Online at: http://politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/2277/1/134/

December 2005

By Political Affairs

Archives - Dates and Topics

2005 – print

December

11-27-05, 2:00 pm

In this issue...

In this issue our cover stories begins with Remy Herrera’s examination of Venezuela’s effort to emphasize the social in that country’s ongoing social revolution and continues with an interview of Carolys Pérez, a Communist Party activist. PA managing editor Joel Wendland discusses the momentum building around the fight for universal health care. Lawrence Albright ponders the secret inner workings of the bourgeois state and Owen Williamson surveys the far right’s tactics in maintaining dominance therein. Phil Rockstroh reviews the tragedy of New Orleans and Willie Madisha president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions discusses the problems confronting the trade union movement in Southern Africa. Finally, E. San Juan Jr. points to the genocidal policy inherent in the US domination of the Philippines in the 20th century and Tom Riggins debates the ideological origins of the Pol Pot genocide in Cambodia. We also have poems, a Marxist IQ and more. Let us know what you think.

In struggle,
PA Editors

Departments

04 Current Letters

06 COMMENTARY

Brigades of Workers and Witnesses
By Pat Gowens

Highway 61 Revisited: America Like a Rolling Stone
By Steven Laffoley

Clean Politics on the Left
By Gary Dotterman

Which Comes First, Democracy or Elections?
By Dale S. Scott

09 MARXIST IQ

11 Nobody Asked Me, But...

14 BOOK REVIEWS

Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine
Reviewed by Akin Akinbola

Wilson’s Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century
Reviewed by Norman Markowitz

Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney’s New World Order
Reviewed by Michael Adam Reale

Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century
Reviewed by Gerald Horne

18 Current Poetry

They Still Go on Safari
By Kay Jones

Of the People and Their Parks
By Robert Bhain Campbell

Baggage
By Allison Hedge Coke

Like You
By Roque Dalton

59 FICTION

Short Story: Men and Women
By Siegfried Pitscbmann
(translated by Marjorie Meyer)

Features:

36 If I Had a Hammer: Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution

By Remy Herrera
Social reforms in Venezuela are leading to socialist transformation.

22 Coalition Builds Momentum on Universal Health Care

By Joel Wendland
A nationwide movement in support of H.R. 676 is growing.

26 From Watergate to Downing Street: The Ultra-Right’s Love of Secrecy and Hatred of Democracy

By Lawrence Albright
Ultra-right presidencies from Nixon to Bush have used secrecy, war and terror to push their agendas.

32 Levees Made of Anger

By Phil Rockstroh
Anger at the unnecessary deaths of thousands after Katrina has built up. Will it turn into a movement?

38 Revolution from Below: The Communist Party Helps Chart a New Course

By Political Affairs
Carolys Pérez details the role of the Communist Party of Venezuela in the Bolivarian Revolution.

44 Labor on the Front-line: South African Trade Unionism Today

By Martin Frazier
Willie Madisha of Cosatu discusses the trade-union movement in South Africa and its view of the political balances of forces there.

48 We Charge Genocide: A History of the US in the Philippines

By E. San Juan Jr.
From US-ordered genocide to national liberation struggle, the battle for a free Philippines continues.

52 How the Right Recruits, and What the Left Can Learn

By Owen Williamson
The ultra-right uses therapy and family friendly messages to pass along its antifamily ideology. Can the left take a hint?

56 How Did It Happen? Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare

By Thomas Riggins
Was Pol Pot a Marxist? Was the Khmer Rouge a “Communist” movement?

66 La Batalla por el Congreso

Por Joelle Fishman
Las divisiones en el Partido Republicano están creciendo. ¿Podrán los Demócratas y las fuerzas políticas independentientes aprovecharse de estas divisiones y tomar el Congreso en el 2006?