Iconoclast Media

How could a policy with a name like “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” be bad? If this policy name were repeated enough maybe it would be ingrained into our heads that this policy is good. But it’s not in our heads probably because the policy is not supposed to be known- a least for now. For years the SPP has been worked over and refined behind closed doors at the highest levels of government guided by the most powerful corporations of North America. Of course, word gets out every once in a while but hopefully most people have skimmed over this policy title in the past seeing no threatening, ironic or odd words that would make them stop and read it over again. Lets take the word ‘Prosperity’. I wouldn’t mind some of that! But in this case it makes me think too much of the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ policy which according to Alan Farmer was “merely a cloak for imperial expansion” of the Japanese Empire during WW2. If that was true what does that mean for us today? Well, in this case the empire is obviously the United States government and its corporate backers while the actual people of Mexico, Canada and the US are the subordinates. These are the people who will pay the price for corporate and government prosperity, not to mention the rest of the world who will continue to take orders by the US and deal with their imposed terror.

‘Competition’ is what governments and corporations proclaim is the ultimate goal and the ultimate good for all countries – so they say. But what does it really mean to have a society run on competition? Cost cutting seems to be what corporations are best at. Currently, the elites of the world are claiming that global competition is the best for everyone. But what happens when cost is cut? How does one cut cost? Mainly it is letting some one else deal with the ‘cut’. For instance, if Canada wants to sell cheap oil to the United States, the production of oil must become cheap to make the sale of oil profitable and to attract US buyers. But as we know that oil production is messy. Actually, it has been called the most destructive process known to earth. So where does the mess (cost) go? Who will pay for it? Well mostly the earth, native people, future Canadians etc. What the SPP is designed to do is make everything more competitive. But not really competitive, for the corporations who have designed this policy are working out the deals directly with the government behind closed doors; they are getting direct access to these deals merely because of the fact that they are the largest and richest corporations in North America. They are competing for your resources and enslavement.

The SPP is a veiled attack on labour, national sovereignty, the earth, the third world etc.

Some main points of the SPP are:

-    A key element to SPP is the formation and implementation of the North American Union. A unified region set on boundary that will encompass and integrate Canada, Mexico and the United States. This means that Canadian and Mexican currency will be changed to the ‘Amero’ similar to the ‘Euro’ plus much more.
-     The union will ‘deeply integrate’ many things such as the US and Canadian military.   This is intended to further integrate Canada into the US ‘military industrial complex’ which can already be seen via General Dynamics with the production of the ‘striker’ military vehicle and its contracted design from the University of Western Ontario here in London.
-     Homogenization of regulation and trade are on the agenda. Environmental, safety, subsidization laws will be ‘integrated’ (meaning mainly, amalgamated into current US law). Massive privatization of resources including water, healthcare, minerals, and military are planned.

For more information on the SPP see the Council of Canadians’ website at: http://www.canadians.org/integratethis/

“Democracy”: Greek – demokratia, from demos ‘the people’ + kratia ‘power, rule’

“Representative Democracy”: a form of government in which the supreme power is exercised by the people, usually through a system of representation involving free elections. (Penguin)  ‘Democracy’ is often considered synonymous with ‘representative democracy’ although ‘representative democracy’ is only one form of ‘democracy’

“Direct Democracy”: is where citizens in an assembly have the right to pass executive motions, make laws, elect and dismiss officials and conduct trials all without representatives.

Other democratic practices can be exercised through plebiscites and referendums where all citizens can vote directly on a specific political issue.

The possibility of substantial democracy, factors on many elements. For instance, in ancient Greece, voters were only males with property who usually were slave owners, therefore a majority of the population could not have a voice in direct decision making. This was common in North American settler history as well. Politicians today in North America and much of the world -although not always understood in this way- are descendents of rich families who have long histories in the ruling classes. ‘Representative democracy’ which is practiced in North America today has had insufficient affect on this systemic problem. This is due to the fact that capitalism has always provided more resources to the rich to stay in power and keep their privileged positions. This is true in Canada even when people are legally permitted to hold office.

From our point of view the world situation seems to be threatened by war in the Middle East, rising prices and increasing scarcity of certain naturally occurring energy resources.  There are, in fact two sets of events occurring these days which are much more unsettling than the war or the price of petroleum.  Oh yes, we all know what they are.  They are reported upon by the MSM regularly.  The reports are, to be kind, opaque.  One might even say skewed.  Perhaps falsified is a better word.  Let’s look at both of them.  The first one is the resistance that International Capital is meeting as it drives down living conditions of the working poor around the world.  The other topic is the break down of the economic order.  Iconoclast has carried two articles on the current economic crisis.  It is my intention to return to that issue.  The weekend of September 13 - 14 was another weekend filled with rumours of impending collapse.  Last weekend it was Fannie and Freddie.  This weekend it is Lehman Bros.  Will it be WaMu and Merrill Lynch next weekend?  Tens of billions of $$$ are flying off to money heaven.

However, although moving at a slower rate (for the moment) working class resistance is also worth noting.  The order that I am presenting this material is based upon certain conversations I have had.  So, although much of what you read will be my point of view, the articles are laced with insights I have gained from other folks who are also concerned about these matters.

Hot Spots

One must begin an inquiry into Working Class Resistance with South  Asia.  Many folks would place South or even Latin America in second place.  There is much to be said for that approach.  This series will look at Europe second for reasons that will accompany the opening of that discussion.  We will see what the future will bring after that.

Working Class Resistance:

This is such a varied topic what I’ll have to break it down by region.  It is fairly obvious that South Asia, the area that used to be the Raj, is the focal point in Class War.  The old Raj included the area now covered by India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and (South) Yemen.

Let’s run through that list:

India: Main stream politics in India is split into two and a half blocs.  There is an election in the offing.  The ruling bloc at present is a bunch of parties following the leadership of the INC-I.  That stands for Indian National Congress - Indira (Gandhi).  This is India’s sort of Liberal Bloc.  They might gain a little. It’s difficult to say.  The second largest bloc is grouped around the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP].  They pretend to be centre right.  In fact they are fairly hard right.  There is a lot of this sort of thing going on these days.  Most centre right groupings around the world have become vicious, mean and hard.  They grind the people down.  This was the celebrated saffron tide.  They represent Hindu religious extremism in defence of feudal reaction.  The high tide of the religious right is ebbing, in India as in the rest of the world.  Expect them to drop a bit.

The half bloc is grouped around the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)].  Up until very recently they have been part of the INC-I Bloc. They have experimented with being a bloc on their own before.  At this time (mid-September) it is unclear if they will contest the election as part of the government.  Most likely they won’t.  Look for growth in this sector.

Many and varied are the forces to the Left of the CPI(M). Many parties have names that start with the letters CPI(ML), for Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). Some of these contest elections.  Others don’t, preferring to organise mass struggles against oppression. To the Left of the Marxist-Leninists stand several parties most of which describe themselves as Maoist. The largest of these is the CP(M), or Communist Party (Maoist). These parties have guerilla forces. They are engaged in armed direct action against the landowners, the state and exploiting industrialists. They have deployed at battalion strength.  Their liberated zone, The Compact Revolutionary Zone, is in the process of being formed.  For more information on this and other South Asia revolutions see: http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/ . At this time the usual Indian sites have been closed down or have been inactive since the beginning of the year. Much of the print and internet information from the sub-continent is now coming out in the Gulf States. Migrant workers, many from Bangladesh are forming bases there. Note the strike action in Kuwait.

Reflections:
In the last general elections held four years ago the M-L parties received about 1% of the vote. Adding in the extra-parliamentary M-L parties and the Maoists (much smaller) the total for the far Left would have been about 2%.  There have been dramatic gains since then. Current strength has to be at least 2.5%.  2.5% of 1,400,000,000 is 35,000,000. Thirty five million people, although a small fraction of India’s total population is still a lot of people. The population of Iraq, for example, is twenty seven and a half million.  The population of Scotland is just a tad over five million.

Nepal: After a hard fought civil war which lasted ten years the CPN (Maoist) and the State signed a truce.  In the two years since then general elections have been held which the Maoists won handily.  Crooked politics and cheap manoeuvres have kept the Maoists from forming a government or electing the President or Vice-President. Further more the Red Army is virtually imprisoned and the State is breaking up the communes.  It’s difficult to say where all this is going to end. Needless to say the International Communist movement is worried.  The population of Nepal is worried. In many ways it looks like the Reds have won the war and lost the peace. This will not be the first time this has happened. The oppressor classes are unwilling to cede power.

Bangladesh: Although the Revolutionary War is not as advanced in Bangladesh as it is in some parts of India it is proceeding generally satisfactorily. We are taking casualties. Like Nepal, it is difficult to wage a successful Red Revolution in Bangladesh. As in Nepal the reactionary nature of India itself plays a role.

Sri Lanka: The movement is rather new in Sri Lanka. The theoretical journal: Thousand Flowers has been published for less than two years. However there have been a couple of conferences attended by other M-L and Maoist parties from around South Asia.  Note also the New Democratic Party: http://www.ndpsl.org/

Pakistan: The political voice of working people in Pakistan is compromised by Islam and Trotskyism.  Political Islam has become the dominant expression of anti-Imperial resistance. Unfortunately it draws its secular strength from neo-feudal norms and thus cannot lead a struggle at the point of production or promote democratic norms of behaviour in the community. Political Islam also opens up fault lines between denominations.  Thus contradictions amongst the people which ought to be of a non-antagonistic nature are turned into antagonistic ones. External Imperial forces can use both reliance on exploiting figures in the community and religious conflicts for their own ends thus impeding resistance.  This having been said, the Communist Workers and Peasants Party is gaining ground: http://www.geocities.com/cmkp_pk/

Pakistan is the gateway to the “stans”. The revolutionary theory and practice that is maturing in India will be transmitted through Pakistan to Afghanistan and beyond. The Communist movement in Afghanistan currently draws its strength from the Communist movement in Iran. Although substantial the Persian model lacks the current depth of experience to be found in India.

Myanmar: Popular democratic resistance to brutal reaction in Myanmar is in a shambles. It’s difficult from this distance to put one’s finger on what went wrong.  But the movement is crippled and powerless.

Bhutan: A Marxist-Leninist-Maoist force is stirring things up. Unfortunately Bhutan is too small and too dominated by India for the movement to make any moves unless India were to be tied up with internal contradictions to the point that it was unable to dispatch the required police force to subdue Bhutan.

Thailand: Yes, Thailand is not technically part of the Raj and did indeed keep its independence although the French Empire was its neighbour on the east and the British Empire its neighbour on the West and South.  China was and is its neighbour on the North.  It is in turmoil.  As in Myanmar globalist  liberal-imperialists posing as parliamentarians are contesting power with an independentist military. The struggle is in the street.  My sources have not identified a working class current. Thailand has a sizeable working class so they must have reflected upon condition.

Malaysia: Once again technically outside of the area in question. However, working class politics in Malaysia are being profoundly affected by events in Nepal. Nepalese leaders have been invited to conferences in Malaysia.  Resonance is inevitable.

Prospects:

Internal: As suggested above, outside of Nepal popular forces are too weak to alleviate the suffering that common people endure on a daily basis. The powers that enforce the dramatic gap in social conditions are, at present, immune to any tampering with the eminently inter-personal rip off called Indian society. But all is not bleak. This is not the 1980’s. Paradoxically conditions have improved. I say paradoxically because in the 1980’s we were freer.  We had more personal options.  The State was not as repressive.  The media were more open. The living standard was higher.  But we were facing 30 years of increasing repression, dwindling personal options and falling living standards. Today the crisis of Capitalism is upon us.  The Indian peasantry have been ground down to the point that suicide has become endemic. The door is slamming in the face of middle class youth who thought that globalisation meant that they were going to be included in that sea of prosperity known as North American Herronfolk Democracy. First you see it and then you don’t. What a cruel joke.

With this and more along the same line in mind, we are witnessing a rise in militancy in the South Asia sub-continent. Two or three bulletins a day are now pouring in from the front. Victories are multiplying.  Throughout the wide and varied South Asia Left things are on the move. Great minds are engaged.  Quality political, social, economic and philosophic writings are plentiful in spite of heavy repression and censorship. In spite of being repressed and in spite of the fact that the supporter base is often too poor to be able to afford bus tickets and therefore must walk to meetings, meetings of 300,000 and more people are becoming common. The very logistics of holding a three day conference of 300,000 people in a setting of abject poverty is heroic!  We can’t begin to understand the commitment to radical Communist thought that these people have.  Most of us have never supported anything to this extent. The spiritual and emotional energy being put forward by these people is actually beyond our understanding. We are idiots in this regard. Selfish and atomised to the point where we can’t even comprehend the meaning of the word “organise” let alone do anything about it.

Expect to see Maoism start to enter the more prosperous rural areas and certain urban areas within 5 years.  After that things will move quickly. Expect a wide spread people’s war against exploitation, oppression, alienation and Imperialism within 10 years.  There might even be a Revolution within 20 or 30 years.  There are most likely people alive today who will live to see the people of the South Asian sub-continent liberate themselves.

External: The fact that popular forces in India are actually challenging state power is catching the eye of the Left throughout the world.  We have become so used to identity politics and reformism. We demand this, we demand that. Who gives a shit. The Left has never won a single concession so far as I can tell. Reformism is fraudulent though and though so far as I can tell.  Make room for yourselves.  Build your own future. And even more radical: threaten the power that capital holds over society. Then watch the carrot and stick come out. “Concessions” will be made.  And radical leaders will disappear.  When the threat to the power of the status quo goes away then the status quo grants no “concessions”. In other words, the only reformism that works is the threat of Revolution. In parts of India, peasants are taking matters into their own hands.  In Nepal, labouring people won the right to represent themselves in Parliament by fighting for that right.  These lessons are affecting the Left around the world. They aren’t the only factor of course. Life is not an equation with one unknown. Multiple factors affect everything.

Of course the ongoing events in India and the surrounding countries affect people in these countries the most. On the other hand they also have a global affect on powerless and oppressed people especially, but on everyone to some extent. It is interesting to look at the areas external to the areas under consideration but directly related enough so that the folks living therein have a more direct empathy most of the world.  Consider, for example the effect a rise of consciousness will have on east Africa and Arabia.

Looking East: Myanmar itself, although within the area under contemplation, forms a barrier.  The Western coastal area is in more ways than not, an extension of the sea coast of Bangladesh. The folks are Moslems not Buddhist, speak the same languages as in Bangladesh, look similar and are engaged in the same trades. We can expect fashion, music, politics etc to flow along these lines. The first jump going East is from the Bangladeshi culture to the Burmese culture proper. This will be an impediment which the repressive government there will both delay through policy and accelerate though policy, if you get my drift. We find Thailand to be the scene of much street unrest.  The sides are roughly the same as in Myanmar. On the one hand there are the national-traditional forces and the other the modern global forces headed by the international bankster cartel and supplied by the Buddhist Church which throughout the world has become an accomplice in extortion. (In Mongolia the Yellow hats are assisting the international bandits to rob natural resources.)

Many connections exist between Malaysia and India. Indonesia will be a tough nut to crack. A Maoist insurrection is already under way in the Philippines. All other contacts to the East have to be seen on a global context.

Looking South West: For the past couple hundred years the Raj has cast its shadow on the East coast of Africa. One can hope that the present political trends emerging in India will be telegraphed to that coast of Africa.

The Red Sea Littoral: Influence from the Indian sub-continent has been obliterated.

Persian Gulf: Although I know all the facts and even had an eye-witness report, I did not foresee the current situation occurring. The working class on the Emerites and up into Kuwait is achieving consciousness. God only knows what the situation in Saudi Arabia itself. And who knows where All this will lead. Watch El Jesserah for more detail.

The Stans: Leaving the best ’til last. The Reds in Afghanistan are definitely being affected by the upsurge of Maoism in India. One can only hope for the growth of Red influence in that area. The longer the war goes on the more folks will turn to Bolshevism. The stans would sure be a happy hunting ground for that doctrine of Liberation.

By Old North

Most, actually almost ALL of the products we use, buy and eat daily were brought to you buy a company trying to save big bucks by exploiting whatever resource they can get away with. We must be clever to avoid these products in order to be healthy and aware of how our lifestyle is keeping poor countries poor.

Our North American privileged livelihood and abundance is based on corporations EXPLOITING 2 things: The Earth environment and its living beings: animals and the poorest people on the planet. These workers have no choice but to work, die or loose their land and resources by being forced to submit to the will of a higher power. That higher power is the corporation working hand in hand with governments (even our own).

Please note a few ways to help move out of the lifestyle that corporations have created for you:

Education:
Take an interest in something new or something related to your current passions in life; look into topics such as sustainable housing and energy, political activism, protest, war resisters, Native issues, military weapons (see General Dynamics here in London). Visit the Empowerment Centre in London On (empowermentinfoshop.com) to learn about environmental, political and social activism in this area. We need you!

Consumer choices:
There are many places to buy organic foods in our communities. We must stop listening to what Febreeze and Coke are telling us.

Learn hard SKILLS:
Get off the computer already! Who here knows how to grow her own food? Frame a house? There is much benefit and satisfaction to be gained from using your hands and disengaging with anything technical.

Learn about Your CONTEXT:
Look around and consider your position racially, economically, socially, geographically: how are you connected or estranged from others and from your very back yard?

Please email your responses to this article to iconoclastzine@gmail.com and we will publish excerpts in our upcoming issues. Thanks for your contribution!