Obama's 'terror' state under challenge

Journalist Chris Hedges is a passionate and principled man, and these attributes have brought him into a direct conflict with the Obama administration and the US state over the dubious “legality” of anti-terror laws. 

Hedges’ 15-year career as foreign correspondent for the New York Times ended in 2003 when he was reprimanded for opposing the unlawful invasion of Iraq.  In 2011 he took part in Occupy Wall Street, and was among those arrested.

In September last year, with others, he defeated the Obama government in court, challenging the administration’s new anti-terrorism legislation. Hedges argues that it restricts news reporting, protest and political organising in defence of controversial causes and could be used to indefinitely imprison journalists, activists and human rights workers. 

The appeal, which opens in court today coincides,  with the publication of a hitherto 16-page secret memo prepared by Obama’s Department of Justice that sets out to justify the president’s power to target even Americans for assassination by drone without due process.

Glenn Greenwald, noted writer on civil liberties and constitutional issues, commented: “The core distortion of the War on Terror under both Bush and Obama is the Orwellian practice of equating government accusations of terrorism with proof of guilt. One constantly hears US government defenders referring to ‘terrorists’ when what they actually mean is: those accused by the government of terrorism. This entire memo is grounded in this deceit.”

Hedges’ co-plaintiffs in the case include Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, linguistic philosopher and campaigner Noam Chomsky, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Jennifer Bolen, founder of the activist media group RevolutionTruth and Occupy London activist Kai Wargalla.

Hedges took his campaign to the People’s Recovery Summit in Brooklyn, on Saturday. The opening words of his extraordinarily stirring speech are about as direct and uncompromising as you can get: 

The corporate state has made it clear there will be no more Occupy encampments. The corporate state is seeking through the persistent harassment of activists and the passage of draconian laws such as Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defence Authorization Act…to shut down all legitimate dissent. The corporate state is counting, most importantly, on its system of debt peonage to keep citizens — especially the 30 million people who make up the working poor —from joining our revolt. 

Hedges has teamed up with political activist and former consumer champion Ralph Nader, launching a campaign to raise the minimum hourly wage in the US from its current $7.25 – the lowest amongst the rich Western countries. Nader is pushing for $10.50 – to bring the value back up to what it would buy in 1968.  Hedges is going further. He wants it to be $11.

He argues that the dominance of the economy by credit and debt has changed the character of class warfare. He believes that a mass movement to raise the minimum wage by 50% will be a challenge to the corporate state, discrediting it, even paralysing it. He says: 

This debt peonage must be broken if we are going to build a mass movement to paralyze systems of corporate power. And the most effective weapon we have to liberate ourselves as well as the 30 million Americans who make up the working poor is a sustained movement to raise the minimum wage nationally to at least $11 an hour. 

Hedges believes that the moment workers rise up and demand justice is the “moment the staggering inequality of wealth begins to be reversed”. Hedges is clear that the campaign for a minimum, let alone a living wage is inseparable from the conflict with the state.

But the bankrupt capitalist economy cannot and will not concede to even such minimal demands. Inequality is not going to be “reversed” by mass pressure, athough the Hedges-Nader campaign deserves everyone's support. Inequality is actually built into global capitalism in whichever country it operates. And if the state decides to use anti-terror laws to suppress dissent and protest it won’t hesitate to do so because it exists to defend the status quo. Never forget that.

Gerry Gold

Economics editor

'Global May' on the launch pad

A year after the Arab Spring found its echo in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where a massive people’s assembly took control of the famous square, a new “Global May” is scheduled for an international launch tomorrow.

In Madrid, Barcelona and other cities in Spain, the demand for “real democracy now” found a response from hundreds of thousands of people angry with a political system that identified with financial and corporate interests.

The slogan “don’t vote for them”, directed against the major political parties, expressed a contempt for a sham democracy that had degenerated in its brief, 35-year existence since the end of fascism.

Simultaneous new occupations and assemblies are planned tomorrow in dozens of countries in a bid to stimulate the movement that took off last autumn, which saw camps created on Wall Street, outside St Paul’s cathedral and in hundreds of cities worldwide.

An attempt to give the May 12 movement some direction has resulted in an extensive
statement drawn up collaboratively by people’s assemblies and other networks over some months.

Acknowledged as a “hard and long process, full of compromises”, the statement, to its merit, is offered to “people’s assemblies around the world for discussions, revisions and endorsements”.

A clear concession made to reach consensus is that while the statement identifies the system in general as a problem, it refrains from using the term “capitalism” once in 2,000 words. This weakens its analysis, which tends to rely on moral terms like “greed” for explanations. Nor is there regard in the statement for the global economic crisis that is driving politics everywhere. Nevertheless, the statement is right when it declares:

We are living in a world controlled by forces incapable of giving freedom and dignity to the world’s population (if, indeed, they ever were). A world where we are told ‘there is no alternative’ to the loss of rights achieved through the long, hard struggles of our ancestors…. We condemn the current distribution of economic resources whereby only a tiny minority escape poverty and insecurity. Whereby future generations are condemned to a poisoned legacy thanks to the environmental crimes of the rich and powerful. ‘Democratic’ political systems, where they exist, have been emptied of meaning, put to the service of those few interested in increasing the power of corporations and financial institutions, regardless of the fate of the planet and its inhabitants.

Nor can one disagree with the statement when it says that “the economy must be put to the service of people’s welfare, and to support and serve the environment, not private profit” or that to achieve these objectives, people “must get democratic control over financial institutions, transnational corporations and their lobbies”.

The statement’s insistence that the movement does not “make demands on governments, corporations or members of parliament, which some of us see as illegitimate, unaccountable or corrupt” is commendable. But this is somewhat undermined by a series of demands about taxation, regulation and the reduction of military spending “to a minimum”.

These contradictions undoubtedly reflect debate and discussion about where a movement that includes people’s assemblies, democracy campaigns and occupations, is heading.

Some favour a sustained period of direct actions, and other forms of militancy that are essentially protests about aspects of the status quo. They imply that the existing political and economic system (aka capitalism) can be made to yield and change its ways. There is absolutely no evidence of this happening now or in the future.

Others acknowledge that the system itself is the problem and are willing to discuss how a transition is made from A to whatever B might look like. Ultimately, it’s the age-old question of reform or revolution. That, you can be sure, will loom large over all the actions that we will see from tomorrow.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

St Paul's Occupation makes its mark

As the tent city Occupation outside St Paul’s, supported by sister occupations at Finsbury Square and the Bank of Ideas, approaches its 100th day, it’s time to celebrate its achievements.

The Occupation has defied countless predictions of its demise, enabling thousands of people to manifest a collective will and powerful determination to challenge the existing order of things at many levels.

The state with its many arms has acted against those who, inspired by Occupy Wall Street in New York and other global occupations – in particular in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Madrid’s Sol Square - headed to the City of London’s Paternoster Square on October 15, 2011.

When the original intention to occupy Paternoster Square, where the London stock exchange is located, was thwarted by the laws of private property, the Occupation was forced on to the space outside St Paul’s Cathedral. The then canon, Rev Giles Fraser told the police to leave and gave the occupation permission to remain on the church’s property. Under pressure from the St Paul’s hierarchy, Fraser resigned his post.

Undaunted, St Paul’s activists have confronted the City of London police; the legal system which defends private property; misleading reportage by the London Evening Standard and Daily Mail in particular; hostility from sections of the Church of England hierarchy; and last but not least the antithesis of democracy in the shape of the City of London Corporation, which won its court action against the Occupation last week.

The Occupation has had to deal with the welfare problems that are rampant in society at large: ill health, substance abuse, mental instability, and homelessness. Many at St Paul’s courageously decided to try to help those suffering from these problems as best they could, a heavy task which at times threatened to overwhelm the action.

The greatest achievement of the Occupy movement is its struggle to liberate and colonise physical space – a highly political question in a London where public property has virtually vanished under the impact of corporate assimilation of the commons. Countless thousands who have walked past Tent City or had contact through other means have seen their preconceptions melt away when they have spoken directly to the occupiers or sat in on discussions. Inspired by the Occupation and the daily general assemblies and offshoot working groups and talks and discussions at Tent City University, the movement has built up a massive “virtual” presence. The Occupy website, its many Facebook and Twitter platforms are only the tip of an internet iceberg.

The publication of a hard copy and online newspaper, The Occupation Times, has formed a record of what has happened. The current edition includes a crucial discussion under the heading of “Revolution or Reform”. The working group offshoots have involved people from the Occupation itself as well as countless others who have take part in debates. These continue to function to develop concepts to take the movement forward.

Inspired by the US and Spanish occupations, the form of organisation has put into practice concepts of consensus democracy and “leaderlessness”. There have been many problems and criticisms associated with organising in this way. But these remain secondary to the undoubted need to find a really 21st century way of unleashing the democratic energies of those who have been hitherto excluded from decision-making processes.

The Occupation is a physical and mental learning process for all those who seek to change society. It has embodied and embraced a huge range of ideological tendencies. A World to Win has participated, with others, in raising the crucial questions of the need to transcend the cruelly limited and restrictive nature of capitalist democracy and the profit-driven economy which is in such turmoil and crisis. Facilitating these kinds of debates is one of the Occupation’s key achievements.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

An economic system beyond reform

Some 170 economists have issued a statement in support of the occupation movement in the United States and put forward policies which they say will “liberate the economy from the short-term greed of the rich and powerful one percent”.

The predominantly American grouping calling itself Econ4 is opposed to the market fundamentalists whose theory has failed, they say. Instead, they want an economy that works for the people, for the planet and for the future. They are concerned about human health, the consequences of pollution and fairness.

It is stirring and attractive stuff and their support is welcome because it shows that the hostility to the present economic system demonstrated at Occupy Wall Street and throughout America is hitting home.

But with calls to end capitalist rule bubbling up from occupations around the world, in reality Econ4’s policies will only confuse those searching for a really new start because in practice they are a variant on the status quo.

The four principles of Econ4’s “profound departure from the orthodox economics of the past” hardly differ from the aims of the social democratic, welfare-supported parliamentary democracies which emerged in the wake of the Second World War: equality of opportunity, an economy able to withstand unexpected shocks, prices determined by full cost-benefit accounting, and “real” democracy.

These are aims which have long been buried under the rubble left by the capitalist credit-fuelled push for growth which took over the world in the process generally known as globalisation. For the capitalist system there was no alternative, and it was this growth imperative that forced the deregulation needed to allow credit to expand.

In a table in their mission statement, Econ4 set out their differences with “orthodox” economics, and it is there that you’ll find the only reference to capitalism in the whole document. They want to replace “managerial capitalism” with “shareholder democracy”.

That too is an old-fashioned look back to the even earlier days of capitalism when the issue of shares enabled the formation of joint-stock companies providing the additional capital needed to fund the investment needs of competing manufacturers. Shareholders had rights. The richer you were, the bigger the share you could buy, and the more rights you had. Something to aspire to? I think not.

Econ4 say they are not starting from scratch. They’re putting together a programme built around the funds of billionaire speculator George Soros who has committed $50 million to the Institute for New Economic Ideas, the Schumacher Society, and the UK-based New Economics Foundation. All accept the capitalist system of production – they just want it to operate more fairly. No doubt they would endorse Labour leader Ed Miliband’s call for a “responsible” capitalism.

But the crash of 2011 is ensuring that the orthodoxy of market fundamentalism is giving way to something much more brutal and a far more profound struggle is under way. The economic crisis has created and now coincides with a political crisis. In attempting to prevent economic collapse, bankers are replacing elected governments.

Agencies like the IMF and the European Central Bank act on behalf of the tight network of global corporations. They have their men in power in Athens and Italy and have put the new Spanish government under notice.

On the other side, the 99 per cent are rising up against capital and finding their voice in occupations throughout the world. The takeover of the long-empty UBS building in London and its transformation into an Ideas Bank is far more inspiring than half-baked plans for a more decent capitalism. And from the global spread of occupations can come a global network of People’s Assemblies as the democratic framework for a new economy.

Gerry Gold

Economics editor

October 15 global voice of the people day

The contrast couldn’t be more stark. Finance ministers in grey suits in Paris trying desperately to save the system while ordinary people in nearly 900 cites in 78 countries take to the streets tomorrow to demand change.

Ministers from the G20 leading capitalist economies, gathered in the forlorn hope of finding solutions to the global debt crisis, represent the vested, narrow class interests of bankers and corporations, the minority that hold a grip on power.

Those driven on to the streets by the economic and political consequences of the crisis represent the potential and possibility of an alternative, different, progressive, democratic future.

Designating tomorrow as a global day of action was inspired by the revolutionary uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries, the democracy struggles in Spain and the mass movement in Greece against draconian budget cuts. As the call-out for tomorrow says:

On October 15th people from all over the world will take to the streets and squares. From America to Asia, from Africa to Europe, people are rising up to claim their rights and demand a true democracy. Now it is time for all of us to join in a global non violent protest. The ruling powers work for the benefit of just a few, ignoring the will of the vast majority and the human and environmental price we all have to pay. This intolerable situation must end.

The movement’s momentum has been boosted by the inspiring Occupy Wall Street movement that has rocked the American political establishment, notably the wimpish Democrats. New York’s trade unions have given practical support and the occupy campaign has spread like wildfire throughout the country.

In Britain, there is visible and growing support for the initiative to occupy the space adjacent to the London stock exchange near St Paul’s at noon tomorrow, along with other protests throughout Britain.

These global actions create the opportunity for an open debate on solutions, about how a minority’s hold on the levers of power has brought us to the edge of a social catastrophe and, more importantly, what are the ways forward.

Many sincerely believe that the power of the people can be harnessed with enough energy to compel government and big business to change and henceforth protect and defend the interests of the majority.

That viewpoint, however, is at odds with the nature of the beast we face. As the M15 democracy movement in Spain has noted, the state, political parties and corporate interests have fused together in new ways to defend the capitalist status quo.

There is a democratic façade to this process – but a façade is all it is. As a result, the present political system is the problem, is a barrier to future human progress. While it remains in place, it intends to go on inflicting grievous bodily harm on young and old, putting them out of work, cutting services and pensions, letting energy prices rip.

The crisis-ridden system will grow more and more authoritarian and warlike, destroying basic rights and liberties and threatening international conflict over resources and trade.

In other words, in A World to Win’s view, the social system is beyond reform and needs rebuilding in new, creative, democratic ways that make the rule of profit and capitalism history.

People’s Assemblies have come to the fore in struggles in many countries and can become a transition to a democratic future. On Saturday, October 22, we are hosting the event People’s Assemblies to People’s Power at the Passing Clouds Collective in east London. There’ll be music, poetry and subversive debate. Put the date in your diary.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor