CommunistWarrior1917

[democracyatwork]

36,000 new jobs were created in Italian cooperatives in 2012

Despite the current crisis, it is estimated that between 2007 and 2011, employment in cooperatives has increased by 8%, compared with a decrease of 2.3% in all types of enterprises in Italy.

Read the entire story here.

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

Black Panther Party on Education + commentary

From the 10 Point Platform of the Black Panther Party: "We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else." In the struggles over education that are currently going on in our country, it is not enough for us, as revolutionaries, to simply go along with progressives in their fight against the privatization of public education, the defunding of public schools, etc. Doing so wouldn't differentiate us from a common petty-bourgeoisie progressive. What we need to do, in addition to making common cause with those who oppose cuts, is make the same demand that the BPP made in the 1960s. Let's revolutionize our educational system!

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

Today in history...

in the UK "the Representation of the People Act 1918 was passed, enfranchising women over the age of 30 who met minimum property qualifications" after a decades long struggle by various groups, including the National Society for Women's Suffrage, National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, and the Women's Social and Political Union.

[socialismartnature]

In April 1977, thousands of disability rights activists across the country held protests outside of the 8 regional offices of the federal government’s Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). They were demanding that the Carter administration begin enforcing laws to prevent...

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

George Padmore: The Popular Front and Spanish Colonialism

"It is not the politically backward Moors who should be blamed for being used by the forces of reaction against the Spanish workers and peasants, but the leaders of the Popular Front, who, in attempting to continue the policy of Spanish Imperialism, made it possible for Franco to exploit the natives in the service of Fascism." "Had the Popular Front Government, immediately it assumed office, issued decrees granting the colonial peoples economic and political reforms as a gesture towards self-government and appealed for their support against France, it would have been assured." "For the Moors have no particular ideological interest in Fascism. They, like most colonial peoples, are not concerned with the conflicting political conflicts going on in Europe. To them all whites are alike – a feeling which can hardly be otherwise when Labour and Popular Front Governments oppress and exploit them in the same way as Tory and other reactionary Capitalists. It is only the more politically advanced colonial workers who are able to make a distinction between the white oppressors and the white oppressed. Not until the European workers’ movements, especially in countries with great empires like Britain and France show more solidarity in deeds and not words will this distrust and suspicion be removed."

[socialismartnature]

A Whole Foods worker describes the low wages, lack of benefits and poor working conditions that employees endure—and argues that the answer is unionization.

WHOLE FOODS CEO John Mackey sparked outrage recently when he said in an interview with National Public Radio that the Obama administration’s health care law was “like fascism.”

Although it caused a stir in the media, such comments are nothing new from the multimillionaire libertarian—a man who once compared having a union to having herpes (“It doesn’t kill you, but it’s unpleasant and inconvenient”).

Mackey has since said he thought using the word “fascism” was a “bad choice” on his part. But he was more than happy to defend his reasoning.

In a reply—apology is too strong a word—to the public outrage, a self-satisfied Mackey wrote in a January 17 article for the Huffington Post, “I’m speaking as someone who works hard to offer health care benefits to more than 73,000 team members, who actually vote on their overall benefits packages.”

For those of us who work for Whole Foods, Mackey’s comments were not particularly surprising, but they may provide one avenue for us to win public support for improved conditions in our workplace.

It’s true: Whole Foods employees “voted” on our benefits package this year. What Mackey doesn’t tell you is this: On the health care portion of our benefits vote, we were presented with three choices that we had no voice in drafting, and all of them resulted in significant cuts in benefits and increases in out-of-pocket employee costs. This not only has implications for the overall health of employees, but also resulted in, essentially, a pay cut.

Employees had no avenue to negotiate over whether these options were fair. We had no opportunity to discuss them with our coworkers. Instead, we were pulled in small groups to a conference room filled with computers where we listened to corporate “benefits specialists” explain each of the options, ask for clarifying questions, and then give us a few minutes to make our choice.

In my voting session, the benefits specialist glossed over the ways in which two packages threw workers with families under the bus in order to lessen cuts to the benefit packages of single workers who have no dependents.

Then, on the way out, they handed us “I voted!” stickers and thanked us for participating in “workplace democracy.”

Of course, it wasn’t workplace democracy in that conference room—it was management forcing us to accept a benefits cut in order to increase the already massive profits that we create for the company. This mask of democracy is central to the way Whole Foods does business, but it’s a mask that workers can increasingly see through.

And that’s why, in ever-increasing numbers, we want a union.

[socialismartnature]

Anti-imperialist author and journalist Vijay Prashad sets military intervention in Mali in the context of French colonialism, in an article written for NewsClick.in.

IN AN early French film on the colonies, Enfants annamites ramassant des sépèques devant la Pagode des dames (Lumière Brothers, 1897), two French women smile condescendingly as they scatter coins to a group of Vietnamese children, who scramble to gather them. Little has changed in the French attitude to its former colonies in more than a century.

The “Socialist” president François Hollande’s deceitful claim that France is in Mali to protect the country from Islamism is shallow: there are other motivations that linger so close to the surface, such as France’s desire to project itself into an increasingly restive Francophone Africa since its 2011 intervention into Cote d’Ivoire, as well as France’s need for nearby Niger’s uranium for its nuclear energy and for Mali’s gold. Like the two women in 1897, Hollande stands at the Élysée Palace, dripping with hypocrisy.

The French “socialists” have always been keen colonizers, and strikingly, they have found willing collaborators in the wider French left. In 1956, at the height of the Algerian struggle for national self-determination, the French communist delegates voted in favor of the Socialist Prime Minister Guy Mollet’s government to grant “special powers” to its colonial security services in Algeria. Mollet was committed to anti-colonialism before he became the head of the government, with his volte-face treated to tomatoes during a visit to Algiers (la journée des tomates, it is called).

French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a stinging attack on the left’s position on Algeria in 1957. “They talk of Algeria,” he wrote, “but in moderate terms.” No protests against the war, no days of action. “Its activists are grumbling,” he wrote, and “as for the working class, the result, and perhaps the aim, of this policy is that it is entirely demobilized…The [left] is reaping what it has sown: when it needs the masses, it will no longer find them.”

Sartre was right. Eighteen months later, when the Fourth Republic collapsed, the left could not seize the situation. It lost a million and a half votes in the elections, ushering Charles de Gaulle back to power and inaugurating the Fifth Republic.

The French left has learned no lessons….

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

Pan-Slavism and the Global Struggle Against Capitalism

The cause of Pan-Slavic unity is the cause of the oppressed masses of the world in their struggle against global capitalism. Slavic lands are rich in resources - such as metals, natural gas, and oil - yet, since the downfall of the USSR, Yugoslavia, and socialist states in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria our lands haven't been in our control. Rather than being used to enrich ourselves, our wealth has been used to enrich others. We - the 400 million Slavs of the world - must come to realize that our true enemies aren't our fellow Slavs. Our true enemy are the transnational corporations - which are predominantly controlled by people of Western European descent - and our puppet rulers, who are subservient to the European Union. Our true enemy is the North Atlantic Terrorist Organization, which bombed our brothers and sisters in Yugoslavia. Let me end by saying: Although Africans, Slavs, Arabs, and Asians are underprivileged in comparison with Western Europe and North America, our working class is in a privileged position to overthrow the current world order and establish a more just world! We are the weakest links in the globalist system.

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

Problems

Avoid speaking of "my" problems. "I" don't have problems; it is we who have problems. Always remember this: Problems go beyond the individual. There's nothing purely subjective about them.

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

A Tribute to Communism (by CommunistWarrior1917)

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

Glad to see them take this position. What's going on in Syria isn't a civil war. Those who are saying so are cutting Syria off from the international context, and viewing what's going on in isolation. Rather, what's happening in Syria is a proxy conflict by the US-Turkey-AL axis of imperialism against an independent leader in the geopolitically important middle east.

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

Syria: SANA Down

The government-run Syrian Arab News Network is currently down. This is a rather interesting tactic by the armed "activists" in their fight for democracy... shutting down a website that gives a perspective they dont like. Very interesting indeed!

[2pt718-deactivated20130519]

If you support the Syrian opposition…

…Then you support: war, violence, terrorism, radicalism, occupation, imperialism, and globalization.

-2pt718

[ragduh]

brilliant. 100% true.

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

"Israel" = Apartheid

Currently, Jews are the minority in Palestine according to Israel's Haaretz news. Despite the fact that they're a numerical minority, they have a dominant position in society, while the Palestinians face discrimination. This is apartheid. In other words, what's happening in Palestine isn't merely occupation. To call it occupation conceals what's really going on. It's essential that we play close attention to the words we use, and be careful not to uncritically adopt the vocab of the mainstream narrative. Outside of Palestine there needs to be an anti-apartheid movement, just as there was against the white-minority government in South Africa. Zionism isnt confined to "Israel"; it's international. It's important that the movement against Zionist apartheid also be international. Thankfully, such a movement - the BDS movement - has been developing. Lets hope that it countinues to grow in the future. Given the recent attack on Gaza, it probably will. Anyway...those are my thoughts on the situation in Palestine after reading that Haaretz article I mentioned. I've tried to keep editing to a minimum in order not to restrict my thoughts. If this impacts the quality of this post negatively, I apologize. (PS if you think I should use a "stream of conciousness" style on this blog, let me know.)

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

You know you have a social media addiction when...

the greatest source of excitement in your life comes from watching your tweets get RT'd, your Reddit posts liked and commented on in a flurry, and your YT channel growing exponentially as time goes on. Also: When you take somebody disliking your video/reddit post as a personal insult.

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

Youtube Main Page Rant

In case you didn't notice, YT has changed their main page once again. I've got nothing against change. In fact, as a Communist, I love change. That doesn't mean all change is good. Youtube's newest changes to the homepage is one of those cases. First of all, Youtube has now made "recomended videos" the first thing you see, instead of a feed of your subscribers new videos. This will hurt small time youtubers. This seems to be a trend. Other then that, that's the only non-æsthetic change YT made. Primarily Æsthetic changes drives me cracy. I you're going to make changes to how your website looks, at least add new features or improve old ones (unless your website looks like it hasnt been update since the 1990s). Anyway...that's the end of my poorly written rant!

[communistwarrior1917-blog]

Wonder if there's anything in there that screws us? Sounds too good to be true.