Military Resistance:
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7.2.11
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Military Resistance 9G2
Wife Of Slain Area Soldier Mourns
Loss:
“Rios Said That In Light Of President
Obama’s Announcement Of Troop
Withdrawals, She’s Resentful”
“I Didn’t Want Him Over There At All”
Pfc. Gustavo A. Rios-Ordonez
June 23, 2011 By Steve Bennish, Staff Writer; Dayton Daily News
EATON — Tiffani Rios, the wife of a soldier killed in Afghanistan, told a news crew that
he fought to make his two young daughters proud and to achieve U.S. citizenship.
“He is really an amazing person. He’s nice to everyone, and he didn’t have any problems
with anyone,” said Rios, 22, wife of Army Pfc. Gustavo A. Rios-Ordonez. “He loved
soccer and his girls most of all.”
On Monday, the 25-year-old former Englewood resident who was born in Colombia was
killed by an improvised explosive device that detonated while he was on foot patrol in
southern Afghanistan in Kandahar province.
Rios-Ordonez leaves behind his wife and daughters ages 2 years old and 7 months.
Tiffani Rios spoke to a news crew from the Ohio News Network from the lawn of a house
where she is staying in Eaton. “He really just wanted to join the Army for his little girls, to
make them proud of what he was doing. They have no clue what is going on.”
Rios said that in light of President Obama’s announcement of troop withdrawals, she’s
resentful.
“It makes me mad. I wish they would have done it sooner. I didn’t want him over there
at all. I’m just thinking of my daughters. That is the only reason I am staying sane now.”
She added that it was her husband’s first overseas deployment and that he signed up to
serve in the Army in April.
Rios-Ordonez moved to the U.S. in his early 20s. Rios and her husband’s parents were
in Dover, Del., on Tuesday to watch the arrival of Rios-Ordonez’s body. Funeral
arrangements have not been announced.
ACTION REPORTS
Iraq Veterans Against The War
Outreach To The Troops At Fort
Hood:
One Month In - June 26, 2011:
“At First It Is Like Harsh Rains But Like
Desert Brush They Want More”
We five walk through heat blinding days talking, breaking the silence, introducing
ourselves to strangers, to service members and at first it is like harsh rains but
like desert brush they want more.
2011-06-26 By Aaron Hughes, Iraq Veterans Against The Way: Posted at www.ivaw.org/
We are sitting on the porch at 11PM and a thunderstorm has just broken through the
desert’s heat. “It’s a little crazy what we are doing here ..." Sergio reflects and then
breaks into his loud boisterous laugh that is drowned out by the sounds of the first
beating raindrops in over a month.
It is crazy ... It’s crazy how desert thunderstorms can seem so harsh, even brutal, when
they are also necessary for survival. The earth is so dry that the water beads and is
repelled at first. The yellow wilting and depressed brush takes the rain like a harsh
beating of truth. These plants and this place is waiting for death even as life beats down
all around it.
It’s crazy that for now, there are just five of use here. These five are like these desert
rainstorms:
-
Sergio is like the thunder load and powerful.
-
Scott is like the rustling trees shacking up the past and bring it into the future.
-
Malachi is like the winds howling with energy.
-
Kyle is like the clouds blowing and turning moving this direction and that.
-
My self I feel like the uneasiness of the low flying birds that know what is coming.
We five walk through heat blinding days talking, breaking the silence, introducing
ourselves to strangers, to service members and at first it is like harsh rains but like
desert brush they want more.
Want more of this power that is their voice. Want to hear their voices louder and clearer
even when it starts to shake like the trees in the rain.
We visit these brothers and sisters at their homes and listen:
Listen to the MP Sergeant talk about her soldier that is only 21 years old and
after one deployment just can’t function any longer. He needs help and treatment
and their commander makes his every attempt to get help harder opposed to
easier.
Listen to the Medic Sergeant talk about the number of suicides and attempted
suicides that no one is talking about.
Listen to the soldier on extra duty talk about being shot on of his third
deployment, needing to take pain relievers, running out of pills, taking his
partners pills to get through the day and then getting courtmartialed for taking the
wrong medication.
Listen to the soldiers talk about their NCO’s that are shaken and struggling
with anxiety and memories but are gearing up to deploy.
Listen to the army bugler talk about the number of funerals he perform Taps
at every week.
It’s crazy to really just listen ... listen everyday to the isolation while trying to connect
dots and bring people together.
It’s crazy to try and build community here where military culture has sucked the
surrounding culture dry. Its crazy that we are trying to penetrate this place just as the
rains penetrate the dry earth.
Its crazy because we all know what is just below the surface .... Howard Zinn said it best
in A People’s History of the United States, The memory of oppressed people is one thing
that can not be taken away, and for such people, with such memories revolt is always an
inch below the surface.
It’s as crazy as desert rain and the changing tides of history.
The past month has been focused on outreach.
Every week day we are doing outreach from 11 - 2PM and follow-ups and house visits
from 5 - 8PM.
The rest of the time we are cleaning the coffee shop, planning our outreach and follow
ups, keeping up with our national responsibilities, and just making sure we are
maintaining.
We have connected with approximately 200 service members and done
approximately 20 house visits. Each day it gets harder but we get smarter and
better at connecting with the service members.
It’s a little crazy to dive into the desert rains embracing the water as it soaks
through your clothes and through your skin all the way to your heart, where love
sits just below the surface.
But love and life are a little crazy.
DO YOU HAVE A FRIEND OR RELATIVE IN THE
MILITARY?
Forward Military Resistance along, or send us the address if you wish and
we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or stuck on a base in
the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off
from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the wars, inside
the armed services and at home. Send email requests to address up top or
write to: The Military Resistance, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y.
10025-5657. Phone: 888.711.2550
IRAQ WAR REPORTS
What A Surprise!
Washington’s Close Kurdish Allies
Preside Over A Murderous Tyranny:
“We Have Suffered For Years Corruption
And Lack Of Rule Of Law, But When It
Comes To The Blood Of Our Youth, It Is
Unbearable”
Jul 1 By Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor [Excerpts]
Sulaymaniyah, Iraq – Tucked away in an often-overlooked arc of northern Iraq, Kurds
launched their “Kurdish Spring” simply enough in mid-February, in solidarity with
Tunisians and Egyptians who had toppled dictatorial rulers.
But the result here was very different, and hardly looked like an unfolding of freedom.
Washington’s close Kurdish allies cracked down hard. After 62 days of street protests,
10 people were dead. The carefully crafted image of Kurdistan as a democratic island in
an ocean of regional dictatorship was in tatters.
All that visibly remains of the uprising are a few faded posters of its first victim – a 16year-old – and scorch marks where security forces burned the tents of protesters. But it
has deepened the political crisis in this semiautonomous region of northern Iraq.
Beneath the veneer of restored calm, activists say, is a surging mistrust of Iraqi Kurdish
leadership. That could complicate the enclave’s relations with the rest of Iraq, especially
regarding control of the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
It could also undermine aspirations among disenfranchised ethnic Kurds outside
Iraq – in Syria, Turkey, and Iran – who have long viewed the limited self-rule
exercised by their Iraqi brethren as an example of what they could achieve.
“What humiliated us was the killing of Kurdish citizens by the militia of Kurdish political
parties,” says Nasik Kadir, a health ministry worker and political sociologist who vows to
fight what she calls “abuse of power.”
“We have suffered for years corruption and lack of rule of law, but when it comes to the
blood of our youth, it is unbearable,” says Ms. Kadir, who says she witnessed casualties
firsthand in the hospital.
“These authorities have lost legitimacy.... For many people (Kurdish leaders) have
betrayed our national cause.”
Few here expect real reform from a feudal and tribal system that has enabled two
parties, mired in corruption allegations, to dominate Iraqi Kurdish life for decades.
The Kurdish spring demonstrations, which only attracted 5,000 or 6,000 on the streets of
Sulaymaniyah, were dismissed by some Kurdish leaders as the work of “saboteurs” and
“anarchists” working for “outside interests.”
The gap between the democratic rhetoric and the party-first reality has widened under
the long-serving lions of Kurdish politics: the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), whose
leader Massoud Barzani is president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG); and
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), who leader Jalal Talabani is now president of
Iraq.
“The PUK and KDP until recent years had a very romantic relationship with the people;
they were the tools of the people against Saddam Hussein and people loved that,” says
one Kurdish analyst who could not be named for fear of reprisals.
“But that image has been shattered – it doesn’t exist anymore.”
There are indeed some progressive laws on the books, and in fact internal divisions in
both parties over the use of force and content of reform. But recent steps point to an
authoritarian tendency especially in KDP areas, where yet more Barzani family have
recently been given top posts. PUK influence has declined since the breakaway Goran
(Change) movement took up the opposition role.
“There are a few trappings of democracy, around the same faces. The faces that I know
are the same ones that my father knew, and that my kids will probably know,” says the
analyst.
“One thing they (KDP and PUK) know very well is how to survive, which can’t be until the
end of time. Protests have been fruitful because they made clear to leaders that a good
part of society does not want them.”
The violence has certainly prompted some soul-searching, and promises of change.
KRG Prime Minister Barham Salih, a PUK leader with a progressive reputation, says
failure to act on demands “will take the Kurdistan experiment into a dark tunnel.”
The need for such contrition after so many years of Kurdish self-rule is for some a
betrayal of decades of suffering and sacrifice.
Episodes include Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign that culminated in 1988 with as
many as 100,000 dead, and his forces’ crushing of a 1991 Kurdish uprising that pushed
1 million Kurds into Turkey and Iran.
On their lips as they marched across the mountains back then, this reporter heard Kurds
praying for an end to tyrannical rule and for freedom. After that, the UN created a safe
haven in northern Iraq, marred by a KDP-PUK civil war that took thousands of Kurdish
lives in the 1990s.
Kurdistan has since witnessed an economic boom.
But that wealth has only touched a few – stoking more anger – as past events are used
to excuse the lack of political progress.
But the freedom envisioned by Kurds and trumpeted by the US is proving elusive.
One of Hardi’s newspaper staffers left jail recently with broken wrists. Last year,
freelance journalist Sardasht Osman received death threats immediately after writing a
critical article about Barzani.
He was kidnapped in the KDP stronghold of Erbil and later killed.
In April toward the end of the protests, according to numerous sources, buses carrying
several hundred students and instructors riding to a courthouse protest were diverted by
Kurdish security, forced to a remote location, off-loaded and the would-be protesters
were beaten. Hardi’s brother Rebin – a prominent Kurdish writer – showed up
separately to attend the same courthouse protest, was immediately arrested and
severely beaten with electric cables throughout the drive to a local prison.
Photographs show bruises on his head and arm, his thigh bloody and disfigured. Rebin
Hardi said it reminded him of the beating he got from Saddam-era Baathists in 1982.
The message was clear: “They are willing to do anything to stay in power,” says Rebin
Hardi.
“The first thing is we should no lose hope. But if things continue like this, we will end up
like Libya.”
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Foreign Occupation “Servicemember”
Killed Somewhere Or Other In
Afghanistan:
Nationality Not Announced
July 2, 2011 AP
A foreign servicemember died following an improvised explosive device attack in
southern Afghanistan yesterday.
Another Foreign Occupation
“Servicemember” Killed Somewhere Or
Other In Afghanistan:
Nationality Not Announced
July 2, 2011 AP
A foreign servicemember died following an improvised explosive device attack in
western Afghanistan today.
Fort Polk Combat Medic Dies From
Afghan Wounds
Jul 1, 2011 The Associated Press
CONCORD, N.H. — A soldier from New Hampshire has died of injuries suffered when
insurgents attacked his unit in Afghanistan.
Twenty-one-year-old Nicholas Bernier of East Kingston was a combat medic with the
10th Mountain Division stationed in Fort Polk, La. His death was announced Thursday
by the division, based at Fort Drum, N.Y.
Insurgents using small arms fire attacked his unit in the Kharwar district of Afghanistan
on June 22. Bernier died June 25 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
Bernier joined the Army in March 2008. He arrived at Fort Polk in April 2010 and
deployed with his unit in October.
His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the Army
Achievement medal, and others.
He is survived by his parents, brothers and a sister.
Toms River Soldier Killed In Afghanistan,
Cared About School Kids Back Home
U.S. Army Cpl. James W. Harvey, known as “Jimmy” to his family and friends, died
Monday of wounds he suffered when his unit was attacked with small-arms fire in
Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. The Star-Ledger
June 22, 2011, By Peggy Ackermann, Statehouse Bureau, The Star-Ledger
TOMS RIVER — Army Cpl. James W. Harvey II wanted to make sure a group of
seventh-graders knew how much their letters meant to the troops serving in his unit a
world away in Afghanistan.
So he told them himself while he was home on leave last month.
“He hand-delivered replies to the kids,” Harvey’s sister, Robin Raffaele, recalled today of
her brother’s visit to her English students at Burnet Middle School in Union Township.
“They were clapping for him and saying ‘thank you.’ “
It was just the sort of gesture family and friends said they could expect from the 23-yearold Clark native and Toms River resident, whom they described as determined and a
natural at anything he set out to do.
“He was the last one I ever thought I’d have to worry about,” said Colt Hager of Clark,
Harvey’s best friend since they met in the fifth-grade. “He was so good at everything he
did.”
Hager said his friend, who he rode bikes with everywhere as they looked for “places to
jump,” also played lacrosse at Clark’s Arthur L. Johnson High School.
“He was definitely hands-on,” said Charlie Mezaros, a family friend and neighbor from
Clark. “It was all about the thrill.”
Harvey, known as “Jimmy” to his family and friends, died Monday of wounds he suffered
when his unit was attacked with small-arms fire in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, his
family and the Department of Defense said today. Harvey was assigned to the 2nd
Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division in Fort
Knox, Ky.
Harvey is at least the 33rd service member with ties to New Jersey to die in
Afghanistan since the war began in 2001. At least 100 others with New Jersey ties
have died in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003.
As family and friends gathered today at the family home in Ocean County, James S.
Harvey said his son was becoming more accomplished as a soldier. He said he’s been
told his son will be awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
“When he figured out what he wanted, there was no stopping him from that goal,” the
father said.
But when Harvey enlisted in January 2009 and said his goal was education, his father
challenged him. That brought Harvey to his real reason.
“It’s just something I have to do,” recalled the elder Harvey, who himself had enlisted
during the Vietnam War. “That I understood.”
Harvey said his son “truly enjoyed the Army,” but in his Facebook messages he sensed
his son’s growing concern for the troops’ safety.
“Since (Osama) bin Laden got killed, you could tell his messages were changing,” he
said. “They (the enemy) were starting to get more aggressive with their attacks.”
His friends said Harvey, who had three older sisters and was a substation operator for
PSE&G, loved skydiving and cars. In his Facebook messages, he wrote about how he
looked forward to having pizza at the Sawmill bar and restaurant in Seaside Park and to
restoring, and painting red, a 1980s Camaro that was in pieces in his parents’ garage.
“That was his baby,” said childhood friend Matthew Nigro of Clark, “That’s all he kept
talking about.”
Hager and others said Harvey “always had our backs, no matter what.”
But there was a prankster side to him as well.
Keith Scheetz of Sayreville, the boyfriend of Harvey’s sister Tracey, recalls his birthday
party in May 2010, just days after he met Harvey.
“He looked at me, he looked at the cake — and I got a cake shoved in my face,” Scheetz
said, laughing at the memory. “That was the greatest time I had with him.”
Even his mother wasn’t immune to her son’s jokes.
Once, she asked her son to drop her a line. “So he just sent a (horizontal) line,” Harvey’s
father said.
Harvey loved body art and had five tattoos, including a Celtic cross and a skull wearing a
beret, his friends said. Now, they said, they will be getting tattoos to remember their
buddy — a helmet-topped rifle in empty boots, the symbol for a fallen soldier.
In addition to his father and sisters, Harvey is survived by his mother, Susan; another
sister, Christine Douglas, and her husband, Steven Douglas; and two nephews, Ryan
and Michael Douglas, another brother-in-law, David Raffaele Jr.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO COMPREHENSIBLE
REASON TO BE IN THIS EXTREMELY HIGH RISK
LOCATION AT THIS TIME, EXCEPT THAT THE
PACK OF TRAITORS THAT RUN THE
GOVERNMENT IN D.C. WANT YOU THERE TO
DEFEND THEIR IMPERIAL DREAMS:
That is not a good enough reason.
A Marine is rescued onto a medevac helicopter from the 1-214 Aviation Regiment after
he got shot in the stomach outside Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, June 11,
2011. The Army’s ‘Dust Off’ crew needed two attempts to get him out, as they were fired
upon and took five rounds of bullets into the tail of their aircraft. (AP Photo/Anja
Niedringhaus)
A wounded Marine after he is rescued onto a medevac helicopter from the US Army’s 1214 Aviation Regiment after suffering shrapnel wounds to his head, outside Sangin,
Helmand Province, Afghanistan, June 12, 2011. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)
A U.S. Army soldier of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division
based in Fort Wainwright, Alaska, is taken to a military helicopter for evacuation after
being injured by a roadside bomb in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, June 17, 2011.
Williams was transported to the military hospital at Kandahar Airfield for treatment.
REUTERS/ U.S. Navy Lt. j.g. Haraz N. Ghanbari/Handout
POLITICIANS CAN’T BE COUNTED ON TO HALT
THE BLOODSHED
THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE
WARS
SOMALIA WAR REPORTS
U.S. Troops On The Ground In Somalia
As Part Of Attack On Insurgents
Jul 1, 2011 By Malkhadir M. Muhumed - The Associated Press [Excerpts]
NAIROBI, Kenya — U.S. military forces landed in Somalia to retrieve the bodies of dead
or wounded militants after a U.S. drone strike targeted a group of insurgents, Somalia’s
defense minister said Friday.
The operation is at least the second time U.S. troops have landed in Somalia after a
targeted strike, though no forces have been stationed there since shortly after the “Black
Hawk Down” battle that left 18 Americans dead in 1993.
[Somali Defense Minister] Faqi said the June 23 attack was carried out by a U.S. drone,
and that after the attack U.S. forces picked up militants who were either killed or injured.
Residents in Kismayo reported hearing helicopters hovering overhead the night of the
operation.
“We have intelligence reports from our own sources that the U.S. Army picked up
militants after the strike,” Faqi said, declining to disclose them. He said that the Somalia
government would release the militants’ names when they’re confirmed by DNA tests.
BREAKING NEWS!
God Reported Supplying Arms To
Somalia Government
7.2.11 MOGADISHU; Mareeg.com
MOGADISHU (Mareeg.com) –
AMISOM Force commander in Somalia Fred Mugisha has said that they get god military
equipment and some from the United States of America to be part of the efforts to
stabiles Somalia.
The force commander of AMISOM called for the Somali people to think of more about
the future and development of their country and unite for the seeking the peace and
stability.
MILITARY NEWS
Fort Sill “Training Exercise” Burns
Down Civilian Homes;
1,500 Evacuated From Medicine Park
Jul 1, 2011 By Bryan Dean - The Oklahoman [Excerpts]
MEDICINE PARK, Okla. — The Army will reimburse people whose homes were burned
after a wildfire that started during training at Fort Sill spread off post and scorched 5,500
acres.
Army officials will be in Medicine Park taking claims through Saturday.
Thirteen homes were lost in the blaze, and about 1,500 people were evacuated June 2324 after the fire spread north into the Medicine Park area. About 500 homes were
evacuated as crews struggled to contain the blaze over two days.
Fort Sill spokeswoman Nancy Elliott said some adjusters are going to homes that were
destroyed, inspecting them and resolving claims on-site. But it’s not just those whose
homes were damaged who can file a claim.
“When people were displaced, they had to leave, and they are reimbursing hotel costs,”
Elliott said.
“Businesses that lost revenue because the town was closed down also can file claims.
Anyone who thinks they have a claim should come by and file a claim or call the claims
hotline and talk to a professional.”
Mark Ellis lives in Medicine Park and has a part-time all-terrain vehicle rental and guide
service. His business was not affected, but a neighbor’s home burned down, and he
knows several business owners who were affected.
“I think the reimbursement is a good idea because there were a lot of people that were
affected in one way or another, whether their house burned down or their business was
shut down for a while,” he said.
FORWARD OBSERVATIONS
“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had
I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of
biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.
“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.
“We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”
“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they
oppose.”
Frederick Douglass, 1852
“The Nixon administration claimed and received great credit for withdrawing the
Army from Vietnam, but it was the rebellion of low-ranking GIs that forced the
government to abandon a hopeless suicidal policy”
-- David Cortright; Soldiers In Revolt
The Price Of Admission Is Deja Vu
Gas station near Salem, Oregon June 2011
Photograph by Mike Hastie
From: Mike Hastie
To: Military Resistance Newsletter
Sent: July 01, 2011
Subject: The Price of Admission is Deja vu
The Price of Admission is Deja vu
The worst thing I experienced in Vietnam was the lie.
Mike Hastie
Army medic Vietnam
July 1, 2011
The only thing worse than death is betrayal.
Malcolm X
Photo and caption from the I-R-A-Q (I Remember Another Quagmire) portfolio of
Mike Hastie, US Army Medic, Vietnam 1970-71. (For more of his outstanding work,
contact at: (hastiemike@earthlink.net) T)
One day while I was in a bunker in Vietnam, a sniper round went over my head.
The person who fired that weapon was not a terrorist, a rebel, an extremist, or a
so-called insurgent. The Vietnamese individual who tried to kill me was a citizen
of Vietnam, who did not want me in his country. This truth escapes millions.
Mike Hastie
U.S. Army Medic
Vietnam 1970-71
December 13, 2004
Troops Invited:
Comments, arguments, articles, and letters from service men
and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box
126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or send email to
contact@militaryproject.org: Name, I.D., withheld unless you
request publication. Same address to unsubscribe.
Greece:
“In The Squares, You Meet All
Kinds Of People--Far Right,
Conservatives, People Who Voted
PASOK, Leftists, Socialists,
Anarchists, ‘Non-Political’ And So
On”
“But This Mixture Of Ideas Is
Absolutely Normal In A Mass
Movement Of Such Great Numbers”
“The Demands Of The Movement Are
Clearly Moving In A Left-Wing Direction”
June 28, 2011 By Panos Petrou, Socialist Worker [Excerpt]
Panos Petrou is a member of the socialist group Internationalist Workers Left (DEA) and
a participant in the occupation in Athens’ Syntagma Square.
*****************************************************************
It’s true that a great mass of the “aganaktismenoi” involved in the public square protests
are people who are participating in mass action for the first time in their lives.
They are people who didn’t think that resistance in the streets would have an effect-young people alienated from left-wing politics, but mostly unemployed and nonunionized young workers in the private sector who didn’t have the ability to strike.
In that sense, this is a new situation compared to the resistance movement of last year.
But it’s important to remember that last year’s struggles held up the banner--they sent a
signal that we can fight back. In that way, these struggles fueled the spirit of resistance
that culminated to the explosion of the “movement of the squares” today.
What’s more, the “aganaktismenoi” fight against the same enemies--the government, the
“troika” and the Memorandum--so they are part of the broad resistance movement.
Many demonstrators may not be involved in politics or social struggles, but with the
simple act of going to Syntagma to demonstrate against the government, they take a
clear political stand. The expression of “indignation” is somewhat similar to the cry “Ya
basta” of the anti-globalization movement.
And indignation is just a first step. In the squares, people discover politics.
Not politics in the professional, parliamentary way, but the kind that really matters-”street politics.”
In the squares, you meet all kinds of people--far right, conservatives, people who voted
PASOK, leftists, socialists, anarchists, “non-political” and so on.
But this mixture of ideas is absolutely normal in a mass movement of such great
numbers. Syntagma Square is a miniature of Greek society, after all.
The crucial point is that the demands of the movement are clearly moving in a left-wing
direction. The ideas of the left are clearly present.
Of course, the political struggle between the right wing and the left wing for the direction
of the movement is far from over.
It’s very important that the political left is present at the squares, discussing issues with
people and trying to win over the majority to a more conscious and committed struggle
against the ruling class.
“China’s Overall Level Of Class
Struggle Has Climbed Steadily
Since The Mid-1990s”
“Young Migrant Workers Have
Spearheaded The Surge In Urban
Strikes And Demonstrations That
Have Arisen Since The Mid-2000s”
“The Combativeness Of Migrant
Workers Reflects A Generational
Shift Over The Past Decade”
“The Generation That Arrived In The
Coastal Boom Areas In The 2000s,
However, ‘Are Not As Tolerant As Their
Fathers When Faced With Inequality’”
Migrant workers stand near overturned cop cars in Xintang town, a garment district in
Guangdong province
June 28, 2011 By David Whitehouse, Socialist Worker [Excerpts]
Young workers in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong rioted for three days in
mid-June after security guards roughed up a married pair of street peddlers while
removing them from a space in front of a supermarket. One account in the South China
Morning Post said the guards first demanded a bribe and then delivered the beatings
when the peddlers offered too little money.
The revolt, in Zengcheng, an hour’s drive outside the affluent provincial capital of
Guangzhou, was the largest in a string of recent cases where so-called migrant
workers have rebelled against their second-class social status.
In the same province just four days before, “clashes between migrants and police
broke out after a worker in a ceramics factory was stabbed, allegedly on the
orders of his boss when he went to ask for unpaid wages,” according to the
Financial Times.
Workers whose families originate in some other province receive low pay and are
deprived of social benefits--such as public education, health care and unemployment
insurance--that local residents are entitled to.
Residential registration, known as hukou, is hereditary, so a long-term urban worker may
remain classified for life as a “migrant farmer” in much the same way that apartheid
South Africa treated its Black workers as foreigners lacking the rights of full citizens.
According to official figures, China has more than 220 million “migrants,” whose cheap
labor has formed the basis for the country’s booms in construction and exports.
The Xintang section of Zengcheng is known as the “blue jean capital of the world,”
producing 60 different foreign brands, according to the Morning Post,
“accounting for about half the 450 million pairs of jeans sold the United States each year.
Young workers in factories who sew and dye denim garments can earn up to 3,000 yuan
a month (about $460) if they take on extra shifts, but the older ones who are stuck in
small workshops process half-completed jeans for just half that amount.”
Dadun is a village inside Xintang where the most denim factories are concentrated.
The village is home to 60,000 migrants and just 7,000 permanent residents--two groups
that are estranged from each other by their divergent social status, compounded by
urban prejudice against Chinese of peasant origin.
“Local people,” reports Xinhua, China’s official news source, “refer to the area where
these workers live as the ‘village inside the city.’
Many of the locals who used to live there have moved out, renting their former homes to
the migrant workers. In these ‘villages,’ buildings are lined up like dominoes, sometimes
so close together that they are called ‘handshake buildings,’ implying that people in two
separate buildings can shake hands with each other through their windows.
Tong Menshi, for example, lives in a 10-square-meter room with a curtain dividing her
from her parents.
Foreign orders for denim have been down since April, and food and rent prices have
been rising at nearly a 10 percent yearly rate. Pork is more expensive than ever, and
the older and poorer migrants are now paying more than half of their wages to landlords.
China’s iron fist may be nothing new, but the combativeness of migrant workers
reflects a generational shift over the past decade.
In China’s immense population of 1.3 billion, there are two “bulges” of about 120
million people each--between ages 40 and 50, and between ages 15 and 25.
These correspond roughly to two generations of migrant workers whose
experiences diverge dramatically.
The first generation came “fresh off the farm” in the 1980s and ‘90s, lived in dormitories
under the iron rule of contractors for foreign companies like Nike and Disney, and had
few skills and little leverage against the bosses--because so many other workers could
take their place.
Following the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, the resurgence of struggle in the
1990s arose from the peasants themselves, not from their children who migrated to find
wage work in the coastal sweatshops.
The Morning Post interviewed one member of this generation about the treatment of the
peddlers in Zengcheng:
“A 52-year-old woman from Dazhou in Sichuan, who arrived in Dadun in 1997, said she
had become desensitized to the brutal beatings that happened in the village every day.
‘When I first came, I was very scared to see migrant workers being beaten up and left
half dead, but now I’m used to it,’ she said.”
The generation that arrived in the coastal boom areas in the 2000s, however, “are not as
tolerant as their fathers when faced with inequality,” sociologist Lu Xueyi told Xinhua,
while these “migrants of the second generation” are also more worldly--”more interested
in contemporary culture and entertainment than their predecessors.”
The change in attitude is largely a result of a changing situation--the flow of young
people off the farms has not kept pace with the growth of wage jobs.
“With a labor shortage of 2 million people in Guangdong (the migrants) are aware of their
worth as inland cities compete for their services,” Jonathan Fenby of Trusted Sources, a
consultancy, told the Financial Times.
As a result, “Young migrant workers are becoming increasingly vocal and are not ready
to accept the conditions under which the parents labored in the first decades of
economic reform.”
Young migrant workers have spearheaded the surge in urban strikes and
demonstrations that have arisen since the mid-2000s, including last year’s wave of
strikes against Japanese auto companies--all organized without independent unions,
which are illegal.
Although older workers supported the recent riots, most of the arrestees were under age
25.
Until recently, most mass riots have been in the countryside, while urban struggles have
often centered around workplace abuses.
In recent years, however, migrants, especially in boom provinces like Guangdong, have
begun to rise up against the everyday indignities they suffer on the street from security
forces or arrogant bosses and party members.
China’s overall level of class struggle has climbed steadily since the mid-1990s.
Officials keep track of strikes, demonstrations and riots with the deliberately
vague name of “mass incidents.”
From 1994 to 2004, mass incidents rose sevenfold, from 10,000 to 72,000. By 2008,
the number was 127,000.
According to the Los Angeles Times, “a sociologist at Beijing’s Tsinghua
University reported this year that China has had 180,000 ‘mass incidents’ in 2010,
double the number in 2006.”
ANNIVERSARIES
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!
Mutiny On The Amistad:
July 2, 1839
“53 Slaves Recently Abducted
From Africa, Revolted”
Peace History June 26-July 2 By Carl Bunin [Excerpt] Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
(July 2, 1839)
Amistad Mutiny: slave rebellion that took place on the slave ship Amistad near the coast
of Cuba and had important political and legal repercussions in the American Abolitionist
movement.
The mutineers were captured and tried in the United States, and a surprising victory for
the country’s antislavery forces resulted in 1841 when the U.S. Supreme Court freed the
rebels. A committee formed to defend the slaves later developed into the American
Missionary Association (incorporated 1846).
On July 2, 1839, the Spanish schooner Amistad was sailing from Havana to Puerto
Príncipe, Cuba, when the ship’s unwilling passengers, 53 slaves recently
abducted from Africa, revolted.
Led by Joseph Cinqué, they killed the captain and the cook but spared the life of a
Spanish navigator, so that he could sail them home to Sierra Leone.
The navigator managed instead to sail the Amistad generally northward. Two months
later the U.S. Navy seized the ship off Long Island, N.Y., and towed it into New London,
Conn. The mutineers were held in a jail in New Haven, Conn., a state in which slavery
was legal.
The Spanish embassy’s demand for the return of the Africans to Cuba led to an 1840
trial in a Hartford, Conn., federal court. New England Abolitionist Lewis Tappan stirred
public sympathy for the African captives, while the U.S. government took the proslavery
side. U.S.
President Martin Van Buren ordered a Navy ship sent to Connecticut to return the
Africans to Cuba immediately after the trial. A candidate for reelection that year, he
anticipated a ruling against the defendants and hoped to gain proslavery votes by
removing the Africans before Abolitionists could appeal to a higher court.
Prosecutors argued that, as slaves, the mutineers were subject to the laws governing
conduct between slaves and their masters. But trial testimony determined that while
slavery was legal in Cuba, importation of slaves from Africa was not.
Therefore, the judge ruled, rather than being merchandise, the Africans were
victims of kidnapping and had the right to escape their captors in any way they
could.
When the U.S. government appealed the case before the U.S. Supreme Court the next
year, congressman and former president John Quincy Adams argued eloquently for the
Amistad rebels.
The Supreme Court upheld the lower court, and private and missionary society
donations helped the 35 surviving Africans secure passage home. They arrived in Sierra
Leone in January 1842, along with five missionaries and teachers who intended to found
a Christian mission.
Spain continued to insist that the United States pay indemnification for the Cuban
vessel. The U.S. Congress intermittently debated the Amistad case, without resolution,
for more than two decades, until the American Civil War began in 1861.
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July 3, 1835: Honorable Anniversary;
Children Go On Strike For An 11-Hour
Workday
Carl Bunin Peace History June 29 - July 5
Progressivehistorians.com:
On July 3, 1835, in Paterson, New Jersey, nearly 2,000 textile workers walked off the
job.
The strike was notable for several reasons.
For one thing the strikers weren’t demanding more money, despite the fact that they only
made $2 a week (adjusted for inflation, that would be $44 a week today).
Their central demand was an 11-hour day (as opposed to the 13.5-hour days they were
currently working), and only 9 hours on Saturday instead of a full day.
That in itself was significant enough. The first strike in American history to limit hours
had happened only 7 years earlier, and was also in Paterson, New Jersey. That strike
had been crushed after a week when the militia was called in.
What made this strike worth remembering was who the strikers were - they were
children, aged 10 to 18. Many of them girls.
Before the month was out the parents of Paterson had joined together to form the
“Paterson Association for the Protection of the Working Classes of Paterson”. Through
the Association a “vigilance committee” was formed to organize support. In 1835 there
was no such thing as a labor union. Back then there were only guilds for skilled workers.
Nothing like that existed for textile workers, much less for children.
The management flat-out refused to negotiate with the Association, or any worker’s
organization. In response, the Association appealed to help from other workers. Women
textile workers in other mills around Paterson walked out. Mechanics from Newark set
up a committee to raise funds and investigate the working conditions in Paterson. This is
what they found:
“(conditions in the Paterson mills) belong rather to the dark ages than to the present
times, and would be more congenial to the climate of his majesty the emperor and
autocrat of all the Russians, than “this land of the free and home of the brave,” this
boasted asylum for the oppressed of all nations.”
After six weeks a deal was struck between the Association and the management. They
would split the difference: the children of Paterson would only have to work 12 hours a
day during the week, and 9 hours on Saturday; a 69-hour week. The children who
continued to hold out for the 11-hour day were fired and blacklisted.
DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK
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