My Blog

Giant Art in Russia

reasoninrevolt — Wed, 03 May 2006 05:53:47 GMT

This is totally unreal! http://ziza.ru/2006/04/14/raboty-Ron-Mueck.html

General Strike and Protests in Nepal

reasoninrevolt — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 16:26:52 GMT

The BBC reports that in Nepal, several thousand protesters began marching from the south towards the royal palace in Kathmandu. The crowd made up primarily of youth marched towards the palace in a largely celebratory mood chanting "We want Democracy" and ""Gyane Leave the Country!" (Gyane is the name of the current king). In some areas riot police sent tear gas into the peaceful crowds and attacked the youths with batons leaving behind a scene of bloody desolation. This follows on the security forces brutally attacking a group of 500 lawyers protesting for democracy on Thursday, April 13. The people of Nepal have instituted a "crippling" nationwide general strike to add additional pressure. Full post at http://fruitsofourlabour.blogspot.com

Powell: No Iraqi WMDs

reasoninrevolt — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 18:26:59 GMT

Robert Scheer of The Nation reports: "On Monday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told me that he and his department's top experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that the President followed the misleading advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim. Now he tells us." Full post at http://fruitsofourlabour.blogspot.com

Protests Spread to 100s of US Cities

reasoninrevolt — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 11:40:00 GMT

Monday April 10th was a National Day of Action for immigration rights. Hundreds of thousands of people across the entire United States took action to support basic human rights for the over 11 million immigrant workers in this country. Daniela Gerson of the New York Sun reports that tens of thousands converged on city hall on the afternoon of April 10th. Full post at http://fruitsofourlabour.blogspot.com

Free Trade: A Socialist Analysis

reasoninrevolt — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 22:04:05 GMT

Free trade makes as much sense as a three dollar bill, and in fact, that is just about the extent of what it delivers to the working people and poor (e.g. the proletariat) of the world. Martin Hart-Landsberg delivers a comprehensive dismissal of the free trade myth in the current issue of the Monthly Review (Vol. 57 No. 11). The most surprising part of his article, from my perspective, is that the WTO and other proponents of free trade actually 1) base their arguments in favor of free trade on the antique and simplistic concept of comparative advantage and 2) care about trying to fool us all into believing that free trade is good for the poor. The 15 year experiment in neoliberalism is finally coming to an end. It is clear to the global proletariat that the lies of globalization lead to nothing but a race to the bottom for everyone other than the super rich. Peru is on the very of electing the latest in a series of socialist presidents in Latin America, perhaps the worst hit victim of neoliberalism (and its predecessors). Nevertheless we have technocrats in Geneva, London and New York continuing to blindly tow the line of their capitalist masters, dazzling us with complex computer simulations of a bright future all the while ignoring the statistical reality of suffering evident the world over. Fortunately there are a growing number of socialist economists who stand up to the pollyanna utopian visions of the neoliberal propaganda machine. One such, Hart-Landsberg delivers the death blow to Ricardo's comparative advantage in the following excerpts: Arguments promoting free trade generally rest on the theory of comparative advantage. David Ricardo introduced this theory in 1821 in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. It is commonly misunderstood to assert the obvious, that countries have or can create different comparative advantages or that trade can be helpful. In fact, it supports a very specific policy conclusion: a country’s best economic policy is to allow unregulated international market activity to determine its comparative advantage and national patterns of production. [...] Mainstream economists, while continuing to accept the basic outlines of Ricardo’s theory, have developed refinements to it. [...] Like all theories, the theory of comparative advantage (and its conclusion) is based on a number of assumptions. Among the most important are: * There is perfect competition between firms. * There is full employment of all factors of production. * Labor and capital are perfectly mobile within a country and do not move across national borders. * A country’s gains from trade are captured by those living in the country and spent locally. * A country’s external trade is always in balance. * Market prices accurately reflect the real (or social) costs of the products produced. Even a quick consideration of these assumptions reveals that they are extensive and unrealistic. Moreover, if they are not satisfied, there is no basis for accepting the theory’s conclusion that free-market policies will promote international well being. For example, the assumption of full employment of all factors of production, including labor, is obviously false. Equally problematic is the theory’s implied restructuring process, which assumes that (but never explains how) workers who lose their jobs as a result of free-trade generated imports will quickly find new employment in the expanding export sector of the economy. In reality, workers (and other factors of production) may not be equally productive in alternative uses. Even if we ignore this problem, if their reallocation is not sufficiently fast, the newly liberalized economy will likely suffer an increase in unemployment, leading to a reduction in aggregate demand and perhaps recession. Thus, even if all factors of production eventually become fully employed, it is quite possible that the cost of adjustment would outweigh the alleged efficiency gains from the trade induced restructuring. It should be noted that despite the smokescreen of academic economic analysis it is quite clear that the capitalist class (if not the technocrats themselves) is fully aware of these false assumptions and does not at all expect free trade to operate in a way that is beneficial to trading partners nor the world poor. Indeed, the capitalists specifically do not want the system to work in a fair way because their prime motivation is the retention and consolidation of their own power, a project at which they excel. Hart-Landsberg goes on to explain: Although this bias is sufficient to dismiss the study’s usefulness as a guide to policy, its results are still worth examining for two reasons: First, the projected benefits are smaller than one might imagine given the World Bank’s unqualified support for liberalization. [...] If we were to take these numbers seriously, they certainly suggest that the third world has little to gain from an actual WTO agreement. As Mark Weisbrot and Dean Baker note in their critique of this study, “the removal of all of the rich countries’ barriers to the merchandise exports of developing countries—including agriculture, textiles, and other manufactured goods—would...when such changes were fully implemented by 2015...add 0.6 percent to the GDP of low and middle-income countries. This means that a country in Sub-Saharan Africa that would, under present trade arrangements have a per capita income of $500 per year in 2015, would instead have a per capita income of $503.”12 Moreover, as they also point out, these meager gains would be far outweighed by losses incurred from compliance with other associated WTO agreements. Read the full Monthly Review article... I'm no economist but $3.00 more a year per capita! I can guarantee you that won't pay the bill for the newly privatized water system, one of the strings the IMF invariably attaches to WTO compliance! Needless to say, this is leaving our friends at the WTO scratching their heads, while the pirates of capital laugh all the way to the bank (which of course, they own too). Free trade is nothing but. The alternative to free trade is simple: give the people the ability to self determine their economic relations by allowing local, state and national governments to regulate trade and capital. These decisions must be based on the democratic will of the people, not closed door deals between the unelected bagmen on capital. Another world is possible, and socialism gives us the tools to put the necessary constraints of capital, freeing the wealth of the world to benefit all people instead of only the few.

Grève Générale 2006!

reasoninrevolt — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 11:34:07 GMT

Grève Générale 2006! Workers and students across the world have begun to show support for the French movement or take similar action themselves. In France, the strike has continued to gain traction among the unions and public service workers, with over 20% of the public service on strike as of April 4, with over 3 million total people estimated on strike nationwide. * In Germany, students occupied the rectorate of Bielefeld university since 1st February in a protest against the introduction of student fees. From 15th February students at Padeborn University were occupying the rectorate of the area's high schools. As of 2nd March these occupations were evicted by force. * In the UK, 1.5 million people went on strike against proposed pension cuts. Also, students occupied Sussex University Library to protest against redundancies and cuts in staffing, some declaring solidarity with students in France. * In Japan, during the anti-war demonstrations in March 19th, young workers in carried placards against the CPE and new PSE laws which will come into effect in Japan in the near future. * In New Zeland, over 1,000 high school students walked out of class to protest against youth pay rates, whilst linking their protest to the events in France. The protest ended with some violence and a sit-down protest in a major intersection. * Workers in Gothenburg, Sweden smashed several windows on the Centerpartiet local office in protest against new labour laws proposed by Maud Olofsson, The Chairman of the Swedish liberal party Centerpartiet. She openly admitted that she has been directly inspired by French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepins controversial French CPE law. 500 people, youths and workers, gathered at the central plaza in Stockholm to demonstrate against the Centerpartiet attack on worker rights and in solidarity with the youth revolt in France. The group was dispersed by mounted police. Also, in Denmark 200 protested in front of the French embassy in solidarity with French youths. * In the US, millions marched in rallies and strikes across the USA to protest against anti-immigrant bill HR 4437. In the days following the demonstration tens of thousands of students have walked out of high schools and held spontaneous demonstrations, blocking traffic and picketing city halls. Several thousand students have been involved in walkouts in Tucson and Phoenix Arizona, in some cases having to break out of their schools to join demonstrations, which have included blocking traffic and in one case throwing rocks at the US border patrol headquarters. On Monday 26th a walkout in Los Angeles county involved around 36,000 students. In San Diego, 30-40 student protestors were arrested for truanting on March 29th during one of the protests, and there were reports of 250 students and 80 police officers fighting a pitched battle with blocks of concrete outside Oceanside High School. Demonstrations and further arrests were also reported in Houston, El Paso and Los Angeles. In New York, young people from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) marched to the French Consulate in Manhattan with banners calling for the withdrawal for the CPE. SDS was one of the main groups involved in the university occupations and teach-ins in the US during the late '60s, which has been revived in 2006 with 30 chapters across the country. I met some of the leaders of this group recently and I can tell you they are great people. I encourage everyone to consider joining up with the SDS. They have a lot of positive momentum right now. * Finally, in Spain on March 31st, a group of around 60 people assembled in front of the French consulate in Barcelona in solidarity with the struggle of the french people against the "CPE, precariousness, exploitation by work, slavery of workers...". A cordon of 20 mossos d'esquadra (Catalan cops) blocked the entrance of the consulate. In November there were two arrests at the consulate during a demonstration held in solidarity with the uprising in the suburbs. These reports have been summarized from http://www.libcom.org/news/ and other sources.

France 2006 General Strike

reasoninrevolt — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 23:01:14 GMT

The world has been watching the French strikes all week. Sure is a lot of red in that crowd, eh? Strike action is spreading from students to public and now even private sector workers. A general strike is looming. Solidarity strikes have sprung up in England and Germany looks to be next. Organizers are continuing the massive strike action in the US versus the racist reactionary anti-immigration agenda of the right wing. Many are murmuring about 1968 and the wave of worker revolt that brought down fascists in several countries, toppled Nixon, and brought socialist governments into power across Europe (and also, unfortunately, led to the Trilateral agenda). In case you thought you were getting an unbiased view from the American "news" media (including the liberal darling, John Stewart who literally lied about the extent of violence in the strikes), the ICFI correctly reports: The reaction of the [US] media has been universally hostile, varying from denunciations by the right-wing press of “mob rule” to the more low-key perplexity expressed by the liberal media, which suggests that French are suffering from some type of collective dementia because they believe they have the right to such things as job security. [...] In one way or another all of the commentaries suggest the protests are illegitimate. They declare that France’s labor laws and social protections are outmoded and must be “reformed” if corporations are to thrive and create jobs. They suggest that “everyone” agrees with this, everyone, that is, except the millions of workers and young people marching on the streets of France. Echoing the infamous comments of British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the time of the invasion of Iraq, the US media suggests that the strength of a democracy is measured by the ability of political leaders to defy the will of the people and do “what’s right.” [...] Complaining that France sported “only” 14 billionaires, as compared to 24 in similarly sized Britain, Pearlstein concludes his column: “Indeed, when you ask French university students who is the Bill Gates of France, they look at you blankly. It’s not simply that they can’t name one. The bigger problem is that they can’t imagine why it matters, or why that has anything to do with why they can’t find a good job.” The American media is nothing more that the bought whore of Wall Street. Yeah, Gates has created so many jobs for Americans. Perlstein is a moron. Gates has created more jobs in India than in the US, not to mention the hordes of 1099 employees he imports, and he constantly complains about the American education system and how lazy young American's are. He has even made speeches at high schools including the statement that a job as a street sweeper was considered "opportunity" by our forefathers. He of course forgets to mention that systemic racism and anti-labor practices meant that is was much easier for capitalists to exploit the masses 100 years ago (which I'm sure is truely what he is complaining about). The IWW had posted a statement from the CNT-F some excerpts of which follow: Three million demonstrators on Tuesday 28th March! And it was a weekday... so that's three million on strike! Both public-sector and private-sector employees realised how important it was to strike, in order to achieve the greatest number possible on the streets to express their total rejection of the CPE, and indeed of precarious labour in general. [...] The CNT calls on all workers, on the unemployed, on precarious workers and "sans-papiers" to join with the university and high-school students and participate in the general assemblies, so that sector by sector we can build the strike from the grassroots. The CWI reports: There are more and more discussions amongst workers about the need for a general strike to try to turn the tide against the series of attacks they have suffered. While currently public sector workers feel more confident to strike on the days of protest there is also anger amongst the private sector as well. If private sector workers saw that there was the chance of a generalised struggle that would not leave them isolated in their individual companies then they too would join in. While a national student meeting has called for blockades of railway stations and motorways on March 30 and a general strike on April 4, a more generalised strategy is needed. However it cannot be ruled out that the French tradition of spontaneous strikes will be seen again with workers deciding to continue striking. I stand in solidarity with all of the strikers fighting for a better world. We stand against the neo-liberal agenda which reduces all life to a question of profits. We encourage our brothers and sisters to consider marching and striking in solidarity wherever you may live or work, to stand up and fight to end the attacks by capital on the working class. For a first hand account from a perspetive sympathetic to the strikers, and eyewitness photos as well, I highly encourage you to visit http://libcom.org/blog - unrest in france

Boomerang Politick - Clik Clak

reasoninrevolt — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 22:50:40 GMT

So yeah, my PE and Ice-T back in the day were up in everyones faces dropping political science on the nation. Now finally we have some young Black Panther Spartacist brothers out of LA bringing political rap back with a vengance. Check out Boomerang Politick at their MySpace site and I gurantee you are in for the sickest rhymes and beats you've heard in ages. URL: http://www.myspace.com/boomerangpolitick