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Readers' ViewsThe outpouring of common folks everywhere to help the Haitians indicates that people are not waiting for the U.S. or any other government to act, but are acting on their own. The same people are open, I believe, to support a real change that would lead to a new society where the capitalist concept of value is what is destroyed. --Revolutionary, Los Angeles If there is one thing people in Haiti understand it is the importance of people power. --Correspondent, California While we are all being asked to give money and help to Haiti and we feel good when we can give it, what needs to be understood is how much we owe to Haiti. In a very real sense we owe it the American Revolution against Britain. They helped. And today, when the real heroes after the earthquake are those who are helping, feeding, and housing each other with whatever they have, it gives me a glimpse of what a different kind of world could look like than the twisted one we have today. --Women's Liberationist, Chicago What Haiti represents is a prism in which to view the entire bankruptcy of this rotten society and, historically, its opposition in resistance, rebellion and revolution. It is a way of seeing American Civilization on Trial (indeed, Western Civilization on Trial) if we define that in terms of the rise of capitalism, including its colonization of Africa and the "New World." --Observer, Mexico R.I.S.A. (Rising in Solidarity with Ayiti) is a grassroots network of Chicago organizers, health workers, activists, healers, historians, youth, and artists working in solidarity with our comrades, sisters and brothers in Ayiti (Haiti) to recover from the devastating impact of the recent earthquakes and historic atrocities. Our work is based in grassroots organizing principles and we are connected to the agricultural, artistic, humanitarian and revolutionary spirit of Ayiti. You can find us on Facebook and at http://www.risinginsolidarity.wordpress.com. INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY IN N&L HISTORY International Women's Day is a good time to look at women's revolutionary force and reason throughout the world and its importance in the development of the philosophy of Marxist-Humanism. In the 1960s I came to News and Letters Committees out of the Women's Liberation Movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement, and was surprised but happy to see that Women's Liberation had been cited in the 1956 News and Letters Committees Constitution. This has been projected through the continuing development of the WL page, as women as force and reason in all the worldwide struggles. In one of my favorite News and Letters Committees pamphlets, Working Women for Freedom, Raya Dunayevskaya's Appendix relates the historic struggles to the new struggles and makes it timeless: "Women's struggles have created totally new situations hidden from history and still unrecognized as philosophic ground…What today we call Women's Liberation as an idea whose time has come, are movements from practice, from below, that have been accumulating through the ages… "[T]hey show working-class women in motion as shapers of history. The dialectical relationship of spontaneity to organization is of the essence to all of us as we face today's crises…What we do need is a unity of philosophy and revolution. Without it, we will not be able to get out from under the whip of the counter-revolution." --Mary Jo Grey, Chicago I read comments that with Obama's election racism is not such a crucial issue today. But the experience I recently had, while not overt racism, shows we have a long way to go. My granddaughter goes to a Christian private school where the majority are white and there are only a few Latinos or Blacks. I called the school to get them to have a Black history program. They said that sounded like a good idea. But when, toward the end of February, my granddaughter asked them whether they were going to have a program, they said they had no plans for one. An awareness of the role of Black men and women in America is still very much needed in our schools. --Georgiana Steward, Fontana, California Nothing substantial came from the Copenhagen climate change conference. The U.S. and China in particular resisted many propositions from the Third World for handling global warming. There are consequences in delay. There are some areas of the world where a few inches of ocean could destroy many villages and communities. We are sabotaging our own future. --Concerned, Detroit It would do well for everyone to study how Marx figured out capitalism's drive to be a question of the accumulation of capital. It isn't just Obama who is stuck on that. He wants to get to Main Street, but he keeps going to Wall Street because that's where the money is. --Student of Marx, San Francisco The news of Obama's turn to nuclear power is serious. It comes on the heels of his failure in Copenhagen and the showdown with Iran. This is great fodder for Ahmadinejad, and a signal for all countries to expand their nuclear power. People haven't stopped dying off from the Chernobyl disaster. This is pragmatism at its worst. --Hospital worker, Bay Area Not often mentioned in pundits' analyses of an epic power struggle between China and the U.S. are the hundreds of millions of Chinese workers who set the Chinese regime on a warpath during Tiananmen to root out any kind of dissent. Google's exit from China as a "harbinger of things to come" is significant, but nothing like the estimated 60,000 peasant and worker disturbances a year acknowledged by the Chinese government itself. It seems reasonable to expect that China's economy will eventually follow the direction of the U.S.'s to a longterm decline. It is likely that the two economic/military giants will head toward conflict, and there will be growing labor strife in both countries. --China watcher, California The Tea Party activities are very troubling. It is clear that U.S. corporations provide most of their funding, along with many others in the extreme right. This is especially worrisome at a time of economic crisis and growing discontent of those who have lost jobs and those still working under especially dehumanized conditions. This social ferment is potentially explosive, raising the specter of widening rebellion. Many are not old enough to remember the real threat of fascism that loomed in 1939. The steel corporations financed full-page ads in virtually every daily newspaper in the U.S., warning against the communist threat that unions represented, and also hired scores of armed thugs to attack union organizers and sympathizers. The union movement was too strong for them, but many of the same social forces are now emerging. We have to be ready for any potential fascist threat today. --Observer, Detroit It's hard work transforming international public opinion after the Israeli bombardment of Gaza one year ago. But in Israel, there's no need to shift public opinion at all after that very popular war. "What blockade?" asked my cousins in Jerusalem, who are as well informed as most Israelis. If you place a million people under siege and the local media are not there to cover it, does the siege exist? Does protest exist, when the police crack down on peaceful demonstrators exercising their right to disagree with state policies? Over 700 protesters were arrested during the Gaza War for making anti-war statements. It is still forbidden for Israeli journalists to enter Gaza and report how families are bearing up in homes with gaping holes in their roofs because Israel does not allow construction materials to be brought in…"What occupation?" is now the most common reaction of passersby to our Women in Black vigil in Jerusalem. For the young it's an honest question. For the older, it's a smirk and walk on. --Gila Svirsky, Jerusalem and Nahariya For a considerable time, there was an exchange relation between News & Letters and The Other Israel. And we were always interested in receiving your material. However, we have had to stop publishing The Other Israel in its printed form, and concentrate on various ways of reaching out by internet and email. If you want to go on hearing what we and our friends in Israel say and do, you can ask to be added to our email list, or look up what we post on various websites. Our contact details can be found at http://toibillboard.info/Goodbye.htm. --Adam Keller, Beate Zilversmidt, Holon, Israel Editor's note: We will continue to exchange our views with The Other Israel, and encourage all our readers to follow this important source by internet or email. Gloria Joseph's book, On Time and In Step: Reunion on the Glory Road, reviewed in the Jan.-Feb. issue, sounds like a good one to recommend for a women's studies class or a "book club" of feminists. Can you let me know the price and where to order copies? --Feminist, Pennsylvania Editor's note: Copies can be ordered for $29.00 by writing to Gloria I. Joseph, 4002 Judith's Fancy-Christiansted, St. Croix VI 00820, accompanied by a money order or certified check. Happy reading. VIEW FROM THE CHILEAN LEFT AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE We print below excerpts from Declaration of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) of Chile on the earthquake that took place on Feb. 27. Although in this moment what is most needed is concrete actions, small though they may be, with the families and communities affected by the earthquake, we also want to point out the following: 1. The old highways and bridges made by the State resisted the quake. The new highways in the capital that were privatized under the Coalition Government did not stand up to any seismic movement and were destroyed. 2. The Christian Democracy-controlled Ministry of Housing left behind so much scandal and corruption in building low-cost housing, that the Coalition privatized the policy of low-cost housing. Now, with the earthquake, people are being ousted because their homes are dangerous. Entire housing complexes for the middle class are at the point of collapsing. In real estate capitalism, the business is not in building but in accumulating capital, which means lowering the quality of construction, lowering the quality of the materials, falsifying reports and bribing the tax collectors. 3. State institutions have functioned slowly or poorly. As a result of a lack of coordination between the central government and state institutions, large parts of the country are completely isolated, without water, without electricity, without food...In spite of the financial resources, the help is not arriving where it should arrive: to the people. 4. In the Bío Bío region, one of the poorest in the country, where unemployment is 10.4% and where the majority who work live from day to day, there is no drinkable water, no electricity, no food. The people have broken through the barriers into the supermarkets to obtain what they need to live...It is the women who began the movement, as often in history, for their children and families. 5. The people are turning to direct action to resolve their vital needs. Almost magically, the government declared a State of Catastrophe, which allows for the suspension of constitutional guarantees and fundamental rights, without needing Congressional approval. The Minister of Defense announced he was mobilizing 10,000 soldiers. The government of Bachelet in this way has become the most repressive government of the Coalition, not only facilitating the return of the right wing to government, but also handing over the Maule and Bío Bío regions to the military and imposing martial law. We in the MIR are completely in agreement with the necessity, legitimacy and justice that the people open the doors of the supermarkets and distribution centers to get their necessities. Where our members are present, we should be an active part of this process. To expropriate the exploiters is a people's right. The people advance by fighting! --Feb. 28, 2010 --Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) de Chile (Translated by Earl Gilman) RAYA DUNAVESKAYA CENTENARY, 1910-2010: ARCHIVES SPEAK TO TODAY It's easy to see that rampant automation has resulted in ever more manufacturing job losses and de-skilling of many kinds of jobs. It's almost as easy to see that it is a factor in economic crises. Hardly anyone sees how the workers' struggles against automation have pointed the way out. Andy Phillips' essay on "Automation and Marxist-Humanism's Birth" (Jan.-Feb. 2010 N&L) demonstrates how all these elements were present when automation was introduced, and the philosophy of Marxist-Humanism captured their meaning. Transforming the conditions of production and uniting mental and manual labor were at the core of the miners' actions and thoughts, and of the new stage of cognition being born. That essay speaks eloquently to Dunayevskaya's "Black-Red Conference" talk printed on the opposite page, to show that nothing is more urgent than practicing the dialectics talked about there, how the objective and subjective movements for freedom function together, and how theory and practice need a new relationship. --Franklin Dmitryev, Chicago Andy Phillips' essay on the 1949-50 miners' strike has a sense of immediacy, a direct sense of history. Dunayevskaya's Black-Red Conference talk is delightful. It was written at a time when the mass movement was still present. It comes alive in quotes like, "It's not the moon that came to look at us, it's we who went to look at the moon." --D. Cheneville, Bay Area, Cal. In the Jan.-Feb. "From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya" column, Raya talked about the necessity of the unity of mental and manual labor, the unity of thought and action, the principle for science and life being the same. She related them all to humans being free so that we may evolve--she said develop. It made me see again why Marxist-Humanism is such a vital force in helping humanity--in all of our varieties of race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, ability--realize true liberation. --Elise, Chicago WHO WILL EDUCATE THE EDUCATORS? There is a lot of anger about the education system today. There is a Facebook group for this movement and the list of those who are part of it are not just from colleges, but includes a great many high-schoolers. You know a movement is real when it reaches down to high school. There is a lot of organizing around the issue in Chicago. Public Workers Unite! is involved and is fighting not only against CTA cuts but against cuts to hospitals and education as well. At one meeting where poverty was discussed, a Black woman said bluntly that it was capitalism. Mine was not the only loud applause she received. I added that it is not only what is poverty but what is wealth and the answer is the development of our own humanity, which is what education should be about. --Unemployed worker, Chicago Haiti teaches us something about education. While Creole is the language spoken by the masses there, most of the information is written in French, which is spoken by the small upper class. When Aristide was president, he put everything in Creole too. They said he had gone too far when he wanted to educate the masses and was also opposed to a dollar a day wages. --George,Illinois Marx's thesis that "the educators must themselves be educated" is not always understood. Marx was criticizing the Enlightenment materialist doctrine that if we want a better society we must change circumstances and education because that's what shapes people. Marx said people must change their own circumstances and the educators themselves must be educated. It is about people taking their own lives in their own hands; and as masses in motion changing things, revolution. That's when we learn the most, combining mental and manual activity. --Activist, Chicago Seven years ago, the U.S. invaded Iraq--a war that continues with no end in sight. Now, the Obama administration has introduced a budget that includes the largest amount for "defense" spending ever--while freezing spending for human needs. There is no healthcare bill, no action on climate change. All Washington can agree on is to feed our tax money to big banks and endless wars. Join us in Chicago--and thousands throughout this nation--to mark the grim anniversary of seven years in Iraq. March 18: 5:30 PM, short rally at Federal Plaza, followed by permitted march on Michigan Avenue. And join us in mobilizing for a united march on Washington, D.C., on Saturday, March 20. Buses from Chicago are available. For more information: CCAWR@aol.com / www.ChicagoMassAction.org--Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism The gap between two groups of Iranian protesters on each side of Westwood Blvd. in West Los Angeles showed the gap in thought between the anti-government but pro-Shah group and the Green party/nationalist group. It was "amusing" that it was the pro-Shah group that made the announcement, "We have to coalesce the poor, the unemployed, the workers, the teachers, the nurses, the fathers and mothers, the taxi drivers, and the bus drivers to get rid of the Iranian regime"--"amusing" since for years the poor, the unemployed, the workers, the teachers, the nurses, the fathers and mothers, the taxi drivers, and the bus drivers were imprisoned, tortured, and killed in the Shah's horrific jails. This group of about 400 people were representing the business class who have lost their elitist position in Iran. Do they want to send the common people to the slaughterhouses of the present government to save their own necks? On the other side of the street, a smaller group of young, more vocal progressive people chanted, "We do not want a killer leader," referring to Khamenei and his followers who influenced the election of Ahmadinedjad. The majority of this group had their faces covered and were chanting Iranian nationalist songs. The Green party platform is to gain freedom of expression for the people of Iran. For that we need the establishment of a whole new society and the creation of new human relationships. --Iranian revolutionary, Los Angeles It was Charles Darwin who discovered the fundamental law of biological evolution. It was Karl Marx who discovered the primary motivating force in the evolution of society in the economic/materialist interpretation of history. And it was Raya Dunayevskaya who exposed the sham-fraud of state capitalism for what it is. Succinctly, state ownership is not socialism. She grasped that to exchange one master for another was just another three shells and a pea sleight of hand game. She understood that reforms are, at best, delusions. As President Roosevelt put it, "Reform if you would preserve." --Prisoner. Tennessee Colony, Texas |
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