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People’s Voice December 1-31, 2016
Volume 24 – Number 19 $1
1) CANADA ELECTIONS ACT CHANGES FALL FAR SHORT
2) COMANDANTE FIDEL: COMBATANT TO THE END
3) CANADIAN COMMUNISTS SALUTE THE MEMORY OF FIDEL CASTRO
4) UNITE AGAINST BIG OIL - Editorial
5) THE HATE CAMPAIGN AGAINST JUSTIN TRUDEAU - Editorial
6) WEALTH GAP STILL WIDENING, SAYS REPORT
7) CHILD POVERTY IN BC: FACTS AND FIGURES
8) WOUNDED KNEE III IN THE MAKING?
9) PRESIDENT OBAMA, REMEMBER LEONARD PELTIER
10) TRUMP WAS NOT A “PEACE CANDIDATE”
11) APPEAL OF THE 18TH INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF
COMMUNIST AND WORKERS’ PARTIES
12) MUSIC NOTES, by Wally Brooker
13) A TAPE THAT FURTHER REVEALED A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
PEOPLE'S VOICE December 1-31, 2016 (pdf)
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(The
following articles are from the December 1-31, 2016, issue of People's
1)
By Liz Rowley, Leader of the
Communist Party of
The federal government’s announcement that it will enact seven of the 132
recommendations made by the Chief Electoral Officer to amend the
The amendments in Bill C33 are all aimed to improve access to voting, and to
increase the voter turnout among young people. The changes include restoration
of the Voter Information Card as one of two pieces of identification required
before voters are given a receive a ballot; and restoration of vouching to
allow people without two pieces of ID to be vouched for by someone who knows
them, and will swear to it.
The Bill restores the Chief Electoral Officer’s ability to encourage voting
with public education and information programs, both of which had been stripped
by the Tories’ Unfair Elections Act. The CEO also has new powers to ‘clean-up’
the National Register of Electors, and to create a register of 16 and 17
year olds who will turn 18 before the next general election, to encourage them
to vote, and to add them to the voters list automatically on their 18th
birthday.
The Bill will also extend voting rights to Canadians living abroad by
eliminating the current the five year limit.
It will give the Commissioner of Elections
These are all useful ways to expand access to voting, though the Communist
Party and others have long campaigned to restore door-to-door enumeration,
which remains the best way to extend the franchise to all electors.
But what’s not in the Bill is just as important, starting with the very
sensible proposal that political parties should be required to show proof of
the expenditures they claim, and for which the Tories, Liberals, NDP, BQ and
Greens are reimbursed annually at the rate of 50%; or $33 million of public
money, last year alone. Apparently this measure didn’t make the government’s
top 7 or even top 10 list.
Here’s another couple that didn’t make the list: the requirement that robo-call
lists, including names and phone numbers, be compiled, maintained and filed
with the CRTC indefinitely; that the Commissioner of Elections
Or how about these very positive CEO recommendations: that free-time
broadcasting during elections be equally divided among all registered parties,
and include not just the networks, but all radio, television and media, and
that candidates no longer be required to submit 100 signatures of voters to be
nominated. Or how about the proposal to make proof of identity “satisfactory”
instead of “documentary”, which would have removed another barrier introduced
by the Tories’ voter suppression Bills. Or how about the CEO’s interesting proposal
to change voting day to a weekend, instead of a week day – like they do Down
Under.
Here’s an important proposal from the Communist Party: legislate big cuts to
election spending limits, and increase real political debate by requiring media
to include all parties in debates and discussions. If they can put twelve
chairs on the stage for the Tory leadership candidates, they can do it for
electing MPs to Parliament.
The biggest omission, the one that the PM promised to make his Number One
amendment, was to end the first-past-the-post voting system, and to replace it
with democratic electoral reform. In public consultations this summer and fall,
the public backed an electoral system called Mixed Member Proportional
Representation (MMP).
Just days after the release of Bill C-33, the Minister for Democratic Reform
announced that its proposals for electoral reform were on hold, because the
public consultations focused almost exclusively on MMP and the status quo. The
government doesn’t want MMP, which would not give the Liberals another huge
majority.
The informed public knows that the alternative to first-past-the-post is
MMP, not the Single Transferable Vote (STV) or any of the other rubbish
the Liberals and Tories have tried to pass off as a democratic alternative. And
so, the promise of “democratic electoral reform or bust!” has been cut down to
size. Size 7, it seems, fits all. And look no further - it’s all there in Bill
C-33.
The left and progressive forces need to get busy, and not just because of the
Liberals’ broken promise. Just look south to see what the attack on jobs and
democracy has wrought. Or look at
2) COMANDANTE
FIDEL: COMBATANT TO THE END
By Dr. Helen Yaffe, the author of
Che Guevara: The Economics of
Revolution, and a specialist on Cuban
and Latin American economic history. This article is from the TeleSUR website.
Fidel’s genius was his ability to meet the need for tactical steps, responding
to the day’s urgencies, without losing sight of the strategic direction.
It could have been the armed struggle, terrorism, assassination or the serious
illness which, at his own admission, nearly killed him in 2006; but in the end
Fidel Castro lived through it all to die in peace.
His death, at 90, on Nov. 25, 2016, has dominated news around the world. In
Trained as a lawyer and tested as a soldier, Fidel’s genius was his ability to
meet the need for tactical steps, responding to the day’s urgencies, without
losing sight of the strategic direction. Dismissing him as a “dictator” censors
a rich history of debate, experimentation, and collective learning that has
taken place in
In the 1950s, Fidel set out the Moncada Program, which committed to bring
social welfare and land reform to the Cuban people, and confiscate the
ill-gotten gains of the Cuban elite. This was his promise to the Cuban people,
who came out in their masses to cheer Fidel on the long road to
Also in those first years, one million Cubans left the island, most of them for
the
It is these Cuban exiles, and their allies, who have dominated
Elsewhere, however and well beyond the shores of
In the 1960s, Fidel railed against imperialism and colonialism in the United
Nations, supported revolutionary movements in Latin America,
Cuba today, is incomparable with the Cuba of 1959; just consider the island’s
achievements in health, medicine, biotechnology, culture, art, sport, and
combatting discrimination of every kind. They have built a new and alternative
system of democracy, without political parties, and political celebrities, in
which politics is not a career, and principles are not invented by publicists
responding to the latest polls. Yes, there have been mistakes and shameful
episodes. But Fidel’s strongest serious critic was always himself, just listen
to his interviews with Ignacio Ramonet and Oliver Stone.
One thing we can assert is that Fidel stuck to his principles. A recent book by
William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh on the secret history of negotiations
between Washington and Havana documents that almost as soon as diplomatic
relations were broken, their respective governments pursued avenues to restore
or improve them. What is also clear, however, is that at various moments in
history Fidel rejected an offer to reduce hostilities, to lift the U.S
.blockade for example, because they were pre-conditioned on abandoning some
anti-imperialist (or in the case of Angola, anti-racist) internationalist
cause: withdrawing troops from Southern Africa, stopping vociferous support for
Puerto Rican independence, ending support for the Central America revolutionary
movements, and cutting off ties to the Soviet Union. These were demands that
Fidel would not countenance. Commitment to international anti-imperialism could
not be traded. “Men make their own history,”observed Karl Marx, “but they do
not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected
circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted
from the past.”
Fidel has made history, and history has absolved him, even as, in his death,
those ideological enemies continue to rage against his life.
3) CANADIAN
COMMUNISTS SALUTE THE MEMORY OF FIDEL CASTRO
The following message of
condolences from the Communist Party of Canada was sent to His Excellency Mr.
Julio Garmendia Pena, Ambassador, Embassy of Cuba in Canada
Dear Comrades:
On behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada, I write to
express our deepest sympathy and condolences to you, and through you to the
Cuban people, the government, the Communist Party, and to the family, at the
sad news of the death of Comrade Fidel Castro Ruz, the leader of the Cuban
revolution for more than 50 years.
Comrade Fidel’s life was devoted to the cause of the working people of
Under his leadership,
He fought tenaciously for the creation of a new international economic order in
which exploitation, oppression, and war were abolished and nations, states and
peoples were free to develop on the basis of their sovereignty,
self-determination and independence. Cuba’s internationalist assistance to the peoples
of Angola, South Africa, Chile, Grenada, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and many other
countries over more than five decades is the implementation of this vision.
Just prior to the overthrow of the Soviet Union and the socialist system of
states, Fidel famously said that while Cuba did not seek out the responsibility
to uphold the banner of socialism internationally, it would take on that
responsibility if need be. It was a warning that became a reality within a very
short time. While imperialism crowed that the end of history – meaning the
victory of capitalism over socialism – had arrived, it was Cuba under the
leadership of Fidel that upheld the banner of socialism, of Marxism-Leninism
and proletarian internationalism, on behalf of working people.
Comrade Fidel Castro and the struggle of the Cuban people to build socialism
just 90 miles from the most powerful imperialist power on earth, lives on in
the hearts and minds of billions of people, because the objectives of a
classless society, a society built on the foundations of peace, democracy,
environmental security and socialism, continue to be the inspiration for
millions of people struggling for fundamental social change in their own
countries, struggling to build a better future for themselves and their children.
The passing of Comrade Fidel Castro Ruz is a milestone in the international
Communist movement, a significant marker in the transition from capitalism to
socialism globally. Canadian Communists will gain new energy in the work to
build new and stronger ties between Canada and Cuba, and to defeat those
reactionary forces opposed to peace and progress in the Americas, to socialism
in the world, and to the sovereignty, equality and Independence of all nations
and states.
Viva Fidel! Hasta la victoria siempre!
Comradely, Elizabeth Rowley, Leader,
Communist Party of
People’s Voice Editorial
November was a tough month for climate justice activists. Data from NASA
projects that 2016 will be the hottest year on record, yet Donald Trump claims
that global warming is a “Chinese hoax,” and appears prepared to end the
limited
It’s true that PM Trudeau also rejected the dangerous Enbridge Northern Gateway
pipeline proposal, which would have meant huge tanker shipments of diluted tar
sands bitumen along the entire west coast. But much of the debate in the
corporate media is framed around the false choice: “which pipelines should be
approved?” This misses the fundamental problem.
The real issue is how to sharply cut world-wide greenhouse gas emissions, as
soon as possible. Instead, the pipelines just approved will add to global
warming, pose a direct threat to the health and safety of communities, and
violate the rights of First Nations. We urge full support for the movements
against these projects, including the historic struggle against the Dakota
Access Pipeline by indigenous peoples and their allies at Standing Rock.
5) THE HATE
CAMPAIGN AGAINST JUSTIN TRUDEAU
People’s Voice Editorial
The death of Comandante Fidel Castro Ruz, the leader of the Cuban Revolution,
has sparked a world-wide outpouring of solidarity with the Cuban people. As
part of this remarkable phenomenon,
Yet for expressing his sorrow, Justin Trudeau is the target of a vitriolic wave
of hatred emanating from far right elements,
The anti-Trudeau campaign also ignores the fact that in both Canada and the
United States, the capitalist ruling class uses the legitimacy of elections to
impose a form of dictatorship on the working class, Indigenous peoples, Black
Americans, and other racialized and oppressed communities, none of whom have
any meaningful input into fundamental economic and political decision-making.
The real goal of this hate campaign is to force the Liberal government to drop
any limited expression of independent Canadian foreign policy. We commend
Justin Trudeau for his message of condolences, and we urge readers to resist
the hatemongers.
6) WEALTH GAP STILL WIDENING,
SAYS REPORT
As global crises of climate change, forced migration and conflict continue to
heat up, battering the planet’s most vulnerable, the age-old story remains
true: the world’s rich keep getting richer, and the poor keep getting poorer,
and the trend is only expected to continue, according to a new report released
on Nov. 22.
The Global Wealth Report 2016 from the Credit Suisse Research Institute finds
that wealth inequality is on the rise, with the bottom poorest half of the
world’s adults in control of less wealth than the top 1 percent. Meanwhile, the
richest 10 percent of the world enjoyed a boost from the 2008 financial crisis
and now own a whopping 89 percent of all assets.
Vast wealth inequality is a familiar story, but the levels of economic
disparity in 2016 remain shocking.
“This huge gap between rich and poor is undermining economies, destabilizing
societies and holding back the fight against poverty,” said Oxfam’s head of
inequality policy, Max Lawson. The report also details how wealth distribution
affects different regions, with concentrations of lower income people in
Data shows that
The report comes as global wealth inequality is increasingly in the spotlight
with economic factors like debt crises in countries like Greece and Spain,
recessions in countries such as Brazil, and a global slump in commodity prices
putting pressure on economies and showing cracks in the system as the most
vulnerable suffer most. The issue increasingly finds its way into political
rhetoric, but concrete solutions remain evasive.
“Political concerns about inequality are not being translated into the action
needed to give hope and opportunities to the millions who have been left
behind,” Lawson continued. “Governments must act now by cracking down on tax
dodging, increasing investment in public services and boosting the income of
the lowest paid.”
Some of the world’s poorest are increasingly found in high income countries.
The bottom 20 percent of adults, currently sitting around 1 billion people, own
no more than US$248, while the poorest half of the world, about 2.4 billion
adults, own less than US$2,222. The majority of these group are concentrated in
Africa and
The report predicts that the number of millionaires in the world will hit a
record high of 45.1 million in the next five years, while the number of
billionaires will increase by 945 for a total of 3,000 around the world.
7) CHILD POVERTY IN BC: FACTS AND
FIGURES
PV Vancouver Bureau
On Nov. 24, the child and youth advocacy group First
In 2014, a total of 163,000 B.C. children lived in poverty, including 50 per
cent of those living with single parents, and high numbers of foster children
aging out of care, children of recent immigrants, Indigenous children, children
in visible-minority families and children with a disability.
“We want to shine a light on the over-represented groups,” said Adrienne
Montani, First Call’s coordinator. The group advocates a poverty reduction plan
(BC is the only province without one), with goals to reach by set dates,
including measures such as higher minimum-wage and social assistance rates, a
$10/day child care plan, living wages, more supports for post-secondary
education, and increased time and pay for maternity and parental care.
For years B.C. had the highest child-poverty rate in
Montani says the provincial shift reflects how statistics are calculated,
rather than a sudden improvement for
Other information from the report:
* In 2016, 33,300 B.C. children
relied on food banks
* B.C. has the highest ratio of income
inequality among all provinces when comparing the richest 10 per cent with the
poorest 10 per cent.
* About half of former foster
children will go on income assistance after turning 19 and losing access to
government supports. This “aging out” policy triggers up to $268 million in
additional costs related to homelessness, hospitalization, and mental health
issues. The report says providing youth with consistent financial support until
age 25 would be far less expensive.
* 40 per cent of B.C.’s homeless
youth have been in government care.
* The child poverty rate in
* By area, the highest child
poverty rates in B.C. include
* Over half of poor children in
B.C. live in Metro
* Children in single family
households have a much higher chance of living in poverty than children in
couple families – 50 per cent compared to 12 per cent. Eight out of 10 of those
families are female-led.
(The full report can be accessed
online at firstcallbc.org.)
8) WOUNDED
KNEE III IN THE MAKING?
By Dave Lindorff, Information
Clearing House (slightly abridged)
The struggle at Standing Rock, North Dakota, between the Sioux people and their
supporters and the oil corporations and banks trying to run a dangerous
pipeline for filthy Bakkan crude oil through their sacred lands and underneath
the Missouri River was cranked up to a new level of violence as National Guard
troops and the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, bolstered by volunteers from
various other police departments conducted an all-night attack on Nov. 20,
using maximum violence, including flash-bang concussion grenades, rubber
bullets, mace, tear gas and three water cannons – this at a time the
temperature on the prairie had fallen to a low of 5 degrees Celsius.
The casualties of this one-sided battle against peaceful protesters on a bridge
were enormous, with some 300 of the estimated 400 protesting water protectors,
both native people and non-native supporters, injured, 26 of them seriously.
There was evidence that police were aiming rubber bullets at protesters’ heads
and groins to inflict maximum pain and damage, with eight of the injured
hospitalised, including a 13-year-old girl shot in the face, whose eye was
reportedly damaged.
The gravest injuries were a tribal elder who suffered a cardiac arrest, and
Sophia Wolansky, a 21-year-old
The latest attack, which has been rightly condemned by UN human rights
observers as an atrocity, harks back to the simultaneous country-wide crushing
of the Occupy movement occupations in cities across the US during early
November, 2011, when local police aided in some cases by armed federal parks
police, assaulted occupiers with maximum violence, almost always at night,
barring the media from witnessing their deliberate and coordinated over-the-top
violence.
In that case, an aggressive campaign of legal discovery by the Partnership for
Civil Justice using the Freedom of Information Act resulted in the unearthing
of documents from both the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI proving
there had been a concerted campaign by those federal agencies to coordinate the
crushing of the Occupy Movement.
It would appear that the repressive lessons learned by police agencies in 2011
are now being used as a kind of repression handbook by Morton County Sheriff
Kyle Kirchmeier and his deputies against the protesting Sioux water protectors
and their Anglo supporters.
There is no indication that such vicious repression is working though. Even as
the brutal assault on Nov. 20-21 sent dozens of people to area hospitals, more
brave people continued to pour into Standing Rock to support the struggle of
the Standing Rock Sioux and the many representatives of some 300 US tribes
around the country, and the representatives of indigenous peoples from around
the world fighting this battle.
The decision to run the so-called Dakota Access Pipeline through Sioux sacred
lands, some of it formerly awarded to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe by US
treaty, but later stolen from them, stands in stark contrast to an earlier
decision to reroute it from a planned Missouri River crossing point near the
North Dakota’s capital city of Bismarck. There, protests by the local (white,
middle-class) public forced a rethink by the companies behind the pipeline, and
the
The Standing Rock Tribal Council called on President Obama to put a halt to
this dangerous and obscene project, suggesting that as president he has the
power to declare the crossing location a National Historic Site, thus protecting
it from such defilement. The president, of course, could also look at the local
Sheriff’s repressive and violent tactics against an Indian people, and simply
federalise local National Guard troops, ordering them to force local police to
stand down instead of following the Republican governor’s orders to participate
in the repression as they are now doing under his trumped-up “state emergency”
declaration.
That the president hasn’t already acted to stop the attacks on peaceful
protesters speaks volumes about Obama’s lack of courage and of principle and of
his hypocrisy. In 2014, President Obama visited the Standing Rock Sioux, and
acknowledged their centuries of abuse by the
The militarised response to peaceful protest at Standing Rock should stand as a
warning to all who would protest
On the bright side, the growing violence against the Standing Rock Sioux and
their implacable struggle to defend their sacred lands has mobilised some 1,000
or more American military veterans of America’s past imperialist wars to plan a
“deployment” to stand in unarmed defence of the Sioux Nation against the military
and police forces of the State of North Dakota and the Dakota Access Pipeline
consortium and its private military contractors arrayed against them.
9) PRESIDENT
OBAMA, REMEMBER LEONARD PELTIER
By Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada,
Former Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations
“To all those of us who are locked up here
nothing is more important than to be remembered” - Leonard Peltier,
While Barack Obama speaks without blushing about the virtues of the North
American “democracy,” and lectures us on human rights, an innocent man
languishes in his cell, totally isolated, awaiting only death, or for what the
U.S. President alone can, but does not, do.
Leonard Peltier, Anishinabe-Lakota, a leader of the American Indian Movement,
AIM, writer and poet, has just completed forty years in prison, and is one of
the political prisoners jailed for the longest time in the whole planet. When
he was captured, in February 1979, he was a young man, struggling for the
rights of the Native peoples, who had already known repression and jail from an
early age. Now, almost blind and very ill, he endures a cruel and totally
unjust captivity.
Condemned without a single piece of evidence, in a process characterized by
manipulation and illegality, he was sentenced to two consecutive life
sentences, that he has been serving in maximum security prisons, subjected to
particularly harsh conditions, with an inhumanity that considers neither his
fragile health nor his advanced age.
In the decade of the Seventies, last century, the repressive and racist nature
of the Northamerican system unleashed its violence against those who opposed
the Viet Nam war, and also against Blacks, Puerto Ricans and the Native nations
that have been dispossessed of their lands and are confined in so-called
“reservations”. In 1973, the occupation of
The atrocity of Wounded Knee II and the growing presence of agents of the
Federal Bureau of Investigations, the FBI, and paramilitary groups created an
atmosphere of terror in the area where recent discovery of uranium and other
minerals had fed Anglo-Saxon greed.
Solidarity spread to other sectors. Marlon Brando, 1973 Oscar winner for his
memorable performance in The Godfather, turned the ceremony into a unique
denunciation: in his place, he sent Apache actress Sacheen Littlefeather, as he
protested the treatment of the Native people and the massacre at Wounded Knee.
“It seemed absurd to me to attend the awards ceremony. It was grotesque to
celebrate an industry that systematically has slandered and disfigured the
Northamerican "Indians" for six decades”, Brando proclaimed.
The Oglala Elders, besieged in the Pine Ridge reservation of
In any event, several facts were evident. The Native people were harassed in
their own refuge, which they did not leave to attack anyone. Who penetrated the
reservation, before the incident, were scores of heavily armed FBI agents, as
were the armed paramilitaries at their service. If any Native had fired a
weapon, something that has not been proven, it would have been a desperate act
of self defense.
The authorities only filed charges against Native people. Peltier sought refuge
in
The charges against Peltier were fabricated from beginning to end by the FBI.
Revelations that followed the trial, obtained after long efforts by his defense
attorneys through the Freedom of Information Act, prove the fraudulent
character of the whole process: false testimonies obtained through blackmail
and threats, presentation as “proof” of a weapon that was not there, which was
never used by Peltier, and had absolutely no relationship to the incident.
In a hearing before the Court of Appeals in 1978, one of the Prosecutors who
acted against Peltier, had to admit it: “We do not really know who fired on the
agents”. That tribunal, however, upheld the conviction.
The trial of Peltier was a farce of monumental proportions. It was convincingly
proven by Robert Redford, in his documentary “Incident at Oglala: the Leonard
Peltier Story” , produced in 1992, but so severely censured that few have ever
seen it. The reasons are obvious. According to the May 22, 1992, Washington
Post: “It is very difficult to see Incident at Oglala without concluding that
Leonard Peltier is innocent… his trial was nothing but a farce cooked up by the
Government. This direct and illuminating documentary shows the lengths to which
the unscrupulous prosecutors and FBI were willing to go to punish this man”.
Nelson Mandela, the European Parliament, and numerous personalities throughout
the whole world have spoken out for the liberation of Leonard Peltier. The
demand for his freedom has lasted more than four decades, so far, without
results. Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the United States, said some
time ago: “Until he is free, each new day is a new crime, each dawn is a new
crime, each evening, a new crime against the dignity of the Native people and
against the honor of the
When Peltier was arbitrarily incarcerated, Barack Obama was a teenager, and was
not responsible for that injustice. But for the last eight years he has borne
the responsibility, because as President of the
It would be greatly appreciated if as many people as possible were to forward
this message to President Obama. It is now or never.
10) TRUMP WAS NOT A “PEACE
CANDIDATE”
The 2016 Assembly of the World
Peace Council was held November 18-19 in São Luís, Brazil, hosted by the
Brazilian Center for Solidarity of the Peoples and Struggle for Peace
(CEBRAPAZ), on the theme “Strengthen the peoples' solidarity in the struggle
for peace, against imperialism”. The following excerpt is from the presentation
to the Assembly by Alfred L. Marder, President of the
We are meeting at a time of global turbulence: wars raging in a number of countries,
hundreds of millions of people roaming the earth looking for homes and
employment. Climate changes creating havoc and concern. We of the World Peace
Council must use this occasion to make a meaningful contribution to the
struggle for peace. WPC must issue a global call for unity of all peace forces.
There is no room for sectarian or partisan considerations. A few days ago, the
people of the
They have interpreted remarks made during the campaign by President-elect
Donald Trump that appeared to coincide with the demands of the progressive
peace movement. Of course, we would welcome a policy that would cease support
of imperialist US to those forces
trying to overthrow the
legitimate government of
How was it possible for this sexist, misogynist, homophobic, anti-immigrant,
candidate to become the President of the
Thus, it became possible to win the individual states ignoring the popular
vote. Since 1970 the working class of the
At present, US is actively involved in wars in
Donald Trump reached out to the disaffection of the working class who voted for
him despite the racism, the sexism, the Islamophobia, campaign rhetoric. While
we do not deem the
The
We are proposing that the global peace movement including the WPC organize an
international day of demonstrations and actions after January 20, Inauguration
Day for President-elect Donald Trump, to demand an end to the aggression on
11) APPEAL OF THE 18TH
INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF COMMUNIST AND WORKERS’ PARTIES
The following appeal was adopted
by the 18th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, held on
October 28-30, 2016 in Hanoi, the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,
under the theme “Capitalist crisis and imperialist offensive - Strategy and
tactics of the Communist and Workers’ Parties in struggle for peace, workers’
and peoples’ rights, socialism”.
Having discussed the world situation and the growing challenges faced by
humanity, nations, workers and peoples of many countries, particularly the
worsening socio-economic and environmental crises, the increasing insecurity
and instability in many parts of the world, caused by capitalism, deepened
capitalist crisis, imperialist interventions. interference and machinations,
fostering the emergence of so-called ‘ISIS’ and other extremist criminal
forces, as well as refugee crises;
- Stressing that socialism is the
only real alternative to the on-going economic, social and ecological crises,
to capitalist exploitation and barbarity;
- Saluting the struggles of the
people and workers in all parts of the world against capitalism and imperialist
offensive, for labour, social and democratic rights, gender equality, national
independence and sovereignty, peace and socialism;
- Emphasizing the historical
significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution in
- Being encouraged by the
achievements and experiences of the struggle of and cooperation among communist
and workers’ parties in the previous years;
Calls upon Communist and Workers Parties to develop common and convergent
actionsalong the following axis:
- Intensifying theoretical and
practical works and exchanges on building socialism in the 21st Century;
- Working together towards the
joint commemoration of 100th anniversary of the Great October
Socialist Revolution to highlight its historical significance in paving the way
for a new period in human history, the contribution of socialism to advance the
struggle of workers and peoples for their emancipation, and the need to
strengthen the struggle for peace, social progresses and socialism; organizing
diverse related activities;
- Commemorating the 150th
anniversary of the publication of "Das Capital" by Karl Marx;
- Promoting exchange of
strategies, tactics and experiences to strengthen the fight against all forms
of capitalist ideological and political imposition and offensive, to strengthen
communists and workers parties and to enhance mobilisation of the working
people and wider masses, particularly youth, students and women, in the
anti-imperialist struggles, for labour, social, trade union and democratic
rights, and socialism;
- Strengthening activities to
defend democratic freedoms and rights, against anti-communism and all forms of
discrimination, to express solidarity with communists in Ukraine and other
countries who face persecution and bans on their activity; organizing,
preferably in the week of 5-11 May 2017, activities against fascism and
neo-nazism on the occasion of the anniversary of the Victory over Nazi-fascism
(9/5/1945);
- Broadening the anti-imperialist
front to enhance the struggle for peace, against imperialist occupation,
interventions and interference into internal affairs of other countries, against
NATO and its expansion, against nuclear weapons, militarization and foreign
military bases, for the peaceful and just settlement of all conflicts based on
the principles of International Law;
- Intensifying activities to
demand the ending of the US blockade against Cuba, to support the right of
Palestinian people to a free, sovereign and independent state and to express
solidarity with all peoples in Asia, Middle East, Africa, Latin America and
Europe who face imperialist occupation, intervention, interference and
blockade.
Finally, the participating Communist and Workers Parties thank the Communist
Party and people of
(Fifty-seven parties took part in the
Hanoi meeting, including: Algerian Democratic and Socialist Party; Communist
Party of Argentina; Party of Labour of Austria; Communist Party of Australia;
Workers Party of Bangladesh; Communist Party of Belarus; Workers' Party of
Belgium; Brazilian Communist Party; Communist Party of Brazil; Communist Party
of Britain; Communist Party of Canada; Communist Party of Chile;
Communist Party of China; Communist Party of Cuba; AKEL (Cyprus); Communist
Party of Bohemia and Moravia; Communist Party in Denmark; Communist Party of
Denmark; Communist Party of Ecuador;
French
Communist Party; Communist Party of Finland; German Communist Party; Communist
Party of Greece; People's Progressive Party of Guyana; Hungarian Workers'
Party; Communist Party of India; Communist Party of India (Marxist); Tudeh
Party of Iran; Iraqi Communist Party; Communist Party of Ireland; Workers Party
of Ireland; Communist Party of Israel; Jordanian Communist Party;
Workers' Party of Korea; Lao People's Revolutionary Party; Lebanese Communist
Party; Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-UML); Communist Party of Norway;
Communist Party of Pakistan; Palestinian Communist Party; Palestinian Peoples
Party; Philippine Communist Party (PKP-1930); Portuguese Communist Party;
Communist Party of Russian Federation (KPRF); Russian Communist Workers' Party;
Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU); New Communist Party of Yugoslavia;
South African Communist Party; Communist Party of Spain; Communist Party
of the Peoples of Spain; Communist Party of Sri Lanka; Communist Party of
Sweden; Communist Party, Turkey; Communist Party of Ukraine;
Communist Party
12) MUSIC NOTES, by Wally Brooker
On Dylan's Nobel Prize
Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel
Prize for Literature "for having created new poetic expressions in the
American song tradition." It's hard to argue with this. If you're going to
allow a songwriter to join the likes of Neruda, Tagore, and Morrison, Bob Dylan
is the obvious first choice. More than anyone, he introduced modern poetry into
pop music and shaped what was to follow. The Nobel Prize, announced on October
13th, came at a time when the already-debased language of corporate media had
reached a new low with the Trump-Clinton election spectacle. The subsequent
outpouring of interest in Dylan (and Leonard Cohen, who died on November 7th)
is a reminder of our need for meaningful language. Poetry has fulfilled this
function since ancient times. Dylan, followed by Cohen, Joni Mitchell, and
others, reclaimed the ancient relationship between poetry and music, and
thereby claimed a place in public culture that once was dominated by print
poets. Dylan's early sixties anti-war and civil rights anthems (which he still
performs) stood out during that time for their narrative and musical power.
When he startled the folk music scene by going electric in 1965, he recast his
lyrical style too, but songs like "Highway 61 Revisited" and
"Desolation Row" continued to have radical connotations. Since the
sixties, he has occasionally released political or overtly socially-critical
"protest songs". The best of these, like "Hurricane" (1975)
and "Blind Willie McTell" (1983), stretched the artistic limits of
the genre. Of course, Bob Dylan is a contradictory figure. While he's an
effective painter of the relationship between individual and social corruption,
it's fair to say - and he probably wouldn't deny it - that he too is tainted.
Accepting money from Chrysler, for example, to be filmed driving a gas-guzzling
Cadillac across the American landscape for a Super Bowl TV ad, is
unconscionable. While he's supported good causes over his career, Dylan has been
indifferent to others. A case in point is his refusal (like Cohen) to honour
the Palestinian call for a boycott of the state of
Maria Schneider vs the Data Lords
One of the outstanding figures in
jazz over the past two decades has been arranger-composer and big band leader
Maria Schneider. The
Orit Shimoni on the job
Kudos to labour magazine Our Times www.ourtimes.ca
for publishing an article by a jobbing musician in its "Working For a
Living" series. The current issue features an account of a typical small
engagement by Montreal Indy singer-songwriter Orit Shimoni, who describes her
gig, as she meets the chef and server, fusses with chairs and microphones, and
experiments with techniques to woo chatting customers. After the show, she
converses with friends and feels grateful that's she's got a ride to the place
where she's crashing for the night. Reflecting on her life as a performer, with
its hopes and realities, she concludes, stoically, that she's been fed, has
made new connections, has made people smile, and earned enough money to last
until the next gig. Shimoni, a former teacher, has been a full-time touring
solo singer-songwriter for eight years. She sings of love, war, and social
injustice in a rich, deep voice. Her lyrics reveal a penchant for the bleak,
laced with compassion and humour. Check out her music, videos and fascinating
blog at www.oritshimoni.com.
13) A TAPE THAT FURTHER REVEALED
A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
By Behzad Navid
Last summer was the 28th anniversary of the 1988 massacre of political
prisoners in
The publication for the first time of an audio recording from nearly three
decades ago in
In this audio clip, ayatollah Montazeri told his audience, “In my view, the
biggest crime in the Islamic Republic, for which history will condemn us, has
been committed at your hands, and they’ll write your names as criminals in the
history. But what’s important for me is Islam’s and the revolution’s reputation
and the future of our country as well as the person of Mr. Khomeini and how
history will judge.”
“I don’t want Mr. Khomeini to be judged and called a bloodthirsty, cruel and
brazen figure 50 years from now,” he said. He also tells his audience that he
believes the authorities had a plan to execute political prisoners for a few
years, and found a good excuse in the wake of the July 1988 incursion by the
People's Mojahedin Organization of
Ayatollah Montazeri says he felt compelled to speak out because otherwise he
would not have an answer on the “judgment day”. “I haven’t been able to sleep
and every night it occupies my mind for two to three hours … what do you have
to tell to the families?”
Later in the recording, ayatollah Montazeri insinuates that the number of
people executed since the revolution outnumbered those put to death by the
deposed Shah. When an official seeks his consent for the last group of around
200 people to be executed, he is heard saying fiercely: “I don’t give
permission at all. I am opposed even to a single person being executed.”
The file is important evidence that documents the voice of those carrying out a
massacre of prisoners and captives without due process or trials. It is
important because those involved with the executions are still in power.
Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the Intelligence Ministry’s representative in Evin
Prison, is currently the Justice Minister in Rouhani’s cabinet. Deputy
Prosecutor General Ebrahim Raeesi is now head of Astan Qods Razavi, a
religious and industrial conglomerate in
The regime immediately reacted against this publication. The Intelligence
Ministry directly contacted Ahmad Montazeri, the son of ayatollah Montazeri, to
ask him to remove the audio from the website. After a few days, because of the
vast effect of this publication amongst all different groups, Ahmad Montazeri
was summoned, and interrogated. He was eventually charged with acting against
national security interests, and was tried on October 19 for publishing this
audio clip.
There were different reactions towards this audio clip amongst different
groups. Those who were in that meeting, and were members of the "death
commission," defended their actions, and called Ayatollah Montazeri
“naive”. Unfortunately most of the reformist leaders were silent. Hassan
Khomeini, grandson of Khomeini, defended his father and Khomeini for what they
have done. Tajzadeh, one of the prominent leaders of the reformists, asked
forgiveness from the executed prisoners’ families, and indirectly condemned the
massacre. The Tudeh Party of
Only one senior Iranian official dared to speak out at the time: Ayatollah
Hossein Ali Montazeri, who was in line to lead the country after Khomeini, then
supreme leader and the leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Montazeri wrote a number of letters to Khomeini condemning the executions, and
the grand ayatollah soon fell out of favour. He was later placed under house
arrest and faced huge restrictions until his death in December 2009.
The emergence of the audio file has revived calls for an inquiry into the
executions. Over the past 28 years, survivors and families of the victims, and
all progressive organizations have demanded all the information about the
horrible conditions in the jails in those bloodied days in which the prisoners
were forced to recant or get executed, and also asking for proper prosecution
of all Islamic Republic officials who were involved or knew about this
massacre.
In