South African unionists refuse to move Chinese arms bound for Zimbabwe [updated]

A boat carrying an arms shipment destined for Zimbabwe is anchored at the South African port of Durban. However the South African Transport Workers’ Union has already announced that their members will not offload any of the cargo, nor will any of their truckers transport it. The shipment containing “3 million rounds of ammunition for AK47 rifles (the standard assault weapon for the country’s defence forces), 1,500 rocket propelled grenades, a support weapon for the infantry, and 3,500 mortar bombs is one of two coming from Chinese para-statal Ocean State Shipping company, the other of which is reported as being en route to Beira, Mozambique.

Amidst reports that AK47 wielding supporters of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF roam the country attempting to intimidate opposition supporters, and President Mugabe remaining adament he will remain in power, the South African trade unionists have announced they disagree with South Africa remaining neutral in the conflict, and have refused to move the arms that they believe could be used against opponents of Mugabe.

The South African Government is refusing to intervene in the transportation of arms, saying that any interference would jeopardise their role in facilitating talks with Mugabe. After several private logistics firms backed out of transporting the shipment, citing the inability of the Zimbabwean Government to pay, South African state-owned Armscor’s transport wing, AB Logistics has been approached with the job. South African Defence secretary January Masilela confirmed that the scrutiny committee of the national conventional arms-control committee, which he chairs, had approved the conveyance permit already, and that the cargo would need to be inspected and have a permit endorsed by the committee when it meets next month.It has also been reported that 10 Chinese soldiers armed with pistols have been seen in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.

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Scottish Sunday Herald (Apr. 20)

Dock workers and police send China arms ship packing from South African port

Unions successfully defy President Mbeki's wishesFrom Fred Bridgland in Johannesburg

A CHINESE ship carrying arms for President Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe was today steaming northwards through the Indian Ocean after dockers and police in the South African port of Durban refused to unload the cargo vessel.

The ship's departure came as Zimbabwe yesterday began a partial recount of votes from the March 29 elections, despite opposition efforts to block the move and widespread fears that political stalemate could erupt into violence.

The recount in 23 of 210 constituencies could overturn the results of the parliamentary election, which have not so far been officially announced. It is generally believed that they show Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF clearly losing its majority to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change for the first time.

"The vote recounting process has started, and it's going to be a thorough exercise. We expect it to take about three days," said an official from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

The commission says some foreign observers will be allowed to monitor the recount, but concerns continue in the West and among the opposition that Mugabe's government is planning to rig the outcome.

A delegation from the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) will be present, with South Africa's foreign affairs deputy director-general for Africa, Kingsley Mamabolo, leading the mission. It is unclear, however, when the results of the recount, which includes votes cast in the presidential election, will be announced.

Meanwhile, the humiliating retreat of the Chinese vessel the An Yue Jiang may yet come to be seen as a turning point in the struggle to bring an end to the 29-year Mugabe regime.

The dockers and police defied South African president Thabo Mbeki and his African National Congress (ANC) government, who said the 77 tonnes of weapons for the Mugabe government aboard the An Yue Jiang were legal cargo and would be transported 1000 miles overland northwards to Zimbabwe.

The South African government gave customs clearance for the weapons, which include more than three million rounds of AK-47 rifle ammunition, 1500 rocket-propelled grenades and more than 3000 mortar rounds and launchers.

But Randall Howard, general secretary of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu), to which the Durban dockers belong, warned: "As far as we are concerned, the containers will not be offloaded. The ship must return to China. If they the Mbeki government bring replacement labour to do the work, our members will not stand and look at them and smile."

South Africa's police trade union warned Mbeki, widely seen as sympathetic to Mugabe, against using policemen as "scab" labour.

"The dockers have good reasons for not offloading the ship," said Benzi Soko, spokesman for the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru). "We understand their objection."

South Africa is seen as the one country that could bring the Mugabe government to its knees and force it to hold truly free and fair elections that could see opposition movements take power. They would be faced with reconstructing a country with 1650% inflation, 82% unemployment and the world's lowest life expectancy among women - 34 years, against nearly 60 at independence in 1980.

It was the former white apartheid government in South Africa that forced the white colonial regime led by Ian Smith in Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia, to negotiate a transfer of power to black nationalists after Pretoria's decision to stop supplying weapons to Smith and cut off other essential supplies.

Analysts argue that South Africa, the continent's economic superpower, could bring the same pressure to bear on Mugabe if Mbeki so chose.

But Mbeki has opted for a policy of "quiet diplomacy" towards Zimbabwe, which is widely seen as a tilt towards Mugabe for reasons that no analyst has yet fully fathomed.

Many South Africans are disillusioned with this approach. They accuse Mbeki of emphasising loyalty to Mugabe, a former black liberation struggle icon, over the rights of ordinary Zimbabweans.

And last weekend, when Mbeki flew north to meet Mugabe prior to a summit of 14 southern African leaders in Zambia, he emerged from their talks holding Mugabe's hand and said that there was "no crisis" in Zimbabwe.

Mbeki's utterance drew strong international condemnation, but it particularly angered South Africans, who daily see the obvious proof of a crisis in the three million Zimbabwean refugees - a quarter of Zimbabwe's population - in their country, begging at almost every crossroads.

Many senior figures in the ANC, from the leadership of which Mbeki was ousted last December over issues that included Zimbabwe, have contradicted his position.

ANC leader Jacob Zuma, who hopes to succeed Mbeki as state president when the latter's term of office expires in a year's time, last week spoke of a "deepening crisis" in Zimbabwe, a blunt rebuttal of Mbeki's "no crisis" declaration.

Zuma recognises the groundswell of public opinion in South Africa for strong action to be taken against Mugabe. Many of the Zimbabwean refugees, whose numbers swell by more than 4000 each day, are blamed by South Africans for increasing crime and draining social services.

Mbeki, chairing a session of the UN General Assembly in New York last week, sat stony-faced when the British prime minister Gordon Brown, just two places away from Mbeki, said it was obvious that Mugabe was trying to overturn an election that had gone against him.

"No-one thinks, having seen the results at polling stations, that President Mugabe has won this election," Brown said. "A stolen election would not be a democratic election at all."

Mbeki subsequently cancelled a scheduled meeting with Brown and, using South Africa's rotating membership of the Security Council, he blocked the council from addressing the Zimbabwe issue.

Assumption and Ignorance Versus Reason and Reality

From the WSM Homepage.

The following letter came from a contact who apparently chose not to read the literature sent to him, or assumed that the literature did not represent the actual ideas of the World Socialist Movement (WSM).

It is reproduced here, with the response from the Socialist Party of Canada, in the hope that others, somewhat more willing to reason, are willing to at least hear the socialist case of the World Socialist Movement and perhaps consider it on its merits rather than assuming that they have the ability to understand what we are about, without reading what we have to say.

You cannot possibly understand the contradiction inherent in your sending me, with the hopes of influencing my thinking, your fascist tripe.

I have been studying Liberty and Individual Freedom for 35 years, and there is nothing new about socialism you could possibly teach me. Therein lies a curiosity: if one studies Liberty, one learns about the vile nature of socialism, but apparently if one studies socialism one learns nothing about Freedom. This of course is because in the first place the necessity is innate; in the second it is willful blindness. The purpose of Liberty is Individual Freedom; the purpose of socialism is slavery. The two philosophies are diametrically opposed. Yet they are the only choices available to humanity. Freedom or Slavery. And if one studies slavery, e.g. U.S.S.R., China, Rumania, Albania, Cuba, Attila the Hun, you will inexorably discover the core evil of socialism. I can well understand your not considering the possibilities of Good & Evil. How could you live? You should, however, because that way you could label your shit good, and my good evil.

You can sit there in Victoria, B.C. and watch what has happened to the economic and social stability of Canada, where by virtue of the Welfare State (socialism), the State has taken control of the means of production of wealth, by the simple expedient of sucking the privately produced wealth out of the nation in the name of socialist morality to the point where this nation is technically bankrupt; fiscally, morally and intellectually, and still expound your stillborn ethics?

Ayn Rand, (remember her?) wrote the good is that which is good for Life: Evil is that which is detrimental to Life. In you philosophy, of course, it is YOU who would manage our society, because essential socialism demands management, which means regulation, which means control, which means slavery. It specifically denies the Nature of the Beast, which is naturally Freedom.

In Liberty men act freely and benefit personally from the proceeds of their effort, their skill, their knowledge, their time; in short, their lives. Socialism holds that to be (I won't say evil) immoral. By whose code of morality?

By the way, shouldn't morality be inherent in nature? Why does man have to invent and impose morality? And wouldn't morality, if it were inherent in nature simply be "the entity living precisely according to its nature?" The wolf, in killing and eating the doe-eyed Bambi deer, is being absolutely moral in the most profound sense of that word: he is doing exactly what he must do according to his nature.

By that measure, perhaps you are doing what you must do according to your nature, and if that is true, then perhaps you should simply hang yourself. That would be the most moral act you would ever perform in your entire misbegotten life.

Socialism has robbed every single individual Canadian, (and that is all we are, individuals) past, present and generations to come, of over 50% of their Life values. They have worked, which is their nature, and have had over 50% of their produce extorted, expropriated, and confiscated out of their lives. Your solution is to give us more of the same, but under YOUR direction.

Take a good look in the mirror Mister, and tell me you like what you see. If you do, I will show you a moral abomination devoid of even a shred of conscience.

Yours truly,
FT

At the outset it is important to note that the World Socialist Movement (WSM) offers no apologies for other groups claiming to be socialist, or for definitions of "socialism" which differ from ours. The WSM is responsible only for its own actions and principles, and can be rationally judged only on the basis of those actions and principles.

It is impossible for anyone or any group to defend itself against accusations that it is lying, except to show a consistent historical record of its claims and statements, and to be completely open to investigation. The WSM has this record for anyone to review. There are over a thousand issues of the Socialist Standard dating back to 1904. There are hundreds of issues of our other journals. Every WSM meeting is open to the public (including the boring business meetings).

Point-by-point responses to FT's letter.

…your fascist tripe…

dictionary: FASCISM: Any authoritarian system of government characterized by state economic control, militaristic nationalism, propaganda, and the crushing of opposition.

dictionary: PROPAGANDA: scheme or effort to spread or promote an idea or opinion.

The World Socialist Movement (WSM) in its 90+ years of existence has always opposed the state, militarism, nationalism, nations, and the crushing of opposition.

Propaganda is a major activity for the WSM, although the size of the WSM currently prevents significant spread of our propaganda.

…there is nothing new about socialism you could possibly teach me…

If FT does not wish to learn, the WSM can teach him nothing. There was a time when the vast majority believed that the earth was flat. Some decided to review the facts. Many people now do not believe that the earth is flat.

Knowing about what others (or FT) say is socialism does not, in any way, mean that one knows about what the WSM has to say about socialism. FT evidences absolutely no understanding of what the WSM has to say.

The purpose of Liberty is Individual Freedom; the purpose of socialism is slavery…

It is irrational to claim that socialist society, without government, with only voluntary labour, where every individual has an equal say in how society works, is slavery. Socialism means far more individual liberty than workers can possibly have under capitalism.

…they are the only choices available to humanity. Freedom or Slavery. And if one studies slavery, e.g. U.S.S.R., China, Rumania, Albania, Cuba, Attila the Hun, you will inexorably discover the core evil of socialism.

Because the WSM has stated its reasons (from day one) for claiming that none of the above mentioned are or were socialist, and because our literature (and understanding of socialism) opposes the underlying structures of FT's examples, we cannot understand how any of them display any supposed "core evil of socialism".

It is perhaps interesting to note that FT does not mention any of the avowedly capitalist states which display many (or perhaps all) of his supposed "evils".

…what has happened to the economic and social stability of Canada…

This has nothing to do with socialism, which is not in existence anywhere.

…the Welfare State (socialism)…

FT is free to define anything he wants as socialism, even though it is not useful to the rational exchange of ideas. The WSM has never considered the Welfare State to be anything but a capitalist measure to prevent socialism. Nor has the WSM at any time promoted any of the concepts of the Welfare State, such as state sponsored education, state welfare payments, old age security schemes, unemployment insurance, state paid medical coverage.

…the State has taken control of the means of production of wealth, by the simple expedient of sucking the privately produced wealth out of the nation…

The Canadian state has done no such thing. In the few cases where the state does control production, it is simply to benefit the other private owners of the means of production. As the power of the different sectors of the capitalist class changes, so do those industries controlled directly, and or regulated by the state. It is difficult to lend much credence to FT's claim when it is clear that the extremely rich are still extremely rich.

…socialist morality…

The WSM makes no claims to "morality". The WSM has always claimed that morality (as understood by most) is not a driving social factor (more on this later), but instead that economic conditions drive most everything and that economic and individual self-interest, not morality, is the motivator for socialism.

…it is YOU who would manage our society…

The WSM has always held that socialism can only be established by a vast majority of society and that a 51% majority (for example) was far from adequate to enable the establishment of socialism.

The WSM has always promoted its own demise because in socialism political parties will no longer be necessary or useful. Also, in a society where each individual has equal decision making power, how would a minority have any special power other than perhaps that given to it, by the majority, on a temporary basis?

FT also suggests that today (or somehow under capitalism) society belongs to us—the working class—when he says "our society". Society has, as long as it has been class divided, been the society of the class(es) at the top, the other class(es) had no real ownership or control of society, no matter what the prevailing myths claimed. Society today belongs to the capitalist class.

In Liberty men act freely and benefit personally from the proceeds of their effort, their skill, their knowledge, their time; in short, their lives.

Sounds like socialism to us. We are aware of no place on the planet today where working people can find that "the proceeds of their effort, their skill, their knowledge, their time" are rewarded anywhere close to proportionally to the benefits received by the capitalist class.

For example, is FT claiming that the capitalist who has wealth of $10 billion dollars, has worked 50,000 times harder than the person who has worked all their life to (maybe) own a home and little else? Is FT claiming that the wealthy person's effort, skill, knowledge and time, all combined are worth 50,000 times more than most other people's?

Socialists suggest that there is something considerably more significant than effort, skill, knowledge and time, involved in accumulating wealth. That something is exploitation—the employment relation itself.

The wolf, in killing and eating the doe-eyed Bambi deer, is being absolutely moral…

Finally something the WSM can agree with.

The morality of a society is what that society—in reality—allows and promotes. It is not some eternal "right" or "wrong". In society today the capitalist mode of production, including employment and poverty amidst vast wealth, is moral. War is moral. Environmental destruction is moral.

As different groups gain sway in society, morality changes (at least the perception thereof). Remember that the perception can change, and that what is implemented as a moral imperative today, can be extinguished as immoral (unnecessary) tomorrow. That is why so called social security programs (the welfare state) come and go.

At no time in the existence of capitalism, has morality opposed capitalism. In fact, until the working class puts aside the myths of current society, including its morality, capitalism will not be in any danger, and socialism cannot come into existence.

Socialism has robbed every single individual Canadian…

Socialism has not been established, it is capitalism which has robbed people, by the very nature of the employment relation. Employment only works when a worker is producing more value than the worker is paid.

…that is all we are, individuals…

More agreement.

However, current society does not promote real individuality. It is much more profitable to convince people that the beer they drink or the car they drive (exactly the same as tens of thousands of others) is a person's mark of individuality. It isn't in current society's interest to have individual workers who openly disagree with what the boss wants. In socialism there won't be any bosses.

They have worked, which is their nature…

Another point of agreement. People work because it is natural for them to do so. It is the nature of work under capitalism that many dislike.

Your solution is to give us more of the same, but under YOUR direction.

Socialism will be a very different society than capitalism.

The people in the current WSM expect to have one vote in socialist society. Considering that if socialism is established tomorrow there would be about five and a half billion voters, that does not bode well for our non-existent desire for control.

The WSM has no leaders today, or ever in its 90+ years, because socialists oppose leadership.

Take a good look in the mirror Mister, and tell me you like what you see…

The socialist looks in the mirror and sees a person who is working to create a society in which they will be an individual, similar to several billion other individuals, with the same social privileges and social responsibilities. The socialist sees a person with individual abilities to volunteer to society and individual needs to be satisfied by society. The socialist sees a person who prizes their own individuality, and understands that they can best exploit it in a society which revels in real individuality and responsibility.

The socialist likes that.

The socialist also sees a reasonable individual who is disturbed that some people prefer to assume they know what the socialist is thinking,—based upon what non-socialists claim is socialism—rather than to actually find out what the socialist is talking about.

The socialist hopes that reason will prevail, because there is so much to gain, individually and collectively.

What’s the Matter with Pennsylvania?

From our friend at Marx and Coca Cola

Recently at a campaign event Barack Obama made the following comment about the dying Rust Belt towns in Pennsylvania:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

I couldn't agree more (except for the gun part. People like guns, because like cigarettes, they're cool). The goal of this blog is to channel working class bitterness away from religion and xenophobia into actual constructive action (I admit it's a long term project). According to a McCain spokesman that makes me a latte-drinking, New York Times reading, Volvo driving liberal freak show:

"It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking," [Steve] Schmidt said. "It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans."

This from a candidate that thinks everything is going great in Iraq.

Hillary, who's made 109 million dollars since leaving the White House, also disagrees:

"Well, that is not my experience," she said. "As I travel around Pennsylvania I meet people who are resilient, optimistic, positive, who are rolling up their sleeves. They are working hard every day for a better future for themselves and their children"

Move along. Nothing to see here. Everything is fine. People are working harder, but for a lot less then they used to. Not for a better future, but just to keep their heads above water. Obama with his typical silver tongue, fired back in Indiana:

"When I go around and I talk to people there is frustration and there is anger and there is bitterness. And what's worse is when people are expressing their anger then politicians try to say what are you angry about? This just happened - I want to make a point here today.

"I was in San Francisco talking to a group at a fundraiser and somebody asked how're you going to get votes in Pennsylvania? What's going on there? We hear that's its hard for some working class people to get behind you're campaign. I said, "Well look, they're frustrated and for good reason. Because for the last 25 years they've seen jobs shipped overseas. They've seen their economies collapse. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their pensions. They have lost their healthcare.

"And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said we're going to make your community better. We're going to make it right and nothing ever happens. And of course they're bitter. Of course they're frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you. And so people end up- they don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody's going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington. So I made this statement– so, here's what's rich. Senator Clinton says 'No, I don't think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack's being condescending.' John McCain says, 'Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he's obviously out of touch with people.'

"Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain–it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he's saying I'm out of touch? Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I'm out of touch? No, I'm in touch. I know exactly what's going on. I know what's going on in Pennsylvania. I know what's going on in Indiana. I know what's going on in Illinois. People are fed-up. They're angry and they're frustrated and they're bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that's why I'm running for President of the United States of America."

As I've said before I like Obama's populist rhetoric. It will probably carry him to the White House. His actual policies, however, aren't much of a change from the liberal consensus. So when he says "And so people end up- they don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody's going to help them." he's not quite right. The working class can't vote their economic interest, because even Democrats, like Obama, believe that the market is a force of nature. You may be able to cover people's head, but you can't stop the rain from falling. Us working folk shouldn't expect the government (or religion, or nationalism) to save us. So we'll have to find another way.

Global protests over food prices, low wages

From our website:

Members of a union representing the workers of the indigenous Kanak population in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia have been forcibly removed by local police for blocking entry to more than two dozen businesses, according to a report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The workers were protesting for the right to strike after several union members had previously been punished for similar work stoppages.

The ABC report mentioned the claim of the local French employer's group, Medef, that "the workers were punished for unjustified absences from work during an illegal strike," and added that "In January, about 30 people were hurt when clashes erupted after police used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up a strike by transport workers."

In another news piece, from just a few days earlier, we learn that law enforcers in New Caledonia are to soon be equipped with electric shock "taser" guns: "Oceania Flash reports the first law enforcers to be equipped with tasers will be police agents and gendarmes military intervention groups."

Turning to Bangladesh, this past Saturday near the capital Dhaka about 20,000 workers rioted over high food prices and low wages. According to police chief Bhuiyan Mahbub Hasan, quoted in a news report, "About 20,000 textile workers from more than a dozen factories went on the rampage in Fatullah, 20 kilometres (12 miles) south of Dhaka, demanding better pay amid soaring rice prices."

These are just two examples of a string of protests and actions happening across the globe over rising food prices and low wages—in the South Pacific islands, other parts of Asia, Haiti, throughout Africa, and elsewhere. Head of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick has stated that the rapid rise in food prices could push 100 million people in poor countries deeper into poverty, and has called for a "new deal" to boost monetary aid and agricultural policy to these countries affected by the rising food costs. However, no amount of scams, schemes, or "new deals" offered by the idle, parasitic capitalist class are going to solve or even truly alleviate these problems, as they arise from the very nature of capitalism itself.

Socialists have long contended that that the ability already exists to produce an abundance over what is necessary to feed the global population. The problem is the current economic system, which is based on the private ownership of the means of life and the production using these means for the sake of profit, rather than human needs. As our fellow workers across the globe react to confront the encroachments of a chaotic economic system, they are met with violent resistance by the owning classes, highlighting the true nature of a class-divided society. What is required is an understanding by the majority of workers of the true nature of the current system of production, and an understanding of and desire to replace it with a more just system of common ownership, which we call "socialism."

"Naturally," as Engels wrote in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, "the workers are perfectly free; the manufacturer does not force them to take his materials and cards, but he says to them: 'If you don't like to be frizzled in my frying-pan, you can take a walk into the fire."

J.B.

Breaking News: SEIU invades Labor Notes

From our website:

10:30 PM Saturday April 12

The Service Employees Industrial Union (SEIU) has sent in several bus loads of members to disrupt the annual meeting of Labor Notes in Detroit. The Labor Notes conference is one of the most important gatherings of rank and file labor activists in Canada and the US.

Friends of the WSP at the conference report that an SEIU activist bloodied a 70+ year old female member of Labor Notes.

This is an episode in a conflict between the California Nurses Association (Labor Notes vesion) and SEIU (SEIU version) as well as Labor note's support of a dissident leader within SEIU. The leader of the CNA and the dissident SEIU leader had been scheduled to be at the Labor Notes annual meeting.

Whatever the dispute, this is a disgraceful return to the labor thuggery of the mid-20th Century labor movement.

We'll update this post as more information is learned.

Update 1 (11:30 PM Pacific)

Discussion on the conflict between SEIU and CNA available here.

Update 2 (8:45 AM Pacific)

From Labor Notes website:

SEIU International Backs Away From Debate, Disrupts 2008 Labor Notes Conference

SEIU protesters attempt to storm the banquet at the 2008 Labor Notes Conference. Photo: Jim West.

When you are trying to put the movement back into the labor movement, you're going to meet resistance. Labor Notes supporters are no strangers to heated debate—and the SEIU International is not the first union to protest at our conference. During the 1980s, for example, we saw opponents of the New Directions Movement inside the United Auto Workers put up picket lines outside our conference hotel and had BLAST—the Brotherhood of Loyal Americans and Strong Teamsters—try to intimidate Teamster reformers attending our events.

People are going to disagree and that is fine. There is no idea that can't be discussed at a Labor Notes conference. We welcome debate on any and all issues facing the labor movement, including the heated dispute between the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) and the leaders of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) over the best way to build power for health care workers. But that debate must take place with respect and free from intimidation. Despite being welcomed to the conference earlier in the day—and given space to debate supporters of the CNA/NNOC about neutrality organizing agreements—SEIU staff and members shouted down speakers at workshops and panels throughout the event.

At our Saturday night banquet hundreds of SEIU protesters stormed into our conference and confronted our volunteers and supporters. In 29 years we have never had a group of protesters attack our conference or the brothers and sisters who attend it. Violence has no place within our labor movement, and we call on the national leadership of SEIU, including President Andy Stern, to repudiate it.

11:30 AM Pacific

For Immediate Release
April 12, 2008
Contact Chris Kutalik 313-378-2588 or Mischa Gaus 773-627-3205

SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION ATTACKS LABOR GATHERING CONFERENCE-GOERS ASSAULTED
Dearborn, MI—The Service Employees International Union turned their dispute with the California Nurses Association violent by attacking a labor conference April 12, injuring several and sending an American Axle striker to the hospital.

A recently retired member of United Auto Workers Local 235, Dianne Feeley, suffered a head wound after being knocked to the ground by SEIU International staff and local members. Other conference goers—members of the Teamsters, UAW, UNITE HERE, International Longshoremen's Association, and SEIU itself—were punched, kicked, shoved, and pushed to the ?oor. Dearborn police responded and evicted the three bus loads of SEIU International staff and members of local and regional health care unions. No arrests were made.

The assault took place at the Labor Notes conference, a biennial gathering of 1,100 union members and leaders who met to discuss strategies to rebuild the labor movement.

David Cohen, an international representative of the United Electrical Workers, asked protesters why they came. He said one responded, "they told us just to get on the bus."

The protesters included several members with young children, who had to be ushered away when SEIU tried to force their way into the conference banquet hall. Protesters were targeting Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the AFL-CIO-af?liated CNA. DeMoro was scheduled to speak but declined to appear after threats were made against her union's leadership.

Despite being welcomed to the conference earlier in the day—and given space to debate supporters of the CNA and the National Nurses Organizing Committee about neutrality organizing agreements—SEIU international and regional staff shouted down speakers at workshops and panels throughout the event.

"Labor Notes has always been a space for open debate, but when a union decides to engage in violence against their brothers and sisters, we draw a line," said Mark Brenner, director of Labor Notes. "Violence within the labor movement is unacceptable and we call on the national leadership of SEIU, including President Andy Stern, to repudiate it."

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April 14

Conference-Goers Push for Labor Solidarity, Rebound From Disruption

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— The Labor Notes Staff

More than 1,000 union activists and supporters met at the Labor Notes conference April 11-13 to strategize and debate how to rebuild the labor movement's power.

Media attention has been given to the attempted disruption of the conference by several hundred staffers and members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—some of whom became violent when conference participants refused to allow the chanting protesters to enter the hotel's banquet hall. (See full story.)

The fact is, however, that the business of the conference went on as planned. With the exception of a handful of earlier workshops in which speakers were shouted down by SEIU staffers, participants gathered in 110 meetings with members of their own unions and across unions, learned nuts-and-bolts tactics, debated grand strategies, networked, agreed, disagreed, and inspired each other.

A few highlights:

• About 250 participants swelled the American Axle workers' picket line in Detroit during the Saturday lunch break. A half-dozen amazed American Axle workers, who have been on strike for seven weeks, later came to the conference to be presented with Labor Notes' "Troublemaker" award.
• Rail workers from seven different unions founded Railroad Workers United, a cross-union solidarity caucus aiming to counter the frequent feuding and disunity among rail unions.
• Participants came from 21 countries, including Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Brazil, and China.
• Telecom workers held a special half-day meeting to strategize over upcoming contract expirations and restructuring changes in the their industry.
• A linked set of workshops on Chinese labor issues drew new participants who debated how to relate to the world's largest workforce.
• Another set of meetings on Black workers' issues drew African American labor activists into a unique cross-union dialogue.
• A reception for the Freightliner Five—union officers fired last year in Cleveland, North Carolina, for leading a one-day strike—drew both fellow UAW members and those concerned about organizing in the South.
• A workshop titled "Neutrality Agreements and Organizing Deals: Salvation or Sell-Out?" drew more than a hundred to debate both principles and practical results.
• The percentage of the conference made up of young people was much larger than in recent years. In the Bay Area and Portland, local support committees organized ahead of time to enable big crews of hotel workers and building trades apprentices to attend.
• "Troublemaker" awards were given to John Sferazo, an Ironworker and 9/11 responder who fought for compensation for workers disabled by their work at Ground Zero; the United Workers, a scrappy group that won a living wage for the day laborers who clean Camden Yards in Baltimore; the Taxi Workers Alliance, which organizes New York City's immigrant cabbie workforce; and American Axle strikers.

The conference was dedicated to Santiago Rafael Cruz, an organizer for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee in Mexico, who was murdered by employer-paid thugs.

Perhaps surprising, given the weakened state of the labor movement, is the fact that this was the largest Labor Notes conference since 1997, with more than 1,000 registrants. Although discussions were sober, participants still found inspiration in encountering so many others who were, as one session was titled, "troublemaking for the long haul."

Wage Slavery in America: 90¢ an Hour and -20°F

“This video is about a Red Pill reporters trip to southern Wyoming and the worker abuses he found in the sheep herder camps. All workers were here legally on H2A work Visa’s and the guides for the Red Pill were former Chilean sheep herders who wanted to speak out about the abuse they went through. Workers for the camps are usually brought in from Mexico, Chile, Peru and Ecuador. Times are changing however, and now sheep ranchers are going to Nepal to find workers to import for labor. These men are on the job 7 days a week 24 hours a day this translates into a dismal wage of 90 cents an hour.”

Nationalism and culture

Socialist Standard, March '08

Nationalism is a perversion of a shared identity in the interest of some local elite.

Home – where the heart is; the place with overtones of permanence, belonging, security, comfort, childhood memories, bonds between people, familiarity with how things are done, habits and customs taken for granted. People go home, go back to family, village, mountains woods, familiar streets, smells, sounds, to the things that framed them and in doing so strengthen the impressions of who they are and what they stand for. Different worldwide communities share a culture of 'going home' for high days and holidays, religious festivals or annual visits. Airports, seaports, train and bus stations are crowded at certain times with passengers loaded with their symbols of how good it will be to be together again. Home is where differences and similarities are known; not automatically accepted, respected or approved but understood without explanation; the background culture, the very fabric of the culture being so second nature that words aren't necessary to express fundamental emotions.

For millions living in exile with only memories of home, painful memories of seeing family members taken away, tortured, killed, for children born in refugee camps and now old enough to be parents themselves in the same camps, never having seen anything of their homeland, home conjures up images of lost and stolen lives, physical pain and deep emotional scars. Traditions and places only heard of now and little expectation of ever being able to reclaim them. In these situations home for the child is not the home of the parent. However hard the parent tries, however passionate their ties to their original life, the child's impressions can only be second hand, severely lacking in emotional sustenance, expectations manufactured out of hope. For migrants, both forced and voluntary, 'home' may be different for parents and children. Having emigrated or relocated internally the parents' notions of home are 'there' but for the children born in a new place it is 'here'. Which team shall they support? Where shall their allegiance lie?

In a broader context home may be perceived as a wider geographical area, a country, a homeland standing for something more than a family's local community. The 'one-world' home, in common to all of the human species, has 200 or so artificially created entities called 'nations', almost all armed and ready to arrest or attack anyone who crosses a boundary without permission, the same boundary showing little or no obstacle to trade or capital or wealth. What is it a nation offers its individual inhabitants and what is their offering to it? What do they require from their country and it from them? The country is a geographical, physical place; large, small, populous or sparse, barren or lush, mountainous, coastal, frozen, earthquake-prone, temperate, fertile or harsh, requiring nurture, husbandry, protection. Physically it can offer minerals and crops depending on its situation and in proportion to the care given it. The shared identity of the inhabitants of the nation will be as has developed over generations – history, customs, religion, community relations, occupations, way of thinking – something impossible to enforce as empire builders and nation creators have been reluctant to accept. A shared identity with universal, mutual respect and acceptance cannot be enforced. It is surely the shared identity, that elusive quality, love of one's birthplace, hopes, dreams, aspirations, that people feel when they talk of 'their country', the tangible and intangible connections.

Mark Twain said that the country is the real thing to be watched over, cared for, that the institutions, the government are extraneous. Confusion of the country with its institutions brings the problems of nationalism and patriotism, "my country, right or wrong". One of the (ill)-effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of sense of proportion as in the justification of the invasions responsible for the killing of tens of thousands in Afghanistan and Iraq because around 3,000 people died in U.S. on 9/11/2001. Fighting for a country, dying for what? – the pursuit of happiness? – brings grief and despair to both sides. One nation's moral purpose, promoting democracy, saving lives, eliminating threats, is recognised by another nation merely as expansionism, access to vital resources, a way of diverting attention from domestic issues. One side's vision of globalisation for humanity's sake is felt as rape, plunder and aggressive war by the other. Nationalism, whilst a powerful tool of oppression, was created in part as a defence against imperialism and colonialism, against dominance from outside and in fear of being denied the rights of self-determination. It manifests itself like a sophisticated tribalism, with pride, tradition, attitudes of superiority, patriotism, national security, enemies real and imagined, flag-draped buildings, glorification of all things military and biased history tying populations into misconceptions of themselves and others.

Xenophobia becomes a useful ally in promoting nationalism. In the early 1700s Jonathan Swift recommended it in "The Examiner" thus – "the first principle of patriotism is to resent foreigners." This method, of setting one section of population against another, has been used ultra-successfully all around the world – so successfully that great swathes of people can now rouse themselves, with no apparent external cue, against the newest threat, the most recent immigrant group, asylum seekers, anyone who looks or sounds like they may be from a group that's not their own. In one part of the world Arab look-alikes are held to be suspicious – in another an American accent is not welcome. Groups engineered to see themselves in opposition to others, in manufactured fear. Or fear of fear. And those who dare question the status quo become unpatriotic internal defectors. Enemies are required by the state elites. Enemies within and without, social, cultural, economic enemies to keep the population vigilant against all possible threats, to keep them fully occupied, suspicious of each other, divided, protecting the national interest against any wayward individual or group – including themselves.

Under constant construction are barriers of one sort or another, the US/Mexico wall mostly through desert where hundreds die every year seeking a better life but where the wealthy aren't hunted by vigilantes; the Israeli/Palestinian wall and multiple check-points favouring one group and harassing and humiliating the other; the entry to countries at airports, ports and road crossings. Stand in line, don't step over this line. For some apply weeks in advance for a visa – or just for an interview to seek permission to apply for a visa – the rich may pass, for the poor it's a lottery.

Within our communities are guarded apartment blocks, electronically monitored residential enclaves, embassies on distant, secure sites, schools with guards and alarms, tourist sites with armed guard protection, 5 star hotels with walled-in grounds denying visitors the view to the local residents in their shanty towns on the other side of the wall, living in the seeping filth from the hotel sewage system.

Chop up society into more and more pieces, more separate entities, create more divisions, more fears and suspicions and when the globe is totally criss-crossed with walls, fences, barricades and border posts shall we allow ourselves to become so paranoid, afraid and suspicious of each other that we finally close the door to our minds? What hope for humanity when imaginations are so closed to the others' humanity that they can't even see, aren't even aware of, the physical barriers all around them? Ill-considered rhetoric needs to be confronted, contested at any and every opportunity. Self-replicating, regurgitated mantras built on lies, fears and hatred need overturning without hesitation.

The frontierless world begins with frontierless minds. The challenge is to dismantle the barriers which deafen, blindfold, shackle and dehumanise us. A mind without barriers can step over any line, has endless possibilities, unlimited potential, can acknowledge and appreciate the diversity and congruent value of humankind. The frontierless mind can value the vision in which all have their own, inalienable home.

JANET SURMAN