Nine million more people in Latin America will fall into poverty this year due to the global economic crisis, bringing the total number of poor in the region to 189 million, or 34 per cent of the population, according to a United Nations report released today.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is hoping to boost momentum for December’s climate change conference in Copenhagen when he meets with political leaders at the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago next Friday, his spokesperson said today.

The military chief of United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon today met separately with Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to discuss the security situation in the south of the country.

Rumours are swirling thick and fast from the EU summit in Brussels…

The United Nations and Iraq have agreed on the basics of a new development partnership to strengthen Iraqi governance, social services and economic growth over the next five years.

The top United Nations envoy to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today welcomed the arrest of two leaders of a rebel Rwandan militia on suspicion of carrying out crimes against humanity and war crimes in the eastern region of the DRC.

Panelists at the conclusion of the Workers World Party conference held in New York City on November 14-15, 2009. The conference spoke of the revitalization of the global class struggle in the current period. (G. Dunkel)
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Revive class struggle, strengthen international solidarity

By Deirdre Griswold
New York
Published Nov 18, 2009 6:55 PM

Two main themes ran through the 2009 Workers World Party National Conference: the revival of serious class struggle in the United States as the capitalist crisis brutally strips the workers and oppressed of their jobs, homes and health, and the need to strengthen international workers’ solidarity in the face of corporate globalization and increasing militarism and war.

No one took these huge tasks lightly. But the many speakers resonated with confidence that WWP, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, had the experience and the program to rise to the challenges.

“Don’t be afraid of hard issues,” said Secretariat member Larry Holmes in a summation of the conference. “Surviving through years of political reaction has made us tougher. We have what the workers need. Build a workers’ world!”

The conference was held on Nov. 14-15 in New York. Even more than in previous years, this one rocked with the input of those most
oppressed: African American, Latino/a, youth, lesbian, gay, bi and
trans, and immigrant activists, who spoke from the stage and from open mikes in the audience. The majority of speakers were women.

The diversity reflected the party’s long history of applying affirmative
action internally while fighting racism, male chauvinism, immigrant
bashing and oppression of LGBT people.

The youth group Fight Imperialism, Stand Together detailed how the
worst economic crisis since the Depression of the 1930s was
devastating young people. FIST held a workshop so youth from different parts of the country could exchange ideas on how to coordinate struggles on campuses and in the communities.

Allies from different organizations and unions brought greetings to
the conference and contributed to the discussion. A high point was a
talk by Armando Robles, president of the United Electrical Workers
local that carried out a successful occupation of the Republic Doors
and Windows plant in Chicago, winning benefits the company had denied the workers when it summarily tried to close its doors and walk away.

Dante Strobino of FIST, himself a UE organizer, introduced Robles.
Jill White of Chicago WWP told of organizing a massive solidarity
demonstration with the Republic workers.

Using Marxism as a weapon

In prepared presentations, WWP leaders again and again used the tools of Marxism and Leninism to define the problems facing the working class and oppressed peoples today and to chart a path of resistance.

In the opening session FIST leader Larry Hales reviewed the horrific
statistics of youth unemployment and poverty, particularly in
communities of color. Capitalism makes people “bruised, brutal and
hurt,” said Hales, but there’s “a better world to fight for” and young
people can be made into revolutionary fighters for socialism.

Teresa Gutierrez, a member of the party’s Secretariat who recently
went to Honduras and then to a conference on migrants in Greece,
called the waves of migration caused by lack of opportunity a “crime
of capitalism” and saw the 200 million uprooted workers around the
world as “an army in the making.” Gutierrez and later speakers focused on the role of migrants in reviving May Day as an international day of workers’ struggle.

Dispelling any notion that the present “recovery” will help the
workers, Secretariat member and author Fred Goldstein went over the figures: more money in the pockets of the rich even as the job
hemorrhage continues.

Ford Motors got government subsidies but its sales are down and 53,000 Ford workers have been laid off.

“The system of capitalist exploitation is reaching its limits,” he said, and reviewed Marx’s findings on how the bosses will destroy their own markets to increase profits. Just as in the 1930s, it’s only militant workers’ struggles that can bring about any relief from the capitalist government.

Larry Holmes dealt with the relationship between the big union
federations and the Obama government. Why didn’t the unions bring
hundreds of thousands to Washington to demand single-payer health care, he asked. Without that kind of mass pressure, the Democrats came up with “a compromise on health care reform that betrays women.”

Holmes also urged the unions to help organize the jobless in their own interests—“Unemployment aids union busting and wage cuts,” he pointed out.

How militarism is deepening the economic crisis was addressed by
Secretariat member Sara Flounders. Capitalism can’t live without the
enormous Pentagon budget, but it’s dragging the system down.

Even with all its weaponry and high-paid mercenaries, the U.S. can’t defeat the resistance in Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world.

Flounders also pointed out that the federal government seized four
mosques in New York at the same time it imposed new sanctions on Iran. She called for solidarity with Arab and Muslim peoples.

Input from activists

The conference alternated prepared talks with an open mike for
questions and comments.

Jen Waller, a young activist, saw no future for the world under
capitalism, which exploits the land and the people. Julius Dykes, an
autoworker with 25 years’ seniority, told of the anger and fear among
workers regarding another upcoming layoff and how a friend had
committed suicide. He praised the party’s work in the Pittsburgh Jobs March and Tent City, and urged a national jobs march.

An Iranian said the attack on Muslims is an attack on the working
class. A young man shared that he was moving from anarchism to
communism. An immigrant from Los Angeles said the prisons are full of the youth and homeless. A woman from Rhode Island asked for solidarity with soldiers’ families who live below the poverty level.

People representing various struggle groups took the mike to thank WWP for its support.

Pam Africa of International Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal
acknowledged the party, and particularly Secretariat members Monica Moorehead and Larry Holmes, for their work in Millions 4 Mumia and in building a massive Madison Square Garden solidarity meeting for the imprisoned revolutionary journalist.

Brenda Stokely of the Million Worker March Movement raised the need to bring the working class together for a strong May Day demonstration and the importance of education on the history of class struggle.

Ignacio Meneses of the U.S.-Cuba Labor Exchange called WWP “a point of reference for the struggle in the U.S.”

Shafeah M’Balia of Black Workers for Justice in North Carolina brought greetings from her group on behalf of “the oppressed working class of the Black nation.” She told of the many programs BWFJ has initiated to bring together women, workers and youth.

Representatives of Freedom Road Socialist Organization and the
Vancouver Mobilization Against War and Occupation were invited to the stage to deliver solidarity statements. Both groups have worked with WWP in a number of struggles. Bernadette Ellorin expressed greetings from BAYAN-USA.

Community organizer Rosie Bonds, aunt of baseball great Barry Bonds, told of homeless women sleeping under freeways while luxurious officers’ quarters go vacant at the nearby closed Alameda Naval Air Station. She is now distributing Workers World newspaper in Berkeley, Calif.

Fight imperialism, build the party

Other plenaries covered the global flashpoints of U.S. imperialist
aggression and WWP’s 50 years of struggle guided by its Marxist
analysis.

Monica Moorehead spoke on the task of a workers’ party to build
solidarity within the broader political movement, especially defending
the right to self-determination for oppressed nations. She explained
the need for a workers’ party to build unity among its ranks if it
hopes to win over the most class-conscious fighters.

Support for Palestine was covered by Bill Doares and Judy Greenspan. Doares recalled how back in the 1960s, when most progressives here refused to criticize Israel, WWP demonstrated in support of Palestine during the June War. Joyce Chediac talked about the struggle of Palestinians in Lebanon and the Lebanese people, who are represented by Hezbollah. All three speakers had been to the Middle East in the past summer.

Berta Joubert-Ceci, fresh from a solidarity delegation to Honduras,
told how the people are struggling to take back the wealth stolen by
the oligarchy and U.S. transnationals. “The coup started when
President Zelaya raised the minimum wage by 60 percent,” she reminded everyone. The Honduran struggle is part of a popular upsurge in all of Latin America. A message to the conference from Juan Barahona, leader of the Honduran Resistance, was read.

Abayomi Azikiwe of the Michigan Moratorium NOW! Coalition and a
contributing editor to Workers World newspaper traced the connection between the struggle for jobs and homes in Detroit and the mass dislocation and poverty in Africa caused by imperialism. Another dynamic speaker from the coalition was Sandra Hines, who called Detroit, with nearly 30 percent unemployment, “a Katrina without the water.”

Another Detroiter, Jerry Goldberg, spoke of building the party when
the Midwest was a stronghold of organized labor. Autoworker Martha
Grevatt of Cleveland reported how GM, Ford and Chrysler have abandoned Detroit, creating a disaster that is not “natural.” But Chrysler workers rejected recent concessions by a vote of 3-1, presaging renewed struggle in this vital industry.

LeiLani Dowell spoke of the party’s contributions to the struggle for
women’s and LGBT rights, and later on Bob McCubbin introduced
Stonewall rebellion participant Sebastian Pernice.

Sharon Black of Baltimore stressed how crucial Black-white unity was in building the Pittsburgh Jobs March.

John Parker of Los Angeles commended the party’s courage and
commitment in fighting against foreclosures and heading off attempts to divide the working class.

Julie Fry gave examples of WWP’s long history of support for the Cuban Revolution.

China’s tremendous importance in the world was stressed by Secretariat member Deirdre Griswold, who reviewed the political struggles there and their impact on revolutionary movements. She reminded everyone that Sam Marcy, who founded Workers World in 1959, had written as early as 1950 on the profound significance of the Chinese Revolution for the world class struggle.

Tribute was also given to legendary party founders Dorothy Ballan and Vince Copeland, as well as to those founding members still living whose 50 years of experience in the party continue to enrich it today.

At a session on party organization, labor militant Steve Kirschbaum of
Boston urged everyone to contribute to the WW national fund drive,
while Kris Hamel of Detroit stressed getting Workers World newspaper into the hands of workers with regularity and consistency. Richard Kossally of New York and Mike Martinez of Miami stressed the importance of political education.

It wasn’t all speeches. There was revolutionary music and poetry that
spoke to the heart, thanks to Miya Campbell and Nana Soul.

So many solidarity messages came from popular organizations and
communist parties all over the world that only excerpts could be read.

Workers World newspaper will publish the highlights of many of the
speeches in this and coming issues. Video podcasts of the plenary
presentations will be available at www.workers.tv.

The energy and optimism that flowed at this conference will surely be
felt as Workers World Party organizes new struggles in the year to
come. Hold onto your hat!
——————————————————————————–
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without
royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Page printed from:
http://www.workers.org/2009/us/wwp_conference_1126/

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, with Judy Greenspan at the Workers World Party conference in New York City on November 14, 2009. Azikiwe spoke on the global economic crisis and its impact on the African world. (Photo: Andrea Egypt)
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

The Need For a Revolutionary Response to the Current Crisis: From Africa to the Americas

by Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Note: The following is the text of the address delivered by Abayomi Azikiwe at the “National Conference on Preparing and Organizing for the Future” sponsored by Workers World Party.

Over the last year the global economic meltdown has continued unabated with rising unemployment in the United States, in Western Europe and throughout the both the industrialized and developing countries. Rates of poverty have increased significantly in the highly developed capitalist states as well as the former colonial territories where many, but not all, have now gained independence.

With specific reference to the conditions prevailing in the U.S., workers and the oppressed have continued to lose their homes, utility services, healthcare benefits, pension funds and access to quality education. Even under the notions of a “jobless recovery”, the corporate news commentators, government officials and “think-tank theorists” all state that there will not be an upsurge in employment for working people in the current period.

The Economic Crisis and the African-American National Question

It has been the African-American people who have borne the brunt of the burgeoning economic downturn. In a recent report issued by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics it states that “Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points.” (BLS Employment Report, November 6, 2009)

This same report goes on to point out that “Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (10.7 percent) and whites (9.5 percent) rose in October. The jobless rates for adult women (8.1 percent), teenagers (27.6 percent), blacks (15.7 percent), and Hispanics (13.1 percent) were little changed over the month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.5 percent, not seasonally adjusted. “

Therefore we see that changes in the labor market as a direct result of the crisis has maintained the historically higher unemployment rate among African Americans but at the same time narrowed the traditional gap between unemployment rates between African-Americans and whites in the United States. This phenomena may hold significance for the coming period.

The higher unemployment rate for African-Americans is closely related to the disproportional impact of the so-called “sub-prime mortgage problem” which exposed the façade of capitalist expansion during the previous decade and accelerated the near-collapse of international system of finance capital during 2008. In the majority black city of Detroit, which since the post-World War II period saw perhaps the highest rate of home ownership in the country for the working class both African-American and white, people have been severely affected by the decline of the auto industry and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state of Michigan during present decade.

In an article published in the liberal journal The Nation, it points out that “Black homeowners have been hit particularly hard by the mortgage crisis, largely because predatory lenders have been steering them toward subprime loans for years, even when they could afford prime rates. According to Valerie Rawlston Wilson of the Urban League, home equity accounts for nearly 90 percent of black homeowners’ total net worth. So as the housing market collapses, much of the trumpeted new wealth that has accumulated in black communities in recent decades will go with it.” (The Nation, January 18, 2008)

Political Repression and the Prison-military Industrial Complex

With the rise of unemployment, foreclosure and eviction rates among African-Americans, we have also seen an increase in repressive actions carried out as state policy. There has been an epidemic of African-Americans who have been brutalized and killed by law-enforcement. We only need to acknowledge the situations involving Oscar Grant in Oakland, the Jena 6 in Louisiana, the murder of Robert Mitchell in Detroit and the brutal assassination of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah which took place recently right outside Detroit.

There are over one million African-Americans imprisoned in the United States. Black and Latina/o men and women constitute well over half of the prison population in the United States. Racial profiling is conducted as normal law-enforcement procedure where even prominent African-Americans in government, business, entertainment and even law-enforcement are subjected to harassment and possible serious injury or death.

The ongoing attacks against the Muslim community in the United States is justified by the state and corporate media utilizing the false notion of “Islamic extremism”. Imam Luqman’s assassination and the trumped-up charges brought against members of his mosque are carried out in an effort to justify the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, the spreading of the wars into Pakistan as well as the Horn of Africa and its surrounding waterways in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

At present U.S. imperialism is spending more money on war when the conditions of working people and the oppressed have reached near-depression levels in sections of the country. The anti-war and peace movements must link the rising pentagon budget to the intensification of the exploitation and impoverishment of the majority of working people and the oppressed inside the United States.

In order for this linkage to be made between the rising problems of poverty and repression and the imperialist war drive in the predominantly Muslim populated countries in Asia and Africa- but not necessarily limited to these particular states- there must be a mass struggle waged inside the most oppressed segments of the working class in the United States.

The proletariat must recognize and act upon the fact that the conditions of working people around the world cannot be separated in this period. The outmoded slogans utilized by unconscious elements within the labor unions which utilize national chauvinism and racism that is masked with slogans such as “buy American” and “protect American jobs” have done nothing to advance the interests of the working class inside the United States.

The African Condition and the World Economic Crisis

With reference to the continent of Africa, the current crisis in the capitalist-imperialist states has had a tremendous negative impact by thrusting over 50 million people back into poverty. With the continued dependence by the former colonial states on the foreign exchange earnings gained through natural resource and agricultural exports, the decline in demand in the West resulting from rising unemployment and impoverishment of the working class has created massive job losses and food deficits.

This economic downturn in Africa has been the most striking in countries that are closely allied with the United States such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Nigeria and Egypt. Oil exports from Nigeria have not prevented social unrest or political stability. Recently this West African state, that had been for years the major exporter of crude oil from the continent to the U.S., experienced a near-collapse of its financial sector quite similar to what is taking place on Wall Street.

In Somalia, U.S. imperialist interference has resulted in a civil war, mass dislocation of civilians, and the collapse of the agricultural and fishing industries which had sustained the population for years. The resistance movements inside Somalia who have risen up to fight against imperialist domination have prompted the U.S. to lead the largest military and naval build-up around the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean in the region’s history. Under the guise of fighting “piracy” and “terrorism”, the U.S. has established a military base in Djibouti and dispatched flotillas of warships off the coast of the Horn of Africa.

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) recently coordinated war games in various regions on the west of the continent in Gabon and the Gulf of Guinea. Multi-national oil firms are competing among themselves to prevent the People’s Republic of China from making significant investments in the exploration and export of the recently discovered oil deposits belonging to the nation of Ghana. Africa is increasing its exports of oil and other strategic minerals into the United States and consequently the imperialists will escalate their military interference in the affairs of the continent.

The only solution to the problems of underdevelopment and exploitation in Africa is for the workers and farmers to break with imperialism. Promises made by the United States, Britain, France, the European Union, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have proved worthless. Aid agencies based in the imperialist states cannot solve the problems of food deficits and the lack of healthcare services without a fundamental transformation of the post-colonial societies and their subordinate relationship with the capitalist states and the multi-national corporations.

We Must Intensify the Struggle Against Oppression and Exploitation

Our focus in the coming period must be centered around the demands related to shutting down the war machines in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Korea, Latin America and throughout the globe. In taking a clear position against all forms of U.S. militarism we inevitably enhance the alliances between workers and the oppressed in both the capitalist states and the post-colonial nations.

Domestically we must continue our support for labor actions such as the sit-in that took place last year at the Republic Windows and Doors plant in Chicago. In Detroit we linked the struggle against foreclosure in the case of Loren Parker, who was threatened with eviction by the Bank of America, with the plant occupation carried by the UE workers.

In the French-controlled Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, the workers built a united front of unions, youth and community groups that shut down businesses in the small nations for over six weeks. There is much to learn from these bold and creative actions led by militants within the international working class movement.

We must continue to engage the masses of workers and the oppressed inside the United States in order to form the necessary coalitions and relationships that will lead to the sharpening of our movement aimed at constructing socialism. If we have learned anything from our experiences with the Moratorium NOW! Coalition and the Bailout the People Movement in the present period, we will understand that there is no substitute for the difficult work of addressing the concrete needs of the people. When we do this there will be a qualitative leap in our efforts to end the current economic crisis and to build a socialist society and world.

When we have raised the demands for bringing the troops home now, the imposition of a moratorium on foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs, full-employment, and the end to racism and national oppression, our program has been greeted enthusiastically by the masses.

In this period we must consistently raise socialism as a viable alternative to the capitalist crisis of overproduction and the imperialist quest for permanent war and military occupation. Socialism provides the only hope for the increasingly impoverished masses of workers and the oppressed throughout the world.

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