For the past few weeks a sometimes comic debate has simmering in the American press, focused on the question of whether there is an Israeli lobby, and if so, just how powerful is it?
I would have thought that to ask whether there's an Israeli lobby here is a bit like asking whether there's a Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor and a White House located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC. For the past sixty years the Lobby has been as fixed a part of the American scene as either of the other two monuments, and not infrequently exercising as much if not more influence on the onward march of history.
The late Steve Smith, brother in law of Teddy Kennedy, and a powerful figure in the Democratic Party for several decades, liked to tell the story of how a group of four Jewish businessmen got together two million dollars in cash and gave it to Harry Truman when he was in desperate need of money amidst his presidential campaign in 1948. Truman went on to become president and to express his gratitude to his Zionist backers.
Since those days the Democratic Party has long been hospitable to, and supported by rich Zionists. In 2002, for example, Haim Saban, the Israel-American who funds the Saban Center at the Brooking Institute and is a big contributor to AIPAC, gave $12.3 million to the Democratic Party. In 2001, the magazine Mother Jones listed on its web site the 400 leading contributors to the 2000 national elections. Seven of the first 10 were Jewish, as were 12 of the top 20 and 125 of the top 250. Given this, all prudent candidates have gone to amazing lengths to satisfy their demands. There have been famous disputes, as between President Jimmy Carter and Menachem Begin, and famous vendettas, as when the Lobby destroyed the political careers of Representative Paul Findley and of Senator Charles Percy because they were deemed to be anti-Israel.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
BOLIVIA'S RADICAL REALIGNMENT UNDER EVO MORALES
BOLIVIA'S RADICAL REALIGNMENT UNDER EVO MORALES
Roger Burbach considers the reasons for Bolivian President Evo Morales's decision on 1 May to nationalize the country's petroleum and natural gas resources. He says that the decision is set to dramatically reshape Bolivia's destiny and serves notice on Washington that Bolivia "is becoming part of a radical bloc of nations in Latin America that are no longer subservient to the United States".
Mexico welcomed fugitive slaves and African American job-seekers by Ron Wilkins, Patrice Lumumba Coalition
Mexico welcomed fugitive slaves and African American job-seekers
New perspectives on the immigration debate
by Ron Wilkins, Patrice Lumumba Coalition
New perspectives on the immigration debate
by Ron Wilkins, Patrice Lumumba Coalition
In 1829, AfroMexican President Vicente Guerrero signed a decree banning slavery in the Mexican Republic.There are, of course, many angles from which to view the escalating immigration debate. Mexican immigrants, who constitute the largest share of the undocumented, have a unique history with the African population inside the United States. As the Black community weighs in on this very contentious issue, it becomes necessary for us - both black and brown - to review the history that we share.
However, before reviewing our history together, I need to say unequivocally that the U.S. seizure of more than half of Mexico's territory in 1848 netted Washington more than 80 percent of Mexico's fertile land and was a criminal act. And that if Mexico today still included California and Texas, she would possess more oil than Saudi Arabia and have sufficient economic infrastructure to employ all of her people.
When Mexican people say that "the border crossed us, we did not cross the border," they speak the truth, and more Black people - most of whom are not strangers to oppression, exploitation, domination and exclusion - need to appreciate that.
Hillary Clinton Whore$ for Rupert Murdoch (And Murdoch Whore$ for Hill.)
Hillary Clinton Whore$ for Rupert Murdoch
(And Murdoch Whore$ for Hill.)
(And Murdoch Whore$ for Hill.)
Check this out.
Hillary doesn't get it. There are some things you just don't do!
Murdoch to host fundraiser for Hillary Clinton campaign
A Just War? Hardly - by Noam Chomsky
Spurred by these times of invasions and evasions, discussion of "just war" has had a renaissance among scholars and even among policy-makers.
Concepts aside, actions in the real world all too often reinforce the maxim of Thucydides that "the strong do as they can, while the weak suffer what they must" — which is not only indisputably unjust, but at the present stage of human civilization, a literal threat to the survival of the species.
In his highly praised reflections on just war, Michael Walzer describes the invasion of Afghanistan as "a triumph of just war theory," standing alongside Kosovo as a "just war." Unfortunately, in these two cases, as throughout, his arguments rely crucially on premises like "seems to me entirely justified," or "I believe" or "no doubt."
Facts are ignored, even the most obvious ones. Consider Afghanistan. As the bombing began in October 2001, President Bush warned Afghans that it would continue until they handed over people that the US suspected of terrorism.
The word "suspected" is important. Eight months later, FBI head Robert S. Mueller III told editors at The Washington Post that after what must have been the most intense manhunt in history, "We think the masterminds of (the Sept. 11 attacks) were in Afghanistan, high in the al-Qaida leadership. Plotters and others — the principals — came together in Germany and perhaps elsewhere."
What was still unclear in June 2002 could not have been known definitively the preceding October, though few doubted at once that it was true. Nor did I, for what it’s worth, but surmise and evidence are two different things. At least it seems fair to say that the circumstances raise a question about whether bombing Afghans was a transparent example of "just war."
Walzer’s arguments are directed to unnamed targets — for example, campus opponents who are "pacifists." He adds that their "pacifism" is a "bad argument," because he thinks violence is sometimes legitimate. We may well agree that violence is sometimes legitimate (I do), but "I think" is hardly an overwhelming argument in the real-world cases that he discusses.
By "just war," counterterrorism or some other rationale, the US exempts itself from the fundamental principles of world order that it played the primary role in formulating and enacting.
After World War II, a new regime of international law was instituted. Its provisions on laws of war are codified in the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg principles, adopted by the General Assembly. The Charter bars the threat or use of force unless authorized by the Security Council or, under Article 51, in self-defense against armed attack until the Security Council acts.
In 2004, a high level UN panel, including, among others, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, concluded that "Article 51 needs neither extension nor restriction of its long-understood scope ... In a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order and the norm of nonintervention on which it continues to be based is simply too great for the legality of unilateral preventive action, as distinct from collectively endorsed action, to be accepted. Allowing one to so act is to allow all."
The National Security Strategy of September 2002, just largely reiterated in March, grants the US the right to carry out what it calls "pre-emptive war," which means not pre-emptive, but "preventive war." That’s the right to commit aggression, plain and simple.
In the wording of the Nuremberg Tribunal, aggression is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" — all the evil in the tortured land of Iraq that flowed from the US-UK invasion, for example.
The concept of aggression was defined clearly enough by US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who was chief prosecutor for the United States at Nuremberg. The concept was restated in an authoritative General Assembly resolution. An "aggressor," Jackson proposed to the tribunal, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as "invasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State."
That applies to the invasion of Iraq. Also relevant are Justice Jackson’s eloquent words at Nuremberg: "If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us." And elsewhere: "We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."
For the political leadership, the threat of adherence to these principles — and to the rule of law in general — is serious indeed. Or it would be, if anyone dared to defy "the single ruthless superpower whose leadership intends to shape the world according to its own forceful world view," as Reuven Pedatzur wrote in Haaretz last May.
Let me state a couple of simple truths. The first is that actions are evaluated in terms of the range of likely consequences. A second is the principle of universality; we apply to ourselves the same standards we apply to others, if not more stringent ones.
Apart from being the merest truisms, these principles are also the foundation of just war theory, at least any version of it that deserves to be taken seriously.
Noam Chomsky, the eminent intellectual and author, most recently, of "Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy," is a professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
Concepts aside, actions in the real world all too often reinforce the maxim of Thucydides that "the strong do as they can, while the weak suffer what they must" — which is not only indisputably unjust, but at the present stage of human civilization, a literal threat to the survival of the species.
In his highly praised reflections on just war, Michael Walzer describes the invasion of Afghanistan as "a triumph of just war theory," standing alongside Kosovo as a "just war." Unfortunately, in these two cases, as throughout, his arguments rely crucially on premises like "seems to me entirely justified," or "I believe" or "no doubt."
Facts are ignored, even the most obvious ones. Consider Afghanistan. As the bombing began in October 2001, President Bush warned Afghans that it would continue until they handed over people that the US suspected of terrorism.
The word "suspected" is important. Eight months later, FBI head Robert S. Mueller III told editors at The Washington Post that after what must have been the most intense manhunt in history, "We think the masterminds of (the Sept. 11 attacks) were in Afghanistan, high in the al-Qaida leadership. Plotters and others — the principals — came together in Germany and perhaps elsewhere."
What was still unclear in June 2002 could not have been known definitively the preceding October, though few doubted at once that it was true. Nor did I, for what it’s worth, but surmise and evidence are two different things. At least it seems fair to say that the circumstances raise a question about whether bombing Afghans was a transparent example of "just war."
Walzer’s arguments are directed to unnamed targets — for example, campus opponents who are "pacifists." He adds that their "pacifism" is a "bad argument," because he thinks violence is sometimes legitimate. We may well agree that violence is sometimes legitimate (I do), but "I think" is hardly an overwhelming argument in the real-world cases that he discusses.
By "just war," counterterrorism or some other rationale, the US exempts itself from the fundamental principles of world order that it played the primary role in formulating and enacting.
After World War II, a new regime of international law was instituted. Its provisions on laws of war are codified in the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg principles, adopted by the General Assembly. The Charter bars the threat or use of force unless authorized by the Security Council or, under Article 51, in self-defense against armed attack until the Security Council acts.
In 2004, a high level UN panel, including, among others, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, concluded that "Article 51 needs neither extension nor restriction of its long-understood scope ... In a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order and the norm of nonintervention on which it continues to be based is simply too great for the legality of unilateral preventive action, as distinct from collectively endorsed action, to be accepted. Allowing one to so act is to allow all."
The National Security Strategy of September 2002, just largely reiterated in March, grants the US the right to carry out what it calls "pre-emptive war," which means not pre-emptive, but "preventive war." That’s the right to commit aggression, plain and simple.
In the wording of the Nuremberg Tribunal, aggression is "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" — all the evil in the tortured land of Iraq that flowed from the US-UK invasion, for example.
The concept of aggression was defined clearly enough by US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who was chief prosecutor for the United States at Nuremberg. The concept was restated in an authoritative General Assembly resolution. An "aggressor," Jackson proposed to the tribunal, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as "invasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State."
That applies to the invasion of Iraq. Also relevant are Justice Jackson’s eloquent words at Nuremberg: "If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us." And elsewhere: "We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."
For the political leadership, the threat of adherence to these principles — and to the rule of law in general — is serious indeed. Or it would be, if anyone dared to defy "the single ruthless superpower whose leadership intends to shape the world according to its own forceful world view," as Reuven Pedatzur wrote in Haaretz last May.
Let me state a couple of simple truths. The first is that actions are evaluated in terms of the range of likely consequences. A second is the principle of universality; we apply to ourselves the same standards we apply to others, if not more stringent ones.
Apart from being the merest truisms, these principles are also the foundation of just war theory, at least any version of it that deserves to be taken seriously.
Noam Chomsky, the eminent intellectual and author, most recently, of "Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy," is a professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
Hillary Clinton defends Rupert Murdoch and says Bush has charm: Who's Party?
Hillary Clinton: Who's Party?
Rubbing shoulders with the "Conservative" elite and "opposition" Republicans
Steve Watson | May 10 2006
Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media mogul whose New York Post tabloid savaged Hillary Clinton’s initial aspirations to become a US senator for New York, has agreed to host a political fundraiser for her re-election campaign, reports the Financial Times.
Such elite back slapping and shoulder rubbing again highlights that when it comes to getting ahead it pays to be on the same page.
The notion that leading Democrats and Republicans are in opposition is ludicrous. The belief that a true left / right paradigm still exists in global politics is as antiquated as a grandfather clock in a coffin.
The Anglo-American aristocracy, big businesses and banks have long been pulling the strings behind the curtain in the theatre of politics and underlings such as the Clintons and the Bushes know what they have to do to satisfy their desire for political control.
Recently Hillary has also been spotted partying at Fox News, with Murdoch and his cronies, and buddying up with the very same Republicans who vociferously tried to get her husband impeached for having sex with another woman.
Whilst her husband has been hanging around with the Bushes, Hillary has also been living it up with the likes of Newt Gingrich, Bill Frist, John McCain and Rick Santorum. There is clearly a bipartisan move underway to shift public perception.
Hillary Clinton supports every Bush policy with as much if not more zeal.
She supported the war and recently again stated that American troops should be kept in Iraq as more sons, daughters, mothers and fathers return in body bags hidden from the media.
"Hillary Clinton today holds the new North American record for fakery," wrote Newsday columnist Jimmy Breslin. "She copies. She sneaks and slithers past you with her opinion on a war that kills every day."
We can make a strong case that Bush and his cadre have set some precedents, but the Democratic opposition offers little hope. Bush spies on Americans with no regard for the Bill of Rights or even the meager statutory restraints imposed on him, and all the Democrats do is whine that they weren’t in on the snooping, and that next time they want to be informed. Of course, they have an interest in keeping the police state healthy and strong. The idea that Hillary Clinton would be more sensitive to civil liberties if she were at the empire’s helm is too absurd for words.
Republican Senators cited Hillary Clinton as the reason for opposing the renewal of the Patriot Act, saying Mrs. Clinton is likely to abuse the security measure if she becomes president - unless additional safeguards are built in.
We have continually exposed how Clinton and the Bushes personally profited from massive drug smuggling operations through Mena, whilst Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. Alex Jones has interviewed multiple former CIA officers who were UNLOADING the cocaine. Bush Snr, then Vice President, met ELEVEN times with the Clintons in the year before Clinton announced his run for President. Teenagers Don Henry and Kevin Ives were murdered for accidentally witnessing a CIA cocaine smuggling operation in Mena. Bill Clinton aided in the cover up, as well as the money laundering. The Clinton-Bush relationship is a long and fruitful one.
The Clintons and the Bushes have been known to vacation together in more recent times. Earlier this year on CBS, Clinton revealed that he looks upon the Bushes as a surrogate family, and how Barbara Bush refers to him as "her son". Is this really a picture of two distinct and opposed political ideologies pitted against one another?
Last year George W invited both Clintons as guests of honor and praised them to the hilt as he unveiled portraits of the two to be hung in the White House. Bush described him as having "...a great compassion for people in need... a man of enthusiasm and warmth". This after Bush's 2000 campaign was built around Clinton having no honor or dignity whilst in the White House.
Festivities continued in November 2004 when the entire Bush family journeyed to Little Rock for the opening of the Clinton Presidential Library. The praise from both President Bushes for Bill Clinton was sick bag overwhelming. "The William J. Clinton Presidential Library is a gift to the future by a man who always believed in the future and today we thank him for loving and serving America." Bush 43 was quoted.
After this Bush Snr and former President Bill Clinton joined forces for Tsunami Relief. They appeared at last year's Super Bowl and seemed to be having a blast together. They declared their friendship; we learn they talk on the phone often, play golf together and are just plain ‘pals.'
The Washington Times revealed that the current President even takes foreign policy advice from Clinton, along with his father, and lets them sit in on CIA briefings.
They again teamed up last year to form a non partisan Katrina relief fund. Why is it that these two get to privately oversee the funds and relief efforts for major global disasters now? Perhaps one reason is that it allows them to personally and directly profit. It was reveled in March this year that Barbara Bush gave relief money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund on the condition that it be spent to buy educational software from her son Neil's company.
The tag team serves to create the impression that the two hands together can lift more stones, whilst backstage, behind the scenes both hands are scratching the proverbial behind of the New World Order.
These two families are desperate attention loving power mad elitists and want to retain control of their respective political parties. They are using each other to ‘soften' their disapproval in the opposite party. We have two simultaneous dynasties - the Bushes and the Clintons. The Bushes are the hand of the Republican arm and the Clintons the hand of the Democratic arm. The body is of course controlled by one mind that outranks them all, the corporate fascist elite.
Just as the two major parties - with isolated examples of winning third party candidates - control who can win elections, these two family dynasties control who can be nominated inside their respected parties.
There has not been an occupant in the White House outside of the Bush or Clinton families since 1988. This will seemingly continue through to 2012 and beyond. How can this be in a constitutional republic?
Police State policies such as the Patriot Act, put in place by Bush have set the stage for the next Clinton who will be able to exploit them to extremes far beyond the Republicans would ever dream of being able to. Under another Clinton a horrific event like that at Waco under William J could become an everyday occurrence.
The policies stay the same, the faces alternate. The elite system of control has worked this way for centuries, when it's time for a change one dynasty takes a backseat and the other moves forward.
Hillary Clinton Defends Rupert Murdoch Fund-Raiser
Hillary Clinton Says Bush Has Charm, Charisma
Rubbing shoulders with the "Conservative" elite and "opposition" Republicans
Steve Watson | May 10 2006
Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media mogul whose New York Post tabloid savaged Hillary Clinton’s initial aspirations to become a US senator for New York, has agreed to host a political fundraiser for her re-election campaign, reports the Financial Times.
Such elite back slapping and shoulder rubbing again highlights that when it comes to getting ahead it pays to be on the same page.
The notion that leading Democrats and Republicans are in opposition is ludicrous. The belief that a true left / right paradigm still exists in global politics is as antiquated as a grandfather clock in a coffin.
The Anglo-American aristocracy, big businesses and banks have long been pulling the strings behind the curtain in the theatre of politics and underlings such as the Clintons and the Bushes know what they have to do to satisfy their desire for political control.
Recently Hillary has also been spotted partying at Fox News, with Murdoch and his cronies, and buddying up with the very same Republicans who vociferously tried to get her husband impeached for having sex with another woman.
Whilst her husband has been hanging around with the Bushes, Hillary has also been living it up with the likes of Newt Gingrich, Bill Frist, John McCain and Rick Santorum. There is clearly a bipartisan move underway to shift public perception.
Hillary Clinton supports every Bush policy with as much if not more zeal.
She supported the war and recently again stated that American troops should be kept in Iraq as more sons, daughters, mothers and fathers return in body bags hidden from the media.
"Hillary Clinton today holds the new North American record for fakery," wrote Newsday columnist Jimmy Breslin. "She copies. She sneaks and slithers past you with her opinion on a war that kills every day."
We can make a strong case that Bush and his cadre have set some precedents, but the Democratic opposition offers little hope. Bush spies on Americans with no regard for the Bill of Rights or even the meager statutory restraints imposed on him, and all the Democrats do is whine that they weren’t in on the snooping, and that next time they want to be informed. Of course, they have an interest in keeping the police state healthy and strong. The idea that Hillary Clinton would be more sensitive to civil liberties if she were at the empire’s helm is too absurd for words.
Republican Senators cited Hillary Clinton as the reason for opposing the renewal of the Patriot Act, saying Mrs. Clinton is likely to abuse the security measure if she becomes president - unless additional safeguards are built in.
We have continually exposed how Clinton and the Bushes personally profited from massive drug smuggling operations through Mena, whilst Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. Alex Jones has interviewed multiple former CIA officers who were UNLOADING the cocaine. Bush Snr, then Vice President, met ELEVEN times with the Clintons in the year before Clinton announced his run for President. Teenagers Don Henry and Kevin Ives were murdered for accidentally witnessing a CIA cocaine smuggling operation in Mena. Bill Clinton aided in the cover up, as well as the money laundering. The Clinton-Bush relationship is a long and fruitful one.
The Clintons and the Bushes have been known to vacation together in more recent times. Earlier this year on CBS, Clinton revealed that he looks upon the Bushes as a surrogate family, and how Barbara Bush refers to him as "her son". Is this really a picture of two distinct and opposed political ideologies pitted against one another?
Last year George W invited both Clintons as guests of honor and praised them to the hilt as he unveiled portraits of the two to be hung in the White House. Bush described him as having "...a great compassion for people in need... a man of enthusiasm and warmth". This after Bush's 2000 campaign was built around Clinton having no honor or dignity whilst in the White House.
Festivities continued in November 2004 when the entire Bush family journeyed to Little Rock for the opening of the Clinton Presidential Library. The praise from both President Bushes for Bill Clinton was sick bag overwhelming. "The William J. Clinton Presidential Library is a gift to the future by a man who always believed in the future and today we thank him for loving and serving America." Bush 43 was quoted.
After this Bush Snr and former President Bill Clinton joined forces for Tsunami Relief. They appeared at last year's Super Bowl and seemed to be having a blast together. They declared their friendship; we learn they talk on the phone often, play golf together and are just plain ‘pals.'
The Washington Times revealed that the current President even takes foreign policy advice from Clinton, along with his father, and lets them sit in on CIA briefings.
They again teamed up last year to form a non partisan Katrina relief fund. Why is it that these two get to privately oversee the funds and relief efforts for major global disasters now? Perhaps one reason is that it allows them to personally and directly profit. It was reveled in March this year that Barbara Bush gave relief money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund on the condition that it be spent to buy educational software from her son Neil's company.
The tag team serves to create the impression that the two hands together can lift more stones, whilst backstage, behind the scenes both hands are scratching the proverbial behind of the New World Order.
These two families are desperate attention loving power mad elitists and want to retain control of their respective political parties. They are using each other to ‘soften' their disapproval in the opposite party. We have two simultaneous dynasties - the Bushes and the Clintons. The Bushes are the hand of the Republican arm and the Clintons the hand of the Democratic arm. The body is of course controlled by one mind that outranks them all, the corporate fascist elite.
Just as the two major parties - with isolated examples of winning third party candidates - control who can win elections, these two family dynasties control who can be nominated inside their respected parties.
There has not been an occupant in the White House outside of the Bush or Clinton families since 1988. This will seemingly continue through to 2012 and beyond. How can this be in a constitutional republic?
Police State policies such as the Patriot Act, put in place by Bush have set the stage for the next Clinton who will be able to exploit them to extremes far beyond the Republicans would ever dream of being able to. Under another Clinton a horrific event like that at Waco under William J could become an everyday occurrence.
The policies stay the same, the faces alternate. The elite system of control has worked this way for centuries, when it's time for a change one dynasty takes a backseat and the other moves forward.
Hillary Clinton Defends Rupert Murdoch Fund-Raiser
Hillary Clinton Says Bush Has Charm, Charisma
Ahmadinejad & Colbert
The letter from Iranian President Ahmadinejad to George Bush was covered in the media, unlike Stephen Colbert's equally scathing criticism, which was almost entirely ignored by the media. But they do have one thing in common--the media completely ignores their criticism of the media. If you look at the coverage of the Ahmadinejad letter in The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, or in USA Today (not to mention various cable channels on which I've seen coverage), here's the one quote you won't find mentioned at all--the one I led with yesterday:
"In media charters, correct dissemination of information and honest reporting of a story are established tenets. I express my deep regret about the disregard shown by certain Western media for these principles."Incidentally, while doing the research for this post, I was unfortunate enough to get my eyes and brain cells dirty reading the article in USA Today. Since I had to suffer for my art, I'll spread the pain around by just giving you a few of the phrases that appear in the article: "Part anti-U.S. diatribe and part religious screed...a naive leader whose beliefs stem from resentment and ignorance of the Western world...cheeky and presumptuous...lack of understanding of the West...feelings of resentment." My favorite sentence is this one: "Ahmadinejad criticizes the United States for alleged transgressions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Latin America and the Middle East." Yeah, "alleged." Man, that Ahmadinejad has a vivid imagination, doesn't he? I mean, who on earth thinks that the U.S. has committed transgressions at Guantanamo, and in Latin America and the Middle East? I mean, other than 99% of the world's population?
CIA proprietary aircraft involved in cocaine smuggling is linked to the illegal operations of convicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff...
WMR reported on April 21 on a major cocaine shipment, using a CIA proprietary aircraft, that landed in Mexico en route from Caracas, Venezuela with 5.5 tons of cocaine on board. The pilot was reported to have "escaped" from Mexican police. U.S. and foreign neo-con propaganda organs immediately tried to link the aircraft, a DC-9 that was sold to unknown persons in Venezuela by a Clearwater, Florida-based firm called Royal Sons, LLC, to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and Colombia's FARC guerrillas. The plane was painted in the colors and bore an insignia similar to those used by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The insignia identified the aircraft as "Sky Way Aircraft."
It has now been revealed by knowledgeable sources that Sky Way is affiliated with an off-shore company called DuPont Fund 57289, Inc., headed by a "Richard DuPont, Jr.," who likely does not exist. DuPont Fund is not affiliated with the DuPont business group or any subsidiaries of the multinational chemical firm. DuPont Fund is headquartered at Apartado 10455-1000 in San Jose, Costa Rica. This is the same address used by Red Sea Management, Ltd., an off-shore company and trust facilitator that is linked to another address -- 76 Dean Street in Belize City, Belize, which is apparently a post office box drop. Red Sea has a Cyprus-based subsidiary called Dark Sea Consultants that specializes in on-line gambling operations in the Middle East and East Asia. WMR sources report that this operation, involving cocaine smuggling and on-line gambling, is linked to the illegal operations of convicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, members of Russian-Israeli-Ukrainian crime syndicates, and top Republican elected officials, including Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, and others who benefited from the infusion of drug and gambling proceeds into their political war chests, as well as the financing of pay-offs and bribes to election officials in Florida, Ohio, and other states to buy the 2004 election for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
The editor reported on aspects of these operations following the 2004 election.
Election Fraud
Buying of election
Votergate
It has now been revealed by knowledgeable sources that Sky Way is affiliated with an off-shore company called DuPont Fund 57289, Inc., headed by a "Richard DuPont, Jr.," who likely does not exist. DuPont Fund is not affiliated with the DuPont business group or any subsidiaries of the multinational chemical firm. DuPont Fund is headquartered at Apartado 10455-1000 in San Jose, Costa Rica. This is the same address used by Red Sea Management, Ltd., an off-shore company and trust facilitator that is linked to another address -- 76 Dean Street in Belize City, Belize, which is apparently a post office box drop. Red Sea has a Cyprus-based subsidiary called Dark Sea Consultants that specializes in on-line gambling operations in the Middle East and East Asia. WMR sources report that this operation, involving cocaine smuggling and on-line gambling, is linked to the illegal operations of convicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, members of Russian-Israeli-Ukrainian crime syndicates, and top Republican elected officials, including Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, and others who benefited from the infusion of drug and gambling proceeds into their political war chests, as well as the financing of pay-offs and bribes to election officials in Florida, Ohio, and other states to buy the 2004 election for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
The editor reported on aspects of these operations following the 2004 election.
Election Fraud
Buying of election
Votergate
The Wealth Underground: Bolivian Gas in State and Corporate Hands Written by Benjamin Dangl
Years before the arrival of the Spanish, Bolivia's indigenous people used "magic water" to cure wounds and keep fires going. With the invention of the automobile in the 1880s this black liquid took on a new importance. Since then, the oil and gas has been more of a curse than a blessing for the Bolivian people. On May 1st of this year, the history of these resources entered a new phase.
USA 'secret' 200,000 AK47s gone missing vs. Venezuela's legitimate 100,000!
VHeadline.com reporters: The Pentagon's faux concern over a simple, legitimate purchase of 100,000 Russian-built AK-47 has been blown to the wind in today's revelation by the UK Daily Mirror posing the interesting question .. "Have 200,000 missing AK47s fallen into the hands of Ira terrorists?"
The Mirror's Emily Nash writes that some 200,000 guns the United States sent to Iraqi security forces may have been smuggled to terrorists, it was feared yesterday.
The 99-tonne cache of AK47s was to have been secretly flown from a US base in Bosnia ... but the four plane-loads of arms have vanished.
Orders for the deal to go ahead were given by the US Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via "a complex web of private arms traders."
The sheer quantity of the Pentagon-approved 'secret' arms deal contrasts strongly with Venezuela's recent order for 100,000 AK47s placed with the Russian manufacturers, bypassing US-based arms traders who would (obviously) have extracted their generous cut on the transaction.
The 'secrecy' surrounding the US deal on 200,000 AK47s also puts into cynical question how US Secretary of Defense can so glibly pontificate about Venezuela's defense requirements when the United States so freely ships the heavy-duty machine-guns from one US-led conflagration to another.
Not that we're surprised. The United States has been cynically supplying arms, logistics and intelligence to their "friends" in the Venezuelan opposition and elsewhere around the world while trying to tell the world that the USA is a 'model democracy' and that butter wouldn;t melt in George W. Bush's mouth.
We eagerly await the US State Department's frustration to 'damage control' the UK Daily Mirror's expose of Washington D.C. duplicity in the knowledge that it's another notch on the barrel of President Hugo Chavez six-shooter when it comes to running cowboy crooks like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld out of Latin America.
The Mirror's Emily Nash writes that some 200,000 guns the United States sent to Iraqi security forces may have been smuggled to terrorists, it was feared yesterday.
The 99-tonne cache of AK47s was to have been secretly flown from a US base in Bosnia ... but the four plane-loads of arms have vanished.
Orders for the deal to go ahead were given by the US Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via "a complex web of private arms traders."
The sheer quantity of the Pentagon-approved 'secret' arms deal contrasts strongly with Venezuela's recent order for 100,000 AK47s placed with the Russian manufacturers, bypassing US-based arms traders who would (obviously) have extracted their generous cut on the transaction.
The 'secrecy' surrounding the US deal on 200,000 AK47s also puts into cynical question how US Secretary of Defense can so glibly pontificate about Venezuela's defense requirements when the United States so freely ships the heavy-duty machine-guns from one US-led conflagration to another.
Not that we're surprised. The United States has been cynically supplying arms, logistics and intelligence to their "friends" in the Venezuelan opposition and elsewhere around the world while trying to tell the world that the USA is a 'model democracy' and that butter wouldn;t melt in George W. Bush's mouth.
We eagerly await the US State Department's frustration to 'damage control' the UK Daily Mirror's expose of Washington D.C. duplicity in the knowledge that it's another notch on the barrel of President Hugo Chavez six-shooter when it comes to running cowboy crooks like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld out of Latin America.
Washington May Soon Try to Pin the Venezuelan Uranium Tail on the Iranian Nuclear Donkey
Washington is no stranger to flimsy pretexts when it comes to justifying its ill-conceived, and at times illicit, Latin American initiatives. The contra epoch, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, Ollie North, former U.S. ambassador John Negroponte’s skullduggery in Honduras, and countless acts of chicanery aimed at Havana, Santiago, Grenada and Guatemala come to mind. A spate of articles tying Hugo Chávez to Iran’s covert nuclear program suggests that Washington may now be finding it increasingly difficult to resist further calumniating Venezuela by working to forge a new weapon for its anti-Caracas jihad. The only problem is that the basis for such a charge would be a complete concoction, more worthy to be put to work in Iraq, where anything goes, than in Latin America. Such a scenario would intimate that ties exist between alleged Venezuelan uranium supplies and the Iranian nuclear program. In other words, Caracas would be presented as a terrorist nation, illicitly involved in trafficking bootleg uranium to the pariah Iranian regime in exchange for nuclear devices and maybe other considerations.
STOP FUNDING & CLOSE THE NED! - What does the National Endowment for Democracy do?
STOP FUNDING & CLOSE THE NED!
Not one more penny to help undermine & destroy the hopes, dreams & work of millions of women & men creating a better life for each other & their children!
What does the National Endowment for Democracy do?
The NED was conceived by the Reagan Administration and subsequently created by an act of Congress in 1983. Despite being officially considered a "private" organization, the NED is funded by Congress using US tax dollars for at least 95% of its budget. We demand that they cut it off! As Alan Weinstein, an NED co-founder, told the Washington Post, "a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."
Consider this track record – only a glimpse at the NED's activities:
- In Nicaragua, in 1990, the NED spent $20 per voter in support of a rightist presidential candidate with an agenda to crush the popular movement. Part of this money was used to saturate the media with empty promises, lies, and, most notably, the threat of a continuation of the devastating US proxy Contra war, should the US candidate lose the election.
- The NED helped to overthrow governments in Bulgaria in 1990 and Albania in 1991 and 1992, and manipulated elections in Mongolia in 1996, all of which had been democratically elected.
- In Venezuela, the NED quadrupled its budget leading up to the coup against the elected presidency of Hugo Chavez in 2002, defeated by a popular uprising backed by soldiers loyal to the constitution. NED money was given to the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center, which only a month before the coup attempt brought together the leadership of a corrupt trade union federation (CTV) with a national alliance of business (FEDECAMERAS), two groups that played a key role in the coup. The NED also funded groups behind the crippling lock-out of oil workers later that year, and funded the recall referendum against Chavez in 2004 — which he handsomely defeated despite NED interference.
- In the Democratic Republic of Congo, where years of war have killed five million people, the NED spends about $1.5 million a year. These wars are maintained and exacerbated by Western corporate interests hungering for the DRC's rich wealth of resources.
- In Haiti, the International Republican Institute (IRI), one of the NED’s core groups, funded, convened, and coordinated organizations behind the overthrow of the elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. These organizations included owners of sweatshop industries, right wing politicos, former members and associates of death squads and brutal ex-military officers. Since that coup, over 10,000 Haitians have died. The AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center has only supported a labor organization that agitated for the ousting of Aristide, while failing to act against or condemn the massive persecution of grassroots Haitians, the majority of whom support Aristide.
- In Iraq, 50% of the NED’s current budget is spent supporting the US occupation. In the name of "democracy building", the NED funds parties, associations and union centers which are agreeable to conditions that favor US military and corporate interests. Independent union centers, for instance, are outlawed and suppressed, in defiance of the principle of workers' free choice of representation.
- In Cuba, both the IRI and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) have poured millions of dollars into efforts aimed at regime change and provocations against the Cuban people. These activities have increased exponentially under the Bush administration.
- In Peru, presidential candidate Ollanta Humala is currently under attack for alleged human rights abuses by organizations receiving funding from the NED and USAID for over a decade. Humala came in first in the initial electoral round, winning the votes of the poorest people, and is an ally of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Bolivian president Evo Morales. (Nothing was heard vs Humala until he spoke out for the poor majority.)
- The NED has even funded right wing movements in Western Europe, such as France in the 1980's.
The NED undermines democracy at home by working against democracy around the world. STOP THE FUNDING AND CLOSE IT DOWN!!!
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
World leaders suspect the Bush administration of involvement in the 911 attacks.
World leaders suspect the Bush administration of involvement in the 911 attacks. The first skeptics to question what role the Bush administration played in the 9-11 terrorist attacks were a few Cabinet ministers in the governments of America's NATO allies. They included German Science and Technology Minister Andreas Von Bulow and British Environment Minister Michael Meacher. They were joined by Belgian European Parliament Member Paul Lannoye.
However, in recent months the former Cabinet ministers have been joined in their skepticism about the "official" version of the 911 events by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. In March, Chavez said Venezuela will open an official investigation into the 9-11 attacks. Now, Chavez has been joined by Ahmedinejad, who in a recent letter to President George W. Bush, asked, "Why have the various aspects of the [9-11] attacks been kept secret?" Ahmedinejad indicated that the attacks could not have been carried out without the knowledge of the U.S. "security services."
The fact that the Venezuelan and Iranian leaders suspect Bush administration complicity in 9-11 is interesting. These leaders have at their disposal two highly-capable intelligence agencies. A major priority of the intelligence services of Venezuela and Iran (DISIP and VEVAK, respectively) is counter-intelligence against the United States. However, that is not likely where Venezuela and Iran may have gleaned information about who was behind the 9-11 attacks. Venezuela and Iran are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and a major priority of their intelligence services is collecting information on oil deals, including the Bush administration negotiations with the Taliban in Tashkent and Berlin prior to 9-11 that quickly went sour and likely provided the impetus for the Muslim insurgents to attack New York and Washington on 9-11. VEVAK, a sworn enemy of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, had successfully penetrated the Taliban's and Pakistan's security services and would have been well aware of the attack plans and any U.S. foreknowledge of them, including knowing about money movements from Pakistan to the hijackers in Florida. DISIP was well aware of the smuggling of cocaine from Colombia, trans-shipped on a Saudi diplomatic Boeing 737 through Venezuela, by Saudi Royal family members who then used the proceeds to support Al Qaeda's attack on America.
As more and more governments are wrested from the control of the global neo-cons -- Italy, Britain, Mexico, and others -- additional intelligence may be obtained from various espionage agencies that will prove that the Bush administration was not an idle bystander in the events that led up to 9-11.
International intelligence agencies and governments are realizing why Bush was more interested in "My Pet Goat" on the morning of 9-11.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
Warning to traveling Americans who refuse to claim they are Canadians -
Warning to traveling Americans who refuse to claim they are Canadians -- you might want to avoid Italy on March 4. The Italian government has proclaimed March 4 "SISMI Day," a day to commemorate the Mar. 4, 2004 assassination by a U.S. Army unit in Baghdad of the deputy chief of SISMI, Gen. Nicola C
Calipari, who was accompanying a freed Italian hostage by car to Baghdad airport. Pentagon records have identified the assassin of Calipari as Mario Lozano, a member of the New York National Guard and a resident of The Bronx. Italian authorities say they intend to indict Lozano for murder but also want to question other members of his mobile roadblock who were present when the shooting occurred. Last Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department tersely rejected an Italian government request for the names of all the U.S. soldiers manning the Baghdad roadblock. Undiplomatically, in its denial the Justice Department also stated that this was its "final word" on the matter Calipari's assassination.
March 4 will now be a rallying point for anti-U.S. opinion in Italy, which is now running at an all-time high. The new left-wing government of Italy is sure to be much harder on the Bush administration than its neo-fascist predecessor government of Bush friend Silvio Berlusconi. The Bush administration also faces another major critic who is now a member of the Italian Senate representing the coalition of the new Prime Minister Romano Prodi -- she is Rosa Maria Calipari, the widow of the slain Italian SISMI general. She is not likely to accept the continued stonewalling from Washington about what actually occurred on "Route Irish" in Iraq on March 4, 2004.
Bush and his neo-cons now face the wrath of another angry widow -- this one is now an Italian Senator allied with the new left government
Ed. Note: If any member of the U.S. military and/or intelligence community has any legitimate and concrete details on the shooting death of Calipari, including the placement of U.S. military and intelligence assets along Route Irish before, during, and after John Negroponte's transit through the area on March 4, 2004, please contact WMR at wmreditor@waynemadsenreport.com. It is WMR policy that all sources are held in strict confidence.
First they came for the Muslims and the Arabs . . . then they came for the illegal Latinos . . . and then they came for the Irish.
First they came for the Muslims and the Arabs . . . then they came for the illegal Latinos . . . and then they came for the Irish. Yes, the Department of Homeland Security under Obergruppenfuhrer/chief Kapo Michael Chertoff has decided to sic his Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after illegal Irish bartenders and waitresses who mostly work in New York City Irish pubs and who have overstayed their visas. Also being rounded up in the DHS sting are U.S. citizens of Irish descent who have facilitated the entry of the Irish workers from Canada through such entry points as Buffalo and Rochester. Since he became Homeland Security Czar, Chertoff has menaced Arabs and Muslims, Latin Americans, African-American survivors of hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast, and now Irish pub workers. Chertoff's actions against Irish bartenders and pub keepers has increased anti-American feelings in Ireland and among New York's large and influential Irish-American community.
"Kapo Chertoff's" new enemies: Irish bartenders in New York City. Chertoff is out to catch Osama McLaden.
One group Chertoff will definitely not touch is the non-documented organized crime syndicates from Russia, Ukraine, and Israel, some with provable financial links to "Al Qaeda," which operate mainly out of Brighton Beach in New York, Miami, and the greater Los Angeles area. Chertoff's financial and religious ties to these groups may explain his reticence in seeking their deportation.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
From colonisation to interference - For Ahmed Ben Bella, the liberation of the people in the South is still unachieved
While a debate is underway in France on the benefits of colonisation and responsibility of Arabs in the digression of their societies, the former Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella recalls several historical truths: the illegitimacy of one people dominating over another - that took place formerly in Algeria and today in Palestine; the global reality, and not an Arab one, of colonisation and the struggle for national liberty; Western interference by overthrowing nationalist governments and revolutionaries in countries in the south of the world; and maintaining the aftermath of colonisation. He emphasizes that today, it’s the Christian Evangelical fundamentalists who export violence.
Ahmed Ben Bella is one of the great figures of Arab nationalism. He was one of the nine members of the Committee of Algerian Revolutionaries that gave birth to the National Liberation Front (NLF). Arrested by the French occupiers in 1952, he managed to escape. Once again arrested in 1956, along with seven colleagues, he was detained in the la Santé prison until 1962. After the signing of the Evian Accord, he became the first elected president of independent Algeria. On the domestic front, he initiated a Socialist policy characterised by a vast program of Agrarian reform.
On the international front, he brought his country into the UN and engaged in the movement of non-aligned countries. His influence grew in the struggle against imperialism, driven by the great powers that supported his military coup d’etat. From 1965 to 1980 he was placed under surveillance. Since then, he has held the position of his country’s interior affairs minister, yet he continues to play an international role, in particular as president of the International Campaign against the attack in Iraq. Central actor of historical dissidence, he responds to questions from Silvia Cattori for Voltaire Network.
Silvia Cattori: When you are not travelling, do you reside in Switzerland?
Ahmed Ben Bella: No, I live in Algeria, but I often come to Switzerland. I had lived here for ten years, after my quarrels with the Algerian military powers. In Algeria, I’m bombarded by journalists. So, when I need to take a little rest and step back from what happens there, I come here where I have a small apartment. You know, I’m ninety years old!
S.C.: You have the air of a young man! Do you know, Mr. Ben Bella, that you have imprinted a very positive image in the hearts of people throughout the world?
A.B.B.: (Laughs) My life has been a bit special, this is true. I participated in the liberation of my country. I was one of the organisers of its struggle for liberation. I likewise actively participated in all the struggles for liberation.
S.C.: Your origin is Arab-Moroccan. What ties have you kept with your rural roots?
A.B.B.: Yes, I am Algerian of Moroccan origin through my parents, but all my life is Algeria. I was born there. I am the son of poor peasants who came at a very young age to live in Algeria. I only recently saw the place where they were born, near the city of Marrakech.
S.C.: In coming to you, I have the impression of coming into contact with the people and causes for which you have fought all your life. It’s very moving to talk about your fight to create a more humane, more just world. Are you not the incarnation of all this?
A.B.B.: Yes, my life is a life of combat; I can say that this has never stopped for a single instant. It is a combat that started for me at the age of 16. I’m 90 years old now, and my motivation hasn’t changed; it’s the same fervour that drives me.
S.C.: In 1962, you reached the highest goals of independent Algeria. All hopes were open. From colonised Algeria to its liberation, from the international political scene to the fight for alter-globalisation, you paid a high price for your dissidence.
A.B.B.: Yes, I paid much in my fight for justice and liberty of people. But clearly, I did what I felt to be a duty, an obligation. So, for me the choice was not difficult. When I was engaged in the struggle for my country, I was very young. My horizons were open. I quickly realised that the problems go beyond Algeria, that colonisation affected many people, that three-quarters of the countries in the world have been colonised in one way or another. Algeria was thus, for the French, a department overseas; it was the France located on the other side of the Mediterranean. The French colonisation of Algeria lasted a long time: 132 years. I participated in that fight right in Algeria.
Immediately after independence, I was associated with all those who, in the world, themselves undertook the struggle to liberate their own country. It was thus this phase in the fight for national liberty that I participated completely. In Tunisia, in Morocco, in Vietnam, Algeria has become somewhat like the "mother of freedom struggles"; to support them was thus for us a sacred mark. When someone came to ask us for help, it was sacred. We did not even think twice. We helped them, even if we had only meagre means; we offered them arms, a little bit of money, and in occasion, men.
S.C.: In 1965, it was not the French who imprisoned you; it was your brothers in arms. Today, what do you feel towards those who had so brutally barred the road?
A.B.B.: I don’t feel contempt, I don’t feel hate. I think that they participated in something that was not very proper and was very pitiful, not only for the Algerian people, but also for the other people who counted on our support. My fight to bring better conditions of life to Algerians thus plunged into great poverty, and my fight to help other still colonised people to recover their freedom bothered certain authorities. From their point of view, I had gone too far. I had to disappear. That is to say, if the Algerian army had not overthrown me, others would have done so. I had to disappear, because I had become too much of a nuisance. I accommodated practically all of the liberation movements, including those of Latin America.
S.C.: Were you already in contact with Fidel Castro?
A.B.B.: Yes, Che [Guevara] had come to Algiers bringing me the message from Fidel Castro whom I had encountered two times. He asked us to support the struggles that were developing in South America, as Cuba couldn’t do anything; it had been under the control of the United States that occupied Guantánamo Bay. Therefore nothing could leave Cuba, not even a box of matches, without the United States knowing about it. I didn’t hesitate for a second. It’s from Algeria, and with the participation of Che, who stayed with us six months, that the state major of the liberation army of South America was created. I can say now: all the combatants who participated in the fight for freedom in South America came to Algeria; it’s from there that all those who fought left. We trained them, we arranged for the weapons to reach them, we created networks.
S.C.: In what year did Che Guevara come to Algeria?
A.B.B.: Che came in 1963, shortly after I had come to power. With my government, we engaged in bringing our help to fights for national freedom. At that precise moment, several countries were still colonised or had barely overcome colonisation. This was the case in practically all of Africa. We supported them. Mr. Mandela and Mr. Amilcar Cabral themselves came to Algeria. It’s me who coached them; afterwards they returned to lead the fight for freedom in their countries. For other movements, which were not involved in a military fight and who needed only political support, such as Mali, we helped in other ways.
S.C.: Who precisely dismissed you in 1965? The Algerian army or the foreign forces?
A.B.B.: I am certain that, indirectly, there was the intervention of foreign authorities. Elsewhere we have seen the same mechanisms working. Everywhere that the struggle for national freedom has triumphed, once the authorities agreed, there were military coups d’etat that overthrew their leaders. That is the result time and time again. In two years, there were 22 military coups d’etat, essentially in Africa and the third world. The coup d’etat of Algiers, in 1965, is what opened the path. Algeria was therefore only the beginning of something that was in development: this is why I say that it’s the global capitalist system that finally reacted against us.
S.C.: Are you a Marxist?
A.B.B.: I am not a Marxist, but I place myself resolutely at the left. I am a Muslim Arab, in my actions oriented very to the left, in my convictions. That is why, even if I don’t share the Marxist doctrine, I always found myself on the side of all the leftist movements in the world and Socialist countries like Cuba, China, the USSR, that have led the anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist fights. It’s with them that we have constituted a liberation front and brought our logistic support to armies to help their countries come out of colonialism and establish a national internal regime. This was the phase of eliminating colonialism. Colonialism is an idea born in the West that drives Western countries - like France, Italy, Belgium, Great Britain - to occupy countries outside of Europe. Colonialism is known in its primitive form, that is to say, by the permanent settling of repressive foreign powers, with an army, services, policies. This phase has known cruel colonial occupations which have lasted 300 years in Indonesia.
S.C.: After this phase, were you not active in the movement of non-aligned countries?
A.B.B.: There are no more non-aligned countries. This movement had been created by men of very high position such as Nehru, Mao Tse-tung, Nasser and other great names; in an era where above all there was the risk of an atomic war. It was the confrontation between the USSR and the United States. We were on the verge of a nuclear war. The non-aligned countries played an important role in preventing it. This movement lasted a certain number of years. But the system finished for the better.
S.C.: Afterwards, did you not play an important role in the development of the alter-globalisation movement?
A.B.B.: The global system presiding over everything, as we have said, invented another form of domination: « globalisation. » "Globalisation" is a very nice word in itself. A word which can unite, can bring brotherhood among people. But, the word "globalisation" such as it is conceived, is a word that brings just the worst. With this word there has been brought the globalisation of misery, death, hunger: 35 million people die of malnutrition every year. Yes, that would be a very nice word, if we had globalised for the better, brought well being for all. But, it’s the contrary. It’s a perverse globalisation; it globalises the bad, it globalises death, it globalises poverty.
S.C.: Does globalisation only have perverted effects?
A.B.B.: The only advantage that we have taken from it is that we are nowadays better informed than before. Nobody can ignore the fact anymore that the system leads to an extension of dissatisfaction. Wealth has been created, but it is an artificial wealth. These are the multinationals, like General Motors and Nestlé; these are the big industrial groups that weigh, on the monetary scale, much more than big countries like Egypt. If we base it on their gains, General Motors, for example, is four times richer than Egypt, which is a country of 70 million inhabitants, the country of the Pharaohs, an extraordinary country, the most educated Arab country! That gives you an image of what « globalisation » means. In a nutshell, it is why I fought the system that favours groups that represent, on the monetary scale, much more than a large country and generates so much inequality. And this is the reason why we must, the rest of us, seek a better understanding of problems which have been wilfully complicated, but which are ultimately an expression of one single thing: the establishment of an inhumane system.
S.C.: Despite the clearly expressed will, in 2003, by three-quarters of the people on the planet, the progressive movements did not succeed in preventing war. Do you not sometimes have the feeling that those who are in the direction of movements lacked a course; or frankly followed a false path for through not having been able to identify the true motivations of the adversary?
A.B.B.: I myself, speaking as a man of the south, note that something has changed in the north, which is a very important point to raise. What changed exactly in this so-called advanced region of the north: that we have made a war, we have colonised, that we have done terrible things, and that there is today an opinion that is expressed, that there are young people who say "enough." This indicates that this perverse global system does not strike only the south but also the north. In the past, we spoke of poverty, misery only in the south. Now there is a lot of misery, a lot of bad that creates victims in the north as well. This has become manifest: the global system was not made to serve the good of all, but to serve multinational companies.
Thus, deep from within this north, which we have so fought against, there is now a movement, there is an entire generation of youth who want to act, who go out onto the streets, who protest, even if the leftists did not know to give the key to the solution to these young people who want change. This has always occurred: all movements begin in this manner. The liberation movement which I led in Algeria, the organization that I created to fight the French army, was at first a small movement of nothing at all. We were but some tens of people throughout Algeria, a territory that is five times the size of France.
S.C.: What have they gained, these generations of young people who have put so much hope in Attac, for example, who proposed to "reform globalisation"? But must it have not been necessary to refuse this same principal and adopt more radical measures, faced with the radical nature of the system that calls itself liberal?
A.B.B.: Those who are leftists, once in power, are not different from other parties. In that which concerns Algeria, we have tried to work with the French left. But we did not know about the worse power exerted by the French Socialist party. The worst of things that came to us was with the Socialists. No previous political power had fought us as hard as the Socialist Guy Mollet. I am telling you the precise facts. I am speaking of what I know. I was at the head of the FLN when the government of Guy Mollet - after having understood that France couldn’t maintain itself in Algeria - contacted Gamal Abdel Nasser so that he could ask us if we were ready to discuss with them. I always planned this; that one day he was going to have to sit together at a bargaining table with us and define the best way that Algeria could become completely independent. It was the goal that we sought: to again become free, to not live anymore under the stick of an oppressive system. I said yes, that I was ready to negotiate, on the condition that they, the French, would ask for it. It was important, as it’s always he who is the weakest that asks to negotiate. I required that the negotiations be held in Egypt. The negotiations lasted three months. We arrived at a solution. With my copy of the paper in my hands, in September of 1956, I went to inform Mohammed V, the king of Morocco. It had been implied in this struggle, he had helped us, including in a military way. Furthermore, we went to Tunisia because we also wanted to inform the authorities and our plane had been hunted by the French aviation. It was the first plane diversion in history. There were, in this plane, two-thirds of the leaders of the Algerian revolution. They wanted to immediately dispose of us. It was a miracle that we escaped death. All of this tells you what I think of Socialists: it was Guy Mollet who, barely had he signed an engagement, he betrayed it. I could say the same thing about Governor Lacoste, he was a Socialist also. No, the leftist parties didn’t support us, on the contrary. But despite all this, it’s the left that interested us and it’s with them that I continued to fight. I am a man of the left.
S.C.: So when you stand alongside representatives of international Socialists, on the podiums of social forums, you came to say to yourself that they are there for personal prestige above all?
A.B.B.: Yes I came to think that they are not serious. I myself really want to change this world. I want this world to change. To change things, we need people who are sincere and selfless, above all.
S.C.: Do you believe in the necessity of change?
A.B.B.: Yes, since my earliest youth I have believed in this necessity. I come back to what you said earlier; that which personally brought me to have a certain confidence in the future. I want to talk about what I observe here, in the West. I am convinced that the liberal system does not have a future. These young people, these high school students who I’ve seen go out onto the streets, who have nothing but their ideal of justice; these youths who demonstrate, who are on a quest for other values, I would love to say to them: "I began like that, when I was your age, by small steps. And little by little it was a mass of people who followed me." When I go to demonstrations, I observe them, I speak with them, and I see that it’s them who hold the cards in their hands.
S.C.: The question arises with insistence: have not the leaders of anti-imperialist movements supported Israel, a State that is ideologically and legislatively racist, who since its creation has engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing in Palestine? Consequently, they have badly guided generations of young people, falsified the debate, while Israel has been very active besides the United States to combat communism, to combat Nasser and Arab nationalism, in supporting horrible regimes?
A.B.B.: These days such questions are on the table, they generate debate. We did not want a biased solidarity. We did not want a State that, like Israel, would be a favourite tool of this cruel global system driven by the United States, which practices a policy that has already caused so much harm. For us, it’s a double betrayal. First of all, the betrayal of those who, on the side of the left, should have been on our side, loyal to the Palestinian and Arab causes, and were not. Secondly, the betrayal of all the Jews with whom we felt close, with whom we had similarities, and with whom we lived in perfect harmony. The Arabs and the Jews are cousins. We speak the same language. They are Semites like us. They themselves speak Aramaic, we speak Aramaic. Aramaic includes several branches: Ethiopians speak Aramaic, Erytrians speak Aramaic, people of Jewish confession speak Aramaic, and Arabs speak Aramaic. It’s this that harms us: it’s that we know we have been betrayed by those who are close to us, by the people who are our cousins, who are similar to us and speak Aramaic like us. We are familiar with anti-Semitism; we are Semites. I add that even their prophet is our prophet. Moses and Jesus Christ are prophets with us.
S.C.: Since the end of multilateralism, the UN was put under the control of Washington and neo-conservatives. All Arab countries that did not submit to their diktats were dismissed by the community of nations. How do you judge this situation? How to get out of it? Also, confronted by the Israeli unilateralism, was Hamas not condemned to failure, and to give up the reason their people had struggled for 60 years?
A.B.B.: I think that Hamas is characteristic of what happens with us, of this dimension that now takes a strong religious bent, one that endorses Islam. I am an Arab Muslim, I do not want to live in a country run by Islamic fundamentalism. But I want to speak very frankly: I don’t blame them. Because this need for religion was created by the distortions of the capitalistic system. It’s a force to harm us that finally, in place of facing them in movement — yes, which endorses Arabness, which endorses the culture and remains open — the extremists, Israel and the United States, find themselves face-to-face in this dimension. It is they who have created this situation.
S.C.: You don’t want a religious response?
A.B.B.: I am a Muslim, but I do not wish that the response be religious. It’s not the religious act in itself that I reject, no, but the fact that we can make a reading of it that does not follow the sense of renovating Islam, that we can make a retrograde reading of Islam; even though in Islam we have the advantage of believing in two religions: the Jewish religion and the Christian religion. For us, Mohammed is only a continuum of Jesus Christ and Moses.
S.C.: Were the Muslims not upset about the current anti-colonial resistance? Was it not recognised that it is not the values of the West that Arab-Muslims fight, but their violent politics? Hezbollah, for example, which has such bad press in our countries — did they not reverse the American and Israeli imperialism in Lebanon? Did the progressives not overcome their prejudice towards Muslims, considering them as a dynamic element in the struggle against oppression, and support them?
A.B.B.: Yes, yes. There is a problem of education. It belongs to those who are in the direction of progressive parties to respond in the correct manner to any given situation. But this is not the case. We have a flag, we have a national anthem, the rest of what we have is the West, with its varied tendencies, that decides our place. All of this is clothed with pretty words, covered up with the help of organisations like the World Bank and the IMF, who are none other than the instruments of torture created by the West to continue their domination. This means that we have gotten out of a system of direct colonialism in exchange for something that seems better, but is not. However, I repeat to you, I have this hope that in the north that has already done us so much harm, it’s youth is in the process of taking measures against this logic of domination that creates more and more poverty as well in the north as the south. Even if it’s not the same domination as that which is applied in the south, it’s a situation of poverty that nobody who is free can accept. How many people are left unemployed, in poverty, on the street? It’s this, perhaps, that will end up provoking people of the north to change their viewpoints and participate in a definite way with us.
S.C.: But these days we do not see many people in the West protesting against the atrocities committed in Iraq, in Palestine, in Afghanistan. Do you not have the impression that there are so many cleverly maintained prejudices against Arabs and Muslims — including anti-war organizations — that to support their resistance is a very farfetched idea?
A.B.B.: It’s true, the leftist parties for which one awaited are not at a meeting place; they have taken a stand there on top. As soon as the one speaks of Islam, they oppose Bin Laden. I wouldn’t want to live in his republic, but I don’t criticise him. When I see what Bush does, I don’t allow myself to criticise Bin Laden. I say it to you frankly: the attack against the towers in New York, I don’t condemn them. I condemn Bush, I condemn the American government, because I consider Bin Laden a product of their policies. They have closed all the doors of dialogue with Arab Muslims. They have made them believe throughout the decades that if they do this or that, the West would bring justice in Palestine. But, Israel and its allies never wanted peace with us. Israel has not stopped making war and terrorising our people. Bin Laden is indirectly the creation of Bush and Israel. These two States spread death and hate in the Middle East and the world: they have left us with no other alternative than that of a violent confrontation. All of the radical movements, categorised as « terrorists » or « fundamentalists » are born in response to terrorists in Tel Aviv and Washington who bring wars of destruction to Arab people. What choice do they have, these people that have been bombarded with such savageness? Faced by modern armies, they have no other arms than sacrificing their lives in creating an explosion, voila. In the Quran we call this "shahadah." It’s an extraordinary idea that is expressed in this word. It’s a state of despair, where someone who is distressed can no longer bear living. He sacrifices himself, not to obtain a better life for himself, but so that at least his people can live better. It’s the greatest of sacrifices. We call them in the West "terrorists." But, I say it in all sincerity, I myself bow down before someone who can make a similar sacrifice, I assure you.
S.C.: If I understand well, you say that everything that puts the people of the Middle East in revolt has been generated by the West. That all those who fight must sacrifice themselves, suffer for others? That in the past the Arabs have demonstrated tolerance?
A.B.B.: Completely so. The violence expressed in the Arab Muslim world is a result of the culture of hate and violence that Israel has caused in imposing itself by force on the land of Arabs. These are the atrocities of this illegal State that compels the most valorous to react. I don’t think there will be a fight more noble than that of the Palestinians who resist against their occupier. When I see what these people have endured for more than a century, and who continue to find the force to fight, I am in admiration. Today, the same ones who massacre these people pass off those of Hamas as fascists, terrorists. They are not fascists, they are not terrorists, they are resistants!
S.C.: Palestine is an imprisoned nation. How does one, even a leftist, come to speak of « terrorism ", instead of speaking of the right to resist by arms? Do you see major parallels or differences between the colonialisation of Algeria by France and the colonialisation of Palestine by Israel?
A.B.B.: It’s worse in Palestine. Moreover because there is apartheid. The French cannot chase us out of a country that is five times the size of France. They tried to create a buffer zone in the north, with the least amount of Algerians possible, but they didn’t succeed. They didn’t establish a true apartheid like the Israelis and Palestinians. The State of Israel has created the most terrible of dominations.
S.C.: In your opinion, will the Palestinians live under occupation less time than the Algerians did?
A.B.B.: I believe so. First of all, colonialism is a phenomenon that is clearly established and sanctioned by international law. Furthermore, if there is an issue that creates unanimity in the Arab world, it’s Palestine. As long as the Palestinians do not obtain justice, the Arab Muslim world will not be able to feel free either. It’s like a part of their flesh that remains captive.
S.C.: In the past, the policy was not more noble, but there was still a balance. Since the end of global bipolarism, the most basic moral principles have been swept aside. Everywhere we speak of fighting « terrorism », but we hardly speak of the 800 children killed in Palestine by Israeli soldiers since 2000; the millions of Iraqi children killed or who are sick, who don’t have the right to a normal development. Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, would they have been possible if the international community had had the decency to say no to the violence of Washington? Which responsible State still has clean hands in this so-called war against « terrorism »?
A.B.B.: It’s unbelievable what has happened in Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. And all this horror continues to increase and generate great suffering. We learn that the United States has built prisons in Eastern Europe to escape jurisdictions of their countries and that Europe participated in all of this. Switzerland is even blamed for having authorized the passing of planes over their territory, transporting phantom prisoners, kidnapped, subjected to torture.
S.C.: In your opinion, what are the means to oppose the strategy put in place by Bush and the neo-conservatives?
A.B.B.: It’s a fundamentalist movement, but Christian, that is! The problem we face today is this: the ideology of Bush is the worst fundamentalism that one can imagine. These are the famous Evangelist Protestants who inspire Bush. It’s a terrible fundamentalism. What are the means that we ultimately have to fight with? I spoke to you about the hopes that I’ve put in young people, all in knowing that there are no real means to fight this awful system. I know, it is not enough to go on the street. Something else needs to happen, to invent other methods of action, but it is necessary to act and not give in. And when we have the feeling of not advancing, it is necessary to say to ourselves that one passes through these phases, a certain amount of time is needed before a great number of people reaches understanding. We start to act with those who understand clearly, even if this does not cover all the problems. But afterwards, we need to overcome the obstacles, and say to ourselves that it’s neither the Socialist party, all Socialists who are in favour, nor such and such association that is going to change the world.
S.C.: In order to again reach balance, could the solution come from China and Russia?
A.B.B.: I think that hope could come from China. In the past, Russia helped us in an extraordinary way. But for now, unfortunately, Russia is not in an easy situation. I would not put hope in it. I would count very much on China. First of all, it has selling points that Russia doesn’t have. It’s a country ahead of others in expansion. Even the West is going to invest in China to enrich its economy. Twenty years from now we will see the new political map.
S.C.: While we are waiting, what should be said to people who have been left neglected, in Palestine, in Iraq?
A.B.B.: We never act with the thought that it’s us who are going to be the beneficiaries. We act because it’s necessary to act. The great conquests have never been the product of a single generation. We say in my country that he who eats is not he who serves the meal. It’s necessary to create a network of solidarity that unconditionally supports the struggle of its people.
S.C.: What to say to these young people who you mentioned, witnesses of so much abuse?
A.B.B.: It’s necessary that they overcome, that they take initiatives. It does not suffice to get together periodically in a big gathering, if nothing changes, it’s necessary to move on to something else: to invent new forms of fighting instead of waiting.
S.C.: But has the time not come that Arabs take the direction of an anti-war movement up to this point between the hands of the West?
A.B.B.: Yes, yes. Given the gravity of the situation in the Middle East, it is the Palestinians or the representatives of movements in the Arab world who have to make a move. I think that the Arab movement, the Palestinian movement, all of these forces, if they combine and go beyond their differences of opinion, are a hope not only for the Arabs. They can equally contribute to changing the world, a world system that functions.
S.C.: You seem to be optimistic!
A.B.B.: Oh you know, I’m nothing but optimistic: I’ve spent my life in acting. I am not satisfied making speeches, I devote all of my time in acting by means of the organisation North-South. Also I believe that, sometimes, the forces of hope come from where we least expect them.
S.C.: The first constitutive congress of the Peoples’ Arab Alliance of Resistance was held the end of March 2006 in Cairo. The participants called the people to put themselves "under the banner of internationalism to support the Arab people in their fight against imperialistic violence." Is it not the starting point of a campaign that, if the progressive parties of the West rally together, could boost the anti-war movement and go in the direction of your hopes?
A.B.B.: Yes, I am personally in favour of this initiative. What is important is to advance. One does not advance if one doubts, if one thinks it’s finished, if one remains only in a state of dissension. We advance and we correct our errors. Life is like that. There are also, in the Arab camp, many obstacles to overcome. We have to make an effort to go beyond these disagreements. In effect, we have in the Arab movement, the same weaknesses which are present in the anti-imperialist movement in the West.
S.C.: There are almost ten thousand Palestinians arbitrarily imprisoned in Israeli jails. They are not recognised as political prisoners. Ahmed Sa’adat - kidnapped by Israel in March of 2006 in Jericho, with six colleagues - whereas he was under American and British guard - has since been subjected to continuous torture. He has reaffirmed his will to not give up, in saying: "No matter the place where I will be, I continue to fight." You must recognise yourself in this affirmation, you who know what it means to be imprisoned?
A.B.B.: Yes, I spent 24 and a half years in prison. When the French locked me up in la Santé, they put me with prisoners who would be guillotined. I saw the guillotine from my cell. It’s terrible what Israel forces the Palestinians to undergo as ill treatment. Currently I have only one project: it’s Palestine. I will do anything possible to help them. To reach peace, in Palestine and the world, the system of the marketplace needs to be rid of. Because the problems are immense, the damage is immense. Leaving the world in the hands of finance and murderers is a crime. It’s that which is terrorism. It’s not Bin Laden.
S.C.: When you hear the heads of State say that they’ve made a war in Iraq in the name of liberty and democracy, what do you want to say to them?
A.B.B.: I tell them that the right to live is the first of human rights. The right of mankind is the right to live. All the philosophies where I’m from speak of the right to life. Safeguarding life, to live, is the first of things for which one aspires. But the global system is not humble enough to guarantee this right. It exploits, it kills. And when it can’t kill, it builds savage prisons, abuse which pretends to bring about democracy. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States started to do what Israel always had done against the Palestinians. One speaks of Israeli and American democracy. But what democracy have they brought while destroying any chance to live?
S.C.: Are you suffering for Iraq?
A.B.B.: Ah yes, Iraq for me. I’ve gone to Iraq five times, you know. (Silence). I failed to be killed in Iraq. It’s intolerable to see what one has done in Iraq! In this country which is the cradle of civilisation! Iraq, it’s there where we started to cultivate the land, it’s there where humanity was born, it’s there where the first principles were based, it’s there where the alphabet was created, the first code is that of Hammurabi. All of this was destroyed by ignorant leaders, by a nation that has no more than 250 years of history, which was itself a colony of Great Britain. They ridded themselves of British colonialism and established a worldwide colonialism. What became of the 80 million American Indians? I will never return to America, it’s a country of crooks.
S.C.: Do you feel that the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East are racist?
A.B.B.: Completely so. These are wars brought against Islam, against the Arab civilisation. This is clearly evident. Of the countries who are outside of the law, according to Bush, only one is not Arab Muslim, North Korea. The others, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Iran, are all Muslim. The Crusades aimed supposedly at restoring the tomb of Jesus Christ. Sometimes, to tease the West, I tell them: Jesus Christ, what language did he speak? He spoke my language, not yours, he spoke Aramaic like me! When you read the Bible, Jesus Christ says: "Eli; Eli, Lama sabakta-ni." And we say in Algeria: "Ilahi limada sabakta-ni." These are exactly the same words that Jesus pronounced. Jesus spoke like me. Islam takes many things from the Evangelists as well as the Bible, which it came to supplement.
Forced with seeing these abuses, I explode. One has done to us so much wrong. One has hit us in our dignity. Without speaking of the dear people of Palestine. How many Palestinians are obliged to live under the most contemptible iron rule? Our reaction is not racist, I assure you. We have had more than enough of that. The West has done a lot of harm. Is it not the West that has committed the worst crimes against humanity? Fascism, where does it come from? Nazism, where does it come from? Stalinism, where does it come from? The famous Inquisition, which lasted 400 years, where did it take place? Frankly, it is necessary to have a lot, a lot of selflessness to say to oneself every day that passes, I don’t want to hate the West.
S.C.: Is it not necessary to condemn the supporters of "the clash of civilisations," the pro-Israelis, as the principle instigators of anti-Arab hate, anti-Islam, which is spreading in a disturbing way against your people?
A.B.B.: Completely. The Israeli lobby in the United States is something terrible. Until now it was forbidden to speak of them without being marked as anti-Semitic. Recently, several studies have come to attest by undisputable examples the weight of the Israeli lobby in the political and military options taken against us. Nobody today can deny the importance, even the danger, of this lobby, which penetrates all the strategic spheres. I am thus very concerned by this aspect of things that makes the settling of the Palestinian question more difficult.
I am going to tell you, although Islam has encountered so many woes, Islam has never done wrong to other counties. In history, Islam showed a tolerance that does not exist at all elsewhere, whereas Israel has succeeded in establishing itself by force in a space and in a place which was inhabited by Palestinians - one of the most developed Arab people - and created there, in the dispossession of their land, a racist state. As long as Israel will refuse to recognize the rights of Palestinians to exist and come back to their land, there will not be peace in the world.
Ahmed Ben Bella was interviewed by Silvia Cattori.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article138838.html
Monday, May 08, 2006
Marx After Marxism - The Global Fight for Immigrant Rights in a Neo-Liberal Economy By RICARDO ALARCON
Marx After Marxism
The Global Fight for Immigrant Rights in a Neo-Liberal Economy
By RICARDO ALARCÓN
"Let us remember that he said that it was not enough that
the idea clamored to be made reality, but that it was also
necessary that reality shout out to be made into idea."
-- Franz Mehring
I will not attempt to delineate here the ample and rich intellectual production of Karl Marx, his deep analysis of capitalism or the principal events of his era, nor will I touch upon his exemplary life as a social fighter and revolutionary leader. I know that these themes are familiar to you all.
I propose, if you allow me, to separate Marx from Marxism. With that I allude to the necessity of thinking of Marx as Marx, rather than from any of the versions of Marxism, to imagine him declaring the challenges of the twenty-first century, separating what is essential of his work from what others made of his work. Instead of embarking on the endless succession of reviews of his thinking that goes along with those who have claimed him as their own, as well as with those who have tried unsuccessfully to bury him, it is necessary to rescue his fundamental legacy, that which makes him transcend his era to be [with us] here and now in the struggle for human emancipation.
I take as a starting point the warning, not always heeded, of Rosa Luxemburg: "The work Capital of Marx, like all his ideology, is not gospel in which we are given Revealed Truth, set in stone and eternal, but an endless flow of suggestions to keep working on with intelligence, in order to continue researching and struggling for truth."
To take his work, on top of any other consideration, as a source of inspiration and guide for those who, like he, want not only to explain the world but, more than anything, transform it, fighting until achieving socialism.
We are not trying to find in his texts data that may seem useful to the analysis of contemporary reality, of capitalism as it is today, something which he didn't try to do nor would have been able to propose doing.
Our obligation is to arm ourselves with all of his ideology and from that build a theory and practice that corresponds with that reality and helps to transform it.
There is probably no higher nor more urgent priority for socialists than this: to define a strategic conception and precisely delineate the tactics and methods of struggle adequate for confronting the capitalism that exists now. The theoretical tools at our disposal need to be sharpened for their efficient employment in this era that presents new challenges for the revolutionary movement.
These notes do not have any other aim than contributing to the discussion of that crucial theme and obviously lack any pretension of exhausting it. They have been edited having in mind that which from the great unfinished text declared Rosa Luxembourg:
"Incomplete as they are, these two volumes enclose values infinitely more precious than any definitive and perfect truth, the spur for the labor of thought and that critical analysis and judgment of ideas, which is what is most genuine in the theory that Karl Marx has left to us."
Another indispensable observation: The necessity of elaborating a revolutionary theory that brings victory confronted with what has been called neo-liberal globalization has absolutely nothing to do with a supposed liquidation of Marxism and much less with the imaginary disappearance of class struggle, which some intended to convert in immoveable dogmas in rushed texts that inundated the planet at the beginnings of the last decade of the twentieth century.
The collapse of the USSR and the bankruptcy of the so-called "real socialism" gave way for a triumphalist operation skillfully launched by the main centers of imperialism which, nevertheless, could hardly hide their essentially defensive character with its apparently total and definitive victory, capitalism, in reality, entered a new phase that could be terminal, in which its contradictions and limitations are manifested with a frank crudeness and in which arise new, unsuspected possibilities for revolutionary action.
That paradox perhaps may explain the short duration of that triumphalism in the academic level. Few today repeat that nonsense about the "end of history." Not even Fukuyama does it, more busy these days in criticizing the failure of the policies of Bush which are, nevertheless, much due to his own laborious and wordy work. The present crisis within the U.S. neoconservative movement suggests that not a few question now if they were the true winners of the Cold War.
Self-critical reflection is called for on our side as well.
We should admit our own errors, especially those that served as fertile ground for the bourgeois manipulation of the destruction of the Soviet model. This is not the time for profound analysis of the failure of an experience that now belongs to historians. But it is inevitable that we underline here something that led to the defeat and to its advantageous use by the enemy.
That project--independently of Lenin and of the creative spirit that animated the first years of the Bolshevik revolution--reduced Marxism to a determinist and mechanist school of thought, transformed research into dogma, thought into propaganda, until the point of confining it to a condition of terminal hardening of the arteries. It constructed a simplified "science" that thought it had demonstrated that socialism would inevitably come about, by itself, as an unavoidable consequence of a predetermined history and that that socialism would continue its march, also uncontestable, according to laws and rules codified in a strange ritual. Socialism, therefore, was inevitable and invincible; with it one would truly arrive to the end of history. Not any socialism, but that one in particular, that which, with admirable struggle, Lenin and the Bolsheviks tried to achieve, whose enormous meaning no one will be able to tear out of the memory of the proletariat but which was a specific project--that is to say, a human work, with virtues and defects, glories and shadows, a result of immense sacrifice of a concrete people in circumstances and conditions likewise concrete--and not the outcome of a predestined and universal idea.
The conversion of the Soviet experience into a paradigm for those who in other places fought their own anti-capitalist battles, and the imperative obligation of defending it from its inflamed and powerful enemies, led to the subordination of a great part of the revolutionary movement to the policies and interests of the USSR, which did not always correspond to those of other peoples. The Cold War and the division of the world into two blocks of antagonistic states that threatened each other with mutual nuclear annihilation, reduced to a minimum the capacity of critical thought and reinforced dogmatism.
In honor of the truth one must render homage to the numberless men and women who sacrificed their lives, the greater part in total anonymity, and died heroically in any corner of the planet defending the land of the Soviets, its policies and its application in its own native soil, as wrong as it may have been in more than a few cases. For them, respect and admiration. But what is being considered now is recognizing the very harmful consequences of that tendency.
The tendency to blindly "tail" thoroughly penetrated many organizations and individuals, and they couldn't react rationally when the system that supported their faith collapsed. They had lived convinced that they were part of an unbeatable force, owners and administrators of truths scientifically demonstrated, and they marched in an enthusiastic procession in which, curiously, the founder did not march, having declared, with all naturalness, "I am not a Marxist."
The myth destroyed, old dogmatists were incapable of appreciating the new possibilities in the revolutionary movement, the spaces heretofore nonexistent that were necessary to explore with audacity and creativity. There were those who, in unsurpassed acrobatics, joined the "conquerors," converting treason into their new religion.
But there is a growing number of those who do not conform, are unsatisfied and rebel. All the rhetoric about U.S. hegemony falls to pieces with its bogging down in Iraq, the undeniable contradictions and limitations of its economy, the awakening of masses that were supposed to be asleep there, and the corruption and moral fissure that undermine its political system.
Their associates in Europe are in the same boat. Accustomed as well to the "bloc" discipline and "tailism," they don't arrive at the knowledge of the depth of the insurmountable crisis of that which it was, but no longer is, omnipotent boss.
In Latin America and in other parts of the Third World, meanwhile, radical processes are affirmed and plans are put forth that seek to eliminate, or at least reduce, imperialist domination.
For the first time, anti-capitalist malaise is manifested, simultaneously and everywhere, in advanced countries and in those left behind and is not limited to the proletariat and other exploited sectors. This is not only expressed today in the struggles that we could call "classics"--between classes and nations that are exploited and exploiters--but in those that are added, at times with more vigor, those that demand the preservation of the environment, or work for the rights of women and discriminated people and those excluded because of gender, ethnicity or religion.
A diverse group, multicolor, in which there is no shortage of contradictions and paradoxes grows in front of the dominant system. It is not yet the rainbow that announces the end of the storm. Spontaneity characterizes it; it needs articulation and coherence that need to be stimulated without sectarianism, without being carried away with wildness. The great challenge of revolutionaries, of communists, is to define our part, the place that we should occupy in this battle. For that we need a theory.
In that sense one must return to the well known but forgotten definition of Lenin: "A correct revolutionary theory is only formed in a definitive manner in close connection with practical experience in a movement that is truly mass and truly revolutionary."
That theory, on a world scale, does not exist in fact, to serve as a guide in the struggle to substitute the present order and transform it in the direction toward socialism. That theory has to be formed and its definitive formation has to take place in constant interrelation with practice, in a process in which both form an inseparable whole. But we are not speaking of just any practice but that of a movement that is both "truly mass and truly revolutionary."
When can a movement be defined as truly a mass movement and when does it acquire the quality of being truly revolutionary? The answers will not be found in a research laboratory, nor will they erupt from academic debate. Revolutionaries themselves will have to create them, men and women of flesh and blood, acting from the masses, building their movement and trying to make it ever more revolutionary. The entire life of the genial Bolshevik leader can be described in that commitment. A persistent legend attributes to the author of Capital the saying "Man [sic] thinks as he lives," which more than a few militants still repeat, without warning of the mistake nor of its paralyzing effects. The relation between man and his surroundings is of decisive importance for ethics and politics and in order to understand the Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach. To transform the world the key is in the Third Thesis. Let's remember the statements of Marx:
"The materialist theory that men are product of circumstances and of education, and that, therefore, changed men are a product of different circumstances and of a modified education, forgets that it is men, precisely, who make circumstances chanage and that even the educator needs to be educated. This leads, then, inevitably, to the division of society in two parts, one of which is on top of society (this, for example, in Robert Owen)
"The coincidence of the modification of circumstances and of human activity can only be conceived and understood rationally as revolutionary practice."
In the Second Declaration of Havana, Cubans proclaimed that "the duty of every revolutionary is to make revolution." To make it means to create a new world in spite of the obstacles and limitations that circumstances impose, in a ceaseless battle in which both man and reality will go on transforming each other reciprocally.
* * *
"A certain form of socialism will emerge inevitably from the also inevitable decay of capitalism"
-- Joseph A. Schumpeter
The prediction that I just cited has been the object of implacable denunciation on the part of bourgeois thinkers. In 1942 it was difficult to see the fall of capitalism as something inevitable. Its author, nevertheless, did not cease believing in it until the end.
Eight years afterward, just before dying, he said: "Marx was wrong in his diagnosis of how capitalist society would fall; but he was not wrong in the prediction that finally it would fall."
In 1950 U.S. capitalism reached the zenith of its hegemony. It was the only nuclear power, it hadn't suffered the devastation that the world war had wreaked on the other developed countries, it dominated Western Europe and Latin America economically and politically, it possessed a superiority in science and technology.
At the middle of the last century the world was quite different from what it is today. By a route that they probably did not foresee we are now nearer the fulfillment of the prophecy in which, paradoxically, both the author of Capital and his tenacious Austro-North American critic coincided.
The protagonist has changed, the subject of history, man. The world population has grown in an exponential manner since the days of the publication of the Communist Manifesto and it continues doing so. Man traveled through tens of thousands of years to arrive at the first billion. It took a century to triple the double of that figure. Each 25 years is added to that figure a quantity similar to that which represented the whole planet when Karl Marx was born. At a similar rhythm the natural resources of the earth is exhausted and animal and vegetable species are annihilated forever. Man is the only being that has dedicated himself with so much fury and efficiency to destroy life.
Irreversible climactic changes, forests transformed into deserts, poisoned waters, unbreathable air, irremediably degraded soils, astounding conglomerations of human beings in uninhabitable and always growing urban clogs are distressing worries that compose a reality not known before.
Beyond ideologies the people continue discovering that which is obvious. In 1992, at the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, governments and civil society put ourselves in agreement that in order to save the earth it was necessary "to change the bosses of production and of consumption," words subscribed to by many, including Bush senior. They were words, certainly. But they imply explicit recognition although in the text of a document, of the necessity of the radical transformation of the relations between men and between them and nature.
The subject, besides, inevitably moves. Population grows exponentially but it doesn't do so equally in all parts of the world.
In the so-called developed countries it is frozen and even tends to shrink. In the rest, in that part of the world that was baptized as the Third, they are more, ever many more--in spite of early death, misery, hunger--and also those who in an unstoppable spiral, are displaced toward the enclaves of opulence.
The Third World penetrates the First. The latter needs the former and at the same time rejects it. In Europe and North America appears an undesirable protagonist, a mute guest that demands its rights. While here we carry out this important collective reflection animated by the example of a truly creative and humanist thinker and try to find the paths toward a better world, the U.S. Congress continues discussing what to do with those who number at least 11 million people--that is, the Cuban population--the so-called undocumented, searching for formulas that allow them to continue to be exploited while access to that society is closed.
The migratory phenomenon will be maintained and will gain in size along with capitalism, with its present characteristics, as it is expanded through the whole world. Capitalism cannot stop it, just as it is neither capable of abandoning those characteristics and much less transform itself into another thing.
The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States has prognosticated that, as a consequence of that phenomenon, very soon deep changes will have been produced in the cultures of several European countries. The struggle for the rights of immigrants and against discrimination expressed in public demonstrations that mobilized millions of people and in the historic May Day protest--a date that never before had been expressed in this way in the United States--brings to the forefront a political force that now cannot be easily ignored.
The presence of millions of people discriminated against and lacking civil and political rights raises an essential question that goes to the very roots of the political system that the West has attempted to set as an obligatory model for all. There is an increasingly growing number of those who work hard there, pay their taxes, die in their wars, but cannot vote nor be elected. In today's Rome the participation of the citizens is reduced while the mass of those excluded is constantly growing, the modern "barbarians." In this very building, recently, professor Robert Dahl--prominent apologist for the archetypical capitalist--recognized in such marginalization the principal lack of contemporary liberal democracy.
The end of that exclusion, the struggle for democracy, specifically including the democratization of Western societies, should be a priority for those who wish to transform the world. This is yet more urgent if we perceive the other face of the migratory phenomenon together with it grows, in parallel, racial hatred, xenophobia, which feeds fascist tendencies today present in an obvious manner in those societies.
The migratory problem reflects, thus, an aspect of capitalism today that it is also worthwhile reflecting on. While the emigrants are humiliated and super exploited in the countries where they end up, there they are used also as instruments for the oppression of the local workers. Being used as the international reserve army, stripped of rights, and until now not organized, they serve to lower wages, are forced to accept conditions that, as Bush the lesser likes to say, U.S. workers do not accept.
To free the immigrants from their exploitation becomes, therefore, essential for the emancipation of the workers in the developed countries. To forge a union between both exploited sectors, in an area that has had advances that are still insufficient but whose importance cannot be underestimated, is today a task that cannot be postponed. To rescue the role of the labor union, true bulwark of civil society and to guarantee the rights of all workers, without exceptions, to organize oneself is an indispensable response to a capitalism that ever more openly casts off its "liberal" mask and demonstrates the perverse face of tyranny.
Fascism must be stopped. It is necessary to prevent it from being able to gather its own victims into a senseless opposition. Never again should a Nixon be able to mobilize construction workers against the youth who, in the seventies of the last century, rebelled against the war in Vietnam. It is possible to unite them. We saw them united, in Seattle, both opposing neo-liberal globalization.
One must help them to converge, and it is possible to propose this to them, and it is a crucial aspect of the world today and in the struggle to change it.
The poor try to emigrate to the rich world to escape poverty. The rich, meanwhile, try to place their capital in the poor countries in order to increase their profits with the misery of others and inevitably worsen the conditions of work and of life for workers in the developed countries. Few in the United States and Europe would identify themselves as members of a worker aristocracy, beneficiary of the dropping of crumbs coming from the colonies. Today they are seen as those defeated by a system that, among other things, depends ever more on "outsourcing" and the maquila and that imposes everywhere the dogma of the omnipotent market and "free trade."
To forge convergence, to later on reach unity between the exploited people of the First and Third World, is now not only possible but necessary. But it is not enough to work for unity between all the proletariat of the world, of the First and Third World, of the South and of the North. Antifascist is essential for democracy, peace and life. To fight to create new models, to forge alliances where possible or meanwhile promote points or moments of coincidence between the diverse forces that today, for the most varied motives, are out of step with the world as it is, should constitute the principal guide for revolutionaries.
To struggle so that the antiwar and anti-globalization movements flow into the same great stream and that all those discriminated against, all the marginalized be included is the main duty of revolutionaries today. It is the way to create a better world. It is the road to take in advancing toward socialism. To achieve socialism in this century there must be "heroic creation," a creation that is authentic, independent, and therefore diverse and unique.
Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada is Cuba's Vice President and President of its National Assembly.
Translation by Joe Bryak for CubaNews.
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