May 19th, 2008 by Kali Akuno

The Fourth North American Leadership Summit, held in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 21st and 22nd, 2008 marked a watershed in the Battle for New Orleans and the global peoples’ struggle against neo-liberalism and imperialism. The Summit was a continuation of the negotiations on the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) agreement between the Chief Executives of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. But, it was also much, much more.

President Bush’s mission for this Summit was to consolidate many of the transformative gains he and the reactionary forces he represents have attained in New Orleans via their neo-liberal reconstruction program. This program is the most ambitious and far reaching application of neo-liberalism within US national boarders to date. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina this neo-liberal program has virtually eliminated the city’s labor unions and turned the public education, housing, health care, transportation, and sanitation systems into private profit making enterprises. And it doesn’t stop there. Bush also structured this Summit to be a international coming out party for Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal to showcase how an entire state government can possibly be privatized (Jindal aims to privatize the Louisiana educational system through the introduction of a state-wide voucher program).

In effect, the Fourth Summit was a calculated exhibition for trans-national capital to demonstrate how successfully a major US city and state can be transformed to realize profits. And the larger implications couldn’t be clearer. What this says is that the US, which as the center of international capital and imperialism was long thought impervious to a complete neo-liberal transformation, is open ground because if this transformation can be done in New Orleans, it can be done anywhere in the US.

Conversely, the Fourth Summit was also a critical moment for the progressive forces of the Gulf Coast Peoples’ Reconstruction Movement (RM). The coming of the summit further illuminated how central New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are to the overall program of imperialist globalization. And how central the task of dissolving the Black working class and the Black nation itself is to this project locally, nationally, and internationally. It also demonstrated the degree to which the Reconstruction Movement, and the Black Liberation Movement (BLM) which is its anchor, must organize, study, plan, and execute to overcome this challenge. To this latter end, the BLM, RM, and Global Justice movements on a whole must engage in a deeper interrogation of imperialism’s neo-liberal project to dissolve the Black Nation to gain a more strategic understanding of the project to enable the forces of resistance to launch a potentially decisive counter initiative.

Dispelling Myths

To deeply engage this interrogation some critical myths regarding the neo-liberal project must be dispelled. Chief amongst them is the position and perspective that neo-liberalism and free-trade agreements (FTA’s) within themselves are the problem. The problem, meaning what constitutes the central threat to our movements and humanity on a whole, is capitalism and imperialism. Neo-liberalism and Free Trade Agreements like the SPP, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), etc., are mere ideological frameworks and strategic policy initiatives of capital to create the structural controls needed to realize profits.

Neo-Liberalism as an ideological program and FTA’s and their regulating instruments like the World Trade Organization (WTO), were strategically developed by capital between the two great inter-imperialist wars of the 20th century to mitigate against the destructiveness of their rivalries and the development of a genuine socialist socio-economic alternative. To this latter end, international capital, under the stewardship of US capital, created the Breton Woods institutions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the General Agreement on Tariff’s and Trade (GATT) / WTO to regulate and gradually integrate the world-capitalist system.

However, there were always tactical differences amongst capital as to how best to regulate this system, how fast to integrate it, and how to relate to the forces opposed to this system (including the colonized and oppressed peoples and nations of the world, the working and exploited social sectors within the imperialist nations themselves, and the revolutionary nationalist and anti-capitalist state projects of the world, particularly the Eastern Soviet block nations). Between 1950 and 1972 roughly, the dominant factions of capital enacted a program of compromise that allowed for a gradual integration and a limited degree of distributed capital accumulation that tolerated workers rights and national self-determination on a limited scale. This compromise was perhaps best described as “consensus capitalism”.

This compromise was based on the steady growth of capital markets the world over following the second major inter-imperialist war (i.e. WWII). When this growth began to give way to declining rates of profit, inflation, and inter-imperialist antagonism over the divide of the spoils from the “Third World” in the 1960′s, capital, particularly US capital gradually broke with the strategy of consensus capitalism and implemented a new strategy of capitalist accumulation. This new strategy is generally referred to as either neo-liberalism or the “Washington consensus”. The Neo-Liberal strategy and program was originally articulated by Freidrich von Hayek in the 1940′s, but wasn’t unleashed on the world until the mid-1970′s with the economic dismemberment of Chile under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. With the adoption of this new strategy the implementation speed and intensity of the Breton Woods agreements, particularly the utilization of FTA’s, rapidly accelerated and created the global dynamics we are now confronting.

The Assault on the Black Nation

As Naomi Klein aptly proves in “Disaster Capitalism”, structural crises are fundamental to the success of the neo-liberal strategy and program. Her analysis however has a major blind spot. That blind spot is the strategies correlating dependence on national oppression and racial inequality as mediated by the historical process of uneven development within the capitalist world-system.

The successful implementation of the neo-liberal program in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is directly contingent on the national oppression of New Afrikan and/or Black people, and the degree to which the region’s Black community, particularly its working class sectors, can be assaulted with little or no consequence in this transformative process.

Following the massive press for Black Liberation mounted between the 1950′s – 70′s, US capital has been aiming to fracture and crush the Black nation and the strategic “internal” threat it posses to US imperialism and its hegemony over the capitalist world-system. Capital has executed a broad scope of strategic means to this end since the 1960′s, including targeted repression and assassination, substantive buy-off programs, mass incarceration and warehousing, disinvestment from Black zones of inhabitance, and much, much more. The cumulative effect of these initiatives has been extremely devastating to the Black nation and its social stability and composition.

Despite the thorough nature of all of these initiatives, they were intentionally piecemeal. The political and social power accumulated by Blacks between the 1960′s through the 80′s, kept US capital from mounting a full on frontal assault against the Black nation. The dissipation of this power, due primarily to the retrenchment of the Black working class over the past 30 years, has shifted the balance of power decisively in favor of capital. The lack of a critical response to the emptying (in part through a forced military evacuation) of New Orleans and the numerous human rights abuses that have been committed against the peoples of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, has allowed capital to experiment with the strategic option of ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing (and genocide), barring a few rare exceptions, has not been employed on the US mainland since the 1940′s, primarily because the political costs were too high. Now that these costs have been minimalized, the strategic option of ethnic cleansing is being fully reincorporated into imperialisms arsenal (its international reintroduction started in Yugoslavia in the early 1990′s).

Although the process is as of yet incomplete, New Orleans has in essence been strategically cleansed of its Black working class. This cleansing is the direct result of the neo-liberal strategy applied to the city’s “reconstruction”. As of February 2008, more than two and half years after the Hurricane, less than half of the city’s Black working class had returned. Their return has been barred by a coordinated set of policies and actions dictated by capital and enforced by the US government on all levels (Federal, state and municipal, i.e. parish) to ensure the destruction of the city’s service institutions and ensure maximum corporate profits via privatizations (i.e. “public/private partnerships”). These policies and actions include hyper-inflated price gouging in the housing and utilities markets; the restriction of vital service provisions like water and electricity (for as long as two years in some locations in the Ninth Ward); the state seizure and demolition of tens of thousands of partially damaged and “abandoned” homes; the racist distribution of relief funds, like the Road Home Program, and insurance payouts; the barricading and destruction of more than four thousand units of public housing; the directing of the resources allocated to the city’s redevelopment towards undamaged, predominantly white sections of the city (see the Ed Blakely’s redevelopment plan); the ongoing military occupation of the city; and more. Capital has altered the “facts on the ground” as it relates to infrastructure in New Orleans to such an extent that a “right to return” for the city’s historic ethnic majority is in fact not possible. In effect, New Orleans is being subjected to the “Palestinian Option” of displacement as development for its historic Black majority.

Viewed in this strategic light, the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans must not be seen as a limited geographic or tactical engagement. Rather, it must be viewed as an advanced assault against the entire Black Nation. Why? There are three primary reasons: 1) the dislocation of a considerable portion of the Black working class has created a highly volatile social force throughout the U.S. with high material aspirations, a deeply engrained consciousness of resistance to white supremacy and exploitation, and little patience; 2) this dislocated population has been deemed an expendable surplus by capital and society at large because of this volatility, and 3) the option of containment via mass incarceration and warehousing is rapidly approaching its peak limits. Given this, capital must explore other means to control this strategic liability.

Based on developments in New Orleans and a critical analysis of the means used to generate displacement via gentrification over the past thirty years, it can be surmised that this new strategic assault will be conducted via the following means: 1) the forced displacement of Black zones of inhabitance (via combinations of mass incarceration, gentrification, land speculation, predatory lending, and disaster capitalism), 2) the permanent militarization of these zones (including direct military occupations in direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act), 3) the systematic exclusion of broad segments of the Black working class from the labor market (including from low-wage service employment), 4) the elimination or privatization of all public services and institutions in these zones and, and 5) the institutionalization of these arrangements via special legislative means.

This is directly where the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) agreement and other transnational agreements like it come into play.

The SPP and its Usages

The SPP, for all intents and purposes, is the consolidation of NAFTA via military means. These means include the development of US led special security units that could be deployed in both Mexico and Canada; the centralization of intelligence between the three states; and the creation of super-security ports and highways to secure the transport of goods, services, and security forces. Capital is advancing this strategy to contain the resistance of the peoples and working classes it has dispossessed and discarded with the passage of NAFTA and to defend the gains it has acquired at their expense.

The Black nation is a primary target of the SPP agenda. But, it is not alone. The Indigenous peoples and nations of Mexico and Canada constitute another, as are the dispossessed workers and peasants of Mexico. This is illustrated by the fourteen-year assault against the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and the Indigenous people of Chiapas and more recently against the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca or APPO inspired by retrenched Teachers. Both of these forces have played a vanguard role in the struggle against neo-liberalism on the North American continent, and have demonstrated from day one (remembering that the Zapatistas stormed to the world’s consciousness on January 1st, 1994 which was the commencement date for NAFTA) that this program would not be met without stiff resistance.

The SPP therefore represents a critical “learning” for capital and imperialism. The question is, will the Black nation and other peoples and workers movements of North America learn in response and act in kind in a united peoples front against imperialism and its neo-liberal globalization programs?

source: http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2008/05/12551.php

source: http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2008/04/12431.php

Featured Speaker:
Laura Carlsen, Director, the Americas Program, Center for International Policy

Producers:
Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg

Note:
Please notify: knash [at] igc.org – if you plan to broadcast this program.

source: http://www.radio4all.net
http://indybay.org/newsitems/2008/03/04/18483487.php

Students and community activists employed a variety of tactics at this action. As Rios started his lecture, three SU students revealed a banner in front of the auditorium, reading “NAFTA= Poverty for the People, Profit$ for the Rich”. After being escorted out by campus security, students joined a rally outside that continued throughout all of Mr. Rios speech (one and a half hours). As the banner inside the auditorium was revealed, out in the lobby another banner was dropped from a stair case reading “Human Needs NOT Corporate Greed”. Halfway through Rios’ presentation, two SU students (dressed as indigenous women and wearing bandannas in solidarity the Zapatistas) started to distribute cornhusks to the audience. Each husk revealed quotes from people impacted by NAFTA and figures about how Mexican farmers continue to suffer due to the influx of US subsidized agricultural products, corn holding the most cultural significance. Everyone in the audience received a cornhusk (including our friends from the Mexican Consulate, who were taking pictures of the women throughout the action). The grand finale came at the end during the Q&A session, where more than 50 activists in the audience grilled Rios for roughly 30 minutes. Many of the questions and comments came from student activists and prominent immigrant and labor activists in the community. When asked about the poverty among Mexican farmers, Rios justified this by stating “It’s like when you go to a party. When you dance with an ugly girl, you have a bad time. When you dance with a beautiful girl, you have a good time! It depends on with who you dance or how you dance, and finding balance, its [equals the] best trade agreement.” However, the most powerful testimonies came from several of the Mexican working class and indigenous immigrants, who further inspired the audience and discredited Rios’ rhetoric.

All tariffs on corn, beans, sugar and milk were lifted in Mexico on Jan. 1, 2008, which signifies the first day of NAFTA’s full implementation (this same day thousands of Mexican farmers, factory workers, students, teachers and families occupied the streets of Mexico City in protest). According to the US House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee from 1994 to 2005, 1.5 million Mexican farmers have lost their livelihoods due to NAFTA; this figure is increasing each day. Actions, such as the one against Rios, are becoming increasingly effective at raising awareness on this issue and letting people in authority know we are not content with the current situation. However, awareness is not where the struggle ends and an escalation is necessary in order to take down this system of global tyranny (known as neoliberalism). Part of this struggle is recognizing the continuation of corporate imperialism, thus it is necessary to repeal NAFTA and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and fight against all rubber stamped expansions including the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and Plan Mexico.

source: http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/02/265057.shtml
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/02/372848.shtml

Massachusetts Global Action writes: A growing coalition of local progressive organizations and individuals has decided to protest the policies of the Mexican government represented by its President, Felipe Calderón as he addresses Harvard’s JFK Forum. Calderon came to power after another undemocratic “election” in Mexico. His government continues to repress indigenous people, the labor movement, in particular in Oaxaca, and is responsible, together with the government of the United States for the situation of millions of undocumented Mexican workers in the U.S. At the same time, Calderon is now advocating for the Security and Prosperity Partnership, which strengthens the NAFTA agreement that is detrimental to workers in Mexico and the U.S.

* In 2006, President Calderon stole the presidency from the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) candidate Andrés López Obrador. On July 2, 2006 Mexicans voted at over 130,000 different polling stations, casting separate ballots for president, senator and federal deputies. International and Mexican election observers noted that there weren’t enough independent and party observers present in the process. In many regions, one party dominated, creating opportunities for vote shaving, ballot stuffing, lost ballots and other forms of fraud. The PRD’s strongest accusation comes from the fact that ballots in nearly one third of the country were not counted in the presence of independent observers. One analysis of (Federal Election Commission equivalent) IFE results found that in 2,366 polling places only a PAN (Calderon’s National Action Party) observer was present and in those places, Calderon beat Lopez Obrador by a 72-21 margin. Furthermore, PRD observers discovered that sealed ballot boxes were being opened illegally at IFE offices where PAN’s observers dominated the process. Given a history of electoral fraud in Mexico, during the nearly century reign of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party now allied with PAN) and the explicit support of Calderon in the Western media, we charge Calderon with manipulating Mexico’s democratic process, just as President Bush disenfranchised voters in Florida and Ohio to become president in the United States and demand that democracy be respected in Mexico, without interference from the United States or any other Western power.

* There are at least 31 indigenous political prisoners, punished for their autonomous community organization, the defense of their territory and natural resources, the defense of their right to freely decide their own community matters, and their refusal to forget their culture and history. All of them organized to improve the living conditions in their regions and communities, yet charges have been invented to keep them locked up. There is paramilitary activity backed by the US and Mexican government against indigenous communities in Oaxaca. This facilitates the expansion of capitalism and empire in Oaxaca has led to an international call for solidarity against this state sponsored repression. What makes Oaxaca and other indigenous struggles in Mexico notable is the commitment of strong currents within it to militancy, to non-violence, to non-hierarchical forms of social structure, to cooperation in place of competition, to local autonomy and, as much as possible, to local self-sufficiency. The jails of Oaxaca now reveal the war unleashed by the state government and those who have served it down through the years. By means of a silent war, the corporations and all the political parties are trying to do away with the Indian peoples, plunder their natural resources, erase their history with blood, and take their territory away from them. Extermination, exploitation, lies, dispossession, and prison have been the only state and federal government policies concerning the Indian peoples of Oaxaca.

On September 25, 1996, the massive repression of the Zapotec men and women of the Loxicha region began when the Mexican Army brutally attacked those who were demanding better living conditions. The result was “200 illegal arrests, 150 cases of torture, 32 illegal searches, 22 extrajudicial executions, 22 forced disappearances, 137 political prisoners or prisoners of conscience, and an undetermined number of sexual abuses, harassment, death threats, and corrupt procedural irregularities” (Civilian Mission for the Observation of Human Rights, March 21-24, 2002).

We therefore demand: Freedom for all Indigenous prisoners; Stop repression against indigenous peoples; Land, culture, history, language, Indigenous people are not merchandise.

* Felipe Calderon inherited and strongly supports the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He supports deepening it in the form of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). Neither benefits working people in the 3 countries of North America. NAFTA weakened worker protections in all 3 countries, it increased low-wage, dead-end employment in Mexico while destroying food independence and agricultural employment in Mexico with highly-subsidized US crops. Millions of Mexicans are now forced to seek livelihoods across the border in the US. NAFTA also decreased job growth in the United States by a million jobs. However, as a former Mexican foreign minister remarked, NAFTA was “an agreement for the rich and powerful in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, an agreement effectively excluding ordinary people in all three societies.”

In this vein, SPP is being drafted by the North American Competitiveness Council that consists of 30 corporate members. In addition to rewriting regulations entirely in favor of the corporations, it will likely extend US Government Patriot Act-style “security” policies to Canada and Mexico. This extension and recommended pro-corporate policies tend to be adopted by presidential/executive decree rather than through deliberation by elected bodies (Congress or Parliament).

Progressive organizations and unions in all three countries seek alternatives to NAFTA based on principles of real fair trade and solidarity. Other models for Latin American economic cooperation are being developed involving countries like Venezuela, Ecuador, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Cuba while rejecting US-imposed free-trade regimes. Felipe Calderon is helping lead the opposition to these progressive initiatives. We demand the termination of NAFTA and termination of the Security and Prosperity Partnership negotiations.

* The governments of the United States and Mexico are responsible for the current situation of millions of undocumented workers in the U.S. These workers are on the one hand exploited and abused; on the other the U.S. government persecutes and repress them through raids, detention and deportations. The Mexican government, now headed by Felipe Calderon, pushes millions of workers out of their country and away from their families in desperate search for jobs in the North, while at the same time participating in the North American Free Trade Agreement that produced more exploitation for Mexicans but more unemployment of agricultural workers.

Of particular note is the ill treatment that Mexican authorities provide migrants coming from Central America in transit to the United States. Hundreds of Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Hondurans attempting to go through Mexico are robbed, detained, and sometimes killed in the process by corrupt police or gangs. Mexico signed the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, yet as of now it has not implemented it in full or in consciousness.

We, therefore denounce these abuses and demand justice, and fair and humane treatment from Mexico and the U.S. for migrant workers and their families.

source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oaxacastudyactiongroup/message/3869