WW News Service Digest #370
4) Capitalism's Econo-Terrorism
by wwnews
5) "Ali" is Worth Seeing Despite Flaws
by wwnews
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 17, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
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CAPITALISM SHOWS ITS UGLY FACE: ECONO-TERRORISM
Layoffs Bring Hunger, Utility Shut-Offs, Homelessness
By Deirdre Griswold
Prediction: By the time this year is out, the designation
"capitalist," which during the boom years was boldly
emblazoned on whatever was being flaunted as enviably
decadent, will be as popular as a week-old fish.
The boom is over. Hard times are here again. Please, not
another story about sadder but wiser dot-com millionaires
who have to trim their life styles. This is not about giving
up that second country home, or forgoing a world cruise.
There is real hunger, real cold, real suffering in this
country at a time of the greatest abundance of everything.
As unemployment rises, so do evictions. But you don't have
to be out of a job to be living on the street. Minneapolis
just reported that 40 percent of the people trying to get
into shelters--they're now so crowded many are turned away--
actually have jobs. But their $6 or $7 an hour won't cover
even the necessities--rent, utilities, food, transportation
and clothing--let alone medical expenses or childcare.
Even with a relatively mild winter, people are freezing to
death under bridges, in their cars, and in homes where the
utilities have been shut off.
This is what capitalism does. It is not a rational, planned
economic system, one that can be organized so as to make it
unthinkable for anyone in this modern age to starve or
freeze to death because of poverty. Capitalism is a very
different beast.
FROM A STROLL TO A GALLOP
In the early stages of the business cycle, it expands in
pursuit of profit, chewing up the earth as though there is
no tomorrow, building factories, offices, communications at
a feverish pace. Every capitalist, no matter how big, is
racing the competition, scouring the globe for cheaper
labor, cheaper raw materials, keeping plants and stores open
24/7, squeezing the last penny out of every motion a worker
makes.
What starts as modest growth soon becomes a mad gallop after
profits. And then it happens. The capitalists have become so
successful at making their workforce produce more goods in
less time--and this now happens on a global scale--that they
are suddenly faced with a collapse of the market. Who can
buy? Even in this age of easy credit, there is just so much
debt that individuals--or even whole nations--can juggle.
The time comes when goods pile up as labor is idled, and the
total irrationality of the system is staring us in the face.
Not only are there surplus goods of all kinds, but labor
itself becomes surplus. Workers are tossed out like last-
week's newspapers.
Massive unemployment in a capitalist economic downturn is
the most unnatural, distressing situation anyone can find
themselves in. We humans evolved working hard to survive.
When we are cold, hungry, or just bored, we want to work to
make things right again. We want to put a roof over our
heads, we want to feed our children and help provide for our
aging parents, as they did for us when we were small. Having
a job--the means to work--is our human right. But the
capitalist private-property stranglehold on the means of
production deprives us of that right just when we need it
the most.
Today there is capitalist recession around the world, from
Japan to Europe, and deep crisis in countries like
Argentina. The United States, the most powerful of the
imperialist countries, with control over the levers of
global banking and commerce, was the last to go under. But
it has finally happened and now there is no "engine of
growth" to pull others out of the hole.
The most stunning symptom of the crisis was the collapse of
the Enron Corporation, a huge energy conglomerate and the
biggest political contributor to the Bushes. While Enron's
executives bailed out early, cashing in their company stock
while it was still worth over $70 a share, they froze the
401K pension holdings of their employees until the stock had
crashed and become virtually worthless. Thousands saw their
retirement savings go down the drain.
THE POLITICAL FALLOUT
What will the political ramifications of this recession be?
That is the question being weighed by every politician in
this country.
The Bush administration is hoping that its war in
Afghanistan and the Middle East will stimulate the economy
as orders go to the military-industrial complex for billions
of dollars worth of fighter planes, cruise missiles, "daisy
cutter" bombs and all the paraphernalia of slaughter. The
Pentagon has already notified Congress that it wants an
extra $20 billion in the coming fiscal year, bringing its
budget up to about $350 billion.
Wouldn't it be nice if departments like human services or
education could do that--just tell Congress they need more
money?
So far, however, the war spending
hasn't worked. Just as Federal Reserve Bank head Alan
Greenspan couldn't hold off the recession forever by cutting
the prime lending rate--and he did it 13 times last year!--
neither has the military form of state intervention in the
economy turned the decline around.
Bush Jr. can't have forgotten what happened to his father
after the 1991 Gulf War. Despite all the war fever and
patriotic hoopla over a contest so unequal that barely a
score of U.S. military personnel died while the Pentagon
killed some 200,000 Iraqis, Bush Sr. lost the next election
in 1992. The country was in a recession.
Bill Clinton's magic bullet? His aides told him very bluntly
what to do in the debates: "It's the economy, stupid."
All the gimmicks to put greater wealth in the hands of the
rich, especially the huge tax cuts now adding to a budget
deficit,
didn't give the economy a boost either. That was supposed to
be the rationale for it, of course. It doesn't sound good to
admit that you're paying off your campaign contributors and
lobbyists with juicy tax cuts. So tax cuts for corporations
and the wealthy were supposed to encourage more
"investment." It's just an updated version of Ronald
Reagan's moth-eaten "trickle-down" theory.
Since Sept. 11, the Democratic "opposition" has allowed
Bush's right-wing Republican administration free rein in
prosecuting its open-ended "war on terrorism"--which in fact
is a continuation of earlier wars and interventions for
control of the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and
Central Asia.
Both ruling class parties have demanded deadening conformity
to whatever the Pentagon war hawks dictate--be it a gagging
dose of patriotic films and programs glorifying armies and
wars that passes for culture, or the ruthless persecution of
Arab and Muslim people by the Justice Department, the FBI
and the INS.
None of this, however--not the fraudulent economic schemes,
not the war-bloated budget, and not Bush's "economic
stimulus" bill that gives real bucks to big business and not
even play money to laid-off workers--is turning the crisis
around.
TIME FOR STRUGGLE
It's time for struggle--the kind our parents and
grandparents put up to win unions and the basic social
safety net that has been shredded by both Republican and
Democratic administrations over the past two decades.
The liberal economist Paul Krugman, writing in the New York
Times on Jan. 4, pointed out that in this period, with the
notable exception of post-9/11, there has been growing
bitterness between the Democrats and Republicans in
Congress. Since the Reagan years they have become polarized,
says Krugman, and "are now further apart on economic issues
than they have been since the early 20th century."
But this is not because the two parties moved in opposite
directions. No, the Democratic Party has certainly not moved
to the left. It was Bill Clinton, after all, who killed
welfare. But the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, has
moved very far to the right, so that it is virtually
impossible to speak of a "liberal Republican" any more.
Then Krugman made an interesting point showing he
understands the relationship between politics and economics.
There's a material basis for this, he said. It lies in the
widening gap between the rich and everyone else. "The income
of families in the top 1 percent was 10 times that of
typical families in 1979, and 23 times and rising in 1997."
The Republican Party, of course, counts on these wealthy
people as its constituency, while the Democratic Party
appeals more to workers, to people of color, to women and to
those in the lesbian, gay, bi and trans communities. Krugman
didn't say it, but the big donors usually give large sums to
both parties in a general election, to hedge their bets. And
both parties are totally committed to this capitalist system-
-which really means to doing the bidding of the bankers and
bosses.
Krugman should have completed his thought. In the same
period that the rich were getting a lot richer, real
workers' wages actually declined as companies restructured,
downsized, outsourced, replaced full-time workers with part-
time and temporary workers, and cut benefits. And that was
during a boom. The current downturn, no matter how long it
lasts, will accelerate this process of the impoverishment of
the workers. It will be pushed further by the regressive tax
codes now in place and the huge expenditures on imperialist
adventures abroad along with a larger police-state apparatus
at home.
That is the material basis for a political shift among the
masses. Just as the wealthier sectors of the population
moved to the right the richer they got, the workers will
move to the left as they are forced to struggle to survive.
It's the other side of the same coin. This movement may not
be reflected in the politics of the Democratic Party, but
that doesn't mean it isn't real. It is one of the reasons
for the large number of workers who abstain from the
elections.
But it's what happens in the plants, the offices and the
streets that counts. Any progressive legislation in this
country has always followed mass struggles like the
organizing drives of the 1930s or the civil rights and Black
Liberation movements of the 1950s and 1960s.
A new generation of activists is eager to take on such a
struggle for social justice and an end to the global tyranny
of the giant corporations and banks. The issues before this
new movement are many-sided; exploitation in the U.S. has
been fiercest against those subject to racist and gender
oppression, so any movement against the corporate rulers
must put these issues at the top of its agenda.
The movement will be protesting the meeting of the World
Economic Forum in New York at the beginning of February. It
is an occasion when the super-rich themselves, by the
hundreds, gather to schmooze and scheme. In recent years the
WEF was held in Davos, Switzerland, where demonstrators
skied in across the Alps to circumvent tight security.
War, racism, sexism, gay bashing, recession and heightened
police powers--compelling reasons for putting everything
else aside and being there. If not now, when? If not us,
who?
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to
copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
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Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
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From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (wwnews)
Date: torstai 10. tammikuu 2002 07:11
Subject: [WW] "Ali" is Worth Seeing Despite Flaws
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 17, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
"ALI" IS WORTH SEEING DESPITE FLAWS
By Monica Moorehead
The movie "Ali," starring Will Smith and directed by Michael
Mann, is a heroic effort to interpret the multifaceted
persona of Muhammad Ali. It is an epic film that is being
embraced by the African American masses, whose patronage was
the main reason that the film broke box office records for
the biggest opening ever of a film debuting on Dec. 25.
This reviewer had the great fortune of seeing the film in
Atlanta, a predominantly Black city. The audience in that
particular theater was 99 percent African American. It was
refreshing to see the positive reactions that the movie
evoked, especially when Ali took on the big business media
by speaking about the racist injustices within U.S. society.
It took Smith two years to prepare for the role as the
legendary boxer. Smith has some brilliant moments in the
film, especially during the dazzling boxing scenes. But it
is an almost insurmountable task for any actor, no matter
how talented, to completely capture the charisma and depth
of the real Muham mad Ali--especially at his peak.
The film focused on how Muhammad Ali was a product of a very
revolutionary period in the U.S. during the 1960s. An early
scene shows Ali as a young teenager reacting emotionally to
news of the racist lynching of 15-year-old Emmett Till in
Mississippi.
Unfortunately, the film fails to show that after Ali won the
gold medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, he reportedly threw
the medal in the Ohio River. Ali carried out this symbolic
act to show that despite a "hero's" welcome, he still had to
endure racist segregation in his hometown of Louisville, Ky.
The film spends a great deal of time exploring Ali's
relationship with the Nation of Islam and especially the
bond that flourished between Ali and Malcolm X.
Ali was very much affected by the split that occurred
between Malcolm X and NOI leader and founder Elijah
Muhammad. In fact, Malcolm X played an instrumental role in
Ali's decision to change his "slave" name from Cassius Clay
to his righteous name.
Hollywood has earned a well-deserved reputation for
consciously using ideological and class divisions within
national liberation struggles in order to pit one current
against another. This film is no exception. And it fails to
explain that Malcolm X was moving towards an anti-
imperialist position that ran counter to the NOI's narrow,
patriarchal political program.
Ali did break with Malcolm X, who tried to guide the
political development of the boxer. Ali later regretted this
decision following Malcolm X's assassination. The film
alludes to the U.S. government's role behind the
assassination. It shows white agents wiretapping his home
and paying off his killers.
Despite the split with Malcolm X, Ali continued to identify
with the most militant wing of the Black liberation
movement. This wing was first influenced by Malcolm X and
later by the Black Panthers and Black Power activists.
Inside and outside the boxing ring, Ali exemplified Black
pride and resistance to the racist status quo.
Once Ali won the heavyweight title, he became a hero for
other Black athletes who converted to Islam and changed
their names--most notably basketball great Kareem Abdul-
Jabbar.
STANDING UP AGAINST PENTAGON WAR
In one of its best aspects, the film shows how Muhammad Ali
refused to be drafted to go and fight in the Vietnam War in
1967. He told the world that he had no quarrel with the
Vietnamese people, who were fighting a heroic national
liberation struggle against U.S. imperialism. His famous
words were, "No Vietnamese person ever called me a n----r."
For his unwavering stance, Ali was found guilty of draft
resistance and sentenced to five years in prison and a
$10,000 fine.
While Ali was legally appealing this unjust conviction, the
boxing association took away his license to fight in the
United States. The authorities also revoked his passport so
that he could not fight abroad. This was one of the great
injustices, among countless others, carried out by the U.S.
government against Ali.
For three years Ali was not allowed to make his livelihood
doing what he loved to do more than anything else. But that
did not stop him from traveling around the country to speak
on many college campuses about why he refused to fight in
Vietnam and why it is important to oppose racism.
Ali soon became a symbol for the U.S. anti-war movement. At
the same time, activists of all nationalities rallied to his
defense to demand that his boxing license be reinstated.
One of the most obvious flaws of this movie was its failure
to show the mass support for Ali's anti-war position. Mann
certainly had the opportunity to interject some historical
footage of the many demonstrations that took place in
support of Ali.
In fact, this mass support for Ali both here and abroad
played an instrumental role in the eventual U.S. Supreme
Court ruling that overturned the lower-court decision to
revoke the boxer's license.
The damage had already been done, however. Ali lost three of
the best years of a boxer's life. He was never the same
after that, although he did regain his heavyweight title in
1971 when he defeated Joe Frazier in Kinshasa, Zaire. One of
the enduring moments of the film is the overwhelming,
emotional outpouring of solidarity the masses of that
African country displayed in welcoming Ali to their homeland
for this historic fight.
All around the world, and especially here in the United
States, Ali was deeply respected and revered by many for his
courage to stand up against the Pentagon military aggression
against the people of Vietnam.
For that reason, it is an outrage that Hollywood executives
today are appealing to Ali to appear in film clips
supporting the current U.S. war drive.
According to a front-page article in the Dec. 23 New York
Times, industry moguls have formed Hollywood 9/11, in their
words, "to explain America and its war to the Muslim world."
The U.S. government has steadfastly refused to offer a
formal apology to Ali for the persecution it put him through
for his stand against the Vietnam War. Yet now the generals
and politicians and Hollywood executives would like to
exploit his earlier anti-war stance in order to give
"credibility" and justification to a war of aggression that
can't be justified.
- 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)
