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Readers' ViewsECONOMICS, HUMAN LIFE, AND CAPITALISM IN CRISIS In Raya Dunayevskaya's "From the Archives" column (Oct.-Nov. N&L) she exposed the rationalization for the type of economy that was developing in the 1980s through Reaganomics and that continued until recently. She sharply criticized Peter Drucker for claiming that employment could be uncoupled from production, capital from capital investment, and industrial production from the entire economy. What he ignored was the sweated labor behind robotized, unimated production. She referenced a NBC special about how technologically advanced Japan was grounded in low-paying, non-union, piecework labor. Today, China and Viet Nam are even grosser examples and there has been an ever greater lowering of barriers to moving trade and credit around the world. The sweatshops of the world do not need to be the most technologically advanced. Once capital is no longer tied to investments in production, and trade has been uncoupled from products to exchange of services, all that is left is exchange of money and investment for more money. Her insight saw a new era of Reaganism that continues today. You cannot talk about economics separate from life. When we talk about economic theory, it is a discussion about human life. Knowing that cuts through all the propaganda and outright lies the powers-that-be put out. It is a leap of the imagination to know that we can live in a different way. I think that's what Marx's philosophy is all about--how individuals reproduce themselves as human beings. It's the only alternative there is to the ongoing capitalist crises today. It isn't easy. It can't be reduced to a slogan on a bumper sticker. It was no big surprise when the economic crisis demanded a response from both presidential candidates and neither one addressed it in terms of a vision transcending the subsumption of capital. McCain made the most serious blunder in stating that the fundamentals of the economy are strong and, when criticized by Obama for being completely out of touch with reality, saying he was actually referring to the American workers who are the best in the world. What seems clear is that the future for American workers is continued subjugation to the despotic plan of capital. The Lead article on "Bailout can't save capitalism from its own gravediggers" (Oct-Nov. N&L) was cogent, readable and clear in dealing with a technical-philosophic issue. It was revealing that in the 1986 article by Dunayevskaya in the same issue, she was talking about debt. Nobody was thinking about that then. And it was important to print a substantial ad for The Marxist-Humanist Theory of State-Capitalism on the same page. The critical juncture we have reached today may well be a harbinger of things to come. Consider it the first shot across the bow of labor. The attacks on UAW workers may be the PATCO event of our age. If they win here, other workers all over the U.S. economy will be seeing very hard times ahead, for a long, long time to come. It appears UAW workers are making their stand and not giving in to the anti-labor right wing in the Congress. The Republicans are simultaneously attacking pro-environment clauses as well as union wages. It's obvious they want to put the burden of their "economic recovery" on the backs of workers and the environment. One's political stance on those two issues are tied together at the umbilical cord. The racist discourse in America is alarming and people often don't notice it takes place. When a lady at the town hall meeting during the presidential campaign asked John McCain if Barack Obama was an Arab, he replied, "No, he is a decent family man." Does Arab mean he is not a decent family man? I am Jewish and easily offended by these things. The appropriate answer to the claim that Obama is an Arab should be "So what?" America was poised for a tremendous opportunity in November, that you don't have to be called Jim or George or Bob. But this is a formidable task. The last eight years have brought this country to an unprecedented low. This year we need to determine what the next eight years will do. Marcelo Lucero, an immigrant from Ecuador, was attacked by seven teen-age boys and stabbed to death Nov. 8 in Suffolk County on Long Island, a short commute from New York City. The attackers confessed that they had driven around the town of Patchogue looking for Latinos to beat up. Suffolk employs a County Executive who uses the term "anchor babies" to describe children born to immigrants, supposedly as a device to obtain a legal foothold in the U.S. Before Lucero's murder, community activists had invited County Board members to their meetings with the aim of cooling their rhetoric and offering some human contact with the communities they had been exploiting, to no avail. In the period of outrage after the murder, the county hired a Hispanic policeman. Soon after the announcement it became clear the new hire didn't speak Spanish. Now we learn that another guy from Ecuador was attacked in Brooklyn by three men with a baseball bat. Jose Sucuzha–ay has just died with extensive brain damage. There is no sign yet of the attackers who fled in a red-orange SUV. "Forgotten Injustice" is a film by Vicente Serrano that tells the story of the unconstitutional deportation of more than two million U.S. citizens and legal residents during the Great Depression. They were deported for one reason: They were of Mexican descent. It won a great response when we showed it on six Saturdays from Oct. 25 through Nov. 20. Those interested in taking it to their communities can get information about it at www.AForgottenInjustice.com I felt something was missing in the article Critical Resistance 10 in the Oct.-Nov. N&L. I am the author of the article discussed at the workshop on "Caged Mental Health." What was missing was the reality of "the cage." No one can picture it or realize it exists in these United States of America, home of the free! This is real and happening in the heartland of California. The picture appeared in The Fire Inside and used to be on the Internet, but no longer, I feel, because no one wants to admit this is how the prison system treats women. I've lived here for eight years and am hoping you will show the reality in N&L now that you have the full information.
Information is power--I'm a firm believer, With a stroke of his executive pen, President Bush once again demonstrated his opposition to labor by removing some 8,600 federal employees from union membership. The employees work in the Energy Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Federal Air Marshal Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Coast Guard, and Federal Aviation Administration. Bush said union membership of these employees, who have had bargaining rights for 30 years, was not consistent with "national security requirements." He is also not leaving office without rewarding the coal mine owners again with a gift they have long desired--the removal of all obstacles to mountain-top mining. In this process, coal operators had to obtain judicial approval before they could blow or bulldoze off mountain tops into the streams and valleys below to reach seams of coal. Bush has now removed that restraint, and the coal operators have a completely free hand to pollute and environmentally degrade coal regions in the U.S. In her lecture on Hegel given in Japan, "Grasp revolutionary spirit of the age" (Aug.-Sept. N&L), Raya Dunayevskaya made it clear she was not interested in how Hegel "applied" his ideas, but only in the "actual logic and movement of those ideas." The spirit Hegel challenged philosophers to grasp was a certain kind of consciousness he described in his book Phenomenology of Spirit. It was important to Dunayevskaya that her audience be motivated to work out a philosophy of freedom and take action to make freedom an objective reality. What Hegel, Marx and she caught was that the dialectic is a ceaseless movement of spirit in the process of becoming itself. Yet I worry that spirit and Subject can lose its forward movement and become overpowered by Objectivity. That may be happening right now as the world slips into economic recession. If we are to recover, it will take everything that Hegel, Marx and Dunayevskaya tried to tell us about grasping the spirit of the times and working out the new philosophic categories implicit in the mass movement from below. The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain's first international conference on Political Islam, Sharia Law and Civil Society was held at Conway Hall on Oct. 10. Nearly 300 people came together to discuss issues ranging from apostasy, the freedom to criticize and renounce religion, Sharia law and civil society, creationism, faith schools and religious education. Held on the International Day against the Death Penalty, the conference was a stark reminder of the many killed or facing execution for apostasy in countries ruled by Islamic laws. The report, film footage and photographs of the conference can be seen on http://www.ex-muslim.org.uk/indexPressreleases.html. The conference closed by calling on participants to mobilize around March 8, International Women's Day, to step up opposition against Sharia law and political Islam. Only a movement that puts people first can mobilize the force needed to stop political Islam. And it must be stopped. On Nov. 20, more than 7,000 Greek prisoners ended their 18-day hunger strike after the Ministry of Justice conceded to a series of demands. The prisoners had won the support of a widening solidarity movement, which had held mass protest marches in several cities. They were promised that by next April the number of prisoners in Greek jails will be reduced to 6,815 from the present 12,315. This means that half of the country's prison population will be released. In a press release the Prisoners' Committee detailed what the Ministry had failed to answer in their demands, thanked the solidarity movement, and declared that "our struggle against these human refuse dumps and for the victory of all our demands continues." It is inspiring to hear of Mumia supporters gathering around the world on Dec. 6 and again Dec. 9 to demand a new and fair trial for him and for his freedom. What made the Dec. 9 gatherings so special was that it is the 27th anniversary of the attempted murder of Mumia and the killing of Officer Daniel Faulkner with which he is charged. WHAT COMES AFTER OBAMA'S VICTORY? When Obama's victory was announced on Nov. 4, there was an explosion of joy all over Oakland. We were in Jack London Square, where at least 2,000 had gathered, cheering and dancing with each other, often total strangers. A large group dance started and we were amazed to recognize it as a centuries-old French-Canadian dance, Le Continental. When we asked people what they called the dance they said, "It's the Electric Slide, it's from the '80s!" Wow, culture sure gets around. Maybe it got to Oakland from New Orleans. As we left, hundreds of cars were driving by, and people were spilling into the streets all the way to Berkeley. If nothing else comes out of this election, it's the new sense of optimism, and a friendlier atmosphere between Black and white and all ethnicities. We earnestly hope the Obama presidency signals the dawning of long-needed progressive change in the U.S. We intend to maintain a 20-day presence, from Jan. 1 to Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 19, 2009, in Hyde Park, Chicago, calling it "Camp Hope: Countdown to Change." A number of groups committed to nonviolence and working for just social change have joined with us.. We are urging Obama to take action, immediately on being sworn into office, on eight specific actions: withdraw from Iraq gradually; take all nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; close Guantanamo; suspend deportations and stop raids; submit the Kyoto Protocols to Congress for ratification; establish a commission to create full employment; issue a 90-day moratorium on housing foreclosures; start a commission for Universal Health Care. To get more information, email us at contact@camphope2009.org or phone 773-878-3815. Women are beginning to overtake men in the ranks of organized labor. Although only a fifth of women workers currently belong to unions, they make up 45% of all unionized workers. Yet despite their growing presence--and the 45-year-old federal Equal Pay Act--women still average only 77 cents for every dollar men earn. The only thing that will see that change is pressure on the government to finally guarantee women the pay equity the law has promised them for 45 years. That's the kind of "change" people were voting for on Nov. 4. It is with defeats like the passage of anti-gay rights measures in Arkansas (where it was anti-foster parenting and adoption) and in Arizona, Florida and California (where it was anti-marriage), that I appreciate more deeply being in community with many womyn and men who are truly for human rights. Why are so many people so afraid of us LGBTQI folks? We're just folks like everyone else. But in the future, we must and will overcome, somehow. The front page article in the August-September issue on "War in Georgia" was poignant and excellent. The new U.S. president will find no easy sledding with the likes of Mr. Putin as well as Mr. Hu--hard core pros on the world stage who know the game and how to play it. The first time President Obama sits down to eat with the likes of Putin and Hu, they will eat off his plate. Superficially, the attack on a neighbor and ally of Russia by tiny Georgia makes no more sense than for Mexican soldiers to attack Texas. N&L was exactly right: there is far more to Georgia's aggressive attack than meets the eye. Keep on keeping on, N&L. While I found interesting Ron Kelch's N&L essay on themes in Bruno Gulli's Labor of Fire, I believe Kelch misunderstood Moishe Postone's interpretation of Marx's concept of labor. Kelch writes of "those like Postone who claim Marx had no concept of labor outside of capitalism...that led Postone to see the potential for liberation...in 'dead labor' or capital." He also writes, "In Vol. 3 of Capital, Marx distinguishes between post-capitalist freedom achieved in the realm of necessary material production and 'development of human energy, which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom.'" In similar fashion Postone writes, "As a result of its dual character...commodity-determined labor, in Marx's analysis, is bound to two different forms of necessity, one transhistorical, and one specific to capitalism." In respect to the Capital, Vol. 3, passage Kelch refers to, Postone writes that it refers to, "two different sorts of freedom--that from transhistorical social necessity and that from historically determinate social necessity. The 'true realm of freedom' refers to the first form of freedom. Freedom from any form of necessity must necessarily begin outside of the sphere of production. There can, however, be a form of freedom within this sphere as well, according to Marx: the associated producers can control their labor rather than being controlled by it" (Moishe Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination, p. 381). Readers of N&L would want to know that Samir Adil, president of the Iraq Freedom Congress, was wounded Dec. 11 when a suicide bomber attacked a reconciliation meeting in Kirkuk, Iraq. Fortunately he will be OK, but the bomb killed over 50 people, wounding over 100, and killing popular Turkoman singer Kanaan Mohammed Saleh along with his children. Saleh hosted a show on Kurdish TV. The Iraq Freedom Congress is opposed to all sectarian violence, is democratic, and works with the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq and many other progressive workers and democratic groups. Ron Gettelfinger, president of the UAW, is now demanding a position on the board of directors of GM in return for the concessions the union has made to help GM during this auto crisis. He apparently doesn't know UAW history. In l980, when then UAW President Doug Fraser gave concessions to Chrysler to "keep it from going under," he demanded and got a board position in return. He learned after a year that it had effectively excluded him from important financial and union-related decisions, and he resigned in disgust. After all of the betrayals and vicious opposition that the auto companies have demonstrated, one would think union leaders would have learned that the companies can't be trusted. Many years ago, I exhausted all the legal options available to help reverse my conviction and sentence. Throughout my years of incarceration I have undergone tremendous introspection about the choices I made while living as a so-called free man in American society. For several years I've been receiving N&L through the generosity of unnamed donors. Though I'm not a Marxist-Humanist, I've taken notice of the many groups and individuals in N&L articles who seek to stop all kinds of corruption and injustice. I want to thank N&L and all of the worldwide donors who take precious time and resources from their own lives to help people like me to better see the issues that impact our lives beyond the walls of the criminal injustice system. Please never give up on the good of humanity. Readers: Can you contribute $5 for a donor sub for those who cannot pay for themselves? |
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