The Revolution Returns?

By Alessandro

The recent abduction of 43 student teachers of the Escuela Normal Rural "Raúl Isidro Burgos" is deeply related to the violence at the heart of globalized capitalism. On September 26, the students were arrested by local police while protesting discriminatory government hiring in the southern state of Guerrero. They have not been seen since, and despite the state’s attempts to implicate the students in narcotrafficking or pass responsibility onto local cartels, the Mexican people continue to demand the students’ return in mass protests. In the past decade 27,000 Mexicans have been disappeared.

On the one hand, Mexico has over the last two hundred years been in a continual process of social transformation that began with the struggle for independence and continues in the recent abductions and subsequent popular mobilization. National consciousness has been refined again and again through heroic popular struggle—personified by figures such as Father Hidalgo, Poncho Villa, Emilio Zapata, the EPR, the EZLN, and now the 43 disappeared students.

Such figures serve as conduits for the growing rage felt by the Mexican people as the contradictions of capitalism and (neo-)colonialism periodically intensify. It must be remembered that over the centuries the people of Mexico have not only suffered terribly but have also triumphed, toppling oppressive formations such as the moribund Spanish Empire, the despotic Porfiriato, and perhaps (finally) the “perfect dictatorship” of the Counterrevolutionary PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) Regime.

In contradiction with this, the recurring obstacle to the desires of the Pueblo Mexicano is Imperialist Interference. While it was possible for the Mexican people to decisively smash the mechanisms of Liberal government, the Porfiriato, it has never been possible to escape the shadow of their large Imperialist neighbor. From Independence onwards, Mexico and her people have had a relationship with the USA that, despite rhetoric extolling brotherhood and equality (e.g., NAFTA) have amounted to Colonizer (USA) and Colonized (Mexican Nation).

"It was the state"

The present moment in Mexico is characterized by a state dominated by the PRI (the ruling party for the majority of the last 75 years), an entity that has sold out to oligarchical interests both foreign and domestic who a century ago supported Porfirio Díaz. This betrayal has been compounded by the American Drug War, itself a new excuse to violate the sovereignty of Latin American countries from Colombia to Mexico in the name of combating an American (and general capitalist) problem, the population's dependence on narcotics to lessen the alienating experience of daily life under capitalism.

The popular uprising in response to the Ayotzinapa abduction, an incident that is unique only in the sense that it has triggered a colossal response from the Mexican people, must be seen as more than just a simple response to a heinous crime. This popular mobilization is instead the stirring of the creative energies of the Mexican Revolution, once again risen to smash the Neo-Porfiriato that serves the new Imperio Universal, that of global capitalism.

While the people of Mexico are not uniform in their demands nor their position in relation to both production and Empire, the historico-political force that they channel and use now as they have in the past, represent the rich faculties of a people who have throughout history struggled against foreign oppressors and domestic traitors with a fortitude matched by few others.

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Cuba: An Example of Resistance

by Liana Kallman

For the past 36 years, the Cuban Government has posed and continues to pose a national security threat to the United States.
   ―One Hundred Fourth Congress of the United States of America, 1996

Today, Cuba stands as one of the only non-capitalist countries in the world. This small island nation 90 miles away from the tip of Florida is one of only six United Nations member states not in the World Bank, IMF, or World Trade Organization (due to the U.S. trade veto). Cuba faces a litany of challenges, including a crippling trade embargo imposed upon it by the most powerful economy in the world, few natural resources and a disproportionately high borrowing interest rate of 9%.  This trade embargo, implemented in 1960, is widely recognized as a Cold War Era economic strategy to topple socialism in the name of democracy and freedom. 

The 1996 U.S. Congressional act for “Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity” justified renewing the embargo, because “the Cuban people deserve to be assisted in a decisive manner to end the tyranny that has oppressed them for 36 years, and the continued failure to do so constitutes ethically improper conduct by the international community.” This is a common trope in U.S. justification for imperial aggression and it should be noted that President Obama chose to renew the embargo under similar pretenses last month. 

Understanding Cuba’s long colonial history is crucial to understanding its development. Cuba was under Spanish control from 1592 through 1901. Subsequently, Cuba spent another 40 years under formal U.S. control through the Platt Amendment. A government that served U.S. business interests remained in power until the Revolution of 1959, which signifies the first moment of Cuban independence. This long history of exploitation and the powerful opposition of the U.S. government to the Revolution has created a lot of economic hardship and has forced Cuba to make many sacrifices for the sake of its survival. 

However, these sacrifices are never at the cost of universal health care, public and debt-free education, or arts and culture. And this is not simply Socialist rhetoric. Cuba has first-world indicators across the board, including a 99% literacy rate and a life expectancy of 79 years, which is higher than that of the United States, according to International Monetary Fund data. Cuba also has the lowest maternal and infant mortality rates in Latin America.

But these achievements did not come without a struggle. Resolver, or making do,  is one of the central features of daily life in Cuba. In any given neighborhood in La Habana, you will see more shoe repair businesses than new shoe stores. Creative solutions are applied to everything, from substituting pork for beef in recipes in light of the shortage of cows on la isla to the iconic cars from the 1950s, which are held together by an assortment of recycled parts. This is a direct contradiction of consumer culture of the United States, where we are convinced we need to purchase new things and perfectly usable items are frequently wasted and thrown away. 

We as North Americans can learn a lot from the Cuban system, rather than writing it off as a failed experiment. Cuba has clearly stated its priorities and its commitment is evident in the facts, which supersede any rhetoric. This small island has found a way to meet the basic needs of its people in terms, of health, education, safety and access to the arts. What is remarkable is that this was achieved in the face of so much economic hardship and scarcity caused by the U.S. trade blockade, then the U.S. can do the same for its people and more. 

We have all of the resources available to solve our social problems, and no excuses can be made for our unusually high maternal mortality rate or our failure to educate all of our youth and provide a college education to everyone who wants one. The crisis in American education and the limited reform of our private health care system are unacceptable. We have been convinced that budget cuts to art and music programs and public education at every level are unavoidable, but in light of Cuba’s ability to prioritize these important social services, I am skeptical that we cannot find alternatives. 

To myself and other leftists, Cuba provides real inspiration that progressive change is possible in the United States if we can create the political will to fight for it and if we refuse to accept politicians’ defenses of cuts in social spending. To join forces working towards progressive change, find us at Facebook or locate us on MaizePages.

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No God but Capitalism: A Review of Wolf of Wall Street

It is not uncommon for Martin Scorsese to run his films around the three-hour mark. But strangely, his most recent film, Wolf of Wall Street (starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, and Margot Robbie), felt much longer. It’s not that the film lacked action, intensity, or any other essential Hollywood ingredient—violence, sex, drugs, etc. To the contrary, one can easily accuse this film of being overgenerous with this kind of material, even superfluous. 

Although the excessive hedonism may have made the film too vulgar and difficult for some people to watch, I don’t think any of it was accidental. Rather, it is Scorsese’s clever way of driving home his main point, that is, that capitalism is a rotten system which bears no fruit, only banality and sickness. If we felt oversaturated, dazed, and disgusted while watching the film, it is because we were meant to.

If Scorsese merely wanted to entertain us, he would have fed us a more balanced diet: just enough drug scenes to make the characters amusing, a regulated amount of sex scenes to trigger slight arousal, and a calculated amount of violence to stir our excitement. This surely would have made the 180 minutes go by a bit faster, and maybe even make the life of a corporatist pimp somewhat appealing.

But Scorsese leaves no room for sympathy. He does not even bother touching on the ‘good’ side of capitalism, the ‘virtues’ of industry and business, what has been called the “Protestant Ethic.” Scorsese only focuses on capitalism's destructive nature, as he depicts how it destroys everything in sight: relationships, careers, families, even God.

In my view, one of the most telling scenes of the film was the scene in which DiCaprio’s character, Jordan Belfort, gives his wife Naomi (Margot Robbie) a new yacht as an anniversary present. By this point in the film, I was already numbed by all the untempered consumerism, and I expected Naomi to feel the same. She was already so rich; she had everything she could ever want. So what could possibly still stimulate her interest? But Naomi proved me wrong in my prediction. Tears of joy moistened her cheeks as Jordan revealed the new yacht. She was ecstatic. She fetishized her new commodity so devoutly that her tears became a quasi-mystical experience.

Mysticism, as I understand it, is a glimpse into a spiritual world outside of space and time, and beyond our imagination, for which the only possible human response is weeping or, if one is talented enough, poetry. Not unexpectedly, Naomi only settled for some liquid in her eyes, she was apparently a bit short on poetic wit.

For Naomi, the yacht was a vision of a god who had revealed himself to mankind as a hunk of metal floating on salt water—or better put, capital. But unfortunately for her and all the other main characters, their newly discovered god was cold and heartless at best, and hostile and utterly destructive at worst.

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Medicare for All Could Solve the Problems of Obamacare

Forty years ago, we had a fight about health insurance in this country; a political struggle over how to cover the uninsured. On one side was President Richard Nixon, who advocated bringing the uninsured into the existing system of private insurance through an employer mandate—a law requiring corporations to buy health insurance for their workers. On the other side were the liberals, led by Senator Ted Kennedy, who advocated a system in which Medicare would expand from insuring only the elderly to insuring every American. Because this would make Medicare the only entity to pay many healthcare providers, and thus their only payer, a program of this kind is called a single-payer system. In many other rich countries, such systems of national health insurance are as ordinary as public schools.

For decades to follow, that was the political terrain: liberals supported a single-payer system that expands public health insurance to cover the uninsured, while conservatives supported mandates that expand private, for-profit health insurance to cover the uninsured. To the usually slight extent that radicals concerned themselves with health policy, they admired the Cuban system, in which the government runs the hospitals and the medical schools and systematically allocates medical resources to meet the health needs of the population, rather than the demand of the market.

Those were the old politics of health care. Since President Obama's election and his passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the entire political spectrum has taken a large step to the right on this issue. Now radicals may look longingly to Cuba, but in practice they support single-payer. Liberals, now rebranded as progressives, may quietly pine for single-payer, but in practice they're willing to settle for the plan that Obama borrowed from Nixon. Conservatives today have no plan to cover the uninsured, and they regard their own previous plan with an increasingly unhinged hatred since its enactment by a black Democratic president.

Before the enactment of the ACA, Barack Obama himself supported single-payer, saying as a state senator that, "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal healthcare plan." As president, of course, he enacted the ACA, a law known to all of its enemies and some of its friends as "Obamacare”. This law creates a system of insurance exchanges on which uninsured, non-poor Americans are legally mandated to buy health insurance. To buy insurance on an exchange, the system has to take you through three stages: eligibility determination, buying insurance and enrollment. Right now all three are dysfunctional, but none would be necessary under a single-payer system.

The first step is to enter your income and some other financial information. If your income is less than 138% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), then the system should shunt you off to be covered through Medicaid. If your income is 138-400% of FPL, then the system should send you on to the exchange with a subsidy to help you pay for health insurance. (People with incomes greater than 400% of FPL are required to buy insurance but receive no subsidy.)

Currently, the system is incorrectly sending some Medicaid-eligible people to the exchanges and some Medicaid-ineligible people to Medicaid. Also, many of the subsidy calculations are incorrect, telling people a subsidy amount higher or lower than that which they will eventually receive. These errors of eligibility and subsidy determination are problems in a process that wouldn't exist under single-payer. With all Americans included, there would be no need to decide who was eligible and who was not.

If your income is too high for Medicaid, then the second stage is to register an account on the site, browse the health insurance plans available in your state and choose one to purchase. This is where the most well-publicized computer problems of the ACA exchanges crop up. Some people have tried dozens of times to buy insurance on the exchanges but remain uninsured because the websites don't work properly. This, too, is a problem in a process that would not need to exist under single payer: if all Americans were automatically enrolled in Medicare by virtue of having been born, then there would be no need to buy private insurance from for-profit companies who regard your health care expenses as "medical losses."

Finally, once you have registered an account in the health insurance marketplace and pushed the button on your computer to purchase a particular plan, the exchange's computers must take all the personal information that you entered into their system and send it on to the insurance company whose plan you bought. They do this with an electronic form called an 838, which is a piece of old, simple, reliable technology that has been standard for decades in the health insurance industry, but which the ACA exchanges have somehow managed to mangle. (One individual told the website that he had a spouse and two children, and then for some reason the website lumped them all together and told the insurer that he had three spouses.)

Although these back-end problems have not been as widely reported, they may be the most serious failure of the system. If the administration were to fix all the eligibility and purchasing problems, but not fix these enrollment problems, then people could go through the process online and think they had bought insurance, only to learn upon going to a doctor's office that their supposed insurer had never heard of them. Again, if Medicare covered everyone, then there would be no need for software that communicates between government-run exchanges and private insurers.

Under a single-payer system, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's could simply connect its computers to those of the Social Security Administration and automatically enroll every living person who has a social security number or taxpayer identification number. Thus could all of this confusion have been avoided. We can continue to run 50 state Medicaid systems alongside 50 state insurance exchanges that have to communicate with private health insurance companies. All 100 of those systems have mutually exclusive pools of eligible individuals, plus private insurance through employers, plus labor union plans, plus Medicare for the elderly, plus the Veterans Administration for service-connected disabilities. But it would be far simpler, better and cheaper to enact a single national health insurance system that just covers us all in one risk pool, with everybody in, and nobody out.

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Do You Hear the People Sing, Citoyen Burke?

It is the year 1832, and France is bleeding. King Louis Philippe has reneged on his promise to help the poor of Paris during a time when the economy has tanked and the hardships of disease and poverty bear down on the people of France more than ever. At this point, a brave group of revolutionaries decided that enough was enough. This group was known as the Society for the Rights of Man. Throwing up barricades throughout the streets of Paris that June, the rebels demanded the end of the French monarchy, democratic elections, and relief for the poor. Although the rebellion was crushed within three days, the rebels’ cause lived on to inspire a later rebellion that ended up overthrowing King Louis Philippe. The way most people today are familiar with the facts of this rebellion is through Victor Hugo’s groundbreaking work Les Miserables and the later musical of the same name.

Les Miserables is a unique work due to its portrayal of, well, what the title says it portrays. The miserables; the poor and oppressed people in society who suffer due to the socio-economic system. For two hundred years, readers and audiences have been moved by the struggles of an escaped convict trying to rebuild his life, Jean Valjean, an impoverished factory worker forced into prostitution, Fantine, and Cosette, Fantine’s orphaned daughter. The story’s portrays the June Rebellion as a tragic defeat of the heroic revolutionaries trying to make French society live up to its goals of liberté, egalité, fraternité. Political figures as diverse as author HG Wells and former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have praised Hugo’s work for its attention to the oppressed, and also for its defense of the right of citizens to change their society.

This attitude can be directly contrasted with the views of English Whig statesman Edmund Burke. While early in his career Burke defended revolutions such as the American revolution, by the time of the original 1789 French Revolution he had drastically shifted his position to that of a conservative traditionalist. In his 1790 work Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke attacked the French revolution for its willingness to drastically change society’s political and religious traditions. He argued that overturning France’s tradition of monarchy, aristocracy, and the Roman Catholic Church would lead to chaos. For Burke, society depended on rank and hierarchy, with a few at the top to command and many at the bottom to be commanded. Initially, from the way the revolution went, it might seem as though Burke was correct. The popular image of the French revolution is that of the reign of terror, the period during which the French guillotined many, including some innocents, whom they considered “enemies of the revolution.” But it is here that Burke commits a logical fallacy. He blatantly ignores the fact that under l’Ancien Regime of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, hundreds of thousands suffered in poverty and starved to death, or were executed for minor crimes. As Victor Hugo illustrated in Les Miserables, even after the monarchy was restored following the 1789 revolution, the abuses of the monarchy and aristocracy continued.

Burke was correct in that the revolutionaries committed many crimes, but the solution he offers is not based in any logical or well-reasoned thinking. Tradition is one of the stupidest reasons to continue to do something; the idea that “this is the way we’ve always done it” somehow justifies torture and extortion is absurd on its face. Following Burke’s logic, his friends the Americans would never have declared independence, because British imperialism and monarchy was their tradition. Even the Magna Carta of 1215, which Edmund Burke cites as a conservative document preserving English liberties, would never have been drawn up had the English of the time not challenged the tradition of the King having absolute power. Slavery would also have been laudable, as it was a tradition of Europeans since antiquity.

Thus, Burke’s logic falls flat on its face. As Victor Hugo and the Society for the Rights of Man (called the Friends of the Abaissé in Les Miserables) correctly pointed out, following tradition is pointless when that tradition causes harm. As such, the rebels of 1215, 1776, 1789, and 1832 all rose up against traditions that were abusive to the majority of society. Burke ignores the fact that, as Rousseau pointed out, humans have the ability to learn from their mistakes. The revolution of 1789 was bloody, and the revolution of 1832 failed, but the French revolution of 1848 that overthrew King Louis Philippe was far less bloody and was in fact successful. Using our reasoning abilities, people have the power to change the world for the better. Burke was right in one way: we can learn from the past. We can learn from our past mistakes what did not work, and in our next revolution, we can stop ourselves from making those same mistakes.

All of this is important because even in the modern United States we still face a lot of abusive traditions. From the stigma against homosexuality to the struggles of the modern poor, tradition helps promote a number of negative aspects of our society. This is very sad, because it would likely be much easier to get rid of these social ills if they did not have centuries of acceptance which make it hard for people to imagine any other way of social organization.

The final song of Les Miserables is a reprise of the musical’s most famous song, Do You Hear the People Sing, the rousing anthem of the Friends of the Abaissé. This song displays how, although the revolutionaries lost in 1832, the fight continues on. Even today, our fight against abusive traditions continues.

“Do you hear the people sing?

Singing the song of angry men?

It is the music of a people

Who will not be slaves again!”

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