New Place, Same Blog, Same Name

As you may recall, about a week ago I mentioned that I was in the process of moving this blog over to Wordpress...and that process is now complete.

I have already begun posting over at the new location, so come take a look and take part in the discussion.

Also, and this is one of the primary reasons I moved, check out my various guides on indigenous issues. I have a Native Struggles Study Guide, a chronology of indigenous resistance, as well as a glossary of the most common indigenous phrases and terms I make use of.

So come on over, read some posts, ask some questions, argue with me, and maybe we can all learn something from each other and become better revolutionaries for it.

I will keep this site up and going, but posting on it will cease. This site will also be left running as many images and links to older posts on the new blog link back to this one and I have hardly the patience to go over several hundred posts and correct each and every link.

The new blog can be found here.

Update From Summer 2011

The new version of this site ain't so new anymore. It's been running strong and my visitor count has been on a steady climb for the last two and half years.

Anyway, I am updating this old version of the blog for the first time in about 30 months because I want to say that I have made a decision to permanently keep this version open. Over the last 30 months I had considered many time taking it down, especially as I have under gone some major political shifts (though still on the revolutionary left) during this period and the content of this version no longer reflects how I currently feel on a great deal many issues.

However, I have made this final decision to keep it open because I want to be honest with my readers about where I came from politically. While I am now politically quite different from the Autonomist-Trotskyist with post-Maoist flirtations that I was back when this site was still going, this site is a record of how I used to feel and act with regards to many things. It was also during the second half of this sites run that many of the stirrings in me that would lead to my current politics began to emerge and be discussed. It is politically honest of me to keep this open. I have no intention of hiding who I was once.

So while some of the things I wrote and posted on here may make me cringe today, I have no problem leaving them out here for people to read. As they always say, never forget where you came from!

Auto Bailout A Bludgeon Against UAW Workers

Who is really to blame for auto industry crisis?

The opposition in Congress over a proposed bailout of the U.S. auto industrywas not a principled stance against another massive giveaway of public funds to corporations. Instead, it was a calculated anti-union offensive targeting the United Auto Workers. The Republican members were more blatant in their demand that union workers "do their part" to help rescue the "Big Three" by accepting massive concessions.

The auto industry is in crisis because it has produced more cars than it can sell at a profit.

But the Democrats—while nominally expressing concern for the auto workers—did not defend the workers when the Bush administration unveiled its alternative bailout plan laying out a major attack on unionized workers’ wages and benefits.

If implemented, the White House’s $17.4 billion in emergency loans to General Motors and Chrysler will come at a high cost for workers. The companies are expected to provide a restructuring plan by March 31, following a Bush administration blueprint that would force workers’ wages and benefits downward to make the companies "more competitive."

Accompanying the Bush "rescue" plan has been an all-out media blitz to portray UAW workers as outrageously overpaid. Its message is the following: "The workers’ incessant demands and high wages broke the Big Three."

Media pundits and Congress members are quoting from a study published by the right-wing Heritage Foundation that claims UAW workers "earn $75 an hour in wages and benefits—almost triple the earnings of the average private sector worker." (Heritage Foundation, Nov. 19)

A closer examination, however, reveals the study to be an egregious distortion of the truth.

According to a Dec. 9 article by New York Times journalist David Leonhardt, the figure of $75 per hour is a combination of "three very different categories"—compensation, active employee benefits and retiree benefits.

An active UAW worker earns a total of roughly $55 per hour, including healthcare and pension benefits, about $10 more per hour than non-union workers. At Honda and Toyota plants in the United States, autoworkers make on average about $45 per hour.

But the media claim fails to account for the heavy concessions shoved down the throats of UAW workers in recent years, including a two-tiered wage system and deep cuts in benefits.

In 2007, for example, the UAW agreed to take over autoworkers’ healthcare costs from General Motors when it accepted the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association. GM’s financial obligation was thus reduced from $58 billion to only $30 billion, even as U.S. medical costs are expected to rise by double-digit figures. The UAW now is forced to cut back on workers’ health care coverage.

Of course, another fundamental question is raised: Why is health care not provided as a guaranteed right to all the people in the United States—instead of the high cost of health care being tagged to a workers’ income as a "privilege"?

Overproduction to blame, not workers’ wages

The campaign of slander and disinformation launched by the media and the politicians has been quite effective. The very fact that the UAW feels compelled to defend the wages earned by unionized autoworkers exposes its weak, defensive position.

Despite the government’s criticism of the UAW, labor costs still only account for about 10 percent of the cost of producing a vehicle. The truth is that the Big Three’s inability to compete in the global market is not related to high labor costs for U.S. auto companies versus foreign auto corporations like Toyota and Honda.

Toyota, the biggest foreign-owned auto firm in the United States, also suffered huge losses in late 2008. Sales of the Camry, its most popular model, fell 57 percent in November from a year before. From Germany to Spain to Belgium to Poland, car sales are plunging and factories are scaling back production. Capitalist overproduction worldwide is driving the crisis hitting the Big Three, not the UAW or any worker, unionized or not.

Overproduction does not mean that more goods are produced than needed, but rather that more goods are produced than can be sold at a profit. It is the result of a system in which individual capitalists compete to acquire an ever-expanding share of a finite market, creating an inevitable economic bust when markets become saturated with products.

Production is cut, workers are laid off and consumption is decreased, leading to further production stoppages and even more layoffs until "excess" production and inventories have been eliminated and an economic upswing can get underway.

What is really behind attacks on unions

The real aim behind the corporate media’s campaign against the UAW is to further erode the already declining living standards of autoworkers and the working class in general in order to increase the profit margins of the bosses.

A revealing statement by GM’s vice chairman, Robert A. Lutz, makes the motivations behind the anti-worker campaign abundantly clear: "You get these people who say, ‘I know what I’d do if I were CEO of GM, like close up all the union plants and set up plants down South with non-union labor. Well, any idiot can figure that one out. But how conceivably can you get that done?" (New York Times, Dec. 8)

The current media campaign against the living standards of UAW members is clearly an attempt to "get that done."

Workers at Chicago’s Republic Doors and Windows, faced with unexpected layoffs and being denied their benefits and severance pay, took over their plant in early December. They refused to budge until they received what they were owed—and they won. Though that limited struggle did not save their jobs, it did show that workers can take the offensive and win. The same tactic was used by autoworkers in the 1930s, and helped fuel the upsurge in the labor movement that characterized that period.

Workers should not succumb to ruling-class attempts to pit worker against worker. Workers must take the offensive if labor is to withstand the ruling-class onslaught, which is certain to expand as the economy worsens. Broad-based working-class unity and militancy are the key to successfully defeating attempts by the bosses at rolling back the hard-won gains of the labor movement.

Executive pay at U.S. banks and corporations

While UAW workers have been attacked for their excessive wages, corporate executives take home millions in pay and bonuses, living in opulence even during the deep economic crisis we are now facing. If anyone should be sacrificing “privilege” as a condition for the bailout money, it should be the fat cats atop the Big Three—not the workers who already struggle to provide for their families.

According to a study by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, the chief executives of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index received pay packages valued at an average of $10.5 million - 344 times the pay of the typical American worker. (Washington Post, Dec. 21)

Ford CEO Allan Mulally’s total compensation package last year came to $21.7 million while General Motor’s CEO Rick Wagoner brought in $14.4 million. Chrysler is a private company and does not disclose executive pay. (CNN Money Dec.4)

CEOs at major banking institutions rake in even more in compensation. Merrill Lynch paid its former chief executive, E. Stanley O’Neal, a total of $46 million in 2006. The company’s former co-president of Global Markets and Investment Banking Group, Dow Kim, took in $35 million the same year. (New York Times, Dec. 18) In 2007, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein’s salary and bonus package totaled $68.5 million while the companies’ two co-presidents grossed roughly $67.5 million a-piece. (New York Times, Nov. 16)

California's Gov. Schwarzenegger Declares War on Workers

Let the rich pay for their crisis!

Two public employee unions are suing California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to stop a scheme imposing two unpaid days off per month as a cost-cutting measure. (Associated Press, Dec. 22, 2008)

California's Gov. Schwarzenegger has launched a full-scale attack on state workers.

The state government is slashing health services and education programs. Under Schwarzenegger’s plan, University of California, California State University and state community colleges will be forced to lay off workers and make other employees accept unpaid furlough days. (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20, 2008)

The governor has also proposed relaxing environmental regulations and the privatization of numerous public works programs. Since most public employees are unionized, privatization will amount to an attack on all unions and workers. Schwarzenegger’s plan will hurt unions to create new sources of profits for private interests—all at the expense of workers’ rights.

Schwarzenegger also has ordered all state agencies to cut their payrolls by 10 percent, guaranteeing layoffs for thousands of workers.

(Los Angeles Times, Dec. 23, 2008)

The Professional Engineers in California Government, a union that represents 13,000 engineers, surveyors and others, along with the California Association of Professional Scientists, filed a lawsuit charging that Schwarzenegger’s plan illegally adjusts union salaries without labor negotiations. California’s largest state employee union, the Service Employees International Union, Local 1000, filed an unfair labor practice charge with the state Public Employee Relations board.

Workers are the backbone of all economic production. Our labor creates all social wealth, be it in the form of products, services or infrastructure, but in a capitalist economy, our needs are tossed aside so that the interests of the wealthy may be protected. These priorities are something that both capitalist parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, agree on: A Democratic counterproposal in the state legislature called for $550 million in "workforce cuts."

The state of California wants workers to pick up the tab for a fiscal crisis they did nothing to create. If the capitalists are the ones who profit during economic booms, why should workers be the ones to pay during economic crises? The state’s budget gap of $42 billion should be closed by taxing the ultra-rich, transnational corporations such as banks and big oil, and taxes on stock market transactions.

Celebrating 50 Years of Cuban Internationalism by Carlos Alvarez

From Africa to Latin America, Cuba spreads working-class solidarity

The 1959 Cuban Revolution marked the single most important event in Cuban history. Washington watched in disbelief as the first Latin American socialist revolution unfolded only 90 miles off the U.S. coast. The revolution freed the island from the clutches of U.S. imperialism, setting in motion a transition to a planned economy in the hands of a revolutionary government. The interests of foreign capital no longer trumped the needs of Cuban workers.

Fidel Castro meets with Malcolm X at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, New York City, 1960.

But the Cubans would not keep the gains of the revolution to themselves; they would share them with the world. Cuba also benefited from international solidarity of other socialist countries, especially from the Soviet Union and China, which stepped in with major economic trade after the United States eliminated Cuba’s sugar sales and imposed a blockade. The USSR provided Cuba’s military equipment, including for its African missions.

In a genuine example of solidarity and working-class internationalism, Cuba has aligned itself with workers and oppressed peoples across the globe in their struggle against capitalism and foreign domination. Cubans have fought alongside the national liberation and socialist movements of the world, always under the unrelenting attacks of the U.S. government.

In the very early years of the revolution, Cuba began the first of its legendary medical missions. The missions were undertaken when Cuba was implementing its far-reaching reforms in land distribution, literacy and expropriations and defending itself against U.S. invasion and terrorist aggression. Algeria was the first recipient of that internationalist solidarity, with a Cuban medical team of 55 in May 1963. Since then, 104,437 Cuban medical workers have served in internationalist missions in 101 countries around the world. Currently, there are 30,421 doctors providing free medical care in 71 countries.

Cuba has set out to tackle the scourge of illiteracy that runs rampant through much of the formerly colonized and underdeveloped world. Providing the first example in the western hemisphere, Cuba declared itself the first country in Latin America free of illiteracy in 1961. With the help of Cuba’s special program, Yo Sí Puedo ("Yes I Can"), Venezuela became fully literate in 2006, and Bolivia in December 2008. Cuban teachers are now helping implement Yo Sí Puedo in dozens of countries—Nicaragua expects to be free of illiteracy in 2009, and Angola in 2014.

African missions and the defeat of apartheid

Cuba’s missions to Africa were the earliest examples of Cuba’s commitment to the international struggles of workers and oppressed peoples. In 1965, revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara led a Cuba military mission to assist guerrilla forces in the Congo. In the film "Cuba: An African Odyssey," Congolese fighters spoke years later of their astonishment at seeing Cuban troops travel such great distances to support their struggle, and of how that display of selfless solidarity impacted their own consciousness as revolutionaries.

Cuban troops were sent to Ethiopia in late 1977 to help defend its revolutionary struggle against the U.S.-backed Somali invasion and further U.S. counter-revolutionary attacks. Cuban fighters also supported the Liberation Front of Mozambique, FRELIMO, in its struggle against the anti-communist, U.S.-South African apartheid force Mozambican National Resistance, RENAMO, during the Mozambican civil war.

But most importantly, Cuba played a decisive role in the dismantling of the South African apartheid system, sending troops to fight with the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against South African apartheid forces. Starting in 1975, Cuban troops aided the MPLA and were decisive in smashing the South African army at Cuito Cuanavale, Angola. The defeated South African military retreated from Namibia—a blow to the racist regime that would reenergize South African resistance in their fight against apartheid.

In an address to the United Nations in defense of Cuba’s military actions, Fidel Castro said the following of the operation: "Angola is rich of natural resources; Cabinda has large oil reserves. Some imperialists ask why we’re helping the Angolans, what our interest is? They assume that countries only act out of a desire for petrol, copper, diamonds or some other resource. No! We have no material interest. Of course the imperialists don’t understand this. They would only do it for chauvinist, nationalist and selfish reasons. We are fulfilling an elementary internationalist duty in helping the people of Angola."

Cuban internationalism has reached every corner of the globe. The Cuban government has condemned the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and has consistently stood with the people of the Middle East in their struggle against U.S. imperialism and Israel’s occupation of Palestine. It has recently expanded trade relations with Syria, and is expanding cooperation on the basis of solidarity and mutual cooperation with Iran, China and other Asian countries.

Revolutionary leadership in Latin America

Washington quickly recognized the implications of the first successful socialist revolution in the continent. Fearful of the example set by Cuba, U.S. officials helped usher in the fascist governments that characterized Latin American politics for much of the 1960s and 1970s, crushing leftist and progressive forces to stem the threat of revolution.

Confronting U.S. designs head on, Cuba provided indispensable aid to Latin America in its struggles for self-determination and socialism. From Nicaragua to Guatemala to Venezuela and Bolivia, Cuba has been a base of support for the workers’ struggle.

During the years that followed the Nicaraguan revolutionary triumph in 1979 with the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship, Cuba offered assistance in the fields of education, health care, industry, agriculture and military training.

Direct U.S. intervention, with the destructive Contra war, caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, and helped engineer the electoral defeat in 1990 of the Sandinistas. But this has not prevented Cuba from reinforcing its ties to progressive forces within Nicaragua and providing material support to this country.

In recent years, Cuba has played a key role in pushing forward the shift to the left in Latin America, working hand in hand with Venezuela’s own revolutionary government.

The two countries launched the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA)—a cooperation agreement with a focus on social gains in response to the U.S.-touted, plunder-oriented Free Trade Area of the Americas. Cuba has provided thousands of doctors and teachers to Venezuela, as well as other human resources and revolutionary experience. Venezuela has responded in kind, in particular by providing highly discounted oil that has been vital for Cuba. Bolivia and Nicaragua have since joined ALBA, and other countries also participate.

Cuba and Venezuela have jointly carried out "Operation Miracle," providing vision-restoring surgeries to nearly half a million people in Latin American and Caribbean countries as of November 2008.

Washington’s hostility to socialist Cuba has not stopped it from extending its solidarity to the U.S. people in their moments of greatest need. Cuba offered the assistance of more than 1,000 doctors who were ready to go to the U.S. Gulf region following Hurricane Katrina. The U.S. government refused this much-needed assistance for purely political reasons. Dozens of U.S. youth are studying medicine completely free of cost in Cuba at the famed ELAM, the Latin American School of Medicine. The students’ only obligation is to commit to practice medicine in poor communities in the United States upon graduation.

If the U.S. ruling class and its political lackeys have failed to appreciate the Cuban Revolution, the most oppressed sectors of the U.S. working class certainly have not. In 1960, the Shelburne Hotel in Manhattan contemptuously evicted Castro and his delegation, who were in New York for the 15th session of the United Nations General Assembly. Castro found new accommodations at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem, where the Harlem community welcomed him with warm cheers. The class character of the Cuban revolution could not have been made clearer.

Just as Cuba has steadfastly stood by the workers of the world, we too must fight alongside Cuba. The people of Cuba have endured nearly five decades under the crippling U.S. economic blockade, and following the devastating 2008 hurricane season, need our support more than ever. On the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, the elementary internationalist duty that motivates Cuban solidarity should inspire U.S. workers to defend Cuba and raise the flag of working-class internationalism.

Anti-2010 Resources

The 2010 Winter Olympics are to be held in British Colombia, Canada on occupied and unceded native land. There is a growing movement that is resisting the corporate circus, of which I have posted on many times in the past.

As an active supporter of, and participant in the movement, I would just like to provide any other interested parties with information that may be pertinent to the cause.

All files are in Adobe PDF format. If you don't already have Adobe Reader download it for Free by Clicking Here

Anti-2010 Booklet (PDF)

Sports Action 2010 (PDF)

2010 Police State Fact Sheet (PDF)

Olympic Resistance Issue 1 (PDF)

Convergence 2010 Poster (PDF)

Treaty Negotiating Times - Summer 2007 (PDF)

Riot 2010! Riot Now! - Printable Booklet (PDF)

Security Culture - A Handbook for Activists (PDF)

Insurrectionary Anarchy - Organizing for Attack (PDF)

Sutikalh: It Takes a Whole Community to Stop a Ski Resort (PDF)

Commemorating Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht

This month marks the 90^th anniversary of the murder of the German revolutionary communist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two outstanding revolutionary leaders of the German working class, by the reactionary forces opposed to the German Revolution.

In commemoration of the tragic events of that day the good people over at the International Marxist Tendency are republishing Rosa Luxemburg's last article "Order Prevails in Berlin" as well as Karl Liebknecht's famous speech against voting the war credits in the German parliament in 1914 and his 1915 leaflet "The Main Enemy Is At Home!".

They are also publishing Trotsky's appraisal of the two revolutionaries, written just after they were murdered in 1919, and "Hands Off Rosa Luxemburg", his defence of what Rosa Luxemburg really stood for, against Stalinist slanders, as well as an extract from Lenin's "Notes of a Publicist" in which he defends Rosa Luxemburg against the reformists.

Check them out and lets keep the memory of these two great revolutionary leaders in our hearts as we move forward into this new year.

Cuba: 50 Years of Revolution

What I would like to do here is provide a bit of a counter balance to the coverage of the revolution's 50th in the bourgeoisie media. Unlike they, who will undoubtedly focus on the admitted negatives that are faced by the Cuban people, I will focus here on the real and serious gains of the Cuban people that are a result of the revolution. I hope you find these facts enlightening.

Here is just a quick look at some before and afters:

Literacy Before & After The Revolution
1952	54%
2005	100%
Sources: (1) UNICEF & (2) Encarta Encylopedia.

Life Expectancy Before & After The Revolution
1950	55.8 years
2006	78 years
Sources: (1) UNICEF & (2) "The Health Revolution in Cuba," Sergio Díaz-Briquets, University of Texas Press. Austin, Texas. 1993. pp. 19.

Infant Mortality* Before & After The Revolution
1958	60
2004	5.8
Sources: (1) Statistics Bureau, Cuban Ministry of Public Health & (2) UNICEF.

* The number of deaths of infants under one year old in a
given year per 1,000 live births in the same year.

And here are some stats about how Cuba ranks up against other Latin American, Caribbean and Western nations in various ways:

Infant Mortality:

Infant Mortality Rate*
Haiti	93.35
Bolivia	57.52
Guyana	38.37
Peru	38.18
Dominican Republic	33.41
Ecuador	33.02
Nicaragua	32.52
Honduras	30.48
Paraguay	28.75
El Salvador	27.58
Mexico	24.52
Trinidad & Tobago	24.20
Suriname	23.48
Colombia	23.21
Panama	19.57
Argentina	17.20
Dominica	15.94
Grenada	14.63
Jamaica	13.71
French Guinana	13.22
Barbados	11.71
Costa Rica	10.87
Puerto Rico	9.30
United States	7.00
Cuba	5.80
Sources: (1) Statistics Bureau, Cuban Ministry of Public Health, (2) CIA factbook & (3) UNICEF.

* The number of deaths of infants
under one year old in a given year
per 1,000 live births in the same year.

Literacy:

Youth Literacy Rate
Haiti	67.0%
Honduras	86.4%
Brazil	95.8%
Colombia	97.2%
Mexico	97.4%
Argentina	98.7%
Cuba	100%
Sources: (1) World Development Indicators, (World Bank, 1998, 1999) & (2) U.N. Statistics Division, Millennium Indicators.

Adult Literacy
Haiti	45%
St Lucia	67%
Dominican Republic	82%
French Guiana	83%
Bolivia	83%
Brazil	83%
Jamaica	85%
Peru	88%
Puerto Rico	89%
Ecuador	90%
Venezuela	91%
Colombia	91%
Paraguay	92%
Suriname	93%
Chile	95%
Argentina	96%
Cuba	100%
Sources: (1) UNICEF & (2) UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Poverty:

Human Poverty Index*
Haiti	42.3%
Honduras	20.5%
Brazil	12.2%
Mexico	9.4%
Colombia	8.9%
Cuba	4.1%
Sources: United Nations Development Program (UNDP) 2003 Human Development Indicators and Project On Human Development.

* Lower is better.

Doctors:

Persons Per Doctor
Haiti	10,005
Honduras	2,500
Colombia	1,105
Dominican Republic	949
Brazil	844
United States	421
Cuba	169
Sources: (1) World Development Indicators, (World Bank, 1997), (2) "World Almanac and Book of Facts 2004," (3) "Student Atlas of World Politics 4th Edition," Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 2000 & (4) Encarta Encylopedia.

Hospitals:

Persons Per Hospital Bed
Haiti	1,250
Honduras	1,000
Colombia	909
Dominican Republic	670
Brazil	370
United States	303
Cuba	185
Sources: (1) "Student Atlas of World Politics 4th Edition," Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 2000, (2) Encarta Encylopedia.

Attended Births:

Proportion of Births Attended by Skilled Health Personnel
Haiti	24%
Honduras	54%
Colombia	86%
Mexico	86%
Brazil	88%
Argentina	98%
Cuba	100%
Source: U.N. Statistics Division, Millennium Indicators.

Unemployment:

Unemployment Rate
Haiti	70%
Guadeloupe	26.9%
French Guiana	19.2%
Dominican Republic	17%
Uruguay	16.8%
Argentina	15.6%
Colombia	14.2%
Suriname	13.8%
Venezuela	12.2%
Puerto Rico	12%
Trinidad & Tobago	10.4%
Ecuador	11.4%
Peru	10.3%
Brazil	9.7%
Paraguay	9.2%
Guyana	9.1%
Chile	8.1%
Bolivia	8%
Canada	7%
United States	6.5%
Cuba	1.9%
Sources: (1) CIA World Factbook, (2) Encarta Encylopedia & (3) "Investigating the Effects of Withheld Humanitarian Aid," a report of the Haiti Reborn/Quixote Center.

Inflation:

Inflation Rate (%)
Dominican Republic	51.20
Haiti	27.00
Venezuela	16.00
Jamaica	12.60
Argentina	9.60
Suriname	9.50
Paraguay	9.20
Bolivia	8.50
Brazil	8.20
Uruguay	7.40
Colombia	7.10
Chile	6.60
Mexico	6.10
Guyana	6.70
Puerto Rico	6.50
Peru	5.70
United States	3.20
Canada	3.00
Cuba	0.30
Sources: (1) CIA World Factbook, (2) World Development Indicators, (World Bank, 2004, 2005), (3) Latin Business Chronicle, 2002.

Sanitation:

Proportion of Population with Access to Improved Sanitation (Urban and Rurual)
Haiti	28%
Mexico	74%
Honduras	75%
Argentina	82%
Colombia	86%
Cuba	98%
Source: U.N. Statistics Division, Millennium Indicators.

Women in Government:

Women In Parliamentary Seats
Haiti	4%
Honduras	6%
Brazil	9%
Colombia	12.2%
United States	14%
Mexico	15.9%
Argentina	31.3%
Cuba	36%
Source: U.N. Statistics Division, Millennium Indicators.

And, leading on from the women in government stats, here are some other gains that the women of Cuba have made over the last 50 years:

• The Cuban constitution guarantees full equality for women. Women receive equal wages as men for doing the same work, and sexual discrimination is forbidden by law.
• By law, men must share equally in house work with women with whom they live.
• Pregnant women in Cuba are guaranteed maternity leave, with full pay, before and after the birth of their child/ren.
• 49.5% of all Cubans who have graduated college, and 62% of all Cubans who are currently university students are women.
• Before the Cuban Revolution women made up less than 20% of the workforce (17% in 1956). One of the largest areas of employment for women was prostitution (mostly with tourists from the U.S.). Today women comprise 44% of the workforce in Cuba.
• 66.4% of all technicians, 87% of all administrators, 53.9% of all service workers, 51% of all doctors, 43% of all scientists and 33.5% of all managers in Cuba are women.
• 35% of the members of Cuban Parliament are Women. 16.1% of the State Council, 18% of the ministers, 22.7% of the Vice-Ministers, 61% of all attorneys, 20% of all officers in the armed forces, 49% of all judges and 47% of all judges in the Supreme Court in Cuba are women.
• The life expectancy of women in Cuba is 79.8 years, several years higher than the average in Latin America.
• Maternal mortality in Cuba is only 33.9 per 100,000 live births. The average for Latin America in 2004 was 94.7.
• Infant mortality in Cuba is 5.8 per 1000 live births (the lowest in Latin America, and lower than that of the U.S.).
• As for all Cubans, access to education and health services, including sexual and reproductive health is universal and free for all Cuban women.
• Abortion, which was legalized in 1965, is free to all Cuban women on demand.
• Childcare is provided in Cuba for all children from 3 months to school age at rates so low, it's basically free.Eighty-five percent of Cuban women over the age of 14 are members of a grass roots Non-governmental organization called the "Federation of Cuban Women." To a large extent, the success in implementing the legislation relating to the rights of women has been achieved thanks to the work of the Federation of Cuban Women. The Federation plays a major part in the debate and creation of laws that affect Cuban women.

And finally, here are some other facts about Cuba and its revolution:

• Cuba is among the top five Latin American countries in protein and calorie intake.
• Cuba has compulsory education through the ninth grade and available to 12th grade to all youth; university enrollment exceeding 200,000 with another 90,000 students graduating annually from one of 600 technical and professional training institutes -- all absolutely free.
• The average Cuban worker has ten years of education; one of every ten scientists in Latin America and the Caribbean is in Cuba (although Cuba makes up only 2% of the region's population).
• In Cuba, 50% of all skilled workers or professionals (including physicians) are women & 29% of management positions are held by women.
• Ninety-four percent of the population has electrical service in Cuba, surpassing the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean by some 20%. Television reaches even remote mountain areas and Cuban radio covers the entire island.
• The Cubans have built formidable pharmaceutical, genetic engineering and biotechnology industries, and have twenty scientific research centers investigating products from inexpensive pharmaceuticals to "green medicine."
• The UN recently announced that Cuba is the only country in Latin America that has no malnutrition.
• The majority of Cubans own their homes. During the urban reforms in the early sixties, those Cubans paying rent to landlords who had fled to Miami, continued to pay the same rent to the State for a period of 5 to 10 years after which time the house or apartment became theirs. Servants who lived in the houses of the rich paid rent to the State and became owners of those homes after a period of years. New homes were bought with a government mortgage for approximately $5,000 (with a 2% to 4% interest rate payable over 20-30 years, paid off at no more than 10% of the chief breadwinner's income).
• Gas bills in Cuba average 2-4 pesos (8-16 cents) a month; electricity 5-7 pesos (20-28 cents) a month; telephone 6-8 pesos (24-32 cents) a month, the first 300 minutes being free. As you can see, all these services are subsidized by the State.
• In 1999, the Latin American Laboratory for the Evaluation of Educational Quality (LLECE) tested 4,000 students in third and fourth grades in 100 randomly selected schools in 14 Latin American countries. Cuba's Elementary Education came out on top. The Cuban children scored 350 points on a scale of 400. Despite the economic blockade, the State maintained free education with a 1,585 billion pesos educational budget in 1999. School enrollment is 100% on the elementary level, and 95% on the secondary level. There is one teacher per 40 children compared to one per 103 in the world. While in 1959 Cuba had only 3 Universities, it now has 47 which have graduated 600,000 students. In 1952, less than 50% of Cuban children went to school, over 40% of the population was illiterate, and 10,000 of the existing 25,000 teachers were unemployed. Now, every child has access to free education, remains in school through 6th grade, and then continues on with secondary education. In most Latin American countries 50% of all enrolled children leave by 4th grade.
• The Cuban "Yes, I can" literacy method has been used to teach 3,192,000 people in 28 countries how to read and write.
• A divorce usually takes about 3 months in Cuba and costs $5. Everything is split equally between the separating couple. If there are children involved, the ex-husband has to pay 10% of his wages as alimony, and usually leaves the house so that his ex-wife and children can live in it.
• In Cuba, sovereignty resides in the people. Over 97% of the people eligible to vote, vote in an electoral system which serves to nominate and then elect those best suited to fulfill their position. There are three Assemblies: the Municipal Assembly, the Provincial Assembly, and the National Assembly. In the Municipal Assembly, neighbors nominate their candidates who are finally selected by secret ballot vote by the entire constituency. The fact that candidates are not nominated by the Communist Party but by the people themselves, itself marks the democratic nature of the process. In the same way, the election of the members for the Provincial and National Assemblies are selected by secret ballot vote by the people directly. The election process has two phases: it consists of (1) electing the delegates for the Municipal Assembly, and (2) electing the deputies to the Provincial and National Assemblies.
• The Cuban Constitution (discussed and created through numerous public meetings and adopted by secret ballot in a referendum in 1976) states, in the First Article of the Electoral System, Article 131, that: "All citizens with the legal capacity to do so, have the right to take part in the leadership of the State, directly or through their elected representatives to the bodies of People Power, and to participate for this purpose and as prescribed by law in the periodic elections and people's referendums through free, equal, and secret vote." In Cuba, you will find grass-roots democracy never seen anywhere else in the world, where the people themselves nominate their candidates for election. A candidate must get more than 50% of a secret ballot vote to get elected. Every candidate nominated faces the electorate on his/her own merit.
• The Communist Party of Cuba is forbidden by law to play any role in the elections. The only publicity allowed candidates is a posted biography with a photograph of the candidate. They are not allowed to spend money on furthering their chances for selection. Neither are State organizations permitted to issue statements favoring any candidate.
• In order to join the Partido Comunista Cubano (PCC - Cuban Communist Party), Cubans must be chosen as model workers by their co-workers.
• Cuba's highest leadership body is the Council of State, of which Raul Castro is the elected President. He was last elected in 2008.
• Cuba is a founding member of the Human Rights Council and the United States is not. Cuba was elected with the overwhelming support of 135 countries, more than two-thirds of the United Nations General Assembly, while the United States did not even dare to run as a candidate.
• Despite all the media coverage of all the people leaving by boat, by percentage, few Cubans actually leave Cuba, and there are many issues involved. Firstly, before the Cuban Revolution the United States gave very few Cubans visas to come to the United States, but after the revolution the doors were opened wide. Secondly, the United States has held an unjust trade embargo against Cuba for 40 years (which has been condemned several times in the United Nations by almost every country in the world) which has caused the people of Cuba to suffer. Finally, the United States enacted the 'Cuban Adjustment Act', the only act of its kind anywhere in the world, which grants residency to anyone, no matter if they are a criminal or not, who leaves Cuba and reaches the United States in any fashion. Imagine if the same act applied to all of Latin America! How many people from other countries would leave for the United States? How many people leave places like Mexico and the Dominican Republic now?

Also, if you want to learn more, check out the the Cuba Truth Project.

21 Questions for 2008

It seems each year, around this time, a quiz like this one makes the rounds on the various blog-myspace-facebook-email rounds that I am a part of. I normally do not take part in these sorts of things, but I thought to myself, why the hell not? So now as I sit here at my computer, with less than four hours before we are officially in the year 2009 here in Bermuda, I give you my thoughts on the year 2008 in review in the form of a 21 question quiz.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?

Witness, for the first time, the election of a non-white person, though still a man, to the highest office of the United States government. I also got published, twice, in the IWW's Industrial Worker Newspaper and the zine published by Queers Without Borders

2. Did anyone close to you die?

No one close to me, but alot of comrades though in the struggle did pass, including singers and musicians like Utah Phillips, Miriam Makeba, Odetta and writers Aime Cesaire, Mahmoud Darwoush, Studs Terkel

3. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

There is lots, but up at the top would have to be a withdrawal of troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan, universal health care for the U.S., a real effort to reconstruct the city of New Orleans, universal access to all levels of education, accountability for war criminals, including those responsible for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a real redistribution of wealth, not the fake crap that Obama spoke of, acceptable housing for everyone, a real plan to save the environment and cut emissions, real democracy, including the right to an informed vote, the right to a recall and the right to initiate legislation, immediate withdrawl by Canada and the U.S. from Free Trade Agreement (FTA), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), NORAD and NATO and democratization of the United Nations based on the principle that all nations, big or small, have an equal say.

4. What was the biggest achievement of the year?

There were lots of big victories this past year, but the ones that stick out in my mind the most are the successful occupation of Chicago's Republic Windows and Doors, the occupation of the New School by the SDS, the decisive defeat of the McCain-Palin ticket (though this is not to say the Obama victory was a true one) and the many successes we had this year we had resisting the coming 2010 Olympics in Canada.

5. Whose behavior merited celebration?

At the the forefront of my mind would have to be Muntadar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi journalist who took it upon himself to throw his shoes at Bush and show him that Iraq will never be grateful for having been invaded. I also think of Evo Morales, and his efforts in working to unite Bolivia and hold oligarchic criminals accountable after their attempt to topple him in a violent reactionary uprising.

6. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

The same old, same old here, but the failure of the anti-proposition 8 forces in California to build a truly united front against the reactionary measure left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I am also extremely disappointed in the leadership of the Canadian NDP's decision to join an attempted coalition with the Liberal Party.

7. Where did most of your money go?

Into the hands of various fact cats, not least of which were the bastards on Wall Street.

8. Compared to this time last year, are you richer or poorer?

Given the state of the global capitalist economy, and it associated plummeting wages, loss of retirement funds and emptying of my wallet to give cash to the fuckers that caused the problem, I would have to go with poorer.

9. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Organization and party building, forging new alliances, more to help the No 2010 efforts

10. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Sitting around and complaining rather than getting to action

11. What was the best book you read?

This year saw me become what I now describe myself as, which is a post-Maoist revolutionary democratic socialist, and I would have to say that reading On Practice and Contradiction by Mao (from Verso) helped in this. I also really enjoyed reading the works of Louis Althusser, especially For Marx and On Ideology (both from Verso) and taking another look back at the classic works of Lenin and Marx.

12. What did you want and get?

Gay marriage in California, before it got taken away by reactionary bigots, paid-out vacation days and severance for the workers at Republic Windows and Doors, the stay of execution for Troy Anthony Davis, the election of Fernando Lugo the office of President of Paraguay, the success of the PSUV in the Venezuelan elections, and the success of Evo Morales in the Bolivia. I also can't say that I am disappointed in anyway by the gaining of gay marriage in Nepal.

13. What did you want and not get?

The defeat of Prop. 8, the University of Waterloo not crawling into bed with the U.A.E., a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal and Troy Anthony Davis, the release of Ahmad Sa'adat and Jose Maria Sison, conviction for Sean Bell's murderers, the release of the Jena 6, the release of Leonard Peltier and the Cuba 5, the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles from the US.

14. What was your favourite film of this year?

I didn't see too many new films that made me think, though I am looking forward to eventually seeing films like Milk, Persepolis, Trouble The Water, and Under The Same Moon (La Misma Luna), otherwise I did pick up on DVD some films that really did take me back and/or make me think like Reds and Catch a Fire.

15. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Socialist revolution in either, but preferably both, the United States or Canada, an end to patriarchial oppression of women and LGBTQQ people and an end to racial/national oppression.

16. What kept you sane?

Work, solidarity and my friends and family, especially my partner.

17. Who did you miss?

This year I missed the presence of a lot of people. With the success of the Obama campaign wonder how it may have been if people like Malcolm, Fanon and Newton had been here. Also with the 90th anniversary of the launch of the German revolution I missed Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

18. Did you know anybody who got married?

I knew, in spirit, all of the 18,000 same-sex couples in California that got married before the reactionaries had their way.

19. Did you, or anyone you know, move anywhere?

Personally no, but many other people had to leave their homes because they could no longer pay rent or mortgage. Others were displaced by hurricanes and wildfires, symptoms of our rabid planet. Others still were displaced from their own nations by a strangled economy.

20. What pop culture event will you remember 2008 by?

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL sticks out in my mind.

21. Quote a song lyric that sums up 2008:

I can't find one nice little short bit of song lyrics, so I will leave off with one my favorate songs of '08, the Iron Wheel by Tom Morello, aka The Nightwatchman, ft. Shooter Jennings:

Sometimes they'll tell you to just sit still
When you know that it's time to run
Sometimes they'll tell you it's all over
When you’re sure that it’s just begun

The iron wheel slowly spins around
It takes you from the cradle
'Til you're six feet underground
You can push and pull against it
But you'll ride it 'til it's through
And those who spin the wheel
Well those fuckers ride it too

Sometimes they'll tell you to move along
When you're sure you should stand and fight
Sometimes they'll tell you you're a lucky man
But the numbers they don't add up right

The iron wheel slowly spins around
It takes you from the cradle
'Til you're six feet underground
You can push and pull against it
But you’ll ride it 'til it’s through
And those who spin the wheel
Well those fuckers ride it too

The good wife rides the wheel
As the years just slip away
T.V. preacher rides the wheel
As he leads the flock astray
Lady Justice rides the wheel
But her balance is unsure
Cause the truth it lies in pieces
Scattered on the newsroom floor

Sometimes they'll tell you to just let go
When you're sure you should hold on tight
Sometimes they'll tell you your time
Will never come
When you're sure that your time's come tonight

The iron wheel slowly spins around
It takes you from the cradle
'Til you're six feet underground
You can push and pull against it
But you'll ride it 'til it's through
And those who spin the wheel
Well those fuckers ride it too

Happy 2009, lets make this year the best year yet as we march forward towards a better world for all humanity!

The Cat Is Out of the Bag...I Guess

Well, this was something that I had been working on for about two weeks, but it seems I accidentally allowed people to become aware of it prematurely. So I may as well make the announcement now. This blog is in the process of being preped for a move Wordpress.

I have been working on this for about two or three weeks now (I had no clue how to use Wordpress so there was a steep learning curve), and had initially planned to launch it on January 1st, the anniversary of this me starting this blog, but due to the complication of not having descent internet access in Bermuda, this is being delayed. Anyway, it seems when I imported my old posts from here to the new blog, trackbacking on other sites posted links to the new one, letting the proverbial cat out of the back, which, on my end, was unintentional.

Anyway, I am moving to Wordpress because I feel that there is much more I can do with it, in terms of site organization, though on a purely aesthetic level, I cannot say that I like it more than blogger, as I find the ability to easily create custom headers, implant pictures on the site and other things like that much more easy to accomplish. Wordpress though will allow me to better develop my study guide to revolutionary Marxism, as well as a sort of Marxist FAQ I am working on.

If you want to check it out, the new URL will be bermudaradical.wordpress.com, but do not expect to find much there as I have not finished the site yet. I will make an announcement when it is ready to launch.

Until then this site will continue to have new postings.

Call to Action: Defend Palestine Against Israeli Aggression

As I am sure you know, as we now speak hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been the victims of a cold-blooded massacre, with many more wounded, as the Zionist colonial-settler state, otherwise known as Israel, has launched a massive and inhumane bombing campaign against the people of the strip. The rampage of air-attacks against the people of Palestine took place as thousands of children filled the streets as they made their way back to their homes from school. As the U.S. armed Zionists rained more than 100 bombs and missiles from American made F-16s and Apache gunships, terrified Palestinian parents were forced run through the streets in frantic searches for their children.

The AFP has reported that, "There was no space left in the morgue and bodies were piled up in the emergency room and in the corridors, as many of the wounded screamed in pain." The U.S.-backed zionist apartheid occupiers destroyed every singe security station in Gaza during the attack.

This is compounded by the continuing existence of the 18-month old U.S.-backed Israeli blockade and strangulation of the people of Gaza. Due to the continued Zionist prevention of goods entering the strip, there is little to no medicine that can be used to treat the wounded, there is little to no electricity for hospitals, or supplies of food or clean water for much of the population are running low at this moment.

However, this seems to only be the first step in a widening Israeli attack on the people of occupied Palestine, as an Israeli military spokesperson said, "The operation is ‘only just beginning’." Also, the Israeli Defense Ministry said in a statement: "The action will continue and will widen as much as is demanded according to the evaluation of the situation by the high command of the army."

We must act now to put an end to this!

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) has issued a call to action for December 30th (tomorrow) in response to the attacks by the zionist apartheid Israeli state that have so far killed over 270 people in Gaza.

The day of action in solidarity with Palestine and its people is being called by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, Free Palestine Alliance, National Council of Arab Americans, and Al-Awda: International Palestine Right to Return Coalition to show solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza and to demand an immediate end to the murderous attacks carried out by the Israeli military against the people of Gaza.

The events that will be taking place are listed below:

• Washington, D.C.
  Tuesday, December 30
  4:30 pm
  State Department: 22nd St & C St NW
  Contact: 202-544-3389 x14, dc@answercoalition.org
• San Francisco
  Tuesday, December 30
  5:00 pm
  Israeli Consulate:456 Montgomery St.
  Contact: 415-821-6545, answer@answersf.org
• Los Angeles
  Tuesday, December 30
  4:30 pm
  Israeli Consulate: 6380 Wilshire Blvd.
  Contact: 213-251-1025, answerla@answerla.org
  
• New York City
  Tuesday, December 30
  5:00 pm
  Israeli Consulate: 800 2nd Ave (b/w 42nd and 43rd Sts)
  Contact: 212-694-8720, nyc@answercoalition.org
  
• Fort Lauderdale, FL
  Tuesday, December 30
  5:00 pm
  Federal Building: 299 E. Broward Blvd.
  Contact: 954-707-0155, FtLauderdale@answerfl.org
• Chicago
  Details to be announced
  Contact: 773-463-0311, answer@chicagoanswer.net
• Boston
  Details to be announced
  Contact: 857-334-5084, boston@answercoalition.org
• Seattle
  Saturday, January 3
  12:00 noon - 2:00 pm
  Westlake Park: 4th and Pine
  Initiated by Voices of Palestine
  Contact: general@voicesofpalestine.org

A number of demonstrations have already taken place as of yesterday, Sunday December 28th in Toronto, New York and Anaheim.

You can also send a letter to the State Department and Congress demanding an end to U.S. aid to Israel, you can send a letter with just a click. Without U.S. aid, the Israeli military attacks, siege and blockade of Gaza could not be continued. Click this link now to send a letter to the State Department and elected officials in Congress. (provided by A.N.S.W.E.R.)

This is an urgent situation and we must all act now!

In Love and Rage
In Solidarity with the People of Palestine

Unión del Barrio on Israel and Gaza

San Diego, California- Occupied Mexico

Unión del Barrio, a Revolutionary Nationalist organization with more than 25 years of struggle for the Self-Determination andNational Liberation of the Mexican people, energetically denounce the cowardly attacks upon the Palestinian people in the Gazastrip carried out by the zionist apartheid Israeli state.

It is without question that the terrorist Israeli attacks by plane and helicopters upon this densely populated area in Gaza, were not meant exclusively and solely targeted at “military objectives,” as claimed by the Israeli government. Based on the information by international sources, and as far as we can tell, these cowardly attacks have produced more than 250 dead and more than 700 wounded. Among the dead are civilians, men, women, children and the elderly of that region.

We express our total and complete solidarity with the people and government of the Palestinian state and we make the call to the international community to unite with the protests that are expressing themselves in the West Bank and throughout the Arab countries.

The Mexican/Latin-American people, that live north of the militarily imposed political border (within the U.S. empire), unite and express our solidarity by joining the international protests that are taking shape in response against this attack by the zionist government of Israel. Only the voice of the international community can bring an end to these coldly calculated provocations and cowardly attacks on the martyred people of Palestine.

Central Committee
Unión del Barrio

PFLP Statement on the Massacre in Gaza

From the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Over 270 killed in Gaza and hundreds have been wounded in a series of massacres and crimes committed by the Zionist occupier against the Palestinian people in Gaza on December 27, 2008. The occupier shot dozens of missiles from Apache helicopters and F-16 planes at dozens of Gaza government buildings, directly in the middle of heavily populated residential neighborhoods and simultaneously with teachers and students returning to school.

Demonstrations have broken out throughout the West Bank and the Arab world in protest and outrage at the brutality and the nature of these massive crimes.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine issued a statement calling for the broadest resistance to meet and confront this aggression against the Palestinian people and to respond to these massacres, and for the unity of the resistance, and the unity of the Palestinian people, to greet the occupier with resistance, strength and steadfastness despite his brutal crimes. The statement stressed the urgent need for national unity immediately to confront the crimes against our people and to greet the occupier and its brutality with tremendous and unified resistance that is capable of shaking its foundations.

The PFLP statement further called upon all resistance forces to come together now and establish unified resistance front to coordinate and take up the challenge of these attacks against our people. It pointed to the responsibility of the United States for these attacks, as a strategic partner of the occupier, working hand in hand with its massacres and crimes against the Palestinian people, and as the source of the arms used by the occupier against our people. It also pointed to the complicity of the Arab regimes in these crimes, particularly the Egyptian regime, for its ongoing and active participation in the blockade and siege of the Palestinian people in Gaza and its meetings and discussions with the occupier about its plans for Gaza. These massacres are taking place because of Arab and international silence and active complicity.

The PFLP further called for the immediate end to any and all negotiations with this brutal occupier who plans massacres against our people and stated that if he will not end the negotiations immediately, Abu Mazen must resign now. The nature of the Zionist enemy and its dedication to the eradication of the Palestinian people is laid bare and clear by this series of attacks, calculated to cause maximum damage and human cost. For the past sixty years, there is an unbroken history of massacres and crimes against our people and this massacre today is yet one more expression of the nature of the illegitimate colonial state that has implanted itself on Palestinian land and continues to live on U.S. support through massacres and crimes against the Palestinian people.

The statement concluded by calling upon all of its fighters and military branches to take the strongest actions and to resist the occupation and its massacres by all methods and forms of action and resistance, and by calling for the broadest solidarity on Arab and international levels, for people to come into the streets, demonstrate, march, and take action to declare that these massacres and crimes are unacceptable, that the Arab people and the world are with Palestine and the Palestinian people, and that they will not allow these crimes to continue nor for the Arab regimes and international regimes to be silently complicity or actively involved in the occupation's crimes.

The Palestinian people will greet these massacres with steadfastness, strength, unity and resistance and all of the crimes, massacres, targeting of civilians, residential neighborhoods, and schoolchildren and teachers will do nothing to crush the resistance of our people, the statement said, it will only ensure Palestinian unity in the face of this brutality which makes clear the true face of the occupier to the world.

The God of Small Things

"He says naïvely, outspokenly and without suggestion of embarrassment 'I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God.' It is only another way of saying "I, the Lord thy God, am a small God; fretful about small things?" - Mark Twain

On the 21st of December, 2008, a Monday, the current Pope, Benedict XVI, formerly Joseph Alois Ratzinger, made a statement about the Church's duty to save the world. However, along with recognizing man's ecological duty to the planet, the Pope also made mention of another supposed threat to humanity and the Earth. He said in his statement that saving humanity from homosexual and transsexual behaviour was important, in fact, it is as important as protecting the environment.

This is not new for the office that is supposedly god's spokesman on Earth, but it is dangerous in that in doing so he is inviting a fresh wave of attacks on homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals and intersexed people. His words only act to throw more fuel on the fire. With his words of hate, which have no other purpose other than harm the LGBTQQ community, "his holiness" is giving tacit permission to all those right-wing reactionaries out there who are resisting all the hard work and education that has been done, and is still being done, to broaden humanity's self-definition.

God's vicar on Earth's exact words were:

“We need something like human ecology, meant in the right way. The Church speaks of human nature as 'man' or 'woman' and asks that this order is respected.

“This is not out-of-date metaphysics. It comes from the faith in the Creator and from listening to the language of creation, despising which would mean self-destruction for humans and therefore a destruction of the work itself of God.”

“What is often expressed and signified with the word 'gender' leads to the human auto-emancipation from creation and from the Creator. The human being wants to make himself on his own and to decide always and exclusively by himself about what concerns him.

“But, in so doing, the human being lives against the truth and against the Spirit creator. Rain forests deserve, yes, our protection but the human being - as a creature which contains a message that is not in contradiction with his freedom but is the condition of his freedom - does not deserve it less.”

For me, as a progressive and a revolutionary, I recognize that the words of this man, this supposed representative of the most high god, are in the very least irresponsible, unacceptable and hurtful to the LGBTQQ community. At the most, it can lead to a further hardening of the hearts of his flock towards this most vulnerable of minorities. I would also like to echo the call of some of my comrades that this man, who is not a god, and his fellow travellers and ring-leaders, must be reminded again, by any and all means necessary, that the people of the LGBTQQ community are not a threat to the planet and the human race, but that his religiously based homo and trans phobia is a threat to their lives.

Related to this, the Holy See, the Vatican, has also refused to take part in a United Nations appeal for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality that was launched on December 18th by some 66 countries. It is a fact that in more than 80 countries there are laws that restrict, and many cases outright prohibit, homosexuality and homosexual acts. Of these 80 countries, nine of them have laws on the books which allow for homosexuality to be punished by the death penalty. It the fear of the religious, reactionary bigots in the Vatican that if such a proposed resolution were passed in the UN (as if UN resolutions hold any weight) that it would encourage the legalization of same-sex marriage around the world.

We must show this old dog and his ilk that we will not stand for this sort of religiously based crap any more. For too long has reactionary religion held humanity back, and it time we moved forward. This is a call for both secular progressives and revolutionaries, as well as religious ones, to stand up and oppose hateful and reactionary rhetoric by this supposed man of god. If you, like me, would like to give add your voice to the chorus that is already speaking out against the Pope, you may do so by sending him a letter at this address.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
00120 Vatican City, Italy, Europe (thanks to Richard at Queers Without Borders for the address)