KWRU Members Travel to Berlin

Report from Berlin - Day 2

The first day of the conference ended with a cultural event, with the Grinsteins Mispoche performing Yiddish music from Israel.

Cheri Honkala gave a presentation in the workshop entitled "Movements of the Socially Excluded." She explained the consequences of the recent changes in social welfare policy in the United States, where poor families are limited to five years of government aid. She described how the United States disappeared its poor residents and holds itself out to the world as having solved the problems of poverty and homelessness. She discussed the plight of the permanently unemployed as a result of companies moving large manufacturing plants oversees for cheaper labor. She explained how people consider you a failure in the United States if you can't make it on your own and to be unemployed or homeless is thought to being less than a human being.

The audience responded with many questions about the conditions of poor people in the United States. They commented that they never get this story from the news accounts they hear about the United States. According to reports from the media, everyone is doing well and participating in the stock market boom. Cheri invited people to attend the World Summit to End Poverty in New York Citz next month and many said they would try to attend.

Yash Tandon from Yimbabwe opened up the afternoon session, discussing what constitutes justice,concluding justice equals fairness not welfare, and that fairness dictates that resources must go to those least disadvantaged, not the advantaged as under the current economic policies in many countries.

Samir Amin from the Third World Forum in Dakar, Senegal, discussed what he called the problems of low-density democrary, where people must choose between political parties that won't change things much or have an impact on their lives because their future depends on the market, an extennal force that has an enormous impact on democracy.

Jörg Huffschmidt from the Economists International Union discussed privatization and the impact of projects economists promote that require private ownership as something good and necessary for the economic health of local economies. He discussed the hwo the redistribution of good and benefits promote the misery of the "excluded."

Michael Brie and Evelin Wittich of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation ended the conference and announced plans to hold future meeting to continue discussions on whether current systems promote barbarism or justice.

On October 7th and 8th KWRU members will attend the meeting of BUKO, also in Berlin. Cheri Honkala will be a presenter at the plenery session on Sunday, Oct. 8th.

 

 

Cecilia Perry

Berlin

Oct. 6, 2000