Buying Bodies for Cash-What's The Real Scoop?

Left: child prostitution in India
I am always reluctant to enter into discussion and debate around the issue of prostitution or what is now referred to as the sex trade, and prostitutes ‘sex trade workers “ or “sex workers.”My reluctance is usually a result of the way the issue is always framed within certain parameters and because of this the arguments go in circles eternally.
Fundamentally there are 2 or three common ways to frame these discussions. Most who enter the fray often find that the discourses get mixed up, the boundaries of discourse and argumentation and merge into one another.

Discussions around prostitution are always rooted in larger debates around gender and sexuality, economic and social relations-places that most do not want to go in depth and are content with more surface arguments.

First of all to divorce this issue from the larger issue of the role sexuality plays in human relationships raises crucial issues. Do we as a species really want to divorce sex from all the other aspects of being human or do we not? Be honest and clear. I am not for a minute implying that we need to be emotionally involved with everyone we have sex with but do we not want to acknowledge real choice including economic choice , acknowledge the inequalities that determine and limit choice, including all forms of oppression and exploitation ?

Perhaps most johns do not but does that let them off the hook? Like it or not when cash is exchanged for sex then the only “relationship” between the parties is an economic one. Any notion that sexuality is in these cases bound up or intertwined with any deeper understanding of “relationship,” such as respect, intimacy, integrated connections between mind and body, emotions, dignity and equality and even “choice,”, all of those higher aspects of “human nature” that we aspire to, fight for, enshrine in custom, law and ritual –might as well go out the window. It is hypocrisy to even think otherwise.
Either we are no different from apes and men (in the main the majority of buyers of bodies for sexual activity) will always be driven by some animal instinct to have sex, no matter the context, in essence a socio-biological argument, or we are in some way different and will always be caught in the difficult process as human beings to live within the contradictions between our “natural” being and “social being?”

If we argue from the “natural “realm then it is a slippery slope from the idea that buying sex in a so-called “contractual” relationship is really any different in many if not all cases from “taking” sex forcefully in rape. Before anyone starts to roar with rage –let is look at the whole notion of choice. Choice is always constrained and sometimes there is no choice. When we buy sex from someone who has no other choice are we in fact entering into a contract? If the choice is between feeding oneself and one’s family I would say no we are not! Economic force upon victims is much more pervasive and damaging than one act of physical force and is in fact physical force that invades our body’s right to survive. We are exploiting at the most basic and I would say base level. Do young pubescent and prepubescent girls in Thailand and the Philippines for instance have a choice as to whether or not they want to be abused and used by masses of European and North American men doing their “thing” on the sex circuit? No they do not!

When we argue and discuss this issue are we or are we not basing our arguments in the underlying idea that men cannot live or thrive unless they have sex and it is thus their right to buy it and to take it. One of the most powerful and horrifying statements I have ever heard is from a Congolese soldier who based his right to rape women en masse in the belief that he had been in the jungle for months deprived of sex and it was his right and entitlement as a soldier to rape the first women he came upon to satisfy his entitlement to sex as a man.

Every war in every country throughout history has witnessed the use of rape of women and sometimes children, as an instrument of terror and ideology and is ultimately viewed as the normal course of events in war-too be expected and condoned.Women in other words are used as pure objects –nothing more than bodies to be forcibly taken and used to his satisfaction. Are we surprised when even many religions treat women as "vessels" rather than active particants with rights and minds and ideas .So when we enter into any kind of arguments and discussion around the sex as economic transaction, we have to admit that we are looking at the human body as pure object and accept all the implications that roll out from this premise or assumption. Most women simply do not understand this argument. For this reason we are often reluctant to enter into discussion. As well many men in so called “relationships “ whether marriage or less formal arrangements , solicit and use prostitutes on more or less regular basis. What the hell is this all about?

Yes there are a very few women who pay for sex from men, but the market has never really taken off in a serious way and I doubt very much if we will ever see this phenomenon emerge.
Throughout history prostitutes have been sought after and condemned. Even as a young girl I used to wonder why men solicit sex from women for cash and then condemn them as “whores.”

If I buy a car or a home I do not then go around condemning houses and cars and televisions as objects for actively soliciting my purchase(s) and then condemn these objects as vile and dirty and loose, provocative and luring me against my will to purchase them. I have always wondered as well why prostitutes are condemned, arrested, vilified and railed against from the pulpit, in the courts and around “proper” family dinners as “soliciting.” The very term implies that some degree of coaxing or coercion went into the effort of procuring a customer for the wares being sold. At least the term bares the reality that an object is being sold –and makes no bones about any notion of humanness being involved. However it would take a lot to convince me that men on the hunt for sex devoid of any “human” context need any convincing or coaxing. Who is soliciting what here?

I would add that while sex workers fight as a group for respect and safety on the job, they are much clearer on the nature of what they do than most who buy their bodies. There is generally an honesty and a clarity among them as well as many stories and black humour when they tell tales about their customers.

Sex workers as a group are not monolithic in terms of their life histories and circumstances. Many if not most have been sexually and physically abused as young women. Huge numbers use drugs to endure the work they do. I have no doubt that in a world where all workers including women are guaranteed employment at decent living wages as well as free education and health care for themselves and their families, huge numbers of women would leave the trade .

Some women however do this work to pay their kids tuition, do it because they have an element of freedom from the day to day oppressive experience of boring, low paid demoralizing jobs or at the very least an illusion of this .

So while I agree that as long as prostitution is with us we need to respect sex trade workers, and more importantly sex workers must respect themselves and organize collectively to ensure their rights to safety are entrenched as much as is possible. Their demands for dignity, safety and the right to determine their own working conditions as well as decent free health care and social infrastructure that enables them to choose their line of work are no different from the demands that all workers should be fighting for.

I am sure within the parameters of liberal discourse , many would pick a point I have made and argue it eternally-within the parameters of liberal discourse. But I am not even suggesting that we should do this. We need refuse to argue within these parameters and argue against the limits on argumentation that capitalist ideology to support its own rapacious, inhuman system of exploitation , oppression and brutality makes us believe is the only way to see, analyze and discuss is their way.

I for one do not believe that “prostitution “will always be with us. I do believe that society based on genuine human need, owned and run by the working class the real producers of wealth in society, according to our immense abilities and skills will result in a better society where sexuality is integrated in thought and action with other human needs such as respect equality and dignity. This is not a discussion about “morality” as some may argue but a discussion about material conditions that affect the way we think about ourselves as human beings. A society based on greed and profit, will inevitably turn everything into an object to be bought and sold in the market place-women’s bodies are no exception.

But lets be clear –are we apes or are we human ?

Arrogant, hypocritical Obama regime's concern for human rights in Iran has nothing to do with human rights

President Barack Obama has ordered what the BBC refers to as, ” unprecedented sanctions against senior Iranian officials”, for "sustained and severe violations of human rights".

The sanctions are against eight men including the head of the Revolutionary Guards, a former interior minister and the prosecutor general, reports claim. Their assets, if they have any in the US, will be frozen and American citizens and businesspersons will be forbidden to do business with them. The US treasury department said they would face a travel ban and asset freeze.

The alleged abuses include the killings and beatings of anti-government protesters after the disputed presidential election in June 2009 reports in the press say.

The White House issued a statement reminding the world that "As the president noted in his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly, human rights are a matter of moral and pragmatic necessity for the United States.”

The White House statement adds:

"The United States will always stand with those in Iran who aspire to have their voices heard. We will be a voice for those aspirations that are universal, and we continue to call upon the Iranian government to respect the rights of its people."

Even more sickening is Hilary Clinton: "We speak out for those unable to speak out for themselves" I wonder if she knows about the woman referred to in a previous post.

Now I’m no supporter of the theocracy in Iran, and no doubt these guys are real pieces of work. Iran is a repressive and vicious regime ruled by a religious clique with a 7th century mentality. But I have to put myself in the shoes of a worker in the former colonial world; in Indonesia, or Vietnam or Bangladesh. In Chile or Iraq.

What hypocrisy this is coming form the regime that has more people in prison than any country in the world. "Human rights are a matter of moral and pragmatic necessity for the United States!" Iran would have developed along a completely different path had the US and its British flunkies not overthrown the democratic secular regime of Mohammed Mossadegh. Not only did the US orchestrate that coup, it put in place the murderous Shah and armed him to the teeth. He eliminated all opposition and his secret police, SAVAK, were known throughout the world as ruthless torturers.

What sanctions has the US government ordered on Bangladesh for the horrific human rights violations in its factories there? What sanctions has the US ordered on Vietnam where similar abuses occur? In all these non-Union sweat shops where goods for the American market are produced, violence and rape of workers occurs you can bet on it.

Will there be sanctions forthcoming on Saudi Arabia? This regime has “religious police” that make sure you’re practicing the right sort of Islam and it has financed right wing religious groups throughout the world. Unions are banned.

And what about Israel? Surely the US will throw some sanctions their way. This is one of the most racist and oppressive regimes there is. We all know about the CIA's dealings with the dictator in Kazakhstan. Then there’s all the kidnappings and torture that the CIA is involved in. This is not rumor but common knowledge.

Sanctimonious statements like these from the White House and the sanctions are not looked on with anything but disdain and contempt from most of the workers in this world. As abusive a regime as it is, Iran has not invaded anyone. Iran never killed four million Vietnamese. Iran has not built hundreds of bases and detention centers around the world. Iran, even in its war with Iraq that was encouraged by the US government has not killed as many Iraqi’s or done the damage to Iraq that the US has. Fallujah will be forever ingrained in the minds of Arab, Muslim and workers throughout the former colonial world as a heroic resistance by a Daniel against a marauding and murderous Goliath.

Then there’s Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, and lets not forget one of the masters of mass murderer, Henry Kissinger. What sanctions might they be receiving one might ask? They are also responsible for the deaths of thousands of young American workers whose lives were taken from them in predatory wars on behalf of US capitalism.

I remember some years ago when two off-duty British soldiers drove round a corner and ran smack bang in to an IRA funeral. The scene was horrible as people mounted the car, fired shots through the roof and the side and killed those guys. Naturally, the media focused on this horrific scene, this “brutal” killing of these innocent men. But we have to look beyond this. We have to see the big picture and the role these men played in the occupation of Irelands six northern counties; the Catholic youth they pulled off the streets and the Bobby Sands of this world. What terrorists these Irish were. But the British state was never presented to me as terrorist. The actions of the British state in its occupation, the arrests, torture, killing behind the scenes, this is what has to be taken in to account as well.

The Iranian regime must be overthrown, but so must the US one; yes we have more democratic rights. But workers won these. I am in sympathy with the workers of the world, particularly the former colonial world, victims of British US other occupying powers.

The talk of human rights coming out of the White House should have no credibility with any thinking worker.

Ten Million Strike in Spain, 50,000 protest in Brussels, hundreds of thousands protest throughout Europe against austerity measures.

Some scenes from the general strike in Spain. The Unions have claimed 10 million were out. There were protests all over Europe including 50,000 in Brussels In Slovenia public sector workers have been on strike for the third day against a wage freeze.

Here's another video from Ireland which is falling in to a crisis situation much like Greece.


I just looked through the Wall Street Journal and not a mention of any of it.  Same in the main section of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Spanish police attack strikers

More links to Europe protests/strikes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/29/european-protests-strikes-budget-cuts
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/picketers-clash-with-police-in-spanish-general-strike-2092789.html

The primitive accumulation of capital. Violent robbery.

The primitive accumulation of capital.

I am having a wee Powers here tonight so I might not get this all right. I am thinking about the primitive accumulation of capital. You see a friend of mine was out walking in Ireland with his Jack Russell. He took a short cut across some fields. He was approached by a man who said he owned the fields and therefore my friend had no right to walk on them.

My friend asked but how did he get to own them. The other man answered that his father gave them to him. How did his father get them asked my friend, his father gave them to him was the reply, how did he get them, his father gave them to him, and how did he get them, his father gave them to him, and so it went on until the man who claimed he was the owner said well his great great great grand father had fought for them. So on this note my friend said okay I will fight you for them.

Needless to say the self styled owner refused this invitation. Capitalists steal what is not nailed down and then change the laws to make their ownership "legal." When the lands of North America were stolen by US capitalism it decreed that because the native American people were nomadic they could not own the land so US capitalism had the right to take it. That was a good one.

We working class people, if we are lucky, have money that we spend for things we need to live on. But there is money that is different from that. It is not needed to live on. It is used to speculate and invest with. It is not money, it is capital. The primitive accumulation of capital was achieved through robbing and stealing and murdering on a mass scale. And not only in the former colonial countries.

I was reading recently about the taking over of the common land in England and how it was privatized and with this the masses of the population were driven off the land and into absolute poverty. Then to keep the masses in their place, to keep them hungry, to force them to work in the factories and for the large land owners it was made a capital offense to kill a rabbit and eat it or gather firewood to burn. Starve them in to accepting what capitalism wanted from them. The later accumulation of capital was through exploiting the labor power of the working class in the work places. In one form of robbery or another the capitalist class got their capital.

I was talking to a man recently who was a civil engineer all his life. He had worked in countries such as Algeria, India, Venezuela and Mexico. He was talking to me about Algeria and he said when the French left it went to hell. His conclusion was that the Algerians were inferior. It was a racist conclusion. I said to him that when the French were driven out they took massive amounts of capital with them. This was the problem. The Algerian people had practically no capital. This man traded in antiques. He had a lot of knowledge. But he was hanging on by a thread to his business. The reason why? He had practically no capital. He was not inferior in his knowledge, in fact he knew more than many who made more money than him in the antique business, but he did not have the capital to buy goods and sell them and so he was all but bankrupt.

I think too about the African American population. Hundreds of years and never paid a wage. Such a staggering crushing blow. Such damage was done. I am not in favor of capitalism. I am a democratic socialist. But we have to recognize that when a people is not paid any wages for a couple of hundred years this has a negative affect on their ability to accumulate some resources. And when slavery was ended and the KKK was unleashed on the black people one of the reasons was to prevent the large numbers of skilled former slaves from getting jobs in the skilled trades. And it would have been very hard for them to open their own shops and businesses as they had no capital.

Yes capitalism is a rotten system, a nasty business. Whenever we end it and establish democratic socialism life will be much better. Of course the workers and consumers of Power's whiskey will have to ensure that product is kept up to scratch. And of course also that we just have a little drink and not go to excess. And those that have a problem with it we will have to help to fight this problem.

Sean.

Canadian judge finds federal anti-prostitution laws unconstituional

A Canadian Superior Court judge issued a controversial landmark decision today that opens the door to the decriminalization of prostitution in Canada. The judge’s decision means that the country's anti-prostitution laws will not be enforceable in the province of Ontario as they are "unconstitutional and violate a person’s right to security of person, according to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms." According to reports I have read, prostitution is technically legal in Canada but all the activities surrounding it, solicitation, houses or brothels where it takes place, are not.

Supporters of the decision, among them prostitutes and sex workers of various types, claim that the federal laws drive them on to the streets where they become the victims of violence and rape; they certainly discriminate against women. This decision, they claim will make the lives of these people safer and lead to regulation and government protection of sorts.

Terri Jean Bedford, one of the defendants. 2009 photo

Lawyers for the federal government argue that “Prostitution is inherently dangerous no matter how it is practiced.” And that the federal laws are “…meant to prevent the commercialization of the sex trade and protect women from exploitation.”

This is a highly controversial issue but my inclination is to consider this a victory for women engaged in this activity. But the wider issue is why women are forced to engage in it.  I cannot accept in my mind that it is a decision made lightly. The conservatives and the federal government lawyers who argue that prostitution is “inherently dangerous” and that the laws are made to protect women from exploitation have a point, it is not healthy psychologically or physically I would think, nor are most jobs. But women are exploited in all sorts of ways, on the job, in society in general, the system perpetuates this; where do rights and freedoms and security of persons come in here?  Even if we take these laws, the purchasers of these services, normally, but not exclusively men, are not treated the same was as the sellers in the courts. We are talking about buying of a human being’s body to use solely for sexual gratification for an agreed upon amount of time.

While I would think this decision is a step forward (although I can be convinced otherwise) the more important issue is eliminating prostitution altogether and I think that this cannot occur without eliminating capitalism, an exploitive and oppressive economic system, and with it the hypocritical and unnatural social attitudes to sex and personal relations. While women have made major gains historically, they are still objectified in the media and a young woman is a grand prize for the wealthy older man; then there is the issue of wages and opportunity in the workplace.  When do we see an ad for a vacuum cleaner or washing machine on TV where the user is a man? 

What thoughts do the regular readers of this blog have on this issue?

Gallup poll shows gulf residents depressed. And why shouldn't they be? Depression has its roots in the economic system, in capitalism

A young Iraq veteran kills his pregnant wife, their 3 year old and himself. Another guy shoots a bunch of people including his wife because his eggs were too hot apparently. This week there are shootings in Boston, Florida, Austen Texas. What annoys me most about this is that the system is never put forward as the major cause of it all.

In the case of the young Iraq veteran I remember the report I read mentioning that infidelity or financial woes didn’t seem an issue. Er, pardon me! Iraq? This is the elephant in the room that they conveniently ignore. There will be many more disturbed and mentally ill young men and women coming back from these wars fought on behalf of the corporations.

We cannot leave out the effect of society on us as individuals. Plants in polluted soil will be stunted or die and the same happens to humans living in a polluted, insecure and destructive social system. Capitalism makes us sick.

A Gallup survey released this week and covered in the media found that depression cases are up 25% in the gulf coast region of the US since the BP oil spill. I am certain that this trend most likely existed prior to this disaster and was probably intensified by Katrina as well. A National Institute of Mental Health study done before Katrina, found that only 6 percent of area residents had likely mental illnesses. Both Katrina and the BP spill which killed 11 workers were not natural disasters, they were market driven. The casualties in these episodes, both human and environmental, were casualties of the economic system in which we live.

It’s not just the immediate effects of such disasters either, like losing ones home or job. It’s the general insecurity and the witnessing of such catastrophic damage to the world around us, the land, the oceans and the creatures that live on and in them with us. 
“The survey said people along the Gulf reported feeling sad" according to the reports, "people are "worried and stressed after the spill…….. Another survey found that more than 40 percent of people in coastal Mississippi reported feeling stress after the BP geyser blew, a 15 percent increase from before.”

An earlier study found that 13 percent of coastal adults from Louisiana to Florida suffered probable serious mental illnesses after the spill; this means something to me. It shows that people care about the world in which we live and we are not oblivious to the environmental and human crises around us. In Gulfport, Miss., 42 percent of the patients surveyed at one mental health center said they were sad or depressed because of the spill. This is natural for us as humans. Why would we not be depressed? And imagine what sort of numbers we would be talking about if we were discussing Iraqi o families or those living in the slums of Mumbai or Rio.

Symptoms of mental illness are, insomnia, anxiety, depression, anger, substance abuse and domestic violence all of which are among the most common problems reported by mental health agencies. “It’s like a virus,” says one mental health worker whose clinic is receiving twice many patients as in 2009. Another resident who runs a day-care center notices the changes among the children:

"They're throwing desks, kicking chairs," she said. "It's sad. With this, people do not have hope. They cannot see a better time."


“They cannot see a better time” this is an astute observation and is one of the major causes of concern and depression among working people. Endless wars, economic uncertainty and no force in society offering a plausible explanation for it all. It’s either the wrath of god or our own individual fault, explanations that cause people to internalize the anger and blame ourselves for crises that are not of our own making. Not seeing a way out is a major obstacle to eradicating depression. If we don’t see there is a way out, why struggle to change things?

This is why the issue of the system is always left out of the equation. We must not question how society is organized; how we produce the things we need in society and who owns the means for doing this etc. After all, the market knows best, capitalism is the only social system that works; humanity cannot exist without capitalists and their never-ending quest for profit. Capitalism is the end of civilization. It will mean the end of civilization as we know it, that’s for sure.

When the old Soviet Union collapsed they announced it as the failure of communism. Not only was it not communism, it is important to recognize that here they refer to a system that failed even if they called this totalitarian regime by the wrong name. But in the capitalist economy, every mass killing, every oil spill, every economic collapse and the horrors that accompany them; these are all the failings of bad apples and failed or greedy individuals; it is never capitalism’s fault. It is never suggested that these crises are an inherent and unsolvable by-product of the so-called “free market”.

This is a major obstacle to the development of a mass movement for change in the US. It is something the leaders of the trade Unions could change given the resources at their command, but they support in every way the market and its masters; they will not act without massive pressure from below to do so and where we can we must act without them. Their role also holds back the development of a mass movement for change but none of these things will prevent it forever and throughout the world there are major struggles against the horrors of the market. Even in the US people are fighting back, but the media here is among the most censored of all the developed world.

While we must feel for the sadness that surveys like these show exist among the population we should recognize the positive side of it. It shows a very powerful tendency within human beings for decency, security and a respect for community and the natural world that gives us life. It is this tendency that provides the basis for resistance, for the class struggle that is always present but will come to the surface with a vengeance in the future. This is the war that is worth winning, the building of a democratic socialist society and world where each human being can fulfill our highest potential in harmony with nature.

Donald Trump and Bill gates would tell us that this is utopian, that human nature is naturally selfish and greedy. Don’t religious books tell us the same?

Don’t believe any of it.

Bankers Raking in the Cash as Workers Lose Jobs, Homes and Access to Education and Health Care

“Competitive compensation practices are integral to retaining and attracting the best talent which is critical to the success of Citi and all its stakeholders.”

So says Citigroup spokeswoman Danielle Romero Apsilos. As Sean has pointed out numerous times on this blog, when they hand over millions to CEO’s their justification is that they won’t work for less but when they cut our wages they argue that we should be expected to work for less. And, if we don’t they’ll do what they have to to force us, including termination and, if necessary they’ll call out the troops.

Standing by its principals Citi has a new banker in its ranks. It has wooed Stephen Trauber over from UBS AG. The Wall Street Journal reports that this is a sign that Citi is regaining confidence after being bailed out by the taxpayer and having its executive compensation scrutinized by the government.

Trauber is expected to get about $30 million and a few other perks over three years. He brought a bunch of his buddies over to Citi with him.

Right after the bailouts, Citi was forced to curb some exec pay. Andrew Hall, one of its top execs was paid $98.9 million in 2008 and there was talk of even more for 2009 but Obama’s pay czar threatened to go public with the claim that such compensation was “against the public interest”. Citi CEO Vikram Pandit, like all of them bowing to the public mood agreed that $100 million for Hall for 2009, “would be excessive”.

Because of the widespread hatred of bankers that intensified after the crash, Pandit took home a “symbolic” $1 salary in 2009. With these thugs though you have to look a little deeper. He had already received $125,000 before making that announcement. He also received a compensation package valued at more than $38.2 million in 2008, this was “as the bank posted five consecutive quarters of multibillion-dollar losses and turned to the government three times for help.” Says the New York Times. Oh, one other detail, Pandit received nearly $80 million from selling his hedge fund to Citigroup in 2007.

Citi is still about one fifth owned by the US taxpayer but we don’t seem to get much say in what goes on there.

It’s clear that not all the public sector is having its wages and benefits cut.

The AquaBounty Salmon Won't Feed the Starving Children, Just the "Starving" Investor". Seems Fishy to Me

The AquaBounty genetically modified salmon can reach full size “twice as fast as its naturally occurring brethren” claims the big business magazine Business Week now owned by Bloomberg News. “The altered fish can grow to market weight of as much as 13 pounds in two or three years compared with three to four years required for natural salmon” says the CEO of the company that makes it.

With that claim it seems the manufactured fish is inching closer to making it to market, I would think that world hunger could be eliminated within the next five years with information like that  But, assuming this “Frankenfish” as it is referred to by critics gets the OK, I’d bet that world hunger will not be eliminated in the next 20 years. In fact, I’ll bet that it’ll never be eliminated under capitalism, as the market is incapable of eliminating it, hunger is a product of the market.

The FDA, the capitalist institution responsible for determining how safe the food we eat is, says that the fish is safe and has no “biologically relevant differences from that of the naturally occurring variety.” We blogged about this recently.

Critics claim that the FDA pulled a sneaky one and “reviewed” the fish as a veterinary drug “rather than creating a new review process for gene altered foods” says BW. This in and of itself doesn’t seem like a big deal but what it means concretely is it allows some of the testing data to be kept out of public scrutiny, to remain confidential as “trade secrets”.

One of the critics, Wenonah Hauter of the Food&Water Watch group believes that they are keeping some data secret because they are afraid of public reaction. That might well be so, but the main reason is what they say up front, “trade secrets”. Whether good or bad, if the project hits the market with FDA approval then the profits will roll in and all capitalists whether they are producing genetically altered animals or cars, want to corner the market or drive competitors from it. If the reason for producing the fish was to eliminate hunger then what would it matter that we all knew how to do it?

The Aquabounty salmon are all female and sterilized so that in the event they escape they won’t breed and wipe out real salmon. AquaBounty Technologies CEO, Ronald L. Stotish who also tells us the fish is safe, says he is not in the fish business but the technology business. So the fish eggs will be produced in Canada and the fish are “grown to market weight” at an AquaBounty farm in panama.. (I wonder why that location. Could it have to do with low wages and no limited Union rights?)

The bottom line is that we cannot trust the private sector or capitalist institutions to protect us or make decisions about the food we eat or how we apply science in everyday life, profit will always be the motivating factor. Are we naïve enough to think the FDA officials making this decision are exempt from the briber’s (Lobbyists) clutches? This fish may well be safe, but that’s a secondary aspect of this and to be honest, I doubt it. Food production has to be taken out of private hands if we are really to solve world hunger and produce food in a way that is healthy and in harmony with nature.

Fired after thirty years. Taken back with a 40% wage cut and no health benefits.

Wall Street. The center of the capitalist criminals and crooks which brought the US and world economy into collapse and threw hundreds of millions more people into starvation. A sane society would put a high fence round it and hold them all in isolation for the rest of their lives.

I hope I live long enough to see the scum of the ruling class that run this country dealt with in the way they deserve.

My companion's best friend is in her fifties. She worked for the same major corporation for over thirty years. Last month they called her in and fired her. She was devastated. Her husband is not working. Her daughter's marriage had broken up and she and her husband had just put the down payment on a small condo for her and her young son. My companion's world was in pieces.

Then last week the corporation called her in again. And they rehired her. But they rehired her at 40% less wages and no health benefits. It was just a vicious tactic to get her to accept this drastic cut in her living standards. For a couple of weeks she thought she had no job, no wages, no benefits. She was terrified. Then they "offered" her a job again, but at 40% less wages and with no benefits. The idea was that after terrorizing her she would see this as better than nothing. She is back at work again on the corporations new terms.

This is pure unadulterated corporate terrorism, capitalist terrorism. This corporation threatened this poor woman with destitution and terrorized her into accepting a savage reduction in her living standard. The money they saved they put in their pockets and arrogantly laughed all the way to the bank. Capitalism is a system based on terror.

The union leaders!!!!! Capitalism has its so called war on terror. Capitalism's war on terror is a war to dominate its rivals worldwide, to secure resources internationally, to drive up into central Asia and surround China and Russia and to repress any opposition at home. See the recent FBI raids in Minneapolis and Chicago. The union leaders support this so called war of capitalism on terrorism. They should reject unconditionally any support for capitalism's so called war on terror.

They should exclaim the fraud and class interests of capitalism's so called war on terror and explain they want no part of it. That they oppose it. Then from this launch their own war on terror. That is launch a working class war on capitalism's terror against the working class. This would mean not a job to be cut, not a wage or benefit to be cut, not a house to be foreclosed. Instead a minimum wage of $15.00 an hour or a $5.00 an hour increase for all whichever is the greater, free education, health and child care, an affordable decent home for all. A program of public works to build homes, schools, roads, the infrastructure, develop environmentally sustainable economic projects end all wars and occupations. This would create millions of new jobs.

This can start the war against the terrorism of the capitalists. This can begin to mobilize the working class into action. The pathetic boot licking of the union leaders of the capitalists and their system sees them paralyzed and unable to take on the capitalists. They think there is no alternative to capitalism so they go along. Union activists, left and radical activists, we have to organize together to build opposition in the unions and workplaces and communities to the refusal to fight of the union leaders. A strong opposition in the unions and workplaces which threatens the control and power and perks of the union leaders is the only thing that will move at least some of the union leadership to fight.

Sean

USA. The censored society. No alternative allowed to be discussed.

I was coming from the hospital yesterday. Two ladies approached me and asked me was I registered to vote. I said no. Are you a Democrat or a Republican they wanted to know. Neither I said I am a socialist. Ah they exclaimed you are an Independent. No I answered I am a socialist. Yes an independent they again replied. No I responded again I am not an independent I am a socialist. I gave up and walked on. But it made me think. These ladies looking to register voters would not allow me to describe myself as a socialist. You either had to be a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent which of course is related to being a Republican or a Democrat. If you are independent you have to be independent of something and in the US this means independent of the Republicans or the Democrats. Once again the US working class are allowed no alternative to capitalism and its parties. No force is working for the building of a mass working peoples party.

Later in the day I was watching the TV show of Bill Maher. He is the guy who makes criticisms of day to day events from a liberal viewpoint and claims to be some sort of atheist. He has a mixture of liberals and right wingers on his talk show and tries to get them to debate. His show, like all on the US mass media, is also carefully censored. He never puts forward any alternative to the existing capitalist forces in society. A mass workers party? Never mentioned. He would be thrown off the air if he began to be serious in opposing capitalism and argue for the building of a mass workers party, that is an alternative way to struggle for the working class. Michael Moore is the same. No alternative for the working class. He too never mentions the need for the working class to have its own party.

Maher had on the extreme right winger last night who doctored the speech of the civil rights leader Sherrod to make her look to be attacking white people. He did not even ask this piece of scum about this. He most probably made the deal in advance that if he came on the show he would not ask him about this.

The main problem in US society is that the working class do not have a mass political alternative through which to fight. That is a mass working peoples party. The main reason they do not is because the union leaders will not build one and the secondary reason is that the left and radical movement are not able to overcome their left sectarianism, ultra leftism and opportunism.

FBI anti-terrorist task force raids homes of anti-war activists in Twin Cities and Chicago

Six homes or apartments of anti-war activists, members of the Twin Cities anti-war movement were raided by the FBI this morning, 6 in the Twin Cities area and two in Chicago according to the information I can gather at the moment. I just spoke to Marie Braun in Minnesota and she told me that they raided the homes this morning and took computers, cell phones and other items belonging to anti-war activists. An FBI spokesman described the event as an “investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism.”

The agents went in around 7 am and left about four hours later. As well as accusations of “material support for terrorist groups in Syria, Palestine and Columbia” trips some of those involved took to Columbia and the Middle East were used an excuse for the raids. Pictures and cds were taken by the FBI.

Randy Furst writing in the Star Tribune describes events:
"Among the homes raided were the apartments of Jessica Sundin, who was
a principal leader of the mass march of 10,000 on the opening day of
the Republican National Convention two years ago, and Mick Kelly, who
was prominent in that protest and among those who announced plans to
march on the Democratic National Convention in Minneapolis, if the
city is selected to host it in 2012.


Ted Dooley, an attorney, said he had reviewed the search warrant
issued in the raid on Kelly’s apartment. “It’s a probe into the
political beliefs of American citizens and to any organization
anywhere that opposes the American iimperial design,” he said.


Steve Warfield, an FBI agent, declined to respond to Dooley’s comment.
He said in a statement Friday, “We are doing six federal search
warrants in Minneapolis that are related to an ongoing Joint Terrorism
Task Force investigation into activities concerning the material
support of terrorism. We are doing two search warrants in Chicago as
well.”
http://www.startribune.com/local/103716104.html

This is all I know right now but we must keep an eye on this and support these activists. They will use the accusation of “terrorism” toward any group that questions or more importantly actively opposes US foreign policy that is carried out in the interests of the corporations.

Check out the local twin cities media, including Indymedia to keep informed.

Let's Consider Whose Interest is Best Served by Promoting the The Tea Party Crowd in the Media

A regular reader of this blog Gary has asked:

"When will the workers in the US rise up in mass protest?"

I think there are a number of things involved here.  Firstly, there is no doubt that the militant traditions and history of the working class in this country have been driven out of memory.  Most workers would never have heard of the Ludlow strike, the great 1877 uprising, Lawrence 1912 or historic moments like these. They would never have heard of ED Nixon, the sleeping car porter and trade Unionist who played such an important role in the early days of the civil rights movement.

Ask anyone if they are aware that the working class controlled the city of Seattle for five days or that there were three general strikes in 1934 with 40,000 on the streets of Minneapolis battling with the police, or that hundreds of thousands occupied factories that terrified the US capitalist class and you get a look of bewilderment on their faces.

People rarely consider that  the social legislation and progressive laws that are aimed at protecting our rights were enacted in response to periods of mass action like the thirties or the civil rights movement, they were rights already taken in the streets so to speak.

It is hard to say when a major movement will arise, but arise it will; the working class will fight to defend its interests. In the eighties there were a series of major strikes that attempted somewhat to drive back the employer's offensive but they were all defeated with the help of the trade Union leadership, Hormel, Greyhound, Teamsters, Eastern Airlines, then you had the Staley struggle and the Pittston strike in the nineties when the miners occupied the pits. The heads of organized Labor don't bring the young people this message as their role was so destructive.

So I would say that one of the main reasons we haven't more resistance, or more open resistance is the role that the heads of organized Labor play, they consciously hold back any movement from below as they have the same world view as the employers, as capitalists, they support the market and see no alternative to it.  Of course, as a secondary factor there are all the perks and the obscene salaries that the Union leaders get. Also, we have had no national mass workers party here which is one of the reasons we have some of the worst benefits in the industrial democracies; this is another development that will arise as a mass movement develops.

Another factor to be honest is the left, activist and radical groupings of one sort or another. There are thousands of people in this country who belong to these groupings and are simply opposed to or openly against capitalism but they are more concerned with building their own small organizations and competing with other groups for influence in order to do this, they also play a role in holding back, and in some cases derailing movements that arise. Some of them are completely in tow with the trade Union leadership and others are unable to function within the workers movement and vegetate on the edges of it; either way, many of them are isolated from the working class and incapable of connecting to the consciousness that exists.

I also think that we need to be careful about giving the Tea Party crowd more credit than they are due.  We have to consider who brings us the news.  There are a tiny handful of news outlets and control the information in the mass media and the Tea Party is useful for them. You only have to read the capitalist press of other nations to see how censored and controlled the US mass media is.  In Britain, two national daily papers, the Independent and the Mirror, came out against the Iraq war.  Could you imagine the hullaballoo had that happened here?  I have the utmost respect for the Dixie Chicks for their stand and look what happened to them.

We never hear in this country of the massive struggles that are taking place all over the world.  There was a strike against increasing the retirement age in France this week, the bosses were quite pleased that only a million or two came out which was slightly less than the last time. There have been mass strikes in South Africa, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, India (100 million there).  In Latin America we have seen left governments elected and major struggles developing there. Rather than bring us our own history and the history of worker's struggles internationally, the heads of organized Labor spend hundreds of millions of dollars supporting the Democratic Party (huge recipients of Goldman Sachs money)  and the politicians that are destroying our living standards. Given their role, I think it is likely that major movements will arise first outside these traditional organizations but they will be engulfed buy them and their role I think will be pivotal.

In the US there are groupings all over the country that are fighting back in one way or another from the Moratorium Now group in Michigan to the student movement here in California and nationally.  There have been hundreds of universities around the world occupied by students protesting cuts in public education.

Here in California there was a considerable student campaign earlier this year and it will no doubt heat up against as the cuts continue, another day of action is called for on October 7th.  And in May 2006 one million people were on the streets around the country.  The Democrats and Union leaders were involved in this in order to suck it in to the Democratic Party orbit but it was till a significant event.

In all these instances though, the leaders of the 14 million strong organized Labor movement refused to involve their members and join in the struggle.  They invariably, though not always, support such activities on paper but that's all, in action they hold the movement back. In politics, they support politicians who are anti-worker and anti-Union as well. Becasue of their role a great deal of confusion exists in minds of the working class.

So these are some of the factors I think that have helped to retard any movement from below arising in opposition to the capitalist offensive. But at some time this wall will be breached.  It's unfortunate but we don't always get to choose the battlefield on which the war is fought.

I think we have to be careful as while we cannot predict events, the mood is such in my opinion that there are potential explosions everywhere.  The anger beneath the surface of US society is considerable and will not be contained forever.  As I write, I am reminded of a recent poll that found over 30% of Americans are favorable to socialism.

This is incredible given that there is no significant force in society arguing and campaigning for it and their mass media if it mentions it at all it is always in a negative light, equating it with totalitarianism like the Stalinist regime in the old Soviet Union.

These are some of my immediate thoughts in response to Gary's question. I wanted to respond under comments but I need to figure out how to increase the limit on words.

The World Turner Upside Down, Pakistani Woman Gets 86 Years in US Court

A Judge in New York City sentenced a Pakistani woman to 86 years in prison today. She was on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists although she was not charged with terrorism. She was charged instead with attempted murder. she shot at US soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan.

The US ruling class has gone completely mad. When someone invades your country isn’t it quite common to shoot at them? Wouldn’t we do it? But that’s not the all of it. The woman, Aafia Siddiqui, claims she was abducted by the US and kept in a secret prison for the last five years. She tried to escape in 2008 and shot at her captors. No one was wounded except her; she was shot in the abdomen.

The FBI has accused her of supporting al Qaida and says that when she was arrested in Afghanistan four years ago she had instructions about bomb making on her and a list of NYC landmarks. Her prosecutors ask for the sentence on the grounds that she was an al Qaida support and a danger to the US and the judge agreed according to reports in the Guardian UK.

Apparently, the woman vilified the US and Israel in the courtroom, which is not such an absurd thing, especially from a Muslim or any Middle Eastern person given the role the US and its proxy play there.

I have no idea what she is except that she fired at invading forces in her country. I know that the US offered some of these tribal warlords, come opium farmers with 7th century mentalities $100 a head for al Qaida members when they invaded and sure enough, they went out and found some. I also know the US kidnaps people from the streets of foreign countries and keeps them in secret prisons around the world. I have no idea whether the guys in Guantanamo are bad guys or not, I do know that the US government lied about Pat Tillman telling the world and his parents he was killed in some glorious gun battle but was instead killed by his own men. I also know that the whole Jessica Lynch story was a photo op.

I do not trust for one minute the US government’s reporting on events or their friends in the Pakistani secret service (ISI) their allies like the murderer Blair in Britain or any other flunkies and hangers on.

The imprisonment of this woman will increase hatred of the US and ordinary Americans will be less safe. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, some really nasty killers, will be well protected at taxpayers expense no doubt.

Can we really trust these people?

No matter which way I look at this, terrorist or not, I cannot see the justification for the inhumane treatment of this woman or whoever they have at Guantanamo, which by the way is in Cuba and we should think about how come the US has a base there and the role the US has played in central and Latin America over the last 100 years.

To get some idea of who they’ve had at Guantanamo I strongly recommend the move, The Road to Guantanamo.

Capitalist and Worker, the thief and the victim.

Language is important as a means of communication, but how we describe events reflects our understanding of them which is influenced by class, by the role we play in the production of society’s needs.

The Wall Street Journal reports this week on productivity. The capitalist class describes productivity as the amount of any given thing produced in one hour. Productivity grew considerably last year, at an average annual rate of 6.2%. Why was that? It was because the owners of capital, the buyers of Labor power as opposed to the sellers of it like us workers, were, in the language of the bosses, “able to squeeze their work forces.”
During this period they “sought to get as much work out of as few people as possible.” while avoiding hiring or purchasing additional Labor power (look at this as the use of a human being’s life activity over a period of time). This was always called wage slavery in the earlier days in this country.

What this means in living terms is less time with your family, a faster, less safe and more inhospitable workplace whether you are a sanitation worker or a doctor working for an HMO. It means more animosity between workers as the competition between us to stay employed at all costs intensifies. It translates in to more alcoholism and drug abuse in order to make it through this which in turn leads to a crisis in our personal lives between lovers, friends, partners. It leads to the annihilation of entire families as human beings, like chickens in mass production just can’t take it any more.

Productivity can increase when capitalists spend money on new equipment or technology that increases how much a group of workers can produce without adding more or even by reducing hiring which is more likely when what they call “Labor saving” devices are brought in. One example is online booking for airlines or ATM’s for the banks, or container shipping or e mail or faxing documents. It was new technology that was a major factor in the 90’s boom which sent profits to a 40-year high. They can increase the working time without increasing wages as described above. The WSJ boasts of the productivity advantages of the US over Europe but fails to mention the better benefits European workers have or that US workers work some two months a year more than workers in most industrial economies. This is a major reason for the US productivity advantage over its rivals.

When they don’t spend on new equipment or hire, they “squeeze” those that they have. But there are limits to this as Marx once explained, the limits of human physical endurance. At some point, worker productivity will decline due to poor or excessively brutal working conditions. They let workers drop like flies when we are in abundance. We are all aware of the conditions in the plantations of the Caribbean, Latin America and the US South.

Unions set some limits to this “squeezing”. Major strikes in China at auto plants have won some major wage increases and frightened the Chinese bureaucracy enough to force them to improve Labor Laws. In Bangladesh, workers, many of them women, have waged street battles against the police over wages and conditions in the textile factories. This expense will make bosses re-consider. It should remind us that we have what we have through such sacrifice of workers before us. A lot of blood has been shed to get us this far.

So what they call hard work, productivity, “squeezing more out of their workers”, has real consequences for us in our lives, in the language of flesh and blood. Capitalist economists describe productivity as important because “It’s linked to our economic futures and our kid’s economic futures.”

Like the religious sages who describe heaven as a paradise yet always omit from their descriptions of the place one of the most pleasurable and important aspects of pleasure for human beings, sex; capitalists conveniently omit profit from the equation.

Increased productivity generally translates in to more profit. Profit, as we have pointed out on this blog many times, has its source in the unpaid Labor of the workers, it comes from the surplus value created by the Labor process as the value paid in wages is less than the value produced. This has all sorts of other consequences too.

And new equipment, Labor saving device, technology and all these other means by which output per hour is increased are not Labor saving devices from our point of view. They are labor destroying devices. The capitalist means by Labor saving that she can shell out less money on wages, hire fewer workers. (this too has its consequences). My garbage guy drives around like a maniac with an automated truck and always ends up working overtime to get the job done. There used to be three of them. What happened to the others and how come the guy left is so stressed? The workweek could be shortened to 20 hours given the productivity of Labor.

Labor saving for us would mean that we work becomes easier or we have less of it. But to have less of it under their terms means no work, no means of subsistence, no food, no house, no medical care. It means the unemployment line. New technology is used to increase profits, it does not mean more leisure time for us which it would if we owned this technology, if we owned the means of producing and the productive process itself.

The Luddites destroyed the new technology of their day in order to save their jobs. They were heroic figures but were on the wrong track, the object is to own the technology. The capitalists resist this as they believe they are the rightful owners, but we are great in numbers and have the potential power to change this situation. They are owners by theft. The slave owners believed their ownership of other human beings was written in scripture, every ruling class has to justify its rule.

The English king Charles, like all feudal monarchs, believed they were King by divine right; that they were chosen by god. Some fool decided to cut off his head and see what happened; the rest is history.

Women's right to control their own bodies.

The (mainly male) outfits that campaign against the right of women  to control their own bodies, try to portray themselves as being "pro life". Leaving aside that they ignore the hundreds of millions who are starving to death under capitalism these people also ignore the suffering their policies cause to women who become pregnant and for whatever reason feel they cannot have a baby.

The organizers of this blog are for a women's right to choose. This means the right to have a baby as well as the right not to have a baby. The right to have a baby means a living standard and access to health care and childcare which would make having a baby the joy it should be. The right to have a baby, the possibility of all women having a baby if they so choose, means changing society from where the rich control the wealth and the sexist male capitalist culture rules.

While standing for a woman's right to have a baby we have to also stand unconditionally for the right of women not to have a baby and for women alone to make this decision. We cannot deviate one iota from this, we cannot allow any backtracking from this. Women have the right to control their own bodies and decide whether to have a baby or not.

What can happen when this right is not upheld has been see in Mexico recently. This is a normal scene in that Catholic Church dominated society. A young teenage girl came into a hospital in the state of Guanajuato. She was bleeding. But before anyone could treat her, the state authorities had to be called. Doctors believed she had had an illegal abortion. First a man from the prosecutors office arrived and asked her about her sexual history. Only then was she treated. After that and still groggy from the anesthesia another investigator arrived and took a statement from her. Two months later the investigation is still open, the cops are trying to decide whether to charge the young woman and the person they think helped her have her abortion. This is vicious cruel treatment.

Many women in Mexico are sentenced to up to 25 and 30 years jail when suspected and "convicted" of having an abortion. Many of these have been freed after it was found they had been forced to sign so called confessions. Some have been charged and convicted of "murder. This savage policy is driving many women away from health clinics and hospitals when they need help. As Nadine Goodman who runs a school for midwives says "The fear of being investigated means even more women who want to be pregnant but have complications or lose the baby have to think twice about going to a hospital."

We hear about the drug war in Mexico. But there is another war going on there. A war against women. It is a backlash against the decision by Mexico City three years ago to permit legal abortion to any women in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Pedro Salazar, a legal scholar at the Institute of Legal Research of the national Autonomous University of Mexico explains: "This is a well coordinated initiative. It's not a spontaneous decision." This war against womens rights aims to prevent other states from following Mexico City's lead and legalizing abortion. There is also a move against the pill and especially the morning after pill. We can be sure the dirty fingers of the American extreme right and the catholic Church at the center of this attack on women.

The movement for womens rights in the US and internationally must link up with and help their sisters in Mexico. Working people in the US and internationally must not be fooled by the emotive lying propaganda of the so called pro life movement. What is happening in Mexico gives a glimpse of what would happen if the bigots and undemocratic forces of the anti-womens rights movement got into power. We have to stand unconditionally for a womans right to choose not to have a baby or to have a baby.

Sean

White House Regime, a bunch of capitalist swindlers.

I see that Larry Summers is bailing out of the White House. Summers was a protege of the mass murderer and war criminal Kissinger. By their company you know them. In previous White Houses he advocated cutting taxes on the corporations and the rich and the deregulation of the financial system. These were major reasons the world economy plunged into the catastrophe of 2008 in which hundreds of millions more world wide were thrown into poverty. Thanks Summers. You are a mass murderer too. This arrogant privileged mouthpiece of capitalism also advocates that unemployment pay and welfare should be reduced. As my friend back home used to say how come these big shots who have money believe that to make the rich produce more they have to be paid more but to make the working class and poor produce more they have to be paid less.

Summers was kicked out of his teaching post in Harvard. One of the reasons was that he said that women were not mentally equipped to understand the hard sciences. What a dirty ignorant sexist. Ignorant because anybody who did any serious study of history knows the contribution that women made to the hard sciences, in fact all the sciences, in spite of the vicious discrimination they had to face. Another reason he was kicked out of Harvard was that there was talk of financial misdeeds. What a piece of dirt.

But a question is posed by Summers leaving the White House. It is this. How was he ever there in the first place. How did this Obama who claimed he was for change and breaking with the old ways appoint this crooked, ignorant, sexist capitalist agent? The answer is not hard to find. Obama was worried that his own pro capitalist credentials were not good enough. So not only with Summers but with all the other members of his regime he was making sure that he would be trusted by the top forces within capitalism. And then he proceeded to take their orders. Bailing out Wall Street and the Banks and the auto industry, passing the the pro corporate sickness deal, carrying on their wars and occupations abroad, backing up BP when it destroyed the Gulf, and on and on. Down on the knee to capitalism egged on by the Summers and the like around him, this is where Obama stands. As many of us said in advance Obama is a slick bourgeois politician totally subservient to the capitalist class.

But this is increasingly getting him into trouble. He is coming under fire for his unquestioning support of capitalism and his refusal to do anything for working class people. Earlier this week his regime organized a so called town hall meeting. The audience was naturally carefully selected. But in a sign of the way things are going even with this carefully selected audience he was not able to avoid severe criticism. A middle aged African American woman stood up and in the most sharp tone told him off. She said:"I worked until I was exhausted to get you elected. But now I am exhausted again. This time I am exhausted defending you and your policies." Obama was unable to give any affective answer. Just tried to get past it with a pathetic grin and a few meaningless words. There was nothing he could say. The woman was right. He was carrying out the wishes of capitalism and ignoring the needs of the working class. This was why she could not defend his policies.

Aqua Bounty: The genetically engineered Salmon that investors hope will reap big returns. World Hunger, a by product of the market will remain.

My local paper reports today that an “advisory” committee convened by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration)) has told the agency that the Genetically Engineered Salmon known as Aqua Bounty is safe for humans to eat.

The Aqua Bounty was “created” by a Massachusetts genetic engineering company and grows twice as fast as natural salmon. My first thoughts, before reading on, were athletes that take steroids. These steroids have quite devastating effects in some cases and have been proven to be detrimental to a person’s health in the long term. I am not a geneticist or a biologist; I dug ditches for a living most of my life. But, I am a bit concerned.

I am not opposed to science and using science to benefit humanity as it has over the centuries, but when I hear that the CEO of the corporation that created the fish says that his “company’s fish is safe and environmentally sustainable” my instincts kick in. I recall seeing a book in my supervisors office one day when I was in there in my capacity as shop steward, he went out for a minute and I glanced at it and saw this quote that reveals how they conjure up all sorts of ways of lying to us,  "If you're going to strive to motivate workers through autonomy and empowerment, it's important to remember that the primary burden is to make sure employees believe what you say. Don't tell them you want them to be empowered to increase the company's profits. Tell them you want them to be empowered because it's the best way to remain competitive and guarantee everyone their jobs."  

So the advantages of a faster growing fish, the capitalist will tell us is that it can solve world hunger. We are supposed to believe that their motivation for developing such a product is egalitarian. But saving hundreds of millions of starving people in the world is not what drives the CEO of this genetic engineering company or any other capitalist. The object of his activity is profit. Adam Smith might argue that that’s OK, all humanity benefit from individual self-interest or greed. But Smith is wrong.  We can simply change a few words from the above quote when it comes to food production, "Don't tell them that we increase the rate at which we can get the food (salmon or beef) to market in order to make more profits, tell them it's to feed starving children. and end world hunger."

Great, who can oppose that?


The report in the paper touches on this issue when it points out that “the potential benefits---and profits—are huge.” It’s the profits that are the issue for them; the benefits, if there are any, are incidental. They pump all sorts of drugs and chemicals in to the animals we eat to fatten them faster and get them in to the market quicker. The reason for this is that the added value in the commodity, cattle, in this instance, is “realized” when the meat is sold and consumed. The private owners of the food production business can then take their profits, re-invest some in production and buy their yachts and expensive art or send their kids to Harvard with the rest.

I don’t think we have to be familiar with Marx’s Labor Theory of Value or the details of the Labor process and circulation of commodities to see the dangers here. For most workers if we think about it for a moment, all we have to know is that the CEO of a corporation says it’s safe to eat.

Environmental and food safety groups point out that this fish could not only cause allergies and other complications with humans but also seriously damage the natural habitat of regular salmon including the decimation of the wild salmon altogether. Like safety in mining or oil drilling industries, it's level  will be determined after workers are killed or the environment savaged.

I am opposed to these fish. If we think the Asian Carp can cause havoc, we haven’t seen nothin’ yet. I am opposed to private corporations and CEO’s of corporations producing the food we eat. No working class person really believes that Donald Trump is an egalitarian acting in the interests of all humanity, even if they say they aspire to get where he is. It’s not that I think we should opposes science, science is liberating unlike religion. But science cannot be separated from society, scientists are not operating in a vacuum, they are part of capitalist society and subject to its control and influence. Food production, including the use of science to improve it, cannot be left in the heads of private corporations; the same people who brought us the present economic crisis.

The solution to world hunger, disease and poverty is the collective ownership of the means by which we produce the necessities of life rather than in private hands and set in to motion for individual gain and profit for a tiny minority in society. How we produce these necessities, and how we can do it in harmony with nature, this is what will liberate humanity and science from the clutches of global capitalism and its rapacious thirst for surplus value.

UAW Members to Rally at UAW Region 3 Heaquarters to Protest International Leadership's Cooperation With GM Bosses

We Owe it to folks like these to resist

There will be a rally in Indianapolis next Saturday, September 25th. The rally is called by the Local 23 Solidarity Committee.  UAW, local 23 represents workers at a GM stamping plant in Indianapolis. The rally is being called to protest the UAW International leadership’s collaboration with GM in pressuring UAW locals to accept concessionary contracts and undercut one another. This is the result of the Team Concept and the entire leadership of the AFL-CIO supports it.

The UAW International leadership, and the top leaders of all of organized Labor have cooperated with the employers in destroying wages and conditions that took decades to win. When local leaders and members have fought back the Labor hierarchy have stepped in to ensure the employers have their way. With the UAW, the leadership of the local in Cleveland North Carolina comes to mind where the UAW International cooperated in the firing of local leaders; the Accuride struggle and others are all examples of this. Rondo Jabbar Turner of the Local 23 solidarity committee explains:

“The outcome of this dispute at the Indianapolis GM Stamping plant will set the standard for Big 3 negotiations in 2011. It is in the best interests of all UAW members to join us in our struggle to defeat the forces of government, union, and corporation that are pressuring us to break the master agreement and severe our solidarity with other working people.”

Those of us that read the news at all are aware that the auto bosses, the folks we bailed out not so long ago after they promised to eliminate thousands of jobs, cut wages in half and have eliminated the possibility of retirement for the workers of the future. This was all done with the help of the UAW and AFL-CIO leadership at the highest levels.

UAW local 23 refused to bargain a concessionary contract, and as other Union locals have discovered in many industries, this does not bode well with organized Labor’s hierarchy. Brother Turner explains why UAW Local 23 opposed the concessions:

“GM wants to set us up as a UAW shop that undercuts the wages and benefits for all other UAW members and sets the standard for 2011 contract negotiations. It’s surprising that UAW leaders would promote such anti union tactics. The sell out contract we were offered is union only in name. Every standard and compensation is nonunion.”

After Local 23 refused to bargain concessions, the UAW International negotiated with the employer behind their backs. This is nothing new. Brother Turner again:

“We, the working people, cannot single-handedly carry the burden of sacrifice for this nation. We cannot simultaneously support two wars and a ruthless class of financial predators who sabotaged the world economy with reckless speculation. Cutting our own wages and destroying the future for our children and grandchildren is not a fair and reasonable option. It’s double taxation without representation.

We are not simply workers, we are parents and caretakers and educators. The world is in our hands. Someone has to take a stand. Someone has to say the cuts stop here. Workers cannot carry the burden of sacrifice for the leisure class any longer. If we make less, we spend less, and the whole economy spirals deeper into despair. What happens at UAW Local 23 will make history. The decision we make here will be seen as a turning point. I for one do not want to dishonor my grandfather and turn my back on my children and grandchildren. I don’t want to be destroyed by history, I want to make history.”

The stand taken by these brothers and sisters is an honorable one. But brother Turner is right to point out that we face a combined force of government, Union leadership and corporation and that their goal is to sever our solidarity with other working people. Employers have used racism the same way historically to divide and weaken the working class and our organizations.

To fight these forces, we have to recognize that this fight is not just the fight of one local, that no one local can beat them without building links to the communities, the unorganized and the youth, as well as workers internationally. It is in the interests of all workers to stop this,, Union and non Union. The response of top Labor officials to SEIU and ATU Locals here in San Francisco that voted down concessionary contracts was to aide the employers in shoving the contracts down the rank and file’s throats. Only a united movement of organized and unorganized, youth and workers, workplace and community will be able to drive back this assault on our living standards.

Introduce a resolution in your Union local directed at the your International and AFL-CIO and UAW leadership urging them to help Local 23 defeat GM’s takeaways. If you are in the Indianapolis area and can make the protest outside the UAW regional headquarters please come and show your support.

Honor Solidarity

Honor Master Agreements

Honor Our Proud UAW Legacy

Saturday September 25th at 3.pm

UAW Region 3 Headquarters

5850 Fortune Circle West

Indianapolis, Indiana 46241

Local 23 Solidarity Committee

For more information, contact Rondo Jabbar Turner @765-278-9210

"Obama's Blue Collar Crusader": A Vicious Trap For Working People. There's No Way Out For Us Through the Democratic Party

The Democrats are definitely increasing the protectionist rhetoric with the elections just around the corner. Boxer has been talking about wanting to “hear the words made in America again” and Obama’s “Guru” for job creation in the manufacturing sector is being lauded as “Obama’s Blue Collar Crusader” in Business Week.

So who is this savior of the industrial working class in the US? His name is Ron Bloom. Ron has great working class credentials Business Week seems to think having spent his youth on Jewish kibbutz style summer camps. He also boycotted groups in support of the UFW. Way to go, Ron.

US manufacturing as a percentage of GDP has fallen from 28% in 1953 to 11 percent now. This is not entirely the export of jobs of course. In 1953, the Korean War was on and the productive forces of the US’s former allies as well as enemies in the Second World War were still recovering. The US had about 52% of world trade in this period. But as the economies of Japan and Germany in particular, modernized in the post war era, the competition between nations states in the world market intensified.

With increased globalization we have seen a shift of manufacturing to Mexico and now Asia. The rise of China since the 1980’s has played a significant role here. But in the struggle for cheaper Labor power, and especially in the light of recent strikes in China led by independent Unions groups that have raised wages, some manufacturers are moving yet again to cheaper climes like Vietnam. US and British capitalists want to manage the word’s capital better, not invest it in expensive high waged factories in Europe or the US when the world is awash in capacity as it is.

Obama’s savior of the working class wasn’t too long for grape boycott and kibbutz style living. He went on to work in Wall Street for the firm Lazard and had his own investment firm. He “…..helped industrialist Wilbur Ross save US Steel and President Barack Obama bail out General Motors”. Says BW. He worked for numerous Unions including SEIU but according to his bio in Wikipedia, left the Unions for Wall Street because they suffered from a “lack of business knowledge”.

This important figure in the Democratic Party is a respected solver of problems for the capitalist class, always able to “….balance the realities of business with the need for jobs” . Hmmm! What are the most important “realities” of business I wonder? Profit perhaps?

Another important Democrat, Steven Rattner also praises Bloom, “Even when he worked at Lazard Bloom embraced “worker capitalism” says Rattner. “Most people took their Harvard MBA’s and went off to try to save manufacturing and save workers” Rattner concludes. “Worker capitalism” an interesting concept. Can we all be capitalists, buyers of Labor power and not sellers of it? How would that work?

“While he’s a true union guy, he’s realistic.” Says the Billionaire industrialist Wilbur Ross. There’s that word again, “realistic”. Wilbur Ross was praised recently in capitalist circles for his activities in the aftermath of the crash described in Forbes I think it was, as:

“….bottom-fishing in mortgages and mortgage companies. Ross has served under U.S. President Bill Clinton on the board of the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund, and later, under New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the Mayor's privatization advisor.”

Ouch! Ross is a vulture in other words, one might even say a ponce. Well, the Democrat’s savior for the US blue collar worker receiving praise from people like that should give us a clue about the intentions of the Obama administration shouldn’t it?   Bloom's strategy is the Team Concept.  Have workers help US capitalists compete with their foreign rivals in their struggle for profit and market share. It's a disaster for us as we compete with workers in other countries for who can work cheaper, faster and with the least impediments to profit taking.

With friends like Bloom, who needs enemies?