Illegal Arms Trade

Just as America’s streets are flooded with weaponry, so is the global market-place. From the American-bought hand-gun that killed a Mexican presidential candidate this year to the varied weapons of war equipment used by Iraqi forces during the Persian Gulf War, weapons of every variety are moving undetected across world borders.

Here in the United States, violence-weary Americans have begun standing up to the once all-powerful gun lobbies.  In Philadelphia PA there is a murder everyday.

America’s arms export policy point to three problems
1. Connected gun merchants are above the law. 2. Many foreign Nations
Aren’t subject to us regulations. 3. Secret Government are complicit  in international gun merchandising.
Even a single American-supplied weapon can change an entire contry’s history. Luis Donaldo Colosio, the 44-year-old heir-apparent to the Mexican presidency, was killed in March by two bullets fired from a .38-caliber Taurus. The gun was originally purchased in 1977 by a security firm executive in San Francisco and had crossed the Mexican border some time later without a  trace, say authorities from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF).

After the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union collapsed. Tens of thousands of ex-Soviet soldiers were put out of work. Much of Eastern Europe was the same. In Africa, the lack of superpower support meant that the traditional militaries collapsed. And societies were beginning to fragment into numerous rebel groups ( National Liberation Front, Democratic Liberation, ETC)  and there was a great demand for military arms. Many of the former Soviet citizens  became arms dealers. The situation  went from a situation traditionally emphasized heavy arms to one which emphasized small arms — what the soldier could carry. These would have been AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, mortars, that sort of thing. They were cheap, they were durable, and they could be concealed and easily transported. And I think the fact [is] that the West kept track of the state-to-state arms transfers, but what made this a particularly difficult problem after the end of the Cold War was there was no tracking of small arms.
And it had a major impact on Africa — very devastating. I guess 7 to 8 million people had been killed by the turn of the century [2000]. There were millions of refugees and internally displaced [people]. Also, numerous people maimed or otherwise brutalized. Whole areas of Africa just ravaged. I think perhaps Sierra Leone, Liberia, and eastern Congo are the most terrifying examples.

The flow of arms into Africa is a worldwide phenomenon. Arms dealers use banks throughout the world. Transportation companies throughout the world, whether it be sea or airplane. Deals are made in one country for arms purchased in other countries. A lot of arms flowed out of the former Soviet republics. But there were also arms coming from European countries as well, and Asian countries. It was a bonanza. And it was unregulated.
The impact on Africa, if you could look at several different sectors of society. The Karamojong people living in eastern Africa, it’s a pastoral group, traditional warriors. Suddenly, they’re armed with AK-47s. It turned their society into chaos. In eastern Congo, where you had an invasion by the Ugandans and Rwandans and various rebel groups active in the area, it just devastated the entire portion of that country. I can remember speaking with some people who lived there. They said, “There’s nothing here. There’s no roads. There’s no police force. There’s no schools. There’s no medical services. There’s nothing. You’re on your own.” And that is the most egregious example. And then you have rising crime rates in places like Nairobi or Johannesburg, in part fueled by the easy availability of illegal arms.

Children and  millions around, not just Africa,  the world are being sensely murder and are victims of international weapons trade.

The Revolutionary United front (RUF) in Sierra Leone armed up to 23,000 child soldiers with illegally acquired arms. These children were mostly used to raid villages and guard diamond mines. They were drugged, raped and forced to commit such atrocities as killing their own parents  Many Children are dismember and hacked or shot to death.

The illegal arms trade makes the armed seizure of natural resources possible.

Small arms can be traded directly for natural resources such as oil, diamonds, and timber or for the profits generated by the sale of those natural resources.

This is like a cancer.

Socialist International-A View

The Second International, which was formed in 1889 and dissolved on the eve of World War I in 1914 and the Labour and Socialist International which dissolved itself in 1940 with the rise of Nazism and the start of World War II, constituted some of the same parties that would later form the Socialist International.
While the Second International was split by the outbreak of World War a skeleton form survived through the International Socialist Commission. The International re-formed in 1923 (as the Labor and Socialist International), and was reconstituted again, in its present form, after World War II (during which many social democratic and socialist parties had been suppressed in Nazi-occupied Europe).
During the post-World War II period, the SI aided social democratic parties in re-establishing themselves when dictatorship gave way to democracy in Portugal (1974) and Spain (1975). Until its 1976 Geneva Congress, the Socialist International had few members outside Europe and no formal involvement with Latin America. In the 1980s, most SI parties gave their backing to the Nicaraguan Sandinistas (FSLN), whose left-wing government had incited enmity from the United States.
Since then, the SI has admitted as member-parties not only the FSLN but also the centre-left Puerto Rican Independence Party, as well as the ex-Communist parties such as the Italian Democrats of the Left (Democratici di Sinistra (DS)) and the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO).
The Party of European Socialists, a European political party active in the European Parliament, is an associated organization of the Socialist International.

The SI itself is still a top shelf organization of the global left. They officially support the various anti-capitalist movements around the world. The SI calls for the international abolition of the death penalty. The SI favors every country adopting some kind of Ecological policies. They also favor canceling debts in many of the 3rd world nations. It is importantly to remember that the SI opposed the US led action of war on Iraq . Virtually every SI member party opposed the war.

The SI took a stand against apartheid In South Africa supporting Mandella. Being a champion in international human rights. In Jamaica Prime Minster Stanley took a stand against US pressure. The US gave the (socialist) People’s National Party government a hard time for Jamaica trying to get rid of poverty and having the nerve to embrace Cuba. In a Conservative government, the Jamaican begin toting M16 military riffles.

The Socialist Party of Allenede came back to power several years ago which is a adamant rejection of Augusto Pinochet’s fascist reign of terror and human rights abuses which lasted from 1973 until 1990. After the CIA backed overthrow of democratically elected Salvatore Allende.
The Movement toward Socialism organization in Venezuela is an observer status member of the SI. The MTS supports the justice and reforms of Hugo Chavez. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has to destroy the Socialist government of Venezuela. The USA’s northern neighbor, Canada. The New Democratic Party did fairly well. They picked up 5 seats in the House of Commons from 14 to 19. electorate.

The Socialist Party of America had had enormous success in Milwaukee when it was an SI party member. No since the early 1900′s has the USA had a real significant Socialist Party. That is Where the American Labor Party and Socialist International step in. The ALP/ISO will seek entrance to the SI.

Dedicated and Inspred by Mel Little

Workers Democarcy

Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in all its forms (including voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, systems of appeal, and so on) to the workplace.
It usually involves or requires more use of lateral methods like arbitration when workplace disputes arise.
Workplace democracy theory closely follows political democracy, especially where businesses are large or politics is small:
movement, farm and retail co-operative movements,  Democratic Employee Stock Option Plans all made contributions to the theory and practice of workplace democracy and often carried that into the political arena as a “more participatory democracy.” The Socialist International Social Democrat, Socialist and Labor Parties should adopted this as one of their Main focuses. Workplace democracy norms such as  co-leadership, deliberative democracy applied to any major decision, and leaders who don’t do policy. The Democratic Socialist Parties have always supported the notion of work place democracy and democratically controlled institutions.
In Sweden, the Social Democratic Party made laws and reforms 1950-70 to achieve more democratic workplaces. The unions right to balance the management and have some influential power was rather radical at that time, but still within the capitalistic society. ( which should be burned out)
Politically, Salvador Allende inspired a large number of such experiments in Chile before his death on September 11, 1973. The book Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer details experiments in workplace feedback that exploited systems theory extensively.
Venezuela has instituted worker-run “co-management” initiatives in which workers’ councils are the cornerstone of the management of a plant or factory. In experimental co-managed enterprises, such as the state-owned Alcasa factory, workers develop budgets and elect both managers and departmental delegates who work together with strategists on technical issues related to production.

Individual career development

Employee development, job enrichment, job rotation and entrance training can be arranged by the work team itself to suit its own schedule. Job sharing is also possible and desirable if a worker wants time off and another is in a position to do overtime, without the concern that this will set a precedent for management abuses or job losses.
Training should not be for insiders or the well connected but should benefit the community.
Succession planning is everyone’s problem: senior management will be replaced by whoever is elected to replace them.
There shall be no discrimination or class. All people will have the opportunity to have positions, entry positions, education, and leadership training.  with out coming  from and important family or special connections.
Organizational structure and management

Office politics in such an environment can be difficult: people might devote a lot of time to keeping their colleagues satisfied and supporting them socially and politically, and there is less surety of success.
Success is much better through a co-operative system. Performance appraisals in particular are very sensitive, as it’s conducted by peers. Meetings and meeting systems must generally be very efficient, and require strong models of chairmanship and sophisticated models of how to handle consent and dissent.  Open-space meetings and other methods to define their agendas have been used by some organizations, notably political party and management consultant organizations. One example is the Living Agenda pioneered by Canadian political parties.
There must be assurances that fellow workers will not abuse and protection instilled by quality control and Union Committees.
Organizational culture should however be generally more accepting of organizational learning and peer review of performance.
Performance improvement, self-assessment and coping with one’s own
Ability to adapt and mature. However, this is not to say those skills always apply in management: Peter principle applies if anything faster: people who are perceived as effective are elected to run things, which they promptly fail at. However, there is much more acceptance of returning to the shop as a worker if someone fails at management, which is much more difficult in organizations where there is a culture gap between managers and workers.
This can be improved by education for competence and ability in a education system that doesn’t fail to provide the education needed.
Also grievance and resolution can be applied. The better planned organization, the better the chances of success. There should be an avoidance of nepotism and the buddy system.
It may be easier in environments where consensus or consensus-seeking decision-making is already practiced for the most important decisions: who leads. Consensus democracy methods already exist to make very large scale decisions in social organizations.
As well as factories producing everything from textiles, ceramics, glass and rubber to food and refrigerators, the network also includes transportation companies, educational facilities and even hospitals. Most of them are headed up by men, but in some cases, the horizontal organizational structure has helped women move into leading roles.

One of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the world’s governments in 2000 is to promote gender equality and empower women. But in this case, the progress achieved by women is not a result of a government policy. On the contrary, it was the women themselves who took control of the abandoned factories and other businesses and got them back on their feet.

Grissinópoli is a member of the National Movement of Factories Recovered by Workers, a collective of roughly 80 companies formed in the late 1990s to group together bankrupted businesses that had been abandoned by their owners, but not by their employees.  These factories are now boss free and co-operative.

Everyone who sells their body for labor for a living are members of the working class. This includes most segments of society, workers who are self-employed as well as wage earners in the employment field. We are different in multitudes of ways but one thing we have in solidarity is that we are all members of the working class, we all depend on our work and that of our families. The real enemies of the working class are the capitalists – a small society that  gets their income mainly from stocks, bonds, inheritances, and real estate. They  control the political parties and the government with their wealth. These people make their money from birth right, not from work. The more profit they make, the more damage they do. The working class also does not include small employers and managers (petty despots) who control workers.  Workers are 90% of the population.  Although not all elements of Capitalism are bad, Capitalism should be the exception, no the norm.

Tea Baggers

When it comes to Tea I prefer mine to be Oolong at a Chinese restaurant. The Tea Part makes erroneous statements, like Obama, Clinton, and Carter where all Socialists. In which I have never heard any speak of Universal health Care, a full time 32 hour week, six weeks vacation,  and the improvement of education out side the corporate initiative.
Although in this district take heart, we have a Candidate in the American Labor Party/ Independent Socialist Party named Vitov Valdes Munoz. Who is the only progressive on the ballot. So we Leftist Liberals have someone to Vote for.
Of course Tea Baggers  say only Capitalism will save us. And BP is doing such a splendid job of saving us, that I have a friend in Florida who really appreciate what BP has done for her economy.
She is a cook, and she says no one is going to Florida for a vacation. The Oil Glots are already there and the Florida economy in her area is going into collapse.
When I figure that we have always hosted sweatshops and labor with multitudes of human rights abuses, one could be sure people didn’t wake up one mourning and say, just for the fun of it, lets start Unions. Capitalism works, and sometimes it works on people, animals, and the environment inhumanely. What a savior.
We are also Coffee Party Advocates.  Rather than Conservative Reactionary Politics, The National Coffee Party is a Coalition of people who encourage deliberation guided by reason amongst the many viewpoints held by our members. We see our diversity as a strength, not a weakness, because we believe that faithful deliberation from multiple vantage points is the best way to achieve the common good. It is in the responsible and reasonable practice of deliberation that we hope to contribute to society.
 I have re-founded the American Labor Party/Independent Socialist Party to run candidates and promote a greater democracy.
The Tea Party suggested that the Second Amendent allows us to bear arms against the Federal Government. Sounds like sedition too me. On March 20, 2010, before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Bill was voted on in Washington D.C., it was reported that Tea Party protesters against the bill used racial and homophobic slurs. Several black lawmakers said that demonstrators shouted “the N-word” at them.  Congressman Emanuel Cleaver said he was spat upon, and Congressman Barney Frank, who is gay, was called a “faggot.”  Representative André Carson said that as he walked from the Cannon House Office Building with Representative John Lewis, amid chants of “Kill the bill” he heard the “n – word at least 15 times”. One man “just rattled it off several times.” Carson quoted Lewis as saying, “You know, this reminds me of a different time.”
I do not believe that the majority of the Tea Party activist are racist but if you go to one of their rallies a good portion of them are. Look up a group called Brave New Films. They have a section on the Tea Party rallies and racism.
The ALP/ISO and Coffee Clutch is concerned with  many progressive issues.  The Coffee Party and ALP/ISO have the same message in Coalition.

They are  a political movement that developed as an alternative to the Tea Party movement. Its mission states that it is based on the underlying principle that the government is “not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges we face as Americans. Its stated goals include getting cooperation in government and removing corporate influence from politics.