A Historical Analysis: U.S. Involvement in the Mexican Revolution

The dictator Porfirio Diaz

The phenomenon of U.S. involvement in other countries’ affairs is long and meticulous, particularly in Latin America. U.S. leaders have historically struggled to balance their economic interests abroad while also attempting to promote their core beliefs of freedom, liberty and free market capitalism. The balancing act is between advocating and representing a set of ideals versus using any means possible to protect and in fact expand U.S. corporate dominance. The two tasks aren’t handled in separate political or military arenas; instead the economic hegemony of the U.S. takes precedence and forms part of a unifying policy of the U.S. ruling establishment. A modern day example of such unifying policies would be the doctrine of “regime change” exemplified by former U.S. president G.W. Bush or the idea of “humanitarian intervention” implemented by former president W. Clinton in the Balkans and president B. Obama in Libya. These modern day doctrines have their roots in the implementation of the Roosevelt Corollary (to the Monroe Doctrine) which established the idea that the U.S. has the right to intervene in Latin America and warning European powers not to intervene. South America is the continent in which the U.S. first realized its potential to be a superpower. It provided many first time situations for the U.S., in particular with the Mexican Revolution where it posed the following dilemma: relating to an authentic revolutionary upsurge that has the possibility of uprooting the economic bases in which the U.S. stands.

            The U.S. ruling establishment was fundamentally tied to the Mexican Revolution. Business was the primary concern not merely geography; in 1911, the annual volume of trade between the two was 117 million dollars, additionally the U.S. had invested over one billion dollars to promote economic development, this was more than all European countries combined and made up a quarter of all U.S. foreign investments (1). Most of this money was concentrated on the railroad and extractive industries that were crucial to the U.S. economy (2). With this in mind the U.S.’s attitude towards Latin America was presented in president W. Wilson’s “Declaration of Policy in regards to Latin America”:

Cooperation is only possible when supported at every turn by the orderly process of just government based upon law, not upon arbitrary or irregular force…We can have no sympathy with those who seek to seize the power of government to advance their own personal interests or ambition. (3)

These words were presented during the Mexican Revolution and it highlights an important theme for the U.S. establishment in regards to Mexico before and after the revolution; the long-term stability in the economic and social realm.  Seeing Mexico as a strategic trading partner, the U.S. couldn’t afford it to be in constant political and social turmoil, especially if it directly affected investments. The “Declaration in Regards to Latin America” policy as articulated by W. Wilson was not about declaring war on dictators, after all the U.S. had just supported Mexico’s most ruthless, Porfirio Diaz, for decades. The declaration was more concerned about leaders, elected or not elected, who by their actions and inactions continued to foment social unrest. Moreover, the argument that the U.S. will stand by governments that promote the orderly process was untenable to the Mexican Revolution. Revolution is not an orderly process, it is the involvement of the immense majority of a population into the realm of politics and decision-making, and this is sometimes very disorderly. It is for this reason the deciding factor for U.S. support of a political leader in Mexico before and after the revolution was not for one who had the correct ideas but for one who could provide a functioning business climate.

At turn of the 20^th century Mexico was in the process of becoming an industrialized nation, led by the ruthless dictator Porfirio Diaz. Diaz was able to modernize Mexico’s economy, creating a class of industrialists, extremely rich landowners and state administrators around him called cientificos. In turn, Mexico’s working class was vastly growing in size and the number of landless peasants expanded as well. The vast majority of Mexicans did not have an opportunity for political or economic advancement. An even though at this time Mexico’s economy was booming, the gains were mostly directed to the people in the Diaz regime. In 1910, a revolt by different social classes, and with different goals and means to arrive to it, united to bring down the Diaz regime. The various forces included landless peasants fighting for agrarian reform, led by Emiliano Zapata in the south and Francisco “Pancho” Villa in the North, social democrats led by the martyred president Francisco Madero, aspiring military men like Alvaro Obregon, and reformist landowners/governors like Venustiano Carranza. These popular figures all fought for a different type of Mexico, and challenged, albeit in various degrees, the different counterrevolutions that arose throughout the years 1910-1920, starting with the remnants of the Diaz regime and the counterrevolutionary forces of Madero’s assassin Victoriano Huerta.

The revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa

            The U.S. was playing a balancing act by promoting the virtues of democracy and at the same time trying to make sure economic stability was maintained. At the same time it actively tried to engage with Mexico’s revolutionary process. The first strategy adopted by Washington under Woodrow Wilson, was of “watchful waiting”. As the term implies it included “neutrality between Huerta and the rebels in the hinterlands of Mexico and the establishment of an arms embargo against…government and revolutionary” (4). This was a tactical shift away from former president Taft’s position, which sought to give political legitimacy to Huerta’s coup against the democratically elected Madero. The reasoning that Wilson gave was presented in his “Declaration of Policy in Regards to Latin America” quoted above. Moreover, Wilson understood that the conditions that gave rise to the revolution in Mexico still existed, and in fact was being exacerbated by Huerta’s counterrevolution. Contrary to what Huerta would have wanted the U.S. to believe, i.e. Mexico was now in “peace and prosperity”, and Wilson understood that there was a fierce power struggle still being waged and that Huerta was likely to fall. However, the struggle was in a stalemate, still not having produced a clear victor, which the U.S. needed to relate to in order to help sustain or even co-opt the leadership.

            One potential victorious leader that the U.S. established close links to was with the renegade general Pancho Villa. Not only because of his activities on the border and his principle of protecting U.S. property but also because of his affective ability to lead an army, in particular, primarily responsible for defeating Huerta’s army. It is also true that the mass media portrayal of Villa as a “Mexican Robin Hood” and his socialist demands gave him broad public support abroad (5). The Wilson administration was willing to look the other way in light of Villa’s harsh treatment of Spaniards in Mexico and during the Benton affair, when Villa’s men killed a prominent Englishman living in Mexico, because it understood that Villa’s army was the most superior and that his demands of equal distribution of the land represented the aspiration of ordinary Mexicans (6). Eventually in 1914, this led to the lifting of the arms trade embargo in favor of Carranza and Villa, ending the passive sentiment of the “watchful waiting” approach. Pancho Villa was politically savvy. He understood more than any other leader in Mexico that without U.S. cooperation the task of coming to power would be impossible. He also understood that inter-imperialist rivalries were at play. Great Britain and Germany gave their political support to Huerta, seeing his regime as the only way to bring stability. Because of this, U.S. involvement was inevitable, thus Villa positioned himself to embrace such an action, going as far as advancing the idea that the U.S. control the whole port of Veracruz “so that even water could not get to Huerta” (7). U.S. involvement in fact did occur after the incident at Tampico between Huerta’s men and the U.S. navy. With the U.S. navy now in the picture the revolution was going to enter its decisive stage, and Huerta was going to experience defeat in the hands of the Constitutionalists.

The dilemma that arose for Wilson was that after Huerta’s resignation the governor of Coahuelia, Carranza, assumed the presidency. This was the default option, since Zapata in the south by principle did not want power, and both Obregon and Villa were too strained by their military expeditions. It was the logical conclusion for Wilson and the U.S. business class to align with Carranza. Not only did he unite the opposition against Huerta, but Carranza, unlike Villa and Zapata, was a trained and experienced politician, and a businessman at heart. Thus:

On October 9, 1915 Carranza’s government was recognized as the de facto government of Mexico. On the date Francisco Villa reverted to his original status of bandit and outlaw as far as the United State was concerned, The cycle seemed complete, but Villa was still a factor in the affairs of the two nations. (8)

Pancho Villa learned the hard way; an alliance with the U.S. should never be taken for granted. What resumed after Carranza’s rise to power was a struggle between Carranza’s right hand man, Alvaro Obregon, and the peasant armies of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. At this juncture, the U.S. firmly stood by Carranza, even though there relationship had been rocky in the past. It was also at this point in 1916-1917 that the U.S. became actively involved, with the Pershing Expedition, which sought to bring down Villa’s army in the north. The expedition was meant to stabilize the Carranza regime and more importantly to tame the most radical elements of the Mexican Revolution, the poor peasants and radical workers (9). The withdrawal of American troops from northern Mexico, worked out between General Obregon and General Scott, after Mexico pledged to protect the border, signified a new alignment of the ruling establishment in Mexico and the business class in the U.S. In fact, the election of Obregon to the presidency in 1919, coinciding with the assassination of both Zapata and Carranza in 1919 and 1920 respectively marks the end of the Mexican revolution.

            The Mexican Revolution was the first mass revolutionary struggle of the 20^th century. It brought down the Diaz dictatorship and brought to the political scene the masses. It also left a deep legacy in Mexico, and in fact all of Latin America; a legacy of agrarian reform, worker’s rights, and democracy. The U.S. and Wilson respected these virtues on paper, but vacillated between defending these ideas and protecting U.S. business. The Mexican Revolution was started, conducted and finished by Mexicans, but contrary to what historian John D. Eisenhower argues in his book Intervention, the involvement of U.S. forces and the tactical support it gave to certain leaders in distinct moments did play a crucial role (10). The “watchful waiting” approach allowed Huerta and Villa to continue battling it out, in the long-term depleting Villa’s forces. The Veracruz occupation, coordinated with the Carranza wing of the Constitutionalists, paved the way for the toppling of Huerta and in his place Carranza. Finally, the Pershing Expedition pacified Villa’s forces in the north, leaving the battle for power between the two trustworthy leaders Carranza and Alvaro Obregon. This isn’t to argue that the U.S. was behind every event in the revolution, but an attempt to put into a historical perspective the decisions presented to the Wilson administration, and to understand the method and the process of engaging a revolutionary upsurge that challenges the economic bases in which the U.S. stands. The flexibility in which Wilson tackled the day-to-day challenges that the revolution presented to U.S. business has become an outline for how U.S. foreign policy should be approached; principles aside, economics comes first.  

Notes:

1. Gilderhus, Mark. Democracy and Revolution: U.S.-Mexican Relations under Wilson and Carranza. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, 1977, p 1.
2. Gily, Adolfo. The Mexican Revolution. New Press, New York, NY, 2005, p 26.
3. Eisenhower, John. Intervention! The United States and the Mexican Revolution 1913-1917. Norton Company, New York, NY, 1993, p 33.
4.  Ibid., p 37.
5. Ibid, p 54.
6. Clendenen, Calrence. The United States and Pancho Villa: A study in Unconventional Diplomacy. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1961, p 77.
7. Ibid, p 84.
8. Ibid, p 206.
9. Haley, Edward. Revolution and Intervention: The Diplomacy of Taft and Wilson with Mexico, 1910-1917. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1970, p 225.
10.  Eisenhower, p 328.

Qaddafi on the brinks: The Struggle in Libya

The struggle in Libya is taking a dramatic turn, turning into a spheres of influence war. Zionist arming pro-Qaddafi thugs in order to prevent Libya from becoming a "Islamic state", sections of the Libyan rebels arguing for foreign intervention and on a rampage against Chinese and Somalian immigrants, Qaddafi has built a police state in Tripoli and is continuing to gun/bomb the rebels and yet the Benghazi council and the Libyan National Transitional Council is showing the way: "We are against any foreign intervention or military intervention in our internal affairs ...This revolution will be completed by our people." 
The struggle in Libya is only a link in the chain from all the other struggles occurring in the Middle East and North Africa. Libyan's are facing a police state, a ruling wealthy elite around Qaddafi, and the similar economic hardships faced by their brothers and sisters in Egypt and Tunisia. This is something Qaddafi surely understood, which is why he could express his regret for the fate of his buddy Ben Ali. The U.S. war machine wants Libya bad, there's no hiding that, and there exist sections of the opposition movement that are willing to work with the U.S. and other more honest sections who are calling for limited involvement but no ground troops. We should argue against both. However, this does not de-legitimize the mass rebelling taking place and there cause of a free Libya. We should understand that the U.S. is already negotiating with sections of the ruling elite around Qaddafi, and they are simply hoping for a 'Libya Qaddafi without Qaddafi' The real threat to imperialism isn't in Qaddafi, but in a revolutionary struggle to overthrow him.

The Arab Spring and the return of Revolution

Revolution is back and it is heating things up. The revolution that started in Tunisia in late December, which toppled Ben Ali, spread to Egypt, which has done away with Hosni Muburak and is now unleashing its wrath in Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and even Iraq. That the Middle East and North Africa is the location of 21st century's first revolutions should come as no surprise to anyone. However, the extent to which this will alter the trajectory of the global economy, U.S. imperialism, and international class struggle is still being determined as I write.

The Middle East has been at the center of world political and economic affairs since the end of World War II. It's strategic geopolitical position and abundance in oil have made it a vital link in the chain of the world economy. In fact in the last three decades world recessions can trace their roots back to the Middle Eastern oil market, just think the Arab oil embargo in 72, Iranian Revolution of 79 or Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 90. A revolution in the Middle East, therefore, will have tremendous economic consequences, and in turn social and political repercussions.

The uprising in the Arab world has three underlying causes,

1) the global recession: The effects of the global recession have been devastating to countries all across the Middle East. Unemployment is extremely high, in Tunisia the unemployment rate is at 14 percent, and the number rises when we speak of the young, who have in the most cases played leading roles in the revolt. Moreover, in the last three decades the Middle East has seen its demographic change dramatically. In Egypt for example half of the population is under 25, while 36 percent is between the ages of 15-35. Neoliberalism and the rein of the free market has gutted social spending and lowered the working class' living standards through privatization. The rise of food prices is also at the heart of the global recession do to the increasing rise of commodities.
2) the lack of democracy and political freedoms: When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 to "liberate" Iraqis no one felt more anger and rage then the people of the Middle East. The earning for real freedom was always there, but not in the hands of an invading army. You have a region filled with regimes that have lasted well over decades (Ben Ali 81, Mubarak 81, Qaddafi 69, or the various kingdoms of Bahrain, Saudia Arabia), but all these regimes apparently didn't make U.S.'s "liberation" cut. The hypocrisy was plain to see and it fueled many since, especially after the people of Gaza exercised their democratic right to elect Hamas, only to be strangled by Israel.
3) the crisis of U.S. imperialism: The U.S. is stuck in the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is still trying to recover mentally from its defeat in the hands of Hizbollah and is in the middle of an intense cyber war with Iran's nuclear computer programming system. But the fact that the most of the regimes in the Middle East could not show an inch of solidarity with the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine proved that the interest of people from below needed to be exerted, and that these old men needed to be done away with.

Thus you have a revolt demanding, jobs, food, democracy, and to a certain extent a mass rejection of U.S. influence in the region, politically, economically and militarily.

The Arab spring is young, the Tunisian and Egyptian revolution is still in transition. Iran has jailed most opposition leaders. Saudia Arabia is diverting 36 billion dollars in oil revenue for social spending. Bahrain's Khalifa and the U.S. Navy fifth fleet their is still a source of mass discontent. Libya is caught in a civil war, between Qaddafi and the rebel forces, some who are wrongfully arguing for outside intervention. The factors are still at play and more importantly the working class has begun to see its power. This should guarantee a very hot summer. Welcome back Revolution!

France in Revolt: The Struggle Against Austerity Politics

i.                     The politics of austerity and the continuing crisis of capital

France is once again at the center stage of class struggle in Europe. Sarkozy is implementing a “reform” to the pension system, which would allow retired workers to collect their pension at 62, as opposed to 60, and collect full benefits at 67, as opposed to 65. This is a direct attack on the living standards of French workers and is part of a strategy to strengthen neoliberalism all across Europe, and in the world really. Talk of “fiscal consolidation”, “debt reconsolidation” and of “shared sacrifices” has surfaced in Europe, in particular in recent months in Britain and in Greece. The same could be said here in the U.S. as politicians are beginning to start an offensive on the Social Security System and candidate for N.Y. Governor Andrew Cuomo has promised to slash wages and state jobs. The ideas behind these attacks are to make working class people pay for the Great Recession caused by the bankers and the rich. These aggressive attacks are a neoliberal solution to the crisis, i.e. privatization, cuts on social spending, and a general attack on workers living standards.  Throughout the world, the talk has been between a double dip recession and the quagmire of the first. IMF reports that in the U.S. 7.5 million people since 2007 have been added to the unemployment roll. Furthermore, they report, “over 210 million people across the globe are estimated to be unemployed at the moment, an increase of more than 30 million since 2007. Three quarters of the increase in the number of unemployed people has occurred in the advanced economies and the remainder among emerging market economies.” Capitalism stills finds itself in a crisis of overproduction and has no sign of emerging out of its slump unless it is in the back of workers.

ii.                     Sarkozy vs French workers & the left

It’s in this context that we can understand the struggle unfolding in France. Sarkozy’s stubborn attempt to reform the pension system is part of France trying to reshape and to make more competitive its working class for an ever increasing globalized economy. In 2005, former PM Chirac signed a law which would make it easier for bosses to hire and fire workers under 26, effectively creating a two-tier system of workers in France. This was met with the same ferocity as today’s protesters, and was ultimately defeated. Today’s struggle in France partially comes out of the struggles to defeat Chirac’s attempt at “reform”. But more importantly, France has a strong tradition of militant unionism and has a strong left wing tradition. With the activism of large parties like the Socialist Party, Communist Party, and the more revolutionary New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPE), a leftwing alternative to politics of austerity can be provided.

The struggle in France has reached every sector of the population, over 70% of  France support the striking workers and student. The struggle has spread across major cities like Paris and Marseilles into smaller towns across the country. And the waves of strikes haven’t been just through unionized and public sector workers, but through the privatized sector workers, non-unionized workers, and millions of youth. Also true Sarkozy’s popularity level is at its lowest, at around 25%. This is important, considering that just several months ago Sarkozy’s government was going after Roma immigrants and the rights of Arabs and Muslims but yet still had broad public support. This isn’t to say that over night French society reached left-wing conclusions, but it goes to show when workers struggle and are forced to unite, class consciousness rises and backward ideas meet reality. No longer are immigrants or Arabs seen as the enemy, but the enemy is the government that is going after your pensions and living standards. It also goes to show what happens when a clear left-wing alternative to austerity measures are articulated. French workers could have taken this “reform” lying down, but a clear strategy of class struggle unionism and street democracy presented by the revolutionary left and by rank-file union leaders were able to sway French society.

iii.                   Looking Forward

Our solution to the crisis is by not paying national debts, nationalizing the banks, introducing capital controls, programs of public investment and in the long-term, replacing the profit system, with a system based on workers democracy and workers needs. Sarkozy’s pension bill has already passed the senate and will soon arrive on his desk for signing. The ruling class of France has learned their lesson with the Chirac fiasco back in 2005, never give an inch to street democracy. However, if the pressure continues from oil workers, transportation workers, dock workers, nurses, teachers and students, Sarkozy will most likely be pressured to save France’s business image in the world market. However, the main unions of France C.F.D.T and the C.G.T have been dialoguing with the president and there already have been promises of discussing the pension bill on a later date once it has been in effect. This would be an obvious defeat. We should reject dialogue with Sarkozy, and continue the pressure from below, on the streets, in the factories, in the universities, and in the docks of France. Sarkozy has already lost his aspiration of running for presidency in the next year, the popular struggle needs to continue to put the pressure, and also link arms with their brothers and sisters across Europe facing similar attacks. Sarkozy can be forced to drop the bill but workers need to keep the pressure up.

Medellin: Poverty, Blame the victims

On a recent personal trip to Medellin, Colombia's second most populous city, I encountered this sign in one of the city's biggest slums, Las Comunas. It's translation is this: "Bro, I'm pregnant." With two advices following: "To get pregnant you need two, A pregnant girl or adolescent is poverty for sure". I have many problems with this sign. First, the sign lays the responsibility on poor Colombians to get out of poverty, leaving the criminal government of Colombia off the hook.
It's your classic, focus on the victim argument. Study after study has shown that when women are giving access to higher education and have a higher level of living standards their more inclined to have children later in life. The argument that poor people of Las Comunas just need to have planned pregnancy or not produce children at all won't do anything to help them out of their misery. It's concrete government projects, employment opportunities, access to free public education, free healthcare. This is where the center of attention should be, what is the government of Medellin doing to fight poverty? Not on public ads focusing on the non-existing choices poor people of Las Comunas have.
This is very reminiscent to Barack Obama's fathers day speech when he had the audacity to lay the blame the reason for why Blacks continue to be left behind in society on absent black fathers. As if black fathers have control over the incarceration rates of the black population. As if black fathers have control of the unemployment levels in their communities. As if black fathers have control on who gets access to higher education. We need to systematically reject the blame the victims argument, and lay the blame where it should be, on those who run our society.

Correa Under Attack: Ecuador's Political Crisis

Ecuador's political climate reached a boiling point yesterday. President Rafeal Correa was punched, tear gassed and put on a stretcher, after he sought to have a personal dialogue with striking policemen in a barracks in Quito. The police force was responding to an attempt by the government to hold off on paying bonuses and increases in salaries. What followed took on the character of coup, but really was a coordinated national general strike by a large section of the police force, primarily in the capital and in the coastal city of Guayaquil. The military seemed to be by the side of the president at all times, an indeed rescued him at a hospital where he was being held hostage by striking policemen. Across major cities and towns of Ecuador thousands poured out in the streets against the attack on Correa and democracy. Workers marched to the presidential palace and key government buildings to make sure it remained out of the hands of malicious forces. The government and Correa's Partido Alianza Paz (AP) responded swiftly by encouraging people to come out in the streets peacefully and by shutting down the airwaves. The latter, a key tool the oligarchy of Ecuador has used to spread misinformation and to slander the president.

The backdrop of the current crisis, stems from the right-wings paranoia of Correa's leftward shift and his broad public support which caused his reelection last year. Correa has recently joined the Bolivarian Alliance For The People of Our America (ALBA) and his presidency was key in ratifying a new constitution. The world economic recession has also forced the hand of Correa, which has led to austerity measures being implemented.

The attack on Correa, however, will have the effect of increasing his stature as a leader for change and will continue to marginalize the Ecuadorian ruling class and the already much hated police force. International support for Correa also came pouring in, with calls to defend the institutions of democracy.
The events that occurred yesterday and the actions that the masses took will serve as a key rehearsal for a future coup that is always lingering in Latin America. In Ecuador alone there has been three presidents overthrown in the last 15 years, however, these were rebellions from below. The threat today in Ecuador is a coup fabricated by the U.S. and possibly the Colombian military and the rich of Ecuador.
Although many in the mainstream media called the attack on Correa an attempted coup, it did not look like the police force had an actual plan for the conquest of political power and /or a plan to rule the country.
Yesterday's attack on Correa demonstrates the necessity for working class revolutionary politics and organization. Ecuador will be in a state of emergency for a week, but the threat of U.S. imperialism, which is trying hard to regain control of it's "backyard", and the threat of the bourgeoisie of Ecuador and Colombia still remains.

The Significance of Venezuela's Parliamentary Elections

On Sunday September 26th Venezuelan's voted on a new parliament. Hugo Chavez's Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won a clear majority, winning 98 of the 165 national assembly seats, short of the two-thirds needed to easily pass legislation. In the Latin American Parliament, the PSUV won 6 out of 12 seats. The National Electoral Council reported a record turnout for the elections, over 66% of eligible voters voted. The headlines of the day was the seats gained by the right-wing, the Mesa de Unidad Democratica (MUD). Although, the elections show that the majority of Venezuelans support Hugo Chavez and the PSUV, it also reveals that the right-wing is gaining ground. A right-wing whose platform is staunchly anti-Chavez, pro-business, and which we should have every reason to suspect is being funded by Washington D.C.

The results signify an increasing class and political polarization in Venezuela. The battles between Chavez and the MUD are about to get stormier. With a stronger voice in the national political scene, the right-wing will begin to undermine Chavez' attempt to legislate reforms and his vision of "Socialism for the 21st Century". A battle that will ultimately culminate in 2012, when Chavez will seek another presidential election.  

The results also put in question the strategy the PSUV has taken to organize mass working class support for Chavez. As has been the case since he was first elected in 1998, the terms of the debate are: are you for the Bolivarian Revolution or against it? And since Chavez is the leader of the movement, even non-presidential elections feel like referendums to his presidency. Moreover, the right-wing strategy is also Chavez centered, with no real alternatives besides anything anti-Chavez and return to pre-1998 Venezuela. The right-wing still has not claimed it's legitimacy after it's failed 2002 attempted coup. So how do you explain MUD's gain in the elections? The economy.
The economic situation in Venezuela, i.e. oil prices and the world recession, have had a devastating impact on many social programs. An example is the national healthcare system which is on the brink of collapse. Furthermore, the massive bureaucracy around the Chavez government and the core of the PSUV, a party which claims six million members, is becoming a constant frustration for ordinary Venezuelans. Also telling is the way Chavez has handled the indigenous movement in Zulia, where they have been fighting the take over of their lands by a state owned coal company. He has referred to them as "counterrevolutionaries", which is reminiscent to how Evo Morales dealt with striking miners in Bolivia. For the last six years, Chavez was able to use oil money to fund important social services to tackle poverty, with adequate healthcare and free education, but with the world recession, and a looming double-dip recession, it seams like his ability to do so has been grounded to a halt. The effect of this will be the decline of working class support.
Chavez subscribes to a Stalinist idea, albeit with Latin American characteristics, of socialism, which to the PSUV means state-ownership of basic industry. However, an always important question to ask is who will control the state and by what means? Will it be Chavez "representing" the working class, or the workers directly controlling the means of production? We must remember the import lessons of Chile 1973 and Allende's flawed parliamentary road to socialism, you cannot legislate socialism or create a revolutionary movement from the top-down, but the only way to actually fight for a new society is through working class revolutionary self-organization.

The Witch Hunt of Senator Piedad Cordoba

The Colombia government, led by the Santos administration is once again going after politicians who differ on their approach to dealing with the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). An once again the target is Senator Piedad Cordoba from the Colombian Liberal Party. 

The evidence against her is in Raul Reyes' famous laptop that some how survived an intense shoot out in the jungles of Ecuador. The same laptop that links Hugo Chavez to the FARC. This is political maneuvering by the Attorney General. Of course, Cordoba has contacts with the FARC, so does hundred of journalists who visit their camps on a weekly basis. Moreover, her connection with the FARC has led to the release of 12 hostages in the last few years. 

The mainstream press quickly celebrated the decision of the attorney general reached just after midnight today, to banish her from the senate, and viewed it as yet another blow to the guerrillas. It's disgusting to see the celebration of someone being criminalized for having a social justice approach to bringing peace to Colombia. We need to go beyond CARACOL & RCN News. In Colombia, if you don't agree with the government, you are labeled as "the FARC", and subsequently you are demonized. It's time we rose above that and understood the root's of Colombia's problem, which the government loves to simply lay blame to the guerrillas.

Simply put, the Santos administration does not appreciate Cordoba's strategy of dialogue with the FARC because it undermines their strategy of all out war and the business behind that. The rich of Colombia depend on war with the FARC/ELN (National Liberation Army of Colombia), it's how they receive staunch financial and military support from the U.S. The FARC and the "war on terror" is a key component in the argument and justification for the countless acts of aggression towards student activists, labor leaders, the indigenous population and now to politicians who differ on the approach to peace in Colombia. We should stand in solidarity with her!

FBI Try to Intimidate Activists with Raids

The FBI raided several homes of activists in the Twin Cities and in Chicago, and also included the offices of the Anti-War Committee of Minneapolis. The goal was to find evidence that these certain activists were in some form connected with groups like the militant Muslim group Hezbollah of Lebanon, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) or the guerrillas of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).The activists targeted worked with various different groups including, The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), the Palestine Solidarity Group, Students for a Democratic Society, the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, the Colombia Action Network, and the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera (a Colombian political prisoner).

These raids are a clear violation of our democratic rights to free speech and right to organize. Furthermore, the U.S. government is no position to tell us who we can and cannot support. After all, any group or organization that is against U.S. hegemony is labeled "terrorist". The U.S. record of demonizing certain groups and individuals is long, think Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC). A united response from progressives, activists and socialists is crucial. We will not allow FBI intimidation tactics to scare us. The struggle lives on, here is what we can do to fight back,

Contact U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at 202-353-1555 or askdoj@usdoj.gov to demand an end to the repression of antiwar and international solidarity activists.
You can join protests planned for the coming days around the country:
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27
Minneapolis, 4:30 p.m., FBI office, 111 Washington Ave. S.
Chicago, 4:30 p.m., FBI office, 2111 W. Roosevelt Road
Kalamazoo, Mich., 4:30 p.m., Federal Building, 410 W. Michigan Ave.
Salt Lake City, 9 a.m., Federal Building
Durham, N.C., 12 Noon, Federal Building, 323 E. Chapel Hill St.
Buffalo, N.Y., 4:30 p.m., FBI office, corner of S. Elmwood Avenue and Niagra Street
Gainesville, Fla., 4:30 p.m., FBI office
Boston, 4 p.m., JFK Federal Building, Government Center
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28
New York City, 4:30 p.m., Federal Building, 26 Federal Plaza
Newark, N.J., 5 p.m., Federal Building, Broad Street
Philadelphia, 4:30 p.m., Federal Building, 6th and Market
Washington, D.C., 4:30 p.m., FBI Building, 935 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Boston, 5 p.m., JFK Federal Building
Detroit, 4:30 p.m., McNamara Federal Building, Michigan Avenue at Cass
Raleigh, N.C., 9 a.m., Federal Building, 310 New Bern Ave.
Asheville, N.C., 5 p.m., Federal Building
Atlanta, 12 Noon, FBI Building
Los Angeles, 5 p.m., Downtown Federal Building, 300 N. Los Angeles St.
Tucson, Ariz., 5 p.m., Federal Building
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29
Albany, N.Y., 5 p.m., Federal Building

Mono Jojoy is killed, Colombia's Civil War Continues

The mainstream press in Colombia and in the U.S. (Caracol, RCN, CNN) responded like a loyal choir with enthusiasm to the death of FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionaria de Colombia) guerrilla leader Mono Jojoy. Mono Jojoy had a been a leading figure in the FARC since 1976, and along with 'Raul Reyes' and 'Tirofijo', is now added to the list of killed/deceased leaders in the past five years.

The newly elected Santos administration in Colombia was quick to claim that this continues to signify the end of the FARC, and shows that the Colombia government strategy of no dialogue and all out war with guerrilla "terrorists" is working. Two points should be made to counter these claims;
1) The killings of key military figures in the FARC do not mean that they're winning. Those military leaders will simply be replaced by next best cadre. The social, political and economic situation in Colombia will continue to supply the FARC with brand new recruits.
2) The Colombian economy is financially dependent on the war against the guerrilla insurgents. It does not benefit the ruling class of Colombia to actually take up a dialogue with the FARC or the ELN (Erjecito Liberacion Nacional) because it benefits from the flow of cash entering from Washington. Additionally, the real crises of Colombia, unemployment, poverty, displacement, deforestation, assassinations of activists, and racism, are all taboo topics, because the ruling class use the FARC as scapegoats and as a diversion from other serious issues concerning working and poor people.

The forces on the left in Colombia continually face state harassment, with anyone to the left of mainstream politics labeled as 'FARC'. However, this hasn't prevented a strong social justice and peace movement from taking form. Senator Gloria Ines Ramirez of the POLO Democratico Alternativo, spoke out against the gun-ho reaction of the Santos administration, and argued for a true road to peace in Colombia by a negotiated dialogue. Nonetheless, much more pressure will need to be put on the ruling establishment to take true peace seriously. This pressure will need to come from state sector worker's who are continuously facing privatization, from displaced indigenous populations, students and poor workers who haven't seen their living standards increased amidst talk of the "new Colombia" of Alvaro Uribe, and from the massive black population who face Jim Crow style racism.

Is A Revolution Possible in the U.S.?

Below is a talk I gave at Hunter College last semester (Spring 10) titled, Is A Revolution Possible in the U.S. Hope you enjoy!

When you look at today’s world, it isn’t hard to see that we need fundamental change in our society. If we take a look at the Gulf of Mexico, instead of seeing a blue sea, what you have is oil, due to the disastrous spill caused by BP’s blind hunger to pump out more of the black gold at all cost. Even if it means destroying our natural habitat and putting millions of working peoples livelihoods in danger. Or we can look at the state of Arizona, which recently passed a racist law criminalizing undocumented workers. The reason, to prevent more immigrants from “stealing jobs” and more importantly, to use immigrants as scapegoats and blame them for the state of the U.S.’s economy. As if immigrants ran Wall Street banks. Through out the U.S. and in fact the world, politicians have gone after workers living standards, firing public sector workers, making sure workers take huge pay cuts and cutting social services. The reason, according to them, is so that we can collectively share the burden of the Great Recession, as if we ever collectively shared the profit that has been made by capitalists. What all this has come to show is that these problems, whether it be the attack on working peoples living standards, the war in the middle east, the destruction of the environment, or the racist attacks on immigrants, Arabs and Muslims , all come back to the systematic problem of capitalism.

In the U.S., the rich have never been richer, and in fact are still making money as national economies go bankrupt. And the class-divide between workers and superrich continues to get starker and starker, both national and internationally. This past week a general strike in Greece paralyzed the country and brought the EU to its knees. Prompting, EU to pass a stimulus package. In Puerto Rico, students have also responded to attacks by occupying their schools. In the U.S., although we haven’t seen general strikes, the national demonstrations on March 4^th against budgets cuts brought out a fresh new generation of students and workers, willing to stand up for their rights. What all these struggles show is that there are two antagonistic classes clashing together for different ways forward. For the capitalists, the solution to the global economic crisis is to make the workers pay, and to restore profit. For workers, is to do away with the for-profit system, and set-up a new system based on human need. Up to this point masses of workers aren’t at the White House yet, but what is important to understand is that the great recession has made clearer that there are two-sides to this battle, worker and capitalist. That is precisely the contradiction of capitalism. On one hand you have a tiny minority of people who decide what products are going to be made, how those products will be made, what wars are to be fought, what will be our living wage, and what conditions do we work in. On the other hand, you have the actual mass of workers that have no say whatsoever on how things should run, besides electing every couple of years capitalist A or capitalist B. The problem for capitalist is that workers control the flow of capitalism on the day-to-day level, and in practice proves that indeed capitalists aren’t even needed. And there lies the contradiction of capitalism. A contradiction, which can only be solved through a revolution, a socialist revolution. A revolution that would alter fundamentally the social, economic and political relationships in our society, and put working people in power, in the schools, communities and work places.

Now some people might argue that the idea of a revolution is too far-fetched, especially here in the belly of the beast. However, history would disagree. After all, this country was founded by two radical and bloody revolutions, one to overthrow British imperialism and the other to do away with slavery. And not as your high school history teacher would have seem, but these revolutions weren’t just due to the brilliance of Thomas Paine or Abraham Lincoln, but involved, like genuine revolutions, the masses of people. I say this, not to give you a boring history lesson, but to argue that revolutions are necessary products of historical circumstances, and do not occur based on ones good or bad choice, but instead occur because it is the only way forward both politically and economically. These revolutions were very much radical in their day, however the discussion today is about a socialist revolution, one that both changes the social and economic functioning’s in our society, and destroys the old system of capitalism. Once again the idea of a revolution and in particular a socialist revolution isn’t alien to workers in this country. A couple of examples, In 1919, dock workers and all workers in Seattle went on a general strike, one of their reasons were to be in solidarity with the socialist revolution in Russia of 1917. The American anti-war activist Eugene Debs, around the same time was jailed for speaking against World War 1, and from his jail cell, ran for president as a socialist. He received a million votes, the highest ever for a third party candidate. And all this was occurring after a period of red scare where any type of radical was vilified as unpatriotic. We can also take a look at the history of the 1930’s and the Great Depression, which was a decade of huge radical and working class rebellions which achieved tremendous gains for us, like worker’s right to unionized, the social security system, the welfare system etc. These working class upsurges had everything to do with ordinary people, many of them socialist or led by socialist, fighting for their basic rights to a fair living standard. And in the process of fighting for that, discovered the collective power they had as a class, to strike, shutdown production and on some instances to run the factories on their own.

The civil rights movement of the early 60’s and the radical movements that developed in the end of the decade is another testament to the rich tradition of working class people mobilizing and fighting for change. Some people might think that was then, and that this is now. However, the U.S. working class has a very explosive character to it. For example the mass radicalizations of the 1930’s, 1960’s and to some extent the openness to radical ideas today, were preceded by moments of rightwing dominance and working class defeats. Think of the red scare of the 1920’s also known as the roaring twenties for the super rich of this country. Where you had on one end capitalists making the largest profits ever seen till than, and on the other, you had working people increasingly struggling just to get by. The McCarthyist period of the 1950’s, saw one of the most conservative and racist period in the so-called greatest democracy in the world, with the witch hunt against radicals and the beginning of the civil rights movement that challenged Jim Crow south. The Bush era, similarly saw an intensification in the divide between working people and rich, and the racist attacks against Arabs, Muslims and immigrants. I say all of this because it is important to understand the contradictions that existed before the historical outbursts of struggles of the 30’s and 60’s. And this is, I think, one of the more important dynamics to understand about the class struggle in this country, it is both explosive, and should be seen as a part of the larger revolutionary process. Meaning that the struggles for reforms being fought in the here and now, and the defeats and the small victories, all form part of the collective class-consciousness of working people. And although it might not be evident at times, the working class and the capitalists are constantly in a class struggle, a struggle that in the last three decades the super rich have been winning. However, the important thing to understand is that capitalism forces these two classes to struggle, in its simplest terms higher profits equal lower wages for us, tax cuts for the rich, mean higher taxes for us, and so on. And taking a closer look at it, its not that we have an affixation with struggling against capitalists, however the conditions created in this society forces us to do so. As long as capitalism fails to delivery in economic and social needs, workers will struggle for it. As Karl Marx put it, the driving force of history has been the clash of classes, and in the case of capitalism, worker vs. capitalists.

But then how do you explain why struggle has been so low in the U.S. as compared to lets say France or Greece? Where is the class struggle and the revolution here? The reason why is because working class people have little to no representation at all for their interest. Due to the assault on unions, workers here have been stripped of the most basic elementary form of fighting for their rights. And, do to the two-party system of the Democrats and Republicans; working class people do not have the voice of a third-party, which exists in other countries. All this means that it makes it much difficult to actually struggle against attacks we face as working people, if we don’t have unions that bring us together, or a working class party that can challenge the everyday politics of Washington. And it also means that it can be hard to say where working class radicalism is at, since we don’t see millions of people out on the streets. However, these conditions mean that working class radicalism occurs on a subterranean level, and that when circumstances deem it fit, can cause a massive wave of activism and renewed sense of fight back. The most recent example of this was in the spring of 2006, when millions of immigrant workers walked out of their jobs and took to the streets demanding full legalization, and reigniting the celebration of the historically working class holiday May 1^st. Once again, this outburst of struggle didn’t just come out of nowhere. If we take a look at the 1990’s which saw one of the largest increases of migration to the U.S., mostly due to the U.S. free trade policies with Mexico which destroyed their national agriculture system and left many Mexican farmers heading north for jobs. The 1990’s also saw many immigrants becoming much more integrated to the American workforce, joining unions and becoming much more involved in there community. So when the racist Sensenbrenner bill in 2006 was proposed, the immigrant community responded by taking over the streets of every major city. However, what happened to this movement is very telling of the process of class struggle in this country. Because of the relative weakness of the radical left and radical ideas, the militant movement for immigrant’s rights which was out in the streets and forced the debate of immigration onto the national spotlight was instead channeled into the Democratic Party’s get out to vote for 2008. And in turn two years later we are stuck at square one, fighting another racist anti-immigrant legislation. A movement that in its very character expressed the class anger that exists in our society, but nonetheless the movement was disarmed by the Democratic Party and those who argued that protesting wouldn’t get us anywhere. But just cause people struggle doesn’t mean we will win or that we will choose the most effective strategy to do so. Many people feel voting for democrats every year, or just by signing online petitions is enough. And even the most effective and collective strategy for class struggle, the strike weapon, isn’t a guarantee to success, just think about the MTA strike in 2005. But what’s important to understand is that, yes class struggle is inevitable, but whether our side wins or loses has everything to do with what kind of strategy we use, how we implement it, and what our goals are.

Taking look at the world around us today, the election of the first African American president has raised a new sense of hope and higher expectations that the political establishment will follow through on its promises of change. Obama’s election was a rejection of the status-quo and it reinvigorated millions of people to join his political campaign and engage in politics in general. Although Obama’s election expressed the mass desire for change in this country, it has also shown that the vehicle for change isn’t based on whose in the White House, but as always been the case, based on whose protesting outside of the white house, and in the streets. Many people are realizing this including workers who have seen their wages reduced, teachers who are seeing the pink slip this fall, and ordinary people who have seen social services cut. And what they have seen is Obama play the role of moderate and doing nothing but offer more cuts and giving more of our money to the Wall Street bankers. However, people are not drawing pessimistic conclusions, but are instead becoming much more politically involved and realizing that it will take ordinary peoples involvement in the day-to-day struggles that can actually bring change. All this being said, the majority of Americans have not reached the conclusion that capitalism has to be overthrown, nor do we have a significant number of people in the population who consider themselves revolutionaries, as was the case in the 1960’s. But the point to understand is that capitalism has an inherent inability to satisfy the needs of the working majority, and workers are continuously forced to fight back in order to defend there living standards. It is under these conditions, and these struggles for reforms, that working class people become political, become confident that they can win bigger reforms, and ultimately begin to develop revolutionary conclusions once they realize through there struggles that capitalism ultimately is a flawed system that cannot be tweaked or reformed. The German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg summed it up best when she said: : “The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to socialists the only means of engaging in the proletarian class war and working in the direction of the final goal--the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage labor.”

Knowing what we know, capitalism inability to satisfy our needs, the ever-increasing tension between the have and the have-nots, and that class struggle is inevitable, it is important that we prepare ourselves for when the mass of working people begin to radicalize and reach revolutionary conclusions. The opportunity for building a revolutionary movement exists in the U.S. today, even though a full fledge revolution isn’t on the table. But we need to keep our eyes on the goal, and understand that the struggles we fight for today are the stepping stones to a revolution. In struggle, people’s ideas change rapidly. Millions of people who only yesterday fought for reforms, have the ability when circumstances deem it fit to leap forward and focus there attention on the transformation of our society. A transformation that will not be lead by a smart elite or by specialized armed guerrilla leaders, but by the masses of working people. One of the main leaders of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky, had this to say about what a revolution looks like:

The most dubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historic events. In ordinary times, the state--be it monarchical or democratic--elevates itself above the nation, and history is made by specialists in that line of business--kings, ministers, bureaucrats, parliamentarians, journalists.

But at those crucial moments when the old order becomes no longer endurable to the masses, they break over the barriers excluding them from the political arena, sweep aside their traditional representatives and create by their own interference the initial groundwork for a new regime...The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.

And it’s for that historical task that we want to begin to lay the foundations. Not only is a revolution possible in the U.S. but it is absolutely necessary and urgently needed to put an end to poverty, war and oppression, and in its place a society where justice, real freedom, and human need is the order of the day.

No Raids Committee of Queens Statement

The below is a statement written by day-laborers and members of the No Raids Committee of Queens in response to the harassment of day-laborers by the NYPD. Feel free to show support and send messages of solidarity to Noraidsqueens@gmail.com! We are planning a community forum to address the tensions that exist in the community as well as illustrating the lives of immigrant workers during an economic crisis.


To Whom It May Concern:
On Tuesday, October 20th 2008, around 11AM 10 day labors were arrested on 37th avenue and 69th street while huddled together in hopes of finding construction work. Usually, local immigrant workers congregate daily at the intersection because many of them live in Woodside. For instance, the construction workers’ children play in the same park as other kids from the community while others attend classes with other local kids. In other words, many of the people who were gathered on the morning of the arrest are your neighbors struggling as you to raise a family, give their children a better life—achieve the American dream. According to police reports, people from the neighborhood had filed multiple complaints against the day labors for gathering on the intersection and blocking the sidewalk. Like many of you probably know, there is a dangerous anti-immigrant sentiment throughout much of the United States that forces many immigrant families to recede from public life because of a constant fear of deportation. In many cases, immigrant parents have no choice but to withdrawal their children from school because of this paralyzing fear. When raids are “successful,” families are separated: dreams are shattered; survival becomes precarious. For example, that day after the police descended on the intersection like a pack of wolves and taken 10 immigrant workers into custody. A mother and wife, Olivia, with tears streaming down her smooth cheeks came to the site of the arrest asking about her husband who was arrested with the other workers, “He’s the one who works.” She said in between pants and sobs, to the New York Times reporter. “Who’s going to support the four children now?” Often in the midst of the political talk about deportation, the human element behind the immigration issue is lost. When we talk about workers gathering to work to support a family, we forget the reason and simply just notice the annoying site of a group of men standing on a corner covered in layers of clothing. But if we were to substitute the men for the women, the men for the children who they are working to support, would our perception change? This attack against the day labors of Woodside is not an attack solely against immigrant families but rather an attack against the community as whole. Because when a member of a community loses his or her rights, the community loses the capacity to develop as a collective. Whether or not the persons who congregate look differently from us, family, work, honesty, these are the values that transcend every ethnic and racial category and become the universal template for humanity. As a community, let’s have a conversation. Let’s not resort to animosity because there is much Hispanic immigrants can learn from other immigrant groups.

NO RAIDS COMMITTEE OF QUEENS in conjunction with Day-laborers present during the raid.

Obama: How Much Different?

This year’s presidential election is to go down in history as the first time a black man is elected. After eight years of George Bush, all we are use to is saber rattling towards sovereign countries, scapegoating of immigrants, racism towards Arabs and Muslims, and now an economic crisis. It is no wonder that both candidates are trying to represent themselves as different then the current administration. Whether it be by calling yourself a “maverick” like John McCain or a fighter for “change” and “hope” like Barack Obama, neither candidate wants to be associated with Bush’s policies. The presidential race has been exciting and reenergizing for a large segment of the population for this very reason. Compared to election 2004, between current president Bush and John “ready for war” Kerry, this election might seem like a breath of fresh air. After all, there is a clear difference between this year’s candidates, one man is white, and the other is black. However, if one looks below the surface and the rhetoric that both Obama and McCain use, one will realize that they agree on some of the key issues we are facing. Although they’re minor differences, particularly in the way to resolve the financial collapse, both candidates share the same vision and understanding on healthcare, immigration, and the War on Terror.
The national immigration debate hasn’t resurfaced since the collapse of the McCain-Kennedy Bill. The bill intended to implement a guess-worker program, and allowed a minimal process of legalization while simultaneously funding the militarization of the border. Although this bill cause hysteria from conservation forces who hailed it as amnesty, John McCain saw it as a must for today’s economy. In the same vein, Senator Barack Obama approached the bill on the basis that it both secured our border and allowed flexibility in today’s labor force. However, neither of the candidates attempted to address the second-class status of immigrants or to take up the argument that “illegal workers hurt our economy”. Furthermore, neither has addressed the notion that immigrants must pay large fines in order to get papers. You would think risking your life by hitchhiking through deserts and than working for below minimum wage would be enough: well, not for McCain and Obama.
Similarly, the healthcare system in the U.S. is in a major crisis. Millions of Americans are uninsured, and 50% of personal bankruptcies occur because of healthcare-related issues. This is an issue you would think that Obama and McCain would debate on a national level. However, on this issue both candidates agree more than they disagree. John McCain believes the U.S. has the best healthcare system in the world, due to the fact that it is a privatized, for-profit system. Similarily, Obama believes people should be forced to sign on to a healthcare plan, and in turn make some plans more affordable. Again, neither candidate tries to locate the real source of the problem, and that’s the fact that our healthcare system is motivated by profit, not taking care of people. This has resulted in the health and pharmaceutical industries being on of the most profitable, while millions of Americans remain uninsured, and those that have insurance still have to fight to get their coverage rights.
The war on Iraq has, on the one hand, produced some differences between Obama and McCain, albeit, minor and tactical differences. According to McCain, the Iraq war is the central focus in the fight against terrorism. Thus, McCain is for keeping the number of troops in Iraq high and perhaps to stay for decades to come. Obama has criticized this aspect of McCain’s policy. According to Obama, the Iraq war was the wrong war to fight, and it is distracting us from the real fronts in the war on terror, i.e. Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama even said that we should bomb Pakistan if they continue to not aggressively pursue Al-Queda. Once again both candidates refuse to disagree with the logic of the War on Terror, which says that the U.S. must be on the offensive to fight groups and countries who do not believe in “American values”. But is bombing a continent really going to help the U.S. eliminate terrorism? Or is it creating the conditions for more and more people to stand up to U.S. aggression at home and an abroad?
The fact that this year’s presidential election will make history is correct. However, if one looks beneath the surface of the rhetoric that both candidates use, we see that they’re in agreement in the fundamentals of many of the key issues today. This desperately poses the question of what kind of political alternative do we need. First, it must be said that in order for a candidate to go outside of the boundaries of “politics as usual” in Washington, they must remain independent of the two main business parties that exist today, Democrats and Republicans. Secondly, the candidate will need to directly address the concerns of working people and offer concrete proposals, like taxing the rich, money for jobs and education not for war and occupation, and free healthcare for all. More fundamentally, the candidate will have an understanding that the voting process isn’t the only way to get change, but building grass-root activism on your campus, workplace and communities is the real way we have ever seen change happen in this country.

Generation Debt- Students Under Neoliberalism

The following is a talk given at the CUNY Social Forum at City College, NY and at a public meeting organized by the International Socialist Organization at Hunter College, NY.

The idea that one generation after another will prosper and will climb the latter of opportunity and wealth, an idea that has been a reality for past generations, is a blatant lie today. Today’s generation of students and young workers have grown up in a world where all we know is low wages, massive debt, and an overall attack on our living standards. The media and the people who run our society like to paint a picture of young workers as being lazy, self-concerned, and only caring about the latest Jordan’s or new Sidekick. However, nothing has been farther from the truth. Today’s debt generation—roughly speaking students and young workers from the age 18 to 34, are possibly one of the most economically vulnerable sections of the U.S. working class. Not only are we the generation that is to be expected to pay and fight for the $1 trillion war in Iraq, and not only are we the generation that is newly coming into the workforce after three decades of an employer’s offensive against working people’s living standards, but we are now the generation that is to face one of the largest financial crisis ever experienced since the Great Depression. According to Washington, the first step to take in the financial crisis is by bailing out the same banks that created this mess. The idea that maybe we should refinance mortgages or immediately stop foreclosures, or bailout a whole generation of people whose accumulation of debt is based on survival as opposed to greed, isn’t being voiced by any mainstream politician. Young workers and students desperately need a bailout. I will use myself as an example; in September I began to experience sharp pain in my back. I was worried because I’m a part-time nursing student at BMCC and therefore I’m not eligible to receive healthcare coverage by my parent’s union plan. My employer also does not offer health insurance. When the pain become unbearable I went straight from work to the ER of Bellevue hospital where I was than attended to. It turned out I had a very bad infection, which required of me to make two more visits to the hospital. After all was taken care of, today I find myself in over $4,000 debt to Bellevue hospital. In top of this I live on my own and pay for my own tuition. My story is the story of millions of Americans. In the U.S. 50% of personal bankruptcy come from healthcare related issues. This is one part of the squeeze that a whole generation and including people in this room are facing.
In light of the financial crisis, this squeeze is to become much tighter. This requires of us to deal with important questions surrounding our generation, particularly what role do students and young workers play in today’s economy? Why are they so vulnerable? How did we get into this catastrophic position, and is people’s personal responsibility to blame? Based on the economic experience facing young workers, what are the political and economic ideas being formed? Moreover, how can we match sentiment and the reality facing millions of young workers and students with actual struggle and movements for reforms?

II. Young Workers in Today’s Economy:
For young workers today all we have known is a $7.50 /hr wage, increasing cost of basic things like food and transportation and a general assault on our living standards. Today some 26% of U.S. workers receive poverty wages, which means ¼ of everybody in this room makes poverty wages. The lack of good paying jobs has contributed to this rise. According to U.S. government statistic and recent findings 17.7% of the population are in poverty. On the healthcare end, the number of workers covered by employer provided insurance has declined from 69% in 1979 to just 55% in 2006. In terms of actual wages, as measured in today’s value of the dollar, from 1979 to 2007, a total of 28 years, wages have only increased by 54 cents, this means that while there was rapid economic growth in the 90’s this amounted to virtually nothing for ordinary people. It is sufficient to say that these attacks wouldn’t be possible without attacks on our unions and the labor movement overall. Today unions represent 12.1% of workers, down from 35% in the 1950’s. There are two main reasons why this has occurred; the first has been the unwillingness of employers to allow their workers to be represented by a union. That is, they will go at any length to prevent their workers from organizing. Secondly, because of the restructuring of the U.S. economy in the 1970’s there has been an expansion in the service sector while the traditional unionized manufacturing jobs have been outsourced or destroyed. This expansion of the service sector has been met with the labor movement’s inability to rise to the occasion an organize workers in non-traditional industries like retail and restaurants, converting service jobs into mostly non-unionized bad paying jobs, like the workers of Wal-Mart or Target who with their low wages pay for the “everyday low prices”. Workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement have wages that are 14.1% higher than nonunion workers. Belonging to a union and having the ability to collectively bargain with an employer is essential in maintaining a decent living standard for working people, which is why union representation and the labor movement has been in retreat for two decades. Now, at the other end of our society the richest 1% has seen it share of annual earnings almost double from 7.3% in 1979 to 13.6% in 2006. Even more astounding, the top 0.1% of society has seen their annual earnings increase by 324% from 1979 to 2006. So when people say the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, we should say: the rich get richer because the poor are getting poorer. All of this means that class inequality in the U.S. has never been more evident than today. Even more so because of the rise of basic commodities like food and fuel, class inequality is likely to become even starker. According to a study titled: State of Working America: “about 60% of families that start in the bottom fifth in the income scale are still there a decade later”. The idea the American’s who come from modest and poor backgrounds can work hard and achieve upward mobility has proven itself today to be false.
The idea that young workers can work hard in order to get ahead of their parents is still very much prevalent. In today’s “new global economy” young workers are encouraged to go to school and “invest in their future”, but while this occurs, more and more of these same workers are ending up without a bachelors degree and instead, find themselves in a massive pool of debt. Debt and today’s young adults are inextricably linked. Because of the three-decade long push on workers wages and living standards, the only way that ordinary people could provide for themselves is through depending on credit cards and debt. This process for many people first begins with student loan debt, which affects both community college and 4-year college students. As free public education has been destroyed under the idea that anything publicly funded by the government is bad, and as tuitions have outpaced family income, more students are taking out private loans to fill the gap. Today 2/3 of students borrow money to go to college, up from half in 1993. In 2004-2005 students borrowed $14 billion in private loans, which is a 734% increase from a decade earlier. This is an example of the government shifting what should be a social responsibility to educate people, to a personal responsibility. Basically, if you want higher education, than you are on your own. The consequence of this are that the average student debt after graduation is more than $19,000, which also means if your are lucky to find a decent job after graduation, you will be paying student loans for half the year on the job. Dependence on debt doesn’t end with school, but on the contrary is essential for today’s young workers in order to cover basic living expenses like housing costs, health care costs and food. Contrary to an argument voiced by billionaire Mayor Bloomberg when in response to the financial crisis he had the audacity to say “we have all been living well beyond our means”. In reality, the average family of four is actually spending 21% less today on clothing than a similar family spent in the early 1970s. Families are also spending 22% less on food and 44% less on major appliances. The reality is that in order for working people to compensate for their low wages, and still be able to afford food, fuel and clothing, debt is necessary for survival. We have been living beyond our means because it has been forced upon us and is our only way for survival.
Debt is also a political tool that can be used against young workers, making a new layer of workers that are much more vulnerable and desperate to take any work. The influx of young workers into higher education is a direct result of the decline of good paying jobs. If we compare the median annual earnings of young male workers today to young male workers in 1975 we see that there is an $8,000 a year difference. Also, if we compare the wage differences between workers whose highest education level is a High School diploma in 1975 to today we see that there is a $12,000 difference. Seeking a college education was not a precondition for having a good paying job in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. In New York City, for example, we had the garment industry, in Chicago they had the Meatpacking industry, and in Detroit the auto industry. These industry’s offered a decent paying jobs and good living standards for working people. But neoliberalism, and the employer’s offensive have changed that reality. The only way today one can aspire to land a decent job is through seeking a higher education, however the reality is that although more and more people are going to college, the graduation rates haven’t changed significantly. Here at Hunter College, only 15% of students graduate in 4 years, and 39% in 8 years or more, and the graduation rates have stayed virtually the same while the number of freshmen’s has continued to rise throughout the 90’s. Essentially, what this means is that young workers can’t afford to finish school. The ruling class argues that college education is integral in this new “global economy”, but the reality is that the people who run this country benefit from having a large pool of younger workers that are in debt and desperate to work. It is what they call having a “flexible workforce”, that is, the ability to hire and fire people at will and too strip away protection on the job. More importantly, a college education gives young workers the idea of upward mobility, nonetheless graduation rates nationally and here at Hunter don’t match that rhetoric.

III. The American Dream and The Employer’s Offensive:
I want to now focus on the question: how did our generation could to this point? The economic struggles that young worker’s face today are not happening because of personal choices, or because students “aren’t good with money”, on the contrary it is occurring because it is a part of a larger strategy that the ruling class pursues. When a refer to the ruling class, I’m talking about bankers, employer’s and in general the people who make the day to day decisions the effects our lives greatly. This strategy and economic doctrine that the ruling class pursues, also known as neoliberalism, was made to shift wealth from workers--to the elites of the world. Life for working people after the Second World War and before the Reagan Revolution, which is known as the onset of neoliberalism in the U.S., was much different than it is for young workers today. It was during this time that the American Dream was in fact a reality for ordinary people. After World War Two the U.S. gained the status of economic and military superpower, which allowed for capital and business to experience an unprecedented economic boom. This also allowed for workers wages to rise throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. During this time the average weekly earnings for manufacturing workers rose by 84%. Also, millions of working class people and veterans were able to afford a home for the first time because of tax breaks and veterans’ programs, something that is unconceivable today. During this time 70% of whites were able to afford their own homes. It is here where the slogan “What’s good for General Motors is good for America” and the idea of the American Dream began to take shape. What is important to understand about this ideology and economic advancement for sections of the working class is that the employers were not motivated by their generosity: but by there desire to maximize their profits. In order to achieve this, it required bosses to seek a way to prevent workers and their unions from participating in work stoppages. This is an important point. It wasn’t the generosity of bosses that led to workers increase in living standards, but on the contrary it was both tied to the long economic boom of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s and the organizational strength and militancy of workers and their unions. The ideology of the American Dream was in reality a means to blunt any further friction between workers and bosses. This led to Fortune magazine in 1951 to congratulate U.S. capital for finding a uniquely “American” solution to “problems of class struggle and proletarian consciousness”. Nonetheless, not all was good for U.S. workers. Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, due to racism, the median income of Black Americans was still at 55% of Whites. Wages for workers who did not belong to a union rose much slower. And even in 1959 more than 1 in 5 of people lived below the official poverty line.

The overall trend of working class people belonging to a union, having healthcare, and in general having a good standard of living, came under attack during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Understanding why and how this took place helps us understand the current economic and political situation facing our generation. And it also reinforces the argument that the reasons why millions of people are in debt today and have a far lower living standards than past generations is because of a conscious effort from the people who run our society. By the late 1960’s the U.S. was falling behind competition from Japan and Europe. The boom that the U.S. had been riding since the end of World War II came to an end, and as result, there was a crisis in the ability of the system to continue making profit. In the face of this, the U.S. rulers desperately needed a new strategy. This strategy contained three key elements: the first part involved the move for less government control—stripping back laws and regulation to allow money to flow more freely across borders and internally. Secondly, it involved the transfer of wealth from workers to the bosses, by cutting the standard of living for working people. Thirdly, there was internal corporate structuring. All together, this strategy created what is known as neoliberalism, that is the restructuring of the for profit system based on a management offensive on an international level. This is the way Business Week in 1974 summarized the crises for world capitalism:
It will be a hard pill for many Americans to swallow—the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more. It will be particularly hard to swallow because it is quite obvious that if big business and big banks are the most visible victims of what ails the debt economy, they are also in large measure the cause of it…Nothing that this nation, or any other nation, has done in economic history compares in difficulty with the selling job that must now be done to make people accept the new reality.
This new reality means an attack on worker’s rights on the job and de-unionization. The new reality also means massive cuts on social spending; increasing tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, privatization, outsourcing of good paying jobs, and free trade. This is the essence of neoliberalism and neoliberal policy. The result, the average earnings for workers in 1973 was $331 per week; in 2007 it was $279 per week. Another result is that working class people have been forced into a debt crisis. The use of credit cards has been the only way students and young workers have been able to get by, especially in expensive cities like New York City, where everything from the price of milk to the cost of our monthly metro cards has been increasing.
Workers aren’t the only one in this debt crisis: the bankers internationally find themselves in a similar situation. There is one fundamental difference, our crisis has been forced upon us and has actually paid for the riches massive gains. The bankers on the other hand, created the current financial meltdown by practicing predatory lending. And since capitalism involves no rational planning, bankers put all their investments into the section of the economy which is currently creating the most money, and that was the housing boom. However, the result is that there is now an overproduction of houses, resulting in prices decreasing dramatically. This has now forced banks to admit that many of their packaged mortgages are overvalued, resulting in the collapse of banks like Washington Mutual. This has also resulted in the near collapse of the banking system itself. Since no bank wants to admit how much of their money was invested in overvalued package mortgages, banks have stopped lending to one another. The proposal for a $700 billion bailout, paid by us, in order to save the bankers, is just another example of how the government gets out of economic crisis, on the back of working people.


IV Young Worker’s Progressive Views:
Because of these enormous economic challenges facing young workers, in a world where all we have known is give backs, unemployment, war and occupation, declining living standards, and the increasing cost of food, more and more young workers are drawing conclusions, which no mainstream politician is willing to articulate. So for example in the healthcare end, 57% of younger workers say that health insurance should come from a government insurance plan. 87% of young workers think that the government should spend more money on healthcare even if a tax increase is required to pay for it. On the education front, an overwhelming 95% of young workers think education spending should be increased even if a tax increase is required to pay for it. 61% think that the government should provide more services. In terms of other issues like racial tolerance and views on unions, and overwhelming majority of young workers would vote for a black president, and large majority would like to have union representation. All of these stats are at its highest level of support in its 20-year history. These polls signify that there is a general understanding amongst young workers and students that they have been getting screwed over. These polls are also a huge shift away from the neoliberal doctrine that says “government is the problem, and the free market the solution”, and idea that is being broken down today with the financial meltdown and the nationalizations of key banking institutions like AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Some of these shifts have forced politicians to begin to question, although be it rhetorically, neoliberalism. An example of this was Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama calling out John McCain in the first presidential debate, for being a pioneer in deregulating the banking system and calling out McCain for his belief in “trickle down economics”, the idea that says: give the rich the conditions they need to make more money like tax cuts, and this will somehow trickle down to ordinary people.
The shift against neoliberalism in students and young workers has created an ideological crisis for this economic doctrine. You cannot continue to easily implement neoliberal policies if the majority of the people are against it. Moreover, there is also a material crisis for neoliberalism exemplified by today’s current financial mess, which is a direct result of the deregulation of the banking system. These two simultaneous processes, that is, growing discontent with the way our society is being run and the internal crisis of the system itself presents our generation with a unique opportunity. On the one hand you have the insanity of this system that has been squeezing working people tighter and tighter, and has created a new class of super, super rich, resulting in deep class anger and frustrations with the way our society is being run. And on the other hand, the system itself isn’t working because of its internal contradictions. This gives us the opportunity to put forward a different, more humane set of priorities in our society. The question that now arises is: how do we put forward our demands?

IV. Turning Sentiment into Action: How can we build struggles for reforms?
While there has been a significant shift to the left in the ideas of students and young workers, this has not translated into action. This is no surprise, our side has been unorganized and in retreat since that late 1970’s. There are several reasons for this. The most important one is that many people have chosen a personal strategy to respond to their individual crisis. In my case: in which I have no healthcare, choosing solely a personal strategy would mean applying for Medicaid or going to Bellevue hospital to negotiate a means to pay my debt. Obviously, I need to respond to my immediate dilemma, but I also understand that the only way to truly get rid of my problem, which millions of people face, would mean to have a collective strategy for fighting for true healthcare reform. Another example would be the fight for public education. On a personal level, one could just rack up student loans, which is what has been occurring, but a collective strategy would mean students organizing together to demand and end to tuition hikes and an increase in government scholarships. At Hunter College, the Campus Anti-war Network has begun a petition directed towards the presidential candidates, which demands of them to cut one half of the military budget and direct it towards public education. This is a concrete example of students figuring out what are some of the problems they face and than deciding concretely on how to challenge it.

Young workers and students collective organization is the only way to fight-back. We have the history and lessons of the 1930’s labor movement and various social movements of the 1960’s as examples of successful collective organization. However, today’s main challenge is turning leftwing ideas and matching it on the ground. This process of turning sentiment into action occurs in two different forms. The first form is that people are going to be forced to fight back because of the contradictions in the system. Meaning that they can no longer take being squeezed and that the only way to survive is to defend your current economic status. The second, and less spontaneous form of fight-back is that of long-term patient building of struggles around us. Part of this requires a certain degree of understanding of why, for example, CUNY budgets are being cut. If you understand this, than you know that it’s Governor Patterson’s solution to a recession. This then helps us figure out a strategy of how we can take on these attacks. So for example, we would put forward that the city not cut money from CUNY but instead enact government work programs to rebuild the city’s infrastructure as way of creating more jobs and taking on rising unemployment or we could simply demand tax the rich of New York City. That’s the way one should respond during a crisis, not go after one of the cities most vulnerable members, CUNY students. Building struggle, however small, allows us to win over other segments of the population that haven’t reached the same conclusions that we have. It is this process that allows us to develop from a small, perhaps local struggle into much more broader mass social movement. This is sorely missing in today’s economic crisis. In the absence of class struggle and any leftwing force that can truly take the side of working people, our demands are not being heard. So today, the main debate was: should we bailout the bankers or not? However, if we had a movement on the ground of young workers organizing at their workplaces and students organizing on their campus and demanded a bailout for the generation debt: we might have a third side to this national debate. This does not come out of nowhere. It requires the active participation of everyone in this room in figuring how can we set ourselves up to best deal with problems like military recruiters on campus, or dealing with the fact that cafeteria prices at Hunter rose over 30%, as well as dealing with the larger social issues like putting an end to the war on Iraq and fighting the scapegoating of immigrant workers. Only by our generation having an understanding why and how we have been forced into debt, and more importantly, having an understanding that through collective struggle we can transform ourselves from a small struggle to a large social movement that can actually fight for true reforms, will our generation be remembered not as, generation debt, but as a generation of militant students and young workers who stood up to the status-quo and fought for a better future.