Labels: btvol, fukin newz, gandolfo, suringtheapocalypse.com, The Truth Is Out There
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
Labels: Agriculture Department, btvol, Census Bureau, Chris Hoofnagle, gandolfo, Social Security, The Truth Is Out There, USDA
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
 The Blame Game |
To repost, copy and paste the text below:
Labels: beck, btvol, daily show, gandolfo, imus, jon stewart, o'reilly, rosie, The Truth Is Out There
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
Labels: btvol, gandolfo, The Truth Is Out There
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
Labels: btvol, gandolfo, The Truth Is Out There
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
Labels: btvol, gandolfo, The Truth Is Out There
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
Breaking Solar News
Labels: btvol, gandolfo, The Truth Is Out There
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
Labels: btvol, C.I.A., contractor, D.I.A., F.B.I., gandolfo, N.S.A., Ronald P. Sanders, SCOTT SHANE, spy, The Truth Is Out There
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
Labels: btvol, Bush, donald rumsfeld, gandolfo, Israel, neo-con, Paul Wolfowitz, President, The Truth Is Out There, traitor, treason, World Bank
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
Labels: Bobby "Boris" Pickett, btvol, gandolfo, Monster mash, The Climate Mash
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
By Patrick O'Connor
The Politico
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) has invited former CIA Director George Tenet to testify before his committee next month about claims that Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa.
Waxman sent a letter to Tenet, in the care of his lawyer, Robert B. Barnett, on Friday asking the former CIA director to appear before his committee to discuss the intelligence data that President Bush cited in his 2003 State of the Union speech to justify the invasion of Iraq.
"The purpose of the hearing is to learn your views about one of the claims used to justify the war in Iraq - the assertion that Iraq sought to import uranium from Niger - and related issues," Waxman wrote in the letter.
Earlier this week, the committee voted to authorize a subpoena for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to compel her to answer questions about these claims, a move that committee Republicans decried as an "overreach."
Tenet famously claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in his now infamous "slam dunk" comment that now seems more like a cover-your-butt background leak from some other White House official who was worried the president might be culpable for the pre-war intelligence.
Tenet now slams the White House back in his new book, "At the Center of the Storm," saying they twisted his quote about the weapons of mass destruction and claiming there was never a "serious debate" leading up to the invasion. According to an Associated Press preview of the book, the former CIA chief has nice things to say about Bush himself, reserving his fire for Cheney.
Labels: Africa, btvol, gandolfo, Tenet, uranium, Waxman, yellowcake
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
Ramzy Baroud: Stealing from the Poor and Giving to the Rich
The plundering of Iraq's wealth, first by the UN and now by Iraq's new Green Zone czars, is the biggest, most shameful financial-political scandal of our times.
By Ramzy Baroud
04/27/07 "ICH" -- -- Locating Dartmouth House, where Hans von Sponeck, former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq was scheduled to speak in London 18 April, was a challenge. Yet having been lost for an hour in the ever-confusing and expanding city of London was the least of my concerns the moment I slipped quietly into the lecture hall. His statements were shocking, as were his many statistics: Iraq was simply and shamelessly robbed blind during the period of US-championed UN sanctions. Sadly, the robbery and mismanagement continue to this day, but now the figures are much more staggering.
As Mr von Sponeck spoke, I reflected on my lengthy interview with Iraq's former Ambassador to the United Nations Mohamed Al-Duri. Al-Duri, being interviewed for the first time by English-language media since taking up his post at the UN, revealed to me in early 2001, in equally shocking detail, what sanctions had done to his country and people. He claimed that the UN was a key part of the problem. Led by two countries, the US and Britain, the UN Oil for Food Programme and the "humanitarian" mission it established in Iraq was reducing Iraqis to beggary, robbing the country blind and mis-managing funds, whereas the large bulk fuelled UN-related missions and operations, with needy Iraqi families receiving next to nothing. He spoke of the manipulation of Iraq's wealth for political purposes and alleged that the UN was a tool in the hands of the US government, aimed at encouraging widespread popular dissatisfaction with Saddam's government, before the country was dragged into war.
In hindsight, Al-Duri's assessment was very accurate. Promoting his new book, A Different Kind of War, von Sponeck reiterated in essence and substance Al-Duri's claims; the only difference is that von Sponeck was an insider; his numbers and stories impeccable and hardly contestable. It's no wonder that one and a half years after taking up his post in Baghdad, in 1998, he resigned. Even within such an uncongenial bureaucracy like the UN, some people still possess a living conscience; von Sponeck was and remains a man of great qualities.
By March 2003, when American forces invaded Iraq, the UN was generating $64 billion in sales of Iraqi oil, according to von Sponeck. But scandalously, only $28 billion reached the Iraqi people. If distributed evenly, each Iraqi received half a US dollar per day. According to UN figures, an individual living under one dollar per day is classified as living in "abject poverty". Even during the most destructive phases of the war with Iran, Iraq managed to provide relatively high living standards. Its hospitals were neither dilapidated nor did its oil industry lie in ruins. Only after the advent of UN sanctions in 1991 did Iraqis suffer with such appalling magnitude. Alas, the tyranny of Saddam Hussein expanded to become the tyranny of the international community as well.
"Neither the welfare nor sovereignty of the Iraqi people were respected," by the UN and its two main benefactors, asserted von Sponeck. The UN Security Council's "elected 10 or veto-wielding five" had nothing for Iraq but "empty words," and there were "deliberate efforts to make life uncomfortable (for the Iraqis) through the Oil for Food Programme". All efforts to modernise Iraq's oil industry were blocked, said von Sponeck, at the behest of "two governments that blocked all sorts of items," necessary for even basic living -- again, the US and Britain, the same two that invaded and currently occupy Iraq. The logic in all of this is clear; the "pre- emptive" war on Iraq was but an extension of the sanctions regime.
The assessments of Al-Duri and von Sponeck converge, revealing the shameful intents of the US government and its followers many years before the horror of 9/11 polarised public opinion and allowed Washington's political elites, the neoconservatives and contractors, to make their "case for war". But where did the money go, during the sanctions and now, four years after the invasion?
Von Sponeck reports that a large chunk -- 55 per cent of the money generated from Iraq's oil -- went to fund the UN's own inadequate "humanitarian" programmes. Much of the rest was usurped by the UN Compensation Commission, entrusted with handling damages claims made by those allegedly harmed by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. According to von Sponeck, the Iraqi oil "pie" was so large there was plenty for everyone: Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, and all the rest. But most ironically, the commission awarded a large sum of money to two Israeli kibbutzim in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, for allegedly losing some of their income due to the fact that the war damaged the tourism industry in Israel.
The robbery in Iraq hardly discontinued after the "liberation". On the contrary, it intensified beyond belief. The US Government Accountability Office uncovered appalling discrepancies in the US military administration's handling of money: uncountable billions went missing; hundreds of contractors fully paid but the work never done; layer upon layer of shady companies, mercenaries and sub-contractors (Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root but mere illustrations). In partnership with the new rulers of Iraq, these corporations are stealing the wealth of the once prosperous nation, leaving it in shambles.
And now, the Iraqis are facing enormous pressure to approve the Iraqi oil and gas law. The draft bill, according to Iraqi MP Nureddin Al-Hayyali, would give "50 per cent of the Iraqi people's oil wealth to foreign investing oil firms". The nationalisation of the country's oil industry in 1972 is being reversed. The robbery that began in the early 1990s continues unabated. Shameful as it is, Iraq's new rulers are stealing from the poor and giving the spoils to the rich.
Ramzy Baroud is an Author and Journalist. His latest volume: The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London) is available from Amazon and other book vendors.
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
[Published: Friday 27, April 2007 - 09:59]
A British soldier has broken ranks within days of returning from Iraq to speak publicly of the horror of his tour of duty there, painting a picture of troops under siege, "sitting ducks" to an increasingly sophisticated insurgency.
"Basra is lost, they are in control now. It's a full-scale riot and the Government are just trying to save face," said Private Paul Barton.
The 27-year-old, who returned from his second tour of Iraq this week along with other members of 1st Battalion, the Staffordshire Regiment, insisted that he remains loyal to the Army despite such public dissent. He said he had already volunteered to go to Afghanistan later this year.
But, he said, he felt strongly that somebody had to speak out: "I want people to see it as it is; not the sugar-coated version."
His public protest is a sign of the groundswell of anger among the troops, and predictions that more will come forward to break the traditional covenant of silent service. Just last month, Pte Steve Baldwin, 22, a soldier in the same regiment, spoke to The Independent about the way he had been "pushed aside" since being injured by a roadside bomb which killed three others during the Staffords' first tour of Iraq in 2005.
And on Monday, Cpl Richard Bradley also chose to air his views on television: "Blokes are dying for no cause at all and blokes are getting injured for no cause at all."
Reacting to Pte Barton's comments, many soldiers on websites appeared stunned but in agreement. One said: "When I arrived back last year, I was utterly depressed by what I had seen out there and the lack of any progress ... any journo sticking a microphone in my grid would have been given enough soundbites to retire on. And I would probably be in the Tower of London.
"I can only imagine that the situation 12 months on is even worse, and it would not surprise me if this is repeated over the coming months by more guys coming back from their third and fourth tours to that midden."
Pte Barton felt so strongly that he telephoned his local paper, the Tamworth Herald, to speak of the "side you don't hear".
The regiment lost one soldier, Pte Johnathon Wysoczan, 21, during its tour, but 33 more were injured. "I was the first one to get to one of the tents after it was hit, where one of my mates was in bed. The top of his head and his hand was blown off. He is now brain damaged.
"We were losing people and didn't have enough to replace them. You hear about the fatalities but not the injuries. We have had four who got shot in the arm, a bloke got blown up twice by roadside bombs and shot in the neck and survived."
Most, he said, endured at least one "lucky escape" during their tour. "I had a grenade chucked at me by practically a five-year-old kid. I had a mortar land a couple of metres from me."
The regiment was based in the Shatt al-Arab hotel base, which was handed over to the Iraqi army on 8 April. Of the 40 tents in the base, just five remained unscathed by the end of the tour, he said. "We were just sitting ducks ... On the last tour we were not mortared very often. This tour, it was two to three times a day. Fifteen mortars and three rockets were fired at us in the first hour we were there."
He added: "Towards the end of January to March, it was like a siege mentality. We were getting mortared every hour of the day. We were constantly being fired at. We basically didn't sleep for six months. You couldn't rest. Psychologically, it wore you down.
"Every patrol we went on we were either shot at or blown up by roadside bombs. It was crazy."
He insisted that the insurgents appeared to be considerably better trained, funded and equipped than had been the case during their first tour of duty.
"Last tour, I never fired my rifle once. This time, I fired 127 rounds on five different occasions. And, in my role [providing medical support], I shouldn't have to fire." He added: "We have overstayed our welcome now. We should speed up the withdrawal. It's a lost battle. We should pull out and call it quits."
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
Be Our Guest
Does the President think terrorists are puppy dogs? He keeps saying that terrorists will "follow us home" like lost dogs. This will only happen, however, he says, if we "lose" in Iraq.
The puppy dog theory is the corollary to earlier sloganeering that proved the President had never studied logic: "We are fighting terrorists in Iraq so that we will not have to face them and fight them in the streets of our own cities."
Remarkably, in his attempt to embrace the failed Iraqi adventure even more than the President, Sen. John McCain is now parroting the line. "We lose this war and come home, they'll follow us home," he says.
How is this odd terrorist puppy dog behavior supposed to work? The President must believe that terrorists are playing by some odd rules of chivalry. Would this be the "only one slaughter ground at a time" rule of terrorism?
Of course, nothing about our being "over there" in any way prevents terrorists from coming here. Quite the opposite, the evidence is overwhelming that our presence provides motivation for people throughout the Arab world to become anti-American terrorists.
Some 100,000 Iraqis, probably more, have been killed since our invasion. They have parents, children, cousins and fellow tribal clan members who have pledged revenge no matter how long it takes. For many, that revenge is focused on America.
At the same time, investing time, energy and resources in Iraq takes our eye off two far more urgent tasks at hand: one, guarding the homeland against terrorism much better than the pork-dispensing Department of Homeland Security currently does the job; and two, systematically dismantling Al Qaeda all over the world, from Canada to Asia to Africa. On both these fronts, the Bush administration's focus is sorely lacking.
Yet in the fantasyland of illogic in which the President dwells, shaped by slogans devised by spin doctors, America can "win" in Iraq. Then, we are to believe, the terrorists will be so demoralized that they will recant their beliefs and cease their terrorist ways.
In the real world, by choosing unnecessarily to go into Iraq, Bush not only diverted efforts from delivering a death blow to Al Qaeda, he gave that movement both a second chance and the best recruiting tool possible.
U.S. military raids in Iraq have uncovered evidence that Iraqis are planning attacks in America, perhaps to be carried out by terrorists with European Union passports that require no U.S. visas. But such attacks here over the next several years are likely now no matter what happens next in Iraq - and that is because of what Bush has already done, not because of any future course we choose in Iraq.
But we can be sure that when the next attacks come in the U.S., if Bush is down on the ranch cutting trees, he and whatever few followers he retains by then will blame his successor. You can almost hear them now: If only hissuccessor had left enough U.S. troops in the Iraqi shooting gallery to satisfy the blood lust of the enemy, as Bush did, then they wouldn't have come here.
The truth: If not for this administration's reckless steps to push America into war - and strategic blunder after strategic blunder that has satisfied the blood lust of the enemy - fewer evildoers would follow us home like the dogs that they are.
Clarke served as chief counterterrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He is now chairman of Good Harbor Consulting.
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
We've seen this story before: The Pentagon takes an interest in a rapidly changing area of scientific knowledge, and the world is forever changed. And not for the better.
During World War II, the scientific field was atomic physics. Afraid that the Nazis were working on an atomic bomb, the U.S. government mounted its own crash project to get there first. The Manhattan Project was so secret that Congress did not know what it was funding and Vice President Harry S. Truman did not learn about it until FDR's death made him president. In this situation of extreme secrecy, there was almost no ethical or political debate about the Bomb before it was dropped on two cities by a bureaucratic apparatus on autopilot.
Despite J. Robert Oppenheimer's objections, a few Manhattan Project scientists organized a discussion on the implications of the "Gadget" for civilization shortly before the bomb was tested. Another handful issued the Franck Report, advising against dropping the bomb on cities without a prior demonstration and warning of the dangers of an atomic arms race. Neither initiative had any discernible effect. We ended up in a world where the United States had two incinerated cities on its conscience, and its pursuit of nuclear dominance created a world of nuclear overkill and mutually assured destruction.
This time we have a chance to do better. The science in question now is not physics, but neuroscience, and the question is whether we can control its militarization.
According to Jonathan Moreno's fascinating and frightening new book, Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense (Dana Press 2006), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been funding research in the following areas:
Moreno's book is important since there has been little discussion about the ethical implications of such research, and the science is at an early enough stage that it might yet be redirected in response to public discussion.
If left on autopilot, however, it's not hard to see where all of this will lead. During the Cold War, misplaced fears of a missile gap and a mind control gap excited an overbuilding of nuclear weapons and unethical LSD experiments on involuntary human subjects. Similarly, we can anticipate future fears of a "neuroweapons" gap, and these fears will justify a headlong rush into research (quite likely to involve unethical human experiments) that will only stimulate our enemies to follow suit.
The military and scientific leaders chartering neuroweapons research will argue that the United States is a uniquely noble country that can be trusted with such technologies, while other countries (except for a few allies) cannot. They will also argue that these technologies will save lives and that U.S. ingenuity will enable the United States to dominate other countries in a neuroweapons race. When it is too late to turn back the clock, they will profess amazement that other countries caught up so quickly and that an initiative intended to ensure American dominance instead led to a world where everyone is threatened by chemicalized soldiers and roboterrorists straight out of Blade Runner.
Meanwhile, individual scientists will tell themselves that, if they don't do the research, someone else will. Research funding will be sufficiently dominated by military grant makers that it will cause some scientists to choose between accepting military funding or giving up their chosen field of research. And the very real dual-use potential of these new technologies (the same brain implant can create a robosoldier or rehabilitate a Parkinson's disease sufferer) will allow scientists to tell themselves that they are "really" working on health technologies to improve the human lot, and the funding just happens to come from the Pentagon.
Does it have to be this way? In spite of obvious problems controlling a field of research that is much less capital-intensive and susceptible to international verification regimes than nuclear weapons research, it is possible that a sustained international conversation between neuroscientists, ethicists, and security specialists could avert the dystopian future sketched out above.
Unfortunately, however, Moreno (p.163) quotes Michael Moodie, a former director of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, as saying, "The attitudes of those working in the life sciences contrast sharply with the nuclear community. Physicists since the beginning of the nuclear age, including Albert Einstein, understood the dangers of atomic power, and the need to participate actively in managing these risks. The life sciences sectors lag in this regard. Many neglect thinking about the potential risks of their work."
Time to start talking!
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
By Min Zeng and Bo Nielsen
April 27 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar dropped to an all-time low against the euro after the U.S. government reported the economy grew at its slowest pace in four years.
The dollar also weakened against most other major currencies, with a Federal Reserve index measuring dollar strength near the lowest level in its 36-year history. Hedge funds and other speculative investors increased bets on the euro's gain to a record for a third straight week.
``The main trend is averse to the dollar,'' said Paul A. Samuelson, professor emeritus of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Nobel Prize winner in economics. ``With the U.S. in moderate slowdown, that's not encouraging foreign savers at the old dollar exchange rate.''
The dollar dropped as low as $1.3681 per euro today, eclipsing the previous record of $1.3666, touched April 25 and first reached Dec. 30, 2004. The euro debuted in January 1999 at about $1.17. The dollar traded at $1.3654 at 4:34 p.m. in New York.
U.S. gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced, grew at an annual rate of 1.3 percent from January through March after a 2.5 percent pace in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department reported in Washington today.
The dollar has fallen 16 percent against the euro since the European currency's 1999 launch. The dollar has declined 20 percent versus the pound, 36 percent against the Australian currency, 40 percent versus the New Zealand currency and 38 percent against its Canadian counterpart over the same period.
The Federal Reserve's U.S. Trade Weighted Major Currency Dollar Index comparing the dollar with other major currencies dropped to an all-time low of 78.99 on April 25 and is down 1.8 percent this year.
Current-Account Deficit
The current account, a broad definition of trade that includes investment income and transfers, fell to a record deficit of $856.7 billion last year.
``The current account has weakened the dollar for some time, while interest rates supported it,'' said Torsten Slok, an economist in New York at Deutsche Bank AG. ``If rates start to fall relative to other areas, both indicators will point down for the dollar.''
Slok and his colleagues expect the Federal Reserve will lower its target rate for overnight lending between banks to 4.75 percent this year and the dollar will remain weak at $1.36 by the end of the year.
The U.S. currency pared its decline as investors bought back the dollar to limit their losses, said Brian Dolan, research director at Forex.com, a unit of online currency trader Gain Capital in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Bets on Euro
Futures traders increased bets on the euro's gain against the dollar to a record high for a third week, the Washington- based Commodity Futures Trading Commission reported today.
The difference in the number of wagers by hedge funds and other large speculators on an advance in the euro compared with those on a drop -- so-called net longs -- rose 4 percent to 111,282 on April 24, replacing the previous high of 106,770 a week earlier.
The dollar traded at 119.53 yen, rebounding from a low of 118.88 after the Commerce Department released its economic data.
The yen dropped to a record low against the euro after a Japanese government report showed consumer prices dropped last month and the Bank of Japan lowered its forecast for inflation for the 2007-2008 fiscal year.
BOJ Outlook
Investors speculated the BOJ will refrain from boosting interest rates at a faster pace, spurring buying of higher- yielding assets funded by loans in Japan, a practice known as the carry trade. The BOJ kept its benchmark rate unchanged at 0.5 percent, the lowest among major economies.
The Japanese currency fell 0.38 percent to 163.20 per euro and earlier touched an all-time low of 163.24.
A declining dollar is benefiting U.S. companies such as McDonald's Corp., EBay Inc. and 3M Co., whose overseas revenue has increased when expressed in dollar terms.
The U.S. government's views on the currency haven't changed since Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson reiterated his support for a ``strong dollar'' on April 20, said Brookly McLaughlin, Paulson's spokeswoman in Washington.
European Central Bank council member Yves Mersch told the Boersen-Zeitung newspaper on April 25 that German exporters ``can live with the current exchange rate'' and that in a ``monetary union internal adjustment processes are more important than'' external ones.
U.S. Versus Europe
The 13-country euro region's economy grew 2.7 percent last year, the fastest in six years. The region will expand 2.3 percent this year, compared with growth of 2.2 percent in the U.S., according to the International Monetary Fund.
The Fed has held its target rate for overnight lending between banks at 5.25 percent since June, while the European Central Bank raised its benchmark a quarter percentage point to 3.75 percent last month.
To contact the reporters on this story: Min Zeng in New York at mzeng2@bloomberg.net ; Bo Nielsen in New York at bnielsen4@bloomberg.net .
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
By Rudolph J. Vecoli
The Times Argus
May Day: The holiday of the workers. In days gone by, when men, women and children often worked 10 or more hours a day, seven days a week, May Day was an assertion on the part of wage-slaves that they were sovereign human beings with control over their own lives and destinies. They celebrated the day with marches of tens and hundreds of thousands throughout the world.
May Day was an expression of the international solidarity of the working class. "Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains," was not just a slogan. It was a battle cry in the war between classes. Their marches and rallies, with fiery speeches, impassioned poetry and stirring anthems, gave them a sense of their collective strength. It was an act of defiance of the combined forces of employers and public authorities. Often their gatherings were brutally attacked by police or thugs with clubs and guns.
Many of us have grandparents or great-grandparents who participated in these observances. Few of us acknowledge or are even aware of this inspiring part of our family histories. We Americans suffer from mass amnesia of the remarkable and some times glorious history of workers' struggles for liberty of expression and social justice. Who now remembers May Day?
Although not often taught in American history classes, May Day originated in the United States during the campaign for an eight-hour day. The Knights of Labor, the nascent American Federation of Labor and various anarchist groups designated May 1, 1886, for nationwide demonstrations for the eight-hour goal. An incident which occurred several days later in Chicago made this the beginning of a global workers' movement. Following a clash between strikers and police in which several workers were killed, a protest meeting was held in Haymarket Square.
When police attacked the gathering, a bomb was thrown, killing several officers. In the trial of anarchists (who were not accused of the bombing, but for advocating violence) which followed, eight were found guilty and four subsequently executed. These "Haymarket martyrs" quickly became revered heroes of labor movements throughout the world.
With this tragic episode in the class war in mind, the International Socialist Congress meeting in Paris in 1889 designated May 1, 1890, as an eight-hour holiday to be observed by workers in all countries. An increasingly conservative Samuel Gompers and AF of L had by the mid-1890s distanced themselves from May Day and embraced the legally sanctioned Labor Day, which was observed the first Monday in September. Coming from radical backgrounds, Finns, Slavs, East European Jews, Italians and other immigrants found their cherished May Day opposed not only by capitalists but often by American workers as well. Despite being denounced as "foreign born reds," they kept the torch of May Day idealism burning for another generation.
The response of the "bosses," political and economic, was twofold: to allay the anger of the workers, measures were taken to ameliorate the worst abuses of the capitalist system; while extreme repression was used to silence the most vocal and active labor advocates. The case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian anarchist immigrants, electrocuted on Aug. 23, 1927, following a blatantly biased trial, is the most heinous example of the latter.
However, the ideal of May Day had already been shattered by the collision of international solidarity of the "proletariat" with the fervid nationalism resulting from World War I. Patriotism trumped class consciousness, and millions of workers killed each other in the name of the fatherland. Meanwhile, the Bolshevik Revolution which appeared to fulfill the vision of a collective republic turned out to be a Trojan horse in the socialist camp. The Leninist-Stalinist regime proved to be a ruthless dictatorship presiding over state capitalism. Among the earliest and most passionate opponents of Communist Russia were socialists and anarchists whose comrades were being liquidated by the Bolsheviks.
The aspiration for the unity of workers was shattered by these developments.
In the United States, the Great Depression of the 1930s did not usher in communism but the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which saved capitalism and laid the basis for a welfare state.
May Day was hijacked by the Soviet Union with its displays of military prowess in Red Square. The association of May Day with Soviet Communism has given it a bad name to this day.
In this age of globalization, when workers are pitted against each other, across oceans and continents, we have returned to conditions of pitiless exploitation of human beings. If greed ever was constrained by patriotism, it certainly is not today. The quest for profits knows no inhibitions by national ideologies or loyalties. Yes, we are involved in a class war, a war of oil companies, the military-industrial complex, the corrupted political institutions, against the workers and consumers.
We, the American working people, remain beguiled by symbols, the flag, the Fourth of July, the Thanksgiving turkey. It is time to revisit May Day in the spirit in which it was conceived over a hundred years ago. Only an international labor movement can hope to match the prowess of the amoral trans-national capitalist system. Freeing ourselves from the sordid history which stained the banner of May Day, we need to raise a cleansed, purified standard on which is emblazoned once again: "Workers of the World Unite!"
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
posted by Gandolfo at 4/28/2007
0 comments
Just a good old country boy raised in the city. I am an escapee from the concrete jungle.
