A song for our times

“Go, go speculator trade up hard if the money's all right. Go, commodity traitor, the blind leads the blind leads the blind leads the blind.”

Angry anarchists from Australia released this song back in 1996, but its lyrics are more relevant than ever.

The album it is from, Power to the Poison People, had some good songs — such as one called International Mother Fuckers.

No prizes to guess what that is about — angry anarchists are not renowned for subtlety.

Venezuela's revolution in its second decade: profile of a people's movement

The video posted below is from a public meeting featureing Australian activists and Socialist Alliance members based in Caracas, Kiraz Janicke and Federico Fuentes.in Toronto, Canada on Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution.

Kiraz Janicke is a journalist for Venezuela Analysis, the foremost independent English-language source of news on Venezuela. She is editor of the Peru en Movimiento website and is a member of the Caracas bureau of Green Left Weekly.

Federico Fuentes is an associate of the Centro Internacional Miranda, an independent agency funded by Venezuela’s Ministry of Popular Power for Higher Education in Caracas. Together with Marta Harnecker, he leads two CIM study projects: “Political Instruments for the 21st Century” and “Popular Participation in Public Management”. He maintains the Bolivia Rising blog and is a member of the Caracas bureau of Green Left Weekly.

The meeting was sponsered by POIRG-Toronto; Center for Social Justice (CSJ),; Barrio Nuevo; Hands Off Venezuela/Louis Riel Bolivarian Circle; Latin America Solidarity Network-Toronto; Latin@s Canada; Socialist Project; Venezuela We Are With You Coalition;Toronto Bolivia Solidarity; and Toronto Haiti Action Committee.

The video is taken Socialist Project’s Left Steamed site.

Mark Steel radio broadcast about the Russian Revolution

Three-part radio broadcast on the Russian Revolution British socialist and comedian Mark Steel. He has done a number of fascinating and entertaining live shows, radio broadcasts and TV programs on various aspects of history and historical figures.

Haiti: natural and human-made disasters combine

Haiti, the poorest nation in the Americas, has been hit by devastating earthquake that has caused widespread destruction and killed as many as 100,000 people. Registering 7.0 on the Richter scale, it is the worst earthquake to hit the Caribbean half-island for more than 150 years.

Pat Robertson, US televangelist and leader of the US Christian right, offered the view on his TV show The 700 Club that this was due to the fact that Haitian revolutionaries, leading the world's first successful slave revolt and winning their independence from France in 1804, had made a pact with the devil.

Says Robertson: “They said, we will serve you, if you get us free …true story. And so the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal’.”

Presumably, African slaves could not possibly liberate themselves from a “civilised” (white) empire built on the miserable practice of enslaving human brings without the helping hand of the Prince of Darkness.

It has to be said, if Robertson is correct, then God is one hell of an arsehole and why anyone would want to follow such a psychopathic mass murderer is beyond me.

This earthquake, after all, follows the catastrophes unleashed on the Haitian people in terrible hurricanes in 2004 and 2008.

Robertson goes further, however, to blame the terrible poverty Haitian people have been condemned to on said deal with the devil.

But there is a much simpler explanation.

The terrible reality is the earthquake and its aftermath are a horrible combination of natural and human-made disasters. It is a natural disaster piled on top of a social disaster created by two centuries of brutal exploitation.

There are few countries in a worse position to cope with the consequences of such an earthquake.

In an opinion piece in the British Guardian, Peter Hallward wrote: “Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti's capital city on Tuesday afternoon, but it's no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone.

“Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another thoroughly manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence.”

Hallward explains the sorry history of a nation subjected to “the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression”.

He points out: “The noble ‘international community’ which is currently scrambling to send its ‘humanitarian aid’ to Haiti is largely responsible for the extent of the suffering it now aims to reduce.

“Ever since the US invaded and occupied the country in 1915, every serious political attempt to allow Haiti’s people to move (in former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's phrase) ‘from absolute misery to a dignified poverty’ has been violently and deliberately blocked by the US government and some of its allies.”

Read his full article, giving a useful overview of how Haiti got to where it is today.


Also, check out this timeline of US oppression in Haiti (1804-2005)

Also, check out this 2008 article from Green Left Weekly on the effects of trade and other economic policies enforced on Haiti: Haiti: Hunger made in the USA


You cal also read this 2008 Green Left review of Randall Robinson’s book An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President, (“the story of a great tragedy of recent times — the violent overthrow of Haiti’s elected president and government on February 29, 2004”).

Right now, Haiti needs immediate assistance. You can help by donating to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. Originally formed in 2004, it is a grassroots organisation working with people and organisations on the ground in Haiti and is helping coordinate badly needly relief at this terrible time.

Donations to such organisations are very badly needed, but as you donate, keep in mind Hallward’s conclusion:

“The same storms that killed so many [Haitians] in 2008 hit Cuba just as hard but killed only four people. Cuba has escaped the worst effects of neoliberal ‘reform’, and its government retains a capacity to defend its people from disaster.

“If we are serious about helping Haiti through this latest crisis then we should take this comparative point on board.

“Along with sending emergency relief, we should ask what we can do to facilitate the self-empowerment of Haiti's people and public institutions.

“If we are serious about helping we need to stop ­trying to control Haiti’s government, to pacify its citizens, and to exploit its economy.

“And then we need to start paying for at least some of the damage we've already done.”

Coup threats in Ecuador and Paraguay

Rafael Correa Denounces Honduran Style Coup Attempts in Ecuador

Paraguay: Watch out ... coup in sight


The offensive by US imperialism and the local oligarchic elite in Latin America, aimed at reversing the popular movements that have made important gains in recent years, is clearly continuing in the new year.

Last year was marked by the military coup against the elected government of Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, with mass resistance and brutal repression still continuing.

Zelaya had introduced popular measures like an increased minimum wage and joined the anti-imperialist political and trading bloc, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).

The US also announced plans for seven new military bases in Colombia, which other South American nations denounced as a serious war threat. Already this year, Venezuela has denounced violations of its airspace by US planes and also a plan by Colombia to manufacture an incident on its Venezuelan border as an excuse to provoke a war.

None of these threats should be taken lightly. Argentinean Marxist Luis Bilbao, working as an advisor to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, explained in a 2008 article what was at stake for imperialism and also for the popular movements.

He argued that the popular movements had grown so strong in consciousness and organisation in countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador that they could only be defeated through war.

And this is what we are seeing. The military coup in Honduras is the first shots on this war. The military bases and other threats from Colombia indicate future threats.

And, now we have indications of coup threats from two mopre countries: Ecuador and Paraguay. In both, right-wing political forces have been defeated electorally by forces promising pro-people changes. Ecuador has joined ALBA, while Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo has indicated his intention to join.

UNICEF stats on child poverty: Not one of them is Cuban

Left I on the News blog, run by Eli Stephens, put up this useful and revealing post on UNICEF’s new report on children and global poverty.

Not one of them is Cuban

UNICEF reports today that 146 million underweight children in the developing world, and that not one of them is Cuban. Indeed, UNICEF reports that Cuba is the only country in all of Latin America and the Caribbean that has eliminated severe child malnutrition.

As a reminder, there are other categories in which Cuba can claim the same distinction:

900 thousand children die every month because of poverty: not one of them is Cuban.

200 million children in the world sleep on the streets today. None of them is Cuban.

250 million children under 13 have to work in order to survive. None of them is Cuban.

More than one million children are forced into prostitution and tens of thousands have been victims of human organ trafficking. None of them is Cuban.

25 thousand children in the world die every day of measles, malaria, diphtheria, pneumonia and malnutrition. None of them is Cuban.

Cuba isn't perfect, or heaven on earth. It is a society which puts people's needs first, and it shows.

By the way, to compare Cuba to another "tropical island," consider today's news from Hawaii:

Public schools in Hawaii are closed most Fridays, rats scurry across bananas in an uninspected market, and there may not be enough money to run a Congressional election.

Nepalese Maoists seize Kathmandu, declare autonomous district government

The Nepalese Maoists, a mass force based on the impoverished majority, played a key role in the movement that overthrew the centuries old feudal monarchy and ushered in a republic. In elections to the constituent assembly, the Maoists won the most seats, securing around 1 million votes more than their nearest rival and around twice the seats. However, the old royal army refused to bey the new government and pro-elite parties conspired to bring the Maoist-led government down in May.

The strength of the Maoists since then appears to have grown, both in political support (with the new government seen as undemocratic and a puppet of the elite, India and the US) but organisationally. The Maoists have been building from the ground up, holding discussions throughout the country. In a show of strength, they shut down much of Kathmandu with mass demonstrations and blockades in November. The government, with little popular legitimacy, was blockaded and had to meet in secret.

(for info on this round of mass protests, read these two Green Left Weekly articles: Nepal: New uprising builds
and Nepal: The struggle for civil supremacy)

Now, they have begun launching "autonomous zones" — be areas with parallel governments and structures based on the oppressed, especially oppressed nationalities.

Maoist-led land seizures by peasants against large landholders have increased, Mike Ely reports.

But most dramatically, in recent days, the Maoists have launched mass demonstrations to seize the capital Kathmandu in order to declare it, too, an autonomous zone — for the Newa people, a national minority. they have declared a parallel government for the district. They intend to repeat this process in other areas in a massive and growing challenge to the central government's authority — which looks increasingly weak.

Mike Ely provides some useful analysis of what is happened here.

Check out this impressive short video of the Maoist night-time torch-lit march through Kathmandu.




The following report appeared in economictimes.indiatimes.com.

Red alert: Maoists seize Kathmandu

KATHMANDU: Maoists on Wednesday announced the seizure of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu declaring it an autonomous region, after storming into heavily guarded Durbar Square, in a development that could trigger a new political confrontation.Waving red flags, 5000 militant cadres forced their way into the Durbar Square city centre where their chief Prachanda declared Kathmandu valley as the Newa Autonomous State. The Maoists, who have already announced formation of parallel governments in nine districts and paid little heed to warnings by the Nepali Congress, to desist from such tactics as it may lead to “biggest political and social confrontation”.

Though the Maoist takeover was more of a symbolic nature, their choice of the capital city sent shock-waves in the ruling CPN-UML-led 22-party alliance. Prachanda lit a traditional lamp to declare Kathmandu as Newa Autonomous State by flying a banner that read “Newa Autonomous State” as hundreds of balloons were let off.

A gun salute was also given and the city declared an autonomous state amidst performance of traditional music.

“Our move is not intended to disrupt the peace process or block the constitution making task,” Prachanda proclaimed adding it was to “make people aware about federalism and strengthen the republican system”. The Maoist supremo claimed that “regressive forces were hatching a conspiracy against the republican system and trying to reverse the change”.

Other Maoist leader who spoke on the occasion defended their move to declare various areas as autonomous regions rejected the claim that it would derail the peace process and lead to disintegration of the nation. The party is planning to declare altogether 13 autonomous states in the country by December 18.