Letters - 21 July 2010

Slashed Workers’ Wages Line
Greek Bosses’ Wallets

I’ve been working for almost a year now at a pizzeria after the work contract for my previous job expired. It is not that great, thanks to too many hours and too little money, but at least I am certain of the day’s wages in my pocket.

This country is going downhill, if it hasn’t already hit the bottom. Everybody who cares to be involved in the government does so only because they want to put some millions in their wallets and then quit like chickens.

These past years we lost a lot to capitalism, and now they are trying to make this country stand without feet! So we are forced to pay for their debts and their pleasures, as if we haven’t already paid enough! They’re even cutting our salaries! Salaries have been cut from workers employed by private companies as well as state workers. We know the money cut from our salaries will line the pockets of the bosses rather than helping other workers through social services. That’s why we’re on strike all the time, even though nothing has changed yet.

A friend from Greece

‘Prisoners of Liberation’

Is a revolution for communist equality possible? What about a society based on working-class collectivity instead of the crass Individualism of capitalism in the U.S. today?

We feel that the Communist Revolution in China accomplished some of these goals, but we still have a whole lot more to learn and to put into practice.

In their book, “Prisoners of Liberation,” Allyn and Adele Rickett describe the effects of the Communist Revolution in China. They were imprisoned for four years during the Korean War. While in prison they experienced a rehabilitation method of criticism and self-criticism.

“’Prisoners of Liberation’ is one of the best available analyses of the process by which people are made to confront their social roles.”

We hope that you will read this inspiring book!

Stockton, CA Book Collective

Demonizing N. Korea Keeps U.S.
Bases Aimed at China

For those of us who tuned in to watch Brazil’s first match of the World Cup we were treated to a surprisingly competitive performance from the first North Korean team to play in the World Cup since 1966. But beyond the action on the field there was a steady stream of commentary regarding the “insane machinations” of the “evil” North Koreans. We were treated to fantastic stories of invisible phones, Chinese actors pretending to be North Korean fans, and pirated game footage being taken from South Korea and replayed in the North. The latter story has already been confirmed as a fraud and it is likely the others are too.

The U.S.-led Western media has spent much time developing the myth of a totalitarian North Korea. While it is true that North Korea is a military dictatorship with a fully-developed cult of personality around the Kim family, the depictions of a hapless population controlled by an all-knowing police-state is simply a myth.

The totalitarian ideal was developed in the West under the burgeoning new academic field of political science to defame the Soviet Union in the 1930s. By claiming total state control the totalitarian ideal removed the agency of workers themselves, turning them into hapless simps incapable of action or change.

Representing the capitalists’ ideal of the working class rather than the material reality, the totalitarian model rose to prominence alongside the individualist great-man theories of capitalist philosophy. The reality is that no state can function without the cooperation of a critical mass of the working class which believes in the state’s legitimacy.

True, North Korea is a military dictatorship and the Juche (theory of self-reliance) ideal at the center of their political philosophy is about as far from communism as one gets, it is equally true that due to the extreme trauma of the Korean War (four million deaths in three years of fighting) and the continuing tension on the 38th parallel that the people of North Korea are committed to maintaining their state.

Defense Department planners are keenly aware of this reality. They estimated in 1992, before it was known that North Korea had a nuclear bomb, that a new Korean War would lead to one million casualties in Seoul, South Korea in the first 24 hours alone. This estimate was re-affirmed in 2003.

So the question is why the constant stream of antagonism and fabrications about North Korea in the U.S. and Western press? The reality is that the U.S. needs to demonize the North Korean regime and maintain the tension on the 38th parallel in order to justify the continued presence of 30,000 U.S. troops at strategic bases in South Korea.

It should be noted that typically there were 40,000 troops in South Korea, but 10,000 were shifted to Afghanistan by Obama. These bases serve as staging points for attacks against China and Eastern Russia, something that China has complained about for decades.

The U.S. has repeatedly denied North Korean offers to open up and ratchet down tensions and has been duplicitous in most of its interactions with the state. The real reason for U.S. media attacks against North Korea is plain and simple imperialism and not, nor has it ever had anything to do with, concern for the plight of workers in N. Korea.

Red Beard

PL/InCAR’s Internationalism, Anti-racism a Hit in South Africa

International solidarity is a beautiful thing.

In my recent trip to South Africa, I brought along the anti-apartheid International Committee Against Racism (InCAR) t-shirt from the 1980s.  I showed it to our tour guide in Johannesburg and Soweto, and when we went to the Hector Petersen Museum (Hector was the first student killed during the 1976 student uprisings in Soweto), I saw Hector’s sister and asked if I could meet her.

The guide asked what contribution to the struggle we had made in the U.S., and I explained not only about our anti-racist and anti-apartheid work but also our work in my union. He said, “Good, unions are very important here in South Africa” and introduced me to Antoinette Sithole. I told her about how U.S. workers and students had engaged in the fight against apartheid and showed her the t-shirt. She agreed to a photo of her holding the t-shirt with the tour guide, who had lost many family members during the Uprising. (see CHALLENGE, 7/7)

After that, the InCAR t-shirt was my calling card. The workers at the Ritz Backpacker Hostel where we stayed in Johannesburg loved it. A young Swedish woman who is in South Africa studying human rights and the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions also took a picture of it.

I brought the t-shirt along when we went to tour Robben Island, where Mandela had been a prisoner for 27 years. When the guide on the tour bus mentioned Sharpeville, a woman spoke up saying she had been at Sharpeville where hundreds of South Africans were protesting the pass-book laws and were gunned down by the fascist police. She was also moved by the t-shirt and we exchanged addresses.

The guide who showed us the prison cells where the political prisoners were kept was a former political prisoner. Upon seeing the t-shirt, he recognized the contributions U.S. workers and students made in supporting their fight against apartheid while the U.S. government supported the racist government.

Showing the t-shirt was a way of connecting with the workers of South Africa and their struggles. It became a symbol of solidarity. No matter to whom I showed it, immediate recognition of the anti-racist actions in the U.S. were noted and approval was expressed. Everyone wanted the t-shirt. Now I have to make copies and send them to the workers!

The symbol of our internationalism decades ago has laid the foundation for new international relationships for our Party today.

D.C. Red