Ontario NDP brass violate party democracy

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Socialist Action octoBER 2011 9 On Sept. 1, Barry Weisleder, chairperson of the NDP Socialist Caucus, won the nomination to be the NDP candidate in Thornhill constituency, just north of Toronto. Two days later Darlene Lawson, the Ontario NDP provincial secretary, “rescinded” the democratic nomination, which occurred at the best-attended meeting of that NDP riding association in decades.

What was the excuse for the punitive action? Lawson said it was an article by Weisleder mildly critical of the party platform and leadership written weeks before he sought the nomination. It was nearly a month before Lawson gave his bid for the candidacy her stamp of approval at a meeting held in her office on Aug. 10. The only thing that changed between Aug. 10 and Sept. 3 is that Weisleder won the Thornhill nomination.

Unfortunately, this attack on party democracy is not an isolated incident. It is being challenged. Heading up this effort is the Campaign to Restore Democracy in the Ontario NDP (CREDO NDP). There are many ways you can help.

How to respond to the attack on party democracy — 1) Vigorously oppose the multiple attacks on party democracy being waged by Ontario NDP officials. Urge all New Democrats to protest the removal of the democratically elected candidate in Thornhill, Ontario. NDP and union members, indeed everyone concerned about democracy in the workers’ movement, should send e-mail messages, letters, faxes, and make telephone calls of protest to Darlene Lawson at 101 Richmond St. E., and to the office of Ontario Leader Andrea Horwath at Queen’s Park. Telephone: (416) 591-5455, ext. 2245. Fax: (416) 599-4820. E-mail: dlawson@ on.ndp.ca.

2) Endorse and join CREDO. The NDP Socialist Caucus, along with many friends and allies, is launching the Campaign to Restore Democracy in the Ontario NDP (CREDO NDP) as a broad, common front. The purpose of the Campaign is to hold Ontario NDP officials accountable for rescinding the democratic NDP nomination in Thornhill, and to expose and reverse the attack on party democracy occurring on all levels. After the Oct. 6 Ontario election, this effort will be launched publicly. It has already reached hundreds of New Democrats through direct personal and internet contact.

The party bureaucracy’s decision to rescind Barry Weisleder’s nomination follows the ugly incident in Toronto’s Etobicoke North constituency. There, on Aug. 17, NDP officials did not allow Diana Andrews (a Black, lesbian, elementary school teacher) to run for the NDP nomination, ostensibly because she is involved in a conflict with her union leadership.

It also follows the bureaucratic overturn of the elections held at the Ontario New Democratic Youth convention in Fall 2010 by party officials, and the cancellation of the constitutionally mandated ONDP convention that should have occurred in Spring 2011.

Before that, the Ontario party Leader ordered NDP MPP Michael Prue not to speak at an open hearing on the issue of public funding for Catholic schools. The hearing, attended by over 100 New Dem... Troy Davis & Mumia Abu-Jamal 10 Socialist Action octoBER 2011

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(continued from page 12: “For Troy Davis and Mumia Abu-Jamal”)

multaneously extend every effort and untold billions of dollars to re-build, to rehabilitate, to educate, in a new world, all those who have been bent, broken, and deformed by the system itself. It would create all the conditions for a quality standard of life for all.

The problem we face today is not the danger posed by the release and real rehabilitation of the few who may cause danger to society. We are not lacking in the resources to return them to a healthy state. No human being is beyond humanity’s love and concern. The relative few can and will be brought back to lead productive lives.

The real problem is the imprisonment of the many, the millions who remain behind bars—punished by an unjust social order. The leaders of this social order are never punished for sending armies and weapons of mass destruction across the globe to murder millions, plunder resources, and wage wars for imperial domination. This too will change.

We must also note here that 75 percent of all those in prison today are there for non-violent crimes—mostly drug-related and petty theft. These millions are criminalized for being the victims of an unjust society rampant with racial and gender oppression. We also set aside those who have been imprisoned because they have no serious recourse to legal counsel and those who, like Troy and Mumia, are victims of police and prosecution frame-ups. And there are those who are swept off the streets to service the prison-industrial complex’s need for cheap labor to produce commodities that are competitive on the world market.

We do not set aside the fact that the U.S. leads the world in the number and percentage of people on death row. It is also first in the world in the number and percentage of its people in prison. These statistics ... Lynne (continued from page 8: “Interview with political prisoner Lynne Stewart”) by great feelings of love. This includes not only self-sacrifice but also daring to struggle, daring to win (to quote another hero, Mao).

Human Rights Coalition: What are some of the human rights violations that you see happening in the U.S. today that we, the people, need to eliminate?

Lynne Stewart: The most egregious and obvious violations are occurring in the prison system. Not only the obscenely long sentences but the torture holes of “Special Housing Units.” These are the equivalents of Belsen and Dachau, resulting in living death and mental deterioration. When I think that so many imprisoned without current hope of redress are political prisoners and have been held so for decades, it not only brings tears but also a feeling of grim determination to make it change!

Human Rights Coalition: What are some of America’s foreign human rights violations going on that people may not be aware of?

Lynne Stewart: I personally feel that the deterioration of the African sub-Saharan continent and its descent into rapacious capitalism will ultimately translate into unparalleled destruction of people and resources. I include South Africa in this assessment. If the African National Congress (ANC) and Mandela had remained steadfast in the socialist principles that guided their resistance and not given in to the terrible temptations of compromise, greed, and power, we might have seen the beginning of a different balance of power. Alas, this was not to be and instead we see the depredation of Africa, by absolutism and the American capitalist paradigm.

Human Rights Coalition: People seem to be oblivious or indifferent to the human rights abuses that occur daily in U.S. prisons against other human beings, women prisoners in particular. Can you shed some light on that human rights issue?

Lynne Stewart: Human rights do not exist in prison. Aside from the obvious violations described above, I see day-to-day a brainwashing that teaches all prisoners that they are less than nothing and not worthy of even the least human or humane considerations. This is reflected in the lack of adequate medical care, the appalling diet, the steady diet of spoonfed mediocrity—TV (Archie Bunker reruns), movies, no access to the web, etc. There is an absence of legal advice or aid inside the walls. Law libraries with books have been eliminated; instead they have a computer program that is so anti-user that even I, an attorney of 30 years, have difficulty navigating it. Their goal is to keep us dumbed-down, docile and estranged.

The outside world is oblivious because they too have been brainwashed into believing that those locked away are less than human—based on differences of race and class. It is most difficult to struggle against the power if you don’t have a belief that the struggle is worth the sacrifice.

Human Rights Coalition: Do you consider the legal practice of sentencing children to life imprisonment without any possibility of release (a de facto death sentence) for homicide, to be a human rights violation?

Lynne Stewart: I am 100 percent opposed to anything that does not have a factor of human redemption or at least of remediation. I guess it is part of a whole belief system. If you are, like I am, committed to “changing” the world it must be ALL of us, who deserve to live in a system that recognizes that terrible psychic and alone are a damning indictment of the present social order.

In truth, there is no justice is a racist and classist society, where the few rule and profit from the labor of the many—and where racist police, racist courts, and racist and class oppression permeate virtually every government institution. Under these circumstances we do not recognize any right of this state power to imprison anyone, much less to take their lives.

America’s growing prison system is the reflection of a morally degenerating social order—one that expends trillions on wars and bank bailouts while gutting social programs won by working people many decades ago. Every human being has the potential to make monumental contributions to society’s collective wellbeing. This potential is largely denied to vast sections of the poor and oppressed, and increasingly, as the economic chaos unfolds, to the broad working class more generally.

Perhaps Eugene V. Debs, five-time socialist candidate for the U.S. presidency, said it best. Addressing a Cleveland federal court at his 1918 sedition trial for opposing World War I, Debs stated: “Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

A mass struggle to win Mumia’s freedom would both honor the memory and life of Troy Davis and advance the freedom struggle across the board. n Save the date: Friday, Dec. 9, marks the 30th year of Mumia’s incarceration. The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal will be organizing an important “Evening (Above) Lynne Stewart and husband Ralph Poynter at National Assembly antiwar conference in 2008.

physical damage can be done to human beings, and has a plan to make people, especially children, whole and restore them to our community.

Human Rights Coalition: In Pennsylvania, being debated is whether sentencing child offenders to life imprisonment without parole should simply be “reformed” by leaving the legal practice intact and simply give the child offender a sentence of life with parole eligibility or should the legal practice be abolished entirely and a new sentencing scheme be developed for child offenders instead?

What is your position on the matter—reform or abolish it?

Lynne Stewart: Your question really asks if “reform” is possible within an inhumane system? This is an issue revolutionaries have wrestled with always. Do we give the starving a crust of bread or leave them hungry to make the greater change. I, like Rosa Luxemburg, always made it my practice to minister to immediate primary needs but also to render the explanation for their predicament in political terms and with political (group action) solutions. At least in that way, the baby was no longer starving for milk and there might be a spark ignited for the next confrontation with the oppressor. Marty Goodman / Socialist Action of solidarity and call to action: “Honor Troy! Free Mumia!” event in San Francisco, 6:30 p.m., at 518 Valencia St. East Coast Mumia organizations are preparing a major rally with the same objectives, also on Dec. 9, at the National Constitution Center, 5th and Arch Sts., in Philadelphia.

In the strict context of your question, we do need to struggle to save people from the most inhumane punishments. However, until we resolve the burning questions of race and class, we must not forget that these are palliative, Band-Aids on a hemorrhage.

Human Rights Coalition: What do you say about the illusion of democracy in America that the people are now witnessing from the domestic austerity program that the federal and state governments are imposing on the American people?

Lynne Stewart: Our job is how to smash the myth of America and we haven’t really figured out as a movement how to blast our way past the sentimentality the media foists on us. We used to believe that if people knew the “truth,” this would shake their faith and move us toward change; or alternatively, if their personal shoe pinched, they would act in self-interest. Now people seem to know only fear and rely on the myths of Big Brother government to assuage them. Our job is to keep on struggling, keep on raising the contradictions, create an atmosphere where we the people are ungovernable.

Human Rights Coalition: Any final comments for the movement out there, Sister Lynne?

Lynne Stewart: In this struggle, once you enlist, it is for life. There are no guarantees and you will be disappointed. But you will also be uplifted when there are victories and enriched by friendship and dedication of the comrades. Most importantly, you can look in the mirror every morning and be at one with the person there because you made the difficult choice and decided to fight for the people against the evil empires. It is the best way to live and I have been on the lines for fifty-plus years, living it. n Reprinted from The Movement #12, published by the Human Rights Coalition—Philadelphia, c/o Lava Space, 4134 Lancaster Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19147. Phone (215) 921-3491, www.hrcoalition. org. E-mail: [email protected].

You can write to Lynne Stewart at: Lynne Stewart, #53504-054, Unit 2N, Federal Medical Center, Carswell, P.O. Box 27137, Fort Worth, TX 76127.

Contributions can be made to: Lynne Stewart Defense Committee, 1070 Dean St., Brooklyn, New York 11216. For further information: (718) 789-0558 or (917) 853-9759.