Introduction
There
is no question that over the past decade and a half, Europe, the US and Israel
have engaged in a series of bloody wars, inequalities have increased throughout
the globe, economic crisis has become endemic and, more recently, right-wing
military and civilian regimes have swept to power throughout Asia, North
Africa, Europe and Canada.
Yet,
despite this generally gloomy picture, important positive developments have
emerged raising the possibility of fundamental changes to reverse the current
reactionary wave. I will proceed by outlining these positive developments,
taking account of the retrograde context in which they occur.
Reaction
and Progress in Asia
The
macro-political-economic picture in Asia could not be darker: Right-wing
regimes rule in all the major countries. There is a military junta in Thailand
and a military-civilian regime in Pakistan. In Japan, a right-wing Prime
Minister is committed to re-arming and expanding its military power. Rightwing
rulers have taken power in Australia, Indonesia, South Korea and India. In
China, inequalities intensify while the number of billionaires and millionaires
will soon exceed those in the US. Regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan support
US military intervention and drone attacks within their territory.
In
the face of this reactionary setting, there is the rising class struggle of
millions of Chinese workers, who have secured major gains in salaries and wages
in the course of the last decade, averaging over 10% per year. The cumulative
gains have led to the doubling of monthly wages. The main reason worker wages
have increased can be found in their willingness to engage in strikes,
demonstrations and other forms of militant class action.
Rising
wages in China have enormous positive global consequences. Many corporations
have relocated from the coastal cities to the interior, thus ‘proletarianizing’
the provinces and widening and deepening the scope for militant labor action. Meanwhile,
many foreign and Chinese corporations have relocated their factories to low
wage countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Laos, bringing
intensified class struggle. In recent years, militant strikes and violent
protests have broken out in Cambodia, Vietnam and Bangladesh.
There
are indications that US capitalists may be ‘on-shoring’ their investments, i.e.
re-locating factories and business back to the US, as wages and militancy rise
in China and decline in the US. With the drying up of China as the world’s reserve
pool of passive, cheap workers, the global labor market tightens increasing the
capacity of workers to successfully struggle for better working conditions and
wages.
Chinese
outflows of capital this year will exceed inflows, for the first time. These outflows
include speculative investments in high-end real estate in the West and greater
investments in extractive sectors in Africa, Latin America, Oceana, Asia,
Southern Europe and Ukraine. This expansion of productive investments will
expand the working class and lead to more workers struggles.
In
summary, the sharp and sustained rise in Chinese wages, resulting from the
class struggle, has world historical significance as it ripples through the
global economy by setting in motion a chain of positive socio-political
movements.
The
Larger Significance of the Afghan War
The
prolonged US war in Afghanistan, now in its 13th year, and Washington’s defeat
and retreat in the face of an unconquered Taliban national resistance, has
enormous consequences for US empire-building, as well as domestic public
opinion and nationalist resistance movements worldwide.
First
and foremost the war has turned the vast majority of Americans against new
military interventions, especially those involving ground troops. The “Afghan
Syndrome” (replacing the ‘Vietnam Syndrome’ of the 1970’s and 1980’s) has
become an obstacle to the launching of new military empire-building projects.
Obama’s
‘humanitarian’ intervention in Libya was confined to bombing cities and
infrastructure while unable to send American ground troops to effectively
occupy the country, set up a secure puppet government and seize the valuable
oil fields. As a result, its flimsy puppet government in Tripoli has collapsed
and Libyan oil production is minimal. Libya is a fragmented ‘failed state’
ruled by tribal armies with its once modern infrastructure in ruin.
Likewise
the US is forced to wage war against the secular nationalist government in
Syria via proxy jihadi mercenaries, as the “Afghan Syndrome” blocks greater and
more direct US troop involvement.
Despite
enormous pressure on the US President and Congress to launch a war against Iran
from Israel’s fifth column, the so-called ‘Israel Lobby’, the ‘Afghan syndrome’
has limited Washington to rely on economic sanctions. The uncontrolled, violent deterioration in the
Middle East caused by US overt and covert wars has forced an opening for
diplomatic negotiations with Teheran – to the fury of militarists in Tel Aviv
and their US agents. In other words, the defeat of the US invasion and
occupation of Afghanistan, as well as the enormous and destructive cost of a
prolonged occupation to the US economy, has weakened the capacity of the US
Empire to invade, occupy and pillage resource-rich adversaries, today and in the
near future.
How
Middle East Wars for Israel Weaken the US Presence in Latin America and Asia
Washington
has thrown away trillions of dollars of public money and suffered major
casualties in pursuit of endless wars in the Middle East, which were vigorously
promoted by the domestic Zionist power configuration at the behest of
Israel.
Because
of this influential power configuration, the US has lost significant economic,
political and diplomatic influence in its traditional spheres of control in
Latin America and Asia. US market shares in both regions have declined. New
regional organizations, excluding the US, have proliferated throughout Latin
America. China has expanded its own lucrative trade relations throughout both
regions, further eroding US hegemony.
While
Zionist influence over US policy is pernicious, eroding domestic sovereignty
and undermining democracy within the US, the focus of US policy on the
interests of Israel has clearly undermined the US presence in Latin America and
Asia.
As
long as the US continues to intervene in the Middle East, it will be unable to
effectively intervene against popular uprisings and center-left governments in
Latin America. By channeling its resources to prop up hereditary tyrants in the
Gulf and Egypt’s brutal military junta, the US has not been able pursue its
more traditional role in Latin America.
The
US has plenty of regional allies and clients in the Middle East and North
Africa, but they lack popular legitimacy and rule through terror and
repression. In Turkey, mass protests have erupted against the Erdogan regime,
including important sectors of the militant Turkish working class.
Kurds,
Islamists and leftists have gained influence inside Turkey and along its
borders. Meanwhile, Turkey’s regional trading partners, such as Iraq, are in
turmoil and trade has collapsed. While Prime Minister Erdogan may win
elections, his legitimacy among the population is tarnished and his ambition to
be a major regional leader is severely diminished.
Israel
continues to extract billions of dollars in annual US aid (tribute) while
dispossessing and starving the Palestinians. Nevertheless the growing
international boycott and divestment movement is undermining the power of Tel
Aviv’s overseas “lobbies” to direct US and EU policy. Israel has never been so
isolated, feared and despised in the eyes of the world’s people. International
public opinion polls have repeatedly ranked Israel’s policies as a major source
of war and instability in the world today.
In
the US and EU, more voices than ever are speaking out against Israel’s crimes
against humanity, despite the campaigns by major Zionist organizations to
blacklist, threaten and punish critical voices. Increasingly the power of the
Israel lobby relies on its numerically small Zionist power elite - the
millionaires and billionaires who own the mass media and who bankroll its
political campaigns. The leaders of major Jewish organizations in the US are
facing a significant decline in membership especially among young generations
of American Jews, unwilling to commit their energies and resources to a
militarist, racist Israel.
The
Gulf States: Precarious Clients, Dubious Allies
The
Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia, have offered “paper” support for US wars
in the Middle East at a cost. Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Bahrain
rule over their restive populations by coercion. Majorities are demanding
democratic freedom and, in some cases, have engaged in large-scale protests
despite brutal repression. US military bases in the region will be vulnerable
when these pro-democracy majorities finally overthrow the family-based
monarchic dictatorships.
Moreover,
the Gulf regimes are playing a dangerous double game: They publicly support the
US while secretly funding the Sunni Islamist terrorists opposing US proxies,
(the ‘moderate’ rebels) in Syria and the puppet government in Iraq. The Gulf
States financed the bloody ‘regime changes’ in Egypt and Libya, while the US
may have been content (and better served) to arrange power-sharing agreements. The
Saudi monarchy has joined with Israel in trying to sabotage any US negotiations
with Iran. While, on paper, the US may have ‘clients and allies’ throughout the
Middle East, these lack legitimacy, stability and trust . . . weak foundations
from which to project US power. They are a constant drain on financial
resources and have no public sympathy among the US electorate.
Europe:
Crisis, Expansion and Resistance
While
the European Union expands its territory with the de-facto annexation of the
western Ukraine and Moldavia, and NATO stations its military facilities on the
frontiers of Russia, the EU’s economy is suffering from the longest and deepest
period of recession and stagnation since the Great Depression.
After
six years of crisis with no end in sight, objective reality refutes any
remaining notions of capitalism in Europe as a ‘self-rectifying’ system capable
of sustaining growth and prosperity. On the contrary, with inequalities
widening and wages, salaries and the social safety net in sharp decline, class
polarization is growing. All the objective conditions for a revival of class
struggle are present.
With
even harsher retrograde measures (“austerity”) imposed on the populations by
oligarchs in Brussels, workers and salaried employees, in both the public and
private sectors, are showing uneven and sporadic signs of mass resistance. This
will lay the groundwork for more general and systematic confrontations in the
not too distant future.
Even
as the European Union overextends itself, seizing control of the western
Ukraine via a repugnant and brutal proxy putsch regime, it has ignited a
partisan revolt in the industrial eastern Ukraine. Workers and employees have
set up a popular democratic republic and are engaged in a war of national
resistance against the EU collaborator junta in Kiev.
The
EU and the US threats of harsher sanctions against Russia have provoked furious
criticism from major sectors of the capitalist class in Germany, France, the
US, Italy and elsewhere. The US National Association of Manufacturers and the
US Chamber of Commerce have published editorials and full-page ads in all the
influential financial media, arguing that new sanctions against Russia will
lead to losses of billions of dollars in trade and investments and cost hundreds
of thousands of US jobs.
The
significance of this current break between the capitalist class and the
imperial state clearly highlights the conflict between Washington
based-militarists and market-based producers and investors. If and when this conflict
deepens, there will be the potential for a broad-based, well-financed coalition
opposed to the militarist vision of ‘globalization’
In
the meantime, Russia and China have moved toward a new political, economic and
military alliance in response to sanctions. Trade in rubles and renminbi
(instead of dollars and euros) is expanding. The domestic economy is becoming
the motor force of China’s new growth model. Local industry is replacing
European imports via “import substitution” in Russia.
In
sum, Washington and Brussels’ sanctions and bellicose threats against Russia
and China are having a boomerang effect. They are costing Western manufacturers
and exporters significant market shares in large dynamic countries and
fomenting deep internal divisions within the ruling classes in the US and EU.
Rising
Class and National Struggles in the EU
Class
struggle from below intensifies in the EU. In Greece, the leftwing party
Syriza, controls the municipal governments in Athens and throughout Attica, and
currently leads in the national polls. In France, the neo-liberal, militarist,
so-called “Socialist” regime of President Francois Hollande has lost
credibility and hovers at 19% public support. It wallows in economic stagnation
with double-digit unemployment and an unending series of scandals. The popular
revolt against “austerity” and the Brussels dictatorship grows . . . So far,
unfortunately, this public anger has been most effectively capitalized by the
nationalist Right, but hopefully, the nationalist left will be re-energized by
the crisis, intensify class contradictions in the near future and seize the
opportunity to organize and lead.
In
Spain, the nationalist left movements in the Basque country and Catalonia are
challenging the Rightist regime in Madrid and the ‘neo-liberal nationalists’ in
Barcelona and Bilbao. A state crisis looms, where the vast army of unemployed
youth (50%) could play a major role in radicalizing the independence movement.
Latin
America: The Center-Left, the Right and the Left
Into
the second decade of the 21st century, many of the illusions of the Left and
its fears about US Empire have faded. So-called ‘21st century socialism’, has
not ‘socialized’ any economies while the US has not succeeded in orchestrating
regime change and installing its neo-liberal clients in any major South
American countries. The exception is Honduras, a nation in shambles, with tens
of thousands of refugees fleeing the US-installed military-civilian junta –
including thousands of Honduran children crowding US deportation camps.
What
has emerged is a triangular struggle between established center-left regimes
backed by electoral majorities, US-backed rightist parties and leftist-backed
social movements and trade unions.
The
US has secured support for its new Trans-Pacific Alliance from Colombia, Chile,
Peru and Mexico. However, this has not undermined the independent regional
trade and cooperation organizations, which exclude the US, such as UNASUR and
ALBA. Both Chile and Peru, close US ‘allies’, depend far more on their trade
with China than with the US.
Over
the past decade, Washington has succeeded in orchestrating two coups – Honduras
and Paraguay – both marginal and in decline. But it has so far failed in three
much larger and vibrant nations: Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Washington
maintains seven military bases in Colombia, but Bogota has signed trade,
military and political agreements with Venezuela to end cross border military
incursions and mutually respect their political sovereignty.
The
center-left has consolidated political power in Uruguay and Bolivia, and to a
lesser degree in Brazil and Ecuador. Nevertheless, the center-left’s dependence
on agro-mineral exports and foreign finance capital has caused domestic
economic stagnation. This has led to the growth of right-wing electoral parties
and violent coup-attempts in some countries while promoting the growth of
significant left-led social movements and direct action in others. In
Venezuela, the right has engaged in election violence, bloody attacks by hired
thugs, destructive street demonstrations with the burning of clinics and power
stations, as well as an elite-orchestrated campaign to sabotage the economy. In
the midst of double-digit inflation, political street violence and a crime
wave, the center-left’s popular base has been eroded in Venezuela.
Washington
has used its courts to attack Argentina by ruling in favor of the so-called
‘vulture’ capitalists or speculative investment funds which had purchased
Argentine debt after its severe economic crisis and are now pushing the country
toward defaulting on its current foreign debt or depleting its foreign reserves
to reward the ‘vultures’.
President
Obama continues the US half-century boycott against Cuba in splendid isolation
at home and abroad, in spite of both international and domestic opinion in
favor of normal relations with Havana. The growing violent right-wing
opposition against the center-left in Venezuela and Argentina has polarized
their political systems. As the right-wing advances and the governments give
way, popular movements and mobilizations intensify and increase political
volatility. While the danger of right-wing takeovers is growing, so are
opportunities for the Left to gain significant support from the traditional
mass base of the Center-Left.
Africa:
The Historic General Strike in South Africa
While
the former-nationalist rulers in South Africa, Angola, and Mozambique continue
to pillage the treasury and enrich themselves in partnership with the
US-EU-Chinese mining corporations, South African mine workers are creating a
potentially radical alternative. For five months, the South African platinum
miners have been engaged in the longest, most disciplined and most successful
strike in the history of Africa. Despite the brutal massacre of 39 miners by
the ruling black bourgeois regime (African National Congress), the opposition
of the biggest global mining companies in Africa and the sellout leadership of
the trade union confederation, the miners have held fast. Following their
success, trade union militants are organizing a new trade union confederation
and a new workers’ party. Their leaders have introduced a new spirit of hope
and struggle among millions of poor, unemployed and marginalized black
Africans.
The
United States: Small Victories Can Lead to Big Movements
It
is tempting to be pessimistic about progressive change in the United States
with its anemic and politically irrelevant trade union federation and co-opted
peace movement; the decline of independent grass-roots organizations; the
co-optation of Black and Latino politicians by the Wall Street-dominated
Democratic Party and the successful State crackdown on the “Occupy Movement”.
At
the international level the Obama regime has increased its support for direct
and proxy intervention in Syria, Iraq and the Gulf region. Washington has given
over 2 billion dollars in military aid to the brutal Egyptian military junta.
Obama has released another five hundred million dollars in aid to the armed
mercenary forces invading Syria. Hundreds of US Special Forces and thousands of
armed ‘contractors’ have been sent to Iraq and one thousand US Marines are
ready ‘off-shore’...
On
the other hand there are signs of hope on the horizon. Over 80% of the US
public have rejected Obama’s war mongering, especially his ambitions to
‘re-enter’ Iraq.
It
was US public opinion and letters to their Congressional representatives that
blocked Obama’s plan to bomb Syria. His callous embrace of the Egyptian coup
and dictator has alienated the vast majority of secular democrats and moderate
Muslims in North Africa and the Middle East.
Obama’s
spineless support of Israel’s settler land grabs and the ‘business-as-usual’
complicity of US corporations with radical Jewish colonists in the West Bank are
increasingly opposed by the European Union, leading Christian churches (the US
and Canadian Presbyterians, among others) and by the growing world-wide
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement.
In
local US elections, we have seen a real, consequential socialist elected to the
Seattle City Council. The Chicago teachers union is leading a massive city-wide
struggle, based in the Black and Mexican-American neighborhoods, against the
draconian school closures and teacher lay-offs initiated by the ex-Wall Streeter,
former Obama ‘Chief of Staff’, US-Israeli dual citizen, Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emmanuel. A broad trade union – community based coalition has formed to
challenge Emmanuel’s corrupt money machine and austerity policies in the
forthcoming mayoral elections.
Alternate
media web sites, critical of politicians pandering to Wall Street and deeply
opposed to new wars, now inform millions of American citizens as they seek
their place in popular movements.
For
the first time, the two principle business lobbies, the National Manufacturers
Association (NAM) and the US Chamber of Commerce (USCC) have come out in public
opposition to Washington’s sanctions against Russia. The fact that big and
small, local and international businesspeople recognized that US military
interventions, economic sanctions and boycotts hurt their profits, limit their
access to markets and cost thousands of domestic jobs is a major political
breakthrough. For over two decades, US business interests, especially Big Oil,
have been bullied into silence, while Israel’s thuggish “Lobby” has
successfully pushed for sanctions against Iraq and then a full-scale invasion,
and then more sanctions targeting Iran, Syria and Lebanon. The recognition that
this has hurt US investors, cut access to international markets, eliminated
hundreds of thousands of US jobs and caused the price of fuel to soar for
hundreds of millions of US consumers has finally been brought home. The current
push for sanctions against Russia does not have the rabid support of the pro-Israel
lobby and US businesses interests are effectively finding their courage to face
the politically-isolated militarists in Washington and certain sectors of the
military-industrial complex. Nevertheless, this might not bode well for the
Zionist push for future wars and sanctions in the Middle East.
Our
hope is not a Panglossian dream.
The
institutional power of the warmongers and the Wall Street-Washington revolving
door is a major entrenched force in the US. But we also should recognize that
we can win and we have won elections at the local level through new
community-based organizations. We constitute ‘the mainstream’ in our opposition
to the new wars in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.
The
enemy, “capitalism”, is powerful, but it has manifestly failed to generate new
well-paying jobs needed to sustain a decent, stable standard of living for the
‘99%’. It cannot provide efficient, quality health care and educational
opportunities for US citizens. It cannot fund an adequate national pension
system or protect and build secure communities and jobs. No one buys into the
capitalist “success stories” any more, stories that bamboozled our parents and
grandparents from the 1940’s – 1990’s. The main picture of capitalism today is
one of economic breakdowns, home foreclosures, Wall Street swindles, impunity
for corporate criminals, rampant corruption, prolonged crisis, declining living
standards, stagnation and cut backs in vital social services.
Only
in their splendid isolation, far from the American public, can the overpaid
academic economists and financial media mouth-pieces boast of the victory of
capitalism – but they are counting only the soaring profits and increasingly
concentrated wealth of the top 1% while ignoring the impoverishment of the 99%.
We
are united with the majority on the economy and in opposition to the launching
of more wars abroad. We share a clear understanding of the current oligarchical
nature of the US political system. When we move from our shared vision to
effective organizing, from protest to politics, from narrow to broad issues,
from Democratic Party hacks to genuine, independent grass-roots leaders, we can
join the rest of humanity fighting with dignity for a better world. We can find
allies and inspiration among the hundreds of millions of Chinese workers
successfully doubling their wages every seven years, among the courageous armed
workers in Eastern Ukraine fighting for democracy and self-determination, among
the militant miners in South Africa, among the majority of democratic
socialists in Greece, among the left nationalists in the Basque and Catalan
nations and the popular democrats in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq and elsewhere.
We
are deeply aware of the obstacles, the human costs and the long road ahead. Nothing
is inevitable or pre-determined. Progress depends on personal commitment and
intervention. We are not alone, we are gaining adherents and we are advancing. Each
of us has a particular national and cultural context, but we all share the
universal values of freedom, social justice and solidarity. In the last
analysis, it is the struggle for freedom that gives meaning to our everyday
life.
© Copyright 2014 by AxisofLogic.com
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