Category: Analysis
It’s Time We Believed Warren. She’s Not Running.
| February 22, 2015 | 4:12 pm | Analysis, Bernie Sanders, National, political struggle | Comments closed
By: Black Liberal Boomer
Saturday, February, 21st, 2015
Source: PoliticusUSA
Sure, the thought of Sen. Elizabeth Warren running for President of the United States got me excited there for awhile. Warren is a progressive’s progressive, and I’ve said before right here on PoliticusUSA that in many ways this woman is my hero. Anyone who isn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with the big banks in the way that she has is someone who deserves a monument erected in their honor right on the front lawn of the White House. Or maybe even a great big cast iron middle finger stretching toward the sky on Wall Street. Warren has identified and doggedly challenged the same threat to democracy that Teddy Roosevelt took on at the turn of the 20th century when  he made it his business to bust the trusts. All that power and influence in so few greedy little hands was  perhaps the biggest threat to the sustainability of democracy during Teddy Roosevelt’s time, and now here we are over a century later caught in that same trap. And the only high-profile politician making any real noise about this threat, apart from Bernie Sanders, has been Elizabeth Warren.
So sure. How could I not get excited that someone like this would run? Hell, after being alive to witness the election and two-term presidency of Barack Obama, I don’t know if my poor widdle heart would be able to withstand all that joy to follow up eight years of President Obama with another eight of President Warren. It would have been a blast to watch her use Jeb Bush for firewood during the debates.
But Warren is not running. It is not going to happen, and I think it’s time to accept that fact. As my colleague Jason Easley pointed out in his post earlier this week, if Warren had any intentions of running then it’s highly unlikely she would have accepted Hillary Clinton’s personal invitation to come on by the house and chat awhile. I think it’s safe to say they probably weren’t knitting. Clinton wanted to get Warren’s ideas, but she also wanted to clear the field and broadcast the none-too-subtle message nationwide that Warren will not be a factor, nor does she want to be. Warren is not being bullied because, well, good luck with that one. Warren is being courted, and she is being asked in as polite a way as possible if she wouldn’t please oh please mind playing the role of team player for Team Hillary. And by accepting Hillary Clinton’s invitation – combined with every other flaming denial she has issued time and time again – she effectively said that this was fine with her. If there could be a headline attached to that meeting between the two, it could have been, “Warren to Hillary: I’m not your roadblock.”
Because in the end this doesn’t come down to how far ahead the polls say Hillary is over Warren at this early stage of the game because it doesn’t even matter. Hillary hasn’t even formally announced and Warren has done everything short of shoot her supporters in the face to convince the electorate that she’s sitting this one out. So exactly how reliable could such a poll be? Warren wasn’t scared away by those polls any more than she was scared away by the money behind Hillary. It takes more than that to scare Warren. Warren is kinda like Omar in “The Wire” once she sets her sights on something; Warren don’t scare.
What this is about is Warren really not being interested in the presidency, possibly because she doesn’t want the massive headache and has never really had designs on running an entire country, but also because she believes she’s more effective where she is right now. What this is about is acknowledging Hillary’s glaring shortcomings – at least to progressives – but then looking around the room to see who else we (realistically) got. What this is about is acknowledging that not only is Hillary a far better option than any Republican candidate, she just might make a really good president.
Film review: “Pride” (2014)
| February 21, 2015 | 8:39 pm | Analysis, Discrimination against communists, International, Labor, LGBT, Party Voices, political struggle, Youth | Comments closed

Film Review: “Pride” (2014)

Feb 20, 2015 07:48 pm | drew

by Róisín Lyder

Pride is a dramatized version of a series of events that took place in England and Wales during the 1983-5 miner’s strike, which was brutally crushed by Margaret Thatcher and her Tory government as part of their efforts to break the British trade union movement. The movie opens with the song ‘Solidarity Forever’ playing overtop of historical images of the strike and the song punctuates the rest of the film. Indeed solidarity is the real theme of Pride, a film that is a light-hearted meditation on the possibilities created when members of the working class overcome what may seem like insurmountable differences.

At the 1984 gay pride march in London we are introduced to Mark Ashton as he begins taking up a collection for the striking miners. It is at this march that the group Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) is formed. Ashton persuades the others to join by asking: “Who hates miners? Thatcher, the police, the public and the tabloids. Sound familiar?” The young queer people see the parallels; one suggests that the usual police harassers have been absent from the gay nightclubs lately because they have been too busy harassing the miners. The group sets about fundraising and eventually finds a mining town reluctantly willing to accept the cash. Following the usual practice of thanking solidarity groups, the LGSM are invited to the small Welsh town of Onllwyn where they meet an assorted cast of characters ranging from those who effortlessly lack prejudice, to the mildly uncomfortable, to the outright and staunchly homophobic. A series of predictable yet entertaining moments of bigotry and acceptance ensue.

Pride is not your average historical film; it is more glitter than grit. Reflection on the significance of LGSM to the history of the British left probably should not end here. Pride is silly, irreverent, tongue-in-cheek and will leave you laughing out loud the whole way through. In between the disco dancing and occasional outbreak of song, however, the film does manage to be thought provoking; raising a series of questions about what working class solidarity means.

The question that seems to linger most is what the members of LGSM receive in exchange for their unrelenting, unwavering commitment to the needs and the struggle of this mining town. How does solidarity emerge? One young gay man asks: “When did the miners ever come to our aid? Those bastards kicked the shit out of me every day.” However, the group is clearly touched by the kindness they receive from members of the mining community and for some of them the experience is an opportunity to work through their own difficult relationships with the small towns and families that raised them, but the real political exchange of solidarity only becomes clear at the end of the movie. It is here that Pride manages to pull off the happy ending the genre requires despite the obviously grim crushing of the strike movement. The film closes exactly one year after it starts at the 1985 gay pride march with dozens of buses filled with miners and their families descend upon London unannounced to march in support of the queer community.

As heartwarming – and truthful – as the ending is, Pride comes up short in explaining the motivations of LGSM. The film would have benefited from a more fully developed articulation of class politics. The inspiring commitment of LGSM to the strike cause comes off, at worst, as an odd and slightly masochistic hobby and, at best, as a result of a vague understanding of the shared experiences of groups targeted by the state. The real and more convincing explanation comes from the class-consciousness of the leadership of the LGSM. It is Mark Ashton who pushes forward with almost unfailing confidence in both the ability to the miners to overcome their prejudices and the absolute necessity of supporting the strike. Ashton was, in fact, a communist organizer and the leader of the YCL-Britain during the strike and before his untimely death of HIV AIDS at the age of 26. The only nod to Ashton’s political commitments happens when he is on stage at a nightclub in London someone in the audience yells ‘commie’. Clearly Ashton and other key members of LGSM had a deep commitment to revolutionary politics and the interests of the working class as a whole but the movie leaves this part of the story untouched.

Some have suggested that Ashton’s political background was left out in an attempt not to alienate audiences. If true, the irony is palpable. For a film clearly articulating the lessons that we should be proud of who we are when we participate in the struggle (“this is a gay and lesbian group and we are unapologetic about that”), and that we shouldn’t take heed of what our enemies say about us (“I don’t believe what they say about us miners, why should I listen to what they say about the gays?”), the choice to skirt Ashton’s revolutionary politics seems a shame.
This and other great articles will be in the next print issue of Rebel Youth! It’s a special issue on the struggle for full equality to be released for International Women’s Day 2015. Be sure to check it out!

Statement from the Communist Party of Ireland.
| February 21, 2015 | 8:27 pm | Analysis, Communist Party Ireland, Economy, Greece, International, Party Voices, political struggle | Comments closed

21st February

The crowing from the establishment and its tame media about forcing a climb-down by SYRIZA over the Greek debt and the continuing austerity programme barely disguises the complete contempt that they have for the people.

It matters little whether one thought that SYRIZA would inevitability have surrendered to the demands of the European Union or had hoped they would stand up and challenge it and defend the Greek people and blaze an alternative direction from within the European Union and oppose the IMF. Those who are anxious to advance the people’s interests need to reflect more seriously about what these past few weeks have demonstrated.

One of the lessons must be that the treaties governing European Union have in effect outlawed not only a radical people-centred solution but have effectually outlawed even tame Keynesian policies, and that the controlling forces are determined to solve the crisis of capitalism at the expense of the working people.

A second thing is clear: that people can vote at the national level for whoever they like, but this is not decisive, as the European Union will impose TINA (“There is no alternative”) and the economic and political straitjacket of what is in the interests of capitalism.

The debt is still the weapon of choice to be used against the people; democracy has been trumped by the overriding needs of European monopolies and the big finance houses and banks.

Those in Ireland who still labour under the illusion that the European Union can be transformed into something that it is not, need to look long and hard at the events of the last few weeks. The blocking minority that is built in to the EU decision-making process means that the big powers—those with real economic power and therefore real political power—can block anything that is not in the interests of the monopolies and finance houses.

The Irish government, once again demonstrating its abject servility towards imperialist powers, did nothing to support the Greek people apart from expressing a vacuous sympathy, and voted to defend the interests of the ruling class.

Those who continue to peddle the illusion, whether here in Ireland, in Greece or in Spain, that they can solve the people’s problems within the confines of the European Union and controlling mechanisms such as the euro are only leading our people down a blind alley. There are simply no solutions to be found to debt or austerity within the European Union.

The struggles of the Greek people have exposed the true class nature of the EU and its institutions. They have shown that it can be resisted – a lesson that needs to be learnt by working people throughout Europe.

Ukraine: Time to step back from the brink
| February 21, 2015 | 8:08 pm | Analysis, International, political struggle, Ukraine | Comments closed

Western States Legal Foundation

Over the past month, the Ukraine conflict has exploded once again. Now the warring
parties have agreed to a ceasefire, and to an approach to further negotiations towards a
political solution. It is time for the countries that are providing support from outside
Ukraine to halt and reverse all actions that contribute to this war, and that also are raising
tensions in the region to levels not seen since the Cold War….


Read the full commentary at http://www.wslfweb.org/docs/wslfukrainecommentary-2-15.pdf

Freedom Rider: An Angry White Man Kills Again
| February 20, 2015 | 8:03 pm | Analysis, National, political struggle, Struggle for African American equality, Texas "Open Carry" | Comments closed
http://blackagendareport.com/node/14678
by Margaret Kimberley on Wed, 02/18/2015 – 15:17

Freedom Rider: An Angry White Man Kills Again

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“The stand your ground and open carry laws are a return to the days when white supremacy was openly expressed through conquest of the native population, slavery, and lynch law terror.”

Craig Hicks was a human time bomb [5] in his Chapel Hill, North Carolina neighborhood. He was constantly spoiling for a fight, about noise or parking or anything else that he found irritating. Hicks was always armed, a resident of an “open carry” state which allowed him to wear a holstered gun anywhere at any time. On February 10, 2015, Hicks turned himself in to the police and confessed to murdering three people that day.

The victims were identified as Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, and her sister Razan Abu-Salha. Hicks had argued with the family about parking spaces but it seems any reason to pull the trigger would have been good enough.

Hicks motive for the killing is murky. Some of his political views could be called liberal and others conservative. But more than anything Hicks was serious about being a white man. He loved his guns and he asserted his right to be armed at all times. It is likely that he had mental health issues, but the sickness did not emerge solely from this particular individual.

Where Hicks fell on the political spectrum is really beside the point. He expressed support for the right to bear arms, marriage equality and abortion rights but more than anything he supported his right to be violent. Because of their passivity everyone around him did as well.

His neighbors are now telling the media about his constant arguments and confrontations while being armed but there are no reports of anyone ever calling the police about his behavior. The Barakats told relatives they feared Hicks but ultimately decided not to call the police either. Hicks’ neighbors discussed their concerns among themselves but took no other action. The complicity led to unintentional enabling and that made the killings inevitable.

“Open carry laws are obviously reserved for white people only.”

The inaction stands in stark contrast to the treatment meted out to black people who are at risk of being killed even when they don’t threaten anyone. North Carolina allows open carry of firearms but so does the state of Ohio. That fact didn’t keep John Crawford or Tamir Rice from being shot down in Dayton and Cleveland respectively. They had toy guns and weren’t a danger to anyone. Yet both of them are now on the long list of black people killed by the police. Open carry laws are obviously reserved for white people only.

It is important to ask if the Hicks murders were a hate crime but there are questions which must be explored and they may be harder to deal with than legal definitions. The most fundamental questions is this. Why are white people seen as benign and their behavior as normative, no matter what they do?

Try to imagine a black man picking fights with his neighbors while armed. Then try to imagine that no one ever calls the police in this hypothetical scenario. In Tampa, Florida a black man named Clarence Daniels [6] was legally carrying a gun when he walked into a Walmart. A white man took it upon himself to confront and assault Daniels. The white assailant was arrested but as a black man Daniels was lucky not to have ended up dead.

Hicks got the kid glove treatment despite the obvious risk he posed to other people. Fealty to whiteness trumps all else including the desire for safety. In 2014 a Nevada rancher named Cliven Bundy [7] sparked a white power movement which threatened the lives of federal marshals. Bundy owed the government thousands of dollars in payment for his cattle grazing on federal land. He didn’t just refuse to pay. He gathered a group of armed followers. Two of them, Jerad and Amanda Miller, went on to kill two police officers [8].

“Fealty to whiteness trumps all else including the desire for safety.”

At least one person knew that the Millers were armed and dangerous. She saw their arsenal of weapons and heard them say they were going to start a revolution. “I should have called the cops,” was the lame admission. That much is obvious but the expression of regret doesn’t explain very much.

The stand your ground and open carry laws are a return to the days when white supremacy was openly expressed through conquest of the native population, slavery, and lynch law terror. Those acts should not be seen as events of long ago history. They became part of this country’s DNA and give angry, unstable white people a pass to do what they want. They aren’t thought of as potential killers or terrorists as they should be. Bystanders aren’t sufficiently concerned because they too give white people the benefit of the doubt even when they don’t deserve it.

Hicks strongly believed in the right to bear arms and had four handguns, two shotguns and six rifles in his home at the time of the killings. No one knows what twisted thoughts finally sparked the violence but the sickness of this country’s history helped him to carry it out. There are thousands of dangerous people like him who call themselves patriots or sovereign citizens or doomsday preppers. But mostly they just believe in being white.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com [9]. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
Exclusive: Interview With Maximilien Sánchez Arveláiz, Venezuelan Ambassador-Designate to the U.S.
| February 19, 2015 | 9:15 pm | Analysis, International, Latin America, National, political struggle, Venezuela | Comments closed

Posted: Updated:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/exclusive-interview-with-_26_b_6704780.html
Dan Kovalik
Human rights attorney

2015-02-18-Max.jpg
Photo of Maximilien Sánchez Arveláiz (Courtesy of Venezuelan Embassy)

Dan: I was just reading that, even with the economic problems in Venezuela, the government has decided to press forward in fully funding its social programs.

MA: Yes definitely, we want to keep and maintain our social programs, and that is our priority, to take care of Venezuelan families. We already have some progress to show and we want to maintain that. . . . [W]hat’s going on in Venezuela for the last 10 years, and longer, and in the rest of the region, is a bit like The New Deal . . . and to a certain extent the Civil Rights Movement. We are talking about economic, social inclusion and political inclusion. . . .

Dan: And there has been a real decline in poverty and extreme poverty in Venezuela in the last 15 years?

MA: Yes, definitely. Remember when Chavez was elected in 1999, at that time . . . the poverty rate at that time stood around 42-45% and I think right now it has been reduced to 25%. And extreme poverty rate that fell [from 23.4%] to 7% and I think it was last year when the UN Food and Agriculture Organization recognized Venezuela as the leader in Latin America for the eradication of hunger. I think in 2014 again you have this Gini coefficient . . . [t]hat shows again that inequality fell even more in 2014. So, we are moving in the right direction. . . . See, World Bank figures.

Dan: I have recently been reading comparisons between Venezuela now and Chile in 1973, and I wonder if you think that is a fair comparison.

MA: Definitely, you know that wonderful documentary done by Patricio Guzman, The Battle of Chile? Maybe at that time it was in black and white, and now it is in color. But if you see some of the images, some of the sequences on that documentary and you look to Caracas now, you could find some similarities . . . for example, what President Maduro just denounced – the sabotage; the same recipe with the same ingredient. So, right now, they are trying to promote a coup on our economy. For the last two years, we have been facing hording, contraband and many forms of fraud in order to destabilize the distribution of food and obviously create the sensation of chaos and then you have all these pictures of people in long queues waiting to go the market. Again, the same trick. . . . I hope that we will not be able to make a “Battle of Venezuela,” or, if yes, the result in the end would be better.

Dan: Can you talk about the U.S.’s recently-imposed sanctions against Venezuela?

M.A.: In Venezuela, the sanctions could be seen as a green light for certain sectors of the opposition. So we will see what happens. In April, we will have the Summit of the Americas in Panama. So that’s going to be quite interesting to see where we are then. A few days ago at the CELAC (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean states) meeting in Costa Rica, there was a unanimous resolution condemning the unilateral imposition of sanctions by the U.S. upon Venezuela. All of the governments, all of the delegations, that were part of that summit, we are talking about all of the regions of Latin America, condemn it. . . .

Dan: I wonder if you could comment on Noam Chomsky’s statement that Chavez led the historic liberation of Latin America.

M.A.: I understand what Chomsky was saying, but I think that Chavez did not think of himself as a leader of the movement, but rather as a part of a cultural struggle to bring progress and provide for the basic necessities of the Venezuelan, and to some extent, all of the Latin American people. Now, it was true that when Chavez was elected in 1999, we were maybe the only ones in the region, with the clear exception of Cuba, who saw themselves as part of this struggle. But then after Chavez, and maybe because we were the avant-garde to some extent, you had other leaders who were elected — like Lula in Brazil, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia — leaders that have been promoting social and political inclusion which are key elements to guaranteeing social development and democracy. So, yes, Chavez was an amazing leader. . . . You know, he was born in a mud hut. . . . He came from the very lower classes, and he never forgot where he came from. And, all his life he dedicated himself to help the poor and to improve their lives, and to some extent we can say that he died because of that and for them. . . . Similarly, Nicolas Maduro was a bus driver, he had a working class background, and he is somebody again who knows where he comes from as well, and will never forget that. . . . And, it is unfortunate that some people can’t accept that somebody that doesn’t come from the higher classes can lead their country.

Dan: When you refer to the Civil Rights Movement, it reminds me that when I was in Caracas during the elections in April 2013, I witnessed a pro-Maduro rally and what struck me was that nearly everyone at that rally was black. People in this country don’t think about the historic oppression of Afro-Venezuelans, and what the Chavista revolution has done for them.

MA: Yes, we are talking about people who were disenfranchised citizens, second-class citizens and they have now become a real part of society. Again, when we are talking about the Civil Rights movement in the 60’s it was quite violent actually here the reaction against this movement. Yes, you know, so you can understand how you could have sectors of Venezuelan society who might react in a certain violent manner against this process of inclusion. . . .

Kiev court judges refuse to take part in Communist Party banning case
| February 18, 2015 | 9:05 pm | Analysis, International, political struggle, Russia, Ukraine | Comments closed

 

Judges at an administrative court in Kiev have refused to try a case banning the activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine, after police conducted a search and seizure operation in the office of one their colleagues.

Judge Valery Kuzmenko, who was presiding over the Justice Ministry’s suit against the Communist Party, withdrew from the case on Wednesday, the Interfax news agency reports.

All the other judges in the Kiev District Administrative Court have also filed applications to be excused from hearing the case, Kuzmenko said.

The judge explained the move by saying that the prosecutors and police searched his office and seized his computer, with working materials on the Communist Party case and others.

He said he views the law enforcement officials’ actions as an attempt to put pressure on the court.

According to the prosecutors, Monday’s search and seizure was performed as part of the criminal case, launched over the “abuse of power or position” and “forgery” by the judges, RIA-Novosti reports.

READ MORE: Ukraine communist leader: Kiev labeled 7 mn people ‘terrorists,’ slaughtered civilians

The Communist Party has been speaking against Ukraine’s new authorities since the coup in February 2014, which saw President Viktor Yanukovich ousted.

However, the persecution of the Communists Party began in April, shortly after Kiev launched a military operation against the country’s south-eastern regions.

Communist leader, Pyotr Simonenko, said the military campaign is Kiev’s war against its own people, stressing that if he was the head of state, he “would immediately recall all the troops.”

He openly accused the Ukrainian authorities of the “slaughter of civilians and mass murder,” saying they had labeled the 7 million people in Donetsk and Lugansk as “terrorists.”

In June, Ukraine’s justice minister, Pavel Petrenko, announced a lawsuit to ban the Communist Party in Ukraine.

In mid-summer, the Communist faction was dissolved by the Ukrainian parliament,with the official explanation for the move being an insufficient number of MPs in the party.

Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said that 308 criminal cases had been launched against members of the Communist Party, with its leaders accused of supporting Crimea’s accession to the Russian Federation and backing the creation of the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as financing the rebels.

In November, a group of MPs introduced a draft law to the parliament, making any dissemination of Communist ideology in Ukraine illegal and proposing punishment of up to 10 years in prison for the perpetrators.

READ MORE: Ukraine authorities in massive ‘Rename Soviet Places’ drive

The Communist Party banning trial was rescheduled several times and eventually postponed by the Kiev District Administrative Court. The decision was reversed by an appeal court on December 24.

The Communists aren’t the only party facing persecution in Ukraine over their opposition stance. MPs from six parties have also come under scrutiny.

On February 2, Radical Party leader, Oleg Lyashko, demanded the dissolving of the opposition block after it became the only faction in the parliament to vote against recognizing Russia as “an aggressor state” in the Ukrainian conflict.

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