Derek Wall urges Unions to fight hard for decent pay rises

Thursday, 24 July 2008


(NB Derek's statement is also covered in the Morning Star 25/7/2008 p.4 )


Derek Wall, the Green Party's Male Principal Speaker, has called for trade unions to put increased pressure on the Government and public sector employers by uniting to carry out sustained strike action, in opposition to attempts to impose pay cuts.


Last week over 500,000 local government workers across the country – including care assistants, refuse collectors, cleaners, teaching assistants and social workers - took industrial action because employers are attempting to impose pay cuts. The employers "final offer" amounted to just 2.45 per cent, whilst food prices have risen over 9 per cent in the last year and energy bills by 15 per cent.


In the wake of a national two-day walkout by UNISON and Unite last week, many union activists are discussing the potential for joint action between unions across different sectors.


In Scotland, a local government dispute is likely to lead to strike action, whilst a decision by the National Executive Committee of the National Union of Teachers resolved to ballot for further discontinuous strike action in late September. Civil servants union, the PCS, is also to ballot its public sector membership for twelve weeks of discontinuous action. In June, delegates of the Communications Workers Union voted unanimously for strike action against pension cuts, post office and mail centre closures, and up to 40,000 job losses.


Derek Wall stated, "What public sector workers are asking for is entirely fair – that they are not forced to pay for economic problems which they are not responsible for."


"Many Green trade unionists believe that further strike action must be planned now and should be coordinated between trade unions as far as is possible. We support the widest and broadest coalition of industrial action."


"Sustained and united strike action can force the hand of the employers and overturn their plans to impose pay cuts. All public sector workers deserve a pay rise not only to cover inflation, but to make up for 10 years of below inflation pay deals, which are pay cuts in all but name."
The Green Party has a record of championing trade union activism, from defending attacks on public services to advocating the repeal of the anti-trade union laws introduced by the Conservatives and left in place by Labour. On the Greater London Assembly, Green Party Members were integral in establishing the Living Wage Unit aiming to lift London's lowest paid workers out of the poverty trap.


ENDS
Contact
James Caspell, 07941 154912

Green Councillors join Unison town hall pickets (from Green Party website 17/6/2008)

Councillors are picketing Brighton Town Hall alongside Unison members


Green Councillors in Brighton have joined Unison members on the picket line outside the Town Hall, while Greens across the country are supporting other strike actions.


Brighton Councillor Ben Duncan was the only politician to address yesterday's Unison rally in Brighton, and is joining strikers on the picket this morning. In his speech yesterday, he said:


"Gordon Brown says we all have to tighten our belts in the face of tough economic times - of rising food, housing and transport costs. He says spending money ensuring wages for some of the lowest-paid keep up with inflation will push that inflation still higher. What nonsense. The reality is the current economic downturn has been caused by an out-of-control banking industry and an over dependence on depleting oil reserves. So, what does the government do? It spends £50 billion bailing out the banks, and billions more fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to secure oil reserves. Meanwhile, it says we cant afford to take the economic 'risk' of paying public sector workers the same as we did just a few years ago."


Principal Speaker Derek Wall also supports the strikers, saying: "I am proud that the Green Party is fully in support of today's action and that Greens nationwide are rallying to support Unison. It is all very well for Alistair Darling to call for pay 'restraint' but when inflation is rising at 3.8%, an offer of 2.45% is actually a pay cut. Hardworking public sector workers need to be paid properly; they should not be made to foot the bill for New Labour's economic failings."


At last weekend's conference of the Green Party Trade Union Group, which was held in Brighton, local Green MEP Caroline Lucas told delegates:


"The Green Party's record of championing Trade Union priorities, from defending public services from privatisation through to promoting a Living Wage, demonstrates that the Greens are the real party of social justice."


The Green MEP for London, Jean Lambert, specialises in employment and equality issues, and said: "I wholeheartedly support UNISON's call for fair pay for local Government workers. New research has found that public sector wages are around 30% lower than in the private sector and that is not beneficial for workers or for public services. As the cost of living increases public sector workers should not be expected to suffer disproportionately. Local government workers deserve a fair deal and that is why I am supporting the strike action on 16th and 17th July."

Vauxhall Green Candidate Supports Local Strikers

Joseph Healy, the Green Party's Parliamentary Candidate for the Vauxhall Constituency today joined the picket lines in solidarity with Lambeth's local government workers who are striking over a government-imposed pay cut.


Across the country 600,000 local government workers - care assistants, refuse collectors, cleaners, teaching assistants and social workers - are taking industrial action because employers are demanding that they take a pay cut. The employers "final offer" amounted to just 2.45 per cent whilst food prices have risen 9 per cent in the last year and energy bills by 15 per cent.


The Green Party has a record of championing trade union activism, from defending attacks on public services to advocating the repeal of the anti-trade union laws introduced by the Conservatives and left in place by Labour. On the Greater London Assembly, Green Party Members were integral in establishing the Living Wage Unit aiming to lift London's lowest paid workers out of the poverty trap.


Joseph joined strikers at Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton and pledged the support of Lambeth Green Party in their fight for fair pay and against privatisation. Meanwhile local Labour MPs, Kayt Hoey, Keith Hill and Tessa Jowell, were nowhere to be seen whilst several Labour Councillors crossed picket lines.


Joseph, who is an active member of UNITE and Co-Convenor of the Green Party's eco-socialist platform, Green Left, said: "Everyone should be clear that the offer on the table is a pay cut in real terms. The Green Party entirely supports the right for workers to demand fair pay. Gordon Brown's Labour Government appears content to effectively make working class people pay for the country's economic woes, which is simply unfair."


"The Green Party is working with trade union activists up and down the country to build grass roots resistance to pay cuts and privatisation being imposed by Labour, Lib Dem and Tory administrations."
James Caspell, a Lambeth UNISON shop steward added: "It's great that Joseph and other Green Party representatives are joining picket lines up and down the country and showing the sort of solidarity that is entirely lacking from the Labour Government. Britain is crying out for a new left alternative and I am sure that Green activists will continue to play a key part of the workers' struggle for environmental and social justice."

Open statement and invitation to the trade union movement from the Climate Camp :

climate camp - networking group 14.07.2008 18:50 Climate Chaos Social Struggles Workers' Movements London


An invitation to the trade union movement to engage in a dialogue with the Camp for Action.


As you may be aware the Camp for Climate Action will be happening near Kingsnorth in Kent, august 3 -11th 2008. The camp is an open event to which all are welcome to attend and debate issues about how we can stop climate change. We will also explore practical examples of how we can live, work and take decisions together, in truly democratic and sustainable ways. We aim to shut down Kingsnorth power station on the 9th of August for one day. We want to clarify that this action is not against the workers at Kingsnorth, nor does it mean we think the UK coal industry should be shut down overnight. It means we want to show the seriousness of the threat both to humans and our environment, now and into the future.


This crisis affects the world’s poorest people first and hardest and is a social justice issue. We feel that we must take collective, political direct action to address it. We recognise the history of political attacks on the miners and the union movement and we firmly resist that. We recognise the need for jobs, viable communities and a strong trade union movement, and we want a decent, fair and long term deal for all, including miners, energy workers and their communities.


We believe we face a common enemy of short-termism, capitalism and the exploitation of people and nature that capitalism inevitably brings. Coal is currently the dirtiest of the fossil fuels and it is an industry that is going to have to respond to the climate crisis. We are against any proposal that would increase our carbon emissions, as a new power station at Kingsnorth would.


Extremely rapid reductions in emissions are necessary if we are not to watch millions suffer and die in the most preventable disaster the world has ever known. We know much hope surrounds ‘clean coal technology’, but we see a lot of ‘greenwash’ there too. ‘Clean coal’ means many different things and is an idea not a single technology.


We know many within the coal industry are pushing carbon capture and storage – CCS – and this is proposed for one part of the new Kingsnorth plant. It may offer solutions but on the scale required it is still only theoretical and will no doubt have many costs. Like many technical proposals its impact will depend on the political context it is used in. We are concerned that it does not marginalise solutions that could have a real impact today, like energy efficiency, renewables, local production, public transport etc. All of these could provide thousands of new jobs immediately, and help make our society healthier.


We don’t have a blueprint for the future but we do have a clear sense of the values which will guide it – environmental sustainability and social justice for all. We locate the roots of climate change within the ideas and practice of capitalism. Consequently we know that we cannot ‘solve’ climate change without addressing the way our world is run for private profit rather than social gain and for endless growth rather than satisfying needs. We have adopted the model of ‘Just Transition’, in which the needs of workers are paramount within the transition to a new economy: their views are central, there should be adequate retraining where required, there should be no loss incurred.


An increasing number of trade unions are adopting this model internationally. There will be ways we can make this transition protect, and benefit, workers and communities worldwide. Climate change poses a question about our economic and social system. It is in fact an opportunity.


The theft of resources, the inequality, the destruction of nature, the abandonment of communities unwanted by big business, the injustice, the poverty, the lack of a real say in our lives – all these can be addressed when we address climate change. As prices rise and people question the reasons for the instability, we will have welcome space to talk about capitalism, social justice and real democracy. It will be an opportunity for groups who were previously unaligned to work together. It will be an opportunity for us to realise the importance and excitement of collective action. It could and should offer the opportunity for the trade union movement to re invigorate itself. We know we should have made greater efforts to communicate with workers and unions at an earlier stage, and we apologise for that.


We hope this opportunity is now here and we warmly welcome a dialogue with all sectors over how we can move forward both fairly and sustainably. We know there is a proposal for a counter demonstration against the camp. We are concerned that this proposal could give the impression that we are on different sides and be seized upon by government and media to avoid talking about the real political issues we could be addressing. Such a division, real or not, could damage us both, whereas mutual respect and aid could help. We need to engage in a constructive dialogue about the way forward. To that effect we warmly offer to come to your branch or group to discuss these issues, and invite you to the Camp to do the same.


In solidarity, Networking group – Camp for Climate Action 2008 Contact us via networking@climatecamp.org.uk

No NEW HEATHROW RUNWAY CONFERENCE 26 JULY

Conference 26th July Harlington Baptist Church, High St, Harlington*


12 noon-5pm

“What do we do if the worst comes to the worst and the Government says ‘yes’?”

HACAN, NoTRAG (No Runway Action Group), the Camp for Climate Action and Greenpeace are organising this unique conference where people opposed to expansion will have a chance to discuss what we can all do if the decision goes against us.


We expect MPs and local politicians will be joining us.


The conference provides a chance to consider a range of ideas:


Political lobbying


Getting across the environmental and economic arguments


What we can do as individuals


Demonstrations and direct action


The Programme for the Day




There will be short introductory talks on the latest state of play, on the implications of expansion for noise, climate change and community destruction, and around ideas for effective campaigning.


But the bulk of the day will involve structured discussions on the way forward.


The event will be free but small donations on the day towards lunch will be welcome!


The event will be perfectly legal!


It would be ideal if you could let us know if plan to come - email info@hacan.org.uk


The conference will be a very visible sign to government and the aviation industry that a whole range of different people, coming from different perspectives, are sitting down together calmly discussing what they do next.


* About 8 minutes walk from Bath Road. Buses 90 from Feltham, Hatton Cross or Hayes and Harlington Station; 140 from Heathrow or Hayes and Harlington Station; H98 from Hounslow, Cranford or Hayes and Harlington Station - all stop outside the church. Limited parking available.

Socialist Resistance conference: Joseph Healy reports back

I was recently invited by Socialist Resistance to speak at a conference on ‘Voices of the Working Class in Europe’. I was asked to speak specifically on what is happening with other Green parties in Europe and the European Green Party. I gave an honest and open assessment from the perspective of Green Left and based on my experiences over the last two years and contacts with other Green parties. Other speakers at the conference were from Sinistra Critica, which split from Communista Rifundazione after the victory of the Right in Italy. They had much to say about the role of that party, in which they were involved, in the Prodi government. Die Linke from Germany also gave an honest assessment of the various currents in their party and what some of their weaknesses are, as well as some information about votes in the German parliament by the Greens. The speaker from Portugal was from Bloco de Esquerda, which is a new open and non-sectarian left party based on drawing widespread support from across social movements and the anti-war movement in particular. All speakers expressed the need for an open and self-critical approach to progressive politics. The Dutch Socialist Party was also represented and their speaker emphasised their increase in support since they took a strong anti-EU constitution and anti-Lisbon Treaty line. All of the speakers were determined to look at new and non-sectarian ways of involving people in progressive movements in various European countries. I am also including their speeches.






I also held a workshop on European Green parties at the conference where there was some lively debate as well as support for Green Left from Socialist Resistance members present. The most well attended workshop was the one with the speaker from Die Linke, where I raised some questions about the situation in the former GDR. A number of Green Left members attended the conference and also participated in the plenaries and workshops. I will be taking part in a fringe meeting at conference on the issue of the European Green parties organised by Matt Sellwood and with a speaker from the EGP.


LINKS
Green Parties in Europe
http://socialistresistance.org/2008/07/01/green-parties-in-europe/


Sinistra-critica
http://socialistresistance.org/2008/07/03/sinistra-critica/


Die Linke
http://socialistresistance.org/2008/07/04/die-linke/


Portugal-the-left-bloc:Bloco de Esquerda
http://socialistresistance.org/2008/07/08/portugal-the-left-bloc-bloco-de-esquerda/


The Dutch Socialist Party
http://socialistresistance.org/2008/07/01/the-dutch-socialist-party/

It's time to fight, and it's time to win!

by James Caspell, Green Party Member and Lambeth Unison Representative


Next week will see hundreds of thousands of local government workers undertaking strike action in response to the Government refusing to negotiate over the real-terms pay cut it is trying to impose on its employees.


So why should local government workers go on strike?


In the past year, the average household bill has gone up by £1,300. Food bills have gone up by 9 % and energy bills by 15%. Since 2004, food costs are up by 30%.


Our the employer is offering us a 2.45% "increase" - effectively a pay cut for the tenth year in a row. This means that someone in the same job, on the same pay scale ten years ago was effectively better off in 1998 than they are in 2008.


Local government workers also have the least pay, holiday entitlements, parental rights and sick leave in the public sector.


Some argue that to compare our pay cut with the astronomical bonuses that people are still 'earning' in the city - or executives at the BBC have just been awarded - is the "politics of envy", New Labour's favourite slogan in dismissing the pre-WWII levels of the UK's widening income inequality. It isn't. It's the politics of class.


Last year an extra £1 billion in efficiency savings were made above and beyond the Governments own targets on the back of the hard work of millions of public servants. It is not the case that the government doesn't have the money to award the 6% that Unison is asking for to "catch up and match up" with the pay cuts imposed over the last two years. Meanwhile, even the Governor of Bank of England has admitted that public sector pay increases are not causing inflation.


Only 10% of Unison's local government membership voted to accept the derisory offer currently on the table and whilst no one likes to forgo pay in the short term, workers stand to win up to ten times more financially than we will lose by taking 2 days of strike action.


The strength of the turnout is what will decide the result of the dispute and send a clear message to local govenrment employers on pay, but also demonstrate our strength and ability to win the fight on conditions and opposing privatisation.


We can win; the government is weak and other public sector unions are also striking over pay, building confidence across the movement. Elsewhere, the most militant unions are the most successful in furthering the interests of all workers - such as the RMT - and it is time local government workers learnt from our more active comrades in resisting constant neo-liberal attacks from Labour, Lib Dem and Tory administrations up and down the country.


Next week is an opportunity to say, "Enough is enough". It's time to fight, and it's time to win!

A 35 HOUR week? GP policy briefing from Brian Heatley

GREEN PARTY BRIEFING NOTE FOR CANDIDATES xx August 2008


35 hour week


Summary


To introduce a 35 hour week along the lines of the French model.


What is the proposal?


To oblige employers to enter into collective agreements with their workforces where the normal working week averages no more than 35 hours over an agreed period, typically one year.


Voluntary overtime remains possible, but average total working time with overtime must not exceed over 48 hours over the period, and must be paid at a premium rate.


Hourly paid workers, especially those on the minimum wage, will be protected from any overall pay reduction caused by a reduction in working hours.


Arguments for the proposal.


This proposal addresses Britain’s long hours culture, where:


- 4 million work over 48 hours a week on average
- two thirds of them have not been asked, as required by law, to opt-out of the EU working time directive
- 60% of those working more than 48 hours say they want to work less
- full time UK employees work the longest average hours in Europe, 43.5 hours as against 38.2 in France and 39.9 in Germany
- long hours are damaging family life and causing stress and illness
- one in three workers don’t take all the holidays they are entitled to because of pressures at work.[1]


Less work means more time for family life and childcare, for activity around the house like cooking and DiY, for life in our local communities and for self expression, sport, exercise, personal interests and leisure.


If unemployment rises, shorter hours will create more jobs; in France up to 500,000 new jobs were created.[2]


Long hours culture particularly discriminates against women in the workplace, since they are less well placed if developing a career necessarily involves long hours, and places greater burdens upon them at home.


Productivity increases with shorter hours – it is higher in France and Germany. Workers are more alert and energetic, and work smarter rather than longer.




Defensive points


Employers will not be able to afford it, and it will damage the economy. There is no evidence of actual damage to the French economy. And some things are more important than work.


It is far too inflexible for small employers. Small employers would receive help to adapt, and they coped in France.


The need for collective agreements gives Trades Unions too much power. It is right that workers are protected by Trades Unions, and if the need for collective agreements gives them a boost that is a good thing.


The averaging provisions allow employers to demand too much flexibility, and some employers simply increase the intensity of work. That is why the detailed arrangements need to be the subject of proper collective agreements.


Suggestions for local action


Contact your local Trades Council to find out about campaigns about long hours in your area (contacts at http://www.tuc.org.uk/the_tuc/index.cfm?mins=405).


Background


This is existing MfSS policy in WR344 which says ‘We are committed in the medium-term to a reduction in working hours to an average of 35 hours per week. The Green Party will enact legislation in order to bring about this change.’


The French 35 hour week was introduced in 2000 for firms with over 20 employees and in 2002 for smaller companies.[3] It replaced a 39 hour limit. It was relaxed in 2005 in the private sector, to allow up to 48 hours, the EU Working time directive limit.[4] President Sarkozy has opposed the 35 hour week in the past, but public opinion has recently forced him to backtrack.[5] Its effects are widely contested.


The UK has an opt-out to the EU Working time Directive permitting employees to agree to work more than 48 hours. The principal TUC campaign on long hours focuses on ending the opt-out,[6] which we also oppose (WR343).


Further information


For facts on long hours see the TUC website at http://www.tuc.org.uk/work_life/tuc-11005-f0.cfm. Contact Pete Murry of the Green Party Trade Union Group on yrrumuk@yahoo.co.uk.








[1] Facts from TUC at http://www.tuc.org.uk/work_life/index.cfm?mins=474&minors=474
[2] An estimate from http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2001/07/feature/fr0107170f.htm, though the extent of job creation is very contested.
[3] See http://www.triplet.com/50-10_employment/50-20_workingtime.asp.
[4] See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4373167.stm.
[5] See for example http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,555655,00.html.
[6] See http://www.tuc.org.uk/itsabouttime/endoptout.cfm?theme=itsabouttime.

David Cameron tells the fat and the poor: take responsibility: Alan Wheatley comments

The following news item came to me by way of Community Care magazine news roundup.


David Cameron tells the fat and the poor: take responsibility


David Cameron declared yesterday that some people who are poor, fat or addicted to alcohol or drugs have only themselves to blame. He said that society had been too sensitive in failing to judge the behaviour of others as good or bad, right or wrong, and that it was time for him to speak out against "moral neutrality".
(Read more on this story in The Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4290298.ece)


One point to comment on about this piece is that in rich Tory tradition, he never seems to point any fingers at the undeserving rich as Terry Waite does in the July 2008 issue of Mature Times. As a disabled jobseeker on Jobseekers Allowance, I resent my helping to pay TV Licence Fee that helps fund radio presenters to the tune of £18m for a three year contract. (My Jobseekers Allowance is £60 per week, my monthly payments to TV Licensing Authority in excess of £10 per month.) Like Waite, I object to the BBC excuse that they have to pay the market rate.


Secondly, his picking on people who are obese reminds me of a statement from former Labour Health Minister Lord Warner. Warner said a few years ago that there were 900,000 people on Incapacity Benefit who are obese. Of course, Warner's authoritiative statement received banner headlines. A subsequent retraction blamed "an administrative error" for the inflation and misrepresentation of the fact that there were 900 people on Incapacity Benefit because of obesity. The retraction was not so feted in the tabloid press.


Thirdly, conditions such as obesity and drug addiction often have complex causes that are little understood in the mainstream, and Cameron's spouting on about these conditions being the fault of the beholder reminds me of an Amerindian saying that before judging someone else, we should, "Walk a mile in their moccasins." Many medications often bring on physiological reactions such as obesity as side-effects, for example. As another example, many drug addicts have learning difficulties and were excluded from over-sized classes by government that closed specialist schools without rechanneling the necessary funding to the mainstream schools.


Taking that Amerindian aphorism about not judging another person until we have walked a mile in their moccasins, it can be very revealing to consider what might be going on in the mind of the Tory Leader at this time. In Novemeber 2006 the Tory leader reported: "As we [roll forward the frontiers of society] this country will see a new generation of social leaders emerge...


Leaders in every community who take control and make a difference.


People to serve as inspiring role models, changing the cuture from resignation and despair to aspiration and hope.


On my first day as leader of the Conservative Party, I went to see such a social leader.


Ray Lewis, giving young black men in East London the confidence, discipline and inspiration to make something positive of their lives - to fight their way out of poverty. "


- David Cameron: Tackling Poverty is a Social Responsibility


No doubt the Tory Leader would rather point a finger outward at others, rather than address his own track record as a judge of human character. (Attack is the best form of defence?)


And my retired health visitor mother - a disillusioned Tory voter - marvels at the fact that in all the decades of poverty-line existence I have had as a disabled jobseeker, I have not turned to drink or drugs. Meanwhile, I build on the worthwhile connections I have made, and seek to change the world for the better, starting with myself.


Alan Wheatley
Disability Spokesperson for London Green Party,
Digital Artist and ICT Tutor to vulnerable adults

UNISON STRIKE 16-17 JULY 2008

SALVADOR ALLENDE: HIS EXAMPLE LIVES ON

By Fidel Castro:

He was born one hundred years ago in Valparaiso, in southern Chile, on June 26, 1908. His father, a middle-class lawyer and notary, was a member of Chile's Radical Party. When I was born, Allende was already 18 years old. He was pursuing secondary studies in high school in his native city.

In his senior years, an old Italian anarchist, Juan Demarchi, introduced him to the works of Marx. He graduated with top grades. He liked and practiced sports. He enlisted for military service voluntarily, joining the Cuirassiers of Via del Mar Regiment. He asked to be transferred to the Lancers Regiment of Tacna, a Chilean enclave in the dry and semi-deserted north, a region later returned to Peru. He completed his service as an Army reserve officer. By then, he was already a man of socialist and Marxist ideas. He was not a weak or characterless young man. It was as though he sensed that he would one day fight to the death in defense of the convictions that were already taking shape in his mind.

He decided to study for the noble profession of medicine at the University of Chile. He organized meetings with a group of students who met regularly to read and discuss Marxist literature. He founded the Avance Group in 1929. He was elected vice-president of the Federation of Chilean Students in 1930 and actively participated in the struggle against Carlos Ibanez's dictatorship.

The Great Depression had already unleashed in the United States, following the Stock Market Crash of 1929. In Cuba, the struggle against Machado's dictatorship was underway. Mella had been murdered. Cuban workers and students faced repression. Communists, led by Martínez Villena, organized a general strike.
"We need a charge to do away with scoundrels, to complete the work of revolutions", Villena had written in a vibrant poem. Guiteras, a man of profound anti-imperialist sentiments, attempted to overthrow the dictatorship through an armed insurrection. Machado, who was unable to contain the nationwide upheaval, was overthrown and there ensued a revolution which the United States managed to crush, in a matter of months, with kid gloves and iron fist, securing absolute control of the island until 1959.

In a country where imperialist domination was brutally exercised over its workers, culture and natural resources, Salvador Allende remained true to his ideals in a struggle where he showed an unwavering revolutionary conduct. In 1933, he graduated as a medical doctor. He took part in the founding of Chile's Socialist Party. By 1935, he was already a leader at the Chilean Medical Association. He was imprisoned for nearly half a year. He impelled efforts to create a Popular Front and was elected sub-secretary general of the Socialist Party in 1936.

In September 1939, he was appointed head of the Department of Health of the Popular Front government. He published a book on social medicine. He organized the first Housing Fair. In 1941, he participated in the annual meeting of the American Medical Association in the United States. In 1942, he became Secretary General of Chile's Socialist Party. In 1947, he voted in the Senate against the Permanent Defense of Democracy Law, also known as the "Cursed Law", due to its repressive nature. In 1949, he was promoted to President of Chile's Medical School.
In 1952, the Popular Front put him forth as presidential candidate. He was then 44 years old. He was not elected. He presented the Senate with a draft law for the nationalization of the copper industry. In 1954, he traveled to France, Italy, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. Four years later, in 1958, he was proclaimed candidate to the presidency of the republic by the Popular Action Front, made up of the Popular Socialist Union Party, Chile’s Socialist Party and the Communist Party. He lost the election to the conservative Jorge Alessandri.
In 1959, he attended the inauguration ceremony of Venezuelan President Raimulo Betancourt, who until then had been considered a leftist revolutionary figure.

That same year, he travelled to Havana and met with Che and me. In 1960, he gave his support to Chile’s coal miners, who went on strike for more than three months.

In 1961, he and Che denounced the demagogic nature of the Alliance for Progress at an OAS meeting held in Punta del Este, Uruguay.

Appointed candidate to the presidency once again, he was defeated in 1964 by Eduardo Frei Montalva, a Christian Democrat who enjoyed the full support of the dominant classes and who, according to declassified US Senate documents, received campaign money from the CIA. During his time in office, imperialism attempted to craft what came to be known as the “Revolution in Liberty”, an ideological response to the Cuban revolution. What it engendered were the foundations of the fascist dictatorship. At that election, however, Allende had secured more than one million votes.

In 1966, he headed the delegation that attended the Tri-Continental Conference of Havana. He visited the Soviet Union for the 50th Anniversary of the October Revolution. The following year, in 1968, he visited the Democratic Republic of Korea and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, where he had the pleasure of meeting and conversing with that country’s extraordinary leader, Ho Chi Min. His itinerary included Cambodia and Laos, at a time when revolutionary sentiments were at their most effervescent.

Following Che’s death, he personally accompanied three Cuban members of the Bolivia guerrilla to Tahiti, men who had survived the Heroic Guerrilla and were already in Chilean territory.
The Popular Unity Party,( a political coalition made up of communists, socialists, radicals, the MAPU, PADENA and Independent Popular Action partie) proclaimed him its candidate on January 22, 1970. On September 4 of that year, he won the elections.

Allende is a truly classical example of the peaceful struggle for the establishment of socialism.
The US administration, headed by Richard Nixon, went immediately into action following this electoral triumph. The Chilean Army’s Commander in Chief, General Schneider, was the victim of an assassination plot on October 22 and died three days later. He had not kowtow to the imperialist demand that he lead a coup d’etat. The attempt to keep the Popular Unity Party out of office had failed.

Allende legally took office on November 3, 1970 in a wholly dignified manner. From office, he began his heroic battle for change, and against fascism. He was already 62 years old. I had the honour of having fought next to him against imperialism for 14 years, from the time of the triumph of the Cuban revolution.
At the municipal elections of March 1971, the Popular Unity Party secured an absolute majority of votes (50.86 percent). On July 11, President Allende promulgated the Copper Nationalization Law, an idea he had presented before the Senate 19 years before. It was unanimously passed by Congress. No-one dared oppose it.

In 1972, before the UN General Assembly, Allende denounced the international aggression of which his country was victim. He received a standing ovation which lasted several minutes. That same year, he visited the Soviet Union, Mexico, Colombia and Cuba.

In 1973, at the March parliamentary elections, the Popular Unity Party obtained 45 percent of the vote and expanded its parliamentary representation.

The measures impelled by the Yankees in the two Houses to have the president dismissed met with failure. Imperialism and the Right intensified their all-out war against the Popular Unity government and unleashed acts of terrorism around the country.

I wrote Allende six confidential letters. I handwrote them in small print using a fine-point pen between 1971 and 1973. In them, I took up issues of interest with the utmost discretion.

In May 21, I wrote him:

“ We’re amazed at your extraordinary efforts and the limitless energies you’ve poured into maintaining and consolidating your victory. Here, we can appreciate that the people are gaining ground, in spite of the difficult and complex mission they shoulder.The April 4 elections were a splendid and encouraging victory. Your courage and resolve, your mental and physical energy and ability to carry the revolutionary process forward, have been of the essence.
Great and different challenges are surely in store for you, and you must face these in conditions which are not precisely ideal, but a just policy, with the support of the people and applied with determination, cannot be defeated “

On September 11, 1971, I wrote:

“The carrier will travel to discuss the details of the visit with you. Initially, considering that a direct flight in a Cubana airliner is possible, we deemed it convenient to travel to Arica and to begin the tour at the north. Two things then come up: the interest you and Velazco Alvarado have expressed in a potential contact during my trip there; the possibility of using a Soviet IL-62 plane with greater capacity. If we opted for this, this would allow us to travel directly to Santiago by air.
I am including an itinerary for the tour and activities. You may add, remove or introduce whatever modifications you deem appropriate.

I have focused exclusively on what might prove of political interest and have not concerned myself much about the pace or intensity of the work, but we await your opinions and considerations on absolutely everything.

We were very pleased with the extraordinary success you had in your trip to Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. When will we, in Cuba, have the opportunity to share in the heartfelt emotion and the warmth with which Ecuadorians, Colombians and Peruvians welcomed you?”

During that trip, whose itinerary I had conveyed to President Allende, my life was miraculously spared. I walked dozens of miles before an immense crowd, standing by the side of the road. The Central Intelligence Agency had organized three actions to ensure my assassination during the trip. At an interview for the press which had been previously coordinated, Cuban mercenaries, who had entered Chile with Venezuelan passports had a camera, supplied by a Venezuelan television broadcaster, equipped with automatic weapons. Ultimately, they were not brave enough, they who had only to pull the trigger at any point during the lengthy interview, while the cameras were on me. They did not want to risk death. What’s more, they had chased me down all around Chile, where they had not been able to have me as close and vulnerable as at that moment. I was to learn of the details of the cowardly action only years later. US Special Services had gone further than what we had imagined.

On February 4, 1972, I wrote Salvador:
“The greatest care was put into receiving the military delegation here. The Revolutionary Armed Forces devoted practically all of their time during those days to look after it. The gatherings were cordial and fraternal. The program was intense and varied. My impression is that the trip has been positive and useful, that it is possible and convenient to continue organizing such exchanges.

I spoke with Ariel about the idea of your trip. I can understand perfectly well that the intense work ahead of you and the tone of the political struggle in recent weeks have not allowed you to schedule the trip for the approximate date we mentioned on that occasion. It is clear we had not taken these eventualities into account. That day, on the eve of my return to Cuba, when we dined in your house in the early morning hours, having little time and in the haste of the moment, it was reassuring for me to think that we would again meet in Cuba, where we would have the opportunity to converse at length. Nevertheless, I still harbour the hope that you can consider scheduling your visit for some time before May. I mention this month because, mid-May, at the latest, I must make a trip, which can no longer be postponed, to Algiers, Guinea, Bulgaria, other countries and the Soviet Union. This long tour will demand considerable time.
I am immensely thankful for your impressions on the situation there. Here, more familiarized with, interested in and very much moved by the process Chile is experiencing each day, we are following the news that reach us very attentively. Today, we can better understand the affection and passion that the Cuban revolution must have inspired in others at the beginning. You could say we are re-living our own experience, from the outside.

In your letter, I can appreciate the magnificent state of mind, serenity and courage with which you are determined to confront the challenges ahead. And that is of the essence in any revolutionary process, particularly one undertaken in the highly complex and difficult conditions of a country like Chile. I took away with me a very strong impression of the moral, cultural and human virtues of the Chilean people and of its notable patriotic and revolutionary sentiment. You have the singular privilege of being its guide at this decisive point in the history of Chile and America, the culmination of an entire life devoted to the struggle, as you said at the stadium, devoted to the cause of the revolution and socialism. There are no obstacles that cannot be surmounted. Someone once said that, in a revolution, one moves forward ˜with audacity, audacity and more audacity”. I am convinced of the profound truth of that axiom.”

I wrote President Allende again on September 6, 1972:

“I sent you a message on different matters with Beatriz. After she left and, in response to the news that reached us all last week, we decided to send comrade Osmany to reiterate our willingness to help in any way, and so that you can convey to us, through him, your impression of the situation and your ideas about the scheduled trip to this and other countries. The pretext for Osmany’s trip will be the inspection of the Cuban embassy, but this will not be publicly announced. We want his stay there to be as brief and discrete as possible.

Work is already underway with respect to the points you made through Beatriz . Though we are conscious of the current difficulties faced by Chile’s revolutionary process, we are confident you will find the way to overcome these.

You can rely on our full cooperation. A fraternal and revolutionary salute from all of us goes out to you.”

On June 30, 1973, we sent President Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity parties an official invitation to participate at the ceremonies organized to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the attack on the Moncada Garrison.

In another letter, I wrote him:

“Salvador:
The above is the official, formal invitation to the ceremonies in commemoration of the 20th anniversary. It would be formidable if you could hop over to Cuba on that date. You can imagine what this would mean in terms of joy, satisfaction and honour for Cubans. I know that this depends, more than anything, on your work and the situation there. We leave it, then, to your consideration.

We are still under the impact of the great revolutionary victory of the 29th and your brilliant, personal role in the events. It is natural for many difficulties and obstacles to subsist, but I am certain that this first trial, where you have come out successful, will encourage you and consolidate the people’s confidence in you. These events have been attached special importance internationally and are considered a great triumph.

With actions like those of the 29th, the Chilean revolution shall come out victorious of any test, no matter how hard. Again, Cuba is at your side and you can rely on your faithful friends of always.”

On July 29, 1973, I wrote him my last letter:

“Dear Salvador:
With the pretext of discussing matters concerning the meeting of Non-Aligned Countries with you, Carlos and Pieiro will travel to Chile. The real objective is for you to inform them on the situation and to offer you, as always, the assurance of our willingness to help you face whatever difficulties and dangers stand in the way of the revolutionary process. Their stay will be very brief, as they have much pending work here and, not without sacrificing part of their time, we decided they should make the trip.
I see that you are now facing the delicate question of a dialogue with the Christian Democrats, in the midst of serious developments, such as the brutal murder of your naval aide-de-camp and the new truck-drivers strike. I can therefore imagine the great tension and your interest in winning time, improving the balance of forces in case the struggle should break out and, if possible, find a path that will allow you to carry the revolutionary process forward without a civil war, as well as assuming your historical responsibility for what could happen. Those are commendable aims. But, should the other side, whose real intentions we are not in a position to assess from here, pursue a treacherous and irresponsible policy and demand a price that the Popular Unity Party and the revolution cannot pay, something which, in fact, is quite likely, do not for a minute forget the formidable strength of Chile’s working class and the vigorous support they’ve shown you at all difficult moments. They can, at your call, defend the revolution in a moment of danger, paralyze the coup officers, impose their conditions on them and decide, once and for all, if it were necessary, Chile’s fate. The enemy must be conscious of this fact; they must be on guard and ready to go into action. Its strength and combativeness can tilt the balance of forces in your favour, even when other conditions are not as favourable.

“Your decision to defend the process steadily and honour, at the cost of your own life, which everyone knows you are willing to sacrifice, shall bring all forces capable of fighting and all men and women of honor in Chile to your side. Your courage, serenity and audacity at this historical time for your country and, above all, your firm, resolved and heroic leadership, are crucial in this situation.

Let Carlos and Manuel know how your loyal Cuban friends can help. Let me remind you of Cuba’s affection and unqualified confidence in you”.

I wrote this a month and a half before the coup. The emissaries were Carlos Rafael Rodriguez and Manuel Pieiro.

Pinochet had talked with Carlos Rafael. He had feigned the kind of loyalty and firmness sworn by Carlos Prats, Army Commander in Chief for a time under the Popular Unity government, a dignified military man, who the oligarchy and imperialism brought to a total crisis, obliging him to resign, later murdered in Argentina by two DINA henchmen, following the fascist coup of 1973.
I had been mistrustful of Pinochet from the time I read the books on geopolitics he gave me as a gift during my visit to Chile and had the opportunity to observe his style up close, his declarations and the methods, as Army Chief, that he used when the provocations from the Right obliged President Allende to decree a state of siege in Santiago de Chile. I recalled what Marx had forewarned in the 18th Brumaire.

Many Army chiefs in the different regions and their general staffs wanted to converse with me wherever I was and showed considerable interest in issues related to our war of liberation and the experience of the Missile Crisis in 1962. The meetings, which lasted hours, would be held in the early morning, which was the only time I had available. I would agree to these to help Allende, to familiarize them with the idea that socialism was not an enemy of armed institutions. Pinochet, as a military leader, was not an exception. Allende considered those meetings useful.
On September 11, 1973, he died heroically, defending the Presidential Palace of La Moneda. He fought like a tiger until his last breath.

The revolutionaries who stood up to the fascist onslaught there would later recount incredible stories about those last moments. Their versions didn’t always agree, for they fought at different parts of the Palace. Also, some of their closest collaborators perished or were later assassinated during the intense and unequal battle.

The difference in the testimonies consisted in the fact that some affirmed he had fired his last shots at himself to avoid being taken prisoner and others that his death was brought about by enemy fire. The Palace was up in flames as a result of an attack perpetrated by tanks and planes which sought to consummate a coup they had considered an easy task that would meet with no resistance. There is no contradiction whatsoever between these two ways of answering the call of duty. In our wars of independence, there is more than one example of illustrious combatants who, when defeat was imminent, took their own lives to avoid falling prisoners.

Much remains to be said about what we were willing to do for Allende. Some have written about this, but it is not the aim of these lines.

Allende was born one hundred years ago today. His example shall live on.
Fidel Castro Ruz
June 26, 2008
(acknowledgements to Derek Wall for posting on GL list)

Minor(?) changes to ES Manifesto. Discuss at Headcorn?

The world is suffering from a fever due to climate change, and the disease is the capitalist development model.” — Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, September 2007


This quote is true enough as far as it goes but it is just a criticism of global capitalist economics and could be just a criticism of human exploitation, rather than explicitly mentioning ecological degradation, which also been caused by avowedly socialist economies. Ecosocialism is not just anti-capitalism. I’ll look for a better quote.
Humanity’s Choice


Humanity today faces a stark choice: ecosocialism or barbarism.


(Not too fussed but would prefer “brutality”,or “destruction” to barbarism due to the origins of the latter term as imperialist abuse)


To the barbarities of the last century — 100 years of war, brutal imperialist plunder and genocide — capitalism has added new horrors. Now it is entirely possible that the air we breathe and the water we drink will be permanently poisoned and that global warming will make much of the world uninhabitable.


The science is clear and irrefutable: climate change is real, and the main cause is the use of fossil fuels, especially oil, gas, and coal. The earth today is significantly hotter than it was a few decades ago, and the rate of increase is accelerating.


Left unchecked, global warming will have catastrophic impacts on human, animal, and plant life. Crop yields will drop drastically, leading to famine on a broad scale. Hundreds of millions of people will be displaced by droughts in some areas and by rising ocean levels in others. Chaotic, unpredictable weather will become the norm. Epidemics of malaria, cholera and even deadlier diseases will ravage the poorest and most vulnerable members of every society.


The impact will be most devastating on those whose lives have already been ravaged by imperialism many times over — the people of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and indigenous peoples everywhere. Climate change has justifiably been called an act of aggression by the rich against the poor.


Ecological destruction is not an accidental feature of capitalism: it is built into the system’s DNA. The insatiable need to increase profits cannot be reformed away. Capitalism can no more survive limits on growth than a person can live without breathing.


Under capitalism, the only measure of growth is how much is sold every day, every week, every year – including vast quantities of products that are directly harmful to humans and nature, commodities that cannot be produced without spreading disease, destroying the forests that produce the oxygen we breathe, demolishing ecosystems, and treating our water and air as sewers for the disposal of industrial waste.


Capitalism has always been ecologically destructive. From power plants in the U.S.A. to the forests of Indonesia; from tar sands in Canada to oil wells in Nigeria, the global drive for profit has caused untold damage to nature. Add, “Avowedly socialist economies, based on simplistic notions of science and progress have been and are just as destructive as capitalism in some parts of the world.”
In our lifetimes, these assaults on the earth have accelerated. Quantitative change is giving way to qualitative transformation, bringing the world to a tipping point, to the edge of disaster. A growing body of scientific research has identified many ways in which small temperature increases could trigger runaway effects – such as rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet or the release of methane buried in permafrost and beneath the ocean – that would make catastrophic climate change inevitable.


If capitalism remains the dominant social order, the best we can expect is unbearable climate conditions, an intensification of social crises and the spread of the most barbaric forms of class rule, as the imperialist powers fight among themselves and with the global south for continued control of the world’s diminishing resources. At worst, human life may not survive.


Capitalism is the primary enemy of nature, including humanity. Abolishing it has never been more urgent.


Capitalist Strategies for Change


The world is awash with strategies for contending with ecological ruin, including the ruin looming as a result of the reckless growth of atmospheric carbon. The great mass of these share one common feature: they are devised by and on behalf of the dominant global system, capitalism.


It should not surprise that the same system which drives the ecological crisis also sets the terms of the debate about the ecological crisis. For capital commands the means of production of knowledge as much as of atmospheric carbon. And just as it would be inconceivable for capital to awaken and turn itself into an ecologically rational system of production, so must it pretend to be able to heal the wounds it has inflicted on the earth. Accordingly, its politicians, bureaucrats, economists and professors send forth an endless stream of proposals, all variations on the theme that the world’s ecological damage can be repaired without disruption of the free market and of the system of accumulation that commands the world economy.


But a person cannot serve two masters, here, the integrity of the earth and the profitability of capitalism. One must be set aside, and since money rules our world, the needs of mere nature – and therefore of human survival — will be deferred under capital so that accumulation may continue. There is every reason; therefore, to radically doubt the established measures for checking the slide to ecological catastrophe.


And indeed, beyond a cosmetic veneer, essentially equivalent to the plantings in the atria of corporate headquarters, the reforms over the past thirty-five years have been a monstrous failure. Individual improvements do of course occur. Yet these inevitably become overwhelmed and swept away by the ruthless expansion of the system and the chaotic character of its production.


(One fact can give an indication of the failure: in the first four years of the 21st Century, global carbon emissions were nearly three times as great per annum as those of the decade of the 1990s, despite the appearance of the Kyoto Protocols in 1997.

Kyoto employs two devices: the “Cap and Trade” system of trading pollution credits to reach certain reductions in emissions, and projects in the Global South--the so-called “Clean Development Mechanisms” (CDMs)--to offset emissions in the industrial nations.

These instruments all rely upon market mechanisms, which means, first of all, that atmospheric carbon directly becomes a commodity, hence under the control of the same class interest that created global warming in the first place. Capitalists are not to be compelled to reduce their carbon emissions but in effect, bribed to do so, and in this way, allowed to use their power over money to control the carbon market for their own ends, which needless to say, include the devastating exploration for yet more carbon resources. Nor is there a limit to the amount of emission credits which can be issued by compliant governments under the control of capital. FOOTNOTE)
When we add to this the literal impossibility of verification or of any uniform method of evaluation of results, it can be seen that not only is this regime incapable of rationally controlling emissions, it also provides an open field for evasion and fraud of all kinds, along with the neo-colonial exploitation of indigenous people as well as their habitat.


As the Wall Street Journal put it in March, 2007, emissions trading "would make money for some very large corporations, but don’t believe for a minute that this charade would do much about global warming." The Journal called the carbon trade "old-fashioned … making money by gaming the regulatory process."
(footnote)


And yet this worthless system remains the chosen path. All of the U.S. Democratic Party presidential hopefuls affirmed the Cap and Trade model in a recent debate. And in December, 2007, at the Bali interim climate meetings held to prepare the way for the replacement of Kyoto, which expires in 2012, opened the way for even worse abuses in the period ahead. Bali avoided explicit mention of the drastic goals for carbon reduction put forth by the best climate science (90% by 2050); it more or less completely abandoned the peoples of the South to the tender mercy of capital, giving jurisdiction over the process to the World Bank; and made offsetting of carbon pollution even easier. In sum, Bali was an orgy of neoliberalism, as no fewer than 300 corporations registered as NGOs in to gain access to the trough of pollution credits.
(footnote)A tremendous world-wide radical response to the predatory system of climate regulation, and to all aspects of the life-threatening ecological crisis, is underway. (It has made itself felt at Bali and elsewhere, delete) with the simple, (and life-affirming DELETE) principle that the only rational and just solution to the climate crisis is to keep carbon in the ground in the first place.


Beyond the great range of valuable interventions proposed by this “movement of movements,” one singular and overarching perspective is beginning to be discussed: that in order to affirm and sustain our human future, a revolutionary transformation is needed, in which all particular struggles are to be seen in the light of a greater struggle against capital itself. This larger struggle cannot be merely negative. It must announce a different kind of society, and this we name ecosocialism.


Stop Capitalist Ecocide! The Ecosocialist Alternative


Capitalist attempts to solve the ecological crisis have failed: only a profound change in the very nature of civilization can save humanity from the catastrophic consequences of climate change.


The ecosocialist movement aims to stop and reverse this disastrous process. We will fight to impose every possible limit on capitalist ecocide, and to build a movement that can replace capitalism with a society in which common ownership of the means of production replaces capitalist ownership, and in which the preservation and restoration of ecosystems will be a fundamental part of all human activity.


In other words, ecosocialism is an attempt to provide a radical civilizational alternative to the capitalist/industrial system, through an economic policy founded on non-monetary criteria: social needs and ecological equilibrium. It combines a critique of both “market ecology,” which does not challenge capitalism, and of “productivist socialism,” which ignores the earth’s natural limits.


The aim of ecosocialism is a new society based on ecological rationality, democratic control, social equality, and the predominance of use-value over exchange-value. These aims require both democratic planning that will enable society to define the goals of investment and production, and a new technological structure for humanity’s productive forces. In other words: a revolutionary social and economic transformation.


Emancipation of gender is integral to ecosocialism. The degradation of women and of nature have been profoundly linked throughout history, and especially the history of capitalism, in which money has dominated life. To defend and enhance life, therefore, is not just a matter of restoring the dignity of women; it also requires defending and advancing those forms and relations of labour that care for life and have been dismissed as mere “women’s work” or “subsistence.”


In order to stop the catastrophic process of Global Warming before it is too late, we must introduce radical changes in:


1. the energy system, by replacing the fossil fuels that are responsible for the greenhouse effect (oil, coal) with clean eolic and solar, sources of power;


2.the transportation system, by drastically reducing the use of private trucks and cars, replacing them with free and efficient public transportation;


ADD · Introduction of eco friendly means of air and sea transport powered as far as possible with clean eolic and solar, sources of power
3.present consumption patterns, which are based on waste, inbuilt obsolescence, and conspicuous competition.


To avoid endangering human survival, entire sectors of industry and agriculture must be suppressed (nuclear energy, armaments, advertising), reduced (fossil fuels), or restructured (automobiles) and new ones (solar energy, ecologically-sound agriculture) must be developed, while maintaining full employment for all. Such a change is impossible without public control over the means of production and democratic planning. Democratic public decisions on investment and technological change, must replace control by banks and capitalist enterprises in order to serve society’s common good.


Far from being “despotic”, planning is the whole society’s exercise of freedom: freedom of decision, (“and liberation from the capitalist system” cut rest of para)and liberation from the alienated and reified “economic laws” of the capitalist system, which has controlled individuals’ lives and death, and locked them in what Max Weber called an economic “iron cage.”


The passage to ecosocialism (is an historical process, a permanent revolutionary transformation of society, culture and attitudes. This transition )will lead not only to a new mode of production and an egalitarian and democratic society, but also to an alternative way of life, a new ecosocialist civilization, (beyond the reign of money, (NB are we commiting ourselves to the abolition of money here??)
beyond consumption habits artificially produced by advertising, and beyond the unlimited production of commodities that are useless and/or harmful. It is important to emphasize that such a process cannot begin without a revolutionary transformation of social and political structures based on the active support, by the vast majority of the population, of an ecosocialist program.


To dream and to struggle for a green socialism does not mean that we should not fight for concrete and urgent reforms now. Without any illusions about “clean capitalism,” we must try to win time and to impose on the powers that be — governments, corporations, international institutions — some elementary but essential changes:


• drastic and enforceable reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases,
• free public transportation
• taxation on polluting cars,
• progressive replacement of trucks by trains,
· Introduction of eco friendly means of air and sea transport
• shifting of war spending to the ecological reconstruction of homes and workplaces.


These, and similar demands, are at the heart of the agenda of the Global Justice movement and the World Social Forums, a decisive new development which has promoted, since Seattle in 1999, the convergence of social and environmental movements in a common struggle against the system. DELETE PARA
Global Warming will not be stopped in conference rooms and treaty negotiations: only mass action by the oppressed, by the victims of ecocide can make a difference. Third World and indigenous peoples are at the forefront of this struggle, fighting polluting multinationals, poisonous chemical agro-business, invasive genetically modified seeds, and so-called “bio-fuels” that put corn into car tanks, taking it away from the mouths of hungry people. Solidarity between anticapitalist ecological mobilizations in the North and the South is a strategic priority.


This Manifesto is (not an academic statement, but DELETE a call to action. The entrenched ruling elites are incredibly powerful, and the forces of radical opposition are still small. But those forces are the only hope that the catastrophic course of capitalist “growth” will be halted. Walter Benjamin defined revolutions as being not the locomotive of history, but as humanity reaching for the emergency breaks of the train, before it plunges into an abyss.