 the governments of the EU gave two trillion euros). There is money for the capital, despite the crisis, but not for the people. Simultaneously, they have decided a long period of austerity, unemployment and hit on the rights of the peoples of Europe to increase the profits of monopolies.

That is why it is now necessary to create a pan-European labour – popular front of counterattack.

Greek Bourgeois media and political parties judicial and repressive mechanisms against the struggles of PAME , 18/5/2010

Source: Communist Party of Greece 'Dynamic' site

The assault of the bourgeois media and political parties on KKE goes on. It is launched because of the vanguard role of the party in the struggle and its refusal to submit to bourgeois legality.

A few days before the 24hour general strike there was an attempt to criminalise the activities of All Workers Militant Front (PAME).

The party "Drasi"(“Action”) of St. Manos, a former deputy of the Social-democratic PASOK and former minister of the conservative ND filed a lawsuit at the cassation court, demanding the prosecution of PAME. Thus, it joined the feverish attack of the ruling class on the working class and the daily attacks of the bourgeois media, the servants of the employers.

Besides, this party, which has received merely the 0,7% of the votes at the European Parliament elections of 2009, demands “to investigate whether members of PAME’s leadership, or other accomplices hold criminal responsibility for the illegal actions, which will be revealed by the investigation". Obviously, "Drasi” is sensitive as far as businessmen are concerned, but it does not appeal to the prosecutor when workers are killed, or when they are maimed at work due to so called "accidents", or when workers are fired without compensation.

The Social-democratic government used this disgraceful claim to launch another attack against the class trade union movement.

At the same time, trade union cadres of the casino on Parnitha Mountain are prosecuted. The casino’s employers require the cancellation of the trade union membership of the chairman of the company’s trade union Georgia Flouda and the chairman of the Panhellenic union of technicians of board games Aristomenis Tsourapas in order to dismiss them for their action.

The persecution of teachers who strike and fight in the ranks of PAME class forces also persists. Through the administrative apparatus of the government another teacher was summoned to account for her participation in the strike declared by PAME on 21 April.

It should be noted that for many months union activists who were at the forefront of the struggle and of the strike picket lines are under criminal prosecution. E.g. for actions at the "Jumbo" stores.

The bourgeois media have long demanded the prosecution of the seamen who held a successful strike on 21-22 April, despite attempts by the government and ship owners to use strike-breakers. The seamen managed to stop the ships, including the ghetto cruise ship "Zenith" that is used for lifting the cabotage.

It is apparent that people do not only face the government and the main opposition party, but also the interests of the monopolies and of the Greek bourgeoisie. Resistance and confrontation must be substantial, integral and planned.

The Executive Secretariat of PAME replied: "Their fear is justified. But let those who overtly or covertly seek to criminalise and restrict the action of PAME know that it is impossible to intimidate, blackmail and subordinate PAME”.

The workers will respond to their plans by participating in the 20 May strike declared by PAME.

18/5/2010

Greeks return to the streets, By Kerin Hope in Athens, Financial Times,May 20, 2010

Thousands of striking Greek workers took to the streets of central Athens yesterday to protest against cuts in wages and pensions made by the cash-strapped socialist government , writes Kerin Hope in Athens .

Demonstrators gathered outside parliament shouting "Come out, you thieves", a message that underscored popular anger with Greece's political class over the country's swollen budget deficit and public debt.

"We have too many [parliamentary] deputies and they have too many aides . . . This is where cuts should start," said Dimitrios Lainos, a retired civil servant, gesturing towards the parliament building.

The 24-hour general strike called by the country's two largest unions, ADEDY and GSEE, shut down state schools, public transport and government offices.

International flights out of Athens airport were operating normally after most civil aviation unions decided not to join the walk-out. "We don't want to cause any damage to the tourism industry," said a spokesman for the air traffic controllers' union.

It was the first large-scale anti-austerity protest since May 5, when three bank employees died in a fire triggered by a petrol bomb.

Riot police walked alongside groups of leftwing protesters. The communist-led union PAME, which has been accused of encouraging violence, stayed away. But protesters belonging to the communist-controlled seamen's union PNO prevented 7,500 tourists from disembarking from three cruise ships docked in Piraeus port.

Parliament is set to approve an overhaul of the state pension system this month under the terms of a €110bn (£95bn, $135.6bn) bail-out by the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund.

The proposed legislation calls for raising the retirement age to 65 for both men and women from 2013 and reducing pension payments.

Hope and the Heresy of the Greeks written by John Pilger, pacific free press, Wed 19 May 2010

http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/6244-hope-and-the-heresy-of-the-greeks.html


The Heresy Of The Greeks Offers Hope
by John Pilger


As Britain’s political class pretends that its arranged marriage of Tweedledee to Tweedledum is democracy, the inspiration for the rest of us is Greece.

It is hardly surprising that Greece is presented not as a beacon but as a “junk country” getting its comeuppance for its “bloated public sector” and “culture of cutting corners” (the Observer).

The heresy of Greece is that the uprising of its ordinary people provides an authentic hope unlike that lavished upon the warlord in the White House.

The crisis that has led to the “rescue” of Greece by the European banks and the International Monetary Fund is the product of a grotesque financial system which itself is in crisis. Greece is a microcosm of a modern class war that is rarely reported as such and is waged with all the urgency of panic among the imperial rich.

What makes Greece different is that within its living memory is invasion, foreign occupation, betrayal by the West, military dictatorship and popular resistance. Ordinary people are not cowed by the corrupt corporatism that dominates the European Union. The right-wing government of Kostas Karamanlis, which preceded the present Pasok (Labour) government of George Papandreou, was described by the French sociologist Jean Ziegler as “a machine for systematic pillaging the country’s resources”.

[For complete article reference links, please see source at ICH here.]

The machine had infamous friends. The US Federal reserve Board is investigating the role of Goldman Sachs and other American hedge fund operators which gambled on the bankruptcy of Greece as public assets were sold off and its tax-evading rich deposited 360 billion euros in Swiss banks. The largest Greek ship-owners transferred their companies abroad. This haemorrhage of capital continues with the approval of the European central banks and governments.

At 11 per cent, Greece’s deficit is no higher than America’s. However, when the Papandreou government tried to borrow on the international capital market, it was effectively blocked by the American corporate ratings agencies, which “downgraded” Greece to “junk”. These same agencies gave triple-A ratings to billions of dollars in so-called sub-prime mortgage securities and so precipitated the economic collapse in 2008.

What has happened in Greece is theft on an epic, though not unfamiliar scale. In Britain, the “rescue” of banks like Northern Rock and the Royal Bank of Scotland has cost billions of pounds. Thanks to the former prime minister, Gordon Brown, and his passion for the avaricious instincts of the City of London, these gifts of public money were unconditional, and the bankers have continued to pay each other the booty they call bonuses. Under Britain’s political monoculture, they can do as they wish. In the United States, the situation is even more remarkable, reports investigative journalist David DeGraw, “[as the principal Wall Street banks] that destroyed the economy pay zero in taxes and get $33 billion in refunds”.

In Greece, as in America and Britain, the ordinary people have been told they must repay the debts of the rich and powerful who incurred the debts. Jobs, pensions and public services are to be slashed and burned, with privateers in charge. For the European Union and the IMF, the opportunity presents to “change the culture” and dismantle the social welfare of Greece, just as the IMF and the World Bank have “structurally adjusted” (impoverished and controlled) countries across the developing world.

Greece is hated for the same reason Yugoslavia had to be physically destroyed behind a pretence of protecting the people of Kosovo. Most Greeks are employed by the state, and the young and the unions comprise a popular alliance that has not been pacified; the colonels’ tanks on the campus of Athens University in 1967 remain a political spectre. Such resistance is anathema to Europe’s central bankers and regarded as an obstruction to German capital’s need to capture markets in the aftermath of Germany’s troubled reunification.

In Britain, such has been the 30-year propaganda of an extreme economic theory known first as monetarism then as neo-liberalism, that the new prime minister can, like his predecessor, describe his demands that ordinary people pay the debts of crooks as “fiscally responsible”. The unmentionables are poverty and class. Almost a third of British children remain below the breadline. In working class Kentish Town in London, male life expectancy is 70. Two miles away, in Hampstead, it is 80. When Russia was subjected to similar “shock therapy” in the 1990s, life expectancy nosedived. A record 40 million impoverished Americans are currently receiving food stamps: that is, they cannot afford to feed themselves.

In the developing world, a system of triage imposed by the World Bank and the IMF has long determined whether people live or die. Whenever tariffs and food and fuel subsidies are eliminated by IMF diktat, small farmers know they have been declared expendable. The World Resources Institute estimates that the toll reaches 13-18 million child deaths every year. “This,” wrote the economist Lester C. Thurow, “is neither metaphor nor simile of war, but war itself.”

The same imperial forces have used horrific military weapons against stricken countries whose majorities are children, and approved torture as an instrument of foreign policy. It is a phenomenon of denial that none of these assaults on humanity, in which Britain is actively engaged, was allowed to intrude on the British election.

The people on the streets of Athens do not suffer this malaise. They are clear who the enemy is and they regard themselves as once again under foreign occupation. And once again, they are rising up, with courage. When David Cameron begins to cleave £6 billion from public services in Britain, he will be bargaining that Greece will not happen in Britain. We should prove him wrong.

www.johnpilger.com

Party leader urges nation to follow Uncle Ho's example, Vietnam News, May, 19 2010

http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Politics-Laws/199703/Party-leader-urges-nation-to-follow-Uncle-Hos-example.html



HA NOI — Nong Duc Manh, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam, has called on the entire Party, army and people to live, fight, work and study to follow President Ho Chi Minh moral examples.

Speaking at a meeting here yesterday to mark the late President's 120th birthday today, Manh reviewed the "great and important contributions" by President Ho to the national liberation, the socialist revolution and the struggle for peace, independence, democracy and social progress in Viet Nam and the world.

He said President Ho's patriotism and humanism had prompted him to win back independence for the homeland and freedom for his countrymen.

He said Uncle Ho also gained experience from working, studying and researching political theory abroad, particularly on the revolutionary struggles waged by various countries.

"President Ho Chi Minh saw the imperative to liberate the nation and people from foreign domination for Viet Nam and people being oppressed throughout the world," said Manh.

President Ho came to the conclusion that to save the homeland and liberate the nation, there was no other way but to follow the proletariat revolution.

President Ho had made the revolution of national liberation part and parcel of the proletariat revolution throughout the world.

He said the struggle for national liberation and people's democracy led by the Communist Party, "the vanguard of the working class", was aimed at overthrowing the imperialists to return the land to those who tilled it.

After achieving those objectives, he said Viet Nam would embark on the path of building socialism and communism in the country.

Manh said that under the leadership of President Ho, Viet Nam held the banner of national independence and socialism high. He combined patriotism, internationalism of the working class and strength of the nation to liberate the homeland.

By finding the right path to national salvation, President Ho had helped solve some of the key issues affecting the Vietnamese revolution.

These were the combination of Marxism-Leninism with the workers' and patriotic movements in building the Communist Party of Viet Nam; the formation of the revolutionary forces with the Front for National Unity; the building of the people's armed forces; the building of the first State of the people, for the people and by the people of Viet Nam; defining the right methodology for the Vietnamese revolution in the context of complicated developments throughout the world.

Manh said the close combination of the revolution for national independence with socialism created an integrated strength, which was a key factor ensuring the success of the Vietnamese revolution.

He called on the Party, people and army to continue to study and creatively apply President Ho Chi Minh's Thought in the nation's renewal process.

He said to mark the 120th birth anniversary of President Ho, the entire Party and people pledged to follow the objectives of national independence and socialism.

"We're determined to carry out successfully the two strategic tasks of national construction and defence. We will try to be self-reliant in economics, protect cultural identities of the nation, safeguard our territorial integrity and sovereignty while actively integrating internationally.

"We will continue to pursue a foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, peace, co-operation and development, diversification and multi-lateralisation. At the same time, we'll try to win support for peace movements, national independence, democracy and social progress while strengthening co-operation with people from other nations.

"We want to create a world of equality and justice. Our general objective is that at the end of the transitional period toward socialism, we'll be able to build a basic economic foundation of socialism with a superstructure of politics, ideology and culture.

"As a result, Viet Nam will become an ever prosperous socialist country. By the middle of the 21st century, Viet Nam must become an industrialised nation along socialist line."

The Party leader reiterated that President Ho Chi Minh's Thought was an invaluable heritage for the Party and the Vietnamese nation.

He said that thoroughly understanding his thought, members of the Communist Party of Viet Nam were determined to carry out his teaching and turn it into a reality.

"The most important tasks for the Party now are to implement the objectives and tasks of the 10th National Party Congress in 2006, to continue to study Ho Chi Minh's Thought, to review the past 20 years since the implementation of the 1991 Political Platform - and to contribute opinions to draft documents to be presented at the 11th National Party Congress early next year."

Speaking at the ceremony, Katherine Muller-Marin, UNESCO representative in Viet Nam, recalled that "in 1987 the UNESCO General Conference adopted a resolution that recommended member states join in the commemoration of the birth of President Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese hero and a great man of culture, in order to spread the knowledge of the greatness of his ideals and of his work for national liberation".

She continued: "Today many people around the world celebrate his birthday because he is considered an outstanding symbol of national affirmation who devoted his entire life to freeing Viet Nam and the Vietnamese people, thereby contributing to the common struggle of all people for peace, national independence, democracy and social progress."

Ms Muller-Marin added that "Ho Chi Minh made great contributions in the fields of culture, education and the arts and made his interest in the aspirations of people clear as they strived to affirm their cultural identity and promote mutual understanding."

The ceremony to mark President Ho's 120th birth anniversary was jointly organised by the Party Central Committee, the National Assembly, the President, the Government, the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front and the Ha Noi People's Committee.

Among dignitaries attending the event were Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong, Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan, President of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front Central Committee Huynh Dam and many other senior party and government officials.

Beautiful city

HCM City's leaders and 100 members of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union yesterday launched a campaign to make the city more beautiful by planting trees along the East–West Highway in District 2.

City leaders, volunteers and members of the East – West Highway project's management board took part in planting 250 rare trees on a 1.5-km stretch of road extending from Kenh No1 Bridge to Ca Tre Bridge.

The tree-planting activity, which was launched to celebrate late President Ho Chi Minh's birthday, will continue until June 20.

At least 1,800 rare trees, including phoenix, crepe myrtle, ironwood and camphor, will be planted along the highway.

The activity is part of the Youth Union's project to plant 500,000 trees until March 26 next year.

Le Hoang Quan, chairman of HCM City People's Committee, said when Uncle Ho was alive he took a special interest in nature and hoped the country would be more beautiful.

In a letter published in Nhan Dan (People) newspaper on November 28, 1959, the late President asked the public to participate in a Tree Planting Festival.

Quan said the trees planted along the highway, which travels through six districts, would beautify the city. He encouraged district agencies to take good care of the trees in their areas.

The mayor said that eventually other streets in the city would also be planted with trees.

The 22-km highway runs through districts 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, Binh Tan and Binh Chanh, linking the eastern and western parts of HCM City. — VNS

Copyright © 2009 Viet Nam News

The Greek People are the Victims of an Extortion Racket, Olivier Besancenot and Pierre-François Grond, Socialist Project • No. 356, May 18, 2010

Translated by Richard Fidler.

What is happening in Greece concerns all of us. The people are paying for a crisis and a debt that are not their own. Today it is the Greeks, tomorrow it will be others, for the same causes will produce the same effects if we allow it.

First and above all, we express our full and unconditional solidarity with the people who are suffering from an austerity plan without precedent combined with contempt and an arrogance bordering on racism. The strikes and demonstrations are legitimate, and we support them. This is not the crisis of the Greek people, it is the crisis of the world capitalist system. What the Greek people are experiencing is revealing of today’s capitalism. The plan dictated by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rides roughshod over the most elementary rules of democracy.

If this plan is implemented, it will result in a collapse of the economy and of peoples’ incomes without precedent in Europe since the 1930s. Equally glaring is the collusion of markets, central banks and governments to make the people pay the bill for the arbitrary caprice of the system. [French President] Nicolas Sarkozy still dares to talk of the need to regulate the market, although all the measures he implements are more liberal than ever. The movement is accompanied by a deadening consensus of the Right and the Left. The plan is designed by European governments of the Right and Left – and by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the IMF, an institution that has ravaged the Third World for decades and is now attacking Europe. A plan that is implemented by a Socialist government, [Greek Prime Minister] George Papandreou's, the French side of which is adopted by the UMP [Union pour un Mouvement Populaire, a centre-right party] and the SP [Socialist Party of France] members of parliament combined.
Background to the Crisis

The Greek debt crisis is the third tier of a more global crisis that began in the summer of 2008 in the United States. The financial speculation engaged in by the major western banks led the world to the brink of the abyss and plunged the economy into recession. Escalating unemployment, flagging incomes and purchasing power are the principal consequences. Governments have saved this financial capitalism, resuscitated the banks, relaunched capitalism with hundreds of billions of Euros and dollars, thereby causing an explosion in debts and deficits and putting the more fragile states such as Greece in a difficult position.

Now the markets, having digested the crisis, are attacking government debts and speculating on the future of the weakest. What an exemplary lesson on the amorality of a system that is able, in one year, to survive thanks to the IV [intravenous] drip of the state and then to plunge the state itself into a speculative punishment. A speculation that is now embarking on an assault on Spain, while awaiting further victims. When French Prime Minister François Fillon announced May 5 that painful measures were in store to “avoid indebtedness like Greece,” he also announced an austerity plan, one element of which is a reappraisal of the right to retire at age 60.

In fact, a three-year freeze on public spending will entail a freeze on civil servants’ wages and job cutbacks in the hospitals, schools and other public services that people need in order to confront the social catastrophe engendered by the crisis. In contrast, the future is guaranteed for tax expenditures that have generously awarded a thousand or so of the privileged with an average refund of 376,000 Euros apiece.
Two Weights, Two Measures

The Greek measures overwhelmingly approved by the European governments consist of attacking social rights because, under the rules of globalized capitalism applied by these governments, Europe is losing ground in the global competition with the United States and the emerging countries. Their solution is to regain competitiveness through a reappraisal of the standard of living and social protection achieved in Europe by decades of mobilization of the workers movement. An unending spiral toward the bottom. And imagine, they sold us the Maastricht treaties, the European Constitution treaty, and the Lisbon treaty as the premises for the construction of a European social and welfare network! What utter nonsense, when we relate this promise to the bleeding imposed upon the Greeks – at 5% interest, moreover. The European banks can continue to grow rich on the Greek austerity plan, although they are the ones most responsible for the world economic chaos. By the same token, there is nothing humanitarian about voting for an “assistance plan” like that in the National Assembly. By joining in the government decision, the SP lines up on the side of finance and not the oppressed.

The European Union, far from being supportive, knows how to play the usurer on the back of a people’s misery. The common declaration of Mr. Sarkozy and [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel that they will save the Euro zone by reinforcing “budget surveillance” of states failing to adhere to the objectives of the stability pact is an illustration of this. In liberal Europe, governments are allowed to contravene the stability pact only when they are opening the public assistance taps for the banks. Humanity can wait.

Yet, never has there been such urgency to the need for a social, ecological and anticapitalist Europe of solidarity. None of the problems can be met within national borders. We are all Greek workers subject to the same logic. The debt of the governments is the product of twenty-five years of liberalism and the slashes in the taxes of the wealthiest – on corporate incomes, capital and shareholders’ dividends. Twenty-five years of an ongoing decline in the payroll taxes imposed on employers and the well-heeled. This crisis is not ours. In Greece, as elsewhere in Europe, it need not be paid for by us.
Our Demands, Our Alternatives

That is why we demand the cancellation of the Greek debt. To reject the austerity plans, to divest the banks of the control they exercise over the economy and society, to substitute a single European public banking service in place of the European Central Bank, with a monopoly over credit, is to fight for the cancellation of the debts and for a genuine European construction: that of the peoples and the workers, of a convergence of their struggles, for a social and ecological Europe of solidarity. If we do not initiate this about-turn, to build another Europe, the sovereigntist and nationalist logic, with its trail of xenophobia, will get the upper hand. The sprint has begun.

To proceed with the common currency, all liberal governments, Right and Left alike, managed to impose drastic economic convergence criteria. The time has now come to impose some social convergence criteria with a European minimum wage, a right of European workers and their organizations to veto layoffs, and some social and democratic rights based on the most favourable national legislation. Such a project must be led by a new political force reaching beyond national borders, a European anticapitalist left that is built step by step. The entire radical left should give careful thought to the lesson of Greece.

This radical left everywhere faces a hard choice between independence from the Social Democracy or incorporation within a management majority with the liberal left. We all want to fight the Right in Europe, as in France, and that means creating alternative channels, not the programmed “alternance” already baptized in France by the Socialist Party as “Gauche solidaire” – solidarity with the speculators, as in the Greek situation. •

Olivier Besancenot and Pierre-François Grond are members of the executive committee of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) in France. The essay appeared in Le Monde, May 14, 2010.


Resources

* Statement on European Crisis from Anticapitalist Organisations, 30 April 2010
* Statement by Syriza, 2 May 2010
* Initiative for a European-wide “Week of Protest & Solidarity” from Left MEPs,13 May 2010
* In solidarity with the Greek people’s resistance against austerity, 13 May 2010

Thai Red shirts rebuffed on negotiation deal, Morning Star, Tuesday 18 May 2010

CLASHES: Thai troops have been "violating the law by firing live ammunition in several areas around Bangkok"

CLASHES: Thai troops have been "violating the law by firing live ammunition in several areas around Bangkok"

The Thai government has rejected a proposal from protesters for peace talks to end the deadly mayhem gripping Bangkok, saying that negotiations could not start until the democracy campaigners dispersed.

The decision dashed hopes of stemming the crisis after five days of violence that has left many people dead.

Thousands of National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) activists, mostly people from the countryside, remained camped behind barricades to press their demand for quick national elections.

Cabinet minister Satit Wonghnongtaey quoted the prime minister as saying that he welcomed negotiations to halt the violence but that "talks will happen only after the protest has ended."

Yesterday's televised comments were issued in response to an offer made earlier in the day by red shirt protest leaders, who said that they would unconditionally accept an offer by the country's senate to mediate between the two sides.

The protesters' acceptance was significant, since they had previously set conditions for any talks.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva called the senate speaker to let him know the government's position, Mr Satit said.

He added that Mr Abhisit had asked the senate to maintain contact with red shirt leaders and urge them to end their protest.

Scattered clashes continued between soldiers and the anti-government red shirts, though confrontations appeared less intense than in previous days.

Yesterday Amnesty International accused Thailand's army of "reckless use of lethal force" during the protest crackdown, which has so far left 38 dead and 279 injured.

The London-based group said that Thai troops were violating the law by firing live ammunition in several areas around Bangkok.

"Eyewitness accounts and video recordings show clearly that the military is firing live rounds at unarmed people who pose no threat whatsoever to the soldiers or to others," said Amnesty's Thailand specialist Benjamin Zawacki.

"This is a gross violation of a key human right - the right to life," Mr Zawacki said in a statement.

The right-wing government maintains that it is battling hundreds of terrorists hiding among demonstrators who it says are responsible for targeting civilians.

However, Amnesty accused army snipers of killing two medics wearing white medical uniforms as well as a 17-year-old boy.

New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised the designation of "live fire zones" by Thai authorities battling anti-government protesters this week, saying it had put them on a "slippery slope" towards serious abuse of human rights.

Message from PAME Greece. Dear Immigrants On May 20 we all Strike, 17/05/2010 Ann

Dear immigrants,

On May 20, we all strike. All the workplaces must be closed. This strike should be even bigger than the strike on May 5.

The immigrants must give once again their mass presence to the strike and demonstrations with their own banners and slogans. Against the capital and the government that load us everyday with more problems. They load immigrants with poverty, unemployment, exploitation and terrorism, whereas they increase the capital’s profits.

The government is taking harsh measures for all of us, Greek people and immigrants.

We should not accept them. Our only choice is the organized struggle through the class-oriented trade unions, through the lines of PAME.

All the immigrants should be in the blocks of PAME. Together with the Greek workers who know how to struggle and express their solidarity, irrespective of the colour and country of the worker. Together with the workers who are against xenophobia and racism, against the forces which deliberately blame immigrants that they are responsible for unemployment and criminality.

On May 20 we dynamically participate in the strike. So that we will all have a job, wages that will meet our needs, medical healthcare, we will have our pensions before becoming old, we will all live freely without terrorism, without the threat of deportation or imprisonment.


All together in the strike at Omonoia Square, at 10 a.m.


THE WORKERS SHOULD NOT MAKE ANY SACRIFICE –

THE PLUTOCRACY MUST PAY THE CRISIS

PASOK (socialist) and New Democracy (conservative) fall in support, Greek communists gain in percentage, Andrew Taylor, May 17, 2010

Recent polling in Greece shows support for the two major political parties,the ruling PASOK (socialist)and New Democracy (conservative), has plummeted over the past month,while there has been an increase in support for left parties, specially for the Communist Party of Greece (KKE)

CP of Peoples of Spain, PCPE Calls for the Sustained Mobilization and the General Strike, www.solidnet.org, Madrid, May 12th, 2010

From: Communist Party of Peoples of Spain
http://www.pcpe.es , mailto:qboix@sct.ictnet.es
==================================================


THE GOVERNMENT IS SUBMITTED TO THE MANDATE OF CAPITAL

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF PCPE CALLS FOR THE SUSTAINED
MOBILIZATION AND THE GENERAL STRIKE

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE RESOLUTION

All efforts of the structures of domination of Spanish
capitalism have been fully devoted, for the last two years,
in trying to shore up the system and avoid total
bankruptcy.

The events of recent weeks had shown the futility of these
efforts. Thus, the same voracity of the system proved to be
its main problem. In a situation of shipwreck of the
various strategies put in place to try to reverse the
situation, the same financial sharks pounce on the new
difficulties of the Spanish economy to try to get new
benefits, a suicidal action that leads to the bankruptcy of
their own interests.

In due course, the heads of imperialism - the EU on the one
hand and President Obama on the other - have chosen to
impose, without contemplation, the dictation of capital.
And the chaotic government of the PSOE dutifully obeys,
knowing that there are no more deadlines and there is no
space to escape forward, as it has been doing so far. If
you rule in this system you have to obey its masters.

The measures announced by Zapatero are a direct attack on
the great majority of workers and a support to the
interests of the oligarchy, to financial capital and major
employers. And nobody in Parliament has raised a clear
stance against this strategy. The PP, while criticizing,
applauds the policy because it is its own policy that is
advancing. Once again in Parliament the voice of the
working people has not been heard.

The attacks now on the civil servants' wages and the
retirement pension cuts are a prelude to the announcement
and imminent labour counterreform that will reduce the
rights of the vast majority of the working class.

These government measures do not touch the financial
sector, or large fortunes, or large corporate profits. It
is a plan tailored to the oligarchy, to continue with its
widespread plundering of the country and its people. The
CEOE is once again the big winner.

The pressures to achieve a "Social Pact" are intensified,
and the same monarchy, a few days ago, returned to make
calls into submission, as always.

In the midst of a worsening crisis, the EU uncovers with
more evidence its imperialist character, and the domination
of the Berlin-Paris axis. National sovereignty is a museum
piece for capitalism. The conditions imposed on Greece for
"helping" its economy, mean a frontal attack on the Greek
working class, who, as always, they want to be the only
payer of the economic bankruptcy. At the same time,
financial capital is not put on one condition. The response
of the Greek working class -PAME and KKE - resists this
strategy, and is starring the first great workers' and
massive struggle against the imperialist project of the
EU.

Today we must respond to these policies with a sustained
mobilization of a broad unity of the popular and
revolutionary forces, to reach a general strike to push a
different output of the crisis.

The Executive Committee of PCPE calls the working class and
all of the popular sectors, not to accept any measure that
the oligarchy wants to impose to try to maintain their
hegemony; they all go in the opposite direction to our
interests, and their purpose is simply to try to make pay
for the crisis those who have no responsibility for it.

Capitalism has had nothing positive to offer to the great
majority in many years, and only to the parasitic
oligarchies of each country. Today the most reasonable
attitude of the people is the search for an outcome
oriented to the construction of the socialist society.
That's where the future of freedom and social justice is.

The Executive Committee of PCPE calls, first, on all the
militants of the Party to activate their revolutionary
commitment, and activate all available resources to
mobilize and organize the working class and popular sectors
against the policies of the oligarchy. The fight is on the
street, the fight is close to the most militant working
class and the fight is with the people in order to exercise
our leading role in every day's combat.

The Executive Committee of PCPE calls the working class and
popular sectors, self-employed and professional sectors, to
take sides in this situation. In face of the the submission
that the system demands we have to raise rebellion, to
defend our rights and the demand that the solution to the
crisis is starred by the great majority of workers.

The Executive Committee of PCPE calls the trade-unions,
especially those that have more possibilities, to work
urgently for the call for a general strike to demand a
solution to the crisis under other political and economic
proposals.

The Executive Committee of PCPE calls for the coordination
of the revolutionary organizations throughout the country
so the anti-capitalist struggle directs the mass action and
offers a solution to this situation outside the system of
domination, breaking its limits, and creating a new
correlation of forces favorable to the people and the
working men and women.

The Executive Committee of PCPE calls on all revolutionary
and popular forces to articulate a vast Left Front that,
based on a minimal programmatic proposal, calls a
mobilization to expand and join all the struggles that the
working class is carrying out all over the country. For
this wide unity, the EC of the PCPE proposes the following
basic points:

-Nationalization of the banks.
-Freeze mortgages to unemployed families.
-Indefinite unemployment Insurance.
-Cessation of privatizations and the return to public
ownership of those privatizations made on strategic
services.
-Tax progressivity.
-For the withdrawal from the EU.
-Return of all troops abroad.
-Reduction of military expenditure and other parasitical
expenses.
-Rights for the immigrant population. No one is illegal.
-Republican constituent process.

The Executive Committee of PCPE expresses its full
readiness to join any call made with similar orientation to
that outlined in this resolution.

The Executive Committee of PCPE takes the initiative to
convene a coordination meeting in Madrid on June 7,
summoning all political, trade union and social forces
interested in this proposal, to articulate specific
mechanisms to take forward a broad process of mobilization
and struggle that has in the political general strike its
central slogan.

Madrid, May 12th, 2010