sweeney & netanyahu

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Sun Apr 14 09:20:20 PDT 2002


----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Shorrock" <tshorrock51 at hotmail.com>


>Actually on China, Sweeney opposed the trade deal - but if you want to talk
>foreign policy, the AFL and the Naderites were and are adamant backers of
US
>military aid to Taiwan to contain the Chinese 'military threat' and, as I
>said, joined with the VFW and the Buchanan people and others in denouncing
>China as some kind of rogue state.

Yeah-- and China is a brutal dictatorship which is one of the worst enemies of democratic trade unionism in the world-- they regularly break strikes and jail union leaders (or put them in mental hospitals). Any decent labor person should condemn the Chinese state.


>I agree that the
>AFL criticism of Ashcroft and the attack on civil liberties is important.
>But again, its focused on domestic issues.

I posted a string of positions by the AFL-CIO around debt relief, AIDS in the third world, and foreign aid that go directly against Bush policies. Those are not domestic issues. What you want to say is that the unions don't criticize military action by US forces, which is largely true and no doubt reflects the overwhelming position of its members. Why people expect the union leadership to defy the political positions of its members on military issues is just beyond me. If we want to change those politics, we have to reach the broad population, not exect top-down endorsements from places like the AFL-CIO leadership.

That's the problem I have with a lot of these "friendly fire" criticisms of union leaders or other progressives-- the assumption is that they should take positions that their own members don't support, which is an excuse for antiwar activists not having convinced the public of their positions. But the unions are taking strong leadership positions on issues like foreign aid and help for the developing world where members are a bit more ambiguous or apathetic, which is to their credit.


>As for the Solidarity Center, it is extremely
>careful about opposing any Bush policies or taking on US companies because
>it receives almost all its funding from the US government.

Yeah- that's not surprising, but they are still doing union organizing with the money that Bush do doubt does not like-- and we will see how long this arrangement lasts. The National Endowment for Democracy is going to hit a political rock at some point.

And as I emphasize repeatedly, I frankly think positions on miitary affairs are far less significant than issues of foreign aid and debt relief. Add up all the deaths from the war in Afghanistan and against the Palestinians and the total body count is probably equivalent to the daily death count from AIDS, malnutrition, or diseases due to lack of clean water.

There is an obsession with the gun among many partisans of the Right and the Left, when the reality is that economic inequality globally is a far more brutal mass murderer. And the AFL-CIO has completely admirable politics at this point on global inequality issues.

-- Nathan Newman



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