Analyzing Right-Wing Propaganda (I)

A friend of mine sent me a link to the right-wing propaganda film Agenda: Grinding America Down and asked for my thoughts on it. Talk about opening the floodgates. Below you will find live-blogging of my experience watching the film in its entirety.

- Ronald Reagan appears onscreen and I already know this is going to be good. Given the black and white picture and his relative youth, I imagine this is a clip from his classic 1964 “A Time for Choosing” speech in which he claims Medicare represents the beginning of communism in America and the end of freedom as we know it. I pour my first drink.
- Bunch of people talk and it’s clear this movie is going to be all about culture. Culture is the trump card for the right-wing propaganda machine, because it removes economics completely from the picture. Instead of being the inevitable byproduct of profit-oriented media eager to boost the bottom line, the increasing amount of sex and violence in media is blamed on a nefarious, conspiratorial “liberal elite” and therefore represents one of the first steps on the path to communism.
- So liberals are not actually communists, just the “useful idiots” which the communists use as pawns in their grand scheme to eliminate everything good and decent about America. Nothing paranoid about this!
- Less than 3 minutes in and they’ve brought out the Nazi footage! Even as the talking heads conflate liberalism and communism, it looks like this movie will follow Glenn Beck’s example by conflating communists and fascists (aka the most fervent opponents of communism).
- Why would the left continue to push communist policies? “They’re either ignorant, or they’re evil.” Simple!
- I love how while talking about the left’s evil schemes, they show a book burning in which one of the books being burned was written by Lenin. Doublethink – gotta love it.
- Interesting how Curtis Bowers describes his experiences meeting with the CPUSA. This is a superb example of framing: if you support feminism or gay rights, what you’re really supporting is the destruction of morality and the family.
- Flash-forward to 2008, and Bowers can’t believe how successful their agenda has been! The disintegration of the family, the massive power supposedly wielded by the environmental movement, hate crimes legislation that calls bigotry what it is – all this reveals the utter narrowness and backwardness of Bowers’ views.
- The Naked Communist by Cleon Skousen was also one of the books most instrumental in the development of Glenn Beck’s warped worldview. Birds of a feather...
- As I look at all the goals of Communist infiltrators outlined by Skousen, I wonder why I’m supposed to take seriously the paranoid ramblings of a former FBI agent and right-wing Mormon crank as definitive proof of leftist goals in the United States.
- “Goal #27: Discredit the Bible”. You mean like Thomas Jefferson, who ripped out every page in his Bible he believed to be false and was left with a few measly pages clinging to the spine?
- John Stormer cites J. Edgar Hoover calling communists “masters of deceit.” Well, if there’s one figure in American history who was a paragon of honesty and virtue, it’s a guy who blackmailed public figures for their sexuality while wearing dresses in his spare time.
- Hearing these guys talk about Latin America and China and lumping them together as “communist” says much about the lack of nuance in their worldview. Liberals, social democrats, socialists, communists, opportunist capitalists calling themselves communists – whatever, it’s all the same thing!
- Jim Simpson acknowledges that most of the people supposedly spreading communism are not communists, instead calling them mere “useful idiots”. So basically, he’s admitting that any social cause with the merest whiff of progressivism is identical to communism as far as he’s concerned. If anything, all he’s doing is identifying himself as an enemy of human progress! I’m sure if Bowers was alive back in the 1850s, he would have said the same thing about those nefarious abolitionists trying to destroy the Southern way of life.
- Great job, Bowers. With your political spectrum, you’ve once more revealed your utter idiocy and lack of historical knowledge. Even though he tries to lump together liberals, socialists, communists and fascists by saying they all worshipped the state, Bowers seems totally unaware that the Nazis were the declared arch-enemies of the communists, that they beat up communists before they came to power, jailed and murdered them after they did come to power, and – oh yeah, invaded the Soviet Union in the largest act of military aggression in world history. But forget all that – Nazis were basically the same as communists.
- Ah, I see – the entire American political spectrum has moved to the left, not the right. Is that why Obama is cutting Social Security while starting new wars and claiming the right to execute American citizens without charges or trial?
- And there is no opposition to any of this – except, of course, for the entire American right-wing blathering on endlessly about the socialist threat as if it actually existed.
- “What’s So Bad About Communism?” Again, these conservative talking heads have only the most simplistic and base view of what “communism” is. They can’t grasp that there could be severe disagreements and criticisms within the communist movement. They have no apparent awareness of Trotsky’s struggle against the bureaucratic degeneration in the USSR and how he was outright murdered by Stalin’s goons, as were so many of the old Bolsheviks. And they’re so very concerned about how many people were murdered under “communism” – I wonder what their thoughts are on U.S. imperial wars or the current policy of assassination-by-drone-strike based on presidential fiat?
- How many people have died due to capitalism? Funny how nobody ever compiles those figures.
- What a fucking warped view of history these people have. So America’s public schools are teaching how to carry out genocide? Funny, they always seemed to mostly ignore what happened to the Native Americans...
- I was about to praise the narrator for explaining the difference between socialism and communism – until he said that socialism can be summed up as “Big Government”. HELP! I’m trapped in a sea of right-wing talking points!
- The central fallacy – liberalism/socialism/communism are evil because of “wealth redistribution”, because they take money people earned through hard work and give it to the undeserving. You know what that reminds me of? CAPITALISM, which is based on not paying people the full value of their labour while the capitalist pockets more than his fair share. That’s where profit comes from. But you’re never going to hear the right complaining about those lazy capitalists mooching off the workers.
- Why use an atomic bomb to illustrate how socialism destroys everything in its path? I checked the social system of the only country ever to actually use nuclear weapons in war, and it wasn’t socialist.
- You know, I wish there were as many people on the left who believed that the final victory of socialism was at hand as there seem to be on the right.
- Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but right after David Noebel talked about how Venezuela was “hard-core Marxist”, I swear I heard him refer to Nicaragua as “N*gger-agua”.
- The “red plague”. Are you kidding me?
- Watching them talk about how Karl Marx begat the Fabian Socialists who begat the Students for a Democratic Society who begat the Weather Underground, and how many of them are still in positions of power, such as Rev. Jim Wallis. Oh yeah, Rev. Jim Wallis – there’s a figure who will send shivers down the spine of the ruling elite. Amazing how right-wing propaganda manages to make the oppressed look like the oppressors and vice versa.
- Sympathizing with the Viet Cong, how dare he! It’s not like they were morally in the right, fighting for national liberation against a military superpower attempting to protect its puppet government, or anything like that.
- Jim Simpson is correct – throughout my impressionable years in elementary school, all I ever heard from my teachers was how great it would be if I grew up to become an atheist alcoholic homosexual.
- Have to laugh out loud at the juxtaposition of July 4, baseball and apple pie with a group of intellectuals plotting behind the scenes to “make America so corrupt it stinks.”
- There is no middle ground: either the father is the breadwinner, disciplinarian and protector of his family, or the government is. Nice to know there is no alternative possibility to the mother being a domestic slave without her becoming married to “Big Government”.
- “Cultural Marxism” was also one of the obsessions of mass-murderer Anders Breivik, who accused young members of the Labour Party of such when he gunned them down in 2011.
- “Most people will give over to the [government], because they don’t want the chaos.” Kind of like how so many people on the right wet their pants and asked Big Bad Government to protect them after 9/11 with the Patriot Act? And how they continue to demand government take away their rights to protect them from the omnipresent threat of “terrorism”? I pour my third drink.
- Thanks to Saul Alinsky, we now know that everyone on the left worships Satan as a matter of course.
- Saul Alinksy defines the modern American left? Funny, I thought lesser-of-two-evillism did.
- The Piven plan to “overload the welfare system” – how exactly did they encourage this? Was there an organized strategy to overload the welfare system? I’d love to see some proof of that, but that would overwhelm the paranoid fantasy.
- That section on Betty Friedan is almost painfully stupid. But then, so is the rest of the film.
- Society is falling apart - I’ll grant you that, Bowers. But your proposed solutions have no relevance to existing power relations.
- “My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism.” Awesome Karl Marx quote!
- The Progressive Caucus of the Democrats – truly, a life-and-death threat to the government of capitalist America which trembles before its 20% representation in Congress.
- I know, Christianity gets so much flak in America, more than any other religion. This is especially unfair when we consider how Christianity has traditionally faced persecution in U.S. society to a degree unmatched by any other religion.
- As the narrator says, those who believe in the sanctity of human life have always been the biggest challenge to those totalitarian regimes who would impose “Big Government” on all of us. Just ask Pope Pius XII.
- Why is it that, unlike Aristotle, we now know slavery to be wrong? Because we have the Bible. ("You may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way." - Leviticus 25:44-46)
- Whether we know it or not, “the Left is at war with God.” Such a thoughtful, nuanced interpretation of events.
- “Anti-God” is the same thing as “Anti-free enterprise”. Perhaps an unintentionally revealing analogy...
- If we tell people about problems with the environment, racism, etc., we are stunting their critical thinking skills. If we tell them that the whole world was created by God and all the proof you will ever need is in the Bible, we are creating free-spirited independent thinkers. Gotcha.
- Movie is promoting the idea that it’s all about self-reliance. How many huge corporations got that way without government assistance? Just want to know.
- Global warming is nothing but a hoax! Well, there’s a reasonable and well-considered idea.
- Jim Simpson says socialism will lead to extreme hardship for most Americans. I suppose that makes sense, if you don’t consider the fact that 1% of Americans own 40% of the national wealth.

XL Foods recall: Cost-cutting threatens food and worker safety

Originally published at Fightback on Oct. 24.

The discovery of E. Coli in meat from XL Foods has prompted the largest beef recall in Canadian history. After a routine inspection along the U.S. border discovered the bacteria in XL meat on Sept. 3, a recall was eventually expanded to include all of Canada, 40 US states, and Puerto Rico. At least 15 people have become ill. Ground zero for the contamination was the massive XL Foods processing facility in Brooks, Alta., which slaughters a million cattle per year and processes one-third of Canada’s beef.

The future of the Brooks facility became uncertain after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency pulled XL’s operating license on Sept. 27. The company blamed resulting uncertainty for its Oct. 13 decision to temporarily lay off 2,000 workers at the plant. Only days later, XL announced that 800 “A shift” workers would temporarily be brought back onto the job to process carcasses previously cleared by inspectors, fuelling greater confusion.

Like any capitalist enterprise, XL Foods has one key goal: increasing profit. While corporate consolidation grew and agriculture and meat production became more concentrated, the role of factory farming in agribusiness became more prominent. Today over 95% of animals raised and slaughtered for food in Canada are mass-produced on factory farms. As animals rights groups have pointed out, conditions for animals there tend to be overcrowded and unsanitary, allowing disease to spread easily.

The conditions for human workers are little better than those of the animals. The unappealing nature of slaughterhouse work has traditionally attracted those most desperate for employment, and XL Foods is no different. At its Brooks plant, the company maintained cost-cutting through a super-exploited workforce consisting largely of immigrants, refugees, and temporary employees.

Following the recall, reports started coming in from workers of a general lack of concern by management for food safety. Under constant pressure to maintain quotas, employees could not sterilize their tools between cuts without losing pace. Cleaning equipment was regularly clogged. Unsanitary conditions reigned. Workers’ reports consistently state that for the company, processing meat — ensuring profits — was always the first priority. The health of workers and the public came a poor second.

According to the Toronto Star (8 Oct. 2012), many XL Foods workers developed serious tendon problems in their hands, barely able to open them due to their constant gripping of work tools on the line. When some returned to the plant with written recommendations allowing them modified work, supervisors allegedly tore the forms up. Many workers were simply fired outright.

Such naked exploitation eventually led to an explosion in 2005. A dispute arose when XL Foods workers joined the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) and the company’s then-owner Tyson Foods, refused to negotiate a first contract. When workers voted to strike, Tyson bused in replacement workers, which are legal under Alberta law. Tension increased before an RCMP riot squad was called in. Police charged the plant CEO and other managers with dangerous driving when their car crashed into the union president’s car and injured him (the charges were later dropped).

The union and Tyson eventually reached a deal after three weeks. But the strike experience led to a new approach by the company, which began hiring more temporary workers from abroad. When new owners, the Nilsson brothers, took over the plant in 2009, they increased the number of foreign temporary employees to one-third of the facility’s workforce, where 60% already consisted of immigrants and refugees.

The terms of Canada’s Temporary Workers Program stipulate that workers recruited under the program may not change jobs or bring in family for four years, but when their program is up, employers may nominate them for permanent residency. By dangling such a tantalizing prospect in front of its workforce, XL Foods successfully convinces many employees to accept atrocious working conditions, no matter how dangerous or unhealthy their environment becomes.

UFCW president Doug O’Halloran has called for better industry standards and criticized the Nilsson brothers for not making health and safety a greater priority. Recent developments regarding the temporary layoffs led him to accuse the owners of poor and erratic management. In a press release, O’Halloran complained that the CEO had refused to meet with union representatives to discuss food safety.

Following the recall, Alberta Agriculture Minister Verlyn Olson said that food safety was the top priority for everyone involved. But for a private company like XL Foods, this is never truly the case. More accurately, their concern is negative publicity eating into profits. Should the Brooks plant open up again, the focus will still be on profits, with public gestures of safety intended only as a means of maintaining the long-term bottom line. In a capitalist enterprise, this is only to be expected.

The only way to rationalize agriculture and food production is through a mode of production based on the satisfaction of human needs rather than private profit. The agribusiness firms, like all large corporations that make up the commanding heights of the economy, play a dominant role in our lives. The consequences for public well-being are too important for such entities to be left in the hands of private capitalists.

Whether the goal is guaranteeing safe working conditions and a living wage for meat plant workers, or preserving the safety and health standards of the public food supply, capitalism has proven itself incapable of ensuring either. For a rational system of food production that truly values the health of workers and the public above all else, it is necessary to expropriate the largest agribusiness firms and nationalize them under democratic control. Only then will food production be geared primarily towards feeding people rather than profits.

Nationalize agribusiness under democratic workers’ control!

Defend collective bargaining rights of agribusiness workers!

By Jingo

As far as I'm concerned, Mitt Romney knocked his RNC speech out of the park - a masterpiece of nationalist demagoguery. Of course, my eyes started rolling once he got into specifics. But it's funny how this billionaire capitalist has somehow become the underdog in this presidential election, as far as the two corporate parties are concerned. Nobody really likes this guy, even his supporters. But tonight, he managed to check all the boxes and appeal to what Americans most admire about their country. I remember watching the 2008 RNC and being repelled by the consistent negativity represented by the likes of Sarah Palin. It's funny how this year, the Republicans have actually been better overall at creating a more positive vision for the country's future - even if it's all lies. Obama and the Democrats have nothing to run on, no popular policies from the last four years - so this time, they're the ones primarily running on fear and division. Take it from someone who checks the Fox Nation website every day: the GOP have been so successful in turning Obama into the supposed Kenyan Muslim socialist fascist Antichrist that the work is already done, and there's no need for further divisiveness at the RNC. But still - stellar performance from the less charismatic corporate empty suit.

In conclusion: vote Jill Stein.

Take the Money and Run: Rat Race (2001) as Socialist Parable

Above: Rat Race’s ensemble cast.

Originally published at The Mass Ornament.

Disclaimer: This review is a case study in overanalysis. It is extremely unlikely that any of the political conclusions drawn here existed in the minds of the writers when they created the screenplay for this madcap comedy caper. But one of the virtues of the Marxist method is its ability to provide new insights into things we would otherwise regard as ordinary or commonplace. Spoilers ahead.

“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.”

                    - Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels

On its surface, Jerry Zucker’s 2001 film Rat Race is light-hearted comedic fare with little in the way of profound political messaging. The plot involves six teams of people at a Las Vegas hotel and casino who are recruited by the resort’s billionaire owner Donald Sinclair (John Cleese) to participate in a race for the betting pleasure of himself and his wealthy peers. A duffel bag containing $2 million in cash has been stowed away in a train station locker 563 miles away in Silver City, New Mexico.
Each team receives a key to the locker, and whichever team reaches the locker first wins the race and keeps the money.

The teams consist of:

1. an attorney (Breckin Meyer) and a helicopter pilot (Amy Smart);
2. a disgraced football referee (Cuba Gooding, Jr.);
3. a pair of twin brother con artists (Seth Green and Vince Vieluf);
4. a family man (Jon Lovitz), his wife, son, and daughter;
5. a short-fused businesswoman (Lanai Chapman) with her estranged but kind mother (Whoopi Goldberg); and
6. an Italian narcoleptic (Rowan Atkinson).

Of these characters, businesswoman Merrill Jennings and lawyer Nick Schaffer would likely have the highest incomes, followed by pilot Tracey Faucet, referee Owen Templeton and minivan-driving family man Randy Pear (who lies to his wife about job prospects). Marked by the lowest incomes are twin con artists Duane and Blaine Cody, as well as the eccentric foreigner, Enrico Pollini, whose suit is cheap and occupation unknown.

In short, the competitors come from a variety of social backgrounds. It is significant that Nick originally has no interest in competing and tosses away the key. As an attorney, his likely substantial income permits him the luxury of throwing away this 1 in 6 chance of becoming instantly wealthy. He only changes his mind when the Cody brothers’ shenanigans ground all planes at the airport, and his conversation with a helicopter pilot gives him a solid chance of winning the race.

A businesswoman who screams into her phone at subordinates, Merrill is likely the most financially well-off of these “ordinary people”. But given her enthusiasm for the race, it is doubtful that she possesses anything approaching the immense riches of someone like Donald Sinclair.

Mass popular entertainment in capitalist society tends to gloss over class differences. Thus a film like Rat Race can portray team members from various economic backgrounds as equally “ordinary”. But for our purposes, the competitors’ clear difference with Sinclair is the fact that each would stand to benefit substantially from possessing $2 million, whereas for Sinclair and his pals, such a hefty sum is mere pocket change. In #occupy terms, this is the story of the 99% battling it out for the amusement of the 1%.

All participants seem initially wary of the race, but when Owen appears to get a head start greed kicks in and the rest quickly run after him. In their desperation, everyone ends up in a tangled heap at the bottom of a staircase. The mad race for individual riches has led to counterproductive in-fighting amongst the individuals chosen to compete for the enjoyment of the bourgeoisie.

As representatives of the 1%, Sinclair & Co. are so absurdly wealthy that they think nothing of gambling away vast quantities of cash on ridiculous bets. In one scene, Sinclair’s butler Mr. Grisham (Dave Thomas) asks a high-priced escort how much a bizarre request will cost. Upon hearing her answer, the wealthy gamblers emerge and pay off the colleague whose guess was closest.

Later on, while flying to Colorado, Sinclair has his pilot swerve the plane violently and the rich men bet on which of them will vomit first. In a deleted scene, they can be seen playing Monopoly with real money. This colossal waste of wealth is not too far removed from the reckless speculation of the parasitical American financial class that led to the economic collapse of 2008.

Still stuck on the stairs, one of the competitors suddenly hatches a brilliant idea: why don’t all the teams just go to Silver City together and split the money up evenly? Couldn’t they avoid in-fighting if they simply banded together and distributed the wealth among themselves equally? At that point, Pollini, who had been trailing, steps over the heap of people and continues onwards, gleefully proclaiming, “I am in a race! I am in a race!”

Instantly the participants renew their struggle to grab all the loot for themselves. The brief flirtation with a socialist approach has given way once more to the Hobbesian war of all against all that is typical of capitalism – an individualist ethos that may be summarized as, “I’ve got mine, so fuck everybody else.”

Near the end, the political subtext of the film sharpens once more. As the teams arrive at the Silver City train station, they all reach the locker at the same time and struggle to be the first to use their keys. When one finally opens the locker, they find the duffel bag of money missing.

It seems that the butler Grisham has run off with the call girl under the mistaken belief that she liked him for him, and not the $2 million he was leading her to. Despite their similar class interests, the bourgeoisie remains a den of thieves who will happily stab each other in the back to increase their own personal profits; Bernie Madoff is only the most famous recent example of this phenomenon.

Chasing after the duffel bag of money while it hangs from a cow that is dangling from a hot air balloon (don’t ask), the frantic racers suddenly crash through a wall and find themselves onstage at a charity concert hosted by Smash Mouth that instantly dates the film. They finally gain their prize and start helping themselves to wads of cash.

In a misunderstanding, the charity believes the competitors have come to donate the money to feed hungry children. The competitors initially react with horror and attempt to correct this impression. However, the heartfelt expressions of gratitude by the charity’s organizer, as well as a representative hungry child, soon compel all competitors to relinquish their winnings in the name of charity. This sacrifice on behalf of the needy becomes cathartic, with the former competitors smiling and/or pumping their fists in the air.

But Nick isn’t finished. Seizing on the presence of Sinclair and his cronies, he announces that the affluent gamblers have volunteered to donate double the total amount of money raised by the charity. The numbers on a display board increase at a dizzying speed; millions of dollars which were previously hoarded or pissed away on useless speculation are forcibly redistributed to serve real and desperate social needs.

It is this expropriation of wealth that makes Rat Race more than just a frivolous comedy. The presence of starving children puts the main characters’ individual pursuit of riches into perspective. Capitalism, by its very nature, leads to poverty and vast inequality. As Che Guevara noted, the central myth of “free enterprise” – that anyone can become wealthy if they work hard enough – is usually defended with the example of figures like John D. Rockefeller, while conveniently ignoring the amount of misery that must be created in order for a Rockefeller to exist.

By their own initiative, Sinclair and his friends would never have used that money to serve positive social ends. It was only when Nick put them in an impossible position at the charity concert that they were forced to smile and wave as a portion of their wealth was taken from them. This is the point at which right-wing ideologues would start ranting and raving about the injustice of somebody stealing their hard-earned money (Who earned it for them? The Sinclair gang don’t look like 9 to 5 types).

Wealth redistribution is precisely what happens at the end of Rat Race. And what are the results? A huge number of children who would have gone to bed hungry, or worse, will now be fed. Lives have been saved – and the only casualty is the relative freedom of shiftless billionaires to gamble away huge amounts of money other people earned for them. Regardless of the filmmakers’ intentions, the socialist subtext of Rat Race takes what would have otherwise been an unremarkable if entertaining comedy and gives it a didactic meaning to serve as a rallying cry for the proletariat.

Review: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

From a personal standpoint, Mark Webb's reboot of Sony Corporation's most profitable franchise broke new ground: for the first time, I was unexcited about the prospect of a new Spider-Man movie. Given the high caliber of summer 2012's other superhero offerings - Joss Whedon's superlative Avengers adaptation and Christopher Nolan's swan song The Dark Knight Rises - as well as trailers depicting another re-telling of Spider-Man's origin, I was highly skeptical of this movie being anything other than a naked cash grab. My lack of interest was expressed most vividly when, offered the chance on opening day to see a new Spider-Man film or a film about male strippers, I chose the latter.

Having now seen the movie, I will admit that while my initial cynicism may be justified, The Amazing Spider-Man is better than it had any right to be. Though devoting half the film to ground already covered - and better - in Sam Raimi's original Spider-Man (2002), Webb has nevertheless produced an exciting Spider-Man adventure. If one drops all cynicism to simply sit back and enjoy what transpires on screen, TASM is a perfectly satisfying superhero tale. In the pantheon of long underwear characters adapted to film, it is closer to the upper echelon than the lower. As the Big Three go - Superman, Batman, Spider-Man - TASM is miles above the disappointing Superman Returns while not quite reaching the heights of Nolan's Batman films.

Praise for the movie has justifiably tended to focus on the performances of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. Each does an outstanding job with their character. In her role as the token love interest, Stone improves considerably on Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane Watson, although partial credit must go to the screenwriters, who render her Gwen Stacy a stronger and more independent character than Raimi's indecisive, narcissistic MJ. That said, there is no iconic moment to rival the kiss in the rain from the Raimi original.

Garfield's performance must be rated on a dualistic basis. As Spider-Man, he is far and away a more charismatic and amusing Spidey than Tobey Maguire's interpretation. Garfield's hero makes constant quips - something sorely lacking when Maguire wore the tights, and truer to the presentation of Spider-Man in the comics (where the shy Parker seems to become a different person under the mask, wittier and funnier).

As Peter Parker - specifically, as a high school-age Parker - Garfield comes up short of Maguire, who I could believe as an unpopular and awkward nerd. As has been pointed out by other reviewers, Garfield is simply too good-looking to buy as a social pariah or the hapless victim of bullies. Perhaps this is a reflection on the state of culture ten years after the original, when nerds like Mark Zuckerberg have become globe-straddling trendsetters. This Peter rides a skateboard, and his clothes and bedroom are festooned with "hip" cultural icons - The Clash, The Ramones, Johnny Cash. Garfield's Peter is perfectly likeable and there's nothing wrong with his acting; I simply couldn't buy him as a geek.

But there is a caveat, because this only refers to a single aspect of the character. Tobey Maguire played the "nerdy" Peter to perfection, but unfortunately never evolved beyond this. Throughout all three of Raimi's films, Maguire's Parker remained socially awkward to the point where it became irritating by the third movie. Where was the character development? In the comics, Peter eventually became more confident and cool, which was a nice transition to see. Unlike Maguire, Garfield has this aspect nailed down. While off-putting to me in the depiction of a teenage Parker, I believe this quality will accrue to Garfield's advantage as an older Peter when the inevitable sequel(s) see the light of day.

The choice of The Lizard as villain is a strange one for a movie that occasionally seems to be aping the "gritty, realistic" character of the Nolan Batman films, which leads us to a crucial point: the world of Spider-Man is in no sense "gritty" or "realistic". We're talking about a hero who is bitten by a spider and gains spider-like superpowers, fighting a giant lizard in the streets of Manhattan. It is literally impossible to depict such events in a "realistic" manner. If that's what the filmmakers were going for, they failed. But I don't think they were.

Ultimately, this is a perfectly serviceable popcorn flick. It likely won't be remembered as long as the 2002 film, and certainly won't have the same cultural impact, but plays well while you're watching it. Rhys Ifans does a fine job as Dr. Curt Connors, aka The Lizard. The special effects are far superior to Raimi's original films, helped along by the fact that whenever possible the filmmakers used real stunts for the webslinging rather than CGI.

There are some plot holes. Peter is driven to seek revenge on Uncle Ben's killer, yet the matter is effectively dropped after The Lizard becomes a real threat. The possibility that the plotline will be resolved in a sequel is an annoying side-effect of the blockbuster franchise era. But there is a more pernicious aspect to this plot thread. It may be argued that this movie sidesteps the entire theme of the Spider-Man story - "with great power comes great responsibility". In the comics and the first Raimi film, Spider-Man is directly responsible for causing Uncle Ben's death by failing to apprehend the killer when he had the chance, and channels that guilt and anger into his life as a crimefighter.

In Webb's interpretation, that responsibility is less direct; there is less guilt and more anger. Sure, Uncle Ben gets killed while looking for Peter, who left their home in anger. But by turning Peter's motivation for becoming Spider-Man into a mission primarily of vengeance - only to leave that plotline unresolved - Webb essentially defeats the point of devoting half the movie to re-telling the origin story.

In the end, my praise for this movie likely comes as a result of my expectations being so low. I was pleasantly surprised, but am looking forward to a sequel more now that the origin is out of the way.

Final note: there is absolutely no point in seeing this movie in 3-D. For long periods I forgot I was even wearing the glasses. Go 2-D if you can.

Toronto library workers reach settlement after strike

This article originally appeared at Fightback.

Ending an 11-day strike, Toronto public library employees returned to work on Friday, March 30 after members of CUPE Local 4948 voted to accept a new contract.

Workers had walked off the job after contract negotiations with the Library Board broke down. City representatives desired greater “flexibility” in denying job security to permanent library employees, by making it easier to lay off workers in the event of outsourcing or technological changes.

Under the terms of the collective agreement that expired on Dec. 31, no permanent library workers could be laid off even if the city outsourced their jobs. Such job security provisions were the main target of the municipal government during negotiations.

Local 4948 represents 2,300 library workers, the majority of them women, including 440 librarians, 730 part-time pages (often students) who stock shelves, and hundreds of customer service assistants. More than half the workers are employed in part-time positions.

By going on strike, Toronto library workers illustrated that the only way to fight austerity is by challenging the bosses and their government lackeys head-on. Yet we must realize that the final agreement only softens the blow.

All library workers will receive a small wage increase that fails to keep pace with the current rate of inflation. The union managed to protect benefits, but sacrificed job security for younger workers – a major concession on the key issue.

The Toronto Star reported:

Under the new four-year collective agreement, full-time and part-time workers will be protected from layoffs after they earn 11 years of seniority.

[...]

The agreement includes a wage freeze this year, a lump-sum payment of 1.5 per cent at the beginning of 2013 (less for part-time workers), and increases of 0.225 per cent in 2013, 1.75 per cent in 2014, and 2.25 per cent in 2015. That is slightly less than the outdoor workers received from Ford.

Under the contract, no full-time jobs will be converted to part-time jobs and a “modest” number of full-time jobs will be created, [union president Maureen] O’Reilly said.

The dominant feeling expressed by union representatives after the final deal was that this was the best deal workers could get. Such sentiments indicate that labour remains on the defensive.

Despite trumpeting its victory over Mayor Rob Ford in the 2012 budget by preventing some of the more unpopular service cuts, Toronto City Council still voted in January to eliminate 107 full-time library service positions and shrink the collections budget. Even with the new agreement, the long-term trajectory of the city’s public library system remains dire.

Once the new layoffs are implemented, library staff will have decreased by 17% since amalgamation even as circulation increased 23%. Dwindling job security, including the proliferation of part-time employment, has developed alongside a heavier workload as budget cuts put greater pressure on remaining workers at the library’s 98 branches.

In its document “The New Threat”, OurPublicLibrary.to, a network sponsored by the Toronto Public Library Workers Union, argued that the offensive on workers is part of an attempt by the Ford administration to hollow out the public library system from within.“Lowering the quality of public services and increasing public dissatisfaction,” it notes, “is a tried and true strategy for privatization.”

Introduction of the profit motive through privatization would inevitably result in the closure of branches, higher user fees, fewer books, and reduced accessibility of information and services. It would also accelerate the process of layoffs and attacks on job security for library workers.

Despite the limited nature of their gains, the library workers’ strike – the first of Rob Ford’s 15-month administration – underscores a growing shift in consciousness. Workers increasingly realize they can trust no one but themselves. Experiences on the picket line are creating a new sense of solidarity and recognition of their own power.

Members of the Toronto Young New Democrats repeatedly intervened at picket lines during the strike to show solidarity with union members. The workers and youth sang traditional labour songs together, including “Which Side Are You On?” and “Solidarity Forever”.

“I was tremendously appreciative of TYND showing up to support us in our efforts to gain a fair deal with the employer,” said Alan Harnum, Senior Applications Specialist in E-Services and picket captain at the Toronto Reference Library, in an e-mail. “One of the biggest morale-boosters while on strike is being supported by those without an apparent direct personal stake in the dispute with the employer.

“Speaking personally,” he wrote, “the strike experience has been an extensive practical lesson for me in the value of solidarity: with my co-workers on the line, with the members of other unions who showed up to support us, with groups like the Toronto Young New Democrats, and with citizens from all walks of life who walked the picket line with us for a time or otherwise offered support.

“If the union ‘won’ the strike, it was because we successfully persuaded people that we were not engaged in protectionism, but [were] conscious participants on one side of a struggle against institutional forces seeking the diminishment and destruction of valued public services.

“I emerged from the strike with a greater sense of connection to many of my fellow workers at Toronto Public Library.”

The workers united will never be defeated is no mere slogan, but the only way forward in the face of a vicious onslaught by the capitalist elite against working people. The NDP must take a firm stance against these attacks. Only a militant labour movement, with solidarity actions to unite workers and youth, can fight austerity and win.

Welcome to the New Security State: Conservatives' Omnibus Crime Bill Criminalizes Youth and Workers

This article originally appeared in Fightback.

The relentless austerity measures currently being visited upon the Canadian working class are typically justified by the mantra, “There is no money.” We are constantly told that all levels of government are broke, spending cuts are needed, and that workers must tighten their belts and permanently accept a lower standard of living.

But for the state security apparatus, things are very different.

Despite an apparently desperate need to cut public spending, including the possibility of sacking up to a third of the federal civil service, the Conservative government plans to massively increase spending on domestic and foreign defence. None of this security spending will aid working-class people (either in Canada or abroad); instead, it is very likely that our own money will be used against us in our attempts to fight austerity.

Amidst a general rise in military spending, the Harper government had already allocated $9-billion of federal funds towards the purchase of F-35 fighter jets when delays and cost overruns at Lockheed-Martin forced it to consider alternatives. On Feb. 15, the National Post reported that the Department of National Defence was preparing to tender a contract for six armed unmanned air vehicles (UAVs, commonly referred to as drones). Remotely-piloted aircraft such as the MQ-9 Reaper cost an estimated $30-million each.

Among countries on the receiving end of US imperialism, drones have become notorious in recent years as the most terrifying incarnation of the U.S. military’s advanced weaponry. The ongoing slaughter of innocents at the hands of unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya have provoked the ire of civilian populations and served as a rallying point for armed insurrection.

The Canadian military has leased drones in the past from Israel for reconnaissance missions in Afghanistan, but the Post reported that the primary “attraction for the government, apart from the price, is the increasing flexibility of UAVs to conduct domestic patrols along Canada’s borders and mount offensive missions.”

Spending on state security forces has continued to rise in Canada and the United States, even as severe austerity grinds down the working class. Harsher sentences, increased police powers, more advanced weaponry, and greater surveillance of ordinary citizens are all on the agenda as Canada adopts a more aggressive military posture, as well as a more punitive and merciless criminal justice system.

Harper’s “tough on crime” policies are most clearly exemplified by his omnibus crime bill, the Safe Streets and Communities Act, which passed the House of Commons in December and could come into effect as early as March. Bill C-10 combines nine separate measures that failed to pass under the previous Conservative minority governments, including:

• Adult sentences for juvenile offenders as young as 14.
• Mandatory minimum sentences for sex crimes.
• Eliminating house arrest as a sentencing option for certain offences.
• Longer wait times on pardons, or eliminating them altogether in certain cases.
• Allowing police to arrest citizens on conditional release without warrant if perceived to be in violation of those conditions.
• Mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession “for the purpose of trafficking”.
• Increasing hurdles on re-entry for Canadians convicted abroad.
• Allowing victims of terrorism to sue “perpetrators and supporters”.

The imposition of mandatory minimum sentences will drastically swell Canada’s prison population. Officials in Quebec, Ontario, and Newfoundland have already voiced concerns about prison overcrowding. In Ontario alone, Correctional Services minister Madeline Meilleur estimated that the omnibus crime bill could cost Ontario taxpayers over $1-billion in added police and correctional service costs. This is at the same time as when workers are being told they must endure painful sacrifices to plug government deficits, with the federal 2012 deficit standing at $17.3-billion.

Naturally, the corporate media takes care not to remind readers and viewers that these deficits exploded after the 2008 bailout of the banking and automotive sectors. That year, the federal government transferred $75-billion of debt from the banks’ ledgers to the government through the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and established an additional $200-billion fund to lend to the bankers. Billions were borrowed for this purpose, with interest on those loans billed to ordinary people. Governments, including those in Canada, have proceeded to pay back these debts on the backs of working-class people.

While the criminals on Wall Street and Bay Street are protected from their crimes and rewarded with bailouts, Canadian workers face economic insecurity and a vastly strengthened state security apparatus. Homelessness, evictions, and hunger are on the rise across the country, but only the military and police forces are immune from further spending cuts, even as the national crime rate continues a 20-year decline. The Harper government’s decision to spend $1-billion on security at the G20 summit in Toronto — a meeting of world leaders specifically on how to push through austerity — was a harbinger of things to come.

Seemingly not satisfied with the omnibus crime bill, the Conservatives introduced Bill C-30 into the House of Commons on Feb. 14. As the National Post reported, the deceptively-named Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act would “require telecommunications companies to give police customers’ information without a court order. The bill will also require ISPs (internet service providers) and cell-phone companies to install equipment for real-time surveillance and create new police powers designed to obtain access to the surveillance data.”

Despite the bluster of Public Safety minister Vic Toews that Canadians “can either stand with us or with the child pornographers”, the ostensible goal of cracking down on kiddie porn is merely the pretext for a wide-ranging assault on privacy and vast escalation of the state’s surveillance powers. Opponents are likely to mount a court challenge to the bill on the basis that it violates the section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protecting against unlawful search and seizure. But, as the British Marxist Ted Grant liked to point out, the capitalists can move from “democracy” to dictatorship as easily as a person in his day could move from the non-smoking to the smoking compartment of a train.

In the context of such an aggressive increase in the power of the state apparatus and the surveillance of Canadians, the fact that the Harper government is considering the purchase of American drones for the purpose of “domestic patrols” can only be regarded by Canadian workers and activists with alarm.

The Los Angeles Times reported in December that police in North Dakota used a Predator B drone to locate and apprehend three men. That same month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama administration was making a concerted effort to sell armed drones to its allies in order to ease the American burden in its various overseas conflicts. As the world’s largest arms dealer, the U.S. has now turned to Canada and apparently found a willing buyer in the Harper government for its arsenal of flying death machines.

Should the government purchases these drones — with its commitments in Afghanistan winding down and the effects of austerity creating an angrier, more rebellious working class — it is inevitable that these drones will eventually be turned against the civilian population of Canada to assist police with surveillance and apprehension. Given the criminalization of dissent at the G20, such an outcome should be cause for worry for anyone opposed to the austerity agenda.

As Marxists, we understand that the state is a product of irreconcilable class antagonisms, consisting in the end of armed bodies of men in defence of existing property relations. The collapse of the world capitalist economy has led to austerity measures that aim to pay for the crisis by bleeding dry the most vulnerable segments of the population. Declining economic prospects for Canadian workers and youth will inevitably lead to an explosion of social anger. Already we have seen the forces of the state deployed against peaceful demonstrators at the G20, and in imposing the closure of Occupy encampments across the country.

The erosion of civil liberties in Canada and the United States reflects the erosion of the state’s legitimacy as an expression of the popular will and its increasing resort to naked force to defend the existing social order. While Harper’s crime policies are justified on the basis of cracking down on killers and child predators, in reality they will be more extensively utilized to crush challenges to the austerity regime imposed on the working class in the interests of global financiers.

It is up to the organized working class to resist such measures wherever possible. As the Official Opposition, the NDP must take a lead in fighting against each new draconian crime and surveillance bill pushed by the Harper Conservatives. The trade unions must use every weapon in their arsenal, including strikes, to challenge the legitimacy of the encroaching security state.

However, so long as the capitalist mode of production prevails and a tiny majority control the wealth of society, a well-funded state security apparatus will remain a much-needed last line of defence for the ruling class against working-class demands for a more equitable system.

Only through the elimination of class antagonisms can we eradicate completely the need for the state and its armed bodies of men. Only through expropriation of the capitalists and the transition to a socialist economy can working people begin to run society for themselves along truly democratic lines.

Robocalls Scandal Further Exposes Façade of Bourgeois Democracy

This article originally published at Fightback.

The Harper government has come under fire after Elections Canada’s announcement in February that it had traced fraudulent phone calls made during the last federal election to an Edmonton-based call centre that worked for the Conservative Party in ridings across the country.

Elections Canada launched an investigation after receiving thousands of election day complaints from Guelph, one of 18 ridings in which voters received harassing or deceptive phone calls designed to discourage turnout. Guelph was the focus of a particularly tight race between the Conservatives and Liberals.

In cases of harassment, voters received messages purportedly from Liberal Party campaign workers at dinner hours, late at night, or on the Sabbath for Jewish voters.

In other instances, purely deceptive tactics were used. On election day, voters in Guelph received a message, apparently from Elections Canada, informing them that their polling stations had moved. Such disinformation led to chaotic scenes at polls and in many instances discouraged voters from casting their ballots at all.

Elections Canada traced the calls to Racknine Inc., a call centre that worked for the Conservative Party’s national campaign and the campaigns of at least nine Conservative candidates, including Stephen Harper’s own race in Calgary Southwest.

The “robocall” allegations have led to a flurry of accusations and denials on Parliament Hill. Unsurprisingly, the Prime Minister has strenuously denied any allegations of wrongdoing, asserting that “the Conservative Party...has no role in any of this.” His party’s MPs, meanwhile, have fired back at a variety of targets.

Conservative backbencher Maurice Vellacott suggested that Elections Canada voter lists were flawed. Harper’s parliamentary secretary Dean Del Mastro, taking a lead from his boss, turned the tables by arguing it was in fact the opposition parties who had been conducting a sleaze campaign. Del Mastro accused Liberal MP Joe Volpe of hiring a North Dakota-based automated calling company during the federal election. Del Mastro’s accusations have subsequently been proven false. But, voters in Volpe’s riding did receive harassing phone calls that were traced to a North Dakota area code.

Harper’s former chief of staff Guy Giorno went on the offensive, self-righteously proclaiming to the Toronto Star that “suppression of vote is a despicable, reprehensible practice and everybody ought to condemn it...I wish Godspeed to Elections Canada and the RCMP investigators. We want them to get to the bottom of this and let’s hope the full weight of the law is applied.”

To date, Elections Canada has received a massive 31,000 complaints related to the federal election. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the chief electoral officer of Canada from 1990 to 2007, described the level of complaints as unprecedented; the agency typically receives between 500 and 1,200 complaints per election.

The robocalls fiasco underscores the hypocrisy that underlies the facade of bourgeois democracy. The Canadian government, like its counterpart in the United States, parades around the world as a self-appointed expert in freedom and democracy, even running overseas “democracy training” programs.

We are told that we live in a thriving democratic society in which everyone’s vote counts. As Canadian workers increasingly realize, this Schoolhouse Rock conception of how government works is largely myth, yet it remains enshrined in ruling class dogma.

After the latest scandal came to light, the universal reaction among bourgeois analysts was to condemn it as an isolated instance of corruption in an otherwise functional democracy. “This is a direct affront to the very foundation of our system,” said Kingsley. “We’re talking now about the very core of it.”

But contrary to the proclamations of bourgeois moralists, such corruption is not an exception in an otherwise fair and democratic system. Rather, it is the inevitable consequence of a system that is unfair at its core.

In his book The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), Friedrich Engels noted:

The democratic republic no longer officially recognizes differences of property. Wealth here employs its power indirectly, but all the more surely. It does this in two ways: by plain corruption of officials, of which America is the classic example, and by an alliance between the government and the stock exchange.

Engels went on to describe universal suffrage as merely another instrument of bourgeois rule:

Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more, in the present-day state; but that is sufficient. On the day the thermometer of universal suffrage registers boiling point among the workers, both they and the capitalists will know what to do.

The robocalls scandal has led to a visceral sense of anger among the Canadian working class and brought it that much closer to boiling point. Demonstrations have already taken place in Ottawa and Vancouver. At the time of writing, more protests are planned in Toronto and Calgary.

The bourgeois parties’ involvement in the robocalls has deepened a growing sense among Canadian workers that their democracy is a sham. The anger against the robocalls recalls the widespread protests that accompanied Harper’s repeated prorogations of Parliament.

Harper first prorogued Parliament in 2008 to defeat the proposed Liberal-NDP Coalition. At the end of 2009, Harper again prorogued Parliament, ostensibly to keep the legislature in recess for the duration of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. But the move was widely seen as an attempt to distract attention from revelations of Afghan detainee abuse. 20,000 people across the country protested Harper’s blatantly anti-democratic move.

In each case, the Conservative leader turned to an unelected representative of an unelected monarch, the Queen of England, to shut down the democratically-elected Parliament. As Fightback pointed out in 2010, any such move by an opponent of Western imperialism, such as Hugo Chavez, would be endlessly decried in the bourgeois press as an authoritarian affront to democracy.

Many commentators have suggested that the robocalls scandal may represent Harper’s “Nixon moment.” Indeed, there are many parallels between the two leaders in terms of their obsessive desire for secrecy and total control. However, objective conditions have changed greatly in the past four decades.

Today, the capitalist system is in crisis everywhere. Credit was used for decades to artificially extend the postwar boom, but the 2008 crisis indicated that the economic day of reckoning could be postponed no further. At present there is nothing on the agenda for workers but austerity, layoffs, cuts and poverty.

Workers now broadly perceive the blatant inequality of the system. If the bank bailouts illustrated that the wealthy have incomparably greater sway over elected politicians than ordinary workers, anti-democratic moves like prorogation and the robocalls have thrown into doubt one of the most cherished myths propagated by the ruling class: that the Canadian form of government is fair and democratic.

The suppression of democracy in Canada is only an expression of a deeper crisis within the system. The Occupy movement struck a chord in its depiction of a battle between the long-suffering majority in society and an obscenely wealthy minority that controls the levers of power. An ever increasing number of workers and youth realize that, in truth, the vast majority of Canadians have little say over the political process.

Record low turnouts in recent elections are an expression of the instinctual feeling among Canadian workers that their votes do not count, that no matter which party wins the banks and corporations decide policy. The robocalls scandal, like prorogation, is only the clearest manifestation of the contempt that the ruling elite has always held for democracy, which is favoured only when it is convenient.

Any movement against the anti-democratic actions of the government, whether real or alleged, will inevitably find itself awash in opportunists from the Liberal Party and elsewhere. The NDP and the unions must put themselves at the forefront of the fight by making concrete demands that illustrate the connection between economic and political democracy.

So long as a tiny minority controls the wealth of society, the notion that we live in anything approaching a real democracy will always remain a farce. True democracy can only be attained when the majority of the population, in the form of the working class, gains control over the economy and runs it democratically for the benefit of all.

Northeast Marxist School Points The Way Forward

This article originally appeared at Fightback and In Defence of Marxism.

Over 50 comrades attended the second annual Northeast Marxist School in Montreal last weekend. Organized by supporters of La Riposte Quebec, Fightback Canada and Socialist Appeal USA, the school was a resounding success that saw a 30% rise in attendance from the previous year. Comrades from Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, New York and New Jersey enjoyed two days of vibrant political discussion and revolutionary socials.

The most important lesson of the weekend was the pressing need for a revolutionary tendency with correct Marxist ideas to help the working class achieve its emancipation. This year’s sharp increase in attendance is a reflection of the revolutionary epoch we have entered.

Since last year’s school, which took place in the immediate wake of revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, we have witnessed the wider Arab Spring, pre-revolutionary turmoil in Greece, and massive protest movements around the globe including the Spanish indignados, the Occupy movement and the anti-Putin protests in Russia. The inability of ruling classes to resolve the contradictions of capitalism have led to a global impasse. More and more workers and youth are turning to the ideas of Marxism in order to explain the world we live in and to present a viable alternative.

Arriving on Friday night to a social at the Jazz Hostel, comrades awoke early Saturday morning for a veritable two-day Marx-a-thon. Alex Grant from Fightback’s editorial board delivered the opening presentation, “Perspectives on the World Capitalist Crisis”, which briefly covered the broad historical movements of 20th century capitalism – its boom and bust periods, its contradictions leading to wars and revolutions – as a background for the new crisis we find ourselves in today.

The mass movements in the Arab world, Europe, Africa and North America illustrate that we have entered a tumultuous new period. The presence of all the objective factors for revolution is contrasted by the lack of an organized revolutionary tendency to harness the energy of the working class. If not addressed, this contradiction will play a tragic role in future developments.

Time limits prevented inclusion of some key topics in the lead-off, such as Latin America, but comrades in attendance were more than happy to fill in the blanks and provide their own perspectives during the subsequent discussion period. This was to be a recurring pattern throughout the weekend, as each participant drew upon their individual knowledge to raise the theoretical level of all.

After lunch, Camilo Cahis gave a lead-off on “Lessons of the Spanish Revolution”, a crucial struggle of the interwar period rife with lessons for today’s revolutionaries. The involvement of so many political tendencies in this struggle from 1931-1938 – Marxists, Stalinists, centrists, liberals, anarchists, fascists, conservative nationalists – renders study of the Spanish Revolution an indispensable primer on how the interaction of objective and subjective factors can make or break a workers’ revolution. Not coincidentally, Fightback just released a new booklet reprinting works of Leon Trotsky, Pierre Broué, and Ted Grant on the Spanish Revolution. These booklets were eagerly snapped up by attendees seeking more information.

The last session of the day was “The History of Marxist Organizing”, with Tom Trottier discussing the development of Trotskyist tendencies in the United States and Britain. He examined the strengths and weaknesses of prominent American Trotskyists, particularly James P. Cannon, and how the inability of the leaders of the Fourth International to absorb Trotsky’s method after his death led to a series of splits and muddled opportunistic positions in the ensuing decades.

Tom’s parallel history of the Militant tendency in Britain made the case that Ted Grant had a superior grasp of the Marxist method in his approach to organization and theory. Unfortunately, Militant was not immune to errors or objective factors that led to its eventual split. The importance of these lessons in building a new revolutionary tendency can be found in the old cliché that “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

As Saturday drew to a close, comrades adjourned to the Jazz Hostel for that night’s social. Despite the ostensible goal of unwinding after a long day, the quality of the presentations fuelled many in-depth political discussions over beer that evening, and a splendid time was had by all.

Refreshed comrades returned the next day to hear Mark Rahman from the US Workers’ International League give a presentation about “The Minneapolis Teamster Rebellion of 1934”, a pivotal Depression-era struggle that saw American Trotskyists play a key organizational role.

Joel Bergman from La Riposte (Quebec) gave a final presentation on Trotsky’s In Defence of Marxism, a compilation of letters and essays the “Old Man” wrote to his American followers in the 1930s. One of the most important lessons comrades absorbed was Trotsky’s use of the proper Marxist method. Unlike the Stalinists and sectarians who attempt to resolve political differences through organizational means such as expulsions, Lenin and Trotsky always attempted to use every dispute as a means of raising the general political level of the cadres.

The comrades capped off the weekend with raucous renditions of “The Internationale” and “Bandiera Rossa”. As the weekend school ended, enthusiasm among attendees was palpable. For the first time in decades, Marxists are no longer swimming against the tide. Not only do Marxist ideas make sense of current events – far more so than the confused commentary of the bourgeois media – but workers and youth are eager to hear them, as the Northeast school demonstrated.

The current crisis of capitalism is not going away anytime soon. In the absence of an organized revolutionary tendency, the capitalist system will continue to cause unspeakable horror and misery for the vast majority of the human race. Development of this subjective factor must be the primary focus for all Marxists going forward. This school played an important role in this development and helped build unity between revolutionaries in Quebec, Canada, and the United States.

Workers and Hustlers: Conservative Ideology in the Film "Cocktail"

This essay was originally published at The Mass Ornament. Spoilers abound.

The reactionary turn of U.S. politics embodied in the Reagan administration had an indelible impact on American popular culture, both in the 1980s and the decades that followed. As David Sirota argued in his book Back to Our Future, contemporary historiography blamed the unrest of the Sixties on the supposed liberal excesses of hippies and the counterculture, the antiwar movement, black civil rights activists, and the welfare state. These were to be remedied by a strong dose of conservatism, aiming to resurrect a mythical version of the Fifties. The New Right celebrated so-called traditional American values: patriotism, militarism, Christianity, the family, and – most importantly – free enterprise.

In reality, non-economic elements in the New Right’s worldview were always peripheral to the centrality of a revived neoliberal capitalism. Monetarist thinkers like Milton Friedman argued that the unfettered free market was the most efficient allocator of resources. Outside of the state security apparatus, government could only interfere in this self-regulating process. There was nothing new about these economic ideas, which merely rehashed pre-Depression shibboleths about the self-correcting market.

Right-wing political figures like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher soon institutionalized monetarism through radical programs of deregulation, privatization, aggressive attacks on unions and tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. Such blatant anti-worker policies – the real core of neo-conservative ideology – were justified through a political smoke screen that lauded patriotism, individualism and self-reliance. Anyone, it was claimed, could become rich and successful if they worked hard enough.

Roger Donaldson’s 1988 film Cocktail, produced near the end of Reagan’s second term, embodies the worship of naked capitalism that characterized the 1980s – a decade that completely missed the irony in Gordon Gekko’s infamous declaration that “greed is good.”

The story of young bartender Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise), Cocktail mythologizes the self-made entrepreneur at the root of the neoliberal ideology that dominates mainstream culture to this day. But even as it extols the glories of wealth and free market capitalism, the film has an ambivalent relationship to the working class.

In Marxist terms, Cocktail documents Brian’s journey from proletarian to petit-bourgeois. Beginning as the humble bartender of a low-rent New York City tavern, Brian dreams of wealth and fame. By the end of the film he realizes his goal, opening his own bar (appropriately called “Flanagan’s Cocktails and Dreams”) and becoming a successful small business owner. While he has not turned the bar into a nationwide franchise and joined the ranks of the big bourgeoisie, Brian is nevertheless pushed much further along the road to this dream than he would be if the film maintained any connection to economic reality.

Above: Cocktail’s version of working-class stiffs.

At the same time as Cocktail pretends to identify with ordinary workers, it revels in the same ruling class worldview that ridicules the working class as unsuccessful losers. This paradox is encapsulated in a diatribe by Brian’s world-weary mentor, Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown), upon re-encountering his protégé at a bar in Jamaica:

Doug: Biology is destiny [...] There are two kinds of people in this world, the workers and the hustlers. The hustlers never work and the workers never hustle. You, my friend, are a worker [...] It’s there, ingrained in your immigrant blood. Look how tasty your cocktails are, how clean you keep your bar. Why man, you actually take pride in your work.

Brian: I do not.

Doug: Is he or isn’t he a great bartender?

Brian: Listen bozo, if you think I’m stuck in this gig…

Doug: Face it, you’re a career proletarian. You’ve been standing in a puddle so long you’ve got wet feet.

That dichotomy – of celebrating ordinary workers in theory while belittling them in practice – is the bread and butter of the modern conservative movement. The contradiction is expressed in the self-loathing of many working class conservatives: Brian sees blue collar work as an embarrassing way to make a living, a placeholder until he can gain respect through the acquisition of vast riches.

While income inequality is acknowledged in the film, the question is never how to achieve a more equitable distribution of society’s wealth, but rather how the characters can enrich themselves. Brian and Doug maintain self-respect only by viewing themselves as better than the rest of the working class, destined by virtue of their talents and their profession to rise above the rabble and one day join the ranks of the Manhattan bourgeoisie:

Doug: Within one square mile of this saloon lies the greatest concentration of wealth in the world.

Brian: Yes, but how is a bartender going to get his hands on any of it?

Doug: A bartender is the aristocrat of the working class. You can make all kinds of moves if you’re smart. There are investors out there, there are angels, there are suckers, there are rich women with nothing to do with their money. You stand in this bar and you can be struck by lightning.

Brian’s attitude reflects the class contradictions at the heart of modern conservative ideology, recently exposed in the Republican presidential primaries. At the time of writing, the class dynamics of the primaries have thus far resulted in a standoff between blue-blood Mitt Romney, quintessential representative of the moneyed Establishment, and his rivals, equally beholden to the bourgeoisie but who nevertheless claim to speak for “populist” conservatives (a contradiction in terms).

The heroic figures of popular entertainment in recent decades typically draw upon conservative tropes, regularly seen in action films and today informing the Fox News conception of “real Americans” as distinct from “liberal elites”, that inculcate ruling class ideology into unsuspecting audience members by paradoxically identifying that ideology with the common man. Such indoctrination plays upon crude political stereotypes typically advanced by right-wing culture warriors.

The conservative is often portrayed as a hardworking, down-to-earth regular guy, preferably from the rural heartland of America – religious, patriotic, supportive of the military, interested in cars, sports, girls, and rock ‘n’ roll, socially conservative. Beverage of choice: beer.

By contrast, the liberal is seen as an effete, city-dwelling elitist – secular, leftist, “America-hating”, educated, antiwar, socially liberal. Beverage of choice: wine and lattes.

The 1980s particularly revelled in this contrived image of conservative manhood, represented in music by Bruce Springsteen (despite the fact that Springsteen himself was a stalwart defender of progressive causes and opponent of Reaganism) as well as on film through the larger-than-life action pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis. Cocktail draws heavily on this idealized conservative masculinity.

At the beginning of the film, as Starship’s pop-rock anthem “Wild Again” blares on the soundtrack, the Cruise character speeds down a rural highway with his fellow soldiers in a car festooned with American flags, chasing the Greyhound bus that will take him to New York.

It is established that Brian has recently been discharged from the army. Although the particulars are vague, his military past nevertheless permits him to occupy the moral high ground as a patriotic “real American”. No contemporary U.S. military conflicts, such as the invasion of Grenada, are specifically mentioned. But this badge of patriotism, identified with the military, allows Brian to challenge his uncle: “Your nephew comes home from serving his country and he doesn’t even rate a beer on the house?”

Upon his arrival in New York, Brian immediately stops off at a bar owned by his Uncle Pat (Ron Dean), who gives him an impromptu lecture on how to become a successful capitalist. Uncle Pat relates how the Mets won the 1969 World Series. When a patron named Eddie suggested free drinks to celebrate, Pat gave him a violent lesson in the spirit of free enterprise:

Eddie: He whacked me with a club. Almost knocked the eyes out of my head.

Brian: That’s your way of making money?

Uncle Pat: You outwork, outthink, outscheme and outmaneuver. You make no friends. You trust nobody. And you make damn sure you’re the smartest guy in the room whenever the subject of money comes up.

Brian: I don’t know, Uncle Pat. Doesn’t sound like too much fun to me.

Pat: Fun? You want fun, you go play at the beach.

As the film continues, it becomes clear that this mentality of ruthless capitalism offers no capacity for human warmth. While Brian and Doug imagine creating their own bar together, their friendship is soon torn apart by vicious competition – not over money, but over a woman.

Brian initially has dreams of making it big on Wall Street – at one point, writing his imaginary obituary for a class assignment, he envisions the following ideal future for himself in a narrative that repositions pre-Depression oligarchs as Randian heroes:

Brian: Brian Flanagan…Senator Brian Flanagan…billionaire governor Brian Flanagan, whose self-propelled meteoric rise to wealth and fame would have made even J.D. Rockefeller envious, died early yesterday morning at the age of 99 while bedding his 18-year-old seventh wife Heidi, who is recovering from exhaustion at the local hospital and will be unable to attend the funeral.

However, through a series of unsuccessful job interviews, he finds that in the Land of Opportunity, there are no such opportunities even for a young go-getter like himself in the absence of a college degree:

Brian: I’m willing to start at the bottom.

Job Interviewer: You’re aiming too high.

As a result, Brian enrols in some business courses and soon finds himself held captive by a monstrous caricature of a professor who delights in verbally abusing and humiliating his students.

The highly negative portrayal of educators in this film reflects the broader anti-intellectualism of the conservative movement. Just as Marxists, university professors, climate scientists and other opponents of the conservative agenda tend to be smeared as “liberal” elitists out of touch with the real world, Brian responds to his professor’s description of him as a “dreamer who can’t take the criticism” by attacking the snooty, mean-spirited academic as someone who “hides here because he can’t hack it in the real world.”

Later, Brian confides to Doug that “not a goddamn thing any one of those professors says makes a difference on the street”, further driving home the irrelevance of higher education. At one point, an English professor tells his class, “I realize I’ve got a class of budding capitalists here, that most of you are seeking the fast track to a career in investment banking or some other socially useful pursuit.” Viewed from the age of credit default swaps, massive financial fraud and government bailouts, it remains unclear whether the teacher is serious or not.

The young hero dreams of franchising his own bar to every suburban mall in America. By becoming the CEO of such a vast enterprise, Brian would ascend at last into the ranks of the big bourgeoisie – the ultra-rich, those who fundamentally control the wealth of society. But that dream is belied by his mundane existence as a member of the proletariat, selling his labour-power to an employer for a paltry wage.

Rejected by Wall Street, Brian finds work at Doug Coughlin’s bar. Although a horrible bartender at first, Brian learns quickly from Doug a myriad of impressive bartending tricks (“flairing”) which they use to entertain customers. Soon the pair is a hit, attracting rave notices from bar patrons evidently unperturbed by having to wait an extra five minutes for drinks while Brian and Doug execute their flashy moves. A successful-looking businessman invites the pair to perform at his own club, where the “World’s First Yuppie Poet” delivers his poem entitled The Bottom Line:

Money isn’t everything, they say.
Okay, so what is? Sex? Did you ever make love to a plumber? Pee-yoo!
Revolution? It takes money to overthrow the government, you know.
Art? The more it costs, the better it is.
And that’s the bottom line!

The moral of the yuppie poem: money is everything.

At this point in the film, Brian seems to be following the outline of the archetypal American success story: starting from difficult origins, he works hard and develops his talent to become one of the best bartenders in the city, becoming a minor celebrity. But following plot machinations revolving around Brian and Doug’s quarrel over the aforementioned groupie, the pair come to blows and Brian storms out.

The difficulties in Brian’s efforts to realize his dream up to this point provide some sense of conflict and drama, making the film more relatable to those audience members not currently living out their own dreams. Brian leaves for Jamaica, glorified as a no-tax capitalist paradise where he can earn enough money to one day finance his own establishment.

Working at a bar in Jamaica, Brian meets his eventual love interest Jordan Mooney (Elizabeth Shue). Taking a seat at the bar, she turns down Brian’s offer of a fancy mixed drink and requests a beer; “my kind of woman,” he responds. Given the popular view of beer as a working class drink, Jordan thereby establishes herself as a down-to-earth working girl, someone who shares Brian’s own economic struggles. That perception is later reinforced when Jordan paints Brian’s portrait on the beach. Asking her if it pays the bills, she replies that “it will someday,”, explaining that she currently works as a waitress in New York.

Doug eventually shows up at the bar where Brian is working and announces that he has married a rich woman named Kerry (Kelly Lynch), engendering a new plot twist. Angered by Doug teasing him as a “career proletarian”, Brian implies that Doug only found a rich woman through luck. Doug, declaring it a matter of not luck but skill, bets Brian that he cannot successfully woo a rich older woman named Bonnie (Lisa Banes).

To summarize the next few plot developments: Brian beds Bonnie; Jordan finds out and flies back to New York, devastated after spending several romantic days with Brian; Brian flies back to New York with Bonnie in the expectation that he will be placed high in the company she owns due to their romantic attachment.

Unfortunately, the payoff is too slow. Almost immediately there is a culture clash between the working class Brian and the spoiled upper-class Bonnie. Upon waking up to Bonnie doing aerobics, Brian’s would-be sugar mama asks him to fetch her some carrot juice. When they attend an art exhibition, a drunk Brian gets in a fight with the sculptor who is depicted as an insufferable snob (“haven’t got this one housebroken yet?” he sneers). Finally, Brian and Bonnie part; as he confides to her, “I tried to sell out to you, but I couldn’t close the deal.”

Again, we see the film’s contradictory relationship to wealth. At the same time as Brian aspires to great riches and both he and Doug see sleeping with moneyed women as a shortcut, the wealthy are presented as alien to ordinary “working Joes” like Brian – they are snobby elitists. This is the same inescapable contradiction of Reaganism, which has dominated conservative thought in North America to this day: glorifying wealth on one hand as the fulfillment and embodiment of the American dream, and on the other harnessing the resentment of poor and working class Americans against upper-class elites when it is politically advantageous. Under a capitalist mode of production, this contradiction can never truly be resolved.

Brian seeks out Jordan at the restaurant where she waits tables. As they are talking, an impatient couple loudly complains: “Miss, we have theatre tickets!” We are meant to empathize with the working class Jordan and Brian, and to resent these clueless bourgeois types.

But then comes a new plot twist: when Jordan runs off to stay with her parents in their Park Avenue apartment, it becomes clear that even as she maintained a working class facade, in actual fact Jordan was from an extraordinarily wealthy family the whole time.

Aside from cheapening the earlier presentation of Jordan as a struggling waitress – since it is merely her personal choice rather than a necessity and she can always fall back on her parents – this revelation allows the film to make a detour into clichéd cinematic territory, to wit: the rich girl’s parents disapprove of her relationship with the poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

It should be noted that when Jordan announces to Brian that she is pregnant and wants him out of her life, abortion is never even considered – another mark of the conservative mentality that dominates this film. It also adds a family-values element to Brian’s determination to win her back: “our kid needs a father,” he tells her.

Jordan’s father (Lawrence Luckinbill) angrily offers Brian money to stay away from her, and when he refuses, adds some upper class condescension to further express his disapproval:

Brian: $10,000? Is that all your daughter’s worth?

Mr. Mooney: Okay. How much will it take?

Brian: I don’t want your goddamn money. You can’t buy me out of Jordan’s life.

Mr. Mooney: You think I’m letting some bartender walk into my family and destroy my daughter’s life?

When Jordan enters the room, he confronts her:

Brian: Were you so honest? Why didn’t you tell me you were the original rich chick?

Jordan: Because you’re so hung up on money, I was afraid I’d never know how you really felt about me. Me.

Brian [ripping up cheque]: This is how hung up on money I am.

The scene is meant to represent a significant turning point in Brian’s character arc, as he realizes that money and wealth are not the most important things in the world, and that love is truly all you need. But as we shall see in the ending, this proves to be an extremely hollow sentiment that the film itself does not live up to.

Meanwhile, Doug’s world has been slowly unravelling. While we saw from her first scene that Doug’s rich wife Kerry blatantly flirts with other men in his presence, by the climax of the film things have gone from bad to worse. Having lost a bet that he would not be working for Doug by St. Patrick’s Day, Brian brings him a bottle of highly expensive Rémy Martin Louis XIII cognac / Baccarat Crystal. (Where Brian got the money for such an expensive gift remains a mystery, but mysterious sources of income prove a recurring problem in the film’s climax.) As they sit in Kerry’s yacht to share the bottle, Doug confides to Brian that he has gambled away almost all of his wife’s money on the commodities market.

With Doug too drunk to drive, Brian escorts Kerry home, at which point she kisses him. When he backs away, she asks how she can sleep with only one person for the rest of her life (“it’s called marriage” he responds, echoing the family values theme). Returning to the yacht, Brian is devastated to see that Doug has committed suicide using shards of the broken cognac bottle.

The context and method of Doug’s suicide seem to provide a vivid metaphor indicating that his single-minded obsession with wealth killed him in the end. Certainly, without Doug’s financially-motivated marriage to Kerry, he never would have been in a position either to gamble away enough money on the commodities market to want to kill himself or to offer Brian a job, which was the basis for the bet in the first place. Doug’s suicide drives Brian back to Jordan.

Soon after, we see Brian and Jordan enjoying their wedding reception at Uncle Pat’s pub in a raucous working class celebration. Jordan, we have seen, has closed off any assistance from her wealthy family. Brian has lost the immediate possibility of a high-earning job. Nevertheless, the two are getting married and starting a family. Brian is no closer to his capitalist dream than when the film began, but he is happy. He has matured and is ready to become a father. Most significantly, he has realized that love is more important to him than money could ever be. It is a poignant reminder that while we may not achieve our dreams of wealth and fame, we can still find happiness with the ones we love.

The film then proceeds to take that message and blow it to kingdom come.

Suddenly we cut to the flashing neon exterior of a bar. It is “Flanagan’s Cocktails and Dreams.” Inside is Brian, pouring drinks and reciting a poem to the patrons about his lovely wife and their unborn child. Brian has done it after all! He did manage to start his own bar and attain his dream. If not yet the bourgeois head of a nationwide bar franchise, he is nevertheless a successful petit-bourgeois small business owner who could very well be on his way to vast riches some day.

The only problem? There is little to no explanation of how Brian scraped together the money to start his own bar smack-dab in the middle of the world’s most expensive real estate market.

In his review of Cocktail, Roger Ebert pondered the question:

How did he finance it? There’s a throwaway line about how he got some money from his uncle, a subsistence-level bartender who can’t even afford a late-model car. Sure. It costs a fortune to open a slick singles bar in Manhattan, and so we are left with the assumption that Cruise’s rich father-in-law came through with the financing. If the movie didn’t want to leave that impression, it shouldn’t have ended with the scene in the bar. But then this is the kind of movie that uses Cruise’s materialism as a target all through the story and then rewards him for it at the end. The more you think about what really happens in Cocktail, the more you realize how empty and fabricated it really is.

Ultimately, the film is guilty of the same kind of magical thinking that animates the modern conservative movement. Just as advocates of supply-side economics maintain that it is somehow possible to cut taxes and dramatically increase military spending while balancing the budget, Cocktail holds that a down-on-his-luck bartender, whose wife is pregnant with twins but who has “saved money” and worked out a loan with his (by no means rich) uncle, can end up running his own classy singles bar in downtown Manhattan.

Drenched in the imagery and discourse of Reaganism, Cocktail’s presentation of the hero’s transition from hardscrabble worker to successful business owner is ultimately as false and meaningless as the American Dream itself in capitalist society. Given the much more adverse economic conditions of 2012, and the large-scale immunity of political and financial elites from criminal prosecution, the old cliché that anyone can become rich and successful in America if they work hard and play by the rules today rings more hollow than ever.

Had it not been for the ending, Cocktail might have remained a satisfactory parable, à la It’s a Wonderful Life, of failing to achieve your dreams but finding happiness nonetheless. In the final product, however, Brian achieves his dream almost as an afterthought barely tethered to the plot developments that preceded it. More than any other aspect of the film, that unearned and unrealistic ending illustrates the superficiality of the film itself, the decade from which it came, and conservative politics in general. It also gives further credence to George Carlin’s immortal observation: “they call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”