WW News Service Digest #287
1) Vanishing jobs
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Mass protests rock Algeria
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) Review: Gen. Clark says Kosovo war was 'coercive diplomacy'
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Want to know about socialism?
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 28, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: VANISHING JOBS
The market plunge that shook Wall Street this spring may
have evened out--at least for now--but the downturn in the
economy is being felt among the working class. According to
CBS Market Watch, "Since Dec. 1, U.S. employers have
announced nearly 800,000 job cuts. The cuts have been
largest in the auto, telecommunications and retail sectors."
Technology companies announced over 100,000 of those job
cuts. These are the same high-tech outfits that are supposed
to be the driving force of the "new economy." The
telecommunications monopoly Nortel is leading the pack,
having announced a cut of 30,000 in its 94,500-person
workforce this year. Nortel's own stock dropped from $87
last July to under $10 this June, and the company announced
a $19 billion loss for just one quarter in 2001.
The death of history, which was supposed to have occurred
with the collapse of the Soviet Union, seems now to have
been prematurely announced. The kind of history marked by
the cyclic collapses of the capitalist economy has
reappeared. For almost a million workers in the U.S., it has
come back with a vengeance.
Are jobs being exported? Indeed, many high-tech firms are
finding much less expensive labor in countries like India.
But now the layoffs are hitting inside India, too. It's a
worldwide phenomenon.
Even the bourgeois economists who just a year or two ago saw
an endless horizon of big ups sprinkled with little,
controllable downs, are talking scared. The CBS Market Watch
headline for the above story was "Shadow of recession."
Not that worldwide capitalism hasn't had its share of
problems since 1989. Financial collapses in Mexico and
Argentina, in East and South Asia, and in Russia and Turkey
have put working people in those areas out of work and back
into poverty and misery. Japan has been stagnating for a
decade, with no sign of improvement in sight. Even in
Europe, many youths have problems finding jobs.
The primacy of the U.S. dollar as the world's currency and
the relative stability here have operated to make the U.S.
economy a magnet for capital fleeing the crisis spots of the
planet. This constant source of new investment has kept the
U.S. economy humming. Up to now.
The main beneficiaries of the past years of "upturn" have
been the owners of the U.S. economy and their top managers.
What many workers have received is a pink slip from a
unionized job having benefits, followed by a newly created
non-union job with fewer or no benefits and lower pay.
At the same time, a succession of Republican and Democratic
administrations and Congresses have steadily cut back on
social benefits for the working class, especially those
portions least organized and capable of fighting these
cutbacks. The low point of these cuts--up to the present--
was the Democrat Bill Clinton cutting the guts out of
welfare in 1996 and passing it off as "reform."
Only the continual creation of new jobs could disguise the
heavy costs the U.S. working class has been paying for the
"new economy."
Now, for the first time since the Great Depression of the
1930s, the working class within the U.S. faces the
possibility of an extended period of layoffs and
unemployment without the safety net of social services and
payments won by class struggles of the past.
It is a dangerous time for workers. But like every danger,
it contains within it an opposite--an opportunity to unite
to fight back and regain what has been stolen from the
workers since the mid-1970s. This fightback will require
both an attitude of struggle and a determination to remain
united against the onslaught of the boss class, now led by
the Bush administration.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
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From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: maanantai 25. kesäkuu 2001 09:58
Subject: [WW] Mass protests rock Algeria
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 28, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
MASS PROTESTS ROCK ALGERIA
By G. Dunkel
The Algerian masses, both Berbers and Arabs, came out June
14 in a huge anti-government demonstration--estimates ranged
from 400,000 to 2 million. They marched on the National
Palace in Algiers until beaten back by water cannons, tear
gas and police clubs.
They came in trucks, cars and buses by the hundreds of
thousands. A group of youth even marched over 120 miles on
foot from Amizour. They came at the call of representatives
of the Berber regions of Bejaia, Setif, Bordj Bou-Arreridj,
Tizi Ouzou, Boumerdes and Bouira as well as the coordinating
committees of the universities of Algiers.
They called for solutions to Algeria's urgent social and
economic problems: jobs for the 80 percent of the youth who
are unemployed, housing, clean drinking water and roads.
They demanded that the cops come under "the effective
authority of democratically elected bodies" and that the
military police be immediately withdrawn from all Berber
areas. Another major demand was that Tamazight, the Berber
language, be constitutionally recognized as an official,
national language.
Ever since a rebellion broke out in mid-April, after a high
school student was beaten to death in a police barracks for
protesting the banning of a Berber poetry reading, the
Algerian government has attempted to discredit the movement.
The government said the Berbers were attempting to divide
the country. The protesters, they claimed, were doing the
work of the Islamic fundamentalists, who waged a civil war
costing 100,000 lives from 1991 until it collapsed last
year.
The government's position has some gaping holes. Some of the
Islamic fundamentalist parties, which spent a decade
opposing the government, have now joined it as a result of a
peace deal.
The Berbers, many of whom carry Algerian flags in their
protests, have made it clear that the recognition of their
language and cultural rights would not divide but unite
Algeria by removing a major "source of frustration."
Arabic-speaking communities in the eastern part of Algeria
exploded after June 14. Thousands of youths in the working-
class sections of Annaba, a major port, poured out into the
streets, enraged by television coverage of the Algiers
march. They set up street barricades, threw anything they
could get their hands on at the cops, and chanted, "We want
drinkable water, electricity, roads" and "Long live
democracy, we want an Algeria run by civilians, not by
generals." Other cities also saw major protests.
All the Algerian press agree that most of the country,
Arabic- and Berber-speaking alike, is ready to explode.
Tensions are at a breaking point. The government, which is
basically controlled by the army, can either back down or
order the army to drown the protests in blood.
But will the soldiers fire on their brothers and cousins,
fathers and uncles, sisters and mothers?
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: maanantai 25. kesäkuu 2001 09:58
Subject: [WW] Review: Gen. Clark says Kosovo war was 'coercive diplomacy'
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 28, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
BOOK REVIEW
GEN. CLARK: KOSOVO WAR WAS "COERCIVE DIPLOMACY"
By John Catalinotto
What can we learn from reading the words of the class enemy?
Only with that question in mind is it worthwhile to open up
Gen. Wesley K. Clark's "Waging Modern Warfare."
Gen. Clark commanded NATO's war against the people of
Yugoslavia in 1999. Serious opponents of this aggression
consider Gen. Clark a war criminal for his role both in
planning the war and in aggressively pushing for bombing
targets that led to civilian casualties.
Within months after NATO troops occupied Kosovo, however,
Washington dumped Clark from his command. Now retired, he
finished writing his version of the Balkans war in 2001. In
his book he analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the
U.S. military in the 21st century.
As might be expected from someone the Pentagon "retired"
before his time was up, the general uses the book to defend
his own decisions. The book is also self-serving in the
broader sense of justifying NATO's war against Yugoslavia.
Here Clark never gets beyond the same propaganda U.S.
politicians and spokespeople used against Slobodan Milosevic
and the Serb government during the 1999 war.
This heavy-handed treatment of the events makes the first
415 pages of the 461-page book less than enlightening. These
pages contain repeated references to his frustrated attempts
to use Apache helicopters inside Kosovo, a desire that kept
getting shot down by mysterious forces in the Pentagon who
apparently were fearful the Apaches would also get shot
down.
While Gen. Clark openly pushed for wider bombing targets in
Serbia and preparation for a ground war in Kosovo, he was
not the stereotypical right-wing militarist. He fit right in
with the Clinton administration's foreign policy.
He also claims a close relationship with Javier Solana, a
Spanish social democrat and one-time NATO opponent who
became NATO's civilian head during the war. He is aware of
the problems once-communist Italian Prime Minister Massimo
D'Alema and the German Greens leader Joshka Fischer had
keeping the rank-and-file of their parties lined up behind
the imperialist war effort.
Gen. Clark frequently met Milosevic in negotiations. Indeed,
he threatened the Belgrade leader that NATO would bomb
Serbia "good" if Milosevic refused to submit. Clark
complains that Milosevic prevaricated in an attempt to
"stall" the NATO bombing attack without surrendering
Yugoslavia to the West. Hardly a war crime.
IMPERIALIST CHARACTER OF NATO'S WAR
In the most useful and only interesting section of the book--
the final 46 pages of "Conclusions"--he gets down to an
admission, only slightly veiled, of the colonialist or
imperialist character of the war.
The Kosovo war, he writes, "was coercive diplomacy, the use
of armed forces to impose the political will of the NATO
nations on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or more
specifically, on Serbia. The NATO nations voluntarily
undertook this war." In that regard, he says, it "was much
more like the interventions of an earlier era," before World
War II. By this Clark means the period of open colonial rule
by the Western European powers, the U.S. and Japan.
Trying to bully the world this way, however, has its own
risks. "Events proceed from diplomacy backed by discussions
of threat, to diplomacy backed by threat, to diplomacy
backed by force, and finally to force backed by diplomacy."
CAN THE WAR MAKERS BE STOPPED?
With the eventuality of this war in mind, Gen. Clark
discusses U.S. and NATO weak nesses. The Pentagon, he
writes, is well prepared with different scenarios of war in
the Persian Gulf or Korea.
Clark doesn't explain that U.S. imperialist interests are
greatest in these areas--oil in the Middle East and a
strategic land base in Asia--and that a ruling-class
consensus backs these war plans. He complains that Pentagon
reluctance to move troops and materiel from these two areas
made it harder for him to wage war in Europe.
The greatest weakness of the U.S. military, however, is the
reluctance to accept casualties, a legacy of the U.S. defeat
by a people's army in Vietnam. It was considered a triumph
of the war against Yugoslavia, Clark writes, that no U.S.
combat casualties were reported.
Politicians and generals alike feared that a political
revolt and mass demonstrations would follow any news of U.S.
casualties--even of planes being shot down. This fear
prevented NATO from threatening a land war from the
beginning, it delayed planning for that war and it
apparently stopped the deployment of Apache gunships in
Kosovo, according to Clark.
The NATO command was pushing the Big Lie that this was a
"humanitarian" war to help ethnic Albanians. Yet the only
military action was to bomb mainly civilian targets in
Serbia, a strategy that met growing resistance in Europe.
For future wars, Gen. Clark wants more "precision" weapons,
but he also insists it will be necessary to send troops in
on the ground and that there must be some tolerance of
casualties.
According to Clark, despite NATO's overwhelming force it was
unprepared to take the required steps once the Yugoslav
people and leadership surprised the Western powers by
holding out. He had his own doubts that NATO--and especially
the Pentagon--would have dared a land war.
There is a lesson here for the anti-war movement, which in
Western Europe and the U.S. fell short of what would have
been possible had more forces seen through the anti-Serb and
anti-Milosevic propaganda. All-out support for Yugoslavia
against imperialist attack would have encouraged the
people's continued resistance and tested NATO's weaknesses.
That the U.S. is "the only superpower" does not mean its
ability to repress a people's war is unlimited. Perhaps
that's the only important lesson of "Waging Modern Warfare."
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: maanantai 25. kesäkuu 2001 09:59
Subject: [WW] Want to know about socialism?
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 28, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WANT TO KNOW ABOUT SOCIALISM?
SAN FRANCISCO CLASSES APPLY MARXISM TO FIGHTING GLOBALIZATION
As part of a Workers World Party series
on Marxist education, activists gathered
in San Francisco on June 16 for a daylong
conference on "Capitalist globalization:
What it is, how to fight it and win."
Participants included veterans of the anti-
globalization struggle--from Seattle to Quebec. Three WWP
branches were represented:
San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.
Richard Becker opened with a motivation to broaden the anti-
globalization movement to struggles against war, repression,
racism and all forms
of oppression.
Gloria Verdieu explained that the World Trade
Organization, International Monetary Fund and World Bank are
vehicles to promote the free flow of capital--primarily U.S.
capital--across borders
in search of greater profits.
Preston Wood focused on the role of the military in the U.S.
drive for global domination.
Gloria La Riva and Magda Miller examined NAFTA's effect on
Mexican workers on both sides of the
border. Bill Hackwell spoke about the Zapatista
uprising and the recent historic caravan to
Mexico City.
Cuba was frequently cited for its opposition to
capitalist globalization and its revolutionary
struggle to build socialism.
Tahnee Stair said there are only two choices in the world
today. Either "the means of production are owned privately
and run for profit, or they are owned socially and
contribute to the needs of all society. The latter is
socialism, and that is the only solution."
An afternoon panel focused on the growth of the prison-
industrial complex, racist repression and
the Contract with America as a domestic structural
adjustment program. Luis Bato Talamantez--
former political prisoner and one of the
San Quentin 6--was a guest panelist.
John Parker linked the explosive growth in prisons and
police brutality to capitalist restructuring.
Gloria La Riva urged participants to join the Party's
contingent in the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay/Bi/ Trans
Freedom Day Parade and in protests against globalization and
the Bush program at Bohemian Grove on July 14 and
Washington, D.C.,
on Sept. 29.
On June 9, a similar program was held in Seattle.
A southern California educational conference is scheduled
for June 30 in Los Angeles.For info call (213) 487-2368.
