The
JvL Bi-Weekly
James
van Luik
Publisher
& Editor
Sunday,
August 31st, 2003
Volume
2, No. 16
1.
How US Infiltrates 'Civil Society' to Overthrow Governments
2.
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States
3.
President Chavez Frias Drafts in More than 1,000 Cuban Medics to Treat
Venezuela's Poor…
4.
Sidelined Blacks Still Opposed War
5.
The Green Party Needs to Present an Alternative to the Bipartisan Consensus
1.
HOW US INFILTRATES 'CIVIL SOCIETY' TO OVERTHROW GOVERNMENTS
BY
PHILIP
AGEE
(Condemnation
of Cuba was immediate, strong and practically global following the
imprisonment of 75 political "dissidents" and the execution of three
ferry hijackers. Prominent among the critics were past friends of Cuba of
recognized international stature.)
As
I read the hundreds of denunciations that came through my mail, it was easy to
see how enemies of the revolution had seized on those issues to condemn Cuba
for violations of human rights. They had a field day.
Deliberate
or careless confusion between the political dissidents and the hijackers, two
entirely unrelated matters, was also easy because the events happened at the
same time. A Vatican publication went so far as to describe the hijackers as
dissidents when in fact they were terrorists. But others of good faith toward
Cuba also jumped on the bandwagon of condemnation treating the two issues as
one.
With
respect to the imprisonment of 75 "civil society activists", the
main victim has been history, for these people were central to US government
efforts to overthrow the Cuban government and destroy the work of the
revolution.
Indeed,
"regime change", as overthrowing governments has become to be known,
has been the continuing US goal in Cuba since the earliest days of the
revolutionary government. Programs to achieve this goal have included
propaganda to denigrate the revolution, diplomatic and commercial isolation,
trade embargo, terrorism and military support to counter-revolutionaries, the
Bay of Pigs invasion, assassination plots against Fidel Castro and other Cuban
leaders, biological and chemical warfare, and, more recently, efforts to
foment an internal political opposition masquerading as an independent civil
society.
The
administration of US President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s decided that
more than terrorist operations were needed to impose regime change in Cuba.
Terrorism hadn't worked, nor had the Bay of Pigs invasion, nor had Cuba's
diplomatic isolation, nor had the economic embargo. Now Cuba would be included
in a new world-wide program to finance and develop non-governmental and
voluntary organizations, what was to become known as "civil
society", within the context of US global neoliberal policies.
Coups
The
CIA and the Agency for International Development (AID) would have key roles in
this program as well as a new organization christened in 1983 – the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Actually,
the new program was not really new. Since its founding in 1947, the CIA had
been deeply involved in secretly funding and manipulating foreign
non-governmental voluntary organizations.
These
vast operations circled the globe and targeted political parties, trade unions
and business associations, youth and student organizations, women's groups,
civic organizations, religious communities, professional, intellectual and
cultural societies, and the public information media. The network functioned
at local, national, regional and global levels.
Over
the years, the CIA exerted phenomenal influence behind the scenes in country
after country, using these powerful elements of civil society to penetrate,
divide, weaken and destroy organizations on the left, and indeed to impose
regime change by toppling governments.
Such
was the case, among many others, in Guyana, where in 1964, culminating 10
years of efforts, the Cheddi Jagan government was overthrown through strikes,
terrorism, violence and arson perpetrated by CIA agents in the trade unions.
About
the same time, while I was a CIA agent assigned to Ecuador, our agents in
civil society, through mass demonstrations and civil unrest, provoked two
military coups in three years against elected, civilian governments.
Anyone
who has watched the opposition to President Hugo Chavez's government in
Venezuela develop can be certain that the CIA, AID and the NED are
coordinating the destabilization and were behind the failed coup in April 2002
as well as the failed "civic strike" of last December-January.
The
Cuban American National Foundation was, predictably, one of the first
beneficiaries of NED funding. From 1983 to 1988, CANF received US$390,000 for
anti-Castro activities.
NED
The
NED is supposedly a private, non-government, non-profit foundation, but it
receives a yearly appropriation from the US Congress. The money is channeled
through four "core foundations". These are the National Democratic
Institute for International Affairs (linked to the Democratic Party); the
International Republican Institute (Republican Party); the American Center for
International Labor Solidarity; and the Center for International Private
Enterprise (US Chamber of Commerce).
According
to its web site, the NED also give money
directly to "groups abroad who are working for human rights, independent
media, the rule of law, and a wide range of civil society initiatives."
The
NED's NGO status provides the fiction that recipients of NED money are getting
"private" rather than US government money. This is important because
so many countries including both the US and Cuba, have laws relating to their
citizens being paid to carry out activities for foreign governments.
The
US requires an individual or organization "subject to foreign
control" to register with the attorney general and to file detailed
activities' reports, including finances, every six months.
Cuba
has its own laws criminalizing actions intended to jeopardize its sovereignty
or territorial integrity as well as actions supporting the goals of the
anti-Cuba US Helms-Burton Act of 1996, such as collecting information to
support the US embargo or to subvert the government, or for disseminating US
government information to undermine the Cuban government.
Efforts
to develop an opposition civil society in Cuba had already begun in 1985 with
the early NED grants to CANF. These efforts received a significant boost with
passage in 1992 of the Cuban Democracy Act, better known as the Torricelli
Act, which promoted support, through US NGOs, of individuals and organizations
committed to "non-violent democratic change in Cuba".
A
still greater intensification came with passage of the Cuban Liberty and
Solidarity Act, better known as the Helms-Burton Act.
As
a result of these laws, the NED, AID and the CIA (the latter not mentioned
publicly but undoubtedly included) intensified their coordinated programs
targeted at Cuban civil society.
CIA
One
may wonder why the CIA would be needed in these programs. There were several
reasons. One reason from the beginning was the CIA's long experience and huge
stable of agents and contacts in the civil societies of countries around the
world. By joining with the CIA, the NED and AID would come on board on-going
operations whose funding they could take over while leaving the secret
day-to-day direction on the ground to CIA officers.
In
addition, someone had to monitor and report the effectiveness of he local
recipients' activities. NED would not have people in the field to do his, nor
would their core foundations in normal conditions. And since NED money was
ostensibly private, only the CIA had the people and techniques to carry out
discreet control in order to avoid compromising the civil society recipients,
especially if they were in opposition to their governments.
Finally,
the CIA had ample funds of its own to pass quietly when conditions required.
In Cuba, participation by CIA officers under cover in the US Interests Section
would be particularly useful, since NED and AID funding would go to US NGOs
that would have to find covert ways, if possible, to get equipment and cash to
recipients inside Cuba. The CIA could help with this quite well.
Evidence
of the amount of money these agencies have been spending on their Cuban
projects is fragmentary. Nothing is publicly available about the CIA's
spending, but what is easily found about the other two is interesting. The AID
web site cites $12 million spent for Cuba programs during 1996-2001, but for
2002 the budget jumped to $5 million plus unobligated funds of $3 million from
2001. AID's 2003 budget for Cuba is $6 million showing a tripling of annual
funds since the George Bush junta seized power. No surprise given the number
of Miami Cubans Bush has appointed to high office in his administration.
From
1996 to 2001, AID disbursed the $12 million to 22 NGOs, all apparently based
in the US, mostly in Miami. By 2002, the number of front-line NGOs had shrunk
to 12 – the University of Miami, Center for a Free Cuba, Pan-American
Development Foundation, Florida International University, Freedom House, Grupo
de Apoyo a la Disidencia, Cuba On-Line, CubaNet, National Policy Association,
Accion Democratica Cubana and Carta de Cuba. In addition, the International
Republican Institute received AID money for a sub-grantee, the Directorio
Revolucionario Democratico Cubano, also based in Miami.
These
NGOs have a double purpose, one directed to their counterpart groups in Cuba
and one directed to the world, mainly through web
sites. Whereas, on the one hand, they channel funds and equipment into
Cuba, on the other they disseminate to the world the activities of the groups
in Cuba. CubaNet in Miami, for example, publishes the writings of the
"independent journalists" of the Independent Press Association of
Cuba, based in Havana, and channels money to the writers.
Interestingly,
AID claims on its web site that its "grantees are not authorized to use
grant funds to provide cash assistance to any person or organization in
Cuba." It's hard to believe that claim, but if it's true, all those
millions are only going to support the US-based NGO infrastructure, a
subsidized anti-Castro cottage industry of a sort, except for what can be
delivered in Cuba in kind – computers, faxes, copy machines, cell phones,
radios, TVs and VCRs, books magazines and the like.
On
its web site, AID lists purposes for the money: solidarity with human rights
activists; dissemination of the work of independent journalists; development
of independent NGOs; promoting worker's' rights; outreach to the Cuban people;
planning for future assistance to a transition government; and evaluation of
the program. Anyone who wants to see which NGOs are getting how much can visit
http://www.usaid.gov/regions/lac/cu/upd-cub.htm.
AID's
claim that its grantees can't provide cash to Cubans in Cuba, makes one wonder
about the more than $100,000 in cash that Cuban investigators found in the
hands of the 75 mostly unemployed "dissidents" who went on trial. A
clue may be found in the AID statement that "US policy encourages US NGOs
and individuals to undertake humanitarian, informational and civil
society-building activities in Cuba with private funds". Could such
"private funds" be money from the NED?
Recall
the fiction that the NED is a "private" foundation, an NGO. It has
no restrictions on its funds going for cash payments abroad, and it just
happens to fund some of the same NGOs as AID. Be assured that this is not the
result of rivalry or lack of coordination in Washington. The reason probably
is that at NED funds can go for salaries and other personal compensation to
people on the ground in Cuba.
The
Cuban organizations below the US NGOs in the command and money chain number
nearly 100 and have names [translated from Spanish] like Independent Libraries
of Cuba, All United, Society of Journalists Marquez Sterling, Independent
Press Association of Cuba, Assembly to Promote Civil Society and the Human
Rights Party of Cuba.
NED's
web site is conveniently out of date, showing only its Cuba program for 2001.
But it is instructive. Its funds for Cuban activities in 2001 totaled only
$765,000 – if one is to believe what they say. The money they gave to eight
NGOs in 2001 averaged about $52,000, while a 9th NGO, the
International Republican Institute received $350,000 for the Directorio
Revolucionario Democratico Cubano for "strengthening civil society and
human rights" in Cuba. In contrast, this NGO is to receive $2,174,462 in
2003 from AID through the same IRI.
Why
would the NED be granting the lower amounts and AID such huge amounts, both
channeled through IRI? The answer, apart form IRI's skim-off, probably is that
the NED money is destined for the pockets of people in Cuba while the AID
money supports the US NGO infrastructures.
Whatever
the amount of money reaching Cuba may be been, everyone in Cuba working in the
various dissident projects knows of US government's sponsorship, funding and
of its purpose – regime change.
Far
from being "independent" journalists, "idealistic" human
rights activists, "legitimate" advocates for change or "Marian
librarians from River City", every one of the 75 "dissidents"
arrested and convicted was knowingly a participant in US government operations
to overthrow the government and install a US-favored political, economic and
social order. They knew what they were dong was illegal, they got caught and
they are paying the price.
Anyone
who thinks these people are prisoners of conscience, persecuted for their
ideas or speech, or victims of repression, simply fails to see them properly
as instruments of a US government that has declared revolutionary Cuba its
enemy.
They
were not convicted for ideas but for their paid actions on behalf of a foreign
power that has waged a 44-year war of varying degrees of intensity against
this poor country.
To
think that the "dissidents" were creating an independent, free civil
society is absurd, for they were funded and controlled by a hostile foreign
power and to that degree, which was total , they were not free or independent
in the least.
The
civil society they wished to create was not just your normal, garden variety
civil society of Harley freaks and Boxer breeders, but a political opposition
movement fomented openly by the US government. What government in the world
would be so self-destructive as to sit by and just watch this
happen?
The
threat of war against Cuba from Bush and his coterie of crusaders, all of them
crazed after Iraq, is real. A military campaign against Cuba, coinciding with
the 2004 electoral campaign, may be the only way he can hope to get himself
elected for his second term.
2.
AN ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
(The
Constitution as an Economic Document)
BY
CHARLES
AUSTIN BEARD
From
the Federalist, No. 11, for the year 1787.
All
the powers of Europe could not prevail against us. "Under a vigorous
national government the natural strength and resources of the country,
directed to a common interest, would baffle all the combinations of European
jealousy to restrain our growth…. An active commerce, an extensive
navigation, and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring of moral and
physical necessity. We might defy the little arts of the little politicians to
control or vary the irresistible and unchangeable course of nature." In
the present state of disunion the profits of trade are snatched from us; our
commerce languishes; and poverty threatens to overspread a country which might
outrival the world in riches.
The
army and navy are to be not only instruments of defense in protecting the
United States against, the commercial and territorial ambitions of other
countries; but they may be used also in forcing open foreign markets. What
discriminatory tariffs and navigation laws may not accomplish the sword may
achieve….
The
Process of Ratification of the Constitution of the United States circa
1787.
Pennsylvania,
November 6, 1787.
After
the convention assembled, the Federalists continued their irregular practices,
although from the vote on the Constitution in the convention this latter
manipulation seems to have be been a work of supererogation. Everything was
done that could be done to keep the public out of the affair.
A
survey of the facts here presented yields several important generalizations:
Two
states, Rhode Island and North Carolina refused to ratify the Constitution
until after the establishment of the new government which set in train
powerful economic forces against them in their isolation.
In
three states, New Hampshire, New York, and Massachusetts, the popular vote as
measured by the election of delegates to the conventions was adverse to the
Constitution; and ratification was secured by the conversion of opponents and
often the repudiation of their tacit (and in some cases express) instructions.
In
Virginia the popular vote was doubtful.
In
the four states which ratified the constitution with facility, Connecticut,
New Jersey, Georgia and Delaware, only four or five weeks were allowed to
elapse before the legislatures acted, and four or five weeks more before the
elections to the conventions were called; and about an equal period between
the elections and the meeting of the conventions. This facility of action may
have been due to the general sentiment in favor of the Constitution; or the
rapidity of action may account for the slight development of the opposition.
In
two commonwealths, Maryland and South Carolina, deliberation and delays in the
election and the assembling of the conventions resulted in an undoubted
majority in favor of the new instrument, but for the latter state the popular
vote has never been figured out.
In
one of the states, Pennsylvania, the proceedings connected with the
ratification of the Constitution were conducted with unseemly haste.
About
5% of the population voted in Massachusetts in the period under consideration,
we have other valuable data. The electoral vote in the presidential election
of 1788 in New Hampshire was 2.8 per cent of the fee population; that the vote
in Madison's electoral district in Virginia in the same election was 2.7 per
cent of the white population; that the vote in the first congressional
election in Maryland was 3.6 per cent of the white population and that the
vote in the same congressional election in Massachusetts was 3
per cent of the white population and that the vote in the same
congressional election in Massachusetts was 3 per cent.
"The
voting was done chiefly by a small minority of interested property holders, a
disproportionate share of whom in the northern states resided in the towns,
and the wealthier and more talented of whom like a closed corporation
controlled politics."
In
view of these figures, in view of the data given above on the election of
delegates (to the ratifying conventions) in the cities of Boston,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore, in view of the fact that the percentage
participating in the country was smaller than in the towns, and in view of the
fact that only 3 per cent of the population resided in cities of over 8000, it
seems a safe guess to say that not more than 5 per cent of the population in
general, or in round numbers, 160,000 voters, expressed an opinion one way or
another on the Constitution. In other words, it is highly probably that not
more than one-fourth or one-fifth of the adult white males took part in the
election of delegates to the state conventions. If anything, this estimate is
high.
Conclusions
The
movement for the Constitution of the United States was originated and carried
through principally by four groups of personalty (correctly spelled somewhat
archaic technical term) interests which had been adversely affected under the
Articles of Confederation: money, public securities, manufactures, and trade
and shipping.
The
first firm steps toward the formation of the Constitution were taken by a
small and active group of men immediately interested through their personal
possessions in the outcome of their labors.
No
popular vote was taken directly or indirectly on the proposition to call the
Convention which drafted the Constitution.
A
large propertyless mass was, under the prevailing suffrage qualifications,
excluded at the outset from participation (through representatives) in the
work of framing the Constitution.
The
members of the Philadelphia Convention which drafted the Constitution were,
with a few exceptions, immediately, directly, and personally interested in,
and derived economic advantages from, the establishment of the new system.
The
Constitution was essentially an economic document based upon the concept that
the fundamental private rights of property are anterior to government and
morally beyond the reach of popular majorities.
The
major portion of the members of the Convention are on record as recognizing
the claim of property to a special and defensive position in the Constitution.
In
the ratification of the Constitution about three fourths of the adult males
failed to vote on the question, having abstained from the elections at which
delegates to the state conventions were chosen, either on account of their
indifference or their disfranchisement by property qualifications.
The
Constitution was ratified by a vote of probably not more than one-sixth of the
adult males.
It
is questionable whether a majority of the voters participating in the
elections for the state conventions in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Virginia, and South Carolina, actually approved the ratification of the
Constitution.
The
leaders who supported the Constitution in the ratifying conventions
represented the same economic groups as the members of the Philadelphia
Convention; and in a large number of instances they were also directly and
personally interested in the outcome of their efforts.
In
the ratification, it became manifest that the line of cleavage for and against
the Constitution was between substantial personalty interests on the one hand
and the small farming and debtor interests on the other.
The
Constitution was not created by "the whole people" as the jurists
have said; neither was it created by "the states" as Southern
nullifiers long contended; but it was the work of a consolidated group whose
interests knew no state boundaries and were truly national in their scope.
3.
PRESIDENT CHAVEZ FRIAS DRAFTS IN MORE THAN 1,000 CUBAN MEDICS TO TREAT
VENEZUELA'S POOR…
BY
DAVID
COLEMAN
In
a show-down with Venezuelan medics who refuse to take on public health
services in impoverished districts of his country, Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez Frias has announced that almost 1,000 Cuban doctors will be flown in
beginning this week (July 10th, 2003) … by month's end, 815 are
scheduled to arrive and Chavez Frias says more will follow before the end of
August.
Venezuela's
new urban health campaign has been under severe criticism from the right-wing
political opposition and their anger has not been allowed to subside with the
earlier drafting of Cuban teachers to implement a nationwide literacy program
and trainers for a sports and physical fitness campaign to boot.
Rabid
opposition parties are claiming it's an invasion of Venezuela by the Cubans
but President Chavez Frias says they're here by invitation since more than 40
years of successive right-wing governments have only put his people further
into poverty in tune with swelling bank accounts in the United States and
Europe. This money belonging to the corrupt politicians he ousted by an
overwhelming democratic majority in 1998.
Chavez
Frias' strategy is to bring primary public health care to hundreds of
thousands of Venezuelans living in incredible squalor in fragile shanty–town
shacks perched on precipitous hillsides around the capital Caracas and
principal urban centers throughout this nation of 23.4 million … more that
80% had been reduced by previous corrupt government administrations to living
in conditions described by the United Nations Food Program as being under any
qualification of minimum poverty level.
"We
are sending the doctors to the heart of the barrio-slums where they are really
needed … nothing and nobody is going to stop my government's humanitarian
action … the opposition is, of course, screaming blue murder over the fact
that the doctors are coming from Cuba, but what else can we do when Venezuelan
doctors are too 'primadonna' to go to the heart of the matter themselves …
they all want to set up in private practice and earn fistfuls of US$ … that
can't be right!"
Meanwhile
Havana has just flown in some 33 tonnes of medical supplies to help assuage a
crisis in supply of medicaments … private sector pharmacies are believed to
be hoarding necessary medicines since the government imposed price controls in
March on the heels of foreign exchange curbs in January after a crippling
opposition labor stoppage aimed at causing terminal economic damage to the
Chavez Frias government and forcing his resignation from office. They did not
succeed but left the country several $-billions further into the red as it
fights to repay massive foreign debts incurred by past regimes.
Chavez
Frias turned to Latin American colleague, Cuba's President Fidel Castro after
being cold-shouldered by the Bush administration which also lay behind a 2-day
coup d'état in April 2002 which saw the installation of USA puppet President
Pedro Carmona Estanga who promptly dissolved Congress, the Judiciary and the
Venezuelan Constitution before he was kicked out in a massive show of
pro-Chavez support from a general public largely disaffected with corrupt
governments of the last half-century.
Castro
is returning the favor to Venezuela for busting a unilateral US trade embargo
on his Caribbean island which sees some 53,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan
oil shipped to Cuba on preferential terms which are also available to
neighboring Latin American countries but not to the United States.
Venezuelan
Medical Association executives are seeking to block the Cuban doctors claiming
they are not qualified and they threaten the jobs of Venezuelan doctors (who
refuse to work in the barrio-slums on principle) … they have the backing of
Venezuela's opposition-controlled print & broadcast media which rather
hysterically claims that Chavez is turning Venezuela into a satellite state of
Castro's Cuba.
4.
SIDELINED BLACKS STILL OPPOSED WAR
(white
antiwar leaders need to recognize facts)
BY
DONNA
J. WARREN
There's
been a lot of talk in the progressive community – that is, in the mostly
white progressive community – that black people are not pulling their weight
in opposing Bush's war on Iraq.
I
hear these thoughts on KPFK radio in Los Angeles. I heard them at the
Socialist Scholar's Conference in New York, where I appeared to be the only
African-American panelist. I hear it from my fellow Greens. Why aren't black
people marching against war?
Let's
look at these allegations and try to determine if black politicians, black
people and the black media are avoiding the issue of war on Iraq, or worse,
are for the war on Iraq.
Last
year, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., a black woman, was the only House member who
voted against a resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against
Iraq. She was one of several members of the Congressional Black Caucus who
took to the House floor to address the conflict with Iraq the Tuesday before
the US attack.
Rep.
Maxine Waters, D-Calif., questioned whether the US had set aside the search
for Osama bin Laden. "We are worried that the war on terrorism is taking
a back seat in favor of a pre-emptive strike on Saddam Hussein," she
said. "Every country should be able to defend itself , but we're in no
danger from Iraq. Striking Saddam is not fighting terrorism."
Former
Washington, D.C. Congressman Walter Fauntroy, just back from a 10-day peace
mission to Iraq, said many African Americans oppose the prospect of war.
"We know that every bomb that explodes is robbing our children and their
families of five things: income, education, health care, housing and
justice."
OK;
it seems that black politicians, unlike most politicians, are speaking out
against the war.
Well,
then it must be the black person on the street who won't speak out against the
war. Where are they on the war issue?
On
March 5th, 2003, the Southwest Wave in Los Angeles asked
this question of black people: "Do you favor this war?" The answer
was 100% "No." Every black person I asked on the street except for
one religious fanatical friend who's waiting for the second coming of Christ,
is against this war.
OK;
maybe it's not the people on the street that we're talking about. It must be
the black newspapers that won't speak out against the war. Where are they on
the war issue?
"It
is now time for us as citizens to get involved to express our views on this
expensive war issue. If you believe we are going to take care of soldiers
after the war, ask any veteran standing on freeways asking for money for food
and standing on the street corners waving you down to get your car
washed." –Hardy Brown, Editor, Black Voices.
"Some
of the most important antiwar efforts – the city council resolutions
opposing war – have taken place in cities where whites are a minority. In
fact, of the 25 cities with population of over 100,000 that have passed
antiwar resolutions, 15 have white minorities .… For the past four decades,
black elected officials and mass organizations have expressly linked issues of
domestic social justice and peaceful international relations. Polling evidence
is conclusive over two generations: Antiwar politics is mainstream black
politics." – The Black Commentator.
"At
the National Student Strike and Peace March in Oakland, Calif. on March 5th
, aggressive police attacked the peaceful, singing crowd of young and elderly
people of color with their motor cycles and weapons. Two reporters from the SF
Bay View newspaper were injured, and then also arrested." – San
Francisco Bay View.
OK;
it looks like black politicians, unlike most white politicians, black people
on the street, unlike most white people on the street, and black newspapers,
unlike almost every mainstream white newspaper, are firmly against the war on
Iraq. Why then is the white antiwar movement accusing black people of not
pulling our weight against the war?
The
answer to this question lies in the spectre of racism firmly entrenched in
America.
It
is true; black people are not represented in demonstrations in numbers
approaching our proportion of the population. And for good reason.
Black
people remain under the prison industrial complex in proportions far greater
than our proportion of the population.
White
activists do not share leadership with and are not willing to follow the lead
of people and organizations of color.
The
movement against the war on Iraq fails to recognize the continuing war on
communities of color. White activists continue to ignore issues that speak to
the experiences and struggles of people of color.
Current
demonstrations, disproportionately white and middle-class, are done by those
who can most easily take the time and expense to travel to major antiwar
events.
Even
given that the above is true, we should ask the question posed by The Black
Commentator: "Why should it be assumed that African Americans will
come when white people call, for any cause? Have white people responded to
black-led movements seeking broad social change in anything approaching
whites' proportion of the population?
"It
is true that older whites participated in the 1963 March on Washington and in
the civil rights movement. Yet whites were only a fraction of the
quarter-million strong crowd … while outnumbering African Americans in the
general population eight to one."
Whites
could have prevented the social harms in this country to people of color: the
prison industrial complex; the death penalty; the lack of education, housing,
and medical care. Yet these movements are not led by the millions of antiwar
protesters who march for another "community of color" thousands of
miles away. Don't misunderstand me. The war on Iraq is very important, but it
is not more important than the war on communities of color that whites have
condoned and promoted for the last 30 years.
Even
if black men wanted to march against the war, one out of three cannot because
they are under the yoke of the prison industrial complex. The system ensures
we are kept out of the democratic process.
The
US Senate had an opportunity last year to return Americans back to our
"democracy" with Senate Bill 565, which would have restored voting
rights for ex-felons. One out of every three black men is in prison, on parole
or under some form of prison supervision. Yet 24 Senate Democrats voted to
deny ex-felons the right to vote. Where is the white progressive community in
this fight?
Black
people who would be marching against the war "live in fear of becoming
too visible to authorities that treat every young black as a
probationer."
This
March in Oakland, large numbers of black and Latino youth came out and voiced
their opinion about the war. Police aggressively retaliated. They ran over
them with police motorcycles even though they demonstrated peacefully.
Antiwar
demonstrations also took place in San Francisco during rush hour that day, but
in San Francisco a contingent of mostly white youth who took their antiwar
protest to the streets and blocked a main intersection, causing traffic to
back up, were not rolled over by police motorcycles.
Americans
live in very different worlds. In much of black America, police state
conditions have existed for some time, and people of color are
disproportionately subjected to poor schools, inadequate jobs, poor health
care, and poor housing. The white antiwar movement needs to recognize these
facts and work with black activists to bring an end to America's war on our
communities.
5. THE GREEN PARTY NEEDS TO PRESENT AN ALTERNATIVE TO
THE BIPARTISAN CONSENSUS
BY
HOWIE
HAWKINS
George
W. Bush has some progressives running scared as we enter the 2004 presidential
election, so scared they are demanding that the Greens not run a presidential
campaign … or, as a "compromise," that the Greens give backhanded
support to the Democrat with a "strategic" Green campaign that
doesn't compete for votes in swing states.
To
be sure, Bush is scary. Constitutional rights restricted. War budgets hiked.
International treaties abrogated. Federal tax cuts for the rich forcing local
tax hikes on workers, and greatly reduced social funding. Worker safety,
consumer and environmental protections gutted. Pandering to giant corporations
too as their scandals run amok. Afghanistan and Iraq occupied.
But
the Democrats are scary, too. The majority of congressional Democrats have
voted for Bush's programs on every key issue. If the Democratic Party won't
resist Bush's policies in Congress, why should progressives support them for
the presidency?
Progressives
cannot rely on the soft-right Democrats to fight the hard-right Republicans.
Yes, a Democrat might beat Bush.. But just as Clinton did not defeat Reaganism
and instead carried it to full fruition, a Democratic president is not going
to beat Bushism. Except for few progressives like Kucinich and Sharpton who
ought to become Greens after their doomed candidacies are crushed by the
corporate-dominated Democratic nomination process, the Democratic leadership
agrees with Bush on the pro-corporate bipartisan consensus around
neoconservative foreign policy and neoliberal economic policy.
What
was called Reaganism by Democrats in the 1980s to scare progressives into
voting Democratic was really the bipartisan consensus around neoconservative
militarism and neoliberal austerity. That post-Vietnam, post-Keynesian version
of the bipartisan consensus was initiated under Carter, supported by the
majority of Congressional Democrats throughout the Reagan and Bush Sr.
administrations and carried well beyond what Reagan and Bush Sr. could do by
Clinton.
Bush
Jr. and the recycled Reaganites in his administration are working within this
bipartisan consensus, not breaking with it. The partisan squabbling in
congress and the media is more about marketing their respective styles of the
bipartisan consensus to voters than about substantive policy differences.
Without
a Green presidential campaign, there will be no challenge to the bipartisan
neoconservative strategic vision of military bases and control of oil in the
Middle East and Central Eurasia in order to keep Europe, Russia, China or
Japan subordinate to the US as sole superpower and to make the whole world
safe for exploitation by US capital.
Without
a Green presidential campaign, there will be no challenge to the bipartisan
neoliberal economic vision of regressive taxes, budgets, monetary policies,
trade agreements, rampant deregulation, privatization, corporate-subsidies and
union-busting policies in order to shore up corporate profitability in hopes
of stimulating economic recovery. Though cloaked in an egalitarian-sounding
rhetoric of free markets, the reality of neoliberalism is state structuring of
heightened inequality: welfare for the corporate rich (investment incentives,
in theory) and hardship for workers (incentives to work harder and raise
productivity, in theory).
Nothing
would be more deflating and dispiriting than a defensive and defeatist
campaign for the Democrat as the lesser evil. A Green presidential campaign,
on the other hand, would be the rallying point for a popular counter-offensive
against the militaristic austerity of both corporate parties.
A
Green presidential campaign would present a real alternative to bipartisan
consensus:
Cooperative
security instead of the US as global occupation force
Renewable
energy instead of oil imperialism
Wage-led,
bottom –up economic recovery instead of the failed policies of profit-led,
trickle-down economics
Economic
security for all through national health care, guaranteed income above
poverty, jobs for all at living wages, fair trade, fair labor laws and
progressive taxes instead of the neoliberal nostrums of hardship for workers
to increase productivity and welfare for the privileged to increase investment
Ecological
sustainability instead of environmental marauding by the military-industrial
complex
Repealing
repressive laws to restore civil liberties and dismantle the prison-industrial
complex instead of Patriot Acts and drug wars
A
multi-party democracy founded on proportional representation and public
funding of public elections instead of the winner-take-all, corporate financed
two-party system with two right wings.
No
doubt a strong Green campaign around these themes will provoke a backlash.
Forget the whining from the Anybody-but-Bush Democrats about
"spoiling" their election. The whole corporate ruling class and
their media will attack. But controversy is good! Greens should embrace it. It
will give us the platform we need to present the Green alternative to the
American people.
Getting
a hearing is half the battle. Green policies have majority support. The other
half is inspiring people to believe that the Greens can beat the corporate
parties. Nothing less than an all-out campaign to get every vote we can in
every state can give us that hearing and that inspiration.
Various
proposals – vote swapping, "strategic," "3D," "safe
states" – have been suggested for a Green campaign that supports the
Democrat in the end. Not only would such a self-defeating campaign hurt Greens
in swing states running to win other offices and to secure ballot lines for
future elections, it would guarantee that the Green alternative would not be
taken seriously in any state.
The
minute the Greens support the Democrat, however slyly or critically, is the
minute the Greens, and all progressives, lose their voice in the election. The
Democrats will take their left for granted and move right. The election will
be reduced to a choice between different styles of the same bipartisan
consensus, the slick soft-right style of a Clinton or the crude hard-right
style of a Bush.
Progressives
don't have to wait for 2004 to beat Bush. Bush's intentional lies abut weapons
of mass destruction as the reason for invading Iraq are certainly "high
crimes" under the impeachment clause of the Constitution.
The
best defense against Bush is a good offense. Impeach Bush in 2003. http://www.votetoimpeach.org.
Run a Green in 2004.
(Climate
Change Threatens the Future of Humanity, but We Refuse to Respond Rationally
BY
GEORGE
MONBIOT
We
live in a dream world. With a small, rational part of the brain, we recognize
that our existence is governed by material realities, and that, as those
realities change, so will our lives. But underlying this awareness is the deep
semi-consciousness that absorbs the moment in which we live, then generalizes
it, projecting our future lives as repeated
instances of the present. This, not the superficial world of our reason is our
true reality. All that separates us from the indigenous people of Australia is
that they recognize this and we do not.
Our
dreaming will, as it has begun to do already, destroy the conditions necessary
for human life on earth. Were we governed by reason we would be on the
barricades today, dragging the drivers of Ranger Roves and Nissan Patrols out
of their seats, occupying and shutting down the coal-burning power stations,
bursting in upon the Blairs' retreat from reality in Barbados and demanding a
reversal of economic life as dramatic as the one we bore when we went to war
with Hitler. Instead, we whine about the heat and thumb through brochures for
holidays in Iceland. The future has been laid out before us, but the deep eye
with which we place ourselves on earth will not see it.
Of
course, we cannot say that the remarkable temperatures in Europe this week are
the result of global warming. What we can say is that they correspond to the
predictions made by climate scientists. As the Met office reported on Sunday,
"all our models have suggested that this type of event will happen more
frequently." In December it predicted that, as a result of climate
change, 2003 would be the warmest year on record. Two weeks ago its research
center reported that the temperature rises on every continent matched the
predicted effects of climate change caused by human activities, and showed
that natural impacts, such as sunspots or volcanic activity, could not account
for them. Last month the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced
that "the increase in temperature in the 20th century is
likely to have been the largest in any century during the past 1,000
years", while "the trend since 1976 is roughly three times that for
the whole period". Climate change, the WMP suggest, provides an
explanation not only for record temperatures in Europe and India but also for
the frequency of tornadoes in the US and the severity of the recent floods in
Sri Lanka.
There
are, of course, still those who deny that any warming is taking place, or who
maintain that it can be explained by natural phenomena. But few of them are
climatologists, fewer still are climatologists who do not receive funding from
the fossil fuel industry. Their credibility among professionals is now little
higher than that of the people who claim that there is no link between smoking
and cancer. Yet the prominence the media give them reflects not only the
demands of the car advertisers. We want to believe them, because we wish to
reconcile our reason with our dreaming.
The
extreme events to which climate change appears to have contributed reflect an
average rise in global temperatures of 0.6C over the past century. The
consensus among climatologists is that temperatures will rise in the 21st
century by between 1.4 and 5.8C: by up to 10 times, in other words, the
increase we have suffered so far. Some climate scientists, recognizing that
global warming has been retarded by industrial soot, whose levels are now
declining, suggest that the maximum should instead by placed between 7 and
10C. We are not contemplating the end of holidays in Seville. We are
contemplating the end of the circumstances which permit most human beings to
remain on Earth.
Climate
change of this magnitude will devastate the Earth's productivity. New research
in Australia suggests that the amount of water reaching the rivers will
decline up to four times a fast as the percentage reduction of rainfall in dry
areas. This, alongside the disappearance of the glaciers, spells the end of
irrigated agriculture. Winter flooding and the evaporation of soil moisture in
the summer will exert similar effects on rain fed farming. Like crops, humans
will simply wilt in some of the hotter parts of the world: the 1500 deaths in
India through heat exhaustion this summer may prefigure the necessary
evacuation, as temperatures rise, of many of the places currently considered
habitable. There is no chance of continuity here; somehow we must persuade our
dreamselves to confront the end
of life as we know it.
Paradoxically,
the approach of this crisis corresponds with the approach of another. The
global demand for oil is likely to outstrip supply within the next 10 or 20
years. Some geologists believe it may have started already. It is tempting to
knock the two impending crises together, and to conclude that the second will
solve the first. But this is wishful thinking. There is enough oil under the
surface of the Earth to cook the planet and, as the price rises, the incentive
to extract it will increase. Business will turn to even more polluting means
of obtaining energy, such as the use of tar sand and oil shale, or
"underground coal gasification" (setting fire to coal seams). But
because oil in the early stages of extraction is the cheapest and most
efficient fuel, the cost of energy will soar, ensuring that we can no longer
buy our way out of trouble with air conditioning, water pumping and
fuel-intensive farming.
So
instead we place our faith in technology. In an age in which science is as
authoritative but, to most, as inscrutable as God once was, we look to its
products much as the people of the middle ages looked to divine providence.
Somehow "they" will produce and install the devices – the wind
turbines or solar panels or tidal barrages – that will solve both problems
while ensuring that we need make no change to the way we live.
But
the widespread deployment of these technologies will not happen until rising
prices ensure that it becomes a commercial imperative, and by then it is too
late. Even so, we could not meet our current levels of consumption without
covering almost every yard of land and shallow sea with generating devices. In
other words, if we leave the market to govern our politics, we are finished.
Only if we take control of our economic lives, and demand and create the means
by which we may cut our energy use to 10% or 20% of current levels will we
prevent the catastrophe that our rational selves can comprehend. This requires
draconian regulation, rationing and prohibition: all the measure which our
existing politics, informed by our dreaming, forbid.
So
we slumber through the crisis. Waking up demands that we upset the seat of our
consciousness, that we dethrone our deep unreason and usurp it with our
rational and predictive minds. Are we capable of this, or are we destined to
sleepwalk to extinction?