FDR5

[Linda Reed--PCC West Campus CSC <lreed@west.cscwc.pima.edu>]

On March 21, 1933, Zangara marched into the execution chamber shouting
against the
"capitalists" and expressing disappointment that no news camera-men
were permitted to witness
his execution. "Goodbye, adios to the world," were his last words.

3 
FDR's Looking Forward published

FDR is shot at in assassination attempt in Miami, Florida, by Guiseppe
Zangara, 15
February

Giuseppe Zangara was sentenced to serve 80 years for shooting at President
elect Franklin
Roosevelt in 1933. Though Roosevelt was missed, five bystanders, including
Chicago Mayor
Anton Cermak, were struck. Three weeks after the attack, Cermak died
of complications.
Zangara's sentence was then changed to death sentence. Thirty-three
days after the attack,
Zangara was strapped into the electric chair at Florida's Raiford Prison.
He glared at his
executioners and declared, "Goodbye, adios to all the world." His unclaimed
body was buried
in an unmarked prison grave.

In 1989, as part of an effort by court officials to recover missing
court files of
historical significance, he filed an FOIA request with the U.S. Secret
Service
seeking to get back court files concerning assassin Giuseppe Zangara.

Zangara, a 32-year-old bricklayer, fired four shots at President-elect
Franklin
Roosevelt's motorcade in 1933 in Miami. Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak
was
killed and four people were wounded. Roosevelt escaped unharmed. Zangara
was found guilty of murder and was executed about a month later.

Winslow said a Miami court order showed that a Secret Service agent
had
checked out Zangara's death warrant and some other court documents
in 1954
but never had returned them. Unfortunately, he said, the FOIA request
failed to
turn up the missing documents.

GIUSEPPE
ZANGARA
pleaded guilty and
was executed
March 20, 1933 for
the March 7, 1933
death of Chicago
Mayor Anton
Cermak, who was
fatally wounded in
an attempt on the
life of
President-elect
Franklin D.
Roosevelt in
Miami on Feb. 15,
1933. 

LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE - May 1998
by DOMINIQUE VIDAL

National and/or social liberation movements worldwide are equally affected.
The
ideology and power bloc which used to be their mainstay, whether they
liked it or
not, has disappeared. The various movements and causes have dropped
out of the
international spotlight and are no longer up for grabs in the East
West confrontation.
In fact, amid general indifference, they have largely forfeited their
means of action and
political leverage. 

With its main enemy out of the way, along with the economic, ideological
and military
threat it represented, the West, led by the United States, has now
become the master
of the world. A damaging result of this new world order has been the
beginning of the
process of globalisation. It is no paradox to say it probably began
on 9 November
1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, or in August 1991 when Mikhail
Gorbachev
rallied to the American crusade in the Gulf, or indeed on 8 December
1991, the date
of the dissolution of the Soviet Union

For decades, every socialist project was contrasted with its only existing
embodiment: so-called "real" socialism. And, among revolutionary forces
themselves,
the process of devising a plausible radical alternative was tragically
limited by the
Soviet horizon. 

So, despite the consequences described at the beginning, the fall of
communism
removes a severe handicap. Far from presaging the end of history and
the irrelevance
of radical thought, it actually gives a whole new lease of life to
ideas of utopia. Future
generations will have the freedom to conceive a different kind of society
without
having to define themselves in terms of a communist model. Of course,
there is no
going back to a clean slate. However, with the passing of time, it
should be possible
to learn lessons from the failure of communism and - in other forms
and for other
reasons - social-democratic reformism. The human imagination must find
a new way
of thinking based on what men and women need, rather than theoretical
or dogmatic
concepts to be "implemented". 

The questions we must ask ourselves may have a familiar ring. How are
democracy,
pluralism, rights and freedoms to be revitalised, but sheltered from
totalitarian intent?
How is equality of opportunity and social justice to be guaranteed
and the security to
which people are entitled assured, without a general "dumbing down"
and stifling of
initiative? How can the fulfilment of basic social needs be made into
a priority for the
economy without affecting its development? How can the necessary resources
be
found for a new balance between work, training, family and community
life, and
leisure activities when people's time is at last freed up? How can
the ground be laid
for a distribution of wealth which, worldwide, respects the right of
all peoples to
development? How can the role of the state be made to serve all these
objectives
while at the same time the independence of each citizen and each local
community is
assured? In short, how is the relationship between individuals and
society to be
reinvented? To these and many other questions, there are no longer
any ready-made
answers. 

However, the way is now open and the ground ready to be cleared. At
last. 

Translated by Sally Blaxland

IGNACIO RAMONET

Last January, the corridors of a number of European airports were adorned
with a
poster in the style of the Chinese cultural revolution. It showed a
row of
demonstrators at the head of a march, their faces shining, their colourful
banners
blowing in the wind. The slogan they were chanting was "Capitalists
of the world,
unite!" For Forbes, America's magazine for millionaires, this was more
than a jibe at
the 150th anniversary of the publication of Marx and Engels' Communist
Manifesto. 

It was a way of making two things clear. Apparently without fear of
contradiction, as
the posters were not torn down or defaced. The first is that nobody
is afraid of
communism any longer. The second is that capitalism has gone over to
the attack. 

capitalism's new-found arrogance. 

The triumphal tone became apparent after the fall of the Berlin Wall,
when the Soviet
Union collapsed in a welter of political obtuseness reflecting the
emptiness of
shattered illusions. The sudden revelation of the full consequences
of decades of state
control in the countries of the former Eastern bloc produced a sort
of mental
upheaval. The tragic absurdity of a system lacking basic freedoms and
a market
economy was starkly exposed, as were all the injustices that had followed
in its
wake. Socialist thinking seemed to subside, along with the belief in
progress and a
future subject to rational planning. 

The sole ideological basis of the traditional right had been its anti
communism. The
collapse of the Soviet system and the implosion of socialism cut the
ground from
under its feet. Neoliberalism, which had been flagging since the beginning
of the
century, was left alone in the field, the sole victor of the East-West
confrontation.
With its main rivals removed, it has re-emerged on all sides, stronger
than ever. Its
supporters dream of imposing their vision - a neoliberal utopia admitting
of no
alternative - on the whole world. 

This campaign of conquest goes by the name of globalisation. It is
the outcome of the
increasing interdependence of all countries, brought about by the lifting
of all controls
on the movement of capital, the removal of customs barriers and administrative
restrictions, and the intensification of international commerce and
free trade; all this
under the auspices of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund,
the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the World
Trade
Organisation. 

The financial economy has become entirely divorced from the real economy.
The sum
total of daily financial transactions throughout the world is about
$1,500 billion, but a
mere 1 % involves the creation of new wealth. 

Even in the most developed countries, the dramatic advance of neoliberalism
has
significantly reduced the role of parliaments and other public players.

At the same time, the growth of new information technologies is proceeding
without
any reference to the idea of social progress. The enormous strides
in molecular
biology since the early 1960s, coupled with the immense calculating
power provided
by computer science, have shattered the stability of the technological
matrix which
public authorities are finding it harder and harder to control. Politicians
can no longer
assess the risks involved in the acceleration of science and technology
(1). Here too,
they are increasingly dependent on unelected experts, who direct the
government
decision-making process behind the scenes. 

The information revolution has torn our society apart. It has overturned
the
established pattern of trade, opening the way for the expansion of
the global and
information economy. Not all the countries of the world have yet been
forced into
one unit. But the global economy is imposing a single economic model
by networking
the entire planet. In this new system of liberal social relations,
humankind has been
reduced to a collection of isolated individuals stranded in a universe
of
hypertechnology. 

These brutal changes are causing us to lose our bearings; there is
ever-growing
uncertainty, the world appears unintelligible and history seems to
defy rational
interpretation. The crisis we are experiencing is what Gramsci had
in mind when he
spoke of the old order dying while the new hesitates to be born. We
are reminded of
Tocqueville's phrase: "When the past no longer illuminates the future,
the spirit walks
in darkness." 

And yet, many people are trying to inject some measure of humanity
into the
relentless machinery of neoliberalism. They feel the need for responsible
involvement
and collective action. In an age when power has become abstract, invisible,
distant
and impersonal, they want to confront those responsible face to face,
to direct their
anger, fears and frustration at clearly identified adversaries of flesh
and blood. They
would still be prepared to believe that politics has an answer to everything,
even
though politicians find it increasingly difficult to propose straightforward
solutions to
the complex problems of society. And they all feel the need to erect
a barrier against
the tidal wave of neoliberalism in the form of a coherent ideology
that can be
opposed to the currently dominant model. 

To formulate that ideology is no easy matter. There is practically
nothing left to build
on. Previous utopias based on the idea of progress have all too often
sunk into
authoritarian rule and oppression. 

Once again, there is a need for dreamers who can think and thinkers
who can dream.
The answer will not be a neatly packaged, custom-built project. It
will be a way of
looking at things, of analysing society, leading gradually to the development
of a new
ideology that will break the stranglehold of anarcho-liberalism. 

*** sog ***
Neoliberal ideology is busily building a society of selfishness based
on fragmentation.
To preserve the future, we have to strengthen the collective dimension
(3). And
collective action is now as much a matter of single-issue campaigns
as of parties and
unions.
*** AoD ***

France has seen a proliferation of campaigning groups in recent years.
The
issues range from food for the homeless (les Restos du Coeur) and the
fight against
AIDS (Act Up), to unemployment (Action contre le ChYmage - AC!) and
housing
rights (Droit au Logement - DAL). There has also been considerable
growth in local
branches of large NGOs like Greenpeace, Amnesty International, MYdecins
du
Monde and Transparency. 

Political parties have two particular attributes which detract from
their credibility.
First, they are all-embracing, claiming to be able to solve all society's
problems.
Second, they are geographically restricted, i.e. they can act only
within the frontiers
of a single country. Campaigning groups have exactly the opposite properties.
On the
one hand they are thematic, i.e. concerned with single issues such
as unemployment,
housing and the environment. On the other, they are international,
i.e. their field of
action is the whole planet (4). 

For many years the supporters of these two different approaches have
been at odds
with each other, but recently there have been signs of convergence.
It is vital that they
join forces. This is one of the key problems of political renewal.
Campaigning groups
are grass-roots organisations, testifying to the richness of social
initiative. 
{John Doe Society - sog}

It is
therefore essential to build strong links between campaigning organisations
and
political parties. 

Campaigning organisations have preserved the belief in the possibility
of changing the
world, a belief based on a radical conception of democracy. They are
the probable
source of a renewal of political activity in Europe. 

. "Today's utopia is tomorrow's
reality", as Victor Hugo said. Lamartine agreed that utopias are simply
"realities
whose time is not yet ripe." It is the committed activists of campaigning
organisations
who are likely to prove them right. They will resurface tomorrow under
other
banners. 

They will be involved in struggles to restore the United Nations' role
as the central
instrument of international law, to turn it into an organisation that
can take real
decisions, act decisively and impose lasting peace; to establish international
tribunals
that can judge crimes against humanity, democracy and the common good;
to prevent
manipulation of the masses and to end discrimination against women.
They will be
present in campaigns to secure new legislation on protection of the
environment and
to establish the principle of sustainable development. In the fight
to ban tax havens
and promote an economic system based on solidarity. And in many others.

Translated by Barry Smerin

Return of the Rebels
The working classes have not given up the fight despite both overt
and covert repression, a
weakened and divided trade union movement and media indifference or
outright hostility.

by CHRISTIAN DE BRIE

Alongside the trade union movement, an astonishing wealth and diversity
of
associations is springing up to challenge the new world order. From
local community
groups to international non-governmental organisations - there are
several hundred
thousand of them in all - mobilising hundreds of millions of activists.
As the Peoples'
Global Action against "Free" Trade and the World Trade Organisation,
which met in
Geneva in February 1998, stated in their manifesto, direct action against
globalisation
is the most important thing. "Only a global alliance of peoples' movements,
respecting
autonomy and facilitating action-oriented resistance, can defeat this
... monster. ...
We assert our will to struggle ... against all forms of oppression"
(3).

Translated by Sally Blaxland

THERE IS ANOTHER, BETTER WORLD

The hazards of internationalism

Billions of men and women, rendered powerless by the
fragmentation of the social struggle, are pinning their hopes on a
new universalism that does not leave the delicate fabric of the
world entirely in the hands of the money men.

by ALAIN GRESH
We live in extraordinary times. Globalisation is carrying all before
it, our means of
communication allow us contact in real time with any place you care
to name, more
people than ever before are travelling the world, yet paradoxically
the media space
devoted to "foreign affairs" is shrinking to vanishing point. All the
research bears this
out. Be it in Paris, Washington (1), London or Madrid, television and
press coverage
of international problems has been substantially reduced. However,
there is an
exception to every rule and we are informed instantly of any drop in
the Nikkei index
in Tokyo, invited to rejoice at the new heights reached by the Dow
Jones on Wall
Street or worry about exchange rate fluctuations in Seoul. Stock exchange
news has
become the only social glue binding the global village together. 

Alain Badiou observes in a stimulating reflection on universalism (3),
this "process of
fragmentation into separate and isolated identities" is only another
aspect of a "world
that has finally been given a configuration, as a market, a world market.
Nothing", he
continues, "lends itself more to the invention of new patterns for
a uniform monetary
system than a community and its territory or territories. What endless
opportunities
for trade and investment" these innumerable new communities offer as
they arise. The
many separate states that have replaced ugoslavia or the Soviet Union
offered no
resistance to the juggernaut of the free market economy. 

As Alain Badiou observes, "at a time of general movement and the dream
of instant
cultural exchange, more and more laws and regulations are being introduced
everywhere to curtail people's freedom of movement ... Free movement
for things
that can be counted, by all means, especially for capital, the very
essence of such
things. But free movement for things that cannot be counted, for the
infinite value
represented by an individual human life, never! As regards the real
life of people and
what happens to them", there is - and we must never forget it - "a
detestable
complicity between the globalised logic of capital and the French mania
to preserve
their identity". 

the nation-state - a recent and transitory historical
phenomenon (7) - is clearly not the symbolic ideal construct some sentimental
elements of the left like to imagine. It has been a key factor in colonial
wars,
opposition to the labour movement, enforcing moral order, discrimination
against
women, the marginalisation of minorities, and so on and so on. And
the current drift
into authoritarian attitudes vis-Y-vis "dangerous elements" and immigrants
is
unacceptable, even in the name of a self-styled "republican order".

How are we to find new forms of rebellion, of dissidence, to meet the
new global
challenges?
With
modern means of communication, especially the Internet, it is easy
to establish
worldwide networks, mobilise, act. 

But to act locally and on a world scale, to "think global", it is necessary
to rediscover
universalism, a universalism that is not confined to the values of
Western White men,
who fall into a trance at the sight of a young girl in a veil and whose
real aim in life, to
quote Alain Badiou, is "the uniform imposition of what they imagine
to be modern".

Humanitarian action or laissez-faire?

The stagnation of the Soviet system and the collapse of the communist
utopia brought
discredit on a certain version of internationalism. Even the humanitarianism,
which
rallied millions of men and women to the cause of emergency aid in
time of war and
natural disaster, rapidly ran out of steam. No-one was quicker than
the organisers of
M_dicins sans fronti_res, the organisation that exemplifies that approach,
to condemn
the political authorities' use of "humanitarian" aid to justify a laissez
faire attitude
towards the crimes in Bosnia or the genocide in Rwanda. 

And yet, in the face of fundamentalism, hardening attitudes on identity,
or
confrontations between increasingly insulated ethnic groups (which
do not prevent
their foot-soldiers from drinking Coca Cola, their intellectuals from
using Microsoft
software, and their leaders from calling on the resources of international
capital), the
peoples of the world have got to find new ways of "living together"
and "fighting
together". They have nothing to lose from embracing this ideal and,
to quote Marx
and Engels, "they have a world to win".

Translated by Barbara Wilson

The US is, in fact, operated as a fascist state by bureaucrats.
~ Bill Payne

~ John Hancock
Security to
the persons and properties of the governed is so obviously the design
and
end of civil government, that to attempt a logical proof of it would
be like
burning tapers at noonday, to assist the sun in enlightening the world;
and it
cannot be either virtuous or honorable to attempt to support a government
of which this is not the great and principal basis; and it is to the
last degree
vicious and infamous to attempt to support a government which manifestly
tends to render the persons and properties of the governed insecure.

Some boast of being friends to government; I am a friend to righteous
government, to a government founded upon the principles of reason and
justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.

They have declared that they have
ever had, and of right ought ever to have, full power to make laws
of
sufficient validity to bind the Colonies in all cases whatever. They
have
exercised this pretended right by imposing a tax upon us without our
consent; and lest we should show some reluctance at parting with our
property, her fleets and armies are sent to enforce their mad pretensions.

it was easy to foresee
the consequences which so naturally followed upon sending troops into
America to enforce obedience to acts of the British Parliament, which
neither God nor man ever empowered them to make. It was reasonable
to
expect that troops, who knew the errand they were sent upon, would
treat
the people whom they were to subjugate, with a cruelty and haughtiness
which too often buries the honorable character of a soldier in the
disgraceful name of an unfeeling ruffian. 

they thought it not enough to violate our civil
rights, they endeavored to deprive us of the enjoyment of our religious
privileges, to vitiate our morals, and thereby render us deserving
of
destruction.

But what, my
countrymen, withheld the ready arm of vengeance from executing instant
justice on the vile assassins? Perhaps you feared promiscuous carnage
might ensue, and that the innocent might share the fate of those who
had
performed the infernal deed. But were not all guilty? Were you not
too
tender of the lives of those who came to fix a yoke on your necks?