joe hill by phil ochs by billy bragg

Joe Hill - Phil Ochs - Billy Bragg. That's quite a trio right there.

Don't mourn, organize!

Read More

viva wisconsin libre

Narayan Mahon for The New York Times

As the senators walked around the Capitol square, where one of the largest protests in what has been a daily outpouring of union employees and supporters was under way, the crowd pressed in to shake hands and shout words of encouragement. Many called the senators by name, a fact that caught some off guard.

Senator Timothy Cullen was visibly moved and called it his greatest experience as a public official. “We heard about how strongly they felt,” he said. “But you have to be here to feel it.”

The size of the crowd, which the Madison police estimated at around 100,000, and the amount of positive energy was striking, coming a day after the long battle over the bill was lost, though legal efforts were under way to keep it from taking effect.

For weeks the rhythmic chanting of protesters has filled this city like a heartbeat, proof that despite the lack of legislative power, the political left in this state is still a visible, and audible, presence. At the very moment that the noise was expected to fade in disappointment, that thumping proof of life — the staccato refrain of “This is what democracy looks like,” was the most popular of the chants — continued with renewed vigor.

It's almost enough to make me miss the US. Almost.

Read More

students and farmers join the fight in wisconsin; state senator admits budget is really about hurting obama

If the Wisconsin state senators who cast their surprise votes on Wednesday thought they had fired the last shot in this battle, by now they may know better. The 14 absent Democratic legislators, emboldened by relentless public outcry, are challenging the legality of the vote.

That public outcry is only getting louder and stronger, as more ordinary people recognize that they have more in common with each other than with the corporate-controlled elite. Here are two exciting and inspiring developments of the ever-growing resistance.

Hundreds of students at multiple Madison middle and high schools walked out of class Thursday to participate in protests at the state Capitol.

And students are planning another walkout for 2 p.m. Friday, organizer and East High School senior Jesse Banks said.

"There's been a lot of claims that we're wasting educational times and the student walkouts are counterproductive," Banks said. In response, the walkout is scheduled during the last hour and is expected to include a rally at Library Mall where high school students will discuss a Republican bill that dismantles public sector employee collective bargaining.

"The plan is to use it as a tool for education," Banks said.

Banks joined about 600 students who walked out of East High School around 10 a.m. Thursday to join protests of Assembly action on the collective bargaining bill, which was passed unexpectedly by the Senate Wednesday night.

. . .

As many as 800 West High School students also marched to the Capitol around 10 a.m., senior Jacob Fiksel said. . .

"I want to be part of stopping this," he said, adding that the students at the rally were excused from class by their parents.

Tomorrow, Saturday, March 12, members of the Wisconsin Farmers Union will descend on the capitol this Saturday - riding their tractors.

The Farmer Labor Tractorcade will bring tractors and solidarity to the Capitol to fight for labor rights and a just state budget. Rural communities will be disproportionately hurt by the cuts to education and Badgercare. Farmers in Wisconsin stand with state workers and all working and middle class families in the state. The event is sponsored by Family Farm Defenders and the Wisconsin Farmers Union. All farmers - and eaters - welcome and encouraged to come!

For more information and to learn how you can support Tractorcade, go to this Facebook page or the Family Farm Defenders website.

Meanwhile, ThinkProgress and Raw Story report that Wisconsin State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald made a bit of a slip on Fox News: he spoke the truth!

State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R), the Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader, must have forgotten his talking points while appearing on Megyn Kelly's Fox News show. This afternoon he admitted on-air what many liberals have long-suspected: rescinding collective bargaining rights from state workers is Wisconsin is as much about the 2012 presidential election as Wisconsin's 2011 budget shortage.

As first reported by ThinkProgress, Fitzgerald told Kelly: "If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin." [You can watch the clip here.]

Read More

must-watch video: michael moore to wisconsin protesters: america is not broke

Michael Moore gives the progressive troops in Wisconsin a great boost.

"America is not broke, and neither is Wisconsin. . . . America is awash with wealth, it's just not in your hands." Don't miss this, it's very good.

I wish Moore had mentioned the trillions of dollars the US is spending on the largest military budget in history. But it's still great stuff, and worth watching the whole thing.

Story here on TPM.

Read More

ivaw urges national guard to refuse to move against organizing workers

From IVAW, on Common Dreams:

Iraq Veterans Against the War to Troops: “We Are Public Employees Too!”

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) calls on all U.S. military service members to refuse and resist any mobilization against workers organizing to protect their basic rights. IVAW stands in solidarity with the multitude gathered in Madison, Wisconsin and many other cities to defend their unions.

by Iraq Veterans Against the War

We believe military service members are public employees too. It is dishonorable to suggest that military personnel should be deployed against teachers, health care providers, firefighters, police officers, and other government employees, many of whom are themselves serving in the National Guard.

Workers with prior military service often seek jobs in the public sector because government agencies are the only employers that follow hiring preferences for veterans as a matter of law. According to the Army Times, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are unemployed at a rate of 15.2%, higher than the national average. The picture is even worse for African American veterans who face nearly double the rate of unemployment. Protecting the rights of workers in public sector unions ensures that veterans have a chance to secure a decent job, earning a living wage and good benefits.

Madison, WI is ground zero for a fight that will likely define the relationship between public sector unions and the governments that employ them for decades to come. Similar to the federal government's defeat of the 1980 Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike, which signaled the beginning of a thirty-year decline of real wages, benefits, and union membership for private sector workers, what happens in Madison today is likely to affect whether governments across the country can destroy a decent standard of living for public sector workers in the future.

Governor Scott Walker recently stated that he was preparing the National Guard to respond to “labor unrest” following the introduction of union-busting legislation in Wisconsin. Governor Walker has attempted to justify this attack on collective bargaining by pointing to state budget shortfalls. Missing from this explanation is an acknowledgment that these deficits have been created and exacerbated by the ongoing trillion dollar wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, federal and local governments across the U.S. are cutting back on the public sector.

Troops have been called out in the past against worker strikes, campus protests, and urban uprisings. However, recent events in Egypt and numerous examples from U.S. history have shown that service members have the power to side with the people and refuse to use violence against their fellow citizens. Troops activated for duty in Madison, WI will have to decide if public sector workers are really the enemy. IVAW says they are not and that troops should support workers fighting for decent jobs, wages, and benefits.

We know firsthand that the U.S. military is already overextended from a decade at war. Through our Operation Recovery campaign, we have been fighting for the right of our troops to heal, rather than being involuntarily redeployed with severe physical and psychological injuries. Adding another mission to an already overburdened military for the purposes of suppressing the rights of workers is irresponsible and not worthy of our service.

If you are a service member facing mobilization or know someone in the military who is you can contact IVAW via email at ivaw@ivaw.org or by phone at (646) 723-0989, M-F 10am-6pm EST.

Read More

democracy now: inside the wisconsin state capitol

Here's a brilliant and inspiring video from "Democracy Now!", bringing you inside the Wisconsin State Capitol.



These are thrilling times, watching people all over the world discover their voices and their power.

How 'bout it, Canada?

Read More

wisconsin police say "we are workers, too"

Last night's news from Wisconsin was the best yet. Governor Scott Walker ordered the capitol building cleared of sleeping bags, saying he would close the building for the weekend. Police said: No.

The union representing Wisconsin's police officers issued this statement (click to enlarge):

Law enforcement officers know the difference between right and wrong, and Governor Walker's attempt to eliminate the collective voice of Wisconsin's devoted public employees is wrong. That is why we have stood with our fellow employees each day and why we will be sleeping among them tonight.

When police officers recognize that they have more in common with other workers than with the state whose edicts they are asked to carry out, we are really onto something. These cops are the civilian equivalent of war resisters. More power to them!

Read More

scott walker reveals himself to not-david koch; indiana official reveals his fascism on twitter, calls for protesters to be shot

Scott Walker, the embattled union-busting Governor of Wisconsin, had a little chat with his favourite ultra-rightwing financier, David Koch. Or so he thought. From AMERICAblog:

Last night, the Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, delivered an address to the people of his state. But, yesterday, Walker also got on the phone with someone who really matters to him - billionaire GOP activist David Koch, who is behind much of what is happening in Wisconsin, but also funds far-right GOP activism nationwide. Well, that's who Walker thought he was talking to. . . . .

Ian Murphy, a blogger at Buffalo Beast, managed to talk to Governor Scott Walker by pretending to be Koch. . . . [Ed note: the Buffalo Beast site is down. The post, called "Koch Whore", should be here. The call has been confirmed by the governor's office.]

More details from the call are emerging - Greg Sargent at the Washington Post has a few:

* Walker doesn't bat an eye when Koch describes the opposition as "Democrat bastards."

* Walker reveals that he and other Republicans are looking at whether they can charge an "ethics code violation if not an outright felony" if unions are paying for food or lodging for any of the Dem state senators.

* Walker says he's sending out notices next week to some five or six thousand state workers letting them know that they are "at risk" of layoffs. "Beautiful, beautiful," the Koch impersonator replies. "You gotta crush that union."

Listen so you'll know that Walker really is one of Koch's minions. And, this is about crushing unions and workers. In fact, you'll hear Governor Walker admit that he "thought about" it when fake Koch suggested the idea of "planting some troublemakers" among the protesters in Madison. Were they going to come in on horses and camels?

AMERICAblog has the audio and the transcript: here, and scroll down.

Walker's frank talk is small potatoes compared to the deputy attorney general of Indiana calling for the Wisconsion protesters to be massacred. From Mother Jones:

On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building­ - something that didn't end up happening­ - one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."

From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was [Jeff Cox], a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.

Cox says liberals hate police, but it looks like this legal eagle isn't too keen on the US Constitution, with all those guarantees of free speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and all that silly stuff. And a man advocating the use of deadly force against peaceful protesters is calling those protesters "thugs". Project much?

Update from Mother Jones:

Update: The Indiana attorney general's office has confirmed to Mother Jones that Jeff Cox was terminated Wednesday. The full statement and screen captures of the now-defunct blog re posted here.

Both items with thanks to James.

Read More

from egypt to wisconsin: solidarity pizzas

Have you seen this? I love it! From Slate, via Politico:

In an act of intercontinental solidarity, an Egyptian has ordered a pizza for Wisconsin protesters, reports Politico. The call from Africa is just one of many streaming into the Madison, Wisc., pizza parlor Ian's from all over the world. So far, people from 12 countries and 38 states have rung up looking to help get free pizza to the Wisconsin protesters clustered in the Capitol. On Saturday, Ian's distributed more than 1,000 free slices and sent 300 pizzas to the Capitol. The trend continued on Sunday, as staff member fielded calls from as far away as Turkey, Korea, Finland, China, and Australia. The trend began when a mother of a University of Wisconsin student called in offering to donate $200 to feed the people occupying the Capitol. The pizza chain's postings on Twitter and Facebook soon led to so many donations that they had to shut down on Saturday night.

Also: Libya! What atrocity. What courage. (War resisters there, too.) Fight on, Libya.

Read More

signs of life in the lower 48: congressperson jackie speier and wisconsin labour: we are with you!

I've been breathlessly following the news from Wisconsin for a week, and it just keeps getting better. Canadian readers may not know that the capital of this once (and future?) liberal US state has been a battleground for labour rights and public services, ever since Governor Scott Walker declared war on public-sector workers.

First, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) announced a state budget plan that strips state workers of nearly all their collective bargaining rights, cuts pay and benefits and says there will be no negotiations.

Today, he took it even further: He announced he has alerted the National Guard to be ready in case state workers strike or rise in protest. He told the Associated Press he’s been working on contingency plans for months.

The last time the National Guard was used against public workers was the Postal Workers strike in 1970. The last time the Guard was called out in Wisconsin to quell a labor dispute was the 1934 Kohler strike by the UAW.

A few days later, more than 10,000 protesters descended on the capitol building in Madison, carrying signs and chanting "recall Walker". Inside, thousands crowded into the rotunda and watched a feed of the public hearing on the governor’s proposal. Firefighters joined them in solidarity. Then nurses. And construction workers. Then teachers, as one of the states largest school districts was shut down by a teacher sick-out.

Today, the protests were estimated at 40,000 people. Democrat state legislators "fled" the state, but this wasn't their party's trademark cowardice: it was staged to deny the state's Republican-controlled Senate enough votes to pass the anti-labour bill. (It was thought that if the Democrats were still in Wisconsin, state police could force them to return to vote!)

Faith groups in Illinois offered the lawmakers sanctuary, and the most recent report is that the Republicans have quit until Tuesday.

Supposedly formerly liberal states like Wisconsin are now havens for reactionary populism. Not so fast?

* * * *

The US House of Representatives voted to de-fund Planned Parenthood today, a horrific salvo on the war against women (my extended thoughts here). Whether or not this becomes law, California Representative Jackie Speiers made millions of us proud by speaking about her own abortion during the House debate.

HuffPo:

Rep. Jackie Speier listened to debate on the House floor on Thursday evening as a Republican Rep. Chris Smith read a long, detailed description of an abortion and a "mangled image of a dead, tiny baby." Finally, Speier stood up and told her colleagues she had undergone an abortion in the early 1990s following a complication nearly four months into her pregnancy.

"As the night wore on, the vitriol and grotesque commentary got worse and worse," Speier, a second-term Democrat from California, told HuffPost. "I sat there thinking, none of these men on the other side have even come close to experiencing this, and yet they can pontificate about what it's like. It just overwhelmed me."

Speier underwent an abortion in her early 40s, while she was serving in the California State Assembly. The procedure used to terminate the pregnancy was the same type that Smith's book described. As she listened, Speier said she became more emotional and made the decision to speak out.

"This was a wanted pregnancy, it was the second miscarriage I had had," she told HuffPost. "What they express doesn't come close to the experience that a woman goes through when she is losing a baby or when a pregnancy is terminated. It's a painful, gut-wrenching loss."

She said she had spoken publicly about her experience with abortion only once before, while debating late-term abortion in the California state legislature.

After she told her story, Speier said many colleagues -- both male and female -- offered their support, some saying she put tears in their eyes. One Republican told her the amendment was inappropriate, she said, while Smith, whose remarks caused her to speak up, said nothing.

As a longtime supporter of abortion rights, Speier said she was frustrated to see a debate over funding descend into a moral debate over a woman's right to choose. The amendment under debate, proposed by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), was to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funds -- even though they are already barred from being used for abortion.

Speier crossed a seemingly uncrossable boundary. Speaking publicly about one's own abortion is the last taboo, tackled by feminists in various projects, but almost never heard in the mainstream. Speier will receive hate mail, for sure, but she'll also receive an outpouring of support, along with the silent gratitude of millions of women who are thinking, "Yes! It's about time!"

Read More

action alert part 4 of 4: the people vs u.s. steel

Tomorrow, January 29, labour and solidarity contingents from all over Ontario will pour into Hamilton for a major labour demonstration: The People vs. U.S. Steel.

Many of my friends will be on buses from Toronto, and I wish I could be there with them. But we can all show our support, because the fight for decent jobs is a fight for us all. A letter to your local newspaper, a letter to US Steel, an email to Stephen Harper's office, an email of support to Local 1005, can all make a difference.

Workers at the U.S. Steel plant have been locked out of their jobs for three months - and counting. Until recently, although they are involuntarily out of work, they were denied EI benefits!

These workers were once employed by Stelco, a Canadian company. When U.S. Steel took over Stelco in 2007, it negotiated terms with the Province of Ontario as a condition of sale. Surprise, surprise, U.S. Steel now reneges on those terms, seeking to deprive 900 workers and 9,000 pensioners of the pensions that were in their contracts. The lockout is an attempt to force the workers to concede.

To understand what's at stake, please read this piece by Ken Neumann, National Director, Canada, United Steelworkers union:

Louie Fiori worked in the Stelco steel mills and shops in Hamilton for 40 years. It was hard work, often in difficult conditions. But it paid an honest dollar and allowed Louie and his wife, Mary, to buy a home and build a life in Hamilton.

Over his four-decade career at Stelco, Fiori was involved in numerous contract negotiations, as well as four strikes, as a member of the United Steelworkers. In total, the Steelworkers negotiated 17 contracts at Stelco’s Hamilton operations from 1946 to 2007.

More often than not during those negotiations, Fiori and his fellow Steelworkers sacrificed wage increases and other gains in order to build a pension plan that would someday allow them to retire with dignity.

In other words, the indexed pensions received today by retired Stelco workers are not gifts bestowed by a benevolent employer. They represent deferred income, fully earned by workers over decades of sacrifice and hard-fought battles in collective bargaining.

When Louie Fiori died last year, his wife, Mary, began receiving a reduced widow’s pension, as provided under the plan negotiated by the Steelworkers.

Today, Mary receives a pension barely topping $500 a month. It’s a modest sum, to be sure, but it would be much less had Steelworkers not negotiated inflation protection for their pensions more than 20 years ago.

Without indexing, Mary Fiori’s pension today would be less than $400 a month. Other Stelco pensioners would be even worse off. As the real value of their pensions declined with each passing year, they would be fighting a losing battle to keep up with the rising costs of everything from food to home heating.

It is important to know this history, to better understand the travesty of U.S. Steel’s lockout of its Hamilton workforce and its disgraceful attack on the modest pensions of thousands of seniors like Mary Fiori.

It also is crucial to remember that, to secure government approval to buy Stelco in 2007, U.S. Steel made legal commitments that the takeover would produce a “net benefit” to Canada. U.S. Steel’s pension obligations were very well-known when it bought Stelco and made its commitment.

In the ensuing years, of course, U.S. Steel has infamously broken its promises, such as maintaining Canadian employment and production levels. It has imposed multiple shutdowns of Canadian operations, provoked labour disputes and thrown thousands of Canadian workers out of their jobs, all the while shifting production to American facilities.

Those broken promises were so flagrant U.S. Steel became the first foreign corporation (out of more than 1,600) to be taken to court by the Canadian government for breach of the Investment Canada Act.

Perhaps the most reprehensible betrayal of its net-benefit promise to Canada, however, is U.S. Steel’s attack on thousands of vulnerable senior citizens.

In fact, a major reason U.S. Steel locked out its 900 Hamilton workers on Nov. 7 was to try to coerce current union members to consent to the elimination of pension indexing for 9,000 pensioners.

If U.S. Steel had its way, pensioners such as Mary Fiori would lose the meagre annual inflationary increases to their pensions. With each passing year, they would find it harder and harder to make ends meet, and they would suffer accordingly.

The locked-out members of United Steelworkers Local 1005 have said no to U.S. Steel’s breaking of commitments to our pensioners. They also have said no to U.S. Steel’s attempt to deny future workers a secure pension plan.

The Steelworkers don’t believe a foreign multinational should treat our senior citizens so callously when they buy our industries and resources.

On Saturday, citizens of this city will converge on City Hall to support the pensioners of this community. Together, we will demand U.S. Steel meet its obligation to negotiate a fair deal with Hamilton’s workers.

This drama in Hamilton is playing out in many communities across Canada. Saturday’s action is standing up for Hamilton and every community being devastated by a foreign corporate takeover.

Our communities must come first. More and more, we Canadians must say no to broken corporate promises, and call on our government to ensure foreign takeovers provide real, lasting benefits to our families, pensioners and communities.

The People vs. U.S. Steel: Hamilton City Hall, 71 Main Street West, beginning at 1:00 p.m.

Read More

today: call your mp: urge them to support bill c-300, the responsible mining act

The world held its breath and shed tears of joy two weeks ago when the Chilean miners were rescued, but all over the world, people risk their lives and their health under similar circumstances, every single day. More than 60% of mines worldwide are owned by companies with headquarters in Canada. You can help create better protections for miners - and for the earth - by contacting your MP today.

C-330, the Responsible Mining Bill, introduced by MP John McKay (Scarborough-Guildwood), would force Canadian extraction companies operating in other countries to use Canadian environmental and labour standards. It would give the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade a mandate to hold corporations accountable for their practices, and give the House of Commons and the Senate oversight responsibility.

Bill C-300 goes to third reading tomorrow, October 27. It passed second reading by only four votes (137-133). You can be sure the extraction industries - gas, oil and mining - are doing their best to kill it in third reading. Your MP needs to hear from you.

If you know anything about mining, you know that the people who do the grueling, incredibly dangerous work need all the protections they can get. If you've never imagined what it might be like to work in a mine, I recommend George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier. For the links between mining, imperialism and colonialism - and what mining does to the countries whose riches are stripped for the profits' of others - try Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America. And for how change is created, and at what cost, John Sayles' movie Matewan might be a good place to start.

But don't wait until you've digested those classics. Contact your MP today. If passed, Bill C-300 will:

put in place human rights, labour, and environmental standards that Canadian extractive companies receiving government support must live up to when they operate in developing countries;

create a complaints mechanism that will allow members of affected communities abroad, or Canadians, to file complaints against companies that are not living up to those standards;

create a possible sanction for companies that are found to be out of compliance with the standards, in the form of loss of government financial and political support.

The only people who oppose this bill are those who profit from extraction. Why should their profits be decreased by silly concerns like clean air, clean drinking water, safety standards, or supporting former workers dying of mesothelioma?

For more detail, see Mining Watch Canada, and find out how your MP voted on C-300 in second reading here.

The vote is tomorrow - making today the perfect time to call your MP and urge them to vote in favour of this important bill.

More info:

Montreal Gazette: Canadian mining companies need tougher rules

The Mark: Bill C-300 is Mining for Change

Undermining Guate, a blog about the impact of Canadian mines in Guatemala: Why Canada Needs Bill C-300

Bill C-300 on Facebook

Please call your MP today.

Read More

the pinkwashing of parliament: we need less pink and more green

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and our government wants us to remember that by turning on pink lights on Parliament Hill, through the Estée Lauder Companies' Breast Cancer Awareness Global Illuminations Initiative.

So please buy cosmetic products that are laden with toxins, sold in packaging made of future landfill, and perpetuate the harmful myth that the signs of aging are shameful and must be concealed. Because if you do, a corporation that profits from this deception will donate a tiny portion of their profits to cancer research! Hurrah! What more could we want to fight cancer?

Pinkwashing has become positively ubiquitous, and we're all supposed to cheer that more companies are showing "corporate responsibility". If you criticize this massive corporate shell game, even progressive people will defend it, because it's better that they donate than not, right?

Just don't peek behind the pink curtain. Are these corporations actually responsible? Does the manufacture of their products harm the environment? (Hint: are they produced in countries where there are environmental standards, and are those standards enforced?) Are their employees well compensated and have job security? (Hint: why is it so much cheaper to manufacture in Asia?) Do the companies practice unnecessary testing on animals? Do the products themselves contain carcinogens?

Chances are you don't know the answers to these questions. Unless we do our own research, we know nothing of most companies' supposed responsibility. But they're sticking pink ribbons on their packaging. What more do you need?

Hey, I got an idea. If you want to donate to cancer research, don't buy a tube full of unpronounceable chemicals. If you want to donate to cancer research, donate to cancer research.

Mainstream media is awash with exhortations to reduce our risk of cancer - always full of qualifiers like "somewhat reduce," "possibly prevent" and "some cancers" - but rarely asks why cancer has become so incredibly common. Getting more exercise, wearing sunscreen and not smoking are healthy choices, but the focus remains on individual attempts to avoid disease - rather than collective attempts to reduce the skyrocketing cancer rates overall. It's like we're insisting on wearing seat belts while allowing cars to be sold without brakes.

In this sense, pinkwashing becomes just another advertising sleight-of-hand to divert attention from the questions we should be asking. Dr. J at "your heart's on the left" writes:

When it comes to prevention, the dominant medical model is highly selective in what carcinogens it chooses to blame. The continual rise in lung cancer is blamed solely on the dissemination of [tobacco], but cigarettes are not the only chemical to enter existence over the last century. According to the Canadian Auto Workers Prevent Cancer Campaign:

"The International Agency for the Research of Cancer has identified 24 substances that cause lung cancer in humans. Twenty-three were determined by the excess mortality of workers who were exposed to these substances. The 24th, of course, is tobacco. Why do we hear so much about the dangers of tobacco but so little about the other 23 lung carcinogens? The reason is that tobacco is claimed to be a 'lifestyle' choice, so industry and the medical profession can blame the victims. The other 23 known causes of lung cancer are related to industry. They can be prevented and removed from our workplaces and our environment."

Dr. J's post calls out the gargantuan hypocrisy of a government blathering about cancer "communication" while stonewalling all criticism of the carcinogenic stew that is the tar sands. For more from this perspective, please read "Cancer awareness: stop the tar sands, good green jobs for all".

I wrote about my loathing of the deceptive link between advertising and charitable donations in a popular wmtc post called "you can't find inner peace in a bottle (of iced tea)" (see second half of post).

For more on pinkwashing, see Think Before You Pink:

Think Before You Pink, a project of Breast Cancer Action, launched in 2002 in response to the growing concern about the overwhelming number of pink ribbon products and promotions on the market. The campaign calls for more transparency and accountability by companies that take part in breast cancer fundraising, and encourages consumers to ask critical questions about pink ribbon promotions.

Don't just consume. Ask.

Read More

for-profit libraries creeping into u.s.

The march of privatization goes on. In a country with money for war and nothing else - where most corporations get taxpayer subsidies but pay zero taxes themselves - corporate interests profit from empty public coffers. And in some cases, they profit from public ignorance.

A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country’s fifth-largest library system.

Now the company, Library Systems & Services, has been hired for the first time to run a system in a relatively healthy city, setting off an intense and often acrimonious debate about the role of outsourcing in a ravaged economy.

A $4 million deal to run the three libraries here is a chance for the company to demonstrate that a dose of private management can be good for communities, whatever their financial situation. But in an era when outsourcing is most often an act of budget desperation — with janitors, police forces and even entire city halls farmed out in one town or another — the contract in Santa Clarita has touched a deep nerve and begun a round of second-guessing.

Can a municipal service like a library hold so central a place that it should be entrusted to a profit-driven contractor only as a last resort — and maybe not even then?

“There’s this American flag, apple pie thing about libraries,” said Frank A. Pezzanite, the outsourcing company’s chief executive. He has pledged to save $1 million a year in Santa Clarita, mainly by cutting overhead and replacing unionized employees. “Somehow they have been put in the category of a sacred organization.”

. . . .

L.S.S.I. got its start 30 years ago developing software for government use, then expanded into running libraries for federal agencies. In the mid-1990s, it moved into the municipal library market, and now, when ranked by number of branches, it places immediately after Los Angeles County, New York City, Chicago and the City of Los Angeles.

The company is majority owned by Islington Capital Partners, a private equity firm in Boston, and has about $35 million in annual revenue and 800 employees. Officials would not discuss the company’s profitability.

Some L.S.S.I. customers have ended their contracts, while in other places, opposition has faded with time. In Redding, Calif., Jim Ceragioli, a board member of the Friends of Shasta County Library, said he initially counted himself among the skeptics.

But he has since changed his mind. “I can’t think of anything that’s been lost,” Mr. Ceragioli said.

The library in Redding has expanded its services and hours. And the volunteers are still showing up — even if their assistance is now aiding a private company. “We volunteer more than ever now,” Mr. Ceragioli said.

Key phrase here: "...while in other places, opposition has faded with time." That's how it works.

This guy volunteers for a private, for-profit company and he can't think of anything that's been lost? Maybe his pride and common sense are under the bed with the lost socks. When library hours and services are cut because they're not sufficiently profitable, he won't find them there, either.

That "overhead" they cut is another word for your services. Why would you rather put money into shareholders' pockets than into good jobs in your own community? The for-profit library isn't going to cost any less, and you won't see a penny of the profit it turns.

There are many services that - done properly - can never and should never create profit. Health care and education are tied for first on that list. Public access to information is another.

Read More

60 million striking indian workers made invisible by mainstream media

Did you know that, earlier this month, 60 million workers in India went on strike? The walk-outs shut down the country's banking, insurance, telecommunications, power and transit industries, among other sectors. One million workers walked out in the banking sector alone!

Millions of workers in India stayed away from work to protest against rising prices, job losses and state asset sales, forcing banks to shut offices in some cities and airlines to cancel flights.

“Persistently high inflation has made life difficult for a common man,” said Gurudas Dasgupta, general secretary at the All India Trade Union Congress. ‘Banking and civil aviation are the worst affected sectors so far.”

Today’s strike, the second in two months, affected business mainly in states ruled by communist parties. Inflation has held near ten percent this year, eroding incomes of almost three quarters of the population who live on less than $2 a day. A nationwide strike in July, called by the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, shut schools and offices and grounded flights.

“The strike is quite widespread” in the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, said M.K. Pandhe, vice president at the Centre of Indian Trade Unions. “Telecom, insurance, defense, banking, coal, power, port and road transport sectors have been affected.” Pandhe estimates about 60 million workers are on strike.

About one million bank employees in India joined the strike today to protest the central bank’s plan to offer new banking licenses and norms that allow foreign investment in the nation’s lenders, said Vishwas Utagi, secretary of the All India Bank Employees Association, the largest trade union for banking staff in the nation.

What's that you say? You didn't know about this? Neither did I. As my friend who posted this on Facebook said, "Thanks for missing this, Canadian mainstream media".

Little wonder you didn't read about 60 million Indian workers striking, since you probably don't hear much about protracted strikes going on right in your own backyard. A series of union solidarity actions this week were meant to bring attention to a strike at Engineered Coated Products, where more than 80 Steelworkers have been on strike for two years. ECP has instituted massive cuts in wages and benefits, and rather than negotiate in good faith, hired scabs and goons a "private security force" to continue operations.

At the Marxism conference earlier this year, it was thrilling to hear Kostas Katarahiasan, an anti-capitalist activist from Greece - a physician - describe the massive general strikes that shut down his country after austerity measures were announced. How about a 30% cut in wages and pensions, while corporate taxes decrease and VAT (i.e. GST) rises? Union leaders were useless or obstructionist, so the people took matters into their own hands, forming committees, discussing a plan of action, organizing, organizing, organizing - and walking out in huge numbers. (There is audio of this talk here, but I think most people find that an inconvenient format. I am still waiting to get video of this inspiring talk, and will then blog my extensive notes.)

Following those actions in Greece, massive strikes of millions of people have taken place in many European countries, and there is a continent-wide general strike planned for September 29.

Here in North America, we accept these "austerity budgets" like sheep to the slaughter. The glimmer of hope I thought I saw in the anti-prorogation rally and during the G20 are quashed through fear tactics and widespread obedience.

In the US, ordinary working-class people cling to an ideal of individualism, preferring to blame immigrants or the party that is slightly less right-wing - which they call "socialist" - for their problems. Canadians whine about all political parties and take no action of their own - except to excoriate public workers who are desperately trying to preserve quality services and good jobs.

There's another lesson here, one that cannot be learned often enough. Don't look to CBC, Globe and Mail, and CTV to tell you what's happening in the world. Corporate media protects corporate interests.

Read More

this is not a happy day for labour

Sid Ryan, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour:

Today, there are 250,000 fewer full time jobs and 355, 000 more unemployed workers. That’s only half the picture. Thousands of “new” jobs being created are part-time, contract, unstable, unpredictable and low waged. This explosion of precarious work is fast becoming a new normal.

Life is getting a lot tougher since this transfer of wealth and it is getting much more so.

. . . .

Since its inception, the labour movement has always been the key force in society seeking to restore a balance of power – not just for their own members but for all working people. The accomplishments and victories have fundamentally changed millions of lives: Medicare, pensions, weekends, minimum labour standards, social housing, social services are there for the benefit of the overwhelming majority of us and not the elite few.

Our recent and first victory in the campaign to ensure retirement security for all Canadians through an expanded Canada Pension Plan (CPP) is the result of an intense and widespread campaign. Average Canadians joined with us to convince governments that we have a right to a future that enables us, at the end of our work lives, to live in dignity and health. That significant first step now has to be followed up to make sure the CPP cap and contributions are adequate.

As thousands of trade unionists gather across Ontario to celebrate this Labour Day, we renew on our determination to do just that and to restore a balance of power so that the vast majority of Ontarians are able to profit from their work.

Won’t you join us?

Read it here.

Read More

what i'm reading double-header, part one: bright-sided

I didn't have quite the read-a-palooza I was hoping for this summer, but that was inevitable, as I was juggling many pursuits and my concentration is often very limited. Despite that, I did read a small pile of books. I can probably squeeze in one more before school begins, then my next personal reading will be in December.

Most recently, I read two books that I want to blog about: Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich and This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson. I borrowed both from the library, but I plan to buy the paperbacks when they're issued.

* * * *

Bright-sided is classic Ehrenreich: easy to read, impeccably researched, grounded in personal experience, and an astute commentary on the US political and social milieu. The author's point of departure is her own experience with cancer, when she found herself bombarded with messages not only counseling, but demanding, positive thinking. She found that there was no space to express very natural, justifiable feelings of fear, worry, exhaustion, frustration and physical pain. Instead, there was an unrelenting and omnipresent drive to shame people into repressing those feelings, and - even worse - to blame persistent illness on the sufferer's "bad attitude". With absolutely no evidence to support it, one belief blankets the culture of cancer in the US: positive thinking will heal you. If your treatment isn't working, you must not be thinking positively enough.

From there Ehrenreich examines a culture that seeks to isolate and individualize every misfortune. And why not? If chronically unemployed and under-employed people look at the system that oppresses them, they might band together and work for change. It's far more expedient to preach that our destiny is in our own hands, and underachievers simply haven't tried hard enough - haven't thought positively enough. This meshes perfectly with the American mythology and the dominant culture in the US, so it's a very easy sell.

Ehrenreich ably relates this concept to religion, especially the Prosperity Gospels ("God Wants You To Be Rich!"), corporate culture and an economy destroyed by people who believe wishing will make it so. Being laid off can be an opportunity, but when a corporation lays off thousands of workers and their families tumble into poverty, it's not because of negative thinking. But a culture of individualized positive thinking is not one of collective action.

When I've mentioned this book, many people have asked, "You mean like The Secret?" The Secret is a book, movie and social phenomenon that preaches "everything one wants and needs may be accomplished by only wishing it". Yes, Ehrenreich does include that, but The Secret is only one recent and very popular manifestation of an aspect of US culture that has existed for more than a century. Ehrenreich dates the trend of relentless optimism to Mary Baker Eddy, credited with founding the Christian Science movement, and Norman Vincent Peale, the first person to stake a career on preaching positive thinking.

I disagreed with Ehrenreich on only one point, which she raises briefly in the introduction. She posits that unrealistically positive thinking contributed to both the invasion of Iraq, because the US believed their soldiers would be welcomed as liberators, and to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, because the US imagined itself as impenetrable. I can't buy this. I would say, instead, that the culture of positive thinking made it much easier for the US government to sell the Iraq War to an ignorant public. And as far as 9/11, I don't see any connection at all. Americans live in a dream world, ignorant of most international affairs, and certainly ignorant of the secret workings or non-workings of their country's intelligence and defense systems.

But this was a minor point, raised only in the introduction. If you're interested in this book, I recommend reading the excellent afterward, called "Postscript on Post-Positive Thinking," ahead of the introduction.

As an aside, I was horrified to learn that Martin Seligman, whose research launched the concept of "learned helplessness," and who teaches at my alma mater, is now a franchise hawking positive-thinking, self-help twaddle. He's founded an entire branch of psychology on positive thinking, and he still teaches at Penn!

Ehrenreich is not trying to sell pessimism. She's calling for us to strive for realism - to do the hard work "of trying to see things they way they are". Those of us who are naturally optimistic will arrive at a slightly different picture than those of us with a naturally pessimistic outlook. But both views will have validity, and neither will be delusional. In her afterward, Ehrenreich writes that "positive thinking has been a tool of repression worldwide" and "the threats we face are real and can be vanquished only by shaking off self-absorption and taking action in the world."

Read More

canadian postal workers pitch in to break the seige of gaza

On August 10, Canada Post announced it will no longer accept mail bound for Gaza, as Israel Post will no longer be delivering it.

Canada Post says it can no longer accept outgoing mail destined for the Gaza Strip because there is no guarantee the items will arrive.

Israel Post has reportedly informed its Canadian counterparts that circumstances in the Gaza Strip “beyond their control” have prompted them to cease mail delivery.

Canada Post said it has not been able to find alternate routes to move the mail in the area but has vowed to continue looking.

Gaza-bound mail received by Canada Post will be returned to sender.

Independent Jewish Voices were among the groups that slammed the decision.

“This is the latest in an ongoing series of Israeli outrages against the people of Gaza,” said Sid Shniad, spokesperson for Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), referring to Canada Post's announcement this week that letters to Gaza will not be accepted because the Israeli postal service will not deliver them.

“Cutting off mail access is part of Israel's continuing campaign to isolate and punish the people of Gaza,” Shniad continued. “The Canadian government should be protesting this punitive move.”

“Our organization is endorsing the Canadian Boat to Gaza, which plans to break the Israeli siege. As part of its work, the boat will deliver Canadian mail to Gazans,” he concluded.

Canada's excellent, unionized postal workers made it clear that Canada Post's decision does not reflect their views, and also called on Canadians to send mail to Gaza on the siege-busting boat.

Postal Workers' Union: Get mail to Gaza on the boat
By The Canadian Union of Postal Workers

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers wants mail delivered to Gaza.

Following an announcement by Canada Post that Israel Post has suspended mail delivery to Gaza, the union is encouraging people who wish to send mail to Gaza to get their mail onto the Canadian boat bound for the blockaded Palestinian territory.

"As postal workers, we know very well that cutting off mail creates suffering and hardship for people, who are isolated from their loved ones," said Denis Lemelin, National President of CUPW. "How many more abuses will the people of Gaza have to endure?"

Numerous organizations are working together to endorse a Canadian boat to Gaza in the autumn. Others, including Independent Jewish Voices, have supported the idea of getting mail onto the boat.

"We are heartened by the growing international response to Israel's cruel treatment of the Palestinian people," said Lemelin, whose union has been at the forefront of condemning human rights abuses in the occupied territories. "We stand in solidarity with all efforts to break the blockade and end the indignities imposed on the Palestinian people by the state of Israel."

What should you do if you want to send a letter to Gaza? Lemelin suggests contacting organizers at this website.

CanadaBoatGaza.org

Read More

is israel an apartheid state? a south african perspective, part four

Part One.

Part Two.

Part Three.

All words are Joe Kelly's unless otherwise noted. My words are in [brackets and italics].

* * * *

[wmtc: In your talk, you emphasized the role of the labour movement in bringing down apartheid. You said: "When there was a boycott, nothing moved." And you said the boycott/divest/sanction movement is a vital component, that the economic and political struggle are inextricable.]

I would say even more than that. I would say the boycott/divest/sanction movement – because it is a peaceful weapon, because it involves the economy – has the potential to bring about real, genuine change in a peaceful form. It is meant to hit at people's lifestyles and their living standards.

White South Africans saw themselves as cosmopolitan. They loved to travel. They liked to see themselves as being enlightened and liberal - while they lived on black labour and the oppression of black people. I sense the same from Israelis. There's a sense that they are part of the world, they see themselves as enlightened, the most enlightened in the Middle East, they like to be seen as part of the Western world. What gives them that is that they play a role in the world economy, and so forth.

I think sanctions would make them realize that that is not sustainable on the basis of oppression.

And if there is anything that can be a peaceful resolution – to provide a tool towards a peaceful resolution – it is boycott/divestment/sanction. I think the people who designed the movement against [South African] apartheid actually understood that. Because what is the alternative?

[wmtc: And you believe it could have an even greater effect in the Israeli situation than it did in South Africa?]

In South Africa, one of the questions people always had was that divestment would have a negative effect on the labour movement. It might hurt the black workers themselves. Black workers said, we are prepared to sacrifice. But it was always a question.

So in the sense that sanctions did require a lot of sacrifice on the part of black workers in South Africa, when we look at Israel, boycott/divest/sanction does not effect Palestinians in a direct way, because Palestinians have been excluded from the economy.

* * * *

The Richard Wright story, for me, tells more about the Palestinian situation than it does about apartheid in South Africa. He talks about how he faced white terror – it was direct, it was naked, it was there, every day. . . . When I think about white locals going around lynching black men, I think that is the most horrific scenario I can think of. Jim Crow was worse than what apartheid in South Africa was.

[wmtc: Yet it doesn't have the same horror associated with it. I find even educated Americans think Jim Crow was about separate drinking fountains, or sitting on the back of the bus. But it was a terror campaign, and a very deadly one.]

But it wasn't enforced necessarily by the state. It was enforced by the local community.

[wmtc: And the state let it happen, and didn't stop it. Enabled it.]

For me, when we talk about the word apartheid, it is not necessarily the most brutal thing. But it was brutal. How to convey those contradictions to get people to understand the use of the word.

Also, in the South African apartheid regime, part of the reason for the weakness of the apartheid state was that there were many people, especially employers, who wanted a more liberal form of apartheid. There were degrees of opposition. There were mild reformists, and there were people in the white community who were actively part of the struggle against apartheid. And I think there is that in Israel as well, people like Amira Hass and a number of Israeli historians who speak up against Israeli apartheid. We are not talking about a naked dismissal of every Israeli person, as if they are all feeding into that system.

[It's a state system. I relate to that as a US citizen who opposes US imperialism. I don't want to be hated because of the US system. But on the other hand, it's your duty to stand up against it. You can't just say, I don't support it. You have to actively work against it, or else you are supporting it.]

Another thing, along with the trade union movement and the 1973 strike, we must mention the role of white South African youth who were studying at university. They were influenced by the 1960s and the whole liberatory atmosphere, and were quite involved in developing those unions. They were deeply involved in the movement against apartheid. They were indispensable to providing African workers with resources – using campus resources to print pamphlets, and using their language skills to write those pamphlets, to help publicize strikes – also helping with the development of organizations. That exists in Israel, too.

There were also military resisters. White youth in South Africa who said, "We're not joining the army. We're not going to enforce this system." They left the country because they didn't want to enforce the apartheid regime. And now there are young Israeli citizens doing the same thing.

[end of Joe Kelly's remarks]

Part V and final in next post.

Read More

"they didn't build a wall": is israel an apartheid state? part three

Part One.

Part Two.

All words are Joe Kelly's unless otherwise noted. My words are in [brackets and italics].

* * * *

... which reminds me of the key difference in the Israel-South Africa comparison: Israel has been more successful in separating Palestinian people out of the economy.

I saw a New York Times article last month about Israel's exploitation of immigrant [Asian, mainly Chinese] labour, who do not have rights. The Israelis have drawn in immigrant labour who do not have rights, because they can't be Israeli citizens, ethnically, but they are seen as preferable to Palestinians from the so-called "security" point of view. But they are exploited as cheap labour in the same way blacks were exploited as cheap labour in South Africa. They do all the jobs that Israelis won't do.

So what's important in terms of the comparison – in terms of the security issue – and how it is possible for Palestinians to challenge Israeli apartheid is this: the difference is that South African workers managed to build a stake into the system, by organizing and challenging the system from inside, that actually broke the extent to which the apartheid state could control. So in some ways – and in a very serious way – the situation for Palestinians is worse. That is an important point.

[wmtc: So the crucial role that the labour movement played in bringing down apartheid in South Africa is not available to the Palestinians as a potential tool, because they have been so totally excluded from the economy. The one power workers have – the withholding our labour – is not available to them.]

Right. And in looking beyond labour, apartheid in Israel is more intense in another crucial way. Even with the Pass System in South Africa, even with the extent to which the state sought to control the situation was not as intense as it is in Palestine. They didn't build a wall. A massive wall that is, to me, one of the most dehumanizing symbols of apartheid.

When I talked about growing up with those factories around me, then seeing how across the way, in a white neighbourhood, they didn't have all these factories - the physical presence of those factories stifled one's sense of humanness. And the wall itself – as a physical presence – has a symbolic effect of people's sense of themselves. I think that is forgotten. It is as dehumanizing as it gets.

With the Pass Laws, for example, people could evade them in various ways. They resisted silently by whatever means they could. Perhaps you were a domestic worker, and you had an arrangement with your employer not to tell anyone that you don't have a pass – and you could get to the townships and disappear. People did manage to find ways to evade the system. Where [for the Palestinian people], you are talking about something you can't evade. It's a wall.

And you don't do labour, so the only strategy that you can use is one of absolute frustration, and that is why people turn to the sort of violence they do. We should understand where that comes from.

Another note of comparison between the two regimes is the actual links between apartheid South Africa and modern-day Israel.

There were active links between the apartheid state in South Africa and the Israeli regime, in terms of sharing security ideas and sharing security technology. One of the apartheid vice presidents visited Israel in the 1970s. Israel was one of the few nations to support South Africa during the height of the boycotts.

The irony is that the architects of apartheid, the early figureheads who dreamed up this idea, had been influenced by the Nazis. In the 1940s, there was opposition to allowing Jewish immigrants into South Africa. It did change afterwards, as increasingly South Africa needed more allies in the world, and one of the things was to ally with Israel, under the cold-war framework.

In the 1970s, the anti-colonial struggle was going on all over the world, and the Palestinian movement emerged as well. So a line was drawn between anti-colonial movements, some of them that were backed by Moscow, and so on. It became part of the whole cold-war framework, and Israel and South Africa fitted in that framework, on the side of the US, against Cuba, etc.

These links are important, because it's a moral question. People say, we are different from them, don't compare us to them. But it actually goes beyond comparison. They actually shared ideas about controlling segregated populations.

Finally, there is a myth that apartheid ended peacefully. But it was far from that. There was extreme violence, coming from the regime – massacres, tortures, assassinations. Armed resistance was a key component of the struggle against that. Apartheid could not have ended without it.

No one expected to win the fight militarily. No one expected that armed resistance was necessarily going to bring down the apartheid regime, but it was a key component in giving people the confidence to commit to the struggle.

The armed struggle in South Africa didn't occur in the way one would usually think. It focused on blowing up a rail link here, a factory outlet there. The whole idea was to attack economic installations, rather than to engage in any sort of combat activities.

But symbolically, it meant something. For most black people in South Africa, Umkhonto we Sizwe, ANC's military wing, was seen as giving them the confidence to fight apartheid. So even though in the every day, they were fighting apartheid by building organizations without engaging in military activities of any sort, they still felt that that armed presence gave them confidence to continue that work of building those organizations. And I think in that sense, it was important.

But in terms of the violence as a whole, though, people forget how violent apartheid was, particularly towards the end.

On the surface, there was a thaw. A "loosening of restrictions," as you will hear. People were allowed to go to the same restaurants, or the movie houses, the beaches. This is in the early '80s. Allowing more black kids into white schools - they had a system called Model C, which allowed black kids of middle-class backgrounds to enter white schools under certain conditions. I went to a white university myself, but I had to get a permit. You couldn't go to a white university which said that the "appropriate ethnic university" you were supposed to go to didn't have a certain course. You had to make that excuse, then you could get a permit.

That is the sense of reform that there was in the system. But at the same time, the struggle was intensifying. The state that would ease up in certain ways on petty apartheid, while at the same time, it became more violent.

[wmtc: So it eased up on the surface in a reformist mode. It appeared to the outside world to be better - desegregated beaches, for example. But the machinery, the underlying structure, is becoming more and more violent and repressive.]

Right. And divide-and-rule is used as a tool in this. When they were negotiating, when they decided to release Mandela – and I remember it very well – all through the 1980s, in the KwaZulu-Natal province there was an organization called the Inkatha Freedom Party, whose leader had linked himself to apartheid. They attacked trade unionists – this was not the government itself, this was the Zulu nationalist movement, Inkatha – they attacked people, particularly in rural areas, where they had no protection.

And the apartheid state turned a blind eye to what they did. For example, nobody else was allowed to openly carry weapons, but the Inkatha Freedom Party was the one black party that was allowed to carry knives, guns, whatever they had. The whole purpose was to smash the opposition to apartheid. The state used them as force, by proxy, through puppets.

And when Mandela was released and DeKlerk started to make open negotiations – I think this is forgotten – the apartheid state continued to use Inkatha as a force. At the time, newspapers reported on a "slush fund scandal," where the military was funding the activities of the Inkatha Freedom Party to pursue its violent course.

In Johannesburg, people were attacked on train – there were massacres. Carloads of people were shot and killed. Whenever the Inkatha Freedom Party marched, people were beaten up or killed. The police, the army, all of them were there – but they did nothing to stop what was going on.

When you look at the Truth Commission, for example, it glossed over anything that happened during a certain period of time. Anything that happened in the 1990s, during the negotiation period, any atrocities that happened then, were cut out of the Commission's points of reference of what it was investigating.

For me, the important thing is that peace did not come peacefully.

* * * *

Part IV in next post.

Read More