The FTAA, the working class and U.S. imperialism
By Teresa Gutierrez
Two important demonstrations took place in the
southern part of the United States the week of Nov. 17.
The first was the protest against a meeting in Miami to
establish a Free Trade Area of the Americas. The second was a
demonstration against the School of the Americas at Fort
Benning, Ga. Graduates of the SOA have been responsible for
decades of bloody repression in Latin America.
The racist arrest of Michael Jackson dominated the
capitalist media's news coverage that week, allowing them to
ignore the Florida and Georgia protests that were important for
the class struggle.
The issues raised at the FTAA and SOA demonstrations are
related to Latin America, where mass struggles have been acute
recently. Inevitably, the U.S. movement will be greatly
influenced by the tide of rebellion sweeping the
hemisphere.
While the FTAA and SOA demonstrations were not huge in
numbers, they are harbingers of what may be on the horizon for
this country: a revival of class struggle of the workers and
oppressed against the capitalist bosses. The struggle to end
the U.S. occupation of Iraq has the potential to draw in the
masses here in greater num bers as the struggle against the war
abroad becomes a struggle against the war at home.
All this is inextricably tied to the struggles against
imperialist domination of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Which way for the anti-globalization
movement
Despite heavy repression by the police and Miami government,
students, youths and thousands of union workers came out to
protest the FTAA.
As a result of a call by the AFL-CIO, Black, Latino, Asian,
Arab and white work ers joined the protests to say no to the
FTAA. Many had one concern: jobs.
Many unionists found themselves discussing issues never
discussed before. What does the FTAA have to do with events in
Venezuela? What does Coca-Cola killing labor unionists in
Colombia have to do with the FTAA?
Willingly or not, by marching against the FTAA in Miami,
these workers were brought into a political arena affected by
the class struggle abroad. This is an important development,
because in Latin America and the Caribbean the masses are
showing who the real agents of social change are.
President after president on the continent has been recently
brought down by the mass struggle. On the other hand, in
Venezuela, the masses wrested their president from the clutches
of pro-U.S. reactionaries and kept him in office when the
coup-makers tried to oust him.
The struggles from Ecuador to Bolivia, from Puerto Rico to
Brazil, reveal that the ruling elite can make all the
agreements behind closed doors it wants. But in a click of the
mouse, these agreements can be thrown into the dustbin of
history when the workers and oppressed take center stage.
In 1992 the unions in the United States vehemently opposed
the North American Free Trade Agreement that gave U.S.
corporations greater access to the markets in Mexico and
Canada. But as soon as Bill Clinton took office in 1993, his
administration showed who the capitalist government really
represents. Though labor had given millions of dollars to the
Democratic Party coffers, the Clinton administration completely
snubbed the unions and enacted NAFTA on behalf of the banks and
corporations.
This is one reason why the rank and file in the labor and
social-justice movements here in the United States must take
heed of the movements in Latin America, where workers are
taking to the streets in massive numbers and fighting for their
own independent class interests.
Fighting the FTAA must go hand in hand with fighting Plan
Colombia. In Colombia, labor unionists, the armed rebel groups
and others stress that Plan Colombia is the military wing of
the FTAA. Over $2 billion stolen from social programs for poor
people in the United States was allocated to Plan Colombia for
one reason--not to stop drugs that ravage our communities, but
to stop the struggle for sovereignty and against privatization
in Colombia. Plan Colombia also threatens socialist Cuba and
Venezuela.
Globalization equals imperialism
Imperialism is nothing new, although it has expanded
tremendously in recent decades. But back in 1916, during World
War I, V.I. Lenin wrote "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of
Capitalism." This ground breaking work is as important for
today's activists as it was decades ago.
In the book, Lenin explained that imperialism is the final
stage of capitalism, the economic system that exploits and robs
the labor of workers and oppressed solely for profits.
Objectively, the demonstrations in Florida and Georgia were
directed against this phase of capitalism.
By protesting trade agreements of the banks and the bosses,
workers flexed their muscles--even if in a limited way--on
behalf of their own interests.
And by protesting the School of the Americas, demonstrators
were in essence opposing the military wing of the trade
agreements. Corporations need well-trained murderers to uphold
their blood-sucking agreements by force.
Lenin explained that finance capital is the merging of bank
capital with industrial capital. He stated that the "export of
capital," as distinguished from the export of commodities, is a
major characteristic of imperialism.
All those born in the era of the Internet should recognize
this, even if they have never read Lenin. Finance capital roams
the world freely, recognizing no borders whatsoever, imposing
economic and social policies that wreak havoc on billions of
people and devastate the environment.
The "globalization" of corporations and banks means that
capital is exported to every corner of the globe for
imperialist domination.
A few years ago, when students and youths battled the police
in Seattle pro testing a meeting of the corporate looters, they
heroically brought the anti-globalization movement to the
shores of the United States. They joined with millions of
oppressed people around the world who for decades had been
fighting these same corporate looters.
The Battle of Seattle showed the world that not only in
Mexico or the Philippines but right here in the United States
there is an anti-globalization movement.
Cuba shows the way
The movement in the United States can learn a great deal
from revolutionary Cuba. The only country excluded from the
FTAA, Cuba was the first nation in the Western Hemisphere to
hold a major action against it in 2001. That is real
solidarity.
No soldiers from the School of the Amer icas can enter Cuba
and massacre people. Why? Because Cuba--not U.S.
imperialism--controls its own destiny. Cuban workers, not U.S.
banks, own the means of production.
Controlling the means of production is exactly what the
movement in the United States must aim for. Revolu tionary Marx
ists-Leninists firmly believe this can happen. In the meantime,
the task is to build a movement that brings the struggles
against imperialist domination like those in Latin America to
the shores of the U.S.
Reprinted from the Dec. 11, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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