Our internationalism and theirs

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SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 2017 7 I n this crazy, increasingly unequal and toxic world, there are two kinds of political collaboration—that of the capitalist class, and that of the working class.

The bosses have their North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO. They have their European Union. They have their World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and many so-called “free” trade agreements. For the capitalist rulers, those are tools used to maximize profit, to suppress workers’ resistance, and to rob nature.

As part of the international working class, we have unions, social justice movements, and most importantly, revolutionary socialist parties. The highest expression of working-class solidarity is the revolutionary workers’ International, of which I will say more later. One of the biggest obstacles to a better world is the illusion that there is no alternative to the present global system of exploitation and oppression. But the truth is, the world capitalist system is increasingly unstable. It is wracked by economic crisis and environmental catastrophe. Millions of refugees are fleeing famine and wars caused by the profit system.

And yet the corporate media fosters the illusion that a few young capitalist politicians can fix everything. They try to distract us with stories about Emanuel Macron’s love life, or Justin Trudeau’s hair, or not-soyoung Angela Merkel’s liberal values. They contrast those personalities to Donald Trump, although they all serve the same money God.

In Canada, and beyond, politicians and the business media are promoting a big fallacy. It is Trudeau’s claim that Washington is retreating from its role as world cop. He says it’s up to France, Germany and Canada to fill the security vacuum.

Need I remind you that the U.S. has 800 military bases in 70 countries around the world? How many bases has Trump closed? None. Not even the one on land stolen from Cuba, the prison torture camp at Guantanamo.

Oh yes, France has 10 military bases. Britain has seven. Canada has troops based in Iraq, in Latvia, in Ukraine, in Africa, and is again sending hundreds to Afghanistan; it has police in Haiti, and war ships in the Persian Gulf as well as in the Mediterranean Sea. But those forces cannot match, let alone substitute for the power of the American Empire. The fact is that the Empire is retreating from nowhere.

The Pentagon and Wall Street continue to work with the right wing in Venezuela to try to overthrow the Maduro government. They continue to embargo revolutionary Cuba, and aim to tighten travel rules that were loosened a little by Obama.

They cheer as Trump hit Syria with 59 cruise missiles, and when he exploded the “mother of all bombs” in Afghanistan. They applaud as he surrounds China with warships, and threatens North Korea with nuclear weapons.

Trump cemented his ties with the misogynist regime in Saudi Arabia, and he embraced the Zionist apartheid state, in person. Both of those clients of U.S. hegemony give direct and indirect support to Daesh/Isis/Isil. The only change is in diplomacy. I know that diplomacy seems like an odd term to apply to the chief resident of the White House. President Trump demands that his imperialist allies pay more of the freight. But Justin Trudeau professes to be a feminist. He promises an “independent” Canadian foreign policy. Yet he just capitulated to Trump. He did so by increasing the budget for the Canadian military by 70%, the largest increase in its history.

Trudeau, Macron, and Merkel can have breakfast with Barrack Obama, they can wear nice suits, and they may profess liberal democratic values. But in the same breath they help corporations defy environmental regulations, they put the squeeze on Greece and other countries coerced into debt by powerful exporting economies, and they drop bombs on Libya, Mali, Kurdistan—on any people who stand in the way of “progress”—I mean “profits.”

They have nothing good to say about British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who showed that socialist ideas are again on the political agenda. He showed that socialism is the alternative to capitalist austerity and barbarism. Corbyn is no revolutionary, but capitalism will not accept his reforms without a fight. An affirmation of humanity Our internationalism is much more than opposition to personal greed. Our internationalism is an affirmation of humanity. It is a testament to the beauty of the human imagination when liberated from the shackles of commodity fetishism. It is about the triumph of majority over minority rule. It is about smashing bourgeois state power and replacing it with a planned economy under workers’ self-management. Our internationalism grows out of the aspirations of the working class. It merges with the actions of millions who take matters into their own hands. Like the Communards of Paris did in 1871. Like the workers and peasants of Russia did 100 years ago when they smashed Tsarism, seized the factories, and distributed the farmland.

Like the workers and farmers of Cuba did 58 years ago when they destroyed the Batista dictatorship and expropriated foreign and domestic capital.

Today, dissatisfaction with growing inequality and with the political establishment is sweeping the world. The existing mass discontent has left-wing and right-wing variants, called populism. That distorted designation reflects the crisis of proletarian leadership. It also reflects the crisis of bourgeois ideology. Big holes appear in the fabric of liberalism and social democracy. That situation creates an opening for the radical left. In Canada, small and fragile gains are being made. Campaigns to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour and to obtain certain labour law reforms are succeeding. Struggles to stop oil and gas pipeline construction enjoy majority support. The indigenous people’s movement Idle No More forced a public enquiry into missing and murdered native women and girls. Black Lives Matter has put killer cops on trial. And who can forget the massive Quebec students’ strike of 2012 that stopped a big increase in university fees? Today, talk of free education, a transition to green energy, along with moves to tax the rich and to increase income for the poor, are dominant topics in the current race for leader of the labour-based New Democratic Party of Canada. Socialist Action plays a leading role in the NDP Socialist Caucus, and SA is (Above) Protest against education cuts in Chile in 2015.

building class struggle groups in the unions.

This is the 50th year since the death of Che Guevara, one of the greatest revolutionaries of all time. He was murdered by the CIA. He was abandoned to his fate by the Communist Party of Bolivia. Che taught us that “the revolution will be socialist, or it will be a caricature of revolution.”

Those who say such “old slogans” have no relevance need only look at the escalating crisis in Venezuela. Only a socialist revolution can resolve it in a way that is favourable to the vast majority. Build the Fourth International The Fourth International (F.I.) was founded in 1938. Victor Serge called that time “Midnight of the Century,” amidst the horrors of Nazi fascism and Stalinist barbarism. The stated purpose of the Fourth International was to unite the global working-class vanguard, to ensure the creative continuity of revolutionary Marxism, to provide a clear and sharp alternative to reformism at all levels.

For about 50 years, as a small but principled world party, the F.I. campaigned to defend the Algerian revolution, to defend the Cuban revolution. Together, we built a global movement to stop the U.S. war in South East Asia, to advance the idea (as Che said) “Create two, three, many Vietnams,” to defend the Prague Spring, to champion the French uprising of May-June 1968, to demand freedom for Hugo Blanco, to fight for free abortion on demand, for gay liberation, and against nuclear power.

Unfortunately, the main leaders of the Fourth International have gone off course in recent decades, abandoning the strategy of building revolutionary Marxist parties. For that reason, a number of organizations within and around the F.I. are reaching out to revolutionary socialists who share our principles of working-class political independence, workers’ democracy, and opposition to imperialist war, especially against the war-makers in our own backyard. We hope that the statement of our political current, now available in six languages, will enjoy substantial support at the F.I. World Congress next February in Belgium. Of one thing, we can be certain. A revolutionary workers’ International is indispensable to the survival of civilization. Human survival is threatened by climate change causing famines, floods, and the mass dislocation of peoples. On the rise are genocidal wars, and the scourge of authoritarianism and fascism. Prospects are grim without a new, class-struggle working-class leadership in the decisive countries. Such a leadership will not fall from the sky. It will not arise spontaneously. It will be born in struggle. It will arise from the clash of contending political tendencies. It will be tested, again and again, for its clarity, determination and heroism. That is the challenge we face, to build such a party on a world scale. Ensemble nous vaincrons! n This is an edited version of remarks made by the author to an educational conference of Anti-capitaliste et Revolution, a political tendency within the Nouveau Parti Anti-capitaliste, which encompasses supporters of the Fourth International in France.

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... Harvey hits Houston (continued from page 1: “Harvey hits Houston A glimpse of future climate disasters?”) surges. A surge of water from Harvey toppled two tanks in South Texas, spilling almost 30,000 gallons of raw crude oil. A pipeline ruptured east of Houston, releasing hydrogen chloride, a gas that “can cause serious or permanent injury” if inhaled, according to a federal safety guide.

In the first week after Harvey receded from the Houston area, refineries and chemical plants reported more than 2700 tons of extra air pollution due to damage from the storm and the effects of shutting down the facilities. Over 300,000 people live in neighborhoods that are in particular danger from the effects of an oil or chemical spill, according to a study cited by the Texas Tribune. The communities that are closest to the oil and chemical facilities are generally those of poorer people of color.

The danger of chemical pollution was highlighted early on the morning of Aug. 31 when the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, Texas, exploded, triggering a fire. Floodwaters had knocked out the refrigeration units at the facility, and Arkema officials had warned that it was virtually “inevitable” that the organic peroxide stored there would explode if it got too hot. When Richard Rennard, president of Arkema, was asked by the media what else he might have done to avoid the risk of burning chemicals at his plant, he shrugged his shoulders. The Houston Chronicle identified the plant as a potential source of danger in 2016, but nothing was done to correct the problems. ExxonMobil acknowledged on Aug. 29 that Harvey had damaged two of its refineries, releasing hazardous pollutants into the atmosphere. That followed numerous complaints on Twitter of an “unbearable” chemical smell over Houston.

Both ExxonMobile and Chevron Philips indicated that additional chemicals would be emitted because of the shutdown of their plants. Luke Metzger, director of the group Environment Texas, explained in the Texas Tribune, “Most of the unauthorized emissions come from the process of shutting down, and then starting up, the various units of the plant, when pollution control devices can’t be operated properly and there’s lots of flaring.” “This pollution will hurt public health in Houston,” affirmed Bakeyah Nelson, executive director of Air Alliance Houston. “When petrochemical plants prepare for storms, they release thousands of pounds of pollutants into the air. ... It is a stark reminder of the dangers of living near industry.”

In addition, Harris County, home to Houston, contains more than a dozen Superfund sites, plus other sites listed by the state as being highly toxic. Now the sites have been inundated by water, potentially spreading the contaminants over a wide area. On Sept. 2, the Environmental Protection Agency said that it had reviewed aerial imagery confirming that 13 of the 41 Superfund sites in Texas were flooded by Harvey and were “experiencing possible damage” due to the storm. Earlier, the AP surveyed seven Superfund sites around Houston, and all had been swallowed by floodwaters—sometimes several feet deep.

The effects of climate change Harvey was the third crippling storm that Houston has experienced in the last three years. And it is only 16 years since tropical storm Allison—until now the second deadliest in U.S. history—concentrated its force on the Houston area. “The exact same storm that comes along today has more rain associated with it than it would have 50 or 100 years ago,” climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe told The Texas Tribune last year. The reason has to do with climate change.

The warm ocean temperatures associated with climate change are making storms stronger and wetter. Warm water means more evaporation, so there 8 SOCIALIST ACTION SEPTEMBER 2017 David J. Phillip / AP is more water vapor for a passing storm to pick up. And rising sea levels due to climate change are worsening the effects of a tidal surge during a storm. Since 1960, the level of water in the Gulf has risen over a foot along the Texas coast.

Michael E. Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University, wrote in the Guardian, “While we cannot say climate change ‘caused’ Hurricane Harvey, we can say is that it exacerbated several characteristics of the storm in a way that greatly increased the risk of damage and loss of life.”

Mann wrote, “Harvey was able to feed upon warmer waters deeper within the Gulf when it intensified at near record pace as it neared the coast.” Another potential link to climate change, he said, is how the storm stalled near the coast, allowing it to increase flooding and damage in a pattern “associated with a greatly expanded subtropical high pressure system over much of the U.S. at the moment, with the jet stream pushed well to the north.”

The water in the Gulf of Mexico registered 85 degrees on the day that Harvey struck land. Greater Houston, because it sits next to the Gulf and is very flat, is especially vulnerable to the more frequent and intense rainstorms affected by climate change. Moreover, according to a Texas A&M study, Houston is the worst city in the United States for recurrences of flooding. Sprawl intensified the flooding Buoyed by oil money, Houston has become a paradise for big capitalist developers. Unchecked sprawl has greatly increased in recent years, allowing former pastures and wetlands that once soaked up floodwaters to be smothered by buildings, roads, and parking lots. In the years since Hurricane Allison, about 167,000 additional acres were developed in Harris County, mainly to the west of Houston; a lot of the new construction was in floodplains.

But county officials shrugged off any plans to reduce the dangers by protecting green space and strengthening building regulations. A few years ago, the city tried to ban buildings in the most flood-prone areas. But developers sued, and the city council voted to weaken the policy. When the city attempted to set aside a section of pastureland in its western suburbs to serve as an emergency drainage reservoir, they were again defeated; houses were built there instead. Houston’s top flood-control officials insisted that the monster storms that have hit the city in recent years were “freak occurrences,” and that the region’s dams and spillways would be adequate to contain any storms that they might ordinarily expect. A year ago, the outgoing head of the flood-control district, Mike Talbot, told The Texas Tribune and ProPublica that he spurned any notion that covering the land with concrete would make flooding worse. The claim that “these magic sponges out in the prairie would have absorbed all that water is absurd,” he said. Talbot said that his committee had no plans to study the effects of climate change on Harris County. He criticized scientists and environmentalists for being “anti-development.”

The local authorities’ inability to take steps to mitigate storm disasters has been made worse by federal policies under Trump. The Trump-appointed Environmental Protection Agency leadership denied the information brought forward by scientists that Harvey’s force had a link to worldwide climate change, calling it “an attempt to politicize an ongoing tragedy.” On Aug. 15, days before Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast, Trump signed an executive order that revoked an Obama-era rule requiring projects built in coastal floodplains that receive federal aid to account for the impact of sea-level rise. Trump trumpeted that the order was part of his efforts to rid corporations and industry of what he sees as burdensome and unnecessary regulations. In June, the EPA, bowing to pressure from the oil and chemical industries, decided to delay until February 2019 a series of crucial proposed updates to its Chemical Disaster Rule.

And Republicans in the House have been looking to cut $876 million from federal disaster relief funds—a sum that would pay for half of the down payment on Trump’s promised wall on the Mexican border.

It is expected that after Harvey, however, the GOP will probably back away from cuts in disaster relief, at least for a while, viewing them as politically inexpedient.

A glimpse of the future?

The disaster in Houston provides a glimpse of the fate of many other U.S. coastal cities if nothing is done to avoid the worst effects of climate change. A large portion of the U.S. shoreline is at risk from weatherrelated catastrophes—which are sure to get worse as the planet warms.

Many scientists predict that warming oceans and glacier and polar ice melt will cause a sea level rise of from four to six feet—or even more—by the end of the century. If the ocean rises six feet, almost 300 U.S. cities will lose half of their houses, according to the real estate company Zillow. One in eight houses in Florida will be underwater; a third of the houses in Miami will be at risk. It is likely that the damage caused by large hurricanes under those circumstances would greatly dwarf what we have seen recently with Harvey, Katrina, and Sandy.

The danger of storm pollution from oil and chemicals is hardly unique to the Houston area. About 177 million Americans live in the worst-case scenario zones for a chemical disaster. According to the Center for Effective Government, at least one in three children in the U.S. attend a school within the vulnerability zone of a hazardous chemical facility.

The problem, of course, is worldwide. Climate catastrophes have killed thousands in Africa and Southeast Asia. Local officials in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, reported that the death toll from floods and mudslides triggered by overnight rainfall on Aug. 14 had passed 1000. In the meantime, deaths from floods amid unusually severe monsoon rains in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh have surpassed 1200. The United Nations said that 41 million people in those three countries were affected by the floods.

This year’s climate-related disasters, now including Hurricane Irma, signal the catastrophe that the planet faces, and demonstrate that it is necessary to immediately shake loose from the stranglehold of capitalism’s oil-based economy.

It would be counterproductive, even criminal, for the federal government to hand over any more “disaster relief” funds to the oil companies to repair their facilities that were damaged by Harvey. Instead, Big Oil should be nationalized and the industry rebuilt with a huge network of renewable energy projects along the Gulf Coast and nationwide. That will take a massive mobilization of people and resources on a scale rivaling that of the mobilization during World War II. Now that its oil industry has been crippled, Houston can once more become the leader in generating power—wind power. The Texas Gulf Coast has good resources for wind energy, exceeding the average annual wind speeds (6.5 meters per second) that are generally considered suitable. Houston can also point the way forward by instituting a massive public works project to restore the land, undo the damage caused by unrestrained capitalist development, and prepare the area for rising sea levels and extreme weather. Houston can take steps to allow the prairies, wetlands, ponds, and bayous to perform their earlier function in absorbing the rains to avoid major flooding. Unfortunately, as people search for victims and begin to repair the damage of Hurricane Harvey, we can expect that the corporations will sweep in with profit-making schemes to “rebuild” the area and further entrench their interests. It’s been done before. Following the destruction caused by Sandy in 2012, Naomi Klein wrote an article in The Guardian warning of “America’s disaster capitalists,” who had now embarked on a “cash grab” within the stricken area. She showed, for example, how bosses had urged public officials to allow private industry to spearhead the rebuilding, to ignore union contracts, and even to create new “free-trade” zones to stimulate the influx of capital. Similarly, Hurricane Katrina spawned attempts by the capitalists to further privatize public services and the schools in Louisiana.

But at some point, working people will say, “Enough!” The thousands of civilian volunteers who saved lives during the worst days of Harvey demonstrated how working people will respond vigorously and resourcefully in a crisis when they see few other options. In time, the working class will refuse to be chewed up by big business or to stand aside for a government that will not respond to their demands. The workers will come to the realization that the capitalist system as a whole must be dismantled, and replaced with a new society aimed at protecting the planet and fulfilling human needs. n

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Our internationalism grows out of the aspirations of the working class. It merges with the actions of millions who take matters into their own hands.