Vol.64/No.14 April 10, 2000
Letters
Farmers' demands
In a photo box in the March 20 Militant reporting on the March 1 rally in Minnesota in defense of family farmers, the closing sentence said, "Some participants in the rally carried signs and leaflets promoting the protectionist campaign against genetically modified seeds." Normally, "protectionism" refers to measures which protect native industry and bosses. The U.S. market for genetically modified seeds is dominated by U.S.-based companies like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland, so it is hard to see how it is protectionist for U.S. farmers to protest them. The fact that these companies control the world market gives actions by farmers in other imperialist countries against modified seeds (such as the French farmers' representatives at the anti-WTO protests in Seattle) a protectionist character.U.S. grain farmers are being bullied by agribusiness and their creditors to sign up for genetically modified seeds. Their protest against this is like that of hog farmers who refuse to toe the line set by the packing companies and reject factory hog confinement facilities. Grain farmers have the right to demand that the Monsantos and ADMs of this world not try and run their farms, and to reject this thinly disguised corporate blackmail.
Gary Boyers
Detroit, Michigan
Massachusetts students oppose Diallo verdict
On February 28, 250 people rallied at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. They protested the decision, made three days earlier in a court in Albany, New York, to acquit four New York City cops of the killing of Amadou Diallo. A number of student groups backed the action. Vanessa Daniel, a senior at the school, said that "there was a campus-wide meeting on the verdict." Through these and other actions, "we forced the administration to put out a statement saying that the verdict was unjust," she said.The students also demanded that the college administration fund a bus to send students to the March 2 demonstration in Washington that called for federal charges against the cops. Fifty turned out from the school for the protest of 1,500 people. Under pressure, the college also sponsored a bus on March 7 that took 45 people to the Bronx, to demonstrate in front of the doorstep where Diallo was shot down.
Brock Satter
Boston, Massachusetts
Sweatshop hypocrisy
While reading a book called A Political History of Japanese Capitalism, by Jon Halliday published in 1975, I came across an interesting passage regarding "Western business" charges of "sweatshop" conditions in Japanese factories.During the 1930s, according to Halliday, Japanese cotton goods began to outcompete Britain in India, France in Morocco, and Britain, Italy, and the United States in Latin America.
For example, "While Britain's share of India's cotton cloth market fell from 97.1 percent in 1913-1914 to 47.3 percent in 1935, Japan's share rose from 0.3 percent (1913-14) to 50.9 percent (1935)—taking over the entire British loss."
"This economic threat led Western business into startling revelations about factory conditions in Japan...Books attacking working conditions in Japan began to appear. As well as the League of Nations, the International Labor Organisation (ILO) was mobilized in a particularly hypocritical campaign since Britain and France had expressly prevented ILO stipulations being applied to their sweatshops in China when the organization was originally founded."
How familiar do these charges of sweatshops and bad working conditions sound as interimperialist competition heats up today, also keeping in mind what occurred during the '30s and what followed it.
David Johnson
Toronto, Ontario
The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of general interest to our readers. Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.
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