This Bangladeshi woman is at the protest outside the Tazreen Fashions factory in Savar, outside Dhaka, demanding compensation for the beloved family member she lost. We aren’t told who it was. It could have been a child since many of the 117 victims were child workers. Many victims too charred for identification were dumped in a mass grave & DNA forensics were not done–leaving many families to grieve without resolution.

Neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism, is indifferent to the human suffering it creates & that’s why it’s gotta go. It isn’t suited for human society. Giving it the boot won’t be easy but the quicker we do it the sooner we can begin to build a world fit for human beings to live & love in. That’s the bottom line.

Sweatshops are one of the odious features of the system but homelessness, mass starvation, contaminated food & water, global warming, forced immigration, plunder are all of a piece. We need to get our act together & clean this mess up.

(Photo by A.M. Ahad/AP)

In an industrial catastrophe reminiscent of the famous 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City (where 146 garment workers burned to death), a fire incinerated the 8-floor Tazreen Fashions factory on November 24th 2012 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, burning to death 117 people & injuring 200 others. The bodies of 52 victims were charred beyond recognition & wrapped in cloth were dumped & buried in a mass grave. Bangladesh, with about 4,500 garment factories, is the world’s second biggest garment exporter after China, with clothing making up 80% of its $24 billion annual exports to several countries including the US & Europe. The Tazreen factory which opened in 2009 employed about 1,700 people.

Tazreen made clothing for many US & European retailers (as well as the US Marines). Walmart (& it’s Sam’s Club subsidiary) & Sears immediately tried to distance themselves from the disaster & claimed Tazreen produced their clothing without their authorization. In fact, documents photographed by a Bangladeshi labor organizer after the fire showed that five of the factory’s 14 production lines were devoted to Walmart apparel. More importantly, officials who attended a meeting on factory safety held in Bangladesh in 2011 (after a series of garment factory fires) claimed the Walmart official present played a key role in blocking reforms to have retailers pay more for apparel to help finance electrical & fire safety. According to the minutes of the meeting made available to The New York Times, Walmart’s director of ethical sourcing said, “It is not financially feasible for the brands to make such investments.” And in a sweatshop economy he’s absolutely right.

The Bangladesh government claimed sabotage & arson as the cause of the fire but this was only a cover for the manufacturers since fire officials report 700 people had died in garment factory fires since 2006 & Tazreen was later proven to be an electrical fire. Factory conditions remain wretched, with overcrowding, locked fire doors, & no enforcement of safety laws. There have been other factory fires since with more deaths & in April 2013, Rana Plaza, an 8-story garment manufactory collapsed killing 1,100 workers & injuring 2,000 more in an extremely gruesome industrial accident where many were buried in the debris.

When retailers whose clothing was manufactured at Tazreen met in May 2013 to discuss compensation payments, Walmart & Sears did not see fit to show up because they are completely devoid of social conscience. They’re like psycho-corps.The Bangladesh garment manufacturer’s association offered a measly $1,250 compensation to each family of those who died (approximately two years pay). We don’t know if those injured even received an offer. Unfortunately the offer was more for show because today, on the second anniversary of the conflagration, relatives of those who died protested outside the factory demanding unpaid compensation.

At the time of the fire, thousands of Bangladeshi workers hit the streets in protest, closing down over 200 factories, blocking major highways, throwing stones at factories, & smashing vehicles. They demanded justice for those killed & injured & improved safety. They continue to fight but the odds against them are enormous–the entire edifice of sweatshop economics, including retailers, their own & other governments, manufacturers associations, & a compromised labor leadership.

Sweatshops are a fixture of neoliberal economics & the battle against them won’t be won without international solidarity. That mission should not be left to garment workers alone & students in the plundering countries. It should not just change our shopping habits but should transform our whole way of operating in the world since we’re the ones benefiting from the super-exploitation of sweatshops.

Our fullest solidarity with the garment workers of Bangladesh.

(Photo by A.M. Ahad/AP)

This scuffle is riot cops in the Zócalo, Mexico City, surrounding relatives of the 43 disappeared student teachers who are leading protests against the government. Never underestimate the power of the primary emotions like grief & fury in driving social transformation & social revolution against tyranny. When what is most precious is taken, it’s not that there is nothing left to lose but that there is nothing left to fear. That grief will settle in the bones & become the marrow of revolution. When combined with uncompromising analysis of who is enemy & who is ally in the cacophony of social struggle, no military arsenal will be able to withstand its force.

The effete who think social change is correct exegesis of Marx & Engels or updating them with obscurantist disputations on the dialectic have missed the point. And will regrettably miss the revolution.

(Photo by Marco Ugarte/AP)

This is Rosalio Mendiola protesting the disappearance of the 43 students at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles. The vigil was held the same time as Obama’s speech on immigration. Because neoliberalism is the barbaric phase of capitalism, instituting its policies & practices has been a wrenching process devastating the lives of millions–especially those who resist it.

Only a few examples in Mexico would be teachers (particularly in the state of Oaxaca) & miners (in Sonora) who resisted neoliberal incursions & to escape assassination had to flee to the US as undocumented immigrants. That fighting spirit is an enormous asset to US workers & to the immigration movement here, especially when counterposed to the sniveling subservience of US labor leaders. But it is a loss for Mexican working people who watched some of their best activists flee for their lives.

Undocumented immigrants have been under massive, sustained attack throughout the Obama regime. He sweet talks at the same time he deports hundreds of thousands & dumps their kids in the broken foster care system. But in the past several years, immigrants have been among the most active democracy fighters in the US, despite their vulnerability to deportation. When the history of that movement is written, it would be so interesting to find out the role played by people like the Oaxaca teachers & Sonora miners. Because surely when the history of social transformation in the US is written, the immigration rights movement will play a central role.

(Photo by Francine Orr/LA Times)

This is the Zócalo in Mexico City–the main plaza in the city, one of the biggest in the world, & the political venue of hundreds of national protests. It holds about 100,000 people. This is Thursday, November 20th, a National Day of Action in Mexico against the massacre of 43 student teachers in the state of Guerrero. Reportedly, protesters are not only students but also teachers, thousands of other union workers, & outraged Mexicans. Such actions took place all over Mexico.

In ironic symmetry, Obama was giving his speech on immigration (so-called) “reform.” Even US networks didn’t want to broadcast this once-vaunted orator as he blithered on & figured viewers would rather watch banal sitcoms. But US immigration policy has everything to do with the disappearance of those young people. The US & Mexican governments have formed a criminal confederacy against the people of Mexico & immigrants from Central America. The Mexican military is occupying its own country bankrolled by the Pentagon to deter immigration, facilitate the transformation of Mexico into a narco-state & a neoliberal dystopia. Thousands of students, working people, & activists who have stood up to this cabal–often led by teachers–have been disappeared or murdered.

The political movement emerging in the Zócalo is vital to social transformation around the world because it is in what the US government considers its back yard & is a showcase for neoliberal policies beginning with agriculture (which dispossessed farmers & farm workers & created massive immigration to the US); NAFTA, with its sweatshops on the US border; & presently the privatization of PEMEX (the state-owned oil company) turning Mexico into a series of catastrophic oil spills. Strengthening the movement in Mexico through solidarity helps weaken the stranglehold of the malignant confederacy which now tyrannizes the Mexican people & the immigrants making their way from US plunders in Central America.

Our sincere sympathies with the families who have lost a beloved to this conflict & our strongest solidarity with their movement.

(Photo by Mario Guzman/EPA)