Our Day is Coming

(llco.org)

The world cries out in pain. Two futures, two roads are before us: communism or barbarism, the Leading Light or endless night. There is a choice to be made.

We must transform ourselves for revolution. Do away with pettiness, greed, ego, smallness of mind. We must think beyond ourselves. An offense against one is an offense against all. When one bleeds, we all bleed. We must think as humanity and beyond. Not only is this a battle for our future, it is a battle for the future of our planet.

We, warriors of the people, must also act as guardians of the animals, the plants, the lands, the seas, the skies that sustain us all. The war to liberate the poor of the Third World is also a war for the future of our planet. It is through this righteous struggle that we become lights in a world of darkness, it is through this righteous struggle that we become who we really are. it is through this struggle that we forge the future.

Unity is strength

Capitalist culture teaches every individual that they are the center of the universe, that they are a castle unto themselves. We must break down the walls that keep us apart. It is only through organization, discipline, loyalty, leadership that we can really win.

Duty. Patience. We must be humble. We must find our roles. Learning to lead is also learning to listen and to follow. Well all stumble at times. Everyone makes mistakes. To be human is to fall. Pick yourself up when you have fallen. To learn from mistakes is the nature of science. To go forward against all obstacles is to be great.

To create we must destroy. We must pursue our cause to the end. To be ruthless, decisive and bold, to do everything that it takes to win. To the old world, we are a firestorm, to burn away, to annihilate, to turn to dust all that stands against us. We must be the sword of history. At the same time, we must have bigness of heart, humility, kindness. One hand holds the sword, the other must be extended outward to help.

We must dare go beyond the horizons.

New possibilities. We will not win by repeating the past. The last waves of revolution were defeated. We do not go forward by cobbling together the fragments of the past. We must understand the past, learn from the past, but we must go beyond it. The next wave of revolution is made by boldly striking out, casting aside dogma, by putting the most advanced revolutionary science, Leading Light Communism, in command.

We declare total war on the old ways, the Old Power. We declare total war on the First World. We demand nothing less than a whole new world, a world without poverty, without suffering, without cruelty, without war, without hunger, without chauvinism, without rape.

We demand a world of equality, a world of peace, a world of justice. Happiness. Joy. Serve the people. Imagine true freedom where we can be our best selves.  A better world is possible, an equal world is possible, but we must fight hard and to the end.

Global people’s war all the way to Leading Light Communism. To give oneself over, to lie and die for justice, for revolution, for our world is to be great. To this we pledge everything, our resources, our talents, our lives. The future is there for the taking if we dare. Never surrender.

Follow the Leading Light. Be the Leading Light. Our sun is rising. Our day is coming.

People of Bangladesh Burn for Capitalist, First World Fashion

(llco.org)

On November 25, 2012, a fire in a Bangladesh garment factory 40 miles north of the capital Dhaka killed at least 112 people. Many others were taken to hospitals to deal with burns and other injuries. The body count continues to rise. The fire is one of the worst industrial tragedies in the history of the country.

The fire began at about 7 pm on the ground floor of the nine-story Tazreen Fashion plant. The fire started on the ground floor where yarn was stored. As of 2010, the factory employed roughly 1,500 people.  Although the regular workday had ended for many when the fire began, around 600 people continued to work overtime in the building. Unlike the First World, it is not uncommon for workers in the Third World to work exhausting schedules of ten to twelve to fourteen and even more hours a day. Most of the deaths were on the second and third floor because there were not enough exits. Of the few exits there were, none opened to the outside. Thus a trap was created for the victims inside. Maj. Mohammad Mahbub, operations director for the Fire Department, stated:

“The factory had three staircases, and all of them were down through the ground floor… So the workers could not come out when the fire engulfed the building.”

Recovered bodies were lined up in what appeared to be a government building and local fields. The bodies were often burned beyond recognition. It will take some time to identify the remains according to officials.

Many survivors reported how the workers, mostly women, tried to escape the inferno. Mohammad Raju, 22, worked on the fifth floor. Although he escaped, his mother did not:

“It was crowded on the stairs as all the workers were trying to come out from the factory… There was no power supply; it was dark, and I lost my mother in dark. I tried to search for her for 10 to 15 minutes but did not find her.”

Another survivor, Rabiul Islam stated:

“I smelt smoke and ran downstairs and found that the place was already full with black fumes.”

Since the fire was on the ground floor, many had to jump to escape the fire:

“With another worker, I broke open an exhaust fan in the second floor and jumped to the roof of a shed next to the factory,” he said. “I broke my hand but survived somehow.”

Over 100 suffered injuries from escaping, including jumping. Many were not so lucky. Dhaka district commissioner Yusuf Harun told the media that several workers died while jumping from windows or the roof.

Unfortunately, this tragedy is not rare. Bangladesh’s garment industry, the second-largest exporter of clothing after China, has a notoriously poor fire safety record. Since 2006, more than 500 Bangladeshi workers have died in factory fires, according to Clean Clothes Campaign, an anti-sweatshop advocacy group in Amsterdam. Experts say many of the fires could have been easily avoided if the factories had taken the right precautions. Many factories are in cramped neighborhoods and have too few fire escapes, and they widely flout safety measures. However, capitalism serves profit, not people. Terrible working conditions are a key component of capitalism. Capitalists compete with each other, they make profit, by cutting corners. While the neoliberals and globalists argue for more free-markets, more special economic zones, less labor and environmental regulations, over 100 workers burn to death in the Tazreen Fashion plant.

The garment industry employs more than three million workers in Bangladesh, most of them women as the victims in the Tazreen Fashion plant. The factories make clothes for Western stores and brands such as Walmart, the top employer in the United States. They also produce for Carrefour and IKEA. Critics have long said that global clothing brands like Tommy Hilfiger and the Gap and those sold by Walmart need to take responsibility for the working conditions in the Bangladeshi factories that produce their clothes. Similar problems have been part of imperialism since the beginning. The infamous British East India Company ruled India as its own backyard before the British Crown took over. The imperialists were heavily involved in regulating the production of Indian homespun cloth in an effort to protect British markets and to keep cheap commodities flowing to the imperial populations in Britain. It was Marx’s coauthor Friedrich Engels who remarked that the entire English population, including its working class, had become bourgeoisified. “For a nation which exploits the whole world, this is, of course, to a certain extent justifiable.”

And:

“You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy? Well exactly the same as they think about politics in general. There is no workers’ party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal Radicals, and the workers merrily share the feast of England’s monopoly of the colonies and the world market.”

Today, the workers of the entire First World have a similar outlook. They care more about their fashion than about the human costs to Third World peoples, including the victims in Bangladesh. First World peoples care little about exploitation in Bangladesh because First World people, including wage earners and salaried employees, benefit from imperialism. Similarly, First World people care little that Bangladesh suffers environmental destruction wrought by First World consumption. This is true be they hipster or hip hopper clad in Tommy gear.

The tragedy in the Tazreen Fashion plant demonstrates an important observation in Marx’s Manifesto. Marx understood that capitalism further socializes production. Peasants are turned into armies of workers. Capitalism brings more and more people into a unified production process. Today, this continues as globalization. People all over the world are linked together through the global economy. Yet, at the same time, capitalism creates new divisions, new contradictions. Ownership and distribution remain private under capitalism. And, new lines of power are formed. Global capitalism has created First World that exists at the expense of the Third World. The principal contradiction today is the First World versus the Third World. Understanding this contradiction is the key to understanding society and revolution today.

Connecting the dots: Third World poverty is a product of First World wealth     

Bangladesh is one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world. Its 150 million residents have a per capita income estimated to be about 848 US dollars. The child malnutrition rate is 48 percent. Adult literacy rate is roughly 58 percent. Almost half of the population of Bangladesh live below the poverty line as established by its comprador capitalist state; the reality is that almost the entire population lives in poverty by world standards, especially by First World standards.

“The population in Bangladesh is predominantly rural, with almost 80% of the population living in the rural areas. Many of them live in remote areas that lack services such as education, health clinics and adequate roads, particularly road links to markets. A low estimate of 20% of the rural poor is in chronic poverty. They suffer from persistent food insecurity, own no land and assets, are often uneducated and may also suffer serious illnesses or disabilities. Another 29% of the rural population is considered moderately poor. Though they may own a small plot of land and some livestock and generally have enough to eat, their diets lack nutritional values. As a result of health problems or natural disasters, they are at risk of sliding deeper into poverty. Women are among the poorest of the rural poor, especially when they are the sole heads of their households. They suffer discrimination, have few earning opportunities and their nutritional intake is often inadequate.

In the urban areas, there is about 37% of the urban population living below national poverty line. For those living in urban areas, especially the capital Dhaka, and major industrial cities such as Chittagong, Khulna, and Rajshahi, they enjoy a better standard of living, with electricity, gas, and clean water supplies. Despite this, there is still a significant proportion of Bangladeshis living in slums that fall apart during the monsoon season and have no regular electricity, limited access to health care and to clean drinking water.”

Bangladesh suffers from environmental devastation created by the consumer culture of the First World. Most of the population lives on the flood plains of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna and those of several other minor rivers, areas prone to severe flooding. Eighty percent of the population of Bangladesh lives in areas prone to severe flooding and chronic disease like cholera, dengue, malaria, etc. Bangladesh has had a delicate relationship with its ecosystem. This relationship has been upset, especially since the impact of global warming and other ecological crisis have only increased as a result of global capitalism.

Just as the people of Bangladesh drown, they also burn as a result global capitalism as the workers of Tazreen Fashion plant can attest. The workers of Bangladesh suffer because they toil under unsafe, exploitative conditions. Third World peoples produce goods in factories owned by First World corporations and their allies. Third World peoples work long hours, day after day, so that First World populations and their comprador agents can profit. And, in the case of the Tazreen Fashion plant, Third World peoples burn so that First World peoples can have the latest fashion, so First World peoples can live in comfort.

Revolution is the real solution

The problems of Bangladesh are the problems of the Third World, the vast majority of humanity: terrible exploitation, horrendous living and working conditions, underdevelopment, poverty, unnecessary diseases, epidemics, lack of healthcare, famines, wars, hopelessness, etc. Capitalism by its very nature serves the capitalists. Capitalism is governed by profit. It does not serve the needs of the people. The problems of capitalism will not be solved within the framework of capitalism itself. Such problems are fundamental to capitalism itself. They cannot be reformed away. As Lenin taught, to hold that capitalism can be reformed into its opposite is revisionism. The only answer is total revolution. The entire global system must be swept away and replaced with something new: New Democracy, New Socialism, Leading Light Communism.

Revolution begins where pain and suffering are greatest. It is because the system has so failed Third World peoples that they take on the world-historic mission of the proletariat, the liberation of all of humanity, the creation of Leading Light Communism. This is why Lenin pointed to the East as the “storm center” of the world revolution. Mao said the East Wind will prevail over the West Wind. Lin Biao pointed described the world revolution as a global people’s war that begins in the “global countryside” to encircle the “global city.” The Third World will rise to defeat the First World.

Revolution can only occur when both objective and subjective conditions for revolution align. Objective conditions for revolution exist in the Third World today: poverty, exploitation, crisis, etc. What does not exist are the subjective, the ideological and organizational conditions. This is why it is so important to put the most advanced revolutionary science, Leading Light Communism, in the hands of the masses. Only by applying the most advanced revolutionary science of Leading Light Communism can we hope to sweep away the old world through global people’s war, to build the New Power, to create a new world of global equality, justice, sustainability. All power to the poor peoples of the Third World! Armed with Leading Light Communism, the masses of the Third World, are invincible.

Sources:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/bangladesh-factory-fire-death-toll-rises-to-at-least-121/story-e6frg6n6-1226523682532

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/world/factory-fire-kills-more-than-100-people-in-bangladesh-663623/

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=236919

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Bangladesh

http://new-power.org/2012/09/05/western-countries-could-drown-all-of-bangladesh-says-minister/

http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mt/imp97/imp97b1.html

One billion go hungry.. socialism is better than capitalism

(llco.org)

The global financial meltdown has had devastating effects for the world’s poor according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization. War, drought, political instability, high food prices are compounded by the financial meltdown. Today, according to the UN’s FAO, over one billion people go hungry. Hunger now affects one in six people.

Since last year, 100 million more people have slipped into hunger. The number of hungry people has risen  11 percent. The number of hungry people is estimated to have reached 1.02 billion according to a recent UN report.  In addition, the hunger rate is rising. The number of hungry people is growing more quickly than the global population.

Asia and the Pacific have the largest number of hungry people at 642 million. Sub-Saharan Africa has 265 million hungry people. The entire “developed world” has, by comparison, 15 million hungry people. The vast majority of all the world’s hungry people exist in the Third World. These statistics once again point to the very concrete way that imperialism affects the lives of those in the Third World, driving them into extreme poverty and despair. And, it shows how imperialism affects the lives of those in the First World largely insulating them from catastrophic hunger as experienced by the Third World.

Hunger, as defined by the UN’s FAO, is consuming less than 1,800 calories a day. This threshold is, on average, the number of calories that a person needs to maintain their body weight.

UN officials are worried that crossing this 1 billion milestone does not bode well for imperial stability.  Josette Sheeran of the World Food Program, a UN agency based in Rome, pointed out that hungry people rioted in at least 30 countries last year. In one case, high food prices led to riots in Haiti that overthrew the prime minister.  According to the FAO, on average, food prices were 24 percent higher in real terms at the end of 2008 compared to 2006. “A hungry world is a dangerous world,” Sheeran said. “Without food, people have only three options: They riot, they emigrate or they die. None of these are acceptable options.” Of course, there is another option: socialist revolution.

Those who think that capitalism has a better track record than socialism should take a closer look. Capitalism has never come close to solving the problem of hunger. Instead global capitalism has generated a situation where hunger is mostly eliminated for a minority of very wealthy countries, and massive hunger exists for the vast majority of poor countries. One billion people go hungry every day under global capitalism, almost all live in the Third World. Although socialist societies experienced problems as society was reorganized to try to eliminate oppression, eventually socialist societies were able to solve the food problem for the most part. When Mao came to power in China, a quarter of the world’s population lived under the threat of hunger and famine. And, sadly, China once again faces the problems of capitalism. However, by the end of the Mao era, this threat no longer existed. Socialism solved the food question for a quarter of humanity. And, unlike the imperialist countries of the First World, socialist China solved its food issue without exploiting other countries. Contrary to capitalism, socialism solves its food problems peacefully.

Sources

1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090619/ap_on_re_eu/eu_un_world_hunger

High maternal mortality rates of Peru and Third World reflect First World parasitism

(llco.org)

A recent report from Amnesty International states that hundreds of poor, rural and indigenous pregnant women in Peru are dying because they are denied health services. According to the United Nations, Peru has the highest rates of maternal mortality in the Americas: 240 out of every 100,000 women die in childbirth. 130 per 100,000 is the number for Latin America and the Caribbean. For Africa, 820 per 100,000. For sub-Saharan Africa, 900 per 100,000. However, only nine women out of 100,000 die in First World nations.

According to Peru’s Ministry of Health, hemorrhage, pre-eclampsia, infection, complications following abortion and obstructed birth are the the main causes of pregnancy-related deaths. According to the report, pregnant women die in Peru because they lack access to emergency obstetric care, to information on maternal health, and because health workers do not speak Quechua, an indigenous language spoken by millions of Peruvians. Sixty percent of indigenous people in Peru do not have access to a health facility, according to a 2007 census. “Health services for pregnant women in Peru are like a lottery: If you are poor and indigenous, the chances are you will always lose,” said Nina Garcia of AI.  And, “The rates of maternal mortality in Peru are scandalous. The fact that so many women are dying from preventable causes is a human rights violation.”

The large difference between maternal mortality rates between the First and Third Worlds is yet another result of imperialism. Capitalism-imperialism distributes access to health care to the First World, while denying it to the Third World. This difference in quality of life is yet another sign of the parasitism of the First World on the Third World. Once again, the First World lives at the expense of the vast majority of humanity. Women of the First World oppress women of the Third World. There is no such thing as feminism that does not oppose the privileged position of First World peoples, including women. The idea that there is gender unity between First and Third World women is as much a lie as the idea that there is class unity between First and Third World wage earners.

Sources

1. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/07/09/peru.mothers.health/index.html

How much is a Nigerian child’s life worth according to Pfizer?*

(llco.org)

After months of negotiation, Pfizer, the US drug giant, has agreed to pay an out of court settlement to Nigerian victims of a 1996 drug trial. In 1996, Pfizer preformed an illegal trial of its bacterial meningitis drug Trovan on 200 children in the northern Nigerian state of Kano. Eleven children died during the trials. The 189 other children suffered severe deformities, blindness, deafness, and paralysis. Pfizer has now  agreed to pay 75 million dollars, ten million of which goes to the state to recoup its litigation costs and five million for rehabilitation. The original lawsuit sought 2.75 billion dollars, which Pfizer refused to pay. Thus, reluctantly, according to Pfizer, which fought the case tooth-and-nail, a Nigerian child’s life is worth roughly 200,000 dollars.

In a 2007 statement, Pfizer claimed that it conducted its drug trial safely, legally and “with the full knowledge of the Nigerian government.” However, according to a report released by a whistleblower, “Pfizer never obtained authorization from the Nigerian government to give the unproven drug [Trovan] to nearly 100 children and infants.” Pfizer could produce no signed consent letters. Patients and their parents at the Nigerian hospital were not informed that the regular, approved antibiotics were replaced with the experimental drug. Later, Pfizer forged and backdated an approval letter from a Nigerian ethics committee in order to obscure their guilt. Pfizer used its tremendous resources to hide its wrongdoing in Nigeria, an extremely poor country that has an average per capita income of 930 dollars a year.

Another scandalous fact is that Pfizer deliberately gave the control group low–meaning inadequate–doses of a standard antibiotic used to treat bacterial meningitis. That in itself harmed the control group. Why weren’t they given the proper dose? Because Pfizer put its questionable drug trial ahead of their very lives. They were gravely ill with bacterial meningitis and needed standard treatment, which was available. They were just the disposable children of powerless parents in a country with a corrupt comprador régime that could be bought if necessary. A Nigerian panel stated that Pfizer’s experiment was “an illegal trial of an unregistered drug… [a] clear case of exploitation of the ignorant.”

Pfizer ran the tests in Nigeria even though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US has never approved Trovan for children. And, later, the FDA would restrict its use for adults due to reports of liver failure. In 1999, the EU banned the drug.

The imperialist medical establishment has a long history of using oppressed peoples as medical guinea pigs. However, Pfizer and its modern day Dr. Mengeles are, in a sense, just middlemen. They do the dirty work by experimenting on human beings in the Third World so that First World peoples can have better health care. The Nigerian crime is yet another example of how the true cost of the First World way of life is Third World suffering.

Sources

1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090727/wl_africa_afp/nigeriauscourtpfizerhealth;_ylt=AuElH9YDZFrE68n_OzhF0BC96Q8F;_ylu=X3oDMTMyMmZmczVtBGFzc2V0A2FmcC8yMDA5MDcyNy9uaWdlcmlhdXNjb3VydHBmaXplcmhlYWx0aARwb3MDMjcEc2VjA3luX3BhZ2luYXRlX3N1bW1hcnlfbGlzdARzbGsDcGZpemVyc2V0dGxl

2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040301877.html

3. http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/162/29/

4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7982236.stm

5. http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/global?page=cr09-ni-00&post=19&cid=NI

6. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090730/wl_africa_afp/nigeriauscourtpfizerhealth;_ylt=Aj1xphsscX28UfEDZLN2wGO96Q8F;_ylu=X3oDMTMyaGFtM3I0BGFzc2V0A2FmcC8yMDA5MDczMC9uaWdlcmlhdXNjb3VydHBmaXplcmhlYWx0aARwb3MDMTUEc2VjA3luX3BhZ2luYXRlX3N1bW1hcnlfbGlzdARzbGsDcGZpemVybmlnZXJp

* This story has been updated. The judgement was increased to 75 million dollars. The numbers have been changed to reflect this.

Imperialism kills and keeps on killing in Vietnam, Iraq, etc.

(llco.org)

According to a recent, 2009 study by the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense, land mines and unexploded ordnance dot the landscape of Vietnam even though the war ended nearly 35 years ago. More than one third of the land in six central Vietnamese provinces continues to be a serious hazard. According to Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense, 6.6 million hectares (6.3 million acres) are still contaminated.

Land mines have resulted in 42,000 deaths since the war’s end in 1975. Quang Tri and Quang Binh are two provinces that have suffered many deaths. 7,000 deaths in the former, 6,000 in the latter. Death resulting from such explosions are part of the ongoing legacy of imperialism in Vietnam.

In addition, the Vietnamese people still suffer from the consequences of the massive amounts of chemical agents dumped into their environment by the US. Millions of gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed across the Vietnamese countryside. Agent Orange contained a strain of dioxin known as TCCD which is one of the strongest poisons known to humanity. In 2003, the soil was sampled in Vietnam and found to contain 180 million times the safe dioxin levels as prescribed by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

There are roughly 150,000 children whose birth defects can be traced to their parents’ contamination to Agent Orange. According to the Vietnam Victims of Agent Orange Association, three million Vietnamese were exposed to the chemical during the war. As a result, serious health problems affect one million of the victims. The US pays up to 1,500 a month for Americans who have problems resulting from dioxin exposure during the war. The US refuses to pay anything to the vast numbers of the Vietnamese victims — the underlying assumption by the US is that a Vietnamese life is worth less than that of an American.

This pattern is repeated today in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iraqi landscape, like Vietnam’s, is scarred by the US war machine. Not only do unexploded ordnance litter Iraq, but also depleted uranium from US ammunition. Just as Vietnam suffers decades since the war’s end, some claim that this will be so with Iraq as well since the half-life of depleted uranium is billions of years.  Like Vietnam, Iraq has also reported an increase in birth defects since the war. The US believed that using depleted uranium was dangerous to the Iraqi civilian population. A US training manual requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of depleted uranium wear respiratory and skin protection. A report prior to the Iraqi war identified children as risking the most danger from exposure. Cancer and kidney problems were two dangers identified in the report. However, the same report warned its military readers that public knowledge of these dangers could result in a ban on depleted uranium use in weapons.

The hypocrisy in all of this is missed on most Americans. In order to justify its imperialist occupation of Iraq, the US claimed that the state of Iraq had stockpiled and had used chemical weapons. However, it is the US whose stockpiles of chemical weapons are the biggest in the world. It is the US that exposes whole populations to chemical and radiological agents.

According to the former president of the Vietnamese Red Cross, US tactics were “a massive violation of human rights of the civilian population, and a weapon of mass destruction.” Contaminating the environment of a whole country with explosives and poisons such that, decades later, people are still suffering in the thousands as a result is tantamount to genocide. Such actions end up affecting the entire population, including future generations. Even though imperialism was defeated for a time in, the US continues to kill, cripple, and maim. Imperialism kills and keeps on killing.

Sources

1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090731/ap_on_re_as/as_vietnam_us_land_mines;_ylt=Ag5jcQWHBrrzJYdsiMHgLVgBxg8F;_ylu=X3oDMTJ2Yjdyc2tvBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwNzMxL2FzX3ZpZXRuYW1fdXNfbGFuZF9taW5lcwRwb3MDNDIEc2VjA3luX3BhZ2luYXRlX3N1bW1hcnlfbGlzdARzbGsDcmVwb3J0bGFuZG1p

2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3798581.stm

3. http://www.seattlepi.com/national/95178_du12.shtml

4. http://ivaw.org/dufactsheet

5. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1112-01.htm

6. http://www.brusselstribunal.org/pdf/DU-Azzawi2.pdf

7. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3715

Americans, First Worlders waste food, Third Worlders starve

(llco.org)

Karl Marx described the proletariat as the dispossessed, as earning only enough to survive to the next day and having nothing to lose but its chains. However, this hardly describes the American, or the First World, working class. The First World working class doesn’t have chains to lose, rather what they stand to lose under socialism is their decadent lifestyles. Nowhere is this decadence more apparent than in the food that Americans, and First World peoples, waste every year.

Americans are throwing away at least 75 billion dollars in food each year.  (1) In other words, Americans waste more food than the Gross Domestic Products (GDPs) of Albania, Nepal, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Laos and Niger combined.  (2) 14-15 percent of all edible food is discarded, untouched or unopened. This accounts for  43 billion dollars worth of discarded food by American households alone.  A shocking 40 to 50 percent of all food ready for harvest in the US never gets eaten. (3) In addition, the United States spends about 1 billion dollars just disposing of its food waste. (4)

The United States is not the only wasteful society. Other First World countries have similar behaviors. People in Britain throw away a third of all the food they purchase. In Sweden, families with small children throw away about a quarter of their food. (5)

According to the World Health Organization, starvation is the greatest single threat to the public health. Starvation is the biggest factor contributing to child mortality, being present in half of all cases. Starvation currently affects more than a billion people, 1 out of every 6 people worldwide. Starving people reside almost exclusively in the Third World. This is the case even though the world produces enough food to feed the entire 6 billion population. In fact, enough food is produced to feed twice as many people. (6) (7)

The distribution and waste of food are yet more indications of global class divisions. The peoples of the wealthiest nations, the First World, are throwing away up to half of the food that they purchase, while the poorest countries, the Third World, are either starving or exist on the verge of starvation. This is yet another indication that the main contradiction in the world today is between the First and Third World. First World workers are not, by a long shot, what Marx would identify as a proletariat. Rather, it is in the Third World where the true proletariat and its allies exist on the edge of survival.

Notes

1. http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20041122/foodwaste.html

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

3. http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Financial-Industry/US-wastes-half-its-food

4. http://www.siwi.org/documents/Resources/Policy_Briefs/PB_From_Filed_to_Fork_2008.pdf

5. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/weekinreview/18martin.html

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starvation#cite_note-8

7. http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/one-billion-go-hungry-socialism-is-better-than-capitalism/

Guatemala in Food Crisis, Revolution is the Solution

(llco.org)

Guatemala is experiencing a food crisis. It has been so severe that the President announced a “state of public calamity” declared in order to tackle food shortages. President Álvaro Colom Caballeros said the nation’s food problems are the result of a major drought this year, global warming, and the international economic crisis, and he also citied the nation’s “history of unfairness that has made Guatemala live since long ago with high and shameful poverty levels, extreme poverty and undernutrition.”

This crisis is a major problem because of the extent of starvation affecting the country. The United Nations World Food Program states that nearly 50 percent of Guatemala’s children under 5 years of age suffer from chronic undernutrition, also known as stunting. Guatemala has the highest rate of chronic malnutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the fourth highest rate in the world.

In an online journal on BBC, Lida Escobar, a field monitor for the WFP, gives a first-hand account of what she is experiencing:

“In the eastern city of Jalapa I was astonished by what I saw. There were many many children with severe malnutrition problems. We found 22 children with marasmus and kwashiorkor [two nutrient deficiency diseases] in the hospital. Kwashiorkor is a type of malnutrition in which the children swell because they retain liquids because of protein deficiency.  Their hair can also become discoloured and they develop some skin lesions. Marasmus is another form of malnutrition in which the skin barely covers the bones because of a protein and calories deficiency. The children become very thin, lose hair and can become very irritable.”

The food crisis affects the majority of the country not for lack of food but due to the extent of poverty preventing people from obtaining food. As stated by President Colum, the crisis is more about a lack of monetary resources than food. “There is food, what is lacking is the money for the affected people to buy food,” Mr Colom said. “We are not going to wait until we’ve reached starvation levels to act.”

According to the World Bank, about 75 percent of Guatemalans live below the poverty level, and 58 percent of the population work for incomes below the extreme poverty level. The poverty level is defined as income below which to acquire basic goods and services, and extreme poverty is defined as that needed to purchase a basic basket of food. Income restrictions limit access to an adequate diet for many Guatemalans. The minimum wage covers about 75 percent of the basic food basket.

About 40 percent of the nation’s more than 13.2 million citizens are indigenous Mayans. Poverty is even more widespread among the indigenous populations, long exploited and oppressed by colonialism, and who live in more rural areas. In the highland areas of this mountainous country, where many indigenous people live, seven out of 10 children under age 5 are malnourished.  The national health services only cover about 60 percent of the country; most rural areas lack water and sanitation systems.

The history of Guatemala is that of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and exploitation. First colonized by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado after defeating the indigenous Maya in 1524, it became independent from Spain in 1821 when it became part of the Mexican empire.  Later Guatemala gained its own independence in 1839. It became ruled by a succession of conservative dictators who turned the country into a plantation for coffee and other food exports for rich nations at the expense of the majority Guatemalans. In 1951 social democrat Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán became president, implementing mild land reforms and other social programs, which angered US corporate interests and the Guatemalan elites. A CIA-orchestrated coup in 1953 overthrew Arbenz and led to a succession of right wing military governments that operated as a mafia state, engaged in death squad activity that massacred indigenous rebels. A civil war that ran for 36 years led to the deaths of over 200,000 civilians, which a UN-initiated truth commission blamed the military for 93 percent of the deaths. Most of those responsible for the genocide have not been brought to justice.

Class struggles continue in Guatemala. For example, the military was found out to have kidnapped hundreds of children for sale to adoption to First World families.

The crisis of Guatemala, like much of the Third World, is one of imperialism. While the First World “left” searches in vain for their First World, revolutionary proletariat, the real communists in the Maoist Third Worldist movement see the obvious: the real proletariat and its allies reside in the Third World.  While First World social-democrats fret about First Worlders not getting enough health care, they ignore the real crisis in places like Guatemala.

Revolution is the only option for Guatemala to end centuries of exploitation. Currently, Guatemala’s resources benefit the populations of the First World. Only revolution can turn the tables and put the resources of Guatemala in the hands of Guatemalans. Revolution is the solution to end the starvation and easily preventable diseases that affect so many in the Third World. The answer for Guatemala and all of the Third World is an end to imperialism and the creation of a social system that truly serves the people. The principal contradiction of the world is between imperialism and exploited nations, and the food crisis in Guatemala is further proof of this.

Sources:

1. “Guatemala declares calamity as food crisis grows.” CNN. September 9, 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/09/09/guatemala.calamity/index.html?eref=rss_world

2. “Guatemala declares hunger crisis” BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8246782.stm

3. “Hunger Situation Desperate In Guatemala.” World Food Program press release. http://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/wfp-executive-director-josette-sheeran-hunger-situation-desperate-guatemala

4. “Guatemalan Army Stole Children for Adoption, Report Says.” CNN.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/09/12/guatemala.child.abduction/

5. “Diary: Guatemala food crisis.” BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8254841.stm

Third World children starve, suffer stunted growth, First World children suffer obesity

(llco.org)

According to a new UNICEF report, 200 million children under 5 in poor countries have stunted growth due to insufficient nutrition. Of the 200 million, almost 90 percent live in Asia and Africa. Almost a third of deaths in that age group are linked to undernutrition.

In Asia as a whole, the stunted growth rate is 30 percent. The situation in South Asia is especially bleak with Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan accounting for 83 million hungry children under five. In Africa, the rate is 43 percent.

The vast majority of those who suffer insufficient nutrition reside in the Third World. By contrast, children in the First World suffer problems of consuming too much food. For example, according to the Surgeon General, 12.5 million children, 17 percent , in the US suffer from obesity. These children also suffer health issues, but they are health issues related to overconsumption. In addition, First World children also have become less physically active. Physical activity has declined in the US. According to one study, 20 percent of youth from 9 to 13 years old engaged in no physical activity outside of school. Similar results have been reported in other First World countries.

Children who suffer stunted growth suffer related ailments their whole lives. Under capitalism-imperialism, 200 million children in the Third World have their futures stolen from them.  A billion go hungry every day, mostly in Third World. By contrast, children in the First World  grow overweight and inactive.

Capitalism produces for the market, not for human needs. Capitalism divides countries into the First and Third Worlds, with little in between. A few countries grow wealthy at the expense of the majority. Socialism will turn the tables. According to studies, enough food is produced so that hunger  and undernutrition could easily be wiped out with proper food distribution. Under socialism, access to adequate nutrition will be a basic human right.

Sources:

1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091111/ap_on_he_me/eu_med_nutrition_report;_ylt=AjUkpaoBeiVgjl3j5np6jT3VJRIF;_ylu=X3oDMTJvaTlpZGRkBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMTExL2V1X21lZF9udXRyaXRpb25fcmVwb3J0BGNwb3MDMwRwb3MDOARzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BHNsawN1bnNheXNodW5nZXI-

2. http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/obesityprevention/index.html

3. http://www.fitness.gov/enewsletter/fall2008/featurearticle.html

4. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/8/419

5. http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2009/08/16/amerikans-first-worlders-waste-food-third-worlders-starve/

Will First Worlders benefit from socialism?

(llco.org)

“Dear Leading Light,

Will First Worlders benefit at all from socialism?”

Thank you for writing.

Socialism will lead to a lower-material standard of living for First World peoples. First World peoples earn many times more than the value of their labor. They earn many times more than an egalitarian, socialist distribution worldwide would entail. First World populations get more than their share of the pie. They live off the labor of the Third World. Under socialism, First World populations will have to give up their privileges, their lives of luxury, based on extracting super-profits from the Third World. The New Power of the Leading Light will rule over the First World until First World populations can live as contributing members of global society. Here are some positive things that the New Power of the Leading Light has to offer First Worlders:

1. Healthier lives. Even though socialism will entail a drop in the overall standard of living of peoples of the First World, in some ways life will improve for First World populations under socialism. With socialism, the capitalist food industries will not be free to control the diets of the population. First World peoples, generally, do not want for food. However, the food they consume can be extremely unhealthy. This is especially true of fast food and snacks. This has led to some of the highest obesity rates in the world being amongst First World populations. This situation won’t be allowed to exist under socialism. People will come before profits under socialism. Thus science will govern the dietary choices that people have available to them. In addition, socialism will encourage and may even require exercise as part of the work or school day. Time at work or at school may be allocated for an exercise regimen. In addition, people will receive health care under socialism. Health care should be considered a human right under socialism. Thus First World population, even though materially poorer, will generally lead healthier lives. A healthy population is a happier one.

2. Meaningful lives. Maoists in China thought that people could change. Maoists had a strong belief in people power. Under the Maoists, Chinese society was seen as a giant school of Maoism that had many elaborate practices that all aimed to educate and remold the entire population, both friends and enemies. These elaborate measures ran the range from criticism and self-criticism before the masses to Mao Zedong Thought teams and classes to labor and prison reform. In labor reform, people were sent to do hard work alongside the masses to be humbled and to learn. This was often the prescription for communist cadres who had acted as high-handed bureaucrats toward the people. Such cadres were sent to the countryside to be humbled, to learn of the plight of the masses, and to learn from them. This practice was an old one, it pre-dated the Cultural Revolution. It went at least back to the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s. It was also practiced, with limited success, during campaigns such as the Socialist Education Movement prior to the Cultural Revolution. However, the Cultural Revolution raised this practice to new levels. An entire system of May 7th cadre schools were set up at the height of the Cultural Revolution as part of the process of rehabilitating and remolding cadres through labor. In addition, an entire generation of red guards was sent down to learn from the peasantry from 1968 onward. Many of these red guards would participate in the radical push to reestablish the collective economy of the countryside from 1968 to 1970. Just as those who needed to be humbled and reeducated were sent to the Chinese countryside, First Worlders might also be sent to the “global countryside,” the Third World, to do work for and alongside the truly oppressed. This hypothetical process need not be one that is seen as punishment. Rather, this hypothetical process will be one that ends the empty, decadent, and often boring and dreary lives of First Worlders. Instead, First Worlders will be sent on an adventure to reinvent themselves alongside the masses of the Third World. What is more exciting than self-reinvention and creating a whole new, just world? Capitalism limits the horizons of people, socialism will open First Worlders up to new possibilities. What is considered the good life should not be endless consumption, it should be a life of adventure, excitement, creativity, and doing good by humanity. Capitalism offers meaninglessness. Socialism offers meaning.

3. A future. The First World way of life is not sustainable. If First World populations continue to live as they do, then they will not only destroy themselves but also the entire planet. Socialism entails a more sustainable, balanced relationship between man and nature. Capitalism ensures a future that is an ecological hell. Socialism ensures that future generations will be happy and prosperous.

4. Peace. Capitalism is a system that has generated countless wars for profit. Many First World people die in these wars. The worst wars of this century were intra-imperialist wars, both World War 1 and 2 killed tens of millions, including many First World peoples. Socialism will guarantee that nobody will die in a war over profit. Nobody will die to maintain a class of parasites. Nobody will die in this senseless way. Socialism will provide peace from imperialist war.

Unfortunately, these benefits of socialism do not establish First World peoples as a social base for revolution. First World peoples are, and will continue to be, the most reactionary populations in the world for the time being. However, socialism is not about punishment, it is about liberation. However, we cannot let sentimentalism stand in our way from setting the world right. Let there be no mistake, liberation of humanity will entail the destruction of the First World way of life. In the end, in the long run, this will even be good for First World peoples themselves.