Originally published in Socialist Worker.
August 8, 2008
CHECKING THE news today I noticed two headlines that made my blood boil and reminded me why I'm a socialist.
ExxonMobil posted the highest quarterly profits in U.S. history, making $11.68 billion from April through June. That works out to almost $1,500 per second, $90,000 per minute, or $5.4 million dollars per hour--about 190,000 times the average hourly compensation for a worker in the U.S. during the same time period.
In other news, CNN reported that unemployment rose to a four-year high of 5.7 percent as job losses continued to mount for the seventh month in a row in July. So far, the U.S. economy has shed 463,000 jobs this year, 165,000 during the three months ExxonMobil made their record profits (ExxonMobil could use their quarterly profits to pay those laid-off workers $70,000 each).
CNN also pointed out that the 5.7 percent figure "doesn't include those who have become discouraged from looking for work, or those who have accepted part-time jobs when they want to be working full time." When those workers are included, the number of unemployed and under-employed rises to 10.3 percent.
Exxon Mobil is literally making a killing. People in Haiti, Africa, and Asia and elsewhere are starving to death because they're too poor to buy food since skyrocketing fuel prices have contributed to similarly massive increases in food prices.
As Socialist Worker has reported, with workers struggling to afford $4 per gallon gas and sky-high prices for staple foods, demand at food pantries in the U.S. is up 15-20 percent and the number of people on food stamps is up almost 6 percent over the past year.
On top of that, ExxonMobil submitted a no-bid contract in May to have access to Iraqi oil, showing they're not above profiting from the destruction of a nation and the slaughter of over a million people.
According to the UN, it would only take $20 billion per year to end world hunger. That's six months of ExxonMobil's blood money to feed everyone who is hungry.
A handful of people, already some of the richest in the history of the world (ExxonMobil made some $40 billion in profits last year, another record), are getting even richer by an amount that could end hunger. Think about how absolutely vile and disgusting that is.
There was a great talk at the Socialism 2007 conference in Chicago called "You're not crazy: It's sexism," which exposed the rampant sexism in our society and called for a renewed struggle against it.
We should reach out to those around us who are enraged by news like ExxonMobil's record profits in the midst of hard times for working people like us, let them know they're not alone, and tell them: "You're not crazy, it's capitalism."
We need to organize and raise demands like a cap on gas prices, the idea that food is a human right, and a call for no blood for oil--while posing a socialist alternative to this insane system. We have a world to win.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
New England Transgender Pride march
Originally published in Socialist Worker.
By Gary Lapon | June 18, 2008 | Issue 674
NORTHAMPTON, Mass.--Hundreds of people joined the first-ever New England Transgender Pride march on June 7 as it streamed past enthusiastic onlookers with the slogan "Remember Stonewall? That was us!"
The march's slogan refers to the 1969 "Stonewall Rebellion," when a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a bar frequented mainly by lesbian, gay and transgender people in New York City's Greenwich Village, sparked a three-day response from people sick and tired of years of discrimination, harassment and police brutality.
Stonewall led to the formation of the Gay Liberation Front and gave a major boost to the growing gay rights movement that looked to the Vietnamese struggle against U.S. imperialism, as well as the militant Black power and women's rights movements for inspiration.
A 2000 study conducted by the District of Columbia Health Department found that 43 percent of transgender people had been victims of violent crime, 75 percent of which were motivated by transgender bias. Studies of urban transgender populations have found HIV prevalence rates ranging from 14 to 69 percent, a result of a deadly combination of anti-trans stigma, racism, homophobia, lack of access to health care and sex work as the only means of economic survival.
Recent academic studies have found that 16 to 37 percent of transgender participants have attempted suicide, and a 2006 study by the San Francisco Guardian and the Transgender Law Center found that 60 percent of transgender people in San Francisco earn less than $15,300 per year, only 25 percent have a full-time job, and 10 percent are homeless.
The New England Trans Pride march called for full civil and human rights for all people regardless of gender identity, and organizers sought to "unite with one another and allies to speak out for social, economic and political justice of under-represented and marginalized communities, and support the right of all communities to be heard."
Chants on the march ranged from statements of trangender pride and support from allies to demands for "money for jobs/education/health care/hormones, not for war and occupation!"
Marchers also protested the dropping of protection for transgender people in the version of the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (HR 3685) passed by the House of Representatives in November--the legislation now would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation, but not gender identity.
Marchers linked their demands for transgender rights to those of all oppressed and exploited peoples, including all LGBT people, immigrants, the people of Iraqi and Afghanistan, Katrina survivors and the poor.
By Gary Lapon | June 18, 2008 | Issue 674
NORTHAMPTON, Mass.--Hundreds of people joined the first-ever New England Transgender Pride march on June 7 as it streamed past enthusiastic onlookers with the slogan "Remember Stonewall? That was us!"
The march's slogan refers to the 1969 "Stonewall Rebellion," when a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a bar frequented mainly by lesbian, gay and transgender people in New York City's Greenwich Village, sparked a three-day response from people sick and tired of years of discrimination, harassment and police brutality.
Stonewall led to the formation of the Gay Liberation Front and gave a major boost to the growing gay rights movement that looked to the Vietnamese struggle against U.S. imperialism, as well as the militant Black power and women's rights movements for inspiration.
A 2000 study conducted by the District of Columbia Health Department found that 43 percent of transgender people had been victims of violent crime, 75 percent of which were motivated by transgender bias. Studies of urban transgender populations have found HIV prevalence rates ranging from 14 to 69 percent, a result of a deadly combination of anti-trans stigma, racism, homophobia, lack of access to health care and sex work as the only means of economic survival.
Recent academic studies have found that 16 to 37 percent of transgender participants have attempted suicide, and a 2006 study by the San Francisco Guardian and the Transgender Law Center found that 60 percent of transgender people in San Francisco earn less than $15,300 per year, only 25 percent have a full-time job, and 10 percent are homeless.
The New England Trans Pride march called for full civil and human rights for all people regardless of gender identity, and organizers sought to "unite with one another and allies to speak out for social, economic and political justice of under-represented and marginalized communities, and support the right of all communities to be heard."
Chants on the march ranged from statements of trangender pride and support from allies to demands for "money for jobs/education/health care/hormones, not for war and occupation!"
Marchers also protested the dropping of protection for transgender people in the version of the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (HR 3685) passed by the House of Representatives in November--the legislation now would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation, but not gender identity.
Marchers linked their demands for transgender rights to those of all oppressed and exploited peoples, including all LGBT people, immigrants, the people of Iraqi and Afghanistan, Katrina survivors and the poor.
The role of marriage and the family
Originally published in Socialist Worker.
June 18, 2008
I AGREE with Peg Rapp's point that the institution of marriage is used to pass the burden of raising the next generation of workers on to working-class couples and single parents ("Marriage is a patriarchal institution").
It's important to point out that this is done not to avoid the responsibility of child-rearing falling on society as a whole, but on the ruling class, those who seek to exploit that next generation without having to bother to pay to raise it.
The burden of reproducing the working class already falls on the working class itself, although some individuals and couples face a greater burden than others. And social services like welfare, child care and public education that socialize some aspects of reproduction are under attack.
To a certain degree, child-rearing is collectivized by workers on a local level in order to make it bearable. For example, when I was little, my mother received baby supplies from neighbors with older children, and she and other single mothers helped each other out with child care.
As long as we live in a society where workers are robbed of the value that we collectively produce and do not have a say in societal-level decisions like whether or not to raise children collectively, arrangements such as these, even though they do not fit the norm of the heterosexual nuclear family as the unit of reproduction, remain survival mechanisms and do not effectively challenge sexism or homophobia.
Gay people who decide to marry are not the ones responsible for the stigma or the extra burden and discrimination placed on single parents, especially single mothers. Individual working-class people (or couples) do not have the power to shape policy or ideology. That power is held by those who control the media, and by politicians like Clinton, Bush and their financiers--who demonize single mothers as "irresponsible" while slashing social services like welfare and child care.
Whether or not individual workers emulate "the patriarchal values and institutions of traditional patriarchal marriages," the notion of the nuclear family endures because of its usefulness to the ruling class that controls the media and institutions such as schools, which manufacture the ideology of our time. And this ideology will be used to justify the oppression and exploitation of women, gays, single parents and working-class people generally.
Finally, although gay marriage is a reform and not a revolutionary solution, the two are not entirely separate. Homophobia, like racism, sexism, xenophobia and transphobia, is used to divide the working class so that it doesn't unite to face the real enemy: the ruling class. Reforms that guarantee equal rights, such as gay marriage, are vital stepping-stones on the path to revolution, because they break down these divisions and give workers a greater sense of their own power.
Because of struggle, in a few generations, gay people went from being classified as mentally ill to being able to marry in two states. Not only does winning the right to gay marriage challenge homophobia and thereby make it easier for workers to unite across lines of sexual orientation, it shows us that struggle can change the world.
This can help inspire the future struggles that can create a world where people are free to love whoever they want, and where no parent or child is forced to go without simply because they exist.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
June 18, 2008
I AGREE with Peg Rapp's point that the institution of marriage is used to pass the burden of raising the next generation of workers on to working-class couples and single parents ("Marriage is a patriarchal institution").
It's important to point out that this is done not to avoid the responsibility of child-rearing falling on society as a whole, but on the ruling class, those who seek to exploit that next generation without having to bother to pay to raise it.
The burden of reproducing the working class already falls on the working class itself, although some individuals and couples face a greater burden than others. And social services like welfare, child care and public education that socialize some aspects of reproduction are under attack.
To a certain degree, child-rearing is collectivized by workers on a local level in order to make it bearable. For example, when I was little, my mother received baby supplies from neighbors with older children, and she and other single mothers helped each other out with child care.
As long as we live in a society where workers are robbed of the value that we collectively produce and do not have a say in societal-level decisions like whether or not to raise children collectively, arrangements such as these, even though they do not fit the norm of the heterosexual nuclear family as the unit of reproduction, remain survival mechanisms and do not effectively challenge sexism or homophobia.
Gay people who decide to marry are not the ones responsible for the stigma or the extra burden and discrimination placed on single parents, especially single mothers. Individual working-class people (or couples) do not have the power to shape policy or ideology. That power is held by those who control the media, and by politicians like Clinton, Bush and their financiers--who demonize single mothers as "irresponsible" while slashing social services like welfare and child care.
Whether or not individual workers emulate "the patriarchal values and institutions of traditional patriarchal marriages," the notion of the nuclear family endures because of its usefulness to the ruling class that controls the media and institutions such as schools, which manufacture the ideology of our time. And this ideology will be used to justify the oppression and exploitation of women, gays, single parents and working-class people generally.
Finally, although gay marriage is a reform and not a revolutionary solution, the two are not entirely separate. Homophobia, like racism, sexism, xenophobia and transphobia, is used to divide the working class so that it doesn't unite to face the real enemy: the ruling class. Reforms that guarantee equal rights, such as gay marriage, are vital stepping-stones on the path to revolution, because they break down these divisions and give workers a greater sense of their own power.
Because of struggle, in a few generations, gay people went from being classified as mentally ill to being able to marry in two states. Not only does winning the right to gay marriage challenge homophobia and thereby make it easier for workers to unite across lines of sexual orientation, it shows us that struggle can change the world.
This can help inspire the future struggles that can create a world where people are free to love whoever they want, and where no parent or child is forced to go without simply because they exist.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
A tax that punishes the poor
Originally published in Socialist Worker.
July 10, 2008
THE TAX on a pack of cigarettes in Massachusetts went up by $1 per pack this month, making the state's tax one of the highest in the country at $2.51 per pack.
Arguments for the tax increase include that it will raise $174 million in revenue this year to pay for the skyrocketing costs of health care under the new "Commonwealth Care" plan, which mandates that the uninsured purchase private insurance (high premiums and co-pays for sub-standard insurance, typically), and that the tax will encourage smokers to quit.
Think about that for a moment: health care costs are supposed to be paid for in part by a tax on smoking, an addiction that kills hundreds of thousands of people per year, makes people sick and leads to much higher health care costs!
In addition to the absurdity of paying for health care with revenue from an addiction responsible for a huge chunk of the nation's health problems, a flat sales tax is by nature regressive. This means that it disproportionately affects people with low incomes. For example, a pack-a-day smoker who makes $100 per day ($26,000 per year) will pay an extra 1 percent of their income in taxes under the increase, while a pack-a-day smoker making $500 per day ($130,000 per year) will pay only 0.2 percent more because of the hike.
And smoking is more prevalent among low-income people. According to a 2006 study by the Centers for Disease Control, 30.6 percent of adults in the U.S. who live below the poverty line smoke, compared to 20.4 percent of those at or above the poverty line.
Why don't people just quit, and why are the poor more likely to smoke? Well, cigarette companies spend millions on advertising that specifically targets low-income and minority populations.
Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances people consume. Additionally, smoking is a way to cope with stress, and, in a society plagued by exploitation, oppression, poverty and violence, it's understandable why so many--especially those closer to the bottom of the income scale--use substances like tobacco as a way to deal with depression and stress.
The cigarette tax hike, a 67 percent increase, amounts to a transfer of wealth from the pockets of working-class Massachusetts residents suffering from an addiction to those of health insurance industry bigwigs. It's amazing that there is any room left in the pockets of the latter, now that every Massachusetts resident is mandated to buy their inadequate insurance. For many workers hit by skyrocketing gas, food and health care costs, this could be the straw that breaks their back (if it's not already broken).
According to research by Physicians for a National Health Program, a single-payer universal health care system in Massachusetts would save taxpayers over $9 billion per year by cutting out insurance company profits and bureaucracy. Not only that, it would provide better access and better care than we currently receive with private insurance.
So if Massachusetts' politicians were really interested in providing health care for all, they'd be pushing for single payer, not raising cigarette taxes.
It's not fair to make smokers pay for handouts to insurance companies, nor is it fair to penalize people suffering from an addiction. Instead, more resources should be available to help people quit if they want to. Perhaps some of the $9 billion saved with a single-payer health system could go towards smoking-cessation programs. Even more could go towards removing the stress that goes along with a life of poverty.
As long as our society is run by capitalists and politicians who grind people up as disposable in the production of profits, and see no value in us beyond that, millions will turn to smoking and other drugs to get by.
Massachusetts politicians have shown that they will stop at nothing to squeeze another drop of blood from our battered bodies to quench the thirst of the wealthy.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
July 10, 2008
THE TAX on a pack of cigarettes in Massachusetts went up by $1 per pack this month, making the state's tax one of the highest in the country at $2.51 per pack.
Arguments for the tax increase include that it will raise $174 million in revenue this year to pay for the skyrocketing costs of health care under the new "Commonwealth Care" plan, which mandates that the uninsured purchase private insurance (high premiums and co-pays for sub-standard insurance, typically), and that the tax will encourage smokers to quit.
Think about that for a moment: health care costs are supposed to be paid for in part by a tax on smoking, an addiction that kills hundreds of thousands of people per year, makes people sick and leads to much higher health care costs!
In addition to the absurdity of paying for health care with revenue from an addiction responsible for a huge chunk of the nation's health problems, a flat sales tax is by nature regressive. This means that it disproportionately affects people with low incomes. For example, a pack-a-day smoker who makes $100 per day ($26,000 per year) will pay an extra 1 percent of their income in taxes under the increase, while a pack-a-day smoker making $500 per day ($130,000 per year) will pay only 0.2 percent more because of the hike.
And smoking is more prevalent among low-income people. According to a 2006 study by the Centers for Disease Control, 30.6 percent of adults in the U.S. who live below the poverty line smoke, compared to 20.4 percent of those at or above the poverty line.
Why don't people just quit, and why are the poor more likely to smoke? Well, cigarette companies spend millions on advertising that specifically targets low-income and minority populations.
Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances people consume. Additionally, smoking is a way to cope with stress, and, in a society plagued by exploitation, oppression, poverty and violence, it's understandable why so many--especially those closer to the bottom of the income scale--use substances like tobacco as a way to deal with depression and stress.
The cigarette tax hike, a 67 percent increase, amounts to a transfer of wealth from the pockets of working-class Massachusetts residents suffering from an addiction to those of health insurance industry bigwigs. It's amazing that there is any room left in the pockets of the latter, now that every Massachusetts resident is mandated to buy their inadequate insurance. For many workers hit by skyrocketing gas, food and health care costs, this could be the straw that breaks their back (if it's not already broken).
According to research by Physicians for a National Health Program, a single-payer universal health care system in Massachusetts would save taxpayers over $9 billion per year by cutting out insurance company profits and bureaucracy. Not only that, it would provide better access and better care than we currently receive with private insurance.
So if Massachusetts' politicians were really interested in providing health care for all, they'd be pushing for single payer, not raising cigarette taxes.
It's not fair to make smokers pay for handouts to insurance companies, nor is it fair to penalize people suffering from an addiction. Instead, more resources should be available to help people quit if they want to. Perhaps some of the $9 billion saved with a single-payer health system could go towards smoking-cessation programs. Even more could go towards removing the stress that goes along with a life of poverty.
As long as our society is run by capitalists and politicians who grind people up as disposable in the production of profits, and see no value in us beyond that, millions will turn to smoking and other drugs to get by.
Massachusetts politicians have shown that they will stop at nothing to squeeze another drop of blood from our battered bodies to quench the thirst of the wealthy.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
More misery for Ford workers
Originally published in Socialist Worker.
May 8, 2008
THE FORD Motor Company actually made some money in the first three months of 2008, netting $100 million, it reported on April 24.
How did they pull themselves out of the red? Not by selling more cars. Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford, is restoring the company to profitability on the backs of current and future workers. He laid off 4,200 workers during the same first quarter of 2008, bringing total layoffs at Ford to about 40,000 over the past two-and-a-half years, and he has promised to "size that production capacity to that [falling] demand"--in other words, lay off more workers.
But as the New York Times points out, "this time around Ford is trying to persuade workers to leave so that it can hire replacements at significantly lower wages, under the contract it signed with the United Automobile Workers union last fall," which allows Ford to pay new hires about half as much as current employees and cut their benefits. According to the Independent, "Investors reacted warmly to the results, sending Ford shares up more than 10 percent by lunchtime in New York."
The situation at Ford provides a clear example of how the interests of capitalists and workers are totally opposed. Workers who've spent their lives making Ford's investors and executives rich are thrown out to look for work in an economy shedding about 80,000 jobs per month.
Meanwhile, this translates into major gains for Ford stockholders, most of whom have probably never even seen the inside of a Ford factory, let alone worked a shift on a dangerous assembly line. Alan Mulally, for example, made $22.5 million in total compensation last year, over 700 times the salary of new hires who'll be making about $14 per hour.
The layoffs also highlight the absence of true democracy--that is, democracy on issues that actually impact working peoples' lives--under capitalism. Ford workers can choose between voting for the Democrats, who have accepted $406,870 in contributions from Ford since 1999, or the Republicans, who have only received $349,747 from Ford during that time.
But they don't get to vote on whether or not they get laid off, or how much of Mulally's $22.5 million and the $100 million in profits should go to improving the lives of the workers who created that wealth or what they produce, or how and when. Democracy stops at the door of our workplaces, where most of us spend a huge chunk, if not a majority, of our time.
As the economic crisis deepens, we can expect the capitalist class as a whole to deepen its attack on the working class in order to restore profitability at our expense, like we're seeing at Ford. They have no problem laying us off, kicking us out of our homes, deporting those of us who are undocumented, oppressing us, denying us our right to health care and sending us to kill and be killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as long as it translates into more money in their pockets.
All of this is not inevitable though: Workers organized, fought back and won gains during the Great Depression and we can do it again today.
We should look to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and their many allies--who shut down the West Coast ports on May 1, calling for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the defense of immigrant and workers rights--for inspiration and an example of the power of the working class to withhold our labor in order to pressure the bosses to meet our demands.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
May 8, 2008
THE FORD Motor Company actually made some money in the first three months of 2008, netting $100 million, it reported on April 24.
How did they pull themselves out of the red? Not by selling more cars. Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford, is restoring the company to profitability on the backs of current and future workers. He laid off 4,200 workers during the same first quarter of 2008, bringing total layoffs at Ford to about 40,000 over the past two-and-a-half years, and he has promised to "size that production capacity to that [falling] demand"--in other words, lay off more workers.
But as the New York Times points out, "this time around Ford is trying to persuade workers to leave so that it can hire replacements at significantly lower wages, under the contract it signed with the United Automobile Workers union last fall," which allows Ford to pay new hires about half as much as current employees and cut their benefits. According to the Independent, "Investors reacted warmly to the results, sending Ford shares up more than 10 percent by lunchtime in New York."
The situation at Ford provides a clear example of how the interests of capitalists and workers are totally opposed. Workers who've spent their lives making Ford's investors and executives rich are thrown out to look for work in an economy shedding about 80,000 jobs per month.
Meanwhile, this translates into major gains for Ford stockholders, most of whom have probably never even seen the inside of a Ford factory, let alone worked a shift on a dangerous assembly line. Alan Mulally, for example, made $22.5 million in total compensation last year, over 700 times the salary of new hires who'll be making about $14 per hour.
The layoffs also highlight the absence of true democracy--that is, democracy on issues that actually impact working peoples' lives--under capitalism. Ford workers can choose between voting for the Democrats, who have accepted $406,870 in contributions from Ford since 1999, or the Republicans, who have only received $349,747 from Ford during that time.
But they don't get to vote on whether or not they get laid off, or how much of Mulally's $22.5 million and the $100 million in profits should go to improving the lives of the workers who created that wealth or what they produce, or how and when. Democracy stops at the door of our workplaces, where most of us spend a huge chunk, if not a majority, of our time.
As the economic crisis deepens, we can expect the capitalist class as a whole to deepen its attack on the working class in order to restore profitability at our expense, like we're seeing at Ford. They have no problem laying us off, kicking us out of our homes, deporting those of us who are undocumented, oppressing us, denying us our right to health care and sending us to kill and be killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as long as it translates into more money in their pockets.
All of this is not inevitable though: Workers organized, fought back and won gains during the Great Depression and we can do it again today.
We should look to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and their many allies--who shut down the West Coast ports on May 1, calling for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the defense of immigrant and workers rights--for inspiration and an example of the power of the working class to withhold our labor in order to pressure the bosses to meet our demands.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Building the antiwar movement
Originally published in Socialist Worker.
October 5, 2007
Building the antiwar movement
PAUL D'AMATO'S article, "Socialism, struggle and the united front" is incredibly important today (September 14). The overwhelming majority of people in the U.S. oppose the Iraq war, but consciousness is mixed, ranging from people who take issue with the war because it's unsuccessful, to people who see it as a symptom of capitalism, a system of exploitation that must be overthrown.
I recently read a great piece by Cindy Sheehan, entitled "Pigs of War" on Dissidentvoice.org, where she attacks both Democrats and Republicans for their support of the war and poses the question: "What if instead of pigs of war in our government, we had elected officials who put humanity before politics and people before profits?"
Now, I feel that change more fundamental than better elected officials is needed, but I would eagerly work with Cindy Sheehan and anyone else who wants to end the war.
However, in the comments section of Sheehan's article, Max Fields counterposes building an antiwar movement to building a movement that gets to the root of the problem--imperialism--arguing, "We need to face [imperialism], as well as the fact that Iraq is not an anomaly, but an exclamation point on what we've been. Then, and only then, can we begin to do something."
This is a dangerous view. Instead, revolutionaries should take Trotsky's "united front" approach of working within the antiwar movement in order to convince other activists of the need for more fundamental change, a strategy which D'Amato does a great job of laying out.
I agree that we need a movement that takes up demands beyond just opposing the war, but it's possible and necessary to get things done without requiring that people who are active in organizing to acknowledge this right off the bat. In a political climate where over 70 percent of people in the U.S. are opposed to the Iraq war, I think that the first step is to get as many of those people as possible involved in organizing against the war.
Revolutionaries need to have their own organizations raising the issue of imperialism, but in order for these organizations to have an audience and be able to grow, they need to work within mass movements, which the antiwar movement could be in the short term.
Right now, there is the potential to draw large numbers of people into a movement that has one demand: "Troops out now." Once people are engaged in that type of organizing, revolutionaries need to bring up issues like opposition to imperialism and Islamophobia and the need to take a strategic view of GI resistance as key to ending the war.
For many people today, coming to an antiwar conclusion has the potential to be the first step toward a broader radicalization. How far they depends upon whether or not they encounter people, organizations and publications that are making radical arguments. A great place to organize and reach radicalizing people right now is the antiwar movement.
Of course, if the antiwar movement goes no further than challenging the Iraq war, even if the movement is successful, capitalism will remain intact, and there will be more wars. Still, working within and helping to build the antiwar movement is an important next step on the path to fundamentally changing society. It's a necessary next step precisely because it has the potential to organize broad masses of people into struggle, which is key if you want to change peoples' consciousness.
As D'Amato mentions, in his pamphlet Left-wing Communism, Lenin argues against German Communists who reject working within parliament (with the goal of revealing its bankruptcy): "Clearly, the 'Lefts' in Germany have mistaken their desire, their ideological-political attitude, for actual fact."
Just because a segment of the left realizes that we need a movement with demands beyond ending the war does not mean that the majority of people realize this, nor does it mean that building the antiwar movement is obsolete. To abandon the antiwar movement is to deprive newly radicalizing activists of precisely the types of anti-imperialist views they must be won to in order for the kind of fundamental change you seek to become possible.
A strong argument can be made that the Vietnam War was ended in large part due to resistance in the ranks of the military, which was supported and emboldened by a broad antiwar movement, with Vietnam Veterans Against the War playing a leading role. It's also true that many people (my parents included) began their process of radicalization by actively opposing the war, becoming revolutionaries through that struggle in large part because they encountered revolutionaries within the antiwar movement.
Today, Iraq Veterans Against the War is growing, including active-duty GIs who have resisted the occupation. In order for more soldiers to have the courage to resist, a strong antiwar movement is necessary.
Revolutionaries need to help build the movement, work within it and--through clarity of argument and effectiveness of action--win broader layers of people to revolutionary politics.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
October 5, 2007
Building the antiwar movement
PAUL D'AMATO'S article, "Socialism, struggle and the united front" is incredibly important today (September 14). The overwhelming majority of people in the U.S. oppose the Iraq war, but consciousness is mixed, ranging from people who take issue with the war because it's unsuccessful, to people who see it as a symptom of capitalism, a system of exploitation that must be overthrown.
I recently read a great piece by Cindy Sheehan, entitled "Pigs of War" on Dissidentvoice.org, where she attacks both Democrats and Republicans for their support of the war and poses the question: "What if instead of pigs of war in our government, we had elected officials who put humanity before politics and people before profits?"
Now, I feel that change more fundamental than better elected officials is needed, but I would eagerly work with Cindy Sheehan and anyone else who wants to end the war.
However, in the comments section of Sheehan's article, Max Fields counterposes building an antiwar movement to building a movement that gets to the root of the problem--imperialism--arguing, "We need to face [imperialism], as well as the fact that Iraq is not an anomaly, but an exclamation point on what we've been. Then, and only then, can we begin to do something."
This is a dangerous view. Instead, revolutionaries should take Trotsky's "united front" approach of working within the antiwar movement in order to convince other activists of the need for more fundamental change, a strategy which D'Amato does a great job of laying out.
I agree that we need a movement that takes up demands beyond just opposing the war, but it's possible and necessary to get things done without requiring that people who are active in organizing to acknowledge this right off the bat. In a political climate where over 70 percent of people in the U.S. are opposed to the Iraq war, I think that the first step is to get as many of those people as possible involved in organizing against the war.
Revolutionaries need to have their own organizations raising the issue of imperialism, but in order for these organizations to have an audience and be able to grow, they need to work within mass movements, which the antiwar movement could be in the short term.
Right now, there is the potential to draw large numbers of people into a movement that has one demand: "Troops out now." Once people are engaged in that type of organizing, revolutionaries need to bring up issues like opposition to imperialism and Islamophobia and the need to take a strategic view of GI resistance as key to ending the war.
For many people today, coming to an antiwar conclusion has the potential to be the first step toward a broader radicalization. How far they depends upon whether or not they encounter people, organizations and publications that are making radical arguments. A great place to organize and reach radicalizing people right now is the antiwar movement.
Of course, if the antiwar movement goes no further than challenging the Iraq war, even if the movement is successful, capitalism will remain intact, and there will be more wars. Still, working within and helping to build the antiwar movement is an important next step on the path to fundamentally changing society. It's a necessary next step precisely because it has the potential to organize broad masses of people into struggle, which is key if you want to change peoples' consciousness.
As D'Amato mentions, in his pamphlet Left-wing Communism, Lenin argues against German Communists who reject working within parliament (with the goal of revealing its bankruptcy): "Clearly, the 'Lefts' in Germany have mistaken their desire, their ideological-political attitude, for actual fact."
Just because a segment of the left realizes that we need a movement with demands beyond ending the war does not mean that the majority of people realize this, nor does it mean that building the antiwar movement is obsolete. To abandon the antiwar movement is to deprive newly radicalizing activists of precisely the types of anti-imperialist views they must be won to in order for the kind of fundamental change you seek to become possible.
A strong argument can be made that the Vietnam War was ended in large part due to resistance in the ranks of the military, which was supported and emboldened by a broad antiwar movement, with Vietnam Veterans Against the War playing a leading role. It's also true that many people (my parents included) began their process of radicalization by actively opposing the war, becoming revolutionaries through that struggle in large part because they encountered revolutionaries within the antiwar movement.
Today, Iraq Veterans Against the War is growing, including active-duty GIs who have resisted the occupation. In order for more soldiers to have the courage to resist, a strong antiwar movement is necessary.
Revolutionaries need to help build the movement, work within it and--through clarity of argument and effectiveness of action--win broader layers of people to revolutionary politics.
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Abortion ban an attack on women
Originally published in Socialist Worker.
May 11, 2007
THE RECENT Supreme Court decision to uphold a ban on so-called "partial birth" abortions is disgusting and a major setback for the feminist movement and for women in general. It shifts even more of the burden of reproducing the labor force onto the shoulders of working-class women and families.
Abortion bans disproportionately affect poor and working-class women; the rich will always be able to find doctors willing to provide safe abortions for a premium.
Considering the slashing of the social safety net over the past quarter century, the further erosion of abortion rights (even now, only 13 percent of U.S. counties offer abortion services) will mean more women will have to choose between attempting to raise a child in abject poverty, and risking serious bodily harm (sterility, among other things) and death by seeking a dangerous "back-alley" abortion.
There is an inverse relationship between access to abortion and unnecessary deaths of women: a mass grassroots movement is necessary to prevent a return to the pre-Roe v. Wade days when tens of thousands of women bled to death across the United States.
The successful struggle for a ballot measure that overturned an abortion ban in the 2006 election in South Dakota proves that grassroots organizing, which won abortion rights in the first place, is still effective in securing a woman's right to choose.
In Mexico, in March, 3,000 demonstrators marched in Mexico City, demanding that the Mexican government legalize abortion. Patricia Mercado, a Mexican feminist and former presidential candidate, stated: "There are women who die today...there are four women every day [who die] because of bad abortions, especially poor women, and the state must respond to the problems of justice and public health that are brought on by clandestine abortions."
Unlike leading Democrats--who tail conservatives who portray abortions as immoral, calling for abortions to be "safe and rare"--Mercado took a firm stance: "A woman can decide to have an abortion or not have it, but it's her decision."
The hypocrisy of a government that claims to support "life" while it slaughters hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan and allows 46.6 million people to go without health insurance in the richest country in the world is staggering.
Pro-choice activists in the United States should follow the example set by Mercado, as well as the women and men who won abortion rights in the U.S. in 1973 after years of struggle. We must accept nothing less than free abortion on demand!
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
May 11, 2007
THE RECENT Supreme Court decision to uphold a ban on so-called "partial birth" abortions is disgusting and a major setback for the feminist movement and for women in general. It shifts even more of the burden of reproducing the labor force onto the shoulders of working-class women and families.
Abortion bans disproportionately affect poor and working-class women; the rich will always be able to find doctors willing to provide safe abortions for a premium.
Considering the slashing of the social safety net over the past quarter century, the further erosion of abortion rights (even now, only 13 percent of U.S. counties offer abortion services) will mean more women will have to choose between attempting to raise a child in abject poverty, and risking serious bodily harm (sterility, among other things) and death by seeking a dangerous "back-alley" abortion.
There is an inverse relationship between access to abortion and unnecessary deaths of women: a mass grassroots movement is necessary to prevent a return to the pre-Roe v. Wade days when tens of thousands of women bled to death across the United States.
The successful struggle for a ballot measure that overturned an abortion ban in the 2006 election in South Dakota proves that grassroots organizing, which won abortion rights in the first place, is still effective in securing a woman's right to choose.
In Mexico, in March, 3,000 demonstrators marched in Mexico City, demanding that the Mexican government legalize abortion. Patricia Mercado, a Mexican feminist and former presidential candidate, stated: "There are women who die today...there are four women every day [who die] because of bad abortions, especially poor women, and the state must respond to the problems of justice and public health that are brought on by clandestine abortions."
Unlike leading Democrats--who tail conservatives who portray abortions as immoral, calling for abortions to be "safe and rare"--Mercado took a firm stance: "A woman can decide to have an abortion or not have it, but it's her decision."
The hypocrisy of a government that claims to support "life" while it slaughters hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan and allows 46.6 million people to go without health insurance in the richest country in the world is staggering.
Pro-choice activists in the United States should follow the example set by Mercado, as well as the women and men who won abortion rights in the U.S. in 1973 after years of struggle. We must accept nothing less than free abortion on demand!
Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.
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