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Arabica Robusta

Diigo - macintyre2007_informed-consent_15d.pdf - 0 views

  • Nyamnjoh: Introduction – Academic Freedom in African Universities
  • Fair trade often rewards to agri-business
  • Parity, along with food production quotas and environmentally regulated supply management is critical for green new deal
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  • Melinda Janki
  • In your important intervention you speak of increasing authoritarianism as a current condition. Should we not be as concerned about newly empowered transnational corporations, debt-driving inter-governmental organizations and hollowed-out states?
  • Is there a recorded inflation rate for gold currency in the interior?  How is gold exchange value determined.
  • Roberto Meza, I am so grateful for your work. How have agribusiness, monocropping and unequal wealth distribution affected your ability to respond to food distribution issues.
  • How do agricultural practices, especially agroecology versus pesticide-intensive GMO agribusiness, relate to issues of food sovereignty, collective support, local control, and race and gender equity?
  • How can we reconcile the very different perspectives of cooperative and corporate farming, each of which have strong advocates? 
  • How might we revisit Fonlon's instruction and the focus on Aristotle, Plato and other imperial, or imperialized, philosophers?
  • recalling the danger of firing squads that have been frequently used against political opponents (note to reader: remember the end of the Grenadian Revolution in 1983).
  • The fundamentals of our differences come down to, how does one understand the question of the internationalism of the oppressed? In order to answer this, there are two basic principles we start with: (1)a concrete analysis of concrete conditions, and (2)the law and nature of contradictions. We will attempt to apply both in our reply.
  • During this period, the so-called Cold War, where the USSR, China and several other countries were frequently identified with the cause of socialism and where, in many cases, workers and oppressed classes had succeeded in overthrowing formal capitalism and foreign domination, much of the Left fell into the fateful habit of deciding upon what stand to take on international matters not based on a substantive analysis but based largely on which countries fell on which sides of particular issues.
  • Baraka is absolutely correct in emphasizing that there is a long and ignominious history of social chauvinism by much of the organized Left in the global North, to which I would add a history of social chauvinism by numerous otherwise progressive movements—beyond the Left—in the global North. The infection of imperial consciousness became clear even in the international Communist movement by the 1930s when many revolutionaries in the global South felt betrayed by the approach of communist parties in the global North (and by the USSR) when too many of those latter parties abandoned the struggle against colonialism in the name of building anti-fascist fronts against the Germans, Italians and, later, the Japanese. This sense of betrayal led to splits in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America and, in some cases, the creation of new revolutionary formations (with often complicated politics).
  • The elimination of the Soviet bloc and the victory of neoliberal hegemony created challenges for countries in the global South which were following what the late Egyptian Marxist theorist Samir Amin would call “national populist projects.” By “national populist projects” Amin was referencing those regimes that had emerged out of anti-imperialist struggles but were not committed—in any serious/consistent way—to a socialist path, sometimes asserting themselves as non-aligned between the two superpowers, e.g., Egypt under Nasser. Many such regimes were able to survive through playing one superpower off again another, though this did not always succeed.
  • the national populist projects which were already in crisis due to internal contradictions—including class struggle, women’s movements, ethnic contradictions, democratic governance challenges—fractured.
  • With the collapse of the second superpower and the rise of neoliberal globalization,  the national populist projects which were already in crisis due to internal contradictions—including class struggle, women’s movements, ethnic contradictions, democratic governance challenges—fractured
  • The legitimacy crisis was not simply a public relations challenge. Struggle was breaking out within these states against the regimes. Sometimes led by forces to the left of the regime; other times by forces to the right of the regime (and sometimes both), these struggles were asserting that the regimes were abandoning their base; abandoning the people. One example of the ramifications of the legitimacy crisis unfolded in what came to be known as the Arab democratic uprisings or the “Arab Spring.” These insurrections, all beginning peacefully, were a challenge not only to pro-Western regimes, e.g., Egypt, but also to regimes that had emerged from the national populist projects, e.g., Syria.
  • Silence. There is no reply other than to challenge the authenticity of those of us on the Left who argue for an anti-imperialist AND anti-dictatorial politics of emancipation.
  • The question of solidarity of the globally oppressed must begin with a focus on the oppressed themselves. Baraka focuses on the struggle between governments. I start from a different standpoint: the question of the people. It is flowing from the question of the people that one can situate the larger context. In looking at Syria, for instance, what were the nature of the demands of the mass movement? Why was it that the response of the Assad regime was bloody repression? What does that response represent?
  • This is highlighted because many in the US Left have abandoned the demands for any action by the USA government on the basis that there is nothing that the USA government can or should do (or worse, that we, on the Left, should demand nothing of the USA government other than to cease and desist). The irony here is that during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), the US Left was actively in favor of the USA, Britain and France providing direct, military assistance to the Spanish government against the fascists. It is important to remember that even with the danger of fascism, a threat to humankind, the demand for US assistance to the Spanish government came while the USA was still perpetrating crimes against the people of Latin America. A demand for a change in USA policy vis a vis Spain was not inconsistent with opposing the USA role in Latin America.
  • The main divide among anti-imperialists during the Cold War was rather caused by the attitude towards the USSR, which Communist Parties and their close allies regarded as the “fatherland of socialism”; they determined much of their own political positions by aligning with Moscow and the “socialist camp”—an attitude that was described as “campism.” This was facilitated by Moscow’s support for most struggles against Western imperialism in its global rivalry with Washington. As for Moscow’s intervention against workers’ and peoples’ revolts in its own European sphere of domination, the campists stood with the Kremlin, denigrating these revolts under the pretext that they were fomented by Washington.Those who believed that the defense of democratic rights is the paramount principle of the left supported the struggles against Western imperialism as well as popular revolts in Soviet-dominated countries against local dictatorial rule and Moscow’s hegemony. A third category was formed by the Maoists, who, starting from the 1960s, labeled the USSR “social-fascist,” describing it as worse than US imperialism and going so far to side with Washington in some instances, such as Beijing’s stance in Southern Africa.
  • Benghazi’s population implored the world for protection, while emphasizing that they wanted no foreign boots on the ground. The League of Arab States supported this request. Accordingly, the UNSC adopted a resolution authorizing “the imposition of a NFZ” over Libya as well as “all necessary measures…to protect civilians…while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.” Neither Moscow nor Beijing vetoed this resolution: Both abstained, unwilling to assume the responsibility for a massacre foretold.
  • As the Western left has become more aligned with their imperialist bourgeoisie in the destabilization of the Global South, the radical Black tradition provides a clear approach to “turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism."
  • The contradictory nature of that relationship has sharpened as a result of the current crisis of global capitalism and the U.S. led Western imperialist project fueled by two interconnected elements: the devastating social-economic conditions that workers and the laboring classes now face as result of monopoly capital’s neoliberal turn over the last forty years in both the imperialist center and global South; and the intensifying challenge to neoliberalism from states and social movements in the global South, with the corresponding response from U.S. and European capital that has ranged from economic sanctions meant to punish whole populations to direct and indirect political subversion and military interventions, all illegal and morally indefensible.
  • While U.S. and Western innocence was always a component of the propaganda to justify colonialist aggression, the ideas of humanitarian intervention and its corollary, the responsibility to protect, emerged in the 1990s as one of the most innovative ideological weapons ever produced since the end of the second imperialist war in 1945.
  • Of course, as I have said on many occasions, the reality is much more complex, with neoliberalism actually representing a more dangerous threat to colonized and working-class peoples in the U.S. and globally. This is because within the context of the U.S., Democrats have been successful in perpetuating the myth that they represent “progressivism.” This perception usually leads to substantial demobilization and actual liberal – left alignment with neoliberalism objectively when Democrats occupy the Executive Branch.
  • Restoring the historic alliance between the U.S. and Europe was announced by Biden as a major objective of his administration. His “America is Back” slogan was supposed to signify that the U.S. was ready to reassume its leadership of the Western alliance. Biden proudly identified himself as an “Atlanticist,” and indeed a number of the members of his foreign policy team were plunked from the “Atlantic Council.” Similar to the Council on foreign Affairs (CFA), the Atlantic Council is a neoliberal think tank that is funded by a cross-section of the ruling class but significantly by neoliberals associated with the democrat party.
  • The Atlantic Council was a severe critic of the Trump administration, not because of any concerns about its “racism” but because the Council opposed Trump’s unilateralist approach to foreign policy and his dangerous ideas like pulling out of NATO, a desire to draw down U.S. troops and his insufficient hostility to Russia. Plus, the Council and the neoliberal ruling class never forgave Trump for his scuttling of the Trans-Pacific Partnership because it pulled the rug out from under the Trans-Atlantic Investment Partnership that was supposed to be the next agreement after TPP and would have solidified the hegemony of U.S. capital in Europe for next few decades.Biden and the Council believed that unity among the G-7 nations during the current global capitalist crisis was imperative. Consequently, Biden’s aggressive stance toward Russia, Venezuela, blind support for Israel and general hostility toward the progressive governments in Latin America signaled that belligerent U.S. policy would continue, but with an Obama-like smile.What has been response from the U.S. and Western left to Bourgeois Destabilization in Global South? Bolivian President, Evo Morales, faced a right-wing coup and instead of unrestrained mobilization the left engaged in a debate about the Bolivian process. In Europe, the liberal-left parliamentarians in the European Union awarded their Sakharav human rights prize to the Venezuelan right-wing opposition, an opposition known for burning alive dark-skinned Venezuelans assumed to be “Chavistas.” Bernie Sanders declares Hugo Chavez a “dead communist dictator” and most respectable liberal-left elements in the U.S. would not get caught dead at a pro-Venezuela demo as long as the new “authoritarian dictator,” Nicholas Maduro, is in power. Gaddafi deserved to die, Assad is a bloodthirsty tyrant, China is capitalist, and a human rights violator, and Haiti is a S…hole country that does not merit much thought or energy, let alone mobilization for.
  • The anti-anti-imperialism of a Eurocentric armchair commentator like Gilbert Achcar neatly captures the inanity of this approach, dressed-up as nuanced and sophisticated analysis. Grounded in Western chauvinism and completely suspended from the contradictory structures and class forces in the specific, concrete realities of this historical moment, it condemns the left projects that don’t correspond to the imagery of Western leftists who see revolutionary change as some pristine project. These leftists do not seem to notice or don’t care that they are usually on the same side of an international issue as the international bourgeoisie.
  • To counter the collaborationism and opportunism of the U.S. and Western left, Black revolutionaries must re-center the anti-colonial struggle that addresses the dialectics of the national and class issues produced by the colonial/capitalist system. This re-centering of anti-colonial struggle is not new. It has been the broad theoretical framework for African/Black radical tradition for decades — from Black socialists in Harlem like Hubert Harrison and the African Blood Brotherhood in the teens and the 1920’s to the revolutionary Pan African tradition. It was also reflected in the articulations of Lenin on the “National Question” and the assemblies of colonial peoples leading to the 1928 declaration on the right to self-determination on the part of colonized peoples and the declaration that Africans in the U.S. constituted an oppressed nation with the right to self-determination.The radical Black tradition provides an invaluable approach for how a left should address its bourgeoisie.  We say that concretely it means that authentic Western leftists must join us to “turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism.” Specifically for African revolutionaries in the U.S. we must build bottom-up organic black unity and an anti-colonial, pro-socialist movement anchored in the Black working class that must assert leadership of this movement and to the broader radical movement in the U.S.Biden and the neoliberal, neo-fascists are committed to countering the movements for national liberation and socialism by any means, including destroying the planet to maintain European imperialist power.The Western social-imperialist left that is still addicted to its material privileges and illusions of being a part of something called the “West” has a choice that it must make: either you abandon privilege and whiteness and join as class combatants against your bourgeoisie, or you will be considered part of the enemy.
  • we had not one conversation about how we economists induce harm and what ethical obligations follow from that fact.
  • That is, one cannot do any positive work with the concept, such as determining whether harm has occurred or measuring its extent, without the careful moral reasoning that defining harm requires.
Arabica Robusta

Elites_transnational_policy.pdf - 0 views

shared by Arabica Robusta on 07 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • three distinctive theoretical lenses in their investigations: fields, hegemony, and institutions.
  • Our contributions include pieces on the Trump administration, the professional ecologies of transnational policy elites, the treatment of transboundary political problems, the characteristics of technocratic elites, the racial and gender composition of transnational elites, and professional competition over transnational policy issues.
  • In recent years there has been a resurgence of studies on elites (Davis 2017; Savage 2014; Young et al. 2016). Scholars are increasingly paying attention to the acceleration of inequality in the distribution of wealth and power around select groups.
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  • We highlight how fields, hegemony and institutions approaches to elites in transnational policy networks focus on different aspects of elite replication and policy influence; including where elite’s influence on policy comes from; how it can be identified; and its overall out c om e s.
  • The grand challenge of studying elites in transnational policy networks is twofold – opacity and complexity.
  • Transnational elites, in this terminology, are always field specific. Fields can be thought of as sector or domain specific, such as economic, political, cultural, scientific or administrative. Within these fields is always a struggle for field specific resources, or capitals
  • Second, elites affect transnational policy networks in institutionally complex ways. Transnational policy networks include actors from intergovernmental organizations like the World Bank, OECD, and others, but are not reducible to them. The library of work on intergovernmental organizations illuminates how public authorities are designed by states seeking to cooperate with or dominate each other, and how they have internal conflicts over political and technocratic interests (Kentikelenis and Seabrooke 2017).
  • In general, elites are actors who have disproportionately high levels of influence on their social structure.
  • Elites in transnational policy networks are those who have disproportionate influence over policy design and implementation on issues of global importance. This includes influence on agenda-setting, decisionmaking, and policy content. Policy includes explicit reform programmes, scripts for best practices, as well as regulatory norms and standards.
  • The first generation of this scholarship centred on moving ‘beyond reified entities (‘the State’) to analyse the role of elites, networks and agents’ at the transnational level (Cohen 2013: 103), including the formation of ‘transnational guilds’ (Bigo 2016).
  • A further complication in studying elites is identifying how they articulate power. Elite power is exercised through individual as well as organizational action that springs from micro- and meso-level processes (Scott 2008). T
  • Scholars adopting this approach have specified how national differences matter for elites, with specific career trajectories tied to national understandings of how fields are distinguished (Bühlmann et al. 2018; Gautier Morin and Rossier, this issue). These games are then played transnationally in respective fields, such as the legal, economic, and political fields, as shown in Figure 1. The outcomes of these games lead to policies that have an effect on wealthy states and especially on poorer states (Dezalay and Garth 2002).
  • A common approach in such scholarship is to investigate how capital used for positioning in domination games is transferred from individuals’ family backgrounds and expanded and reinforced through the acquisition of elite educational diplomas.
  • Harrington and Seabrooke 2020), as well as how organizations, such as global accounting firms, replicate professional practices (Spence and Carter 2014; Spence et al. 2016).
  • Most recently, field-theoretic scholars have started paying attention to ‘transnational power elites’ that have created some autonomy from national states through meta-institutions such as the European Union (Kauppi and Madsen 2013, 2014), as well as organization beyond the control of the state such as international commercial arbitration (Grisel 2017).
  • more computational methods to trace its subjects of analysis, including the mapping of social networks to assist the identification of fields (Larsen and Ellersgaard 2017) as well as content analysis to distinguish positions within fields (Ban and Patenaude 2018).
  • Van der Pijl (1984) and Cox (1987: 271) were among the first scholars to talk about what became known as a ‘transnational capitalist class’ (TCC) (Carroll 2013).
  • Sklair also identified four intersecting fractions of the transnational capitalist class (1) TNC executives; (2) globalizing bureaucrats; (3) globalizing politicians and professionals; (4) consumerist elites (merchants and media).
  • The role of networks has been addressed in more contemporary research. Carroll and Carson (2003) located five top transnational policy-planning groups in the ‘larger structure of corporate power that is constituted through interlocking directorates among the world’s largest corporations.’ They found that the network was tied together by a few select ‘cosmopolitan managers’ that, via policy groups, ‘pull the directorates of the world’s major corporations together, and collaterally integrate the lifeworld of the global corporate elite’ to promote neoliberalism (Carroll and Carson 2003: 29).
  • The institutions approach to elites in transnational policy networks draws from a Weberian premise: that actors seek to propel their political and economic interests through institutions and organizations
  • This includes: World Polity models of how world cultural norms spread through rationalization processes; recursive theories of how organizations interact to produce transnational policy scripts; and theories on how professionals exert influence through networks. In all cases elites are treated as important for decision-making processes. Elites typically refers to political elites within organizations and governments or, more commonly, policy elites who are regarded as the expert authority on policy issues.
Arabica Robusta

smith2019_corporate_interest_TAN.pdf - 0 views

  • There is little critical reflection on the role of corporations within such networks or on the material motivations behind movements. Meanwhile literature on corporate political strategies related to partnerships with civil society is limited to national level analysis.
  • Considering the multiple benefits corporations might derive from engaging with transnational advocacy networks, there is need for greater research on private actors’ influence within advocacy networks and on those networks that aim to counter or advance alternatives to progressive ideals.
  • Particularly through public–private partnerships and corporate social responsibility initiatives, transnational corporations have developed networks with non-profit organizations.
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  • However, this literature so far focuses on national-level analyses, rarely considering strategies that engage with civil society at the global or transnational levels. Correspondingly, while there is a substantial literature on global civil society and transnational advocacy networks (TANs), this scholarship offers limited analysis of corporate interests within transnational movements (Pattberg 2005).
  • Keck and Sikkink (1999) identify three categories of transnational actor, motivated either by (1) instrumental goals, for example transnational corporations and banks; (2) shared causal ideas, as in scientific groups or epistemic communities; or (3) shared principled ideas or values (Keck and Sikkink 1998).
  • Finally, ideational power is central to the purpose and operations of TANs, as their primary function is to mobilize and disseminate information across societies for the purpose of influencing policy making. TANs are most prevalent in issue areas where information plays a key role, and where there is an opportunity to foment informational uncertainty.
  • This creates a perception that TANs are inherently public-interest oriented. However, Scholte (2004) argues that the involvement of such coalitions in global policy is not necessarily benign. Such movements can also reflect coercive power structures, claim authority without representation, and may promote harmful, unhealthy, undemocratic or oppressive ideas and interests.
  • Walker (2012) argues that corporations are increasingly engaging in a relational approach with civil society groups, focused on building relationships over time, in ways that foster legitimacy, in order to gain access to policy arenas when needed. Bonardi and Keim (2005) note that, to prevent a policy idea that is harmful to a firm’s interests from becoming a ‘salient issue’, the firms may strategically use third parties to promote public debate and discord. To date, analyses of corporate political activities aimed at developing relationships with third parties have focused on efforts to influence national policy or individual organizations. There has been limited attention paid to the potential benefits corporations derive from relationships with transnational networks.
  • We began by systematically searching the website of each signatory to the letter that ICAPP sent to the WHO for information about the purpose, funding sources and relationships of each of these with other organizations. Relationships were defined as partnerships (as listed on websites and in annual reports), having collaborated on projects, or having shared personnel.
  • ionships identified through these documents are thus more suggestive than conclusive. Despite these limitations, we use the TTID collection to identify other ICAPP members with a history of working with, or receiving funding from, the tobacco industry. Building on the authors’ previous work, we then determined whether each ICAPP signatory was a member of the Atlas Network (Smith et al. 2017), one of the largest global networks of think tanks and a ‘strategic ally’ of the tobacco industry (PM 1999) (see below).
  • FCTC measures include Article 5.3, which requires parties to protect public health policies related to tobacco control from the ‘commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry’. Article 5.3 restricts the ability of the tobacco industry to engage directly with policy making processes. This has led TTCs to develop strategies that include third-party allies (Fooks et al. 2017). There is now substantial evidence of extensive efforts by the industry to work through front groups, think tanks and other third parties operating across jurisdictions in ways that conceal its role, improve access to policy makers, and enhance the perceived legitimacy of industry-led campaigns (McDaniel et al. 2008)
  • In all cases, the tobacco industry campaigned against plain packaging; it launched several legal challenges, supported local opposition, and commissioned studies arguing that plain packaging violated intellectual property rights, represented undue government interference in the economy, and increased risks of illicit tobacco trading (Chassin 2017; Cumming 2012; Hawkes 2012).
  • The letter – widely disseminated through social media, email lists, newsletters, websites and press releases – argued that plain packaging violates intellectual property rights, does not reduce tobacco use, limits the amount of information consumers need to make informed choices, and contributes to increases in the illicit tobacco trade.
  • Established as the Atlas Research Foundation in the USA in 1981 to foster new think tanks of libertarian persuasion around the world, Atlas promotes free market values among its partners through training programmes, such as its think tank MBA programme, awards and networking events.
Arabica Robusta

nla.obj-332066213_Akmana_PNG_gold.pdf - 0 views

  • cific islands monthly : PIM.
    • Arabica Robusta
       
      Doers, not recorders of facts.
  • Pacific islands monthly : PIM.
    • Arabica Robusta
       
      Begin here
    • Arabica Robusta
       
      He was to tell them that the stolen goods were to be left on a flat rock on the river below the camp, other wise we would have to raid their gardens for food-and there would no payment this time!
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    • Arabica Robusta
       
      "All members. masters and boys, were on the alert at all times. Personal boys would see that their master did not move far without weapons and handed them to him in case this occurred. There was no point in tempting the wigmen with our riches of steel and shell."
    • Arabica Robusta
       
      It turned out that back at Akmana Junction while we were on this Upper Maramuni job something was happening. We found on our return that the Akmana camp had been raided and most of our steel and trade goods stolen. As no natives came to the camp with food for trade as usual, we decided to take the offensive. We had very friendly relations with a wigman called Dribau. who had attached himself to the camp as friend and guide. He first joined us on the Baiyer and was a man of influence and obviously highly respected over a wide area. Drihau was now on hand and we asked him to spread the word by hailing across the valleys that we were very angry (we described with actions that our bellies were boiling with anger). He was to tell them that the stolen goods were to be left on a flat rock on the river below the camp. otherwise we would have to raid their gardens for food-and there would be no payment this time! The messages were passed, but by the next day there were no results, so we helped ourselves in the gardens. and put on a display with our .303 rifles, firing them at long range in the general direction of any stray native we saw on watch. sometimes in rapid fire to make the show more impressive. The shots were meant to demonstrate that we were serious, but we were not trying to hit anyone. This got better results. -The next morning there were some stolen goods on the flat rock. About midday we decided we would have to speed things up a bit, so Drihau passed on the news that we would "make thunder without a cloud in the sky" and that they had better watch out! We detonated a big supply of gelignite and made those old mountains echo and re-echo, much to the horror of those visitors who happened to be in the vicinity (who. unfortunately. didn't include any of the miscreants). Those near the camp clung to each other for comfort in their fear (the locals often did this also when they were perplexed and surprised. but not to such a degree of frenzy). They were also much
    • Arabica Robusta
       
      The booming of the dynamite did the job. Next morning most of our goods were on the flat rock and it was not long before we were friendly community again, with business as usual, and quite a few grins.
    • Arabica Robusta
       
      "The warriors were curious and friendly. but Beazley had completed his job and wisely retraced his steps to his previous night's camp. There he was met by another 200 warriors. and since the first group had followed him downstream he now found himself the centre of interest of 400 odd Highlanders who had never before seen a white man. After some demonstrations of fire power with his rifle and the magic of matches he returned to the main camp without incident."
Arabica Robusta

j.ctv47wfn1.10_jacka_metabolic_rift.pdf - 0 views

shared by Arabica Robusta on 03 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • My goal in this chapter has been to consider mining development impacts on the Porgera River in a holistic sense from the perspectives of Porgerans. When Porgerans discuss the ruination of the river, there is more at stake than just the loss of fish and frogs and the fouling of the water. The very riverbeds were dug out by the actions of ancestral hero figures that were also responsible for controlling the water balance in the land and the fertility therein. W ater itself is fundamental to Porgeran ideas of cosmology and well-being. For close to 50 years, the alluvial gold resources were the second gardens that provided livelihood benefits and cash incomes in a society that was just then being integrated into the global economic system. Foreign investment and loss of control over the gold resources resonate throughout Porgeran society today in the form of often violent political clashes over the restricted benefit streams available to a minority of people in the valley.
Arabica Robusta

Socialism's Future Can't Be Its Failures - 0 views

  • Without the tide of European revolution to buoy it, the new socialist government in Russia was attacked from all sides by the great capitalist powers. The liberatory promise of the Russian Revolution was not destroyed by a lack of democracy, an attempt to turn the world upside down, or even by Stalin. It was destroyed by the guns, bayonets and pogroms of the “White Army” funded and supported by every major capitalist power in the world. While the Bolshevik government survived, the revolution was smashed to bits, replaced by an empty bureaucracy ruling over the ruins of a working class.
  • The lesson of the failure of the Russian Revolution is not that it placed insufficient emphasis on democracy. It was doomed by the fear of social democratic parties to challenge capital and their abandonment of internationalism.
  • Like Sunkara, I am a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and (possibly unlike Sunkara) I believe there is a dialectical relationship between building working class power within the current system and building the potential for socialist revolution. The lesson of the defeat of the Russian Revolution is that the cost of our timidity is far worse than the cost of our boldness. To pretend otherwise is to doom the prospects of liberation and invite the terror and death of the 20th century once more.
Arabica Robusta

Globalization and the End of the Labor Aristocracy, Part 1 » TripleCrisis - 0 views

  • Nevertheless, the fact that provision is no longer necessarily in the public domain, and that private provision is increasingly seen as the norm, has opened up huge new markets for potentially profit-making activity. This has been a crucial way of maintaining demand, given the saturation of markets in many mature economies, and the inadequate growth of markets in poorer societies.
  • It’s not just that national and international institutional structures that should provide checks and balances to the privatization of knowledge are more fragile and less effective than they used to be. Rather, it’s that they are actively working in the opposite direction. The numerous “trade agreements” that have been signed across the world in recent years have been much less about trade liberalization—already so extensive that there is little scope for further opening up in most sectors—and much more about protecting investment and strengthening monopolies generated by intellectual property rights.
Arabica Robusta

Oil and gas union network in Middle East and North Africa grows in strength | IndustriALL - 0 views

  • The network held a lively debate about the challenges in the region: exploitative companies, repressive governments, and the chaos and dislocation created by war in Syria and Yemen and the ensuing refugee crisis.
  • The outcome of last years’ successful strike by Kuwaiti oil unions was discussed, as well as the establishment of a new union for private sector workers in the country.
  • The working practices of companies in the region diverge greatly: from the exploitative practices of companies like DNO and ExxonMobil, through to companies like Total who engage in social dialogue. In Iraq, a deal was concluded with Shell, which established a union to cover 6,000 gas field employees.
Arabica Robusta

After Brutal Repression, the Teachers' Struggle in Argentina Continues - 0 views

  • Not only has the government refused to make the teachers an acceptable offer, it has also employed a wide range of tactics aimed at breaking the struggle, including the launch of a campaign to recruit “volunteer” strikebreakers, making deductions from striking teachers’ salaries, recruiting state employees to prepare black lists of teachers who took part in the strikes, and planting police officers in schools and teachers’ assemblies.
  • The union federations’ response to the government’s stance has fallen short of many teachers’ expectations. Throughout the struggle, decisions regarding the actions to be carried out by the CTERA (Argentine Confederation of Education Workers) and the Suteba (United Education Workers’ Union of Buenos Aires) have been made behind the backs of the unions’ bases, without calling a single teachers’ assembly.
  • Both sides in the conflict are well aware that it is not only the teachers’ salaries that are at stake in this scenario. The outcome of the struggle will determine the prospects for future collective bargaining agreements in both the public and private sectors.
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  • But in order to succeed, the teachers will need the support of the country’s entire working class. The high levels of participation in the general strike called by the CGT (General Workers’ Federation) on April 6, as a result of massive pressure from its base, showed not only the population’s dissatisfaction with the course of the economy, but also its willingness to fight the government’s austerity plans.
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