Via: http://afgj.org/usaid-grants-3-million-to-solidarity-centers-bogota-office-unionists-want-to-know-why

by James Jordan (Alliance for Global Justice)

The Solidarity Center office in Bogotá has received an unusually large two-year grant of $3 million for its operations in the Andean Region. The scope and dimensions of the grant are not fully known, nor the exact programs to which it will be applied. However, given the history of the Bogotá office and the Solidarity Center’s Andean representatives, observers expect the grant to have major implications for the countries of Colombia and Venezuela, where the office’s work is usually concentrated. The Andean region also covers Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. The Solidarity Center has offices both in Colombia and Peru.

The grant comes from USAID (the United States Agency for International Development). The office receives notice of this funding at the same time that three key developments are underway–in Venezuela, the coming October elections, and in Colombia, the implementation of the new Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US, coinciding with a massive popular mobilization to demand a political solution to the armed and social conflict. Little information is available concerning the details of the grant. Because of the documented history of the AFL-CIO intervention in Venezuela through its Solidarity Center, activists must analyze past history and current circumstances in order to be able to discuss intelligently what we may anticipate from these augmented activities.

The Solidarity Center is one of four core institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and a creation of the United States’ largest union center, the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Unions). Along with the Solidarity Center, the four core institutes of the NED are: the International Republican Institute (associated with the Republican Party), the National Democratic Institute (associated with the Democratic Party), and the International Center for Private Enterprise (associated with the Chambers of Commerce).The NED was established by the US government in 1983, during the Reagan administration.

The NED exists for one reason–to manipulate governments, social movements and elections in other countries in order to advance the international policies of the US which, in turn, are designed to accommodate private access to natural resources and increase transnational corporate profits. In an interview with the New York Times in 1991, Allen Weinstein, one of the NED’s founders, said that, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly by the CIA.”

Marc Plattner, an NED Vice President, explains the role of the organization in the context of the Imperial strategy that brings together in one fabric the threads of politics, business and the military: “Liberal democracy clearly favors the economic arrangements that foster globalization ….The international order that sustains globalization is underpinned by American military predominance.”

The Solidarity Center receives over 90% of its funding from the public coffers by means of the Department of State, USAID and the NED. Union contributions are typically around two to three percent. Thus, the Solidarity Center has little to do with union locals and rank and file unionists, although it has the full cooperation of the highest officials of the AFL-CIO. Local unions have no input or say in the establishment of international relations or program development. The Solidarity Center has some good and helpful programs and some that are at least more or less benign. But these good programs can act to hide a more fundamental purpose to infiltrate and influence the labor movements of other countries and to provide a channel of interference in their electoral processes.

The NED’s first “success” in Latin America was the defeat of Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista candidate for President, in the Nicaraguan elections of 1990. The US government, via the NED and other channels, spent more than $20 per voter and effectively bought the victory for Violeta Chamorra, its favored candidate. The US spent more per Nicaraguan voter in 1990 than both parties did in the US presidential elections in 1988. It is notable that at the time, Nicaragua sustained a population of only 3 million persons.

Haiti provides another example of how the Solidarity Center operates. in 2004, the Solidarity Center’s partner, the International Republican Institute, not only funded, but convened and trained the coup plotters against the elected government of Pres. Bertrand Aristide. During 2004 and 2005, beginning before the coup and extending into the months afterward there was a bloodbath against the supporters of Aristide that included among its victims members of the Confederation of Haitian Workers (CTH). Rather than helping this most targeted union, the Solidarity Center channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars to a small labor organization that before and during the coup did nothing to defend the elected government and, in fact, called for Pres. Aristide to step down.

Years later, by 2009, when the CTH changed its positions and approved a proposal for factories that paid half the minimum wage established by the Aristide administration, the Solidarity Center began to fund the CTH with grants of more than $200,000. With such funding, the CTH also changed its electoral associations and participated in the Preval administration electoral council that excluded the participation of Lavalas, Aristide’s party, in the elections despite it being Haiti’s largest political party..

More pertinent to our discussion is the history of interference in Venezuela by the Solidarity Center’s Caracas office. Like the Bogotá office today, it was managed by Rhett Doumitt who during and before the 2002 coup attempt helped channel funds to Carlos Ortega and the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), a union confederation that had an anti-democratic and corrupt reputation.

In his case study of Solidarity Center groundwork for the 2002 coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Purdue University North Central sociologist and long-time labor activist Kim Scipes tells us that,
…according to a January-March 2002 quarterly report from the Solidarity Center to NED that was discovered…by journalists Jeremy Bigwood and Eva Golinger…Solidarity Center staff members were involved in a series of meetings that were designed to bring together leaders of the CTV and FEDECAMARAS (the national business confederation). These meetings, six in all, took place around the country and culminated in a national meeting on March 5, 2002. At that meeting, the CTV and FEDECAMARAS…were anointed “flagship organizations” in the struggle against President Chavez….Barely more than 30 days after the March 5 conference, the CTV and FEDECAMARAS launched a national general strike on April 9th to protest the firing of oil company management on April 7th, and the events leading to the coup attempt–in which CTV and FEDECAMARAS played central roles–began. On April 11th, a massive march and demonstration was held to support the union. ‘About midday on April 11th, speakers at the opposition rally, including Carmona and Ortega, began calling for supporters to march on the Presidential Palace, Miraflores, to demand Chavez’s resignation’ (Golinger, 2005: 96).

Around the same time, US unionists began a movement to demand that the Solidarity Center open its books concerning its activities past, present and future in order to ensure its transparency and begin the process of ending its financial dependency on the US government. They urged the Solidarity Center to turn over funding and direction to legitimate union organizations, assuring maximum participation of the AFL-CIO’s grassroots base.

The situation converted into one in which it became very difficult for the NED and USAID to channel their support directly to their Venezuelan beneficiaries, especially via labor institutions. In response, they developed a complicated shell game, including, shortly before the coup, the transfer to Bogotá of the Caracas office’s operations, with funding intended for programs in Venezuela diverted into regional grants, and thus not listed specifically for Venezuela.
For example, in 2010, the Solidarity Center received $400,000 from the NED, “To support unions in Colombia and Venezuela in their defense of fundamental worker rights….” To many observers of the world labor movement, it seemed a rare combination because the struggles in Venezuela, where union representation continues to grow and function without an atmosphere of threats of violence, are very different than those of Colombia, where labor representation is even lower than in countries where it is illegal to belong to a union, and where, every year, the number of murders of unionists is the highest in the world.

But from another perspective, for the US/Corporate Empire’s goals, there are many reasons to deal with Venezuela and Colombia together. With their natural resources, significant populations, historic and strong Left movements and with their geopolitical positions, the two countries have a great influence on political and labor development in the Americas. Presently, the two countries are in circumstances that are very particular and the cause of much concern on the part of US government officials. Especially with Venezuela’s upcoming elections and speculations about the health of Pres. Chávez (usually by non-medical personnel who know nothing about such matters), the US/Corporate Empire is sure to be looking at any and all opportunities to derail the Bolivarian Revolution.

Meanwhile, in Colombia what they want to derail is the massive mobilization of unionists, students, rural populations, indigenous, Afro-Colombians and the political opposition to the status quo. Those groups demand land reform, social investment, and an open and safe political process. They call for a negotiated political solution to the armed, social and political conflict. In other words, they want an end to neoliberal economics that favor transnational corporations over communities and the needs of people. On the other hand, The US/Corporate Empire historically takes the road of interference in and manipulation of the labor movement to maintain political stability and maximize its control and profitability.

In my last visit to Colombia in April, 2012, I had different occasions to talk with Colombian and Venezuelan unionists. (I was part of a contingent of international guests to attend the formation of the Patriotic March political movement.) I heard anecdotes concerning the presence of Venezuelan unionists with connections to the Solidarity Center who were helping train Colombian workers in some technical matters. At least one such training included members of the CUT (Unitary Workers Center), by far the largest union confederation in Colombia. . The union official who told me about the training said that at one point the Venezuelan unionists began to talk about political matters, and their lines were “very conservative and right-wing.”[Although the Solidarity Center has some relations with the CUT, it is much more closely connected to the two more conservative federations, the CTC (Confederation of Colombian Workers), historically linked with both the Liberal and Conservative Parties and the smallest of the federations, and the CGT (General Confederation of Work), which was part of the former World Labor Confederation, associated with international Christian Democratic political parties .]

The website of the Solidarity Center has no special section for its activities in Venezuela, and to look at it, one might think there are no programs there. But it is well known through other sources that they do have ongoing programs although they operate in the shadows, beneath public scrutiny. Although it is not a very dramatic example, in the already mentioned anecdote, we can see some clues concerning the nature of the activities supported by the Solidarity Center. We can see an example of the continuation of activities in Venezuela, that the work in Venezuela and Colombia is linked by the Bogotá office, and that formally or informally, the most basic trainings can provide a space for dissemination of right wing ideas.

We know more about the Solidarity Center’s record with respect to Colombia. However, it is a situation a little confusing and mixed. While the members of the AFL-CIO, especially among its base, have a history of solidarity in defending labor rights in Colombia, and while they sustained a significant struggle to defeat the FTA with Colombia, the record of the Solidarity Center and AFL-CIO leadership is not so clear.

In 2008, the leaders of the AFL-CIO were united in opposition to the FTA with Colombia. Then-President John Sweeney said on April 7, 2008, that, “The AFL-CIO stands in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Colombia in opposition to violence against trade unionists….The AFL-CIO is strongly opposed to the Colombia FTA and will mobilize with all of our might to defeat it.” And this commitment continued up through the recent struggle against the FTA which, unfortunately, was approved by the US Congress on October 12, 2011. But even the day before the FTA passed, the AFL-CIO had sent a letter to the members of Congress that declared, “The AFL-CIO remains firmly opposed to the Colombia FTA.”

We must remember that the Solidarity Center fundamentally represents the international interests and policies of the US Department of State, not this country’s unionists. It is important to recognize that in 2008, the attitude of the US union leaders toward the FTA with Colombia was united in opposing it.

But in July, 2008, Rhett Doumitt of the Bogotá office and Samantha Tate (the Solidarity Center’s current Coordinator for the Country Programs of the Southern Andean Region, with responsibility for its programs in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador) organized a delegation of six AFL-CIO leaders to Colombia. At that time, Tate was just finishing a 2004-2008 stint as a Senior Program Officer for the Solidarity Center’s Americas Department. While in that program she had been involved in the development of the Solidarity Center’s efforts in Haiti–a period that included the coup and violent aftermath that destroyed Haiti’s popularly elected government.

During the delegation, in place of strategizing for the struggle to defeat the FTA, Doumitt and Tate advocated for making it better. In a report by Mike Williams, President of the AFL-CIO for the State of Florida, he wrote that,
The next meeting was held at the national headquarters of the three major unions in Colombia….They look to American Labor for assistance in ensuring the Free Trade Act resolves such issues as privatization (co-ops), laws prohibiting collective bargaining, threats of violence and murders of labor activists, kidnapping, paramilitary intimidation and criminal impunity.

This seems strange to me because I also visited Colombia in 2008. In October I met with leaders and members of different unions affiliated with the CUT, and especially spent time with members of the national directorate of FENSUAGRO (National Federation of Unitary Agricultural Unions), the country’s largest organization of peasant unions and associations. I was witness to a general strike in Bogotá, including a labor march with more than 50,000 participants. Without exception, every unionist I talked with urged me to go back to the US and work to defeat the FTA. There were far more placards and banners calling for the defeat of the FTA than any other single demand. Absolutely no one suggested to me that I return to advocate for reforms “…ensuring the Free Trade Act resolves…issues.”

However, the reformist position of the Solidarity Center toward the FTA with Colombia does not seem so strange given information that has come to light via the Wikileaks revelations. Cables from the US Embassy in Bogotá show a history of meetings and information sharing that included the participation of Doumitt and the Bogotá office. These show an ongoing conversation aimed at explicitly working to foster the emergence of a pro-FTA contingent within Colombian labor unions while at the same time seeking to undermine not only Leftist tendencies and leadership in the labor movement, but all manner of political struggle by Colombian unions
A February 26, 2008 cable titled “COLOMBIA’S PRO-TPA UNIONS TO FORM THEIR OWN LABOR CENTRAL” shows us that,

On February 14, representatives from over 60 unions who support the US-Colombia Trade Promotion ACT (TPA) [the official name for what is commonly referred to as the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement] proposed forming a new labor group (central)….They plan to lobby for permanent access to U.S. markets….Some recently traveled to Washington to lobby in support of the TPA….

CUT President Carlos Rodriguez issued a statement threatening to expel member unions that defied the confederation leadership’s authority. CTC President Apecides Alvis said his confederation has no plans to meet with pro-TPA union leaders. CGT President Julio Roberto Gomez took a more moderate stance, saying the CGT would meet with its pro-TPA member unions to discuss what would be best for organized labor as a whole….Rhett Doumitt of the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center agreed that forming a ‘looser’ central of federations, unions, and individual workers would exempt organizers from incorporation rules required of a confederation.

In an August 11, 2008 cable titled COLOMBIAN UNIONS, IDEOLOGY, AND THE ARMED CONFLICT, it seems that talk of creating a new labor central had subsided in favor of an effort to merge the three main labor federations. This effort was being pursued largely via the urging of the Labor Conferation of the Americas (CSA-Confederación Sindical de las Américas), presided over by the AFL-CIO’s Linda Chavez-Thompson, with the CGT’s Gomez serving as Vice President.
According to the cable,

Labor advocacy groups complain that Colombia’s three main confederations focus too much on politics, hindering efforts to improve wages and worker conditions….Rhett Doumitt….complained of a “Stalinist” approach taken by Communist and other hard-left labor leaders within the CUT….Doumitt complains that the politics of the labor movement in Colombia impede positive, practical advances on labor issues. In the April 22 monthly “labor dialogue” meeting with President Uribe, the confederations focused discussions on the investigations of the Colombian congressmen associated with the parapolitical scandal. CGT (Confederación General de Trabajadores Democráticos) International Relations Secretary Jose

Leon Ramirez notes there was no discussion of labor issues at the meeting.
The fact is that, given the number of anti-union murders committed by paramilitaries in 2008, discussing “the parapolitical scandal” was very much a labor issue. The CGT’s claim that “there was no discussion of labor issues” shows how out of step it is with the rest of the country’s labor movement. And apparently Doumitt agrees. According to labor journalist Alberto Ruíz,
…in another cable dated September 5, 2008, Doumitt seems to side with the Colombian government in terms of the debate over the figures of unionists killed in Colombia. Thus, the cable states:
RHETT DOUMITT of the AFL-CIO affiliated Solidarity Center told us paramilitary violence against unionists subsided after the last paramilitary block demobilized in 2006. Recent murders of unionists are largely related to common crime….
The year this cable was sent, 2008, there were 52 unionists killed in Colombia, more than in all the other nations of the world combined. But for the Bogotá office of the Solidarity Center, these were mostly nothing more than “common crimes”.

Returning to the August 11, 2008 cable, we read that,
The CGT…identifies less clearly with the opposition to the GOC [Government of Colombia]. CGT Secretary General Julio Roberto Gomez tells us their membership consists of 50% Polo Democratico and 50% Uribistas….He was recently selected to be the Assistant President of the new Labor Confederation of the Americas (CSA). Linda Chavez-Thompson of the AFL-CIO is CSA President….Gomez tells us he is not “part of the club” that blames Uribe for everything…He tells us a “racket” has developed around the violence against unionists…to garner more international funding….CUT lawyer and consultant Carlos Rodriguez Mejilla notes the three national labor confederations face pressure from the CSA to merge nationally within the next two years….Solidarity Center and the confederations say this will not happen anytime soon due to their leaders’ rival personal, political, and financial interests.
Lacking the numbers to foster the creation of a new labor confederation in favor of the FTA, the Embassy, Solidarity Center and Colombian collaborators had jettisoned that tactic in favor of the creation of a new “central”. Lacking the ability to even see that through, it appears their tactics shifted to applying pressure for a merger of the three labor confederations. Since the CUT is many times larger than either the CTC or the CGT, a merger would be one of the best available strategies by which to dampen the Leftist influence of the Colombian labor movement. Yet, as even Doumitt pragmatically predicted, that effort has also failed.
Hedging their bets, the Solidarity Center also developed a strategy of working closely to support the activities of both the CTC and, especially, the CGT. The CTC, it is true ,has a history of opposition to the FTA, despite its connections with Colombia’s two main traditional parties. However, it has not mobilized to defeat the FTA with the same level of activity seen within the CUT, and it has also on occasion cooperated with more reformist efforts.
Labor Activist, Fred Hirsch maintains that what relations the Solidarity Center has with the CUT are being used to work from within the Federation to diminish its influence and subvert its political advocacy. Hirsch is a United States-er with many years as a unionist, including his position as the “grandfather” of the movement to change how the AFL-CIO conducts its international relations. In 1974, he was the first unionist who wrote publicly about the role of the AFL-CIO in supporting the coup in Chile in 1973. And in 2002, he and his co-workers of the South Bay Labor Council wrote the “Unity and Trust Among Workers Worldwide” resolution with the objective ending the dependency of the Solidarity Center on the US government. The resolution also called for the Solidarity Center to open its books regarding its activities. In 2004 that resolution was passed unanimously in the California Labor Federation, representing one out of six AFL-CIO members nationwide. The resolution was defeated in the 2005 national convention, victim of a manipulated process that delayed the vote until most delegates had gone home and that did not even permit discussion in the resolution’s favor.

According to Hirsch,

In 2002 I interviewed, on camera, Domingo Rafael Tovar Arrieta one of the top officers of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT)….He told me that the Solidarity Center had been working within the CUT to divide it and steer it in a rightward direction.

Another difference between the CTC and the CGT from the CUT is that, among unionists, it has overwhelmingly been unions of the CUT and their members that have called for a negotiated political solution to the armed and social conflicts in Colombia. The US position is to reject negotiations and a legitimate peace process and to take only the path of a military solution. Thus, the silence of the CTC and CGT sets very well with policies promoted by the US Department of State by means of the Solidarity Center. We can see well the Solidarity Center’s preferences toward the three confederations with a glance at their websites. At the bottom of the pages of the CTC and CGT are tags announcing that their sites are funded by grants from USAID. Such an announcement is absent from the CUT page.

The main theme of the August 11, 2008 cable was the attitude of Colombian unions toward the armed conflict. Throughout the cable, the CUT and Left-leaning members of the other labor federations are accused of being “anti-capitalist…and ambiguous if not sympathetic to the leftist armed struggle.”

I have met with a wide array of Colombian unionists as well as with members of the Colombian Communist Party, the Left tendency of the Liberal Party and the Center-Left coalition Democratic Pole Party (Polo Democrático). The Communist Party officially broke with the armed struggle in Colombia in 1993 and the Democratic Pole has never endorsed it. CUT leaders who also happen to be members of the Communist, Liberal and/or Democratic Pole Parties are not renegades from their parties but, rather, disciplined persons who uphold Party principles. They are not guerrillas, but unionists working for better wages and better working conditions and, more, a positive transformation of Colombian society. They do not, however, parrot Colombian and US government lines that demonize and dismiss guerrillas as “terrorists”, thus divorcing them from the real conditions that have lead to the formation of guerrilla groups. Whether their tactics are correct or not, guerrilla groups such as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) exist in response to state and transnational corporate sponsored terrorism that has left hundreds of thousands dead and has displaced as many as 5 million mostly rural Colombians.

Furthermore, studies by both Colombia’s Attorney General and the National Labor School report that the number one reason that Colombian unionists are killed is because they are perceived by paramilitaries and military personnel as being guerrillas or guerrilla sympathizers. So when US Embassy and Solidarity Center personnel and collaborationist union leaders accuse Left unionists of being “ambiguous” or “sympathetic” to guerrillas, these false allegations add to the atmosphere of terror and violence under which Colombian unionists and activists must live on a daily basis.

In my job working for the Alliance for Global Justice I receive an almost endless stream of alerts regarding unionists, political prisoners, students, farmers and human rights defenders being threatened and, all too often, killed because of these accusations. I have gone to Colombia and met personally with persons so threatened, and with their family members. I’ve read about unionists like Israel Verona, of the Arauca Campesino Association. He was arrested because of alleged links with the guerrillas. Like thousands of other persons so accused, he was eventually absolved and let out of jail because there was no evidence against him. Within weeks after he won his freedom, he was gunned down by paramilitary thugs.
I have also accompanied rural union members in peaceful meetings that were suddenly surrounded by members of the Colombian military. Their excuse was that they were searching for guerrillas. But when pressed regarding who they were looking for, they could provide no names or descriptions.

FENSUAGRO is one of the CUT organizations most affected by anti-union violence.. Its leaders and membership have suffered a high level of assassinations, disappearances and displacement due to military and paramilitary threats. In its 33 years of existence, according a study conducted by Liliany Obando, a labor activist, independent journalist and sociologist, more than 1,500 FENSUAGRO members have been assassinated. At the time of her study, Obando was serving as the Human Rights Coordinator for FENSUAGRO. She was arrested for the “crime” of Rebellion before her report could be completed and published. She was held in jail for 3 1/2 years before being released.

For FENSUAGRO, international solidarity is a matter of security and survival. However, at the same time in 2009 that FENSUAGRO signed an agreement establishing an official relationship with Unite the Union of the United Kingdom, Doumitt intervened directly to dissuade similar relationships with US unions, accusing FENSUAGRO of being too far to the Left. Even until this day, despite the many threats and attacks against its members, US unions have no solidarity projects with FENSUAGRO.

But it could be possible that the Solidarity Center and, more, the leadership of the AFL-CIO does not want to see Colombian reality as it truly is. In Colombia, 70 to 80% of political violence is committed by the Armed Forces and paramilitary groups. In Colombia, every year there are still more unionists killed than in any other country in the world. And in Colombia, there is a great popular mobilization throughout the country that demands a legitimate process toward a just and durable peace.

Given this reality, the collusion of the Solidarity Center in denying the depths of anti-union violence is all the more shameful. During the administration of Pres. Uribe, there were examples in which the leadership of the AFL-CIO and the Solidarity Center castigated some US union leaders for speaking out about the “parapolitical” scandal (which has implicated some of the most powerful and well-known Colombian politicians of links with the paramilitaries). With so many unionists victims of paramilitary violence–famous cases such as the murders of union leaders by thugs paid for their services by transnational corporations such as Drummond Coal, Coca-Cola and Chiquita Banana–it is clear that the AFL-CIO and the Solidarity Center are not serving the interests of Colombian workers.

With the present-day Obama administration, we are witnesses to a growing reticence on the part of the AFL-CIO leadership to even use the term “paramilitary”, preferring to speak of “armed actors” or “extra-judicial groups”. In all probability, this reflects a profound conflict on the part of the AFL-CIO. On one hand, AFL-CIO members have mostly opposed FTAs, especially with Colombia. But on the other, AFL-CIO leaderships is completely tied to the Democratic Party and, thus, the Obama administration. While it opposed the FTA, it did not want to embarrass Obama right before his reelection campaign. However, Obama’s dominant policies toward Colombia have been to consolidate and augment transnational corporate access to the country’s natural resources. The FTA is part of this, and also the commitment to military engagement and dominance. Corporations and big land owners do not want peace because with a sustainable and just peace would come land reform. And the Obama administration has gotten approval of the FTA by repeating the myths of greatly improved human and labor rights and, more, that the government has control over its territory and is winning–not negotiating–an end to the war. But the resilience of the guerrillas continues, and the attacks and threats of the paramilitaries continue as well.

In 2011, 29 unionists were assassinated and the number of attacks and threats against human rights defenders is the highest in 10 years. In fact, in the past year, more persons died in war-related violence in Colombia than in Afghanistan. And while I write this article, I have just been informed of the discovery on June 13 of more than 180 mass graves of paramilitary victims. If the AFL-CIO wants to help Colombian unions, it needs to call in a loud voice for the government and the Obama administration to recognize the ongoing violence against the Colombian labor movement, and it needs to express its support for a negotiated political solution and a change in US policies toward Colombia.
In April, 2012, the Patriotic March and Patriotic Council were constituted as a Left political mobilization for human and labor rights, land reform, open and secure participation in the political system and, above all, a political solution to the armed conflict. Since this event, there have already been two assassinations and one disappearance of Patriotic March participants, including Henry Díaz, a FENSUAGRO union leader from Putumayo. Likewise, there has been an increase in threats against members and leaders of the Patriotic March, including pointed threats against FENSUAGRO and other unions. Yet faced with this reality, the voices of the AFL-CIO and the Solidarity Center remain silent. This is the kind of silence that constitutes complicity.

Meanwhile, across the border, in Venezuela, the nation prepares for an election that most its citizens hope will be free from foreign interference, including support for coup plots should the candidates favored by the US not make significant gains.

What is hidden in this damaging and secretive shell game and what will be supported by the $3 million USAID funding for Solidarity Center activities in Venezuela and Colombia? As long as the Solidarity Center operates in the shadows, we may not be able to know exact details. However, it is very possible for us to predict the nature of these activities.

The US/Corporate Empire sees in Venezuela and Colombia a double-sided door that opens up all of South America and, indeed, Latin America. Influencing and manipulating labor movements and organizations is a very important tactic. Yes, the needs and struggles of the Colombian and Venezuelan labor movements are very different from each other. But what matters to the Solidarity Center and its State Department patrons is that, together, these movements are keys that they would use to open this door , unlocking a new period of recolonization and unobstructed corporate profits.

Resolution from the Political Council of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) for the immediate withdrawal of USAID from member countries of the alliance.

On behalf of the Chancellors of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Federal Republic of Brazil, on June 21st 2012.

Given the open interference of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the internal politics of the ALBA countries, under the excuse of “planning and administering economic and humanitarian assistance for the whole world outside of the United States,” financing non-governmental organizations and actions and projects designed to destabilise the legitimate governments which do not share their common interests.

Knowing the evidence brought to light by the declassified documents of the North American State Department in which the financing of organisations and political parties in opposition to ALBA countries is made evident, in a clear and shameless interference in the internal political processes of each nation.

Given that this intervention of a foreign country in the internal politics of a country is contrary to the internal legislation of each nation.

On the understanding that in the majority of ALBA countries, USAID, through its different organisations and disguises, acts in an illegal manner with impunity, without possessing a legal framework to support this action, and illegally financing the media, political leaders and non-governmental organisations, amongst others.

On the understanding that through these financing programmes they are supporting NGOs which promote all kind of fundamentalism in order to conspire and limit the legal authority of our states, and in many cases, widely loot our natural resources on territory which they claim to control at their own free will.

Conscious of the fact that our countries do not need any kind of external financing for the maintenance of our democracies, which are consolidated through the will of the Latin American and Caribbean people, in the same way that we do not need organisations in the charge of foreign powers which, in practice, usurp and weaken the presence of state organisms and prevent them from developing the role that corresponds to them in the economic and social arena of our populations.

We resolve to:

Request that the heads of state and the government of the states who are members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, immediately expel USAID and its delegates or representatives from their countries, due to the fact that we consider their presence and actions to constitute an interference which threatens the sovereignty and stability of our nations.

In the city of Rio de Janeiro, Federal Republic of Brazil, June 21st 2012.

Signed by:

The government of the Pluri-national state of Bolivia.

The government of the Republic of Cuba.

The government of the Republic of Ecuador.

The government of the Commonwealth of Dominica.

The government of the Republ ic of Nicaragua.

The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Translated by Rachael Boothroyd for Venezuelanalysis

by Norman Markowitz

Via: http://www.politicalaffairs.net/editors-blog/

Monday 18 June 2012

I’ve been reading about the Greek elections , the sudden but quickly fading band and stock market happiness that the old guard looks like it will be able to form a governent, President Obama’s unneccesary and unwise praise for the results(given the fact that the leaders of Syriza made clear their willingness to stay in the “Euro Zone” and even their sympathy for some of his goals in seeking to defend peoples interests.

Let me make a few very quick points which mass media here isn’t highlighting at all

1. Syriza finished with 26.9% about 2.7 % percent behind the rightwing New Democracy, and way ahead of Pasok, the social democratic party The KKE(the Greek Communist Party) which not only opposed Syriza but denounced it, received 4.5% of the vote. Although the position of the CPUSA is not to criticize other parties, I can’ help as an individual but state the obvious. Had the KKE formed a united front with Syriza(which the center and the right throughout Europe, especially in Germany have been villifying) Syriza would have run first and have had the possibility of crafting among the various parties and factions a left center government to challenge the austerity policies

2. The neo Nazi Golden Dawn party, which specializes in storm troop hoodlumism, received 6.9 % of the vote, “hanging around” Greek politics and, according to British and European press reports, having a significant following in the Greek police, a clear and present danger politicaly

3. The election solves nothing of course for the European crisis or for the Greek people. The issue remains one of shifting the burden of the crisis from the backs of the working class unto capital and the wealthy, of reviving both employment and mass purchasing power, not, as one left comentator noted, making the Eurozone into the Fourth Reich in economic terms, with the prime ministers of the various countries becoming the Gauleiters of German finance capital, which has been calling the austerity tune in Europe and put the squeeze most heavily on Greece

4. As a good friend said about the United States(and this from a progressive person not involved organizationally with any left party or faction) we in the U.S. should be so lucky as to have an electoral force like Syriza which could on its own gain more than a fourth of the electorate and put real fear into the capitalist class

Norman Markowitz

Via: http://mltoday.com/subject-areas/commentary/unusual-days-1413-2.html

Written by Fidel Castro Ruz

On June 7, 2012, under the title “Assassin-in-Chief”, an internet website published the following: “…you aren’t just electing a president of the United States; you are also electing an assassin-in-chief.”

“Thanks to a long New York Times piece by Jo Becker and Scott Shane, ‘Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will’, we now know that the president has spent startling amounts of time overseeing the “nomination” of terrorist suspects for assassination via the remotely piloted drone programme he inherited from President George W. Bush and which he has expanded exponentially.

The language of the piece about our warrior president […] focused on the dilemmas of a man who – we now know – has personally approved and overseen the growth of a remarkably robust assassination programme in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan based on a ‘kill list’. Moreover, he’s regularly done so target by target, name by name. […]

According to Becker and Shane, President Obama has also been involved in the use of a fraudulent method of counting drone kills, one that unrealistically de-emphasizes civilian deaths.

“Historically speaking, this is all passing strange. The Times calls Obama’s role in the drone killing-machine ‘without precedent in presidential history’.And that’s accurate.”

“It is the strangest of bureaucratic rituals: Every week or so, more than 100 members of the government’s sprawling national security apparatus gather, by secure video teleconference, to pore over terrorist suspects’ biographies and recommend to the president who should be the next to die.

This secret ‘nominations’ process is an invention of the Obama administration, a grim debating society that vets the PowerPoint slides bearing the names, aliases, and life stories of suspected members of al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen or its allies in Somalia’s Shabab militia. The nominations go to the White House, where by his own insistence and guided by counterterrorism ‘tsar’ John O. Brennan, Mr. Obama must approve any name.”

“As we learned last week again in the Times, we not only have an assassin-in-chief in the Oval Office, but a cyber warrior…”

What I have written here is a brief summary of current affairs in the United States. The day before, June 6, 2012, which was equally sinister, an article entitled “Has China’s Economy Run Out of Steam?” published by BBC World stated the following: “Several indicators have begun to point to an economic downturn in the country, including sharp slowdowns in electricity demand and industrial production, as well as in factory output and retail sales.

“China has already been suffering for several months from the chill wind blowing from Europe – its biggest export market, even bigger than the US.

“The country’s manufacturing sector has been contracting for the last seven months thanks mainly to weak export demand, according to a recent survey.”

“Money has more or less stopped flowing into China since September, and in April actually began to leave the country. This is highly unusual.”

“To make sure the Yuan doesn’t strengthen too much, China blocks speculators from buying the currency.

“For almost two years since mid-2010, the government has dutifully allowed the Yuan to strengthen against the dollar.

But in the last month, as the economy has got into trouble, it started to push the Yuan’s value down again.

“…many firms financed the import of raw materials such as copper, iron ore and aluminum for the building industry.”

“The unused copper shipments piling up in China’s warehouses have become so great that there is hardly any space to store the surplus.”

“This could of course be nothing more than a short-term blip. But the fear is that it could be the beginning of the end of a building boom that has created far more apartments than the country really needs.”

“There are stories of entire new ghost towns having been built.

“It seems many of these empty flats were being bought by Chinese businesses and families as an investment, in preference to leaving their money in a low-interest bank account.” “China’s growth rate barely dropped below the magic 10% figure at a time when the West fell into its deepest recession since World War II.”

“For example, China has built the world’s biggest high-speed rail network, five times the size of France’s TGV, from scratch. “China is in the middle of a delicate transition, with a new generation of leaders taking over – something that only happens every 10 years.

“There is a political struggle going on – evidenced by the removal of the colorful Chongqing governor Bo Xilai.

“A lot of party members have personally done very well out of the building and lending boom of the last three years. If the boom is coming to an end, they will be even more keen not to be among the inevitable losers.

“How that struggle plays out – especially if China faces a lot of unemployed workers protesting on the streets – is anyone’s guess.”

I am far from sharing that sinister false rumor spread by the Yankees about China’s destiny, and I wonder if we could ignore the fact that China has the biggest reserves of rare earth metals of the world and huge stocks of shale gas, which will allow it to exercise its power over the world’s energy production when the power of lying and subjugation come to an end.

It is too much already.
June 9, 2012

Via: http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2012/2012-06-18-dilosi-gg/

The results of the June 17 elections were: Communist Party of Greece, 4,5% , New Democracy-ND (Liberal party) 29,6%, SYRIZA (alliance of opportunist forces and forces from PASOK) 26,9%, PASOK (social-democrats) 12,3%, Independent Greeks 7,55 %, Golden Dawn (nationalist, racist party) 6,9% and Democratic Left (split from Syriza and merged with some forces from PASOK) 6,3%, LAOS (older split from ND, nationalist party) 1,6%. Based on these results the KKE will receive 12 seats.

The General Secretary of the CC of the KKE after the announcement of the results made the following statement:

“The election result is negative for the people which has suffered a lot from the economic crisis and the measures that followed, the memoranda, the loan agreement, the application laws.

The people will face serious problems and developments and whatever government is formed will not meet its expectations-the opposite will be true.

Our assessment concerning the negative character of the election result is based on the following elements:

First: on the increase of ND which is a well known anti-people, anti-worker party which does not change. The worst is not over, as Mr. Samaras claimed. The worst is on the way. And the government that will be formed, apparently with ND as its core, will not solve any of the people’s problems. On the contrary, it will complicate the problems.

Second: on the increase of SYRIZA in the second elections compared to the significant increase it had in the May elections. This time SYRIZA received a large number of votes and a high percentage, but after having watered down to a great extent its slogans concerning the memorandum, the loan agreement, the application laws with its clear position that its policy as a government will be within the framework of the “EU one-way street”. It made many assurances to the ruling class and the foreign powers that Greece will remain in the euro at all costs. In that sense, we believe that its support is a negative element given the fact that it has changed its positions regardless of whether we believed that it wouldn’t implement the positions it had supported for the May 6 elections.

Third negative element: the unquestionably great losses of the KKE that will be of greater significance for the readiness of the people to intervene in light of the intensification of the problems due to the crisis in Greece and above all due to the deepening of the crisis in the Eurozone. Our position on 7th May, that these would be the most difficult and most complex elections of the last 40 years for the KKE has been confirmed. We knew the immense obstacles that the party would have to face, which were much larger compared to those we went through up until the May 6 elections, namely the dilemmas of the new bipolar system, ND and SYRIZA. Both were fighting in their own way for the election result, one through intimidations and the other through illusions. Of course, the result must be assessed by the whole party, by KNE, by the friends and supporters of the party, as the party does in every election, in order to arrive at more comprehensive and substantial conclusions.

Fourth negative element: the votes and the percentage of the “Golden Dawn” despite the fact that after 6th May there was much more evidence regarding its fascist and thuggish nature.

The KKE preferred to tell the truth to the people regarding the character of the crisis and the possible outcomes which are connected to the negative developments in the Eurozone, regarding the character of the European Union, regarding the need for the unilateral cancellation of the debt, the need for disengagement from the EU, and the struggle for working class-people’s power. We said these things very consciously.

The participation of the KKE in a government to manage the crisis in such a crucial phase, when what is needed is a line of rupture and counterattack , would lead sooner or later to a major defeat for the movement, as the possible participation of the KKE in an untrustworthy government with two faces, one for internal affairs and one for foreign relations, could be used as an alibi for the compromise of the people and the alignment of the government’s political line with the interests of the monopolies.

We salute the members of the party and KNE, the friends and supporters of the party who waged this tough battle, and all those who withstood the pressure and voted for the KKE. We state that the KKE will remain standing despite the reduction of its seats in Parliament, it will continue its intense activity in the movement and will support and strengthen every starting point for struggle and hope.

It is certain that the people in the course of events will remember issues which we posed in both the electoral battles, predictions, warnings concerning the developments in the Eurozone, concerning the possibility of Greece’s involvement in a war, especially after the US elections. And we also believe that even those people who did not vote for the party, even though they appreciate its positions and role, will understand the consequences in the face of the possibility of an anti-memorandum coalition government.

We assure you that we will abide by every thing we said to the people before the elections. We will be in the front line in every struggle, we will support every militant initiative regarding the acute problems which are in progress, and we will prepare, to the extent that it depends on us, the people so that they can deal with the new torments which are on the way. We hope that this retreat of the radical orientation, which was particularly marked in the second electoral battle, will not last long, because there can be no “wait and see”, as the negative developments will unfold extremely rapidly.

The KKE considers that the basis for the people’s counterattack must be the workplaces, the sectors and the neighbourhoods. And above all what is most important is the regroupment of the labour and people’s movement, the social alliance, the socio-political alliance that will struggle for the immediate and pressing problems, and will also gather forces for the radical overthrow that is necessary.”

Athens 17/06/2012 THE PRESS OFFICE OF THE CC OF THE KKE

Please check out the link:

http://www.houstonpeacecouncil.com/janitors-continue-their-long-struggle-for-a-living-wage-and-a-decent-work-environment/

By Zoltan Zigedy

Via http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2012/06/debt-dilemma-bankrupt-policies-and.html

The reason for virtual disappearance of great depressions is the new attitude of the electorate… [E]conomic science knows how to use monetary and fiscal policy to keep any recessions that break out from snowballing into lasting chronic slumps. If Marxians wait for capitalism to collapse in a final crisis, they wait in vain. We have eaten of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and, for better or worse, there is no returning to laissez faire capitalism. The electorate in a mixed economy insists that any political party which is in power—whether it be the Republican or the Democratic, the Tory or the Labor party—take the expansionary actions that can prevent depressions. Economics, 8th Addition, Paul Samuelson (1970, McGraw-Hill), p. 250.

Since Samuelson—probably the most influential bourgeois economist of the post-war era—died at the end of 2009, we will never know if he would now retract these statements. Every claim in the above quote is false, and false in a way that sheds light on where we are today. And because every claim is false, policy makers are in a hell of a mess.

The reason for virtual disappearance of great depressions is the new attitude of the electorate…… [E]conomic science knows how to use monetary and fiscal policy to keep any recessions that break out from snowballing into lasting chronic slumps.

In 1970, when the 8th edition of Samuelson’s iconic textbook was published, nearly everyone did share the belief that government had access to tools that could reverse any slump. Even the old red-baiting Cold Warrior President, Richard Nixon, embraced Keynesian prescriptions at that time.

But matters changed quickly in the 1970s. A long period of inflation and stagnant growth settled in, seemingly immune to fiscal and monetary therapy. The loss of the “stimulus” of the war in Vietnam and a restructuring of energy prices challenged the consensus celebrated by Samuelson. Many economists identified the soaring inflation with union and other cost-of-living escalators; consequently, a dampening of wages and benefits was urged, a tendency that continues unabated today. By the end of the 1970s, Treasury Secretary Volker’s shock therapy to contain inflation brought the US economy into deep recession. The Reagan victory in 1980 signaled a loss of confidence in government intervention and the rise of a competitive ideology. Some called it “voodoo economics,” but it proved to have amazing resilience: it turned away from the Keynesian toolbox, and it established a new consensus.

We have eaten of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and, for better or worse, there is no returning to laissez faire capitalism.

By 1980, the “Fruit” was less than appetizing. Reagan’s election (and Thatcher’s before him) signaled a return to the gruel of laissez faire under the cheery brand description, “neo-liberalism.” A whole new set of popular terms like “supply side,” “trickle down,” etc. were created to sell the new thinking, while the “deep” thinkers of academia, cast off the economics of aggregates and the priority of demand for the micro-foundations of Hobbes and his selfish, but rational animal dominating his/her living space. By 1992, with both the collapse of European socialism and the election of a “New Democratic” President, the “Tree of Knowledge” was a mere stump and neo-liberalism had penetrated nearly every aspect of life in the most advanced capitalist countries. Laissez faire returned with a vengeance and enjoyed even greater dominance than in its original incarnation. And the restored economic doctrine saw no need for the tools of repair since it saw the capitalist market as self-correcting.

The electorate in a mixed economy insists that any political party which is in power—whether it be the Republican or the Democratic, the Tory or the Labor party—take the expansionary actions that can prevent depressions.

This unassailable truth of 1970 has proven to not only be assailable, but down right false. The political parties mentioned by Samuelson – the dominant parties in the US and UK – did not vigorously defend the value of “expansionary actions;” rather, they fled from the policy as though it were radioactive. With William Clinton’s ascendancy to the Presidency at the head of the old New Deal party, advocates of expansionary government intervention had been largely purged from prominence in the Democratic Party. Likewise, Tony Blair’s rise to Prime Minister in the UK signaled the Labour Party’s wholesale embrace of neo-liberalism.

Of course Samuelson’s claim that the “electorate… insists…” on these policies was never tested because the electorate was never asked — elites settled the matter for them. In 1970, prominent intellectuals still believed that important matters were decided through the electoral process; surely few share that illusion today, when political actors persistently ignore the will of the electorate on matters like taxing the rich or shoring up social programs.

It bears reflecting upon the words of the Nobel committee in awarding the prize in economics to Samuelson in the same year as the publication of the 8th edition: “More than any other contemporary economist, Samuelson has helped to raise the general analytical and methodological level in economic science. He has simply rewritten considerable parts of economic theory.” Unfortunately, the “general analytical and methodological level” has proven to be unhelpful in understanding the course of economic history.

If Marxians wait for capitalism to collapse in a final crisis, they wait in vain.

Samuelson’s peculiar coinage of the term “Marxians” suggests that he seldom engaged Marxists to solicit their opinion. Of course one does encounter Marxist-poseurs who frequently and loudly predict an apocalyptic final collapse of capitalism just as one hears of half-baked fans who believe the Chicago Cubs will win the World Series—it’s possible, but not likely.

Capitalism will assuredly disappear as a result of “a final conflict” (“C’est la lutte finale” in the original words of the Internationale) and not a final economic crisis. Yet there is a relationship between economic and social crises and the final conflict that will push capitalism into the fabled historic dustbin. That is just to say that wars, economic calumnies, or political paralysis are almost always the immediate and decisive causes of revolutionary risings.

We cannot give Samuelson this point, however, because he meant to deny both that (1) economic crises will not alone bring down capitalism and that (2) no economic crisis – like the Great Depression—can again shake the foundations of the capitalist edifice. On the later, all (authentic) Marxists are in agreement: capitalism cannot, from its internal logic, escape serious economic turmoil; crises are inescapable partners of the accumulation process.

With capitalism’s foundations seriously buffeted by the last four years of bank failures, housing foreclosures, mass layoffs, financial scandals, shrinking wealth, stagnant incomes, dwindling social services, and a host of other blows, few would want to stand on the ground carved out by Samuelson in 1970. What may have appeared to be transparently obvious in 1970 is now decidedly questionable in the light of the protracted economic crisis that we have endured since late 2008.

The Next Step?

I have written often and confidently that we have only seen the first act of a continuing severe structural crisis of global capitalism. Regardless of policy initiatives, there is much more pain and economic chaos ahead. Contrary to the most esteemed minds of the economic profession, there are no quick or decisive solutions to be found from either the market fundamentalists or the Keynesian heretics opposing them. And their political expressions—conservative and social democratic parties – are equally bankrupt, offering no real exit from the looming disaster. Thus, both the seriously damaged economic engine and impotent political institutions combine to guarantee that the crisis will be with us for some time to come.

For the moment, Europe is the locus of the global crisis. The European Union project, realized in an era of great optimism and capitalist triumphalism, is in imminent danger of collapsing; its vulnerability to predatory financial capitalism has left its constituent countries, particularly its weakest countries, in immediate danger of reversion to nineteenth century standards of development and living. The global market mechanism has determined that Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and probably Italy have no essential role in the global economy except for nostalgic tourism and retirement villas.

The illusion of a unified Europe, devoid of borders and with a shared standard of living, is just that—an illusion. The old economic and social relations of dominance and exploitation did not evaporate in Europe because politicians voted in idyllic times to create a union. And with a profound global crisis, the weaknesses of this unsteady union became the target of the bond vultures that turn hardship into profits. In the beginning, these bond vultures swooped down upon Greece, capturing its economy for the big banks and handing its sovereignty to the European imperial centers. I wrote of the weakness and vulnerability of this union often in 2008 and 2009. I returned to this theme in November, 2011: “one might conclude that unification – mutually beneficial combinations of national entities—is extremely unlikely to be successful with capitalist social and economic relations intact. Conversely, socialist social and economic relations, linked with an internationalist perspective hold the only real, lasting opportunity for unity among diverse states.”

The Great Debt Dilemma

The foreclosing of a bourgeois solution to the European crisis arises from the dominance of finance capital in the world economy. That is to say, no real solution is available through policy initiatives crafted by bourgeois economists or advocated by politicians who are intent upon keeping state-monopoly capitalism unchanged while ignoring the predatory role of the financial sector. Those who hope to return to the capitalism of Samuelson’s time are simply delusional.

Market fundamentalists who thought that the Euro-crisis would dissipate with a bit of budget discipline, a heavy dose of government austerity, and perhaps a few emergency loans have been thoroughly discredited by shrinking growth, even greater debt burdens, and intense human suffering. The wholesale dumping of political incumbents has signaled the bankruptcy of conservative answers to those ruling elites who first chose this road.

In the trail of this failure is the “I told you so” of the Keynesians and social democrats. In truth, liberal economists were loud and outspoken about policies that hung on a thin strand of hope rather than rational thought (Despite the fact that policies of austerity made absolutely no sense, it drove the media and politicians into a frenzy of advocacy—a tribute to the power of elitist wishful thinking over common sense). Krugman, Stiglitz and a host of other economists seek to bolster the social democratic case by advocating robust deficit spending to re-kindle growth in the Euro-zone. They argued sensibly that austerity and reduced government spending would only make matters worse. And they assumed that the converse—more government stimuli—would therefore make matters better. But this is a non sequitur.

Certainly more government spending when directed towards programs that benefit those suffering from the economic crisis is a justifiable social good and urgently needed, though it does not follow that it is necessarily a prescription for recovery. Neither the historical record nor theory demonstrates that government spending is a sure-fire recipe for restoring capitalist growth and profitability. It may help, it may not. And it will not in this case unless we excise the influence of financial markets upon the fate of the Euro-zone.

To hear the social democrats, the answer to the European debt crisis is to reject austerity in favor of growth. But they forget or choose to ignore the elephant in the room: the international debt market. Bond vultures, their accomplices –the credit rating agencies, and lending institutions– pounce on even a hint of deficit spending. The entire contemporary history of the European crisis is that of a crisis engineered by debt holders who view any additional credit extension or currency deflation as a threat to their existing debt holdings. And they hold the power to enforce their interests through debt markets. Equally, they have nearly all the European political forces in a strangle hold that places the interests of the financial sector ahead of all else. That is the demonstrated dominance of finance capital in the twenty-first century. We ignore this at our peril.

The facile answer of the social democrats—from the recent successful electoral campaign of the “socialists” in France to the ascendancy of SYRIZA in Greece—is to reject austerity and endorse growth. But this is no answer at all if it depends upon the “good will” of financial markets that neither have a “will” nor respect the social “good.” The dominance of finance capital cannot be wished or negotiated away.

Nor is exit from the Euro an option without a radical break from international finance. Credit markets will be closed to any country that departs the zone without guaranteeing the integrity of existing debt, a burden that leaves an exiting or exiled country exactly where it was before it left.

Doom or Promise?

The debt dilemma poses an impossible challenge to those who wish to see Europe governed as usual. It forecloses both a conservative and social democratic answer to the current crisis ravaging Europe. Understandably, the habits of decades of complacency and relative stability leave the electorate with a desire to find an easy way out within the confines of the known rather than a leap into the unknown. Embracing solutions beyond the habitual ones comes with great difficulty even among the victims. But for four years, the habitual solutions have failed and the debt dilemma gives us every reason to believe that they will continue to fail.

Only a vigorous people’s movement determined to overthrow the dominance of finance capital will lead Europe (and the rest of us) out of the death grip of financial markets. Central to that overthrow is the establishment of public ownership and control over financial institutions and the removal of those institutions from the market place. It is a nascent movement; we see its stirrings in the growth of the Communist movement emerging around the ideological pole established by the Greek Communist Party, a Party that refuses to compromise by joining a doomed-to-fail coalition government with no answer to the debt dilemma. The era of smug, smooth, and easy recoveries from the capitalist business cycle, as announced by Paul Samuelson, is over. Likewise, the era of economic tinkering and political self-satisfaction is inadequate for this moment. We enter a new era with fear and uncertainty gripping most of the world’s population. Therefore, the realization of the promise of the new era may be a while in coming, but it’s surely coming.

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com