I heard discussion of Haiti and Venezuela at the SSC - in a panel organized by the Brecht Forum. The excellent Bill Fletcher of the TransAfrica Forum discussed both quite incisively. He pointed out that in the case of Haiti, as with Rwanda, discussion has been hampered (especially among black Americans) by the absence of a white colonial master, which makes it more urgent to point to class and gender as factors, though some are reluctant to do so. And he pointed, too, to the participation of hard leftists in the anti-Chevez coalition - socialists in coalition with fascists, were his words I believe - because Chavez wasn't radical enough for them.
This morning, I attended a very good forum on the future of union organizing in the U.S. Michael Lighty of the California Nurses Association reported on their success in making links between the quality of care and the priorities of corporate medicine, and Dan Clawson spoke compellingly about how unions won't reverse their decline by doing the same old thing better, but by looking beyond the immediate workplace and breaking the law as necessary.
Doug
