Workers Resistance

Category: Capitalism

  • Lessons from the UAW’s defeat at Volkswagen

    The recent defeat of the UAW at the Chattanooga, Tennessee Volkswagen plant marked a serious setback for the working class, the auto-workers of the Tennessee plant, as well as hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file autoworkers within in the UAW. Workers at the plant voted against representation by a narrow margin of 712 to 626. A victory for labor would have marked the unionization of the first foreign auto plant in the U.S. and one of only a handful of unionized plants in the South. As the growth and survival of the U.S. labor movement in general, and the UAW in particular, depends in part on unionizing the largely unorganized South, union militants and rank-and-file activists need to draw key lessons from this defeat and augment our tactics and strategies.

    The factors of defeat

    Volkswagen, a company where the German autoworkers union sits on the board of directors, signed a neutrality agreement with the UAW, claiming they wanted to implement a ‘German-style’ works council where workers and management could collaborate on various workplace issues. This led many media pundits and union supporters to expect a slam dunk victory for the UAW.

    But let’s be clear: unfavorable conditions for labor still reigned in Tennessee. The jobs at Volkswagen pay relatively well in the low-wage South. Racism and national oppression of black people also served as a basis for anti-union propaganda. Automakers in the South have used slogans such as “This is not Detroit,” exploiting racism and attempting to divide white and Black workers.

    A major factor put forward by the UAW leadership blamed right-wing politicians and special interest groups for the loss. As UAW Region 8 Director Gary Casteel, the man in charge of the union’s Southern organizing said, “Unfortunately, politically motivated third parties threatened the economic future of this facility and the opportunity for workers to create a successful operating model that that would grow jobs in Tennessee.”

    While we should not underestimate the effects of the reactionary Senator Bob Corker threatening job losses in front of plant workers, it seemed mild compared to the outright firings, intimidation and attack on workers’ rights common to most labor organizing campaigns.

    Perhaps then the deciding factor layed with the UAW’s class collaborationist approach. UAW President Bob King put forward its perspective to the Washington Post: “Our philosophy is, we want to work in partnership with companies to succeed… With every company that we work with, we’re concerned about competitiveness. We work together with companies to have the highest quality, the highest productivity, the best health and safety, the best ergonomics, and we are showing that companies that succeed by this cooperation can have higher wages and benefits because of the joint success.”

    Let’s look at this approach in practice. In the neutrality agreement, the UAW agreed, without the consent of the rank and file at the facility, that if they won bargaining rights, any future negotiations would be guided by considerations such as “maintaining and where possible enhancing the cost advantages and other competitive advantages that Volkswagen enjoys relative to its competitors in the United States and North America;” i.e. keeping ‘competitive’ wages and benefit compensation in comparison to the Big Three.

    The UAW also agreed that it is “committed to the delegation to the Works Council of certain duties, responsibilities and functions that are traditionally the subject of collective bargaining.” The details of this ‘works council’ would be left to bargaining in the first contract. This means surrendering functions of the union to an entity half comprised of management. To make matters worse, the union also agreed to a strict no-strike clause during first contract negotiations that would bar the workers from implementing basically every effective tactic to pressure their employer during the critical negotiations of that first contract, including picketing, boycotting or slowdown actions. The UAW also surrendered their right to house visits with plant employees, a critical organizing tool in any labor drive.

    The UAW leadership’s class-collaborationist strategy opened the door for anti-union groups such as the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to spread to make inroads at the plant. A group of managers and backward workers to created a “No 2 UAW” website and social media presence. The backward forces opposed to the UAW’s effort publicized and organized around the UAW’s collaborationist approach to successfully defeat the drive. Hourly worker Mike Burton, who created the No 2 UAW website was quoted by In These Times journalist Mike Elk as saying “I am not anti-union, I am anti-UAW,” and that “There are great unions out there, and we just weren’t offered any of them.” Elk’s article details the recent history of sell-out contracts the UAW negotiated with the big three. These contracts included two-tier wage systems that lock in low pay for new hires doing the same work.

    In a racist and ruthlessly anti-worker South (and U.S. for that matter), can the tactics and strategies of the UAW leadership deliver victory? After decades of vicious attacks and attempts to destroy organized labor, should our strategy now include shaking hands and agreeing with the boss? Can agreeing to keep wages and benefits lower than competitors and promising to push worker’s productivity ever higher for the same compensation save the union movement? The answer is all too clear to rank-and-file workers across the country.

    Militant union members and the rank and file must oppose accepting the company’s line of ‘competitiveness.’ Accepting ‘competitiveness’ means accepting a race to lower wages and rewarding the company that extracts the most profit at the expense of their work force, and undercutting the highest wage scales and standards in that industry.

    Capitalists make their profits by exploiting workers. They take part of the value that their workers’ labor produces as profit for themselves. The interests of the capitalists will always conflict with those of their workers because every penny they squeeze out of us, means one more in their pocket. Any union that pledges themselves to cooperation, by definition, must betray those they claim to represent. In such a tight vote, there seems little doubt that Bob King’s class collaborationist snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

    Just look at the current UAW’s record, and compare it to the UAW of old which implemented a “fight the bosses” strategy to win substantial improvements in the lives of unionized autoworkers. A study of the UAW’s history over the past 60 years makes clear that cooperation means the erosion and long-term destruction of unions. For more on this, read Michael D. Yate’s Monthly Review article “Who Will Lead the U.S. Working Class.”

    Fight the boss, fight for class struggle unionism

    What type of unionism should we propose in the place of this ‘cooperate with management’ unionism? One which embraces industry wide organizing. This means fighting for industry standards like national master agreements and pattern bargaining agreements to take wages out of competition. To counteract ‘undercutting’ and ‘competition’ we must push for unified standards, contracts and compensation.

    From a strategic stand point, we need a unionism which recognizes that the bosses, the corporations and the 1% billionaires who own them are the enemies of the workers. We need a unionism that understands that the rank-and-file workers are the union. The workers themselves should run their unions, not a bunch of career bureaucrats with $100,000 salaries.

    We need a unionism willing to revive the strike weapon. Historically, production-stopping strikes played a key role in the CIO organizing millions of workers and winning real wage and benefit increases from the 1930s through the 1950s. The strike and other militant production-stopping tactics awaken workers to their collective power and demonstrate in practice that they possess the real power in the workplace.

    To implement these strategies seriously, we need a unionism willing to spend real money on industry-wide organizing campaigns and conducting real strikes instead of donating millions to sellout 1% politicians from both parties.

    We must embrace militant, class struggle unionism. We must look to the militant movement embodied by the Chicago Teachers strike and by the spirit of the “Vote No” movement at UPS. This is the unionism of the UAW of the 1930s, led by militants, socialists and communists who conducted the Flint sit-down strikes, where the rank and file led the union and put forward militant demands even by today’s standards. The old UAW implemented tactics that defied the law, and that kept scabs from walking through the factory gates when the bosses and their crony politicians sent in thugs, police and the National Guard in to break the strike.

    The ultimate lesson from Tennessee is that the working class cannot expect our generals to lead us to victory in battle, when their tactics and strategies involve shaking hands with those who would gun us down.

    If we want to change the fortune of the labor movement, we must organize and unite the militant fighters in our work places and unions to put them on a fighting basis against the bosses. We must form a left wing in the labor movement that is willing to win local unions, labor councils, state federations, and international unions, over to the side of militant tactics and strategies.

  • Job growth in January weak for second month in a row

    San José, CA – For the second month in a row, the Department of Labor employment report was weak, with only 113,000 new jobs created in January. Combined with the revised 75,000 jobs created in December, the two month average was only 94,000 new jobs each month, less than half the average increase in 2013 of more than 190,000. While the recession officially ended in the summer of 2009, there are still 850,000 fewer jobs than when the recession began in December of 2007.

    Despite the weak jobs numbers, the official unemployment rate continued to fall to 6.6% in January as compared to 6.7% in December. The largest fall in the numbers of unemployed came among the long-term unemployed, those out of work for six months or more. In January, there were 230,000 fewer long-term unemployed, more than the total drop in the unemployed of 125,000. Much of this drop was probably due to the end of the federal extended unemployment insurance benefits at the end of December. As many of the long-term unemployed gave up their job search, they are no longer counted as officially unemployed, bringing down the official unemployment rate.

    However there are still more than 3.5 million long-term unemployed, who make up more than 35% of the total officially unemployed. In addition there are more than an million people who are out of work and have been looking for work, but didn’t look in January either because they were discouraged or other personal reasons and another 2 million who said that they wanted to work but were not looking.

    Although millions of people are struggling to survive without a job, the federal government has eliminated Federal Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) and Extended Benefits (EB), two programs that used to help out the long-term unemployed. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) benefits were cut last year when the 2009 boost which was part of the government stimulus (ARRA or American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) expired. On top of that, President Obama just signed into law a new farm bill that cuts food stamps by almost a billion dollars a year for the next ten years.

    While the overall official unemployment rate fell slightly, the unemployment rates for African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans all rose in January, making the unemployment gap between oppressed nationalities and whites even larger. The official unemployment rate was 12.1% for African Americans, more than twice as high as for whites, who had an official unemployment rate of 5.7% in January.

  • Senate vote to extend on Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) set for Feb. 6

    Washington, DC – The Senate Democratic leadership announced today, Feb. 4, that a vote to extend benefits for long term unemployed workers is scheduled for Feb. 6.

    The vote will be on a three-month extension of Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC). The measure has the support of a few Republican senators. 60 votes are needed to overcome a Republican filibuster.

    In December 2013, Democrats did not force Republicans to accept extended jobless benefits as a part of the budget deal, setting in motion the uphill fight to restore unemployment compensation for those who have been without work for more than six months.

    To date, about 1.7 million workers have been affected by the cut to unemployment benefits.

    The long-running economic crisis, which started at the end of 2007, impacted the major capitalist countries and changed their economic landscapes. The outcome has been high unemployment rates, a net decline in the number of good paying jobs – especially in manufacturing – and more workers in part-time employment.

    In the U.S. both major political parties have been part of a consensus to cut the social safety net.

  • Still no Senate action on Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC)

    Washington, DC – Another day has passed without the Senate taking action on Extended Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefits. While Senators met Jan. 24, no agreements were reached on legislation to address the situation of the 1.3 million workers who have been cut off from benefits for the long term unemployed.

    Most Republicans in Congress are hostile to extending the benefits for unemployed workers. When the Democratic leadership in Congress failed to make the EUC benefits a condition for December’s budget deal, they let the unemployed workers down, and now have little leverage to press for the restoration of relief to jobless workers.

    A consensus has developed in Congress where both political parties favor cuts to the social safety net and measures that favor the wealthy.

  • 120th Anniversary of Mao’s birth: Reprint of has statement in support of African American struggle

    In honor of the 120th anniversary of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong’s birth, Fight Back! is reprinting his April 16, 1968 statement in support of the struggle of the African American people.

    Statement by Comrade Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression

    Some days ago, Martin Luther King, the Afro-American clergyman, was suddenly assassinated by the U.S. imperialists. Martin Luther King was an exponent of nonviolence. Nevertheless, the U.S. imperialists did not on that account show any tolerance toward him, but used counter-revolutionary violence and killed him in cold blood. This has taught the broad masses of the Black people in the United States a profound lesson. It has touched off a new storm in their struggle against violent repression sweeping well over a hundred cities in the United States, a storm such as has never taken place before in the history of that country. It shows that an extremely powerful revolutionary force is latent in the more than twenty million Black Americans.

    The storm of Afro-American struggle taking place within the United States is a striking manifestation of the comprehensive political and economic crisis now gripping U.S. imperialism. It is dealing a telling blow to U.S. imperialism, which is beset with difficulties at home and abroad.

    The Afro-American struggle is not only a struggle waged by the exploited and oppressed Black people for freedom and emancipation, it is also a new clarion call to all the exploited and oppressed people of the United States to fight against the barbarous rule of the monopoly capitalist class. It is a tremendous aid and inspiration to the struggle of the people throughout the world against U.S. imperialism and to the struggle of the Vietnamese people against U.S. imperialism. On behalf of the Chinese people, I hereby express resolute support for the just struggle of the Black people in the United States.

    Racial discrimination in the United States is a product of the colonialist and imperialist system. The contradiction between the Black masses in the United States and the U.S. ruling circles is a class contradiction. Only by overthrowing the reactionary rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class and destroying the colonialist and imperialist system can the Black people in the United States win complete emancipation. The Black masses and the masses of white working people in the United States have common interests and common objectives to struggle for. Therefore, the Afro-American struggle is winning sympathy and support from increasing numbers of white working people and progressives in the United States. The struggle of the Black people in the United States is bound to merge with the American workers’ movement, and this will eventually end the criminal rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class.

    In 1963, in the “Statement Supporting the Afro-Americans in Their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism,” I said that the “the evil system of colonialism and imperialism arose and throve with the enslavement of Negroes and the trade in Negroes, and it will surely come to its end with the complete emancipation of the Black people.” I still maintain this view.

    At present, the world revolution has entered a great new era. The struggle of the Black people in the United States for emancipation is a component part of the general struggle of all the people of the world against U.S. imperialism, a component part of the contemporary world revolution. I call on the workers, peasants, and revolutionary intellectuals of all countries and all who are willing to fight against U.S. imperialism to take action and extend strong support to the struggle of the Black people in the United States! People of the whole world, unite still more closely and launch a sustained and vigorous offensive against our common enemy, U.S. imperialism, and its accomplices! It can be said with certainty that the complete collapse of colonialism, imperialism, and all systems of exploitation, and the complete emancipation of all the oppressed peoples and nations of the world are not far off.

  • 120th Anniversary of Mao’s birth: Reprint of has statement in support of African American struggle

    In honor of the 120th anniversary of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong’s birth, Fight Back! is reprinting his April 16, 1968 statement in support of the struggle of the African American people.

    Statement by Comrade Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression

    Some days ago, Martin Luther King, the Afro-American clergyman, was suddenly assassinated by the U.S. imperialists. Martin Luther King was an exponent of nonviolence. Nevertheless, the U.S. imperialists did not on that account show any tolerance toward him, but used counter-revolutionary violence and killed him in cold blood. This has taught the broad masses of the Black people in the United States a profound lesson. It has touched off a new storm in their struggle against violent repression sweeping well over a hundred cities in the United States, a storm such as has never taken place before in the history of that country. It shows that an extremely powerful revolutionary force is latent in the more than twenty million Black Americans.

    The storm of Afro-American struggle taking place within the United States is a striking manifestation of the comprehensive political and economic crisis now gripping U.S. imperialism. It is dealing a telling blow to U.S. imperialism, which is beset with difficulties at home and abroad.

    The Afro-American struggle is not only a struggle waged by the exploited and oppressed Black people for freedom and emancipation, it is also a new clarion call to all the exploited and oppressed people of the United States to fight against the barbarous rule of the monopoly capitalist class. It is a tremendous aid and inspiration to the struggle of the people throughout the world against U.S. imperialism and to the struggle of the Vietnamese people against U.S. imperialism. On behalf of the Chinese people, I hereby express resolute support for the just struggle of the Black people in the United States.

    Racial discrimination in the United States is a product of the colonialist and imperialist system. The contradiction between the Black masses in the United States and the U.S. ruling circles is a class contradiction. Only by overthrowing the reactionary rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class and destroying the colonialist and imperialist system can the Black people in the United States win complete emancipation. The Black masses and the masses of white working people in the United States have common interests and common objectives to struggle for. Therefore, the Afro-American struggle is winning sympathy and support from increasing numbers of white working people and progressives in the United States. The struggle of the Black people in the United States is bound to merge with the American workers’ movement, and this will eventually end the criminal rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class.

    In 1963, in the “Statement Supporting the Afro-Americans in Their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism,” I said that the “the evil system of colonialism and imperialism arose and throve with the enslavement of Negroes and the trade in Negroes, and it will surely come to its end with the complete emancipation of the Black people.” I still maintain this view.

    At present, the world revolution has entered a great new era. The struggle of the Black people in the United States for emancipation is a component part of the general struggle of all the people of the world against U.S. imperialism, a component part of the contemporary world revolution. I call on the workers, peasants, and revolutionary intellectuals of all countries and all who are willing to fight against U.S. imperialism to take action and extend strong support to the struggle of the Black people in the United States! People of the whole world, unite still more closely and launch a sustained and vigorous offensive against our common enemy, U.S. imperialism, and its accomplices! It can be said with certainty that the complete collapse of colonialism, imperialism, and all systems of exploitation, and the complete emancipation of all the oppressed peoples and nations of the world are not far off.

  • Florida Students Advance Tuition Equity Campaign

    Gainesville, FL — Students at the University of Florida successfully advanced their campaign of tuition equity for undocumented students. Leading student organizations joined together to pass a resolution through Student Government in favor of tuition equality.

    Currently, an undocumented immigrant student who grows up in Florida must pay out-of-state tuition to take classes at the Florida institution, despite graduating from a Florida high school. Out-of-state tuition costs three times that of in-state tuition, a hefty price to pay.

    University of Florida Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) members joined by members of CHISPAS, Hispanic Student Association, Asian Student Union and Black Student Union all spoke on behalf of the resolution during public debate.

    Conor Munro, a lead organizer of SDS and author of the resolution, spoke persuasively to the student senators on the issue, “These students have worked just as hard as any student graduating from high school, they deserve the chance to continue to seek higher education.”

    The resolution passed with an overwhelming 73-3 vote count.

    With student support on their side, UF SDS now looks forward to approaching the Board of Trustees, with the power to change tuition policy and make it fair. SDS plans to mobilize for the Board meeting, demanding, “Tuition Equity for Undocumented Students!”

  • Top 5 progressive horror films for activists on Halloween

    Odds are that Karl Marx would have enjoyed horror movies.

    The German revolutionary and author of The Communist Manifesto died almost 40 years before the release of Nosferatu, the first commercially successful horror movie. But as a harsh critic of capitalism and colonialism, Marx was familiar with his fair share of real life horrors perpetrated by the capitalist class on working and oppressed people. 100 years before Night of the Living Dead, Marx was already likening capitalist oppression to the undead: “Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.”

    About a century later, Malcolm X would echo these sentiments and say, “Show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker.” For Malcolm X and other freedom fighters throughout history, the system of imperialism faced by African Americans and other oppressed people was a real-life house of horrors full of violence and exploitation, literally sucking the life out of its victims. It’s precisely this reflection of the real conditions of oppression around us, especially in the U.S., that make horror films so interesting for activists and revolutionaries.

    All movies reflect the culture, politics and conditions around them, but horror films in particular reflect our collective fears as a society – and sometimes the fears that our rulers want us to have. For instance, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is only remembered now as an early slasher film. But in 1974 when it was released, the story was a terrifyingly exaggerated reflection of people’s real concerns: five young hippie kids go looking for gasoline after their car breaks down in Texas – a very common problem given the gas shortages from the 1973 oil embargo – and get terrorized by a family of unemployed meatpackers, who turned to maniacal violence only after losing their jobs to technology and outsourcing by the 1%.

    Sometimes horror films reflect the genuinely terrifying outlook of the right wing. The wave of slasher flicks in the 1980s reflected the rise of Ronald Reagan and the Christian Right, who violently imposed their vision of trickle-down economics and ‘family values’ on women, poor and working people and the youth. Similarly, The Exorcist (1973) was a thinly-veiled reactionary statement against single working mothers and the threat that science posed to conservative religious orthodoxy.

    The post-9/11 period featured horror films eerily reflective of the things people saw on the news, whether it was terrorists on video tapes (The Ring), exploding buildings in Manhattan (Cloverfield), torture (Saw, Hostel), or right-wing religious fanatics (The Mist).

    Today, it’s no surprise that the most successful horror films since the 2008 economic crisis all dealt with insecurity about people’s homes – whether its bankers haunted by the victims of foreclosures in Drag Me To Hell or traditional haunted house flicks like Insidious, Paranormal Activity, Sinister and The Conjuring.

    A few horror films particularly reflect what Malcolm X called “the American nightmare” of exploitation and oppression. Social justice activists can use these films as a jumping-off point for conversations about the very real horrific imperialist system that we face today. For activists looking for a couple of scary but socially-conscious movies for Halloween 2013, I present the top five most progressive horror movies:

    5. The Purge (2013)

    It didn’t seem right not putting a recent horror flick on this list, and The Purge holds its own with the rest of the list. Written like an episode of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, the film takes place in a dystopian future U.S. where a fascist group called the New Founding Fathers seized state power in a coup and implemented an annual, 12-hour event called “the purge.” During the purge, all criminal activity – including murder – becomes legal, which allows the rich to literally hunt down the poor or hide away in expensive defense fortresses that only they can afford. The Purge follows the lives of a wealthy family that gets attacked by a fascist gang of racist vigilantes after they give refuge to an African American man during the night. In the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin and the outrageous Zimmerman verdict, The Purge has some genuinely scary and disturbing moments that make us reflect on the real police and vigilante violence inflicted on African Americans, Latinos and other oppressed nationalities every day.

    4. Tales From the Hood (1995)

    Tales From the Hood was Spike Lee’s entry into the horror genre and although it’s not necessarily the scariest film because of its occasionally tongue-in-cheek humor, it stands out as one of the most anti-racist horror films ever made. Tales From the Hood is told as an anthology, the premise being that three gang members are told four stories by a funeral home owner named Mr. Simms. The stories range from the ghost of a civil rights activist haunting the police officers who murdered him to the souls of dead slaves exacting revenge on a Ku Klux Klan politician, who converts an old slave plantation into his office. The most striking part of the film is that although some of the horror elements are over the top, like the use of ghosts, none of the disturbing stories are unrealistic. Police or racist vigilantes murder African Americans every 36 hours, and many of the politicians in office today have extensive connections to fascist groups like the Klan. Tales From the Hood had a poor theatrical run, but it’s made a comeback on Netflix and deserves a Halloween viewing by activists in the US.

    3. George Romero’s Dead Series (1968, 1978, 1985, 2005)

    I cheated a little with this entry by rolling four films into one, but I can’t preference one of Romero’s four classic zombie films over the others. Night of the Living Dead (1968) feels very dated and hardly scary anymore, but activists will still find its commentary on racism and national oppression powerful today. The not-so-subtle Dawn of the Dead (1978) is an extended critique of rampant consumerism and Day of the Dead (1985) asks the audience to consider whether the U.S. military is a greater threat to humanity than the undead ‘enemies’ they claim to fight. Land of the Dead brings it all together in a zombie-filled class war that also comments on the U.S.’s destructive immigration policies. Some of the films are scarier than others, but all four are required viewing for activist horror fans.

    2. Candyman (1992)

    Set predominantly in a Chicago public housing project, Candyman on its face is about an urban legend involving a hook-handed killer who appears when you say his name five times into a mirror. In actuality, this underrated early 90s classic harshly criticizes white liberal racism and academia’s fixation on studying – but never solving – poverty and national oppression. Candyman, seemingly the villain of the film, is actually the victim of racist violence by a lynch mob. The real villains are the middle and upper class academics, whose discrimination and condescension towards poor people in the community actually exacerbates their oppression. Terrifying and surprisingly nuanced, Candyman is a horror movie staple for any social justice advocate.

    1. Alien (1979)

    Alien is the most progressive horror film I’ve ever seen, hands down. Ridley Scott’s masterpiece features truckers and miners in space who get sent on a suicide mission by their corporate employers to retrieve a deadly alien. The most oppressed workers are African Americans and women and they’re also the people who survive the longest. The film features Sigourney Weaver as Lieutenant Ellen Ripley, a strong female fighter who essentially organizes her co-workers to revolt against the company’s plan to capture the titular alien. Set more than 100 years in the future, the concerns of the workers on board the Nostromo echo those of Wal-Mart cashiers, UPS part-timers and fast-food workers in the U.S. today – poverty wages, wage theft, and in the case of the Nostromo Crew, incredibly unsafe working conditions. Alien still holds up as a genuinely scary film, but the real draw for activists is its fairly explicit anti-capitalist, pro-worker message.

  • FARC welcomes the National Forum on the problem of illicit drugs

    Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Peace Delegation of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The statement is addressed to a conference on the problem of illicit drugs which is taking place Bogotá, Colombia.

    The peace negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian government are taking place in Havana, Cuba.

    FARC-EP welcomes the National Forum on the problem of illicit drugs

    Havana, Cuba, site of the peace talks, September 25, 2013

    The peace delegation of the FARC-EP welcomes the participants of the National Forum “Solution to the problem of illicit drugs”, wishing you success, in the idea that its conclusions should provide important tools for discussion on this subject within the framework of the General Agreement of Havana, signed between the national government and our insurgent organization to advance in the dialogues towards a stable and lasting peace for Colombia

    Our intention, in incorporating this point in the Agenda, parts of an overall vision on the crisis of the Colombian capitalist model and its political regime, which have created the conditions for the so-called drug-trafficking to be a socioeconomic reality, in which vast sectors of the population participate by necessity. Different segments of transnational and oligarchic power adopt attitudes and make policies that have stimulated deformations in our economy with its subsequent negative impact on the poorest part of society.

    Our point of departure is to condemn drug trafficking and we participate in the active political battle aimed at unmasking the fallacies and contents of the so-called War on Drugs, as it’s called by the current U.S. policy, country that invented this media matrix aimed at giving its interventionist and imperialist strategies a new look.

    According to our point of view, it is the development of the same old script according to which, in the past, the problem was the so-called war against communism, or the defense of the interests of United States’ citizens, as paltry excuses to unleash wars of subjugation against weaker nations. Today, the fight against drug trafficking and terrorism from that part of the country that most consumes narcotic and uses terror as a weapon of domination, are excuses for the development of an imperialist, expansionist strategy, to achieve economic and military domination over the world.

    With these old concerns, the policy of the U.S. military and its local subsidiaries is unfolded, and its development is complemented by the guidelines outlined in the strategy map of the Southern Command. And it is within this strategy that the Yankee Military Bases on our national territory have been created and now strengthened; it’s within this determination that the Southern Command laid its eyes on the military base of Palanquero, reinforcing it, arguing that they are developing an “old security and cooperation agreement with Colombia”. It is within this strategy that the bases of Larandia and Tres Esquinas have been deployed, which are now conceived as Yankee bases, together with military points like Barrancón (Guaviare), Bahía Málaga, the Cartagena naval station, the Malambo air base or bases like Tolemaida and Apiay, among others.

    We recall these data, considering that under the signature of a peace agreement, we must incorporate the issue of resolving the problem of illicit drugs inevitably linking it to integral agrarian reform, but mostly and mainly, to the issue of respect for national sovereignty.

    The whole history of our concern to solve a social problem that has its roots in the endemic misery imposed by the regime, forces us to emphatically reject the perverse intention of some media to reduce the issue that is being discussed today, to the idea that this is a matter in which the responsibility of its creation and continuation corresponds to the guerrillas, creating the misconception that it is in our hands to solve such a complex phenomenon whose causes, as we have stated before, are to be found in poverty, inequality and exclusion imposed by the ruling classes to the majorities.

    To discharge the main force of the combat on the weakest link, located in the poorest regions of underdeveloped countries, and against peasants who have had to resort to such crops by physical absence of economic alternatives, is not only a mistake and injustice of the size of the Mariannes Abyss in the Pacific, but a true act of cynicism and hypocrisy of countries, states, institutions and individuals who profit directly or indirectly from trafficking, but who, in an embarrassing way, try to show results attacking those who have the least responsibility in this business, generating true false positives.

    The equitable distribution of land, equipped with road infrastructure, storage facilities, hospitals, schools, colleges and universities as well as an economic policy aimed at ensuring supportive prices, subsidies and grants, comprehensive and universal social security, technical and mechanical assistance are all measures, feasible and probable, that with the participation of the affected communities allow creating the necessary conditions for a solution that addresses the real causes.

    Determining the origin and essence of the phenomenon that brings us together here is very important, if there really exists willpower to resolve it thoroughly. Let’s look at two central aspects of the problem:

    First, drug-trafficking is a capitalist business as a whole, which produces more than 600 billion dollars a year in profit. Virtually all of this money is laundered through the global financial system and organically linked to economic circuits, knowing its origin. More than 95% of these earnings are for the imperialist financial centers, mainly in the United States, and the remaining 5% is basically appropriated by business, banking and investment companies, created by drug-traffickers in partnership with entrepreneurs and traditional politicians that serve as proxies.

    Second, the drug-trafficking, based on transformation of natural plants into psychoactive drugs is a business that works in stages or levels, ranging from the cultivation of raw materials, through processing and transport to marketing and distribution in the consumption centers of the developed countries, which is also where, in economic terms, the goods are made, and it is with this capital that the process starts again.This is the drug-trafficking that is being fought against, and not the mega-industry of synthetic drugs.

    Why don’t we observe the peculiar and relevant fact that the elite, coming from the highest levels of financial capital, when they are making their policies of national security organizations, they also connect them with international drug cartels, which extract annually 8,000 tons of opium in U.S. war zones, and wash 500 billion dollars using transnational banks, half of which are located in the U.S.? Only with common sense we could find the best solution to this problem. Let’s hope that such quality can still be found even in those stratospheric circles of society, to which the Colombian elites serve.

    On behalf of the FARC-EP, we ratify our clear willingness to move forward in the peace talks, on the route of changes, reforms to the economic and political structures that are the roots of the Colombian conflict. This is a principle that is signed by the parties in the preamble of the General Agreement, which guides the discussions and clearly calls for the participation of all Colombians without distinction in building what may become a true Peace Treaty for our country.

    PEACE DELEGATION FARC-EP

  • FARC welcomes the National Forum on the problem of illicit drugs

    Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Peace Delegation of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The statement is addressed to a conference on the problem of illicit drugs which is taking place Bogotá, Colombia.

    The peace negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian government are taking place in Havana, Cuba.

    FARC-EP welcomes the National Forum on the problem of illicit drugs

    Havana, Cuba, site of the peace talks, September 25, 2013

    The peace delegation of the FARC-EP welcomes the participants of the National Forum “Solution to the problem of illicit drugs”, wishing you success, in the idea that its conclusions should provide important tools for discussion on this subject within the framework of the General Agreement of Havana, signed between the national government and our insurgent organization to advance in the dialogues towards a stable and lasting peace for Colombia

    Our intention, in incorporating this point in the Agenda, parts of an overall vision on the crisis of the Colombian capitalist model and its political regime, which have created the conditions for the so-called drug-trafficking to be a socioeconomic reality, in which vast sectors of the population participate by necessity. Different segments of transnational and oligarchic power adopt attitudes and make policies that have stimulated deformations in our economy with its subsequent negative impact on the poorest part of society.

    Our point of departure is to condemn drug trafficking and we participate in the active political battle aimed at unmasking the fallacies and contents of the so-called War on Drugs, as it’s called by the current U.S. policy, country that invented this media matrix aimed at giving its interventionist and imperialist strategies a new look.

    According to our point of view, it is the development of the same old script according to which, in the past, the problem was the so-called war against communism, or the defense of the interests of United States’ citizens, as paltry excuses to unleash wars of subjugation against weaker nations. Today, the fight against drug trafficking and terrorism from that part of the country that most consumes narcotic and uses terror as a weapon of domination, are excuses for the development of an imperialist, expansionist strategy, to achieve economic and military domination over the world.

    With these old concerns, the policy of the U.S. military and its local subsidiaries is unfolded, and its development is complemented by the guidelines outlined in the strategy map of the Southern Command. And it is within this strategy that the Yankee Military Bases on our national territory have been created and now strengthened; it’s within this determination that the Southern Command laid its eyes on the military base of Palanquero, reinforcing it, arguing that they are developing an “old security and cooperation agreement with Colombia”. It is within this strategy that the bases of Larandia and Tres Esquinas have been deployed, which are now conceived as Yankee bases, together with military points like Barrancón (Guaviare), Bahía Málaga, the Cartagena naval station, the Malambo air base or bases like Tolemaida and Apiay, among others.

    We recall these data, considering that under the signature of a peace agreement, we must incorporate the issue of resolving the problem of illicit drugs inevitably linking it to integral agrarian reform, but mostly and mainly, to the issue of respect for national sovereignty.

    The whole history of our concern to solve a social problem that has its roots in the endemic misery imposed by the regime, forces us to emphatically reject the perverse intention of some media to reduce the issue that is being discussed today, to the idea that this is a matter in which the responsibility of its creation and continuation corresponds to the guerrillas, creating the misconception that it is in our hands to solve such a complex phenomenon whose causes, as we have stated before, are to be found in poverty, inequality and exclusion imposed by the ruling classes to the majorities.

    To discharge the main force of the combat on the weakest link, located in the poorest regions of underdeveloped countries, and against peasants who have had to resort to such crops by physical absence of economic alternatives, is not only a mistake and injustice of the size of the Mariannes Abyss in the Pacific, but a true act of cynicism and hypocrisy of countries, states, institutions and individuals who profit directly or indirectly from trafficking, but who, in an embarrassing way, try to show results attacking those who have the least responsibility in this business, generating true false positives.

    The equitable distribution of land, equipped with road infrastructure, storage facilities, hospitals, schools, colleges and universities as well as an economic policy aimed at ensuring supportive prices, subsidies and grants, comprehensive and universal social security, technical and mechanical assistance are all measures, feasible and probable, that with the participation of the affected communities allow creating the necessary conditions for a solution that addresses the real causes.

    Determining the origin and essence of the phenomenon that brings us together here is very important, if there really exists willpower to resolve it thoroughly. Let’s look at two central aspects of the problem:

    First, drug-trafficking is a capitalist business as a whole, which produces more than 600 billion dollars a year in profit. Virtually all of this money is laundered through the global financial system and organically linked to economic circuits, knowing its origin. More than 95% of these earnings are for the imperialist financial centers, mainly in the United States, and the remaining 5% is basically appropriated by business, banking and investment companies, created by drug-traffickers in partnership with entrepreneurs and traditional politicians that serve as proxies.

    Second, the drug-trafficking, based on transformation of natural plants into psychoactive drugs is a business that works in stages or levels, ranging from the cultivation of raw materials, through processing and transport to marketing and distribution in the consumption centers of the developed countries, which is also where, in economic terms, the goods are made, and it is with this capital that the process starts again.This is the drug-trafficking that is being fought against, and not the mega-industry of synthetic drugs.

    Why don’t we observe the peculiar and relevant fact that the elite, coming from the highest levels of financial capital, when they are making their policies of national security organizations, they also connect them with international drug cartels, which extract annually 8,000 tons of opium in U.S. war zones, and wash 500 billion dollars using transnational banks, half of which are located in the U.S.? Only with common sense we could find the best solution to this problem. Let’s hope that such quality can still be found even in those stratospheric circles of society, to which the Colombian elites serve.

    On behalf of the FARC-EP, we ratify our clear willingness to move forward in the peace talks, on the route of changes, reforms to the economic and political structures that are the roots of the Colombian conflict. This is a principle that is signed by the parties in the preamble of the General Agreement, which guides the discussions and clearly calls for the participation of all Colombians without distinction in building what may become a true Peace Treaty for our country.

    PEACE DELEGATION FARC-EP