A Whimsy about the Capitalist Crisis, by Andrew Taylor

Friday, May 29, 2009


thinks the present economic crisis could be thought of by the analogy of a near-fatal bowel blockage...will the patient have a benign polyp or a malign mass? Will bowel function and credit start loosening up ?...I mean, after all, currencies of nations are either 'soft' or 'hard'...

Legendary Haitian Political Leader Father Gerard Jean-Juste passes away

http://sflcn.com/story.php?id=6431




MIAMI - Legendary activist, Father Gerard Jean-Juste passed away at Jackson Memorial Hospital (Miami) at approximately 5:00 p.m. Wednesday (May 27) from complications of a prolonged illness.

Father Jean-Juste was the executive director of Miami's Haitian Refugee Center and a fierce advocate for the rights of Haitian refugees, often in opposition to U.S. policies towards Haiti.

After his return to Haiti, following the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, Jean-Juste became a outspoken advocate for Haiti's poor and downtrodden masses. He organized an ongoing program to feed the poor, including hundreds of children. Over a decade later, that program continues to play a vital role in the lives of many.

A leading supporter of President Jean Bertrand Aristide and Haitian democracy, he braved two coup d'etats while continuing his work under both the Cedras military junta and later the Latortue regime. Father Jean-Juste became a symbol of the struggle for Haitian democracy, when he was beaten and jailed in 2004 on trumped charges by the Latortue dictatorship. He was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International and was released only after an international campaign for his freedom.

While imprisoned, Father Jean-Juste first became ill and was diagnosed with leukemia.
Over the past four years, while battling this disease, he has remained active in his parish, travelled internationally proclaiming Haiti's cause and fighting for social justice...

A New Road for the Communist Party of Great Britain (April 1977), with a 2009 Introduction by: Andrew Taylor

by Alex Callinicos, from International Socialism (1st series), No.97, April 1977, pp.12-15.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
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Note by Andrew Taylor:

During the 1970s and 80s a number of the European and international communist parties attempted to strike out on a new 3rd Way which was neither for Socialist Revolution and Worker's power - nor for the mere reformism of Social-Democracy. Italian Communist Party (PCI) The Spanish Communist Party (PCE), the Movement for Socialism (Venezuela), The Japanese Communist Party, The Mexican Communist Party and Communist Party of Australia were all more or less involved in this intellectual and political re-alignment of the Left away from Leninism. The Communist Party of Great Britain eventually adopted not only a eurocommunist but a liquidationist answer to The Communist Party!

In some cases, Eurocommunists showed audacacity in trying to break from turgid orthodoxies that had little applicability to national circumstances, but perhaps on the down-side they tended to show a lack of courage in definitively breaking with their Communist past and with Marxism-Leninism due to a fear of losing old members and supporters, many of whom remained unreconstructed Bolsheviks.

Eurocommunists always claimed to be distinct - not only from Soviet Socialism, but also from Social Democracy -yet, in practice, they have always been very similar to the social-democrat policies.So I would argue that Eurocommunism does not have a solid,or real separate identity - and cannot be regarded as an integral movement in its own right.

In this 1977 essay Alex Callincos a theorist of the Trotskysist Socialist Worker's Party offers a provocative and informative commentary on the early days of The British Party's Eurocommunism.

I hope this re-posting of Alex Callinicos reflection on the CPGB's "The British Road to Socialism" will provoke thinking and constructive debate on the line and role of the Marxist Left today. I am not a Trotskyist, but I think the questions posed in this essay have merit for broad discussion in the Left of 2009...


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The Communist Party is at present discussing the new draft of its programme, The British Road to Socialism, published in February this year. The debate on the new draft, which follow on from that started by John Gollan’s article Socialist Democracy – Some Problems (Marxism Today, January 1976), will continue until the CP’s national congress in November. In the meantime, according to the Foreword to the draft,

‘As well as amendments from party organisations, submitted in accordance with party rules, the executive committee will welcome the views of others in the labour and progressive movement.’

The following article by Alex Callinicos is a contribution to this debate within the Communist Party.

THE NEW draft of The British Road to Socialism is a strategy:

... based on our actual political and social conditions, historical traditions, degree of working-class organisation, and the new world setting. Every socialist revolution is unique in major respects. [1]

This statement is undeniably true. Every revolutionary party must gear its strategy to the realities of the society in which it operates. Otherwise it will be irrelevant.

The new British Road attempts to spell out the Communist Party’s answers to the main problems of the British situation. The draft looks at the present phase of world capitalism and the particular from of the crisis in Britain. It looks at the situation inside the labour movement and tries to locate the forces for change. It outlines a strategy for the introduction of socialism. It defines the role of the revolutionary party in this process. We will examine these proposals in turn.

1. State Monopoly Capitalism

THE CENTRE of the draft’s analysis is the notion of state monopoly capitalism. The CP argues that the economies of Western capitalism are today dominated by huge monopolistic firms whose activities interlink with the state so that the latter is increasingly the instrument of the monopolies.

These monopolies are largely multinational in scope so they are outside the control of the individusl national states:

The major monopolies are now multi-national, investing and operating all over the world. For them, patriotism does not exist. Britain is outstanding in the extent to which it is dominated by the multinational firms. (134-6)

This domination has meant a continuous export of capital, the consequent backwardness of the British economy and a threat to national control of the whole economy.

Multinational firms certainly have a big impact in Britain and they do have some of the consequences described. But what this analysis does not explain is the fact that we are living through a world crisis of capitalism. This crisis affects the system as a whole – the strong capitals like West Germany as much as the weak ones like Britain. [2] For Marx, these crises arose from the contradictions of the system as a whole and the ‘real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself.’ [3] Thus the only solution was the overthrow of the capitalist system.

The only contradiction of capitalism discussed in this draft is that caused by wage-restraint, which reduces the market for the goods produced by capitalist industry. This analysis of capitalism adds up to a reformist solution to the crisis. It implies that the problems of British capitalism can be dealt with if only control of investment were taken out of the hands of the multinationals so that capital instead of being exported, were used to expand British industry, and if the market for the goods produced by British firms were widened by the abadonment of wage restraint.

This analysis lies at the foundation of the overall strategy for socialism which rests on the idea that opposition to the monopolies can unite a broad spectrum of social groups, including sections of the capitalist class. The task of the day is to ‘rally all those seeking a way out of the crisis, and unite them in a broad alliance for democracy and social change’ (457-8). This ‘broad democratic alliance’ will start with the working class, but:

There is...an objective basis for an alliance between many of these sections of the capitalist class (small employers – AC) and the working class against the common enemy – the big capitalists. (613-15)

The main task, the draft argues, is to unite the mass of the people to wrest power from the hands of the monopolies. The focus of the current struggle is not socialism, but democracy.

2. A New Kind of Labour Government.

THE AUTHORS of the new British Road would report that the struggle for democracy would be merely the starting point for the struggle for socialism:

The winning of political power by the working class and its allies will not be a single act, but a process of struggle, in which the next important stage is the winning of a Labour Government which will carry out a left policy to tackle the crisis and bring about far-reaching democratic changes in society, opening up the road to socialism. (26-30)

The CP’s strategy is centred on winning this ‘new kind of Labour Government’. This will emerge as a result of a battle between left and right inside the Labour Party. The CP see some role for the ‘mass struggle’ in pushing the Labour Party leftwards and in helping the government fight big business, but they do not see the need for independent mass action by rank-and file workers. There is no discussion of the role played by the prominent ‘lefts’ in the Labour Party or the Trade Unions under the present Labour Government in selling the Social Contract.

The economic programme of this new Labour Government reflects the draft’s analysis of the crisis. All the measures – state control of investment, nationalisation of the banks, insurance companies and oil firms, selective import controls, price controls and increased public spending – are based on the assumption that the British crisis can solved in isolation from the world crisis.

The other aspect of the programme is a set of measures aimed at democratising the British state – proportional representation, the abolition of the House of Lords, devolution, repeal of the 1971 Immigration Act, workers’ participation in nationalised firms and full trade union and democratic rights’ for soldiers and policemen’ (1258).

3. The State and Revolution.

IT IS here that the British Road runs slap bang into the problem facing their strategy, and indeed any strategy, for socialism: would not capitalist resistance to a left government lead either to a violent reactionary overthrow of the government or to the armed seizure of power by the working class?

The Communist Party thinks not. The draft argues that things have changed since 1917, and the authors have ‘confidence that socialism can be achieved in our coutry without civil war’ (1096-8). This is because of Britain’s ‘democratic traditions’:

The nature of the British constitution, under which Parliament has supreme authority, gives a left government the democratic right and the means, backed by the mass struggle of the people, to carry through drastic and necessary reforms in the state apparatus to correspond to the political change in the country expressed in the electoral verdict of the people. (1460-4)

These arguments have been used before. A tragic example was that of the Chilean CP just before the armed forces overthrew the Allende government on September 11 1973.

The draft British Road takes into account the danger of this being repeated in-Britain, but argues that this can be avoided if the Tory Party is isolated:

The possibility of a coup, in fact, depends above all on the relation of political forces. Hence the importance of winning the mass political majority, with the working class at its core, ready and willing to use its strength to support the left government. This also emphasises the need to win all democratic forces around the labour movement, so isolating the Tory Party. The more support there is for the left government, the less will be the possibility of creating the political atmosphere of tension and social chaos in which a coup could be launched. (1517-23)

The focus on the need to win all democratic forces’ implies that the workers’ movement should tie its hands in order not to endanger the loyalty of small businessmen to the government. But the argument also avoids the real question – that of the capitalist state.

For Marx and Lenin: ‘...the state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another.’ [4] In a parliamentary democratic state like Britain this is achieved through the operation of the state machine as a set of institutions apparently independent of classes and their interests. This can be seen in the structure of the capitalist state. The division of powers between Parliament, the executive and the courts serves drastically to restrict the power of any elected government in the name of the neutrality of the state.

The extent to which Parliament affects the state machine is very small. The number of political appointments any prime minister can make is tiny. The Civil Service is run by a small closed corps of professional administrators. The Army is run by a small group of professional soldiers. The law is run by a small group of professional judges. All of these groups are closely linked by class origins, training and lifestyle to the ruling class. All can, and do, defy the will of an elected government, even a right-wing one like the present Labour government.

The effective independence of the state machine serves to guarantee the political power of the capitalist class. The state functions as an autonomous set of institutions unified by their commitment to the defence of capitalist society. A change of personnel at the top, through the election of a left Labour government, will not change this. Attempts to make more drastic changes, for example, by sacking recalcitrant civil servants or trying to democratise the army will simply serve to strengthen the resistance within the state machine to the government’s policies. The relative autonomy of the capitalist state machine also plays a very important ideological role. As the draft British Road correctly points out, the capitalists’ ideological domination over society plays a vital part in maintaining the system. Because the state machine appears to function autonomously it serves to perpetuate the myth that the state is somehow above classes, representing the interests of society as a whole. This myth underlies the apparently democratic character of the capitalist state.

Not all counter-revolutions are led by brutes like Pinochet or Hitler. Some are carried out in the name of ‘democracy’ and led by men who call themselves ‘socialists’. The most famous case was in Germany in 1919, when the leaders of the German Social Democratic Party presided over the massacre of workers and revolutionaries which eventually opened the door to Hitler.

In the face of a ‘democratic’ counter-revolution of this sort, revolutionaries find themselves dis-armed unless they reject the ideology of the neutral state. But the draft of the British Road bases itself on the notion that the capitalist state can be used in the interests of the working class: ‘Parliament, itself the product of past battles for democracy, can be transformed into the democratic instrument of the will of the vast majority of the people’ (1113-6). It seems that Parliament would continue to be ‘the sovereign body in the land’ under socialism (see 1742-53).

However, Parliament is simply part of the state machine. It provides a veneer of democratic control without giving the mass of the people any real say in the way the country is run [5]. Lenin’s criticism of Kautsky applies to the British CP:

Kautsky has not understood at all the difference between bourgeois parlimentarianism, which combines democracy (not for the people) with bureaucracy (against the people), and proletarian democracy, which will take immediate steps to cut bureaucracy down to the roots, and which will be able to carry these measures through to the end, to the complete abolition of bureaucracy, to the complete introduction of democracy for the people. [6]

There is no reason whatsoever to change the conclusions reached by Marx and Lenin that the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes’ and that the role of a workers’ revolution ‘will be no longer, as before, to transfer the bureaucratic-military machine from one hand to another, but to smash it.’ [7]

In the place of the state machine of the capitalists the workers set up their own state based on the arming of the working class and the formation of organs of proletarian democracy, tike the Paris Commune and the Soviets, through which, by means of their directly elected and recallable delegates, the workers can exercise power. There have been many examples of this since Marx and Lenin drew their conclusions: Germany 1918-19, Barcelona 1936, Hungary 1956, Portugal 1975. The draft British Road rejects this road and sows illusions in the neutrality of the capitalist state. It can only prepare the way for new defeats like Chile.

4. The Role of the Communist Party

MOST OF the above positions are the culmination of a process which has been going on at least since the publication of the first British Road in 1951. There are, however, new developments. The new draft stresses that: ‘Britain’s road to socialism will be different from the Soviet road’ (1089). At the same time the CP is following the lead of the Italian and French Communist Parties and being much more critical of the Russian bureaucracy. They are trying hard to lay the ghost of Stalinism.

This is designed to make it much easier for the CP to collaborate with the Labour lefts, and it is here that an important change has been made. According to the new draft, the function of the Communist Party is not as an independent working-class party but as a pressure group to push the Labour Party left:

The Communist Party does not seek to replace the Labour Party as a federal party of the working class. Rather, we see a much more influential mass Communist Party as crucial to the future of the Labour party itself. (864-6)

In this alliance between the CP and the Labour Lefts the main function of the CP is to be ‘the initiator and inspirer of discussion and debate’ (826). This emerges very clearly from a recent interview with Gordon McLennan, the CP General Secretary:

... the Labour Party, on the whole, insufficiently discusses socialist aims and what socialism would mean for Britain, with the people ... That is why the Labour movement needs a much bigger, more influential and more effective Communist Party now, playing its unique role in the movement ... an organisation that ... above all, in British conditions, fights for understanding of that central concept of marxism, that mass struggle, people and their mass organisations in action, is the crucial factor in determining human and political development. [8]

The role of the Communist Party is no longer to lead the masses in struggle. Its job is now to persuade the Labour lefts that they should lead the masses.

But if this is the role of the CP, then the obvious question is: why bother to have an independent CP? The original reason for founding Communist Parties throughout the world was that it was only possible to win the masses to the revolution if there was a CP which put itself at the head of mass struggles. The Theses on Tactics adopted at the Third Congress of the Comintern in 1921 state:

Communist Parties can only develop in struggle. Even the smallest communist parties should not restrict themselves to mere propoganda and agitation. They must form the spearhead of all proletarian mass organisations, showing the backward vacillating masses, by putting forward practical proposals for struggle, by urging on the struggle for all the daily needs of the proletariat, how the struggle should be waged, and thus exposing to the masses the treacherous character of all non-communist parties. Only by placing themselves at the head of the practical struggles of the proletariat, only by promoting these struggles, can they really win over large masses of the proletariat to the fight for the dictatorship. [9]

People change their ideas in struggle, not just as the result of preaching by socialists. The condition for a revolutionary party to succeed in its’propaganda is that it is, at the same time, the party which is seen by the masses as the most determined fighters in action.

The new draft of the British Road represents the final abandonment of the historic mission of the Communist Party. Some members of the CP see this very clearly:

This draft is not the programme of a revolutionary Communist Party. It is the programme of a sect, a ginger group, not a political party created to lead the working class in the overthrow of capitalism and the building of socialism ... Clearly, if this draft is correct, the decision to form the Communist Party in Britain was wrong. [10]

Conclusion: The Drift to the Right

THE NEW DRAFT crystallises a growing trend within the CP. There is an increasingly influential intellectual right wing which draws its inspiration from the Italian CP.

The leadership of the CP encourages this trend. David Purdy, the most prominent member of the new right, is now a regular contributor to CP publications like Marxism Today. His most original contribution to Marxism has been to advocate CP support for the Social Contract. According to him, wage controls are an embryonic form of the socialist planned economy: The unions’ acceptance of a social contract, at least under a Labour government, represents a new stage in the quest for the regulation of the anarchy of distribution under capitalism. [11]

The task of Communists is to exploit this ‘deformation’ of the capitalist system by trading wage restraint for an ‘alternative economic strategy’, consisting, for example, of ‘social control ... over the scale, timing, location and character of investment’. [12]

This strategy is little different from that argued by some union leaders, such as Alan Fisher. [13] But it is not that far removed from the ideas of the leadership of the British CP. In the new draft we read this coy hint: ‘A government carrying out such a progressive programme (state control of investment, etc. – AC) could be assured that the unions would take this into consideration in forming their wage demands’ (1225-7).

The reason why both the leadership of the CP and the right wing share the view that an incomes policy under capitalism is not necessarily such a bad thing, while having minor disagreements over timing, is that they share a common attitude to working-class struggle. For them, the central arena in the struggle for socialism is the capitalist political system – parliament, general elections, etc. The mass of the workers are a stage army to be marched on and off as and when they are needed. For both wings the idea that socialism is the result of the independent actions of the workers themselves is an anethama.

The growth of these ideas within the Communist Party musi horrify the working-dass militants in its ranks. Many of them do want to see a real fight by rank-and-file workers against the present system...


Notes

1. The British Road to Socialism, draft, lines 1084-6. All subsequent references to this document in the text are to line number.

2. See Notes of the Month, in International Socialism 94.

3. K. Marx, Capital, volume III (Moscow 1971), p.250.

4. V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution, Selected Works (London 1969), pp.267-8.

5. It is, therefore, suprising to learn that Professor Ernest Mandel of the ‘Fourth International’ believes that ‘it is an essentially tactical matter’ ‘whether parliamentary organs are necessary’ in a workers’ state. See E. Mandel, A Political Interview, in New Left Review 100, p.121.

6. Lenin, op.cit., p.343.

7. Marx, quoted by Lenin, op.cit., p.289.

8. G. McLennan, An Interview on the Communist Party and Unity, in Marxism Today, March 1977, pp.68-9.

9. J. Degras, The Communist International 1919-43: Documents, Volume I, p.248.

10. Published in the CP magazine Comment, March 5 1977.

11. D. Purdy, British Capitalism since the War, Part Two, in Marxism Today, October 1976, p.317.

12. D. Purdy in The Leveller, January 1977, p.14.

13. See A. Callinicos, Alan Fisher, NUPE and the New Reformism, in International Socialism 96.

Tunisia: Appeal Court entrenches injustice by upholding unfair convictions 4 February 2009

Tunisia: Appeal Court entrenches injustice by upholding unfair convictions
4 February 2009
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/tunisia-appeal-court-entrenches-injustice-upholding-unfair-convictions-2

Amnesty International calls for the immediate and unconditional release of trade union leaders and all those imprisoned for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, as their convictions were upheld by the Gafsa Appeal Court. Others should be retried in fair proceedings, in accordance with the fair trial guarantees enshrined in Tunisian law and Tunisia's international obligations.

"We urge the Tunisian president to intervene and order the release of those sentenced for merely exercising their right to freedom of expression, in a peaceful manner," said Malcolm Smart, Middle East and North Africa Programme Director.

On Wednesday the Gafsa Appeal Court upheld the convictions of 33 people who had lodged an appeal against their conviction and sentence in December 2008, in connection with the Gafsa protests. Most sentences were reduced on appeal, including from 10 years to eight years for trade union leaders Adnan Hajji and Bechir Laabidi.

In addition, five others who were released after the decision of the court of first instance were subsequently convicted by the Appeal Court following an appeal by the prosecution. The 38 people were accused of leading the unrest against unemployment and high living costs in the first half of 2008 in the phosphate-rich Gafsa region in south-east Tunisia and charged with an with an array of offences, including “forming a criminal group with the aim of destroying public and private property” and “armed rebellion and assault on officials during the exercise of their duties”.
Bechir Laabidi, whose sentence was reduced from 10 to eight years on appeal, was transferred to hospital in Tunis as his health had severely deteriorated while in detention. Bechir Laabidi was present during the whole hearing which lasted all Tuesday day and night, with only two short intermissions, and which ended early this morning. The judgement was handed down early afternoon on Wednesday today. Lawyers present in court described to Amnesty International a marathon hearing which ended around 6:30 am, after a night of lawyers’ pleadings.

Amnesty International believes the appeal session was also marred with violations of fair trial standards and while the defence lawyers were able to present their arguments to the court, they were denied the right to call and cross examine witnesses. Demands of the lawyers that their clients be medically examined for traces of possible torture were rejected by the court and torture allegations disregarded.

“Yet again, the Appeal Court has failed to provide a remedy for government critics whose trial before the Lower Court was badly flawed and unfair,” said Malcolm Smart. "It is time that Tunisia’s courts give attention to upholding the basic guarantees accorded to all defendants under both Tunisian law and Tunisia’s international human rights obligations.”

Armando Valladares' CIA organization linked to plot against President Evo Morales

GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana. May 15, 2009

Jean-Guy Allard







• THE Bolivian district attorney's office has identified Hugo Achá Melgar(photo)
who, according to the AFP news agency, is Bolivia's representative to the
U.S. Human Rights Foundation (HRF), as providing the bulk of the funds for
the terrorist gang foiled in Santa Cruz while plotting to assassinate
President Evo Morales.



The HRF is a New York-based nongovernmental organization known for its
activities of interference and CIA links. Its general secretary, Armando
Valladares is a terrorist of Cuban origin. District Attorney Marcelo Sosa,
who is leading the investigation in this case, identified Achá, alias
"Superman," along with Alejandro Melgar, "El Lucas," as being involved in
and funding the plot.

In a statement to a La Paz television station, Achá – currently in the
United States – rejected those charges but confessed that he had met with
the killers' leader, Hungarian-Bolivian Eduardo Rózsa-Flores, on "four or
five" occasions. The Rózsa-Flores terrorist group was dismantled in a
Bolivian police operation a few weeks ago. Three of the mercenaries, among
them the group's alleged leader, Eduardo Rózsa-Flores, died in a gun fight,
while two others were arrested and are currently being detained in La Paz.
The authorities subsequently captured two other conspirators, both members
of the fascist organization Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, which provided the
group with weapons.

A RECOUPED HUNGARIAN NEO-NAZI

Born in Bolivia, Eduardo Rózsa Flores, the Hungarian leader of the
conspiracy to assassinate Evo Morales, belonged to circles of the Hungarian
extreme right close to the Jobbik neo-Nazi party, which illegally maintains
a paramilitary organization, the Hungarian Guard.

According to the Hungarian Spectrum website, he joined the Croatian army in
the early 1990s, took part in various battles and was wounded three times.
Suspected of trafficking arms and drugs, he left Croatia and returned to
Hungary in 1994, where he collaborated with neo-Nazi groups.

Two of his accomplices also have biographies that end with their
participation in extreme-right circles: Árpád Magyarosi, killed in the
assault, and Elõd Tóásó, currently in detention, are both members of the
Székely Légió, a paramilitary organization that plans commando attacks on
Romania. Irishman Michael Martin Dwyer was a mercenary in the Balkans and
possibly met the leader of the group in Croatia.

In Bolivia, Rózsa was in contact with Jorge Mones Ruiz, head of UnoAmerica,
a fascist foundation linked to the CIA. According to EFE, one of the
detainees of the Santa Cruz conspiracy, Juan Carlos Gueder, has already
confessed to having met with Rózsa-Flores and accused Achá, whom, he said,
should also "take responsibility."

Achá's accomplice, Alejandro "Lucas" Melgar, is currently in Uruguay,
according to his family, to take part in a sport shooting tournament.

According to the district attorney's office, it was Melgar who contracted
the owner of the vehicle with which Rósza, in an earlier attempt, dynamited
the entrance to the house of Cardinal Julio Terrazas on April 14 in an act
of provocation.

Workers in the four luxury hotels where the mercenaries were staying and
employees of the Santa Cruz Telephone Cooperative are to be summoned by the
district attorney.

Yesterday a key witness appeared in the 8th Criminal Hearings Court. He
presented a video taped with a cellular telephone in which Rózsa-Flores
speaks of his plot to assassinate President Evo Morales.

"POET," "PARALYTIC" AND CIA AGENT

Arrested in Havana in late 1960 for placing explosives in public places on
CIA instructions, Armando Valladares won notoriety for his burlesque exit
from jail, requested from abroad, disguised as a "paralytic poet." An
informant for the Batista police, he later devoted himself to sabotage until
his detention.

The only book that Valladares "wrote" was ironically titled "Desde mi silla
de ruedas (From My Wheelchair)." It was actually written by his friend and
accomplice Carlos Alberto Montaner. [Note: Allard describes the titles as
"ironic" not just because it was written by someone else, but because
Vallardes was faking his paralysis -- as hidden Cuban tv cameras in his cell
had demonstrated. When confronted with videotapes of himself doing
calisthenic exercises in his cell and told he could be released, as the
French government had requested because of the campaign to "free the
paralyzed imprisoned poet", only if he got up and walked out of his cell,
onto and off of the plane that took him to France, he did so. Imagine the
embarrassment of the welcoming committee waiting for him at Orly Airport,
Paris with a wheelchair when he went bounding off the plane on his own two
feet. klw]

When he arrived in the United States, Vall adares made himself available to
the U.S. intelligence community with extreme servility, and was appointed
ambassador to Geneva by the ultra-right President Ronald Reagan.

Via his Human Rights Foundation, Valladares published a report on the human
rights situation in Bolivia last October, in which he condemned the
"political violence" in that country.

According to the Venezuelan lawyer and researcher Eva Golinger, author of La
Teleraña Imperial (The Imperial Web), the Human Rights Foundation was
created by Thor Halvorssen Mendoza in 2005 to attack and discredit the
Venezuelan, Bolivian and Ecuadorian governments. The son of one of
Venezuela's wealthiest families Halvorssen worked with the CIA in El
Salvador and Nicaragua.

On May 4, 2008, Valladares the CIA agent volunteered himself as an observer
for the illegal referendum in Santa Cruz on behalf of his organization.•

A Reflection on Obama's rhetorical continuity with the ideologically distorted American elite Narrative, by: Andrew Taylor

Obama's mythopoeic narrative of American 'history' is
straight out of George Orwell. He exploits no radical
counter-narrative. His spiel is all about 'restoring' the USA to its
past glory as the great light to the world. The victims of
US slavery and imperialism are woven into a story where
Puritans and 'Indians' birth a unified, just nation...The millions of
dead and wounded in Vietnamese, Korean, Iraqi and Afghan locales
are invisible, as if such horrors could not have existed.

Obama spins a specious fantasy about some mystical unity that
binds the Americans together in a polity of winsome checks and
balances:

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are
patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people,
all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all
of us defending the United States of America.

There is not a black America and white America and Latino
America and Asian America -- there is the United States of
America...

And again:

There's not a liberal America and a conservative America -
there's the United States of America...


We are told that from time to time America fails to live
up to its moral preeminence and 'makes mistakes'. But then,we are
informed, the indomitable "best intentions" of the US spirit lightens
the minds of her people and she returns to her original probity:

"I know my country has not perfected
itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and
equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and
there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to
our best intentions."

Obama tells us with noblesse oblige that America is the land where
the people are better than their leaders:

"Americans... still believe in an America
where anything's possible - they just don't think their leaders do."

Obama's rhetoric about America is the old centrist elite
story that liquidates 'divisive' questions of Class and fails to
"brush history against the grain." While running for president
Obama sometimes had to insist that despite his peace stance, the
enemies of freedom might not assume he was abandoning the military
commitments of Dubya:

"I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though
I am president and George Bush is not president,Al Qaeda is still
a threat."


It is an American political fairy-tale in fundamental continuity with the old elite bourgeois imperialist story. And whether told by Wilson,Kennedy, Reagan or Obama it is a very dangerous story:

"If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which
it exists - to protect them and to promote their common welfare - all
else is lost."

I believe, on the contrary, that liberty is in peril whenever the people are lulled into trusting ruling class governments to protect the common welfare.

China issues human rights record of the United States (2006)

China issues human rights record of the United States






China issued on Thursday the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006 in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2006 issued by the US Department of State on Tuesday.

Released by the Information Office of China's State Council, the Chinese report lists a multitude of cases to show the human rights situation in the United States and its violation of human rights in other countries.

"As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger at human rights conditions in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but avoided touching on the human rights situation in the United States," the document says.

By publishing the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006, the document says it aims to "help people have a better understanding of the situation in the United States and promote the international cause of human rights".

Relying on its strong military power, the United States has trespassed on the sovereignty of other countries and violated human rights in other countries, the document says.

A large number of innocent Iraqi civilians have died in the war launched by the United States in 2003.

A survey of Bloomberg School of Public Health under Johns Hopkins University estimated that more than 655,000 Iraqis have died in Iraq since war started in March 2003, meaning about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country, according to a Washington Post report on Oct. 11, 2006.

On Nov. 19, 2005, a US marine unit searched an Iraqi community door-to-door and slaughtered 24 Iraqi civilians after a marine was killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha.

Those who were killed included a 76-year-old disabled man, a three-year-old child, and seven women, the BBC News reported on Nov. 19, 2006.

The document says the United States has a flagrant record of violating the Geneva Convention in systematically abusing prisoners during the Iraqi War and the War in Afghanistan.

On February 15, 2006, Australia's SBS TV aired more than 10 pictures and video clips taken at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison; the images included: a man's throat was cut off, left forearm of a man was left with burns and shrapnel wounds, a blood-stained interrogation room, and a seemingly insane man's body covered with his own feces.

Even in the United States, people's life, property and personal security are not secured, the document says.

The document quotes a report by the US Justice Department on Sept. 10, 2006 as saying that there were 5.2 million violent crimes in the United States in 2005, up 2.5% from the previous year, the highest rate in 15 years.

Statistics released by the department in 2006 showed that in 2005 American residents age 12 or above experienced 23 million crimes; for every 1,000 persons age 12 or older, there occurred 1 rape or sexual assault, 1 assault with injury, and 3 robberies.

In the United States, human rights violations committed by law enforcement and judicial departments are also common.

Following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other government agencies have referred 6,472 individuals to prosecutors on terrorism-related charges.

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University says nearly three-quarters of terrorism suspects seized by the United States in the five years following the September 11 attacks have not even made it to trial because of lack of evidence against them.

In 64% of the cases, federal prosecutors decided that they were not worth prosecuting, while an additional nine% were either dismissed by judges or the individuals were found not guilty, according to a report by the AFP on September 4, 2006.

In recent years, American citizens have suffered increasing civil rights infringements, as the US government has put average Americans under intense surveillance as part of terrorism investigations since the Sept. 11 attacks.

According to a survey released in December 2006, two-thirds of Americans believe that the FBI and other federal agencies are intruding on their privacy rights, according to a Washington Post report on Dec. 13, 2006.

The United States touts itself as the "beacon of democracy", but the US mode of democracy is in essence one in which money talks, the Chinese document says.

In 2004, candidates for the House of Representatives who raised less than one million US dollars had almost no chance of winning, the USA TODAY quoted a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics as saying in a report on Oct. 29, 2006.

The average successful Senate campaign cost 7 million dollars, the USA Today says. In 2006, all state campaigns in the United States were predicted to cost about 2.4 billion dollars.

Seventy-four% of respondents to a new Opinion Research poll say the US Congress is generally out of touch with average Americans, as CNN reported on Oct. 18, 2006, and 79% of the surveyed say they feel big business does have too much influence over the administration's decisions.

The Chinese document also slams the United States for its lack of proper guarantee for people's economic, social and cultural rights.

A report released by the US Census Bureau on Aug. 29, 2006 says there were 37 million people living in poverty in 2005, accounting for 12.6% of total US population. The report also says there were 7.7 million families in poverty and one out of eight Americans was living in poverty in 2005.

"The ethnic minorities are at the bottom of American society," the Chinese report says.

Statistics released by the US Census Bureau in November 2006 indicated that according to the 2005 data, the average yearly household income was 50,622 US dollars for whites, compared with 36,278 for Hispanics and 30,940 for blacks. White people's income was 64% more than the blacks and 40% more than the Hispanics.

Racial discrimination is also deep-rooted in America's law enforcement and judicial systems.

According to statistics of the National Urban League, of the sentences issued in 12 crime categories in the State Courts, sentences for black males were longer than white males in all of them.

Researchers pointed to poverty, a lack of opportunities, racism in the criminal justice system for the black-white prison gap.

The document says the United States has lorded it over other countries by condemning their human rights practices while ignoring its own problems, which exposes double standard and hegemonism in the field of human rights.

By publishing the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006, the document says it aims to "help the world people have a better understanding of the situation in the United States and promote the international cause of human rights".

This is the eighth consecutive year that China has issued human rights record of the United States in answer to the US State Department annual report.

(Xinhuanet)