Barbra Streisand on Gun Control, #MeToo and #TimesUp Movements

Federal Budget 2018: What’s in it, and what’s not (but should be!)

Feb 27, 2018

Pay Equity

CUPE is pleased to see Budget 2018 announce forthcoming pay equity legislation which will apply to federally-regulated workers and federal contractors. CUPE has urged the federal government to introduce proactive federal pay equity legislation consistent with the recommendations of the 2004 Pay Equity Task Force.

Parental leave

CUPE is encouraged to see Budget 2018 announce the introduction of dedicated “use it or lose it” parental leave for a second parent for a maximum of five weeks. This will help promote greater gender equality in parenting and employment. However, we have concerns that the plan won’t be available to low income parents, or workers in precarious jobs, who either don’t qualify for EI or can’t afford to live off the low benefit level. We hope the government will expand eligibility and improve the benefit when they implement this new leave. CUPE has urged the government to provide 12 weeks as a number of other countries do and ensure that single parents are provided with similar benefits.

Gender Equality

Budget 2018 is billed as a gender equality budget which also includes a “gender budget plus” analysis. The strong emphasis and actions on gender equality are certainly welcomed. However, to really make a difference, these measures need to be combined with other actions that will improve working and living standards for the vast majority of Canadian women, like a national affordable childcare plan, additional funding for social services, and introduction of a $15 per hour national minimum wage.

Childcare

For a so-called gender equality budget, CUPE is disappointed to see virtually no new supports for child care. CUPE and child care advocates have called on the federal government to increase funding for childcare by $1 billion annually until the benchmark of 1% of GDP is met and to ensure that all funding goes to public/non-profit services.

Violence against Women

CUPE supports the Blueprint for National Action Plan on Violence against Women. Unfortunately, at just $86 million over five years, Budget 2018 provides far less than advocates had hoped for to effectively resource a national action plan to address violence against women. CUPE has also called for further improvements to the federal Labour Code, including ten days of paid leave for survivors of family violence.

Pharmacare

Budget 2018 announces the creation of an advisory council, chaired by former Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins, to consult and provide the government with options on how to proceed with a national pharmacare program – but they have committed no financial resources in their five-year budget projections. For years, CUPE has been calling on the government to establish a universal pharmacare program to assist the millions of Canadians who don’t have prescription drug coverage, and too often have to choose between paying for rent and groceries or refilling their prescriptions. After studies by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the Standing Committee on Health, and a motion in Parliament to implement pharmacare which the Trudeau government voted against in October 2017, CUPE believes the time for more study on pharmacare is past. It’s time for the federal government to make a real political and financial commitment to making pharmacare a reality.

Canada Workers Benefit

Budget 2018 details how the government will replace the Working Income Tax Benefit (WITB) with the Canada Workers Benefit (CWB), and makes the credit more generous and more accessible. CUPE welcomes expansion of the benefit, as well as the more gradual phase-out, and the fact that enrollment will now be automatic. While the CWB has a role to play, bringing in a national minimum wage at $15 per hour would do more to help the working poor and at a lower cost to the government.

Indigenous peoples and communities

Budget 2018 commits $5 billion over five years to programs aiming to improve the lives of Indigenous peoples, including $1.4 billion over five years for First Nations child and family services to comply with the Canada Human Rights Tribunal decision. Additional funding for housing, tuberculosis treatment, and improving access to clean drinking water is welcome, but in all cases, falls below what CUPE had hoped to see in the budget, and what is truly needed to close the gap for Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Environment

CUPE supported the Alternative Federal Budget’s call for $1.4 billion over three years to expand protection of our lands to 17% and of our oceans to 10% by 2020. We are encouraged to see the government commit $1.3 billion to conservation initiatives in Budget 2018.

Pensions

Over the past year, CUPE has been calling on the government to further expand the CPP and the GIS and to withdraw Bill C-27 which allows for retroactive conversion to less secure target benefit plans. Unfortunately, Budget 2018 is silent on these matters. Even more disappointing, the Budget offers no concrete action or solution to protect Canadian workers’ retirement savings when their company goes bankrupt, as former Sears employees tragically experienced in 2017.

Tax fairness

Budget 2018 once again fails to fairly tax foreign digital companies such as Google and Facebook and maintains a tax bias that hurts Canadian businesses and kills jobs in all sectors, particularly in media and broadcasting. The Liberals have also failed to live up to their promise to eliminate regressive and ineffective tax loopholes that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest. Eliminating these would not only provide the federal government with many billions more in annual revenue; they would also substantially increase provincial government revenues as well.

Media and culture

Canada’s media and cultural industries are being severely damaged by the tax loopholes that benefit foreign digital companies and platforms at the expense of Canadian producers and workers and that cost the federal government at least $1 billion in revenues. CUPE has called for the government to require digital giants like Uber, Google and Facebook to collect and remit sales tax like any other business, but Budget 2018 is silent on the matter. Instead, the Budget marks $172 million over five years to support the Canadian Media Fund. In effect, this new funding is a public subsidy to digital companies that the government refuses to tax the way it taxes every other business and industry in Canada.

International Development Assistance

Budget 2018 modestly increases international development assistance by $2 billion over five years. The AFB and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation called for substantial increases to Canada’s international development assistance funding until it reaches 0.7% of gross national income.

Infrastructure

Budget 2018 contains no new infrastructure investment, and further delays and back-end loads federal funding for building and repairing Canada’s infrastructure.

Employment Insurance

CUPE is pleased to see the introduction of the EI Working While on Claim Benefit pilot project to extend benefits to claimants on maternity and sickness leave. The benefit will allow claimants to keep 50 cents for every dollar they earn, up to 90 per cent of their weekly insurable earnings.

Feb 272018

 

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

This year, women will celebrate International Women’s Day with a renewed sense of strength. In many places around the world women are taking stands against sexual harassment, and sexual violence. While in North America this is often connected with what is called the #metoo movement, it is also happening in countries as diverse as India, Ireland and  Japan. We know that sexual violence is still common – in particular women who are Indigenous, racialized, trans, homeless, or sex workers are disproportionately at risk. In war zones, rape is a weapon.

This January there was a second year of marches where those who are gender oppressed displayed resistance against patriarchal violence, inequality, exploitation and oppression perpetuated by capitalism across the globe. Many of the marches had demands that included support for economic equality, women’s right to freedom from violence, full reproductive rights and freedom, full equality rights for the LGBTQ community, racialized peoples, workers, immigrants, those with a disability, for civil rights and environmental justice, and against police brutality and racial profiling, demilitarizing law enforcement and ending mass incarceration.

This fightback is important, but often there is no lasting organizational structure to support it.

The gains of women and the working class, are directly related to the strength and unity of the organizations that fight for their rights.

The retreat and foot dragging of the Liberal government on such matters as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Inquiry; pay equity; improved sex work legislation; and a universal, accessible, affordable, quality public childcare system – stands in contrast with their quick stands in favour of Kinder Morgan and Keystone XL pipeline projects, support of the Site C dam, the theft of Indigenous lands and continued genocidal violence.

The government’s support for capitalist globalization and free trade deals such as NAFTA and the TPP extends Canada’s imperialist agenda, where corporations will gain further power and profits, but working people – women and their families – are denied food security, the ability to form or join a trade union, access to affordable housing, healthcare, education, prescription drugs and more. This government, like the Harper Tories, continues to ignore the longstanding demand to create a universal, accessible, affordable, quality, public childcare system.

Women in Canada are losing ground in terms of pay equity and pensions. The gender gap in Canada is now double the global average; racialized women make only 68 cents for every dollar made by non racialized men. The Liberal government has no plans to rectify this situation. Recent pension reforms roll-back gains women had achieved by excluding the years taken off on maternity and parental leaves in calculation of their final pensions. These are not “improvements”; this is austerity. Women are being forced to pay the price for the ongoing capitalist economic crisis and for continuing corporate tax cuts and giveaways. It’s no wonder that a recent study on the Global Gender Gap reached the damning conclusion that at the current rate, it will take 170 years for women to reach equality.

There has been a rise of racist, fascist, and extreme right-wing groups in Canada. Gendered Islamophobic violence occurs all too often in Canada. Muslim women are often verbally attacked and have been physically assaulted by having their hijabs ripped off or worse. As this violence escalates, the government sits idle while the media perpetuates the lie that Western military intervention in the Middle East is required to “save” Muslim women. The Liberals have capped refugee migration and sponsorship to Canada while making war on their North African and Middle Eastern homelands, and exploiting them for photo-ops. This is not feminism.

The truth is, PM Trudeau and the Liberal government cannot claim to be feminist while advocating and defending corporate power and super-profits. Policies and decisions that perpetuate violence against Indigenous women and territories, that deepen and expand gendered and racialized economic inequalities, that impose war and austerity at home and abroad, are all part of the capitalist agenda – an agenda that is incompatible with the demands of working-class women from all communities for peace, equality, democracy and economic and social security for themselves and their families.

Historically the labour movement in Canada has played a major role in building unity for women’s rights. However, women in leadership of the labour movement is on the decline, and those that are left to fight are weakened by the exit of Unifor. We must demand the return of inspired, progressive women into the leadership of the labour movement to unite our class in the fight against the main enemy – capitalism.

We need to continue to Rise Up! We need to organize! The Communist Party of Canada demands Full Gender Equality NOW:

• Restore funding for women’s equality programs.
• Close the wage gap – legislate full pay and employment equity.
• Guarantee accessible and publicly funded abortion and reproductive rights services in every province and territory.
• Create a universal, accessible, affordable, quality, public childcare system, with Canada-wide standards and union wages for childcare workers.
• Protect women’s right to EI maternity coverage; expand parental benefits to 52 weeks.
• End all forms of violence against women and provide adequate funding for crisis centres and transition houses. Repeal Bill C-36!
• Scrap NAFTA, TPP and other treaties for corporate rule.
• No to Islamophobia! End US, Canadian, and NATO intervention in the Middle East, zero tolerance for Islamophobic and gendered violence, and open Canada’s doors to immigrants and refugees. Repeal the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement. Repeal Bill C-51, stop Bill C-59 and other unconstitutional and undemocratic security state laws.
• Repeal the Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, which the Trudeau Liberals supported.
• No to austerity. No to war. People’s needs – not corporate greed!

*Note: Women in this statement includes All Women.

Women’s Commission & Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada

Historian finds hunger at the root of contemporary Indigenous health problems 

Ian Mosby blames the legacy of residential schools
CBC News Posted: Feb 26, 2018 1:35 PM CT Last Updated: Feb 27, 2018 11:23 AM CT






A 1945 investigation in parental complaints at the Gordon's Reserve school in Saskatchewan reported that one dinner that children were fed consisted of one slice of bologna, potatoes, bread and milk. (General Synod Archives/Anglican Church of Canada)

External Links

“Hunger was never absent”: How residential school diets shaped current patterns of diabetes among In

(Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.)



A historian is in Saskatoon this week with a message about hunger and the role it plays in shaping contemporary health struggles among the Indigenous population.

Ian Mosby is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Guelph. Mosby studies food, health and colonialism and is speaking tonight at Station 20 West tonight, and then again on Tuesday afternoon at the Gordon Oakes Red Bear Centre at the University of Saskatchewan.

Mosby recently co-authored an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal drawing connections between residential school diets and patterns of diabetes among Indigenous people.

Mosby spoke to CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning. Here is part of his interview with Jennifer Quesnel.

Q: How do we know what the diets at residential school were like?

A: Part of the way we know is from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which heard from thousands of survivors and so we have a pretty strong account … and hunger is a pretty constant theme in survivor accounts of their own experiences.


Truth and Reconciliation offers 94 'calls to action'


A history of residential schools in Canada

Q: What kind of food are we talking about?

A: Day in, day out being fed the same sort of rotten oatmeal mush in the morning, being fed a bun for lunch with a thin soup and very similar food for dinner.

The kind of hunger being described by residential school students was often somewhere between 1,000 and 1,400 calories per day, and so to give you a sense, a child's actual nutritional requirements are actually anywhere between 1,400 and 3,200 calories a day.


Aboriginal nutritional experiments had Ottawa's approval

Q: What do we now know about what that malnutrition did to Indigenous people?

A: The impact of hunger on developing children is really profound and we were really shocked by what we found.

Those levels of hunger that were experienced have a whole range of effects on children that really will define their health going forward, you know basically programming their physiology toward higher rates of obesity, higher rates of Type 2 diabetes and high incidents of things like heart disease and stroke.


Mosby argues that much of the research into high rates of diabetes among Indigenous people does not take into account the legacy of residential school. (Shutterstock / designer491)

Q: These are things that we've heard in past coverage, that perhaps there were genetic links, and you are saying no?

A: There was a tendency up until very recently in the diabetes literature to look for something … this idea that Indigenous people were more prone to diabetes because of some sort of genetic reason.


New era of genetic research must include more indigenous people, says Keolu Fox

The problem with all of that literature was that very little of it analyzed public policy and Canadian colonialism … and the fact that residential schools weren't examined as a possible link shows that there was a blind spot, and it's a blind spot that continues.

These are conditions that were programmed by previous experience that children had.

We see very little change, and so we need to see an acknowledgement that this isn't something that happened a long time ago — this is ongoing and Indigenous children are paying the price.

This interview has been edited for length, and is not an exact transcription of what listeners may have heard on CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning.

Corrections


A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Ian Mosby is a postdoctoral fellow at McMaster University. In fact, Mosby is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Guelph.
Feb 27, 2018 11:21 AM CT

Internationaler Frauentag 2018 3 Frauen - 3 Generationen im Gespräch über 100 Jahre Frauenbewegung

FRAUENTAGSVERANSTALTUNG Samstag 10. März 2018 14.00 Uhr Stuttgart Waldheim Gaisburg Obere Neue Halde 1

Im Jahre 2018 gibt es viele bedeutende Jahrestage, so z.B. 100 Jahre Novemberrevolution, 100 Jahre Frauenwahlrecht, 100 Jahre Gründung der KPD sowie 50 Jahre Gründung der DKP, 50 Jahre 68er-Bewegung und Entstehung der neuen Frauenbewegung.
Vor diesen historischen Hintergründen sind die 3 Frauen Clara, Heidi und Anna aus 3 Generationen im Gespräch über die Situation der Frauen in den jeweiligen Zeiten, die Entwicklung der Frauenbewegung mit ihren Hochs und Tiefs, ihren Erfolgen und Niederlagen, die Bedeutung und Wichtigkeit des Internationalen Frauentags und die Themen in diesen 100 Jahren. Was war die Motivation der Frauen, sich in der kommunistischen Partei zu engagieren? Und was sind die heutigen Aufgaben der Frauenbewegung und der Kommunisten?
Bewegte Zeiten liegen hinter uns, aber auch vor uns. Angesichts der Rechtsentwicklung und der Angriffe der Rechten und des Kapitals auf unsere Frauenrechte ist eine Stärkung der Frauenbewegung wie auch der kommunistischen Bewegung mehr als dringlich. Welche Schritte sind dafür notwendig?

Nehmen wir die Herausforderungen an und verbreiten wir Mut für einen neuen Aufbruch.

Getting nerdy about Marx: Celebrating his 200th birthday

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• by Anna Sirois February 27, 2018
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On Feb. 22, students and professors gathered to celebrate the 200th birthday of a widely known social, historical, political and economic revolutionary.

If you haven’t guessed it from the headline already, that revolutionary is Karl Marx.

It was a typical birthday party, filled with games, goodie bags, Play-Doh, colouring pages, the Young Communist League Fredericton and chocolate cake – everything a young sociologist, Marxist student could want.

The celebration was a typical birthday party with colouring and Play-Doh with a sprinkling of Marxism at every turn. (Caitlin Dutt/AQ)

Games included Pay Day and Jenga – or as Marx would call it, “dismantling capitalism.”

But why is his birthday so significant? And why should students celebrate Karl Marx?

Erin Fredericks, acting chair of the Sociology department at St. Thomas University, organized Marx’s birthday party along with other sociology professors.

“We are really trying hard to get students together for sociology,” Fredericks said. “Which is why we put on events like this one to encourage students to get excited and get involved.”

Marx was born in the year 1818, during the century which also brought the invention of the battery, the Louisiana purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition and the first use of the White House.

Although times have changed since the 1800s, Marx’s critical approaches still relate to today’s concepts around class inequalities, workers’ rights and other relevant issues.

Abram Lutes and Jacob Patterson are members of the Young Communist League Fredericton and they celebrated alongside students while also educating them. (Caitlin Dutt/AQ)

Marx’s work focused on the modes of production through class struggles and analyzed capitalist profit through labor value and the exploitation of the working class under the control of the bourgeoisie.

Marx challenged capitalism and predicted the tensions between classes would breakdown or dismantle capitalism and the rise of class consciousness, or the birth of a new-middle class, could be replaced by a new system: communism.

He published The Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital and other important works alongside Friedrich Engels, who later became a source of inspiration and an architect of the social sciences.

So there is no surprise Marxism is mentioned in various courses at STU.

Not only is it referenced in many studies but a lot of his work is relevant in current events.

“Inequality still exists, so Marx draws attention to globalization and how people have so much and some have so little,” said Jacob Patterson, a STU student who is part of the Young Communist League Fredericton.

Students got a chance to hang out and play games, including Jenga which Marx would have referred to as “dismantling capitalism.” (Caitlin Dutt/AQ)

By studying and using historical materialism, anyone can understand the public issues in today’s society from a Marxist point of view – not just university students.

“Issues of inequality affect all of us,” Fredericks said. “And you don’t have to be a sociology major to appreciate Marx.”

Sociology is a tough discipline because understanding Marx’s concepts can be challenging, according to Kristi Allain, a sociology professor at STU. But both Fredericks and Allain believe holding events about sociology can be beneficial for developing critical thinkers.

“You don’t necessarily think that something disciplined like sociology or Marxism can be fun and silly, so we try to make these kind of events very silly,” Allain said.

Indeed, the event was filled with witty references to Marx squeezed into each activity and the party favors, including Marx-inspired buttons.

According to Allain, students were excited to learn more while celebrating.

“It shows how enthusiastic students can get and it allows them to get nerdy about Marx.”

Tags:

• birthday
• communism
• karl marx
• sociology
• the communist manifesto

European elections 2019

Communism is a new idea in Europe! For a call from all the communist parties in Europe

Sunday 25 February 2018, by  pam , popularity : 41%

[English] [français]

Vie politique |

pdf |

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The next extraordinary congress of the French Communists will of course deal with questions of internationalism, struggles against imperialism and war, solidarity of workers against capitalist globalization, the right of peoples to self-determination and their sovereignty, solidarity with migrants first of all against the causes of immigration and the mafia networks that exploit them, in defense of their right to dignity, for a policy of welcome which is part of real cooperation with the countries of emigration.

In this context, the preparation of the next European elections is a practical exercise that concretises and illustrates the diversity of views and issues of international issues.

The reconstruction of a great communist party in France is intimately linked to the reconstruction of a communist point of view on the world, and therefore of the reconstruction of the international communist movement. Contacts, meetings at the level of organizations as well as the militant level are multiplying, as shown by the hundreds of communists of all European countries, the thousands coming from all over the planet, for the 100th anniversary of the revolution. October.

In Europe, Communists are divided. Those who are most involved in the GUE as the PCF defend the project of a social Europe that would be the answer to current capitalist Europe. Others defend the left exit of the European Union as a structure of capitalist globalization. Others, like the KKE, insist on popular power and class struggle in Europe, defending the construction of socialism in Greece as a response to the European dictatorship.

But all can find themselves in the social struggles against European multinationals, be they English, French, German, or others ... by organizing the international solidarity of the workers, and all need to rebuild the legitimacy of a political perspective of changing society.

The European elections will be organized by the dominant left and right political forces around the false cleavages masking the responsibilities of the leaders. In France, Macron will present himself as the representative of modernity against archaisms, democracy against authoritarianism. The enemies are all designated, the rights distort sovereignists, extreme right. Their goal is to prevent any public debate about what could be another society freeing itself from the domination of economic oligarchies.

We believe that Communists from all over Europe, despite their divisions, can make a common appeal to all peoples, to assert that modernity is in excess of capitalism, that communism is a new idea in Europe.

It would open useful debates on what another society might be, a form of socialism adapted to each country, on the necessary conditions of respect for the political sovereignty of peoples.

This call could favor national lists widely open to activists from various European countries, and countries from European partnerships (Mediterranean, Eastern Europe ...)

Without masking the existing differences, it could help all the peoples of Europe to become aware of the possibility of internationalism apart from the false opposition between submission to the dictates of the European Union and the violence of extreme nationalisms. right.

Documents associated with this article

• le-communisme-est-une-idee-neuve-en-europe_a3801.pdf

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Inuk singer Susan Aglukark outs her childhood abuser
National News | February 23, 2018 by Kathleen Martens Attributed to: kmartens | 53 Comments

Kathleen Martens
APTN News
Singer Susan Aglukark said TimesUp Thursday and called out the family friend who sexually abused her as a little girl.

“His name is Norman Ford,” she said between sobs as she testified in a hotel banquet room in her hometown of Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.

“Norman Ford you didn’t win. Now the community knows what you did.”

Word had spread throughout the remote community on the shore of Hudson Bay about what the Inuk singer was planning to do on the final day of hearings of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

More from day 3 of the National Inquiry into MMIWG public hearings in Rankin Inlet

Every chair was taken as she recounted the details leading up to the abuse that she said occurred when she was eight years old.

At times, her famous voice was not more than a whisper as she revealed “she still lived with fear” despite being “a grown woman.”

“But still, when I come back home to Rankin, I’ll be at the store and I’ll be cautious,” said Aglukark, 51. “Take a quick look down the aisle in case he’s there.”

Aglugark said she was triggered earlier this week upon learning Ford faced more criminal charges. And that made up her mind to reveal his name.

“After 25 years here in this community – how many more victims,” she cried breaking down again.

Aglukark stopped to collect herself before continuing: “Why are acts of violence against children OK?”

She said she knew of at least four other predators in the community of about 2,800.

Aglukark, along with hockey player Jordin Tootoo, is one of the most famous people to come from the Arctic territory. She first broke her silence nearly 20 years ago but didn’t name the convicted pedophile until now. She said his name is not on the national child abuse list because it didn’t exist in 1990.

Her disclosure provided a dramatic finish to this week’s hearings that focused on “rampant” child sexual abuse and domestic violence.

While poised and confident in the limelight, Aglukark said she is riddled with anxiety and migraines in private.

“I hate entertaining,” she said. “I will sing for you; I will not entertain you. I liken it to him posing me to take his pictures.”

Aglukark said Ford took three photos with a Polaroid camera after forcing himself on her, making her hate to have her picture taken.

She said she travels with a big safety pin to fasten the curtains together in every hotel room.

“I still close every closet door before I go to bed in case he can see me.”

The abuse stole her innocence, she said, and that’s why she wants to protect other children. Aglukark has a foundation that raises awareness about suicide prevention, which has reached epidemic levels in Nunavut.

Other witnesses this week blamed that epidemic on child sexual abuse they say was caused by colonization through residential schools and religion imposed on the Inuit.

“Many abusers themselves are victims,” Aglukark said. “There’s rampant incest through many generations.”

Aglukark’s testimony moved Commissioner Qajaq Robinson to tears.

“This isn’t about choosing sides,” she said, “it’s about making our communities safe for everybody.”

Aglukark said Ford served a third of an 18-month sentence while she suffered for life. She called for recognition that pedophiles won’t change and more programs to help survivors heal.

A request to the RCMP to confirm Ford’s charges was not returned before this story was published.

Tags: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, MMIWG, Nunavut, Qajaq Robinson, Rankin Inlet, Susan Aglukark




Kathleen Martens

SDAJ-Allemagne

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag Hans-Heinz Holz!

Der marxistische Philosoph Hans-Heinz Holz wäre heute 91 Jahre alt geworden. Holz war einer der wichtigsten Theoretiker der deutschen kommunistischen Bewegung nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg. Nach der Niederlage von DDR und Sowjetunion resignierte er nicht, sondern entwickelte unermüdlich Perspektiven für den kommunistischen Aufbau in nicht-revolutionären Zeiten.

Lektüreempfehlungen:
Holz‘ Buch „Kommunisten heute“ ist ein wegweisendes Werk, das in verständlicher Sprache die Grundzüge einer kommunistischen Partei und ihrer Praxis nach der Niederlage des Realsozialismus beschreibt. Wir stellen es auf Nachfrage gern zur Verfügung.

Für Fortgeschrittene: Wer schon immer mal wissen wollte, wo die an deutschen Universitäten vorherrschende Verleugnung einer objektiven Realität ihre Wurzeln hat und was aus marxistischer Perspektive sonst noch so zur #Postmoderne zu sagen ist, dem empfehlen wir Holz‘ Schrift „Irrationalismus – Moderne – Postmoderne“ (In: Hermann Kopp & Werner Seppmann: „Gescheiterte Moderne? Zur Ideologiekritik des Postmodernismus“).

Voir la traduction

Sex Slavery, ISIS & Illegal Arms Trade: Libya Plunged Into Failed State After US invasion


Six years after the U.S. helped “moderate rebels” overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has gone from enjoying the highest standard of living in Africa to a failed state. Sex slavery is rampant, the illegal arms trade has proliferated and ISIS maintains a strong presence.
by Whitney Webb

May 04th, 2017



A rebel sniper from Misrata fires towards ISIS militant positions in Sirte, Libya, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016.

Today’s Libya is virtually unrecognizable from the Libya of years past. Following the violent ouster of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, things have taken a turn for the worse as the north African nation declines further into failure.

One example of Libya’s steep decline has been the proliferation of the illegal arms trade. In 2014, the United Nations named Libya as the primary source of illegal weapons for 14 different countries, fueling a series of international conflicts. More recently, a new report released by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey has also labeled Libya as an international hotspot for illicit weapon sales, examining thousands of attempted trades.

The Gaddafi regime, prior to losing power, had tightly regulated the domestic arms trade and prevented the illegal sale of weapons. But now, Libya is unable to secure its borders. The weapons market has surged in the years since the 2011 invasion that resulted in Gaddafi’s ouster, as the Libyan government’s weapon stores were looted and quickly fell into the hands of terrorists.
In addition to appearing on online arms markets, weapons from the Gaddafi regime’s arsenal have been found throughout North Africa and the Middle East, particularly in the hands of Daesh (ISIS) militants who are active in Syria and Iraq. Many of these weapons were purchased by the U.S. government and deliberately given to “moderate rebels” in Syria, which – at the time – included the al-Nusra Front, a branch of al-Qaeda that operates in Syria.


Libyan soldiers try to fix a weapon that jammed during clashes with militants on the frontline in Al Ajaylat, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Tripoli, Libya.

In addition, Libya’s geographical location has led to the growth of another illicit industry – sex slavery. With many West African migrants traveling through Libya as they seek passage to Europe, sex slavery has become so commonplace that live slave auctions now occur in plain view of the public, according to a recent statement from the International Organization for Migration. Those not sold into slavery are sometimes thrown in private prisons, where they are held until their families make a ransom payment. Those whose families are unable to pay are taken away and killed, while others have reportedly wasted away from a lack of food and other basic necessities.

Libya still lacks a federal government, which has led to the rise of several warring factions, many of them based on tribal affiliations. Some of the more powerful factions include infamous terrorist groups like Daesh, who, according to U.S. intelligence agencies cited by the New York Times, maintain a presence of some 5,000 fighters in the troubled nation.

Worse still, while U.S. bombings and some armed Libyan factions have reduced Daesh’s power, they have also torn apart the country’s social fabric and set the stage for all-out civil war. In addition, the Italian government recently asserted that Daesh militants are leaving Libya for Europe, posing as wounded Libyan government soldiers.

Libya has also been crippled by constant power blackouts and surging prices for food and other necessities, as well as months of lost salaries for many people who have been put out of work. The situation has deteriorated so much that numerous civilians, many of whom once detested Gaddafi and even fought against his regime in 2011, are lamenting the loss of the nation’s longtime ruler. Tebu Mohammed, a Libyan citizen living in Tripoli, expressed the views of many Libyans when he told the Daily Mail that “Libya died with Gaddafi. We are not a nation anymore.”


Gaddafi’s Libya: prosperous and independent


US President Barack Obama, right,and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi pictured during the G8/G5 summit in L’Aquila, Italy Thursday July 9, 2009. (AP/ Michael Gottschalk/Pool)

The current situation in Libya stands in sharp contrast to what things were like under Gaddafi’s rule. Despite his 42-year-long despotic rule, along with his reputation as a “crazy leader,” Libya was once Africa’s most economically successful nation and enjoyed the continent’s highest standard of living, thanks to handsome oil reserves that helped to fill the state’s coffers.

Gaddafi used state money to offer a variety of popular services including free electricity, interest-free loans, grants to newlyweds, legal rights to housing, maternity bonuses for new mothers, free education, 50-percent subsidies on new car purchases and free healthcare. The country’s literacy rate also rose from 25 to 87 percent during his time as its leader. In addition, Gaddafi nationalized Libya’s central bank and kept Libya free of external debt.\

However, Gaddafi committed a cardinal sin in the lead-up to his assassination – not against the Libyan people, but against the hegemony of the U.S. dollar. In the early 2000s, Gaddafi had saved up a large amount of gold and planned to introduce a gold-backed pan-African currency based on the Libyan dinar in order to restore economic strength to a continent besieged by neocolonialism. He had planned to start selling Libyan oil using the dinar before the 2011 invasion, a move that would have challenged the petrodollar system – an agreement negotiated in the 1970s where OPEC nations sell their oil in dollars in order to create artificial demand for the currency.

Recently declassified emails from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton provided concrete proof that the dinar was a major determining factor in the invasion of Libya. Considering this, it should come as no surprise that the Libyan oil industry, as well as the country’s central bank, were privatized following Gaddafi’s death.

Libya is not the only nation to have been decimated by the U.S. for undermining the dollar’s hegemony. In 2000, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein rejected the petrodollar system and began selling Iraq’s oil in euros. Despite economic sanctions from the U.S. and its allies, Iraq had made millions of dollars as a result of the switch at the time of the 2003 U.S. invasion.

The U.S. made an example of Iraq to show what happens when a country subverts the U.S.’ economic hegemony, doing the same to Libya just 8 years later. With terrorism, slavery and a proliferating illegal arms trade, Libya’s current condition is showing the world what the consequences can be when the U.S.’ superpower status is challenged.