People Before Profit blog

What is Hanukkah really all about?

Tue, 16 Dec 2014 13:00:00 +0000

A familiar saying at this time of year has it that when all the Jews spell Hanukkah the same way, Deliverance will truly have come! (Other variants include Hanukah, Chanukah, Hanuka, Khanuka, Khanike, and more.)

The joke is telling because like most things, the holiday can be viewed from multiple perspectives. For many years Jews considered it a minor holiday, observed with small gifts for the children and the lighting of candles on a menorah each of the eight nights of the season. It is no coincidence that Hanukkah is called the "Festival of Lights."

There's no mystery in understanding why Jews, and perhaps most peoples, celebrate a holiday of light at the time of the winter solstice. The Yule log, the Christmas lights, the evergreen, the Kwanzaa candelabrum, are all cheerful reminders of hope and promise in the cycle of rebirth that will return in the spring with the New Year. When Americans wish one another a generalized "Happy Holidays," we express a sincere universality of shared warmth amidst our collective cold.

Hanukkah is the only Jewish holiday (until modern times) with verifiable historical roots. It commemorates the revolt of the Maccabees in 167-164 BCE (Before the Common Era, as Jews prefer to say), against the Greek occupation of Jerusalem and Palestine. The Greeks had imposed the rule of law, philosophy, religion, debate and governance at odds with traditional Jewish practice. The Maccabean rebellion was directed as much against Greek hegemony as against fellow Jews they accused of becoming overly "Hellenized," giving up circumcision, for example, eating pork or engaging in nude sporting matches.

Although celebrated for having conducted the first successful documented revolution for "national liberation" and religious freedom, the Maccabees are also disparaged by history for having established a corrupt dynasty of priestly kings, a theocratic mixing of "church and state." Later rabbinical authorities looked back on this disastrous period and invented the charming story of the miracle of the vial of oil that lasted for eight days, trying to convert the significance of the holiday into one of awe of God and his wonders, rather than military victory.

Incidentally, the Hanukkah story inspired the American colonists in their struggle against King George III. How could people so profoundly influenced by Christian theology oppose the divine right of kings? Well, just look at the First Book of Maccabees and there you have it: "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God." And from that principle, how many people of faith, and entire movements for civil rights and freedom, have taken a potent lesson! (Needless to say, right-wing ideologues also cite such passages - one of the dangers of relying on Biblical literalism.)

In modern times, defenders of the West Bank occupation cite the Maccabean spirit as an expression of the militarist solution to Israel's survival. Curiously, those who most loudly insist on the definition of Israel as a "Jewish state" thus fly directly in the face of the many later generations of rabbis who emphasized that well-known passage in Zechariah 4:6 that warns us, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."

So the controversy over the essential meaning of Hanukkah continues and perhaps can never be pinned down definitively. Perhaps it's best left as a joyous holiday for children that brings the Jewish component to the bountiful table of multiculturalism as we anticipate the return of sunny days.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scazon/ / CC BY 2.0

This article originally appeared on PeoplesWorld.org Dec.14, 2009.

Movie review: Avatar is a winner

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:27:00 +0000

Movie Review

Avatar

Directed by James Cameron

2009, PG-13, 162 min.

We arrived early to get seats for Avatar, because it's been breaking box-office records and we didn't want to have to sit in the front row. We had to endure a large number of film trailers and commercial advertisements. The longest and most tiresome of them was for the U.S. military. "You can be tall, you can be straight, you can get ahead economically, you can be happy, you can be fulfilled." All you have to do is give up your life for a period of time and let other people make all your choices, including whether or not you want to kill somebody else. The military advertisement seemed to grind on as long as the movie, and the movie, at 162 minutes, was long.

The military people in the movie were a lot different from the ones in the advertisement. In the movie, they were pretty much murderers, confident of their technical superiority over the simple natives they were displacing, and more than happy to blow them to kingdom come. After all, their "enemy" was, well, "different!"

I was looking for a disclaimer that said something like, "Any similarities between the American military men in this movie showing them blowing up people in their homeland and the actual American military men being used to blow up Afghanis in their homeland is purely coincidental." I didn't see the disclaimer, but I did see the IATSE union bug at the end of the credits. Literally hundreds of people were mentioned in those credits, by the way, because Avatar is the best special effects movie made so far.

Like all the best sci-fi, Avatar creates situations and draws conclusions that are similar to what is happening in our real lives. Some will say it is an allegory about the displacement of the Native Americans from their homes in the Western Hemisphere. Some will say it's about Vietnam. A lot of people are going to say it's about Afghanistan. I think that just about everybody is going to say it is a great movie!

The story is universally appealing, and the execution is far better than anybody has any right to expect. Avatar is a winner!

A program to address the economic crisis

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:27:00 +0000

Editor's note: Excerpted from report to CPUSA National Committee November 13,

Only direct and indirect government intervention to stimulate and restructure the economy along democratic lines stands a chance of lifting the working class and nation out of the present and persistent economic morass.

The elements of such an intervention could include:

* Assist democratically elected municipal and regional authorities to plan and organize major projects;

* Channel investment dollars to small and medium sized businesses, worker/community cooperatives, and financially starved state and local governments;

* Adopt an industrial policy that will renew and convert to new uses our nation's manufacturing sector;

* De-militarize and go over to peacetime production;

* Facilitate the formation of cooperative owned plants and workplaces, which the steelworkers are currently exploring;

* Initiate massive public works jobs for infrastructure development, environmental cleanup, and green industries, ranging from power turbines to windmills to non-polluting public transportation systems;

* Democratize the Federal Reserve system;

* Insist on the passage of EFCA and other legislation to enhance the rights and conditions of workers and communities;

* Review trade pacts, such as NAFTA, CAFTA, and others;

* Restructure global economic institutions or construct new ones that take into account the new economic and political circumstances on a global level;

* Reduce the work day with no cut in pay; raise the minimum wage; and apply consistent and robust affirmative action hiring guidelines;

* Tax capital movements, especially short-term movements that are so destabilizing to the economies of many countries;

* Shift taxes to the wealthiest individuals and corporations;

* Reform the financial sector and turn the "too big to fail" banks into public utilities under democratic control. (Many of the regulatory proposals already under consideration are positive, but some of the sticky issues like democratic control over the Federal Reserve Bank, the hyper concentration of the banking system, the future of hedge funds and equity firms, the loopholes in derivative trading, etc, are not part of the conversation. Nor is the placing of the "too big to fail" banks under public democratic control a consideration.)

The likelihood of passage of the above measures has little to do with their feasibility; it hinges by and large on the ability of working people and their allies to frame the national conversation and win active popular majorities for them.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression convinced millions of people that the old model of unrestrained capitalism was bankrupt. But it was only in the course of fierce battles that significant democratic reforms were passed.

As a result, a new set of institutions, rules, and legislation - a new model of governance, the New Deal - took deep root in our nation's political economy and psychology.

What was missing, however, was an adequate stimulus and investment frontier to revive the economy. The Roosevelt administration was going in that direction, but under pressure changed course in the name of budget balancing (sound familiar) and the economic recovery stalled. And it wasn't until the war mobilization that included government borrowing, industrial conversion, and national planning that that the economy fully recovered and a sustained expansion, lasting for roughly three decades, began.

Much the same combination of restructuring and re-inflating the economy, albeit in a very different circumstances, is necessary again. So far the administration has junked some of the economic assumptions and practices of neoliberalism, but much more needs to be done to re-inflate, restructure, and democratize the economy, to lift it onto a dynamic growth path. But as mentioned earlier, a full recovery and sustained growth could be an elusive goal, because economic conditions are so very different than were at the close of WW II.

In any event, the struggle for radical reforms and a new model of governance is imperative. While neither will resolve the contradictions (and its main contradiction between private appropriation and socialized production) and crisis tendencies of capitalism, both will mitigate capitalism's impact on the conditions of life and work of working people.

Furthermore, in struggles for radical democratic restructuring the working class and its allies not only come up against the insufficiencies of capitalism, but also gain the experience, desire, and unity to transform themselves and society.

Jobs and immediate relief

A starting point is the struggle for immediate relief for victims of the economic crisis. The accent should be on action -to provide unemployment benefits to every job seeker, to open livable homeless shelters and more food pantries, to prevent evictions, to support collective bargaining and strikes, to create jobs, to build health care clinics, schools, and public and cooperative housing, to halt utility cut offs, and to aid decimated cities. Some of this is happening, but much more needs to be done.

Such actions, led by the victims of the crisis as well as mass leaders and activists in unions, churches, neighborhood and ethnic organizations, block clubs, and social groups, are the roar from below that will give an urgency to the legislative process above.

No one should be overwhelmed by the scope of the problems, or held back by the idea that mass action has to mean thousands of people. Mass is a relative term.

The labor movement can play a special role. Ditto for the churches.

Special attention should be given to the struggle for multi-racial, multi-national unity and equality - the struggle for the latter is a condition for the former.

Recently, the AFL-CIO, NAACP, National Council of La Raza, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Center for Community Change rolled out a proposal for a jobs and infrastructure program. It includes five critical points:

1. Extend the lifeline for jobless workers.

2. Rebuild America's schools, roads and energy systems.

3. Increase aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services.

4. Fund jobs in our communities.

5. Put TARP funds to work for Main Street.

The campaign for such a program can become a channel for millions of people - unemployed and employed - to become participants in the jobs struggle. It can turn frustration, isolation, and despair into action, community, and hope. And it can be a yardstick by which to measure candidates in the 2010 election.

And it can also help to strip from the extreme right their claim to be "fighting for ordinary Americans."

This campaign should be the bread and butter of every people's organization. No one should sit it out. While the intended effect is economic - to create jobs - it will also have a political effect, deepening, broadening, and energizing the people's movement and in so doing, shaking up Washington.

Republican vs. Republican

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:56:00 +0000

There he was on Christmas Eve on the TV news: Arizona Senator John Kyl, pumped with anger, calling the just passed Senate health care reform bill "a massive, very bad assault on liberty." You got to ask, whose liberty is he so concerned about? The insurance companies "liberty" to gouge us, cut benefits, exclude those who might really need coverage, and tell us in the middle of treatment that our policy won't cover any more medical care?

You hear these right-wing characters and their tea bagger friends throwing around terms like "liberty, freedom, and special interests" and you got to wonder.

But of course it's a class thing and these Wall Street stooges understand it very well. For them liberty means deregulation, tax breaks and bail outs for the banks and the rich. Freedom means no Employee Free Choice Act that might give workers a real voice at work and limit arbitrary corporate power. And special interests are unions, civil rights organizations, immigrant rights organizations, women's organizations, environmental organizations, and any other mass people's organizations that might interfere with capital's maximum ability to exploit and dictate. Democracy just seems to bring out millions of these pesky types of taxpayers.

But what really struck me about Kyl's ringing cry of liberty was how these right-wing Republicans today always seem to quote Ronald Reagan and not Abraham Lincoln. I mean if you're going to boom out ringing rhetorical flourishes, why not quote in the spirit of the greatest Republican of them all? Ronald Reagan went from acting for GE to action on behalf of GE. Lincoln actually did something about liberty and freedom.

But when you think about the health care debate and then you think about my favorite Lincoln quote, you know why Lincoln just doesn't fit the Republican agenda today. Abraham Lincoln said:

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

In today's popular discourse Lincoln might have substituted "Main Street" for labor and "Wall Street" for capital - but you get the point. If Kyl and his ilk were saying it today they would just reverse "labor" and "capital" in the quote.

And what do these "extremists in defense of (corporate) liberty" have to say about "certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." today? It sure seems to me that any reasonable interpretation of an unalienable right to life would include the right health care.

Photo: http://kyl.senate.gov/

It’s anti-capitalism, Charlie Brown

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:27:00 +0000

Dear Santa,
I have been extra good this year, so I have a long list of presents that I want. Please note the size and color of each item, and send as many as possible. If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself: just send money. How about tens and twenties?
... All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.

Forty-four years ago - on December 9, 1965 - cartoonist Charles M. Schulz brought life to his comic strip "Peanuts" and gave the world its first anti-capitalist Christmas special. As the Cold War raged and LBJ reportedly made the world safe for democracy, pop culture received an unexpected push leftward with "A Charlie Brown Christmas." It seems pretty clear that the CBS executives who approved of the special viewed it as simple family fare, but the show broke ground on several levels, not the least of which was the stand against the corporate opportunism which has become the hallmark of Christmas, indeed all of our major holidays. And this in a time before items such as outdoor lights for Halloween or Valentine's Day existed. Back in 1965 and even into the '70s, NO Christmas-themed commercial aired on television until Thanksgiving evening. My, how times have changed.

Schulz's message throughout this powerful cartoon is the search for the true meaning of Christmas and to illustrate this, his protagonist Charlie Brown encounters a series of overtly commercial angles, schemes and machinations, attempts to baldly profit by the holiday. While Charlie Brown rebels against these at every turn, his friends, his little sister and even his dog are roped in and become a part of the glitz.

Ever the dysfunctional depressive, Charlie seeks out faux psychiatric help and is encouraged to serve as director of his school's Christmas play. But even the so-called "doctor," schoolmate Lucy Van Pelt, offers that she is regularly disappointed with the holiday take, for she never gets the gift she seeks: real estate. Lucy tells Charlie that Christmas has indeed gone commercial as it is "run by an eastern syndicate," apparently exposing the very Madison Avenue businesses which sponsored the program. Schulz was brilliant. More so, Charlie Brown's seemingly innocent sister, Sally, turns out to be the preeminent profit-seeker, crafting a letter to Santa which states that she has been very good and thus expects an exceptionally long list of gifts, but ultimately will settle for cash. When her brother gasps at this crass display of self-indulgence, Sally's absurdly candid reply - "I just want what's coming to me" - stands as metaphor for the worst kind of greed. Sally just wants what she feels is due her; there really is no innocence after all.

Charlie Brown's attempts at organizing his friends in the play are earnest; momentarily, he has a sense of purpose and feels his talents can help to forge a worthy production. But here again Schulz throws a monkey wrench into the works when Charlie "the Organizer" is thwarted almost immediately after rehearsal begins by Lucy's interrupting shout of "Lunch break! Lunch break!" in the classic union shop style. Yes, the Organizer is stymied, it would seem, by the Shop Steward. Is this another display of attempts to trump the worker or perhaps Charlie, now in the director's chair, takes on the role of boss and in this sense becomes the target for rebellion? It's anybody's guess. Schulz was certain to never really let on what his political views were.

Charles Schulz was a quite religious man who, for many years, taught in Sunday School. Christian values were important to him and this is evidenced by the moving speech Linus makes in the "Charlie Brown Christmas" special, a direct Biblical quote from the Gospel of Luke. Later, however, Schulz described himself as simply a "secular humanist." Charlie Brown, at his core, was a symbol of man's isolation and whether we see that as a struggle for recognition of the common worker in the face of capitalist greed or simply as loneliness, the message remains the same. We can't make it out there alone. But the meaning of "A Charlie Brown Christmas," more than any other, is how the true beauty of such a holy day can be crushed in one fell swoop of commercialization, how the spiritual and community-based holiday has been pre-empted by corporate greed. The rising popularity of "Peanuts" and all of its characters during the later 1960s, embraced by the counter-culture even more so than the children of the day, also speaks to the message inherent in it.

Perhaps the saddest example of corporate greed as it relates to "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was the airing that happened this year on ABC, when a variety of lines were cut from the show to make room for ... more commercials.

Hark, the herald advertising executives sing.

This article was originally published on the Conducive Chronicle blog, 12/9/09.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sis/ / CC BY 2.0

What if?

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:35:00 +0000

What if this is 1935 and Congress is getting ready to vote on the Social Security Act?

As political progressives, union activists or whatever, do you support the bill or oppose it?

No-brainer, right?

So what if I told you that by supporting the 1935 Social Security Act you would be selling out the working class and capitulating to right-wing special interests who wrote half the bill?

Didn't see that one coming, didja?

To get Social Security passed, progressives had to agree to exclude nearly one-half of the working class, including two-thirds of all African Americans and more than one-half of all women.

Yep, that's the deal you would have had to make in 1935 to pass what we know now is one of the most progressive and successful governmental programs of all time. But in 1935, it didn't look that way when progressives had to accept the deal racist, reactionary Southern Democrats laid down in exchange for their votes.

These backward elements held power over key committees that could have scuttled Social Security and prevented even a vote. Their deal? Exclude all domestic workers, agricultural labor, state and local government employees, and many teachers, nurses, hospital workers, librarians and social workers. Their special interest? Keeping power by keeping intact the American-style apartheid system they presided over.

So what do we do? Kill the bill and try to come back later or take what you can get now?

Remember this deal was made by progressives during the left's glory days. That's when we had one of the most progressive presidents ever in the White House, the most progressives ever in Congress and the biggest mass movement ever out in the streets. And progressives still had to cut a deal with the Devil.

Protesting is easy. Governing is a bitch.

So let's bring this "what if" game to the present.

What if you are a member of Congress in 2009: do you vote for the deal cut in the Senate or vote to kill the bill?

Not so easy anymore, is it?

We know the flawed Social Security bill was strengthened over the years, adding household workers in 1950 and agricultural, hotel, laundry and state and local government workers in 1954. What we don't know is the future of the current flawed health care bill.

The one nice thing we do know is that improving it will be a lot easier than passing the original bill. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed out, many of the future improvements can be done through reconciliation with a simple majority vote as opposed to the anti-democratic, super-majority 60-vote process that gave the sociopath Joe Lieberman power to kill the public option and prevent lowering the enrollment age for Medicare to 55.

So what do we do now?

We still have to figure that one out. But one thing we can't afford to do is make single-payer a dogma. Such rigidity in strategy ties our hands and limits our options. Looking at the world, we see that more nations accomplished the goal of health care for all through a multi-payer system, not a single-payer one. Only Canada, Taiwan and South Korea have chosen to go single-payer.

France is considered to have the world's best health care system while Japan has the longest healthy life expectancy. Single-payer systems? Hardly. French citizens are covered by 14 private insurance companies. The Japanese have about 3,500 private health insurance plans. These multi-payer systems succeed because private insurers there are not allowed to make a profit selling health insurance.

Every nation that has committed itself to providing health care for all its citizens has followed its own unique path to get there. It's a sure bet the United States will never adopt the socialized medicine system of Great Britain, even though our Veterans Administration already is a socialized system with government-owned, government-run hospitals and government-hired doctors.

We could build on this flawed health care bill by expanding Medicare to all Americans of all ages. That would be the most direct route to single payer since the structure already exists, is quite popular (even Tea Baggers love their Medicare) and operates way more efficiently than private insurance with its 3 percent administrative costs verses 20 percent to 30 percent for private insurers.

But it's not certain that most Americans are prepared to kill a whole industry even if many of the clerical workers are absorbed by Medicare to serve the new enrollees.

The private sector has always had a role in our government-run health care. Most of the Medicare workers who process and pay claims are employees of private insurance companies. That was the result of a deal struck in 1965 to help win support for passage of Medicare.

The creation of health insurance exchanges under both the House and Senate bills and the Senate's provision that private insurance companies must reduce their administrative costs to 10 percent could move us in the direction of a French-German-Japanese-Swiss model. In these and other multi-payer countries, private insurers collect premiums set by government regulation, pay all claims immediately under rates set by government negotiations with doctors and hospitals, and cannot deny coverage for any reason under strict government regulation.

So what if it turns out that most Americans decide they prefer a multi-payer over a single-payer health care system?

Protesting is easy. Governing is a bitch.

Photo: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act on Aug. 14, 1935. Standing with Roosevelt are Rep. Robert Doughton, D-N.C., unknown person in shadow; Sen. Robert Wagner, D-N.Y., Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., unknown man in bowtie; Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, Sen. Pat Harrison, D-Miss., and Rep. David Lewis, D-Md. (www.ssa.gov/history/)

Politics and health care from the heartland

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:39:00 +0000

As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington used to say, "Politics ain't beanbag."

Washington was quoting another Chicagoan, and maybe it runs in the water here. You claim your victories, you brush off your defeats and you move on to fight another day. Pragmatic politics from the heartland.

And so goes the fight of the decade, or is it the century? Health care.

The Senate is poised (we hope) to pass the most significant piece of health care reform legislation since Medicare, it is said. Previous presidents tried, and previous presidents failed to bring reform. This for-profit health care chaos Americans are saddled with, what we call our health care system, is a tiger many have tried to grab by its tail. This time it seems that the Democrats are still holding on to that tail, barely.

It's a sellout to Big Insurance, shouts the principled left. It's a step in the right direction, reason the pragmatic progressives. It's a monstrosity, rants the Republican right. I'm just glad it's coming to an end, sigh Democratic leaders.

And it may be all of these. Like the blindfolded people surrounding an elephant, it all depends on the point of contact.

Here are a few of the positive things cited in the bill:

30 million people will be able to get coverage.
Pre-existing conditions will be covered, immediately for children and by 2014 for adults.
Dropping someone from insurance because they got sick, also known as rescission, will be outlawed.
Medicaid will be expanded to cover more Americans who are uninsured.
Insurers will have to spend at least 80 percent of every premium dollar on health care. Currently the insurance corporations spend around 60 percent, meaning almost two-fifths of the premiums you pay goes to CEO salaries, administrative costs and profits.
The bill reduces the deficit.

Then there is the list of problems, which include:

No public option, so the 30 million who will now gain coverage will be served up as customers to the insurance industry.
Taxes on so-called "Cadillac" health plans - that term is really a slam at comprehensive health plans. The labor movement says such taxes will affect one out of every five workers.
Ridiculous additional restrictions on a woman's reproductive health choices.

If you like to use the opposition's reaction to measure whether something is positive for working America, then Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell's statement is instructive. After calling the bill a "monstrosity" he said, "Make no mistake - this bill will reshape our nation and our lives."

And perhaps that's because for the first time in 15 years this "good bill," according to Matt Ygelsias at Think Progress, represents a "return of the idea that Congress should be trying to pass major legislation that tackles major national problems. And even beyond that, it restores an even longer-lost tradition of Congress trying to pass major legislation on specifically progressive priorities."

To which economist Paul Krugman agreed and added, "More than that, it represents a rejection of the view that the solution for all problems is to cut some taxes and remove some regulations. In that sense, what's happening now, for all the disappointment it represents for progressives, is a historic moment."

There will be changes in the course of matching the Senate bill with the House bill, which has a public option and places a surcharge tax on the wealthiest, instead of on workers' health plans, to help pay for the cost.

Krugman said progressives will have the opportunity to "push for bigger subsidies; stronger exchanges; a reinstated public option; stronger cost controls. Some of these things can be done through reconciliation. Having this bill in place will make it easier, not harder, to do these things than having passed nothing."

And having something rather than nothing is perhaps the most significant victory for working-class America. Why? Because with the 2010 elections coming up, an economy that doesn't create jobs, and an ultra-right GOP that will do anything and everything, no matter how un-American, to ruin the Obama presidency, it was essential for the White House and the Democratic majority in Congress to get something done.

An e-mail from Ellen Malcolm, the head of Emily's List, a group dedicated to getting more Democratic pro-choice women elected to Congress, was instructive. Malcolm turned the disappointment and anger over the compromise on the abortion provision into a rallying call to elect more women to Congress.

In other words, work to improve the balance of forces in the Congress in a better, more progressive direction to help improve the lives of the overwhelming multiracial, multigenerational majority of this country.

Change won't come easy, Barack Obama said during his campaign. It's as much about the engagement of the millions who support Obama and what he stands for as it is about him. Isn't that what he said all along?

So you claim your victories, you brush off your defeats and you move on to fight another day.

Because politics ain't beanbag.

Photo by B. Tal http://www.flickr.com/photos/b-tal/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Reflections on some political and ideological questions today

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:33:00 +0000

The president doesn't simply register and reflect the balance of power; he influences it as well; no other person has as much power as the president. To identify him as a centrist Democrat akin to Clinton or Carter or Kennedy conceals more than it reveals; it's too neat. It doesn't help us understand him as a political actor and his place in the broader struggle for progressive change. And it can quickly lead to narrow tactics and a wrong-headed strategic policy.

Some say, for example, that the strategic role of the left is to criticize the president, to push him from left. But is that a good point of departure strategically? Doesn't it elevate a tactical question to a strategic one?

Criticizing the president (especially in the internet age) takes little imagination or effort, far less than activating the various forces that elected him last year. To do the latter takes a strategic sense, flexible tactics, creative thinking, and hard work. The president's report card, it could easily be argued, is better than the coalition that elected him. He doesn't get an A, but neither do we.

There are no prohibitions against criticism of the president, but it should be done in a unifying and constructive way. The success or failure of the Obama presidency will resonate for years. A deep imprint on class and racial relations will be part of his legacy. It is hard to imagine how a successful struggle for reforms can happen without the president or how anyone other than the extreme right and sections of the ruling class would benefit if his presidency fails.

Attitude towards reform

A very different political and ideological issue that has a bearing on practical politics is the assertion that capitalism has no solutions to the present crisis and can't be reformed.

If this means that the endemic crises of capitalism (for example, cyclical and structural unemployment, regular crises, overproduction, over accumulation, etc.) will persist as long as the profit motive is the singular determinant of economic activity, we would agree.

But if this means that anything short of a system wide change is of little importance, or that the underlying dynamics and laws of motion can't be modified, we would disagree.

We should avoid counterposing the bankruptcy of capitalism against the struggle for reforms under capitalism. Such juxtaposition is unnecessary and counterproductive. If we don't struggle for the latter (reforms), what we say about the former (systemic nature of problems) will carry little weight nor will we get to where we want to go - socialism.

Capitalism is more elastic than some believe. It changes on its own (its internal laws motion - what Marx studied in "Capital") and is modified by the class struggle. Look at its historical development if you don't believe so.

Role of the working class

Still another ideological question is the role of the working class in general and the labor movement in particular. The right wing and mass media (not just Fox) either heap abuse on the labor movement or make it invisible. They are well aware of the new developments in organized labor, and recoil at the prospect of a revitalizing labor movement. None of this is a surprise.

What is surprising is that many progressive and left people either have a blind spot when it comes to the labor movement, or see it as just another participant, or refuse to see - even dismiss out of hand - the new developments within it.

Leading up to the AFL-CIO convention, we heard more than once that labor should be "a social movement," that it should "take on capital," etc. But, unless you are the hostage of "pure" forms of the class struggle, isn't that what labor is doing - in the elections last year and on issues like health care, war, racism, immigration, climate change, international solidarity, and so forth?

Granted it's not across the board, there are still backwaters, the old style of leadership hasn't completely disappeared, and rank-and-file participation is not where it should be.

But isn't that an old movie? Is going over in righteous indignation the litany of sins of the labor movement the most productive thing that we can do? Doesn't it make far more sense to note the new development and directions, the new thinking, and the new composition of labor's leadership? Do we think that the transition from the legacy of the Cold War and the so-called Golden Age of capitalism can happen in a day, in a month, in a decade? Change is hard, but when sprouts of change come to the light of day we should nurture them.

Our understanding of Marxism reveals that in the process of exploitation, not only surplus value, but also oppositional tendencies arise - albeit uneven and full of contradictions and inconsistencies - but arise nonetheless to challenge corporate prerogatives and class rule.

An under appreciation of the new developments in labor can only weaken the broader movement for change.

Marxism

Finally, Marxism is an open-ended, integrated, and comprehensive set of ideas to conceptualize and change the world - a world outlook. It brings to the light the existing and developing regularities and laws of social development of societies, and especially capitalist society.

Thus, continually deepening our understanding of Marxism's basic theoretical constructions is of crucial importance to us - not to mention the movement as a whole.

At the same time, Marxism is not simply a science (understood in a general sense) and worldview, but it is also a methodology.

Marxist methodology absorbs and metabolizes new experience; it gives special weight to new phenomena.

It isn't about timeless abstractions, pure forms, ideal types, categorical imperatives unsullied by inconvenient facts, unexpected turns and anomalies; it doesn't turn partial demands, reformist forces, inconsistent democrats, liberals, social democratic labor leaders, even blue dog democrats, into a contagious flu to be avoided at all costs.

Marxist methodology insists on a concrete presentation of a question and an exact estimate of the balance of forces at any given moment.

As a method of analysis, Marxism emphasizes fluidity, reexamining old and new questions, process, dialectics, and movement; it's about allowing space for individuals and organizations to change.

We should deepen our understanding of Marxism as a science and methodology. And we should not give too much attention to those who take issue with us from the left. When we do, it cuts down on our ability to think creatively and respond practically to new opportunities and developments.

In the era of the Internet, everyone's voice is amplified. If some try to turn Marxism into a sacred canon much like the strict constitutional jurists and biblical literalists do with the Constitution and Bible, so be it; if they want to spend all their time looking for examples of right deviations, to the point where they themselves are simply self-satisfied observers of struggle and too busy to build the people's movement or, in the case of those who are in our party, build our organization and press, so be it.

We will go our own way, focusing our energy and talents on building the working-class movement and our party and press, and be much the wiser for it.

Bad news and (some very limited) good news out of Copenhagen

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:54:00 +0000

The UN Copenhagen climate change conference is over, the weary participants are reliving the highs (very few) and the lows (quite a few), there is an agreement to keep talking and negotiating, and President Obama announced a five-party agreement on some crucial issues.

There will be plenty of commentary over the coming weeks arguing about whether the conference was a bust, a last-minute success or a waste of time, or if it set the groundwork for the next stage of struggle.

All these positions have some validity. The conference did not produce a binding, mandatory agreement on controlling greenhouse gas emissions - so the main goal of the conference was a bust.

Obama did fly in and through last-minute negotiations help seal a deal between the U.S., China, India, Brazil and South Africa. This is an important step, though still far short of any mandatory emission controls or explicit commitments to significantly limit carbon dioxide emissions.

Even though this last-minute deal is very inadequate at addressing the root causes of global warming, it is important that there was some result - a total defeat of any agreement between any of the major players would have set back the struggle. It is a small, incremental step, with a long staircase of steps still ahead of the people of the world.

The conference was also a success in an educational sense, bringing the issue to the forefront of worldwide attention, bringing leaders of 160 countries to the table, highlighting proposals for real limits and real solutions, and also making clear the intensive obstacles to a serious agreement.

The conference will result in a new stage of struggle. Many small, less-developed nations will continue to demand a larger voice, wary because their voices and concerns were brushed aside or muted in the hopes of an international agreement that didn't materialize. The grassroots environmental movements will only grow, the evidence of human-caused global climate change will only accumulate faster, the impacts of climate change will only intensify. The arguments will continue to shift away from denial.

The difficulties of the Copenhagen conference are signals for more involvement by the peoples of the world and their organizations. Unfortunately, some will see it as an excuse to retreat from political action, when much more is called for.

The next major struggle will be in the U.S. Senate. The House has already passed a bill, the Waxman-Markey bill, and the Senate has the Boxer-Kerry bill before it, as well as a bipartisan effort headed by John Kerry and Lindsay Graham. Much like the results of Copenhagen, the result will be inadequate, but some success is crucial.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/planetfish/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Here comes the sun

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:54:00 +0000

"Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right."

So wrote the Beatles' George Harrison in 1969. It's not exactly a holiday carol, but it's good to sing right about now.

In the Beatles' England and all the Northern Hemisphere, the Earth tilts farthest away from the sun in "dark midwinter." The growing cold and dark are hard for humans to cope with. In earliest human society, survival through the winter was no sure thing, and wintertime starvation was common.

Then comes the Winter Solstice, Dec. 21, when we start to tilt back toward the sun. Here comes the sun! The promise of longer, warmer and better days ahead.

So, humans celebrate. A quick look at Wikipedia turns up scores of winter solstice celebrations, past and present, around the world, from Amaterasu, celebrating the return of the sun god in 7th century Japan, to Zagmuk, a 10-day festival among the Babylonians in ancient Mesopotamia.

Christmas and Hanukkah fit right into this tradition, along with their more recent companion Kwanzaa. For some they are deeply religious holidays. For some they represent rebirth and renewal. For many they are just fun, or a celebration of lights amidst the darkness, warmth amidst the cold.

As we look around the world at this solstice and holiday time, we see a lot of grief and hardship. Here in the U.S. and across the globe, people don't have enough to eat or die of easily curable or preventable diseases. In too many places, this season, the lives of children and families are shattered by violence and war, some of it propagated by our own country. Our own children lack adequate health care and schooling. Joblessness, home foreclosures and insecurity afflict our people and our communities.

But if this dark midwinter teaches us anything, it's that humans persevere. And not just persevere, but come together to struggle through the cold and dark, light the candles, plow the warm spring soil and reap the harvest of a new and brighter year.

In that spirit, we wish our readers happy holidays and a renewed spirit of comradeship in the struggle for a better world. Here comes the sun and we say it's all right.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsalgado/ / CC BY 2.0

Who’s to blame for city’s crisis?

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:27:00 +0000

DETROIT - This beleaguered city is in danger of running out of money. The city's accumulated budget deficit is said to be greater than $300 million. Now it is threatened with being placed under the financial management of a person appointed by the governor. But city officials, mayors and council members of recent years are not to blame for the City of Detroit's fiscal crisis.

We live in a private enterprise system. This means that private business leaders, not public officials, make the decisions that determine the ups and downs of our economy. Detroit's financial crisis is rooted in the problems of the city's auto-dependent economy.

The news media ignores this fact. Most recently, it has successfully promoted a big lie in much of the public's minds: that City Council members' alleged dishonesty and incompetence are the cause of the city's deficit. This finally had a significant effect in this November's election. The canard that the City Council is or was largely unfit caught on with more voters than in the past. The result was five new Council members, and a new mayor. But they are facing exactly the same problem as their predecessors. And so will any "financial manager."

Where should the money come from to fix Detroit's deficit? The federal government. I say that without any hesitation. If Wall Street could be bailed out to the tune of $11 trillion (as reported by the Financial Times several months ago; the amount is probably more than that by now), Detroit can be bailed out for $300 million or $400 million, or more.

Let me see if I can get the math precisely; check my decimal points. I get that $400 million is around one 20,000th of $11 trillion.

Uh, can you spare one 20,000th of what you gave the rich bankers? And you gave it to them, so we want it as a gift, not a loan. Bail out Detroit as Wall Street was bailed out!

Notice that the biggest boys in the private sector were more broke than Detroit, and they were bailed out by the mythically inefficient public sector, Big Gov'ment. Some of that federal money (that they gave the Wall Street banks) is our tax money, money from the people of Detroit.

On another aspect of this mess, the main adverse effect of an emergency financial manager in Detroit will be mass firing and wage and benefit reductions for Detroit city workers. If I might be allowed a little poetic license I'd channel former Mayor Coleman A. Young: Bump that! If they can give the motherscratchers who bankrupted Wall Street mega-bonuses, they can continue to pay basic wages and benefits to Detroit workers, who provide average Americans with services at least as important as financial services.

Following the logic of the Wall Street bonuses being handed out to those who bankrupted the banks, if our City Council were responsible for Detroit's deficit, all of its members should have been re-elected and given bonuses.

City worker jobs, government jobs, public jobs are real jobs. Detroiters need jobs especially right now, decent jobs with good benefits. Detroit workers losing jobs will add to the city's deficit because of lost taxes from income and property. It will, of course, put more Detroiters into economic dire straights.

Part of the big lie that the private sector is more efficient and competent than the public sector is that public jobs, Detroit city worker jobs are not "as worthy" or "legitimate" in some sense as private sector jobs.

Many categories of city workers are "bureaucrats" or paper-pushers or non-productive workers, the myth goes. This Reaganite story that "government is big and bad, and free enterprise is lean and mean" must be countered in the mass American consciousness. The "system threatening" bankruptcies of Wall Street and General Motors should put an end to the notion of private enterprise's superiority to public enterprise. The trouble is that the Press (oh ye, of Bill of Rights fame) is privatized.

Speaking of "privatized," a big portion of the City of Detroit's work is done in privatized contracts, a whole other can of worms by which a larger percentage of taxpayers' money goes to private profits rather to than workers' wages and benefits. Many of these contracting companies are outside of Detroit, so that this adds to deficit problems.

By the way, the State of Michigan got a big bailout from the feds for its deficit.

Detroit's deficit is also due to the decisions by the private sector to move so much of the former robust Detroit business sector out of the city over the last 50 years. This is another way in which the private sector is responsible for Detroit's plight. As I said, as this
is a private enterprise system, and Detroit public officials have essentially no power over this major trend. They have no authority to start city-owned enterprises that might substitute for the runaway plants, shops and businesses.

As evidenced by many of the letters to the editor in Detroit's newspapers, the city's deficit is aggravated by the many years of suburban and outstate racism directed at Detroit, and "Englerism" (former Republican Gov, John Engler passed 32 tax cuts giving tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy).

Since becoming majority Black due to white flight, Detroit has been the victim of a virtual blockade, something like that on Cuba or Haiti. As I discussed in an earlier article, Detroit is unforgivably Black to the powers-that-be, headed for impoverishment like Haiti.

Yes Detroit has corruption but no more than Wall Street or any city, state or the federal government.

Importantly, it is not city workers'or officials' corruption or incompetence that has led to the fiscal crisis, but the economic and financial incompetence and greed of banks and corporations.

Given the revenue streams that go straight to Wall Street from Detroit, it is not far off to characterize any emergency financial manager as a Wall Street financial dictator.

I say, "Hell no" to that!

Photo: PW/John Rummel

Forward to the phone banks!

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:58:00 +0000

I am weighing the Paul Krugman vs. Howard Dean approaches to what's left of health care reform, now that Joe Lieberman, the Blue Dogs, and the Republicans have gutted both the public option and expanded Medicare; now that only the mandated maximum 10 percent administrative costs constraint remains as a major handle by which government can pressure private or nonprofit (but not public) insurance companies over their charges for covering the uninsured.

What is left? (No pun intended ...)

1. Banning denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions.
2. Denying coverage because an illness exceeds a policy cap.
3. Coverage is mandated for all by law.
4. A large investment in pilot programs to test and evaluate cost cutting strategies.
5. (so far) A public option trigger by state with federal subsidy.

Whether the rich, or so-called "Cadillac" plans, will be taxed to pay for the federal subsidies (of both the uninsured and the insurance companies!) is not yet determined. But we know where hostage-taker Lieberman will stand on that! By the way, the "Cadillac" plans are mostly union plans criticized for providing first-dollar (or nearly) coverage. But Canadian public plans all provide nearly first-dollar coverage, and the plans are NOT "overused" and not a source of rising costs.

Howard Dean (and others) have proposed killing the bill and doing the pre-existing and benefit cap reforms through a budget reconciliation bill, which would not be subject to filibuster, and leaving universal coverage for another, better day. We are being needlessly robbed by the insurance companies in this deal, they argue. It's going to cost too much and may even generate a backlash if, as likely, working people have to lift even more cash out of their bare-cupboard stores of disposable income. They note as well that the mandated coverages do not include any mandated caps on premiums that the private insurance "market" will charge. Only political pressure from the public, and the supervision of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management - which maintains the existing Federal Employee Insurance Exchange - given expanded powers to manage the reformed one for all uninsured - stands between the insurance industry and the premiums they can charge the millions of newly mandated-insured customers.

Krugman (and my spouse) say "Ugh!" but we must do it for the above benefits, and support Krugman's argument from a historical perspective on the imperfections of previous major steps in legislation that turned out pretty good. Leaving millions uninsured in the spreading recession has arguably even greater costs than a deal which gives the insurance industry much more than it deserves.

I think Krugman gets my vote, even though my gut sides with Dean. I hate kissing Lieberman's behind. A fairly raw class struggle will surely ensue, partly because the universal mandate will compel everyone to line up with their interests INSIDE the new system instead of some being OUTSIDE.

Forward!! To the phone banks!! Before Lieberman and the "Dogs" demand even more!

Houston elects first openly gay mayor

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:29:00 +0000

HOUSTON - Who would have thunk it? Houston, the fourth largest U.S. city elected its first openly gay mayor on December 12. The election of Annise Parker to the office of Houston mayor is a major accomplishment for progressive forces in Houston and around the country.

Houston is often thought of as a reactionary, ultra conservative city and is the declared home of former President George Herbert Walker Bush. Although the right wing is very loud here, what most people don't know (including Houstonians) is that Houston is an amazing culturally and ethnically diverse city: whites are actually the minority.. Houston is over a third African American, about a third Latino.

Houston also has a strong union movement which is very progressive and is active in electoral politics. The city's three Congress people Al Green, Gene Green and Sheila Jackson Lee are at the forefront of the progressive struggle in the House of Representatives.

In the general election held on November 3, 2009, Parker faced a wide field of candidates ranging from the far right to the far left. Three center left candidates affiliated with the Democratic Party including Parker, Gene Locke and Peter Brown garnered over 78% of the vote in the general election. All three had the endorsement of the Harris County AFL-CIO. There was only one Republican candidate, Roy Morales, and he got about 20% of the vote in that contest.

It was interesting to read the Houston Chronicle analysis of the race which almost declared Morales the winner. Mayoral elections in Houston are officially non-partisan, but nearly everyone knows the candidates' party affiliations.

The December 12 run-off was between Parker and a former civil rights activist and attorney, Gene Locke. Both candidates had the endorsement of the Harris County AFL-CIO Central Labor Council. The Harris County AFL-CIO has an active labor-to-neighbor program that contacts union members and their families, urges them to vote and provides educational material on the candidates.

The run-off was a bitterly fought contest and some commentators noted that Locke allied himself in the end with big business interests who used anti-gay tactics. Parker got a helpful hand from the Stonewall Democrats, a national LGBT group, who called voters in a massive get-out-the-vote effort.

Obviously, Parker's tactics paid off while Locke's tactics missed the mark.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidortez/ / CC BY 2.0

Early lessons from 2009

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:41:00 +0000

The following is excerpted from a report to the Communist Party USA National Committee Nov. 13. To read the full report, go to www.cpusa.org.

A year ago, we said that the country was entering an era of democratic reform and that the same coalition that defeated the right in the 2008 elections would drive the process going forward.

By and large, we were on the mark. But it is also the case that after a year of real events, real struggles, and real clashes of real people some changes in our thinking are necessary.

To begin, the first year of the Obama administration was a sprint. The conditions of struggle were far more favorable than in the preceding eight years, to say the least. The mood was hopeful. And the political conversation and agenda on a range of issues was reframed, thanks in no small measure to the president.

The forms of struggle were many - marches, picket lines, town hall meetings, civil disobedience, strikes, demonstrations, lobbying, phone banking, online petitions, solidarity actions, informal conversations and organizing, and so on. Some actions were local, others statewide, and still others national.

Early on the struggle over the collapsing economy was atop the agenda and that has continued. But other issues entered the public domain as well, placed there by the Obama administration and by the popular movement - health care, nuclear weapons, Iraq, financial regulation, Guantanamo detainees, and climate change, to name a few. As a result, the space to take initiative, build broad unity, and organize for progressive change was considerably enlarged.

The fight was bitter. The opposition to the administration's policy gave no ground.

The legislative process turned into the main, but not the only, site of class and democratic struggles (notable were the plant takeover by workers at Chicago's Republic Windows and Doors, the Ford workers' rejection of concessionary contract, G-20 actions, the campaign to win Sonia Sotomayor's nomination, protests at the campuses in University of California system and the Chicago anti-bank protests.)

On both sides of every legislative issue, contending political blocs flexed their muscles.

In the House, the majority of Democrats pressed for an agenda that addressed people's needs. The caucuses - African American, Hispanic, Asian Pacific, Women's, and Progressive - and individuals like Raul Grijalva, Barbara Lee and others - distinguished themselves. In nearly every instance they found themselves a step ahead of other Democrats and the Obama administration. The Blue Dogs, on the other hand, were busy trying to rein in reform measures.

Senate Democrats, despite holding 58 seats, plus the support of Independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman, were a different kettle of fish. While clashing with Senate Republicans, they were less progressive than their counterparts in the House. And when combined with the rule that requires sixty votes to send legislation to the floor for deliberation and action, the Senate has been (and probably will continue to be) a drag on progressive change.

To make matters more difficult, corporate interests and their lobbyists poisoned the Congressional well in a thousand ways. Their ability to block or contain the legislative process goes way beyond simply owning a stable of congress people. So much so that columnist Paul Krugman wondered in early September if the country was becoming ungovernable. He is both right and wrong - right about the difficulty of governing as long as corporations dominate and infest our public institutions, but wrong about the impossibility of changing this.

Outside of Washington, the loose people's coalition that elected the president regrouped and redirected its energies to the legislative process.

At the core of this loose coalition are the main organizations of the working class, African American, Mexican American, and other racially and nationally oppressed peoples, women and youth.
In addition, seniors, immigrants, and many other social movements and organizations are in the mix.
The labor movement is a particularly active, clear and unifying voice, and continues to emerge through dint of effort, organization, and resources as a leader of this broader coalition.

To no one's surprise, the right wing hasn't retired from politics. To the contrary, these "un-American" extremists also regrouped and came out fighting the president's agenda, hoping to pave the way for the Republicans' return to power.

With an African American in the White House, a Latina on the Supreme Court, the presence and acceptance of gay and secular sensibilities in the culture, continued challenges to patriarchal gender roles, and an economy that is laying waste to the position of the male as breadwinner, right-wing extremists in Congress and elsewhere are churning out racist, misogynist, homophobic, and anti-government appeals to white working people and especially white males. Limbaugh, Hannity and other talk show hosts are howling to whoever will listen, "Take back America."

Pat Buchanan, echoing the same theme, wrote, "America was once their [white people's] country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right."

This drivel is racist, anti-working class and anti-democratic. It is an insult to every fair-minded white person, a falsification of history, and an appeal to division along the color line. It carries the foul odor of fascism.

Our country was built on the backs of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic working class and a system of slave labor that remained unchallenged for nearly three centuries. What is more, economic crises have a sharper impact on minority (and immigrant) communities. They are the first to "lose" their jobs, homes, living standards, rights, voice, and dignity.

This propaganda barrage is not new. But it is getting louder and ugly, evoking irrational and dangerous reactions from too many people. And its aim, though never stated, is to conceal the commonality of interests that organically glue together the multi-racial, multi-national, male-female, young-old, skilled-unskilled, white collar-blue collar, service-industrial, and immigrant-native born working class and its strategic allies.

I'm not suggesting that fascism is around the corner or that the majority of the American people embrace these backward sentiments. Other trends and public expressions go in the opposite direction, the most obvious example being the changes in consciousness that made possible the election of our first African American president.

What I am saying is that a progressive turn in our nation's politics requires an intensified and broader struggle against racism, male supremacy and other forms of division.

The struggles for racial and gender equality are at the core of the broader democratic struggle. A movement that is fractured along those lines will be unable to win jobs and other democratic reforms.

If unchallenged racism and male supremacy (along with other divisive ideologies and practices) will disfigure and paralyze the people's coalition. If embraced, they will push the country in a disastrous direction.

Sam Webb, swebb@cpusa.org, is national chairman of the Communist Party USA.

Motorcycle diary: deep thoughts from the guy who delivers your mail

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:06:00 +0000

"Roll me away, baby." The words of Motor City boy Bob Seger played through my head as we blasted across U.S. Highway 2 west on our grandest adventure yet.

That song was written about that road. It's funny how you can hear a song a million times and never catch the story. My ol' man had to explain the song to me 12 years ago when he traversed the same trail that Madame Dick (otherwise known as my wife, Jackie) and I were now taking to Alaska and back: "Play that song when you're heading west and listen to it a dozen times if you have to." So all the way out west, till Highway 2 ended in northern Idaho, I played that blasted track over and over. It became the soundtrack for our odyssey, and I left a trail of tears behind on the asphalt every time I heard those haunting words, "Felt so good to me, finally feelin' free." I was in a better spot than that feller in the song; my girl was committed to this trip from the start and she never missed her home. We stood together staring out at the Great Divide. And this time, we got it right.

It was an epic journey worthy of a grand song to accompany our road-worn asses. Jackie and I began traveling the country together on a motorcycle in the summer of 2002 and, in the course of eight summers, we have now been in all 50 states. This summer's trip was our crowning achievement. We live in a majestic, bountiful, expansive, noble, regal, and splendiferous land y'all! The only way to understand "America the Beautiful" is to travel across it. Spend your time and money to see our great country. You will never regret it. If you heed my words, the next time you hear "Roll Me Away" you too may leave a few tears along Highway 2. I promise I won't tell anybody.

I turned 50 years old on that trip. Alaska turned 50 as well in 2009, and it was our 50th state to visit. Instant karma finally got me, and I did a lot of thinkin' as I tore down those 6,531 miles to get back home to Michigan. I thought about how great America, my country 'tis of thee, really is. I consider myself an American patriot and I fly my flag from my porch every day. My mailman can attest to that: the flag hangs right over my mailbox. I am an Eagle Scout, and nothing riles me more than seeing our flag in disrepair or disuse. But what I see going on today in our country, under the guise of "patriotism," makes me feel ashamed and disgusted.

After leaving Skagway, Alaska, my wife and I traveled north to the Yukon and then began heading southeast on the Alaskan Highway to get back home. We spent eight days in Canada, our glorious neighbor to the north. Eight days of buying gasoline, motel rooms, food, and (forgive me Mom), lots of beer. We paid double sales taxes (national and provincial) to the tune of around 12 percent per transaction. Cigarettes were about 11 bucks a pack and beer around $10 for a six-pack. I never complained - I knew I was subsidizing their vision of national security. As a tourist, I was expected to cough up my fair share for their country's promise to every Canadian: national health care for all.

Most Americans find this outlandish. To travel through Canada, why should I be expected to fund their Socialist system of health care for all? I've been to told to keep all my receipts so I can be reimbursed for all the sales taxes I've paid. I really found it to be a privilege to spend eight days in a country so enlightened. I don't know if I'll go to the trouble to ask for my money back. I asked a few Canadians along the way what they thought about their health care system, and I always got the same quizzical look. They really didn't comprehend the question. "Are you asking me if I like my doctor? We only have one doctor in this town of 500 people." "No, I'm asking if you mind paying taxes so that everyone has health insurance," I would say to clarify my line of query. "What kind of silly question is that!" was the standard reply. "I feel sorry for you in the States," one young lady told me. "We don't mind paying the taxes because if something happens to us, we don't have to worry about the hospital bill." I was as puzzled by their replies as they were by my questions.

So for eight days we rode through Canada. I didn't see people dying in the streets, no crippled folks on crutches lined up in front of hospitals, or euthanasia clinics to finish off the old and sickly. In Detroit, only a river separates us from this foreign land. And yet, our frame of reference as Americans is so different from our Canadian friends. We see this health care argument as a nation of Yo-Yos: You're On Your Own. We see this argument for reform as conservative versus liberal, capitalism versus socialism. In other countries, including Canada, they see it as a pragmatic approach to solving a problem. In Canada, as well as Britain, there are conservatives and liberals. Both sides, though, are united in the concept of health care for all through government programs. Why are we in America so divided on this?

My coworkers and I, as letter carriers, are examples of what I consider socialism in its most pragmatic terms. We are a public service, connecting with every citizen six days a week in order for all to have an equal access to a national line of communication. That is what we do for a living. We are all involved in a socialist program that we all take for granted. We work for a government agency that guarantees the same dollar amount for postage, 44 cents, to deliver a message to any American regardless of where they live, how much money they make, or who they vote for. A postal stamp is our national standard to be equally connected to any American.

I like to call that pragmatic socialism in action. Such things as Social Security, Medicare, the VA program, the interstate highway system, even the War Department (excuse me, the Department of Defense - my bad!) are government programs funded by tax dollars. The very people screaming for government to get out of their lives - the so called "teabaggers" - would not give up these precious programs. One of these enraged citizens at a recent town hall meeting even hollered at a news camera, "Keep the government's hands off my Social Security and Medicare!" Every one of those folks railing against the government's role in health care reform should do one thing tomorrow: forfeit their Medicare and Social Security benefits. Then I might begin to take them more seriously.

We, as letter carriers, should be extolling the virtues of how well a government service can work. What we do every day is a shining example of pragmatic socialism at work. Let us not choke on the "S" word. Remember what your mother said: "Words can never hurt you." We all live in what is called a mixed economy with capitalism and socialism both being parts of our everyday life. Unfettered capitalism can cause great harm to the working class when only money talks and workers are made to walk. The U.S. government is the only institution big enough to handle certain problems, and I believe health care reform is one of them. We have proven over the decades that universal mail service, provided by government workers, is a solid bedrock of American life. Let us do the same for the millions of uninsured Americans that we deliver the mail to each and every day.

John "Cementhead" Dick is an active member of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 3126, Royal Oak, Mich.

Photo: John and Jackie Dick in front of the Harley dealership in Skagway, Alaska. (Courtesy of John Dick)

George Clooney and we go flying

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:27:00 +0000

"Up In The Air"

Directed by Jason Reitman

2009, R, 109 min.

Our lives are "up in the air." We're uncertain about clinging to our jobs, and over 17 million of us are already dangling outside the corporate windows. Not just our jobs but our relationships, too, are uncertain. Most relationships aren't heading for marriage, and many, if not most, marriages are headed for divorce. Even those with stable marriages and jobs don't have any idea what will happen next. We're up in the air.

George Clooney's character is up in the air, but by choice. He likes airline travel, and doesn't particularly care for anybody in particular. He gives seminars on getting rid of relationship "baggage." His main job is as a traveling hatchet man. He fires people for a living. He doesn't think much about them, nor about much of anything except piling up a record number of American Airlines "Advantage Miles."

American Airlines should have gotten credit as the third lead in the movie. Its logo appears at least fourteen times, while its corporate partners in the hotel and car rental industry get three or four product placements each. But product placement, too, is a sign of our alienated times.

We loved the movie and talked about it all the way home. We skinned back layer after layer of universal meaning and cogent commentary.

While the movie might be taken as light commentary, or more likely as extremely dark comedy, it's actually a deep study of a very complicated 21st century kind of person. And about us, dangling, up in the air!

Afghanistan, PTSD and soldiers, clean water for all and other letters to the editor

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:17:00 +0000

Afghanistan

I like many others watched the presidential address last night knowing what was going to happen and so hoping I was wrong. While I believe this was a very difficult decision obviously made by a president who really would have been far happier not being placed in the position he was in, I ultimately believe it was the wrong one. Yes, he had all of the intelligence and the generals, along with Congress and an assortment of CIA, NSA reports that the rest of us don't have, but I lived thru Viet Nam and have memories of a never-ending death tally on the nightly news. I remember many presidential speeches and ultimately the fall of Saigon with the air lifts of thousands of little children who were left behind by their GI fathers. We still have thousands of vets wandering the streets from that long gone war. How many more deaths and permanently physically and emotionally scared men and woman is it going to take before we realize we cannot "save" the world? When are we going to focus on our people and needs right here at home?

Sheila Malone

Via e-mail

Investigation needed

The following is an abridged version of an open letter to Ft. Drum Commander Major General James Terry urging investigation of mental health policies.

I'm certain that you're aware of the investigative report that was prepared in the aftermath of Sgt. John Russell's alleged killing of five soldiers, including two therapists, at Camp Liberty in Iraq on May 11, 2009. For me, the report's most significant finding was, "there was no clear procedure or established training guidelines for managing soldiers identified as 'at risk' for suicide." Witness reports in the study describe Sgt. Russell as paranoid and angry in days before the shooting and say that his behavior was "deteriorating."

We know of at least three incidents [murders and suicides] in the last seven months, which I believe document the need for a similar investigation. It wouldn't surprise me if there are additional incidents which have not yet been made public.

In addition, Ft. Drum soldier Justin Hunter has been apprehended and arraigned for two counts of second degree murder, Dec. 4.

Hunter's wife Emily told the Associated Press that he had returned from a combat tour of Afghanistan a "changed man," plagued by flashbacks, stress and sleeplessness. "He saw his best friend get blown to pieces and he tried to put him back together. He was never right after that," she told reporters. She added that she'd recently gone to the hospital twice after her husband had injured her arm and thumb. The accused's mother Judy commented; "In my heart of heart, I think he snapped."

General Terry, I am concerned that the incidents outlined above reveal a disturbing pattern of malfeasance and/or negligence toward mentally stressed soldiers at Ft. Drum. My greatest fear is that additional deaths or injuries may occur if corrective action isn't taken. I urge you to order an independent investigation that will fully disclose administrative failures within Ft. Drum's mental health system.

Tod Ensign

New York NY

Tod Ensign is an attorney and director of Citizen Soldier.

Clean water for all!

The imbibing of drinking water around the Third World that is not potable and often even grossly dirty kills more people then HIV, TB and malaria combined!

Why do we let that persist? We spend lots of money on quinine for malaria, and AIDS drugs are being allocated, albeit in inadequate quantities, to Third World locations. But just about nothing is being done to correct the contaminated water problems. Why?

Profits would still be made by those who turn out filters and other cleansing machinery, and to supply the people to purify fresh water supplies, especially in places where basic water sources are certainly adequate.

The answer is horribly shameful. To send out drug supplies for diseases places the alleged blame on the viruses, parasites and bacteria, etc. that cause the diseases. But to face up to the drinking water dearth is to place the blame where it belongs-on the industrially-developed world's exploitation of those countries in need. Where the developed world has raped and pillaged those undeveloped nations for centuries, leaving them without the resources that their natural wealth easily provides, surely enough to correct the dirty water needs.

Don Sloan

New York NY

No lone gunman

A call-in sports show, in an attempt to stimulate calls the other day, asked listeners "What three persons, alive or dead, would you like to have dinner with?"

The first caller picked, "Lee Harvey Oswald." as his first choice. Interesting.

"Why Oswald?" he was asked. "I would like to know what went on regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy," responded the caller.

That got me to thinking about my own research during this 46th anniversary of that tragic day in November and the several Americans, among others, who guided me to "what really went on," thus proving further insight into the nefarious deeds of our country beneath the flag-waving, the star spangled banner, God Bless America, and the "lone gunman."

First and foremost, the late Jim Garrison whose investigation as district attorney of New Orleans revealed more about a conspiracy than anyone else, notwithstanding harassment by the government, spies planted in his office and ridicule by a subservient press. His book, "On the Trail of the Assassins."

Mark Lane, attorney, who was the first to raise serious doubts about Oswald's guilt, within the first month after the shots rang out in Dallas that day. He subsequently authored "Rush to Judgment."

Local attorney Vincent Salandria and Richard E. Sprague, former assistant district attorney, uncovered gaping holes in the Warren Commission's findings that it was Oswald.

Mort Sahl, comedian, who zapped the official Washington line in his own inimitable style.

Local Temple Professor Joan Mellen for her 2005 book, "A Farewell to Justice."

And last but not least to Arlen Specter. Yes, the same opportunistic senator now trying to convince us all that he really is a Democrat. That makes about as much sense as his inane single-bullet theory in 1964 that it was "a lone gunman," i.e. Oswald. Poor Arlen. His vapid theory said more about a government cover-up, not to say Specter's I.Q.

Finally, for those of you who were close to adult-hood in 1963. Remember that the government sealed the files, making sure we would not know the truth about Oswald's secret connection to the government until the year 2039.....30 years from now.

See you then.

Lawrence Geller

Philadelphia PA

How I will be evaluating the Senate health care compromise

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:11:00 +0000

If the expression on "Blue Dog" Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's face is any indication, Majority Leader Harry Reid may have scored a major victory in the rumored compromise that hopefully will secure the needed 60 votes for health care reform. She looked whipped, like she had just been a guest at a vampire banquet.

While weakly expressing satisfaction at disposing of the "public option," she then had to confess the sacrifice: making age 55 and over eligible for Medicare, making Medicaid open to all comers under 300 percent of poverty, and mandating that 90 percent of all coverage include less than 10 percent administrative costs. Plus retaining essential reform provisions like coverage of pre-existing conditions, and loss of coverage due to caps.

Many details, and questions await the Congressional Budget Office cost-scoring of the compromise. The Blue Dogs appeared to have won the official "public option" battle at the price - it seems - of an even bigger public coverage sector than the House version would have provided, and even more insurance company controls. The private hospitals and wealthiest doctor groups are protesting the huge potential Medicare expansion because they say it is "under-reimbursing," compared to private insurance - which only shows that they know that Medicare, despite itself needing many reforms, is in fact the most efficient and most cost-effective large-scale insurance administration.

This is the time in contract negotiations when we need to count the costs and benefits - the real money on the table - closely, and be careful of abstractions. When the details are released, we should be able to calculate the real expansion of Medicare and Medicaid likely to occur and its impact on workers; the real impact of a 10 percent admin cap, and of the new private and nonprofit exchange proposed for all other uninsured workers, including its management by the U.S. Office of Personnel management; the remaining number of uninsured, including its impact on undocumented workers. Also important, and still undisclosed, are any agreements on how the coverage will be financed.

Am I covered? Who pays? - the two questions every competent local union president or chief steward I ever knew always dug into!

It's important to be wary of "absolute principles" that can cloud your ability to count the real money and benefits in play in negotiations.

I once worked with UE Local 258 in Windsor, Vt., on a strike that was provoked by a company demand to take back a full retirement at 62 provision. Such a provision had been hard-fought and hard-won by the local in previous contracts. It gave machine shop workers a real incentive to retire at 62 without any early retirement penalty. Defending it was a principle on which some local officers had campaigned for bargaining committee leadership.

Company intransigence on this, although they did not tell us this until afterwards, was due to their having changed their pension insurance to a carrier that did not support the 62 retirement benefit. Ill will grew; negotiations reached an impasse; mediation failed; a strike ensued.

Meetings with the company continued during the strike. Eight weeks into the strike the inevitable midnight meeting to avoid mass scabs, or to prevent strikers from burning the mill down, or both, took place. The company made a tentative offer to up the regular, age 65 pension pay to a point where, even with an early retirement penalty, the age 62 retirees would STILL get a 15 percent raise, even though "full retirement at 62" would be removed from the contract. The most committed to "principle" resisted the deal. But the local president said: "So you are willing to explain to the members, who are walking the line, to keep their families on strike without income in order to fight for a 15 percent age 62 retirement cutback to full retirement at 62?"

I will be thinking of that local president - Douglas Whitcomb - when the details of the Senate compromise are released.

New Deal 2.0

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:40:00 +0000

There are millions of unemployed ready to go to work today. The only missing element is someone to hire them.

Since private industry isn't hiring, where will jobs come from? What did the country do during the Great Depression?

In the 1930s the New Deal put construction workers on the job building infrastructure we have used ever since. Much of that network is at the end of its life, so let's do it again, but this time with "green" planning built in.

In the 1930s artists were unemployed. The New Deal hired them and they gave us the fantastic murals, mosaics and monuments in our public places. We could use a lot more of them.

Planting all those trees in our national forests and parks, and building all those lodges, cabins and trail shelters in state and national parks and elsewhere was a good idea. Only thing is, we need more of them.

Under the New Deal the Federal Writers Project subsidized play and book writing and all kinds of other literary pursuits. Advertising people and writers of all kinds are out of work today.

In the 1930s white collar workers with college degrees were unemployed. The New Deal hired many of them into the regulatory bodies it set up to control the worst excesses of capitalism and to regulate private industry. Hiring some of our college graduates to do this again, today, seems like a worthwhile idea. It certainly beats sending them to Wall Street where they work on devising methods that ruin both the economy and eventually, their own livelihoods.

But to win the old New Deal, it took a fight. It's going to take the same thing to win a new New Green Deal.

Photo: National Archives http://www.flickr.com/photos/32912172@N00/ / CC BY 2.0

Below is an abridged caption and short history of the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps, click here for the full history.

When FDR took office, he immediately commenced a massive revitalization of the nation's economy. In response to the depression that hung over the nation in the early 1930s, President Roosevelt created many programs designed to put Americans back to work.

In his first 100 days in office, President Roosevelt approved several measures as part of his "New Deal," including the Emergency Conservation Work Act (ECW), better known as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). With that action, he brought together the nation's young men and the land in an effort to save them both. Roosevelt proposed to recruit thousands of unemployed young men, enlist them in a peacetime army, and send them to battle the erosion and destruction of the nation's natural resources.

The CCC, also known as Roosevelt's Tree Army, was credited with renewing the nation's decimated forests by planting an estimated three billion trees from 1933 to 1942. This was crucial, especially in states affected by the Dust Bowl, where reforestation was necessary to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and hold the soil in place. So far reaching was the CCC's reforestation program that it was responsible for more than half the reforestation, public and private, accomplish in the nation's history.

Eligibility requirements for the CCC carried several simple stipulations. Congress required U.S. citizenship only. Other standards were set by the ECW. Sound physical fitness was mandatory because of the hard physical labor required. Men had to be unemployed, unmarried, and between the ages of 18 and 26, although the rules were eventually relaxed for war veterans. Enlistment was for a duration of six months, although many reenlisted after their alloted time was up.

Problems were confronted quickly. The bulk of the nation's young and unemployed youth were concentrated in the East, while most of the work projects were in the western parts of the country. The War Department mobilized the nation's transportation system to move thousands of enrollees from induction centers to work camps. The Agriculture and Interior departments were responsible for planning and organizing work to be performed in every state. The Department of Labor was responsible for the selection and enrollment of applicants. The National Director of the ECW was Robert Fechner, a union vice president chosen personally by President Roosevelt.

Young men flocked to enroll. Many politicians believed that the CCC was largely responsible for a 55 percent reduction in crimes committed by the young men of that day. Men were paid $30 a month, with mandatory $25 allotment checks sent to families of the men, which made life a little easier for people at home.

Camps were set up in all states, as well as in Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Enrollment peaked at the end of 1935, when there were 500,000 men located in 2,600 camps in operation in all states. California alone had more than 150 camps. The greatest concentration of CCC personnel was in the Sixth Civilian Conservation Corps District of the First Corps Area, in the Winooski River Valley of Vermont, in December 1933. Enlisted personnel and supervisors totaled more than 5,300 and occupied four large camps.

The program enjoyed great public support. Once the first camps were established and the CCC became better known, they became accepted and even sought after. The CCC camps stimulated regional economies and provided communities with improvements in forest activity, flood control, fire protection, and overall community safety.

Although policy prohibited discrimination, blacks and other minorities encountered numerous difficulties in the CCC. In the early years of the program, some camps were integrated. By 1935, however, there was, in the words of CCC director Fechner, a "complete segregation of colored and white enrollees," but "segregation is not discrimination." At its peak, more than 250,000 African Americans were enrolled in nearly 150 all-black CCC companies.

An important modification became necessary early in 1933. It extended enlistment coverage to about 14,000 American Indians whose economic circumstances were deplorable and had mostly been ignored. Before the CCC was terminated, more than 80,000 Native Americans were paid to help reclaim the land that had once been theirs.

In addition, in May 1933, the president authorized the enrollment of about 25,000 veterans of the Spanish American War and World War I, with no age or marital restrictions. This made it possible for more than 250,000 veterans to rebuild lives disrupted by earlier service to their country.

In June 1933, the ECW decided that men in CCC camps could be given the opportunity of vocational training and additional education. Educational programs were developed that varied considerably from camp to camp, both in efficiency and results. More than 90 percent of all enrollees participated in some facet of the educational program. Throughout the CCC, more than 40,000 illiterate men were taught to read and write.

By 1942, there was hardly a state that could not boast of permanent projects left as markers by the CCC. The CCC worked on improving millions of acres of federal and state lands, as well as parks. New roads were built, telephone lines strung, and trees planted.

CCC projects included:

# more than 3,470 fire towers erected;
# 97,000 miles of fire roads built;
# 4,235,000 man-days devoted to fighting fires;
# more than 3 billion trees planted;
# 7,153,000 man days expended on protecting the natural habitats of wildlife; 83 camps in 15 Western states assigned 45 projects of that nature;
# 46 camps assigned to work under the direction of the U.S. Bureau of Agriculture Engineering;
# more than 84,400,000 acres of good agricultural land receive manmade drainage systems; Indian enrollees do much of that work;
# 1,240,000 man-days of emergency work completed during floods of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys;
# disease and insect control;
# forest improvement - timber stand inventories, surveying, and reforestation;
# forest recreation development - campgrounds built, complete with picnic shelters, swimming pools, fireplaces, and restrooms.

In addition, 500 camps were under the control of the Soil Conservation Service. The primary work of those camps was erosion control. The CCC also made outstanding contributions to the development of recreational facilities in national, state, county, and metropolitan parks. By design, the CCC worked on projects that were independent of other public relief programs. Although other federal agencies, such as the National Park Service and Soil Conservation Service contributed, the U.S. Forest Service administered more than 50 percent of all public work projects for the CCC.

Residents of southern Indiana will always remember the extraordinary work of the CCC during the flood of the Ohio River in 1937. The combined strength of the camps in the area saved lives as well as property. The CCC also was involved in other natural disasters, including a hurricane in New England in 1938, floods in Vermont and New York, and blizzards in Utah.

The Civilian Conservation Corps was one of the most successful New Deal programs of the Great Depression. It existed for fewer than 10 years, but left a legacy of strong, handsome roads, bridges, and buildings throughout the United States. Between 1933 and 1941, more than 3,000,000 men served in the CCC.

The effects of service in the CCC were felt for years, even decades, afterwards. Following the depression, when the job market picked up, businessmen indicated a preference for hiring a man who had been in the CCC, and the reason was simple. Employers believed that anyone who had been in the CCC would know what a full day's work meant, and how to carry out orders in a disciplined way.

Today, many of the remaining physical features the CCC built have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A new era

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:29:00 +0000

This issue marks the second-to-the-last 12-page newsprint edition of the People's World/Mundo Popular for 2009 - and for the immediate future. Next week's issue, dated Dec. 19, 2009 - Jan. 1, 2010, will be the last.

It's a bittersweet time, for there are a number of us still around who love the kind of feel and accessibility that a traditional newspaper offers. We like to turn the pages, skim the headlines, and flip to our favorite section. We like to roll it up and put it in our pocket, or leave it on the train in hopes that it will attract another person in the way it has attracted us.

But there is a whole other generation that has never fully utilized the newsprint delivery method. This under-40 generation gets its information from television (most notably Jon Stewart's cable comedy show), Facebook and the Internet - often via their cell phones. In other words, digital technology.

Imagine if this technology had been around in 1917. John Reed and Louise Bryant would have been writing about the Russian Revolution on a blog called: 10 Days That Shook the World. People around the world would have read their dispatches through their laptops, cell phones or even game systems. Reed's writings would have come with video, audio and photographic slideshows. The blog would have linked up with other blogs around the world, and with a few clicks you could have gone right to Vladimir Lenin's dispatches in Russian. Then with a few other clicks, you would have had an approximate translation in your mother tongue.

They didn't have this new technology, but we do. It presents all newspapers with many challenges. The challenge for the People's World/Mundo Popular is how to deploy our limited resources to fully take advantage of this new age and the potential it represents.

Since May 1, peoples world.org has been publishing daily, a tremendous breakthrough in re-establishing the Marxist, working-class daily press. In September, peoplesworld.org launched its new and highly improved website. And in January, when all of our modest human and financial resources will be focused on this new technology, peoples world.org will be in a position to make further breakthroughs and growth.

You can do three things to help:

Make peoplesworld.org or mundopopular.org your home page.
Circulate our content through Facebook, e-mail lists, social bookmark sites or with our downloadable weekly PDF edition.

New year, 2010, promises to be full of the good fight for economic and social justice, and the People's World/Mundo Popular will be right in the thick of things, as we have for the last 85-plus years.