Protest Against Gaza Massacre!

Media Release

For Immediate Release 28/12/08


Protest Against Gaza Massacre!



After confirmation that at least 230 Palestinians were killed on Saturday due to the Israeli army dropping over 100 tonnes of bombs on Gaza, anti-war and Palestinian solidarity activists have called for everyone concerned to rally outside of Sydney Town Hall this Monday at 4:30 P.M

“The attack is being reported as a “retaliation” to rocket attacks, it is not. It is a massacre, which has already killed over 230, injured over 700 and destroyed the lives of countless more. We believe that there is no justification at all for this. On Monday we will rally to stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza, who are suffering through hellish conditions. We will also be there to tell the Israeli Government, that the people of the world will not accept ongoing bombings of Palestine and that we will hold them to account if they continue.”

The Rally will also put a spotlight on the Australian government, if it refuses to condemn the Israeli government attack on the Palestinian people


“So far there has been a stony silence from the Rudd Government. We believe that the Australian Government should immediately condemn Israel's attack on Gaza, if it is at all serious about respecting international law and human rights. The Rudd Government should also make Israel aware that it will not accept any further attacks on Palestine, as well as sending large amounts of emergency aid to Gaza”

Rally Details:
Stop The Massacre of Gaza!
Sydney Town Hall

4:30PM

Monday 29th of December


Interviews: Tim Dobson 0430 209 865

Days of Rage in Greece

December 18, 2008
The Rightwing Government is Headed for Its Downfall
Days of Rage in Greece

By PANOS PETROU

On the night of December 6, a special police squad in Athens murdered
a 15-year-old student in cold blood in Exarchia, a neighborhood with
a long tradition of activism among young people, the left and
anarchists.

This was only the latest instance of police brutality against
immigrants, and left-wing and anarchist activists--especially youth,
in the wake of a major youth resistance movement against
privatization of education that rattled the right-wing government of
Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis.

The next day, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA),
revolutionary left organizations and anarchist activists called a
demonstration at police headquarters in Athens.

This was the first shock. Although the demonstration wasn't well
organized, and in spite of the climate of fear cultivated by the
government and the big media, tens of thousands of people came out in
the streets. At the same time, demonstrations were organized
spontaneously in smaller cities around the country.

The police attacked the demonstration, using chemical sprays and tear
gas. The demonstrators resisted by building barricades and bonfires
all night long in the center of Athens.

However, the real earthquake happened the next day. On December 8,
DEA members visited schools, proposing occupations and
demonstrations. We found out that the idea was already on the minds
of a majority of students. All schools in the country closed, and
thousands of students poured into the streets.

The students occupied the centers of cities all over Greece, and in
many cases, they besieged the police departments. The sizes of the
protests were huge, especially in Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras.
Hundreds of demonstrations took place in smaller towns, and even in
villages.

It was already obvious within a matter of days that this would be a
generalized explosion of youth after years of oppression, poverty and
deep cuts in the government's social spending.

The demonstrators made their objectives known: By targeting the
police department, they were attacking the government's authoritarian
policy of repression. By targeting the banks, they were attacking the
symbols of capitalism to show their anger with neoliberal policy.

That afternoon, SYRIZA called a demonstration for the center of
Athens. Despite the police presence and the use of tear gas, tens of
thousands of people participated. The police again used violence to
disperse the demonstrators.

What followed was a wild night of confrontations. More than 30 banks
and many big stores and public buildings were set on fire. The same
thing took place in other cities around the country.

In addition to students, the poor and immigrants came out to the
demonstrations. The hatred of police repression and the country's
rich was everywhere.

* * *

THE NEXT day, Tuesday morning, dawned on a terrified government.
Rumors circulated that Prime Minister Karamanlis intended to declare
a state of emergency in Athens and Thessaloniki, which would mean a
"temporary" suspension of all democratic and political freedoms.

But any such plans were withdrawn after the government realized the
strength of the demonstrations would cancel out the strength of any
"extraordinary measures."

Karamanlis called together the leaders of the political parties in
successive meetings, demanding their consent for stopping the crisis
with threats of brutal police intervention. It was obvious that
pressure was being was directed at the radical left coalition SYRIZA.

But the leadership of SYRIZA withstood it. The head of SYRIZA's
parliamentary group, Alekos Alavanos, came out of a meeting with
Karamanlis and called on the workers and students to continue their
struggle to topple the Karamanlis government. Alavanos also demanded
a "real apology" toward the youth--which would mean disarming the
police, the end of all privatization measures in education and a
policy to strengthen employment for young people.

Though pressed hard by the media, he made it clear that SYRIZA wasn't
participating in the riots, but he refused to condemn the "violence"
of the demonstrators, insisting that the point was the fight against
police violence.

One disappointing response was that of the Communist Party of Greece.
After meeting with Karamanlis, the party's secretary, Aleka Papariga,
denounced SYRIZA and demanded that it stop pandering to the
anarchists. The same line was taken by the leader of the right wing,
Georgios Karatzaferis, who also targeted SYRIZA and accused it of
being the "political wing" of the rioters.

The real problem, however, is the attitude taken by the large social
democratic party, PASOK, led by Georgios Papandreou. In order to
oppose Karamanlis' center-right New Democracy party, Papandreou
denounced the murder and police oppression. But at the same time, he
denounces the demonstrations, proposing instead silent candlelight
vigils to "mourn" the young student who was killed.

The murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos came as the economic crisis
reached a new level. Greece's trade unions had already called for a
24-hour general strike on December 12. But the social democratic
leadership of the Confederation of Greek Workers--terrified by the
wave of demonstrations and complying with Karamanlis' request--
canceled a labor rally planned for that day.

The rally did take place after a mobilization by SYRIZA and
organizations of the revolutionary left. It was massive, very
militant and peaceful. Participation in the strike call was almost
total. This broke through the climate of fear and scaremongering
promoted by the government.

As this article is being written, the movement is continuing, and no
one really knows what the future holds for Karamanlis.

The right-wing government is headed toward its downfall. Every
opinion poll shows that it has already suffered a huge loss of
support after the outbreak of big corruption scandals revolving
around illegal sales of public land in collaboration with the church.
The media in Greece think that Karamanlis won't be prime minister by
the summer of 2009.

DEA is participating enthusiastically in the resistance movement. We
support the unity of the young demonstrators fighting against
repression and the workers and their unions fighting against
exploitation.

To achieve unity, we need a left that is massive and effective, but
also a left that is radical--that can inspire all the people now in
struggle with the belief that this society, capitalism, should be
overthrown, and that an alternative that meets our needs, socialism,
is a feasible solution.

This is the potential presented clearly in front of us during the
days of struggle that have shaken Greece.

Panos Petrou is a member of Workers Internationalist Left (DEA, by
its initials in Greek) and part of the editorial board of DEA's
newspaper Workers' Left.

Resistance renews calls for Taser ban

Resistance renews calls for Taser ban

Wednesday December 17, 2008

MEDIA RELEASE - An Amnesty International report released in the United States
has led activists to renew their call that the NSW government end its 'trial' of
Tasers stun guns and ensure that they are never again used in New South Wales.

Tim Dobson, organiser of the Wollongong Branch of Resistance commented:
'The report findings are horrifying and shocking. Anyone at all interested in
human rights will be chilled by the findings. 334 people in the United States
have been killed by Tasers in the past 7 years. 90% of those who died were
unarmed.

'The report found that many victims posed no serious threat to police officers
and autopsies of the victims revealed that many who died were tasered multiple
times, sometimes by different police officers.

'In one case, a doctor who crashed his car after having an epileptic fit was
tasered to death for failing to comply with police orders. This madness has to
stop!

Resistance has vowed to continue to put the spotlight on police misuse of Tasers
and will campaign until they are banned.

'The New South Wales Ombudsman has documented how there has already been a death
in this state due to Taser use; and in Queensland, a sixteen year old woman was
tasered by police because she refused to move on while caring for her sick
friend. This is an outrage!

'Before the roll out of Tasers both the New South Wales Police and the New South
Wales Government assured us that Tasers were non-lethal. This report shows that
to be totally untrue. How many people must die before they will be banned? asked
Dobson.

For more information visit http://www.socialist-alliance.org/illawarra/

Socialism's comeback

http://www.newstatesman.com/europe/2008/12/socialist-party-socialism

At the beginning of the century, the chances of socialism making a return looked close to zero. Yet now, all around Europe, the red flag is flying again

"If socialism signifies a political and economic system in which the government controls a large part of the economy and redistributes wealth to produce social equality, then I think it is safe to say the likelihood of its making a comeback any time in the next generation is close to zero," wrote Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History, in Time magazine in 2000.

He should take a trip around Europe today.

Make no mistake, socialism - pure, unadulterated socialism, an ideology that was taken for dead by liberal capitalists - is making a strong comeback. Across the continent, there is a definite trend in which long-established parties of the centre left that bought in to globalisation and neoliberalism are seeing their electoral dominance challenged by unequivocally socialist parties which have not.

The parties in question offer policies which mark a clean break from the Thatcherist agenda that many of Europe's centre-left parties have embraced over the past 20 years. They advocate renationalisation of privatised state enterprises and a halt to further liberalisation of the public sector. They call for new wealth taxes to be imposed and for a radical redistribution of wealth. They defend the welfare state and the rights of all citizens to a decent pension and free health care. They strongly oppose war - and any further expansion of Nato.

Most fundamentally of all, they challenge an economic system in which the interests of ordinary working people are subordinated to those of capital.

Nowhere is this new leftward trend more apparent than in Germany, home to the meteoric rise of Die Linke ("The Left"), a political grouping formed only 18 months ago - and co-led by the veteran socialist "Red" Oskar Lafontaine, a long-standing scourge of big business. The party, already the main opposition to the Christian Democrats in eastern Germany, has made significant inroads into the vote for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in elections to western parliaments this year, gaining representation in Lower Saxony, Hamburg and Hesse. Die Linke's unapologetically socialist policies, which include the renation alisation of electricity and gas, the banning of hedge funds and the introduction of a maximum wage, chime with a population concerned at the dismantling of Germany's mixed economic model and the adoption of Anglo-Saxon capitalism - a shift that occurred while the SPD was in government.

An opinion poll last year showed that 45 per cent of west Germans (and 57 per cent of east Germans) consider socialism "a good idea"; in October, another poll showed that Germans overwhelmingly favour nationalisation of large segments of the economy. Two-thirds of all Germans say they agree with all or some of Die Linke's programme.

It's a similar story of left-wing revival in neighbouring Holland. There the Socialist Party of the Netherlands (SP), which almost trebled its parliamentary representation in the most recent general election (2006), and which made huge gains in last year's provincial elections, continues to make headway.

Led by a charismatic 41-year-old epidemiologist, Agnes Kant, the SP is on course to surpass the Dutch Labour Party, a member of the ruling conservative-led coalition, as the Netherlands' main left-of centre grouping.

The SP has gained popularity by being the only left-wing Dutch parliamentary party to campaign for a "No" vote during the 2005 referendum on the EU constitutional treaty and for its opposition to large-scale immigration, which it regards as being part of a neoliberal package that encourages flexible labour markets.

The party calls for a society where the values of "human dignity, equality and solidarity" are most prominent, and has been scathing in its attacks on what it describes as "the culture of greed", brought about by "a capitalism based on inflated bonuses and easy money". Like Die Linke, the SP campaigns on a staunchly anti-war platform - demanding an end to Holland's role as "the US's lapdog".

In Greece, the party on the up is the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), the surprise package in last year's general election. As public opposition to the neoliberal econo mic policies of the ruling New Democracy government builds, SYRIZA's opinion-poll ratings have risen to almost 20 per cent - putting it within touching distance of PASOK, the historical left-of-centre opposition, which has lurched sharply to the right in recent years. SYRIZA is particularly popular with young voters: its support among those aged 35 and under stands at roughly 30 per cent in the polls, ahead of PASOK.

In Norway, socialists are already in power; the ruling "red-green" coalition consists of the Socialist Left Party, the Labour Party and the Centre Party. Since coming to power three years ago, the coalition - which has been labelled the most left-wing government in Europe, has halted the privatisation of state-owned companies and made further development of the welfare state, public health care and improving care for the elderly its priorities.

The success of such forces shows that there can be an electoral dividend for left-wing parties if voters see them responding to the crisis of modern capitalism by offering boldly socialist solutions. Their success also demonstrates the benefits to electoral support for socialist groupings as they put aside their differences to unite behind a commonly agreed programme.

For example, Die Linke consists of a number of internal caucuses - or forums - including the "Anti-Capitalist Left", "Communist Platform" and "Democratic Socialist Forum". SYRIZA is a coalition of more than ten Greek political groups. And the Dutch Socialist Party - which was originally called the Communist Party of the Netherlands, has successfully brought socialists and communists together to support its collectivist programme.

It is worth noting that those European parties of the centre left which have not fully embraced the neoliberal agenda are retaining their dominant position. In Spain, the governing Socialist Workers' Party has managed to maintain its broad left base and was re-elected for another four-year term in March, with Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero promising a "socialist economic policy" that would focus on the needs of workers and the poor.

There are exceptions to the European continent's shift towards socialism. Despite the recent election of leftist Martine Aubry as leader of the French Socialist Party, the French left has been torn apart by divisions, at the very moment when it could be exploiting the growing unpopularity of the Sarkozy administration.

And, in Britain, despite opinion being argu ably more to the left on economic issues than at any time since 1945, few are calling for a return to socialism.

The British left, despite promising initiatives such as September's Convention of the Left in Manchester, which gathered representatives from several socialist groups, still remains fragmented and divided. The left's espousal of unrestricted or loosely controlled immigration is also, arguably, a major vote loser among working-class voters who should provide its core support. No socialist group in Britain has as yet articulated a critique of mass immigration from an anti-capitalist and anti-racist viewpoint in the way the Socialist Party of the Netherlands has.

And even if a Die Linke-style coalition of progressive forces could be built and put on a formal footing in time for the next general election, Britain's first-past-the-post system provides a formidable obstacle to change.

Nevertheless, the prognosis for socialism in Britain and the rest of Europe is good. As the recession bites, and neoliberalism is discredited, the phenomenon of unequivocally socialist parties with clear, anti-capitalist, anti-globalist messages gaining ground, and even replacing "Third Way" parties in Europe, is likely to continue.

Even in Britain, where the electoral system grants huge advantage to the established parties, pressure on Labour to jettison its commitment to neoliberal policies and to adopt a more socialist agenda is sure to intensify.

Rudd, Wong on target for disaster

Really great analysis of the reasons behind the pathetic targets of the Australian Government.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/777/40114


In the lead up to the November 2007 Federal elections, ALP leader Kevin Rudd assured voters that his party took climate change seriously and would follow a very different path from that of the anti-environmental Howard government.

We now know he was lying.

After 12 months of delay, inaction and ceaseless rhetoric, the Rudd government finally announced its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets on December 15.

The targets are not simply disappointing. They are disastrous and appalling.

The 5% reductions by 2020 announced by climate change minister Penny Wong fall woefully short of the cuts urged by the world’s leading climate scientists. It also confirms that Australia continues to play the dishonorable role, inherited from the Howard government, of an international climate pariah.

The continuity between the climate change policies of the Howard and Rudd governments was approvingly emphasised by an editorial in the Murdoch-owned Australian on December 9.

Anticipating the small emissions cuts to be proposed, the editorial gloated: “As The Australian has repeatedly said, the Rudd Government’s position is largely consistent with what has been proposed by the Opposition. It is little different, rhetoric aside, from what John Howard would have done, had he retained office.”

The same article fatuously attacked a Sydney Morning Herald editorial of the previous day for having “been more at home in Green Left Weekly than a mainstream paper”.

If only that was true. While the SMH did criticise the Rudd government for its “compromise, back pedalling and political expediency”, it fell short of demanding the Rudd government adopt emissions targets that accord with the actual climate science — as GLW does.

Ignoring climate emergency

The centrepiece of the Rudd government’s climate policy is the carbon trading emissions scheme. This scheme, under which some of Australia’s biggest polluters are provided with free and/or tax-deductible carbon credits, is highly unlikely to achieve even the tiny reductions targets set by Rudd and Wong.

A very similar scheme adopted some years ago by the European Union has not resulted in any greenhouse gas reductions at all. However, financial speculators made fortunes in the newly created “carbon market” through buying and selling the “right to pollute”.

However, even if carbon trading resulted in the government’s 5% target being reached, the cuts would still be entirely inadequate to attain the government’s preferred long-term goal of stabilising atmospheric concentration of carbon at 450 parts per million.

A recent paper published by the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society has calculated that in order to stabilise carbon in the atmosphere at 450ppm, the world’s emissions are required to peak no later than 2015.

Subsequently, reductions would need to proceed at a minimum of 6%-8% annually. The 5% by 2020 target has no hope of success.

Worst of all, 450ppm is itself an alarmingly dangerous target that would almost certainly lead to runaway climate change.

British economist Nicholas Stern warned in a 2006 report commissioned for the Blair government that 450ppm has a 78% change of exceeding a 2° average increase from pre-industrial temperatures. Furthermore, the Stern report’s conclusions are now widely acknowledged to be based on outdated research and very probably understate the dangers.

As little as 2° warming will still push the planet far past crucial climate tipping points where the planet will begin to warm itself — leading to catastrophic and unpredictable consequences.

Some of these tipping points include:

• the melting of the Arctic ice caps, reducing the amount of sunlight reflected by the ice back into space, thereby increasing warming and locking in further melting;

• the warming of the oceans, resulting in increased ocean acidification, the dramatic loss of marine life and coral reefs and a further reduction in the amount of atmospheric carbon absorbed by the oceans, thereby locking in further warming;

• the melting of the Arctic permafrost that holds beneath the frozen ground up to double the amount of carbon currently present in the atmosphere. If the permafrost melts, the huge amounts of methane gas released will push global warming to uncontainable levels.

These problems are no longer something that we will face sometime in the future. Climate scientists have observed, and reported in peer-reviewed scientific journals, that polar ice cap melt, ocean warming and methane release from the Arctic permafrost is already underway.

These climate tipping-points are being approached now, even though the world’s temperature increase currently sits at only 0.8° above pre-industrial levels.

It is for this reason that climate scientist James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has argued we face a “planetary emergency” and called for reducing atmospheric carbon at 300-325ppm as rapidly as possible.

Government strategy

Despite the irrefutable evidence pointing to a climate emergency, the Rudd government intends justify its business as usual course by positioning itself as though it is taking a responsible path — the middle ground between contending sides in the climate debate.

A “Climate Alert” paper circulated by Australian campaigners David Spratt and Damian Lawson on December 12 pointed out that “Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong will defend their disastrous targets by saying they are being criticised by ’both sides’ of the debate and therefore they have got it right”.

They drew attention to Rudd’s justification of the government’s climate policy to the December 11 7.30 Report as a typical example: “And I’m sure when this [government carbon policy] is delivered, early next week, we’ll get attacked from the left, from the right, we’ll get attacked by various radical green groups saying that we haven’t gone far enough because we haven’t closed down the coal industry by next Thursday … We’ll be attacked from the far right and by various business groups, I suppose, and certainly the Liberal Party, for doing anything at all.

“And we’ll be attacked by extreme green groups for not taking the most radical course of action … We intend to steer a balanced course.”

But in response to this Spratt and Lawson argued: “Climate targets must be set according to the scientific imperatives, and putting them through a political filter can only imperil the planet. The government does not understand that you can’t negotiate with the laws of physics and chemistry and biology that determine our climate system.”

The other argument the government will rely on heavily is that they cannot move any faster to reduce emissions without a binding international agreement having first been reached.

The astounding cynicism of this claim has become apparent in the wake of the international climate change conference in held in the Polish city of Poznan over December 1-12. There, the Australian government helped to sabotage any hope of such an international agreement!

The Australian delegation to Poznan chaired a so-called “negotiating bloc” of some of the largest polluting nations, including the US, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Canada. The bloc was dedicated to scuttling agreement on a proposed 25%-40% emissions reduction by 2020.

Unfortunately, they were successful.

The wrecking operation run at the conference by Australia and other wealthy countries has been condemned by representatives of Third World nations and environmental groups.

On December 13, Webindia123.com reported the assessment of Kim Carstensen from the World Wildlife Fund Global Climate Initiative, who summed up the Poznan conference as a major missed opportunity to stop climate change: “A passive EU, in effect, joined the US as the second lame duck in the Poznan pond, while Canada, Japan, Russia, Australia and Saudi Arabia openly undermined progress”.

“These countries need to get serious about greening their economies and they need to provide know-how, funding and technology to developing countries. Otherwise, any prospects for a new global climate treaty will remain dim”, Carstensen said.

From here, the only response possible is for the grassroots environment movement to reorganise and campaign for real climate change policies based on science — rather than corporate profits.

A strategy based on lobbying the government, or appealing to their conscience, can have no hope of success. The Rudd government has now clearly declared its hand. Only sustained, mass pressure in the form of a broad climate justice movement can win the battle for a rational climate policy.

Scores of environmental groups have sprung up across the country over the past few years. Localised actions and campaigning by these groups needs to be complemented by stronger national networks and coordination.

The Climate Action Summit planned from January 31 to February 3 in Canberra may provide an opportunity for the movement to reconstitute and organise itself to take on a government determined to sacrifice a safe climate to please big business.

The climate change movement also has a very special role and responsibility to tell the truth about the threat climate change poses to people and planet — the truth that the mainstream politicians and media consistently work to conceal.

Green protesters throw shoes at Rudd lookalike

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/16/2447688.htm?section=justin

Protesters in Adelaide have pelted a man dressed as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with their shoes as part of nationwide protests against the Federal Government's emissions targets.

The protest on the steps of South Australia's Parliament house was in opposition to the Government's 5 per cent emissions reduction target set yesterday.

After hearing from Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young and State MP Mark Parnell, the man pretending to be the Prime Minister was invited to the microphone, and protesters threw their shoes at him.

Earlier Senator Hanson-Young told the crowd there was little difference between Mr Rudd and former prime minister John Howard.

"What an embarrassment that Australia is only prepared to cut carbon emissions by 5 per cent," she said.

"Who would have thought that this was coming from a Rudd Labor Government who won their election based on the fact that they were going to be the party that took action on climate change."

Meanwhile in Sydney at least 80 people have gathered outside the Federal Government's offices in the CBD.

They say 5 per cent is as good as nothing and are calling for a cut of a least 25 per cent.

The New South Wales Greens MP, Jon Kaye, has told one of the protests in Sydney that Mr Rudd's honeymoon is over.

"Five per cent or nothing makes not a big amount of difference. What we really need is 25 per cent or better still, 40 per cent so Australia can not only participate in reducing global emissions but also build a strong renewable energy industry," he said.

Nicky Isom, from the Australian Student Environmental Network, has told the activists in Sydney that the Prime Minister was elected in the hope he would lead the world on climate change.

"Yesterday, Rudd stepped into Howard's shoes and became the new spokesperson for the greenhouse mafia in Australia," he said.

"He announced pathetic 5 per cent reduction targets, not based on science, not based on equity, not based on evidence. Rudd declared the honeymoon over."

Environmentalists are also protesting outside the offices of federal Labor MPs in capital cities and regional centres across Australia.

Could Greece's Riots Spread to France?

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1866458,00.html

Even as Greece awakened Monday to relative calm following eight days of rioting by outraged youths, French officials were moving to placate protesting students amid rising fears that violence could break out across France. Given the defiant nature of French student protests over the years — including weeks of violent demonstrations over a new youth labor contract in 2006 — concern is growing in France that the dismal economic outlook could push the current anti-reform protests into the kind of wild insurrection that has rocked Greece.

"What we saw in Greece is not beyond what could happen here in France," warned former Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius last Friday of the increasingly raucous student protests that closed about 100 French high schools last week. "When you have the economic depression and social despair we're facing, all it takes is a spark."

Although incidents of vandalism and clashes with police by protesting students have been limited so far — including ugly scuffling after youths showing support for demonstrators in Greece broke out on the Champs Elysées Friday night — Interior Minister Michèl Alliot-Marie has said authorities are "following the movement with attention." Alliot-Marie noted "the climate is tense, (and) certain medium-sized cities have suffered damage" to structures during demonstrations.

On Monday, the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy attempted to cool temperatures by delaying the release of a hotly contested education reform plan just 24 hours before it was due. French Education Minister Xavier Darcos said he would negotiate the package "without taboos" with students, a striking reversal for a minister known for his intransigence.

Protestors vowed to carry on with nationwide demonstrations on Tuesday and Thursday. "We want reform to correct the problems in public education, but we won't accept this one in any form," warned student leader Alix Nicolet, who says students particularly hate Darcos' proposal to reorganize the final years of high school. They are also angry that cost-cutting this year eliminated 11,200 public education jobs and that another 13,500 may go in 2009. "How can the government claim it has no money to continue funding public education when it can come up with billions and billions to support banks and finance groups?"

The unrest in 2006 centered on a new youth labor contract that detractors claimed handed an unfair advantage to employers. The government ultimately capitulated on the scheme, one of more than two dozen such victories French students have claimed since 2000. But while the majority of those victories came after peaceful demonstrations, France has a history of protest turning violent—student and otherwise. Some observers say the situation today is particularly volatile and unpredictable. "As in Greece and many European countries, the unions, opposition parties, and associations that usually take youth movements under their wing and organize protests in France are too weak and divided to play that role — meaning all the anger and resentment driving protests can surge out of control," warns French political analyst Dominique Reynié.

Reynié says there's another feature shared by virtually all European nations that also played a role in the Greek riots, and could inspire similar action elsewhere: The resentment of a relatively small generation being asked to finance the pensions of a huge wave of Baby-Boomers headed into retirement at the very time good jobs for well-educated young people are drying up. "This is a generation feeling it's being sacrificed for ones that came before it, and are looking at their economic and employment future with despair," Reynié says. "The situation is worse in southern Europe than northern Europe, but everywhere young people are looking around them and saying, 'This is a swindle'."

That feeling could spread. Unlike the 2005 nationwide riots in France's blighted suburban housing projects, which horrified the nation, protesting French students are typically supported by their elders, who see them as idealists fighting for a better life. The specter of the current student movement turning violent in frustration — and being joined by other people frightened about their own future as recession closes in — is what Reynié and many other experts think was behind the government's decision to momentarily pull its education reform back.

"It is said that the Elysée is intensely observing the slightest sign of revolt," wrote Laurent Joffrin in Friday's edition of Libération — whose cover featured French students waving their fists in protest over the headline "After Greece: Can France Ignite?" "It's a wise precaution: divided, anguished, disillusioned, France has a Greek profile."

Iraqi journalist throws shoes at Bush

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjdXwLQrRJ8

Also, sign the petition for the journalist's release. Montadhar Al-Zaydi, the journalist who threw the shoes is a leftist and works for an anti-occupation television station.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/iwffomuntatharalzaidi/

Are the Greek riots a taste of things to come?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/are-the-greek-riots-a-taste-of-things-to-come-1064479.html

Greece's riots are a sign of the economic times. Other countries should beware, says Peter Popham in Athens

After firing 4,600 tear-gas canisters in the past week, the Greek police have nearly exhausted their stock. As they seek emergency supplies from Israel and Germany, still the petrol bombs and stones of the protesters rain down, with clashes again outside parliament yesterday.

Bringing together youths in their early twenties struggling to survive amid mass youth unemployment and schoolchildren swotting for highly competitive university exams that may not ultimately help them in a treacherous jobs market, the events of the past week could be called the first credit-crunch riots. There have been smaller-scale sympathy attacks from Moscow to Copenhagen, and economists say countries with similarly high youth unemployment problems such as Spain and Italy should prepare for unrest.

Ostensibly, the trigger for the Greek violence was the police shooting of a 15-year-old boy, Alexis Grigoropoulos. A forensic report leaked to Greek newspapers indicated he was killed by a direct shot, not a ricochet as the policeman's lawyer had claimed. The first protesters were on the streets of Athens within 90 minutes of Alexis's death, the start of the most traumatic week Greece has endured for decades. The destructiveness of the daily protests, which left many stores in Athens's smartest shopping area in ruins and caused an estimated €2bn (£1.79bn) in damage, has stunned Greece and baffled the world. And there was no let-up yesterday, as angry youths shrugged off torrential rain to pelt police with firebombs and stones, block major roads and occupy a private radio station.

Their parents grope for explanations. Tonia Katerini, whose 17-year-old son Michalis was out on the streets the day after the killing, emphasised the normality of the protesters. "It's not just 20 or 30 people, we're talking about 1,000 young people. These are not people who live in the dark, they are the sort you see in the cafes. The criminals and drug addicts turned up later, to loot the stores. The children were very angry that one of them had been killed; and they wanted the whole society not to sleep quietly about this, they wanted everyone to feel the same fear they felt. And they were also expressing anger towards society, towards the religion of consumerism, the polarisation of society between the few haves and the many have-nots."

Protest has long been a rite of passage for urban Greek youth. The downfall of the military dictatorship in 1974 is popularly ascribed to a student uprising; the truth was more complicated, but that is the version that has entered student mythology, giving them an enduring sense of their potential. So no one was surprised that Alexis's death a week ago today brought his fellow teenagers on to the streets. But why were the protests so impassioned and long-lasting? "The death of this young boy was a catalyst that brought out all the problems of society and of youth that have been piling up all these years and left to one side with no solutions," said Nikos Mouzelis, emeritus professor of sociology at LSE. "Every day, the youth of this country experiences further marginalisation."

Although Greece's headline unemployment of 7.4 per cent is just below the eurozone average, the OECD estimates that unemployment among those aged 15 to 24 is 22 per cent, although some economists put the real figure at more like 30 per cent.

"Because of unemployment, a quarter of those under 25 are below the poverty line," said Petros Linardos, an economist at the Labour Institute of the Greek trade unions. "That percentage has been increasing for the past 10 years. There is a diffused, widespread feeling that there are no prospects. This is a period when everyone is afraid of the future because of the economic crisis. There is a general feeling that things are going to get worse. And there is no real initiative from the government."

For Greek youngsters such as Michalis Katerini, job prospects are not rosy, but without a university degree they would be far worse, so he and his mother are making serious sacrifices to get him into further education. So inadequate is the teaching in his state high school that he, like tens of thousands of others across the country, must study three hours per night, five nights a week at cramming school after regular school, to have a hope of attaining the high grades required to get the university course of his choice. His mother, whose work as an architect is down 20 per cent on last year, must pay €800 a month to the crammer for the last, crucial year of high school.

She believes the government of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis faces more turbulence if it fails to grasp the reality of the past week, and pass it off as a spontaneous over-reaction. "The government has tried hard not to connect what is happening with the problems of young people. The government says one boy died, his friends are angry, they over-reacted then anarchists came to join in the game. But this is not the reality."

Vicky Stamatiadou, a kindergarten teacher in the rich northern suburbs with two teenage sons, agrees. "Until now, our society was full of dirty but calm water; nothing was moving, nothing improving, all the problems of our society remained unsolved for years. People pretended that everything was going well. But now this false picture has been broken and we are facing reality."

Greece's official youth unemployment statistics are not far removed from the rates in other European countries with a history of mass protest, such as France, Italy and Spain. With the graffiti "The Coming Insurrection" plastered near the Greek consulate in Bordeaux this week, the warning signs to the rest of the continent's leaders are clear.

Additional reporting by Nikolas Zirganos

Down with the government of murderers!

Our answer will be to resist and to keep fighting to overthrow the policy of police oppression, austerity and racism

Demonstrate: Sunday 7/12/2008, Assemble Museum, 13.00 Monday

We, the organisations of the anticapitalist left that sign this text, want to condemn the murder, in cold blood, of 16-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police special guard in the evening of December 6. We salute the demonstrations against the government of murderers all over Greece. In our opinion the reason for what happened is not the “extreme zeal” or the “loss of temper” or the “lack of training” of a police special guard but the whole policy of the New Democracy government.

It is a policy that not only reinforces police oppression and legitimizes the use of lethal weapons against demonstrators, but also privatises the ports and Olympic Airlines, attacks social security and the rights of students.

It is the policy of police beatings of students, of the kidnappings of immigrants from Pakistan, of illegal interceptions of phone communications and of racist attacks that lead to the death of refugees that came here looking for asylum and a better future.

It is the policy of special “antiterrorist” legislation, of full compliance to the measures adopted by the EU against democratic liberties and against immigrants.

It is the policy of the new legal framework for the Universities, of legalizing Private Universities. It is the policy of lower wages and rising taxes. Amidst an economic crisis the government is trying on the one hand to offer billions of euros to the Banks and on the other to find scapegoats either in radical youth or in immigrants.

After the brutal murder the government has chosen the path of police repression. That is why police anti-riot squads attacked those who were demonstrating. The Socialist Party, PASOK, has offered its consent to this policy. The message is simple: the government will enforce its policy at any cost, a policy that will make the workers pay for the economic crisis, by means of austerity, flexible work, privatisations, implementation of the EU policies.

The anger of the demonstrators is fuelled by the policies of the government, of the forces of capital, of the EU. That is why the protest must grow stronger. We must meet in the streets with the struggling workers, farmers and students. We will not pay for their crisis. Today anger is not enough. What is needed is collective and militant struggle in every workplace, every neighborhood, in order to transform them into places of resistance and overthrow the government and its policy.

Down with the New Democracy government of murderers and its policy
Capital must pay for its crisis, not the workers and youth.
Let’s escalate the struggle for our rights
The ministers that are responsible must resign
The police must be disarmed, police forces must keep away from demonstrations, and Police Special Forces must be disbanded.
Release all people arrested during the demonstrations.
Repeal “antiterrorist”˙ and authoritarian laws

8/12/2008

The organizations of the Greek anticapitalist Left : ARAN (Left Recomposition), ARAS (Left Anticapitalist Group), EKKE (Revolutionary Communist Movement of Greece), EEK (Workers Revolutionary Party), OKDE, OKDE-Spartacus (Fourth International), SEK (Socialist Workers Party ), NAR-N.K.A. (New Left Current-Youth Communist Liberation), K.O. Anasyntaxi (Communist Organization Regroupment), K.A. (Communist Renewal), EN.ANTI.A (United Anticapitalist Left), ME.R.A. (Front of Radical Left).

From Duncan: 3 weeks in Latin America

Hello all,

Countries I have spent time in so far: Venezuela - 2 weeks and Cuba - 1 week.

In Venezuela I was part of an organised brigade, which was to look at that Countries 'Bolivarian revolution". We looked at a number of things and writing about them could be another email entirely - it was quite an interesting and inspiring experience, about a downtrodden and third world country making themselves have some social missions (programs) that are better than first world systems. We got to see Barrio Addrentro - a health care mission, which gives free health care, including dental to the population. Some of the people I was with needed a GP so went to Barrio Adrento 1, and got treated with in 3 minutes of walking in the door, which it sounds like is a standard.

Before the current government of Chavez came to power it was very expensive, and people had to pay for their own materials.

We also got to see some Workers Co-operatives - a shoe and textile one, where the decisions of how the factory was run was decided every month, in a democratic meeting of all the workers, and meetings could happen more often than this.

My shoes were falling apart and the shoe co-operative fixed my shoes for free. In between making shoes that were to be freely distributed to school children - bought and paid for by the government.

We also got to hear about a new school for people with problems with vision, (vision impaired people including blind people). This is government initiated and paid for by Chavez government. It is the first of its kind in Latin America and a refreshing change in defunding like in many other countries.

in Australia we do not even have a government sponsored school like this.

We also went to stay in the neighbourhood with a family and saw a new experience of community councils. This was the largest one that is working in Venezuela, and is a collection of a number of small community councils in a city called Valencia. The whole commune was called something along the lines of commune of 1 thousand houses - meaning there were more than a thousand houses and more than a thousand families in this commune. The first night we met with all of the spokespeople - elected by there communities - about 150 of them.

We saw a club for grandparents being built, as well as some food hoses - to feed people that can not afford food, but with the aim of giving them the skills and means to make and buy there own food - this was probably one of the most nutritious meals we had in Venezuela here.

Daniel (one of the local organisers) guided us around, providing buses to show us around each time.

It was also good as we saw the social missions first hand and we got to see the people's reaction to it.

From the local dental clinic - which was near the house I stayed in, to the vaccinations.

We also saw the elections for local governors and councils. They had many systems there to stop fraud like Florida 2001. Including a hard copy back up of votes, as well as the electronic ones for re-counts and a complex checking system (anonymous) to make sure people did not vote twice. People were that keen to vote that wheel chair users were being helped up stairs (there is still a fair bit of a way to go on this in terms of access in Venezuela (as there is also in Australia) in terms of universal access to facilities. These elections were important, as even for simple things some candidates from both side of the political fence - pro (at least in name) and anti chavista parties had not been doing what they said they would, even for simple things like rubbish collection.

We ended up the brigade going to a Caribbean town where we swam, drank white rum and fresh coconuts on the beach and had fresh fish for break feast. To get there we had to go throught a windy cliff road, with a fast bus driver playing very (I mean very loud) music). This was an amazing experience with dense jungle on either side and the bus going very close to the edge. The rum in Venezuela was only $10 for 1 litre, and ws pretty good, but the white rum was a bt more, being nicer as well.

We also had meeting with a number of activists and community figures through out the brigade.

Venezuela are very happy about this and starting to take ownership of the social programs. And to see health care and education programs better than Australia in a country that is part of the global south is quite amazing. We also saw the university, which is free, the education to make everyone literate - with Venezuela now classified as a literacy free zone by the UN.

We also got to see Hugo Chavez speak to a rally, which was exciting, but would have been more so if I understood more of it - as we did not have translators for this part.

In Cuba it was a bit more of a relaxed schedule. Going to see some things like Revolution Square which had a museum about José Marti - a figure in volved in fighting for liberation from the Spanish and then the US in the 19th century.

Saw Museum dela Revolution - which went through Cuba's history from the indigenous peoples that lived there, to Spanish conquest to the slave trade to the 10 years war against the Spanish and the take over by the USA of Cuba. I got into all the tourist things for free, like the museum of Jose Marti and the Museum De la revolution due to my white stick, the bus is also free for school students and for blind / vision impaired people.

It was interesting to see Cuba now, and think about what it was like before 1959, before the J26 movement came to power and then the elections in 75 I think, there was a massive rate of illiteracy - at 90%, to a country that now exports more doctors and medical staff than the entire world health organisation, including to the latest earth quakes in Pakistan.

We also had lunch listening to live music - similar style to some of the Buena vista social club music.

Saw local permaculture gardens, met with some of the people in the ministry of science involved in developing Cuba's food and forests . The way Cuban coffee is grown is quite interesting - having to be grown between the trees. Cuba is also rated as the only Sustainable country by the WWF.

I found walking and travelling in both countries interesting. Both had rough - broken concrete roads - Venezuela was worse than Cuba. Venezuela they did not like to pay attention to traffic lights. It was interesting as people noticed that my cane stopped traffic more effectively than the traffic lights. I also had people escort me across the road in both countries. In Venezuela I even got an armed escort with the National guard (part of the Army) , who were guarding the Palace. In Cuba there were lots of old Cars pre - 1959, some of which were in immaculate condition. Although some of the roads and footpaths were not in great condition (they were in better condition that I would have thought considering the illegal blockade of Cuba by the US) people were very quick to help, particularly to stop me from going into a hole (my cane was about to find it and a man called out in Spanish that there was a hole).

In Cuba We Drank mahitos, Cuban rum and Cuban coffee. Again I may write more on Cuba, as I am sure if you are still reading your attention is waning.

I am now in Germany - in a beautiful little village called Volmarstein, where it is currently -2 degrees C (a change from the tropics of Venezuela and Cuba), and the grass is frozen.

I am staying on a farm with a very welcoming family.

Any way I'll try to write more later.

Keep in touch

Duncan

Afghan war to blame for refugees

It seems pretty obvious that the war in Afghanistan is causing people from there to leave and find somewhere safe to live. Australia needs to end it's support for the war in Afghanistan, pull our troops out and accept Afghan refugees.

Afghan war to blame for refugee 'spike': advocate

In the last three months six boats, carrying a total of 127 refugees, have been intercepted in Australian waters asking for asylum.

The Federal Opposition has accused the Government of having sub-standard refugee policies, after the Royal Australian Navy yesterday stopped another boatload of asylum seekers near Broome.

In the last three months six boats, carrying a total of 127 refugees, have been intercepted in Australian waters asking for asylum.

The Federal Government says the upturn in would-be arrivals is due to seasonal conditions, while the Opposition contends that people-smugglers are taking advantage of changed immigration laws, including the abolition of temporary protection visas and the dismantling of the Howard government's so-called Pacific Solution.

But refugee advocate Phil Glendenning, from the Edmund Rice Centre, has told The World Today's Felicity Ogilvie that the recent increase is a result of the intensifying war in Afghanistan.

"I think the recent increase, albeit a very slight increase, in people coming here, is due to one very important point; and that is the increase in the severity and the dangers people face in the war in Afghanistan," he said.

"People are fleeing from the war. People are fleeing from persecution. It has been predicted by the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees that there would be this increase because of the conflicts that are taking place internationally, particularly in Afghanistan. And that is what we are seeing and we shouldn't be surprised by it."

And Mr Glendenning said it was not correct to speak of a "spike" in the numbers of people seeking asylum in recent months.

"The use of the term spike is a problem for one reason - and that is the facts," he said.

"The facts of the matter are this, that the total number of asylum seekers detained in Australia seeking to come here by boat this year numbers 127. Last year when the Coalition were in power, the number was 150.

"So you can hardly call it a spike. When you look at it the numbers are actually less this year than they were last year.

"What this points to, however, is that where there are inappropriate or not sufficient processes to deal with those who are the victims of war, then people smugglers will step up and take the place and fill the vacuum."

"You have got to remember that the war in Afghanistan currently now, as opposed to last year, is much worse, much, much worse.

"And we know that because our soldiers are there fighting a war and tragically our soldiers have being killed there.

"People who are in the midst of a war zone, will seek to get out."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/08/2440722.htm

Bill Ayers: What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4028/what_a_long_strange_trip_its_been

What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been
Looking back on a surreal campaign season
By Bill Ayers

Whew! What was all that mess? I’m still in a daze, sorting it all out, decompressing.
Pass the Vitamin C.

For the past few years, I have gone about my business, hanging out with my kids and, now, my grandchildren, taking care of our elders (they moved in as the kids moved out), going to work, teaching and writing. And every day, I participate in the never-ending effort to build a powerful and irresistible movement for peace and social justice.

In years past, I would now and then—often unpredictably—appear in the newspapers or on TV, sometimes with a reference to Fugitive Days, my 2001 memoir of the exhilarating and difficult years of resistance against the American war in Vietnam. It was a time when the world was in flames, revolution was in the air, and the serial assassinations of black leaders disrupted our utopian dreams.

These media episodes of fleeting notoriety always led to some extravagant and fantastic assertions about what I did, what I might have said and what I probably believe now.
It was always a bit surreal. Then came this political season.

During the primary, the blogosphere was full of chatter about my relationship with President-elect Barack Obama. We had served together on the board of the Woods Foundation and knew one another as neighbors in Chicago’s Hyde Park. In 1996, at a coffee gathering that my wife, Bernardine Dohrn, and I held for him, I made a donation to his campaign for the Illinois State Senate.

Obama’s political rivals and enemies thought they saw an opportunity to deepen a dishonest perception that he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist who sympathizes with extremism—and they pounced.

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) campaign provided the script, which included guilt by association, demonization of people Obama knew (or might have known), creepy questions about his background and dark hints about hidden secrets yet to be uncovered.

On March 13, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), apparently in an attempt to reassure the “base,” sat down for an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. McCain was not yet aware of the narrative Hannity had been spinning for months, and so Hannity filled him in: Ayers is an unrepentant “terrorist,” he explained, “On 9/11, of all days, he had an article where he bragged about bombing our Pentagon, bombing the Capitol and bombing New York City police headquarters. … He said, ‘I regret not doing more.’ “
McCain couldn’t believe it.
Neither could I.
On the campaign trail, McCain immediately got on message. I became a prop, a cartoon character created to be pummeled.
When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin got hold of it, the attack went viral. At a now-famous Oct. 4 rally, she said Obama was “pallin’ around with terrorists.” (I pictured us sharing a milkshake with two straws.)

The crowd began chanting, “Kill him!” “Kill him!” It was downhill from there.
My voicemail filled up with hate messages. They were mostly from men, all venting and sweating and breathing heavily. A few threats: “Watch out!” and “You deserve to be shot.” And some e-mails, like this one I got from satan@hell.com: “I’m coming to get you and when I do, I’ll water-board you.”

The police lieutenant who came to copy down those threats deadpanned that he hoped the guy who was going to shoot me got there before the guy who was going to water-board me, since it would be most foul to be tortured and then shot. (We have been pals ever since he was first assigned to investigate threats made against me in 1987, after I was hired as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.)

The good news was that every time McCain or Palin mentioned my name, they lost a point or two in the polls. The cartoon invented to hurt Obama was now poking holes in the rapidly sinking McCain-Palin ship.

That ’60s show
On Aug. 28, Stephen Colbert, the faux right-wing commentator from Comedy Central who channels Bill O’Reilly on steroids, observed:
To this day, when our country holds a presidential election, we judge the candidates through the lens of the 1960s. … We all know Obama is cozy with William Ayers a ’60s radical who planted a bomb in the capital building and then later went on to even more heinous crimes by becoming a college professor. … Let us keep fighting the culture wars of our grandparents. The ’60s are a political gift that keeps on giving.

It was inevitable. McCain would bet the house on a dishonest and largely discredited vision of the ’60s, which was the defining decade for him. He built his political career on being a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
The ’60s—as myth and symbol—is much abused: the downfall of civilization in one account, a time of defeat and humiliation in a second, and a perfect moment of righteous opposition, peace and love in a third.

The idea that the 2008 election may be the last time in American political life that the ’60s plays any role whatsoever is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, let’s get over the nostalgia and move on. On the other, the lessons we might have learned from the black freedom movement and from the resistance against the Vietnam War have never been learned. To achieve this would require that we face history fully and honestly, something this nation has never done.

The war in Vietnam was an illegal invasion and occupation, much of it conducted as a war of terror against the civilian population. The U.S. military killed millions of Vietnamese in air raids—like the one conducted by McCain—and entire areas of the country were designated free-fire zones, where American pilots indiscriminately dropped surplus ordinance—an immoral enterprise by any measure.

What is really important
McCain and Palin—or as our late friend Studs Terkel put it, “Joe McCarthy in drag”—would like to bury the ’60s. The ’60s, after all, was a time of rejecting obedience and conformity in favor of initiative and courage. The ’60s pushed us to a deeper appreciation of the humanity of every human being. And that is the threat it poses to the right wing, hence the attacks and all the guilt by association.

McCain and Palin demanded to “know the full extent” of the Obama-Ayers “relationship” so that they can know if Obama, as Palin put it, “is telling the truth to the American people or not.”
This is just plain stupid.

Obama has continually been asked to defend something that ought to be at democracy’s heart: the importance of talking to as many people as possible in this complicated and wildly diverse society, of listening with the possibility of learning something new, and of speaking with the possibility of persuading or influencing others.

The McCain-Palin attacks not only involved guilt by association, they also assumed that one must apply a political litmus test to begin a conversation.
On Oct. 4, Palin described her supporters as those who “see America as the greatest force for good in this world” and as a “beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy.” But Obama, she said, “Is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America.” In other words, there are “real” Americans — and then there are the rest of us.
In a robust and sophisticated democracy, political leaders—and all of us—ought to seek ways to talk with many people who hold dissenting, or even radical, ideas. Lacking that simple and yet essential capacity to question authority, we might still be burning witches and enslaving our fellow human beings today.

Maybe we could welcome our current situation—torn by another illegal war, as it was in the ’60s—as an opportunity to search for the new.
Perhaps we might think of ourselves not as passive consumers of politics but as fully mobilized political actors. Perhaps we might think of our various efforts now, as we did then, as more than a single campaign, but rather as our movement-in-the-making.

We might find hope in the growth of opposition to war and occupation worldwide. Or we might be inspired by the growing movements for reparations and prison abolition, or the rising immigrant rights movement and the stirrings of working people everywhere, or by gay and lesbian and transgender people courageously pressing for full recognition.
Yet hope—my hope, our hope—resides in a simple self-evident truth: the future is unknown, and it is also entirely unknowable.

History is always in the making. It’s up to us. It is up to me and to you. Nothing is predetermined. That makes our moment on this earth both hopeful and all the more urgent—we must find ways to become real actors, to become authentic subjects in our own history.
We may not be able to will a movement into being, but neither can we sit idly for a movement to spring full-grown, as from the head of Zeus.

We have to agitate for democracy and egalitarianism, press harder for human rights, learn to build a new society through our self-transformations and our limited everyday struggles.
At the turn of the last century, Eugene Debs, the great Socialist Party leader from Terre Haute, Ind., told a group of workers in Chicago, “If I could lead you into the Promised Land, I would not do it, because someone else would come along and lead you out.”

In this time of new beginnings and rising expectations, it is even more urgent that we figure out how to become the people we have been waiting to be.

Between Hope and Reality

An Open Letter to Barack Obama
By RALPH NADER, Counterpunch

Dear Senator Obama:

In your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words "hope and change," "change and hope" have been your trademark declarations. Yet there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not "hope and change" but the continuation of the power-entrenched status quo.

Far more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys. Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart. Why, apart from your unconditional vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, are these large corporate interests investing so much in Senator Obama? Could it be that in your state Senate record, your U.S. Senate record and your presidential campaign record (favoring nuclear power, coal plants, offshore oil drilling, corporate subsidies including the 1872 Mining Act and avoiding any comprehensive program to crack down on the corporate crime wave and the bloated, wasteful military budget, for example) you have shown that you are their man?

To advance change and hope, the presidential persona requires character, courage, integrity-- not expediency, accommodation and short-range opportunism. Take, for example, your transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights in Chicago before your run for the U.S. Senate to an acolyte, a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby, which bolsters the militaristic oppression, occupation, blockage, colonization and land-water seizures over the years of the Palestinian peoples and their shrunken territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Eric Alterman summarized numerous polls in a December 2007 issue of The Nation magazine showing that AIPAC policies are opposed by a majority of Jewish-Americans.

You know quite well that only when the U.S. Government supports the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements, that years ago worked out a detailed two-state solution (which is supported by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians), will there be a chance for a peaceful resolution of this 60-year plus conflict. Yet you align yourself with the hard-liners, so much so that in your infamous, demeaning speech to the AIPAC convention right after you gained the nomination of the Democratic Party, you supported an "undivided Jerusalem," and opposed negotiations with Hamas-- the elected government in Gaza. Once again, you ignored the will of the Israeli people who, in a March 1, 2008 poll by the respected newspaper Haaretz, showed that 64% of Israelis favored "direct negotiations with Hamas." Siding with the AIPAC hard-liners is what one of the many leading Palestinians advocating dialogue and peace with the Israeli people was describing when he wrote "Anti-semitism today is the persecution of Palestinian society by the Israeli state."

During your visit to Israel this summer, you scheduled a mere 45 minutes of your time for Palestinians with no news conference, and no visit to Palestinian refugee camps that would have focused the media on the brutalization of the Palestinians. Your trip supported the illegal, cruel blockade of Gaza in defiance of international law and the United Nations charter. You focused on southern Israeli casualties which during the past year have totaled one civilian casualty to every 400 Palestinian casualties on the Gaza side. Instead of a statesmanship that decried all violence and its replacement with acceptance of the Arab League's 2002 proposal to permit a viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in return for full economic and diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel, you played the role of a cheap politician, leaving the area and Palestinians with the feeling of much shock and little awe.

David Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, described your trip succinctly: "There was almost a willful display of indifference to the fact that there are two narratives here. This could serve him well as a candidate, but not as a President."

Palestinian American commentator, Ali Abunimah, noted that Obama did not utter a single criticism of Israel, "of its relentless settlement and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of Palestinians. ...Even the Bush administration recently criticized Israeli's use of cluster bombs against Lebanese civilians [see www.atfl.org for elaboration]. But Obama defended Israeli's assault on Lebanon as an exercise of its 'legitimate right to defend itself.'"

In numerous columns Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, strongly criticized the Israeli government's assault on civilians in Gaza, including attacks on "the heart of a crowded refugee camp... with horrible bloodshed" in early 2008.

Israeli writer and peace advocate-- Uri Avnery-- described Obama's appearance before AIPAC as one that "broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning, adding that Obama "is prepared to sacrifice the most basic American interests. After all, the US has a vital interest in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will allow it to find ways to the hearts of the Arab masses from Iraq to Morocco. Obama has harmed his image in the Muslim world and mortgaged his future-- if and when he is elected president.," he said, adding, "Of one thing I am certain: Obama's declarations at the AIPAC conference are very, very bad for peace. And what is bad for peace is bad for Israel, bad for the world and bad for the Palestinian people."

A further illustration of your deficiency of character is the way you turned your back on the Muslim-Americans in this country. You refused to send surrogates to speak to voters at their events. Having visited numerous churches and synagogues, you refused to visit a single Mosque in America. Even George W. Bush visited the Grand Mosque in Washington D.C. after 9/11 to express proper sentiments of tolerance before a frightened major religious group of innocents.

Although the New York Times published a major article on June 24, 2008 titled "Muslim Voters Detect a Snub from Obama" (by Andrea Elliott), citing examples of your aversion to these Americans who come from all walks of life, who serve in the armed forces and who work to live the American dream. Three days earlier the International Herald Tribune published an article by Roger Cohen titled "Why Obama Should Visit a Mosque." None of these comments and reports change your political bigotry against Muslim-Americans-- even though your father was a Muslim from Kenya.

Perhaps nothing illustrated your utter lack of political courage or even the mildest version of this trait than your surrendering to demands of the hard-liners to prohibit former president Jimmy Carter from speaking at the Democratic National Convention. This is a tradition for former presidents and one accorded in prime time to Bill Clinton this year.

Here was a President who negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt, but his recent book pressing the dominant Israeli superpower to avoid Apartheid of the Palestinians and make peace was all that it took to sideline him. Instead of an important address to the nation by Jimmy Carter on this critical international problem, he was relegated to a stroll across the stage to "tumultuous applause," following a showing of a film about the Carter Center's post-Katrina work. Shame on you, Barack Obama!

But then your shameful behavior has extended to many other areas of American life. (See the factual analysis by my running mate, Matt Gonzalez, on www.votenader.org). You have turned your back on the 100-million poor Americans composed of poor whites, African-Americans, and Latinos. You always mention helping the "middle class" but you omit, repeatedly, mention of the "poor" in America.

Should you be elected President, it must be more than an unprecedented upward career move following a brilliantly unprincipled campaign that spoke "change" yet demonstrated actual obeisance to the concentration power of the "corporate supremacists." It must be about shifting the power from the few to the many. It must be a White House presided over by a black man who does not turn his back on the downtrodden here and abroad but challenges the forces of greed, dictatorial control of labor, consumers and taxpayers, and the militarization of foreign policy. It must be a White House that is transforming of American politics-- opening it up to the public funding of elections (through voluntary approaches)-- and allowing smaller candidates to have a chance to be heard on debates and in the fullness of their now restricted civil liberties. Call it a competitive democracy.

Your presidential campaign again and again has demonstrated cowardly stands. "Hope" some say springs eternal." But not when "reality" consumes it daily.

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

History is made

US Socialist Worker, November 4

AS SOON as it became clear that Obama was over the top, the tone of the media changed to one of reverence in recognition of the historic significance of the election of the first African American president.

And yet, coming out of the mouth of someone like MSNBC's Chris Matthews, it was a travesty. Matthews used the opportunity of Obama's moment of victory to brag about how great America is--having done, he claimed, what no other advanced country had in electing a Black head of state.

What hollow cant in the face of America's long and vicious history of racist barbarism--a country founded on slavery and made into a "great power" with the use of systematic racism.

But not even this hot air could overshadow the sense of exhilaration and tear-filled celebration among ordinary people, wherever they were gathered:

In Harlem in New York City, Brian Jones reports:

Several solid blocks of people celebrating. A giant mural depicts Malcolm X and Obama. Out of a sound system came the song "Ain't No Stopping Us Now," and the streets turned into a giant dance party. On the jumbo-tron, McCain is conceding, but the sound is breaking up. But no one wants to hear him anyway, so they put on Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours."

Outside the White House, a spontaneous crowd gathered to celebrate Obama's victory and jeer George Bush, who is reported to have called Obama to congratulate him. The contrast between Obama's sweeping win that has transformed the so-called "electoral map," and Bush's theft of the White House in 2000, on the basis of the disenfranchisement of African American voters in Florida, could not be more stark.

And in Grant Park in downtown Chicago, there was a vast sea of people, filling every visible corner of the huge lakefront area. The pictures really are worth a thousand words: dozens of young people with their fists raised in triumph, whole families dancing in the cramped space, tears flowing down the faces of older African American women, flags waving, singing and chanting.

As Lee Sustar described from downtown:

As Obama was headed in his motorcade to speak, people were still streaming toward Grant Park. The crowd is very racially mixed. All ages, though mostly young.

I just encountered a group of 10 Sri Lankan sisters and brothers, non-citizens who came down. "This is a moment to remember," they told me. "We're living through a moment of history. I want to be able to tell my children and grandchildren I was here to cheer on Barack Obama."

To them, Obama's victory represents something that they have seen only very rarely in the past generation. They know that the door is closing on an old era, and that a new one is beginning. --Alan Maass

Venezuela Graduates 6700 Professionals from Low-Income Backgrounds

By Tamara Pearson

Mérida, October 24, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- Almost 6,000 Venezuelan university students recently graduated through the government's scholarship program, and a further 700 doctors will graduate at the end of this year, significantly filling the shortage of professionals previously experienced by Venezuela.

On Wednesday 5,949 students who participated in the scholarship program known as Mission Sucre graduated in areas of administration (1,478 students), computing (1,205), social communication (247), agricultural production (95), environmental management (604), and social management for local development (2,235).

Mission Sucre is a program for including low-income Venezuelans in university level education, directed by the Ministry of Education, and created five years ago with the aim to municipalize university education.Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez attended the graduation of the second finishing group of Mission Sucre students in Caracas together with simultaneous graduation events around the country. Mission Sucre currently has 527,134 students and there are also 108,000 applicants registered to enroll in the Mission.

In his speech, Chavez described these students as forming part of the army to construct Venezuelan Socialism. He said the numbers were significant as indicators of the possibility of professional development that Venezuelan's have. He added that although Venezuela still hasn't come out of the bog it was put in by previous governments, for many years it has started to come out of this situation, and therefore he urged the new graduates to be motors of the revolution and the new country that Venezuelans must construct.

On this, Juan Carlos Pimentel, one of the graduating students, said that Venezuela needs professionals with much social sensibility, and that Mission Sucre students are in contact with social reality, "and we want to put our preparation and knowledge at the service of the nation."He added that education is "so the people have the tools to advance, without education we are week and the objects of manipulation and of the media war."Chavez encouraged all the students to continue studying, because consciousness comes from knowledge, so "it is very important that the Bolivarian and socialist education model continue growing and expanding itself and improving in quality."

Of the BsF 177.5 billion (US$82.5 billion) assigned to the 2009 budget, BsF 41.5 billion (US$19.3 billion) have been assigned to education, an 18.2% increase from last year. Of this, the Ministry of Education will receive BsF 25 billion (US$11.6 billion), and the Ministry of Superior Education has been assigned BsF 11 billion (US$5.1 billion). Also, 700 community medicine doctors will graduate from the National Experimental University Romulo Gallegos at the end of the year.

The minister for health, Jesus Mantilla, said, "Chavez has put a program of integral community medicine in progress that is the formation of the integral doctor in the communities. At the moment there are around 30,000 [doctors], including the pre-meds, measures that we have adopted to be able to fill this deficit of doctors that there was at a national level."

He said that under previous governments there were very few university places for doctors, and that this situation has dramatically turned around. In total, he said, there are 2,285 Venezuelan doctors across the country and next year 4,000 more doctors will be able to practice.

Rich polluters stand to rake in $3 billion

Marian Wilkinson, October 20, SMH

A NEW report estimates the Rudd Government could hand almost $3 billion to some of the richest companies in Australia in free carbon pollution permits when its scheme to cut greenhouse gases begins in 2010.

The report released by the Australian Conservation Foundation found much of the assistance, an estimated $825 million, would go to big aluminium producers, including Rio Tinto in Australia and Britain, the American company Alcoa, the Norwegian company Norsk Hydro and the Australian company Alumina Ltd. Other beneficiaries would be the Chinese trading company CITIC, says the report, which was produced by the financial advisory company, Innovest. If the Government also agrees to protect the export coal industry, almost half the assistance could go to foreign companies including the Swiss giant Xstrata, the Japanese Mitsubishi company and the British Anglo American coal company. BHP Billiton, could also be given up to $340 million worth of permits, the report finds.

The value of the permits is based on production figures from the companies and on the proposals in the Government's green paper on its carbon pollution reduction scheme, which was released by the Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, this year.

Under the plan, the Government will require most businesses producing greenhouse gases to obtain permits to pollute. The Government plans to limit the number of permits, forcing companies to cut back greenhouse gas emissions. The initial cost of permits is expected to be about $20 per tonne of greenhouse gas. Companies with permits will be allowed to freely trade them on a carbon market.

But the Government has promised to protect key industries, such as aluminium, steel and cement, by giving them 30 per cent of permits free. These are industries facing competition from countries that do not have similar schemes to cut greenhouse gases. The industries have argued they could be forced to close or cut operations and investments if they are not compensated.

In its submission to the green paper last month, Rio Tinto argued Australia's major competitors in the supply of aluminium, coal and iron ore are from countries that "are unlikely to introduce comparable climate change policies in the medium term". It said the scheme risked disadvantaging key export industries and delivering "no net gain to the environment".

But environmentalists argue these "trade-exposed industries" are owned by highly profitable companies who could receive windfall profits from the free permits. They want the Government to carefully assess requests for free permits to determine whether they are justified.

The Australian Conservation Foundation is the first group to try to quantify the value of free permits to industries.

"This analysis shows the compensation arrangements proposed in the green paper are far too generous to big polluters and overseas interests," said the foundation's climate change manager, Tony Mohr. "The amount being given away to the big polluters is more than the total federal budget spend on climate change and the environment."

The Government is also proposing compensating the domestic coal-fired power generators under the scheme, which could cost another $900 million.

Data from The Climate Group also shows greenhouse gas emissions from power stations and transport in NSW are less than last year's figures.