People Before Profit blog

Obstructing labor

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:30:00 +0000

Senate Republicans and their Chamber of Commerce friends have drawn a battle line on President Obama’s choice for secretary of labor, Rep. Hilda Solis, delaying her confirmation in an effort to start a fight over the Employee Free Choice Act.

Solis, whose parents were union members, is the first Latina to be nominated to the post. She is seen as a strong supporter of workers’ rights.

Republicans and big business CEOs are anxious to block any expansion of union and worker rights. The Employee Free Choice Act, backed by Obama and the number one priority of the labor movement, would make it easier for workers to form unions by providing the option of a majority signing union cards, and would increase penalties for companies who break the law. It would essentially de-fang employers who currently are able to intimidate, coerce and otherwise prevent their workers from getting a union.

No wonder Republicans — the boss’s best friends — are trying to intimidate Solis, and Obama, on this vital legislation.

The Chamber of Commerce has called it “Armageddon.”

And Bernie Marcus, founder and former CEO of Home Depot (the corporation that just announced 7,000 job cuts) called it “the demise of civilization.”

That was on an October conference call hosted by Bank of America, just three days after it got $25 billion — no strings attached — courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. Sam Stein of The Huffington Post got a recording of the call, in which representatives from big corporations (including AIG, an $85 billion taxpayer-bailed-out mega-business) were pushed to donate to anti-Employee-Free-Choice-Act politicians. That campaign failed as many of the anti-union politicians lost their seats, like former Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina.

But that isn’t stopping a renewed big business campaign to undermine the new administration’s ability to expand worker rights and help a struggling economy.

Economists say more union organizing will help recovery efforts by increasing wages and therefore consumer buying power and production.

With the expanded Democratic majority, Solis is expected to be confirmed. But it can’t be taken for granted. Contact your senators. Write letters to the editor. Join the Facebook Solis support groups. And educate others on why the Employee Free Choice Act is good for America.

An extraordinary Black History Month

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:27:00 +0000

African American History Month is celebrated every February. It is always an important time to not only look back at how a courageous people made great strides towards freedom but also think about how to advance that struggle to new heights.

The election of Barack Obama, our first African American president, marks this year’s celebration as a new milestone in the upward progress of a people long oppressed.

As in the fight against slavery and Jim Crow, this was a victory for all people, of all races and nationalities. It showed how the fight against racism in general and the fight for African American equality in particular can move democracy forward for all.

But as Obama has said, the election victory is not the change we seek but the opportunity to fight for real change. And that applies to the systemic inequities African Americans, Latinos and others face because of race. The change we seek is to end racist inequities whether in health, housing, education or jobs, and to guarantee peace and economic and social justice for all. As Tommy Dennis, a former business manager of this newspaper and autoworker from Detroit, used to say, “There isn’t anything Black people want that white people don’t need.”

The hard economic times call for bold government intervention to remake our cities and rural

areas devastated by three decades of a right-wing racist, corporate offensive. They call for public ownership of banks to guarantee that they are run to benefit the public and to help cheated homeowners who are losing their homes or being evicted en masse.

This crisis must be met by government action on the scale of the New Deal and the Marshall Plan, with strong affirmative action provisions. For the 3 million to 4 million new jobs created if Obama’s recovery package passes, there need to be guarantees that the hardest-hit communities will benefit. In some African American and Latino communities jobless rates have been as high as 50 percent for years.

The nearly 2 million people who weathered the frigid temperatures to witness the inauguration of the first Black president on Jan. 20 showed that the mass movement for positive change continues.

Let this African American History Month help celebrate the accomplishments and advance the tremendous possibilities for change.

History is (still) counting on us a letter to friends

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:13:00 +0000

On Nov. 3, 2004 – the day following George W. Bush’s re-election as president – I wrote a letter to some of my closest friends and comrades. The tone of that letter was quite somber, reflecting the great sadness that we all felt that our months of campaign efforts and years of struggle against the destructive policies of the Bush administration had not resulted in reversing the terrible course our nation was on. In that time of depressed spirits and dashed hopes, I expressed the disbelief we were all left with as we pondered how the forces of ignorance and fear had once again succeeded in extinguishing truth and deceiving millions of people into voting against their own interests.

For all the honest and sincere efforts of John Kerry and John Edwards in that campaign, I think we all knew that the primary thing motivating us to continue knocking on doors, registering voters, and making phone calls day after day was not a dedication to a necessarily inspiring vision of the future or bold leadership. Ours was a negative motivation. We were engaged in a fight to stop policies of war abroad and destruction of all the past social achievements at home. The clearest expression of this was the popular “Anybody But Bush” slogan. We all knew what were AGAINST.

In 2008, we had something to be FOR. Tomorrow, Jan. 20, Barack Obama will take the oath of office to become President of the United States of America. All of us have seen the news coverage for months now and we know the historic significance of his victory: the first African American president, the first Democrat with control of both houses of Congress since the early 1990s, the son of an immigrant from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, an inspiration that is prompting a new generation of youth to service and political awareness, and so many more things. While expectations of what Obama will accomplish are soaring to the heavens, I think we can be confident that the combination of his leadership and the struggles that all of us participate in on the ground will bring massive change to our political and social landscape. The first tasks for the new president will of course be consumed with reversing the destruction of the past eight (or perhaps thirty) years of ultra-right domination, from Guantanamo and the war in Iraq to the immediate economic crisis. But in the years ahead, I am hopeful that great social and economic reforms are on the way which will fundamentally transform the lives of the people of our nation.

Though many make the comparison, the situation today is not exactly like 1932 when the greatest American president (in my opinion), Franklin D. Roosevelt, came into office. But like the United States did at that time, we too find ourselves in a dark period of economic uncertainty and we face great challenges ahead. Now, just as then, we have a leader and a movement that has grown from among the people which together can begin making those first steps toward that better America we all believe is not only possible, but necessary.

But beyond the historic significance of tomorrow’s inauguration, I’m certain that for many of us, the victory of 2008 was also a personal vindication. It was the confirmation that all our efforts to change the country we love were not in vain. It justified the countless marches and rallies we attended, the articles and letters to the editor we wrote, the pamphlets we handed out. It showed the power of political commitment and conscientious struggle. Within the space of barely five years, we went from being the tiny minority who faced scorn in the streets for opposing Bush’s war plans or his attacks on social security, to being part of a truly mass movement that has altered the direction of this country forever. This victory has given me a renewed confidence in the possibility of progress in the United States. Who would have thought the situation would change so drastically in such a short time? Can any of us doubt ourselves or ever ask again whether the work we do is worth it? I don’t think we can. We have seen what millions of people can accomplish when they are united behind a vision of a better world. This is exactly the kind of thing we have spent years hoping for. Now we have to seize the opportunity.

The end of the Bush Era represents the conclusion of not only a failed presidency, but also the failed dual ideologies of neoconservatism and neoliberalism. We stand on the eve of a presidency that holds more promise than perhaps any before it. But it will fall to all of us, those who count ourselves among the ranks of the politically active to devote our abilities and efforts to organizing the forces that will make it possible to fulfill that promise. Just as I said in 2004 that our efforts were not really about John Kerry or George Bush, that remains true today. Obama is a truly inspiring political figure, but it is the vision of a better future that must continue to drive us. We must continue to be motivated by the certainty that acting together we can create a world that is more just, more humane, more equitable, and more cooperative. A world where education, jobs, and healthcare are rights, not privileges. A world where people come before profits and where negotiation is valued over the use of force.

Tonight, I can truly say that I am proud to be an American again. I hope all of you can say the same. Just as there was four years ago, there is great work ahead of us, but the nature of the struggle has qualitatively changed. We no longer have to be solely on the defensive. Now, we have to make our dreams become a reality. We have a world to win.

The future begins today.

C.J. Atkins is a graduate school student in economics.

A day to remember: The inauguration of the 44th President of the United States of America

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:36:00 +0000

It was a day to remember.

The two million people, who showed up in Washington on Jan. 20, constituted a most important demonstration of the 21st century and symbolized the start of a new era in our country and perhaps the world.

People came in record numbers, not to protest, but to celebrate. They came as families: grandparents’ with deep creases lining their faces; children and teenagers as excited as they were bundled up, prepared for the freezing temperatures; moms and dads; young couples hugging and smiling; Black women wearing mink coats donning their finest for history. People arrived with canes and in wheelchairs, waiting outside for hours to be part of a day to remember.

They came remembering those who came before and sacrificed, in particular the heroes and heroines of the civil rights movement, from Martin Luther King to Dorothy Height to John Lewis.

It was indeed a special day for African Americans. Pride mixed with tears, remembering their own lives, struggles and those of foremothers and fathers – a collective history and struggle. “I was at 1963 Washington march,” many said to their grandchildren, handing down to the next generation that their struggle – all struggle for freedom – was not in vain. Progress can be made.

It was a special day for all Americans – born here or coming to this country from many nations. It was a most multi-racial, multi-national crowd.

One thought of W.E.B. Du Bois. “The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line,” he said when segregation was the law of the land.

Americans crossed the color line of the 20th century and moved forward into the 21st century, ready to take on new color lines and new class lines.

The desire for unity ran deep, deep, deep. It was expressed in numerous interviews and conversations. Hope, change, happiness and optimism prevailed in the midst of the twin crises of the economy and war.

The Lincoln Memorial concert, Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and the Inauguration were all a mass popular education in American history, a people’s history – African-American history. The fight for freedom is so intertwined in African-American history and America’s history and is so crucial to progress for all. On display for millions was some of the best of our country’s progressive patriotism.

This new administration and what they inspire will be a mass education on these themes as well, a rebirth and renaissance of American progressivism.

The Inaugural weekend, a mixing of music, poetry, and prayer, was full of odes to working people, ordinary people, “the makers of things.”

The gigantic crowd itself gave confidence in the American people. Everyone acted mature, smart, cool, calm and collected during some very difficult moments: like standing nose to nose for 45 minutes outside of Union Station for thousands to pass through just two doors, one of them being a revolving door. At least we were warm packed together like sardines.

President Obama’s speech should be studied. Hearing it the first time, may create disappointment among some. Phrases may rub one the wrong way. It may seem contradictory to the idea of a rebirth of American progressivism. Yet, upon reflection, a second hearing, a full read, the speech signals a new era. It is deep in content and context.

When the crowd booed Bush it was hilarious, but not mean. They didn’t boo number 41 (Bush’s dad) or General Colin Powell (he even got a cheer in our section) but Joe Lieberman got a few boos too. America is certainly glad to see the Bush/Cheney gang go and to find out how much damage they did.

The day, though, in the end was not about Bush. It was about change. It was about family. It was about struggle and progress. It was about history.

End corruption take corporate money out of politics

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:43:00 +0000

The brazen corruption of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is deplorable. But some would ask: what’s the big deal? Corruption is rampant in U.S. politics and is “as American as apple pie.”

The larger issue, then, is the unregulated corporate money that has corrupted politics generally in the state government, and that gave rise to the “pay to play” system. Without a change in that system there will be more George Ryans (the previous Illinois governor now in prison) and Blagojeviches.

That system is one of unregulated campaign finances, in which those seeking state contracts or jobs (the pay to play) are able to contribute without restriction. Illinois is one of only six states — along with Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Virginia — that has no limits on contributions. Nearly all states and the District of Columbia impose some restrictions on the size of campaign contributions, and most ban direct giving.

Some here have tended to focus on the large contributions of a few unions. But the overwhelming source of money given to Blagojevich has been private corporations and wealthy individuals.

Blagojevich, a former congressman, was first elected governor in 2002 and then re-elected in 2006. Over eight years beginning in 2000, he raised $58 million in campaign money — the most ever by a candidate for governor. At one time it was standard to receive individual contributions of $2,500. But the money rolling in now is dwarfing that.

The Chicago Tribune reported that of 235 contributions of $25,000 each received by Blagojevich, 75 percent came from people or organizations that had received favors from him, such as contracts, board appointments, favorable policy positions and regulatory actions.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that 20 companies gave Blagojevich a combined $925,500. These firms were paid by or had contracts with state government totaling $365 million.

In testimony before the Illinois House Special Investigative Committee looking into the matter, Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, noted that, “Illinois places no limits on the size of campaign contributions and no restrictions on the transfer of money between committees.”

“Instead of limits and restrictions, Illinois requires only disclosure,” she said. “If a public official wants to leverage governmental authority to generate campaign contributions or if a private party wants to use campaign contributions to influence a public official, Illinois’ campaign finance law does nothing to prevent attempts at corruption.”

Her organization supports a state measure, HB 3497, introduced by Reps. Harry Osterman and Elizabeth Coulson, which would create a system of limits for all candidates, parties and PACs for all state and local offices in Illinois.

An amended ethics law is now in effect to curb “pay-to-play” deals. While limited and not without loopholes, the law prohibits contractors that do more than $50,000 in business with the state from giving money to state officers who oversee their bids or contracts. It doesn’t affect union contributions.

After Blagojevich vetoed this measure last fall, Barack Obama strongly urged state Senate President Emil Jones to support an override of the veto. The state Senate voted to override in September. There is strong speculation that Blagojevich had been rushing to collect large donations before the law went into effect on Jan. 1, and that the “auctioning” of the U.S. Senate seat was part of that effort.

Ultimately what’s needed is a system of public financing of all elections — from federal to state to local.

John Bachtell (jbachtell@cpusa.org) is district organizer of the Communist Party in Illinois.

Believing in government again

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:40:00 +0000

All through congressional hearings around the auto loan last month, not one public official or news reporter ever asked General Motors and Ford CEOs the most important question of all:

“So how come you guys are so dumb here but so smart in Europe?”

It’s got to make somebody wonder why Detroit carmakers have managed to lose money and market share here to the same Japanese carmakers whose butts they are kicking in Europe. Over there, Ford and GM’s respective market shares are almost double Toyota’s and more than five times Nissan’s and Honda’s.

There’s no denying: Detroit automakers do much better when there is the greatest amount of government regulation, and worse when they are basically left on their own.

Here’s how big government in Europe made Ford and GM smarter and richer:

1. National health care

For conservatives, you can’t get any more “big government” than national health care. But if Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and the other Southern shills for foreign carmakers truly wanted to restructure Detroit Three auto costs, they should have started by endorsing Rep. John Conyers’ Medicare for All single-payer health insurance bill, HR 676. Health insurance is the biggest cost differential between GM and Toyota, not wages. The Detroit Three keep whining that they don’t have a level playing field at home because they have to pay for the health care of 1.5 million retired UAW members while Toyota USA only has about 300 retirees to worry about. Obviously, universal health care, where everybody chips in his or her fair share for the common good, levels the playing field.

2. Fuel efficiency

Whenever Congress pushed for higher fuel efficiency standards, the Detroit Three cried how unfair it was because 75 percent of their product mix consisted of big cars, big SUVs and big pickup trucks. Yet, somehow they’ve managed to beat the Japanese Three in European markets, which have much higher fuel standards. It’s another case where government regulation made GM and Ford smarter by making them build smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles that sell.

3. Bargaining for non-union members

The United Auto Workers’ bargaining strength has diminished with the decline of union membership and the growth of non-union foreign producers here. In Germany, the IG Metall union, the country’s counterpart to the UAW and United Steelworkers, is required by law to bargain for all workers in the metal industries whether they belong to IG Metall or not. Over here, we would dismiss that as non-union freeloading. Over there, it works just fine because even though only 35 percent of all metal workers choose to join IG Metall, 100 percent of them have a direct stake in how well the union does at the bargaining table. Funny, you don’t hear about non-union workers joining with anti-union politicians to call for union concessions over there.

4. Co-determination

In the late 1940s, the UAW dared to suggest to the Detroit auto companies that they build a four-cylinder car, which 40 percent of Americans said they wanted for driving to work. The UAW was told in no uncertain terms to butt out and never tell management again how to run things. Well, imagine a capitalist nation where workers have veto power over corporate investment decisions. But that’s exactly how it works under the German co-determination policy. Back in the 1970s, Volkswagen was considering a plant in Pennsylvania to meet U.S. consumer demand. IG Metall had the legal authority to veto the proposal if it didn’t come with a guarantee there would be no layoffs in Germany as a result of VW’s move to America. Oh, the horrors of European socialism!

With a new administration in Washington, Americans have the opportunity to turn the page on 30 years of anti-government government, starting with Jimmy Carter (“Americans have to expect less from Washington.”), moving on to Ronald Reagan (“Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.”), to Bill Clinton (“The era of big government is over.”) and finally George W. Bush (“You’re doing a heckuva job there, Brownie.”).

Americans aren’t asking for BIG government. We just want a government that is effective and on our side once in a while. We now have a president who prioritizes Main Street over Wall Street. What we need is a mass, grassroots religious-like conversion back to believing in government again.

All together now: “Government is the tool we can use to build the kind of society we want.”

Sam Stark is a UAW retiree in Michigan.

Health care: a human right and a national resource

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:28:00 +0000

Public education has long been considered a basic resource essential to our country’s well-being and its continued economic growth, as well as to its pledge of equal opportunity for all. While the concept of a free public education has been increasingly challenged in recent times, the fundamental reasoning remains intact.

But the health of the American people, surely just as basic to the country’s well-being and economic growth — to say nothing of individual welfare — has yet to be recognized as a basic resource to be publicly assured.

With the end of the Bush administration, which did its best to destroy the meager public health resources serving the most destitute, and the inauguration of an Obama administration pledged to health care reform, a new opportunity is at hand to give health its proper standing as a vital public resource.

Nor is this abstract “do-goodism.” Among many observers who have cited the relation of health care and economic well-being is Michigan Governor

Jennifer Granholm, whose state is in the bulls-eye of the current meltdown. She said last month that it is necessary to “figure out how we’re going to provide health care in this country to make our industries — not just the auto industry — competitive with the industries of other nations when those nations provide health care.”

One fundamental reform would institute a national single-payer system cutting out private insurers, thus saving the nearly one-third of health care expenditures now wasted on unnecessary administrative costs. Single payer is currently represented in Congress by HR 676, introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) with great support from labor and other people’s movements.

The National Nurses’ Organizing Committee/California Nurses’ Association has just released a study showing single payer would “provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs and infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues, with another $100 billion in wages into the U.S. economy.”

What better moment than now, to finally recognize health care as a basic resource, a human right and an economic necessity?

King Day 2009

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:25:00 +0000

This year’s Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 19, may be the most celebrated commemoration of Dr. King’s birthday since the federal holiday was first observed in 1986. Responding to President-elect Barack Obama’s call to make it a national day of service, thousands of service events were planned around the country.

In the Arlington, Va., area the long list of scheduled events ranged from a march organized by the Northern Virginia Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, at the National Airport Hilton to support union members who have been without a contract for one and a half years, to a Wakefield High School Field Cleanup (meeting at the stadium field behind the tennis courts to help pick up trash from along the fences and under the bleachers), to a food drive in support of the Arlington Food Assistance Center which provides groceries to Arlington residents in need, to a Red Cross blood drive, to “We Are What We Want the World to Become” at the Pentagon Metro stop (organizing youth and teens to create musical interpretations to pay homage to America and its transition for our future educationally), to a bipartisan training and celebration to help wounded veterans and their families (at Murphy’s Grand Irish Pub).

This outpouring is a beautiful expression of the deeply American spirit of community, helping those in need and collective action that characterized the civil rights movement led by Dr. King, and that Obama’s campaign galvanized. It feels like the sun coming out from behind an eight-year cloud of mean-spiritedness, divisiveness and destruction.

And on the following day, what an amazing celebration of King’s birthday, and indeed a tribute to his impact on our country — the inauguration of the nation’s first African-American president. It is not only a historic milestone, but a profound advance whose impact will unfold over time, in further changing thought patterns and building a “more perfect union” of our working class and people.

Yet it is not the end of the road in overcoming systemic inequality, racism and discrimination. It is a historic step, opening up new possibilities, but, as King himself would be the first to say, there is much more to be done, and many struggles to wage.

Editorial: Time for a change on Cuba

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:25:00 +0000

Among the new opportunities that the election of a new president and Congress brings us is to end once and for all the vicious U.S. economic blockade and travel ban imposed on Cuba nearly 50 years ago.

The blockade has now continued through 10 U.S. administrations. But the Cuban Revolution has survived those 10 presidencies, plus many other challenges and disasters. This does not mean that the blockade has had no impact. It has indeed made it hard for Cuba to obtain many essentials, from petroleum to heart pacemakers. But the blockade is also harmful to the interests of U.S. workers and farmers, who would benefit in jobs and income if trade with Cuba were restored. The blockade has also kept people in the United States from having access to products of Cuba’s innovative pharmaceuticals industry. And the accompanying ban on travel to Cuba violates our right to go and see for ourselves what is going on there — not to mention enjoy a reasonably priced vacation on the island’s sunny beaches or a live taste of Cuba’s vibrant multiracial culture.

The Bush administration is closely tied to the most reactionary circles that have been trying to bring down Cuba’s socialist system, including the increasingly narrow group of extremist Cuban exiles in Miami and elsewhere. But Barack Obama will not be burdened with such ties, and has indicated a readiness to meet with President Raul Castro without preconditions. Democrats in Congress are increasingly willing to do away with the travel ban and blockade altogether.

Obama has promised to cancel the Bush administration’s cruel restrictions on Cuban Americans’ visits and monetary gifts to relatives in Cuba. This is a good beginning.

Let us also ask Congress and the Obama administration to end the blockade and travel ban entirely, and normalize diplomatic and trade relations.

Part of this process should include freeing the Cuba Five — five Cuban patriots who, after a joke of a trial, are stuck in U.S. jails serving draconian sentences for defending their country against terrorist attacks that past U.S. administrations encouraged and promoted, in violation of our own and international law.

Editorial: Peoples business cant wait

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:23:00 +0000

President-elect Obama’s now oft-repeated refrain that “the people’s business can’t wait” is becoming more obvious every day.

The crashing of overloaded electronic unemployment filing systems in many parts of the country underlines again the urgency of the economic recovery plan he is proposing. That plan includes the kinds of financial assistance that the states need to maintain vital services during this economic crisis.

As the number of jobless people reaches historic proportions, tens of thousands face immediate disaster for themselves and for their families. The times demand a public apparatus ready to provide the immediate, urgent help people need. After all, it is the workers who foot the bill for government. When they are tossed onto the jobless pile they deserve speedy assistance from that government. States that are forced to slash budgets cannot provide this assistance.

Tell your representatives in Congress that they must move quickly to pass the economic rescue plan for Main Street. The people’s business cannot wait.

People before Profits: 2009 forecast -- sunshine or hurricane?

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:18:00 +0000

The economic outcomes of 2009 for working people, one year from now, is in the hands of the acutest political struggle emerging over how exactly government should intervene in the U.S. economy to avert a depression? How much more, or what different kinds of, intervention will be required for recovery? And, what is recovery?

On one wing conservatives still intoxicated with free-market-fundamentalism, or unprepared Republican Party organizers desperate to hold on to the crumbling remains of their 'Reagan coalition' will, use every diversion to avert another 40 year long Democratic Party congressional supremacy, as followed the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the passage of Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act, unemployment insurance, etc. Already, blatant racism and immigrant bashing within the Republican Party leadership are reflecting the desperation. Expect to hear strong demands for protectionism, racist, nativist and isolationist ideas and provocations from this group in response to the crisis.

In addition, this wing has yet to confront its numbness over finding that military might alone, or even in the main, will not meet the challenges globalization demands be solved, like inequality, development, energy, democracy, climate change, universal labor and human rights.

So far it does not appear as if any of President-elect Barack Obama's appointees are from this wing. However, to the extent these forces are able to block, distort, waste or significantly blunt the Obama stimulus campaign they shall remain the most dangerous threat to halting the current and dramatic economic free-fall and bringing the economy under effective control and management.

Another wing -- lets call them the 'formerly-neo-liberal-now-leaning-more-liberal' (FNLNLML) financial sector with allies throughout the real estate, insurance, manufacturing and defense sectors. Obama has several of these in his cabinet: Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Paul Volker, and for a while – Robert Gates. On the economic side these forces represent the most powerful institutions of finance capital. They are prepared to spend as many dollars as it takes to stimulate the economy according to the advice of Keynesian economists. To varying degrees they embrace universal health coverage, liberalization of labor law, major public infrastructure and education investments, and restructuring of the financial, real estate, energy, transportation and manufacturing sectors of the economy--pretty much the commanding heights of the economy.

Yet this wing's chief weakness in democratic reforms or nationalizations is already evident in the U.S. Treasury takeovers/bailouts of AIG and scores of banks and reborn-over-night-as-banks institutions scrambling to get a piece of the $700 billion TARP funds passed last month by Congress. That weakness is spinelessness and feebleness when it comes to actually exerting its legal power to place the public interests over private ones in the execution of its duty -- which is to restore confidence, liquidity and lending at adequate rates to financial markets, effect full employment and moderate inflation.

In part this weakness is currently so pronounced because the government may have the legal authority to takeover management of the 'too-big-to-fail' financial institutions, but not the ability or tools with which to really perform management functions.

But the very failure to have, or even demand, the institutions and tools needed reflects class interests representing private finance capital, for whom nationalization is normally just unthinkable. This wing, for example, supports universal health care but largely shuns single-payer for fear of breaking links to the insurance industry. The health-care portion of the needed stimulus returns one of biggest 'bangs for the buck' in terms of jobs and long term value of all fiscal stimulus alternatives. Without single-payer, however, universal coverage may simply cost too much.

The price paid for AIG alone would put us half way to a full single-payer national health care system, based on Canadian costs with no offset for any added economies of scale. A few months of Iraq funding can pay for the program completely. From an institutional restructuring point of view, universal single-payer health care is perhaps the easiest of the giant steps needed toward real recovery. Extend the Medicare infrastructure on a national scale and you are almost there. Yet, as in health care, at every critical turn in economic restructuring this coming year, FNLNLMLs will waver, and, left to their mercies, we shall fail to get health care for all and likely fail to halt the crash for lack of a clear class interest, courage and heart.

The third wing are the millions of ordinary working people, notably organized labor, retirees, professionals, small business, the large majorities of African American, Latino, Asian, women and youth that became mobilized and activated in the grassroots campaigns of the election season -- especially the Obama campaign. This is the wing, the only one, that can remain consistent and insure the stimulus, revitalization and recovery promises of the Obama campaign can become real. This is the wing that understands stupid when it sees a failed car company management being bailed out for (now) over $20 billion, when the government could have bought the company for $3 billion. This is the wing that must go to war with corporate and defense lobbying corruptions that left to their own half-hearted beneficence will divert a lion’s share of the stimulus support into futile and self-serving kickbacks.

Let’s be straightforward in defining exactly how to determine if the stimulus program is successful: A) when full employment is restored; and B) when universal health coverage is enacted. Both are eminently doable, but both will require 'a new birth of freedom' of association and mobilization by working people of the United States, and effective public instruments serving their will -- to fufill all the social and economic tasks subordinate to this historic effort.

It’s either going to be a breakthrough year for the people’s movements and organizations, or its going to be very bad.

OPINION: India-Pakistan and the significance of Kashmir's elections

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 08:04:00 +0000

The Jammu and Kashmir State of India had legislative assembly election results declared last month. The separatists had given a boycott call, but not many listened to them. Not a single political outfit offered a word of sympathy to their positions. People voted for the pro-Indian parties overwhelmingly.

In the 87 member legislature, the National Conference Party has emerged largest with 28 seats. This is the party of the late secular pioneer, anti-British freedom fighter Sheikh Abdullah, who opposed occupation of part of Kashmir by Pakistan till his death. His son, Dr. Farukh Abdullah, is likely to be elected the next chief minister with the help of 17 members elected from the Congress Party of India, which leads the federal government of India.

Ten other seats have gone to smaller parties of which Communist Party of India (Marxist) also has one seat. The rightist BJP has bagged another 10 seats, under their recent anti -government crusade to deny land to a temple trust, an issue favored by the outgoing Congress state government. (Plus the BJP has been war-mongering, urging the Indian government to attack Pakistan in retaliation of the Mumbai terrorist attacks. The BJP’s attempt to use the Mumbai attacks for political gain seems to have failed.)

The rest of the 22 seats have been won by another secular party People's Democratic Party whose leader Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was a federal minister in India a few years back.

About 55 percent of voters went to the polls ignoring boycott call. One top separatist said the elections declared the message to the people. Elections to the J& K assembly have been regularly held every five years. It has never been under army rule as is the case for Pakistani-occupied Kashmir for most part of its history.

British imperialists divided the country in 1947 under their own cooked up theory of two nations, one Hindu and one Muslim. The majority of the people of India – undivided -- never agreed to such a theory. Under foreign rule the leaders of both sides were forced to accept this partition under the threat of devastating Hindu-Muslim massacres, stage managed by foreign rulers. Serious riots were purposefully unleashed, threatening tens of millions of lives. Historians have testified to the fact, including Maulana Abulklam Azad, the well known secular Muslim leader who was the president of the Congress Party of India for more than ten years of the freedom struggle of India.

After partition the British government enjoyed all sorts of rights in Pakistan under military rule. The people of Pakistan have no ill feeling about India, where 140 million of Muslims live in a secular country, get elected to assemblies, and federal legislatures and have occupied high posts including the president of India. The level of education for Muslim women and their civil rights in India far surpasses that attained by any other Muslim country in the world, although Indians are not happy with that level themselves. International forces who thrive in divide and rule, keep tossing the idea of a 'disputed Kashmir.”

Left to India and Pakistan the Kashmir problem would settle itself to the satisfaction of its people. It is outside interference that needs be eliminated. Times have changed favorably for a peaceful coexistence. People of South Asia have posted high hopes on events that are likely to follow the change in U.S. administration, as also have the peace-loving people all over the world.

R.K. Sharma is a doctor and peace activist from India.