The Future of Socialism and the Failures of Capitalism

A short clip from a speech Randhir Singh gave in India not to long ago:

The ‘actually existing socialism’ — which was not Marx’s socialism whose possibility remains open — has, of course, failed.  But, surely, the ‘actually existing capitalism’ — which is the only kind of capitalism possible — has not been the success it is made out to be.  In any objective judgement, capitalism too has been a failure in our times.  Other considerations apart, capitalism has been a failure in terms of possibly the most legitimate criteria for assessing the performance of a social system: ‘fullness of employment’ and ‘goodness of employment’ of the actual and potential resources available in society.  Never before in human history has the gap between society’s potentiality and society’s performance been so immense as it is today in capitalism’s current stage of development.  Evidence is there in the extraordinary productive capacity that three successive industrial revolutions have put at the disposal of humankind and the poverty and illiteracy, squalid slums and homelessness that are the lot of millions of families in the wealthiest countries of the capitalist world and the hunger and misery of hundreds of millions of people, living out their empty and barren lives in the hovels of the peripheral or semi-peripheral poor countries of the Third World.  The Third World today is indeed a monument to the failure of capitalism in our times. . . .

Seal Press, Feminism, and Racism

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Karnythia states:

I also see people talking about the need to give Amanda Marcotte a safe space from which to respond. Maybe it’s just me, but why exactly is it that WOC aren’t entitled to the same calls for safe space? If we’re supposed to be sisters then shouldn’t safety for us be a priority? AFAIK there is exactly one community devoted to safe space for WOC on the internet and I created it. My co-mod and I work very hard to keep the voyeurs, trolls, and bigots out and the community members guard the space jealously from anyone that might slip past us. And I wish we didn’t have to do that, but I look at this book and the responses to it and the original Seal Press fiasco and I think that we are operating in very hostile territory and the only choice WOC have is to pull back and operate our own spaces in our own ways because we can’t expect anyone to fight for us. And yes, I know many of the people reading this are truly allies and I’m not saying this to hurt you. But we’re going to need you to commence cleaning up your house before you can help us clean up the world.

Center for Socialist Studies on Mahalla

Here is what the Center of Socialist Studies has to say on the protests in Mahalla from April 6th:

The sixth of April was undoubtedly a watershed moment in the evolution of the labor movement…

The first thing that must be stressed is that the call for strikes in Mahalla did not originate from the political elites or activists within Cairo, but instead came from the workers in Mahalla who wanted to organize their third strike in less than a year and a half to achieve their demands on better wages and working conditions. One of the incentives for making these demands a reality include the requirement for minimum wage laws for all wage earners in Egypt.

…

To put into context the events in Mahala on the sixth and seventh of April we need to look at two important issues: first is the labour movement and social upheaval since 2006 included not only workers apart of the industry and services sectors, but also a wide range of professionals. The second is the rapid rise in prices during the past year, which created a backdrop of public outrage that caused the explosion behind the uprising in Mahala.

…

The actions on the sixth of April cry for requirements for a new political movement built from the ground up and not from the elite circles as well as the beginning of the demands of the workers and poor peasants, and a movement of reformulating demands for national democracy linked to the movement of the masses, not isolation from it.

[Hat Tip: 3arabawy]

Todos con Bolivia

Todos con Boliva declares:

The process of changes in favor of the Bolivian majority is at risk of being brutally restrained. The rise to power of an Indigenous president with unprecedented support in that country and his programs of popular benefits and recovery of the natural resources have had to face the conspiracies of the oligarchy and United States interference from the very beginning.

In recent days the increase in conspiracy has reached its climax. The subversive and unconstitutional actions of the oligarchic groups to try to divide the Bolivian nation reflect the racist and elitist minds of these sectors and constitute a very dangerous precedent not only for the country’s integrity, but for other countries in our region.

History shows with ample eloquence, the terrible consequences that the divisionary and separatist processes supported and induced by foreign interests have had for humanity…

The IPS reports:

Wealthier eastern provinces where Bolivia’s natural gas is concentrated are pressing for greater autonomy and local control over the administration of natural resources and the taxies levied on them.

Bolivia, South America’s poorest country, is basically divided between the western highlands, home to the impoverished indigenous majority, and the much better off eastern provinces, which account for most of the country’s natural gas production, industry and gross domestic product (GDP). The population of eastern Bolivia tends to be of more European (Spanish) than indigenous descent.

What we have here is an attack against the people of Bolivia by the elitists in the oil rich eastern provinces. They are banking that they can use their oil wealth to pressure the government to give in to their demands. They realize that the oil wealth of Bolivia will be strategic in the furthering of Bolivarian, and specifically, Bolivian socialism.

For centuries the elite of Bolivia has been used to having the only say in Bolivian affairs, and even during the time of “democracy” Bolivia was controlled by a legislature that was majority elitist, despite the fact that the elites in the country only made up a small percentage of the actual population (as is the case in every parliamentarian democracy around the world).

No you have a situation where the peasants and natives control the majority of the parliament and were able to make some changes to the constitution (they couldn’t get a 2/3 majority due to the fact that even the constitutional assembly under the socialist president wasn’t truly representative of the classes of Bolivia, the Quechua and Aymara natives make up 60% of the population with more than 2/3 of the population living at or near the poverty line) but the elite, the minority, are monopliing this change just as the minority whites monopolized South Africa against the majority Blacks. Further more:

This is a very powerful coalition, that has been described as the “100 clans”…controls large amounts of land (25 million hectares as opposed to 5 million hectares which are in the hands of 2 million poor peasants), meat packing plants, the profitable business of soy bean plantations, the country’s main banks and media and the main private industries. They are defending their class interests and they are prepared to go until the end and use any means necessary.

While the elites and capitalists decry “repression” and “anti-democratic” principles, it is they who are being anti-democratic as it is they who still hold the majority of the wealth in the country. It is not anti-democratic to take this unearned with from them by force (if necessary, however this would cause a problem if the government doesn’t have a plan to counteract their exodus from the country) and to distribute that wealth, made off the backs of the Bolivian peasants and workers, back to the peasants and workers.

Bolivia and MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo) have many challenges ahead; but they need to meet these challenges head on and pry away the iron grip of the elite from their country.

[Hat Tip: MR Zine]

Image From:
In Defense of Marxism

22nd Carnival of Socialism

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

The latest Carnival of Socialism is up at Socialist Unity:

We have split the carnival into two parts, with a selection from Louise, and a selection from Andy

Louise looks at the issues on left feminist blogs:

…

Andy Newman’s selection on China:

No Justice for Sean Bell

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Brotherpaecemaker blogs about the acquittal of the homicidal cops from New York:

People in the black community need to rethink our relationship with the dominant community. The disparity between the two communities is getting wider and wider. Police murder us in the streets and suffer no repercussions while black pastors are demonized for preaching about racial disparity in our communities. Even when the most extreme forms of this discrimination is caught on tape it is dismissed as our fault because we didn’t prostrate ourselves in front of the cop fast enough or the police officer was having a bad day and had to release his frustrations on the black citizen or whatever. We are in danger every time we come out in public from the very people sworn to protect the public. The police and the courts are doing their best to protect the public from black people.

35th Anniversary of the NDFP

While Jose Maria Sison may be wrong about Tibet (he’s only human), one thing he does know quite well and has good analysis of is the struggle in the Philippines against capitalism and dictatorship. April 24th was the 35th anniversary of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. JoMa (as he is known) has written two statements about the anniversary of the NDFP and I thought I’d share some of his words from “35 years of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines: Insights into its history and program,” and “Current Philippine Situation and Prospects of the NDFP“

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) was conceived in the midst of the rapid growth of the revolutionary mass movement in 1971. This was soon after the repeated militant mass actions in early 1970, called the “First Quarter Storm”. The ferment of resistance against the Marcos regime was rising to boiling point. It was then that the Communist Party of the Philippines formed the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

Months after Marcos declared martial law in September 1972, a mass campaign “NO TO MARTIAL LAW” arose. The NDFP PrepCom announced its 10-Point Program on 24 April 1973. This has been celebrated as the founding of the NDFP.

…

The major part of the work of the NDFP allied organizations is in the wide countryside. Mass organizations of peasants and farm workers, workers, women, youth, cultural groups and children are set up. Mass campaigns for land reform, health, education, culture, and self-defense are carried out in response to the peasants’ basic needs. Organs of political power or alternative governments on the barrio level are formed, while the New People’s Army and the CPP are strengthened.

…

The NDFP is the most consolidated and most powerful united front of revolutionary forces in the Philippines. It has succeeded in gathering, harmonizing and coordinating the revolutionary forces and winning over the millions of people to the cause of armed revolution. It has promoted the growth of all its allied organizations, the revolutionary mass movement and the organs of political power. It has served as the base for various types of alliances.

…

In 1992, the CPP launched the Second Great Rectification Movement to correct major errors instigated and carried out by a small group that turned out to be renegades in the leadership of the CPP. All the other allied organizations of the NDFP joined the CPP and the masses in carrying out this mainly educational movement to identify, repudiate and correct the errors. The overwhelming majority of cadres and members of the revolutionary movement and the masses embraced the rectification movement as the small group of renegades refused to accept their responsibility and turned against the revolutionary movement and the people.

The Second Great Rectification Movement laid the foundation for vigorous growth, consolidation and expansion, including recovery of lost areas and communities. Since then, the NDFP allied organizations s have widened and deepened their work among the masses in the countryside and urban areas.

…

The character of the Philippine ruling system has remained semi-colonial and semi-feudal. This system is in chronic crisis. It is ever rife for a national democratic revolution. The Arroyo regime has aggravated and deepened the crisis by escalating the exploitation and oppression of the people under the US-dictated policy of “neoliberal globalization” and “war on terror.

It is hostile to the national and democratic rights and interests of the Filipino people and to the development of the economy through national industrialization and genuine land reform. It is extremely servile to the US and other imperialist interests. It has allowed free rein to plunder of the economy by foreign corporations and by the big compradors and landlords. It knows no bounds for its bureaucratic corruption, the practice of electoral fraud and rampant human rights violations.

…

The worsening of the socio-economic crisis has resulted in the sharpening of the political crisis in the Philippine ruling system. The ground for amicable mutual accommodation among the reactionaries has increasingly become constricted. The Arroyo ruling clique has increasingly monopolized the spoils of power. The rising bitter rivalries within the ruling clique have resulted in the exposure of many outrageous cases of bureaucratic corruption. The intra-systemic political rivals of the ruling clique and the broad range of the opposition, including the patriotic and progressive forces, are inspired by the people’s outrage and are emboldened to expose and oppose the regime.

…

Significant sections of the reactionary classes are already vocal and active within the broad united front against the Arroyo regime. But the most decisive event is still to come, which is the pouring out of hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of the national capital region in order to signal the anti-Arroyo military and police officers and personnel to withdraw support from the Arroyo regime and give way to a new civilian government.

…

The rapidly worsening crisis of the ruling system inflicts terrible suffering on the broad masses of the people. But it also incites the people to fight back. It serves as the favorable objective condition for the advance of the subjective forces of the revolution, particularly the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). These are the three magic weapons of the Filipino people for carrying out the new democratic revolution through protracted people’s war against the oppressive and exploitative forces of foreign monopoly capitalism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.

…

The ceaseless worsening of the crisis of the world capitalist system and that of the Philippine ruling system is favorable to the international work of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. This work involves political work among the overseas Filipinos in order to defend their rights and promote their welfare. It also involves work to further strengthen and develop solidarity and mutual support between the Filipino people and other peoples through their respective mass formations and coordinating committees. It further involves proto-diplomatic and diplomatic relations with particular governments or intergovernmental agencies.

…

This growth and achievements over the past 35 years are possible only with the support of the masses. We honor the many martyrs and heroes among the masses and the NDFP leaders who gave up their lives for the Filipino people and the Philippine revolution. We also honor our internationalist friends who have rendered and are still rendering selfless service to the Filipino people.

On the firm foundation of the 35 years of glorious revolutionary struggle, we are confident of winning more victories in the years to come until we achieve nationwide victory in our struggle for national and social liberation.

LiveBlogging: Emmi de Jesus, Sec. Gen. of GABRIELA

All times are PM.

A discussion on the situation in the U.S. with BAYAN orgs and with the situation in the Philippines with Emmi de Jesus, the secretary-general of GABRIELA.

1:36: Folks from local BAYAN USA orgs have begun showing up. Folks are setting up food and snacks.

1:41: Mmmmmmmm…chips and salsa.

2:37: Done with food and talking and we are beginning the “sharing” and introduction session.

2:39: Riss, the chair of babae, introduces the folks from Liwanag Kultural Center (LKC) and League of Filipino Students-SFSU, (LFS) Pilipino Youth Coalition (PYC), as well as everyone else (around 15 folks).

2:44: Shea from LKC talks about the organization, which was set up around two years ago in order to serve the Pilipino youth in the Daly City area as there was very little in the area for them; despite the fact that Daly City has around a 36% Pilipino population (The San Francisco Bay Area is the second largest metropolitan area in the world with a Pilipino population, just behind Manila, Philippines).

2:48: Sergio from LKC:

“Just this past month Gov. Schwarzenegger announced a huge cut in the education budget…We are educating the community around how the [school] district works…and the lack of understanding of the history of this area…We’ve been doing a lot of ‘in searching for deeper answers…’ We’ve found a lot of our community does not have spaces to study…A lot of our community is living in two family residences…They go home to really crowded homes,” which is why many of them don’t end up getting all of their homework done. “We do after school programing…We are focused mainly at Westmoor High School…We teach them [Pilipino] culture before Spain came” and colonized the Philippines. “There has been this gap of service with the community and is building up relatively quickly.”

2:53: Heather from PYC:

“It’s a Bay [Area] wide thing…We have one in Sacramento and there used to be one in Stockton and Tracy. It started out in 1996 when there was a lot of gang violence in Union City and the community wanted to create something positive in that area…Back then it was based on culture and issues going in on the community…I started when I was 13 and now it is in Daly City with [LKC]…We serve the youth in Daly City…It’s doing really well and a lot of them were helping yesterday at [Diwang Pinay]…[The youth] are very excited to be apart of the community and to help and they could be doing other things but instead they are doing something positive.”

2:55: Brian, Sec. Gen. of LFS:

“LFS-SFSU started in 1996 when a few students went on an exposure trip to the Philippines and wanted to bring that organizing space back to the U.S. and San Francisco State. It started back then with 5 students and we have now 30 something. SFSU has a 10% Pilipino population; we saw the need to bring that militancy back to that activism which has been gradually been lossing since the 1960s…When SF State held the longest student strike in history…We want to bridge the connections with the issues of the Philippines and the situations here…We have many different programs as well, Diwang Pinay, our women’s event, JUFRAN…It’s our internship program, 12 weeks of workshops which is geared towards students who are on the edge or are thinking of joining LFS. We have had a image of being too hardcore so we break this down for them in the internship” and break down the history of Marxism and the Philippines into more digestible bites in order to make it more broad and appealing to a large segment of the student population. “A lot of Pilipino American students want to get into education” so we are thinking of adjusting our program accordingly.

3:02: A question on the common issues that come up with Pilipino students at SFSU. Brian says:

“They’re very happy some how, I duno?” Laughter. “Well, there’s an increase in tuition fees and we have a large coalition with that with other folks” not just Pilipino, “They’re cutting…part time teachers…Half of Asian American Studies are part time teachers.” It takes longer to graduate because you can’t get your classes and in turn costs students more money. They are going to have a 10% increase every year over the next few years. When some folks in the room started at SF State just five years ago it cost close to $1,000 but it now costs $1,700. “A lot of students are more upper class.”

Sergio:

“A lot of the students in our community depend on financial aid and some students are undocumented [immigrants]” and they might not be able to get certain loads and government aid to go to school.

Brian, “Overall the school is shifting to be done like a business to make profits.”

Emmi, “Sounds familiar…I remember at the University of the Philippines. Admission used to be 300 pesos and now it is 21,000 pesos.”

Chito, a union organizer and former LFS member from the Philippines, from 1987 to 1989 was a secretary general for an LFS chapter and also organizes with the International League of Peoples’ Struggles [ILPS]: During the early 1980s there was a lot of tuition fee increases, as well as in the late 1970s. “Students barricaded the school and were very militant.” One year there was a 300% increase; there was a three day barricade of the school.

3:17: Chito, “It’s going to get worse because we have not seen the worst of the economic recession…The budget will go down and the first thing they will do is to cut social services. However it is not all glum…Issues will come up, people will start to think and question, ‘Hey, why is this happening?’ It will hit home, people will lose their houses and income and it will be a good condition to organize” because people will now be able to see the contradictions between those how have and those who have not and will better see the flaws in the system.

3:21: Riss, “Everyting is interconnected. babae is about three years old, since February. Just coming from youth and studnet organizing and to come into community organizer. It was a challenge with us for the first year. The pace is much slower and you have to make yourself more visable. Most of the member ship we have are petty bourgouisie women now. We want to focus more on working lcass women and we need to see what services we need to provide to bring them into the space such as child care and…”

Chito, “You just mentioned it…It will be an entry point to organize.”

Riss, “Yes. That’s a long term project. We know there is a need there, how to you tap into financial resources for that.”

3:26: Riss:

“Another one of our campaigns is violence against women…domestic violence…In San Francisco the past three out of the six domestic homicides have been Pinays…We have built a name for ourselves in the [domestic violence organizing] community and we are tyring to figure out how to do something nationally with that…We also coordinate with BAYAN-USA on stopping the political repression [in the Philippines].”

Elaine, a babae member:

“We have a young women’s org at the [Filipino Community Center]…We meet just once a week” and are trying to build up the org within and as well as get more middle school youth…”[Those women] are hella sharp. Sharp-sharp.”

3:30: Riss, “We have eight members but only three [executive committee] members. But its good because” babae has very dedicated and smart women in its org.

“We’ve started Pinay Brunch which started with Fire in New York” to build stronger ties with other Pilipina women’s orgs in the Bay Area.

3:34: Riss to Emmi, “Any questions for us?”

Emmie, “No, I’m just absorbing.”

Joanna from babae. “The thing is we are babies [BAYAN-USA and its orgs] and we will stumble along the way and we are trying to figure out how to build the mass bass here” and to bridge the political with the mass line in order to please those whom are highly political as well as attract those who aren’t political.

3:42: A question to Emmi on how to solidly organize among the female youth section in the Bay Area:

Charm, from LFS, “It’s been ingrained to not trust women” in U.S. culture “and I want to understand how to better build my relationships with other women.”

Emmi, “When it comes to organizing the bottom line is its the principles of the organization…The struggle and competition comes along the lines as organizing. In the early years [of GABRIELA] we were branded as ‘ultra-feminists’ and were considered ‘class-reductionists.’ When it comes to women organizing you always have to prove something. But with the organizing it is always the political.” Relearning and over viewing the politics of the organization and the political analysis of the organization.

Question: There are hang ups on labels. What do you categorize yourself?

Emmi, “For [GABRIELA] we don’t debate but we always want to deepen and expand what type of feminism we have. We are not feminists because it is about fighting for equality between men and women within the status quo, which is capitalism. We don’t do that, we want to smash the status quo. What we do is define our work, the bottom line is always alanlysie things within the context of the national structures that bread oppression and oppression toward women and how these structure perpetuate patriarcy. The labeling thing is slowly being set aside and is more on substance…We we argue with women in conferences and with women in academia, we always start with patriarchy and violence against women. Which to us is nature, because they are coming from the point of view from the gender question. You don’t antagonize and at the same time you compromise. Highlight unity first. We say yes, yes we are feminists…While that is our practice we don’t really deepen our discourses on feminism because of the situation we have [in the Philippines] we have to prioritize the issues we study on. Such as handling they are more on studying of feminism and gender issues because they are from the academia. For a while we thought everything was OK but we realized that some of the lines they were openly discussing were not the lines we believed in. When it comes to the international arena maybe we should be firm…It’s a lot of talk about fighting and struggle against men and women but that’s not our line” as it removes the discussion on imperialism and capitalism. “In the Philippines it is easier of course.”

Question: In one word how was your three weeks here?

Emmi, “Overwhelming!” Laughter. “Overwhelming in a positive way…It’s an opportunity to see the realities because I read ‘This is what we do in the U.S.’ It’s like you exposure trip!” Talking on the exposure of trips BAYAN-USA orgs take to the Philippines in where they hook up with BAYAN orgs in the Philippines.

4:03: Discussion ends.

Related Post:
LiveBlogging: Emmi De Jesus from GABRIELA

LiveBlogging: Emmi De Jesus from GABRIELA

I will be LiveBlogging at a get together of activists at a fellow activist’s/friend’s house with GABRIELA Secretary-General Emmi De Jesus.

GABRIELA is an umbrella organization in the Philippines and is apart of the national democratic umbrella org BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance). The organization is named after Gabriela Silang who lead a revolt against the Spanish in the 18th century.

Ms. de Jesus will be fielding questions and will be talking about her experiences in the Philippines as an organizer and a women and for fighting for true democracy and freedom from imperiialist and capitalist expansion.

Image From
Fire (Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment)

TOXIC SLUDGE IS GOOD (enough for black folk)…

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Francis L. Holland blogs about a recent article he read from the Associated Press:

Although whites would have us believe that AIDS could NOT have been started by whites and that the Tuskegee Experiment could never happen again,

BALTIMORE - Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients.

…

It galls me. It galls me that the major news institutions can make federal cases out of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s prophetic indignation at a nation whose policies undervalue and marginalize whole populaces, and reduce it to the rantings of a mad man, when in our own backyard our own government is conducting more experimentation on its citizens!

[Hat Tip: the field negro]

Death on the Job

Cross-posted from The Ghost of Tom Joad.

Mike Hall blogs:

More workers are being killed on the job, but employers who are found to have violated federal safety laws in fatality cases are paying as little as $750 in penalties for each death, according to the latest edition of the AFL-CIO’s annual report Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect.

Race and Class

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Atlasien at APA for Progress, writes:

Rachel from Rachelstavern.com asks, “Why does “Working Class” mean white in our political discourse?” Once I thought about the question some more, I realized that she was right, and “white working class” is a symbolic redundancy. Class is kept neatly separate from race. In national media, when do we ever hear about the black or Latino working class? And the Asian-American working class is perhaps the most invisible of all.

White Privilege and StuffWhitePeopleLike

Cross-posted from Double Consciousness.

As everyone knows there is this website called StuffWhitePeopleLike.com I decided to create this little post just to clarify a few things on the website and how it relates to whiteness and white privilege.

Macon D put it best in this comment:

I don’t care as much as many others do, though, for “Stuff White People Like.” I think it lets white folks off the hook, since what little insightful critique it has to offer is routinely buried beneath a smarmy, ironic, humorous surface.

Gary Dauphin states in this blog post:

Nothing gets under my (colored, nearly-middle-aged) skin like the spectacle of a twentysomething white kid doing what twentysomething white kids do all the time, namely, play on some or another aspect of their race for smug fun and profit. Lander has already reportedly been offered a $350K-plus book deal from Random House. (Can a VH1 Special be very far behind?) People of color are constantly accused of playing various race cards, but “White boy makes good by being white” is hardly a man-bites-dog story…(Read More)

In the Time of Remedies

“Colombia is not in the time of crisis, but in the time of remedies.”

These are the words of President Alvaro Uribe, president of Colombia.

Ahhhh, yes. Remedies, who doesn’t like remedies?

Well, for one, labor organizers. Human Rights Watch reports:

Colombia leads the world in trade unionist assassinations, with 17 killings in the first three months of 2008 alone, and more than 400 during the 6-year administration of President Alvaro Uribe. Hardly any of the killers have been brought to justice.

Eeerrr, I guess by remedies he really means, “Colombia is not in a time of crisis, it is in a time of ‘restructuring’ and ‘readjusting’ society in order for it to conform to the wants and needs of the top 1% and anyone who gets in the way of this dictatorial capitalistic genocidal regime will be killed.” (By paramilitaries of course, which have noooooooooo connection to the government whatsoever! *this is when Uribe winks at the camera.

In the interview, Mr. Uribe returned to the theme of democratic institutions, which in his view make Colombia stand out in the region as a partner for the United States, despite how some of these institutions have been tarnished because of relationships in their ranks to warlords in the country’s internal war.

I’m not sure how democratic Colombia is if the oligarchy are the ones who rule and run every aspect of the country. Many tend to think that democracy is the ultimate freedom of choice, yet in Colombia we can see that this is not the case. While people can vote for a candidate those candidates come from the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, and this creates nothing but bourgeois parliamentarianism: that is, a parliament or congress that is dominated by the bourgeoisie and therefore creates laws and policies that only benefit the elite, at the detriment of the majority of the people

President Uribe speaks of democracy but it only the democracy of the elite. Only the elite in Colombia get into the higher institutions of education (and study abroad), own land, businesses, control the government, etc. When there is any form of resistance by the masses, such as organizing the workers, the elite use the law and extra-judicial means (such as political assasinaitons) in order to supress the majority of the people.

So by “democracy,” if Uribe means an institution where everyone has the right to vote but only a small majority can participate and benefit from the government, than by all means, Colombia is a democracy. But if he means that everyone has the right to participate in the government and in the production and creation of capital and have a government that is representative of the people than Colombia is not a democracy

Vote Left List

Well, vote Left List if you live in London. If not, enjoy this short video.

[Hat Tip: Lenin's Tomb]