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Readers' ViewsAFGAN LIVES SUCKED INTO U.S. QUAGMIRE Malalai Joya said it as plainly as anyone could: "Eight years ago, women's rights were used as one of the excuses to start this war. But today Afghanistan is still facing a women's rights catastrophe. Life for most Afghan women resembles a type of hell that is never reflected in the Western mainstream media." The Lead article in the Oct.-Nov. N&L, "Afghan lives and freedom sucked into U.S. quagmire," did more than powerfully reflect that real situation. It put it in the context of what all principled opposition to war must stand on, pointedly quoting it from our 1960 Resolution on "War and Peace": "Our opposition to war must spell out not only what we are against but what we are for: a world of new human relations, beginning at the point of production, and encompassing all the dimensions opened up by humanity's many-faceted struggles for freedom." --Member N&L Committees, Chicago It's about time to read a good narrative on Afghanistan. I just got through reading the Oct.-Nov. issue of N&L and it's clear nobody else really knows this stuff. Thanks for following it so closely. I didn't know the descent into backwater Islamism was so recent. It's a slippery slope. Just wait until we descend into backwater jesu-fascism. --Ceylon, Memphis Afghanistan has been falling by the wayside, overshadowed by the healthcare reform debate and other issues. But Afghanistan has profound implications for the rest of the world. It is a microcosm of many problems because it could end up being Obama's Vietnam. Afghanistan represents the larger quagmire we're all in despite having a "nice person" sitting in the White House. --Htun Lin, Bay Area, California Obama's pragmatism may not go far enough. He may succeed in vanquishing al Qaeda, but he doesn't address what it means to have human relations in Afghanistan. "Peace" is not enough. It is why people like Malalai Joya keep reappearing and demand more than just peace. --Asian-American, San Francisco AN 'OFFICIAL' DEATH TOLL FOR IRAQ? The Iraqi government recently issued an "official" death toll of 85,000 killed in almost five years of war, which doesn't include the year of chaos immediately following "shock and awe." I took note of the significant number of deaths of journalists and university professors, ten times higher than assassinations of lawyers and judges. I was mystified at first by the high number of university professor deaths and then wondered how many more students' deaths there must be. I thought the high journalist deaths might be because of their direct involvement on the ground. But university professors? I decided that it must have to do with the battle of ideas. I accept as more accurate the death toll issued by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. They estimate over 600,000. If you consider the deaths from events which are not "immediate" i.e., mortality rates from a shattered healthcare and civilian infrastructure, malnutrition, suicides, medical neglect, war refugees, homelessness, etc., then the 600,000 figure is much more credible. --Healthcare Worker, California THE MANY ISSUES OF WOMEN'S LIBERATION The talk that Angela Davis gave to the National Women's Studies Association Conference made me angry. She had no trouble saying that her activism included intense battles over the role of women in the Black Panther Party who thought women didn't deserve leadership positions, yet she had not one word to say about the disgusting sexism and totalitarianism within the Communist Party, of which she was a member from 1968 until 1991 and actually ran for Vice President on the Communist ticket in 1980 and 1984! This, despite the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of 1968. When she was on a tour of Russia in the early 1970s, Czechoslovak freedom fighter Jiri Pelikán appealed to her in a letter to speak out against the Soviet leaders and help free political prisoners, including Karel Kosik. She stonewalled him. Her friend Bettina Aptheker is more honest in her autobiography detailing the CP's extensive, and by now well documented, sexism. --Women's Liberationist, Illinois I had thought the rumbling by Blue Dog Democrats about stronger restrictions on abortion in the healthcare bill was a sideshow, but then I watched a solid majority adopt the Stupak amendment extending bans on abortion coverage to private plans partly subsidized by the government. It would be appalling enough to reintroduce and pass the Hyde Amendment 33 years after the fact, when the politics should be when do we repeal it, but I am stunned by the degree to which demonizing abortion in 2009 is called good politics, even after the murder of Dr. George Tiller. --Bob, Chicago CHILDCARE AND MARX'S VISION OF THE FUTURE The first lady of California, Maria Shriver, just published A Woman's Nation, which stems from her discovery that 49% of the U.S. workforce is now comprised of women. The focus of her book is that women have become more educated, and now have more choices. But having choices does not negate the need to care for her children. While the decision to enter the workforce is challenging for any woman with a family, Maria Shriver failed to address the issues faced by the multitude of women without the class privilege she has. The essay by Beth Sandner and Urszula Wislanka (N&L, Oct.-Nov. 2009) lays out the harsh realities those women are confronted with daily. Draconian budget cuts, made by the Terminator himself, Gov. Schwarzenegger, eviscerated the last remnants of social programs designed to assist the most vulnerable people of society. Those cuts, necessitated by a need to shore up capitalism, are an infamy similar to the austerity programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund on the Third World. In contrast are the continued efforts of teachers to provide the kind of education that all children deserve. The educational requirements of children are inextricably linked to the future of humanity. --Faruq, California Teachers used to have full-time positions with benefits. Then they got part-time jobs, with fewer benefits. Now I have three jobs, two as a teacher hired as an "independent contractor," with no benefits and no protection. The institutions ask me to make a commitment for at least a year but they make no commitment to me. This continued push to privatize at all levels reduces accountability and oversight. --Jeff, San Francisco The essay, "Childcare & Marx's vision of future," raises crucial points regarding the current educational system in the U.S. As an elementary teacher in a public school, I can attest that many issues noted in the essay are those we live with every day and that they demand deep changes. However, I found one point confusing. It is where the essay links the man/woman relationship, as Marx categorized it, with child raising: "The present crisis calls for revisiting Marx on many fronts, but especially what he considered the most fundamental way we reproduce our humanity: the man/woman relation and the social endeavor of raising children." Raya Dunayevskaya singled out the man/woman relationship as extremely important for Marx. She highlighted that Marx believed it was that relationship which revealed "to what degree, man as a species has become human." However, Marx did not connect that relationship to reproduction or to raising a family. He totally opposed the way families existed under capitalism and was horrified at the way child labor was used under capitalism. As the authors point out, the only use capitalism has for any living beings (adults or children) is in the production of value they create for continuation of that system. Marx also wrote on how the educational system under capitalism is alienated from genuine knowledge and learning. More discussion is needed, and N&L can provide a forum that will continue to be important to its readers. Erica Rae, Chicago AN OPEN LETTER ON POLICE BRUTALITY I am sending this as an Open Letter to President Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States: I would like to know if you would want your oldest daughter protected by the three Chicago Police officers (Mark Lamberg, Chris Nitintan, and Chris Trusoukalas) who brutally beat an eleven-year-old African American girl in Chicago on April 3, 2001? They were given 15 days, without pay, and then were given pay for 12 of those days. They are still in the Police Department. My question is whether you would allow these officers to watch over your or anyone else's daughter? I write to hear your answer. --George W. Smith, Jr., Chicago Editor's note: See Black/Red View column in this issue. IN MEMORIAM TO IAN MACDONALD With great sadness, I have to tell you that Ian MacDonald passed away in hospital on Sunday morning. Ian had been in poor health for some months, but less than two weeks ago he was admitted to hospital and diagnosed with cancer. Even then, we had hopes that he could fight the disease, and his sudden passing comes as a great shock. Ian was a fine friend and comrade, and we will miss him terribly. A tribute to Ian has been posted on the website of his union branch: http://www.surreycountyunison.org.uk/ Under the heading, "Ian Macdonald--Social Worker, Trade Unionist, Marxist-Humanist--1957-2009," it noted: "Ian was one of a kind--an honest, hardworking and committed trade unionist and socialist--who always put the needs of members first. Ian was never afraid to speak up for workers and spent his life organizing and defending workers in Surrey, in Britain and internationally. Many of the rights, terms and conditions we take for granted in Surrey would not exist if Ian had not been at the fore." --Richard, England On Oct. 20, the Eleventh International Transgender Day of Remembrance commemorated people who have died because they were transgender or did not fit gender norms--more than one person every month. In Memphis 30 attended a church service and vigil at the Neshoba Unitarian Universalist Church, for a reading of over 500 names of the deceased. Casey Lanham of Perpetual Transition stated that the cousins of Duanna Johnson, a Memphis transgender woman who was murdered last year, were here. Rev. Bill Neely of Neshoba Church compared the murders of transgender people to those of gay man Matthew Shepard and African American James Byrd, Jr., whose names are on anti-hate-crime legislation. He stated that the LGBTQI community needs to stop putting transgender people "in the back seat" of their human rights movement. --Adele, Memphis Gerry Emmett's article on "Rising Fascism Grounded in American Racism" (Oct.-Nov. N&L) misses the point. The Sept. 12 march in Washington, D.C., was certainly ominous and racist, and we need to watch the situation closely, but we must not jump to conclusions. That march does not represent a spontaneous and indigenous fascist movement, but is instead well-financed and orchestrated by huge corporate interests with vast media support. That corporate degeneracy is a reflection of the deep economic crisis in which we find ourselves. Dangerous as it is, it is not any kind of mass movement, and in reality, despite appearances, the far right is actually "on the ropes," at least for now. The real story is still the fact that huge numbers of white workers voted for Obama. The best thing Obama could do to defuse the far right is to move to the left. --Critic, Oakland It was sobering to read the article on a "rising fascism" today. As one who came to the movement way back during World War II, I was made aware of what fascism is and how it arises, and objected to the ease with which the New Left in the 1960s called all reactionaries "fascists," without any understanding of what fascism really is. What was sobering to me in Emmett's article was its warning of what now is threatening. The first real chill I felt in that direction was the vicious hatred expressed toward McCain himself, at one of his election rallies, because he dared not to be as rabid as they. --Octogenarian, Chicago ENVIRONMENTALISM'S WORLDWIDE STRUGGLES I want to urge all who can to sign the petition being circulated by environmental activists in New York, that asks Governor Paterson to withdraw an imminent statement on oil and gas mining. The petition demands that, instead, he continue the present moratorium that can prevent the threatening high-volume, horizontal well hydrofracking hazards in New York's Marcellus Shale region. (See "'Fracking' in New York," Oct.-Nov. N&L.) --Environmental Activist, Ithaca, New York On Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now, Nov. 10, an environmentalist stated that groundwater in New York after "fracking" was tested to contain radiation. One of the many toxic chemicals is probably some form of uranium or radium used to fracture the rocks. This is just one more example of toxic capitalist production's insanity. --Basho,California We want you to know about the rally for climate justice Nov. 30 by the community of Mehdiganj in Varanasi, India, that demanded the closure of the Coca-Cola bottling plant. Groundwater levels have fallen drastically in and around Mehdiganj since Coca-Cola began operations in 1999, impeding access to water for the rural and agricultural communities. At the same time, India is experiencing its worst drought in the last 40 years, with thousands losing their crops as the groundwater levels dropped. Coca-Cola responded to the campaign to have its plant shut down by announcing that it has become "water neutral"--a preposterous suggestion that it has no impact on water resources. Readers can visit our position paper on the rally and protest at http://www.Indiaresource.org/campaigns/coke/2009/mehdiganjrally.html. India Resource Center, San Francisco On Nov. 17, the self-organized assembly of neighbors in the area of Tinogasta, Argentina, issued a "red alert," anticipating the imminent arrival of machinery to begin uranium mining. They called for "all neighbors to be alert to come to the defense of our land. Please spread the word." Since 2007 they have fought to prevent open-air uranium mining at sites close to Tinogasta, warning of cancer and birth defects. "Neighbors of Tinogasta Catamarca" is part of a nationwide movement, expressed in the Union of Citizen Assemblies against Looting and Pollution. Their demands include: NO open-air chemical mining; NO radioactive mining in any form; closure and environmental restoration of all abandoned mines and of working mines that violate the General Environmental Law; genuine, effective citizen participation prior to approval of mining activities. Tinogasta's struggle against uranium mining needs support from all of us! --Environmental justice activist, Chicago ONGOING PALESTINE/ISRAEL STRUGGLE I went to a forum at DePaul University, "Acknowledging the Past, Building a Landscape for Future Reconciliation: Palestinians and Israelis on 1948 and the Right of Return." It featured Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada; Rula Awwad-Rafferty, a Palestinian American; and Eitan Bronstein of the Israeli peace group Zochrot, which attempts to educate Jewish Israelis on the terrible things done to the Palestinians in the name of Israel from 1948 through today. Rula talked and showed slides of her trip to the village where her family once lived. It is now rubble. The only reason she was allowed to go was because she is a U.S. citizen. Ali Abunimah talked of the impossibility of a two-state solution because of facts on the ground. The Palestinian lands are like swiss cheese divided up by Jewish Israelis. The only access roads are checkpoints at the wall. The wall is mostly on Palestinian land, thus more Palestinian land is being stolen. Ali believes that Jewish Israeli thinking is changing because of the work of Eitan on Zochrot, which is featured in the Israeli mainstream media. I don't know if there is hope, but there is much sadness and a long way to go. The day before, I went with a Muslim elder to Muslim Community Center. We agreed that the most important thing is that we are all human beings. --Mark Blair, Chicago Please print a correction in the next N&L to the article on p. 10 of the Oct.-Nov. issue titled "Quebec: Taking Back 'Les Plaines.'" The singer who read parts of the FLQ Manifesto should have been identified as the "Haitian-Québécois singer Luck Mervil," rather than: "...Haitian singer...." An important part of his presence there was that he represents the pluralism of today's Québec in which Haitians play a prominent role, and he is also an important Québec "indépendantiste." Without this correction, the article loses some of its message. I would also like to see it made to the online version of that issue, if that is possible. Remerciements! --D. Cheneville The first-hand account in the Oct.-Nov. N&L of what precipitated the coup d'etat in Honduras bears striking parallels to what unfolded in Haiti on Feb. 29, 2004, when another democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was removed from office by way of a coup d'etat. The distinction between the two events is the less overt participation of the U.S. government in President Zelaya's ouster from office. In both cases the desire of the masses for a social democracy is in direct opposition to the neoliberal capitalists. Both Aristide and Zelaya tried to bring about socioeconomic change that would provide some relief in the masses' daily struggle for subsistence. They attempted to restructure fiscal policy that would in a small measure create a redistribution of wealth. What is clear is that those who are unwilling to be mere minions for capital are subject to the jeopardy of a coup. --Prisoner, California I was a subscriber some years back but have been a long time out of touch. The struggle for a decent society continues. Here in Puerto Rico we recently had a successful general strike against the neoliberal government, which has laid off thousands of government workers and is privatizing public schools and public service on the pretext of a California-style economic crisis, while big corporations get fat contracts. I want to start getting N&L again and to report on the workers' struggle here. As an example, some workers at the Rafael Hernandez Airport in Aguadilla, who work as firemen, disaster response and security, were recently fired for not showing up to work on the general strike day. Most either marched in the protest that day, Oct. 15, or just called in sick. The reason given for firing them was the Patriot Act, in that they allegedly left the airport vulnerable and at risk by not reporting to work. --Supporter, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico |
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