From: "Janet M Eaton" <•••@••.•••> ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2000 03:19:09 -0400 From: Bill Fletcher <•••@••.•••> Subject: [BRC-NEWS] Globalization, Suicide and a Wake Up Call September 23, 2000 Globalization, Suicide and a Wake Up Call By Bill Fletcher, Jr. <•••@••.•••> Bill Fletcher, Jr. is Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO, and the National Organizer of the Black Radical Congress. The views expressed in this article are his own. I read a story recently which has haunted me ever since. A very famous Argentine heart surgeon named Dr. Rene Favaloro shot himself. What struck me about this suicide is that it apparently resulted from the despair, anger, frustration and desire to advance a protest, which the doctor had been feeling about his unsuccessful efforts to gain healthcare for the poor and working people of Argentina. The story, detailed in the August 25th issue of the Washington Post, describes how the neo-liberal economic policies pursued by Argentina's government have, effectively, destroyed healthcare for the masses. Healthcare is available for the rich, but the working class and poor are finding themselves losing such provisions. Programs which had been offered by unions, for example, are collapsing as workers lose jobs, revenue fails to come in, and the unions are weakened if not crushed by the government and corporations. One observer commented that the suicide might not have been solely out of despair, but an attempt to wake up the populace to the implications of corporate globalization and economic neo-liberalism. My immediate thoughts turned to the Buddhist monks who, in the early 1960s in South Vietnam, set themselves ablaze in order to protest the repressive, corrupt regime of President Diem. That self-immolation helped spark a massive popular uprising against the regime, which was headed off by a military coup. I wondered, after reading the article, whether Dr. Favaloro was hoping to inspire a similar outrage and movement. Not knowing what is now transpiring in Argentina (needless to say, there are rarely informative follow up pieces), I thought about the situation in the USA. Although some of the details are a bit different, the context is all but the same. Between 44 and 50 million people, annually lack healthcare. This is not, mainly, a group of the unemployed. People are working more and more jobs which carry with them fewer and fewer benefits, and especially precious little healthcare. Workers bear greater burdens for all benefits and increasingly for training as well, as companies reduce their core workforces and limit their liabilities. The factors which drove Dr. Favaloro to suicide, thus, face us here as well. The economic safety nets which existed, either through legislation or collective bargaining agreements, have shown themselves in recent years to be moth eaten. Worse yet, both corporate America and their political allies on the Right mock a defense of social safety nets. The notion that a worker is owed a pension or healthcare, let alone a living wage, in exchange for their labor power is evaporating. In its stead is the doctrine of everyone for one's self. Dr. Favaloro should not be ridiculed as unbalanced, or seen as an isolated expression of desperation. The anger which drove Dr. Favaloro to both fight for the Argentine working class and the poor; an anger which led him to take the ultimate step in protest, is an anger which is not alien to millions of workers both here and abroad. As the global polarization between rich and poor increases at breakneck speed, it is important to realize that the seeds of immense social instability are being planted, fertilized and watered by the forces which are advancing corporate globalization. The next set of explosions may not be guns used in suicide, but social explosions as the global majority repudiates corporate globalization. Bill Fletcher, Jr. is Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO, and the National Organizer of the Black Radical Congress. The views expressed in this article are his own. Copyright (c) 2000 Bill Fletcher, Jr. All Rights Reserved. [IMPORTANT NOTE: The views and opinions expressed on this list are solely those of the authors and/or publications, and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official political positions of the Black Radical Congress (BRC). Official BRC statements, position papers, press releases, action alerts, and announcements are distributed exclusively via the BRC-PRESS list. 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