Peter Waterman writes:

"AFL-CIO and the White Man's Burden"

Peter Waterman

[Originally written in 2002 but unpublished at that time, this piece seems to me to have again become relevant in the light of the AFL-CIO's last (latest?) convention. Here its international relations came to be challenged on a national stage for the first time. Not for the last time. The 'boxes' referred to in the text have disappeared in the transmogrification from Word to this site. Interested readers or publishers can obtain the orginal from me. PW. September 1, 2005]

THE EMAIL DIALOGUES

Kim Scipes, a former trade unionist now living in Chicago, has been campaigning over the last years for an opening of the books on the international policy of the 'old' AFL-CIO, with respect to the Pinochet coup in Chile, 1973. Now he is questioning the policy of the 'new' AFL-CIO with respect to the attempted coup in Venezuela and, most-recently, to Cuba. (Scipes 2000, 2002a, b).

In response to such challenges, Stan Gacek, a leading International Department officer, issued a public response which later appeared on the AFL-CIO website (AFL-CIO 2002). The speed of this response, and its reproduction on the website is, in my experience, an innovation. But, apparently, an innovation of restricted application. In a further reply to Scipes on the Cuba funding, which has not been publicly circulated, Gacek declared that

'In response to…your e-mails, you should know that the Solidarity Center is NOT receiving any funding under the USAID/Cuba Program of May, 2002.' (Forwarded email, June 26, 2002)

Puzzled by this odd formulation, and wondering whether Kim might have maybe made a loose accusation, I re-read his email but then realized that the problem was not a loose accusation but, rather, a tight answer – a legalistic formulation which did not address the substance of Kim Scipes' question — or even the detailed US state funding data Kim had provided!

Comrade Matt, T writes:

"The Forbes Convergence"

Comrade Matt, T

While in London during1862, Dostoevsky once wrote of that "apparent disorder that is in actuality the highest degree of bourgeois order”.

Jump forward to Sydney 2005 and there is disorder — not conducive to bourgeois order — in the streets. Over the last few days from the 30th of August through the 2nd of September there has been numerus anti-capitalist and anti-war actions carried out to coincide with the Forbes conference.

The Forbes conference was a meting of around 350 CEO’s and politicians of the neo-liberal or economic rationalist persuasion, Steven Forbes, Rudy Giuliani and John Howard were all present, which give you an idea of the politics represented.

How the Free Market Killed New Orleans

Michael Parenti, ZMag

The free market played a crucial role in the
destruction of New Orleans and the death of thousands
of its residents. Armed with advanced warning that a
momentous (force 5) hurricane was going to hit that
city and surrounding areas, what did officials do?
They played the free market.

They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone
was expected to devise their own way out of the
disaster area by private means, just as the free
market dictates, just like people do when disaster
hits free-market Third World countries.

It is a beautiful thing this free market in which
every individual pursues his or her own personal
interests and thereby effects an optimal outcome for
the entire society. This is the way the invisible hand
works its wonders.

phollings writes:

"Iran Next, By Way of Charleston?"
Peter Hollings

In the summer of 2002 . . . I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He . . . told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend — but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency. The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'' — Ron Suskind

Last January an article appeared in the New Yorker by noted investigative journalist Seymour Hirsch. In his article, "The Coming Wars" Hirsch quotes a intelligence official as saying:

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone," the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah — we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."