Tijuana Conference To Take Up Hemisphere's Struggles

By Cheryl LaBash
Published Nov 5, 2011 2:41 PM

Where is the electrifying Occupy Wall Street movement headed?

From capitalist media pundits to the Occupy Wall Street encampments struggling to hold public space in countless cities and towns across the U.S., this question is bubbling underneath the daily actions and police repression.

An opportunity to discuss the experience of other such movements will take place just across the U.S. border from San Diego in Tijuana, Mexico, on Dec. 2 to 4 at the 8th U.S./Cuba/Mexico/Latin America Labor Conference. It will follow a three-day Workers’ School with instructors from the Lázaro Peña Cadre School in Havana, Cuba. Online registration and information are available at http://LaborExchange.blogspot.com.

Occupations, general strikes and militant marches are being renewed in the U.S. today. On May 1, 2006, the massive immigrant rights marches were effectively general strikes in many areas. This national movement had a strong impact. Earlier this year, tens of thousands mobilized daily to support an occupation of Wisconsin’s Capitol in Madison to challenge an anti-worker program. Through all this, the working class is learning to take action in its own name.

In Central and South America and the Caribbean, workers, Indigenous people and rural farmers have walked this path before us. They have been on the receiving end of imperialist economic domination, coup d’états, military dictatorships and rigged elections sponsored by the United States. Today the Mexican electrical workers are occupying the central square in Mexico City, which they have held since March. Chilean and Colombian students are fighting for education rights. Moreover, tiny Cuba has held off the imperialist giant to the north poised to destroy them for more than 50 years with a battle of ideas and profound unity.

The Oakland call for a citywide general strike and march to the port on Nov. 2 to “block the flow of capital” states the truth: “The Oakland General Strike will demonstrate the wide reaching implications of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The entire world is fed up with the huge disparity of wealth caused by the present system. Now is the time that the people are doing something about it. The Oakland General Strike is a warning shot to the 1 percent: Their wealth only exists because the 99 percent creates it for them.”

That is true. For those who want to discuss where this truth can take us with active builders of independent social orders, send a representative to the December conference in Tijuana. We have a world to win!

Peru: Today & Yesterday

Yesterday, Humala, a social-democratic anti-imperialist defeated the Kieko Fujimori, daughter of the former fascist dictator in the presidential election.

The history of the country is important.

Below is a documentary made during the height of Peru's Maoist insurrection, showing the conditions of Peru that led to support for "El Sendero Luminoso"(The Shining Path).

In 1989-1991, the U.S. imperialists were reveling in victories against the former Soviet Union. Neo-Liberalism was on the march. However, in Peru, this sparked support for Mao Zedong Thought.

In the same period, the "Caracazo", an armed revolutionary uprising in Venezuela, sparked the beginnings of the Bolivarian movement which culminated in Hugo Chavez taking power.

What will the victory of Humala bring? We shall see.

One wonders what impact, if any, the Maoist revolt document below, has had these years later, on the election of an anti-imperialist President?

Sara Flounders on PressTV discussing Venezuela, Columbia

New Block of "Popular Power" Laws in Venezuela

By Tamara Pearson – Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, December 10th 2010 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Late last night Venezuela’s national assembly approved, in second discussion, the new Organic Law of Popular Power, and this afternoon it passed the Organic Law of Popular and Public Planning. The two laws form part of a five law “popular power” that aim to transform the state structures of planning and decision making to involve more grassroots organisations.

A block of laws

The National Assembly began its second round of discussions of the block of laws this week. Together the laws promote decentralisation of power, collective property, self government, and the Government Federal council as the planning organisation.

The Government Federal Council was formally created at the start of this year and consists of ministers, mayors, governors, and communal council and social movement representatives planning the national budget.

However, beyond meeting at a national level, it has been meeting at municipal levels with communal councils to then discuss the allocation of funding and resources to specific projects that are of a collective interest to multiple communal councils, such as public works, schools, and hospitals.

The five laws that make up the block are; the Organic Law of Popular Power, the Organic Law of Popular and Public Planning (both of which were first discussed on 16 December 2009), the Organic Law of Communes, the Organic Law of Social Auditing (both of which were first discussed on 22 June this year) and the Organic Law for the Development and Promotion of the Communal Economy.

First vice president of the National Assembly, Dario Vivas, said the laws will allow for the strengthening of popular power and complement already existing laws such as the Communal Council law and the Government Federal Council law.

Legislator Augusto Montiel said the packet of laws were necessary for creating the conditions to transform the current “bourgeois state”.

“To be able to put an end to the bourgeois state that we still have, we need to create conditions for the development of a community based, communal, democratic, protagonistic and revolutionary state. That is, to create a state that doesn’t allow power to be concentrated in the hands of a few privileged people,” Montiel said.

According to the National Assembly press, the block of laws have received “broad national consultation” with the participation of the minister for communes, communal councils, legislators and the president of Venezuela.

Organic Law of Popular Power

Legislator Ulises Daal said the Popular Power Law, with its 134 articles, is about the direct participation of the communities in public management, and that such a concept was supported by article 5 of the constitution.

Article 7 of the law states that one of the law’s aims is to “promote the strengthening of the organisation of people in accordance with consolidating revolutionary protagonistic democracy... and the creation of communal and community self government forms.”

Socially owned productive organisations should have priority when any public power organisation need goods, services or works carried out, as stated in article 29 of the approved law.

The Popular Power Law defines popular power organisations as when people are organised based on where they live or their daily lives, forming organisations made up of citizens with common interests and objectives in order to overcome difficulties and promote collective well being. Specific self government organisations of popular power are the communal councils, the commune and systems of communal aggregation.

Daal said that as long as the people organise through such forms of self government, “No one will ever be able to take power away from the people”.

Law of Popular and Public Planning

The Law of Popular and Public Planning, approved this afternoon, incorporates communal councils and communes into the national planning system.

“This law is aimed at laying the basis for planning that allows for the administration of resources in an efficient way, to then achieve a fair distribution of the wealth,” said Daal.

The law forms and outlines the organisation and functioning of the National System of Public Planning, a system which aims to optimise the processes of defining, formulating, executing, and evaluating public policies.

Making up the National System of Public Planning are the state, municipal, commune, and communal council public planning councils as well as the communal councils and the Government Federal Council.

The National Assembly report of the law states that it institutionalises “a methodology that is centred on the coordination among entities so that public planning, as a political instrument, orientates the actions of the state”.

The law, according to the report, provides for broad and mass participation in determining objectives of plans, their application, and possible future revision.

Opposition response

Discussion of the Law of Popular Power finished at 11.35pm last night becase, according to the national assembly report, opposition legislators tried to block the approval of all the different chapters and articles.

Daal said the opposition legislators, “fear the transference of power to the organisations of popular power because they know that they will lose a lot of their quotas of power in the state and regional governments.”

The main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) said the packet of laws “threaten the future of democracy” and the Law of Popular Power is unconstitutional because it “uses terms that aren’t contemplated in the constitution such as social auditing, communal economy, popular power, communal economic system, socialism, and communal self government.”

Legislator Juan Molina, of opposition party Podemos said the laws “were already rejected in the Constitutional Reform” referendum in 2007, and legislator Ricardo Gutierrez, also of Podemos, said the approval of the laws was equivalent to a “Coup d’état”.

Daal responded that articles 70, 118, 169, 173 and 184 of the constitution support the law package as they refer to popular participation, the rights of communities to develop “associative forms” involving any type of legal economic activity, and different types of local organisation, decentralisation, and transference of authority to the communities.

The approved laws now goes to the national executive to enact them and then when they are published in the Official Gazette they will becomes applicable. The current National Assembly, with almost all its members in the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela due to an opposition boycott in the 2005 elections, will end its term this 5 January.

Fidel Castro: Evo's Speech "The Lights of Rebellion Are Illuminating Our Skies!"

A recent column by Fidel Castro extolls and quotes extensively from a recent speech by Socialist Evo Morales, President of Bolivia.
Read The Article Here!

New Bolivian Law Guarentees Equality

By Donna Lazarus
Published Oct 15, 2010 10:07 PM

On Oct. 8 Evo Morales, president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, signed into law a new bill that prohibits racism and all forms of discrimination. This is a significant step forward for Bolivia’s majority Indigenous population and for the Afro-Bolivian community as well, both of which have suffered 500 years of oppression.

As Vice President Álvaro García Linera explained, “The bill protects and guarantees equal treatment for all people.” The law provides penalties for any form of racism and discrimination based on sex, color, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, origin, culture, nationality, citizenship, language, religion, ideology, political affiliation or philosophy, civil status, social or economic class, occupation, education, disability, pregnancy or other condition.

The law provides for the creation of a new government institution called the National Council Against Racism and All Forms of Discrimination, the head of which will be chosen by the Senate for a five-year term. This council will replace the present government office, which has been systematically recording and investigating racist incidents for several years.

The law prohibits racism and discrimination by any government agency, in any public sphere, or by any private group or individual.

In a country with 34 separate Indigenous groups, a provision calling for interpreters for any judicial or administrative proceeding is a gain in the struggle for those groups’ rights. Other guarantees are access to public or private education, equal job opportunities and work conditions, access to professional or traditional medical care and the participation of the patient in all medical decisions, among many other basic human rights that are now protected by this law.

Right-wing opponents immediately objected to the law, saying it infringes on the rights of newspapers to free expression. García Linera noted, “This bill simply states that the media cannot disseminate or allow dissemination of messages with racist and discriminatory content.” He went on to say that “we have to combat a culture of racism. ... Do not forget that until four years ago the indigenous were discriminated against and abused, handicapped in their social and economic presence with racist epithets and attacks.”

Racism permeated Bolivian society beginning in the 1500s, when Spanish conquistadores enslaved Indigenous men, forcing them to work in silver mines, where most of them died. Later wealthy landowners instituted the system of “pongueaje,” in which Indigenous people were forced to labor as serfs, their lands stolen and their rights destroyed. Even the urban working class had to fight for the right to ride public transportation in the 1940s. This struggle was won by the Federación Obrera Femenina (Women Workers Federation), which was founded by organized women market vendors who were all Indigenous.

This new anti-racism law is another triumph for the working class and oppressed of Bolivia.
Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Former Marxist-Leninist Guerilla To Become Brazil's New President

By Hugh O'Shaughnessy

From: The Independent (UK)

Brazil looks likely to elect an extraordinary leader next weekend

The world's most powerful woman will start coming into her own next weekend. Stocky and forceful at 63, this former leader of the resistance to a Western-backed military dictatorship (which tortured her) is preparing to take her place as President of Brazil.

As head of state, president Dilma Rousseff would outrank Angela Merkel, Germany's Chancellor, and Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State: her enormous country of 200 million people is revelling in its new oil wealth. Brazil's growth rate, rivalling China's, is one that Europe and Washington can only envy.

Her widely predicted victory in next Sunday's presidential poll will be greeted with delight by millions. It marks the final demolition of the "national security state", an arrangement that conservative governments in the US and Europe once regarded as their best artifice for limiting democracy and reform. It maintained a rotten status quo that kept a vast majority in poverty in Latin America while favouring their rich friends.

Ms Rousseff, the daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant to Brazil and his schoolteacher wife, has benefited from being, in effect, the prime minister of the immensely popular President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the former union leader. But, with a record of determination and success (which includes appearing to have conquered lymphatic cancer), this wife, mother and grandmother will be her own woman. The polls say she has built up an unassailable lead - of more than 50 per cent compared with less than 30 per cent - over her nearest rival, an uninspiring man of the centre called Jose Serra. Few doubt that she will be installed in the Alvorada presidential palace in Brasilia in January.

Like President Jose Mujica of Uruguay, Brazil's neighbour, Ms Rousseff is unashamed of a past as an urban guerrilla which included battling the generals and spending time in jail as a political prisoner. As a little girl growing up in the provincial city of Belo Horizonte, she says she dreamed successively of becoming a ballerina, a firefighter and a trapeze artist. The nuns at her school took her class to the city's poor area to show them the vast gaps between the middle-class minority and the vast majority of the poor. She remembers that when a young beggar with sad eyes came to her family's door she tore a currency note in half to share with him, not knowing that half a banknote had no value.

Her father, Pedro, died when she was 14, but by then he had introduced her to the novels of Zola and Dostoevski. After that, she and her siblings had to work hard with their mother to make ends meet. By 16 she was in POLOP (Workers' Politics), a group outside the traditional Brazilian Communist Party that sought to bring socialism to those who knew little about it.

The generals seized power in 1964 and decreed a reign of terror to defend what they called "national security". She joined secretive radical groups that saw nothing wrong with taking up arms against an illegitimate military regime. Besides cosseting the rich and crushing trade unions and the underclass, the generals censored the press, forbidding editors from leaving gaps in newspapers to show where news had been suppressed.

Ms Rousseff ended up in the clandestine VAR-Palmares (Palmares Armed Revolutionary Vanguard). In the 1960s and 1970s, members of such organisations seized foreign diplomats for ransom: a US ambassador was swapped for a dozen political prisoners; a German ambassador was exchanged for 40 militants; a Swiss envoy swapped for 70. They also shot foreign torture experts sent to train the generals' death squads. Though she says she never used weapons, she was eventually rounded up and tortured by the secret police in Brazil's equivalent to Abu Ghraib, the Tiradentes prison in Sao Paulo. She was given a 25-month sentence for "subversion" and freed after three years. Today she openly confesses to having "wanted to change the world".

In 1973 she moved to the prosperous southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, where her second husband, Carlos Araujo, a lawyer, was finishing a four-year term as a political prisoner (her first marriage with a young left-winger, Claudio Galeno, had not survived the strains of two people being on the run in different cities). She went back to university, started working for the state government in 1975, and had a daughter, Paula.

In 1986, she was named finance chief of Porto Alegre, the state capital, where her political talents began to blossom. Yet the 1990s were bitter-sweet years for her. In 1993 she was named secretary of energy for the state, and pulled off the coup of vastly increasing power production, ensuring the state was spared the power cuts that plagued the rest of the country.

She had 1,000km of new electric power lines, new dams and thermal power stations built while persuading citizens to switch off the lights whenever they could. Her political star started shining brightly. But in 1994, after 24 years together, she separated from Mr Araujo, though apparently on good terms. At the same time she was torn between academic life and politics, but her attempt to gain a doctorate in social sciences failed in 1998.

In 2000 she threw her lot in with Lula and his Partido dos Trabalhadores, or Workers' Party which set its sights successfully on combining economic growth with an attack on poverty. The two immediately hit it off and she became his first energy minister in 2003. Two years later he made her his chief of staff and has since backed her as his successor. She has been by his side as Brazil has found vast new offshore oil deposits, aiding a leader whom many in the European and US media were denouncing a decade ago as a extreme left-wing wrecker to pull 24 million Brazilians out of poverty. Lula stood by her in April last year as she was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer, a condition that was declared under control a year ago. Recent reports of financial irregularities among her staff do not seem to have damaged her popularity.

Ms Rousseff is likely to invite President Mujica of Uruguay to her inauguration in the New Year. President Evo Morales of Bolivia, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay - other successful South American leaders who have, like her, weathered merciless campaigns of denigration in the Western media - are also sure to be there. It will be a celebration of political decency - and feminism.

Female representation: A woman's place... is in the government

In recent years, female political representation has undergone significant growth, with dramatic changes occurring in unexpected corners of the globe. In some countries women are dominating cabinets and even parliamentary chambers. By comparison, the UK falls far behind, with only 22 per cent of seats in the Commons currently held by women.

Bolivia In the Bolivian cabinet, 10 men are now matched by 10 women. In 2009, women won 25 per cent of seats in the lower chamber, and 47 per cent in the upper chamber.

Costa Rica In 2010, women won 39 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.

Argentina In 2009, women won 39 per cent of seats in the lower chamber and 47 per cent in the upper chamber.

Cuba In 2009, women won 41 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.

Rwanda In 2009, women won 56 per cent of seats in the lower chamber and 35 per cent in the upper chamber.

Mozambique In 2009, women won 39 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.

Angola In 2009, women won 38 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.

Switzerland Has a female-dominated cabinet for the first time. In 2007, women won 29 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.

Germany In 2009, the cabinet had six women and 10 men. That year, women won 33 per cent of lower chamber seats.

Spain Nine women compared with eight men in cabinet. In 2008, women won 37 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.

Norway Equal numbers of men and women in the cabinet. Women won 40 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.

Denmark Nine women and 10 men in cabinet. In 2007, women won 23 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.

Netherlands Three women and nine men in cabinet. In 2010, women won 41 per cent of seats in the lower chamber.

Charlotte Sewell

Russia Today: "Why Does The U.S. Seek To Destabilze Venezuela?"

"The Real News" on Venezuelan Elections

Declaration from Marxist-Leninists in Latin America and the Carribean

Declaration of the Latin American and Caribbean Regional of the ICMLPO

It is not true that the present crisis of capitalism-imperialism is passing and in definitive recovery, as the spokespersons of imperialism proclaim. On the contrary, it is broadening and deepening in all the economies of the countries of the planet. This is strongly striking the productive, financial and commercial sectors. But mainly, it is attacking the lives of the workers in all continents, the dependent peoples and countries. Its most dramatic effects are seen in the tens of millions of workers dismissed, in the decline in wages and cuts in social services.

This crisis that broke out within U.S. imperialism has extended to all continents, without any country being able to escape it. Therefore, big capital and its governments are carrying out aggressive economic, political, social and military actions so that the dependent countries and people are the ones who pay for it. They are strengthening their invading armies and prepare regional wars such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, and supporting occupations such as that of Palestine by Israel.

However, in all countries and particularly in Europe, the working class and peoples are giving an important response with mobilizations and general strikes that show their rejection and their willingness to fight against the economic policies of imperialism and the bourgeois governments. The struggle of the working class and youth in Greece stands out.

The US is strengthening its role as an imperialist country, it is trying to assert its positions and continue its hegemony in Latin America. Facing the resistance of the peoples and the winning of important democratic and patriotic positions, it is strengthening its political and military offensive: in continuation of the implementation of Plan Colombia it is installing seven military bases, modernizing the Fourth Fleet and reintroducing it along the coasts of the Americas, it is implementing Plan Merida in Mexico, the coup in Honduras, the military occupation of Haiti, strengthening the blockade of Cuba, as well as the ideological and political offensive, promoting paramilitarism, anti-drug "operations," the militarization of the regimes, etc.

It is trying to recover the political and economic control of the democratic and patriotic countries and governments that denounce and confront it, using open and disguised mechanisms of intervention and aggression, the active processes of destabilization in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

The imperialist countries of Europe, mainly Germany, England and Spain are expanding their direct investments and credits and are stimulating trade in the region. Several Latin American countries have adopted and others are discussing free trade agreements with the European Union. These relations of economic dependency transcend politics.
For several decades, Japanese imperialism has been extending its tentacles, primarily financial and commercial, in the region, making it one of the powers that is contending for domination of Latin America.

In recent years, Chinese imperialism has ventured with force into the various countries of Latin America. It is making direct investments in mining, oil, civil construction, etc. It is developing a commercial assault in all the countries and has become a creditor to the governments. The Chinese offensive in the region has grown significantly and it is contending with the United States and other imperialist countries.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the crisis has serious repercussions, mainly on the poorest and most dependent countries. It is submerging the economies of the States in a drastic reduction of productive capacity, in serious fiscal deficits, in a general reduction of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It is causing an increase in the foreign debt, a rise in dismissals and unemployment, the growth of underemployment and of the informal sector. It is causing serious cutbacks in public spending and social security, and a furious onslaught against the political, economic, social and cultural gains. Although the crisis may show some fluctuations and signs of recovery, it has not yet touched bottom, it continues to sharpen and its social, economic and political effects affect the life of the countries and the conditions of the working classes, the peoples and youth of the continent.

For several years there has been a significant rise in the struggle of the masses. The popular movements are reviving, broadening and becoming increasingly politicized. The struggle in defense of sovereignty, against imperialism, for the defense of natural resources, against looting and indiscriminate exploitation is revitalizing the social movements. The confrontation against repression, the violation of human rights, the criminalization of the social struggles, the militarization and paramilitarism, coups d’état, the struggle for democracy and civil liberties are part of the action of the working masses and youth; the trade union movement is valiantly fighting against dismissals, for the right to work, for wage increases, in defense of the right to strike and collective bargaining, for the right to democratic unionization, for social security and decent pensions. The peasants are conducting vigorous struggles for land and their rights in all countries; the indigenous peoples are standing up, defending their rights and joining in the struggle for social change; the working women and ecologists are joining their actions in the process of emancipation of the workers and peoples.

The rise of the struggle of the masses is coming together with the failure and exhaustion of neoliberal policies, with the sharpening of the contradictions among the bourgeoisie and among the imperialists, creating new scenarios and conditions that are favorable to the development of class combats of the working masses, of the peoples and youth, for the work of the left-wing and revolutionary organizations and parties.
The demands of the struggle of the masses do not have only had the stamp of defense of their gains, but they have developed a content for change. This aspiration is deepening and is being projected into the electoral political struggle, expressed in the vote for the parties and organizations that propose change, for the proposals of the left, helping to elect democratic and progressive governments, some of which are holding high positions in defense of sovereignty, of the rights of the peoples and are fighting against imperialist domination and the attacks of internal reaction, such as in Venezuela and Bolivia. On the other hand, the pressure of imperialism and reaction is causing several of those governments to fall into reformist and developmental policies, of conciliation with imperialism and the oligarchies; they are moving to the right, and consequently are confronting and repressing the trade union movement, the social organizations, the indigenous peoples, the left-wing organizations and revolutionary forces, as is happening in Ecuador with the Correa government.

This social and political process, the development of the struggle of the masses, the involvement of significant sectors of the middle strata and classes, is coming together in the formation and development of a Tendency for Patriotic, Progressive and Left-Wing Change that is influencing the social and political life of all countries, to varying degrees and levels.

This Tendency is expressed in the development of the anti-imperialist consciousness of the workers and peoples, in the decision to fight for the government, for social change. Within this Tendency the revolutionary ideas, the decision to fight for the overthrow of imperialism, the destruction of capitalism and the building of socialism are expressed vigorously and in development; in this task our Marxist-Leninist parties, together with other revolutionary organizations, are fulfilling our responsibilities.
In this new scenario, the development of the social struggle, the affirmation and growth of proletarian revolutionary positions, of the Marxist-Leninist forces, are faced with the responsibility of unmasking and fighting against all sorts of theses and proposals of a reformist and diversionist character within the workers and popular movement. Some of them are exhibited by the governments; in particular, we must pay attention to the so-called "citizen’s revolution,” "Bolivarian revolution," the preaching of peaceful revolution, of the revolution by the "vote,” of "21st century socialism." These circumstances place on the agenda the ideological and political struggle between revolution and reformism.

The development of the Tendency for Change is changing the relationship of forces in Latin America, it has led to the existence of several democratic and progressive governments at the same time that, as a response of imperialism and reaction, it is building openly pro-imperialist governments such as those of Colombia, Mexico and Peru.
The momentum of the struggle of the workers and peoples, the consistent positions of several governments and the willingness of others to renegotiate dependency are giving rise to the emergence of anti-U.S. political initiatives at the level of countries and governments, such as ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance the Americas), the organization of Latin American and Caribbean States, excluding the U.S. and Canada. There is also the formation of UNASUR (Union of Nations of South America), the establishment of the Bank of the South, and a virtual currency, the Sucre, as a means of payment for trade between member countries. We proletarian revolutionaries support these initiatives, as part of the confrontation with the imperialist policies of the U.S., while we warn of their limits and we work to assert the anti-imperialist consciousness of the peoples in their struggle for social and national liberation.

We Marxist-Leninists take into account the development of the social and political struggle, their advances and achievements, we are present in all arenas; we fully support the various progressive and patriotic measures while we warn of the illusions that they can arouse among the masses. We insist that real change will come about as a result of the overthrow of imperialism, of the burial of capitalism by means of the organization of the social revolution, of the seizure of power by the revolutionary road and with the building of socialism.

To organize the revolution we must lead the working class and peoples in the struggle against the crisis and its effects. We insist that the definitive solution of the crisis, for the benefit of the workers, will only happen with the revolution and socialism. Any other alternative only means palliatives, proposals for the recomposition of capitalism. This statement in no way means to stand idly by in dealing with the effects of the crisis on the working masses. It demands that we stand up, at the forefront of the struggle of the working class, of all those exploited and oppressed by capital and imperialism to struggle against dismissals, for the rise in wages, for non-payment of the foreign debt, against the sell-out policy of the governments, for the building of a revolutionary confluence with the working class at the head, involving the peasantry, the poor, the indigenous peoples and the youth; for the affirmation of the ideas of change, for the ideals of the revolution and socialism

Let the rich, the ones responsible, pay for the crisis!

To the crisis, the only solution is revolution!

Workers of the world, unite!!

Latin America and Caribbean Regional of the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations

Revolutionary Communist Party of Brazil, Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist), Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic, Marxist Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador, Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist), Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela

July 2010

What is the Real Culprit? Climate Action Day Exposes Real Dangers

From the latest issue of : Left Hook, official FIST publication.

By Jennifer Waller

NYC FIST

On Oct. 24, International Climate Action Day, activists in 181 countries around the world participated in over 5,200 events in an attempt to raise awareness about the threats of climate change.

In New Brighton, Australia, a huge drawing in the sand included text that could be read from the sky — “There is no planet B.” In Mongolia men on horseback posed for a picture holding up a banner about climate change. In South Africa rock climbers hung banners on the side of a cliff reading, “[President Jacob] Zuma, climate proof our food and jobs.” An action was held underwater in the Maldive Islands to draw attention to the fact that the Maldives is seriously threatened by rising sea levels in the Indian Ocean.

International Climate Action Day was organized primarily by a U.S. organization named 350. The number 350 holds significance in the struggle against global warming because 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide is the limit that scientists have identified as safe for our atmosphere. Presently the number is 387 ppm.

Despite the fact that this analysis is scientific, and potentially difficult to fully understand, 350.org’s accessible website has given people all over the world a number to push for and greater understanding of the climate crisis. As a result, International Climate Action Day consisted of many groups around the world holding up 350 banners and standing in formations that from an aerial view read “350.” A group in the Philippines even grew plants into the formation of 350, and in Copenhagen the 350 emblem was mowed into a meadow.

Capitalism is to blame

Despite the ongoing grassroots efforts to raise awareness within the political arena, as well as with voters and consumers, people in the United States seem surprisingly unconcerned about the swift and imminent obliteration of planet Earth as a place that can sustain human life. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that only 57 percent of respondents believe there is real evidence that the world is getting warmer—down from 77 percent in 2006. The poll also reveals that just 35 percent of people in the U.S. regard global warming as a very serious problem. (people-press.org)

These alarming statistics come after years of grassroots and also mainstream efforts to get people to drive less, recycle more and bring reusable bags with them to the grocery store. Yet these efforts are not attacking the real problem. Often such “green” campaigns are run or sponsored by corporations such as Wal-Mart and Shell in an effort to implicate consumers in the destruction of our planet, while the globalized capitalist system is the real culprit.

The possibility of sustaining human, animal and plant life on this planet is only possible if this system is completely overhauled or, better yet, dismantled. Though the people of the United States are sleeping on this issue, the rest of the world is much more aware of the catastrophic effects the climate crisis will bring on all of us.

Unfortunately, reducing one’s carbon footprint by “buying green” will not save the planet. The people of the world must rise up against the corporate greed that has been killing the planet and its inhabitants for too long. Or we will all see the consequences far sooner than most of us can imagine.

Evo Morales: "Save Capitalism or Save Mother Earth?"

Latin American Labor Leaders in Cleveland

Latin American Labor Leaders
national speaking tour
3:00-5:00 pm
Sunday, March 21, 2010
UAW Local 1005, 5615 Chevrolet Blvd , Parma , 44130
Meet trade union leaders from Cuba, Costa Rica, & Peru.

Cuba
Gilda Chacon Bravo
National Labor Federation (CTC) and
Americas Representative to the World Federation of Trade Unions

Costa Rica
Ronal Quesada Zamora
Public Health Workers Union (UNDECA)

Peru
Efrain Valentín Yepez Concha
National Labor Federation (CGTP)
This is a rare opportunity to learn about the struggles in which our sisters and brothers to the south of us are engaged.

For more information contact:
216.531.5188 , clevesolidaritytour@gmail.com, or www. IRTF cleveland.org

SPONSORS: Cleveland Jobs with Justice, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, People's Fightback Center .

ENDORSERS include: Bridge Foundation; Congregation of St. Joseph Justice Committee; United Church of Christ - Church in the World, Western Reserve Association; United Church of Christ - Justice and Witness Ministries; West Shore Unitarian Universallist Church , Women Speak Out for Peace and Justice