Political Affairs Podcast #111 – Labor on the march!
On this episode we'll play our interview with Scott Marshall, chair of the Communist Party's labor commission, about the recent AFL-CIO national convention and labor's role in the demonstrations at the G-20 events in Pittsburgh.
The results of the recently concluded 7th Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, show that it’s possible to work for a new world economic order.
At a time when the international financial schemes have shown their unfeasibility, the agreement reached at the Alliance with regard to the Unitary System (instead of single-monetary system) for Regional Compensation (SUCRE for its Spanish acronym) that will come into force on January 1st, 2010, was very important.
Thus, the group made up by Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Honduras, Ecuador, Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda, established a financial mechanism that will make it possible to give up dependence on the devalued US dollar. Congratulations!
Similar importance has the fact that this forum has established the fundamental principles that will govern the Peoples’ Trade Agreement (TCP) to develop regional trade based on complementary aid, solidarity and cooperation “to live well”.
The document, an initiative of the summit’s host, Bolivian President Evo Morales, is even more significant when compared to the negative effects the inclusion of Mexico in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada has brought to Mexicans.
The Summit was an excellent opportunity to expose the developed countries’ responsibility in the climate debt, while participants demanded mechanisms of compensation for those countries that preserve, protect and maintain their forests.
Likewise, it condemned the US economic blockade of Cuba, when there were only a few days left for the debate that in this regard will take place at the UN General Assembly; it repudiated the coup d´état in Honduras, which was described as an attempt against the very same Alliance-Agreement; and rejected the presence of US military bases in Colombia, a danger to The Americas.
At the end of the event, participating heads of state held a warm meeting with delegates at the 1st Summit of Social Movements, which carried out its sessions simultaneously -a fact that evidences that joint work between political and social spheres is possible.
Two centuries after the first liberation cries in the homelands of Simon Bolivar and Jose Marti…, the heads of state gathered in Cochabamba reaffirmed their commitment of moving forward to achieve independence, liberation, self-determination, and the union the Latin American and Caribbean peoples are claiming for.
