Falling Dollar, Falling Empire?

Losing status as world’s reserve currency spells big trouble for American Empire, good news for peoples in rest of the world.

It’s not often that a Brazilian super model reveals the approaching collapse of an empire. Such was the case when Gisele Bundchen - one of the richest models in the world - insisted that her $30 million dollar fees for the first half of 2007 be paid not in American dollars - but in euros.
Bundchen isn’t the only one wary of the dollar. Over the last few years the dollar has been slowly losing ground to the euro. With the sub-prime mortgage crisis, tremendous trade imbalances, and two grinding wars, the American Empire is starting to show its cracks.
But it is not so much the value of the dollar as the role that the dollar plays in the global economy that has kept the US dominant for the last several decades. Since 1970, when President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard, the US has been able to do something that no other country on Earth can do - finance its debts by just printing more money. Every other country that has done the same has immediately faced hyper-inflation. For example, after WWI, Germany paid off its war debts by printing more money - so Germans started using the soon worthless currency to burn instead of firewood.
This doesn’t happen to the US because most oil producing countries are dominated by the US and conduct all their oil sales in dollars. Want to buy some oil from Saudi Arabia? You’ll need dollars. This forces other countries to buy massive amounts of dollars and accept dollars when they sell their exports to the US. This keeps the dollar artificially high and allows the US to support a massive trade imbalance that hit a record monthly high of $68.13 billion in October (The US has not exported more than it imported since 1975!). The inflation then gets put on to people outside the US when they pay higher prices for their commodities - a hidden tax on the people of the world to fund the wars and consumerism of the American Empire.
Once the dollar loses its status as the worlds’ reserve currency, inflation will explode in the US and their 737 foreign military bases would be unaffordable - something the US has been desperate to avoid. Saddam Hussein switched Iraqi oil sales to the euro. After the US bombed, invaded and occupied Iraq, the oil accounts were switched back to dollars. In 2002, the CIA backed a failed coup against the democratically elected government of Venezuela after that country’s ambassador to Russia spoke of switching to the euro for their oil sales. More recently, when Iran stated that they would start using the euro or the yen for their oil sales, the White House started a campaign to launch a war against Iran, using the same false propaganda that was used to justify the war against Iraq. The US would sooner kill millions of people through its wars than lose the tool that allows them to dominate the global economy. But as the saying goes: Todays’ empire, tomorrows’ ashes!

Wise Intelligent: Drugs, Gangs, and Gentrification

Part 2 of a 3 part series interviewing some of the progressive militants of the hip hop culture.

Basics: Could you speak about the kind of work that’s being done in New York or Jersey right now with gangs and youth?

Wise: The government is taking on this lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key policy. The prison industrial complex is alive and thriving, and the youth are a commodity now, an investment to the prison-industrial complex. So we’re giving the youth some political orientation and giving them some knowledge of the environment in which they are embedded that’s imposing a lot of negative behaviors on you… You’re not the one who is sick, it’s the society that you’re in that’s sick, and that’s what needs to be broken down and taken out of the way.

Basics: Right now, the government, is bringing in mandatory minimum sentencing, and is putting hundreds of millions of tax payers’ dollars into building up the prison system. Can you comment on how the whole prison industrial system developed in the 1980s and 1990s in New York, and how what the community’s going through now?

Wise: It was the psychologist BF Skinner who said that behavior is shaped by its consequences, which means that they can control your behavior by modifying certain aspects of your environment. When we look back on the late‘70s/early’80s, we see a lot of closings of factories and plants in the inner city that employed a lot of inner-city black families. This created a large population of unemployed African-American men, who were in supervisor and management positions in a lot of these companies. And these black men were bringing their sons in to these jobs. So it was a perpetual employment routine. We lost that economy in the black community. This is what started the ‘urban decay’, and ‘white flight’ and ‘suburban sprawl’ that followed the factories leaving.

The government understood that all they had to do was bring in drugs from Laos, from the war in Nicaragua, and flood the black community with those drugs, and then these unemployed, stressed-out black men are going to do one or the other: they gonna sell the drugs or they gonna smoke the drugs. Then they enforced their ‘War on Drugs’, which was a policy of designed to perpetuate the prison-industrial complex. At the exact same time they went public on the market with prison-building companies, like Wackenhut Corporation and Corrections Corporation of America. These companies are on the New York Stock Exchange. You can actually go and purchase stock in these companies and invest in the incarceration of young black youth throughout the country. So, it’s a business, it’s a very big business.

Basics: What do you see as the prospects for transforming the youth caught up in this struggle into revolutionary organizations to challenge their conditions?
Wise: The weapons of this day and time are information – the truth is the weapon. At this point, we have to disseminate the truth – like with your magazine, Basics. It was Marcus Garvey who taught us that to know thy enemy is part of the complete education of a man. In order to keep a people subjugated to you, you must keep that people ignorant of their culture. They imposed a state of ignorance on non-white people in order to create this slave-master relationship that we’re dealing with today. We have to really deal with the youth on a level of truth, get the truth and information out there because once they learn who they are, they’re going to know who their enemy is.

Next issue: Umi from P.O.W.

Afghanistan in Lights

Depiction of Afghan people in popular media troubling.

This December, two movies were released that are prime examples of the use of popular films to push the agenda of the powerful.
‘The Kite Runner,’ based on the celebrated book by Afghan-American novelist, Khaled Husseini, is the story of the friendship between two boys, one from the upper class, the other his servant. What could have been a touching story unfortunately turns into a series of stereotypical images of crazy Afghans with horrific scenes of murder and sexual abuse while life in the US meanwhile is highly idealized. This overly simplistic comparison of the two societies fails to reveal the diversity and complex history of either one.
‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ is based on the covert American financing of the Afghani Mujahideen in the early 80s. Wilson, a Democrat congressman, and Joanne Herring, an ultra-right wing wealthy socialite, make it their mission to make the war in Afghanistan the first major defeat of the USSR. The final message of the film - that if only Americans continued to finance ‘reconstruction’ efforts in Afghanistan after the Soviets lost the war, everything would have been okay - is a thinly veiled attempt to muster support for the continuation of the current occupation of Afghanistan.
Despite their glitz and glamour, the real message of both films is support for occupation through perpetuation of stereotypical images of savagery in the Middle East when Muslims are left to their own devices - obscuring what went on in Afghanistan and what is going on today.
It is important to note that these films were released around the same time that George W. Bush praised Canada for ‘pulling its weight’ in Afghanistan and encouraged other NATO countries to show similar commitment to the American-led effort.
It is not only Hollywood that is pushing this message. CBC radio aired ‘Afghanada,’ a radio drama about the life of Canadian troops in Afghanistan that is aimed at generating sympathy for the plight of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and encouraging Canadians to support them - and therefore the occupation. These propaganda pieces obscure who the real victims of the conflict are: Afghan people just trying to live their lives amidst an American and Canadian-led war and occupation.

Songs of Our Times

Dec 8, OISE Auditorium, Toronto

“Songs of Our Times” was an impressive debut for community organization Philippines Advocacy Through Arts - Canada (PATAC). The concert featured a variety of musical performances, ranging from traditional Filipino, to modern folk, to ballads, to comedy. It was also a multimedia event, as PowerPoint videos accompanied the performances and exhibitions of photographs, paintings, and other visual arts were on display.

As well as being entertained, the capacity crowd learned more about the human rights situation in the Philippines. Many of the songs highlighted the struggles of the Filipino people, forced to either live under a corrupt government at home or to go abroad as migrant workers to seek a better life.

The concert was organized to raise funds for the Childrens Rehabilitation Centre in the Philippines, a place where children who have been victims of state violence receive physical, psychological and social rehabilitation services. The children have suffered arrest, torture, displacement, or other human rights violations at the hands of the brutal and corrupt army, police, or paramilitary of the Philippine government in its all out war against the peoples movement. The death toll of children killed by the military during operations has reached 54. Seventeen children have been tortured, 69 illegally arrested, and 63 beaten and raped. Many are also traumatised by the killing of relatives by security forces. Over 800 unarmed, legal mass activists have been killed by security forces since current President Arroyo came to power in 2001.

The event also received the warm greetings of exiled revolutionary poet Jose Maria Sison, who praised the use of arts and culture “as truly a potent instrument for reaching out and inspiring the people to act and change their lives and the world.”

Canadian artists and community activists should take inspiration from PATAC and the kind of work that they are doing. Songs can do more than just entertain - sometimes, they can bring people together, united in the struggle for justice!

How to Start a Bulk Buying Food Co-operative

Save money on your grocery bill while working to mobilise your community!

Everyone wants to provide their family with nutritious and well rounded foods, but with the low wages and rising prices working people face in this country, that is not always possible. Locally grown organic produce is too often only sold in specialty markets catering to the wealthy.

But there is a way to improve your families’ diet while cutting down on your grocery bill at the same time: start a bulk buying food cooperative!

A cooperative is a form of business, but one that is owned and operated by its membership. A coop can be as small as a handful of people or a major enterprise of tens of thousands.
Most coops follow seven main principles: 1. Open, voluntary membership. 2. Democratic member control. 3. Limited return on investment. 4. Any surplus belongs to the membership. 5. Belief in education of members and the community on cooperative principles. 6. Cooperation among co-ops. 7. Concern for the community.

With a bulk buying coop, the members pool their time and money to buy directly from farmers or wholesalers. The savings comes because unlike buying as an individual family, where you buy small, prepackaged items and pay the price set by the store, the coop is able to buy large quantities and get a big discount. As the volume goes up, the per unit cost goes down - a 50 pound sack of rice is much cheaper than fifty 1 pound bags of rice. The coop members then divide up the purchased items amongst themselves and share in the savings.

A bulk food buying coop should start simple, with a few families buying roughly equal amounts of the same basic foodstuffs, such as rice, beans, potatoes, flour, cheese, etc. - many wholesalers have their catalogs online or can be ordered. The startup costs are fairly low, depending on the minimum order required by the wholesalers the coop chooses to dealing with. If the wholesaler does not deliver, the coop will need a vehicle to pick up the food - either borrowed from one of the members or rented for the day. While eventually the coop may rent or buy a permanent location, such as a storefront, many churches, mosques, or community centres have rooms that can be used for free when it is time to divide up the food. Even a member’s garage or front lawn will do!

The first step is to talk to your friends and neighbours - show them this article. See what they think and figure out what are your common needs. It’s time for our communities to come together and coops are one way to start!

Pickton: No End to Colonial Violence

Robert Pickton: A Pathological Individual or the Personification of Canadian Colonial Violence?, a special report by guest columnist and Indigenous scholar, Robyn Bourgeois.

Beginning in the early 1980s, women began disappearing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside – one of the poorest regions in Canada. Over the next two decades, family and friends of missing women, along with community groups from the area, fought to bring these disappearances to the attention of police and local governments. Yet because many of these women battled severe drug and alcohol addictions, and because many were involved in the sex trade, police and city officials failed to act, claiming that the women’s street lifestyle made their disappearances difficult to investigate. Indeed, it wasn’t until 2001 that a formal police task force was established; and by this time, sixty-eight women (known collectively as the “Missing Women”) had disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
In 2002, a Port Coquitlam, BC, pig farmer named Robert “Willie” Pickton was charged in the deaths of twenty-six of the Missing Women. In December 2007, Pickton was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after twenty five years. A second trial on the remaining twenty counts is expected to commence in 2008. If convicted of all twenty-six counts, Robert Pickton will stand as the worst serial killer in Canadian history.
While much has been made of the Missing Women’s common existence in the worlds of addictions, prostitution, and street life; very little attention has been paid to other startling commonality among the women at least one-third of the Missing Women were of Aboriginal ancestry when Aboriginal women make up less than one percent of the population of Vancouver.
Sadly, the overrepresentation of Aboriginal women in such violence is neither surprising nor new. Over the last twenty years, it is estimated that over five hundred Aboriginal women have gone missing and/or been murdered across Canada. This includes the disappearances and deaths of at least seventeen Aboriginal women along Yellowhead Highway Sixteen in northern British Columbia, now painfully known as the “Highway of Tears”. This also includes the deaths and disappearances of at least twenty high-risk women, the majority of whom are Aboriginal, being investigated by Project KARE in Edmonton, Alberta; and the serial killings of John Martin Crawford, a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan man convicted or killing at least four Aboriginal women during the early 1990s.
Statistics pertaining to violence show a grim existence for Canada’s First women. For example, Aboriginal women are five times more likely to die as a result of violence than any other Canadian women. Eight out of ten Aboriginal women experience violence in intimate relationships (including husbands, boyfriends, and family members). Seventy-five percent of Aboriginal girls under eighteen have experienced violence – particularly sexual assault – and of these, fifty percent experienced this violence before the age of fourteen. Indeed, the life expectancy for Aboriginal women falls more than seven years below the average female non-Aboriginal Canadian.
It is nearly impossible to separate the violence committed against Aboriginal women from issues of colonialism, racism, and poverty – all of which have worked together to push Aboriginal women to the margins of Canadian society, and thus, overexposed to violence. Histories of colonization have seen the erosion of traditional Aboriginal communities and the production of a grossly disadvantaged and destitute Aboriginal population. Additionally, racist colonial stereotypes that see Aboriginal women as “squaws” – dirty and sexually available women – results in Aboriginal women being targeted for sex – whether consensual or not.
The story is simple: Aboriginal women leave their communities – whether fleeing violence, trying to find work, or obtain an education – and find themselves alone in urban centers, with no social supports there to help them. As a result, many of these women end up involved in the sex trade – whether to support addictions that formed as a result of the isolation and desperation of urban life; or as a means of supporting one’s self or their family. The sex trade, being on the “wrong side of the law,” means that Aboriginal women are over-policed (often arrested for prostitution), but under-protected from acts of violence.
The point is that violence against Aboriginal women is not just an “Aboriginal issue”. It is about being a racial minority and an ‘outsider’ in Canadian society. Being Aboriginal is just part of the equation that results in the basic outcome of not having access to the means of survival, and being forced into dangerous and life-threatening situations just to ensure survival. The situation is not that different for young black men in Toronto, who are also forced into dangerous situations in order to survive and who in turn experience endemic violence and police brutality.
Violence against Aboriginal women is an issue of the utmost importance for all marginalized Canadians. The problem of violence against Aboriginal women is not the pathology of one individual, but the pathology of the colonial and imperialist Canadian society wherein this sort of violence is permitted against certain sections of its population. 

History of Struggle: The Winnipeg General Strike

As a new regular feature, Basics will cover important events in the history of popular struggle.

Canada’s working peoples have a proud history of resistance and, even today, the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike is a great example to learn from.
In spring of 1919, employers refused to negotiate with workers who wanted higher wages and union recognition in Winnipeg-based building and metal jobs. Workers turned to the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council (WTLC) for help and within a week a democratic vote was held in which over 11,000 members of the WTLC chose to hold a general strike in support of the building and metal workers demands. Less than 600 votes were cast against the strike. Based on these results and widespread support from other unions, the WTLC formed a Central Strike Committee and declared a general strike.
On May 15, 1919, at 11am the general strike began with approximately 30,000 workers participating over the 6 weeks it lasted. As word of the general strike spread across the country, workers in other areas declared their solidarity. Sympathy strikes were called in Brandon, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Regina, Vancouver, New Westminster, Victoria, and in as many as 20 other towns.
The response of the federal government to the Winnipeg strikers was similar to what we might expect today: members of the federal parliament refused to meet with the WTLC or the Central Strike Committee but instead met only with a committee formed by employers, business elites and media. This group represented no more than 1000 Winnipeg citizens.
The federal government then ordered all workers back to work under threat of being fired. On June 6, the federal cabinet changed the Immigration Act to allow for the arrest and deportation of “enemy aliens”. Workers not born in Canada were targeted as agitators and publicly referred to as “alien scum”. On June 17, twelve strike-leaders and strikers born in other countries were arrested and held in Stone Mountain Penitentiary, outside of Winnipeg. Some were later deported.
Workers and strike-supporters were outraged and planned a parade and rally on Saturday June 21, 1919, now known as “Bloody Saturday”. The Royal North-West Mounted Police were used by the government to break up the crowds, which they did by killing one worker and seriously injuring at least 30 workers. A special police force put together by the City of Winnipeg and the Canadian army then beat many workers using baseball bats and wagon spokes.
Faced with the combined forces of government and employers, and under constant threats of violence and intimidation, the strikers decided to return to work in late June 1919.
The militancy set off in Canada amongst workers for almost thirty years after the Winnipeg General Strike finally resulted in a victory of union recognition, collective bargaining, and social welfare programs for the unemployed.
It is disappointing today to see these hard-won rights whittled away by high-paid labor bureaucrats like Buzz Hargrove (see CAW/Magna, p4). Let us take the lessons of the Winnipeg Strike and organize for higher wages, better working conditions in our workplaces, and a better society!

The Future of Lawrence Heights: “Revitalization” or Gentrification?

For some time now, TCHC residents have been told that they can expect better housing through “revitalization”. But many fear that this will mean displacement of the community, as was the case in Regent Park.

In the mean time, TCHC is failing to carry out everyday repairs to its units. And while the City continues to try to TAKE from the community, like when they tried to shut down the community centre on Mondays, now TCHC wants to increase parking rates across the community.

But the people are organizing and fighting back!

TCHC is being sued for almost $500,000,000 on behalf of TCHC residents across Toronto; people protested against the community centre closedowns back in September; TCHC residents have protested loudly against any increase in the parking charges; and people are beginning to organize against “revitalization”.

Come to the following event to hear the people and organizations fighting back against TCHC:
-N. Zahra, Basics Community Newspaper
-John Clarke, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)
-Sarah Shartel, the lawyer handling the case against TCHC
...and speakers from Regent Park and Lawrence Heights to speak on their own experiences

Sunday, December 9, 6 - 8 pm
Lawrence Heights Community Centre

LAWRENCE HEIGHTS RESIDENTS FIGHT PARKING CASH GRAB!

TCHC trying to charge tenants with detached homes and visitors for parking

On Thursday October 25th, 2007 TCHC held a ‘consultation’ to discuss plans to charge tenants with detached homes with driveways monthly parking fees. Also on the table was the plan to charge overnight visitors $5 per night for parking. This so-called ‘consulation’ ended up being a sham with TCHC already decided on how they could steal yet more money from working people.

Residents came ready with legitimate questions and concerns about an initiative that they rightly saw as harmful and unfair. Among the major issues raised was the fact that the driveways of TCHC detached houses aremaintained by the tenants and not by TCHC. Concerned residents asked why they should have to pay for a space that they work so hard to maintain with no help from their slumlord. Also at issue was the increase in unfair ticketing of visitors. Many residents who have been ticketed unfairly multiple times were dismissed by the TCHC manager who claimed that they were lying. Along similar lines, some of the longest-standing residents complained about having to pay the new parking fees despite having parking included in their leases when they signed them over twenty years ago.

All of these concerns and more were repeatedly dismissed by the TCHC manager. Also in attendance was city councillor Howard Moscoe who was also dismissive of residents’ concerns. The atitudes of the TCHC manager and Moscoe were shameful in the face of such valid concerns. The residents recognized that the ‘consultation’ was indeed a sham very quickly and saw through both of them, knowing full well that neither had the community’s best interests in mind.

Through their persistent questioning of the TCHC parking policy, the residents successfully managed to get TCHC to back down from immediate implementation of the policy. The manager agreed to suspend parking enforcement until December 31st, 2007 while a committee of 7 people came up with a revised proposal. Realizing that this was only done to appease the residents and that 7 people chosen by TCHC could not possibly represent the interests of the community, a number of residents decided to come together to organize against city-backed TCHC attempts to destroy Lawrence Heights by making peoples’ lives harder. They rightly identified this latest TCHC scheme as part of the larger project of the destruction of the working-class community of Lawrence Heights through the so-called ‘revitaliztion.’

Since this first meeting, TCHC held another ‘consultation’ that took place on Wedensday November 21, 2008. There was no sign of the 7 member committee that they promised to convene. Instead, because of community pressure, they unitlaterally decided to not charge tenants with detached homes with driveways but insisted that visitors had to pay for overnight parking. This unilateral decision is still seen as unnacceptable to the community.

Residents have since come together to draft a petition refusing to accept TCHC’s proposed parking plan, instead suggesting that parking fees be lowered to $30 for everyone and that residents have unlimited visitor parking passes. In addition the petition calls for 0% displacement through ‘revitalization’ and that TCHC stop breaking the law and carry out all outstanding repairs.

Join these courageous residents in their refusal to see the community of Lawrence Heights destroyed!

Jerry Seinfeld’s New Kids’ Flick “Bee Movie”: Selling Slavery and Colonialism to Young Minds

If you’re taking your kids out to watch Jerry Seinfeld’s “Bee Movie”, you should be prepared to challenge your kids about the ideologies of slavery and colonialism being promoted in this film.

The film begins with the main character Barry B. Benson graduating from his bee hive college and facing the big question of what he’s going to do with his life. Within minutes of his graduation, Barry is swept into the industrial rhythm of honey production in his society ,where he learns that he has nothing to look forward to in life but taking up a position in the honey production of his hive. But Barry, who is presented as a youthful idealist, believes that he was meant to do far bigger things in life. So Barry decides to venture out into the human world.

After exploring New York City for some time and making a human friend, Barry shockingly discovers that honey is sold in human stores. Knowing well that only bees can make honey, the naïve Barry searches out the source of all the honey. What he discovers are industrial honey farms where bees are enslaved and the product of their labour is stolen by humans and sold for profit by big corporations.

The film quickly turns into a court-room legal battle between Barry and the big honey corporations, with Barry (representing the bees of the world) suing the big corporations to return all the honey they have stolen. Representing the corporations is a buffoon-like fat lawyer whose initial trial strategy is to try to win over the jury by demonizing the bees as violent creatures who will never change their stinging ways. When vilifying the bees doesn’t work, the corporate lawyer warns the jury in his closing statement that returning the honey to the bees would be overturning the perfect “order of things”.

Against all odds, justice prevails in the human courts, and the bees of the world win back all the honey stocks of the world. But the rest of the movie's message is that there is no freedom but slavery and misery.

With the bees getting all their honey back, they become lazy and refuse to work. Because the bees stop pollinating, all the flowers of the world begin to die. It is here that the once revolutionary Barry transforms himself into the greatest champion of restoring slavery to the bees. The bees, led by Barry, undertake a great campaign to repollinate the world and restore the “order of things”. The film could not be more obvious in its celebration of capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism.

This silly story of bees working in industrial-like settings their whole lives for the benefit of humans is quite clearly the story of 80% of the world's peoples who are dominated by the imperialism of countries like America and Canada.

Barry is supposed to represent the naïve youngster who thinks he can change the world, who is labelled a conspiracy-theorist by his fellow bees at one point in the movie, but but who ends up fitting very comfortably into the system by the end of it. Unfortunately in capitalism, 90% of the world's people will never be able to make the choice to fit in comfortably with the system.

At first, we are not meant to take seriously the stupid, fat lawyer who demonizes the bees (just like the American media demonizes Muslims and non-white peoples) and who warns about disrupting the “order of things”. But by the end of the movie what seemed like fascist (religion, demonization of the bees) excuses prove to be correct when all the flowers of the world begin to die (flowers, of course, being a metaphor for all things good).

That Barry - who sells out his fellow bees to save the human “order of things” - is praised as a hero in the movie is a message for all oppressed peoples that they should only aspire to succeed within the status quo, like becoming a capitalist “hero” such as a wealthy professional, superstar, politician or sports athlete.

The repatriation of honey to the bees is an obvious reference to the struggles of colonized peoples struggling for reparations, peasants demanding land, or socialist movements organizing workers to take control of factories. The message sent to young children is that any change to capitalism would be disastrous for the world. What this hideous capitalist and imperialist propaganda attempts to do is strike out all the marvelous advances made by the great revolutions of recent history: as if the Haitian slave revolution of 1804 did not defeat the French Empire, with the former Haitian slaves going on to help liberate Latin America from the Spanish. As if the workers and peasants of Russia in 1917 did not wage their revolutionary struggle and bring about the end of the First World War to go on to make great advances for their own society, including their historic defeat of fascism in the early 1940s. And as if the persistence of the Cuban revolution to this day does not show us a living example of the power of workers and peasants to build a better world.

The messages of slavery and colonialism in the “Bee Movie” come at a time when Iraqi, Haitian, Afghani, Somali, Palestinians, and Kurdish peoples continue to wage their armed struggles for national liberation from foreign occupations and when the revolutionary struggles today in places like Venezuela, Nepal, or the Philippines have already won great advances for their own peoples.