In Memoriam: Leslie Nielsen (1926-2010)

Unlikely funnyman Leslie Nielsen, 84, died Sunday of complications from pneumonia in Florida. Although inactive for several years at the time of his death, the loss of Nielsen will be felt by anyone who ever chuckled at his inimitable brand of deadpan comedy. To this day, I still consider Airplane! the funniest film ever made. Police Squad!, the short-lived TV series that inspired the Naked Gun films, was ahead of its time in its rapidfire arsenal of jokes and often surreal sight gags.

Born in Canada, Nielsen had a long career in Hollywood prior to his reinvention as slapstick king. He began acting in feature films in 1956 and scored a significant leading role early on when he played Commander Adams in the science fiction classic Forbidden Planet. Thereafter, he appeared regularly on film and television in a variety of generally serious roles. There was no indication of his comic potential until the team of John Abrahams, Jerry Zucker and David Zucker cast him in Airplane! Planted smack-dab in the middle of a chaotic comedy, Nielsen's authoritative baritone and self-serious demeanour became the new high-water mark for deadpan humour.

His post-Naked Gun spoofs - Wrongfully Accused, Spy Hard, etc. - did not achieve the same critical and commercial success as these initial forays into parody. But Nielsen himself was invariably the high point of all of them and could always reliably tickle the audience's funny bone. As of two days ago, the world is just a little less funny.

Concert Review: Blind Guardian

First things first: Guardian put on an incredible performance. These guys are total pros and they know how to work an audience. Friday night was beer-soaked fantasy metal at its finest. But don't take my word for it; thanks to the miracle of YouTube, you can see for yourself:



Unfortunately, the evening wasn't everything it could have been and that was almost entirely my fault. By arriving late to the Kool Haus, I missed the first opening band, Seven Kingdoms, and only heard the last song by the second, Holy Grail. While I had looked forward to Seven Kingdoms, I could have missed them and it wouldn't have greatly affected my concert experience. Holy Grail was a different story. I bought their album Crisis in Utopia after hearing it in a music store. Frankly, they blew me away: traditional heavy metal bolstered by youthful exuberance and a unique singer with a terrific voice. When I found out they were opening for Blind Guardian, it was a deciding factor in my finally buying a ticket. Yet due to my procrastination - as well as getting to the bus stop and having to turn around when I realized I had forgetten my ticket - I got there only in time to hear their last song, "Fight to Kill". What I heard was just enough for me to understand that I had indeed missed a killer performance. Hopefully they don't break up before making a return trip to Toronto.

Still, the night could have been a lot worse: I could have gotten all the way to the concert and only then realized I forgot my ticket. Count your blessings, right?

At any rate, I saw Blind Guardian and therefore accomplished my main goal. The biggest question for me going in was what song they would open with. Having gorged myself on their double live album prior to the show, my bets were on "War of Wrath"/"Into The Storm", the opening double-whammy from their Tolkien-inspired concept album Nightfall in Middle-Earth. But instead they began with the orchestral epic "Sacred Worlds", starting point on their latest record At The Edge of Time. They likely couldn't have picked anything better, as I've grown to absolutely adore this song after many repeated listens.

The band followed up with "Welcome to Dying". I was never a huge fan of this track, but played live it was something else entirely, thanks largely to vocalist Hansi Kürsch and his calls for crowd participation: "welcome to...DYING!" Aside from the aforementioned "Lord of the Rings", the night's set list included "Fly" from the 2006 album A Twist in the Myth, "Mordred's Song" and "Born in a Mourning Hall" off 1995's Imaginations from the Other Side, the obligatory performance of "Nightfall" and the more surprising inclusion of "Time Stands Still (At The Iron Hill)" from Nightfall in Middle-Earth, and - so I'm told - "Traveler in Time", opening track off their 1990 album Tales from the Twilight World. There were a couple other songs I didn't recognize, but the night ended on a high note with encore performances of their classic acoustic number "The Bard's Song (In The Forest)" and - for the grand finale - "Valhalla", from 1989's Follow The Blind.

As might be expected from a legendary group of Blind Guardian's stature, the quality of musicianship was uniformly superb. Guitarists André Olbrich and Marcus Siepen drew us into Guardian's fantasy world with their six-string heroics, which ranged from the delicate picking of the softer numbers to the face-melting solos traditionally associated with metal gods. Drummer Frederik Ehmke, a member since 2006, brought the double-bass virtuosity. Perhaps most surprising was bass player Oliver Holswarth, who took over bass duties from Kürsch in 1997 after the latter decided to focus on singing; despite his nominal status as a session musician, Holswarth had a real onstage presence unusual for a bass player. Speaking of vocals, with one of the most unique voices in metal, Kürsch has always been one of the band's strong suits. He proved himself a most charismatic and effective frontman at this show, and while he may look less "metal" these days with the shorter haircut, Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden proved it doesn't matter so long as you can still work the crowd and belt out classic songs.

My only real complaint about Guardian's performance was the puzzling omission of some of my favourite songs. I never expected them to play "Theatre of Pain", an underrated golden oldie from Somewhere Far Beyond, but there was at least a chance they would play "Banish from Sanctuary", a thrashy and undeniably catchy song from Follow the Blind describing the life of John the Baptist. Unfortunately, they didn't play either. What was more surprising was their failure to perform a variety of other power metal classics featured on the Live album. "Majesty", "Journey Through The Dark", "Into The Storm", "Imaginations From The Other Side", "Bright Eyes", "A Past and Future Secret" - they didn't play any of 'em! Their decision to omit some of these songs is absolutely befuddling and did leave me a little disappointed in some respects.

On the other hand - it's fucking BLIND GUARDIAN! These guys are metal legends for a reason, and having finally experienced them live, I can now personally attest what a great experience it was. I will be seeing my beloved bards again at the nearest opportunity.

What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?

I was just reading the superlative new book by Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class, which I highly recommend. The second chapter, "Permanent War", focuses on the corrosive effects of the war in Afghanistan. In his long career, Hedges has reported on numerous conflicts around the globe. He previously discussed the indescribable brutality of war - and the disturbing fascination it holds - in his book War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, but reading this new chapter brought it all back home for me again, not least because he describes an environment in which one of my family members is currently serving.

Here are the key passages:

We currently spend some $4 billion a month on Afghanistan. But we are unable to pay for whiteboards and markers for instructors. Afghan soldiers lack winter jackets. Kabul is still in ruins. Unemployment is estimated at about forty percent. And Afghanistan is one of the most food-insecure countries on the planet.

What are we doing? Where is this money going?

Look to the civilian contractors. These contractors dominate the lucrative jobs in Afghanistan. The American military, along with the A[fghan] N[ational] A[rmy], is considered a poor relation. And war, after all, is primarily a business.

[...]

"What good are a quarter-million well-trained Afghan troops to a nation slipping into famine?" the officer asked. "What purpose does a strong military serve with a corrupt and inept government in place? What hope do we have for peace if the best jobs for the Afghans involve working for the military? What is the point of getting rid of the Taliban if it means killing civilians with airstrikes and supporting a government of misogynist warlords and criminals?

"We as Americans do not help the Afghans by sending in more troops, by increasing military spending, by adding chaos to disorder," he said. "What little help we do provide is not useful in the short term and is clearly unsustainable in the face of our own economic crisis. In the end, no one benefits from this war, not America, not Afghans. Only the CEOs and executive officers of war-profiteering corporations find satisfactory returns on their investments."

That great American truth-teller, Major General Smedley Butler, famously described his long and illustrious military career in the following terms: "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism." War is a racket. As Hedges illustrates, for those who rake in obscene amounts of cash from it, the war in Afghanistan is an end in itself.

Let's try a little thought experiment. What would happen if the war were to end tomorrow? While such an unlikely scenario would be a supremely moral decision and a general boon for humanity (despite the tremendous costs in human life, we would at least stop the bloodletting), for the corporations that profit the most from America's imperial wars -the Blackwaters (now Xe), the KPRs, the Halliburtons - it would be an unmitigated disaster. These companies depend on endless war and attendant government subsidies to fatten their bottom lines. As befits an amoral institution seeking one thing and one thing only - profit - the corporation is immune to all details of real human suffering.

The media and entertainment industries continue to present a sanitized, mythical-heroic vision of war that has nothing in common with war itself. I made the mistake of reading the letters section of the National Post today and saw the usual bromides about how Canada is liberating the women of Afghanistan and helping spread democracy. Hedges reminds us that no one could repeat those thought-terminating propaganda lines if they were standing over the shrapnel-filled bodies of slain Afghan children while devastated parents helplessly scream and cry. The next time you want to justify this criminal enterprise by spouting off ridiculous clichés about "finishing the job" and "fighting terror", look at the picture below and tell me that it's worth it:

One of the central themes of Death of the Liberal Class is how the expansion of the corporate state was facilitated and exacerbated by traditional liberal institutions which utterly failed to defend the ideals they claimed to uphold. The media, the church, universities, liberal politicians, artists and labour unions were all bought off with corporate money and in doing so lost any legitimacy they had previously claimed as the moral conscience of the nation. A series of anticommunist purges decimated the American intelligentsia and left an intellectual vacuum that has rendered certain ideas - such as class struggle - effectively unthinkable in mainstream discourse. Liberal thinkers such as Michael Ignatieff became apologists for the warmongers and torturers under the veneer of "humanitarian intervention".

The demise of the liberal class as a progressive force may have begun with its steady abandonment of the class consciousness which had inspired 1930s radicals and its replacement by identity politics, which - far from uniting oppressed social groups - actually divided them by race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. The shedding of Marxist theory proved disastrous over ensuing decades, as the long postwar economic boom ground to a halt and political leaders responded with a more nakedly aggressive capitalism. Deregulation, the resort to expanded credit and financialization of the economy coincided with industry's cannibalization of the workforce through union-busting, wage cuts and outsourcing. Liberals, having abandoned the language of class struggle in favour of anticommunist orthodoxy, utterly failed to resist.

It's tempting to dismiss the 60s counterculture as a mere trend, a fashion made by and for privileged baby boomers. The 1930s radicals struggled against the capitalist state without shame of addressing their oppressor by its true name. In the incomparably more desperate conditions of the Great Depression, socialists and communists had worked with union organizers to combat the brutal laissez-faire philosophy of the day and agitate for improved working conditions, which laid the basis for the modern social welfare state. The children of the 60s, by contrast, lived in relative material comfort. The 1970s witnessed a steady backlash against the countercultural ethos which culminated in the conservatism of the 1980s - the embrace of business values, jingoistic patriotism and conservative cultural denominators like religion and "family values". Sadly, that cultural backlash has lasted to the present day, embodied by ever-present greed, increased religiosity and the veneration of militarism. As much as I adore South Park, its episode "Die Hippie Die" summarizes the fashionable mockery of 60s idealism.

But whatever the faults of the countercultural generation, and the irritating fetishization of that period in boomer-targeted films, it has to be said that the basic values they advocated were miles ahead of what passes for youth rebellion today (if it exists at all). Say what you will about naivete; the younger generation in the 1960s spearheaded a widespread, vigorous, and determined antiwar movement. The degree of passion and organizational verve deployed against the war in Vietnam is something that we need to examine in detail today, when we have twice as many imperial wars of aggression but a fraction of the opposition. While resistance to the war in Vietnam may have been based on essentially self-interested motives - specifically, a military draft that rendered many of these radical youths eligible for combat duty - antiwar groups nevertheless expressed their opposition on a scale almost unimaginable today.

What is so funny about peace, love and understanding? The prevailing values of the 60s are widely mocked today, but the hippies had their hearts in the right place. Radicals of the 1930s and 1960s, whatever the difference in material conditions, had one thing in common: a faith in the ability of humanity to overcome its problems and create a better world. Of course, there was something of a difference in the tactics of the hippies and the more politically-active "yippies": where the former advocated dropping out of mainstream society in favour of a counterculture dominated by sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, the latter urged real political confrontation with the powers-that-be. My personal bias would be in favour of a union of those two approaches, because as much as I aspire to create real political change...sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are three of my favourite things.

The point is that, whether you thought them naive or not, 60s youth fought for their ideals and values. In the decades since, we've seen an increasing youthful nihilism which may have started as soon as Charles Manson and the Rolling Stones' infamous Altamont festival revealed the dark underbelly of the Woodstock generation. Race riots reversed some of the goodwill generated in the white majority by Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Act, while elites capitalized on the proliferation of inner-city crime to blame "lazy" welfare recipients. It's no wonder the 1980s witnessed a conservative backlash.

But the increasing outspokenness of the "Silent Majority" was paralleled by a decrease in youthful activism. Generation X, decisively embodied by the 90s grunge phenomenon, became identified with a generalized apathy supplanted with heavy doses of irony. Mark Ames summarized that disdain for earnestness in his account of the recent Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally, which may have been the best account yet of the ideological vacuum among today's youth. Denied any concrete ideological alternative to rampant corporatism, the young embrace an "above-it-all" ironic distance that effectively cedes the debate to those who give a damn, no matter how far those individuals are comparatively removed from reality. Hence the Tea Party.

The American ruling class has been able to get away with as much as it has because it knows it faces no real mass opposition. This explains why Barack Obama has been able to break almost every one of his campaign promises, except for those - such as escalating the war in Afghanistan - enthusiastically backed by the elites. While Obama is, like most U.S. politicians, a self-serving charlatan and corporate whore, he had one thing right when he said real change comes from the bottom up. The notion that "Change" could come from electing a single politician from either of the two Big Business parties was always a ludicrous notion, but I have high hopes that the American Left is finally waking from their slumber and realizing the enormity of the task before them. Still the world's only superpower, the working class of the United States has a special role to play in the global class struggle.

In solidarity with our American class brothers and sisters, the Canadian proletariat has a duty to challenge the dominance of business interests over the levers of government. But only a vibrant youth component can provide the necessary energy to light a fire under the working class movement. We need to take the best qualities of the 1930s and 1960s radicals and unite them in a 21st century movement that will fight the corporate rape of this planet and its people. As my resident revolutionary cadre, Fightback attempts to influence the existing system by pushing for the adoption of socialist values by the NDP, but we should have no illusions as to the capacity of an establishment political party to fight for the values we hold dear. We will oppose imperialism in Afghanistan, G20-mandated austerity policies, environmental degradation, privatization of public services, and all manifestations of the class war conducted by the wealthy against the working class. And we will do it with or without the NDP.

Paradoxically, lasting peace is impossible without a fight. Since the G20, the ruling elite has made clear it will not tolerate opposition to its class warfare without resorting to outright repression. While we aim to mobilize the working class on the basis of a coherent socialist philosophy that exerted such an influence on the struggles of the 1930s (as Lenin said, "without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement"), we should take all possible lessons from the 1960s counterculture, which imprinted itself on the mainstream in no small part due to its cultural significance. A union of artists and political activists can only help the movement, since the greatest art generally has a didactic quality to it.

We must overcome the fragmentation of the population wrought by the proliferation of musical subgenres and dissipation of mass culture facilitated by cable/satellite television and the rise of the internet. Such a task can only be accomplished by focusing (per the advice of James P. Cannon) on the key issues that unite us. According to recent polls, 60 per cent of Canadians oppose the mission in Afghanistan while a bare 37 per cent support it. To put it another way, a clear majority of the population sides with the antiwar perspective, a fact easily forgotten in the face of a media apparatus that deems criticism of the war in Afghanistan a fringe viewpoint. In the face of such evidence - and the utterly antidemocratic decision of Harper's Conservatives and the Liberals to extend the mission to 2014 without a word of parliamentary debate - progressive forces should capitalize on widespread antiwar sentiment as the battering ram of a broader assault on the "values" and priorities of the corporate state.

The war in Afghanistan was not even brought up in the American 2010 midterm elections because the Republican and Democratic parties are equally in thrall to the military-industrial complex. We see the Canadian parallel in the agreement of the Liberals and Conservatives to extend the war for three years without any debate in Parliament. You want to support the troops? Work for what the troops actually want: a ticket home. End the war in Afghanistan.

UPDATE: As of today, NATO's war in Afghanistan has officially lasted longer than the Soviet one. Will the other Cold War superpower likewise meet its demise in the graveyard of empires?

Airport Security Gets Too Close for Comfort

There's been a general uproar over the past week regarding the Transportation Security Administration's latest affront to privacy in the name of "security". Citing the attempted Christmas Day "underwear bombing" of 2009, new guidelines require passengers to submit to either a full-body scan that leaves nothing to the imagination (airline security screeners can tell whether a passenger is circumcised or not), OR a full-body pat-down including the genital area that comes a little too close to sexual assault for some.

While a superficial impression might indicate that Americans are finally rebelling against the constant erosion of civil liberties and invasions of privacy that have characterized the post-9/11 environment, Glenn Greenwald (as always) provides us with a much-need reality check. After the obligatory pillorying of the national-security establishment for its continued efforts to control the U.S. population by instilling fear of foreign terrorism, Greenwald lays out his pessimistic take on the situation:

My first reaction was that the public backlash could be productive in finally drawing a line the citizenry will not permit the Government to cross with these manipulative tactics.

But I now believe that optimism was unwarranted. That's because there's no real principle being vindicated here: with a few noble exceptions, it's all just deceitful posturing.

In one corner we have the American Right, magically re-discovering their alleged belief in privacy and government restraint now that they see an opportunity to politically harm Obama by waving that flag once again. These, of course, are the very same people who spent the last decade cheering on every radical expansion of unchecked government authority and privacy destruction when it was their Party doing it -- ones far, far worse than these airport screening measures -- and who will undoubtedly do exactly the same thing the next time a Republican occupies the White House.

I have no doubt -- none -- that if there were a Republican President in office now, these very same people would not only be defending the TSA in the name of Staying Safe, but maligning critics as Privacy Fetishists, Civil Liberties Extremists, and Friends of The Terrorists. Nobody has less credibility to march under a privacy and civil liberties banner than that right-wing faction (and see Darren Hutchinson on just some of the out-of-control government powers they cheer on domestically). And that's to say nothing of their real agenda: to privatize airport security, the way our prison system has been -- as though having Blackwater or the Paragon of American Authoritarianism, Rudy Giuliani, take over from the TSA will preserve our liberties and privacy.

In the other corner, we have the Democrats, who -- in perfect unison -- would be screaming bloody murder about these methods and waving the Flag of Civil Liberties if George W. Bush were still President, as they would smell partisan advantage from doing so. But since it's Barack Obama who is President, they are -- with a few exceptions -- meekly raising concerns, though more often acquiescent to the TSA when they aren't outright supportive.

And then we have the indignant, put-upon American People. They're not angry that the Government had adopted inexcusably invasive and irrational security measures. They're just angry that, this time, it's being directed at them -- rather than those dark, exotic, foreign-seeming Muslims who deserve it, including their own fellow citizens. And if there were a successful bombing plot against a passenger jet, many of those most vocally objecting now would be leading the way in attacking the Government for not having kept them Safe, and would be demanding even more invasive measures -- just directed at those Other People, the Bad Dark People over there. Eugene Robinson is exactly right when he wrote today in The Washington Post:

What the critics really mean is not that the TSA should let underwear bombers board planes. What they're saying is: Don't search me, and don't search my grandmother. Just search the potential terrorists.

In other words, they want profiling. That's a seductive idea, I suppose, if you don't spend a lot of time worrying about civil liberties. But it couldn't possibly work. Our terrorist enemies may be evil, but they're not stupid.

While the Land of the "Free", Home of the Scared continues to grapple with its terrorism problem - i.e., the government terrorizing its population to justify increased repression and endless war - the Great White North has once again proven its superior progressive credentials. The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority now says that passengers singled out for a pat-down will be told at the outset that this can be done in private. Phew. I certainly wouldn't want to be sexually assaulted publicly.

Hats off to John "Don't Touch My Junk" Tyner.

Hamilton Steelworkers Fight U.S. Steel Lockout

Originally posted at Fightback.

On November 7, US Steel locked out over 900 employees at its Hamilton plant. This followed failed attempts to bypass the union and directly force workers to vote on pension cuts dictated by corporate headquarters. United Steelworkers Local 1005 argued that the company was negotiating in bad faith, noting that it had activated two blast furnaces in US plants while shutting down production at the Hamilton mill, and refused to hold a vote.

Citing “the current economic landscape and Hamilton’s status as one of the most challenging steelmaking facilities in all of North America,” the company ordered workers to vote on its final offer, which included two key demands: an end to the indexing of pension payments for its 9,000 retired workers, and refusing new hires the existing pension plan by replacing it with a defined contribution retirement savings plan.

Pension indexing was negotiated as part of the 1990 contract between the former Stelco (bought out by US Steel in 2007) and the United Steelworkers. It makes payments ranging from between zero and three per cent based on an equation that balances the performance of Stelco pension plans against cost-of-living increases—in essence, increasing pension payments to adjust for inflation. That slight increase is crucial, since inflation can quickly erode the value of workers’ pensions.

As noted by the Hamilton Spectator, while direct benefit plans pay retired workers a set pension per month, direct contribution plans pay according to how much money has been saved and how much has been earned in investments. “Direct contribution plans also don’t require the employer to ensure there’s enough money in the pension plan to meet all former obligations if the company goes out of business. That’s important for US Steel because the former Stelco plans are underfunded by about $1.2-billion.”

Employees at the US Steel plant in Hamilton are almost evenly divided by age, with approximately half of workers under 50 and half over 50—the result of skewed hiring practices in past decades. The US-based steel conglomerate is exploiting those divisions by attempting to pit young workers against old. As union representatives commented, allowing 900 active workers to decide the fate of 9,000 retired employees' pensions would be a cruel mockery of democratic norms.

Pensions are less of a concern for younger employees, who are more likely to bow to company demands rather than face an indefinite lockout and attempt to feed their families on strike pay of $200 per week. In addition, Local 1005 received a letter confirming that health benefits (prescription drugs, medical, dental, and vision), life and disability benefits had been temporarily suspended for all active Bargaining Unit members as of November 8. Management may be banking on a similar outcome as occurred in its Lake Erie plant in Nanticoke, where workers eventually acquiesced to identical pension cuts after an eight-month lockout.

Adding insult to injury, US Steel only three years ago made extravagant promises to workers that its acquisition of Stelco would not affect their livelihoods. The irony is too much to bear reading the letter today, dated 28th September 2007 and headlined “Stelco’s Pensions Safe with U.S. Steel”:

We would like to clear up any confusion and relieve any concerns Stelco’s employees and pensioners may have about the security of their pensions on the closing of our transaction to buy Stelco. U.S. Steel has agreed to significantly improve the security of the Stelco pension plans. We did so in two ways. First, we agreed to unconditionally guarantee pension funding obligations at the corporate (as opposed to Canadian subsidiary) level. Thus, instead of having to rely solely upon Stelco's ability as a stand-alone enterprise to generate the cash necessary to meet pension funding obligations, Stelco's employees and pensioners can now look to the strength of our entire company to do so. Second, we agreed to make an extraordinary payment of $32.5-million into the plans up front at closing. This is in addition to the pension payment schedule agreed upon by the Ontario pension regulator and Stelco.

[...]

Of course, all laws that presently apply to Stelco will continue to apply, as will all other provisions of the Stelco pension agreement, including those provisions requiring pension contributions to fully fund Stelco’s pension plans by 2015. We want Stelco’s employees and retirees to know that we understand the fundamental importance of sound pension funding. We have a large defined benefit pension plan for decades. We take our obligations very seriously and are proud of the fact that today that plan is fully funded. In fact, over the last four years, we have made over $700 million in voluntary contributions to that plan. We will honour our commitment to the Stelco pension plans. That is our history and track record.

Some track record!

In an article for the Hamilton Spectator, retired Stelco treasurer Robert H. Thompson argued that three critical macroeconomic factors outside the labour dispute contributed to the lockout decision.

First, the rising value of the Canadian dollar against a declining American dollar, helped in part by large Canadian energy exports, has wiped out any competitive advantages formerly held by Canadian industry. Second, the decimation of Ontario’s manufacturing base in recent years has severely decreased the amount of potential customers for Hamilton steel products; for example, fewer Ontario automobile plants means less demand for steel. Finally, Hamilton Works is less technologically-advanced than the company’s other plants. As a result of mill closures over the past decade (plate mill, strip mill), there is nowhere to process fresh slabs of steel, which must be shipped to other US Steel plants for processing.

However long the lockout lasts, its economic impact on Hamilton and surrounding areas promises to be devastating. 900 employees currently work at Hamilton Works, down from a peak of 13,000 in previous decades, but the lockout will also affect supporting industries and drastically lower the amount of raw materials flowing through Hamilton’s port. Aside from the loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs, Thompson estimates the city faces up to $1-billion in lost revenue.

Nor can the symbolic impact on Canadian workers be underestimated. Having tasted blood with their successful effort to overturn pension agreements at the Lake Erie plant, the bosses are now determined to set a precedent in Hamilton and break the union. Members of Local 1005 USW harbour no illusions about the company’s intentions.

“A foreign monopoly called US Steel has come into our corner of the earth and with utmost arrogance is dictating to Canadians that we should ‘be realistic,’” reads a recent Local 1005 information update. “To prove the union is not ‘completely unrealistic’ it is supposed to serve ‘American manufacturing and trading interests and policies.’ It is supposed to follow U.S. ways of ‘fend for yourself’ and agree to an endless downward slide in living and working conditions.”

The nationalistic undertones of the workers’ protest, epitomized by slogans such as “Yankee Go Home,” are understandable but misplaced. US Steel is a US-based multinational with significant reserves to ride out a lengthy lock-out. They want to make an example of the Hamilton workers not just to push down conditions in Canada, but also internationally. Here we see that the interests of workers in Canada are united with the interests of workers internationally, including in the United States. We may also note that the interests of the bosses are also united in the US and Canada. Therefore, rather than utilizing nationalist slogans that divide Canadian and American workers, wouldn’t it be better instead to strengthen those bonds of workers’ solidarity?

To replace the lost production in Hamilton, two new furnaces have been fired up in the USA. It is possible that these plants are unionized, perhaps even with the USWA. Hamilton steelworkers should send delegations down to these mills to explain that whatever concessions are squeezed out of Canadian workers will in turn be demanded of American workers. This brings to mind the fantastic solidarity movement around the Liverpool dock-workers in the 1990s. Every scab ship that loaded in Liverpool, England, was followed around the world by workers who set up picket lines on the East Coast, West Coast, and other international ports. The longshoremen refused to cross what Billy Bragg called “The World’s Longest Picket Line” in a song celebrating the struggle. With an internationalist appeal those two extra furnaces could be shut down and real pressure can be put on the multinational corporation.

Workers have appealed for help from Canadian politicians but have received little in return. Nothing illustrates this claim better than the pathetic performance of federal Minister of Industry Tony Clement, who was quoted by the Hamilton press as saying, “There’s nothing the federal government can do...The Pittsburgh-based steelmaker is free to do whatever it wants...They can make decisions, good, bad, or indifferent, according to their own timetable and their own sensibilities.”

Conservative cries of federal impotence were matched provincially by the odious Dalton McGuinty. When the Ontario premier visited Hamilton last week to announce 300 new green jobs courtesy of Liberal donors JNE Consulting Inc., locked-out steelworkers waited outside the building to confront McGuinty and demand that he guarantee pensions of the 9000 retired Stelco employees by forcing US Steel to the bargaining table. In a cowardly, but entirely typical display, the premier avoided the workers by using an alternative entrance, later blaming that gutless decision on his security detail.

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, alone among provincial and federal party leaders, visited the picket line on November 10 to support the steelworkers. She noted that since the provincial government lent Stelco $150-million to deal with its pension solvency issues, gutting the pension funds of former, current, and future Hamilton steelworkers was “unacceptable.” Horwath urged McGuinty to take action by supporting workers’ rights to pensions against the dictates of powerful multinationals. The Liberal premier responded with a characteristically weak and non-committal response, arguing that both sides have a responsibility to settle the issue through mediation. With this effective capitulation, he chose to ignore the vast differences in resources between a multinational conglomerate worth billions of dollars and a determined band of 900 steelworkers.

This struggle is important for a number of reasons, not least of which is the historical militancy of USW Local 1005. The local has been at the forefront of the fight for decent pensions, against manufacturing job losses, and in solidarity with the oppressed. A number of the local’s executive members consider themselves Marxists, including Local President Rolf Gerstenberger, who is also a prominent member and vice-president of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). When Stelco was under bankruptcy protection before the US Steel takeover, Gerstenberger called for the nationalization of the company and the development of some form of economic planning.

While we at Fightback are wary of any appeal to Canadian nationalism rather than the international solidarity of the workers’ movement, Gerstenberger’s proposal is nevertheless more inspiring than the impotent declarations of Big Business and the politicians they own, who claim that “market forces” are to blame and that nothing can be done but to brutally decimate the labour force and wait for these abstract conditions to improve.

If the subservience of bourgeois politicians like Tony Clement to the whims of U.S. Steel is an indication of the global solidarity of the capitalist class, it also reminds us of the common plight shared by the international working class. Just as all Canadian workers must see their own struggle in the fight of the Hamilton steelworkers, all workers of the world must view their seemingly isolated battles in a larger context. In this epoch of capitalist austerity, all of the gains made by workers in the post-war period are in danger. With militancy and international solidarity we can hold these cuts at bay—but only by fighting for socialism and nationalizing the commanding heights of the economy under democratic workers’ control and management can we end these attacks forever.

Building the Revolutionary Party Under North American Conditions

The following is a summary of a presentation by Adam Shils, a leading member of Socialist Action-USA, Chicago, delivered last night at the University of Toronto campus and sponsored by the Toronto branch of Socialist Action.

The introductory seminar for SA's Education for Activists conference, Shils' presentation was centered around the work of James P. Cannon (1890-1974), legendary American Trotskyist and leader of the Socialist Workers' Party. Its specific focus was Cannon's tireless efforts at building a revolutionary movement in the unique conditions of the world's richest, most powerful capitalist state. As a comrade of mine at Fightback recently suggested, the United States of America has always represented "the big prize" for the world socialist movement, and Cannon was acutely aware of this fact, believing that American workers had a special role to play in the world revolution (it's ironic how anti-imperialists have our own unique brand of American exceptionalism).

Shils began was the observation that during the Cold War, both sides - the USA and the USSR - agreed that Stalinism was communism - or as Shils put it, that "the counterfeit was the real article." In that sense, their views on James P. Cannon were similar. Many thought then, as now, that Cannon represented a sort of bureaucratic intolerance, whereas Shils went on to argue that the man was far more pragmatic than such accusations give him credit for.

After getting his start in radical politics through the International Workers of the World (or "Wobblies"), Cannon became a central leader in the Communist Party of the United States of America following the international convulsions of 1917. As the 1920s wore on and Stalin consolidated power in the Soviet Union, Cannon became a significant supporter of the Left Opposition and eventually sided with the Trotskyist faction, after such views had become anathema in international Communist parties. Cannon helped found the Socialist Workers Party in the 1930s, but was imprisoned under the Smith Act during the Second World War. He continued to work with the SWP until his retirement in the 1960s.

Shils minced no words in reflecting on the current state of revolutionary politics here. These are hard times, he admitted, for North American socialists. We face a difficult objective situation in the class struggle, and it was in the interest of combating this weakness that his presentation focused on 10 points from the life of James P. Cannon that we might use to orient ourselves.

1) The Party and the organization of revolutionaries

In true Leninist form, Cannon recognized the superiority, indeed the necessity, of planned revolutionary activity. The struggle of the masses would be more effective with a conscious plan, the only real way to navigate the complexities of the class struggle. In his 1903 polemic "Where to Begin?", Lenin argued:

The building of a fighting organisation and the conduct of political agitation are essential under any “drab, peaceful” circumstances, in any period, no matter how marked by a “declining revolutionary spirit”; moreover, it is precisely in such periods and under such circumstances that work of this kind is particularly necessary, since it is too late to form the organisation in times of explosion and outbursts.

As Cannon himself stated, "the art of politics is knowing what to do next."

2) Always have a precise and accurate view of reality

There is an easy tendency in low-level socialist organizations to get ahead of the actual, objective conditions of working class struggle. Cannon counselled us not to get overexcited, for nothing is gained by creating a world of fantasy contrary to the real state of working class consciousness.

3) Maintaining a programmatic compass

Cannon stressed that the first task of an effective revolutionary movement was having a coherent view of the world, learning from past mistakes, and planning revolutionary strategy for eventual victory.

4) Flexibility of organizational forms

Once one has developed a fully fleshed-out Marxist worldview, there are many different possible strategies. For example, during the birth pangs of Trotskyism, Cannon held that most advanced workers were still members of the CPUSA. Hence Trotskyists initially remained a faction within the larger Communist Party until its adherents were driven out, violently in some cases. When the possibility of winning over CP members was no longer a realistic strategy (i.e. by the early to mid-1930s), Cannon helped establish a new force, the Workers Party of the United States, in Toledo, Ohio. The new party played a not-insignicant role in contemporary Toronto and Minneapolis strikes.

A third stage began in 1936. Careful of charting his revolutionary course, Cannon constantly monitored the workers' movement. Noting the growth of leftism in the Socialist Party of America (at this time analogous to the Canadian NDP), he pushed his followers into joining that party while always maintaining their strong Marxist approach.

Conversely, by 1938, with the radicalization of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), Cannon decided that the best way of approaching American workers was via an independent party. This new strategy resulted in the formation of the Socialist Workers Party.

As Cannon argued, it is by no means contradictory to be for a revolutionary party while simultaneously finding new avenues for the workers' movement. Indeed, it is common sense.

5) How to handle disputes within the workers' movement

If everyone agrees, what you have is not a party, but a cult - especially in small socialist organizations during periods of low social struggle. Cannon urged that we avoid diversionary internecine struggles by always stressing the big questions. In 1946, following the Second World War, two prominent SWP leaders, Felix Morrow and Albert Goldman, had differing perspectives on the pace of the class struggle, but those larger questions were lost in a myriad of secondary political quibbles. Cannon's response:

The political issues which were latent in the struggle from the beginning have broken through in full flower finally at this plenum. These are important issues, in the discussions of which not only our party but the whole International will be educated. You can’t learn much just from expulsions, [or] from personal fights, except that one person is good, another bad, etc. That only creates demoralization and discouragement. But from the discussion of great political questions — the French constitution, the national question in Europe, the theses of the international conference, wages and prices — from the discussion of such questions the whole new generation of party members can learn great lessons. And we want that discussion.

Effective revolutionaries must put aside petty administrative questions and secondary gossip, and focus on the key issues of the class struggle.

6) How the dangers of isolation can be conquered

A highly important question, especially for a movement dedicated to changing the world. Cannon proffered two main ways of avoiding isolation from the larger workers' movement. Firstly, socialists must develop strategies of conscious calm inside the revolutionary movement, by understanding societal pressures on the movement and by not feuding with other sects. Conscious safeguards to understand pressures (e.g. anti-communist blacklisting) must be readily available.

Secondly, revolutionary groups should always attempt to break out of isolation. The late 1920s were a low point for American Trotskyists, who were physically removed from Communist Party meetings and lost influence among the larger workers' movement. Following a meeting in southern Illinois with other Trotskyists, Cannon felt on his return trip aboard a Greyhound bus as if he were in a science-fiction film and had just returned from another dimension, so powerful was the effect on him of breaking out of isolation. Reading a contemporary copy of the Chicago Tribune, featuring an article on the rise of Hitler, Cannon believed that the isolation of the American Trotskyists was finally ending.

Note: the arguments against isolation help justify entryist tactics such as working within the NDP. If I took any lessons from "Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder, it's that revolutionary socialists should use any and all available means to advance the class struggle.

7) Always focus attention frontally and centrally on the organized labour movement and the working class.

Post-1917, there was an overoptimistic wave of extreme radicalization within international Communist parties: for example, in Brooklyn in 1922, activists handed out leaflets urging the creation of soviets. Cannon rejected tactics that were out of sync with the prevailing beliefs of workers, and directed his followers to become active in mass organizations of the working class. In order to have any chance of success, revolutionaries must work from within the workers' movement, not from the outside.

8) The importance of democratic discussion

By the 1960s, the SWP was a small but healthy party. Members had reunited with the rest of the Fourth International in 1963. They realized early on the potential of Malcolm X and black nationalism. They backed the antiwar movement, assisted civil rights activists in the South, and so on. Yet Cannon still believed the SWP had developed a tendency towards excessive bureaucratism. In a selection of letters published in leaflet form with the title "Don't Strangle the Party!", Cannon made the point that if a party can survive for years without any factional disputes, this was not necessarily the sign of a healthy party, but rather one deep in doctrinal slumber. An active party requires open democratic debate.

9) Openness to new revolutionary forms and strategies

During the period between 1960 and 1963, Cannon surprised many through his openness towards new forms of struggle, such as the Cuban revolution, that he believed his party could work with. Contemporary letters regarding the reunification of the Fourth International stress his view that Trotsky never envisaged the International as monolithic, but rather as a broad-based international movement which could reach out and study the realities of the world struggle for true socialism.

10) The profoundly democratic nature of the socialism we fight for

This was a constant theme in Cannon's life, one that is incredibly important from the vantage point of 2010, in which communism and socialism are still viewed as antiquated, failed ideologies following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of China into an authoritarian capitalist state. The ongoing crisis of capitalism requires widespread publicizing of the transcendent democratic alternative we offer.

In concluding his lecture, Shils said James Cannon dedicated his life to four central questions: i) How to fight against society's multiple injustices? ii) What organization can best lead to victory? iii) How can we prepare for this future victory? iv) What can we do today? His answer to all these questions was one and the same: build a revolutionary party.

In the discussion that followed, I asked Shils how the revolutionary left could overcome the divisions I saw evident in the myriad groups that made up the Toronto socialist scene (Fightback, Socialist Action, the International Bolshevik Tendency, the Trotskyist League, etc.). Shils responded by restating Cannon's strategy - that we should find and concentrate on the issues we agree upon: opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, freeing Mumia abu-Jamal, supporting strikes, supporting unionization drives, fighting for immigrant rights, etc. If we can work together on these key issues, then fruitful discussion on the disagreements of TODAY (rather than obscure issues "our grandfathers fought over") can begin. Given the current weakness of the socialist movement in North America, Trotsky's tactic of a United Front is the only real way to overcome those divisions at the moment.

More War! If They Want It

Can't really say it any better than this guy here. "Our" government has just decided on three more years of war and it isn't even debated in Parliament, supposedly the people's central deliberative council. A more direct refutation of bourgeois democracy I can't imagine. I wouldn't expect anything less from Stephen Harper or Michael Ignatieff, but Bob Rae's disgusting display makes me even more bewildered as to how he ever became leader of the NDP. Rae's entire political career has been little more than a warning to future generations of idealists.

A very close relative of mine is currently deployed in Afghanistan for a one-year mission. The idea that the war would be ending in 2011, near the end of his deployment, had helped blunt more blatant antiwar sentiment on my part. But the sneaky, deceitful way this war has been extended without any deliberation by the people's main legislative body (a farce to think of it that way, I know, but I'm just humouring popular Canadian mythology here) is a devastating indictment of any claim we might have to be a "democracy". I might level a lot of criticism at the NDP leadership, but in this case Jack Layton is absolutely right. While I would prefer that he advance the possibility of total withdrawal immediately, the fact that arguing for this to be debated in Parliament comes across as a radical "protest" point of view is a damning critique of our entire political system.

When the majority of a nation's people do not support a war, and that nation's government continues to prosecute that war against the will of the population, you cannot credibly claim to be a democracy. "Democracy" = "rule of the people". Good one.

Green Lantern Trailer Online!

The long-awaited trailer for Martin Campbell's Green Lantern adaption is finally online! I love this stuff, not gonna lie. Looks like Iron Man meets Star Wars. I feel very lucky to be around for this superhero movie boom. What were mere daydreams for geeks and fanboys 25 years ago (hell, even five years ago) are now vivid reality. Next year we get Thor, Green Lantern, and Captain America, in addition to another X-Men flick and a Green Hornet movie. Then in 2012, for the first time we get the Big Three all in one year - Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. And I don't even know when Wolverine's Japanese adventure will get released, but with noted auteur Darren Aronofsky behind the camera, you know we're in for something interesting. It's a good time to be a nerd.

I just saw Ryan Reynolds in Buried a few weeks ago, and after he pulled off the extraordinarily difficult task of what is essentially a one-man show inside a box for an hour and a half without losing the audience's interest, it's clear that the man has acting chops to spare. Other than some occasionally dodgy effects work that suffers from that glossy Attack of the Clones look - it remains to be seen whether the all-CGI suit will ultimately prove distracting - I don't have anything to complain about with this new trailer. Reynolds is funny and entertaining, yet heroic. The planet Oa looks appropriately fantastic, and the aliens themselves - Tomar-Re, Kilowog, etc. - are ripped straight from the comic page. Can't wait to see Hollywood's favourite villain-for-hire Mark Strong take on Sinestro (of course, that name pretty much gives away his eventual turn to evil. As a reviewer once said of Victor von Doom in the Fantastic Four movies, this is only slightly more subtle than Hitler von Killington). And Blake Lively looks smoking hot. I'm not exactly a huge fan of Gossip Girl, and as much as I'd like to tell you I'd like stronger female characters in these movies with actresses not necessarily cast just for their hotness...who am I kidding? Superhero movies by their nature are adolescent male fantasies come to life.

Summer 2011 can't come fast enough.

Lenin, Entryism and the NDP

My experience thus far with Fightback and the NDP has been a truly mixed bag (more because of the latter than the former). While I wholeheartedly admire the determination and drive of my Toronto comrades who attempt to transform the NDP into a vehicle for their socialist platform, it's impossible for me to ignore the demoralizing effects of the ONDP's Administrative Committee ruling that the election to vote in a new ONDY exec is null and void just because they say so. How effective an electoral force can we be if we're constantly struggling against our own party leadership?

I've done some reading in the last week that's directly pertinent to this situation. In addition to Lenin's "Left-Wing" Communism - An Infantile Disorder, I perused Patrick Webber's study Entryism in Theory, in Practice, and in Crisis: The Trotskyist Experience in New Brunswick, 1969-1973 based on a comrade's recommendation. Oddly enough, despite its demoralizing narrative of a split in the Canadian Trotskyist movement and a labour rank-and-file mobilized only by its opposition to so-called radical elements infiltrating the NDP, I found much to inspire me in the tale of the League of Socialist Action's aborted attempt to influence the NB NDP. Specifically, I realized that the Trotskyist section of the NB Waffle was surprisingly close to exerting a large influence on that provincial party until the Toronto-based executive choked. Given how close that radical movement got to controlling the provincial branch of a major political party, I paradoxically see the sorry saga of the NB NDP as cause for celebration regarding the party's potentially radicalized future. Go figure.

The fact of the matter is that our country is closer to outright economic depression than at any time since the 1930s; some might even argue that the Great Recession is merely the Great Depression with a larger social safety net. The contradictions of the capitalist system have never been more acute, whereas the ill-fated 1970s infiltration of the Trotskyists into the NB NDP took place in a generally productive economic environment. In general, the mid-20th century was a middle class playground in which all questions of class conflict were relegated to a seemingly distant past. But history's forward march relegated idealized mid-century North America to Leave It To Beaver reruns, a source of nostalgia dangerously incongruent with the actual capacity of capitalism to cannibalize itself as available markets were tapped out.

Since I arrived in Toronto, I've discovered a larger radical socialist community than I ever imagined possible in a small-c conservative burg like Kingston. But with that larger crowd of comrades come questions of tactics and strategy. At the rally outside the American consulate to protest the impending execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Fightback endured a storm of condemnation from ultra-purist sects like the Trotskyist League which characterize our involvement with the NDP as virtual treason against revolutionary principles. It was difficult for me to defend the NDP leadership in the face of such criticism, and indeed, the recent McCarthyist red-baiting within the party has made me doubt the effectiveness of entryist tactics when as much energy seems to be consumed confronting the rightist party leadership rather than the Big Business Conservatives and Liberals.

But ultimately, given the Canadian political landscape as it exists today, I find myself unavoidably bound to the entryist strategy for the simple reason that there is currently no real alternative to the NDP as a Canadian labour party. While Lenin would likely condemn their social democratic platform, given his critiques of "left" communists who refused to participate in bourgeois parliaments, he would likely agree with the assessment that the NDP is the only effective parliamentary outlet for working class rage in Canada today. The recent decision by Stephen Harper (aided and abetted by Michael Ignatieff's Liberals) to extend the Canadian mission in Afghanistan to 2014 without so much as a vote in Parliament is startlingly undemocratic. While sectarians such as the Trotskyist League condemn the federal NDP as "pro-imperialist", the fact remains that Jack Layton & Co. are the only party to advance a policy of withdrawal from Afghanistan. The predictable abdication of responsibility by the Liberals leaves Layton's NDP as the closest thing to a true antiwar voice in Parliament.

The coming m0nths will illustrate the real divisions of power in Canada's bourgeois Parliament.

ONDY Stands With Hamilton Steelworkers

Members of the Ontario New Democratic Youth (ONDY) showed their solidarity with Hamilton steelworkers Sunday evening when they joined picket lines outside a local U.S. Steel plant that had locked out hundreds of its employees after their union refused company-ordered pension cuts.


Youth delegates came straight from the 2010 ONDY Convention, which had seen a marked policy shift to the left as attendees embraced the street-level organizing of the Toronto Young New Democrats. Almost immediately, the new ONDY executive team illustrated their activist approach by dispatching representatives to the Wilcox Street steel mill in support of the United Steelworkers.

With white banner in tow proclaiming their group’s dedication to “socialism and freedom”, ONDY activists arrived on the scene in high spirits, singing “Solidarity Forever” and joining the crowd of 400 workers and their supporters. Company security struggled in vain to close the gates while police looked on, as a dozen ONDY representatives mingled with the workers in a sea of union flags and homemade signs.

Tension had been steadily rising in the days and weeks beforehand as U.S. Steel pressured Local 1005 USW into accepting changes to its pension system.

Management had two key demands: an end to the indexing of pension payments for the plant’s 9000 retired workers, and cancelling the existing pension plan for all new employees by replacing it with a defined contribution retirement savings plan. U.S. Steel claims its austerity measures are necessary to keep the Hamilton plant competitive, but union leaders accuse the company of sowing discord between younger and older workers in a cynical divide-and-conquer strategy.

“They’re trying to incite the younger workers,” said Local 1005 president Rolf Gerstenberger, “to get them to attack the pensioners and to say, ‘we don’t care what happens to the pensioners, nothing to do with us, we’re just worried about our jobs.’ So this is very deliberate on their part.

“They want to see if the younger workers will grovel, if they’ll submit, if they’ll be scared. They’ll do the Chicken Little routine and then they figure they’ll have control of the plant for the next generation. We’re calling on the younger workers, especially, to step up and to take their position and to fight like we did 30 years ago,” he said, referring to the 1981 Stelco strike.

Gerstenberger’s emphasis on young workers was a perfect fit for the ONDY delegation. Picketing workers expressed appreciation for the presence of dedicated young activists in their fight against corporate greed.

Elected representatives of the New Democratic Party were also out in full force, including NDP MPs Dave Christopherson (Hamilton Centre), Chris Charlton (Hamilton Mountain), Wayne Marston (Hamilton East – Stoney Creek) and MPP Paul Miller (Hamilton East – Stoney Creek).

“You cannot be a Hamiltonian working person and not be outraged by what’s going on here,” said Christopherson, a former president of CAW Local 525, in an impassioned speech to assembled workers.

“What happens to a retiree that enters into a period [of high inflation] with no protection whatsoever?” he demanded. “What’s the purchasing power of that pension? What’s the quality of their life? Why is that an issue here, when we’ve got so many people who’ve already worked a lifetime and they deserve that damn pension!”

The ONDY delegation remained at the gates for hours until the crowd finally began to disperse, leaving picketing to volunteers who signed up for 4-hour shifts.

As the lockout drags on into the indefinite future, those workers will form the front line of Local 1005’s defence, but they will not be alone. In this difficult struggle, Hamilton steelworkers and their families can count on the loyal and active support of the new ONDY – an energetic and growing organization.

Ontario New Democratic Youth "Fightback" at 2010 Convention

It's been quite a while since my last post, so a few updates may be in order. During the summer, in an amusing turn of events, I was hired as editor of The Garrison, Canadian Forces Base Kingston's community newspaper. My career as a paid propagandist was destined to be shortlived, however, when - days before my probation ended - the base commander made the unceremonious decision to cancel the newspaper. In August I was laid off and destroyed my car in an accident, but these unfortunate events left me more determined than ever to fulfill my dream of moving to Toronto and getting involved with Canadian Marxist groups. At the end of October, I moved to North York with a few thousand dollars in my bank account and endeavoured to find a job during the few months for which I could afford rent.

Following my arrival in the city, I met with representatives of Fightback, who offer what I consider this country's best political analysis. They suggested that I attend the 2010 Ontario New Democratic Youth (ONDY) Convention that weekend in Hamilton, which promised a large presence by Fightback loyalists and their associated group the Toronto Young New Democrats (TYND). In an act of scandalous red-baiting reminiscent of the McCarthy era, the TYND had recently had their charter removed for the apparent crime of "allegiance with Fightback". To my delight, a large and vocal contingent of fellow sympathizers were more than ready to challenge the rightist elements of the party at the convention.


A full write-up of the weekend's political trajectory is available here. True to the article's title, the weekend was indeed an "historic win for the Left". My initial skepticism towards the idea of associating with the NDP - which had largely abandoned any real adherence to socialism in theory or action - dissipated when I saw the immense passion and radical activism of the youth at ONDYCon. Indeed, the more radical elements of the convention largely outnumbered the "moderates". The division was evident in the list of proposed resolutions and amendments we debated over the weekend. All of the most interesting ideas in that document originated in the TYND and Fightback, and addressed real issues of concern to workers and youth: free education, universal dental care, the effects of the G20, a call to fight police brutality, and the further development of the NDP as a mass movement encompassing socialist, anti-war, anti-globalization, feminist, anti-racist, and other ideologies. All other resolutions, suggested by the more moderate elements, were of a fairly dull and bureaucratic nature (e.g. raising the youth age limit from 26 to 30).

As something of an NDP newbie, I was not altogether up to speed on the constitutional debates that periodically erupted over the weekend, but even I could see the sharp divide visible from the beginning between supporters and opponents of Fightback and the TYND. The Toronto-based group had been de-charted without even the courtesy of seeing the charges laid out against them. In addition, their official show trial took place in an "in camera" session, meaning a closed-door meeting with no observers and no records kept. Only days before the convention, an anonymous e-mail was sent out that warned of a "Trotskyist takeover" of ONDY. Whoever was behind that red-baiting, anti-democratic tripe was presumably an insider, since they evidently had access to the official mailing list.

Throughout the weekend, delegates sympathetic to that anti-communist view engaged with Fightback loyalists in a battle for the heart and soul of the party. In the end, every one of the resolutions championed by the TYND and debated at the convention passed with flying colours. New drama came during during the run-up to voting for the new executive team, during which a constitutional drama unfolded in real time. The crucial question was whether only established party members could vote, or if those who had joined at the convention itself could be permitted a voice. Representatives of the NDP Socialist Caucus, including Barry Weisleder, derided such measures as stalling tactics. I had personally encountered similar measures when I was almost denied membership at the registration table on Friday evening, only to have the executive ultimately revert to previous policies.


The final vote was a triumphant victory that helped take ONDY to the left, as all preferred candidates of the Slate for a Democratic and Activist ONDY rode to victory on the coattails of widespread sympathy for Fightback and the TYND. As its first order of business, the new, ethnically and sexually diverse ONDY executive team voted to re-charter TYND - a massive repudiation of the bureaucracy's anti-democratic intimidation strategy. Their provocative move will almost certainly invite retaliation from the party leadership, but what form such reprisals take remains to be seen. Their second move was to order a delegation to support Hamilton steelworkers locked outside their plant, a report of which I have written above for official purposes.

For me, the ONDY convention was a revelation on both a personal and political level. While in Kingston my Marxist agitation was largely a solitary effort, in Hamilton I was bowled over by the passion, intelligence and dedication of the individuals around me. I met some incredible people and realized for the first time how much of an appetite for radical change existed among Canadian youth alienated from conventional politics. TYND had proven itself such a smashing success in organizing by appealing to the real concerns of working class youth that even the rightist party leadership felt compelled to admit its recruiting success. And in-between the spirited political debate, there was also some good old-fashioned partying. It was the best weekend I've had in a long time. Now the hangover begins. But whatever heavy-handed tactics the party leadership responds with, this vital political youth movement has only just begun to make its influence felt.