By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Author
Chairperson,
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
13 February 2012

I am deeply pleased that the four volumes, which contain a selection of my writings from 1991 to 2009, are being launched today in New York. I thank the sponsors of the launch and I convey warmest greetings of solidarity to everyone present.

The volumes encompass all major developments in the world, especially the ever worsening crisis of the world capitalist system. They are acutely pertinent to the NATO/G8 summit which you will confront in Chicago in May and to the people’s summit of resistance which you are now busy preparing.

The titles of the volumes show the relevance. Volume I has the title: For Justice, Socialism and Peace; Volume 2, For Democracy and Socialism Against Imperialist Globalization; Volume 3, Crisis of Imperialism and People’s Resistance; and Volume 4, People’s Struggle Against Imperialist Plunder and Terror.

I am gratified that the sponsors of the book launch consider the distribution and reading of the volumes as an important part of preparations for the people’s summit against the NATO/G8 summit. The volumes contain many articles which critique imperialism and the escalation of imperialist plunder and war under the neoliberal policy of imperialist globalization and which call for people’s struggles to achieve national liberation, democracy and socialism.

The neoliberal policy of imperialist globalization was adopted more than three decades ago by the US and imposed on the rest of the world capitalist system supposedly to solve the problem of stagflation by pressing down wages and cutting back on social spending by governments and by giving free rein to the monopoly banks and firms in accessing state resources and accumulating capital through liberalization, privatization and deregulation under the slogan of “free market“.

Since then, the US and world capitalist system have been struck hard by numerous economic and financial crises. The recurrent crisis of overproduction has always been temporarily solved and even obfuscated by rising levels of indebtedness on the part of the state, the corporations and the consumers. The monopoly bourgeoisie and its cream of financial oligarchy have gone into runaway financial speculation, wantonly generating derivatives and making one bubble after another.

The imperialist powers in G8 and puppet states have bound themselves to the neoliberal dogma that they refrain from intervening in the economy, except to give resources to and bail out the big bourgeois and let them further exploit the people. Now, the world is beset by the public debt crisis and austerity measures at the expense of the people. We are confronted by the global depression, rising levels of unemployment and the rise of state terrorism and wars of aggression.

When the revisionist regimes fell and the Soviet Union disintegrated in the period of 1989-1991, the imperialist powers and their camp followers were beside themselves with glee and proclaimed the end of history with capitalismt and liberal democracy. They seemed not to realize that the full integration of Russia and China into the world capitalist system would cramp the space for capitalist exploitation and push further the inter-imperialist struggle for a redivision of the world. They also talked of peace dividends only to expand the NATO and escalate military production and wars of aggression.

We are now in a world of great suffering for the people, great disorder and great upheavals. This is also a time of great opportunities for the proletariat and people to strengthen their revolutionary forces and advance in their struggle for a fundamentally new and better world of greater freedom, democracy, social justice, all round development and international solidarity and peace. We must seize every moment to struggle and achieve victories! ###