Because there is little to no understanding here in the United States about the nature of capitalism in its most savage, barbaric and cannibalistic stage of imperialism it has been difficult to understand why workers are being so severely exploited and abused at Foxconn in socialist China.
One writer among many, a retired United Electrical Union (UE) staff person, John Case, who is also an unrepentant Obama supporter and self-avowed member of the Communist Party USA’s Economic’s Commission wrote the following muddle-headed, confusing article in the revisionist-led anti-Marxist CPUSA’s on-line newspaper, People’s Weekly World.
John Case somehow managed to write a lengthy article without so much as mentioning that Foxconn is a multi-national corporation which has become a major player in China’s Wall Street dominated economy where a sell-out, revisionist Communist Party leadership wants to integrate China into the Wall Street dominated world imperialist system while deceitfully covering up their dirty deeds with claims of strengthening socialism— calling this “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
The wanton multi-national capitalist exploitation and abuse of working people has nothing to do with building socialism; it never has and never will.
Here is the article written by John Case making excuses for the despicable living and working conditions one would hope Case never would have accepted and tolerated for workers he was supposed to be representing in this country: http://www.peoplesworld.org/foxconn-and-socialism-in-china/
Obviously, John Case never read nor studied V.I. Lenin’s, “Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism,” < http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ > which provides a basic understanding of what imperialism imperialism is all about.
No doubt these Chinese leaders have been tutored well on deceiving working people by the same hacks who have trained Obama so well in using left-sounding rhetoric he learned from his “mentor,” Frank Marshall Davis, to cover up his thoroughly rotten and reactionary Wall Street agenda of waging wars abroad paid for with austerity measures here at home to enforce Wall Street’s imperialist agenda in quest of maximum profits resulting from the rape of Mother Nature and the exploitation of labor.
We should not have to turn to the Huff Post and Reuters < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/30/foxconn-working-conditions-2012-hours_n_1390541.html > to find out what is going on with problems of working people in China— Communist newspapers like the People’s Weekly World should have been among the first to expose what is going on with exploitation and abuse of working people while exposing the treachery and betrayal of Communist “leaders” who have sold their souls— and the working class— to Wall Street.
This kind of exploitation and abuse of working people that this capitalist multi-national corporation Foxconn is engaged in— not only in China but all over the world— certainly has nothing to do with the building and uneven economic development of socialism in China as John Case suggests in no uncertain terms.
I find it very interesting John Case and the Obama-loving leadership of the Communist Party which has lost over twenty-thousand members under the “leadership” of Sam Webb is willing to overlook the injustices in China the same way they willfully sit in silence in refusing to condemn or organize against injustices right here in our own country.
Like the Chinese “leaders,” these CPUSA leaders like John Case have given up on the working class winning the class struggle here in our own country and in China. Thus they tell us socialism is for a far distant future.
When all is said and done, what is the class struggle all about from a working class perspective? Is the class struggle not a struggle on the part of working people and the working class a struggle for social and economic justice?
Recently I took a photograph of an owl— he would turn his head away thinking that I was no longer there because he couldn’t see me.
Well, CPUSA “leaders” like John Case and his fellow Obama-loving buddy Sam Webb have turned their heads in indifference to these injustices in China while these worthless, imperialist serving Chinese leaders have lied about these social and economic injustices they have been a party to enabling to go on in China.
Foxconn is not a company which has to employ workers at poverty wages working long hours no human being should be forced to endure. Foxconn is an extremely profitable multi-national corporation. Contrary to what many would like us to believe, Foxconn is not a Chinese enterprise. Foxconn is a multi-national corporation part of the imperialist scheme of things striving for MAXIMUM PROFITS resulting from the brutal exploitation of labor— the abuse of working people.
This brutal and savage abusive exploitation of working people is not an accident, oversight nor is it in any way a requirement for building socialism in China anymore than such brutal exploitation is necessary for an outfit, a huge sweatshop, like Lillian Vernon in Virginia Beach, Virginia employing 5,000 workers— mostly people of color— to be forced to work 10 and 12 and even 16 hours a day six and seven days a week for months on end. Perhaps if John Case had to work in one of these sweatshops living these kinds of injustices described he would have a better understanding of the nature of imperialism. Why doesn’t John Case go live and work in Foxconn’s China “compound.” Case could write from his own first-hand experiences; this is what a Communist writer would do. Of course no real socialist government would be opposed to a Communist writer doing this.
While working at Lillian Vernon, upon being told by the plant manager as he strutted down the long line of Meistergram machines where workers were forced to stand because if the stools he took away were returned someone might “sew off a finger if they got so comfortable they would fall asleep;” he declared to the elderly black woman at the machine in front of me that working 12 hours a day six days a week would be mandatory for the next three weeks, she responded with what we all wanted to say but didn’t, “Why don’t you people just bring back the chains.”
Lillian Vernon is an extremely wealthy woman; she and her business partners did not have to operate this plant as a sweatshop enforcing these sub-human labor conditions— Lillian Vernon and her business partners chose to operate this plant in this way in order to make maximum profits just like Foxconn does in China.
Lillian Vernon has been a big-time supporter of the Democratic Party and these worthless creeps like Barack Obama.
Lillian Vernon purchased product from the sweatshops in China , India, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
The AFL-CIO was willing to over-look these injustices workers were subjected to at Lillian Vernon because she was a big-time contributor to the Democratic Party.
I spoke in person with both Andy Stern and John Sweeney together about the possibility of organizing Lillian Vernon’s sweatshop— they didn’t even want to hear about these injustices working people were forced to endure not far from their fancy offices let alone provide the organizing resources. Miss Lillian might be offended and withhold her contributions derived from unpaid labor forced to work long hours no human being should have to endure.
It is not coincidental that these labor-fakers are joined with sell-out “Communist” apologists for imperialism like Sam Webb and John Case as they meet in “unity” behind supporting these politicians like Barack Obama who serve Wall Street’s interests so well.
After all, if they were to attack these inhuman working conditions in China, they would have to do something about the injustices right here in our own country. Wouldn’t that be a novel idea for labor leaders and Communists who used to be well known for organizing unions to stand up to injustices right under their own noses.
But one cannot expect those like John Case who would use a Communist publication to make excuses for a bunch of perverted, Wall Street serving “Communist” leaders in China to vigorously speak out against injustices in China because then these revisionists would have to acknowledge Obama’s role in Wall Street’s imperialist agenda for workers of the world… from Virginia Beach to China.
These labor “leaders” like Sweeney, Stern and now Trumka use the perversions of deceitful Communists in China serving Wall Street’s interests to attack socialism while their new found friends like “Communists” Sam Webb and John Case give socialism a bad name by claiming these injustices are a requirement for building socialism which they don’t support anymore anyways.
All of this attempt to evade the injustices— created by capitalist multi-nationals given free reign to plunder and exploit in China under the guise of being necessary to building socialism by so-called “Communists” as their new-found partners, the sell-out union “leaders” use these injustices as an excuse to smear socialism, spins massive confusion among working people about the only alternative to this rotten capitalist system: socialism.
If we are going to turn our own country around we will need a strong and vibrant Communist Party; we will need a militant and united labor movement led by the “reds;” we will need a strong, militant, united anti-imperialist organization integrated with the struggles of working people all over the globe; we will need to free ourselves from this two-party trap by creating a new labor-based people’s party. The basis of unity must be the struggles against the social and economic injustices created by capitalism with a clear understanding about the nature of capitalism in its highest imperialist stage.
If these over-paid, muddle-headed apologists for imperialism had to work in a sweatshop they might be able to more accurately write about injustices— here and in China.
Make no mistake— the source of the injustices for the people working in the sweatshops of Foxconn can be found in capitalism and the corrupt relations with the sell-out leaders of China; not with socialism.
Here is the Foxconn website: < http://www.foxconn.com/ > This a capitalist multi-national corporation whose exploitation and abuse of workers should be restrained and prohibited and not enabled by a real socialist government.
Here is a link to The Manifesto of the Communist Party— The Communist Manifesto: < http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ > Read it; study it. See if it isn’t as relevant as the day it was written. Understanding it helps if you have worked in a sweatshop but anyone who has an open mind believing that social and economic injustices must end shouldn’t have too difficult of a time understanding the message.
