Art by Antonio Guerrero, one of the Cuban 5

by W. T. Whitney Jr.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/20/much-ado-about-a-handshake/
Attending a memorial event for former South African President Nelson Mandela, President Barack Obama shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro. Secretary of State John Kerry excused Obama; “He didn’t choose who’s there.” Yet the encounter told much about the past and maybe about the future also.

Organizers of the memorial honored President Castro by asking him to give the culminating speech of the international homage to Mandela. He, President Obama, and four other foreign dignitaries were together on the dais. One observer suggests planners situated Castro “in such a way that an encounter [with Obama] was inevitable,”

Castro’s preeminent role in the proceedings stemmed from a history largely unknown in the United States, or downplayed. Speaking in Cuba in 1991, Nelson Mandela testified to Cuban contributions to South Africa’s freedom struggle.

“What other country can point to a record of greater selflessness than Cuba has displayed in its relations with Africa?” Mandela asked. “Your presence and the reinforcement of your forces in the battle of Cuito Cuanavale were of truly historic significance,” he told Cuban listeners. “The crushing defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale was a victory for the whole of Africa. [It] broke the myth of the invincibility of the white oppressors [and] inspired struggling people inside South Africa… Cuito Cuanavale has been a turning point in the struggle to free the continent and our country from the scourge of apartheid!”

Cuito Cuanavale is the Angola location where Cuban and Angolan troops defeated South African invaders on March 23, 1988. The Cubans had repelled earlier invasions likewise directed at undoing Angolan independence. Between 1975 and 1990, 300,000 Cuban volunteers fought in Southern Africa; 2000 of them died.

Media coverage of the ceremonies overlooked other inconvenient truths. The United States and its NATO allies “were the most firm economic, military, and political supporters of the apartheid regime in South Africa.” Mandela remained on the U.S. terrorism watch list until 2008. A CIA agent probably supplied the tip leading to Mandela’s arrest in 1962. U.S. adulation of Mandela is thus on shaky ground, notwithstanding four U.S. presidents on hand at the observances.

Reacting to the handshake, Florida Republican Congressperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinen interrupted Secretary of State Kerry’s testimony on Iran. “[W]hen the leader of the free world shakes the bloody hand of a ruthless dictator like Raul Castro, it becomes a propaganda coup for the tyrant,” she observed; “Raul Castro uses that hand to sign the orders to repress and jail democracy advocates.” Senator John McCain found a precedent: “Neville Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler.”

Silence had greeted President Clinton’s handshake with President Fidel Castro at the United Nations in 2000. This time anxiety over Obama administration inclinations to ease hostilities against Cuba may explain the responses. Their extreme venom even suggests such speculation may be on target. If so, the handshake may, after the fact, become a signpost to the future. “What happened in Soweto [at the memorial],” opines Cuban analyst Iroel Sánchez, “is one drop in a glass that is more and more full and is pushing in the direction of change.”

At a Miami fundraiser on November 8, President Obama told wealthy Cuban Americans that, “[We] have to continue to update our policies … So the notion that the same policies that we put in place in 1961 would somehow still be as effective as they are today in the age of the Internet and Google and world travel doesn’t make sense.

And pressure mounts for his administration to negotiate with Cuba on a crucial issue. Four years ago Cuba arrested and jailed USAID contractor Alan Gross because he illegally provided opposition groups with sophisticated communication equipment. Gross’ wife and her allies want the Obama administration to negotiate his release. That would surely involve discussion of exchanging Gross for the four remaining Cuban Five anti-terrorists lodged in U.S. jails.

Interviewed about the Gross affair on December 15 by CNN, Secretary of State Kerry spoke of “back-door negotiations” in which “I have personally been involved” along with “my undersecretary of political affairs.” “The White House has been involved.”

In any event, “most foreign orators at Nelson Mandela’s funeral represented big powers,” according to Sánchez. Cuba, as “the moral power the United States has been unable to break,” was different. “Its foreign policy founded on principles is one reason why Washington has undertaken to defeat the revolution of Fidel and Raul Castro.”

I have decided to do my own New Year’s Message.

2014 will be the last full year of this obnoxious government and it looks as if it is going to continue attacking the most vulnerable. WE can tell this from the Morning Star’s final two front pages of 2013. A & E departments being told to vet patients according to their citizenship status on Monday 30th December and a man dying after waiting two hours for an ambulance in the final issue of the year.

There are so many things to fight against and the pace of destruction of social cohesion gives those of progressive opinions little chance of being effective. If we had a larger Communist party that would help. There are too few of our members who are young, women or from non-British backgrounds. Despite that I believe the Communist Party of Britain is by far the best political organisation in Britain. Its policies are just the ones that would see Britain out of the slump and on the road to socialism. It works in a generously non sectarian way. It helps to sustain the only daily paper which concentrates on the significant rather than the sensational. Its role in the trade union, peace, and solidarity movements is second to none. However if it were a lot bigger it could be a lot more effective. So clearly building the party both locally and nationally is a priority and I look forward to the coming year’s recruitment drive.

Combating anti-communism is the duty of all progressives, not just communists. We must combat name-calling. The words ‘Stalinist’, ‘tankie’ and ‘commie’ should not be accepted as OK. Language is important. We accept that it is from the experience of the women’s movement, the anti-racist movement and the gay movement. Anti-communist language should be challenged in the same way and as vigorously as we would combat sexist, racist and homophobic language. Let’s get started on this! It is important because anti-communism is the basic ingredient of fascism. It is a violation of human rights and should be seen by communist and non-communist alike as such. What a job for 2014!

Forty years ago our party played a magnificent role in ridding the country of a Tory government. Man, didn’t our pickets fly! 1974 saw the best ever labour Government. The one between February and October of that year. Stupidly, our trade union leadership – not all of it by any means, abdicated its responsibility to the membership by signing up to the Social Contract. On being re-elected the Labour Government reneged on its promises and bowed down to the IMF. However we should celebrate the solidarity which many of us experienced forty years ago.

2014 is also the 180th anniversary of the Tolpuddle Martyrs and we will be honouring the solidarity of those early trade unionists whose actions worked to free and bring home the Tolpuddle Six.

Of course, a lot will be said about the 100th anniversary of the Great War. We will be remembering those who refused to fight for pacifist reasons. We will also recall people like Bob Stewart and Willie Gallcher who refused to partake in the war because it was Imperialist. Many of those jailed for that reason formed the core of what was to become the Communist Party.

Communists support the affiliation of trade unions to the Labour Party. The trade union movement is the parent of the Labour Party. Unfortunately the Labour Party has always behaved like a spoilt brat. It has demanded presents and keeps scrounging money from its parent without doing its chores when it got into office. It should have abolished prescription charges and got rid of all anti-trade union legislation. It should not have got into scraps on the side of the other bullies. It should have got rid of all its dangerous toys like Trident missiles. We need to make the Labour Party a part of the Labour Movement and that will require a change in its constitution and a purge of the right starting with Blair.

I hate the National Anthem. It makes me squirm with embarrassment. Our queen is not gracious. She has never once in her inglorious reign declared an amnesty for prisoners. Scotland has her anthem as does Wales. We English have to use the Great Britain one. It’s not right. The ANC had its own anthem before it got rid of Apartheid. Why don’t we have something that can be sung with gusto on picket lines and in peace camps?

I also think the Union Flag is inappropriate. It comprises the flags or crosses of St. George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick. The Welsh are not represented on the flag. I am an atheist. I do not want to be represented by a Christian saint with or without his cross. Let’s have a flag ready for our People’s Republic of Britain! I would like the CPB to initiate a competition for both an anthem and a flag. how about it?

Let us remember that we are internationalists! We have a responsibility to victims of Imperialism everywhere. I call on our party members to make sure that we do what we can whether it be in CND or for the cause of Palestine, or the Miami 5 or for peace in the Middle East. A system which allows the majority of the world’s population to have lives shortened by poverty is a system which needs to be killed. I do not believe in capital punishment for people but it is correct for capitalism.

Have a wonderful new year.

A talk by A. Shaw, a member of the Houston Communist Party, on 12/29/2013

(Volume 24, page 231)

SOCIALISM. (1) the first stage of the Communist formation. The economic basis of socialism is social ownership of the means of production; it’s political basis is the power of the toiling masses under the leadership of the working class, headed by the Marxist-Leninist party. Socialism is a social structure that precludes the exploitation of man by man and develops in conformity with a plan, with the objectives of improving the well-being of the people and comprehensively developing every member of society.

(2) scientific socialism, the doctrine that reveals the historical necessity for the establishment of socialism and shows the way for its gradual transformation into communism; part of the Marxist-Leninist theory.

(Volume 24, page 233)

Sociopolitical system. The socialist sociopolitical system is characterized by the establishment and development of the socialist state and by the existence of two friendly classes-the working class and the cooperative (kolkhoz) peasantry, as well as the popular intelligentsia, under the leadership of the working class and its vanguard, the Marxist-Leninist party. Under socialism, profound economic transformations result in the abolition of exploiting classes and strata. Society is entirely made up of working people, and there is a continuous increase in the proportion of the working class in the population…

The most important changes in the sociopolitical structure of socialism are associated with the development of the socialist state. The victory of the socialist revolution leads to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a necessary condition for the construction of socialism. The dictatorship of the proletariat strives to suppress and abolish the exploiting classes. But its chief goals are the organization of socialist construction, the creation of a socialist society, and ensuring the complete, final victory of socialism. The exploiting classes in the cities and the countryside are abolished during the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. With the strengthening of socialist economic forms and the sociopolitical alliance of the working class, the cooperative (kolkhoz) peasantry, and the intelligentsia, the dictatorship of the proletariat exhausts its functions in the country’s domestic affairs, and the proletarian state gradually becomes the socialist state of all the people. This process is completed with the transition to the stage of developed socialism.

In all socialist countries the state, as the political organization of the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, has the same character and functions. However, the socialist state (the dictatorship of the proletariat) may assume various forms, depending on historical conditions, the specific correlation of class forces in a particular country, and national traditions. Forms of popular representation, as well as the forms of state organization, may vary. (For example, a federative structure is characteristic of a number of countries.) Within a system of political forces there may be a one-party system or a multiparty system based on a United popular front. The form of government in the Soviet Union is the Soviets of People’s Deputies, and in the majority of other socialist countries, the People’s democracy.

In the sociopolitical system of socialism the working class plays a leading role assigned to it not merely on the basis of numerical significance, which varies, depending on the level of economic development and the pace of the scientific and technological revolution. The working class has always been the main productive force in society. It’s revolutionary character, discipline, organization, and collectivism have determined its leadership position in the system of socialist social relations. The foundation for the political structure of socialist society is the alliance of the working class and the cooperative (kolkhoz) peasantry.

The growth of productive forces and agriculture, the rising cultural level in the countryside, and the reorganization of the village way of life result in changes in the social makeup and psychology of the peasantry, which exhibits more and more traits in common with those of the working class. Under socialism, the intelligentsia grows rapidly, owing to a continuous influx of members of the working class and peasantry. The socialist intelligentsia is a social stratum which, by virtue of its social character, constitutes an integral part of socialist society. The consistent obliteration of the differences between the working class, the peasantry, and the intelligentsia is an objective, law like regularity of the development of socialism.

An important role in the sociopolitical life of socialist society is played by the principle of the equal rights of nations and nationalities, and their constant rapprochement, based on a common economic life, the mutual enrichment of cultures, the strengthening of a single Marxist-Leninist ideology, and the consistent application of the Leninist national policy. Political equality between nations is guaranteed, and the remnants of economic and cultural inequality inherited from the previous regime are completely eliminated (see NATIONAL QUESTION). During the period of socialist construction and the Soviet Union a new historical community, the Soviet people, took shape, and new, harmonious relations develop between classes and social groups and between nations and nationalities.

In socialist society, democratic principles constitute the foundation for the development of political structures. Socialist democracy includes political freedoms, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and the freedom to elect plenipotentiary representatives and to be elected to such positions. Among the social rights ensured by socialist democracy are the right to work, vacations, free education and medical services, old-age pensions, and sickness and disability pensions. In addition, socialist democracy guarantees the equal rights of all nations and nationalities and the equal rights of men and women in all spheres of political, economic and cultural life. Socialist democracy has decisive advantages over bourgeois democracy: it not only proclaims the rights of the working people but also guarantees that these rights are realized. Socialism protects the freedom of the individual, especially freedom from exploitation.

The Marxist-Leninist party is the guiding and leading force in socialist society. Marxist-Leninist parties unite the advanced, most conscious part of the working class, the cooperative (kolkhoz) peasantry, and the intelligentsia. Moreover, the Marxist-Leninist parties direct all the productive activity of the people, and land and organized, planned, and scientific foundation to the people struggle to build socialism and communism. The party carries out its leadership role through state bodies, the trade unions, and use and other mass organizations.

Volume 20 (page 344-345)

Socialism. The political economy of socialism-part of the political economy of the commonest mode of production and general-deals with the study of the production relations of the multi sector economy of the transition period between capitalism and socialism. It discloses the laws of development of social production and inherent in the first phase of the commonest mode of production (the system of socialist production relations, the operation of economic laws, and the application of these laws and the planned management of the national economy). Moreover, the political economy of socialism investigates the specific ways in which these economic laws are manifested at a particular stage in the development of socialism. The building of a developed socialist society and the USSR-a society developing on its own bases and characterized by the high level of maturity in the material and technical basis and in the system of production relations-creates the conditions for the more thorough and consistent study and utilization of the advantages of socialism. The maturity of socialist production relations (their achievement of the highest level of development) is an important precondition for making a more profound analysis of their essence and of the forms in which they are manifested.

In the political economy of socialism the main objects of investigation are production relations under socialism and, above all, the social ownership of the means of production, which underlies socialist production relations and characterizes the mode of appropriation of material and cultural values in the interest of the toiling masses. In the USSR and other socialist countries there are two forms of socialist public property: state property and cooperative property.

The predominance of socialist public ownership, which serves as the basis for the creation of interests shared by all the people, determines the direction in which socialist production develops, and subordination to the aims of satisfying the material and cultural needs of the people more and more fully and comprehensively developing all members of society. These phenomena and goals are expressed as the fundamental economic law of socialism.

Social ownership of the means of production also creates the conditions for the rise and operation of the planned proportional development of the national economy. This law necessitates and makes possible the coordinated functioning of society, the prediction of the results of its functioning, and the planned management of social production, which includes the conscious elaboration of the goals of economic development and the means of achieving them.

The political economy of socialism studies the specific features of the ways in which the economic laws characteristic of some or all socioeconomic formations operate under socialist conditions. Among these laws are the law of economies of time, the law of increasing requirements, and the law of the more rapid growth of the production of the means of production.

Of importance in the political economy of socialism is the study of commodity-money relations and the economic laws inherent in them, including the law of value and the laws of monetary circulation. Commodity-money relations have a new, socialist content during the first phase of communist society. The socialist state uses commodity-money relations, in conformity with a plan, and all phases and stages of expanded socialist reproduction, both within the national economy and an economic relations between countries in the world socialist system. The planned utilization of the categories of commodity production is the basis for economic accounting.

The political economy of socialism studies the categories and laws characteristic of social reproduction in general and its particular spheres (production, distribution, exchange, and consumption). At the present stage of socialist construction, special attention is paid to analyzing the interconnections between subdivision I (the production of the means of production) and subdivision II (the production of consumer goods) and the relations between the extensive and intensive factors in economic growth. In addition, the emphasis is placed on analyzing the problems of increasing the efficiency of production and of the entire economy on the basis of more rapid scientific and technological progress, improving the organization of production, and improving management and planning techniques throughout the economic mechanism. The political economy of socialism elucidates the socioeconomic aspects of the modern scientific and technological revolution under socialist conditions.

The planned management of the national economy under socialism is based on the knowledge and use of a system of objective economic laws, which provide for organic unity between theory and practice and for the elaboration of a scientific foundation for the economic policies of the party and the state.

The political economy of socialism studies the system of the planned management of the socialist economy-a system that organically combines targets assigned by planning bodies with other economic levers for influencing production, including prices, credit, wages and profits. The comprehensive study of the management of social production is made possible by close cooperation among specialists in economics and other sciences, such as law and sociology.

With the establishment of socialist property, the state is transformed into a body that regulates the development of the economy in conformity with a plan. The political economy of socialism studies the economic role and function of the state and the forms and methods of socialist economic management.

The formation of the world socialist economy results in the creation of a new sphere of production relations-international socialist economic relations. The political economy of socialism has been substantially enriched by the study of international socialist economic relations and the laws characteristic of them, as well as by the study of socialist economic integration and the internationalization of production.

In addition to political economy, a highly ramified system of economic sciences has developed: Gen. economics, which covers national economic planning, the theory of economic management, and statistics; functional economics, which includes financing credit, labor economics, and price formation; and the economics of sectors, which focuses on industry, agriculture, and transportation, for example. The political economy of socialism constitutes the theoretical and methodological foundation for the entire system of economic sciences. Each economic science can only develop successfully if it is based on the theoretical conclusions and foundations of Marxist-Leninist political economy. Socialist political economy is, in turn, enriched by the factual material accumulated as the various economic sciences developed.

The practical function of the political economy of socialism is to elaborate scientific principles for economic policies and for the planned management of the national economy. As science penetrates the essence of socialist production relations and laws more deeply and reveals their operation as a system more fully, political economy achieves greater success in collaborating scientific principles. The political economy of socialism also performs important ideological functions. One of the primary means by which the communist world view is formed, it arms the toiling people with knowledge of the fundamental distinctive features of the socialist economic system and its advantages over the capitalist system. Moreover, the political economy of socialism provides a clear orientation and the welter of events of economic and political life, and it inspires confidence in the inevitable tryouts of communism. The study of socialist political economy occupies a central place in the economic education of the toiling people. The practical and ideological functions of the political economy of socialism constitute an organic whole and are complementary.

Because of the important and ever increasing role of political economy and socialist and communist construction, its further development is a means of continual interest to the CPSU. The party focuses the attention of economic scholars on the elaboration of the most efficient forms and methods for utilizing objective economic laws and the planned management of the national economy. In addition, the party encourages economic scholars to concentrate on improving long-term planning, on accelerating scientific and technological progress, on intensifying and maximizing the efficiency of social production, and on solving the most important problems in the development of socialist economic integration.

Check out this article:

http://front.moveon.org/why-folgers-is-not-the-best-part-of-waking-up/#.UrEmxnux5aQ

U.S. Congressman John Conyers (D MI), chief sponsor of HR 676, was honored
at a December 6th Labor Breakfast co-hosted by the New York City Central
Labor Council and the Progressive Democrats of America in celebration of
the endorsement by the 1.3 million member NYC CLC of HR 676, Expanded and
Improved Medicare for All.

Congressman Conyers told of the energy that the endorsement of HR 676 by
the NYC CLC brings to the movement of healthcare for all, reports Robert
Score, Recording-Corresponding Secretary of IATSE Local One. Score has
played a leadership role in advancing HR 676 within New York labor and in
union locals across the country.

NYC CLC President Vincent Alvarez, a member of IBEW Local 3, delivered the
opening remarks. He said that the forces within the industrial-insurance
complex, although powerful, must be confronted before the working class
families of our country are completely decimated by the ever increasing
costs of health care. He spoke of the necessity for all working people,
union and non-union, to have proper healthcare.

Stephen Shaff spoke on behalf of PDA, and special guest television
broadcaster Phil Donohue, introduced Congressman John Conyers who has
sponsored HR 676 in every Congress since 2003. The legislation currently
has a total of 54 co-sponsors, the most recent being Rep. Betty McCollum
of Minnesota who has signed on for the first time even though she is in
her 4th term.

Conyers noted that four days after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was
assassinated in 1968, he introduced a bill to make King’s birthday a
national holiday.

“It took 15 years before Congress joined with me to make Dr. King’s
birthday a national legal holiday. So I’m in this for the long run,” said
Congressman Conyers.

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a
greatly improved Medicare to everyone residing in the U. S.

HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including
prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and
preventive care, emergency services, dental (including oral surgery,
periodontics, endodontics), mental health, home health, physical therapy,
rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care and
correction, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable
medical equipment, palliative care, podiatric care, and long term care.

HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of
billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the
private health insurance industry and HMOs.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 54 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 609 union organizations including 146 Central
Labor Councils/Area Labor Federations and 44 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT,
OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX,
IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NJ, NY, NV,
MA, RI, NH, ID & NM).

For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample
endorsement resolution, contact:

Kay Tillow
All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551

Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org

12/16/13

Check out this link and sign the petition to support Houston Janitors

http://tx.seiu.org/page/s/stand-with-houston-janitors-demand-good-jobs

Janitors fight for justice (September 29, 2011)

Janitors in Houston march for justice (July 15, 2012)