4) Bush Says: "Let 'em Eat War"
by wwnews
5) Dangerous Talk of Revolution
by wwnews
6) Labor & the World Economic Forum
by wwnews
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (wwnews)
Date: torstai 31. tammikuu 2002 09:19
Subject: [WW] Bush Says: "Let 'em Eat War"
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
PEOPLE WANT JOBS, SOCIAL SECURITY--BUSH SAYS: "LET
'EM EAT WAR"
By Leslie Feinberg
New York
The bigwigs of big business plan to wine and dine on the
floor of the New York Stock Exchange to celebrate the
opening of the World Economic Forum. One familiar face at
the annual capitalist think tank will be missing, but his
presence will be felt like that of an 800-pound gorilla.
Kenneth Lay, former Enron CEO and regular at Davos
gatherings, has been politely, discreetly, but decidedly
disinvited.
Lay and his financial empire--now in ruin--were the
unmentioned pink elephant in the ornate House of
Representatives hall on Jan. 29, too. As George W. Bush,
leader of the world's most dangerous regime, armed with the
world's most dangerous weapons, strode to the dais amidst
pomp and circumstance to deliver his bellicose State of the
Union address, his former chief energy advisor was never
mentioned and nowhere to be seen.
How the mighty have fallen. Enron--the seventh-largest
corporation in the world in its glory days--has become a
dirty, five-letter word, from Washington to Wall Street.
Corruption, greed, hubris, trickery, fraud--the list of
charges Enron executives face in six Senate committees, two
House committees, an investigation by the Securities and
Exchange Commission and a criminal inquiry by the Justice
Department, is long.
But greed and corruption alone do not cause economic
recessions like the one widening and deepening around the
world today. This crisis of abundance comes at the stage of
history when goliath banks and mammoth corporations have
fused into the monstrous entity of imperialist finance
capital. They plunder the world's workers, pillage the most
oppressed and ravage the planet with only one objective:
profits.
There is one law to which they must hew: expand or die. But
the capitalist market is contracting.
And the long shadow Enron casts may be the harbinger of a
lengthy season of wintry recession. That makes the
imperialist beast even more ravenous and more dangerous.
RATTLING THE SABERS
Bush's speech aimed to forge economic fear into war fervor.
His speechwriters and advisors, who reportedly revised his
address at least 18 times, were most certainly mindful of a
recent poll by the New York Times and CBS News that showed
people are more worried about the economy than "terrorism."
(New York Times, Jan. 27)
So as police ringed the Capitol Building, Bush rattled the
sabers: "The United States of America will not permit the
world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the
world's most destructive weapons." Even school children know
that the U.S. has the biggest arsenal in the world.
He characterized Iraq, Iran and the Democratic Peoples
Republic of Korea--north Korea--as the "axis of evil"--meant
to equate three small, developing countries with Nazi
Germany, imperial Japan and Italy during World War II.
Bush's demonization of these developing countries, none of
them nuclear powers, "may have little to do with Sept. 11.
It has a lot more to do with the Pentagon's long term plans,
and for a $50 billion increase in defense spending, the
biggest leap in two decades," noted the British Guardian
Unlimited Online the following day.
At a time when his administration is trying to crush
Palestinian aspirations for national liberation, Bush made
Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad targets of his "anti-
terror" battle.
Perhaps most significant was his statement: "I will not wait
on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as
peril draws closer and closer."
"Osama bin Laden was not mentioned once, al-Qaeda only in
passing," observed Guardian Online. "The speech was clearly
aimed at ushering in a new phase in the anti-terrorist
campaign, in which links with the Sept. 11 attacks will no
longer be the criteria for U.S. military action."
But the countries in the crosshairs stood tall. "The world
will not accept U.S. hegemony," Iranian Foreign Minister
Kamal Kharrazi responded the next day.
A statement from the Workers Party in north Korea called for
withdrawal of the 37,000 U.S. troops in south Korea. It said
"The U.S. seeks to unleash a new war with south Korea as a
forward base and the U.S. forces in south Korea as the main
force, swallow up the whole of Korea and, furthermore, put
Asia under its military domination." Even the pro-U.S.
government in the south rejected Bush's characterization of
the north.
In Baghdad, senior Iraqi parliamentarian Salim al-Qubaisi
charged, "The American administration led by Bush has been
threatening Iraq from time to time to prepare world public
opinion for a new aggression against Iraq."
Bush's 47-minute speech was interrupted more than 70 times
by wild applause in the congressional chamber from the two
parties of war. And much was made in the monopoly media
about Bush's 80 percent approval rating in polls. But Bush
Jr. would do well to recall how his father's popularity
plummeted after the Gulf War as this country slid into a
recession.
In his State of the Union, Bush Jr. gave the economy shorter
shrift. And there was less clapping from the Democrats. But
they are both parties of big business. They are slinging
mud, rather than stones, when it comes to the Enron debacle,
for example, because they all live in glass palaces paid for
by the banking and corporate empires.
Bush's aggressive remarks were reminiscent of the 1952
declaration of Charles Wilson, President Dwight Eisenhower's
defense secretary--and former president of General Motors--
that what was "good for General Motors" was "good for our
country." Enron's deep ties to the Bush family give it an as-
yet-unrevealed relationship to the CIA. The current
Secretary of the Army, Thomas White Jr., was an Enron
executive.
When Bush Sr. was in the Oval Office he made the world
"safe" for Enron and other predatory oil and gas
transnationals. James A. Baker, an Enron consultant, helped
the company win big contracts to help "rebuild" Kuwait after
the Gulf War ended. (Newsweek, Jan. 28)
Now Vice-President Richard Cheney has been forced to admit
that he intervened with Indian officials last year on behalf
of Enron regarding a troubled power project. Lay reportedly
threatened Indian authorities with U.S. sanctions.
(Financial Times, Jan. 25)
The White House also concedes that Cheney met with Lay six
times in 2001, the last just days before Enron's collapse.
Bush and Cheney refuse to divulge details about discussions
with Enron executives.
Cheney sat directly behind Bush during the speech.
Former Enron executive Sherron Smith Watkins is being hailed
as a courageous whistle blower. But she sent management a
warning so high-pitched that only the top dogs could hear
it. Her letter warned Lay that another executive, J.
Clifford Baxter, was complaining mightily to all who would
listen about the company's crooked accounting schemes.
After being subpoenaed by the Senate Governmental Affairs
Subcommittee, Baxter was found shot to death in his car. His
death was quickly ruled a suicide. But it turns out he hired
a bodyguard one day before he was found dead. Baxter's
shooting is as convenient in its timing for Enron execs as
Princess Di's demise was for the House of Windsor.
A lawyer involved in the broadening Enron financial scandal
told Newsweek, "All the facts that you know now are just the
tip of the iceberg." (Jan. 28)
Now, Bush Jr. is making Central Asia "safe" for campaign-
contributor Unocal to build a lucrative gas pipeline.
Who among the World Economic Forum coterie will cast the
first stone at Enron? Coca-Cola executives, who reportedly
hired death squads to terrorize their Colombian workers? BP
Amoco, that is despoiling the planet? Merck, one of the
giant pharmaceuticals that sued the South African government
to bar it from obtaining generic AIDS drugs? Boeing,
Microsoft and IBM, three of the Fortune 500 that use prison
labor? Deutsche Bank, Siemens and Volkswagen, that wrung
super-profits from slave labor during the Nazi era?
Even now, on the eve of WEF opening, police are stationed in
front of Old Navy, Starbucks and other hated symbols of U.S.
finance capital here. As crowds of capitalists arrive, the
cops are practicing crowd control against the have-nots.
Bush, in his state of the union, called on working people to
donate 4,000 hours of community service to their country.
It's the movement against capitalism, against
globalization's iron grip, that needs those volunteer hours.
There are banners to paint, press releases to write, battles
to strategize.
Be all that you can be, in the army of the liberation.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (wwnews)
Date: torstai 31. tammikuu 2002 09:19
Subject: [WW] Dangerous Talk of Revolution
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
STATEMENT OF WORKERS WORLD PARTY: DANGEROUS
TALK OF REVOLUTION
These are the best of times and the worst of times. The
awful truth about capitalism can no longer be hidden. Even
the moneyed oligarchs who have gathered in New York to
celebrate their world system are haunted by the specter of
Enron and the inner turmoil its collapse reveals within
the incestuous web of U.S. industry, finance and government.
An economic crisis is unrolling that started in
the financial markets, is spreading to the factories,
offices and stores, and can engulf the political
structures of capitalist governments everywhere,
as it is doing so spectacularly at this very moment
Argentina.
This crisis is driving the Bush administration's adventurous
military expansion, which has two aspects: an attempt to
resuscitate the flagging fortunes of U.S. capital with a
strong jolt of war spending and imperial conquest; and a
media-coordinated scare-mongering campaign to divert
workers' attention from the scandalous and criminal theft of
so much wealth by the cabal intertwined with the Washington
elite.
As the World Economic Forum meets, outside will be a glimpse
of the new movement--global, like the system whose crimes it
is protesting--that is a forerunner of things to come. Each
protester speaks for a multitude around the world who "stand
outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made," in the
words of the old union song.
This movement is young and hopeful, despite all the doomsday
scenarios confronting it. Yes, it is saying, you are
damaging our beloved planet, starving and stunting the
world's people, bringing them exploitation and war instead
of clean water and plowshares, but we believe another world is
possible.
Those determined to rule this world reply, "Be careful what
you say. Such talk is dangerous. Don't force us to lock you
up or even shoot you down, as in Genoa."
Yes, the truth is dangerous. And hopeful truth is the most
dangerous kind. It can infect the millions whose jobs hang
by a thread, who are mired in debt to billionaire banks, who
suffer the daily indignities and injustices of a racist,
sexist, anti-gay system, and who see no way out.
There is a way out. Every day workers of all nationalities
show their skill, ingenuity and reliability in making the
global network of modern production function almost
seamlessly. They are the social class that can rescue
humanity from the grave the capitalists are digging for us
all--and they are everywhere, as numerous as the leaves on
the trees.
But today the workers are organized by the capitalist class,
and their existence is tolerated only as a category
necessary to the pursuit of profit. When profit cannot be
obtained from their labor, they are cast out. The suffering
in the wake of Enron's collapse shows why all workers
desperately need to organize independently, to protect their
own class interests against the predatory bosses. Who else
will represent them? Every branch of the state is
compromised by its intimate relation with the
banking/corporate Robber Barons.
If all those now fearing pink slips were to assert their
right to their jobs, were to band together and refuse to be
sent away, were to demand recognition of the sweat equity
that makes them the true owners of this economy, then we
would be on the path leading to that better world.
Today, we are on a different path--Bush's path--the path of
neocolonial war, death, destruction and counter-revolution
abroad, while fleecing and repressing the workers at home.
What can be done about it?
Workers World Party has no confidence in any of the
political structures of U.S. imperialist society. They
function to serve the interests of the capitalist ruling
class. Their pretense of following a democratic mandate is a
sham. Bought-and-paid-for elections politically
disenfranchise the workers. The crude manipulations revealed
in 2000 confirmed this country's long racist tradition of
trampling on Black voters. The result is a government of the
rich, by the rich and for the rich, that yields only to mass
struggle.
WWP has the greatest confidence in the revolutionary
potential of the multinational working class of this country
to break out of this trap and create their own organs of
struggle and, eventually, of power. The power to lead
society out of the abyss--that is what the struggle is all
about. A revolutionary Marxist party is always on the
lookout for ways that the workers can realize and express
this power.
An organization that takes seriously the great
responsibility and dangers thrust on the working class must
be accountable for its own actions. It cannot be a debating
society--there are plenty of those already. It must be a
party of action and combat, able to advance or retreat as a
unit, inspired by a common program. It must be flexible
enough to consider varying viewpoints when deciding on
analysis and a course of action. It must be united in
carrying out the struggle and in explaining and defending
its program to the workers.
The workers must know that they can trust the party to do
what it says, and not go in a hundred different directions
when action is called for.
This takes a unique blend of democracy and centralism.
This communist form of organization brings forward the
revolutionary leadership potential of the most oppressed in
this society--especially those held down by racism, sexism
and genderism--while it enables the greatest solidarity in
practice among all who want to defeat this rotten system. It
is the antithesis of the way a capitalist political
organization functions--where money dictates policy and
public debates are only window dressing.
Dangerous words. And meant to be.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (wwnews)
Date: torstai 31. tammikuu 2002 09:19
Subject: [WW] Labor & the World Economic Forum
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
LABOR AND THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
By Milt Neidenberg
What was needed was a loud and clear voice that could be
heard around the country and the globe demanding global
economic justice. It wasn't to be. They let out a squeak
when it should have been a bellow.
On Jan. 17, less than two weeks before the meeting of the
World Economic Forum, AFL-CIO leaders finally joined the
growing protest against this wealthy group of corporate and
banking moguls allied with government elites. This group of
billionaires will spend Jan. 31 to Feb. 4 defending their
grossly disproportionate share of the world's precious
resources.
The WEF will be held in New York to show the world that,
following the World Trade Center attack, the city is now a
secure setting for this glorified, ostentatious function.
The mobilization of police and other law enforcement
personnel who have been training for weeks, the media blitz
of violence baiting that has saturated the public, is all
unprecedented and calculated to intimidate participants from
joining the protest.
It seems to be working in regard to the AFL-CIO leaders. In
a letter and leaflet addressed only to local unions in New
York City and the state federation, AFL-CIO President John
Sweeney outlined two modest activities scheduled for Jan. 29
to provide laborresponse to the World Economic Forum. One
activity will be a forum to hear "what globalization is
doing to our families, our communities, our countries, our
future." Sweeney will be the featured speaker.
AFL-CIO CALLS OFF MARCH
The other activity would have been a "March for Global
Justice." However, the march was called off. Instead, the
AFL-CIO will hold a rally at a Gap storefront near the
Waldorf-Astoria, where the WEF is meeting. Unfortunately,
this was the union leadership response when city and higher-
up law enforcement officials denied them their
constitutional right to march.
Their literature states, "Say 'no' to sweatshops, layoffs
and the global corporate agenda, and say 'yes' to the
worldwide movement for global justice." This is a step
forward from previous years when they responded to the
global corporate agenda with an appeal for "fair trade, not
free trade." As if these greedy, marauding scoundrels who
scour the globe to enrich their treasuries at the expense of
the most oppressed have any sense of fairness.
Behind the façade of glitter and gold, a sense of gloom and
doom appears to be pervading the WEF participants. Robert
Hormat--vice chair of Goldman, Sachs International and a
spokesperson on many occasions for Wall Street's sentiments--
expressed his view that there is no longer a feeling of
invulnerability. "A new sense of realism has descended on
us, and we realize we're all in peril." (New York Times,
Jan. 27)
This should be a wakeup call for these labor leaders. The
mood of the class enemy is significant in planning action
struggles. One such struggle that is sure to come up at the
WEF is the Free Trade Area Agreement. FTAA--a threat to the
millions of workers here and abroad--is a top priority for
the Bush administration and corporate/banking tycoons.
AFL-CIO President Sweeney has been invited to address a
session of the WEF. Will he denounce this multilateral
bosses' agreement--which is nothing more than another North
America Free Trade Agreement? NAFTA, which opened up Canada
and Mexico to U.S. capitalists, decimated the jobs and
working conditions of workers here and abroad. The FTAA is
much more threatening. It will encompass all of South
America and the Caribbean.
It remains to be seen what the text of his remarks will be.
But one fact is certain. There is a growing opposition and a
deep distrust abroad, particularly in Latin America, for the
FTAA, which seeks to open up those markets for further U.S.
exploitation.
SWEENEY SHOULD SHOW SOLIDARITY ON FTAA
President Sweeney should acknowledge this growing militancy
in a show of international solidarity and spell it out.
In Argentina, the labor movement and the poor continue to
take to the streets in general strikes and other mass
actions. In a show of defiance, they are demanding that the
new government break the financial and political grip U.S.
banks and corporations still hold on their country.
In Brazil, unemployment is on the rise. Organizations like
the Landless Workers Movement--who work on the sugar
plantations--are opposing the stranglehold U.S. tariffs and
quotas have on their economy.
In Mexico, steelworkers have occupied a number of plants
beholden to U.S. NAFTA agreements, along with other
struggles.
Venezuela, Colombia and much of Latin America are seething
with anti-U.S. rage as unemployment, poverty and hunger
rise. President George W. Bush's "free trade" policy, the
FTAA, and all the exorbitant benefits accrued to U.S.
banks/corporations, the International Monetary Fund and
World Bank are in jeopardy.
Meanwhile, socialist Cuba stands as an alternative, a beacon
of hope for the downtrodden masses of workers and peasants.
This is all good news for the labor movement here and it
should make the most of it. This militancy can only help the
AFL-CIO and the millions of members who are under assault
from the Bush administration and Wall Street.
The Bush administration is already charging these worldwide
movements with "terrorism" to justify its plans for military
aggression, as it is doing in Colombia.
According to an extensive article on the WEF in the Jan. 27
New York Times, "terror ism is now synonymous with
opposition to globalization." Financial writers Ste pha nie
Strom and Louis Uchitelle claimed: "Not only has
globalization been cast by terrorists as the cause of many
ills, but it also may be the culprit behind the synchronized
slowdown of the world economy, the first global downturn
since the oil crisis of the 1970s."
This phony propaganda won't fly. The workers know well
enough who are responsible for the global recession: the
billionaires who will be attending the WEF.
WORKERS MORE CONCERNED WITH ECONOMY THAN
'TERRORISM'
In a recent New York Times/CBS poll, a cross-section of the
population has shifted its opinion in recent weeks.
According to the poll, "the economy has now supplanted
battling terrorism." This is a significant development.
Since the attack on the World Trade Center, the government's
campaign to inject "terrorism" and patriotism into every
facet of life has enabled the Bush administration to
successfully carry out U.S. imperialism's war drive and the
war against labor, the poor and the oppressed.
Are those days numbered? Will the AFL-CIO leaders deal with
this dramatic development?
In his opening remarks to an AFL-CIO Biennial Convention
held in Las Vegas in late November, which most commentators
and analysts called uneventful and uninspiring, Sweeney
urged union leaders to "take the offensive in a war here at
home." He was referring to an offensive against President
Bush, congressional Republicans and corporations. While he
repeated again and again this theme of waging war here at
home to the 1,000 delegates, he added, "even as we support
the president and our troops in the conflict abroad."
Sweeney praised Bush for "waging the war against terrorism."
This sends the wrong message at a time when the deepening
recession is awakening the workers to struggle. The AFL-CIO
leaders are in a dangerous contradiction. Unless they detach
themselves from the frenzy of the campaign on "terrorism"
that justifies expanding the war abroad, the labor movement
can't wage an effective fightback against all the social
ills impacting on the workforce here.
Events such as the Enron debacle, which exposes every
feature of capitalist accumulation of wealth and the system
that deepens the gap between rich and poor, have awakened
anger among the workers--especially people of color--who
will bear the brunt of the recession.
Is the class-consciousness of multinational rank-and-file
workers on the rise? Is a people's movement--made up of
students and youth, immigrant and community organizations--
taking their grievances into the streets?
Just maybe, these developments have overshadowed the views
of AFL-CIO leaders and turned the wheel leftward toward new
and creative forms of struggle. It's time for these labor
leaders to get aboard and check it out.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
