Crushing Defeat of US blockade of Cuba at UN General Assembly

from: http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2007/1030derrotabloqueo.htm

Havana, Oct 30(acn) For the sixteen consecutive time, United Nations members voted against the US economic, financial and commercial blockade of Cuba. The resolution presented by the island received 184 votes in favor, one more than in 2006, four against and one abstention.

President Bush's latest speech calling for a strengthening of the economic war on the Cuban people triggered an opposite reaction and the White House was suddenly left alone except for its own vote, that of its loyal ally Israel, and the vote of the Marshall Islands and Palau. Only Micronesia abstained.

The Bush administration tried in vain to "persuade" UN members prior and during the General Assembly sessions, but the pressure only worked on Albania, which did not show up, and Iraq and El Salvador whose representatives left the room before taking the vote.

Several countries spoke up against the blockade. Pakistan took the floor on behalf of the Group of 77, while Egypt did so representing the Non Aligned Movement, and the Bahamas on behalf of CARICOM.

Venezuela, Mexico, Viet Nam and South Africa stood up alongside Cuba as well, as did, in their speeches, the representatives of China, Russia, India, Uganda, Bolivia, Libya, Tanzania, Zambia, Nicaragua and Zimbabwe.

Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque called on UN members to support the report entitled "Necessity to end the economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed by Washington against Cuba," considering the blockade as part of an extra territorial and illegal policy, a genocide. The draft resolution, which had already been circulated among the 192 member states, is supported by an annual report by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, which reflects the disagreement of 120 countries and institutions in relation to the US aggressive policy against Cuba.

"Cuba will never give up. On the contrary, Cuba will fight on because by defending the rights of their people it is defending the rights of all the peoples represented by the UN General Assembly," he concluded.

Spineless liberalism

What conservatives do really good is to take a strong stance that they are willing to defend. They clearly have in mind what they think "is good", and they clearly recognize who is their enemy. Their ideas aren't a confused mess, nor their actions are restrained by "tolerance".

Liberals, on the other side, in their search of "diversity", "pacifism", and "tolerance", they dig their own graves.

"Smashing racism with a clenched fist sounds too extreme. Instead, let us just hug and tolerate."

People like Ghandi have captured the imagination of many western liberals. The "polite revolutionary" certainly sounds very appealing to a society that celebrates martyrdom and self-sacrifice. The christian concept of turning the other cheek in the face of repression sounds much better than good old fashioned self-defense.

Anyone who thinks that the Indian independence movement was pacifist is really naive. When you mobilize millions of people who have their guts stuffed with rage, contempt, love, and dreams, you are not going to have pacifism. While it is true that Gandhi preached pacificism above all, the independence movement transcended that pacifism, and in fact, Ghandi's bankrupt ideology sometimes played a negative role in the struggle. Let us also point out that Ghandi was really conservative, and he was unwilling to challenge reactionary sectors like the Indian landowners.

I am not advocating a fetishization of violence. I am however, trying to discourage people fór "turning the other cheek" in the face of death. A person advocating the exile or death of you, your friends, brothers or sisters should feel threatened in your community. Not tolerating him is just common sense.

Is it sensible to condemn the thousands of jews, catholics, socialists, and workers that erected barricades in October 5, 1936 to prevent Oswald Mosley and his Union of Fascists to march through Cable Street just because the antifascists were being intolerant to the fascists' right of "freedom of speech and organization"? Is it sensible to condemn people willing to destroy the enemies of life and freedom before they are consumed by them?

To quote John Zerzan:

"Can we justify our lives with nothing more than such a politics of rage and dreams?"

apathy is the new activism

In the summer of 1969, political activism was alive and kicking in East Lansing. During that summer a group of students knocked on the door of Cowels House demanding that the president of MSU, Walter Adams, take a stance on the Vietnam War. With little hesitation Adams joined the 10,000 students and members of the community in a march to the Capitol. Singing songs and carrying a small American flag, Adams found himself at the front of the march (SN 7/12). I can't help but feel depressed. Where did that kind of student activism go? What happened to that kind of university leadership? It seems to me that young people today are becoming more obsessed with accumulating wealth and consuming the latest versions of everything from clothes to technology rather than fighting to bring awareness to political issues or social justice.

It is obvious to me that students can no longer rely on the leadership here at the University to progress us forward. For example- programs such as "I STOP HATE" have failed miserably on this campus. And so has the university leadership behind it. Lou Anna K. Simon brags that she was one of the first people to sigh the I STOP HATE banner after it was signed, but what has she done since then? This program is meant to promote "...a strong, vibrant learning community comes from the many perspectives we each offer. Our differing perspectives help to make MSU a great university. While we will at times disagree, our disagreements will not be used as a basis to do harm to one another. We commit ourselves to celebrating a community where mutual respect and intellectual discourse, shaped by our differing perspectives, guide how we deal with issues and with each other.” This sounds wonderful-- until one realizes that it's just another (white) liberal bit of symbolism to pacify people and keep them from reacting to the bigger, structural problems of racism, sexism, homophobia, discrimination based on political ideology, and countless other isms.

Lou Anna K. Simon and the administration won't even make a public stance TO THIS DAY on the outcome of Proposal 2. The university leaders won't take any stances on the Jena 6 case. They also refuse to move forward on cutting the Coca-Cola contract , and can I just mention that we still serve Chiquita bananas in every single cafeteria? There is literally little or no dialogue between administrators and students on these issues. Bureaucracy and apathy keep the students from having their voices heard on this campus, when it comes to real life, real world issues.

I'm sorry, but this does not sound like leadership that wants to "celebrate community," nor one that "promotes a free exchange of ideas." Let's talk all we want about raising money for MSU (so the BioMedPhySci Building can get more computers, but Morrill Hall, home to the African American and African Studies and English departments can sink more and more into the ground), or the Homecoming parade 2007, or some other frivolous bull crap, but PLEASE, let's stay away from vital current social issues. The silence from our institution is causing DEATH in Sudan. Refusing to divest from any stock that is funding terror in Sudan is practically murder on the part of MSU. But we can't talk about that.

I firmly believe that young people have the most responsibility in advocating for social justice today. It may sound cliché, but young people are the next generation to inherit the world-- why shouldn’t they be the ones to fight for it now? Why aren’t more students devoted to bringing awareness about US political prisoners such as the Jena 6, Assata Shakur, or Mumia Abu-Jamal? Why aren’t more students getting outraged at the fact that their tuition prices are going up, while the amount of loans they are receiving are going down? Why aren’t more students frustrated at the US’s lack of intervention of the genocide in Darfur? How many students know what Blackwater even IS?

While American youth finds itself obsessed with name brand labels, Facebook, and the latest celebrity break up, rights are being violated, freedoms are being taken away, and people are dying. It’s time for young people and people of authority in the university to stop ignoring critical issues and demand to know truth, to know justice. In the words of the great Malcolm X "If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything." I fear if this current trend continues, young people will find themselves in a sorry state of apathy and despair before too long. We need to start demanding that those in authority take responsibility for their actions. The perfect place to start is here at home with our current administration. Students don't realize how much power they have!

In the 1980s, MSU students convinced the University to divest stocks of companies doing business in apartheid-ridden South Africa from its endowment portfolio. This wasn't something the leaders of the university would have done on their own. They did it only because of PRESSURE FROM THE STUDENTS. We need to do what the students did back in the summer of 69. We need to bang down the doors of the administration, the president, the faculty, the police, anyone that will listen, and make them learn our names, tell them what we want, and find ways to get our voices heard and our social justice agendas followed. Students need to take back the power that is theirs. We need to fight, fight the power with everything we have.

security is better with south africans

An interesting topic that I came to by way of my African Studies professor. In a meeting of the Michigan Action Network on Africa (MANA), he was listing off a number of woes for Africa and among that list was a quick comment about many South Africans working in the controversial security firm Blackwater USA. I could hardly believe it. Could the US security firms really be recruiting from South Africa? I then caught an article in glancing and noticed that foreign diplomats believed that the best security personnel were the South Africans. I had to look into it further. While I could not find the article again I have found a few others that were just as helpful in my knowledge search.

Being involved in the private military or security business is not something to let everyone know. When Mrs. Durant's husband was kidnapped in an ambush in Iraq she had no support group of weeping war wives to turn to. All she had was her silence. What the Chicago Times called South Africa's silent war in Iraq has been a very vocal war in the US especially with the controversy over Blackwater's killing of Iraqi civilians. However, former military and police in South Africa are not new to harsh conflict. In the 1990s thousands of white military personnel left with the apartheid transition. Many of those unemployed officers and soldiers join private security firms and became involved in wars all across Africa, including Sierra Leone and Angola. So it is not surprising that working in a private security firm is something that is not talked about in South Africa. I am sure it holds a very sore spot in the country's history.

It seems that Blackwater will search every inch of the earth to find good mecenaries. From Chile to Brazil and now South Africa. The UN recently reported that South Africa is one of the
top three suppliers for security personnel in Iraq. One South African security company received a multi-million dollar contract to train military recruits in Iraq. There are almost 43,000 South African private security personnel working in Iraq. The Institute for Security Studies wrote and article and in it mentioned the story of a doctoral student heading to Iraq to do research and a friend told him to make sure he was placed with the South African security because they were the best.

This may not mean much for South Africa because this is a practice that is not publicized. If you are involved in private security then it is best not to let that be known. You will not be welcomed home as a hero. Many note that after the 'troop' surge (or private security surge?) that South Africans will be again be out of security jobs, but maybe the Iraqi government will sign them on after to continue helping at oil stations. At any rate this becomes a larger issue for the US. How can the US government, using private security firms, allow security and war to be outsourced even more? How can there be any more accountability if they are signing on former, white army officers who supported apartheid? It can't be long before people get fed up with outsourcing in the war-industry, especially the lesser paid and trained soldiers on the ground. It is a very worrisome topic for both the US and South Africa. South Africa seems to have an influx of military personnel, who gained no further skills after apartheid. The US looks to have an issue of controlling said security firms in their actions.

From the When not in Africa blog.

Previously posted on the Young People For Blog.

Turkey....

Apparently in Turkey, many of the trade unions are mobilizing thousands of workers in support of the war.

The Kurd progroms are starting. Apparently Kurds have been killed in many pro-war demonstrations in the big cities, coupled with the PKK "terrorists" being shot down by the Turkish army.

Nationalism is diametrically opposite to liberation. This is just "tragedy being repeated as a farce"--the state mobilizing workers to kill other workers for capitalist interests under one big, colorful flag.

This happens everywhere. Sensible americans who were opposing the war of Iraq when it just started were being accused of "anti-americanism". Whenever the state wants to spill blood, it tries to clean it up with big colorful flags and national anthems. After all, what sensible citizen is going to oppose what is in their nation's interest?

What is in the interest of a "nation" generally means what is in the interest of the state and the rich. There is nothing convenient for normal people about their brothers and sisters being sent to butcher other workers to fill the pockets of a few.

"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

That is why internationalism is so important. No need to feel proud of something you didnt choose to be part of. In the same way that nobody is proud of being tall or having curly hair, nobody should be proud of a place just because he or she happened to be born in it. Identities are built by your conscious achievements--not by baggage handed to you arbitrarily.

Rejecting the nation means rejecting the arbitrary constructs of the rich. Embracing internationalism is the first step towards embracing liberation.

The Real Reason for Turkey's Aggression

this piece was written by a good comrade of mine:

The Real Reason for Turkey's Aggression:

Turkey has waged a ruthless war against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), ever since the PKK's inception in the late 1970s. PKK started an armed guerrilla war against Turkey in 1984 up to 1999 when its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was captured in Kenya. Ocalan called a ceasefire while in jail and the PKK obeyed until an armed struggle ensued again in 2004. The return to battle was partly because Turkey suppressed Kurds and a group was needed to fight for their rights.

This new wave of "counter-terrorist" activity happens to come at a time when Iraq is awaiting a special referendum to decide the fate of Kirkuk. Kirkuk is a Kurdish inhabited city in Northern Iraq which also possesses one of the largest oil fields in the Middle East, making for a more interesting situation. The upcoming referendum will allow Kirkuk to decide whether it would like to be a constituent of the Autonomous Kurdish region. Turkey believes should Kirkuk belong to the Kurds that it would become a key source of income which Iraqi Kurds will use to help their fellow Kurd's struggles in Turkey, Iran, and Syria.

The referendum is scheduled for November 15, 2007, thus giving Turkey a short span of time to act if it wants to keep Kirkuk from being under Kurdish control. The general sentiment among Kurds in the Middle East is that Turkey wishes to march into northern Iraq and keep Kirkuk from becoming a Kurdish constituent.

Your Comrade,
-Tapancha

Quote of the week

"No, No. George Bush already did that."
-Rep. Dennis Kucinich,
presidential candidate, responding to Stephen Colbert's question about whether he shrank his pocketsize U.S. Constitution down to size himself.