April 2023

China: peoples congress, expanding economy, world stage

April 24th 9pm ET, 8pm CT, 7pm MT, 6pm

Presentation on current China issues by Duncan McFarland, CCDS Socialist Education Project, followed by discussion. 

Register here

Premier Li Qiang

The Communist Party of China at the October 2022 Congress set the lofty and ambitious goal of building a great, modern socialist country by 2050. The National People's Congress, held in March 2023, has a major role in implementing that goal -- is it realistic?The NPC appointed new top government officials such as Premier Li Qiang who specified a 5% growth target for the again expanding economy.

Foreign Minister Qin Gang gave an unusual and explicit warning to the US that continuing its hostile "fierce competition" approach could lead to conflict and confrontation. Meanwhile, China facilitated the Saudi Arabia-Iran rapprochement, announced the Global Civilization Initiative and continues to pursue de-dollarization of international trade..

Saudi-Iranian normalization

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqduuhrDktG9R517gKPLPrcSWJ4QvJQg5i 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Chna's Tiangong Space Station

Honor International

Women's Month

Listen to March's panel here

 https://www.facebook.com/OULeft.org/videos/946792543165479

Walter Teague Presente!

Walter Teague died on March 27, age 87 after his chronic leukemia finally killed him. He had a great run as an activist and social worker focusing on treating trauma driven by our capitalist system. Walter was a long term member of CCDS and webmaster of our local chapter, https://www.redandgreen.org which still features valuable resources for the left and Greater Washington DC community. Walter was a supporter of the NLF in the Vietnam War, a strong voice for the Vietnamese national liberation movement which ultimately defeated U.S. imperialism in an historic victory. In recent years, Walter focused on building a global movement to prevent climate catastrophe ("C3"), including sharing valuable resources with the Cuban leadership, and in support of victims of U.S. imperialism living in the DC area. Here is how to watch Walter's great speech at the Women's March on the Pentagon on Oct. 21 2018: Full livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gcwUtwi9MQ Walter’s speech starts at 2:02:10, note his reference to trauma and C3. I learned a lot from Walter and he inspired me to do research as a climate justice advocate.

David Schwartzman

How China Can Prevent Climate Catastrophe? Moving Humanity toward Global Ecological Civilization

(Posted from MRonline Apr 11, 2023)

Climate catastrophe? Aren’t we already witnessing climate catastrophe? As the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report tells us, there is still a chance to keep warming at no more than the 1.5°C target, but tipping points to climate catastrophes much worse than we are witnessing now will kick in if this target is breached. According to Kevin Anderson, a climate scientist at Manchester University, this IPCC report is too optimistic and neglects the interests of most of humanity living in the global South. Anderson estimates there is a 50 percent chance of meeting the 1.5°C target if global carbon dioxide emissions are reduced to zero by 2040.¹

It is now crystal clear that ongoing wars, in particular the Ukraine war, create huge obstacles to the global cooperation necessary for any chance of meeting the 1.5°C warming target. Please take note of the Science editorial of April 1, 2022, “To solve climate, first achieve peace,” which recognized this obstacle and called for the imperative cooperation of the United States and China to reach the goal of climate security.² Following the lead of China’s peace plan, we should support the call for an immediate ceasefire in the Ukraine war, and for all parties involved to negotiate.³ China is now being recognized as the leading peace force in the world with the recent success in bringing about better relations between long-term enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia, a reduction in tensions to the dismay of the United States and Israel, and likewise a potential basis for more effective struggle against these two repressive regimes by their own citizens. Since conventional oil has the lowest greenhouse gas footprint of the fossil fuels (with coal and natural gas having the highest footprint, to be phased out first), we should recognize the potential of oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela of extracting the minimum amount of conventional oil necessary as an energy source to rapidly build renewable energy technologies especially in the Global South, while phasing out global fossil fuels as quickly as possible, and at the same time earning revenues from such production for improving the quality of life of their own people.⁴

It is precisely in the Middle East that China can take an historic lead in promoting a renewable energy transition and confront the increasing climate threat. China is the world leader in green capital, actually creating renewable energy supplies, but this green capital is still coupled in the Chinese economy with powerful sectors dedicated to continued implementation and imports of fossil fuels, as well as an ambitious plan to build hundreds of new nuclear fission reactors.⁵ Can China emerge to fulfill its claim that its goal is a new ecological civilization, that is, become the global leader opening a global ecosocialist path?⁶ This contingency will likely only be realized with class struggle led by China’s working class and allies. How can China become the global leader for climate security? One example is the termination of China’s plan to build hundreds of nuclear reactors, the rapid phaseout of coal, and the accelerated creation of renewable energy supplies. In a new Belt and Road Initiative, China could build solar power in the Arabian and Saharan Deserts to supply electricity to the whole region and Africa, indeed the whole world, while powering direct air capture of carbon dioxide (DAC) and permanent burial of carbon as carbonates in the crust of Oman. DAC with permanent burial in the crust as carbonates is a carbon removal technology that will be imperative, along with restoring natural ecosystems and replacing industrial agriculture with agroecologies, given that the atmospheric carbon dioxide level must be brought down to below 350 parts per million and kept there as the ocean re-equilibrates with the atmosphere.⁷

Of course, unless global fossil fuel consumption is ended soon, at the same time as there is a significant buildup of renewable energy supplies, the 1.5°C warming target will be exceeded. Therefore, the enemy of humanity, militarized fossil capital and its political instruments, must be defeated by a transnational movement led by the working class and its allies, in particular Indigenous communities. Promoting a global Green New Deal (GND) with a progressively increased ecosocialist character is a viable strategy to defeat militarized fossil capital, and in its initial stages should capture truly green capital as an ally.⁸ But green capital is a problematic ally, since it is also a driver of extractivism with its negative impacts. Therefore, transnational class struggle must also confront green capital with the goal of minimizing these impacts, with full respect for the rights of the peoples impacted, notably Indigenous communities around the world and peoples in the Global South. There are already solutions available that can sharply reduce the negative impacts of extractive mining, particularly as renewable energy infrastructure replaces fossil fuels.⁹ The defeat of militarized fossil capital and an ecosocialist path forward will very likely require the emergence of a global subject with sufficient power to prevail.¹⁰ Likewise, the emergence of China as the global leader of struggle for climate security can inspire the transnational working class and its allies to champion a global GND to make this goal possible.

We should recognize China’s enormous achievement of lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty in just a few decades, bringing the Chinese people’s life expectancy to a global rank in 2020 of 45, with the United States ranking 51st, Cuba 49th.¹¹ Hence, there is a strong basis for expecting that China, with its Communist Party in leadership, can lead an ecosocialist path forward for humanity in the next few decades, which is critical for any chance at meeting the 1.5°C warming target. The fate of 8 billion people on our planet literally rests in the hands of China’s workers, farmers, scientists, and engineers.

About David Schwartzman Read more

David Schwartzman is the co-author of The Earth is Not for Sale. Read more at

https://mronline.org/2023/04/11/how-china-can-prevent-climate-catastrophe-moving-humanity-toward-global-ecological-civilization/

Support the BDS Movement https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds

CCDS Socialist Education Project

4 th Monday, May 22, 2023

9 pm Eastern Daylight Time

A Conversation About the Transformation of

Higher Education:

Shifting from a Wholistic Education to STEM, Branding and Privatizing

Educational Services, and Militarization

Dan Morris, Professor of English, Harry Targ,

Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Purdue

University

L.W.O.P

A cruel and torturous sentence

Hi.

My name is irrelevant. I am just one of thousands of individual citizens currently serving an unconstitutional sentence, LWOP (Life Without Possibility of Parole), within the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC), in violation of the Illinois State Constitution. Article I, Section 11 of the Bill of Rights clearly states: “All penalties shall be determined both according to the seriousness of the offense and with the objective of restoring the offender to useful citizenship.”

That's what LWOP cannot do.

LWOP was the former death penalty’s alternative sentence. It should have been abolished along with the death penalty. LWOP is just a different version of death penalty. The death penalty may have sometimes been quicker and the second longer, but neither complied with Article I Section 11.

The legislature needs to correct this error and abolish LWOP. A life sentence should be a minimum of 10 consecutive years, at which time an individual is eligible to be considered for release or parole by the Prisoner Review Board. The maximum should be 20 consecutive years, after which a person is discharged.

Hence the term, “twenty is plenty.” It would still be a life sentence, but with a chance to fulfill the objective of the Illinois Constitution: return the offender to citizenship. Alternatively, “good conduct credit” could be applied toward anyone getting a life sentence. For the first ten years a person could be ineligible for “Good time credit.”

Some things to think about.

Thanks for listening to this Lifer's perspective. I have been incarcerated over 40 years and I’m over the age of 65. Please feel free to share this with whomever you like. They may wish to do the same.



Respectfully,

An Elderly Lifer

UKRAINE peace? Invitation to a Peace Action WI statewide organizing zoom

Uniting Wisconsin to End the War in Ukraine

Sat., April 15, 3- 4:30 pm

Featured Speaker- Ray Mc Govern

Several WI peace leaders will be on the zoom to help with strategy and action planning. These include Jim Carpenter of the Milwaukee End the Wars Coalition, Pam Richard from Peace Action WI, Mary Kay Baum and Judy Miner from the WI Network for Peace and Justice, Steve Watrous and Martha Collins from the United Nations Association-Milwaukee chapter*, John Peck from Family Farm Defenders*, Tim Cordon from Building Unity, Art Heitzer from the WI Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba*,  Brad Geyer from Madison Vets for Peace, and from the Interfaith Peace Working Group: Rev. Dr. Jerry Folk, Jane Kavaloski, and Fred Trost.  [*Group names for identification purposes only.] 

Please share this with your friends

Register in advance for this zoom meeting.

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYuduCqrjMvHNLW1WQx_Fz1LqNKvNfgF5Oc

 WI peace people-  We are seeking advice, leadership endorsements, and people to describe what peace tactic worked for them. We hope the people attending will come away with ideas they can use locally. To make our contribution, WI peace activists need to find unity and then organize to work on public opinion, the media, and our neighbors. We can make our voices heard in Milwaukee and Madison and throughout our state.

We must raise the level of pressure on Congress and Pres. Biden to promote more serious negotiating toward a ceasefire and peace.

• Peace talks now.
• Mutual ceasefire.
• No U.S. actions to escalate or prolong the war.

Organizers of this project also support: the continuation of humanitarian aid to victims of the war, U.S. acceptance of refugees, and funding for our domestic needs instead of war.  We honor the brave individuals in Ukraine and Russia who use non-violent tactics to oppose this war. 

Contact Steve Watrous at wius.senateforum@gmail.com or 414-429-7567.

Sponsored by: the Milwaukee End the Wars Coalition and Peace Action-WI, and co-sponsored by the WI Network for Peace and Justice, Building Unity WI, the Interfaith Peace Working Group, Echo Valley Hope, and Veterans for Peace Madison Wisconsin Clarence Kailin, Chapter 25.   Thanks for assistance from the Fellowship of Reconciliation

Peace Action of WI

http://www.peaceactionwi.org/

-=-=-

Role Models for Young Organizers

Young organizers fighting to build a union can learn many lessons from the stories of veterans who have toiled in the trenches. Some stories are historical accounts, others are fictionalized versions of real campaigns.

Dip into these stories, you will be fired up and ready to go toe-to-toe with the bosses.

And remember, “There’s no such thing as fiction!”

Available from Hard Ball Press or your favorite independent bookseller!

When a new, heartless administration took over the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the director began taking away benefits that the museum guards had enjoyed for years. The boss even took away their chairs. That’s when the workers began to whisper the word: “Union.”

“Raysson's journey in the labor movement provides blow-by-blow accounts of a union organizing drive and subsequent contract campaigns…that will be especially instructive to workers eager to learn more about workplace organizing.” ~Rand Wilson, Organizer and Chief of Staff, SEIU Local 888