CULTURE

THE FRASER INSTITUTE. A Socialist Analysis of the Corporate Drive to the Right. By Ben Swankey. Centre for Socialist Education, 1984. Available at Co-op Books or CSE, 105, 2747 E. Hast- ings. VSK 1Z8

Ever since television screens across the province last June showed Institute direc- tor Michael Walker sitting down at a boardroom table in a Kelowna hotel to advise a meeting of the new Socred cabinet, the Fraser Institute has become one of the most notorious organizations on the province’s colorful political scene.

If it was vaguely known as a right wing

advocate for its corporate patrons before July 7, 1983, the budget and legislation that the Scoreds brought down on that day dramatically highlighted its larger role — as an influential shaper of govern- ment policy, acting on behalf of some of the most reactionary circles in the corpo- rate world.

The notoriety prompted various news profiles of the Institute and its director as

well as more detailed exposes, including one prepared for the Solidarity Coalition by researchers John Malcolmson and Cliff Stansby. In fact, their work made the Insti- tute the target of yet more controversy by

' publishing the confidential list of the 300- odd corporate donors.

But one of the most comprehensive —

and readable — studies is a brand new one, just released last week by the Centre for Socialist Education and entitled The Fraser Institute: A Socialist Analysis of the Corporate Drive to the Right by labor edu- cator and journalist Ben Swankey.

The slim volume grew out of a series of lectures- which Swankey delivered to a number of local unions and Solidarity” Coalitions on the subject and the text has the same clarity and incisiveness that has always marked his lectures which are familiar to many in the labor movement.

It doesn’t purport to be a definitive. study but the essential information is all there — the origins of the ‘Institute; its links with other corporate institutes around the world including the Bilderberg

A new look at the Socreds’ mentors

Club and the Mont Pelerin Society; and the various regressive policies advocated by the Institute and their reflection in Socred policy.

“There is growing recognition that the Fraser Institute is not just the aberration of a group of far right economists; it is the mouthpiece of the big corporations that control the economy of B.C. and Can- ada,” Swankey notes in his introduction. The following four chapters discuss that role in the context of polarized B.C. polit- ics and the emergence of the “New Right” in response to capitalist economic crisis.

The final chapter, criticizes the “‘upside- down economics” of the Institute and out- lines a number of alternative economic programs as advocated by various unions as well as the Communist Party.

As such, this first publishing project of the Centre for Socialist Education is more than just topical analysis — it also offers some answers and points the way to an alternatives program. And at $2.50, it’s a bargain.

— Sean Griffin

Vancouver welcomes B.C.’s ‘brigadistas:

“I'd look at the kids picking cotton beside me, and think, ‘What’s their future going to be? Why is this happening? Why is there this aggression against these people?’

“But I think they realized there are peo- ple out there who care for them,” said Can- adian “brigadista” .Kathy Schultz to a packed La Quena coffee house Mar.8.

The evening affair at the Vancouver cof- fee house provided a cozy welcome for the B.C. volunteers who had spent a month in Nicaragua performing back-breaking work picking cotton — a key export crop for a struggling nation that finds itself in the mil- itary and economic sights of U.S. president Ronald Reagan’s administration. |

Seventy Canadians — 35 from British Columbia, and another 35 from Toronto and other eastern centres — joined more than 2,000 volunteers from around the world to lend a hand to the Central Ameri- can nation which 44 years ago enraged U.S. imperialist circles by overthrowing the dic- tatorship initially imposed on them by American military might. *

The brigades worked from dawn to dusk, literally, harvesting the crop so that Nicara- guans could devote their time to the task of defending their borders against raids by the “contras” — the U.S.-supplied mercenar- ies seeking to cripple the Central American nation’s economy through damaging raids on key industries.

“Their lives are on the line defending their revolution,” Bert Ogden, the senior B.C. volunteer and welfare director of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union, told the welcoming audience.

While it wasn’t specifically mentioned, the volunteer pickers also put their lives on the line. The cotton centre for Nicaragua is near the town of Leon, in the northwestern part of the country and not too far from the border adjoining Honduras, from which the contra attacks are launched, and strife- torn El Salvador.

While the laborers worked and slept, a 24-hour militia kept guard. But in recent months, contra attacks — which have met with determined resistance by Nicaragua’s army and militias — have decreased, and Ogden said he was aware of only one attack during their stay.

“The contras in their plane tried to bomb the geo-thermal power station that’s on a mountain near the farm where we work: said Ogden in an interview. “It has enough power to supply all of Central America, but fortunately, the contras’ plane was hit and they didn’t get to do any damage.”

B.C.’s brigadistas worked on a sprawling.

10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 14, 1984

TRIBUNE PHOTO

International Airport Mar. 7.

state farm close by the former Dos Montes (Two Mountains), now called Hugo Paiz after a Nicaraguan revolutionary hero. They lived as Nicaraguans, sleeping in shacks with dirt floors and roused at 6 a.m.

to begin work on a breakfast of rice and .

beans, reported Robbie Bowden, a secre- tary with the Carpenters’ Union.

Work proceeded from then until 10 a.m., when the heat of the day forced a four-to- five hour rest. The job resumed at about 3 p.m., continuing until 6 or 6:30, “when things cooled down,” said Bowden.

Asked about their cotton-picking skills, Ogden laughed and replied, “No com-

ment.” But he eventually confessed to an

average take of 50 Ibs. per day, which con- trasted somewhat dramatically with the 200-Ib. harvest of a Nicaraguan girl who worked beside them.

In addition to the harvesting, some Can- adians found themselves aiding the building of a new medical clinic, while others con- tributed skills to the construction of covered “dry well” drainage systems to replace open, unsanitary ditches, said Bowden.

Nor was the entire journey taken up by labor. With others, B.C.’s brigadistas tra-

Yanaouveri Fresident Kathy Schultz is eicoried hone by friends and supporters of the'B.C. contingent of shrigedintaete at the Vancouver

velled to Managua, the capital, for the Feb. 21 celebrations marking anniversary of the death of Augusto Cesar Sandino, the revo- lutionary patriot whose name the Sandi- nista government bears today.

During their stay the international bri- gades also met with several mass organiza- tions, including the Centrale Sandinista Trabajeros — the country’s trade union

central — and Nicaragua’s large peace -

movement. ‘ Ogden, a peace activist here, said the Nicaraguan peace movement “has a much different focus than ours. “While we’re concerned with the threat ‘of nuclear annihilation, their movement is based more on their struggle for survival against U.S. imperialism and aggression. “Here, we (the Canadian peace move- ment) are not into anything political. But in Nicaragua, they link peace with the struggle for social progress,” Ogden explained. Ogden was particuarly struck by com- ments from Nicaraguans after word of the Mar. 5 test of the cruise missile over Cana- dian territory reached the country. “Hearing them link the cruise missile test with what’s going on concerning their own

country, it came to me that they contin the Canadian fight for independence with their own,” he commented.

From the Managua celebrations it was back to the state farm — land once owned “by an American named Spenser,” Ogden pointed out.

The government’s policy is to nagjonalize land that has been left to lie fallow, or land that is not utilized for the maximum welfare of its citizens, he explained.

“The thing that struck me most when I arrived there was how poor the Nicaraguan people are — yet despite it all, they’re try- ing really, really. hard to make changes,” said Bowden.

- Said Ogden: “They’ve come a long way since 1979. In spite of boycotts by the U.S., they’ve practically managed to eliminate malaria and polio, they’ve made tremend- ous gains through their literacy campaign, and Nicaragua was one of the two. Latin American countries which last year increased their GNP. ,

“One thing is for certain: if they were left alone, free from U.S. economic sanctions and the threat of invasion, they’d be grow- ing by leaps and bounds.”