real-left

Thursday, 17 March 2005

Flaws in Social Democracy Economics
Topic: _ BEST _ WRITES awards
MONTHLY REVIEW; I MAY 2004

IDEOLOGY & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT p. 1 9

The neoclassical wisdom, which identified high wages and social programs as a source of disaster, once again dominated. Neoliberalism (supported by international financial institutions) became the weapon of choice of capital, leading to a generalized assault on social programs, wages, and working conditions in the developed world and the use of a strong state in developing countries to ensure their access to the comparative advantage of repression.

But, why were Keynesianism and the Fordist model so easily discredited? Basically, Keynesianism as transmitted was always a theory of aggregate demand but not of supply. Its premise was that the level of output is constrained by demand in the economy in question; and if that demand is forthcoming, capital will provide the supply. Since the assumption was that capital would supply the consumption and investment goods if government created the appropriate environment, the government's role was to stimulate the economy in those cases where the interaction of individual capitals would otherwise lead to low investment. Its assigned task in the theory was to create the environment for investment when the market failed.

What happened, though, when aggregate demand rose and domestic supply did not respond appropriately? Inflation and trade deficits increased. Accordingly, in the new reality, the environment that government sought to create became one that would induce investment in the local economy rather than investment elsewhere-its focus, thus, became to lower taxes and wages. The neoclassical and Keynesian question, in short, had remained the same, what can the state do to make capital happy to invest? What was consistent was the role envisioned for government-support capital's requirements.

The Failure of Social Democracy
There should be no surprise, then, that capital abandoned the tool of Keynesian theory for one more suited to its needs under the new conditions. But, how do we explain the failure of social democracy to find an alternative? After all, social democracy has always presented itself as proceeding from a logic in which the needs and potentialities of human beings take priority over the needs of capital. Even limited measures such as the exclusion of medical and educational services from the market, the provision of income maintenance programs and social services, and the advocacy of everyone's right to a decent and well-paying job suggest an implicit conception of wealth as the satisfaction of human needs-rather than one of capitalist wealth.

In fact, the failure of Keynesianism as theory was really the failure of an ideology-social democracy. Within the Keynesian structure, there was always an alternative. The basic Keynesian equations in themselves say nothing about the structure of the economy; they don't distinguish between burying money and government investment, between activity which leads to the expansion of capitalist enterprises and activity which leads to the expansion of state enterprises. Although for Keynes the appropriate engine for growth was the capitalist one, a policy of expanding a state productive sector was always a theoretical option in order to drive the economy.

If the capitalist sector is the only sector identified for accumulation, however, then in theory and practice the implication is self-evident: a "capital strike" is a crisis for the economy. All other things equal, a government cannot encroach upon capital without negative-sum results. This has always been the wisdom of conservative economists.

Yet, it is essential to understand that the conclusions of the neoclassical economists are embedded in their assumptions-and particularly relevant here is the assumption that all other things are equal.

Consider two simple examples, rent control and mineral royalties.' If you introduce rent controls (at an effective level), the conservative economist predicts that the supply of rental housing will dry up and a housing shortage will emerge. Likewise, he will tell us that if you attempt to tax resource rents (notoriously difficult to estimate), investment and production in these sectors will decline, generating unemployment. Both those propositions can be easily demonstrated-and they can also easily be demonstrated to be entirely fallacious with respect to the necessary conclusion.

Assumed constant in both cases is the character and level of government activity. Clearly, rent controls may reduce private rental construction-but if the government simultaneously engages in the development of social housing programs (e.g., the fostering of cooperatives and other forms of nonprofit housing), there is no necessary emergence of a housing shortage. Similarly, taxing resource revenues may dry up private investment in mineral exploration but a government corporation established for exploration and production in this sector can counteract the effects of a capital strike. Obviously, all other things are not necessarily equal. Why should all other things be equal if a social democratic government rejects the logic of capital?

Thus, we need to be aware of the limits of the conservative economist's logic. However, that does not at all mean that these arguments can be ignored! Because what the conservative economist does quite well is indicate what capital will do in response to particular measures. It is an economics of capital. And, nothing is more naive than to assume that you can undertake certain measures of economic policy without a response from capital; nothing is more certain to backfire than introducing measures that serve people's needs without anticipating capital's response. Those who do not respect the conservative economist's logic, which is the logic of capital, and incorporate it into their strategy are doomed to constant surprises and disappointments.

Understanding the responses of capital means that a capital strike can be an opportunity rather than a crisis. If you reject dependence upon capital, the logic of capital can be revealed clearly as contrary to the needs and interests of people. When capital goes on strike, there are two choices, give in or move in. Unfortunately, social democracy in practice has demonstrated that it is limited by the same things that limit Keynesianism in theory - the givens of the structure and distribution of ownership and the priority of self-interest by the owners. As a result, when capital has gone on strike, the social-democratic response has been to give in.

Rather than maintaining its focus on human needs and challenging the logic of capital, social democracy has proceeded to enforce that logic. The result has been the discrediting of Keynesianism and the ideological disarming of people who looked upon it as an alternative to the neoclassical wisdom. The only alternative to the barbarism being offered became barbarism with a human face. With this acquiescence to the logic of capital, its hold over people was reinforced; and the political result was the popular conclusion either that it really doesn't matter who you elect or that the real solution is to be found in a government unequivocally committed to the logic of capital.

So it was that the new wisdom became TINA-there is no alternative to neoliberalism, which is simply neoclassical economics enforced by finance capital and imperialist power. Yet, as occurred after the "Golden Age," concrete conditions have a way of undermining accepted truths-and nowhere has this been truer than in less developed countries. The fallacy of assuming that every country could become the promised land by surrendering completely to capital became clear; and, as the evidence of the failures of the external orientation imposed by neoliberalism has accumulated, interest in an internal solution, the endogenous model of development, has grown again-especially in Latin America. Yet, how credible is such an option and demobilize all those looking for an alternative to neoliberalism; and, once again, its immediate product will be the conclusion that there is no alternative.

Notes
1. Thorstein Veblen, "Why is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science?" in Veblen, The
Place of Science In Modem Civilization and Other Essays (1919) republished as Veblen
on Marx, Race, Science and Economics (New York: Capricorn, 1969), 73.
2. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (New York: Modern Library, 1937), 423.
3. Ronald Meek, Economics of Physiocracy Essays and Translations (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press), 70.
4. John Kenneth Galbraith, American Capitalism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952), 28.
5. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (New York Modem Library, 1937), 638.
6. Michael A. Lebowitz, "Paul M. Sweezy" in Maxine Berg, Political Economy in the
Twentieth Century (Oxford: Philip Allan, 1990).
7. Whether "Fordism" was a conscious model is definitely questionable. Certainly, much of what is claimed for Henry Ford himself in this respect is mythology. For a critical view on the historical question regarding Fordism, see John Bellamy Foster, "The Fetish of Fordism," Monthly Review 39, no. 10 (March 1988), pp. 14-33.
8. These examples come from the 1972-1975 period when the New Democratic Party (Canada's social-democratic party) governed British Columbia, Canada.
9. Michael A. Lebowitz, Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).

Posted by real-left at 12:14 PM EST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

J. Sachs and Millenium Goals
Topic: CapitalistCrisis repsonse

Concrete Measures for Advancing the Millennium Development Goals (Transcript) Closing Remarks – 2004 Conference on Borderless Giving; March 5, 2004, Arrillaga Center, San Francisco Jeffrey D. Sachs Director, The Earth Institute at Columbia University Director, The UN Millennium Project -- http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/about/director/

How do we democratize philanthropy? One idea is to use public resources. Let me outline the orders of magnitude to address our concerns. On the macro scale, we need to double our development assistance, and then direct it to the poorest countries of the world in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. An estimated $68 billion flows each year from donors to recipients, but only a fraction goes to the poorest countries. In the U.N. Millennium Project, we require an additional $60-90 billion per year between now and 2015 to accomplish our goals. Aid of this magnitude would save millions of lives, bring hundreds of millions of people out of impoverishment and indignity. It is the best bargain in the history of the world. But we cannot achieve it without the assistance of American taxpayers. American development assistance is 0.14% of GNP compared to the international goal of 0.7% of GNP, a goal that several countries have already reached or exceeded.

We stand about $60 billion short of where we ought to be per year. How hard should it be to raise that money? Our Congress quickly approved $87 billion for military operations in Iraq and gave away $250 billion of tax cuts a year. We raised military spending by an annual rate of $150 billion over the last three years. President Bush proposed his Millennium Challenge Account of only $1 billion, and it has not even disbursed a penny yet. Right now, we give just $16 billion in development assistance, but our defense budget nearly $450 billion each year. We must increase public awareness of how little we currently dedicate to developing countries. What can you do as leaders? Let me mention six things. First, you can champion innovation. There are specific things that can change the world. Anti-malaria bed nets are a proven measure to save villages. Such bed nets can reduce child mortality by 50% or more in holoendemic malarious regions. For small amounts of money, you could support programs like this. You will not eradicate malaria in these regions, but your funding demonstrates the results of innovation. The results on the ground are important, but we should also consider how a program like this—and your support for it—can reach scale by teaching the world what is possible in the next year. An example emerges from the central plateau of Haiti. Before anyone gave him permission, a doctor named Paul Farmer decided to treat patients with AIDS. He did the impossible to obtain the drugs needed to keep his patients alive. I related his results to the Secretary-General and helped write the first draft proposal for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. Paul’s project demonstrated what can be done and had an incredible effect on the whole world. Consider what one small clinic in Cange, Haiti has accomplished.

There are several outstanding innovations that you can champion: • Malaria bed nets • Agro-forestry to increase nitrogen in the soils • Multi-platform energy sources for off-grid remote rural areas to save the time of women all over the impoverished world
Page 6
• School meal programs with locally-produced food to improve children’s nutrition, get girls into school and help the farming community locally • Women’s community organizations • IT-enabled education and health care These are specific innovations that can become the basis of scale-up and advocacy. Second, champion a cause. Look at what Rotary International has done with polio; look at what Bill Gates has done with vaccines. Malaria kills three million people each year, but the crusade against it lacks leadership right now. Although we can never eradicate it, we can control and attack it. Third, champion an institution, as Ed Scott did with Friends of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, which had fallen desperately short of cash. The U.S. government, in a world of emerging and reemerging diseases, had recklessly squeezed the budget of the WHO.

In the midst of the AIDS pandemic and the resurgence of malaria and TB, the core budget of the WHO has been frozen for the last twelve years. So think of championing an institution. The WHO would love to acquire some new friends, as do many other U.N. aid agencies. From my experience, these U.N. agencies are incredibly professional and filled with knowledgeable people. Fourth, advocate U.S. leadership. As a country, we are failing to lead on the specific targets to which we have committed ourselves repeatedly, such as those of the summit on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico in 2002. There, President Bush signed the Monterrey Consensus, which committed all developed countries to making concrete efforts toward the target of 0.7% of GNP in official development assistance. The U.S. has only advanced from 0.12% to 0.14% of GNP as aid. This lack of American leadership is the greatest obstacle to reducing global poverty on the planet. Fortunately, some of our cities have started organizing; the Seattle Initiative for Global Development is a wonderful example of a local organization working with other cities to spur similar efforts. We need a civic movement for international development. People are beginning to understand that $450 billion for the military, compared to $16 billion towards development assistance, will not make us safe. Fifth, we need processes of deliberative decision-making and consensus-building. There is a basis for consensus in this country. If we bring together the leadership of philanthropists, large corporations, government agencies, scientists (so much of what we are talking about is science-based), NGOs and environmental groups, this country could actually reach a consensus on issues that currently seem so divisive as to preclude consensus. Building this U.S. leadership has to be done on the basis of deliberation over the facts at hand. It also requires explanations, discussions, and respect, all things that philanthropy can help promote.

We could get the heads of Exxon-Mobil into the room with the Environmental Defense Fund, together with the scientists who study global climate change and with General Motors forecasting what the market will look like in 20 years to tackle questions like, “Do we need fuel cells or not?” or “Do we have to care about carbon?”. We would actually be able to reach consensus on a sensible, responsible course regarding climate change. We could do the same thing for development assistance. As philanthropists and leaders, you could help to spur the deliberative processes that could play a vital role in our democratic life. We are not as divided as this country appears to be.

Posted by real-left at 12:03 PM EST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Wednesday, 16 March 2005

Italian Party ofCommunist Refoundation
Topic: The Problem W/ Activists
Here is a shorter version of Alan Woods-Land reform-
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=25767

http://www.marxist.com/Europe/prc_congress_doc3.htm

The future of the Party of Communist Refoundation

If we look at the world situation we necessarily draw the conclusion that we are facing a profound historical turning point. We are entering a new period and it seems that the generation of militants who were active in the 1980s and 1990s are finding it difficult to come to terms with this. It seems also that this is even more difficult for the leaders of the labour movement to understand. These people appear to be mesmerised by the legacy of a long gone ear, an era of a relatively stable and “reasonable” capitalism, working in a world regulated by rules and well defined relationships and, most important of all, where the role of these leaders seemed, however it was defined, more or less guaranteed.

Such a vision belongs to the past.

This vision was based on steady economic growth, allowing in turn for relative stability and social “peace”, where international relations were generally stable and predictable. This simply no longer exists. Such a vision is growingly undermined, day-by-day, by the organic crisis of the capitalist system. This crisis is becoming ever more explosive and manifests itself through continuous economic crises, wars, and every other convulsion that has shaken the world order. The crisis can also be seen in the re-awakening of the working class and the downtrodden layers, which is taking place in all four corners of the world - although varying in pace and rhythm - from Latin America to Europe, from India to the Middle East.

These dramatic events, of which we have seen but a prelude, will mould the political consciousness of a new generation of militants, both young and old, who will enter the political struggle, the trade unions, and the mass movements with a new spirit. This fighting spirit will be devoid of the hypnosis of the past that paralyzed the leadership of the labour movement, and even many honest militants.

Thus we should not be speaking of a “new workers’ movement” [this is an idea developed by the leaders of the PRC who want to dissolve the labour movement into the other social “movements”], but of the urgent necessity of building a new political strategy that breaks with the inheritance of the past and above all with reformism, which is completely incapable (either in its “radical”, “alternative” or right wing versions) of providing any answers to the big expectations we see expressed through the huge mobilisations of the working class.

Our objective is to forge new policies and a new leadership for the labour movement. Such policies need to go far beyond the boundaries which the so-called “alternative left” confines itself to. The aim of a Communist Party cannot be that of fusing together different sections of the bureaucratic apparatus, who for their own reasons are prepared to talk about how “another world is possible”, while at the same time they play their usual games and make deals with the system.

-- [ Though written for Italy, this applies to the situation in the US and most of the world – old ways that accomplished so little give way to a new vision, policies and revolution. ]

Such a vision would imply abandoning the struggle for hegemony, whether we follow the proposals of Bertinotti [PRC leader], whose vision for the future entails an alliance of the “alternative left” with the “moderate left” and the “progressive” bourgeois, or in Ferrando’s proposals [the leader of the main section of the old Trotskyist minority, now gathered around the Third Document], whose vision entails an “anti-capitalist autonomous class bloc” that never aspires to government (in principle).

For the first time in decades, an entire generation faces the perspective of a worsening of their living conditions. This generation is not only facing the worsening of their material conditions (jobs, education, wages, housing, healthcare and so on), but also a general insecurity, precariousness, the loss of civil rights, and the perspective of a world dragged into the barbarism of a decaying and decadent social system.

These new material conditions are reflected in the consciousness of the masses. It is this that explains why, for the first time in twenty years, --

a new generation of militants is fighting for the revolutionary transformation of society. --

The future of the Party of Communist Refoundation depends on whether we can get an echo within the movement and with this new layer of militants, with the workers and youth, and on whether or not we can fuse with them in the struggle for a coherent and consistent revolutionary perspective.

Our future depends also on whether we can connect these advanced layers, which are quickly becoming politicized, radicalized and increasingly militant, to the movement of the rank-and-file and the movement of the masses, thus challenging the hegemony of the reformist organizations within the labour movement. However, if the PRC proves incapable of carrying out these fundamental tasks, its defeat will be assured.

This new generation will give new breath and strength to the revolutionary ideas of Marxism and place them where they deserve to be: at the forefront of the mass movement of the working class and the oppressed in the struggle for a better world, a socialist world free from the exploitation and horrors of this decrepit, decaying system.

See also:

Italy: The Marxists in the congress of Rifondazione Comunista - Part One, Part Two (March 2, 2005)

Important meeting of Italian Marxists: Preparing to fight (December 6, 2004)
Italy: The Marxists at the 6th congress of the PRC By Claudio Bellotti, Member of the National Executive of the PRC (December 1, 2004) Italy: Debate in Rifondazione Comunista

Marxism, violence and non-violence By Dario Salvetti (March 2004)
Italy - a balance sheet of two years of intense class struggle By Claudio Bellotti (May 19, 2003)

A balance sheet of the recent national congress of the PRC in Italy By Claudio Bellotti. (May 5, 2002)

[Back to In Defence of Marxism] [Back to Italy

The essence of social democratic politics has always been “to represent”, i.e. to mediate, reach deals, and to negotiate the interests of the working class within the economic and political limits of the capitalist system. The fundamental policy of Social Democracy has not therefore been “reform”, but a passive adaptation to capitalist society. Social Democracy has been pacifist in times of peace, and supported war in periods of conflict. They were Keynesian in the post-war period, and have been monetarists supporting neo-liberal expansion over the last two decades. In terms of their policies and support for capitalism, there is no difference between the Social Democratic parties and the rest of the bourgeois parties. Where the difference lies, however, is in the fact that the Social Democracy dominates and controls the labour movement. This lies not only in their ability to garner electoral support, but also in the control they exert over working class organisations, in particular over the unions, thus allowing them to control the mobilisation of the working class.

Posted by real-left at 5:51 PM EST

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Wednesday, 16 February 2005

Outline and a General Summary - Update February 20
Topic: General Summary and Links

**Newest Reports: PART I. : __ http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=606875
__________

Her-Story Repeats - His-Story Kills

THE SPANISH:

In 1545, rich silver deposits were found at POTOSI in modern BOLIVIA. Silver mining peaked in 1590. In 1610 the city had 160.000 inhabitants, which made it the world's 5th largest city. It produced 60 % of the world's silver production. The silver was annually shipped to Spain from Maracaibo by the SILVER FLEET (Treasure Fleet). Two billion ounces of silver were extracted from the Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) during the Spanish colonial era. Cerro Rico silver paved Potosi's streets, fuelled the European Renaissance and helped fund the "Invincible Armada", the Spanish fleet that sailed against Elizabethan England in 1588.

In 1572, Spanish Viceroy Francisco de Toledo created a system of forced labour called "la mita". Every seven years, for a period of four months, all males between 18 and 50 were ordered to work in the mines. They were paid a pittance and rarely saw the light of day. Eighty per cent of the male population of the 16 provinces of the viceroyalty of Peru died in these conditions. "Every peso coin minted in Potosi has cost the life of 10 Indians who have died in the depths of the mines," wrote Fray Antonio de la Calancha in 1638.

But today Potosi is dying. "When a mine closes, all that's left is a ghost town," says the city's mayor, Joaquino who champions Che Guevara.

The USA Neo-Colonialists:

On June 18th, 1954, United States-backed Colonel Carlos Castillos Armas attacked Guatemala under the guise of liberating the country from communism. The military coup, fought by CIA-trained mercenaries, overthrew the democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, forcing him into exile. The catalyst for the attack was the decision by Arbenz to expropriate all uncultivated land under the Agrarian Reform Act, passed in 1953 by the Guatemalan congress (McCann 45). This decision to nationalize the land, effectively distributing the fertile land to working-class Guatemalans, was vehemently opposed by the United Fruit Company... United Fruit acted as "a state within a state, owning Guatemala's telephone and telegraph facilities... monopolizing its banana export," and one of its subsidiaries, International Railways of Central America, "owned 887 miles of railroad track in Guatemala, nearly every mile in the country... The majority of United Fruit stock was held by American holders. General Walter Bedell Smith, a friend of Dwight Eisenhower's and a former Director of the CIA sat on the Board of Directors... The United Fruit coup did not liberate Guatemala from communism, it only exploited the norms in place at the time, and secured its own self-interests as the creator of a banana republic. The billionaires of the world today and all of their United Fruits are turning the whole world into their own special banana republic inc.

Wake up peasants... fate awaits your strengths.

THE OLIGARCHY:
La guerra siempre le ha sido impuesta desde arriba por la oligarquia liberal-conservadora, como una forma de perpetuar sus privilegios de clase, asegurar las medidas economicas que favorecen a los ricos y acrecentar las ganancias del complejo industrial militar mientras sumergen en la miseria a 33 millones de compatriotas.

Quien ignora que en Colombia existe un Regimen politico cada vez mas violento, un Gobierno que hace del Terrorismo de Estado y del Secuestro su mayor bandera - apuntan en su misiva... Igualmente afirman - hoy mas que nunca le seguiremos dando a nuestro trabajo politico-diplomatico la importancia que tiene porque como ya dijimos: En Bol?var nos encontramos todos y segun su ideario ciertamente otra America Latina es posible."

Each year the Colombian Oligarchy and their self-serving accomplices(Medio Clase) gorge themselves in the security of their isolated city-state bunkers. While they enjoy the profits of USA friendship, corruption and Narco-genocide, 30,000 of their trapped slaves perish at the hands of a violent socio-economic structure enforced by AUC death squads and the insatiable need and greed of Gringo $$.

_ KEYS _ : For A Relevant _ Praxis

How the World Works:

American imperialism has been in the works ever since Franklin Roosevelt encountered Winston Churchill a long time ago. Roosevelt concluded that he didn't like the British Empire but that the world needed something like it so long as we held the reins... nothing was more convenient than Fidel Castro. Instead of saying we were supporting the United Fruit Company in Guatemala, we could contend that we were protecting these poor Guatemalans from the menace of Soviet influence and the influence of Fidel Castro. The Reagan administration gave Central America its worst decade since the Spanish conquest. It's a travesty what we did to places like El Salvador and Guatemala. And it worries me today that John Negroponte has been appointed ambassador to Iraq. He was the ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, when Honduras was the largest single CIA station on earth, carrying out counterrevolutionary attacks against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He should be answering charges of war crimes carried out by the Reagan administration."

-- Chalmers Johnson; Here __ //www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/cj_int/cj_int2.html

Having managed the spin on USA prison torture at Abu Gharib in Iraq, Negroponte has been promoted to Intelligence CZAR. Now he can takeover the White House with fello Guantanamo Bay torturer Alberto Gonzales (Attorney General- Top Cop)and covert ops assassin Porter Goss (CIA. (1)

A Global War is on, and the only subjects worth studying; organizing or executing are those that can change the whole system in a short time. The target is always to stop the USA: Get USA military-espionage programs and USA-backed death squads out of all countries; and create an appealing and diverse counter-power to USA hegemony. (2)

A Hierarchy of Socio-Political Evolution:

How the World can be Changed: Applied Resistance by Movements and States

I. Stop the USA Economic Cancer and Imperialist Aggression
a. Build Revolutionary Coalitions in Latin America: First in the Andes where Revolutions are Ripe and the Indigenous Populations are the Highest.
b. Raise Billions of Dollars to Help these Groups and Anyone Fighting Capitalism in the Andes (3)

II. Force the USA - EU - OECD to Consume Less and to Pollute Much Less.
a. Reduce USA Corporate Profits Through Trade Barriers (Tariffs and Quotas), Embargos, Debt Erasures, Boycotts and the Expropriation of USA Corporate Holdings. Expel Everything and Everyone Connected to the USA and Seize Their Stolen Possessions. (4)
b. Make the USA-EU Empires Pay Higher Oil Prices With Oil Embargos or by Utilizing Most of the Oil Within the South. Charge the USA Surcharges for Oil Purchases (& other products) and Require Them to Use Ships and Refineries in the South.

III. Defend and Build up the Revolutions in the South a. Prepare Strategies to Resist USA Imperialist Attacks. The Best Defense is a Strong People with a Clear Ideology, Decentralized Economy and Decentralized Mobile Armed Forces.

IV. Build a Personal and Social Consciousness of the Importance of the Environment to Self Reliance, Solidarity and National Defense
a. Solidarity Economics: A Solidaristic Decentralized Cooperative and Local-Oriented Economy.
b. Education (Latin America) for Solidarity and Eco-protection/ Sustainability. (6)

V. Issues and Variables: Time.
a. Does anyone think that time is an important factor?

b. How do we factor the uncertainty of the timeframe concerning the issues of global warming's peak or the next wave of US invasions into our models and plans for resistance?

(We are analyzing this hierarchy of resistance to link it to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Contributions to jasonmartin7@lycos.com)

** See Maslow:

Hierarchy of Needshttp://zorpia.com/cgi/journal.cgi?journal_id=0001050812

USA activist like to tout: Peace, Justice and Environmental Sustainability

So - First comes the war against capitalism (which is mostly a mental war of rejecting the brainwashing they feed us) and then the establishment of sustainable-oriented governments in the Andes and then in all of Latin America. Then there will come the wars against US aggression and Yankee invasions. Then we will be on the road to peace.

Then we do years of education and experiments in new theories of economic development, then we will be on the road to justice.

Then if there is an environment left we try to protect and restore it. Then we might be approaching the road to sustainable development.

To move this hierarchy of needs and evolution along people in the USA-EU can send money, many skilled specialists and trades people to the revolutions in the Andes.

Instead of growing frustrated with the inevitable defeats in the USA (failure to change anything) and the reality that protests and lobbying can actually encourage the right wing or the ignorant voters to fight change more, activists can earn strategic victories by aiding, visiting and organizing around the revolutions in the Andes. These People to People - or "Pueblo a People" campaigns can be positive and real.

Move beyond political stalemate to make a real difference. Forget politics as you knew it. Do the politics of building resistance. Forget lobbying and all environmental or social justice organizing in the USA. That won't work - never change anything soon. The Andes have a lot to teach us and a world to win - a dollar a year from every person in the USA could make the difference.

Take the power where you can find it!

To build a counter-power to the imperialist USA, activist groups need to reach beyond national boundaries to build strong alliances in Latin America with indigenous people (40 to 80 million people), workers in the Andes (30 to 40 million people), African descendants (100,000,000 to 120,000,000 people), and to finance aid programs with Venezuelan and Andean revolutionary groups. Solidarity with these groups and the 200 million Latin American people trapped in neoliberal (USA-imposed) poverty can yield dividends abroad and within the USA.

Key Points

1. Global and national social movements need to embrace a practical and focused goal of accumulating power in order to takeover governments. Conventional politics and left-thinking in the USA are dead.

2. The only effective means of altering the balance of power in the US (and thus the world) are armed struggle; relocating activists and supporters of change to states in the USA where they can seize power; or through massive financial aid to the revolutions in the Andes. Protests, lobbying and voting are stupid. They actually aid the power elite who want the appearance of democracy and opposition - as long as it can accomplish nothing.

3. The leaders of USA environmental and justice groups are barriers to change. The debate is whether to try new strategies or fall back on style and simply modify the current moderate plan of merging left issues together in a coalition with moderate democrats - a strategy where victory becomes as meaningless as defeat!

4. The USA is an empire of corporate, trade and, military alliances.

5. Only through extending our conceptions of politics - which is another word for Power - extending it beyond the imaginary borders of nations can we create a better world.(7)

6.James Petras has a criteria for judging anti-imperialist governments:
"Do they pay the foreign debt to US and European banks; do they respect the privatization of strategic industries; do they promote new privatizations; do they keep their markets open to overseas exporters; do they support the dollar against the euro by holding their reserves in dollars; do they pass regressive labor, pension and minimum wage legislation; do they abide by IMF agreements and impose austerity programs and regressive tax laws?"

Add bans on GMOs. Why let Monsanto or Dow or any non-local company control your seed or farm production? Chavez banned GMOs - Lula legalized them.) "Latin America: Political Re-alignment and Empire"(8)

Rebelion __http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=7961

A Great Debate rages among the Enviro and Narrow Left elite over the meaning of activism in the USA-EU. The Death of Environmentalism and how to enhance the charade of fighting global warming is the agenda. Three to five billion dollars in donations and the world hang in the balance.

The ecological time bombs of trade (invasive species) and global warming are ticking away. The US left and the US environmental movement have failed and should die so something better can take their place. The real issue of what a post-global warming world means to the 3 billion poor of the planet must become the focus of all activism and the goal of strategy.

Without a rapid decline in consumption in the rich countries all environmental issues are hopeless and the chances of meaningful social change are non-existent. Resource wars and wars of imperialism will be the only issues left. These are the challenges and time limits that we face.

Fake US environmentalists pretend to struggle with Narrow Leftists over billions of dollars in donations and grants (acquired from Imperialism!) Fascist US presidents and "radicals" alike praise democracy (even US-styled democracy) and they all pretend happily - or not so happily - that there is nothing else that can be tried. The real radicals and the Real Left (Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution) are attacked or ignored by their natural allies. Greens form coalitions in Germany with capitalist narrow lefties (SPD) and in the US with right wing Democrats. Almost everywhere Greens sell out on what they stood for - especially on awareness and education. Political parties almost everywhere except in the Andes move to the right and no one hardly comments.

If Enviros cannot address the need to reduce consumption in the rich countries then they are assisting the destruction of the planet by misleading people into thinking that tinkering (recycling, bike-riding, ) or cleaning up air and water pollution in the USA is helpful. The way that the USA has so far cleaned up its air and water is by shifting its pollution to other regions (China, Korea, Mexico,Canada or the North Sea). Critics of the Enviros, such as Nordhaus or Hertsgaard, want to continue these fraudulent educational programs with the objective to forge political campaigns (unite single issue groups) so that they can continue to consume/pollute the world. Instead of Nimbyism (not-in-my-backyard) within the USA they will institutionalize national Nimbyism (not-in-my-country). (9)

Useful Hierarchies and Strategic Thinking in Pursuit of Power

One cannot have just a simple-minded plan of how the world works or how to resist - not against the uncouth USA corporate elite. You have to feel it out when to join with others, when the threats are too great or when to stand for principle if the moment is right. Right now the moment requires that everyone in the US and Europe work hard for the Andes and the revolutions throughout Latin America. These are strategic battles - pre-emptive resistance - to the Bush and USA plans for domination and extortion.

Everything has to come together- the earth, the sky and the waters and fire. This will happen slower in some ways in Latin America, though in many ways the Spirit of Resistance there has never weakened or separated. The poor of Latin America (200 million), the descendents of slaves (100 million) and especially the indigenous people (40 to 80 million) see the current struggle, as well as the struggles they have faced for 500 years, as deep, serious, desperate and fateful. (10)

In the West (the US and EU) the struggle actually does have to bring everything together now! If our efforts fail to stop the right wing Nordhaus-Apollo Alliance theft of billions of dollars in charitable donations, then GW Bush and his clan will accelerate his poisoning of the world and the poisoning of the minds of millions more people in the US.

The time of warnings has now expired unused. The catastrophe is at our door. The ecology problem cannot be separated from the economy problem. ...

An ecological awakening from the middle of society is crucial. This happened in Germany, but the Green impulse failed... The Greens wanted to change the consumer mentality of the masses. They discussed the questions about living- and working conditions less dependence on cars and whether less meat consumption (less methane) with less livestock breeding wouldn't be welcome on account of the better health of consumers. All this seems forgotten... (11)

KEY POINTS

1. US Enviros have killed the environmental movement and the Narrow Left strategies of single issue campaigning have failed.

2. There is no way to avoid the catastrophe of global warming because the capitalist model of consumption growth and rampant pollution to reduce costs combines with US greed to guarantee massive increases in greenhouse gases.

3. To survive in this post-global warming future of brutal US imperialist wars, the few remaining moral people in the US and Europe should fund revolutions in the Andes to create an alternative model and a counter to US hegemony.

4. There are billions of dollars in potential funding up for grabs in the US and Europe. The deceptions and failures of the Narrow left and the Enviros has created a vacuum where people are looking for something positive to invest in.

5. There is a process or hierarchy of resistance and movement building that can guide our efforts to stop imperialism and protect the environment. The basis of this hierarchy is that we must be honest and probing about our goals (near term and long run); about the strategies that could achieve them; and deeply open to debate and to clearer thinking than in the past. The Real Left needs to make sense - AND be understandable, with real solutions to all of the linked problems.

* PART III.)) The Real Left is Defined by Decentralization: A Political Economy of Hope and Participation

* PART IV.)) Why the Andes is the Best Target: Pre-emptive Revolutions: Fighting For Poverty Against Neo-Slavery (

FOOT NOTES For Summary

1. a> Porter Goss See: http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern07062004.html

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKgoss.htm
"In 1962 Goss joined the Central Intelligence Agency. Over the next few years he was based at the JM/WAVE, the CIA station in Miami where he worked with people such as Ted Shackley, David Sanchez Morales, Edward Lansdale, William Harvey and Tracy Barnes. In a photo from a Mexico City bar Goss appears second on the left. He is seated between notorious CIA pilot and drug smuggler Barry Seal (third left) and the equally-notorious CIA assassin Felix Rodriguez."
b. Negroponte see:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/18/157206

http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/negroponte/eng.html
c. Alberto Gonzales see: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=581582

2. a. Why rapid change? See: Part 1 of the Series Lessons Learned:George W Bush's Eternal Triumph
or The Andes to the Rescue of the World - The ALTERNATIVE to BUSH : -__http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=606875
http://margotbworldnews.com/archive/2005January/Jan25/rescue.html

b. On US Violence: James Petras: http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=9395
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=11117

3. a. The Andes to the Rescue of the World - http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=606875

ANDES AID PROJECTS: _ b. www.andescircle.faces.com

** Note: Go to my first blog in the above link or try:
http://andescircle.faces.com/Blogs/193554.aspx

b. This action plan: Hierarchy of Resistance - is for all people in all places. We understand the reservations that people will have about abandoning projects/people/places in Asia and Africa (or their backyards. We think that Western people and ways are inappropriate for Asia and much of North Africa. The best hope for sub-saharan Africa and everywhere is a strong Latin America (solidarity aid, trade and functional new modesl of development)

4.a. Various examples exist: from the Mexican nationalization of oil by Cardenas; the Argentine meltdown and debt defaults and CUbas takeover of land and industry. In Nicaragua they did not have to sieze much since the dictator and his friends had owned half the country!
b. SEE: http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=609470
c. The Porto Alegre Consensus: 'It's not possible to continue to say 'another world is possible' if we do not make some proposals about how to reach this other world,' added Ricardo Petrella, one of the presenters at the press conference, referring to the motto of the WSF since its inception in 2001.

The points include debt cancellation, adoption of the Tobin tax on international financial transfers, dismantling of tax havens, the promotion of equitable forms of trade, a guarantee on the sovereignty of a country's right to not only be able to produce affordable food for its citizens, but also to police its food supply; the implementation of anti- discrimination polices for minorities and women, and democratisation of international organisations, which would include moving the United Nations headquarters far South of its current New York location.
See: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=41&ItemID=7148

5.

6. a. MER Adaptation of SOlidarity Economics:
Decentrailized Solidaristic Structures __ http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=600035
b. A World of Possible Transitions: Mega-Cities vs. Agrarian-Based Localization ; by Marcel Idels, December 2002.
http://www.bluegreenearth.us/archive/article/2002/idels6.html

7. Speech by Hugo Chavez:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/docs.php?dno=1011

Today, vis-?-vis the obvious failure of neoliberalism and the great threat that the International Economic Order represents for our countries, it is necessary to retake the Spirit of the South. That is where this Summit in Caracas is heading for. I propose to re-launch the G-15 as a South Integration Movement rather than a group. A movement for the promotion of all possible trends, who walks towards the Non-aligned Movement, the Group of 77, China... The entirely whole South!! I propose that we retake the proposals of the 1990 South Commission."

See also :
Venezuela Bolivariana (Movie) at Movie DOWNLOADS: __ https://www3.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/08/296319.html At the above site you can download the whole movie - requires quick time.

8. James petras: "By imperial flexibility, I mean that US policymakers are not averse to working
with ex-leftists, ex-guerrillas, demagogic populists, or even "anti-neoliberals" - providing they govern in the interests of the US MNC, pay the foreign debt and implement IMF dictates. US policymakers are less interested in past politics and class origins... Washington supports military coup and military intervention against regimes which oppose US imperial foreign policy (Chavez in Venezuela) or refuse to implement IMF privatization program (Aristide in Haiti). At the same time it supports electoral regimes like Toledo, Lagos, Gutierrez, Lula, Fox in Mexico and others. In Colombia, Washington works closely with the death squad paramilitary and military forces assassinating opponents to elected President Uribe."

9.a. See :
Mark Hertsgaard see: http://www.markhertsgaard.com/Articles/2004/EnviroChallenge/
http://www.thebreakthrough.org/images/Death_of_Environmentalism.pdf
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3630425

http://grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/pope-reprint/

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/01/304393.html

b.This is not just a Sierra Club-Enviro void, US Anarchists, radical environmentalist (like Earth First!) and even Animal liberation arsonists lack class consciousness or an appreciation (sympathy, information) of global struggles - they are super Nimbys! (AND Super-Narrow Lefties) captive to their own single issue near-sighted visions. You do not have to be a friend of Joe Stalin in order to recognize the contributions of many communist and socialist organizers from Sao Paulo to NYC.

Frequently, I hear people in the US who think that they are revolutionaries say: "Did you see those Revolutionary Worker people trying to hand out their stupid newspapers? I'd like to say to them: Thanks for the ass wipe and have fun in the prison labor camps."

Most US activists still think of the old left or the New (or Real) Left as focused on centralization and state control though this has not been true for decades. They think that anything structured or planned is authoritarian or worse. Whether you have a goal of a structured and planned world it would be self-defeating to think that one could contest - let alone triumph over - the economic system of capitalism and the USA Empire without structured analysis and a plan for the battle. (NOTES 13)

These Pseudo-activist and "(en)counter-revolutionaries" reject the efforts of the Weathermen, Sandinistas, the FMLN, the FARC-EP and the Cubans - and yet they tend to romanticize with the Zapatistas (who also killed people)! This is the influence of the Carnival of Resistance - Change the World without taking the Power types who reject alternative economics because that would be planning. These people do little to resist their own country's plunder and pillaging because they might have to work with communists and the like. The US is a political void with two right wing political parties and near zero international or class consciousness. This near sightedness has spread to the World Social Forum where John Holloway preaches his numbing and now academic power-avoidance.

See also Part Two of the series "Lessons Learned" where the itroduction and footnotes 1 and 2 have more examples.

B. Mark Hertsgaard see:
http://www.markhertsgaard.com/Articles/2004/EnviroChallenge/
AND: SUrrendering to Climate Change and US EMPIRE:
http://www.alternet.org/story/21261/

10.

11. 15.)) NOTES XV.: http://www.freitag.de/2004/52/04520101.php
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/01/304393.html
A German writer named, Michael Jager, has summarized the eco-political disaster of Europe (Ecological Prospects: Only a Radical Movement Can Help) :

Global warming will cause worldwide economic damage (two trillion dollars by 2015); tornados will come upon Germany soon; even if the US joined the Kyoto protocol, that would be only a symbolic step since the agreement only prescribes that the most important industrial states reduce their emissions of six greenhouse gases five percent by 2012 compared to 1990. According to the data of science, a 50 percent reduction by 2050 is necessary. An 80 percent reduction would be necessary if the right of third world societies to catch up in industrialization were considered.

The time of warnings has now expired unused. The catastrophe is at our door. The ecology problem cannot be separated from the economy problem.

A Primer on Real Left Thinking:

Latin America: Caught Between Savagery and Development en Espa?ol by Heinz Dieterich; published in Spanish on Rebelion.Org; December 5, 2003

The people, politicians and ruling elite of Latin America find themselves at a strategic crossroads. Between four major political models, they will have to choose their destiny:

1. neo-liberal savagery;
2. reborn nationalist development;
3. regional and democratic development or
4. post-capitalist participatory democracy.

The confrontation between these four political models and their different stages of development causes the tremendous social and political struggles that are occurring in Latin America today. Basically, it is a collision between a discredited policy of domination and exploitation--the neo-liberalism of the international financial giants--against three emerging policies, which could defend and liberate our Latin American homeland.

The recovered memory of the nationalist development model of the 40s and 50s--promoted by Juan Domingo Per?n (Argentina), L?zaro C?rdenas (Mexico) and Getulio Vargas (Brazil), as well as by Salvador Allende and the heroes of the independence movement--advances quickly and begins to filter ghost-like into the public consciousness of our America. The old nationalist and liberation slogans of those times again are becoming part of the discourse of atrophied political parties and semi-corporate unions, which feel threatened by the transfer abroad of national wealth.

The campesinos and the indigenous population, whose disappearance as a social class is a part of Free Trade's design, feel the same threat.

The return of these old reference points of freedom, sovereignty and national dignity, which had been systematically exorcised by the ideological ayatollahs of neo-liberalism and post-modernism, is extremely important. The arrival of the legitimate child of the historic national development model--democratic regional development--is even more important.

In these times of Bush's neo-liberal globalization and the global neo-fascist axis, the nationalist development model is viable in our America only if two new conditions are taken into account: a) it needs to take place within a Regional Power Block (RPB) and b) it can't have a corporatist structure, as in the past, but rather it must be a participatory democracy model.

The symbiosis of the old nationalist development model with the new regional democratic development model is the only viable development strategy presently. It is the only model that can stop the spiraling impoverishment of Latin America because it is the only one that permits the unification of the necessary economic, political and cultural forces. The unification of all the progressive Latin American movements behind this program of defense and transformation is our most important political task at hand.

Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Cuba make up the power block that is at the forefront of Latin American liberation. And a growing number of establishment politicians, labor organizers, parts of the global anti-capitalist movement, Latin American transnational businesspeople, rectors of important public universities, liberal and social-democratic intellectuals realize this reality.

Yet there has been little recognition of this reality and its huge potential for a qualitative leap towards a second independence among the old-guard left and the intellectual sector. Fortified by the purity of their cosmological schema, they continue to deliver their body and soul to the idea of instantaneous socialism, which--as they profess--is the only ideal for change they are ready to fight for. While the erudite and faithful continue to analyze the sacred scriptures, decrying the impurity of reality, Latin America is experiencing a true revolutionary process of transcendental implications.

Is anything more revolutionary than raising your hand to the pillagers of financial capital with an "Enough Already"? For this is the pre-condition for every social and political liberation process in our Latin American Homeland.

If the Regional Power Block solidifys, maintains its alliances with China and India, and is able to have the social movements understand that it represents the only possibility against the savagery, neither Washington nor Brussels can stop this process. With the wisdom of Fidel Castro, the impulsiveness of Hugo Ch?vez, the serenity of Inacio "Lula" da Silva and the sharp boldness of Nestor Kirchner, an enormous software for liberation is being installed. Once the historical project of post-capitalist participatory democracy is integrated, it will be invincible.

A LONGER VERSION OF THIS SUMMARY BELOW & ITS NOTES IS FOUND AT:

PRIMER ON REAL LEFT THOUGHT __ http://zorpia.com/cgi/journal.cgi?journal_id=0001046278

ALBERT ACOSTA: A global cry against "globalization"!

"Globalization", in quotation marks, is not a new phenomenon. Neither is it a strategy in itself. It is a process which is part of the globalization of capitalism. And as a consequence, the current phase of this process, when one looks at the results, turns out to be fragmented and fragmenting. Thus, globalization as a goal, if we extrapolate from this process as it presents itself today, is impossible: from an ecological standpoint alone, it is impossible to duplicate the standard of living of the wealthiest on a global scale; nor, in the logic of the system, is there productive employment for all the planet's inhabitants.

Nevertheless, through the massive diffusion of elite consumerism - assisted by the media -, and in a pirouette of absolute perversity, its values have infiltrated even those groups without any access to this consumption, those excluded from equity, from clean air and water, from peace, from employment, from rights, from land, from their future, from the media themselves... Nearly all of society has been inoculated by a kind a of global illusion; a phantasm that creates and recreates exclusion, which feeds competition by destroying solidarity, that rewards inhuman wealth. If employment increases - seen as a premonition of inflation - the stock market falls and financial performance suffers, as is happening now in the US.

If we naively take the perspective that everything is being globalized and that all that remains is for us to globalize ourselves, we fall into a trap. We have known for a while that the world is round, but it seems we don't grasp that its capitalist roundness is exclusionary..." LOCO GLOBAL __ http://movimientos.org/grito/show_text_en.php3?key=242

You cannot win unless you win over a sizable segment of the population. We have got to win over that consent to our side. Otherwise, we lose. Even when it goes against us, we have to tell the truth, not raise false hopes. Capitalism is not cracking up today, and it may take a long while. It won't disappear until people see an alternative with which to replace it. The one alternative they saw from 1917 to 1989 was the false dawn of Communism." - Tariq Ali; http://www.isreview.org/issues/33/tariqali.shtml

I do not fault Tariq Ali for his lack of vision, but if you look at the world as it exists, a US empire representing the upper classes with support of about 300 million people in the hemisphere versus in the case of South America 370 million poor or threatened people, we already have the numbers. We just have to be strong and clear about our objectives and our optimism/determination, and then we will have numbers and power.

JAMES J. BRITTAIN: "WHILE STRONGLY SUPPRESSED, information is out there ... examining the social and political dynamics within Colombia. It is interesting, those persons who have known for years that the corporately-owned-controlled mediums of so-called information manipulate awareness, but these persons still fail to critique capitalist forms of knowledge. Those who divulge reality should be those examined [the real Left] instead of those who propagate imperialism. Hopefully this will lead persons like Jose Saramago to understand that which they do not know." (commenting on Nobel Prize wining Saramago's US-lackeyism for blaming the FARC-EP guerrillas for violence in Colombia.)

If Alexander Cockburn Tariq Ali, Jeffery St. Claire, Hugo Chavez, the MST in Brazil and Bolivia, Felipe Quispe, JamesPetras, Walden Bello, Vandana Shiva, Arhundati Roy, Ken Livingston, Ward Churchill, someone from the German (or EU) Greens, maybe the Uruguayan Leftists, the Chilean Communist Party, Ruben Zamora, the Cubans, radical ecologists and other activists and professors (Global Exchange?) would come forward with all of their power to support a clear plan for a new type of participatory socialist - or solidaristic economy - then many people, activists and movements would come together from around the world to promote this vision. The deadlock of US-world politics would be broken and with some luck and hard work the South would begin to construct the vibrant models that are possible there. (Who else could help??)

TARIQ ALI: "I think it will be useful if the Global Justice movement--and there are many different strands in it--came and saw what's going on here. What's the problem? Go into the shantytowns, see what the lives of the people are, see what their lives were before this regime came into power. And don't go on the basis of stereotypes. You cannot change the world without taking power, that is the example of Venezuela. Ch?vez is improving the lives of ordinary people, and that's why it's difficult to topple him--otherwise he would be toppled. So it's something that people in the Global Justice movement have to understand, this is serious politics. It's pointless just chanting slogans, because for the ordinary people on whose behalf you claim to be fighting getting an education, free medicine, cheap food is much much more important than all the slogans put together.

Venezuela is an example which the Americans wish to wipe out. Because if this example exists, and gets stronger and stronger and stronger, then people in Brazil, in Argentina, in Ecuador, in Chile, in Bolivia will say `if Venezuelans can do it, we can do it.' So Venezuela, from that point of view, is a very important example.

http://www.counterpunch.org/tariq07242004.html

MARCEL MIRANDA: "There is no way to fix the whole world, the choices are: whom to help. This is the big lie behind the Enviro and other Narrow Left groups in the US-Eu wastelands. This silence, the lack of debate and the contrived difficulties of organizing are both masked and recreated through the false slogans that are key to US ignorance and apathy. We need to attack all of these numbing myths and twists of logic: Think Global act Local; Local global, No Logo, Fair Trade, War without borders." - Think and Act Local and Global - figure out what makes sense and link all of the problems and slogans together.

During the Andean-US Free Trade Meetings, December 2004, a group of writers named United Students launched their attack on US-based activism. Before the Seattle WTO protests in 1999, we had tried to raise the issues of goals, planning and a method for prioritizing the revolutionary factors of agency and threat. At the Cancun WTO we witnessed the difficulties in formulating joint global statements and the shock among many EU and third world participants at the near complete ignorance of many US and Australian activists.

We still hold out the hand of open debate and we sincerely seek an honest appraisal of the various movements. But as Ted Dornhaus found there are no avenues for discourse among environmentalist ( or anyone working on change in the US), "We emailed all these guys after the article came out and asked if they'd be willing to have a dialogue and the silence has been deafening. ...it's like, God, please disagree with us. We would be honored. There is no place for public debate in the environmental movement. Even librarians have much fiercer public debates and dialogues than the environmental community
http://grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/werbach-reprint/

If activist groups in the US-EU are honest then they will admit they have no meaningful goals and that their strategies of education or mobilization cannot overcome the strong right wing drift of US political culture. Clinging to outdated techniques of organizing or resisting against such a force is to make yourself and your power meaningless and impotent... Everyone should cease working politically at any level in the USA: The Death of Activism (ecological, social (and cultural?)). Instead, put all of your energy, skills and finances into groups in South America - specifically groups in the Andes and in Venezuela. ... Yes, the only activity of any real value to changing the world - to defeating capitalism and militarism - is to form a fundraising group."

James Petras extends the critique to many of the new quasi-left regimes in Latin America: "History will note 2004 as the Year of Infamy, not only for the crimes and plunder committed by the US but for the active and consequential collaboration of a new group of client rulers in most of the biggest countries in Latin America. As a consequence of the failures of the Left these new clients of Washington were able to gain power, embrace Washington's strategic agenda while at least temporarily dividing, disorienting and demoralizing a substantial sector of the burgeoning mass movements. The Left leaders have their place in this Year of Infamy, even as it is the urban and rural poor who have and are paying the price." [7]

Anti-imperialist advocates around the world level similar complaints against the US and EU anti-globalization movements and the assorted followers of the Zapatistas who think that you can change the world without seizing the power.

"I have to be very blunt here--they [imperialist US-EU] don't feel threatened because there is an idealistic slogan within the social movements, which goes like this: `We can change the world without taking power.' This slogan doesn't threaten anyone; it's a moral slogan. The Zapatistas--who I admire--you know, when they marched from Chiapas to Mexico City, what did they think was going to happen? Nothing happened. It was a moral symbol, it was not even a moral victory because nothing happened.... the Venezuelan example is the most interesting one. It says: `in order to change the world you have to take power, and you have to begin to implement change--in small doses if necessary--but you have to do it. Without it nothing will change.'

So, it's an interesting situation and I think at Porto Alegre next year [2005] all these things will be debated and discussed--I hope.... [The] Global Social Justice movements ... have no alternative! They think that it is an advantage not to have an alternative. But, in my view that's a sign of political bankruptcy. If you have no alternative, what do you say to the people you mobilize?

The MST[1] in Brazil has an alternative, they say `take the land and give it to the poor peasants, let them work it.' But the Holloway [2] thesis of the Zapatistas, it's--if you like--a virtual thesis, it's a thesis for cyber space: let's imagine. But we live in the real world, and in the real world this thesis isn't going to work. Therefore, the model for me of the MST in Brazil is much much more interesting than the model of the Zapatistas in Chiapas. Much more interesting.... So it's something that people in the Global Justice movement have to understand, this is serious politics. It's pointless just chanting slogans, because for the ordinary people on whose behalf you claim to be fighting getting an education, free medicine, cheap food is much much more important than all the slogans put together."

Tariq Ali: Venezuela: Changing the World by Taking Power
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1223

Why He Crushed the Oligarchs: The Importance of Hugo Ch?vez, By TARIQ ALI
http://www.counterpunch.org/tariq08162004.html

James Petras commented before Bush's great victory that a "dramatic shift of the entire political spectrum to the Right," had already occurred. That the positions were nearly identical for " both major candidates in this election, without any mass popular demonstrations or intellectual protest from the majority of the Left. The collapse of the left in the US is not merely a question of a presidential campaign. Because if either Bush or Kerry win, they will pursue with renewed vigor the bloody colonial wars that they promised, and the Left would have lost its credibility and respect."
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0502petras.htm
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/wsf/petras-wsf.htm
February 17, 2002

Raise the Banner of Investigating for Truth

Further righteous attacks on US-EU moderate activism, the Democratic Party or the vagueness of anti-globalization protesters is not necessary.The Real Left can ignore these small and marginal groups and reach out to the millions in Latin America who are ready and eager for change, for dignity and struggle. It is time to move on, to move the global revolution to the next stage with whomever wants to be a part of it - a aprt of real change.

James Brittain (Ph.D. candidate in Canada) deserves applause for his strong feelings expressed on the seeming delusion of Portuguese Communist Party member Sarmago who has attacked the Colombian guerrillas for not being real revolutionaries. Brittain recommends a number of writers for those people who want to learn reality, among them Stan Goff who encourages people to reexamine the doctrine of "imperialist morals" which construct misunderstanding or comprehension of organized class-based revolution in an imperialist and exploitative circumstance."

Brazilian activist Gledson Oliveira, who lives in the country's impoverished northeast, called Chavez "an icon of the struggling classes right now from a socialist perspective." "I think the Brazilian public was expecting from Lula something like Chavez is providing in Venezuela," he said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E903D3CD-F65A-45B8-91CE-9956EE5C0169.htm

Chavez: US is a terrorist state

13 February 2005,

The Venezuelan president and the US are sworn enemies

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has branded the United States a terrorist state while rejecting Washington's criticism of Caracas for its arms purchase from Russia.

Chavez, a fierce critic of US President George Bush and the US-led war in Iraq, on Saturday brushed aside US opposition to the agreement to buy 100,000 automatic rifles and about 40 military helicopters from Moscow.

"One has to ask whether there was transparency in the invasion of Iraq. The world knows President Bush lied openly about Iraq having chemical weapons," Chavez said.

"They keep on bombing cities, killing children, they have become a terrorist state," he said.

Tense ties

Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter, is a key crude supplier to the US. But relations soured after Chavez came to power in 1999, vowing to fight poverty with a self-proclaimed revolution.

US officials have accused Chavez of allowing Marxist rebels from neighbouring Colombia to shelter in Venezuela and criticise his increasingly close relations with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Chavez, however, rejects the charges and has moved to strengthen Venezuela's political and economic ties beyond Washington with states such as China, Russia and Iran.

HUGO CHAVEZ: "Imperialism not invincible"Chavez added that U.S. imperialism is not invincible. "Look at Vietnam, look at Iraq and Cuba resisting, and now look at Venezuela." In reference to the recommendations of some of his close advisors, he said that "some people say that we cannot say nor do anything that can irritate those in Washington." He repeated the words of Argentine independence hero Jos? de San Martin "let's be free without caring about anyone else says."

"The south also exists... the future of the north depends on the south. If we don't make that better world possible, if we fail, and through the rifles of the U.S. Marines, and through Mr. Bush's murderous bombs, if the is no coincidence and organization necessary in the south to resist the offensive of neo-imperialism, and the Bush doctrine is imposed upon the world, the world will be destroyed,"

Chavez warns of drastic weather changes that would bring catastrophic events if no action is taken soon, in reference to uncontrolled or little regulated industrial activity. Chavez added that perhaps before those drastic changes take place, there will be rebellions everywhere "because the peoples are not going to peacefully accept impositions such as neoliberalism or such as colonialism."

"Everyday I become more convinced, there is no doubt in my mind, and as many intellectuals have said, that it is necessary to transcend capitalism. But capitalism can't be transcended from with capitalism itself, but through socialism, true socialism, with equality and justice. But I'm also convinced that it is possible to do it under democracy, but not in the type of democracy being imposed from Washington," he said.

Chavez said that Venezuela is trying to implement a social economy. "It is impossible, within the framework of the capitalist system to solve the grave problems of poverty of the majority of the world's population. We must transcend capitalism. But we cannot resort to state capitalism, which would be the same perversion of the Soviet Union. We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project and a path, but a new type of socialism, a humanist one, which puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything. That's the debate we must promote around the world, and the WSF is a good place to do it."
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/cocha/indexfr.htm

End Notes:

http://margotbworldnews.com/archive/2005January/Jan25/rescue.html
10617

Below an analysis of PERU - FTA -
http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2005/02/818538.shtml

Persons interested in reading constructive material surrounding the revolutionary processes being tangibly carried out in Colombia must make certain to acquire materials written by Nazih Richani (Kean University - New York, U.S.), Jim Sacouman (Acadia University - Nova Scotia, Canada), Henry Veltmeyer (Saint Mary's University - Nova Scotia, Canada), Timothy Wickham-Crowley (Georgetown University, Washington D.C., U.S.), the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) (Canada), Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) (Canada), Garry M. Leech (Colombia Journal), Green Left Weekly, Counter Punch, Justice for Colombia, Colombia Peace Association
http://www.anncol.org/side/1071

In 2004, from the oil industry budget we utilized $4 billion in social investments, education, health, micro-credits, scholarships, and housing, aimed at the poorest of the poor, what neoliberals call waste of money. But that is not a waste of money because it is aimed at empowering the poor so that they can defeat poverty. He added that "that money before stayed out of Venezuela or just benefited the rich." He criticized privatizations by saying that "privatization is a neoliberal and imperialist plan. Health can't be privatized because it is a fundamental human right, nor can education, water, electricity and other public services. They can't be surrendered to private capital that denies the people from their rights."
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/cocha/indexfr.htm

Venezuela Travel and Volunteer Opportunities:
1. Global Exchange Reality Tours:

2. People's Weekly World or CPUSA -
3.

Contacts in Venezuela -

1. UNT labor Federation - its largest affiliate is the Bolivarian Workers Force (a social and politcal organization) Going Beyond the Anti-Imperialist to the anti-Capitalist 0 - but not yet Socialist. (only 20 percent of labor force is unionized) - Eduardo Renate. Minimum wage is $152 a month - some unionized subway workers make $ 550 a month.

2. Bolivarian University of Venezuela (at least one branch in each of the 22 states)

People's Weekly World Dec 11 - 17 , 04 - Data (has trips too probably) - Venezuela has 3 million people who work in public sector, 1.5 to 2 million in the private sector (official businesses? ) and 7 million who are self employed. Less than 250,000 work the land (farming and ranching)

Below Bolivia referendum - good data on corporations there

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040802&s=hayden

No to Privatization and Free Trade -
http://www.counterpunch.org/carlsen12042004.html

The Five Part Series: Lessons Learned:

From The Failure of Politics and Vision in North America
To the Steady Victories of the Social Movements in South America,

by Mundo de Escuelas Revolucionarias (MER)

Part I. : George W Bush's Eternal Triumph or The Andes to the Rescue of the World, By Jason Martin; http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=606875

Posted by real-left at 6:56 PM EST

Updated: Friday, 4 March 2005 6:58 PM EST

Share This Post
Post Comment | Permalink

Tuesday, 8 February 2005

U.S.A. George W Bush's Eternal Triumph or Andes to Rescue
Topic: _ BEST _ WRITES awards
If you are ready to step beyond the one-dimensional world of the USA

- Publish this whole series.

We have shorter versions posted or ready to fly - if you have doubts on any of our sources or references we are happy to provide more
proof.

Our list of many publications is also available by request.

http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=606875

George W Bush's Eternal Triumph or The Andes to the Rescue of the World

"It is misguided to protest Bush without an alternative. Feeling good just to be doing "something" is selfish and no substitute for real thinking."

- J. Dole, 30 year anti-capitalist veteran who shuns anti-globalization & anti-war groups for being part of the problem.

The 5-Part Series: Lessons Learned:

From The Failure of Politics and Vision in North America
To the Steady Victories of the Social Movements in South America,

by Mundo de Escuelas Revolucionarias (MER)

See Part II:

Tsunamis of Environmentalism's Death: The Theft and Tricks of the USA Narrow Leftists

(Long version at: PART 2 Lessons Learned http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=620562)

By Jason Martin an Rachel Guevara
CONTACT: c o n t a c t Jasonmartin7@lycos.com

Part I. :

U.S.A. George W Bush's Eternal Triumph
or The Andes to the Rescue of the World

By Jason Martin (1400 words)

"The evidence today is that American imperialism has been in the works ever since Franklin Roosevelt encountered Winston Churchill a long time ago. Roosevelt concluded that he didn't like the British Empire but that the world needed something like it so long as we held the reins. And the Cold War was largely a cover for this. It's very obvious, for example, in the case of our relations with Latin America, which have always had a traditionally imperialist quality, that nothing was more convenient for us than Fidel Castro. Instead of saying we were supporting the United Fruit Company in Guatemala, we could contend that we were protecting these poor Guatemalans from the menace of Soviet influence and the influence of Fidel Castro. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration gave Central America its worst decade since the Spanish conquest. It's a travesty what we did to places like El Salvador and Guatemala. And it worries me today that John Negroponte has been appointed ambassador to Iraq. He was the ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, when Honduras was the largest single CIA station on earth, carrying out counterrevolutionary attacks against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. He should be answering charges of war crimes carried out by the Reagan administration."

-- Chalmers Johnson;

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/cj_int/cj_int2.html

Social movements need to embrace a practical and focused goal of accumulating power in order to takeover governments. Conventional politics and left-thinking in the USA are dead.

There is a Global War going on and the only subjects worth studying; organizing and meeting about; or doing actions against are those that can change the whole system in a short time. The target is always and primarily to stop the USA: Get USA military-espionage programs and USA-backed death squads out of all countries; and create an appealing and diverse counter-power to USA hegemony.

We can all have our personalized utopian goals - and they are pretty much all the same - but goals are not tactics or strategy and personal desires have to be delayed in the struggle for a general solution to the crises of the planet and of the human spirit. A strategy of resistance and effective tactics for the coming brutal struggles against Killer-Capitalism are what we need - not blabbering circular reasoning from shallow anarchists or the non-violence gurus with their Means-Are-the-Ends Tele-Tubbie hype.

A future of Anarchist principles?

Yes, a world of decentralized power and local autonomy is possibly 25-50 years away if people start thinking and create viable strategies now. What we face for the next 15 to 20 years is a bloody and probably futile struggle against a vicious and well-armed (weapons/propaganda) fascist regime: the USA Empire.

The USA movements for change, for Fair Trade and against Killer-Capitalism's wars and ecological destruction have to come together to oppose the USA Empire. To understand why this needs to happen and how it can be accomplished -- one must better understand the world.

It is limiting to think about the USA or national politics. It is better to not believe that the USA exists anymore. It is an empire of corporate, trade and, military alliances. This is what we fight and what must be addressed.

As Abe Lincoln said:

"Now We are engaged in a great civil (world) war - testing whether this movement (or any movement so conceived and so dedicated) can long endure..."
Chavez and many anti-globalization / Zapatista activists call this the Fourth World War (4WW). Six hundred million capitalists against the rest of the world's 6000 million (6 billion). (Note 1)

Cheer up, it is our great fortune that what we face is a global war - a war with and without borders, fronts or rears ... a war of everything against everything. Because in such a battle it is possible to mobilize within and to win. Whereas, politics and activism are completely dead in the USA and this is a permanent condition (Truth...) The USA has been moving to the right for 30 years. Surely since Reagan's victory in the 80's politics has been dead in the USA. All education since has failed...

The popularity and re-election/coronation of GW Bush should be enough evidence, but the power of the ultra-right and the rightwing in the USA Congress (& most states) makes the debate moot and tired. Authors have witnessed this death of compassion, virtue and political being in the USA: Petras, Cockburn, St.Clair, Rosenbraugh, Jensen... (Note 2) More sign on each week: Hertsgaard, Nordhaus, Shellenberger and Tariq Ali (Note 3)

(See the fascist John Kerry & the psychosis
that grows across the USA :

http://americas.org/item_15926) (Note 4)
What does it mean that Alabama voters (2004) refused to approve a constitutional amendment to erase segregation-era wording requiring separate schools for "white and colored children" and to eliminate references to the poll taxes once imposed to disenfranchise blacks.

Only through extending our conceptions of politics - which is another word for Power - extending it beyond the imaginary borders of nations can we create a better world. (Note 6)

The efforts of the thousands of foundations and NGOs in the USA and most countries have been extreme failures. If they do not wake up to their impotence and the raging power of GW Bush and the hungry USA consumers, then they are to blame for the genocide and ecocide that follows. (Note 7)

If USA activist groups are honest, then they will quickly admit that they have no meaningful goals and that their strategies of education or mobilization cannot overcome the strong right wing drift of US political culture. To apply outdated techniques of organizing or resisting against such a force is to make yourself and your power meaningless and impotent. To continue these strategies that knowingly waste money (power) and offer false hope, borders on the criminal. There is nothing people in the USA can do to stop USA imperialism and the destruction of the global environment from within the USA - unless you are considering armed struggle or being able to mobilize millions of protesters who want to be beaten and imprisoned.

... Or so logic and frankness would suggest. But we have a new idea that could re-invigorate and make powerful the movement for change in North America:

Everyone should cease working politically at any level in the USA. They should refrain from current forms of activism (ecological, social or cultural). Instead activists must put their energy, skills and finances into groups in South America: groups in the Andes and Venezuela.

Yes. ... The only activity of real value to changing the world - to defeating capitalism and militarism - is to form a fundraising group. (Note 8)

USA people give three to five billion dollars a year to environmental and social change groups, in the last year people gave the democratic party over 1 billion dollars. Imagine if 10 percent of this money went to actually building resistance in South America - 300 million dollars !!! (Note 9)
By organizing across artificial borders to build a vibrant and diverse alternative, the left in the USA, EU and in Latin America can change the dynamics and escape the Killer-Capitalists' traps. Inspiration and new spaces in which to accumulate power can be carved out of the Empire's weaknesses.
You might think that we are being extreme to say that there is nothing you can do in the USA to aid the Andean Region (or anywhere) through politics or education. Think about it... where are the lasting victories against USA imperialism and injustice? How can groups claim to have had any effect given the state of domestic politics and the foreign aggression of the USA today? (Not to mention the USA's 50 year record of international lawlessness!) (Note 10)

GW Bush's coronation speech should be enough of a warning that the USA intends to accelerate and expand their wars for oil - their wars of confusion and obfuscation - and the imperial wars of control and domination.

People can get together in cities across the USA and focus on something that produces effects and real signs of progress - like raising millions of dollars in aid for important groups in the Andes. Then they will have created a positive and growing movement in the USA and built up the Andean groups too.

This success would encourage more people to get involved and in the process they would learn about struggle, about the real issues facing those who want change and about the struggle in Latin America. The movement in both regions will grow and people will see what money and cooperation can do.
Videos, articles for publication and visits back and forth can build stronger ties and spread the word and inspire even more organizing, more donations and more tangible results.

Instead of growing frustrated with the defeats that are inevitable in the USA (failure to change anything) and the reality that protests and lobbying can actually backfire and encourage the right wing or the ignorant voters to fight change more, activists can feel good and earn strategic victories. These People to People - or Pueblo a People campaigns can be proud, positive and real. (NOTE 11.)

Move beyond political stalemate and make a real difference. Forget politics as you knew it - Do the politics of building resistance.

Forget politics, lobbying, forget all environmental, social justice and other organizing in the USA! It will never work - never change anything soon - and causes more problems than it solves. The Andes have a lot to teach us and a world to win - a dollar a year from every person in the USA could make the difference.

Take the power where you can find it!

-- "Her"story repeats, History kills...

In 1545, rich silver deposits were found at POTOSI in modern BOLIVIA. Silver mining peaked in 1590. In 1610 the city had 160.000 inhabitants, which made it the world's 5th largest city. It produced 60 % of the world's silver production. The silver was annually shipped to Spain from Maracaibo by the SILVER FLEET (Treasure Fleet). Around two billion ounces of silver were extracted from the city's Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) during the Spanish colonial era. Cerro Rico silver paved Potosi's streets, fuelled the European Renaissance and helped fund the "Invincible Armada", the Spanish fleet that sailed against Elizabethan England in 1588. But today Potosi is dying. "When a mine closes, all that's left is a ghost town," says the city's mayor, Ren? Joaquino. In 1572, in colonial times, Spanish Viceroy Francisco de Toledo created a system of forced labour called "la mita". Every seven years, for a period of four months, all males between 18 and 50 were ordered to work in the mines. They were paid a pittance and rarely saw the light of day. Eighty per cent of the male population of the 16 provinces of the viceroyalty of Peru died in these conditions. "Every peso coin minted in Potosi has cost the life of 10 Indians who have died in the depths of the mines," wrote Fray Antonio de la Calancha in 1638.

- Conclusion

-- To build a counter-power to the imperialist USA, activist groups need to reach beyond national boundaries to build strong alliances in Latin America with indigenous people (40 to 80 million people), workers in the Andes (30 to 40 million people), African descendants (100,000,000 to 120,000,000 people), and to finance aid programs with Venezuelan and Andean revolutionary groups.

Solidarity with these groups and the 200 million Latin American people trapped in neoliberal (USA-imposed) poverty can yield huge dividends abroad and within the USA.

Key Points - (Outline)

1. Social movements need to embrace a practical and focused goal of accumulating power in order to takeover governments.

2. Conventional politics and left-thinking in the USA are dead.

3. The only practical or effective means of altering the balance of power in the US or the world are armed struggle; relocating activists and supporters of change to states in the USA where they can seize power; or my thesis of massive financial aid to the revolutions in the Andes. Protests, lobbying and voting are stupid. They actually aid the power elite who want the appearance of democracy and opposition - as long as it can accomplish nothing.

4. Theleaders of USA environmental and justice groups are barriers to change. Most analysts accept this and the debate is whether to try new strategies or fall back on style and simply modify the current moderate plan of weakly merging the various issues together in a grand coalition with the moderate democrats - a strategy where victory becomes as meaningless as defeat!

(See Part II., Failure of Politics and Vision in North America : Tsunamis Inside the Criticisms of the Left: Venezuela versus the Shams of the World
http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=620562

or Notes 2 & 3)

5. The USA is an empire of corporate, trade and, military alliances.

6. Only through extending our conceptions of politics - which is another word for Power - extending it beyond the imaginary borders of nations can we create a better world. (Note 6)

The continuing series: Lessons Learned:

From The Failure of Politics and Vision in North America To the Steady Victories of the Social Movements in South America, -- by Mundo de Escuelas Revolucionarias (MER)

PART II. )) Tsunamis Inside the Criticisms of the Left: Venezuela versus the Shams of the World

PART 2 Lessons Learnedhttp://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=620562

PART III.)) -- The Real Left is Defined by Decentralization

PART IV.)) -- Why the Andes is the Best Target: Pre-emptive Revolutions

NOTES:

Note I. For Zapatistas see:
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/auto/fourth.html

For Anti-Globalization views see:
http://www.bignoisefilms.com/4ww/index.htm

For Hugo Chavez see: http://Chavez Economicswww.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1437

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Nobel peace prize winner for his work in raising the issue of human rights violations in Latin America, read the final conclusions of the forum, entitled "The Caracas Declaration." The declaration outlines the need to build a front of global resistance against the project of domination that today is imposed by the current government of the United States of America and global organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)."Let's get to work intensely," Chavez said. "Let's put the ideas concluded at this forum to work, let's make it a reality."

Note II. : James Petras see: Petras Website and Muy Mas www.rebelion.org

Alexander Cockburn and Jeffery St. Claire see: COUNTERPUNCH.ORG
Or: http://New Left Reviewwww.newleftreview.net/NLR26301.shtml

Derrick Jensen see: "I don't think most people care, and I don't think most people will ever care. We can trot out whatever polls we want to try to prove most Americans actually do care about the Environment, Justice, Sustainability - that they care about anything beyond being left alone to numb themselves with alcohol, cheap consumables, and television.
http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=336&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Or: http://WHy It Must End www.derrickjensen.org

Craig Rosenbraugh see: The Logic of Political Violence:
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/11/274922.shtml
Or: http://www.arissamediagroup.com

Note III. : Mark Hertsgaard see: http://www.markhertsgaard.com/Articles/2004/EnviroChallenge/

Michael Shellenberger see: http://www.thebreakthrough.org/

Ted Nordhaus see: http://www.alternet.org/story/19396/
Or: http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/little-doe/

Tarij Ali see: http://Why Activists Are Wrongwww.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1223

Note IV. : Kerry against Chavez: http://counterpunch.org/lahey10152004.html
The Fascist Democrats of Northern California: http://counterpunch.org/anderson10302004.html
A review of how evil the USA Democratic Party can be - but a flawed analysis of progressive hopes - Turning Up the Heat on Bush, by Robert L. Borosage
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050131&s=borosage

Bush and Kerry the Same on Palestine: http://counterpunch.org/assad10082004.html

Alexander Cockburn - Surrendering : http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR26301.shtml
The Cult of Clinton: http://counterpunch.org/scaramella11112004.html

Note V. : See polls on USA citizen ignorance on geography, War in Iraq and pretty much anything you can think of. Examine USA drug abuse (legal and illegal), prisoner abuse, obesity, psychological breakdowns and John Zerzan.
For a look at the delusions and voids in the USA-dominated anti-globalization movement see:
Naomi Klein - Ray Smith (November 25, 2004) (she bashes John Kerry, but doesn't grasp the problems of CAPITALISM! ,

http://NAomi Klein is Fearfulwww.marxist.com/Globalisation/klein_meeting_london.htm

Note VI. : Speech by Hugo Chavez: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/docs.php?dno=1011
Today, vis-?-vis the obvious failure of neoliberalism and the great threat that the International Economic Order represents for our countries, it is necessary to retake the Spirit of the South. That is where this Summit in Caracas is heading for. I propose to re-launch the G-15 as a South Integration Movement rather than a group. A movement for the promotion of all possible trends, who walks towards the Non-aligned Movement, the Group of 77, China... The entirely whole South!! I propose that we retake the proposals of the 1990 South Commission:

Note VII. : See: PART II. Tsunamis Inside the Criticisms of the Left: Venezuela versus the Shams of the World,
or The Nation, Jan. 3, 2005,
Mark Hertsgaard see: http://www.markhertsgaard.com/Articles/2004/EnviroChallenge/

Note VIII.: Andes Circle Aid Projects - www.andescircle.faces.com

Note IX.: If everyone in the USA gave on average one percent of their income to building a real resistance, the sum would equal 11 billion dollars a year. If 10 percent of the USA gave five percent of their income the sum would be 55 billion dollars or if five percent of the people gave 10 percent of their income it would equal 55 billion dollars. The government budgets of several Latin American governments are: Venezuela ($24 billion), Bolivia ($3 billion), Ecuador ($7 billion) and Peru ($12 billion) total of these 4 countries is 46 billion.

Note X.: -- Chalmers Johnson;
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/cj_int/cj_int2.html
Or any article from James Petras (Espanol Rebelion www.rebelion.org)

NOTE XI. Read about the thousands of volunteers who joined the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua from 1978 to 1990. We were there - it was unbelievable and far surpassed everything that has developed in Chiapas, Mexico, Zapatista land.

M..E..R.. -- Write:
MER Email: Mescuelas_revolt@yahoo.com

CONNECT*NG

Power: strength that comes- mastery of fear.
True for society as much as a person.
This path is found in the clarity of thought
and purpose. - Jason Martin

Posted by real-left at 2:50 AM EST

Updated: Sunday, 27 February 2005 9:45 PM EST

Share This Post
Post Comment | Permalink

Monday, 7 February 2005

Links To Papers
Topic: General Articles

Table of Contents - Master Blog

I.) ECONOMICS OF MER:

A.)) Caras Vuelvan - Solidarity Economics

English

Spanish

B.)) Criteria for Decision Making

C.)) Promotional FLyer - Media Promo

The MER Promo Art FLyer http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=592684

Criteria for Economics and Technology http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=600043

II.) New Economic Program of Mundos Escuelas Revolucionarias (MER)

English

New Economic Program MER http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=600035

Spanish

III.) Andes Circle - Fondos de Solidaridad Andino

ANDES AID PROJECTS www.andescircle.faces.com

THINGS THAT YOU CAN DO FOR THE ANDES!

http://THINGS THE ANDES NEEDS andescircle.faces.com/Blogs/207773.aspx

IV.) FSA - BOLIVIA

http://andescircle.faces.com/Blogs/193554.aspx

V.) FSA - PERU

VI.) Photo Album #1

www.circuloandino.zoto.com

VII.) Photo Album #2

Photos & Venezuela Info
www.zorpia.com/andescircle

HOT NEWER ARTICLES MER AND JASON MARTIN

Below is Economics Draft and February Adds for:

Caras de Comunidades: Economic Structures for Solidarity in a Social Economy -

http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=609470

Below is Master Blog link for MER 130

http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?topic_id=37406

Below is a Updated Solidarity Economics-

http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=600035

Below is link to Criteria - Eco - Econ & Tech ...
http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=600049

Below is PART II. ::

http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=620562

http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=620562

RESOURCES AND LINKS :

To See the main Appeal of FSA - Andes Circle - Funding Solidarity in the Andes

1. FSA - Fundos de Solidaridad Andino; Appeal and Who We Are:
http://andescircle.faces.com/Blogs/193554.aspx

2. Cuba - Venezueal Treaties and James Petras on the legitimacy of the Colombian guerrilla FARC - EP and their struggle

http://andescircle.faces.com/Blogs/193554.aspx

Or for the full article see:
4.) Cuba and Venezuela slam US Free Trade Area of the Americas

Dec 15, VHeadline.com; Reporters Russian PRAVDA:

2.) Participatory Democracy in Venezuela, part 3
Problems and Opportunities for Citizen Power in Venezuela
http://andescircle.faces.com/Blogs/193554.aspx

3. Struggles in the Venezuealn Central Bank see comment for above:
Comments to andescircle

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

andescircle Tuesday, Dec 28 2004, 05:17:08 PM

http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=23963

Cuba and Venezuela slam US Free Trade Area of the Americas PRAVDA correspondent Hernan Etchaleco writes: Both nations proposed a more equal alternative based in mutual cooperation rather than in pure pro-market policies. Venezuela promised financing for Cuban industrial and infrastructure projects, while Cuba agreed to pay a minimum price of US$27 per barrel of Venezuelan oil, as part of the accord "to apply the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) ."

5.) Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) capitulates to President's $1 billion demand to help Venezuela's poor.
http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=23976

6. Miscellaneous Venezuela Info:
http://zorpia.com/cgi/member.cgi?username=andescircle&type=journal
http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=23963

7. January Version of Mundos de Escuelas Revolucionarias ( MER ) economics program:
http://andescircle.faces.com/Blogs/193554.aspx

8. See comment of above for Misc. Notes on MER program.

9. Things to Do to help Andes Circle and the ANDES:
http://andescircle.faces.com/Blogs/207773.aspx

10. The Venezuelan Model of Development: The Path of Solidarity
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1189

Jun 02, 2004 By: Felipe P?rez Mart? - "Vuelvan Caras" Mission

11. Photos of Farming in the Andes
http://andescircle.faces.com/Images/70157.aspx

12. Venezuela's Human Development Index: A Lesson in the Malleability of Statistics
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1220

Jul 19, 2004 By: Jonah Gindin - Venezuelanalysis.com

13. The Greening of Venezuela - Agrarian Cooperatives, by David Raby
Greeniong of Venezuelahttp://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1226

In the past fifteen months the government has begun to redistribute uncultivated land from private.
estates or public lands to poor peasants and landless labourers.

14. Chavez calls for Anti-Globalization Office:

Chaveaz Calls for Anti-Globalization Officehttp://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1437

15. Issues in Mountain Regions (Panos)

Issues in Mountain Regions (Panos) http://mer130.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=600049

16. F.O.S. -- Belgium Development Group With Good Program and Perspectives (Works in Bolivia)

http://FOS Development Org - NGOandescircle.faces.com/Blogs.aspx

Posted by real-left at 10:38 PM EST

Share This Post
Post Comment | Permalink

Newer | Latest | Older

«	July 2009					»

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31