>
>the agricultural overproduction that is lowering farm commodity prices and
>income. Subsidies to farmers are not the cause of overproduction; this is a
>regular feature of capitalism in all industries, including those which are
>not subsidized.
> The crisis has, however, brought out some differences of agrarian
>policy among procorporate political parties.
> Comments by federal agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief make it
>clear that the Liberal government is trying to eliminate small-scale farm
>production. Likening his government's policy to "tough love," Vanclief says
>that if farmers don't like the pay, they should look for another line of work.
> The Liberals argue that the huge scale of farm exports related to
>the size of Canada's economy make farm aid a drain on an otherwise
>efficient economy. They have cut farm aid by more than half in the last decade.
> Canada's ruling circles know they have lost the support of the
>small farm owners. In the last year, prairie farmers have blocked highways,
>organized large rallies, and occupied the Saskatchewan legislature. Farmers
>have organized at least ten new protest groups.
> The Liberals are trying to help the minority of large farmers grab
>the land left by ruined, small farmers, and to find allies among these rich
>farmers. Already most farm commodities are supplied by the agricultural
>capitalist elite, the small numbers of very large farms. Smaller farms are
>in desperate need of aid; larger farms are less needful.
> The NFU study explains the futility of providing subsidies if such
>aid simply ends up in the pockets of the few corporations that dominate and
>manipulate the farm economy.
> In 1998, the total gross farm income in Canada was $29 billion.
>The small number of corporations that dominate farm inputs and markets have
>revenues vastly larger than gross farm income. Agribusiness corporations
>earn high rates of profit; their "return on equity" ranges from 5 to 20 per
>cent. According to the NFU, Canadian farms in the last five years had an
>average return on equity of just 0.7 per cent.
> Last fall, the six parties in the Manitoba and Saskatchewan
>legislatures had a common position for emergency farm aid from Ottawa. The
>Saskatchewan Party broke the common front by shifting its call for aid to
>the Saskatchewan treasury, saying the federal government has responsibility
>only for the subsidy "trade" issue.
> Rather than challenging corporate power, the non-working class
>parties are relying entirely on money subsidies to "solve" the farm crisis.
>As well, they are playing up to western separatist ideas by presenting
>themselves as defenders of "rural" Western Canada against the eastern
>"urban" enemy.
> These "solutions" will backfire on farmers. The rural/urban and
>Western/Eastern "split" is a sham created to hide corporate exploitation of
>both farmers and the working class, and to create divisions between them.
> The corporations want farmers to believe that "more aid," working
>harder, and greater efficiency will end the crisis in the rural economy.
>They want farmers to place their hopes in becoming rich, not in uniting
>with the rural and city workers. They want workers and farmers to believe
>foreign government subsidies are to blame for their misery.
> The real benefactors of this division are the transnational
>corporations. If Western Canada separated, these corporations would
>intensify their exploitation of the workers and farmers of the region. This
>"balkanization" strategy is backed by the most reactionary sections of U.S.
>transnational capital, such as the oil monopolies, and represented in
>Canada through the Reform Party.
> The NFU study should help to clarify the real source of the farm
>income crisis for Prairie farmers. In fact, many farmers are aware of the
>corporate plundering of the farm economy. More and more, farmers have to
>find earnings off the farm as wage workers. The 1996 census reports that
>out of every $100 declared farm family income, $69 is earned from offfarm jobs.
> More farmers are in a relation of direct dependency on large
>corporations through production contracts. Industrial farms are rapidly
>expanding the rural working class that is not organized or covered by the
>most elementary labour laws. Rural labour relations in Canada are changing
>rapidly.
> The ruin of tens of thousands of farmers will have serious
>consequences for Canadian sovereignty. Pressures on Canada to rely on
>foreign food imports will increase. Countries that produce cheap food for
>export, such as the United States, would have more influence on our economy.
> The use of food as a weapon and the basis for a strong imperialist
>economy is well understood in the US, Europe and Japan, which are
>responsible for the bulk of global farm aid. In fact, farmers pay the price
>when food is used as a weapon, for example, against Iraq. An independent
>foreign policy for Canada should include total opposition to the use of
>food as a weapon; in fact, Canada should export food to countries facing
>such embargoes.
> FarmerLabour unity is needed to end the poverty and misery of farm
>families and rural workers. New policies are needed to ensure full
>production and allround development of agriculture. Small farm owners need
>to combine the demand for immediate aid with the demand to end the
>domination of the farm economy by big business.
> The interests of the large majority of the rural and urban
>population require a comprehensive agrarian program that puts working
>people before profit, and to satisfy the real needs of Canadians.
> In the short term, such a program should include: price subsidies
>and strengthened farm income stabilization programs; restored regulation of
>grain delivery in the interests of farmers; extending labour laws to the
>rural working class; strong anti-dumping laws; restoration and
>strengthening of farm commodity marketing boards. A labour-farmer program
>also needs to raise the demand to nationalize banks and the agri-business
>corporations.
>
>________________
>
>5/ UNPAID WORK, CHILDCARE AND CAPITALISM
>
>By Jane Bouey
>
>THERE ARE MANY important issues raised in Cynthia L'Hirondelle's thought
>provoking two-part article on unpaid domestic labour (People's Voice, March
>1-15 and March 16-31). Due to lack of space, I will focus on only a few on
>behalf of the Women's Commission of the Communist Party.
> One phrase in particular compels me to respond. In critiquing
>feminist demands, Cynthia describes daycare as "warehousing children so
>parents can do jobs that exploit other people or the environment."
> Communists have long struggled for universal, accessible, quality
>childcare - and its realization has been one of the greatest achievements
>in socialist countries. We fight for childcare, not simply as a solution to
>individual needs, but because it is in fact a revolutionary demand.
> As pointed out by Engels' Origin of the Family, and the works of
>other progressive anthropologists, women have not always been solely
>responsible for domestic work. Before the rise of capitalism, women did
>take on tasks that meshed well with the need to nurse etc., but had a
>variety of responsibilities, including agricultural. The raising of
>children was more a communal responsibility, not that of a single family
>unit. This is still true in some societies.
> As Joanne Naiman in How Society Works states, Engels argued that
>"the development of gender inequality was linked to the conversion of
>domestic labour from a formerly social act, done in the context of the
>whole community, into activities performed in the privatized domain of the
>family. This process both lowered women's status and gave men control over
>women in the patriarchal family structure. In this context, the end of
>inequality for women is not based primarily on the sharing of domestic
>tasks by men and women in the household, but rather the return of many of
>these tasks into the public economy."
> A universal, accessible, quality, childcare system returns the
>domestic task of childrearing into the public economy. It provides a safe
>and nurturing environment for children to be educated. It allows women to
>enter the workforce, breaking down patriarchal patterns.
> While it is true that women are still primarily responsible for
>the unpaid work inside the home, the rationale that women must stay home to
>care for their children is shattered if childcare is provided.
> Without childcare, capitalists profit from generations of new
>workers being cared for and raised very cheaply. They profit from millions
>of women in the reserve pool of labour, from women getting lower wages, and
>from the resulting lower social wages.
> Capitalists have gained from cuts to childcare and healthcare that
>force large numbers of women to care for children and other family members
>in the home.
> The call for some sort of guaranteed income, or people being paid
>to stay home, is interesting. But the question arises: in what context
>would this take place? Communists oppose attempts by the right-wing to
>force women back into the homes, or to claim that household work is
>"women's work." Because we believe in equality, we say that men should take
>responsibility for work in their households. More important, we believe
>this is a social issue.
> For decades, our party has fought for universal, accessible,
>quality daycare. We have fought for women's right to be in the workforce at
>equal pay, and in a full range of jobs. Our party has fought against
>unemployment, and for a living wage for all.
> We fight for a socialist Canada, where people who choose to stay
>home to care for their family would not be penalized financially. A Canada
>where childcare and healthcare would be so accessible, and decent jobs so
>available, and sexism so rare that no woman would be forced for economic
>reasons or social pressures to be solely responsible for work in the home.
> I want to personally thank Cynthia for raising these issues. She
>is correct that too often, unpaid domestic work is not examined seriously
>by Marxists. The Women's Commission looks forward to continuing to build
>upon, and learning from, the analysis done since the time of Engels, by
>both Marxists and non-Marxists.
> (RedFem Report is a column by members of the Central Women's
>Commission of the Communist Party of Canada.)
>
>________________
>
>6/ THE KOSOVO SCORECARD: ONE YEAR LATER
>
>By Kimball Cariou
>Editor, People’s Voice
>
>PEACE GROUPS AROUND the world rallied on the first anniversary of the war
>against Yugoslavia to remember its victims and to renew opposition to
>US/NATO military domination of our planet. This is a time to consider the
>consequences of this tragedy, and to act to prevent further aggression.
> On March 24, 1999, Canada joined other imperialist powers in a
>massive bombing campaign against a sovereign state in south-eastern Europe.
>For eleven weeks, terror fell from the skies over Yugoslavia, killing some
>1,800 civilians and inflicting over $60 billion worth of damage to its
>economy. A large part of Yugoslavia was then occupied by NATO armies, and
>sanctions were imposed on its people.
> The main excuse for the NATO attack was the need to protect the
>Albanian population of the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. NATO officials told
>the world that the Kosovo Albanians were the victims of genocide; US
>Defence Secretary William Cohen stated that 100,000 had been massacred. The
>Serbs were reported to have killed 1,000 Albanians at Trepca, before
>dumping the bodies into mine shafts, or dissolving them in vats of
>hydrochloric acid. The entire province of Kosovo, it was said, was one huge
>forensic site.
> The reality was quite different. For one thing, the trickle of
>Albanians from Kosovo during the civil conflict which preceded the NATO
>attack turned into a flood only when the bombs began to fall. Since the
>occupation by 40,000 NATO troops began last June, the bulk of the Serb and
>Romany citizens of Kosovo - 230,000 people, according to United Nations
>estimates - have been driven out by extremist Albanian forces, notably the
>separatist KLA.
> As for the mass graves of Albanians, none have been found. The
>Western forensic teams investigating the "horror of Trepca" found no bodies
>in the mine shafts, and no evidence that the vats had ever been used to
>dispose of bodies.
> The public relations campaign against Yugoslavia leading up to the
>war has also been exposed as exaggerations or outright lies. One of the key
>examples was the "slaughter" of Albanians by Serb forces in the village of
>Racak early last year. It turned out, of course, that the US official who
>"revealed" this "atrocity" to the world was none other than William Walker,
>who spent years covering up real atrocities by US-backed military regimes
>in Central America.
> Then there was the heart-wrenching CBC tale of the brave young KLA
>soldier whose sister had been "murdered by the Serbs." To the CBC's
>embarrassment, the dead sister turned up alive and well after the war, or
>more precisely, after being used as a poster girl in the PR strategy to
>convince Canadians that we really did need to bomb Serbian children in
>retaliation.
> During the bombing campaign, Canadians were repeatedly told that
>the Milosevic government was the target, not civilians. That line took a
>hit when TV footage showed a NATO bomber blowing up a passenger train,
>killing dozens of civilians. NATO spin-doctors claimed that the pilot had
>less than two seconds to react when the train came into view. Far less
>coverage was given to later revelations that the film footage had been
>manipulated to conceal the reality - that the bomber took about seven
>seconds to decide whether to blow up a passenger train, and then pushed the
>button.
> Other NATO lies are still being exposed, although with far less
>publicity than the original falsehoods received. For example, during the
>war, allegations that NATO was using depleted uranium weapons in Kosovo
>were bluntly dismissed as "Serb propaganda." But now NATO has admitted
>using DU weapons, exposing civilians, troops and aid workers to radiation
>hazards.
> George Robertson, the secretary-general of NATO, in a letter to UN
>secretary-general Kofi Annan, has confirmed that NATO used 31,000 rounds of
>DU ammunition during about 100 missions in Kosovo flown by US A-10
>aircraft. Shells tipped with depleted uranium have a greater ability to
>penetrate tanks and underground bunkers.
> Pekka Haavisto, head of a UN Balkan environment task force, says
>that NATO is still holding back crucial data on where and how it used such
>weapons, which contaminate land and water sources. Haavisto notes that the
>use of DU weapons in Kosovo was just one-tenth of that used against Iraq in
>the 1991 Gulf War.
> So what's the bottom line, one year later? All the evidence points
>in one direction: that the US and its NATO allies, particularly the social
>democratic governments of Britain and Germany, fabricated a series of
>falsehoods to fan hatred of the Serbian people of Yugoslavia. Why? To win
>public support for the imperialist drive to dismember that country, one of
>the last holdouts in Europe against rule by the transnational corporations
>and their agencies, the IMF and World Bank.
> And what happens next? Anyone who thinks the war against
>Yugoslavia is over hasn't been paying attention. In recent weeks, the KLA
>forces which now effectively rule the NATO protectorate of Kosovo have
>launched military raids into the Presevo Valley in south-eastern Serbia,
>supposedly to defend ethnic Albanians in that area. The real danger exists
>that these attacks could spark a wider war, drawing in Macedonia and Greece.
> When the bombing of Yugoslavia began, many Canadians were
>convinced to give their support by the claim that this was a "just war."
>Some, like NDP MP Svend Robinson, whose early support for the war was a
>factor in paralyzing important sections of the public, spoke out against
>the bombing within a few weeks.
> A year later, the conclusion that the war against Yugoslavia was
>totally unjustified is stronger than ever. Every peace-loving Canadian
>should demand that Ottawa start pulling this country out of the aggressive
>NATO alliance, and that Canada should begin paying reparations for the
>terrible damage we helped inflict upon Yugoslavia. Anything less than such
>a total change in policy means a cowardly surrender to the aims and
>strategies of US imperialism.
>
>________________
>
>7/ THE "BATTLE IN SEATTLE" MOVES TO WASHINGTON
>
>HUNDREDS OF CANADIANS are packing their bags for the next confrontation
>with the institutions of global capitalism. This time the target is the
>semiannual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank,
>
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