Consumer or Class

Stephen Von Sychowski

Ever since the theory of scientific socialism was first articulated by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and subsequently proven correct by history, there have been those who deny its most basic tenants. They deny the fundamental irreconcilable contradiction between social production and private appropriation, between the interests of the working class and that of the ruling capitalist class. They deny the necessity of class struggle, and with that denial they deny all the proven truths of Marxism and instead move for attempting to reconcile class antagonisms, for reforming capitalism. While reformism has never been completely defeated, it is always changing to find new ways to win over different social strata and different segments of the working class. Today it takes on many forms, one reformist current which has recently swept the “left” in the last few years, especially progressive youth, is the “ant-consumerism” current. This current is that of the replacement of class struggle with the struggle against consumerism.

Petty-bourgeois Reformist Ideology

In rejecting the class struggle and seeking reproachmant of classes, the anti-consumerists prove that either they have no comprehension of classes or their significance, or they would rather not mention it for opportunist reasons. They at best may recognize a set of classes composed of “upper, lower and middle”, the favorite line of all petty-bourgeois and bourgeois ideologies. It is nothing to them that class is determined by relationship to the means of production. Marxism is “old left” and is ignored as such and replaced with even older bourgeois lies. But something had to replace the class struggle in this new ideology. In this case that something is anti-consumerism. This “anti-consumerism” pits “activists” against “consumers”, "consumerism” and “corporations” although no real effective anti-corporate activity takes place. As it reads on the website of Ad Busters, the company/magazine which remains at the forefront of “anti-consumerism” (despite the fact that it’s a company which sells consumer goods)…

“We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century” (1).

You may notice that while workers are not mentioned, entrepreneurs are. The working class is abandoned as reformism rears its ugly head. They testify further on the Blackspot Sneakers Website…

“Join us in this quest to create an authentic, non-corporate cool and reassert consumer sovereignty over capitalism” (2).

Quite a quest indeed! Not to defeat capitalism, but rather to “reassert consumer sovereignty”. If there were ever an empty phrase, that is it. Here the class struggle and socialism are abandoned, reformism wins, and so does the ruling class.

Of course, you can’t recognize the nature of the state, the dictatorship of the proletariat or class struggle if you can’t even recognize classes and class antagonisms. As a result, the anti-consumerists are left flailing at the air at “corporations” for all the wrong reasons and without any understanding of their nature under the current capitalist relations or at “consumers” most of which are the working class themselves who are really exploited at work, not when they go shopping. In this way the anti-consumerists often tell the working class something along the lines of “you don’t need things, don’t consume, having nothing is for the best,” a great message as far as the bourgeoisie is concerned as it pushes more and more towards the increased exploitation of the working class globally in a struggle to maximize profits and combat falling profit margins. And while it’s true that companies make many useless goods and shove them down the throats of “consumers” we must not be fooled into believing that this is a major issue or fundamental contradiction in our society.

Besides all of this, the very act of putting “consumers” on a pedestal as such denies class and class struggle. All human beings consume, this is without exception true. What human being does not? Some consume more and some less and on average this can probably be correlated closely with their class and therefore how much they can afford to consume. But in the end we all consume, or we die. This puts everyone in one big “consumer class” and as such effectively eliminates class from the ideology. Furthermore, since most consumers are working class it turns workers who consume less against more wealthy workers who can afford to consume more and divides the working class, which can only be in the interests of the ruling capitalists.

Petty-bourgeois Reformist Tactics

It should be no surprise that and ideology that comes to us from petty-bourgeois elements will be likely to be accompanied by petty-bourgeois tactics and forms of struggle. Logically, the favored tactic of our anti-consumerism crusaders is the tactic of boycott.

“For 24 hours, millions of people around the world do not participate -- in the doomsday economy, the marketing mind-games, and the frantic consumer-binge that's become our culture. We pause. We make a small choice not to shop. We shrink our footprint and gain some calm. Together we say to Exxon, Nike, Coke and the rest: enough is enough. And we help build this movement to rethink our unsustainable course” (3)

A frightening proposal indeed, the bourgeoisie surely trembles at the very thought of “millions” (more likely only a few thousand) people not purchasing their goods for a day, only to come in the next day and buy the stuff then instead. The idea that such an action could bring down capitalism is absurd, even if one assumes the ridiculous and supposes that every person will co-operate with the boycott. Even assuming that full co-operation was sustained for days, such a notion ignores the fact that the bourgeoisie owns the means of producing and distributing goods and without destroying capitalism that will not change. Since people need to eat, drink and live their lives they would be compelled by necessity to surrender their useless struggle and crawl back to their hated class enemies once again. It could be no other way. And why would it when the manufacturers of this ideological trend are petty-bourgeois themselves and have no interest in over-turning a system which works ‘ok’ for them, but rather in turning forces against the corporate monsters that threaten their petty-businesses.

“In the Alternate Economy, there is an emphasis on personal relationships. Instead of everything being monetized with a price tag and "savings" being the only criteria for choice of business one patronizes, the currency of loyalty and reciprocity is used along with cash”(4).

The above quotation sounds a lot like the free-competition capitalism of the past rather than a glorious new future. Of course that past developed into the current imperialist system not by chance or because that’s what people wanted, but rather than because of concrete laws of development, which were spelled out by V.I. Lenin in his work “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism” and have been proven true by history. The so-called “Alternate Economy” is merely the dream of a dying petty-bourgeois class clinging to the past while being dragged kicking and screaming into the ranks of the working-class by the economic conditions of monopoly capitalism.

“This is something quite different from the old free competition between manufacturers, scattered and out of touch with one another, and producing for an unknown market. Concentration has reached the point at which it is possible to make an approximate estimate of all sources of raw materials (for example, the iron ore deposits) of a country and even, as we shall see, of several countries, or of the whole world. Not only are such estimates made, but these sources are captured by gigantic monopolist associations. An approximate estimate of the capacity of markets is also made, and the associations "divide" them up amongst themselves by agreement. Skilled labour is monopolized, the best engineers are engaged; the means of transport are captured — railways in America, shipping companies in Europe and America. Capitalism in its imperialist stage leads directly to the most comprehensive socialisation of production; it, so to speak, drags the capitalists, against their will and consciousness, into some sort of a new social order, a transitional one from complete free competition to complete socialization”(5).

The tactics of Anti-Consumerist Reformism are petty-bourgeois in nature and constitute a blind attack against the social class which is thrusting the petty-bourgeoisie more and more into the ranks of the proletariat. This attack is blind in that it is impotent to affect any real change. It is incapable of bringing down the capitalist system because it fails to recognize class struggle and organize working class struggle against capitalism.

The Petty Bourgeois Origin of “Anti-Consumerism” Reformism

A particularly striking contemporary example of the origin of this type of ideology is found in the Ad Busters Blackspot Sneaker. Ad Busters, the popular anti-consumerism magazine, which originally spent all it’s time turning corporate advertisements into comical spoofs in an attempt to create “consumer consciousness” has now branched off into shoe production. This development has swept the “left” in North America and caused great controversy, not without good reason.

The company makes several claims regarding the moral integrity you will apparently be instilled with if you happen to purchase a pair of their glorious sneakers. A handy marketing tool no doubt. Their shoes are composed of “organic hemp” and “vegetarian leather”, which sounds very nice and “left” but is of very little relevance to class struggle. They are supposedly made in a “worker friendly union shop”, which indeed an useful to know, yet very odd considering the anti-union statements that reportedly have frequently come from Kalle Lasn, Ad Busters founder and boss. The same Kalle Lasn, who when asked if Ad Busters was unionized, replied…

“no... and we never will be, cheers, Kalle”(6).

A finer example of a bourgeois attitude to the rights of the working class could not be found.

Blackspot intends to give one share of the company to each individual who purchases a pair of sneakers from their company. A better way to ensure that petty-bourgeois ideology is instilled resolutely in these “consumers” could not have been thought up. And of course the key to the reformist ideology behind the whole project,

“1 pair=1 vote” (7)

With each pair you even get a “Blackspot Anti-Corporation Ticket”. What makes it an “anti-corporation” other than just the rhetoric it uses is unknown as evidently it seems very much to be just another shoe company which happens to have a clever marketing scheme and the old re-hashed lies of reformism behind it. The notion of “worker capitalism” has been around for a long time and this is not much more than a new twist of this idea. . The idea that the ability of workers to purchase shares in a company eliminates class antagonisms and creates a friendlier form of capitalism has not panned out, this should come as no surprise. While wealthier working people may be able to invest in shares of companies, this does not imply any real ownership or control of the actual company in question. The majority of shares remains in the hands of the owner of the business in question and with it remains the control of the company. The capitalist takes the workers money, and in return the worker gets a false sense of ownership and becomes that much more susceptible to bourgeois ideologies. Furthermore, the idea of share holding does not deal with basic realities that workers face under capitalism such as exploitation, surplus value or oppression. Indeed, this form of “worker capitalism” is merely a trick of the capitalists to keep the downtrodden working class in check. The whole thing seems quite suspiciously like a handy marketing tactic more than a struggle against capitalism.

While this is only one example, it is nothing out of the ordinary by any means for our anti-consumerists. Of course, all of this will merely be written off as “old left” rhetoric by Kalle Lasn and the rest of the consumer activists in the “new left”. This is despite the fact that it is far from “new” as reformist ideology dates further back than Marxist ideology by a long shot, indeed it is Marxism which is “new”. Indeed, upon close observation we can see that this “new left” is in fact the “new left” is really a petty bourgeois left, whipped up by petty-bourgeois and bourgeois individuals to disarm the working class ideologically and make a pretty penny selling shoes and magazines in the meantime. Meanwhile, the “old left” which they so vehemently denounce is indeed the working class left including progressive trade unionists and communists.

An ideology formulated by business people, handed to the working class but opposing class struggle, working peoples organizations and working class ideology; that’s why this writer suggests readers spend their Buy Nothing Day reading “The Communist Manifesto”, “Imperialism” or “State and Revolution”, and if you don’t have one don’t be afraid to go right ahead and buy one!

Footnotes

1. Ad Busters Website, “Join the Movement”, http://www.adbusters.org/network/, 07/11/2004

2. Blackspot Sneakers Website, Main Page, http://adbusters.org/metas/corpo/blackspotsneaker/home.html, 07/11/2004

3. Ad Busters Website, “But Nothing Day”, http://www.adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/, 08/11/2004

4. Over-Coming Consumerism Citizen-Activists anti-Consumerism Site, “Alternate Economy”, http://www.verdant.net/alternate_economy.htm 07/11/2004

5. Imperialism: The Highest Form of Capitalism, V.I. Lenin, Chapter 1 “Concentration of Production and Monopolies”, http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/index.htm 07/11/2004

6. E-mail received to authors account from kalle@adbusters.org on 10/20/2004

7. Blackspot Sneakers Website, “1 share=1 vote”, http://adbusters.org/metas/corpo/blackspotsneaker/oneshoeoneshare.html, 09/11/2004

Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage!

Brief to the Minimum Wage Board
Presented by Darrell Rankin
Leader, Communist Party of Canada – Manitoba
May 17, 2001

[The Manitoba government may create a two-tier minimum wage for workers under the age of 18 and for tipped workers. That would be a serious blow to women, youth and immigrant workers – mainly the unorganized workers who have no trade union protection. All workers should be treated with equal dignity and without discrimination!
It is essential that people speak out and protest against a two-tier minimum wage.
The minimum wage is already too low. About $1.9 billion of income has been lost by minimum wage

workers over the last 25 years because the Manitoba government has failed to protect minimum wage workers from the effects of inflation (making certain assumptions, see the brief below). This represents a shift of this amount from workers to capitalists.

The very fact that the government has to legislate a minimum wage to protect the most oppressed sections of the working class is in itself a shameful indictment of the capitalist system. Some of the work force is not even covered - farm workers, so-called “independent” contractors (eg., courier drivers), domestic workers, etc.]

The Provincial Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Canada – Manitoba welcomes this opportunity to contribute to the discussion on the minimum wage in Manitoba. I represent the Communist Party of Canada which has for eighty years fought to advance the rights and conditions of working people and everyone in need, opposed the corporate agenda, and has a goal of a socialist society in Canada.
The Communist Party pioneered many social programs in Canada. We helped mobilize public opinion so that governments of the day were compelled to act on the struggle for jobs, equality, medicare, unemployment insurance, social programs, trade union rights, peace and disarmament, a democratic solution to the constitutional crisis in Canada and many other issues.
We have always pointed out that reforms have never gone far enough, that conditions are getting worse for millions of people, inequality is greater, and wealth and technology are being used and accumulated in the interests of a small minority of people, the capitalist class.
Brutal, reactionary neo-liberal policies in the last twenty-five years have shifted the balance of forces in favour of the corporations and at the expense of working people and the environment. But these policy changes are themselves partly driven by growing impasses and setbacks in the world capitalist system, a system increasingly unable to meet the needs of the large majority of people.
Manitoba’s economy depends more on an unstable and slowing global economy.
The kinds of jobs that have been created in this period are part time, temporary, low wage, while thousands of better paying, full-time jobs are disappearing. For example, Mr. Buhler is threatening to close his Versatile tractor factory, a closure that would result in the loss of hundreds of better paying jobs.¹ While more people have found jobs in Manitoba in recent years, many working families are only one paycheque away from poverty, the food bank or losing their home or their farm.
In recent years, corporations in Manitoba have intensified their efforts to drive down wages and create a class of workers desperate to sell their labour power for any price. Our newspapers are carrying reports of employers bringing workers illegally from China and the Ukraine, and blackmailing them to work in slave-like conditions.
Young workers, especially, have experienced a dramatic decline in earnings. Between 1977 and 1995, real annual earnings for men aged 18 to 24 working full time, year round, declined 20 per cent. The same figure for women – starting from an already low, unequal figure – was a 9 per cent decline. A society that ignores and punishes its youth has no future, and the capitalist society in Manitoba is no exception.
All this means that Manitoba’s minimum wage policy affects or should affect many more people than twenty-five years ago. In 1997, an estimated 16,900 people earned the minimum wage or less, another 30,300 earned not more than 60 cents an hour more than the minimum wage.
When the minimum wage increased in 1999 to $6 an hour, and using the 1997 figures referred to above, almost 15 per cent of workers in Manitoba were earning the new minimum wage or less. While that compares very unfavourably to the 4.8 per cent of workers across Canada who earn the minimum wage, we are sure that many employers did raise their wages to comply with the law.
But far too many working people work at or close to the minimum wage in Manitoba. A person working at $6.25 an hour for forty hours over 52 weeks would expect to earn $13,000, far below – or 72 per cent of – the 1999 Low Income Cut-Off for a single person family of $17,886. The minimum wage for a single parent with one child is only 58 per cent of the 1999 Low-Income Cut-Off.
Provincial governments in Manitoba since 1976 have been willing supporters of the corporate agenda when it comes to the minimum wage. Regrettably, there is little difference in the record between the NDP and Conservative governments. If the 1976 minimum wage had been indexed to the rate of inflation, it would need to be $9.25 today (if the March 2001 rate of inflation holds to the end of the year).
The difference since 1976 between the minimum wage and where it would be without inflation has created an enormous shift in wealth and income from workers to capitalists. For example, inflation robbed a minimum wage worker of 25 cents an hour (rounded to the nearest 5 cents) in 1977, or $520 a year. If there were roughly 17,000 workers earning the minimum wage, this would represent a shift of 9 million dollars from workers to capitalists.
By 1998, the figures are $6,760 per minimum wage worker and a shift of 155 million dollars. Altogether, minimum wage workers have lost about 1.9 billion dollars because of the pro-corporate policy of recent governments to let inflation erode the value of the minimum wage. This is money that is owed to minimum wage workers in Manitoba, who helped create much of the new wealth in this province.
A rough calculation (assuming a constant 17,000 minimum wage workers per year) shows that both political parties are almost equally responsible for these lost wages. The NDP was in power for ten of the last twenty-five years (40 per cent of the time), and in the years it was in power as of December 31 minimum wage workers lost about $698 million due to eroded minimum wages, or about 37 per cent of the $1.9 billion in lost wages.
The fact it has been necessary to legislate a minimum wage in order to protect those parts of society that have no trade union protection, and groups like youth, women (who comprise about two-thirds of minimum wage earners) and the differently abled is itself a shameful indictment of the capitalist system.
Increasing the minimum wage is only one measure necessary to eliminate poverty and improve equality in Manitoba. To be effective, such a measure should be combined with other fundamental economic and social policy changes. Ultimately, the abolition of the wages system itself will be needed to achieve a society without the exploitation of labour, discrimination and oppression.
Measures such as a guaranteed annual income (GAI) under the capitalist system are too open to abuse and may contribute to a lowering of wages by forcing people to work for low wage jobs to supplement an inadequate GAI. The capitalist system which must compel the working class to sell its labour power would never exist with an adequate Guaranteed Annual Income.
The Communist Party opposes the differentiation of the minimum wage according to age or occupation. We believe all workers should be treated with equal dignity and without discrimination. We believe the minimum wage should apply to all currently excluded groups, such as farm workers, domestic workers and contractors. We support “fair wage” laws that require union rates of pay for contracted work at all levels of government. The minimum wage must also be indexed at least to the rate of inflation, after it has been substantially increased. We support a minimum wage of $10.50 an hour. Given recent reports of abuses, we demand the enforcement of all employment standards including the minimum wage.
It is clear that policies must now be implemented to counter not only the overall corporate attack on wages, but specifically address the growing problems of capitalist impoverishment, the growth of the working poor and the marginalized sections of the working class.
The scope of the problem goes well beyond Manitoba’s borders: 820 million workers in 1995 were under- or unemployed, one third of the global labour force. Record numbers of youth are entering the labour force – 700 million were aged 15 to 24 in 1999.²

The lost productive forces now unemployed by this system is enormous, as is the burden of an enormously bloated class of big capitalists and their servants, unsustainable depletion of resources and dangerous military pursuits.
The future that capitalism now holds for working people, including farmers and small business, is a bleak one. The large majority of people stand only to gain with realistic policies to create jobs and reduce poverty. A significant boost to the minimum wage to make it a real living wage, combined with a shorter work week with no loss in pay, taxes based on ability to pay and improving and creating new social programs – these realistic policies alone hold promise for the future.
The capitalist system may not have the ability to reform itself any more, as it has attempted to do in the past. But the failures of capitalism themselves are creating the conditions for its replacement. The low-wage policy of recent Manitoba governments is just one more obstacle that will have to be overcome on the road to a better society.

[Postscript: Manitoba raised the minimum wage to $6.50 per hour; unlike other provinces, it did not introduce a two-tier system.]

*************

Notes:

1 – After a long strike and lockout, Don Buhler had to pay substantial compensation for unfair bargaining, but the Versatile workers lost their jobs, and Buhler now has a union-free plant.

2 – OECD figures. Vancouver Sun, June 6, 1995; “Record numbers of youth will seek work: UN,” Globe and Mail, September 2, 1998.

Sports ‑ the house of cards

Jane Bouey

"Sports Franchise Sold for Record Amount" ... "City Parks and Recreation Budget Cut Again" ... "Star Athlete Signs Unprecedented Contract" ... "Obesity Rates In Children On the Rise"

Headlines such as these appear in our news on a regular basis. They are stark evidence of the contradictions within sport in our capitalist society. Vast sums of money flow into professional sports, at the same time as communities cut physical education programs in schools, and decrease accessibility to public recreation and amateur sport. (For example, the decision to spend $400 million on Skydome was made around the same time as it was "found" there was not the $500,000 needed to acquire new parks in Toronto.)

The last two decades have seen a massive transfer of public money into private hands. The declining rate of profit in some industries has forced corporations to look for new sources of investment. This transfer of funds has been done primarily through tax cuts, privatization and cuts to social spending. In the area of sport, these methods have been combined with large government subsidies, such as the expenditure of public funds to build stadiums for privately-owned sports franchises.

Throughout North America, cities clamour to see who can give pro sports the best deal:

"We'll build you a free stadium and all the roads and transit to get people there. You can have all the revenue derived from that stadium."

"No, we'll give you all that and a tax free status." And on and on it goes.

Supposedly, cities receive a huge financial benefit from having a "major league" franchise. Yet independent studies usually prove that these benefits have been greatly exaggerated. As outlined in Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit (by Joanna Cagan and Deil deMause, published by Common Courage Press), these studies point out that money spent by families to attend sporting events is money that they would otherwise have spent elsewhere. There is no new wealth generated, and the jobs created tend to be minimum wage, part‑time work in the service sector.

In fact, Field of Schemes refers to studies showing that taxpayers' money spent on stadiums or tax bail‑outs would result in greater benefits if spent on public services and programs.

Yet again and again, politicians make the decision to support big time sports. The same federal and provincial governments which refuse to build public housing can suddenly come up with the funds to do so... if the housing is tied to an Olympic bid. Once the bid is lost, the dollars disappear into the wind.

Some US cities have held referendums on building private stadiums with public money. Even when citizens have turned down these schemes, state governments sometimes override their decisions (as happened in Seattle), or a series of referendums are held with the pro‑stadium side spending increasing amounts of money.

Why are governments making these decisions?

The reason comes down to money. The money in sports goes to some of the world's largest corporations: media monopolies, developers, breweries, and sportswear companies. A substantial portion of cash goes to the very small number of elite athletes who fit advertising's sexy image ‑ whether through becoming stars in a "hot" sport, or by their own looks.

Increasingly the entire concept of sport is tied up with the corporate (often sexist) images of Nike, Adidas, Michael Jordan, Tiger Williams, Anna Kournikova, GatorAde...

Hundreds of billions of dollars are connected with this branding, which even reaches into "amateur" sport. The corruption of Olympic officials and the drugging of athletes are inevitable results of the corporate dollars involved.

Faced with decreased funding, city councils, parks and school boards are being "bribed" with corporate funds to allow this branding of our public space to expand, often for very little return.

While this corporate strategy has been effective, there are signs that the loyalty of fans to particular sports teams ‑ one of the basic cards on which the entire house is built ‑ is eroding. Teams relying heavily on corporate money (with luxury boxes and sponsorships), have put tickets out of the price range of ordinary working class people. An increasing number of televised games are only available on pay‑per‑view. The threats to move teams, the constant flipping of players, and the focus on money ‑ all have alienated much of the fan base.

Even in amateur sports the focus on elite athletes has been a mistake. The Globe and Mail ran an article (August 13, 2001) showing the deteriorating results by Canadians in international track and field. Canada's head track and field coach was quoted as saying "We shifted our focus to the athletes on top... Now we have to shift focus to younger athletes..."

When will professional sport's house of cards fall? This is an interesting question, but the greater issue is the impact of the distortion of sport on society in general, and on youth in particular. The health of young people, both physical and mental, is in danger as access to recreation becomes more expensive, as physical education programs are cut back in school, and as corporate branding of public space spreads.

Professional sports are still indelibly a part of our culture. Why this is the case, and why there are such deep loyalties, is a subject for another article. The point is what to do about it.

From early Communist civic politicians like Joseph Penner in Winnipeg, to municipal unions like CUPE today, working class activists have struggled for decades to build community centres and to protect and increase access to recreation. In recent years we have added the fight against the corporate branding of our parks and schools to the list. Is it possible that a struggle for democratic control over our sports teams could be on the horizon?

Today, money is sucked into elite level and professional sports to fill the coffers of corporations. But imagine a society where sports teams are owned and run by the people, where players make a fair and just wage, and profits flow into amateur and recreational sports. A society where the emphasis is placed on increasing access for all, including those with low incomes, women, and people with disabilities.

This is possible. Even within the confines of capitalism, the struggle for people’s sport can have a real impact, as an important part of the overall movement for progressive and democratic cultural change.

*************

(The author, a life-long sports fan, is active in struggles for women's equality and public education in Vancouver.)

A Life Lived, Deliberately:

June 11, 1999 Evergreen State College Commencement Address

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL

WELCOME, STUDENTS of Evergreen, and thank you for this invitation. On the MOVE. Long live John Africa.

I feel privileged to address your chosen theme, not because I'm some kind of avatar, but because a life lived deliberately has been the example of people I admire and respect, such as Malcolm X; Dr. Huey P. Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party; like Ramona Africa, who survived the hellish bombing by police of May 13, 1985; or the MOVE Nine, committed rebels now encaged for up to 100 years in Pennsylvania hellholes despite their innocence, solely for their adherence to the teachings of John Africa. These people, although of quite diverse beliefs, ideologies, and lifestyles, shared something in common: a commitment to revolution and a determination to live that commitment deliberately in the face of staggering state repression.

No doubt some of you are disconcerted by my use of the term "revolution." It's telling that people who claim with pride to be proud Americans would disclaim the very process that made such a nationality possible, even if it was a bourgeois revolution. Why was it right for people to revolt against the British because of "taxation without representation," and somehow wrong for truly unrepresented Africans in America to revolt against America? For any oppressed people, revo­lution, according to the Declaration of Independence, is a right.

Malcolm X, although now widely acclaimed as a Black nationalist martyr, was vilified at the time of his assassination by Time magazine as "an unashamed dem­agogue" who "was a disaster to the civil rights movement." The New York Times would describe him as a "twisted man" who used his brains and oratorical skills for "an evil purpose." Today, there are schools named for him, and recently a postage stamp was even issued in his honor,

Dr. Huey P. Newton founded the Black Panther Party in October of 1966 and created one of the most militant, principled organizations American Blacks had ever seen. J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI targeted the party, using every foul and underhanded method they could conceive of to neutralize the group, which they described as the "number one threat to national security."

Sister Ramona Africa of the MOVE organization survived one of the most remarkable bombings in American history, one where Philadelphia police massa­cred eleven men, women, and children living in the MOVE house and destroyed some sixty-one homes in the vicinity. She did seven years in the state prison on riot charges, came out, and began doing all she could to spread the teachings of John Africa, the teachings of revolution, and to free her imprisoned brothers and sisters of MOVE from their repressive century in hellish prison cells.

These people dared to dissent, dared to speak out, dared to reject the status quo by becoming rebels against it. They lived -- and some of them continue to live -- lives of deliberate will, of willed resistance to a system that is killing us. Remember them. Honor their highest moments. Learn from them. Are these not lives lived deliberately? This system's greatest fear has been that folks like you, young people, people who have begun to critically examine the world around them, some perhaps for the first time, people who have yet to have the spark of life snuffed out, will do just that: learn from those lives, be inspired, and then live lives of opposition to the deadening status quo.

Let me give you an example. A young woman walks into a courtroom, one sit­uated in the cradle of American democracy -- that's Philadelphia -- to do some research for a law class. This woman, who dreams of becoming a lawyer, sits down and watches the court proceedings and is stunned by what she sees. She sees defendants prevented from defending themselves, manhandled in court, and cops lying on the stand with abandon. She saw the judge as nothing more than an administrator of injustice and saw U.S. law as an illusion. Her mind reeled, as she said to herself, "They can't do that," as her eyes saw them doing whatever they wanted to. Well, that young woman is now known as Ramona Africa, who lived her life deliberately after attending several sessions of the MOVE trial in Philadelphia. After that farce she knew she could never be a part of the legal sys­tem that allowed it, and she found more truth in the teachings of John Africa than she ever could in the law books which promised a kind of justice that was foreign to the courtrooms she had seen. The contrast between America's lofty promises and the truth of its legal repression inspired her to be a revolutionary, one that America has tried to bomb into oblivion. What is the difference between Ramona Africa and you? Absolutely nothing, except she made that choice.

Similarly, Huey Newton studied U.S. law with close attention when he was a student at Merritt Junior College in west Oakland, California. His studies con­vinced him that the laws must be changed, and the famous Black Panther Party ten-point program and platform proves, then and now, that serious problems still face the nation's Black communities, such as all the predominantly white juries still sending Blacks to prison, and cops still treating Black life as a cheap com­modity. Witness the recent Bronx execution of Ghanaian immigrant Amadou Diallo, where cops fired 41 shots at an unarmed man in the doorway of his own apartment building. Huey, at least in his earlier years, lived his life deliberately and set the mark as a revolutionary. What was the difference between Huey Newton and you? Absolutely nothing, except he made the choice.

Each of the MOVE Nine -- including the late Merle Africa, who died under somewhat questionable circumstances after nineteen years into an unjust prison sentence -- members of the MOVE organization whose trial initially attracted the attention of a young law student named Ramona decades ago, was a person who came to question their lives as lived in the system. Some were U.S Marines, some were petty criminals, some were carpenters, but all came to the point of questioning the status quo, deeply, honestly, and completely -- irrevocably. One by one, they turned their back on a system that they knew couldn't care less if they lived or died and joined a revolution after being exposed to the stirring teachings of John Africa. They individually chose to live life deliberately and joined MOVE. And although they are individuals -- Delbert Africa, Janet Africa, Phil Africa, Janine Africa, Chuckie Africa, Mike Africa, Debbie Africa, and Eddie Africa -- they are also united as MOVE members, united in heart and soul. What's the difference between the MOVE Nine and you? Absolutely nothing, except they made the choice.

Now, unless I miss my guess, Evergreen is not a predominantly Black institu­tion, and my choices heretofore given may seem somewhat strange to too many of you, for far too many of you may identify yourselves by the fictional label of "white." In truth, as I'm sure many of you know, race is a social con­struct. That said, it is still a social reality formed by our histories and our cultures. For those of you still bound by such realities however, I have some names for you like John Brown, like Dr. Alan Berkman, Susan Rosenberg, Sue Africa, Marilyn Buck, for examples. Each of these people are or were known in America as white. They are all people I know of, who I admire, love, and respect. They all are or were revolutionaries,

John Brown's courageous band's attack on Harper's Ferry was one deeply religious man's strike against the hated slavery system and was indeed considered one of the opening salvos of the U.S. Civil War. Dr. Alan Berkman, Susan Rosenberg, and Marilyn Buck were all anti-imperialists who fought to free Black revolutionary Assata Shakur from an unjust and cruel bondage. They are the spiritual grandsons and granddaughters of John Brown. Dr. Alan Berkman, Marilyn Buck, and Susan Rosenberg were treated like virtual traitors to white supremacy and thrown into American dungeons. Buck and Rosenberg remain so imprisoned today. They lived lives deliberately and chose liberation as their goals, understanding that our freedom is interconnected. They chose the hard road of revolution, yet they chose. And but for that choice they are just like each of you seated here tonight, people who saw the evils of the system and resolved to fight it. Period.

Now, the name Sue Africa may not be known to you. She's what you may call white. Yet when she joined the MOVE organization, the system attacked her bit­terly for what was seen as a betrayal of her white-skinned privilege. On May 13, 1985 she lost her only son because the Philadelphia police bombed the house she was living in. She served over a decade in prison where the guards vilely taunted her in the hours and days after the bombing. When she came out, she went right to work to rebuild the MOVE organization in Philadelphia. She lives her life deliberately by promoting John Africa's revolution each and every day. Except for that choice, she's just like you.

Now, some of you are sure to be wondering, "Well, if this guy's gig is with rev­olutionaries, why is he saying this to us?" The answer of course is "Why not?" OK, I know you ain't supposed to answer a question with a question, but do I expect you guys and gals who've just received your degrees to chuck it all for so nebulous a concept as revolution? Nope. I ain't that dumb. The great historians Will and Ariel Durant teach us that history in the large is the conflict of minori­ties. The majority applauds the victor and supplies the human material of social experiment. Now, I take that to mean that social movements are begun by rela­tively small numbers of people who, as catalysts, inspire, provoke, and move larger numbers to see and share their vision. Social movements can then become social forces that expand our perspectives, open up new social possibilities, and create the consciousness for change.

To begin this process, we must first sense that (1) the status quo is wrong, and (2) the existing order is not amenable to real, meaningful, and substantive trans­formation. Out of the many here assembled, it is the heart of he or she that I seek who looks at a life of vapid materialism, of capitalist excess, and finds it simply intolerable. It may be 100 of you, or 50, or even 10, or even one of you who makes that choice. I'm here to honor and applaud that choice and to warn you that, though the suffering may indeed be great, it is nothing to the joy of doing the right thing. Malcolm, Dr. Huey P. Newton, Ramona Africa, the MOVE Nine, Dr. Alan Berkman, Susan Rosenberg, John Brown, Susan Africa, Marilyn Buck, Geronimo ji Jaga, Leonard Peltier, Angela Davis, and others, all of them people just like you, felt compelled to change the conditions they found intolerable. I urge you to join that noble tradition.

I thank you all, and wish you well. On the MOVE. Long live John Africa. From Death Row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The Treaty Process and Indian Nationalism

By Ray Bobb

Member, Seabird Island Indian Band

Vancouver, B.C.

In a treaty process that is strictly circumscribed by the federal government’s Comprehensive Land Claims Policy, Indian status is being legislatively extinguished. The treaties of this process require tribal people to (1) renounce their status as Indians under the meaning of the Indian Act, (2) cede their aboriginal entitlement to land and (3) incorporate into Canada as (first nation) municipalities. The government’s Comprehensive Land Claims Policy is only incidentally a policy for the settlement of land claims. Primarily, it is a policy to extinguish Indian status.

Canada’s treaty process is, on two counts, illegal in international law. Canada exercises colonial rule over a people whose nationality is Indian, i.e., Canadian Indian. (1) By depriving Indian people of their nationality Canada is violating their human rights in contravention of article 15 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states, “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality.” (2) By, then, incorporating Indian tribes into Canada as municipalities Canada is violating Indian people’s political rights in contravention of article 1 of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which states that “All peoples have the right of self-determination.”

Additionally, the treaties of the federal government’s treaty process are not bona fide. Treaties are by definition made between nations. Canada is a nation. Provinces and tribes are not. Separately existing and independent tribal nations did exist prior to colonization. Upon being colonized by Canada, however, tribal authorities were replaced by the Department of Indian Affairs operating under the authority of the Indian Act and the tribes were unified into a single, de facto, national entity: the native internal colony.

Legal apologists for the government’s treaty process hold that negotiated agreements of the treaty process are valid in that they are arrived at (1) bilaterally, (2) voluntarily and (3) fairly. This is not so.

(1) The central issues of the treaty process involve the interests of two opposed national entities: the native internal colony and Canada. In the treaty process the federal government, in effect, pays the Indian representatives. Treaties under this arrangement are not bilateral. They are fraudulent.

(2) The government payments of land, resources and money in the treaty process are part of the normal requirements of an underprivileged people. As such, treaty payments are necessities of life that are purposely withheld by government in order to force Indians into the treaty process. The treaties under such a process are not voluntary. They are coerced.

(3) In the government’s treaty process, the quantitative aspects dealing with amounts of money, land and resources are negotiable and a template regarding these is being formulated. The qualitative aspects, however, dealing with the relationship between Indian people and Canada, are not negotiable. The treaties of such a process are not fair. They are imposed.

The underlying motive for the federal government’s extinguishment policy is the demand by big business for economic “certainty” in regard to aboriginal title and land claims. The federal government responded with a wholesale attack on Indian rights. In 1969, the government put forth the White Paper Policy on Indians that proposed to unilaterally extinguish Indian status, Indian reserves, the Indian Act, the Department of Indian Affairs and all rights or entitlements belonging to Indians. At the same time, the government began sponsoring a native leadership and funding social reforms to be carried out by that leadership. In 1973, the extinguishment policy of the (failed) White Paper was reaffirmed in the federal government’s Comprehensive Land Claim Policy. After several decades of nurturing a captive native leadership, the federal government is now implementing the extinguishment policy, bilaterally, in the comprehensive treaty process.

The government gives ostensive recognition to tribes as nations, i.e., first nations, in order to (1) foster tribalism in the native internal colony, (2) subvert Indian nationalism and (3) give credibility to “nation-to-nation” negotiations that require tribes to secede from the Indian national entity.

Further deception on the part of government is its stated opposition to the Indian Act as on outmoded document. In reality, the government wants to nullify the Indian Act because it recognizes the existence of a colonized people whose subjection and expropriation question the legitimacy of the Canadian settler-state.

Indian leadership sponsored by government cannot be relied upon to resist government attack. This resistance can only come from the Indian people themselves, in direct action and independent organization. To be successful this resistance needs to be inspired by a vision of the future.

Although Indian nationalism has always been a component of native consciousness, it is sometimes thought to be politically unviable. For instance, the native internal colony is sometimes perceived to be small and powerless in relation to the Canadian settler-state. On the global level, the native internal colony is, politically, part of a powerful majority. The entire non-Europeanized world, except for Japan, suffers from foreign domination and exploitation. The national liberation movements in this vast area represent the principal and determining conflicts of our time. This is so to the extent that their success constitutes and historical precondition for the positive development of conflict between the native internal colony and the Canadian settler-state. The establishment of this precondition, although crucial for the native internal colony, is not within the scope of this presentation. Suffice it to say that (1) wars, such as the Vietnam War, have proven that imperialism can be defeated in the global South and (2) the continuing devastation caused by imperialism guarantees many more Vietnams. The smallness and powerlessness of the native internal colony is belied by the objective process of history.

Three additional features of the native internal colony that sometime cast doubt on Indian nationalism are that (1) the members of the native internal colony are part of the Canadian working class, (2) one-half of them live in the cities of the Canadian settler-state and (3) the tribal territories of the native internal colony are divided throughout the Canadian settler-nation.

The features of the native internal colony indicate (1) the close interrelation of the native internal colony and the Canadian settler nation and (2) the, simultaneous, opportunity in and vulnerability of its position.

Internationally, the vulnerability of the native internal colony can be seen as imperialism militarily attacks the peoples of the global South and outlaws internal support for them. Opportunity on the other hand can be seen in the position of the native internal colony as a bridge between divided parts of humanity all of whom on one level or another are trying to transcend a once-dynamic social system that now poses a threat to their survival.

Nationally, the native internal colony is vulnerable as can be seen by the genocidal direction of government Indian policy in (1) the residential school system, (2) the extreme military and policy reactions to native activism and (3) the extinguishment of Indian rights under the treaty process. On the other hand, the resources of the tribal territories can never be completely separated from the Canadian economy and hold the promise of future cooperation and mutual benefit. Additionally, the members of the native internal colony, as workers in Canadian production, can look forward to the right of dual citizenship.

The reality that precludes decolonization and respect for the right of native people to national self-determination is Canada under the control of banks and corporations. Such a country is impervious to rationality and humanity. Once imperialism has been overthrown in the global South, however, it will no longer be able to bribe its domestic workers with high wages and political liberties. The Canadian workers will then transform the banks and corporations from organs of private enrichment into social assets of a new Canada. Before that event, Indian nationalists must (1) associate with and support national liberation movements in the global South, (2) resist the anti-Indian policies of the Canadian settler-state, (3) clarify and strengthen the native national entity and (4) develop allies in the Canadian working class.

The Political Economic Realities behind the ILO Applauding Colombian Labour Relations

By James J. Brittain, Acadia University

Barb Moore, Acadia University and CUPE

Jim Sacouman, Acadia University

This November, the International Labour Organization (ILO) released a report applauding the efforts of the Colombian state to curb violations and injustices against those connected to organized labour and asked the administration of Alvaro Uribe Velez to continue its support for justice and security of Colombian unionists (ILO, 2007a). In summation of its findings, the ILO hoped that the Colombian state would “continue taking all possible steps to provide effective protection for all trade union members, enabling them to exercise their trade unions rights freely and without fear” (ILO, 2007a: 63). In a separate press release the labour organization expressed how it saw the Uribe administration taking “encouraging steps” over the past few years in preventing atrocities against unionists (ILO, 2007b).

The ILO’s support is more than difficult to understand given a recent report published by the AFL-CIO Solidarity Centre showing that “more trade union members are killed ... each year than in the rest of the world combined” (Beck, 2006). To put this into perspective, we have provided a simple table of the years since President Uribe was elected to power to demonstrate how Colombia measures in relation to the entire rest of the world when concerning the assassination of trade-unionists. (See Table 1).

Table 1: Number of (Reported) Unionists Killed: A comparative view of Colombia in

relation to the World¹

Year Colombia Rest of the World

2006 80 66

2005 77 45

2004 99 51

2003 178 39

2002 184 213

The plain fact is that more unionists continue to be killed in Colombia than in the entire rest of the world combined. While the ‘kill-count’ has gone down, why or how this relates to the current dynamics of organized labour and die continued repression realized against unionists in both the rural and urban sectors of the country is omitted by the ILO. While fewer unionists are being killed - though still more than the total in the rest of the world! – accounts of arbitrary disappearances, illegal searches and harassments have increased (Leech, 2005; Escuela Nacional Sinidical, 2004). When one compares die past administration to that of Uribe’s government it becomes excessively clear dial ILO figures promoting die current Colombian state as being supportive or protective of unionists is greatly skewed (See Table 2).

Table 2: A Comparative Analysis of the Pastrana Administration (Aug 7, 2000 - Aug 6, 2002) vs. the Uribe Administration (Aug 7, 2002 - Aug 25, 2004)²

Type of Violation Pastrana Admin. Uribe Admin. % Increase

Threats 357 681 91%

Arbitrary Disappearances 10 111 1110%

Illegal Searches 2 14 700%

Harassment 32 63 97%

Forced Displacements 73 98 34%

The ILO’s claim that labour rights and freedoms are improving in Colombia negates the reality lived by unionists on the ground. It is true that fewer murders are taking place. However, this is merely part of a systemic shift in the way that the state and the paramilitary have targeted organized labour.³ The vast majority of unionists murdered over the past few years have not been general rank-and-file members but rather the primary organizers, leaders, and heads of unions. Well over half of the unionists killed since Uribe’s arrival to power were specifically union leaders. Not only are these leaders targeted with threats, illegal searches and harassment, but also their family members are targeted in attempts to silence the union leaders. In in-depth interviews with two union leaders in November, 2006, it was found that their children were especially targeted and not only by threats. A Professor who is the President of a faculty union, told of how a para-military unit came seeking his three year old son in the son’s child care center. If it had not been for an astute child care worker’s success at hiding the child, that three year old would probably not be alive today. Another union leader and his family, who have now immigrated to Canada with the assistance of a national Canadian union’s sponsorship, had his home shot at on at least four different occasions plus his children were being harassed at school. With tears in his eyes, he told of how he could no longer allow his children to go to school even though his daughter loved school and was a very bright student. His worst fears were that his children would be denied education because of his union work.⁴

Current attacks are targeted at dismantling organized activity as opposed to indiscriminate assaults (Escuela Nacional Sinidical, 2004: 2). In alliance with the US state, the Colombian state strategy is to destabilize and even ‘disappear’ unions by eliminating the leadership. A new sphere of murderous transgressions has been systematically aimed at union organization via the leadership. The ILO’s report holds little weight in the eyes of workers on the ground in Colombia struggling for socioeconomic justice.

Why is the ILO praising the Uribe government for its ‘protection’ of labour? To answer this query one needs to understand the history of the United States government’s relations with Colombia and its historic attack against workers dating back to the Reagan administration. Once these political economic relations are highlighted it becomes ever clearer that the ILO serves nothing but the monopoly capitalist interests of the US corporate empire.

For many watching the current free-trade negotiations between the United States and the Colombian government, it is quite clear that the Bush administration is having an incredibly difficult sales job. The US government has failed in both the so-called ‘war on drugs,’ which is actually a counterinsurgency program to fight the growing power of radical social movements fighting for social justice, and in ensuring protective labour relations within Colombia. This has led the Bush administration to call in as many favours as possible. To understand the current fervour to have this free-trade agreement passed, we will examine the history of the US and Colombian neoliberal push against labour.

Under the Richard Nixon administration [1969-1974], the US state formally announced its ‘war on drugs’ in the late 1960s. Paving the way for the future anti-drugs policies of the Reagan, Clinton, and both Bush administrations, Nixon’s time in office began a conjoined foreign and domestic policy that sought to combat the usage of narcotics within sectors of US society.⁵ Interestingly, this policy was not proactively aimed at combating usage through treatment, understanding why sectors of society consume mind/mood-altering substances, or improvement of socioeconomic conditions. Rather the program entrenched a practice of targeting producer nations, a method that has continued up to the present period (Isacson, 2005: 19; Neild, 2005: 68; O’Shaughnessy and Branford, 2005: 21-22; Livingstone, 2003: 173; Leech, 2002: 41).

In the mid 1980s, during the important revolutionary struggles taking place within Central America, the United States stated that the FARC-EP was heavily involved in the narcotics trade in Colombia and was implicated in the exportation of drugs to northern regions of the hemisphere (Scott and Marshall, 1998: 96-103).⁶ Following these allegations, that would be found completely false a few years later⁷, the United States claimed that “the narcotics trade threatens the integrity” and “national security of die United States” and established the National Security Decision Directive Number 221: Narcotics and National Security (NSDD 221) on 8 April 1986⁸ (White House, 1986: 2; see also Aviles, 2006: 48; Williams, 2005: 168; Scott, 2003: 39, 71, 87-88; Solaun, 2002: 5).⁹ Formalizing the NSDD 221 as a national security policy enabled the United States to aid and construct “foreign assistance planning efforts” (White House, 1986: 3; see also Jackson, 1994: 170; Crandall, 2005b: 168). What such a claim translated into, when concerning US foreign policy, was that state forces would now have the legal capacity to carry out direct actions, militaristic or otherwise, in regions external to their national jurisdiction, e.g. in Colombian territory (Aviles, 2006: 48; Weeks and Gunson, 1991: 43; Parenti, 2002: 79, 82). Peter Dale Scott (2003: 87) claimed that the declaration of NSDD 221 strategically defined the coca-industry “as a national security matter, allowing for the use of U.S. troops in Colombia in alliance with the CIA”.¹⁰

On the heels of the NSDD 221, and several incredibly expensive counterinsurgency efforts funded through the Ronald Regan [1981-1989] and George Herbert Walker Bush [1989-1993] Administrations, the United States, Colombia was the recipient of neoliberal policies that sought to open the country’s economy to greater trade and economic prosperity. The underlining argument was that with an increased (neo)liberalized economy a systemic decline in the coca-industry would be realized. The model in which this was adopted was through the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA).¹¹ The ATPDEA was arranged with a timeline for its policies to take-root. Its date of completion was scheduled for 31 December 2006. A new bilateral free trade agreement is being arranged, with great opposition by organized labour and political opponents within the United States. In many ways the agreement transcends the original ATPDEA (Goodman, 2006; Noticias Aliadas, 2006).

Neoliberal trade pacts, however, have not led to a reduction in coca. The reason was based on the fact that the organized production of coca is a consequence of social and economic conditions (socioeconomic factors of exclusion, poverty, lack of state services, social programs, services, etc.). The alleviation of trade barriers, while addressing macroeconomic restrictions to domestic and international corporations, does not result in a decrease of socioeconomic problems realized by the majority population. In actuality, the organized state-imposed subscription to “preferred market access (no tariffs) for agricultural products” on the contrary benefited only a minority of persons, principally the owners of the means of production, via increased profits.

Even in the burgeoning flower industry, it is important to note that flower workers are mostly teenage women who are paid less than 60 cents an hour, unable to attend school, and denied the ability to receive a formal education (Friedemann-Sanchez, 2006).¹² Rates of poverty, within both the urban and rural sectors of Colombia, have not declined over the past two decades but have consecutively increased (see Diaz-Callejas, 2005; UNDP, 2003).¹³ There has been an inequitable increase in imports in various sectors of the rural economy, which has left an increasing deficit that the Colombian economy cannot respond to. Leech (2002: 45) has demonstrated how the ATPDEA period has led to an increase in economic power for the United States at the expense of the Colombian economy.

The ironic result of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act was that after such polices were implemented, coca activity increased dramatically, while the increasing devotion toward commercial production deflected attention from the rural sectors’ growing rates of impoverishment. Over the last decade, Colombia has been witness to a dual exploitation of the dual economy, a great deal of which is tied to narcodollars. Firstly, problems within the rural political economy have led to peasants increasingly colonizing new lands to grow coca out of necessity. Secondly, textile and commodity export factories, growing in the urban centres, have subsequently caused capitalists related to other sectors to drive down wages in order to sustain their surplus profits (Richani, 2005a; 2005b). This has led some to argue that as Colombia “saw its legal and illegal exports to the United States jump dramatically under the trade accord,” the ATPDEA assisted in the cleansing of monies generated through the coca-industry (Williams, 2005: 164; see also Richani, 2005a). As well, the imperial foreign policy of the United States deployed one of the largest counterinsurgency operations in the hemisphere through the guise of a war on drugs.¹⁴

The ILO has in fact highlighted its true intentions to satisfy the profit maximizing interests of capitalism at the expense of workers and to facilitate US imperialism in its assault on its backyard. In its recent report on Colombia, the ILO argues that what is more important is not that trade unionists and sectors of organized labour are and remain safe and have the right to protect themselves against repression but rather that a continuation of capitalist expansion remains uninterrupted. The ILO is clearly supporting United States/Colombia free-trade policies despite the atrocities.

The US and Colombian states are clearly involved in the systematic destruction of unions via coercion. What medium does organized labour have to protect itself? Certainly not the ILO. The ILO has united with the United States government to mislead the public with a false perception that workers’ rights are being and will be upheld. What is clearly transpiring is an attack against organized labour and the right to unite for social justice. The ILO truly exemplifies the old saying: ‘With friends like this, who needs enemies’.

__________________________

Notes:

1 - Source: Corporacíon Colectivo de Abogados José Alverar Restrepo. 2007. “Ten Unionists Killed This Year Already: President Alvaro Uribe Velez keeps distorting figures”, May 9. On-Line http://colombiasupport.net/news/2007/05/ten-unionists-killed-this-year-already.html. Accessed November 20, 2007; John, Mark. 2006. “Trade union members face growing violence”, June 7, On-Line http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-06-07T000335Z 01 L04784344 RTRUKOC 0 UK-RlGHTS-LABOUR-ABUSES.xml&archived=False. Accessed June 7, 2006; Kovalik, Dan. 2003. “Unionists at Risk in Colombia” No date On-Line. http://irishantiwar.org/archives/forum/0001 mf.html. Accessed November, 20, 2007; UNI. 2003. “ICFTU Survey 2003: A strain of anti-union repression is spreading across the map of the world” June 10 On-Line http://www.union-network.Org/uniindep.nsf/0/91cc4a3b5cbee9aecl256d410034ce7d7OpenDocument. Accessed November 20, 2007;USLEAP. 2003. “More U.S. Military Aid for Colombia; 184 Trade Unionist Killed in 2002”, No date, On-Line http://www.usleap.org/Recent%20Headlines/Colombia%20NL%204-03.html. Accessed November 20, 2007.

2 - Source: Escuela Nacional Sinidical, 2004

3 - The vast majority of unionists killed in Colombia are murdered at the hands of the state (via the army) and the paramilitary.

“... [S]ince August 2002, there is a higher responsibility of armed institutions and State Safety bodies in violations to human rights of union members. In 2004 the historic trend of silence is maintained in 276 cases registered, this means that in 70% of total cases we know nothing about the intellectual or material authors of the crimes. Of the 30% balance of violations (116 cases) on which we have real information on possible authors we must say that 53 violations have been committed under state responsibility (50.8%), 38 were committed by AUC (32.7%), 13 are the result of common criminals (11.2%), and 5 by the guerrilla (4.3%)” (Escuela Nacional Sinidical, 2004: 11).

In this case study well over four/fifths of union-targeted assassinations were carried out at the hands of the state/paramilitary forces.

4 - In November, 2006, Canadian trade unionists from CUPE, CUPW and PSAC visited Colombia on a “Frontlines Tour” where they heard first hand accounts from numerous Colombian union leaders who told of being threatened and harassed by Uribe supported police and paramilitary groups. Indeed, almost every unionist met admitted to being on death squad lists currently. Yet, in almost every case, these unionists keep bravely struggling to stay alive and keep committed to their unions, human rights and their union work.

5 - The almost four decade old ‘war on drugs’ implemented by the US state has been recognized as biased in relation to issues of class and race, hence why we have suggested that the US anti-narcotic policies disproportionately target a specific stratum of its domestic society (Gibbs and Leech, 2005; O’Shaughnessy and Branford, 2005: 20-22).

6 - It is important to note that during the same period the United States-based oil MNC, Occidental, found one of the largest untapped oil reserves in the continent located in north-eastern Colombia. This later became the 800 kilometre long Cafio Limon pipeline (Scott, 2003: 39, 72; see also Tamminen, 2006: 98). Between 1992 and 2000, this resource was instrumental in funding counterinsurgency efforts against the FARC-EP through the placement of a “war tax” (a fluctuating levy of $1-$1.50) on every barrel sold (Renner, 2002: 38). Ironically, due to Colombia’s increasing adoption of neoliberal policies this levy was removed in 2000 (Richani, 2005a: 116, 128).

7 - Peter Dale Scott (2003: 86-87) discovered that in 1984, US authorities falsified evidence related to narcotics production, processing, and trafficking by stating that the FARC-EP were involved in protecting such facilities. In addition, he argued that US or Colombian officials, or both, were very likely to have planted evidence in relation to this event in the purpose of linking the FARC-EP to the narcotic-industry (2003: 92n.l9).

8 - 1986 also represents the year that Colombia became a net exporter of oil (Renner, 2002: 36).

9 - Within a few years of the NSDD 221 being established the Canadian government, while not as militant in its resolve, established a national drug strategy that also put an emphasis on drug activity outside its borders, i.e., Latin America and specifically Colombia (Blanchette, 2000: 193-194). Canadian-based MNCs also sold a great deal of arms to Colombia in return for oil from the Colombian government (Regehr, 1975:10).

10 - A more contemporary terminology used to justify US militaristic intervention and aggression was noted by former SouthCom Commander, General James Hill, who stated that the coca-industry within Colombia, specifically in FARC-EP-extended territory, is “a weapon of mass destruction” due to number of deaths that it caused on US soil (Hill, 2003: 8; see also O’Shaughnessy and Branford, 2005: 61).

11 - “In 1991, the United States adopted the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA), in part to help stem the flow of Andean drugs coming into the United States. The basic idea was that export expansion would complement coca eradication programs and help Andean countries moves from illegal and legitimate commercial exports. The act sharply increased trade between the United States and ... Colombia ... by eliminating duties and restrictions on a range of U.S.-based products. U.S. exports to ATPA countries rose 65 percent from 1991 to 1998, and ATPA country exports to the United States jumped 98 percent” (Williams, 2005: 164).

12 - Sarah Cox (2002) has documented that “about 70 percent, are women who earn just (US)58 cents an hour and work up to 60 hours a week, often without full overtime pay, before special occasions like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. The workers, by many accounts, suffer from a myriad of health problems linked to exposure to pesticide cocktails that are applied up to several times a week to guarantee elegant, pest-free blossoms”.

13 - It is rather ironic that a US economic model that precipitates the perpetuation of socioeconomic inequality can be thought of as a Drug Eradication Act. It is under such conditions that numerous people chose to produce illicit crop production whereby one can work at their own pace, subsist on a piece of land (be it theirs or not), and take their chances each day, whereas women who work in the flower industry or patriarchal maquilas are under constant threat of abuse and poor wages.

14 - While some may argue this point by citing the conflicts within El Salvador or Nicaragua it must be known that the counterinsurgency funding being conjointly implemented through the Colombian state and the US against the FARC-EP far exceeds the capital devoted during the 1970s and 1980s. Through the 2000s alone, the Colombian state was spending roughly $7.3 million a day, while the United States provided an additional $1.65 million every 24 hours. This equalled almost $9 million dollars a day to fight the FARC-EP (Murillo, 2005; Latin American Press, 2004).