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The working class movement in South America today
The São Paolo Forum of the "New Left" met in Managua in July. Keith Harvey explains how it failed to come up with either a diagnosis or a cure for the continent's ailments.
It has become commonplace on the Latin American left to root its present crisis in two related events—the collapse of Stalinist ruling governments in Eastern Europe and the USSR and the defeat of the FSLN in the 1990 Nicaraguan elections.
Whilst the Moscow-backed Communist Parties in Latin America were not militant or mass forces in most countries, their role in the leadership of the trade unions was often significant. Their disintegration or political transformation into more nakedly pro-capitalist ideologies has clearly contributed to the general sense of retreat, demoralisation and confusion.
Only 13 years ago the overthrow of Somoza by the FSLN had seemed a decisive blow against imperialism, providing once more a strategic model for revolutionary advance in the region just as the Cuban revolution had in the 1960s. Indeed, it seemed as though a wave of revolution might advance again on a continental scale.
But in a few short years this generation of uncritical pro-Sandinista lefts watched with sinking enthusiasm as, after 1985, the FSLN government turned more and more upon the workers, attacking their living standards in order to stabilise and strengthen capitalism inside Nicaragua.
Despite this record virtually everyone on the left was shocked by Violetta Chamorro's defeat of the FSLN in the 1990 elections, and at the sight of the Sandinistas peacefully relinquishing power. Earlier pledges to "govern from below" proved empty demagogy as leaders of the FSLN instead used their control of the armed forces to police the hand over of power and discipline the masses in the face of privatisation and austerity.
The impending catastrophe for Castro in Cuba following the withdrawal of aid by Yeltsin has struck yet another blow against the left with their illusions in the Stalinist model of "revolution".
There can be no doubting the present state of the ex-Stalinist and petit bourgeois nationalist left. As one writer recently put it: " the left in Latin America is on the defensive. Revolution has lost its allure, and in nearly every national electoral contest the left has either self-destructed or gone down to ignominious defeat." 1
But the dire state of the left and of trade union organisation in country after country cannot be simply explained away as the result of external events. While these have acted as a catalyst to the crisis they could not have had such an impact were it not for the serious defeats already suffered by working class and popular movements in Latin America before 1989-90.
Throughout the continent political and trade union organisations were already in a serious state of decline and disorientation. The rise of neo-liberalism was already crushing the left and the unions. From 1988 it became the universal weapon of the Latin American bourgeoisie, and has become so apparently unstoppable that sections of the left have turned to embrace it, bemoaning its consequences for the poor but making enormous concessions to its pro-market, anti-statist ideology.
Over the last 13 years or so there have been at least two distinct phases of struggle in Latin America. Broadly speaking, the years between 1977/78 and 1985 were ones in which dictators were either overthrown or forced to relax the severity of their dictatorships.
In this period the mass movement was on the increase, the political influence of the left was increasing and the mass organisations grew in strength. Imperialism, despite having launched the "Second Cold War" against Soviet global influence, found itself in a defensive position in the semi-colonial world. Obviously, the forward dynamic of this first period was not uniform. It affected different countries with variable force and timing.
In Central America the victory of the FSLN promoted forward movements by the left in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. But by mid-1982 this tide of advance had already been stemmed and the left was in retreat, a process starting in Guatemala and Honduras and then spreading to El Salvador and Nicaragua itself.
The grim statistics of this retreat hardly need to be repeated: the heavy toll of the death squads in Guatemala and El Salvador, the growth in electoral influence of rightist parties, the turning of Honduras into an armed encampment of the USA, the political retreat of the FSLN after 1985. It would be the height of folly to console ourselves with the illusion that this was merely a defeat for the petit bourgeois leaderships and not for the masses.
In the total absence of a revolutionary alternative, uncompromised by accommodation and subservience to these misleaders, it did not prove possible to halt the retreat. Where centrist left wing alternatives did exist, they could not take advantage of the disorientation of the Stalinist and nationalist forces. Instead they too became demoralised and contributed to the retreat.
In South America a similar pattern occurred. Examples are plentiful. The rise of the left in Peru and Bolivia in 1977-78; mass mobilisations by the workers' organisations in Argentina, Paraguay and Chile which played an important role in forcing a retreat of the military regimes; the creation of the Workers' Party (PT) in Brazil after the two year strike wave for union rights, workers' control and wage increases launched by São Paolo engineering workers during May and June of 1978.
But the advances of the mass organisations and the mounting tide of democratic gains cannot simply be understood as triumphs over imperialism. They have to be seen in the context of a crisis of existing rule. The old regimes were in many cases a product of US policy in the 1960s, but were no longer regarded by the imperialists as the best way of defending its interests in the region.
The USA was seeking a safe and controlled transition to forms of bourgeois democratic representation with a multiplicity of parties in these countries. This had two aims. First, to impose a more stable social system of exploitation by trying to defuse armed struggle and incorporate bourgeois workers' parties into the constitutional system. Secondly, after 1982, the imperialists sought to break up the economic and political monopolies controlled by the state capitalist and military sections of bourgoeisie. Without this their neo-liberal model would fail.
In this context the imperialists hoped that the mass organisations—largely dominated by reformist leaders—could be co-opted into playing an auxiliary and supportive role. This would legitimise a controlled transformation, modelled on the democratic transition which followed the Franco era in Spain in 1975-77.
In Argentina, Paraguay and Chile this project of a controlled transition proved successful. Thanks to the efforts of the Stalinist, socialist and trade union leaderships revolutionary democratic measures and independent proletarian class demands were subordinated to the bourgeois transition process.
This is not to deny that important gains were made in the process—the increased scope for legal trade union activity, the open operation of the political parties of the working class and far left. In addition in some countries the working class was able to use its new rights to good advantage and increase wages, and political representation in various national and municipal parliaments was gained.2
But the only real example of a transition process which escaped control of the imperialists in this fashion has been Haiti. Here the downfall of the Duvalier regime in 1986 led to a level of popular mass mobilisations that erupted continually over the next five years before a major defeat was inflicted on it in September 1991.
The failure to control this transition was due to the absence of stable and large trade union and political parties that could act as a counter-weight. This in turn was a product not only of the vicious rule of the regime but also of the acute poverty of the country, the small size of the labour unions and the explosive militancy of the declassed urban and rural poor. If Chile was analogous to the transition process in Spain, then Haiti was closer to that of the Philippines except that there was no serious well-rooted bourgeois opposition capable of restoring stability.
That period of offensive, albeit relatively controlled, mobilisations has not been sustained. The proletarian and poor peasant struggles in Latin America over the last five years have had a different character. There have been strikes, demonstrations, blockades, riots. But on the whole they have been defensive not offensive; they have been motivated not by the possibility of bringing down dictators, of enlarging the scope for proletarian democracy and better wages and conditions, but rather by the need to halt the onslaught of the transitional or new democratic regimes on jobs, wages and welfare rights.
Some of these strikes, for example in Uruguay, have been very large and important, and some have forced regimes to re-formulate their plans or re-route their offensive. But none of them have yet managed to put the plans of the new bourgeois regimes into reverse.
And in more recent years the bourgeois governments have taken further advantage of the "democratisation" process by legislating anti-working class measures (including anti-trade union laws) which gain more effectiveness in that they carry the gloss of a democratic mandate.
The main reasons why the workers' movement has been put onto the defensive since around 1985-86 are all too familiar. They lie in the change in economic strategy imposed by the IMF, often in willing collaboration with the governments of Latin America. This began with Mexico in 1986 where the government based itself on the "successful" balance sheet of neoliberal measures in Chile after 1977. Since then this new policy has made headway in every country of South America.
The full implementation of neo-liberal measures is least advanced in Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay but it is under way nonetheless. Mexico, now a long way down the road, has finished its privatisation programme and is now tackling land reform; Brazil and Argentina—having signed Brady Plan agreements in mid-1992 over their debt repayments—are poised to go faster down the path of privatisation and cuts in the state budget.
Everywhere the working class organisations have put up some form of resistance, but they have not succeeded in preventing the growth of mass poverty, a sharp decline in trade union numbers, and the lowering of real wage levels over the five year period.
In the case of Bolivia and Peru heavy defeats have been inflicted. These defeats in the economic and political struggle were soon reflected on the electoral terrain. Across the continent elections in the years 1988-90 saw rightist or populist parties win.
At the beginning of the 1990s the proletarian movement is in a worse situation on the whole than at the start of the last decade. No one can seriously deny there has been, overall, a deterioration in the balance of class forces to our disadvantage.
The early 1980's saw a generalised economic crisis throughout Latin America, with the partial exception of Colombia and later Chile. Like the crisis in the 1930s much of the blame for the crisis can be put down to structural problems in the economy, but the significant difference is that this crisis was caused directly by imperialism attempting to overcome their own crisis by the application of "adjustment" policies to the economies of Latin America.
Between 1981 and 1989 per capita GDP declined 23.5% in Argentina, 24.7% in Peru, 25% in Venezuela, 9.2% in Mexico and 4% in Brazil. In contrast it grew 14% in Colombia and 9.6% in Chile. While real growth rates for the whole region had averaged nearly 6%p.a. in the 1970s, continental GDP was down 1% in the 1980s, and per capita GDP declined by 7%.
Alongside this economic slump went hyper-inflation, afflicting at various times Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, Brazil and Nicaragua. In 1990 Argentina registered 1,343%, Brazil 1,794% and Peru 7,649%. Inflation in most countries was "conquered" through inflicting savage austerity programmes upon the masses.
The 1980s were also marked by a massive flight of capital. As a result of servicing the debt during the 1980s Latin America suffered a huge "negative resource transfer" equivalent to 3% of the continent's GDP in 1989 alone. Despite some new economic growth and investment after 1989 the following year still saw a net transfer of capital out of the region of $5 billion.
Only Chile and Mexico saw more capital come in than go out. Even in Mexico, the showcase of imperialist investment, only a small amount of investment is in productive capacity. The vast majority is speculative investment in the stock markets, repatriated capital, with a smaller amount going into the service sector.
Virtually everywhere this crisis led to the slashing of living standards and dramatic rises in unemployment, underemployment and official poverty. In Bolivia 1984-86, Chile 1983-84, and Peru in the late 1980s workers suffered dramatic drops in living standards and increases in unemployment. During the 1980-85 period average real wages fell by 27% in Mexico, 43% in Peru and 12% in Chile. The real minimum wage in Brazil fell 11.8% between 1980 and 1988.
Rocketing unemployment, poverty and illness has accompanied huge cuts in education and health budgets. As a proportion of public expenditure the percentage spent on these items fell from 10% in 1979 to 7.9% in 1987 in Argentina and from 22% to 10% in Mexico. According to the Conference on Poverty held in Quito in 1990, 50% of the Latin American population now live below the poverty line.
These years of economic crisis and neo-liberal transformation have led to significant structural changes in the working class itself. The proportion of full time industrial and service workers with stable employment in the urban economy has declined significantly. The main reason for this has been the rise in the numbers employed in the so called "informal sector". This vague term encompasses a large range of economic activity, defined in one recent article as including:
"The mass of self-employed workers; sporadic and seasonal employed workers; workers employed in small, including family, enterprises; undocumented workers; and housemaids, artisans and laid-off factory workers performing odd jobs." 3
Far from being a marginal sector on the fringes, the informal sector is large and in some countries even constitutes a majority of the labour force. In Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela it comprises about 40% of the workforce. In Peru and in Central America it reaches 75-80%, and in Haiti up to 92%.
As a result of its growth, the number officially registered as unemployed has actually been reduced but the combined total of unemployed and underemployed has increased to 40-42%. The number working less than 24 hours a week has doubled in Argentina, Colombia and Panama. The use of casual workers has increased everywhere. In Brazil one study reports that the proportion of casual workers employed in enterprises increased from 18% to 28% between 1983 and 1988.
The social vanguard of the proletarian revolution—the wage-earning working class—has thus undergone important structural changes over the last ten years. Whilst the actual number of wage labourers has not declined, a large number of them have nevertheless lost stability and continuity of employment, creating serious overall problems of union and political organisation in country after country.
The heterogeneous informal sector, however one chooses to define it, clearly has a function for semi-colonial capitalism and its imperialist masters. It serves to undermine organised labour. It further aims to offload the cost of reproducing labour power onto the back of the working class itself by sharply reducing the costs that normally fall on the capitalist state and are thus paid for at least in part by taxing the profits of the bourgeoisie. All in all the informal sector operates to drive down the value of labour power. This is an essential part of the strategy of the neo-liberal governments. On the basis of low wages they seek to attract capital into export-led industries that can then compete on the international (or at least regional) market.
Limited but real wage growth made a certain sense for the capitalist class in the context of an economic strategy that depended to a considerable degree on producing for and stimulating the growth of an internal market. The turn to neo-liberalism abandons that strategy, and the successes scored by the "national" bourgeoisie and the multinationals in reducing real wages have already been striking.
In the modern industrial sectors of the Latin American economy real wages have declined by about 7% in the years 1980 to 1989. But for workers in small enterprises and for those in the public sector the fall was much bigger; in both cases over 30%. In the informal sector itself the fall is estimated at around 42% whilst incomes in agriculture have fallen by around 20%.4
According to the United Nations Economic Commission on Latin America average real wages in Chile were the same in 1988 as in 1980; in Argentina they were 3% less, in Paraguay 14% less, in Peru 48% less.
In Argentina wages in 1990 were 54% down from their 1984 peak; in 1991 wages were frozen and inflation eroded their real value by 25%. The Latin American Press reports that in Uruguay real wages dropped 9% in 1991, and Lacalle plans a further 10% cut in 1992. The government gave the workers a 12% pay increase in early 1992 to recompense them for the austerity programme of 1990-91, but the unions said that 12% was nowhere near enough to compensate for what they had lost.
In Venezuela, the journal Economia Hoy reported a study in 1992 which concluded that in order to recover the purchasing power of the wages earned in March 1989, the minimum wage would need to be raised to $183. The government has set it at $140. Over the last three years prices have gone up 159% while wages have risen only 81%. In June this year the Venezuelan unions claimed a 45% increase for all private sector workers to try and regain some of this loss, but Perez rejected pressure in his AD party and granted a ceiling of 20% for this coming year.
In Brazil there are also signs that the continental trend is beginning to show at last. After fighting to make real wages 47% higher in 1988 than in 1980, real wages in São Paolo plummeted by 14% in 1990 and by a further 15% in 1991.5
This real wage erosion is seen in all the neo-liberal regimes, but the unions have failed to resist or successfully offset the attack. A deterioration in living standards can be accompanied by, or even help cause, a radicalisation in the political consciousness of the masses or its vanguard.
However, if the workers' political and trade union organisations fail to protect stable employment and do not prevent the lowering of real wages then these organisations themselves will decline and disintegrate. The organisations of the workers and poor peasants have in general failed to defend the masses against these savage attacks. This constitutes a serious defeat for class organisation and ultimately for consistent class—i.e. revolutionary—politics.
Economic recessions and slumps do not automatically radicalise the masses and their organisations. Such radicalisation depends on the state of the organisations and their recent history of struggles; it depends on the nature and strength of their leadership. Workers' organisations can respond with self-confidence and strength to an economic crisis, determined not to let themselves be punished for the failure of the bosses' system.
Alternatively, they can react with fatalism and passive resignation, unsure that they can achieve anything at all by fighting. The latter approach, that of reformism, has characterised the labour movements of the continent faced with the onslaught of the last period. In Brazil in the late 1970s the São Paolo workers reacted in a different way. But the levels of militancy and resistance of 1991 do not compare with the late 1970s. Why? Fundamentally because of the changes that have taken place within the Brazilian union federation, the Unified Central of Workers (CUT), its leadership and vanguard in the intervening years.
The nature of the leadership of workers' organisations and its response to new attacks and previous defeats is the key to understanding the present state of the labour movement in the continent.
Starting in South America around 1985-86, the high point of the workers' and poor peasants' resistance gave way to a period in which the initiative was regained by the right and the workers' struggles increasingly took on a defensive character.
In Bolivia the high point of a revolutionary crisis in 1985 was the occupation of La Paz by the miners. The reformist leadership of the COB and the miners' union allowed this revolutionary situation to pass by. In 1985-86 the miners and the rest of the proletariat went down to defeat at the hands of the new "democratic" MNR-ADN government. A strategic defeat was inflicted on the Bolivian working class in the following years.
The miners, the mass vanguard since the early 1940s, were decimated by closures of the tin mines. Whilst the miners and other sectors of the proletariat have not stopped fighting, the workers are engaged in a series of defensive struggles—against privatisation plans, against state budget cuts in the health and education sectors.
In Peru the failure to generalise the mass struggles of the late 1980s (e.g. national miners' strikes) into a revolutionary general strike and the struggle for power allowed the ruling class and imperialism to re-group and take the offensive under a "democratic" cloak. During the highpoint of the mass mobilisations the reformist union and party leaders directed all their efforts into the electoral channel of achieving victory for the Izquierda Unida popular front, only to see it fall apart before the decisive elections.
So demoralised were most of the left that, faced with the "threat" of the openly Thatcherite Vargas Llosa winning the presidency, they fell in behind the maverick bourgeois populist Alberto Fujimori as the "lesser evil". In fact, the election of Fujimori in 1990 opened up a period of outright reaction all the more damaging in its effect due to the left's support for Fujimori.
In the second half of the 1980s there were different periods of response to the neo-liberal offensives. In some countries there were initial periods of mass resistance and even gains for the left in elections (e.g. Brazil, Uruguay), but eventually the ineffectiveness of the traditional leadership's fightback against the neo-liberal project resulted in a strengthening of the right and a new phase of retreat in the last two or three years. The high point of recent resistance has been followed by a decline both in its level and its effectiveness.
In Argentina after the election of Menem in 1989 the unified trade union federation—the CGT—split into pro and anti-Menem parts. This in itself was a blow, but could have been compensated for if the "rebel CGT" (i.e. the anti-Menem one) had succeeded in leading class struggle resistance to the government. The rebel CGT did in fact try and organise opposition to Menem's neo-liberal policies.
During 1991 and early 1992 there were some bitter and protracted strikes against the results of Menem's plans. In the spring of 1991 the largest manufacturing plant in the country—Somisa—struck against job losses and flexibility due to privatisation. Due to the treacherous role of the CGT the strike was lost and "a grave defeat was suffered".6 Over the course of 1991 the number of workers in the factory was reduced from 14,285 to 5,733 and a brutal reign of discipline was imposed.7
Later in the year a three month struggle over wages and productivity in the FATE plant—described as "one of the most important struggles for Argentinian workers in the last years" ended in defeat.8
The failure to defeat the government and the high costs borne by the workers led the rival CGT to fuse again on 26 March into one main federation. In policy documents for this fusion, the "rival CGT" argued that they needed unity because the trade unions had lost support, because they had failed to stop the deterioration in real wages.
It argued that they needed to combine to deflect Menem and his government from pushing ahead with two anti-trade union pieces of legislation; one of them seeking to deprive the unions of their control over social security funds and the other wanting to put an end to national industry-based pay bargaining and replace it with company by company negotiations. In the end the Menem government rewarded the unified CGT bureaucracy for its united role in scabbing on workers' struggles by allowing them to keep their privileged control of the funds.9
Brazil undoubtedly has the most positive situation for Latin American trade unionists. Yet even here the best moments for seizing the initiative from the bosses and the Collor government were lost—in 1989—and now the trade union movement is increasingly on the defensive.
Formed in 1983, the CUT organises around 15 million of the 23 million or so Brazilian trade unionists and has about 1, 600 unions affiliated to it.10 During the 1980s it scored notable successes helping organise successful pressure on the Sarney government to get some of the more reactionary anti-union aspects removed from the new Brazilian Constitution adopted in 1988. It eliminated the power of the state executive, via a labour ministry, to interfere in the trade unions. It enshrined the right to strike which was extended in 1989 to include workers in essential industries.
Perhaps the high point of the CUT's success was its role in organising a two day general strike in 1989 which brought out 70% of all organised workers and which successfully scrapped the Sarney government's proposed wage freeze package.
But the best chance for trade union unity was missed as early as 1981. At that time many trade unionists—building on the success of the 1978-80 strikes—convened a National Conference of the Working Class (CONCLAT). Its express purpose was to found a single trade union federation. It failed in this because of deep ideological differences between the participants that ranged over several issues: attitude to negotiations with the government, to political party affiliation, to internal democracy, to international trade union relations, and so on.
The outcome was the continuation and even the deepening of the divisions in the trade union movement.
In addition to the CUT there is the General Confederation of Workers (CGT) formed in 1986 on a specifically pro-state, paternalistic intervention line and for a pro-ICFTU outlook. Today the CGT organises around eight million.
Worse still was Union Power (FS), formed as a boost for the Collor government in March 1991. It is composed of about 400 trade unions from the car and steel plants of São Paolo. Its leader is an ex-CGT leader and it is backed personally by Collor who has ensured that FS has received $4.3 million in state aid in the course of its short existence.
This trade union division has helped the bosses and the government. It is no accident that the FS has been totally useless at resisting the massive wave of sackings in São Paolo in the last year.11 This division has not helped when it comes to resisting the erosion of real wages either. In 1981 50% of national income went to wages; today it is only 35%.
The social inequalities between rich and poor are worse in Brazil than anywhere else in Latin America and possibly the world. In 1990-91 Collor let prices soar and at the same time pegged wages, thus cutting purchasing power drastically.
In recent years the legislative reforms won by earlier struggles of the working class have been shown to be inadequate. The bosses still have decisive weapons when they need to offload the recession onto the workers and prepare for privatisation of state industry. The power to intervene in strikes has simply been transferred from the executive to the legislature.
In September 1991 workers in Petrobas, the state oil company, struck for better wages. The courts quickly decided that the strike was an "abuse" of its rights after arbitration and allowed the company to sack all the workers and fine them! The workers were forced to go back on the basis of the original offer.
All this led one leading PT member to say in April this year: "The recession has made the trade union struggle more difficult. First and foremost, in the big units of production where the most combative trade union movement has accumulated its greatest capacities of mobilisation and organisation—in the 500 biggest private enterprises—the number of employees has fallen 16.5% since the coming to power of Collor . . . In the big state enterprises, the privatisation offensive has not been challenged by serious mobilisation." 12
Indeed instead of turning to class struggle policies to arrest the decline in real wages and halt escalating unemployment, the CUT and the other two trade union federations have now appealed for a popular front with the employers to halt Collor's liberalisation programme! 13
In Uruguay the unified trade union federation—the CNT—still retains the capacity for large mobilisations,14 but decisive confrontations lie ahead. In May 1992 we saw the sixth (36 hour) general strike in recent years protesting against the privatisation and austerity measures of the Lacalle government. Such mobilisations are deepening divisions in the ruling Colorado Party to such an extent that President Lacalle cannot get a stable working majority in Congress. He needs one to support budget-cutting measures to severely curtail social security payments and raise indirect taxes.
Despite the fact that the neo-liberal assault is progressing more slowly there than elsewhere in Latin America, one Uruguayan centrist noted recently that the trade union movement "is going through a very deep crisis, a fall in membership, and is experiencing numerous organisational problems".15
In Chile, once the leaders of the unions and popular movements had played out their treacherous supporting role in the "controlled transition" from Pinochet to Alwyn during the years 1986-90, the mass movement was demobilised. Far from a "democratic" regime reversing Pinochet's pioneering Thatcherism, it has continued and intensified the attacks. The unions have failed in their resistance to privatisations.
The workers' experiences in the trade unions are a very important indicator of the balance of class forces today. But to study class consciousness through the prism of the trade unions provides only a partial and distorted picture. It is also necessary to study the fortunes of the parties of the political left in comparison with those of the right.
The third continental-wide meeting of the São Paolo Forum "new left" took place in Managua in July this year. Representatives of over 100 parties from 17 countries in the region testified to the fact that there has been a growth in social democratic ideas amongst the old Stalinist and petit bourgeois nationalist left.16
This has followed the defeats of the guerrilla movements, the collapse of Stalinism and the collapse of state capitalist projects. This "new left" (embracing such forces as Cardenas' bourgeois nationalist PRD in Mexicio, the FSLN in Nicaragua and the PT of Brazil) is the meeting ground for retreating former Stalinists, guerrillaists, the main tendencies within the PT, the municipal left such as Frente Amplio in Uruguay and a myriad of popular and indigenous organisations.17
The sponsors of the São Paolo Forum claim they are promoting a dialogue and sharing experiences and prompting a debate over failed models for regional advance. In fact they are doing much more. They are redefining the reformist project in Latin America and the Carribean for the 1990s.
These forces are consciously rejecting the legitimacy of revolutionary violence, consciously abandoning the project of radical transformation of the state from outside its existing institutions, and consciously rejecting the idea of seizing state power in backward countries.
This amounts to a retreat, not just for the left but for the popular forces that are influenced by them. They are able to play this role because no alternative exists to their left, which would be capable of helping the vanguard of the masses draw the correct lessons of the last ten years. What is worse, these "new lefts" actually dress themselves up as a major advance for the left, willfully ignoring the defeats inflicted on mass organisations.
They console themselves in the belief that their dialogue is an advance, and hope that the masses will not notice the role they played in preparing these defeats.18
The Forum argues that the rise of the ADM in Colombia in the 1980s was a sign of left advance. But this "advance" was based on the abandonment of armed struggle, the result of which has been to abandon the masses to the death squads of the government and the landowners. The number of deaths of the left has doubled from the first to the second half of the 1980s, and doubled again from 1990 to 1992.19
And what has been gained by the M-19 (now ADM) and the Patriotic Union (UP) as a result? In mid-1990 the left—gathered around the UP—lost several of the parliamentary seats and seven of the 16 municipalities that it had won in 1988. The high point for the UP was 1985, since when it has been in constant electoral decline.20
When M-19, the ex-guerrilla group, gave up their arms and participated in the May 1990 elections they received half a million votes. This climbed to 900,000 in December 1990 elections. But since then they too have been in decline as the conservative opposition and even the ruling Liberals have strengthened themselves. So, in October 1991 the M-19 only received 400,000 votes in the municipal elections. In March 1992 in the same elections their vote fell again and they lost two of their three mayoralities.
In conditions were the armed struggle has been abandoned by two groups and they have been incorporated into the constitutional system this brief electoral support for M-19 can hardly be seen as a great advance for the workers' movement.
Rather, there was a profound disillusionment with the ADM and the development of widespread cynicism. The masses tended to fall back upon the survival organisations of the barrios and leave the terrain of broad political struggle. This is a phenomenon that we can see in other countries of the region as the left discredits itself and no revolutionary alternative can fill the gap at present.
The Frente Amplio (FA) in Uruguay probably occupies the strongest position of any reformist leftist current in South America today outside of Brazil. It controls the municipality of Montevideo, the capital city with a third of the country's population. It is having some success at present in organising a campaign for a referendum on the Lacalle government's privatisation programme. It looks as though the FA will get the signatures it requires and force a referendum before the end of this year, which will be a considerable obstacle to Lacalles's project.
As the left parties, movements and trade unions have declined in size and effectiveness the focus of attention has shifted to the various popular organisations that have mushroomed in the expanding urban centres of the 1970s and 1980s. Noticing their undoubted resilience and growth in the face of economic decline, some of the left have pointed to these organisations as offering the best hope for a revival of a popular challenge to the Latin American bourgeoisie and to imperialism.
All the sponsors of the São Paolo Forum, for example, are agreed that they want "to replace the vanguard party with a multi-class party which gives priority to mass grassroots particpation." 21 This sentiment is not new. In the early days of shanty town development several left wing, guerrilla and even Trotskyist groups suggested that the squatters would become a strong political force with the potential to threaten the state.
Land invasions are a highly militant form of action, which require initiative and courage on the part of those involved. But in most cases the land invasion represents the peak of the revolutionary tactics and consciousness of those involved. In general, the leaders' further energies went into consolidation, into reformist and even popular frontist "politics" whilst the masses embroiled in the struggle for day to day survival, had less and less time or opportunity for political mobilisation.
Although this sector has rarely produced a highly organised and successful political movement, it is increasingly becoming a source of protest, which is gaining significance in Latin America (especially as the trade unions fail to lead the struggles of the unorganised). Popular protest movements originating in the shanty towns and poor urban neighbourhoods are becoming more common.
These social movements express new forms of struggle, which have arisen out of the failure and political betrayals of the Stalinist and reformist parties. Such movimientos de pobladores have certain characteristics in common in most of the Latin American countries. Instead of being located in a work situation, they are usually based in a community, often a neighbourhood or some form of local grouping which organises people to address a common practical problem.
These movements organise around specific demands, such as the need to defend the legality of land holdings, the desire to get access to water and electricity, or the need to protect each other from arbitrary arrest and detention. Based on communities, these movements are often crossclass, in that they include workers, the unemployed, traders and even small employers, all united around community demands. Many have been instigated and led by women, and have adopted innovative and militant tactics.
In general these movements have remained localised, but in some areas, including Chile, Mexico and Peru, they have been joining up to form networks of organisations of the urban poor. They have often been so dynamic because they operate at a grass-roots level, involving people in the most urgent questions that directly affect them.
At the same time, the factors that contribute to their dynamism are also disadvantages. They focus on narrow, local, small scale issues, and their achievements are limited to that level. They rarely broaden out to tackle political questions.
In many cases success on the specific question has led to the disbanding of the movement, or its transfomration into a less militant, reformist non-militant community group, such as mothers' clubs which are often dominated by church organisations.
The lack of organisation too, although contributing to the involvement of members, makes it difficult to expand and develop at any sort of national level. In general these movements represent a multi-class force for piecemeal reform, and because of that, have in general been limited in their achievements.
In Chile the movimiento de pobladores includes a broad array of organisations such as soup kitchens and associations addressing housing issues and utility bills. These shanty town and urban movements were involved during the 1980s in many spheres: the development of community subsistence, the presentation of demands to the authorities, utility payment strikes and illegal electricity hook-ups, land seizures for housing, raids on supermarkets and warehouses, raids on passing trucks and trains, organising the street vendors and occasional workers, demonstration and street actions with the erection of barricades and street fighting, destruction of government related offices and symbols in shanty town neighbourhoods and self-defence actions.
Through all these actions against the dictatorship, the shanty town movements contributed to Pinochet's shift toward electoral concessions. But such movements face two diametrically opposed options. On the one hand they can become the subordinated clients of nationalist, reformist, and even bourgeois parties for partially solving their basic problems. Indeed without a class perspective, without the leadership of conscious revolutionaries these movements can even be diverted into support for reactionary bourgeois populist adventurers.
In Bolivia in the last three years the rapid growth of reactionary populist parties such as CONDEPA and UCS has been in part based on their ability to direct the day to struggles of the shanty town dwellers or informal sector for basic amenities. Here the left, having abandoned the community organisations to their fate, is reaping the rewards.
But on the other hand these organisations could become a key part of a militant fightback. This will only happen it the left take up the fight for the demands of the popular movement and seeks to fuse them with the broader struggles of organised workers over jobs, wages and conditions. The popular movement could then ally itself with the working class around its revolutionary programme and in this way smash the capitalist order that gave rise to its problems in the first place.
The organisations of the Latin American workers and poor peasants are going though an extremely difficult phase. The political and economic initiative lies with the bourgeoisie and imperialism. The left has been weakened and the unions are facing grave difficulties. In this or that country the trend is better than other cases. But even here—the PT in Brazil and Frente Amplio in Uruguay for example—the strongest achievements took place two or three years ago.
The masses are struggling for daily existence often in "survival" organisations without effective strategic political direction. The unions are striking and demonstrating in many countries—for defensive demands to try and reduce the effect of the neo-liberal policies. Nowhere today is the class on the political or trade union offensive, nowhere is the left scoring greater victories than two or three years ago. In many countries social democrats have become neo-liberals and nationalists are giving way to populists.
Much of the Latin American left, including its "Trotskyist" component, are part of the problem rather than the solution to the weakened state of the working class.22 It is too much to expect that those who spent the 1980s in adulation, or refrained from criticism, of either Stalinism or petit bourgeois nationalism will come up with the answers. They only wail that the game is up and there is nothing left to do but forge a loyal constitutional opposition to the ascendant neo-liberal regimes.
One commentator argued recently that "Self-styled revolutionaries, with rare exceptions, have got to get beyond the state-centred vision of socialism so discredited by the experience of the Soviet Union and the Latin American populism." 23
But disillusionment with the state flows also from the experience of the huge, bloated and corrupt bureaucracies that mushroomed in the post-war years when the state capitalist project was the favoured development strategy of the nationalist bourgeoisie. Its failure created a mass of alienated workers and underemployed who could be used as an electoral base for the rising neo-liberal and populist parties of the right. Reflecting this pressure one leftist typically concludes:
"The left's traditional discourse which casts the state as the central aspect of change is no longer in synch with reality . . . We must devise a new relationship between the market and the state, an alternative to both neo liberalism and the chronic statism of nationalists." 24
From this perspective we are asked to conclude that the state cannot be used as a vehicle for revolutionary change and therefore we should not seek to seize hold of it, still less smash it and create a proletarian dictatorship. From the demise of the USSR and the bankruptcy of "third world" development strategies of the 1950s onwards we are asked to recognise that state ownership of the economy and nationalised property does not bring greater economic benefits than the market and we must renounce this dogma too.
Even the São Paolo Forum argued that the role of the state must be confined to playing "a central regulatory role, and promote social equity, without forsaking the management of the economy to the vagaries of the 'supreme will of the market forces'".
This is nothing more than a weak social democratic promise to tinker with the power of the bourgeoisie and not take that power from them. It is the old tune of the "new left" as it adjusts itself to the latest triumphs of the right.
Many of the ex-guerrillas such as the ADM and FSLN today insist that, having lost the guiding light of other models of socialism we have to think up an "ethical" basis to a "new socialism", one which denies the need for political parties organising and leading masses; one that argues for renouncing the idea that state power is important for self-emancipation, that claims the solutions all lie in popular organisation in civil society.
Far from being new, of course, these strategies pre-date in origin and failure by at least 100 years the Stalinist and petit bourgeois nationalist strategies that have now proven, in their turn, so bankrupt.
What was wrong with the Stalinist conception of "socialism" in the USSR and in Cuba alike, was that it was a "socialism" in which the toiling masses were systematically excluded from any political decisions, a "socialism" in which the idea of social equality was mocked by the bloated privileges of the huge caste of bureaucrats who plundered the property of the state for their own ends.
It was a "socialism" that could make no transition towards a classless society because the blind and inefficient planning of the ministries was bound to create increasing disproportions and fail to develop labour productivity, a "socialism" that recklessly despoiled the environment, that suppressed rather than celebrated cultural diversity. It was a "socialism" that called on the masses still suffering under capitalism to merely support the USSR or Cuba, indeed to systematically subordinate their revolutionary struggles to this end.
To indict the goal of socialism on the evidence of the miserable failure of this system of parasitism and oppression is perverse. To raise one—essential—feature of this society, namely the abolition of private property in the main means of production, whilst ignoring all the others mentioned here, and to insist that this is what is to blame is deceitful. Yet this should not surprise us, since these latter day critics were often the most shameless apologists of the parasitical, criminal and wasteful aspects of the Stalinist states.
And what are we to conclude from the failure of the guerrilla or "insurrectionary" road to socialism and national independence? Contrary to what is argued by the new left, what failed was not the attempt to use the state, that is, the capture of political power, for emancipation. No, what failed was the attempt to seize hold of the existing capitalist state in Nicaragua and use it to protect the "mixed economy" (i.e. capitalism) from the workers rather than destroying that state root and branch and enforcing the power of democratic and accountable councils of workers and poor peasants.
What is being destroyed right at this minute by the practice of Humberto Ortega is not the illusion that socialist revolution is impossible in the "Third World" because of economic backwardness and isolation, but the illusion that a thousand Humberto Ortegas are clever enough to diplomatically manoeuvre between the different imperialist countries and between the two "camps" and so be allowed to rebuild the nation.
The only real alternative, the revolutionary one, was to pursue a strategy that recognised from the outset that the Nicaraguan revolution had to be placed at the service of the regional and continental revolution if it was to stand a chance of delivering a final death blow to capitalism. The revolution should have placed its prime emphasis—even at the risk of going down to an earlier defeat—on inspiring and leading the exploited and oppressed to rebellion and revolution.
To raise the left out of its presently marginalised state in Latin America it is essential to fight now for what has always been needed but was renounced consciously by those who pandered to the Stalinist and petit bourgeois nationalist left throughout the 1980s.
The first, second and third priority is the fight to build a revolutionary party, a Trotskyist party, integrated as a section of a revolutionary international. To renounce this project in the name of the spontaneous struggles of the popular masses in civil society is to doom these struggles to sectional, albeit occasionally spectacular, protest movements.
Angry, even insurrectional in content at times, these protests have the character of a tremendous moral indictment of capitalism and the misery it brings to millions. But without a party to focus their actions, to draw lessons for the next round of struggles, to discipline and discard the secondary and diversionary aspects of the fight, these protests will remain precisely that: an anguished cry for a better and more just world, doomed to ultimate impotence.
To state what is, as Trotsky said many times, is a revolutionary virtue, a precondition for further advance. That is why the LRCI is not a sponsor of the "new left" in Latin America which is a refuge for the demoralised Stalinists, defeated guerrillas and disoriented left social democrats. Our comrades in Latin America will struggle alongside all forces for their basic needs while aiming to draw the best fighters into the project of building a revolutionary party.
1 "The Latin American Left; a painful rebirth", Report on the Americas (ROA) Vol 25 No 5, p12
2 In Argentina there were several general strikes in the years 1984-87 against Alfonsin's economic policies. In 1984 and 1985 the workers were able to recoup some of the wage losses suffered under the military; they also swept many old corrupt Peronist bureaucrats out of office in the CGT.
3 "The Informal Challenge", E Córdova, in Hemisphere Vol 2 No 2 1992, p14
4 See "World Labour Report 1992" p44
5 Matters are not any better if we look at the state of agricultural workers. One commentator has noted recently that "No Latin American country has a farmworker movement powerful enough to set a minimum standard for wages or working conditions". "New Terrain for Rural Politics", Jonathan Fox in ROA Vol 25 No5
6 This was the balance sheet of the MAS, Solidaridad Socialista 407 (8 January 1992), p10
7 A bitter regional railworkers' strike in the spring of 1992 provoked by the government to prepare it for privatisation suffered the same problems.
8 Solidaridad Socialista 411 (26 February) p10
9 A small part of the union bureaucracy refused to fuse. Called Encuentro Sindical and launched in December 1991, it professes to want to struggle against Menem's policies.
10 This is an impressive total when one considers that the total number of registered full time workers in the formal sector is no more than 34 million. Many more millions—and growing—are in the informal sector.
11 There have been more than 800,000 sackings in São Paolo engineering plants since early 1991
12 International Viewpoint No 226 (13 April 1992) p19
13 By the middle of 1992 Collor's presidency was under severe challenge from another direction. Growing public evidence of corruption involving Collor and his clique was spurring a growing movement supporting his impeachment. As we go to press his hasty exit from the scene appears imminent.
14 It has long been clear that the existence of single unified trade union federation—uncommon in South America—has been a distinct advantage for the progress of workers' resistance.
15 E Herrera, of the PST (section of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International) in International Viewpoint 224, 16.3.92, p13
16 There were also 43 observers from other non-Latin American countries around the world. The first such conference was in São Paolo in July 1990, sponsored by the Brazilian PT, the second last year in Mexico City. Just how "broad" this "left" is can be seen in the statement of one participant, summing up the various views of the sponsors that "for some, capitalism is the 'end of history' and they aim to make it more democratic." Report of the São Paolo Forum, V Amaya of the FMLN in the UK.
17 The growth of indigenism in the 1980s is a result of the failure of the left in the unions and peasant organisations to articulate and lead the indian peasants around them.
18 Far more significant in some ways than the "new left" at this stage is that the present vacuum of ideas and strategy has been to some extent filled by the advance of religious movements in Latin America, especially evangelical currents in the sprawling shanty towns.
19 In the first half of 1992 there has been a dramatic increase in the acts of the death squads against guerrillas and radical leftist journalists, all designed to cow the unions and force the remaining four guerrilla groups to an early capitulation.
20 See International Viewpoint 183, 23.4.90, p18
21 V Amaya, op cit.
22 See the article on Morenoism in this issue.
23 ROA, op cit p12
24 ibid, p18


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In April, the ABN AMRO Foundation is focusing on art and culture. So healthcare provider Cordaan and the bank are teaming up to organise five exciting events with artists at the Outsider Art Gallery. Monique Spreitzer is an executive adviser with Cordaan. Over the years, she and her colleague Hans Hendriks have built a partnership with the ABN AMRO Foundation. Here Monique takes a closer look at the relationship between the two organisations.
It's important to draw on people's talents and nurture them whenever possible.
Monique Spreitzer Bestuursadviseur bij Cordaan
Stronger together
Two organisations which, on the face of it, might appear to be very different, the ABN AMRO Foundation and healthcare provider Cordaan actually share a number of important similarities and have worked together for many years. Cordaan offers its clients care and support, no matter what their background, age or short- and long-term needs are. Cordaan is close to people in the communities and neighbourhoods where they live in order to provide them with the personal care and guidance they need. Basically, it's all about people.
The ABN AMRO Foundation's activities are also focused on interpersonal relationships, bringing together all sorts of different people through voluntary work. And the results are spectacular!
Everyone has worth
Cordaan's mission is to ensure that those residents of Amsterdam it serves can continue to live the lives they themselves wish to live. Its motivation is to contribute to each meaningful life, ensuring every client is a fully fledged member of the community. Individuals with a physical, mental or psychological disability should have the same opportunities, options and responsibilities to participate in society as everyone else. Cordaan helps each of its clients identify the most meaningful place in society for them personally. It's important to draw on people's talents and nurture them whenever possible.
Art: the common thread
As a Partner of the Future, ABN AMRO supports people who are looking to accomplish a certain goal. Through its foundation, the bank enables individuals to discover their own talents and make their dreams come true. One area in which Cordaan and ABN AMRO complement each other is art.
Cordaan aims to ensure recognition, appreciation and understanding for those who differ from the norm as a result of a physical, mental or psychological disability. It does this by helping them strengthen their self-image and build self-esteem, self-confidence and pride, and by facilitating their integration into society. It's particularly beneficial when people with and without special needs come together, and art can play an important, unifying role in that context.
Talent and recognition
Initially one of Cordaan's supervised community-based day activities, making art has now become an important part of Cordaan's care and support offering. Some of its special needs clients are in fact very talented, original and unique artists. Some have an artistic bent or talent who go on to develop into visual artists in their own right. Social recognition for these artists and their work has been a long time coming, but their art has now garnered great public appreciation.
Art is empowering
For years, Cordaan has been enabling artists with intellectual and/or mental disabilities to work at the Kunstwerkplaats studios, where workshops are also given. The ABN AMRO Foundation, too, has been active here on more than one occasion, bringing bank employees into direct contact with the artists to work alongside them on a particular theme. All the artists here have an intellectual disability.
The workshops are unique because they're not geared to providing guidance to individuals who have special needs, but rather to those who don't, in the form of instruction from a person with a disability. Recognition and understanding of these people's talent are a huge boost to their self-worth and self-respect!
New venues for talent
A number of artists working at the Kunstwerkplaats possess such talent and growth potential that an inspirational environment was needed to allow them to continue to grow. On 16 March, Queen Máxima inaugurated the Outsider Art Museum, the Outsider Art Ateliers, as well as the Cordaan Gallery and Artoteque (or Artotheek in Dutch) at a festive gathering at the Hermitage.
Art makes the person
Art makes no distinction between people with and without special needs. That's why Cordaan is always looking to the outside world for partners. Recently, Cordaan teamed up with Introdans and the Amsterdam University of the Arts to stage a dance performance in which individuals with and without special needs participated. The organisation also invests in the Art Makes the Person programme (called Kunst maakt de mens in Dutch) with the Stedelijk Museum to bring art to the elderly. It's also why Cordaan enjoys working with the ABN AMRO Foundation and employees from the bank.
A meaningful contribution
On 6 April, volunteers from the ABN AMRO Foundation participated in a painting masterclass given by an artist from Cordaan's Outsider Art programme. Later this month, another group will be enrolling on a workshop at the Textielkunstwerkplaats De Draad in Amsterdam to learn how to make bags. This workshop will also be led by a client with an intellectual disability. These encounters between people with and without special needs truly make life richer for everyone involved.

subset: commoncrawl


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If your account meets requirements, the carrier can unlock sure fashions of iPhone in order that they'll work internationally. Although your decisions and circumstances might change alongside the way, figuring out how you will use your baby carrier will make it easier to make the best choice whenever you purchase and will prevent lots of time and money as you won't be trying and shopping for different ones as your needs change.
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Planned homebirths in Victoria, 1995-1998
Parratt J, Johnston J.
This paper reports and comments on quantitative aspects of 440 planned homebirths attended by registered midwives in Victoria during the three years studied, 1995-1998.
The spontaneous labour rate was 96.4%, and 91.6% of women planning a home birth experienced a spontaneous cephalic birth.
The overall transfer to hospital rate was 20%, the most common reason for transfer being delayed progress in labour.
64.2% of women experiencing a vaginal birth had no perineal trauma.
Postpartum haemorrhage was noted in 5.5% of participants, and 1.1% had a retained placenta.
Infants were an older gestation and heavier than those in the state in general, although the Apgar scores were similar.
These data support the claim that planned home birth with a qualified midwife remains a demonstrably safe option for women who choose this model.
Melbourne Doula
Welcome to 'Melbourne Doula', the place where I share what birth work is teaching is me, and what I am learning from the wonderful families who have invited me to share this most special season of their lives. Here you will find information about me and the doula services I provide, birth stories from remarkable women and their loved ones, as well as all kinds of resources to enrich your own journey of discovery. And welcome also to BLISSFUL HERBS, the home of beautiful herbal teas and bath herbs to support wellness through every season of life.
1 comment:
- KQ said...
Hi Julie,
Great to have bumped into you in Echuca. I love looking at data which shows what I already know to be true - homebirth is as safe as life gets.
- May 18, 2010 at 4:11 PM


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WARNING: God WILL Judge
The first weekend of October 2015 brought Hurricane Joaquin to the Atlantic Ocean…
"Joaquin" means "Established by God" AND "God will Judge"!!! Coincidence???
You'd be a FOOL to think so… for, "I know the greatness of the LORD — that our Lord is greater than any other god.
The LORD does whatever pleases Him throughout all heaven and earth, and on the seas and in their depths.
He causes the clouds to rise over the whole earth. He sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from His storehouses." Psalm 135:5-7
And, although Joaquin tracked well off (~ 1,000 km / 622 miles off) of the Eastern U.S., tropical moisture from Joaquin and another inland non-tropical system caused "historic flooding" in North and South Carolina!!!
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, on Sunday Oct. 4th, said, "We haven't seen this level of rain in the Lowcountry in 1,000 years." And, MORE came on Monday!!!
One headline read, "Historic South Carolina Flooding Kills 17,"… PLUS the 33 crew members of a U.S. cargo ship that was lost!!! And THEN there were MASSIVE amounts of infrastructure and property damage… AGAIN!!!
Then… Oct. 22-24, 2015… Hurricane Patricia… This was the strongest Pacific hurricane on record… (another once in a 1000 year storm) where, "Exceptional environmental conditions fueled explosive intensification…," with landfall wind speeds of 325 km/h (200 mph)!!!
It dissipated quickly, once on land, but it caused massive amounts of damage, flooding, land and mud slides, and (with numbers so far) left 7 dead – with fears of more (than what's already dead) due to more land/mud slides!!!
This is BESIDES the record fires, record drought, record heat waves, record rainfalls, record flooding, record snowfalls, record cold, etc. and earthquakes, etc. happening on a daily basis, elsewhere!!!
And this is BESIDES the increase in violence!!! From the Middle East to the far West, from the U.S. to US – Specifically in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada where JUST ABOUT EVERY SINGLE DAY, now, there's another headline of an armed robbery or stabbing or shooting!!!
And this is BESIDES the increase in arson!!! Where it's becoming routine, now, (in the U.S., Canada, and even in this Province) to see in the headlines, "Police investigating a suspicious fire" here, "Police investigating a suspicious fire" there…
(And for those who THINK that I had ANYTHING to do with the suspicious fires HERE – go ahead and think it… because I KNOW the TRUTH, my wife KNOWS the TRUTH, God KNOWS the TRUTH… and even the police KNOW the TRUTH!!! And IF they don't… they SHOULD!!! And if they ever doubt the TRUTH they are FREE to administer a polygraph test to get reassured OF the TRUTH!!!)
And this is BESIDES the hard and prescription drug ABUSE… (and the parents and the grandparents, EVEN, who are supplying their children and grandchildren with their medications, to sell and abuse, and to DESTROY THEIR LIVES WITH!!! Who ARE going to answer to God one day!!! The parents and grandparents, I mean, now, for there will be some "drug addicts" who will make it into the Kingdom of Heaven BEFORE some Pentecostal pastors will!!!)
And this is BESIDES the increase of crime, in general!!!
The crown prosecutor (the time when Baine Andrews, pastor of the Summerford Pentecostal Church, broke the law, and LIED to the police, and had me ARRESTED, and taken to court on FALSE charges) told Krystal and I, herself, that she, "was surprised to see how much crime WAS increasing."
So what's different about today???
Thirty, forty, fifty years ago the Church was not WILFULLY sinning against God, that's what!!!
The Church wanted (and wanted to linger in) the Presence of the Lord, that's what!!! And the Holy Spirit of God was Moving… that's what!!!
The Commandments of God were being preached… that's what!!!
The fear of God was in God's people… that's what!!!
But, today… they ARE WILFULLY sinning against God… that's what!!!
Today… the Church doesn't want the Presence of the Lord because the Presence of the Lord CONVICTS them of their WILFULLY committed sins…. that's what!!! And they're content with offering Him (as HE calls it), "lip-service"… that's what!!!
And just like the "scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites" of Jesus' day the PROUD and IGNORANT religious leaders "shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people's faces. You won't go in your selves, and you don't let others enter either."… that's what!!!
And pastors are preaching that, "Man don't have to obey God's Commandments, anymore…"… that's what!!!
And, through lack of knowledge, pastors (just like how Balaam taught Balak how to curse God's people with IDOLS) are preaching that God's people can have the ONE TRUE God… AND… they can have the world's FALSE gods and IDOLS, TOO (and the people are becoming more and more like the world they are watching and getting programmed by)… that's what!!!
And, just like how the majority of the "established religious leaders" in John's and Jesus' day (who they publicly denounced) where coming up with ways to circumvent God's Commandments the "established religious leaders" of today (that I publicly denounce) are DOING THE VERY SAME THING… that's what!!!
And, THEN, even the pastors who KNOW the TRUTH don't have the spiritual spine to preach the TRUTH and address the sins that God sent them here TO address… THAT'S WHAT!!!
"What sorrow awaits you scribes, Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you praise up the prophets your ancestors killed,… Then you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, WE would never have joined them in killing the prophets. ['No!!! WE would have LISTENED to, and took, God's WARNING to heart and REPENTED and OBEYED the Lord!']
But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.
Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers. How will you escape the judgment of hell?
Therefore, I [Jesus Christ] am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers of religious law.
But you will kill some by crucifixion, and you will flog others with whips in your synagogues, chasing them from city to city.
As a result, you will be held responsible for the murder of all godly people of all time — from the murder of righteous Abel to the murder of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed in the Temple between the sanctuary and the altar.
I tell you the TRUTH, this judgment will fall on this very generation…
And the fear of God will be put back INTO God's people." Thus saith the Lord!!!


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a ti yo ga'i theg pa
ati yoga yana [the 9th of 9 vehicles of Nyingma, also called shin tu rnal 'byor rdzogs pa chen po'i theg pa, supreme yoga, the [vehicle of the] great perfection. As preliminaries rig pa'i rtsal bzhis [four powers of insight/awareness] are ripened, the view is insight/awareness beyond any discursive conceptuality of mind (which equals our attribute of innate nature as primordial wisdom) the intrinsic face or reality of these three kayas; the empty nature dharmakaya, the luminous nature sambhogakaya, all pervading compasssion as nirmanakaya. In meditation having joined the experiences of timeless purity cutting through what appears as both physical and conceptual solidity (ka dag khregs chod) and, the spontaneous presence of sudden pefection -as it is- of thod rgal practice qv, whatever sitations appear arise as this play of manifestations of dharmata, therefore presented without accepting and rejecting hope and fear. The fruition is reaching four appearances, snang bzhi, qv. By this the rainbow body,'ja' lus, the supreme body of the great transformation 'pho ba chen po'i sku mchog is attained, or more appropriately - 'comes to be revealed'. This is called the level of the guru, awareness, ye shes bla ma'i sa; the level of Samantabhadra; 11th bhumi, or the permanent domain of the youthful vase body, gzhon nu bum sku'i gtan srid. [IW]
ati yoga yana [the ninth of the 9 vehicles of Nyingma] [IW]
ati yoga yana [IW]
the vehicle of Ati Yoga. Syn Dzogchen and Great Perfection. [RY]


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Innovative Sit Stand Workstations at Worthington Direct
For nearly 30 years, Innovative Office Products has been a leader in designing and manufacturing ergonomic, space-saving monitor arms and mounts for flat panel monitors, notebooks, and tablets. What began as a family-owned operation in 1986 has grown into a global company that is on cutting edge of ergonomic monitor arms, tablet mounts, POS systems, and sit/stand solutions for major markets such as the corporate office, retail, hospitality, healthcare, government, and broadcasting. All of Innovative's products are manufactured out of its headquarters in Easton, PA. Innovative's products can be found worldwide through their chain of dealers and distributors. Their diverse client list includes prominent names such as NASA, Siemens, Pitney Bowes, Steelcase, IBM, McDonald's, CNN, Harrah's Casino in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, and Lockheed Martin.
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Fatal Portlaoise collision investigation underway
Gardai in Portlaoise are investigating a single vehicle fatal road traffic collision that occurred on Portlaoise's Borris Road.
A man in his 30's was fatally injured when the van he was driving collided with a wall at about 7.30pm on Friday evening, January 31. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
A second male who was a passenger in the van was brought to the Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise with injuries described as not serious.
This stretch of road was closed to facilitate an examination by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators and local diversions were in place for a number of hours.
Motorists have been warned of dangerous conditions for driving due to the stormy weather.
The accident happened on a stretch of road which has been the subject of substantial investment by Laois County Council in recent years. A number of bad bends had been removed although it is unclear whether the scene of this fatal accident was where improvement works have taken place. The Borris Road serves a number of housing estates and two secondary schools.
Gardai wish to appeal for witnesses to contact Portlaoise Garda Station on 057-8674100, The Garda Confidential Telephone Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station.


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Pretrial Services Drug Testing
Pretrial Services provides drug/alcohol testing for defendants released on Supervised Own Recognizance. The testing results are used as a means to monitor the defendant's compliance on Pretrial release. Continued drug/alcohol use is reported to the Court which could result in additional sanctions or a return to custody.


text:
An article at
had this little bit
had this little bit
Now I am aware of United, and had heard of SIngapore, but what's this about Continental?He said Boeing was in continuous discussion with Qantas, both in terms of aircraft but airline services it could provide.
"One thing about having a great relationship with airlines around the world like Qantas is that you continually talk about all kinds of new ideas," he said.
"Some of discussions we've just had here (include) what happens if United disappears?, what happens if Continental comes in, what happens if Singapore Airlines comes in."


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Other selected references
Military University Hospital Prague – the pavilion of the Military Institute of Forensic Medicine and of Pathology
Apartment building in Jičín
Teplice Hospital – construction of operating rooms, Anaesthesiology and Resuscitation, ICU
Prague Zoological Garden – the Exposition of Australian Fauna
Rehabilitation of the National Liberty Memorial in Hrabyně and Its Transformation into the World War II Memorial
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Reconstruction of the kitchen in the Hospital in Kroměříž
Hundreds of meals are daily prepared in the kitchen both for patients as well as the employees of the Hospital in Kroměříž. For the kitchen to be enabled to best serve its purpose, it was necessary to carry out a reconstruction of the kitchen area, including the technical equipment. The operation of the kitchen remained in the old premises on the first floor of the building, which had been completely renovated.
Among the construction works there were repairs and reconstructions of the supporting constructions, modification of the layout and rebuilding of the brick walling. A newly created entry for the staff of the kitchen leads to their dressing rooms and sanitary facility. We completely reconstructed also the current ramp for the output of meals – the tunnel dishwasher with a tablet system will enhance the operation of the place. Introducing of this system lowers the spacial as well as economical requirements and will increase the level of sanitation. The reconstruction thus eased the operation of the kitchen and the rest of the hospital facilities.
The reconstruction touched also the storage spaces and the kitchen management office located on the first floor. On the remaining two floors, the original layout had been preserved, however, at. The modernization itself was preceeded by complete sanitation works on the bridge to the building which is the only way of supply for the laundry and whose later repairs would require a complicated way of supply.
The new solution for the hospital kitchen is overall more economical, it fundamentally improves the quality of the background as well as of the meals dispatched and will be appreciated without doubts not only by the cooks but also by all the hospital boarders.Completed in the year 2013
Reconstructions, extensionsHealth and social care buildings


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Microsoft Antitrust Paper
Microsoft enjoys so much power in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems that if it wished to exercise this power solely in terms of price, it could charge a price for Windows substantially above that which could be charged in a competitive market. Moreover, it could do so for a significant period of time without losing an unacceptable amount of business to competitors. In other words, Microsoft enjoys monopoly power in the relevant market.
Microsoft possesses a dominant, persistent, and increasing share of the world-wide market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. Every year for the last decade, Microsoft's share of the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems has stood above ninety percent. For the last couple of years the figure has been at least ninety-five percent, and analysts project that the share will climb even higher over the next few years. Even if Apple's Mac OS were included in the relevant market, Microsoft's share would still stand well above eighty percent.
Microsoft's dominant market share is protected by the same barrier that helps define the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. As explained above, the applications barrier would prevent an aspiring entrant into the relevant market from drawing a significant number of customers away from a dominant
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incumbent even if the incumbent priced its products substantially above competitive levels for a significant period of time. Because Microsoft's market share is so dominant, the barrier has a similar effect within the market: It prevents Intel-compatible PC operating systems other than Windows from attracting significant consumer demand, and it would continue to do so even if Microsoft held its prices substantially above the competitive level.
Microsoft's actual pricing behavior is consistent with the proposition that the firm enjoys monopoly power in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. The company's decision not to consider the prices of other vendors' Intel-compatible PC operating systems when setting the price of Windows 98, for example, is probative of monopoly power. One would expect a firm in a competitive market to pay much closer attention to the prices charged by other firms in the market. Another indication of monopoly power is the fact that Microsoft raised the price that it charged Original Equipment Manufacturer's (OEM's) for Windows 95, with trivial exceptions, to the same level as the price it charged for Windows 98 just prior to releasing the newer product. In a competitive market, one would expect the price of an older operating system to stay the same or decrease upon the release of a newer, more attractive version. Microsoft, however, was only concerned with inducing OEMs to ship Windows 98 in favor of the older version. It is unlikely that Microsoft would have imposed this price increase if it were genuinely concerned that OEMs might shift their business to another vendor of operating systems or hasten the development of viable alternatives to Windows.
Finally, it is indicative of monopoly power that Microsoft felt that it had substantial discretion in setting the price of its Windows 98 upgrade product (the operating system product it
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sells to existing users of Windows 95). A Microsoft study from November 1997 reveals that the company could have charged $49 for an upgrade to Windows 98 -- there is no reason to believe that the $49 price would have been unprofitable -- but the study identifies $89...
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Weekly Video – Thousand Hills Riding Stable | Elite Feet Dance Studio | MallOWeen
Posted by Dani Gurrie in Blog Posts, Mid Week Minute on Fri, Oct 6, 2017
Happy October! Mornings are definitely chillier and the leaves are changing. Take a minute and check out some of the great supporters of Tots2Tweens.com!
Thousand Hills Riding Stable – Delaplaine, VA – If you (or your child) have always wanted horse riding lessons, check out Thousand Hills located just off Route 66. They specialize in teaching children as young as two with their private and semi-private lessons. You can choose 30, 45 or 60 minute sessions. Contact Yvonne at Thousand Hills today for more details.
Elite Feet Dance Studio – Frederick, MD – offers a variety of dance programs for kids and adults of all ages. Whether you are interested in a casual class for extra-curricular fun or rigorous class for the pursuit of dance at higher levels, Elite Feet has the class for you. Our instructors are professionally trained with degrees in dance. Contact them today to find the perfect class.
MallOWeen – 3 Locations – Frederick, Hagerstown & Westminster – Bring the entire family out for this free, safe and fun trick or treat event. Come in costume and trick or treat amongst our vendors and some mall stores. Bring your own treat bag, or stop by the Tots2Tweens booth for one. We'll have tons of vendors with activities and treats and lots of fun.
Don't forget – Register for our email newsletter: Parents | Advertisers
Tots2Tweens.com – The Area's BEST Directory for Parents! | Blog | Recipes | Articles | Directory | For Advertisers | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest | You Tube | Public School Directory | Featured Private Schools | MallOWeen – 3 Maryland locations
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Related topics: elite feet dance studio, malloween, mid-week minute, thousand hills riding stable, trick or treat
About Dani Gurrie
Dani Gurrie is the founder of Tots2Tweens, a wife to Ashley and mom to Cooper and Brodie. She spends most of her days trying to find the ultimate kids-related thing that mom's will love...just to share it with her world.
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Rush Oak Park Hospital offers a range of pharmacy services, including prescription refills by telephone, low prices and delivery options.
The pharmacy is located in the Rush Medical Office Building
610 S. Maple Ave.
Suite 1600
Oak Park, IL 60304
(708) 660-6822
(708) 660-6821
Monday-Friday: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: closed
Delivery options
Pick-up at the pharmacy counter during business hours.
Standard mail (at cost). Allow five business days for delivery. Valid credit card required.
FedEx (at cost). Refrigerated shipping available. Valid credit card required.


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Anyone who likes to cook, and especially bake, knows the perils of baking abroad.
The thing is, butter and flour are different here. So you never quite know how your desserts are going to turn out, though there's a decent chance your chocolate chip cookies, for example, and going to come out like flat disks.
So, yesterday I decided to make a quick and easy (and delicious) chocolate cake recipe I've got — I was invited to dinner at a friend's home last minute, so wanted to whip something up that wasn't too hard. And today, some French friends are throwing one of their famous nighttime summer picnics, so I thought I'd try some chocolate chip cookies. Both turned out great.
First the cake. It's a great recipe I found online, and it makes an awesome, moist, thick and rich cake that easy to throw together, and doesn't need a frosting (but it certainly wouldn't object to one either). Chris in Paris, whose apartment I'm staying at, isn't much of a baker (he prefers to cook main courses), doesn't have a mixmaster, so I bought him a handheld one a few years ago. It's a big name brand, Philips, and is a roaring piece of garbage. If your goal is to have whipped butter flung on every wall in your kitchen, then Philips is the brand for you.
So I made these by hand with a whisk. Not the most fun, but not impossible either.
Here's the cake recipe — I got it from here, my notes have been added in:
Simple 'N' Delicious Chocolate Cake recipe
1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour (I tried 1/2 c white whole wheat flour, was great) — in France, use the "bio" (meaning organic) flour that has the small number 65 written on its side — different flours have different numbers here, you want #65 for cookies and cakes, American style.)
1/2 cup + 2T unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2t salt
1/2t cinnamon
Might consider up to 1/4t almond extract for added flavor
1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar (I used only brown sugar in France, it worked)
1 egg (whip then add slowly)
1 T vanilla
1 cup cold, strong, brewed coffee (I did 1/2 c espresso and 1/2 c milk) – or you can do 2 teaspoons instant espresso in 1 c milk)
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8 inch pan. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Set aside. (I used ungreased parchment paper and it actually stuck! Well, it was French parchment, so your mileage may vary.)
2. In a medium bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat well. Add flour mixture, alternating with coffee. Beat until just incorporated.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. I used my 8 inch glass pan.
Took a good 40 minutes or so at least, Collapsed in last 5 min after opening oven to test it.
Then a second time took more like 50-55 minutes.
Then I used a 9 inch pan at moms, and it cooked in only 25 min or so.
And finally, this time in France, I think it took around 40 minutes. Just do the clean knife/toothpick test and you're good.
Eh voilà! It ended up tasting perfect. Very moist, very thick, not needing any frosting (for guests you could even just spray some powdered sugar on top, but I'm sure a frosting would be great too).
Chocolate Chip Cookies
As for the chocolate chip cookies, they worked out rather well too.
Cookies are a bit harder to make, I find, as you need to have a sense of whether the dough is appropriately hydrated. And while I can do a great bread dough, I've not been accustomed to adjusting the consistency of my cookie doughs. But you really need to over here, so I ended up adding a bit less flour to my favorite recipe. (which is basically the King Arthur recipe that I tweaked.)
Ok so here's my take on King Arthur's fabulous recipe:
Chocolate chip cookies King Arthur Recipe
2/3 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed (in France, use Beghin Say, name of sugar is Saveur Vergeoise BLONDE NATURE)
2/3 cup granulated sugar (I ended up cutting the recipe back to half the sugar, eliminating this second 2/3c all together, it was still great)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, right from the fridge, or at room temperature (I use salted margarine) – I then add in some flax meal and use it to replace some of the fat (3T meal flax can replace 1T butter, or so)
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (In the end, I use 1/2c margarine and no shortening, and it still turned out great)
1/2 teaspoon salt (use only 1/4t if using salted butter)
1T vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract, flavor goes away after 36 hours. This is a nice touch.
1 teaspoon vinegar, cider or white (seriously, just do it)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 large egg
2 cups flour (I measure out 4T flax seeds, then grind them in a coffee grinder, which makes about 2/3c meal. I add this in addition to the 2c flour)
2T inulin (for fiber, why not)
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (honestly this may even be too much choco chip with the cutbacks above, consider 1 1/3c chips, then add more as you like.
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.
1) In a large bowl, combine the sugars, butter, shortening, salt, vanilla and almond extracts, vanilla, vinegar, and baking soda, beating until smooth and creamy.
2) Beat in the 1 egg, again beating till smooth. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a spatula to make sure everything is thoroughly combined.
3) Mix in the flour, then the chips.
4) Put whatever sized balls of dough you want on the tray. Sprinkle the dough with sea salt – the big chunky stuff — just a light sprinkle per cookie. You'll be surprised, it's great.
5) Bake the cookies for 11 to 12 minutes, till their edges are chestnut brown and their tops are light golden brown, almost blonde. Remove them from the oven, and cool on the pan till they've set enough to move without breaking. Repeat with the remaining dough. Now, really, I start checking the oven at 7 minutes to be safe. Totally depends how big the dough balls are. Once the edges start browning, take em out – these things seem to cook quickly, and they don't always look totally done when they really are (if you like a soft cookie, like me).
One more tip – both King Arthur and the NYT say to let the dough sit in the fridge for 36 hours before using it. Of course, no one is going to do that, but I do, after making the first batch, put the dough in a ziploc bag, flatten it, THEN put it in the fridge for 36 hours. It makes the dough have an almost caramel flavor to it, seriously. Then just throw the bags in the freezer and you have fresh cookies whenever you want — I take out enough to make only 3 or 4 cookies at a time in my toaster oven (beware of toaster oven cooking temp and times, in mine I set the temp down to 300F and watch the cooking, they can be done in 7 minutes sometimes).
Boy, did these turn out nicely. Notice they held their shape – I think the #65 flour is key, but also try to remember how thick the dough should be, then adjust your flour accordingly.


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Managing Board
The DSM Managing Board is responsible for the company's strategy, portfolio policy, the deployment of human and capital resources, the company's risk management system and the company's financial performance.
Message from our CEO
We are delighted to report again an excellent year, as we significantly exceeded our Strategy 2018 targets for EBITDA, ROCE and organic sales growth. Our focus on driving above market growth while relentlessly pursuing efficiency initiatives and maintaining capital discipline continues to produce very good results in both Nutrition and Materials. Our success comes from the ability to deliver sustainable, innovative solutions to meet our customers' demand and help them to address end-market needs.
Executive Committee
The members of the Executive Committee are the Managing Board members as well as four senior managers appointed by the Chairman of the Managing Board after consultation with the Supervisory Board. The Executive Committee focuses on topics such as the overall strategy and direction, review of business results, functional and regional strategies, budget setting, and people and organization.
Supervisory Board
The Supervisory Board supervises the policy pursued by the Managing Board, the Managing Board's performance of its managerial duties and the company's general course of affairs, taking account of the interests of all the company's stakeholders.
Report by the Supervisory Board
Our focus during 2016 had been on delivery, and we fully maintained this in 2017, with positive results on many fronts.
Rob Routs, Chairman Supervisory Board
Remuneration policy for the Managing Board
The objective of DSM's remuneration policy is to attract, reward, motivate, incentivize and retain qualified and expert individuals that the company needs in order to achieve its strategic and operational objectives, while acknowledging the societal context around remuneration and recognizing the interests of DSM's stakeholders.


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Governments are endangering European jobs and growth
March 11, 2013
By Christian Kjaer, EWEA CEO Investing in wind energy makes absolute economic sense. Europe's ageing power plants need replacing. It makes economic sense to replace a growing proportion of those conventional power plants with wind energy. This is because wind energy does the following: Creates jobs and economic growth in Europe. 238,000 people worked… » read more
Posted by ewea
Energy Security, EU Energy Policy, Green Jobs, Uncategorized, Wind Energy


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These high power white LEDs are super bright. They are ideal for making light sources.
Brand new and high quality
Small and lightweight
Round shape design
Lens Color : Water clear
Light Color: White
Luminous Intensity: 70-80Lumens
Viewing Angle: 120°
Forward Voltage : 3.0-3.5V
Forward Current: 300mA
Color Temperature : 5500-6500k
Diameter: 0.8cm(0.31in)
Package Includes:
5 x 1W white LED


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Inada Debuts Flex 3s Massage Chair
Inada USA this week announced the arrival of its new Flex 3s massage chair. The chair, billed as "he only massage chair in the world to combine therapeutic stretching with traditional Japanese massage," is now available from authorized Inada dealers and online at InadaUSA.com.
"The Flex 3s is a life-changing, life-enhancing massage chair that could only have come from Inada. It takes the therapeutic aspects of a home massage chair to a whole new level," Inada USA President Cliff Levin, said as part of the announcement. "It is further proof of the company's undisputed leadership in the category."
The product is available for a low introductory price of $6,499 from authorized dealers.
Related Content


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My son Darian is starting his senior year at Missouri State University, which means he is starting to make life plans. He is an Acting major and faces two big decisions: what to do next (work or grad school) and where to do it at (New York, LA, or London). While discussing this big move, we reflected a little on life and how our experiences shape us and prepare us for the future. Choosing a career in acting is risky - there are so many reasons that an actor won't get a part, and many of them have nothing to do with their acting ability. It might be that you are too tall, too short, don't have the right "look", lack chemistry with costars, too old, too young, or just for no reason at all. That means that actors try to learn anything that gives them an advantage.
Darian and I started together at Hero shortly after moving to Kansas City and a few years later we had our 1st Kukkiwon test together. In his junior year of high school he made the decision to dedicate all his time and energy to theater and eventually moved off to college to become an actor (his nickname is "Kid Shakespeare"). While debating options I posed the question "I know that you invested a lot of time and energy into Tae Kwon Do and that you loved doing it because it was fun and challenging, but do you think it helped you in becoming an actor?"
His reply "Absolutely, probably more than I ever realized."
The conversation that followed was truly eye-opening and reminded me of some valuable lessons. Here are his top 5 ways that Tae Kwon Do helped him become a better actor:
1. Stage Combat: A lot of plays require their actors to be trained and certified in stage combat because in a live show you can't call a stuntman on stage to take your place during a fight scene! So you are simulating a fight on stage – the punches are real but controlled, just missing the body (similar to one step sparring). You are being thrown to the ground and know how to back break fall or shoulder roll safely (tumbling). The rhythm of kicking and punching and blocking and countering is quick and fluid (sparring). You are using knives and other weapons (weapons, self-defense). These techniques are often seen in martial arts movies, but almost everything we watch has some kind of fight or falling scene, even comedies. Darian can walk into an audition and throw a tornado kick, flip over a couch, or swing nunchaku - pretty impressive.
2. Vocals: An actor has to be able to project their voice so that everyone in the audience can hear them; something you learn first with kiyap, then by counting for the group, and later by being a class leader. Many actors in musical theater know that the first thing you learn in singing lessons is how to breathe deep, from your diaphragm, and later to control your breathing when trying to dance and sing at the same time (we learned these through deep breathing techniques and sparring).
3. Practice: You can't just show up to rehearsals and think you will be ready for opening night. You can't just come to class twice a week and expect to be ready for belt test or show up for the Annual Tournament and hope to win 1st Place. To be truly prepared you have to practice. Practice on your own and practice often until it becomes muscle memory.
4.Focus: Actors call it "getting into character", the time right before they walk onstage where they shift focus to their role and the show – nothing else matters. Tae Kwon Do teaches you how to shift quickly into complete focus and ignore the audience, other classmates, and even that itch on your nose. Before class or during break we can goof around and socialize, but as soon as Master walks on to the floor you make an instant focal change to be quiet and attentive. We shift focus in many ways, but especially before important and/or potentially dangerous events that require full attention: we "get into character" before class and sparring (bowing), before forms (junbi), and before breaking (deep breathing and kiyap).
5. The last (and most important) one I'll let you find for yourself. Go to Darian's website and look at his resume; read the "special skills" section and pay attention to the very last item. I think you'll agree. https://dbengston.wixsite.com/darianbengston/resume
Just what the Parents ordered!! My daughter started over a year ago, after a recommendation from family. Within six months she showed great signs of improvement with her self esteem. We also utilize the Academy's after school program. We cannot stress the great benefits Hero has provided to our daughter, she is slowly finding her voice and confidence. My husband and nephew have also joined and they have nothing but great things to say about Master Butler, instructors, coaches, and students.
Work hard, play hard, have a great time, equals success!