1989-2009: Celebrations Muted by the Disappointments of the Present

By Mike Haynes, Reproduced from Socialist Review

What happened to the illusions that free market capitalism would bring democracy, social justice and equality to the societies of Eastern Europe? Mike Haynes reports

British tourists are commonplace in the former Soviet bloc today. Cheap flights take you to Prague or Budapest. You can spend a weekend in the Baltic states or even make it to Moscow and St Petersburg. The beer is cheap. For stag nights and last minute flings the prostitutes are numerous and cheap. It is easy to combine a visit to some of the finest sights with some of the worst. And many do. Out of sight, out of mind.

In Western Europe migrants from these countries are common. We meet them every day working in bars and hotels, on the farms and in the factories. Supermarkets in

Britain have special sections for Polish food. In the poorer parts of the cities small shops specialise in Eastern European foods for those far from home.

In the richest areas of Western cities, “their” elites rub shoulders with “our” elites, competing to buy the best housing. And if the Eastern European rich are rather poorer this year and the migrants fewer, the closeness of the links that exist would still have been hard to imagine in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell.

Today the former Soviet bloc is a mass of contradictions and how we cut through them is a matter of controversy. This question remains urgent, not because of the past but the present. Today many of these countries, which were supposed to be marching towards the future, have been hit hard by the global crisis. Instead of emerging market economies some cynics have coined the term submerging economies for them.

The old Soviet bloc was made up of the countries of Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria and the USSR. Today East Germany is no more, the USSR is split into the 15 successor states and the Czech and Slovak republics have divorced. Further south the former Yugoslavia has fragmented and Albania remains barely known. Together roughly 400 million people live in these states.

Council of Canadians – Statement on 2010 Olympic Winter Games

The Council of Canadians, one of Canada’s largest public advocacy organizations, with members and chapters across the country, views positively the Olympic goal of friendly international competition between athletes who excel in their respective sports. We understand and appreciate the pleasure and enjoyment so many around the world share in the spectacle and achievements of the Olympic Games.

However, we are gravely concerned by the increasing evidence that these worthy aspects are being overwhelmed, if not totally supplanted, by an “Olympic industry” focused on real estate development and massive corporate marketing opportunities. An “Olympic industry” founded and based in undemocratic and unaccountable national and international structures, implicated in numerous corruption scandals that undermine everything a truly noble Olympic movement should stand for.

In particular, the Council of Canadians believes the February 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler will leave a negative legacy contrary to the goals set forward during the application and approval process to host the games. There is now no doubt that the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) and its affiliated partners will fail to meet their commitments with regard to the environment, social programs and fiscal accountability.

The Council of Canadians is committed to working with activists who are highlighting the negative aspects of the 2010 Games, especially the fact they are being held on un-ceded First Nations territories and are providing mining, resort, real estate and energy developers with opportunities to continue expansion of projects on indigenous territories throughout the province.

The War on Public-Sector Unions

State and local governments are making deep spending cuts wherever they can, and taking aim at the power of public-sector unions. Lee Sustar of Socialist Worker documents this latest turn in the long war on labor–and talks to activists who are putting forward an opposition.

Protesting teachers' layoffs in Washington, D.C.

 

THE LONG war on unions is escalating in the public sector as the recession wipes out tax revenue and triggers deep budget cuts in states, large and small.

The biggest headlines have come out of California, where 193,000 state workers have suffered pay cuts of at least 14 percent because of “furlough” days, while thousands more have endured layoffs.

But the picture is similar everywhere. To take two examples from recent days: In Iowa, Gov. Chet Culver will cut $520 million in state spending by ordering furloughs for 3,258 employees and layoffs for 180, while leaving 230 positions vacant. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell anticipates laying off hundreds of state employees just in time for the holiday season, in addition to the 300 Pennsylvania government workers who have already lost their jobs.

This list could go on.

In some cases, the attacks on unions go beyond layoffs and furloughs to target union organization itself.

In Detroit, Mayor Dave Bing has tried to claim that the city’s fiscal crisis allows him to unilaterally “terminate” union contacts covering about 4,500 workers–and he’s already ended the practice of deducting dues from workers’ paychecks. He seems to be taking his cue from Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuño, who’s using new laws to sweep aside union contracts–in order to lay off 25,000 public employees and privatize big chunks of government services.

Honduras: Agreement or Farce?

A lot of noise had been made about the so-called “reinstatement of Zelaya”, but is that what is really happening. So far a lot of wheeling and dealing has taken place, but no concrete steps to put Zelaya back as the legitimate president. We will see in the coming days how real this agreement is.

By Jorge Martín, writing for In Defence of Marxism.

On Monday October 26, the negotiations between representatives of the legitimate president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya, and the regime of Micheletti, installed by the coup which removed Zelaya on June 28, had broken down. There was agreement on most of the points Zelaya’s delegates had raised earlier, bar one, that of Zelaya’s reinstatement as President. Coup-installed “president” Micheletti boasted that he would only resign if Zelaya agreed not to take over.

The arrival of a high level delegation from the United States, headed by US Assistant Secretary of State Tom Shannon changed all that. Micheletti, who had already received a phone call from Hillary Clinton, was told in no uncertain terms that the US would not recognise the November 29 elections called by the coup-regime unless a deal based on the San José Accords was reached, including the reinstatement of Zelaya.

As a matter of fact, as we have explained before, the terms of the San José Accord were already extremely favourable for the coup plotters: a national unity government, general amnesty for the coup plotters, Zelaya giving up on his idea of convening of a Constituent Assembly and the reinstatement of Zelaya only for a couple of months until the January 28 hand over to a new government elected in a poll conducted by the same institutions which had carried out the coup against Zelaya.

The Future of Capitalism – Alex Callinicos debates Martin Wolf KCL Oct 2009

Was Mao Really A Monster?

The following is the full introduction and table of contents to Gregor Benton and Lin Chun’s new book Was Mao Really a Monster?: The Academic Response to Chang and Halliday’s ‘Mao: The Untold Story‘.

From the China Study Group.

In 2005, the British publisher Jonathan Cape launched Jung Chang and Jon Halliday’s Mao: The Unknown Story, to great fanfare. The book pictures Mao as a liar, ignoramus, fool, philistine, vandal, lecher, glutton, hedonist, drug-peddler, ghoul, bully, thug, coward, posturer, manipulator, psychopath, sadist, torturer, despot, megalomaniac and the greatest mass murderer of the twentieth century – in short, a monster, equal to or worse than Hitler and Stalin. He cared nothing about the fate of the Chinese people and his fellow human beings, or even his close friends and relatives. He was driven by bloodlust and the craving for power and sex. He ruled by terror, led by native cunning, and defeated Chiang Kai-shek by leaning towards Stalin and treacherously insinuating moles and sleepers into the Guomindang.

The book rocketed to the top of the best-seller list in the UK and elsewhere and was hailed as a bombshell, triumph and irrefutable authority. Its success was due in part to the popularity of Wild Swans (1991), a family biography of Chang herself, her mother, and her grandmother, which sold 12 million copies and made her an international celebrity; but also due to the rapturous welcome press reviewers gave the expertly marketed Mao. The media ferment was in turn part of the larger political context of selective China-bashing in the long aftermath of the Cold War, with Mao still haunting the intellectual debates beyond China’s borders about the legitimacy of its post-Mao order. Non-specialist commentators marvelled at the ‘authenticity’ of the book’s scholarship and its 139 pages of references. In The Guardian, Lisa Allardice predicted that it would ‘shake the world’.¹ In The New York Times Book Review, Nicholas Kristof wrote: ‘Based on a decade of meticulous interviews and archival research, this magnificent biography methodically demolishes every pillar of Mao’s claim to sympathy or legitimacy.’² In The Sunday Times, Simon Sebag Montefiore called the book ‘a triumph … a barrage of revisionist bombshells, and a superb piece of research’ and concluded that ‘Mao is the greatest monster of them all – the Red Emperor of China’.³ For Donald Morrison in Time magazine, the book had the power of an ‘atom bomb’.⁴ In The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani wrote that it makes ‘an impassioned case for Mao as the most monstrous tyrant of all times’.⁵ Media commentators, establishment politicians and representatives of the publishers lined up to say the book would completely change the way in which people think of Mao, and indeed change history. George Walden went so far as to call it ‘the most powerful, compelling, and revealing political biography of modern times’. ‘Few books are destined to change history’, he concluded, ‘but this one will’.⁶ Some, including Chang herself, voiced the hope it would change even China.

Animal Rights and Self-Determination

Over the last week or so there has been some interesting discussion going on over at Socialist Worker, the newspaper of the International Socialist Organization, concerning the notion of “animal right” and how the left should approach the issue. It was sparked by Paul D’Amato and his article Socialism and Animal Rights and was followed up by several write-in responses from readers. I am posting them all secretly here today as I think the discussion on “animal rights” and “animal liberation” is important for the left to engage in, if only because so many young radicals today support it and have used it as a entry point for greater radicalism.

This is the third, and so far final, of the reader’s response pieces, by Ben Dalbey of Baltimore

WHY DOES the “animal rights” debate matter? It’s about people. Fundamentally, I think the debate about animal rights is a debate about how humans view and treat other humans.

Several people who responded negatively to Paul D’Amato’s column “Socialism and ‘animal rights’” accuse him of asserting that because animals cannot fight for their own rights, they do not deserve to be treated humanely.

D’Amato makes no such argument. In fact, the first sentence of his column reads, “Our society engages in practices that are cruel toward animals.” He goes on to state, “Capitalism treats animals as a means to an end–as things to be squeezed for as much value as can be gotten out of them.” D’Amato is not arguing that socialists should support the wanton slaughter of animals. Quite the opposite–we all agree that the brutal mistreatment of animals under capitalism is a problem.

However, none of D’Amato’s opponents have taken on his actual argument–that to equate so-called “speciesism” with sexism, homophobia, racism or other forms of human oppression demeans the struggles of our oppressed brothers and sisters for their own liberation.

“Maxine,” the Hereford cow mentioned in D’Amato’s article, is a variety of cow which has been bred by humans for beef since the 17th century. If humans did not breed and raise Hereford cattle to be docile and productive sources of food (the Hereford Society champions both qualities), “Maxine” would not exist.

“Maxine” is a passive observer in the struggle for her fate. She cannot and does not participate, while a few humans who want her to live a “natural” life on a farm sanctuary take her away from other humans who want to eat her.

Socialism and the Lives of Animals

Over the last week or so there has been some interesting discussion going on over at Socialist Worker, the newspaper of the International Socialist Organization, concerning the notion of “animal right” and how the left should approach the issue. It was sparked by Paul D’Amato and his article Socialism and Animal Rights and was followed up by several write-in responses from readers. I am posting them all secretly here today as I think the discussion on “animal rights” and “animal liberation” is important for the left to engage in, if only because so many young radicals today support it and have used it as a entry point for greater radicalism.

This is the second of the reader’s response pieces, by Amy Muldoon of New York City.

I WANDERED onto the Reader’s Views page of SocialistWorker.org today after reading Paul D’Amato’s article “Socialism and ‘animal rights.’”

I would like to chime in on this discussion because so many people who are deeply concerned about the fate of animals and the future of the planet support “animal rights” and become vegetarian or vegan as a result. They don’t subscribe to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA) often offensive campaigns (which recently have relied on outrageously sexist images, including women fellating broccoli, so offensive the Super Bowl wouldn’t show it), but are often familiar with the utterly barbaric use of factory farming and its environmental costs.

Many of the responses already posted articulated this very clearly. I’m mainly going to talk about humans’ use of animals as food, and whether this is in opposition to socialist ideals.

Socialists should be 100 percent against factory farming and the unnecessary cruelty it entails. That neither means we should become vegans in response, nor should we morally bludgeon ourselves and others when we have little choice but to consume their products.

We also need to be completely clear that the argument that factory farms are more efficient is a lie. They are only more “efficient” if the only “input” you look at is human labor. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are highly subsidized (just like the rest of Big Agra), and so unregulated that costs such as environmental clean-up simply never show up on the bill.

Human consumption of animals is a natural part of an omnivorous diet–a diet that is vastly different depending on culture and geography. Some human diets use meat as supplementary protein, and others use animals as their primary source of nutrition, period. Is anyone really arguing that Innuit tribes should stop fishing out of respect for fish when it is the largest source of calories and nutrients in their environment? I doubt it.

Animal Oppression and Capitalism

Over the last week or so there has been some interesting discussion going on over at Socialist Worker, the newspaper of the International Socialist Organization, concerning the notion of “animal right” and how the left should approach the issue. It was sparked by Paul D’Amato and his article Socialism and Animal Rights and was followed up by several write-in responses from readers. I am posting them all secretly here today as I think the discussion on “animal rights” and “animal liberation” is important for the left to engage in, if only because so many young radicals today support it and have used it as a entry point for greater radicalism.

This is the first of the reader’s response pieces, by Tristan Sloughter of Chicago.

LET’S START with the most important and complicated aspect of Paul D’Amato’s article (“Socialism and ‘animal rights’”): rights and liberation. What “biological and physical attributes” do you attribute to the right to life? I attribute the attribute of being alive…plus the many other protections we put on animals.

Does this mean swatting a bug should be considered murder? Of course not. But rights are not only those like speech or assembly or press, like D’Amato so “hilariously” thought in his head. And liberation is achieving these rights which are deserved. The liberation of a cow may be to have equal rights as a dog.

How can D’Amato deny these definitions? Because they aren’t the exact same as people’s rights and workers’ liberation? There is more to the world than this. We are not the only ones living on Earth.

Animals do have a “will to live” in the same way we do. Do you think we strive for survival only because of our oversized brains? No. All animals strive for survival to pass on their genes to future generations, otherwise none of us would be here. Because the animal doesn’t know the difference between a truck to take them for slaughter and one that takes them to a happy farm does not mean they don’t have a “will to live.” In addition to the “will to live,” as opposed to your claim in the article, many animals do have culture.

One of the most offensive points D’Amato uses is the fact that high-ranking Nazis were for animal rights and were vegetarians. I fail to see what this has to do with anything. Nazis also provided universal health care (for those who “deserved it”) and were environmentalists, but so what?

Socialism and “Animal Rights”

Over the last week or so there has been some interesting discussion going on over at Socialist Worker, the newspaper of the International Socialist Organization, concerning the notion of “animal right” and how the left should approach the issue. It was sparked by Paul D’Amato and his article Socialism and Animal Rights and was followed up by several write-in responses from readers. I am posting them all secretly here today as I think the discussion on “animal rights” and “animal liberation” is important for the left to engage in, if only because so many young radicals today support it and have used it as a entry point for greater radicalism.

The first one I am posting is the article that began the discussion, Paul D’Amato’s Socialism and “Animal RIghts.”

OUR SOCIETY engages in practices that are cruel toward animals. The spread of capitalism worldwide has seriously shrunk or destroyed the natural habitat of thousands of species, and the routine mistreatment of animals that are raised and used for testing or for food is well-documented.

Capitalism treats animals as a means to an end–as things to be squeezed for as much value as can be gotten out of them. Animals on factory farms are packed together by the thousands, confined in spaces that allow them little movement, and deprived of fresh air and sunlight. Animal waste falls through slats into a collection area below, creating noxious gases. The conditions in these compounds are so toxic that if the exhaust system shuts down, animals quickly begin to die off.

These factory farms are not only harmful to non-human animals. Workers at processing plants labor at breakneck speeds slaughtering animals. One worker at Smithfield Foods’ Tar Heel, N.C., plant complained that he is routinely splashed with backed-up hog feces and urine, and that “the human beings are treated like machines.”

According to the Web Site Sustainable Table, “Man-made lagoons on industrial farms hold millions of gallons of liquid waste, from which contaminants can leach into groundwater.” Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer, whose massive hog operations have wiped out small farmers in the U.S., Eastern Europe and Africa, was fined $12.6 million for a toxic spill at a Virginia facility that was twice as big as the Exxon Valdez.

These are all practices that many of us would like to see changed. There is a clear connection between how a rapacious capitalism mistreats animals, how capitalism degrades the environment, and how capitalism cruelly exploits human beings.

Nevertheless, seeking more humane treatment of animals is not the same as calling for “animal rights” or “animal liberation.”

Revolts Behind the “Iron Curtain”

It is 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the event that has come to symbolize the collapse of the self-described Communist regimes of Eastern Europe. Mass demonstrations–beginning in East Germany in early October and spreading to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and finally Romania–led with remarkable speed to the end of Communist rule in all these countries.

But these weren’t the first workers’ revolts in Eastern Europe. Dennis Kosuth recounts for Socialist Worker the history of resistance that plagued the rulers of the Eastern bloc from the moment they established the regimes they falsely claimed were socialist.

A man confronts Russian tanks during crackdown on Czechoslovakia's 1968 uprising

WHILE IT may not be on as many high schools’ required reading lists as it was during the Cold War, George Orwell’s novel 1984 still has a close association with the societies that existed east of the “iron curtain” prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The main character, Winston Smith, lives under the watchful eye of Big Brother and in constant fear of the Thought Police. With the ubiquitous use of government monitoring and truth twisting, it doesn’t take a careful reading to realize that Orwell’s condemnation of state surveillance and torture could be applied to most countries, then and now. But the parallels with the tyrannies that ruled over Eastern Europe in the name–falsely–of socialism were especially strong.

With apologizes for spoiling the ending, 1984 does not finish happily: Winston Smith is successfully brainwashed into loving Big Brother. The novel is good reading in its own right, but if it’s judged as a prediction of the future of Joseph Stalin’s Russia and the satellite states established after the Second World War, it’s not so useful. The similarity ends with the idea that these states were successful at convincing people to love Big Brother. In fact, there were many significant attempts to take Big Brother down in Eastern Europe.

Victory in Victoria! Torch Relay Disrupted as it Starts in Victoria

A report from No2010.com plus two corporate media accounts on October 30, 2009 disruption of 2010 Olympics Torch Relay in Victoria, ‘BC’. Check out Photo Gallery at: http://www.no2010.com/node/1118

VICTORY IN VICTORIA!
2010 Olympic Torch Relay Starts Off Disgraced, Delayed, and Disrupted

by No2010.com, October 31, 2009
Occupied Coast Salish Territory

The 2010 Olympic Torch Relay sparked controversy after its official lighting in Greece on October 22, 2009, when it was revealed that one of the runners in a seven day relay around the country was disgraced Olympian Fani Halkia. Ms. Halkia was disqualified during the 2004 Greece Olympics after winning gold in the 400 meter hurdles, only to later test positive for steroids. She had been banned by the IOC for two years. IOC, Vanoc and Greece officials brushed off the controversy, but Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson called it a ‘disappointment’ for the broader ‘Olympic movement.’

The official Canadian 2010 Olympic Torch Relay also got off to a rough start on Friday, October 30, 2009, arriving 90 minutes late at Victoria International Airport due to bad weather. After it was flown in onboard a Canadian military Polaris jumbo jet, it was transferred to local Indian Act band chiefs. The flame, still carried in a miner’s lantern which was lit in Greece (very symbolic considering BC’s multi-billion dollar mining industry), was then paddled in a band council canoe into Victoria’s inner harbour. From here it was used to light a cauldron and one of the 12,000 official torches made by Bombardier (shaped like a giant marijuana joint; Bombardier is the second largest military manufacturer in Canada). The torch was then ran around the city for the rest of the day by celebrity athletes, corporate employees, and citizens specially selected to run one leg of the relay.

Meanwhile, some 150-200 people gathered at Spirit Square (formerly Centennial Square) at 2 pm for the Anti-Olympic Festival of Resistance. This event was organized by No2010 Victoria, a coalition of grassroots community groups in the city. The festival featured speakers, singers, performers, puppets, banners, a marching band, and many in costume. Speakers represented groups from local Native tribes, university students, anti-poverty & homeless rights advocates, needle exchange workers, seniors groups, environmentalists, and others.

Around the square were as many as 30 cops in total, standing around in groups of 4-6. In three buildings overlooking the square (one of which was City Hall) more cops could be seen in the lobbies and moving up and down stairs. On one building, two black-suited cops stood on the roof observing the crowd with binoculars.

Native Youth Movement: Send the Olympic Torch Back to Europe!

International Native Youth Movement (NYM) Statement: A call to Indigenous People and Supporters, “Send Olympic Torch back to Europe!”

Confront Invasion: Protest 2010 Olympic Torch Relay

106 Days of Action!

“We have this in common. We have a common oppressor, a common exploiter and a common discriminator. But once we realize that we have a common enemy, then we can unite–on the basis of what we have in common… “- Malcolm X, 1954

Indigenous Sisters band Brothers of the North, what the invaders call KKKanada, for the next 106 days the Olympic Torch will run our Great Lands. The Olympic torch, a flamed staff that represents white supremacy, is running through Indigenous Nations and Territories, symbolizing their theft and dominance of our Lands and Ways. For 106 days every Indigenous Nation in these Lands has the opportunity to talk to the world about your issues and show Unity between all Nations here who have a common oppressor, and common Invader, KKKlanada (“Canada”). Let us Unite voices and show the World we are a Proud and Independent People who will never Surrender our Lands.

Not only is the Torch running our Lands, they are also going to get Native people to participate in their evil ceremonies, KKKanada wants the world to think Native people are compliant and even eager to be assimilated into the white way of life.

We call on all Native Nations of the North to show the World we are Strong and Dignified People, the Survivors of a 500-year old Holocaust that has taken 250 million Indigenous lives, whose Lands are illegally occupied and
destroyed, who are a People who will never accept defeat.

Ever since their Invasion we have resisted, as this is written Indigenous People are Blockading roads to prevent destruction, Original People are still living on the Land not dependent on the Invading governments for survival, only needing clean Land, Air and Water for Sustenance. The goal of the Invaders is to make us fully dependent on them to survive, giving us no choice but to live white, when we refuse we are arrested or murdered.

‘In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman’: Authentic Account of the Longest Walk

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Mae Tso tells how the young Navajo women, with their babies, were constantly on the run from the Calvary in the 1860s, hiding in the caves and rocks of Black Mesa. Then captured and forced on the Longest Walk, they were driven at gunpoint across the swift Rio Grande. Babies and elderly were swept away. Eventually after the harsh imprisonment at Fort Sumner, N.M., Navajos returned to their homeland.

In this brilliant work of film, a young Navajo woman has come forward to reveal the genesis of Hitler’s concentration camps.

Hopefully, her art of storytelling with film will give birth to a new generation of filmmakers, Native youths telling their histories with clarity, passion and excellence.

“In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman,” is a honorable memorial to the thousands of Navajos who died on the Longest Walk and during the cruel imprisonment at Fort Sumner. It is a testament to the courage and fortitude of the young Navajo women who survived with their children, and the Navajos who continue to struggle to protect and defend Black Mesa today.

With music by Blackfire, Brent Michaels David and Radmilla Cody, the film is a moving tribute to the legacy of survival.

Camille Manybeads Tso, in an eighth-grade project and trained at the Native youth media project ‘Outta Your Backpack Media,’ has produced a film that is authentic and a hallmark for our times. Photos: The making of “In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman” courtesy Camille Manybeads Tso. Photo 2: Navajo woman and baby at Fort Sumner. Photo 3: Navajos with their shelter at Fort Sumner. Fort Sumner photos courtesy of New Mexico State Monuments.

Contact Camille Manybeads Tso:
halneeproductions@gmail.com
http://oybm.org/

More photos and film screenings:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/11/navajo-youth-filmmaker-in-footsteps-of.html

The Struggle at Six Nations

History and Context

(purple shows the Six Nations Reserve, the red star marks the Douglas Creek area, and the blue represents the entirety of the disputed area between the Six Nations and the government)

The people of the Six Nations Haudenosaunee Confederacy have now for over three years been occupying the Douglas Creek Estates. The Estates were to be a new suburban development in the town of Caledonia, located about 100 kilometres south west of Toronto. The land on which the housing development is being built is some of the most fertile and productive land in North America and has provided the livelihood for the people of the Six Nations for centuries. As has happened across North America, this valuable land is being paved over and destroyed to build more massive homes and big box stores that are typical of the irrational development of suburbia.

The small piece of land is also one of the few remaining “buffer zones” between the ever expanding suburban sprawl of Caledonia and the remaining territories that are held by the Six Nations. The roots of the current dispute go all the way back to Canada’s early history and centre on a treaty that was signed by British imperialists in the 18th century to thank the Six Nations for their aid in the U.S. Revolutionary War.

In Canada’s early history the Six Nations Confederacy were an important military ally that enabled the British to retain their control of Upper Canada in the face of half a century of conflict with the newly born United States. However one of the consequences of allying themselves with the British was that the  Haudenosaunee Confederacy lost their traditional lands in New York State, many of which were brutally attacked by the colonists of the United States during their of Independence.

Following the war the British General Frederick Haldimand handed over a 20 kilometre-wide strip of land along the Grand River in southern Ontario to the Six Nations – 6 miles along each shore of the Grand River from its mouth to its source. Less than 60 years later, the colonial government was trying to take away that land arguing that the earlier treaty was simply a “licence to occupy the lands” but that legal ownership of the land remained with the Crown. After two centuries of struggle over the land the Six Nations reserve near Caledonia now encompasses a mere 5% of the 950,000 acres originally granted to them.

The modern-day developer of the Douglas Creek Estates, as well as both the federal and provincial governments, claim that the leaders of the Six Nations Confederacy agreed to give away all title to the land in 1841 and therefore have no claim on the land today. The Six Nations, on the other hand, state that the land was illegally stolen from them by the Crown and that the Crown squandered away any benefits that the Six Nations should have received from the land. The Six Nations launched a land claim in the 1980s and in 1995, proceeded to sue the federal and Ontario governments.

Also of quite a bit of importance is the fact that in framing of the issue over the land, the people of the Six Nations insist that they remain an independent nation, unconquered still by Canadian colonialism. This is a position that they say is in accordance to both their own constitution and the principles of international law. Consequently the struggle around the Douglas Creek Estates poses not only the question of a struggle over the possession of a particular piece of land, but also raises the very question of political sovereignty for the Six Nations specifically, and for all Onkwehonwe nations generally.

From Anti-Poverty to Indigenous Sovereignty: A Roundtable with OCAP Organizers

The following article that it is one of three from a round table discussion by Upping the Anti on the important land reclamation effort now being carried out by the Six Nations people of the Grand River Territory, and the role of non-native solidarity work in that struggle. To begin with, Brian Skye of Six Nations, who has been heavily involved in the activities of the site, provides his perspective on the significance of the reclamation and the place for external support. Jan Watson, a local Caledonia resident and founding member of Community Friends For Peace and Understanding with Six Nations, then talks about the work she has been involved to build support in her community for the Six Nations reclamation. Finally, we interview three longtime members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty – AJ Withers, Josh Zucker and Stefanie Gude – to ask for their thoughts about organizing support as non-native activists.

Even though they are older (2006) I will be posting all three as they continue to speak strongly about what is going on at the reclamation site and how non-Native activists and radicals can best work in Solidarity with the people of the Six Nations.

This roundtable was conducted in September 2006 with AJ Withers, Josh Zucker and Stefanie Gude of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty

What led you to get involved in supporting indigenous struggles in general, and the Six Nations struggle in particular?

AJ: The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) is a social justice organization and, as such, we support indigenous struggles. I hadn’t heard of what was going on outside of Caledonia until some friends of mine in Tyendinaga told us about it and suggested we go. We went to check it out and see if there was anything we could do to support it. We didn’t know anyone and were quite shy so we sat silently by the fire a lot and hoped people would speak to us. Finally, we learned about things we could supply, and asked if there were things in Toronto we could do to show our support.

Josh: I got involved with indigenous struggles through working with OCAP. When I joined OCAP in 2001 there were 5 paid organizers, one of whom was Shawn Brant, a Mohawk from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory which is near Belleville on the Bay of Quinte in southern Ontario. Most members of OCAP, I would say, started learning more about native issues and sovereignty through the links Shawn brought to OCAP, which went back to before 2001.

Community Friends of Six Nations: An Interview with Jan Watson

The following article that it is one of three from a round table discussion by Upping the Anti on the important land reclamation effort now being carried out by the Six Nations people of the Grand River Territory, and the role of non-native solidarity work in that struggle. To begin with, Brian Skye of Six Nations, who has been heavily involved in the activities of the site, provides his perspective on the significance of the reclamation and the place for external support. Jan Watson, a local Caledonia resident and founding member of Community Friends For Peace and Understanding with Six Nations, then talks about the work she has been involved to build support in her community for the Six Nations reclamation. Finally, we interview three longtime members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty – AJ Withers, Josh Zucker and Stefanie Gude – to ask for their thoughts about organizing support as non-native activists.

Even though they are older (2006) I will be posting all three as they continue to speak strongly about what is going on at the reclamation site and how non-Native activists and radicals can best work in Solidarity with the people of the Six Nations.

As a non-native Caledonia resident, how did you get involved in supporting Six Nations? Have you ever been involved before as a political activist?

No, I have never been an activist, it’s just the way I was raised. I feel that as human beings this is something that we should be doing. We shouldn’t be looking at the people from Six Nations any differently because of their race. It’s no different than helping a neighbour, helping somebody that has a flat tire; you stop on the road as a neighbourly person. It reminds me of the time when a person’s house in Caledonia blew up in a gas explosion, and we all got together to organize different events to raise money for them. We didn’t ask if they had insurance, or whose fault it was, we just immediately dropped everything to help them in any way we could. That’s the same spirit that got me started with Six Nations. I knew that they needed assistance and I just assisted as much as I could.

What did you start doing when you first got involved with the site?

Well, in March I drove by and I saw them on the land, and so I started searching on the Internet to find a phone number to call somebody at Six Nations and ask how I could help. That was really one of the biggest challenges, just trying to find a key contact person. I started emailing anyone I could find saying that I was a Caledonia resident and wanted to help the supporters that are on the site. After I was directed to contact Janie Jamison, I called her and she told me what was needed. I would go out and get some of the things and drop them off, then we would touch base again after another few days. It got to the point where sometimes I’d be heading home, and I’d just pick up a few large pizzas for them when I knew there was a large crowd, and then I would go on my way.

The Political Significance of the Reclamation: An Interview with Brian Skye

The following article that it is one of three from a round table discussion by Upping the Anti on the important land reclamation effort now being carried out by the Six Nations people of the Grand River Territory, and the role of non-native solidarity work in that struggle. To begin with, Brian Skye of Six Nations, who has been heavily involved in the activities of the site, provides his perspective on the significance of the reclamation and the place for external support. Jan Watson, a local Caledonia resident and founding member of Community Friends For Peace and Understanding with Six Nations, then talks about the work she has been involved to build support in her community for the Six Nations reclamation. Finally, we interview three longtime members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty – AJ Withers, Josh Zucker and Stefanie Gude – to ask for their thoughts about organizing support as non-native activists.

Even though they are older (2006) I will be posting all three as they continue to speak strongly about what is going on at the reclamation site and how non-Native activists and radicals can best work in Solidarity with the people of the Six Nations.

Can you tell us who you are and what your connection to Six Nations and the reclamation is?

My name is Degunohdohgae. I am of the Cayuga Nation, Wolf Clan, Six Nations. My colonial name is Brian Skye. My original name, Degunohdohgae, translates into English as “between villages” and that’s who I am as recognized by the Confederacy. I’m at the reclamation site because of the history that is there. As a writer of historical plays, the reasons why we are at the reclamation site as a Confederacy aren’t lost on me.

Our symbol in relation to the colonial countries was the Two Row Wampum, the two rows symbolizing the respective paths of our Confederacy and the non-native country or peoples that we were making the agreements with. The idea behind the symbolism was that we would continue on our path without interrupting their government and religion, assuming that they would show us the same respect and wouldn’t try to force their laws, religion and governments on our people. So that history is something that I’m well aware of. That is part of the history of how we came to be in this part of the country along the Grand River and it’s that history that we are affirming by exercising our rights with the reclamation on the outskirts of Caledonia.

How would you situate the reclamation in terms of the last 50-100 years of resistance to Canadian colonialism in this area? Do you have any thoughts as to why it came about when it did or why people decided to carry it out at this time?

The Politics of Solidarity: Six Nations, Leadership, and the Settler Left

Tom Keefer, writing for Upping the Anti, a Canadian journal of “theory in action,” is a white radical and activist who here presents his perspectives on how non-Onkwehonwe activists and radicals should relate, and give solidarity, to the struggle of the Six Nations Haudenosaunee Confederacy for land and rights at Caledonia, Ontario. His views are premised on a criticism of the traditional activist model of “taking leadership” from those in engaged in the struggle is non-viable, especially given the fact that the Six Nations community is not monolithic; the multiple tiers of decision making in the community; and the tradition of the Two Row Wampum.

He uses the analysis of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) on how white radicals should interact with the Black liberation struggle as his basis for providing an alternative to the current untenable situation

As usual, posting this does not imply 100% endorsement of its analysis.

Onkwehonwe protestors at Six Nations

This article will address some issues which have arisen in the context of non-native activists doing solidarity work with the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations) people of the Grand River Territory who recently reclaimed land near Caledonia, Ontario.1 I will begin by discussing the problems with how many non-native activists have used the concept of “taking leadership” to guide their activism around this struggle, and I then will look at the spaces and places where I think non-native activists should focus their efforts in support of indigenous sovereignty. In order to do so, I will draw on the work of black power activists Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton as their work provides a relevant model for non-native activists looking to build solidarity with Six Nations. I will conclude by addressing the importance of the work being done by trade union activists supporting the people of Six Nations.2

At the outset, I want to suggest that the theoretical claims that I am advancing are contingent on the historical specificity of the Six Nations community of the Grand River Territory. And so, while there are aspects of my argument that may be relevant to other indigenous struggles and aspects of solidarity work more generally, the Six Nations community is unique in many ways. With over 20 000 registered residents, the Six Nations people of the Grand River Territory comprise the single largest indigenous community in Canada and, in certain regards, they have managed to withstand the pressures of Canadian colonialism better than many other indigenous nations in the south of Canada. The alliances the Iroquois Confederacy made as equals with European nations and the cosmology which frames their constitution – the Great Law of Peace – provide them with a clear political framework to guide contemporary relations with settler society. Finally, their claim to the Haldimand tract – almost a million acres of prime agricultural land in southern Ontario on the outskirts of one of Canada’s greatest industrial and commercial conurbations – strikes at the heart of Canadian capitalism and the state’s appropriation of indigenous lands. For these reasons, and in light of the fact that indigenous resistance and the solidarity movements that support it are constantly evolving, it is important not to mechanically extend the claims I advance here to other contexts where they may not be applicable.

South Africa: Time for a New Democratic Left Party?

Mazibuko Jara (standing) addressing a October 16 forum at Rhodes University.

October 30, 2009 — Our country is in crisis. There is deepening inequality, many people live in permanent poverty and millions are unemployed for most of their adult lives. Women continue to suffer from social oppression, violence and poverty. The very ecological and biophysical conditions for our human existence are under threat.

Retrogressive ideologies in our society are gaining ground: we are going back to ethnic identity, we have retrogressive notions of womanhood, we have seen the rise in the power of undemocratic rule of unelected chiefs. The state is dysfunctional, corrupt and fraudulent. The state seems unwilling to confront the economic system that produces all these crises. Together, none of these socioeconomic problems can be addressed by a South Africa that reproduces capitalism. These problems require solutions that go beyond capitalist accumulation.

Is it correct to regard the Jacob Zuma-led African National Congress (ANC) as left? Whilst the Zuma-led ANC is much friendlier to the left than Thabo Mbeki’s, neoliberal capitalism survives in South Africa.

As Karl Marx put it in his Critique of the Gotha Programme: “If capital remains the all dominating economic power, economic and political decision-making will necessarily operate within the strict limits and conditions imposed by it, no matter what one calls the society and no matter which persons or forms of organisation are nominally in control”.

10 Years Later: The Battle in Seattle and Beyond

By Maude Barlo. Originally published in French, Revue Relations (Seattle, dix ans après, Relations no 736 octobre-novembre 2009)

For many people, the mass demonstrations ten years ago in Seattle against the World Trade Organization appeared entirely spontaneous. In fact, they were the result of an unprecedented solidarity among disparate social groups and civil society organizations convinced that corporate globalization was failing the world, worsening environmental damage, and creating – not solving – global poverty.

The WTO was therefore already deeply controversial in the lead up to the 1999 Seattle summit. Overseeing a huge array of trade agreements on everything from food production and intellectual property to financial services and investment measures, the WTO had already been throwing its weight around with a powerful set of enforcement mechanisms since its birth in 1995. Unlike the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was effectively a business contract between nations, the WTO had been endowed with a “legal personality” and formidable powers of enforcement. It had also become clear that, in spite of the fact that decisions were to be made by vote or consensus, the real decision-making power was coalescing in the powerful countries known as the QUAD – the United States, the European Union, Japan, and Canada. Already a great divide was opening up between the global North and the global South.

Seattle was chosen to be the site for this summit because, for the first time, the event was largely funded by the private sector and it was necessary to find a city with deep-pocketed corporate funders. Bill Gates of Microsoft and Phil Condit of Boeing hosted a formidable team of corporate backers who were given privileged access to WTO officials and negotiators in exchange for financial backing. President Bill Clinton was hugely proud to sponsor this summit in his country and much was made of the welcome delegates and the 3,000 journalists from around the world would find in America.

The POUM’s Seven Decades

By Wilebaldo Solano of Solidarity, a democratic, revolutionary socialist, feminist, anti-racist organization in the United States.

THE PARTIDO OBRERO de Unificacion Marxista (The Workers Party of Marxist Unification, POUM) was founded in Barcelona on September 30, 1935 in a small house in the Horta district. That was 70 years ago. The event was not public, since we were still in a phase of relative clandestinity imposed on the movement after October 1934, so we felt it prudent to limit the number of delegates.

Nevertheless, the delegates were very representative and included Joaquin Maurín and Andreu Nin. Their mission was to elect an Executive Committee and prepare a Congress of the new organization. [Andreu or Andres Nin (in Catalan or Spanish respectively) was a leading Spanish Communist who had become a supporter of the Left Opposition. His torture and murder in June, 1937 — discussed below — signaled the Stalinist forces’ turn to terror against the Spanish left — ed.]

The intention was to found a new party based on the unification of the Bloque Obrero y Campesino (Workers and Peasant bloc) and the Izquierda Comunista (Left Communists), two revolutionary Marxist organizations created in 1930 and 1931. The Bloque Obrero y Campesino — formed during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera — was a reaction to the bureaucratic degeneration of the Communist International and the dogmatic sectarianism of its Spanish Section, while the Izquierda Comunista arose from among the militants who sympathized with the Left Opposition of Leon Trotsky.

The fusion of the Workers and Peasants Bloc  with the Left Communists came about after a long period of working together within the Alianza Obrera (Workers Alliance — a bloc of almost all the political organizations and unions), which opened new perspectives. The POUM, with its strong base in Catalonia and solid foundations in Valencia and Aragon, extended its activities into various regions of Spain, creating important sections in Galicia, Asturias, Extremadura and entered a phase of peninsular expansion, its main objective. In addition, the merger with the Left Communists brought with it a team of considerable intellectual and political potential.

Socialism, Stalinism and Eastern Europe

Phil Gasper, the editor of a comprehensive edition of the Communist Manifesto, contrasts the so-called socialist regimes of Eastern Europe 20 years ago with the principles at the heart of the socialism movement historically.

Reposted from Socialist Worker.

Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Summit in 1945

IT’S 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the event that came to symbolize the collapse of the self-described Communist regimes of Eastern Europe.

The process actually began earlier in the year with the sweeping electoral victory of the opposition Solidarity movement in Poland, following a series of mass strikes in 1988. Likewise, one-party rule was abandoned in Hungary in response to a deepening economic crisis.

Mass demonstrations–beginning in East Germany in early October and spreading, after the fall of the Wall, to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and finally Romania–led with remarkable speed to the end of Communist rule in all these countries. The revolutionary wave culminated on Christmas Day, with the televised execution of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who had unsuccessfully attempted to crush the protests in his country with military force.

The Eastern Europe revolutions were undoubtedly of world-historic importance. They accelerated the demise of the USSR two years later, leading to the end of the Cold War and a major shift in the global balance of power.

Events Quicken, Conflict Sharpens — Eyes On Nepal!

The following brief article from the Kasama Project has been making the rounds over the last 2 days and now I am reposting it here. It provides a good orientation for the coming period when a revolutionary (or counter-revolutionary) showdown in Nepal is highly possible. I would also recommend the FIRE Collectives recent pamphlet, A Revolution at the Brink: Stand with Nepal, for an introduction to Nepalese Maoist movement.

A collision has been building for months — since the Nepali military refused to accept civilian control and restructure along the lines ordered by the Maoist-dominated government. Since then the Maosts resigned from national office and regrouped in a series of strategic meetings. They have called for public actions — suggesting that this might build to the kind of storm that toppled the King a few years ago. The word insurrection has been mentioned.

And meanwhile the reactionary forces have braced themselves and grouped around the military high command. The chances of a military coup, or strike against the Maoists is very real. And there are reports of the Nepali military leaders meeting with the U.S. representatives and other reactionaries.

“Small” Oversights and “Big” Lies

Éric Toussaint of International Viewpoint looks at how it may be useful to assess the dangers of the systematically hostile attitude of the overwhelming majority of major European and North American media companies in relation to the current events taking place in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela.

This hostility is only matched by an embarrassed, complicit silence with regard to those involved in the putsch in Honduras or the repression enacted by the Peruvian army against the indigenous populations of the Amazon.

In order to demonstrate this statement, here are a few recent facts:

1) On 5 June 2009, the Peruvian army massacred over 50 Amazonian Indians who were protesting against the land concessions made by Alan Garcia’s government for foreign, mainly European transnational companies. The repression aroused no disapproval among the major global media groups. [1] These groups gave almost exclusive priority to the protests occurring in Iran. Not only did the press fail to condemn the repression in Peru; it did not even bother to cover the story. And yet in Peru, so great was public discontent that the government had to announce the repeal of the presidential decree which the Amazonian Indians had fought against.

Once again, media coverage of the government’s backtracking was almost non-existent. We must ask ourselves the following question: if a Venezuelan or Ecuadorian army or police intervention had caused the deaths of dozens of Amazonian Indians, what kind of media coverage would such events have received?

2) When the constitutionally elected president Manuel Zelaya was ousted by the military on 28 June, the overwhelming majority of media groups declared, in total contradiction of the truth, that the soldiers were reacting to Zelaya’s attempt to modify the constitution, thus ensuring he could remain in power. Several other media groups added that he was following the example of Hugo Chavez, who is presented as an authoritarian populist leader. In fact, Manuel Zelaya was proposing to the Honduran citizens that they vote in favour of the organization of general elections for a Constituent Assembly, which would have represented real democratic progress being made in this country.

Was Justice Served in Honduras?

Shaun Joseph of Socialist Worker analyses the U.S.-brokered agreement that is supposed to end the months of repression that followed a coup against Manuel Zelaya.

Manuel Zelaya has accepted a deal that trades restitution for the right resume the process of convening a Constitutional Assembly

FOUR MONTHS of political crisis in Honduras have apparently come to an end with the signing of an agreement by representatives of the legitimate President Manuel Zelaya and the head of the coup government, Roberto Micheletti.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking from Pakistan, congratulated the Honduran people for the “historic agreement”–without neglecting to note her own role in the process.

In its statement, the leading organization of the grassroots opposition to the coup, the National Resistance Front Against the Coup d’Etat, celebrated the projected reinstatement of Zelaya under the agreement as a “popular victory over…the pro-coup oligarchy”–even though Zelaya’s return to office is not formally guaranteed.

The agreement, arising out of negotiations called the “Guaymuras Dialogue” that began in early October, stipulates the following:

The Sun Dance: Sacrifice, Integration, Reciprocity, and Regeneration

This the inaugural, though technically second, article in a new series I am posting about reclaiming our traditions from 517 years of colonial oppression. The first one was about the Kanienerekowa, the Rotinoshonni (Six Nations Confederacy) Great Law of Peace. This one is about the meaning and practice of the Sun Dance, an important ceremony among our brothers and sisters who dwell on the Great Plains, and comes from Thunder Horse writing for the Republic of Lakotah.

The Sun Dance was for a long time banned by the colonial state as a means by which to assimilate Onkwehonwe into the Christian, capitalist mainstream of settler society and today it is still opposed by many – including many leftists who would call themselves our allies – as a brutal ritual based on primitive superstitions. Those people, self-identified allies or not, either ignore of forget what Gustafesen Lake was all about and simply want us to become like them, but we, and our traditions, will not go so easily.

For the rest of my life I will continue to respect anyone to takes unto themselves the burden of the Sun Dance. Māēhnow-pemātesenon yōhpeh!

Generally, each sun dance has a sponsor, usually the main dancer, who bears the expenses of the ceremony. The event ordinarily involves about a week or more of activity consisting of an early private period, during which preparations are made and instruction and prayer take place, followed by the public phase of dancing. Construction of the sun dance lodge is accompanied by complex rituals in which a special tree is cut for use as a center pole, with the dance enclosure erected around it. The entrance faces east, and in some tribes sunrise ceremonies mark each days dawn during the dance. Inside, an altar is constructed, usually featuring a decorated buffalo skull. Dancers fast and abstain from drinking during the three or four days of dancing. While special songs are chanted by drummers near the lodge entrance, each participant moves rhythmically back and forth from the periphery of the lodge to the center pole. Dancers continuously blow on eagle- bone whistles, fixing their eyes on the crotch in the center pole that is typically known as the Thunderbird’s Nest or eagles nest. Periods of rest alternate with intervals of dancing. At the end of the sun dance, purification rites are held and the participants may drink water and break their fast. The lodge is then abandoned, its components remaining briefly as a reminder of the ceremony before returning to the elements.

Mapuche Communities Mobilize to Reclaim Land

In light of the Mapuche declaration of war against the Chilean state I have decided to repost this article from a few months ago about the recent land reclamation efforts by the Mapuche.

By Ahni at Intercontinental Cry.

Several Mapuche communities have begun to reclaim traditional lands in Araucania, central Chile.

The reclamation began on July 23, about 2 weeks after the government of Michelle Bachelet refused to sit down with a group of Mapuche activists and talk about their concerns as Indigenous People.

The activists had traveled 680 km to meet with Bachelet, having already waited for weeks to hear from from Araucania’s governor about establishing a dialogue .

Before heading home, the group left Bachelet a letter, stating they would take action unless the govenrment addressed their concerns.

On July 23, the Mapuche began to occupy properties they identify as part of their traditional lands, including one held by a logging company. Roadblocks have also been set up in at least 5 different areas in Araucania.

The so-called leftist government finally decided to respond—with violence. The police were sent in to protect the logging company and evict the Mapuche – a “violent occupying force” as far as the government is concerned. “Both Mapuche and police were injured in the clashes” that followed, says IPS News.

Several other attacks against the Mapuche have also been reported.

Continued Aggression Leads to Mapuche Declaration of War

Posted by Ahni at Intercontinental Cry

Continued aggressions of the Chilean state has led the Arauco Malleco Coordinator of Mapuche Communities in Conflict (CAM), a radical indigenous Mapuche organization, to formally renounce their Chilean citizenship and declared war on the government.

The declaration was issued on Oct. 20, the same day that two trucks belonging to the El Bosque forestry corporation were intercepted by CAM and set on fire in the province of Malleco.

As reported by the Latin American Herald Tribune, “the attacks, which began at 1:10 a.m., came hours after five Mapuches were formally indicted under a Pinochet-era anti-terrorism law for similar assaults carried out Oct. 11 near the city of Victoria.”

The declaration, much more than a symbolic gesture, comes at a time of increasing violence against Mapuche children and youths, particularly over the past three months, when Mapuche communities began reclaiming illegally occupied lands in the region of Araucania.

For instance, according to the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), on Oct. 16 “a large group of police, for as yet unknown reasons, began to fire pellets and tear gas canisters” in a school in Temucuicui, Araucania. “Several children suffered pellet wounds and had trouble breathing,” reports IPS News.

Hundreds of Mapuche and non-Mapuche activists protested the attack on Oct. 23—including several children, who carried the empty canisters with them as the marched in Temuco, Araucania’s capital. New Tang Dynasty Television reports.

More than 200 Bodies Recovered at Arizona/Sonora Border

By Kat Rodrigquez, Derechos Humanos

Total of Recovered Remains on the Arizona-Sonora Border Reaches 206 despite continued claims of Border Enforcement Success

Walkers arrive at San Xavier on Tohono O'odham land Oct. 31, 2009, with crosses in memory of the migrants who died in the Sonoran Desert

Arizona — The final number of bodies recovered on the Arizona-Sonora border for the fiscal year that began on October 1, 2008 and ended September 30, 2009 is 206, reports Coalición de Derechos Humanos. The data, which are compiled from medical examiner reports from Pima, Yuma, and Cochise counties, are an attempt to give a more accurate reflection of the human cost of failed U.S. border and immigration policies. The final count includes 141 males, 33 females, 5 minors, and approximately 99, or 48% of unknown identity. Countries represented in the final count include México, Guatemala, and Ecuador.

This figure is higher than last year’s total of 183 remains recovered, but the true total number of deaths on the border is impossible to calculate, particularly as the number of remains recovered in neighboring states is not available.

“In looking at the data from this year, an alarming piece that jumps out immediately is the staggering increase in the number of remains of unknown gender. Two years ago, that number was 5, then 19 last year, and this year we are at 31, an incredible 15% of the total recovered.” says Kat Rodriguez, Coordinator of Coalición de Derechos Humanos.

Unknown gender indicates that not enough of the remains were recovered to determine gender, and without DNA, it is impossible to know even this basic information about the individual, making identification and return to their families even more difficult. The dramatic increase in these unknown gender cases are a troubling indicator or what might be to come, as people are pushed out into more and more isolated areas, making rescue and detection less likely, and the likelihood of death more certain.

Consensual Decision Making Process

Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com

MNN. Oct. 31, 2009. The meetings in Kahnawake to set up a justice system are supposedly based on the decision making process of the Rotino’shonni:onwe. [Wampums 5 to 11, Kaianereh’ko:wa]. Our ancestors brought rational thinking to a principle. To keep our identity, we have to be free in body, mind and energy. We have to make up our own mind based on all the facts. There are many similarities in the nature based philosophies of all Ongwehonwe on Onowaregeh [Great Turtle Island] and beyond. These are the basic principles of our decision making process.

GOAL. The decision must be in the best interests of all the people. Consensus does not mean that all agree but that all understand the decision.

NOTE. Whatever ideas are put into the process, the needs and attitudes of each is considered and complements the decision. The individual has a duty to be directly involved, and to bring their ideas into the discussion within their clan. The final decision will be fully satisfactory to some, satisfactory to others and relatively satisfactory to the remainder, and will reflect elements from each group. This is a slow careful process requiring the reaching of a full understanding by each individual and not a decision made by a leader.

WAR CHIEF. Presides over the meeting to make sure that collective rational thought and behavior are followed.

CLANS. The people are divided into three clans: Bear, Wolf and Turtle. Each have 3 chiefs for a total of 9.

ASSISTANT WAR CHIEF. Each clan selects a temporary spokesperson called an Assistant War Chief.

WELL-KEEPER announces the subject for discussion and passes the issue over the Council Fire.

Leonard Peltier and the Indian Struggle for Freedom

This article is based on a presentation delivered Saturday, June 20, at Socialism 2009 in Chicago, by Michele Bollinger, an activist and member if the International Socialist Organization in Washington, D.C. Reproduced from International Socialist Review.

I AM here today to talk about federal prisoner number 89637-132— man named Leonard Peltier, an innocent man who has spent more than thirty-three years in prison for a crime he did not commit. In 1977, he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the deaths of two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, who were killed in a gunfight on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in June 1975. Peltier’s case is one of the greatest travesties of justice of modern U.S. judicial history—alongside Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Leonard Peltier is one of American society’s longest serving political prisoners. His prosecution and conviction were driven solely by his participation in the American Indian Movement, also known as AIM. Leonard Peltier has been a victim—time and time again—of the racism that is embedded in the U.S. criminal justice system.

But Leonard Peltier is not simply a victim. He is a fighter, writer, activist, grandfather, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and was the presidential candidate for the Peace and Freedom Party in 2004. Leonard, his friends, family, and comrades have fought for real justice to be done. In the years since his conviction, millions upon millions of people around the world have come to learn of his case, agree that he is innocent, and demand his freedom. This is in part due to the famous documentary, Incident at Oglala, directed by Michael Apted and narrated by Robert Redford, and the national bestselling book that everyone from the FBI to former South Dakota governor Bill Janklow tried to block from publication—Peter Matthiessen’s In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.

This struggle has had its ups and downs. Former President Bill Clinton—a Democrat who expanded the prison system and the death penalty—refused to grant clemency to Peltier after hundreds of FBI agents marched against it in front of the White House, saving all his pardons for his wealthy benefactors like Mark Rich. This was a painful blow to many who built momentum around Peltier’s case in the 1990s—but it was a clear reflection of the Clinton presidency, which expanded the death penalty, ushered in an era of mandatory minimum sentences and zero-tolerance policies, and ended with over 2 million people incarcerated.

Polish Death Probed – Attempt on Mohawk Ignored

Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com/

MNN. Oct. 29, 2009. On October 14th 2007, Polish immigrant, Robert Dziekanski, was killed by the RCMP at the customs venue in Vancouver Airport. He was tasered, knocked down and hit again. He screamed in pain on the floor. They fired again, again and again until he died.

Dziekanski had come from Poland to visit his mother, who had been waiting for him at the arrivals level for 7 hours.

A bystander video taped his death with his cell phone. The RCMP were all buffed up with body armor, hand guns, pepper spray and collapsible batons. They said they feared for their safety when he picked up the stapler and waved it at them.

The state is spending millions on an highly publicized investigation into his death.

What’s the difference between this and the attack on Kahentinetha Horn at the Akwesasne border on June 14, 2009? The CBSA Canadian Border Services Agency video taped this vicious assault which they hide for reasons of National Security. Many witnesses have signed affidavits.

Horn was pulled over by the border guards to wait for hours. CBSA and a squad of heavily equipped commandos appeared. They surrounded her car, grabbed her and used stress tactics that brought on a heart attack. The border guards tried to push her to bend forward so the blood would rush into her heart and kill her. She survived.

This attack has been kept out of mainstream news. Every request to the RCMP, OPP and Attorney General of Canada to investigate this crime has been stopped.

Canada does not want a review of their agents torturing and trying to kill a 69 year old woman who was peacefully crossing the border at Akwesasne.

Rally in Solidarity With Six Nations Land Rights! – Nov 7

Rally at 1 PM, Victoria Park, (Corner of George St. and Darling St., Brantford, ON). Potluck dinner and social to follow at 5PM at the reclaimed Kanata Village site.

Down with the Brantford Injunction! No Developments on Six Nations Land! Drop all charges against Six Nations land defenders! Meaningful negotiations now!

Speakers include:

• Aaron Detlor (Lawyer for the Haudenosaunee Development Institute)
• Bev Crawford (Haudenosaunee Hoskanigetah)
• Bill Squires (Mohawk Workers)
• Chris Harris (Black Action Defense Committee, Toronto)
• Dawn Martin-Hill (Dept. of Indigenous Studies, McMaster)
• Jan Watson (Co-founder of Community Friends in Caledonia, CAW 555)
• Janie Jamieson (Former spokesperson for the DCE Reclamation)
• Jim Windle (Brantford TRUE)
• Missy Elliott (Young Onkwehonwe United)
• Phil Monture (Six Nations Land Claim Expert)
• Ruby and Floyd Monture (Six Nations Land Defenders)
• Steve Watson (CAW Educational Department)
• Tim Reynolds (Brantford TRUE)
• Tom Keefer (CUPE 3903 First Nations Solidarity Working Group)
• Vince Gilchrist (Haudenosaunee Hoskanigetah)

Brantford, Ontario has become “ground zero” in the struggle over Indigenous rights in Ontario. Most of the city is under landclaim, but instead of halting development until the status of the disputed land can be negotiated, Brantford city council is carrying out an aggressive policy of encouraging the criminalization of Six Nations land defenders. Since 2006, when protests in nearby Caledonia erupted, over 60 people from Six Nations have faced more than 160 criminal charges as they have tried to peacefully stop illegal developments from taking place on their lands.

A Theory of Globalized Capitalism

By Jeffery R. Webber.

Jeffery R. Webber is assistant professor of political science, University of Regina, Canada. He is the author of Red October: Left -Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia (forthcoming), and is currently finishing Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia: Class Struggle, Indigenous Liberation, and the Politics of Evo Morales, 2000-2010.

This article originally appeared in Monthly Review.

Reviewed: William I. Robinson, Latin America and Global Capitalism: A Critical Globalization Perspective (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2008), 412 pages, $55.00, hardcover.

Latin America and Global Capitalism delivers a scathing indictment of neoliberal globalization from an explicitly anti-capitalist perspective. Its scope is theoretically and empirically ambitious, beginning with a wide-ranging treatment of structural shifts in global capitalism since the early 1970s, before turning to rigorous examination of a range of themes in Latin American political economy in light of these global changes. Robinson then brings these threads together with an argument that neoliberalism entered its twilight phase in the region beginning with the recession of the late 1990s and early 2000s, as extra-parliamentary mass movements concomitantly exploded onto the scene and a variety of self-described left governments took office. The focus then tightens, with conjunctural analyses of the current upsurge in indigenous revolts, the immigrant rights movement in the United States, and the complicated and contradictory processes of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.

The theoretical scaffolding of Latin America and Global Capitalism builds from and extends the frameworks first developed in two earlier books—especially the concepts of transnational production and finance, a transnational capitalist class (TCC), and a transnational state (TNS).1 The text contains a succession of exposés of the social and environmental catastrophes engendered by the dual process of global capitalist expansion through which: (1) new external areas of the world are brought into the system of commodity production and capitalist market relations; and (2) “capitalist or commodity production replaces pre- or noncapitalist forms of production” in areas of human activity that had “previously remained outside of the logic” of the system.