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Notes from the Editors, November 2005

by The Editors

November 1, 2005

Speaking in New York to the United Nations in September Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez delivered a fiery speech sharply critical of U.S. imperialism and what he called a "frightening neoliberal globalization." Chávez denounced the blatant manipulation of the United Nations to support U.S. geopolitical ambitions and military aggression. He condemned the U.S. government for allowing Christian evangelist Pat Robertson and others to call openly for his assassination in violation of international law

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NepalÑAn Overview: Introduction to Parvati

by John Mage

November 1, 2005

Nepal lies on the south side of a five-hundred-mile-long section, east to west, of the Himalayan mountain range. China (Tibet) is its northern neighbor, and on the east, south, and west Nepal is surrounded by India (Sikkim, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh). Nepal's width north to south averages about one hundred miles—from the Himalayan ridge and the highest point on earth (Mt. Everest, at 29,035 feet) down to a thin strip of the Gangetic plain (the Terai), where Nepal's second largest city, Biratnagar, is less than 300 feet above sea level

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People’s Power in Nepal

by Parvati

November 1, 2005

While communications about the military successes of the People's War in Nepal have been regularly disseminated, little information has been made available at the international level about the achievements of people's power in the country. This article aims to rectify this situation somewhat by highlighting the emergence of people's power side-by-side with the progressive dissolution of the old monarchical state (ruling since 1769), with particular reference to achievements made in the Central Command area, which includes the main base area, Rolpa

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The End of Habeas Corpus in Great Britain

by Jean-Claude Paye

November 1, 2005

The British Parliament adopted a new antiterrorist law, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, on March 11, 2005. By doing so, Parliament made it possible for the government to carry out the long-standing project of expanding the emergency provisions to which foreigners are subjected within the context of the war on terrorism to cover the whole population, including citizens. This change is important because it calls into question the notion of habeas corpus. The law attacks the formal separation of powers by giving to the secretary of state for home affairs judicial prerogatives. Further, it reduces the rights of the defense practically to nothing. It also establishes the primacy of suspicion over fact, since measures restricting liberties, potentially leading to house arrest, could be imposed on individuals not for what they have done, but according to what the home secretary thinks they could have done or could do. Thus, this law deliberately turns its back on the rule of law and establishes a new form of political regime

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Rethinking ‘Capitalist Restoration’ in China

by Yiching Wu

November 1, 2005

Over a quarter century after China ventured onto the market path, it is high time to take a hard look and ask some very tough questions. That is what Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett did in "China and Socialism: Market Reforms and Class Struggle" (Monthly Review, July–August 2004) and they concluded that "market reforms" have fundamentally subverted Chinese socialism. The considerable costs of economic liberalization, they argued, reflect the inherent antagonisms of the capitalist system that is in the midst of being imposed. "Market socialism" is at best a contradiction in terms, an unstable formation that only awaits progressive degeneration: "the Chinese government's program of 'market reforms,' which was allegedly to reinvigorate socialism, has instead led the country down a slippery slope toward an increasingly capitalist, foreign-dominated development path."

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Notes from the Editors, October 2005

by The Editors

October 1, 2005

The much-anticipated split in the AFL-CIO, the labor federation in the United States, took place in Chicago, at the federation's annual convention. Three unions—the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Teamsters, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW)—left the federation, and more will likely follow. The dissident unions call themselves the Change to Win Coalition, and they have suggested that what they have done parallels the formation of the CIO in 1935, which resulted in the organization of the nation's mass production industries. They will be holding their inaugural convention in late September

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Empire and Multitude

by Samir Amin

October 1, 2005

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have chosen to call the current global system "Empire."* Their choice of that term is intended to distinguish its essential constituent characteristics from those that define "imperialism." Imperialism in this definition is reduced to its strictly political dimension, i.e., the extension of the formal power of a state beyond its own borders, thereby confusing imperialism with colonialism. Colonialism therefore no longer exists, neither does imperialism. This hollow proposition panders to the common American ideological discourse according to which the United States, in contrast to the European states, never aspired to form a colonial empire for its own benefit and thus could never have been "imperialist" (and thus is not today anymore than yesterday, as Bush reminds us). The historical materialist tradition proposes a very different analysis of the modern world, centered on identification of the requirements for the accumulation of capital, particularly of its dominant segments. Taken to the global level, this analysis thus makes it possible to discover the mechanisms that produce the polarization of wealth and power and construct the political economy of imperialism

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Immokalee Workers Take Down Taco Bell

by Elly Leary

October 1, 2005

On March 8, 2005, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in Immokalee, Florida won a significant victory. In a precedent-setting move, fast-food giant Yum! Brands Inc., the world's largest restaurant corporation, agreed to all the farm workers' demands (and more!) if the CIW would end the four-year-old boycott of its subsidiary Taco Bell. (Yum!, a spin off from Pepsi, includes Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, A&W, Long John Silver's, and Pizza Hut franchises.) As United Farm Workers (UFW) president Arturo Rodriguez commented at the victory celebration, "It is the most significant victory since the successful grape boycott led by the UFW in the 1960s in the fields of California."

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Privatization at Gunpoint

by Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

October 1, 2005

The transfer of assets from peripheral states to international financial oligarchies is one of the defining tenets of the neoliberal counter-revolution. As a general rule, this latest form of neocolonial transfer of surplus to the industrialized core has proceeded relatively successfully in many peripheral states, with many Latin American states standing out as significant exceptions. In Pakistan, where the ruling state oligarchy has historically been the equivalent of a comprador bourgeoisie, this process has accelerated since it was initiated in the late 1980s

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