Summits of Farce and Repression

by Barry Weisleder

In the end, the global rulers got what they wanted – massive propaganda for social cuts, plus a brutal demonstration of police power. As for the working class, we got the bill, $1.3 billion and counting -- just for 'security'.

During the G20 Summit in Toronto, police arrested over 900 people. That is nearly double the number incarcerated in the October 1970 Quebec crisis, under the auspices of the infamous War Measures Act. Most caught in the latest sweep were released, many without charges, after being held in filthy cages, in a makeshift 'jail', for up to 24 hours without adequate water, food, medication, toilet facilities, privacy for females, or access to legal aid. Police charged hundreds, and still hold a few.


The business media worked feverishly to spin the threadbare results of the G20 meeting (held on the heals of the G8 Summit in Huntsville, Ontario), into a tapestry of triumph, an ode to worldly consensus and to Canadian hospitality. But plainly, it's a hard sell -- especially in light of the city core lock-down, and the acts of petty vandalism that police permitted (or planned) to occur, before resorting to the use of tear gas, pepper spray, beatings and mass arrests. Many peaceful protesters, working journalists, downtown shoppers and curious on-lookers were snared by the cop tactics. And so, illusions in bourgeois democracy and in 'officers of the peace' fell like a multitude of bowling pins.

Meanwhile, inside the media bubble of the world capitalist summit, there was minimal agreement on detail. This betrayed the actual farce of the high level gathering, which could have been conducted on Skype for free -- minus the mini-police state imposed on Torontonians.

To the extent that the G20 leaders agreed to do anything, the measures they endorsed could hasten a global depression, and quicken the descent into environmental disaster.

The rich countries' bosses promised to cut their budgetary deficits in half by 2013, and to cap their cumulative debt as a proportion of GDP by 2016. If attempted, without taxing big corporations and the super-rich, such actions would choke off jobs, services and investment in production, plunging economies into crisis, and billions into misery.

But Japan is exempt. Italy is not expected to meet the deadline. While Britain and Germany have announced Draconian cuts, Harper is not saying, and Obama is walking a tightrope. Just to reveal the blatancy of their class bias, the G8 and G20 rejected a tax on financial institutions (proposed by the more desperate French, Germans and British), and they put off until the next G20 summit in Seoul, South Korea any discussion of bank regulatory reforms.

Concerning climate change, the summiteers agreed to contemplate cuts to the subsidies paid carbon-emitting oil and gas industries. Of course such contemplations are subordinate to “country-specific strategies”. Canada's federal government, for instance, is increasing its overall subsidies to the Alberta tar sands. Even the language on climate change from this summit is weaker than that agreed at the previous G20 gab-fest.

What about the G8? “The gap between the G8's compassionate rhetoric and its readiness to help was especially striking” said the June 27 Toronto Star lead editorial. While hundreds of thousands of women, and nearly 9 million children die needlessly every year, the $50 billion in aid promised at the Gleneagles summit in 2005 “fell a breathtaking $20 billion short”. “This is a shabby performance for a rich club that generates close to $40 trillion in wealth”, stated the Star. Canada's largest circulation daily failed to mention the source of this enormous wealth -- the stolen natural resources and exploited labour of workers globally, especially in the Third World.

The G8 leaders went out of their way to caution the United Nations against hoping for much more from them, notwithstanding the 'Millennium Development Goals' which aim to reduce world poverty, hunger and disease by 2015. And really, isn't that the whole point of the G8 and the G20? There the richest elites do not run the risk of getting outvoted by the 172 other countries represented at the U.N. -- which can be mildly embarrassing, even if U.N. votes change few economic facts on the ground.

On 'security' issues, the G8 endorsed a five-year exit plan from Afghanistan (which can always be extended). They denounced Iran and North Korea (without any commitment to eradicate the largest stock piles of nuclear weapons, which happen to be held by the USA, Russia and Europe). And they called for an 'easing' of Israel's blockade of Gaza, rather than demanding an end to the siege, let alone the dismantling of the Israeli apartheid wall, or recognition of the right of return for all Palestinian refugees.

None of the 'decisions' of the G8 and G20 were actually made at the summits, which serve a rubber-stamp and photo-op function for pre-negotiated policies, steeped in diplomatic vacuity. Thus, working people, the poor and all oppressed sections of society had good reason to protest long before the summits. After all, we live daily under disaster capitalism.

So, protests proliferated in the week of June 20. This followed the People's Summit attended by over 1,500 at Ryerson University. It continued with demonstrations for aboriginal rights and against the rising tide of poverty, and culminated in the massive rally and march of 30,000, despite persistent rainfall, on Saturday, June 26. The sponsors of the main demonstration, which set out from Toronto's Queen's Park, included the Canadian Labour Congress, the Ontario Federation of Labour, their major union affiliates, as well as the Council of Canadians, Greenpeace, Oxfam, the Canadian Federation of Students, the Ontario Health Coalition, Amnesty International, and numerous feminist organizations. The demo was peaceful and spirited. Chants of “Whose streets? Our streets!” and “This is what democracy looks like” echoed down University Avenue's 'hospital row', and up through Chinatown on Spadina Ave.

But the huge parade never made it onto prime time news. Mainstream media coverage fixated on a tiny breakaway group. The so-called Black Bloc, animated by self-described anarchists, went on a window-busting rampage that hit about 40 businesses, and torched four police squad cars. No one was killed or seriously injured. The only injuries were caused by the police, afterwards.

The anger of the Bloc-istas against the social injustices perpetuated by the G20 is understandable. But their tactics are worse than deplorable. They proved the straight men for Harper's all-too-predictable punch lines about how 'security' spending was justified. The Bloc-istas also gave the cops ammunition to brutalize and jail over 900 innocents, using expanded police powers of search and arrest granted by a secret Ontario Liberal Cabinet decision just weeks prior to the summits.

Now that a majority of the 900-plus detainees have been released without charge, questions are multiplying. Why did 20,000 cops, including literally hundreds of them within spitting distance of burning vehicles and shattering store windows, just let it happen? Was it an exercise in policing or PR? And if cop claims are true that they had infiltrated the Bloc-istas, how many police were involved in prompting, as opposed to just spying on, the planners of mayhem?

Anger over the hundreds of arbitrary arrests, and the de-humanizing treatment meted out by police to detainees, spurred over 3,000 people to rally outside Toronto Police Headquarters on June 28. They demanded a full, independent public inquiry. Thousands proceeded to march to City Hall and back to the Legislature at Queen's Park. Many in the youthful throng chanted “Wasted! Wasted! A billion dollars!”, “No justice, no peace!”, and the now emblematic cry “Whose streets? Our streets!”

Socialists were prominent in all of the peaceful, mass protest actions, and received a very positive hearing from the crowds which included many young women and men attending a demonstration for the first time. Dozens walked behind the Socialist Action banner inscribed with the words “No corporate bail-out. Make Capital pay for the crisis! Nationalize Auto, Steel and Banks – under Workers' Control”.

SA members received over $550 in sales of anti-capitalist, anti-war and eco-socialist buttons, and SA newspapers in a span of four days. We distributed 1,000 trilingual statements against the agenda of the G20 (presenting the policies of our Canada/Quebec, American and Mexican sister parties). Over 40 activists attended an SA public forum at the People's Summit, dozens more came to our display table at the Ryerson Hub, and we received applications from five individuals seeking detailed information about, or membership in SA.

Harper and his global partners in crime have stirred a giant from slumber. Will this youthful giant master the policies, strategy and organization needed to seize the time? No one can say, but socialists have an indispensable, and evidently welcome role to play in this still unfolding drama.

A report on Toronto G20 protests and police actions on June 26, 2010

by Julius Arscott, Socialist Action

I participated in the labour-sponsored mass demonstration which started at Toronto's Queen's Park at around 1:30 p.m., June 26. It travelled south along University Avenue, west along Queen Street West, north along Spadina Avenue and back to Queens Park. It was a rainy day. Police presence along the route appeared small until we passed the United States Consulate on University Ave., where close to 75 police were present, with tear gas guns and what appeared to be shotguns. Further south the labour marshals directed traffic along the agreed route.


After the concluding rally at Queen's Park, several SA members went to a bar on College Street for a drink and some food. While there we watched the US vs. Ghana soccer game, which was followed by a news bulletin. It showed a police car on fire, which was rather unexpected. Outside, a little later, we could see many people walking east, towards Queen's Park (QP). I departed and walked towards the crowd. Many police there blocked access to QP. After a while many more police gathered in the area. From a higher vantage point, I could see that there was another, even larger group of protesters in QP, and they were being rushed by the police. I proceeded through University of Toronto campus until I got to the south end of QP. There I saw many people shouting at police such slogans as “Whose streets, our streets!” and “This is what democracy looks like, that is what hypocrisy looks like”. There were many police present. More police than demonstrators. Police were using a ‘snatch and grab’ technique. They would rush the demonstrators, singling out a few individuals and targeting them for arrest. Pepper balls were used (paint ball guns using paint balls containing a pepper substance). I also saw several people who were injured and bleeding, though probably not from life threatening injuries. The police used horses to charge and divide the crowds. Many people, during the hour and a half that I was there, were arrested. The protestors did not attack the police. A few water bottles were thrown into the police line, but other protestors were shouting not to throw anything at the police. Either way, the police continued to arrest many people and eventually pushed everyone out of QP, which had been designated as a green "free speech" zone for protesters. I heard that after the mass labour-backed rally finished some anarchists broke windows on Queen Street, and that they then returned to Queen's Park, took off their black clothing, and merged with the rest of the demonstrators. The police followed them to QP. I was also told by another source that when he arrived at the scene, he heard shouting coming from many police at QP. There were no protesters in sight. The cops were rallying and cheering for their own success at removing the protestors.

I departed, walking south to Queen Street to see what damage had been done there. When I arrived, I saw people running west. I could see black plumes of smoke. As I got closer, I saw one burnt-out vehicle, and another car on fire. Most of the people gathered here were evidently not demonstrators. They appeared to be shoppers and the curious who wanted to see what was going on. Eventually the police blocked off the street and had horses there as well. The police used the same tactics of snatch and grab. They arrested many people. The folks in this area became radicalized quickly as the police turned on them with force. They also shouted anti-G20 slogans and pro-democracy chants. The police fired pepper balls and rushed people, including me, with their horses. Apparently, the scene was caught on film and was on television . Eventually the police dispersed the crowd.

At this point I was ready to head home as none of these events were planned and I had no idea where the next action might be. I walked east towards Yonge Street. When I got there I saw a small number of people heading south. I decided to follow them and see what was going on. We continued south until we reached Front Street (at the northeast corner, across from Union Station). There were approximately 200-250 people here. They held a peaceful sit-down strike. We stayed for another 20 minutes and then the crowd headed south towards the Esplanade and closer to the 'security' fence. Eventually we stopped in front of a hotel and shouted “Whose streets, our streets” and “This is what democracy looks like, that’s what a police state looks like”. We stayed there for about 15 minutes. Riot police arrived at both ends of the street. At this point my priority was to get out as I did not want to get trapped or arrested. I managed to find a way out through a small back alley, access to which was denied by police a very short time later. I escaped. Hundreds of police converged at this spot. I suspect that most, if not all of the 150 people who remained, and were sitting peacefully, were arrested.

I was exhausted after all this and headed home. I would add only that there were police everywhere in the downtown core during this entire period, and they were very aggressive towards the general public. They would not answer questions. They shouted at passers by, many of whom probably then started to demonstrate against the police. I have never seen so many police in my life in the City of Toronto. There may have been more here than when I was in Quebec City for the FTAA protest in 2001. Tear gas was used here, possibly for the first time in Toronto's history. The police were very heavy handed with everyone. Not once did I see police being attacked with any force serious enough to justify their aggression towards the public in general, and towards protesters specifically.

Aboriginal needs ignored by Ottawa, G20

by Barry Weisleder

Far from the G20 Summit galas, 2,700 members of Sandy Lake First Nation gathered to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the signing of Treaty 5. In the century since aboriginal people ceded 100,000 square kilometres of land to the British Crown for a few tools and an annual payment of $5 a head, grinding poverty remains the norm.

Sandy Lake is a fly-in-only community 600 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay (Lake Superior) that survived for centuries on hunting, trapping and fishing. Today, aboriginal teen suicide is five to six times higher for First Nations youth between 10 and 24 years of age than for non-aboriginal youth. Of the 600 young people between 18 and 29 living at Sandy Lake, only about 20 have jobs, according to Chief Adam Fiddler.

Canada has gotten “very wealthy” as a result of many treaty arrangements made, says Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Chief Stan Beardy. NAN represents 49 First Nation communities.

“We are not happy.” Instead of sharing the wealth and resources of the land, European settlers sidelined the natives, says Beardy. He wonders why Canada has so far not signed the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People. He wonders why Prime Minister Harper talks about a maternal health strategy for the Third World, yet he neglects the problem in his own backyard.

Statistics Canada data shows the aboriginal infant death rate is 1.5 times higher than the Canadian rate. In addition, there are 118 First Nations across Canada where the water is too polluted to drink. According to the Assembly of First Nations, 5,486 of 88,485 houses on-reserve do not have sewage services. Around Sandy Lake, many houses have plastic sheets or cardboard serving as windows. Some homes have no outer walls at all, just insulation.

While the federal government spent $46 million in the Huntsville area to spruce up an already rich part of southern Ontario for a G8 Summit lasting just a few hours, in addition to the $1.2 Billion-plus for 'security' for the two-day G20 in Toronto, there's precious little for aboriginal communities, or for urban aboriginals. Their plight was not even on the agenda when the henchmen of global Capital gathered to plan their future plunder of world resources.

Dental plan has no teeth for Ontario poor

by Barry Weisleder

Ontario's health minister, Deb Matthews, admitted in June that there is no money to improve the oral health of the province's 500,000 working poor.

In the 2007 election campaign her Liberal Party promised to introduce dental care for low-income Ontarians, followed up by a budget commitment in 2008 to provide $45 million annually for three years to help half a million impoverished workers unable to afford private insurance coverage. Now, it seems, that is barely enough to cover dental care for children of the poor.

Thirty-two per cent of Canadians do not have dental insurance and 17 per cent of residents across the country avoided seeing a licensed dentist last year because of cost, according Health Canada. As a result, an underground industry of unlicensed and sometimes dangerous dentistry preys upon the poor, and often new immigrants.

Desperation is born of hardship, deepened recently by the Ontario Liberal government's regressive Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) and its heartless elimination of the Special Diet Supplement to welfare ($250 a month for food). After inflation, welfare benefits today have only 55 per cent of the buying power they had in 1993.

Liberals at Queen's Park smile daggers while they make workers and the poorest folk pay for the bail-out to resource industries and auto giants, pay for the crisis of their profit system.

NDP Socialists hit Afghan war extension, Liberal coalition, attack on Libby Davies

by Barry Weisleder

New Democratic Party activists from Hamilton, Oakville, Mississauga, Thornhill, several Toronto constituencies, and from as far away as Winnipeg, Manitoba gathered at OISE U. of Toronto on June 12 for the Annual NDP Socialist Caucus Federal Conference. Although the next NDP federal convention is June 2011 in Vancouver, British Columbia -- the NDP Socialists are wasting no time in addressing the big issues that face the working class today.

At the top of the SC agenda is ending the war of occupation in Afghanistan and opposing any coalition, let alone merger, of the NDP with the Liberal Party, or any capitalist party. NDP MPs have been too soft-spoken during the current campaign by the business media and the Liberal Party to extend the imperialist war mission beyond the 2011 Canadian troop removal deadline. One New Democrat MP, Jack Harris, who was part of the infamous Liberal Bob Rae-led junket to Kandahar, has mused about the need for Canadian forces to remain as trainers and to build "institutions" in Afghanistan, which implies a fighting presence there.

That brings us to rumours of a merger with the Liberal Party, the political pillar of Bay Street rule and the whole private profit system of environmental, labour and indigenous injustice. While NDP Leader Jack Layton says 'no one is authorized to engage in talks', so-called party 'saints' Ed Broadbent and Roy Romanow are talking potential 'deals' with former Prime Minister Jean Chretien and other Liberal honchos. Sadly, the outrageous prospect of such a merger seems credible only because the NDP has moved so far from its CCF and working class roots.
After illuminating presentations and discussions on domestic social policy (John Clarke, OCAP; Alex Johnstone, women's and children's rights; Robert Ling, End Prohibition of Cannabis) and foreign policy issues (Michael Skinner, Exiting the Afghanistan Quagmire; and this writer speaking on the campaign for democracy, anti-militarism and international solidarity in the NDP), conference participants got down to work on resolutions.

The gathering reaffirmed policies advanced by the SC in the lead up to the 2009 NDP Federal Convention in Halifax, and added three new ones: Legalize Cannabis, Make CPP Benefits a Decent, Living Income for Retirees, and Support the Cochabamba (Bolivia) Protocols on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.

The conference mandated the incoming SC federal steering committee to write a new resolution on ending the Alberta Tar Sands Project.

All current SC policy resolutions are posted on the SC web site: www.ndpsocialists.ca and will be circulated extensively across the country through NDP riding associations, affiliated unions and youth clubs. The aim is to persuade local organizations to discuss, adopt and forward the SC resolutions to the federal NDP convention for debate, vote and, hopefully, adoption there.
Leading this effort will be the newly elected NDP Socialist Caucus federal steering committee consisting of: from Toronto, Carol Bailey, Elizabeth Byce (elected SC treasurer), Judy Koch, Christos Draxl, Hans Modlich, Esther Mwangi, Doug Phillips, Ross Ashley and Barry Weisleder (elected SC chair); from Hamilton, Robert Ling; from Oakville, Sean Cain; from Thornhill, John Orrett; from Montreal, Robbie Mahood; and from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Rosemary Hnatiuk.

NDP activists who agree with SC policies and principles and who are interested in joining the SC federal steering committee, which operates primarily through inter net consultation, should send a message via the web site, or call 416 – 535-8779.

Inside the Ontario NDP, the Socialist Caucus remains the driving force behind grass roots challenges to postponement of the provincial convention by the party establishment and to its ongoing support for public funding for Catholic separate schools. Although the ONDP Provincial Council meeting on May 29 reaffirmed the party's regressive position on those issues, it was only after a vigorous council debate animated by SC activists. A lively lunch-time forum, attended by thirty ONDP councillors and observers, showed that the NDP Socialists represent the best hope for democracy and the turn to the left so essential to NDP survival in the current neo-liberal climate.

So does the SC defense of NDP federal MP and deputy leader Libby Davies (Vancouver East). She was denounced on July 15 by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae and NDP Leader Jack Layton – simply for stating that the Israeli occupation of Palestine began in 1948. The fact that the Zionist state was founded on the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinian Arabs, and the ethnic cleansing, killing and incarceration of many more since 1948, is widely recognized worldwide, including by most NDP members. It explains why the global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid has gained the support of many unions, municipalities and leading personalities internationally. Telling the truth should be commended, not condemned. Hands off Libby Davies!

Damned in Afghanistan

by Barry Weisleder

Touted as the Canadian state's best chance for a lasting legacy in Afghanistan, the $50 million Dahla Dam irrigation project in Kandahar is all but dead in the water.

The Canadian engineering giant SNC Lavalin is losing the battle for control of the project to a violent Afghan security firm loyal to Afghanistan's ruling Karzai family. While Ottawa claims the project is on time and budget, a Toronto Star investigation, including interviews with more than 20 private contractors, government officials, Afghan tribal leaders and others, reveals the opposite is the case.

A nearly deadly showdown on February 20 between Canadian security officials and Afghan mercenaries proved critical. It led to the resignation of Alan Bell, a Toronto-based security consultant hired by SNC Lavalin, who now refuses to discuss the situation.

Watan Risk Management, a company operated by Rashid Popal, a cousin of President Hamid Karzai, who's largest shareholder is one of the president's brothers, Qayum Karzai, apparently seeks 'protection' money. Watan recently was stripped of the highly lucrative task of escorting NATO convoys on the highway between Kabul and Kandahar. But the removal of Watan and another Afghan firm, Compass Security, lasted barely two weeks.

On the very first day, a NATO supply convoy was attacked, with one truck overturned and burned. Two weeks later, with more than 1000 supply trucks stalled on the highway, the company's security privileges were restored. U.S. officials are investigating whether the Karzai-linked firm may be colluding with insurgents to maximize profits. While Watan denies this, the mere mention of its name causes Kandahar-based staff with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) “go pale and silent”, according to the Toronto Star.

To date, 20 per cent of the silt blocking canals and sub-canals has been dug out. In other words, 80 per cent of the planned works, including the replacement of neglected hydraulic systems and generators at Dahla Dam itself, remains not done. Canadians involved in the project live like prisoners inside a police compound, unable to move without Watan's permission.

The fiasco of the Dahla Dam, set against the mounting death toll of foreign soldiers and local civilians, reveals the wages of imperialist occupation -- in support of a regime of war lords and drug barons. This is what the Liberal Party openly, and the Conservative government covertly, wish to extend past the 2011 deadline for removal of Canadian troops.

Changeons le systeme! pas le climat!

S’il ne s’agissait que d’une séance de photo des chefs d’État des vingt plus grands pays capitalistes du monde, assortie d’une facture obscène de plus de un milliard de dollars pour la sécurité, ça serait déjà gros. Mais le sommet du G20 à Toronto, les 26 et 27 juin, fait partie d’une campagne continue des bien nantis qui gouvernent la planète pour anéantir un siècle d’efforts déployés en faveur des droits et des avantages de la classe ouvrière, et cela en continuant de saccager l’environnement.
Le Fond monétaire international (FMI), sorte de secrétariat du G20, préconise ouvertement : la hausse de l’âge de la retraite, la diminution du financement des traitements médicaux, le gel des salaires de la fonction publique, l’intégralité des programmes sociaux qui deviennent liés aux ressources, la réduction du soutien aux agriculteurs, la hausse des taxes sur la valeur ajoutée, la hausse des taxes sur l’essence, et l’introduction d’une taxe sur les émissions carboniques responsables des gaz à effet de serre.
Il est clair que ces mesures ne font rien pour contrer les affres de la pauvreté ou du changement climatique qui menace la vie même. De telles mesures forceraient les masses laborieuses de la planète à régler la facture découlant de crises de système que nous n’avons pas contribué à créer. Qu’on se souvienne que les déficits et la dette ont atteint des niveaux stratosphériques lorsque les gouvernements ont décidé de renflouer les grandes banques et les méga entreprises. Le capital a créé un ballon de crédit, conçu littéralement pour dissimuler la contradiction au cœur même du capitalisme : la surproduction acharnée d’articles inutiles.
Les politiciens capitalistes froncent les sourcils dès qu’il est question de réformes, aussi modestes soient-elles, comme la réduction des dépenses militaires, la mise à profit des méga bénéfices des entreprises énergétiques pour la conservation et les alternatives énergétiques écologiques, la taxe appliquée aux riches pour soutenir le système public de soins de santé, l’éducation, l’alimentation saine, les transports en commun et le logement décent abordable.

Le gouvernement conservateur minoritaire à Ottawa, dans sa ferveur envers le « marché libre » dont il fait la promotion à l’échelle mondiale afin de bloquer une taxe spéciale sur la spéculation financière et les profits excessifs des banques, une taxe égoïste colportée par les puissances européennes et Washington pour servir de paratonnerre contre le prochain orage à secouer les banques. Du même souffle, Ottawa met en péril la santé des mères en refusant de financer les avortements sûrs, et légaux, à l’étranger (68 000 femmes meurent d’avortements bâclés chaque année et 5 millions souffrent d’infections et de complications, surtout dans les pays pauvres). Washington et Ottawa sont certes à blâmer pour l’échec de la conférence de Copenhague sur le climat, et aussi pour avoir contrecarré la mise en œuvre du timide accord de Kyoto. Ils continuent le dumping de surplus de grains sur le Mexique, Haïti et d’autres pays moins développés qu’eux. Ils précipitent les agriculteurs pauvres dans le désespoir d’une part, puis de l’autre exposent les travailleurs migrants à l’exploitation, au harcèlement et à la déportation.
Les riches qui mènent le monde craignent par-dessus tout le « mal grec », auquel les capitalistes accolent l’étiquette de « dépenses somptuaires », mais qui, dans la réalité, est un exemple probant de la solidarité de la classe ouvrière contre les programmes dont se dotent les patrons pour répandre l’appauvrissement et l’absence de droits.
Les socialistes saluent la résistance des travailleurs de par l’Europe. Nous sommes solidaires de la vague de grèves actuelle en Chine pour l’obtention d’avantages sociaux et de salaires décents. Nous soutenons la résistance nationale contre l’occupation impérialiste en Afghanistan, en Irak et en Palestine. Nous appuyons de tout cœur la déclaration de la conférence de Cochabamba, en Bolivie, sur le changement climatique et les droits de la Terre-Mère, qui demande la fin du militarisme, du pillage de la planète à des fins de profit (capitalisme), et de la négation des droits des peuples autochtones. Nous nous reconnaissons dans la révolution cubaine et dans la révolte contre le néolibéralisme qui balaie le Venezuela et l’Amérique Latine.
Pour un monde où tous peuvent « vivre bien », les travailleurs et les peuples opprimés doivent exproprier l’industrie et planifier l’économie de manière démocratique, en harmonie avec la nature. Il faut non pas taxer les banques mais nationaliser les banques et les grandes entreprises, sous le contrôle des travailleurs et de la collectivité. Rejoignez-nous dans le combat pour un monde exempt d’exploitation et de guerre. Pour chacun d’entre nous aujourd’hui, l’heure est au choix : Démocratie économique ou tyrannie des caciques ! Écosocialisme ou extinction !

La présente déclaration est faite conjointement par la Ligue pour l'Action socialiste/Socialist Action (État canadien), Socialist Action-États-Unis, et la Liga de Unidad Socialista (LUS)-Mexique.

!Cambio del sistema, no cambio del clima!

Si no estuviera mas que un "photo op" para los veinte politicos capitalistas de la primera linea, con un precio indecente de mas de un million de millones de dolares para "seguridad," esto sera ya bastante malo. Pero la reunion de caspide de los G20 en Toronto el junio 26-27 forma parte de una campana permanente de los ricos que dominan el mundo para destruir las conquistas de un siglo entero en cuanto a los derechos y beneficios de los trabajadores, mientras continuan a despojar el medio ambiente.

El Fondo Monetario Internacional, que sirva como especie de secretaria para los G20, abiertamente propone: aumentar la edad de jubilacion, eliminar pagos para cuidado medico, cortar subvenciones agricolos, alzar impuestos sobre ventas y la gasolina, congelar salarios de los trabajadores del sector publico, introducir criterios de ingreso para todos los programas sociales, y introducir un impuesto sobre carbon en emisiones gaseosas invernaderas.

Obviamente, tales medidas no toman cuenta de la pobreza catastrofica, ni del cambio del clima que amenaza la vida humana. Van a obligar que las masas trabajadoras del mundo paguen las crises del sistema que no son de nuestra culpa. Hay que recordarnos que los deficites y las deudas montaban drasticamente cuando los gobiernos decidieron ayudar los bancos grandes y las corporaciones gigantes. Los capitalistas crearon una burbuja de credito, que fue amoldada de manera a esconder literalmente bajo un cubierto de papeles las contradicciones centrales del capitalismo­la competencia implacable para ganancias y la sobreproducion de mercancia gastadora.

Politicos capitalistas miran con enfado a las mas minimas reformas­como cortar el presupuesto militar, o utilizar los lucros enormes de las companias de energia para la conservacion y alternativas de energia verdes, o impuestos sobre los ricos para pagar asistencia medica publica, educacion, buena nutricion, transportes publicos, y viviendas asequibles.

El gobierno minoritario conservador en Ottawa, en su entusiasmo para "mercados libres" hacia campana sobre una escala internacional para bloquear un impuesto especial sobre especulacion financiera y ganancias bancarias excesivas. De hecho, este impuesto no era mas de una medida promulgada por los poderes europeos y Washington como proteccion contra el proximo derrumbe bancario. Al mismo tiempo, Ottawa sabotea la salud maternal, rehusando proveer recursos para abortos legales y sin peligro en el exterior (68,000 mujeres mueren de abortos mal hechos cada ano, y 5 millones sufren de infecciones y complicaciones, por la mayor parte en paises pobres.)

Washington y Ottawa tienen la culpa desproporcionada por la quiebra de la Conferencia de Copenhagen sobre el Clima y por la destruccion del acuerdo debil de Kyoto. Ellos continuan a descargar cosechas excedentes en Mexico, Haiti, y otros paises menos desarrollados. Empujan campesinos hacia la desperacion y entonces explotan, hostigan, y deportan a los trabajadores inmigrantes.

El gran temor de los ricos en el poder es "la maldad griega," lo que los capitalistas dicen es "gastar demasiado," pero lo que es de verdad un ejemplo excelente de solidaridad obrera contra el orden del dia de los patrones para el empobrecimiento de los obreros y el despojo de sus derechos.

Nosotros los socialistas aclamamos la lucha de los obreros a traves de Europa. Apoyamos la ola de huelgas en China para salarios y beneficios decentes.

Salutamos la resistencia masiva a la ocupacion imperialista de Afganistan, Iraq, y Palestina. Aprobamos entusiasamente la declaracion de la Conferencia de Cochabamba sobre el cambio del clima y para los derechos de la Madre Tierra, la que exige el fin del militarismo, del pillaje del planeta para lucros (es decir, el capitalismo), y de la negacion de los derechos de los pueblos indigenos.

Nos identificamos con Cuba revolucionaria y con la rebelion al neoliberalismo que cae sobre Venezuela y America Latina.

Para un mundo en que todos podran "vivir bien," los obreros y los pueblos oprimidos tengan que expropriar la industria y planear la economia de manera democratica, en acuerdo con la naturaleza. Lo necesario no es un impuesto sobre los bancos sino la nacionalizacion de los bancos y las grandes companias bajo del control obrero y comunitario.

Que se unen Uds con nosotros en la lucha para un mundo sin explotacion y guerra! Urge escoger: O democracia economica o tirania de las corporaciones; eco-socialismo o extincion!

Esta declaracion a sido emitido en comon por Socialist Action/Ligue pour l'Action socialiste (Estado canadiense), Socialist Action de los Estados Unidos, y Liga de Unidad Socialista (LUS) de Mexico.

World Economic Disorder & G8/G20 Summit

(The following is the text of a presentation by Barry W. to a Socialist Action public forum at the People's Summit, Ryerson University, on June 20, 2010.)

The G20 Summit is a festival of the oppressors. It's not just a $1.2 billion photo op for the world's top capitalist politicians. It is a showcase for repression in support of an ongoing campaign by Capital to destroy a century of working class gains. Stephen Harper is in the forefront of this effort, from the Omnibus Budget Bill C-9 to his role in the wrecking of the Copenhagen Climate Conference; from the creation of a police state in Toronto in preparation for the G20, to the cuts to funding for any pro-Palestinian group, to the attack on NDP MP Libby Davies, to the embrace by Ottawa of some of the worst human rights abusers in the world -- all of these are signs of the erosion of our democratic rights.

And while Rome burns, while oil pours into the Gulf of Mexico and ice caps melt, the deepening global economic & ecological contradictions are evident to all. Harper's Tories, with support from the Liberal Party and Bay Street, have identified 4 areas to advance the corporate agenda:

· Global economy – which means not only deficit reduction, but wholesale social cuts


· Climate change – which means avoidance of action, and trying to profit from selling carbon credits


· Development – which means reducing barriers to Capital penetration in poor countries


· Democratic governance – which means the opposite.


This summit provides us with an opportunity to project a radically different course:

1. We point to the inherent contradictions of capitalism that make sustainable progress in these areas impossible, and

2. We strive to unite labour militants, anti-poverty activists, environmentalists, feminists, community and anti-imperialist activists. Socialists have a global class analysis that enables us to explain what is happening and the way out of this mess.

What are these summits all about? Why was the G7 expanded to the G20?

What they are really trying to do is re-invent their same old system. While the ruling rich squabble over the details, it is time to change the very fundamentals.

The fundamentals concern the massive concentration of business class power. The assets of the world are held in fewer and fewer hands. The political representatives of the ruling classes want to keep it that way – to keep the assets intact and make us pay for the crisis. (a.k.a. 'covering their assets')

In 2007, the 400 richest individuals in US had combined wealth approximately equal to the bottom 50% of pop'n - 150 million people. There is a growing polarity of wealth. You are familiar with the gruesome data on global infant mortality rates, life expectancy, and numerous other indices of inequality.

So what happened - why the crisis? As you know we are still in the the worst economic downturn since the 1930's Great Depression. Despite all the business media hype about recovery - it's not happening. Despite some modest stock market blips, there's ongoing joblessness and misery for working families and the poor.

The chief economist for Moody's, quoted recently in a SA article, said what capitalists need to do is restore their declining rates of profit. He had it right - a very honest economist.

"It'll take years of savage spending cuts, wage cuts and welfare and pension reform to eventually grow out of the debt situation in Europe".

Over the past couple years we have been witness to the US sub prime mortgage crisis, the bailout of the big banks, investment firms and auto giants, the attack on workers' wages, health care, trade union liberties, social services, public education and pensions. We've seen rising unemployment, and the bosses' conscious decisions to move production to low wage countries, to speed-up production here, to use temporary and/or contract workers, migrant workers, to outsource unionized work to non-union cut-throat contactors, to push for mandatory overtime, and more. All of these measures are designed to counter ever-declining profit rates at home.

Why?

Pundits say we aren't 'productive' enough, that we are too greedy, living foolishly, beyond our means. The Greek working class is their dart board.

We need to be clear. The problem of capitalism today is not insufficient productive capacity. Rather it is too much productive capacity in relation to effective demand (people willing & able to pay). Markets are saturated with goods and machinery.

No RATIONAL capitalist is going to invest in new plants and equipment if plants and equipment are sitting idle. We've seen this movie before. Let's look back.

Here is an excerpt from Friedrich Engels' 1880 essay 'Socialism: Utopian and Scientific'.

"Commerce is at a stand-still, markets are glutted, products accumulate, as multitudinous as they are unsaleable, hard cash disappears, credit vanishes, factories are closed, the mass of the workers are in want of the means of subsistence, because they have produced too much of the means of subsistence; bankruptcy follows upon bankruptcy. The stagnation lasts for years; productive forces and products are wasted and destroyed wholesale, until the accumulated mass of commodities finally filter off, more or less depreciated in value, until production and exchange gradually begin to move again. Little by little, the pace quickens. It becomes a trot. The industrial trot breaks into a canter, the canter itself grows into the headlong gallop of a perfect steeplechase of industry, commercial credit, and speculation, which finally, after breaking leaps, ends where it began - in the ditch of a crisis."

Engels' account is a portrayal of overproduction. The situation is worsened by the tremendous concentration of capital today. Both factors loom large behind the current capitalist crisis. This isn't a lecture on Marxist Economics, so you can relax. But this much should be said: There is an inherent tendency towards a decline in the rate of profit due to the declining value of commodities, which in turn is the result of less labour power being embodied in each product. The exploitation of labour power is the only source of profit.

The capitalist system is constantly coming up again this contradiction. The result is:

· Overproduction

· Overaccumulation

· Over capacity

The chief means by which the system strives to stem this tendency and maintain the rate of profit is the generation of waste in the form of:

· Military spending

· The Sales effort (advertising)

However, these efforts are insufficient to counter the tendencies towards stagnation.

Historically, capitalism has grown at a 2.5 % compound rate since 1750. In good years it grows at 3%. Barack Obama and Jim Flaherty promise we will be back to 3% in a couple years. The former UK P.M. Gordon Brown said the economy would double in the next few years. When capitalism became dominant in Manchester and a few other hot spots in 1750, 3% growth was no problem. We are in a different world today. The total economy in 1750 was about $135 billion. Two hundred years later, in 1950, it was $4 trillion. By 2000 it was $40 trillion. Now it is $56 trillion. If it doubled like the good Mr. Brown promised that's $100 trillion. By 2030 one would have to find jobs for 3 trillion workers -- that is if you want profitable opportunities for capital to operate at that point. However there are limits.. environmentally, socially and politically. (as David Harvey argues in MR)

The capitalist economy over past 20 years shifted from real production to 'financialization'. Lacking any profitable investment opportunities in manufacturing or high tech, capital flowed into financial markets. The system became dependent on debt. Toxic debt, highly leveraged, was criminally sold and re-sold.

We can see this in the financial crisis itself. The economic-financial crisis can be traced to stagnation. But the bursting of the household bubble was an amplifying factor and soon became the center of a perfect storm of financial crisis and worsening economic conditions. Out of this, financial capital appears to have emerged in many ways stronger, with the remaining big banks more powerful than ever. Twenty years ago the ten largest financial institutions in the United States owned 10 percent of all financial industry assets; now they own 60 percent. They are truly too big to be allowed to fail.

If stagnation is centered in production, the economy is more and more dependent on the financial balloon to lift it off the ground. Yet, the balloon deflates periodically with disastrous results. This is the paradox of monopoly-finance capital.

This situation, plus expanding military spending, made the bubble bigger before it burst. The crisis was inevitable - that's monopoly capitalism. It's not the first financial crisis – there have been several over last 3 decades.

- US savings and loan crisis of the 1980s.

- Mexican debt crisis in 1994 and the subsequent bailout to prevent NY banks failing, while making the Mexican working class pay the price.

- The dot.com bubble crash in 2001-2002.

Crises are central to the history of capitalism. What someone called the "irrational rationalizers" of the system.

In past crises, such as the 1930s, a moment of "reconfiguration" of the system occurs before recovery. (Sort of a "re-boot") Keynesianism is an example of system response.

Monopoly-finance capital can't live without deficits, and it can't live with them. This is a growing contradiction of the system. Deficits are of course related not just to the size of spending in relation to revenue but also to what the government is spending on. In the United States in 2007, 4 percent of GDP ($553 billion) was spent on the military, according to the usually quoted acknowledged figures. This of course helped prop the economy by soaking up excess capacity, but it also meant expanding budget deficits. Much of this now is spent waging the wars of aggression and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to these acknowledged figures, the U.S. is spending almost as much on the military as the rest of the world put together. But real U.S. spending, based on government data, including hidden military expenditures, was $1 trillion in 2007, over 7 percent of GDP. Actual military spending as a percentage of federal spending (minus transfer payments) was in excess of 50 percent in 2007. Clearly, then, this is the source of the bulk of the deficit. Of the remainder of the U.S. federal budget, minus transfer payments, a very large portion goes to direct and indirect subsidies to Capital. Only a relatively small portion of U.S. government spending is thus devoted to social support for the population.

Right now, the deficit is expanding enormously as a result of the successive bailouts of financial capital and capital in general. The costs of this of course falls on the general public. As Marx observed in Capital, "The only part of the so-called national wealth that actually enters into the collective possession of a modern nation is -- the national debt."

The G8 and G20 power brokers are only trying to reconstruct the pre-existing power structure or save the existing structure without intervening in any significant manner.

They are waging a one-sided class war against workers – which we know as neo-liberalism. It takes the form of a return to classical liberal notions of competition, survival of the fittest, and self-regulating markets.

Its goals are to:
a.. Weaken and break unions
b.. Remove state supports for the poor
c.. Cut back social services
d.. Push down real wages
e.. Free up the movement of capital

We can expect this class struggle from above to intensify. There is simply no other way for capital at present.

The concept of a 'rational capitalism' is pure fantasy. The economic ideology of the system itself is broken.

Today we hear very few references to absurd notions such as the

a.. 'free market economy'
b.. 'self regulating market' or
c.. 'globalization as a system'

Here's another change: 'Anti-globalization' demonstrators of the past are now calling themselves 'anti-capitalist'.

Suddenly, demands for nationalizing banks, taxing bankers, redistributing wealth to the population, establishing programs to create jobs and to aid distressed homeowners don't seem so far fetched.

The private sector economy is no longer sacred, or beyond political reach.

Apologists for the system insist this is only a recession, and everything will soon be back to normal.

The labour leadership, hit by the crisis and double digit unemployment, is concerned about an orderly retreat and are devoid of initiatives. The post-WW2 social contract with capital is still the lens through which they look at the class struggle. The NDP leadership, which overlaps with the labour leadership, offers no fundamental critique of the system or any alternative solution.

While Canadian banks may have fared better than US banks, is it the same for working class Canadians? Not so much.

Not since the Great Depression have Canadians been so exposed in the face of recession. We have the weakest system of protection against unemployment since the 1940s. Personal savings rates are comparable to those of the 1930s. We have record-high levels of household debt. Many were unprepared for massive job loss, and have nowhere to turn.

The drop in GDP was more rapid in the opening months of this recession than the opening months of the 1981-82 and 1990-91 recessions. Job losses in 2008-2009 elipsed the rate of job loss in the early months of the 1980s and 1990s recessions.

In the recession of the 1980s, it took almost four years for the number of full-time jobs to be fully restored. It took seven full years to get back to the pre-recessionary number of full-time jobs in the wake of the 1990-91 recession, though GDP returned to pre-recessionary levels in just four quarters.

If experience is any guide, it could take years to recoup the loss of full-time employment that is underway in record numbers this time around.

About 60% of Canadian households were already in a net debt position before this recession began. With so many families already reliant on credit to make ends meet, the competition for remaining jobs is fierce. Both the 1980s and 1990s recessions led to a major restructuring of Canada's labour force and began a long-term trend toward lower paying, insecure work. Similar factors are at play today.

It is time to break the logic of the capitalist business cycle, of capitalist waste and oppression. It is time to put an end to profit from war and environmental destruction. It's time to dump the G20 and its agenda overboard.

Socialist Action advocates a number of concrete measures: Put people, and the preservation of nature, before profits. Nationalize the banks, mining, Big Oil and Big Auto. Create jobs through public investment, public ownership, democratic planning and workers' control. Convert industry, transportation, and homes to green, energy efficiency. Repair our disintegrating roads, bridges, railways and port facilities. Make E.I. more generous and accessible. Raise the minimum wage to $17/hour. Shorten the work week to 30 hours without loss of pay or benefits. Abolish student debt. Make all education free. Protect pensions. Fund health care and the arts. No corporate bail-out. Open the company books. Steeply tax corporations, speculators, and the rich. Abolish the GST. Uphold aboriginal land claims and local self-governance. Hands off migrant workers. Impose boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid. End the occupation of Afghanistan and Haiti. Reduce the Canadian military to a disaster-relief and rescue force. Get Canada out of NATO now!

The current relations of production are not taking us where we want to go. It is taking us towards:

· Greater inequality, especially for oppressed nations and aboriginal peoples

· Greater social and environmental destruction, towards general ecological collapse.

It is a delusion to think that economic expansion will fix everything, that there is a market solution. There is no market solution. The capitalist market created the problem. Only a social revolution can solve it. Only by taking control of the major means of production, only by effecting a rapid democratic, green conversion to meet human needs, fully in tune with nature, do we have a hope of survival. That means challenging the pro-capitalist direction of the labour and NDP leadership. It means opposing an NDP coalition with the Liberal Party or any capitalist party. It means fighting for a Workers' Agenda and a Workers' Government, fighting for freedom for oppressed nations, fighting for Eco-socialism and feminism.

Most importantly, it means building a real revolutionary party to campaign for change, everywhere and everyday. We need to forge a leadership of the working class and oppressed nations that can win. This cannot be done without you. Why wait for the next economic crash, for the coming environmental catastrophe? The situation is dire. Rebellion is in the air, from Venezuela to Palestine. Socialist Action needs you. Please join us today.

Security trumps Humanity at G20 Summit

by Barry Weisleder

Over $1 Billion will be spent to 'protect' the top guns of global capitalism at the G8 meeting on June 25 in Huntsville, Ontario and at the G20 Summit on June 26-27 in Toronto. The security tab was boosted by an extra $321 million for the RCMP, with another $262 million going to the Public Safety department, and $63 million more for National Defence.

The G20 includes: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, Britain and the United States, plus 'guest' countries Spain, Netherlands, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Malawi, and reps from the IMF, World Bank, OECD, the U.N. and the WTO.

The largest deployment of cops, security guards, spies, soldiers and air force personnel for a major event in Canadian history will be augmented by an array of weapons, such as 'sound cannons' and electro-shock tasers. The long-range acoustic devices (LRAD), used at last year's G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, emit ear-blasting sounds that exceed normal thresholds of pain. They can cause permanent hearing damage.

Protection of politicians from protesters (behind a three meter high security barricade that will envelop the downtown Toronto Convention Centre and business district) might not have come at such a high premium if the policies of the ruling class henchmen were not so odious. Culpable indifference to climate change is just one example. While eco-catastrophe threatens the survival of species and civilization, the preoccupation of the capitalist elite is deficit reduction.

Recall that deficits and debt went through the roof when governments decided to bail out banks and giant companies. The latter fostered a credit balloon, literally to paper-over the central contradiction of capitalism: the overproduction of useless and wasteful things.

Now the world's masses are saddled with the cost of the ensuing market crash. And to make matters worse, the G20 rulers aim to dismantle a century of working class rights and benefits.

According to an editorial in the May 24 Toronto Star, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which serves as a kind of secretariat for the G20, recommends a combination of the following measures: increase the age of retirement; de-fund medical treatments; freeze public sector wages; introduce means-testing for all social programmes; cut back agricultural supports for farmers; increase value-added taxes (GST in Canada, HST in Ontario); hike gasoline taxes and introduce a carbon tax on greenhouse gas emissions.

Capitalist politicians are, however, not interested in cutting the military, putting energy company mega-profits to work for conservation and green energy alternatives, nor in taxing the rich to support public health care, education, good nutrition, public transportation and decent, affordable housing.

To the contrary, the Stephen Harper Conservative minority government in Ottawa is busy campaigning to block a special tax on financial speculation and 'excess' bank profits – even though such a tax is touted by European powers and Washington as a hedge against the next big bank meltdown.

In the first three months of 2010, Canada's five biggest banks reported profits of $5.09 Billion – up 71 per cent from a year earlier. The last thing bankers want is for Ottawa to intervene because it might lead, heaven forbid, to spending their hoarded wealth (part of the surplus value massively expropriated from working people) on social needs.

But workers, students, women, aboriginal peoples and seniors who take to the streets of Toronto in late June are sure to bring a different approach to matters of finance and the environment. Let the rulers tremble when the people chant: “System change, not climate change!” “Nationalize the banks, big oil and big business, under workers' control!”

Eco-Socialism featured at Toronto conference

The economic crises of capitalism are cyclical, but the current environmental crisis could be final. Only by means of public ownership under workers' and community control can society address both man-made ills, and be empowered to save life and civilization.

That was the message of Socialism 2010: Socialism or Barbarism / Eco-Socialism or Extinction. Nearly one hundred people gathered from across English Canada, Quebec and the United States for four days of lectures, debates, discussions, films, lunches and socials at OISE U of Toronto, hosted by Socialist Action / Ligue pour l'Action socialiste. The eight conference sessions attracted on average forty participants each, with 55 to 60 attending Thursday night's "Palestine, Afghanistan and Haiti: Occupation and Resistance", and Friday evening's panel "From Copenhagen to Mexico City -- the World at the Brink".

The Conservative federal government's racist 'security state' regulations nearly sabotaged the participation of the Socialist Unity League (LUS) of Mexico, co-sponsor with SA-USA of the international conference. LUS representative Linda Avila was denied a visitor's visa by the Canadian Embassy in Mexico which demanded proof of ample personal wealth. Fortunately, thanks to an iPhone connection facilitated by a good friend of SA/LAS - Canada, LUS leader Jaime Gonzalez was able to deliver two excellent 15-minute presentations to the conference, live from Mexico City. One was transmitted on Friday night to the ecology session. The second was a talk for the Saturday night panel on "World Economic Disorder and the G8/G20 Summits".

Passionate discussions, frequently punctuated by enthusiastic applause, were a mainstay of the conference. One presenter, legal assistant and gay rights activist Troy Jackson, actually sang the first part of his contribution. Others, like OCAP organizer John Clarke, employed a more traditional, but highly compelling form of discourse. Sessions on "Women's Liberation Today", "Combatting the Corporate Agenda -- Jobs, Pensions and Poverty", "Dialectical Materialism -- a philosophy for radical change", "The Malthus Myth: Population, Poverty and Climate Change", and "Civil Rights under Attack -- Fight Back!" rounded out the exciting programme, against a backdrop of beautiful banners. Slogans affirming the rights of immigrant workers, women and youth, calling for union democracy and the fight for socialist policies in the labour-based New Democratic Party, and demanding "Solidarity, Not Charity, Never Occupation" for Haiti, festooned the hall.

Four new participants expressed interest in joining SA/LAS, which held its annual rank and file convention on the Sunday afternoon. SA-USA National Secretary Jeff Mackler, who was featured on two panels of the public conference, reported to the SA/LAS convention on the 16th World Congress of the Fourth International, the main organization of the world Trotskyist movement, which took place in Belgium in February.

SA/LAS - Canada, SA-USA and the LUS-Mexico pledged to issue a joint statement for Jobs, Justice and Eco-Socialism, to be published in English, French and Spanish, in conjunction with the mass protests slated for the G20 Summit in Toronto in late June. Can Socialism 2011 in Toronto next May top this? Be sure not to miss it.

Gay Bureaucrats ban anti-Zionism from Pride

by John Wilson

On the morning of May 26 about 150 people demonstrated at Toronto Pride's offices against the decision to ban any reference to Israeli apartheid at this year's annual Pride Parade, dyke march and trans march. The parade, one of North America's largest in recent years, attracts over a million people, and is a major tourist event at the end of Pride Week, June 25 - July 4. Normally the parade is held on the last Sunday in June; it was forced to move to July this year because of the G8-G20 summit.

The context of the demonstration was an outdoor press conference called by Pride corporate honchos to announce their wretched decision. The protest was an angry and spirited event called at very short notice by Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA).

Chants included "Whose Pride? Our Pride! Queers Against Apartheid!", "Shame!", " Resign! Resign!'', "Liar! Liar! " (directed particularly, but not exclusively at Genevieve D'Iorio, Pride co-chair, and Tracey Sandilands, the executive director), "Cowards! Cowards!" among others.

Chants and shouting (including "Sell outs!") took place throughout the presentations. Cops were present, presumably called in by the bureaucrats to prevent community activists from stepping on the sacred grounds of Toronto Pride.

Many participants initially covered their mouths with tape or cloth and held up small signs saying Free Speech. Yours truly had the impression that the Pride officials were unsettled by our presence and numbers. Pride bureaucrats had previously floated a proposed regulation that would allow them to vet all signs in the parade. But after massive and voluble opposition in queer communities, hastily retreated.

While there is a motion pending at Toronto City Hall by notoriously homophobic councillor Giorgio Mammoliti that calls for municipal funding for Pride to be cut, this motion has yet to be discussed, let alone voted on. Put another way, the city to date has taken NO decision. So the pro-Zionist bias of the Prideocrats is pretty obvious.

This will certainly not be the end of the matter. QuAIA spokesperson Elle Flanders declared that their contingent will march in the parade regardless, although declining at this time to give specifics. The turnout of this number of people at such short notice on a working day may be indicative of some revival of queer activism with a liberationist perspective in Toronto.