People Before Profit blog

Millions of unemployed need jobs or income now

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:55:00 +0000

“The right to work is the right to life.”

-- American Federation of Labor Convention, Chicago, December 1893

“Thus, because of the planlessness of the twenties, because of the lack of courageous action immediately following the collapse, the nation lost 105,000,000 man-years of production in the thirties.”

-- Full Employment Act of 1945, Hearings, p. 1104

Unemployment and underemployment are causing misery, homelessness, hunger, and fear in the lives of tens of millions of working class people and our families, devastating communities, and impacting people of color, particularly African-Americans, Latinos, and most of all Native Americans disproportionately.

Those with money, the rich and the powerful, may find the masses of the unemployed an annoyance but, as Franklin Folsom writes in “Impatient Armies of the Poor: The Story of Collective Action of the Unemployed 1808-1942,” for the unemployed ourselves, leaving “a job means leaving a center and moving toward a periphery. It means leaving a collective pattern and entering formless isolation. Uniting under a boss or against a boss is a clear, understandable concept, but uniting against bosslessness is a very different matter.”

For the unemployed, watching our meager bank accounts drain away, experiencing the loss, one by one, of those sustaining resources— electricity, telephone, home, car, food—that keep our children and our spouses and ourselves whole and active is like sitting in a room out of which the air is being pumped, and knowing that each breath leaves less of what we need to survive.

In the midst of these challenges, community and collective struggle counteract the shame and fear that one may experience, and provide a path to expressing just demands for work or bread, jobs or income now. As 30 million unemployed and countless more underemployed working class people and our families struggle to survive today, it is urgent to demand that our society respond with aid that meets our needs and by providing work to all who want employment. The unemployed united, together with our allies, can fan with the breath of struggle the embers of hope that burn in our hearts.

A storm of numbers: The working class needs jobs or income now Unemployment statistics are dispassionate reflections of a tsunami of economic pain rolling over the U.S. and global working class. It is important to hear the voices of millions of unemployed women, men, and youth asking for help behind the statistical recitation of percentages.

The national unemployment rate of 9.7%, with all 50 states and the District of Columbia reporting year over year increases, is a numeric reflection of families unable to pay the bills for the basics: food, mortgage or rent, electricity, gasoline, heating oil, car loans, medical bills, and school or child care fees.

El Centro, California, has 26.8% unemployment. California, Michigan, and Indiana all have regions with unemployment exceeding 15%.

The official unemployment rate for African-Americans is almost double that of the national rate, with Black men’s unemployment at 16.4%; the Hispanic unemployment rate is 12.2%.

The unemployment rate for youth 18-24 is a staggering 17.3%.

Native Americans have the rates of highest unemployment, ranging from 50% to 90% in different regions.

These rates are all “official” unemployment figures which vastly understate the real counts of the unemployed and ignore millions of the underemployed or the long term unemployed. Actual unemployment rates may be as much as double the official figures. Many of the unemployed have depending upon us for sustenance a spouse, children, partners, or aged or infirm relatives or friends. The unemployed are a vast uncounted mass struggling to survive.

The phenomenon of unemployment is not limited to the United States. The International Labor Organization reported in January, “The global economic crisis is expected to lead to a dramatic increase in the number of people joining the ranks of the unemployed, working poor and those in vulnerable employment ... Global unemployment in 2009 could increase over 2007 by a range of 18 million to 30 million workers, and more than 50 million if the situation continues to deteriorate.”

Highlighting the underlying crisis of overproduction which fuels this tsunami of unemployment, productivity in the United States rose 1.8% in Q1 2009, as hours worked fell faster than output. At the same time, real earnings fell by 1.2%. The masses of the unemployed did nothing to cause our joblessness, which results from cyclical and well documented capitalist overproduction; cycles which, along with political expediency, have been causing periodic mass unemployment since the early 1800s in the United States.

Working women, men, and youth will benefit from joining together to demand our needs be met, whether in union committees, church groups, community organizations or national organizations.

The AFL-CIO is calling for a second round of economic recovery programs, “The challenge of fixing this economic mess is enormous—and urgent. Creating good jobs that cannot be outsourced is central to the solution.”

Their demands include:

• Extend unemployment benefits immediately, by at least seven weeks, to help the hundreds of thousands of workers who would otherwise exhaust their benefits in the near term.

• Increase food stamp spending as needed to help families cope with the downturn. Increase aid to state and local governments.

• Bolster the financial stability of independent government agencies such as the U.S. Postal Service.

• Increase spending for needed infrastructure and clean energy projects, even for those projects with a time horizon longer than two years.

The National Jobs for All Coalition is organizing a National Conference to Create Living-Wage Jobs For All, Meet Human Needs & Sustain the Environment in New York, Nov. 13-14. Further information is available at their web site, .

Providing work is a social responsibility. The current economic crisis has been impacting working families for over a year; high unemployment continues to take its toll. A social response is urgently required. The under- and unemployed united, with our allies, can fight to create the programs we need: jobs or income, and hope, now.

Eric Brooks is a recently laid off high-tech worker living in Indiana.

It's time to put the pedal to the metal

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:27:00 +0000

COMMENTARY

In recent weeks I have seen pundits of various stripes grading the job performance of our new president. I read some of them and they invariably left me with a nagging feeling which I couldn't quite put my finger on until this morning.

It dawned on me (duh) that most of these evaluations are stripped of any political/social context.

In our constitutional setup, the president does wield considerable power. But he doesn't do it in a frictionless political environment. He has to contend with both rabid opponents as well as groupings within his own party that don't share his views entirely. No president governs with a magic wand.

Every president also has to take into account the status, breadth, and level of activity of the movements and coalitions across the country that either support or oppose him. And all this occurs in a complex world in which crises and challenges are ever present.

Shouldn't pundits, especially left and progressive ones, grading Obama's first months on the job be mindful of this bigger picture? Shouldn't they factor in the whole array of forces and conditions that weigh on his decision making process and performance before issuing a report card?

Looking back to the New Deal, FDR wasn't a political 'free floater,' going in one direction and then abruptly in another on no more than a personal whim. FDR's performance and policies were inextricably bound up with a broken economy and the clashing of diverse social groups, some of whom opposed him at every turn, some of whom tried to rein him in, and some of whom wished he would move faster and more boldly in a progressive/left direction.

The Obama presidency too operates in a very complicated political and economic context. (economic crisis, rising unemployment, two wars, climate change, massive inequality, a no longer dominant, but still aggressive extreme right grouping, a divided Democratic party, powerful corporations, etc.) that should inform the judgment of political analysts - and again, especially progressive and left analysts. If it doesn't, their analysis will be shallow, their tactical prescriptions wrongheaded, and their presidential report card not fully reflective of the administration's performance.

One of the striking differences between the two presidencies (and this is a major factor in determining the successes of each administration) is that the people's upsurge in the 1930s (or should I say 'upsurges' because that mass upheaval took many forms) in terms of its scope, depth, and level of action surpasses the current upsurge today. In fact, if the Depression era upsurge was a decisive (though not the only) factor powering FDR's achievements, the slowness of today's movement to regroup in the post-election period goes a long way in explaining the current impasse in the Congress with respect to health care reform.

Or to put it differently, the movement that elected President Obama doesn't yet match what is necessary to win the legislative reforms of the Obama administration - let alone more radical reforms that the administration will have to be nudged to support.

Thus analysts who grade poorly the performance of the Obama presidency are at the same time grading poorly the movement of which they are an integral part -- even if they are unaware of it. Implicit in the criticism of the Obama administration is a more trenchant criticism of all of us who elected him. We haven't fully put the pedal to the metal!

No vacation for Congress

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:23:00 +0000

It is a disgrace that Congress is leaving the nation’s capital for summer vacation as the American people are left to deal with a healthcare crisis that has exploded into a national emergency.

For each day lawmakers go fishing, 14,000 more will lose their coverage.

For each day they play golf 17,000 more of the people they are supposed to be working for go bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills.

At the end of this week House members high tail it out of town to be followed a week later by the Senate. They won’t be back until Sept. 8.

While the government “of, by and for the people” shuts down without having met President Obama’s original deadline for action on health care they give more time to the Republicans and their conservative Democratic friends to delay and obstruct meaningful reform. They give more time to the lobbyists to perpetrate the scare tactics designed to enrich the insurance companies, the big pharmaceutical companies and the private health care industry as a whole at the expense of the people. They give more time to pressure lawmakers sitting on the fence into selling out the people on the public option and tax the rich portions of HR 3200, the progressive bill that emerged from a key House committee.

We agree with Rep. Clyburn who said, “It is much better to postpone, if not cancel vacation — our August break — and stay here until we get this done. This is too important.”

Delay plays into the hands of Republicans who cynically call for “slowing down” in the name of “bipartisanship” and “doing it right.” The delay they call for is designed to kill meaningful reform supported by an overwhelming majority of the American people.

President Truman said 55 years ago that his failure to pass universal health care was his biggest failure. Washington has failed, since then to get it done.

With millions of Americans unable to afford vacations at all, our representatives should not be taking vacation without having given proper attention to this most urgent piece of the people’s business.

The majority of Americans demand a plan with a strong public option, including single-payer.

The majority of Americans demand that the wealthiest among us help pay for it with a surcharge on their income.

The majority want real, not fake reform. It is all the backing Congress and the Senate need to do their job now, not later. They must not skip out on the people until they satisfy the demands of the people.

Sleep disorders on the rise among the nations wealthy!

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 09:27:00 +0000

Goldman Sachs just announced $3.44 billion in profits for the last quarter. The company’s top 60 executives will trouser more than the $20 million they each pocketed last year.

More than 25,000 of the suits at JPMorgan Chase, which has declared an all-time record profit for the last six months, will go home with an average Christmas bonus of $462,000 this year, $150,000 more than what they got before the financial collapse they helped create.

Considering this great news on Wall Street, considering that big short-term profits on paper continue to land them lavish rewards they don’t have to wait for the next life to receive, and considering that they won’t have to pay back any of their windfall when the heralded profits turn into a mirage, you would think the rich would have almost perfect peace of mind these days.

Yet reports persist that epidemics of worry, prolonged fretting, fingernail chewing, paranoia, anxiety and insomnia are sweeping the penthouses of Park Ave., the North Shore of Long Island, CoCo Beach, and even the Cayman Islands.

Investigators have found that the problem all began last week when a key committee in the Congress of the United States got up the nerve to approve a health care overhaul that would, if it became law, raise taxes on the tiny 1 percent of America’s wealthiest people. The tax, tiny as it is, would mean America’s richest will pay a higher percentage of their income than they have in a quarter century.

Not since the mid 1930s has Congress ever said that the rich should kick in a little to pay for what those who have nothing need. Can you imagine? The gall to say that the wealthy should chip in to keep the entire nation healthy!

Investigators found further, however, that this was only part of what has been making it so tough on rich people trying to get a good night’s sleep.

An Upper East Side Manhattan therapist told our reporters, in confidence, that several of his patients were, independently of one another, having the same spine-chilling nightmare.

The patients, it seems, wake up in cold sweats, sometimes screaming, after they dream that the overhaul of the nation’s health care system not only succeeds but then turns into something much bigger – a historic new struggle against the dangerous concentration of wealth in America.

Even more frightening, one psychiatrist in the area told our investigators that she was dealing with a rush of patients “coming in convinced that 2011 will be the year of the apocalypse, if not something worse.”

We suggested to her that the fears related to 2011 were likely because, during that year, her patients will see the largest single-year tax hike on the wealthy since 1935. This, of course, is because the George Bush tax cuts for the rich enacted in 2001 and 2003 will expire at the end of 2010.

To make matters worse, President Obama keeps repeating those pledges of his not to extend any of the expiring Bush tax cuts.

The House Bill causing all the 1 a.m. tossing and turning is centered around a 5.4 percent surtax on income over $1 million.

The delusions about 2011 being the end of the world as we know it reflect that 2011 is when the wealthiest people will pay, on average, $88,000 more than the year before. Those who make over $2.4 million – America’s richest 0.1 percent – will pay $280,000 more.

If Obama lets the Bush tax break for the rich expire, the tax rate on the wealthiest will go back to 39.6 percent, the rate in effect when Bill Clinton left office.

The House health care surtax, added to that would raise that top rate on the richest Americans to 45 percent.

The last time the rich paid that percentage was in 1986.

In stark contrast, for 2006 they only paid, on average, because of exemptions and deductions that favored them, a 17 percent rate.

Over a ten year period, the congressional Joint Tax Committee estimates, the House health care reform tax would raise $540 billion from the richest Americans, over half the trillion-dollar cost of ensuring all Americans affordable health care.

For the moderately well off the surtax would be modest. Families making $500,000, for example, would pay $1,500 in surtax, only 0.3 percent of their income. They would pay much less in health insurance premiums and would probably come out ahead.

But let’s get back to lying awake at night and dreams.

The vast majority of the people who make up this mosaic we call America are actually having a beautiful dream, with increased frequency lately.

They are dreaming that they will be able to afford, for the first time, to provide for themselves if they get sick and can’t work.

They are dreaming that they will be able to take care of their parents who worked so hard to give them a good life.

They are dream that they will be able to afford a good education for their children.

They are dreaming that they will be able, some day, to retire in peace, with bodies physically able to enjoy being surrounded by loving and productive family members.

They dream that health care for all, with everyone, the rich included, doing their fair share to bring it about, will be the first step in the struggle to make America that shining city on the hill that has been talked about for such a long time.

Affirmative action a plus for all

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:53:00 +0000

Affirmative action is a plus not just for African Americans, Latinos or women but for all workers. Portrayal of it as something that takes rights away from white workers and gives them to African American workers is totally false.

This line of attack against affirmative action means to obscure the basic conflict between employers and employees and substitute that with a dead end struggle between black and white workers. What affirmative action achieves on the job is a transfer of some of the power bosses now have to the workforce as a group. This happens because the equality it creates unifies the workers as a whole, putting that unity up as a big barrier against a boss who wants to run roughshod over everyone.

Affirmative action also ends the ability of the boss to use the extra low wages he could otherwise pay to minority workers as a lever to hold down the wages of white workers.

Opponents of affirmative action are too often successful in their attempts to give even the term itself, a sinister connotation, making it synonymous with doing something bad or instituting some type of manipulative scheme.

Affirmative action, in reality, is nothing more than fixing something that is wrong or broken.

When you patch the roof in your house, put in new insulation or tighten loose and leaky pipes you are taking affirmative action regarding the condition of your home.

A white worker earning less than he or she really should, must also take action to see that what is broken at his or her workplace is fixed. To fix what’s broken on the job, so he or she can reap the benefits of working class unity, means taking steps to repair and improve equality, fairness and solidarity. It means taking away discrimination – the bosses’ tool to divide the work force.

In a workplace where there is discrimination and disunity the boss is almost always free to do whatever he wants to everyone, white workers included. A boss getting away with discrimination is also going get away with providing no health benefits, paying miserable wages and making work a living hell for everyone.

The Henry Louis Gates Jr Arrest: 'Uppity' in 2009

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:10:00 +0000

The arrest of famed historian Henry Louis Gates by the Cambridge, Massachusetts police raises some important questions about what this country has been losing in terms of civil liberties and due process.

Although I have no doubt that race played a factor in the Gates incident, there are implications for people of all races.

It will be recalled that Professor Gates, returning from a trip, had trouble opening the door of his house (one time my only key snapped off in the lock of the front door of my apartment in Chicago as I was trying to enter at 2:00 a.m., so I can sympathize with the consternation this causes). Gates and his driver were struggling with the door when a passerby called the police with a report of a possible break-in.

A policeman arriving on the scene challenged Gates to identify himself. Gates produced ID which proved that this was his house, but nevertheless he was arrested and dragged off in handcuffs for “disorderly conduct” because he had been “argumentative” with the policeman and initially reluctant to come out of his house to talk to the cop.

Charges against Gates have been dropped, and President Obama has criticized the police for what many see as an action that would not have happened had Gates not been African American.

This has set off a national debate. Supporters of the police action have set forth many reasons for which they don't see it as being illegitimate. Some have even accused Gates of racism for complaining about his treatment at all. Even though Gates provided ID to indicate that it was his own house, some raise the following reasons for the police to want to continue with the confrontation rather than just going about their business:

1. Even though Gates demonstrated that the home was his, there could have been some other kind of illegal activity going on in the house.

But the police had no evidence that any such activity was going on, unless it is evidence enough that Professor Gates is African American. There was no probable cause, once Gates established his identity. Without probable cause, police have no business entering people's houses, accosting them, demanding that they come outside to talk.

2. It was possible that the arrangement by which Harvard University provided the home to Gates had been somehow canceled, the locks changed, and therefore Gates was trying to break in.

But again, the police had no information from Harvard University or anybody that there was anything like that involved in the situation. Again, no probable cause, and so no reasonable pretext for the officer's action.

3. It was possible that there was an order of protection against Gates on the part of someone in the house, and, the locks having been changed, Gates was trying to get into the house to wreak some sort of physical havoc against a wife, child or other person.

But once more, the police had no evidence of any of this being the case, so had no probable cause to do anything other than check up on the neighbor's call, and once Gates identified himself, the cop should have wished him good day and departed, end of story.

4. It is possible that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Gates' attic, planning to carry out a sequel to 9-11.

Actually nobody made that accusation which I just invented, but it makes as much sense as the others.

Some say that it was justified for the police to arrest Gates because he initially wound not come out of his house when they ordered him to, and because he was “argumentative” with them.

In response I ask the following questions:

Where in any state, federal, county or municipal law book does it say that absent probable cause and/or a judicial order, or a genuine red-hot emergency, a policeman can order a citizen to come out of his house? Police can't just decide that they have the God given right to order people to come out of their houses in spite of there being neither probable cause nor a warrant, and arrest them if they don't, any more than they have the right to enter someone's house without a warrant.

What statute, law or ordinance makes it a felony for a citizen to be gruff or irate when talking to a policeman?

When did being “argumentative” become a Class X felony?

Since when is being grumpy a hanging crime?

Where in the Constitution does it state that everybody has to be 100 percent polite to police officers all the time?

Is there a “politeness to cops” clause I have somehow missed?

On the contrary, though in my mother's house no rude people were raised, and I myself generally keep a civil tongue except when I don't, I would argue that we have the right to be rude to police officers and other authority figures if we want to (whether this is tactically wise or not depends on the specific situation, but it is our right). This is both a free speech and a due process issue.

And for some no doubt it is still a race issue: One way for an African-American to be sure of being arrested, if not killed, in certain parts of this country within living memory, was to act “uppity” which meant not showing sufficient deference to white, ruling class authority.

Maybe we all need to practice being “uppity.'

Affirmative action a plus for all

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:57:00 +0000

Affirmative action is a plus not just for African Americans, Latinos or women but for all workers. Portrayal of it as something that takes rights away from white workers and gives them to African American workers is totally false.

This line of attack against affirmative action means to obscure the basic conflict between employers and employees and substitute that with a dead end struggle between black and white workers.

What affirmative action achieves on the job is a transfer of some of the power bosses now have to the workforce as a group. This happens because the equality it creates unifies the workers as a whole, putting that unity up as a big barrier against a boss who wants to run roughshod over everyone.

Affirmative action also ends the ability of the boss to use the extra low wages he could otherwise pay to minority workers as a lever to hold down the wages of white workers.

Opponents of affirmative action are too often successful in their attempts to give even the term itself, a sinister connotation, making it synonymous with doing something bad or instituting some type of manipulative scheme.

Affirmative action, in reality, is nothing more than fixing something that is wrong or broken.

When you patch the roof in your house, put in new insulation or tighten loose and leaky pipes you are taking affirmative action regarding the condition of your home.

A white worker earning less than he or she really should, must also take action to see that what is broken at his or her workplace is fixed. To fix what’s broken on the job, so he or she can reap the benefits of working class unity, means taking steps to repair and improve equality, fairness and solidarity. It means taking away discrimination – the bosses’ tool to divide the work force.

In a workplace where there is discrimination and disunity the boss is almost always free to do whatever he wants to everyone, white workers included. A boss getting away with discrimination is also going get away with providing no health benefits, paying miserable wages and making work a living hell for everyone.

EDITORIAL Wealthy vs. healthy

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 05:29:00 +0000

The nation’s biggest banks are awash in profits. Wells Fargo reports second-quarter profits up 47 percent over a year ago. It raked in $2.58 billion, up from $1.75 billion for the same period last year.

Citigroup reported $3 billion second-quarter profits. Bank of America made $2.42 billion. Goldman Sachs reported the largest quarterly profit in its 140-year history and will be paying whopping bonuses to its executives.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal, of all places, reports, “The nation's wealth gap is widening amid an uproar about lofty pay packages in the financial world.”

“Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the U.S.,” the Journal reports.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is waging a multi-million-dollar campaign opposing health care reform legislation that includes a public insurance option and pays for universal health care by taxing the tiny group of super-rich Americans.

A public plan would have “unfair advantage over private plans, eventually crowding out private plans from the marketplace,” the Chamber complains.

Portraying itself as the voice of small businesses, the Chamber sobs that taxing the super-rich — as House bill HR 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, calls for — “would victimize small business owners.”

But the Chamber of Commerce board of directors is laden with executives of giant corporations that have benefited from government handouts, while leaving small businesses in the dust: Pfizer, Caterpillar, Deere, IBM, 3M, ConocoPhillips, Massey, Peabody and Duke Energy, Nike, AT&T, Lockheed Martin, Eastman Kodak, UPS, FedEx, Xerox, Kimberly-Clark, Anheuser-Busch, Fox Entertainment, CVS, Rolls Royce, Dow, Alcoa … we’re out of space.

It’s their own lavish loot these folks are worried about.

The House bill will benefit small businesses, experts say.

But it requires folks at the top to give back some of the Bush tax cuts they have been enjoying at our expense.

What it amounts to, Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute says, is the top 1 percent of income earners “would have to delay a pay raise for somewhere between 1 to 9 months.”

Wait, isn’t that what most Americans have been doing for quite a while now — if we haven’t had to take a pay cut, that is — if we still have a job?

Call your congressmember now. Tell him/her you support taxing the rich to fund real health reform with a public plan.

COMMENTARY Obama, my grandpa and health care

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 05:20:00 +0000

My grandfather retired from Chrysler in the early 1980s. He was what we in the Midwest call a 'stand-up guy.' He worked hard and did his job, but he never took any crap from anybody, especially the foreman.

When contract time came, he stood fast with the union. He told me, 'Never cross a picket line. Never cross the union.'

On more than one occasion, grandpa said: 'That food you're eating was bought by union wages. Crossing the union is like stealing food from our table.'

I grew up reading grandpa's Solidarity magazine, the United Auto Workers' monthly publication. In it I saw how the union was fighting for higher wages, health care and better benefits. I saw how they were fighting for grandpa's pension.

My grandpa has been gone for almost four years now. My grandma still receives her survivor's benefits. With the bankruptcy at Chrysler though, she's lost her dental and vision coverage — benefits grandpa fought his whole life for. She blames Chrysler for squandering years of record profits, not the union.

Sometimes people forget — and in this bad economy it's easy to forget — that the American Dream was won by people like my grandpa. When fascism was ravaging the world, he fought. Years after the war, he still had wounds — mental and physical. After the war, he came home and drove trucks before finally getting on at Chrysler, where he worked for 30-plus years.

You see, my grandpa could hardly read or write. He had the equivalent of a fifth or sixth grade education. But he knew right from wrong. And he could smell a rat from a mile away.

What, you might be wondering, does this have to do with health care? Or with President Obama? Well, if my grandpa were alive today he'd be mad as hell.

He'd tell me: 'You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that the whole damn thing is broken.' He'd use some sort of car or baseball metaphor, while cussing the corporate bigwigs. He'd say: 'Everybody should have health care and anybody who thinks otherwise is an idiot or a liar, or both.'

My grandpa didn't mince words. He quickly grew tired of fast talkers and their big words. He was a straight shooter. He told it like it was. Sort of like President Obama.

Recently, referring to health care, President Obama said: 'We've talked this problem to death — year after year. Unless we act and act now, nothing will change. The need for reform is urgent and indisputable.'

Grandpa also had little regard for liars. If he were alive today, he'd call Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, a liar. Recently, Steele had the audacity to claim that a health care public option would leave Americans with 'fewer options and less care.' Liar! Grandpa would say it to his face. Then he would ask: 'Have you ever worked an honest day in your whole life?'

My grandpa always wondered how people with no backbone, those who kowtowed to big money, could sleep at night. I really don't care if Mr. Steele sleeps or not. But one thing’s certain, he's either an idiot or a liar, or both.

Tony Pecinovsky (tonypec @ cpusa.org) is district staffperson for the Missouri/Kansas Communist Party.

LONESOME HOBO ECONOMICS Should the bankers be hanged?

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:40:00 +0000

... Kind ladies and kind gentlemen ... Stay free from petty jealousies Live by no man's code And hold your judgment for yourself Lest you wind up on his road ...

— Bob Dylan, “Lonesome Hobo,” 1967

Should the bankers be hanged? Their reckless betting of other people's money turned a cyclical economic crisis into a near meltdown not seen since the Great Depression.

One of Franklin Roosevelt's first acts after becoming president, to halt the crash, was to declare a bank holiday. Close the banks to stop the run on the banks, to save some remnant of a financial system. It gave him a breather while he figured out how to reopen them gradually under new and little understood principles of financial regulation. The recovery was grim, and uneven until World War II consumed everything, including the Great Depression.

Seventy years later those rules have broken down, and crashed. The Fed rushed in and spread uncountable sums of cash quickly. They say a complete meltdown has indeed so far been averted. It’s true we don't know what it will ultimately cost, or if the investments we make now will pay off in a future escape from this hell-and-getting-hotter crisis. Will the investments lay the ground for creating a more perfect society, or for a more unequal, more divided, poorer nation?

Commercial lending has not really resumed, and the finance capital survivors have emerged even more powerful than before. The staggering news of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase profit reports should perhaps not be surprising, even though it comes on the heals of hundreds of billions in direct and indirect public subsidies. Most of these profits were made on trades, on selling 100 percent U.S.-backed bonds, not on making loans to individuals or businesses.

This violates the first, iron law of true reform: All the betters have to have “skin in the game.” If high-priced investment bankers invest your money, they should put some of their own on the same bet.

It also violates the second iron law of true reform: If it’s too big to fail, it’s too big. Easy way to do this: Return Goldman and JPMorgan investment banking services to partnerships — no publicly sold stock — like they used to be before repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act late in the Clinton administration. In partnerships every partner's well being requires full disclosure of all partners' strong and compromised positions. Shared partner liability exposes personal assets to greater risk than with a corporation. On the other hand, commercial banking and exchange and insurance operations — the part that’s too big to fail — should remain quasi-public organizations — that is, we should hold onto the huge shares we now own as taxpayers and use it to provide stability to the partly 'public utility' operation of matching borrowers to savers.

The penalty should fit the crime! An eye for an eye! Evictions, forgone health care, homelessness, unemployment and idleness. Many will lose their lives as a consequence of this depression before it’s over. Should the investors be held liable for these unforeseen consequences of their acts?

But I must provide disclosure, kind ladies and kind gentlemen, before sentence is passed, and I too pass on for another week. I am an ardent supporter of financial innovation who derived substantial benefit from it by working in five software startups from 1994-2007.

Venture capital instruments played an important role in each major wave in the high-tech industry. And it would be wrong, in my opinion, to characterize this marriage of finance and technology as parasitic. If 1 in 10 would survive primary funding, it would pay off all investors. It worked. Paying options to employees to attract talent at lower startup salaries unleashed a whirlwind of legendary, highly motivated workforces. The tech boom became a bubble — but it created real lasting value along the way. The mortgage/real estate/credit bubble, however, showed the giant Ponzi schemes that can result when folks are allowed to bet with other people's money — the product can be entirely fictitious.

And I believe society must indeed permit risky adventures to proceed with only limited liability for possible large costs of unforeseen consequences in exchange for innovation. Society continues to pick up the tab for transforming losers into a new round of winners. We demand only obedience to the iron laws of real reform.

I guess that means no hangings, for now. A few of the Ponzi schemers are off to jail. But without passing the iron laws into real law, the road to hell will get steeper.

John Case (jcase4218@gmail.com) hosts the morning radio show “Winners and Losers” out of Shepherdstown, W.Va.

COMMENTARY Narrow thinking on health care

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:28:00 +0000

HR 676, the single-payer bill introduced by Michigan Rep. John Conyers, is a fine piece of legislation and it is understandable that those who have worked hard for its enactment are passionate about this cause.

What is not understandable is the drawing of a “line in the sand” that divides those fighting for health care reform between supporters of 676 and those supporting a strong public option. Unfortunately, some in the single-payer movement give the impression they would rather see defeat of health care reform if 676 is not the bill of choice. One of Michigan’s new House Democrats, the first Democrat to be elected from the district since the early 1980s, has stated his support for the public option. Most people welcome his position, and it is such a refreshing change from the right-wing Republican who previously held his seat.

However it wasn’t enough for a group of health care activists visiting his office. They said he must sign on to 676 and even raised the possibility of a “die-in” at his office if he didn’t.

I heard another unfortunate story from a staff person with Organizing for America. He talked about his visit to a Democratic Party club, located in a rather wealthy community. Those in attendance were quite vocal for HR 676 and really didn’t want to hear him talk about building support for the public option.

That got me thinking. If you travel just two or three miles west from where they were meeting, you would be in the city of Detroit whose residents are being hard hit by every crisis you can think of. The two communities are at opposite ends of the economic spectrum.

In Detroit, unemployment is upwards of 30 percent, homes are being foreclosed and those enjoying health care benefits are few.

A strong public option would give them coverage. Would people who haven’t had health care for years and have no present hope of having it dismiss the public option saying “No, let’s wait for something better”?

A person I know who has been very active in the health care fight is worried about his daughter who doesn’t have health care, and says the public option would most likely cover her. He’s all for the measure because it would help a lot of people.

I have the same concerns over my daughter, who just finished college and has no health coverage.

The AFL-CIO, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and almost every people’s organization see the necessity to address those concerns and the nation’s health care crisis and are working to pass a strong health reform bill this year. They do this even though many of them have also endorsed single payer.

They do not see a contradiction between winning a good reform today and the fight to keep improving health care no matter what measure is passed now.

Winning a strong public option, considering the balance of forces in Congress and the county as a whole, would be a huge victory for the people and a huge defeat for the right wing and the insurance companies — and they are lobbying hard to try to prevent that defeat.

That victory can set the stage for winning future improvements, whereas the defeat of the public option would be a real momentum killer.

The right is united in opposing this measure; shouldn’t forces for reform be equally or more united to ensure it passes?

John Rummel (jrummel@pww.org) writes for the People’s Weekly World from Michigan.

OPINION Ahmadinejad on the wrong side of history

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:13:00 +0000

To reach a correct judgment concerning recent developments in Iran and the self-styled re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it is vital to view the whole picture: national and international.

For some, otherwise objective, anti-imperialist forces outside Iran, the national and historical context of the election campaign have become blurred by the internal and external response to it. The principal source of the distortion has been the response of the U.S. government to Ahmadinejad’s “victory.”

However, using the U.S. response as a starting point for an objective assessment of recent events is a dubious practice. Worse, it risks falling into the intelligence communities “wilderness of mirrors.” For neither the U.S. nor the Tehran dictatorship speak with one voice or one intention.

One example illustrates this duplicity. Only a few months ago while the U.S. government and mass media disseminated the possibility of opening a third military front in Iran, the Iranian regime itself huffed and puffed anti-Zionist anti-USA rhetoric whilst simultaneously seeking economic and military cooperation with the U.S. For its part the U.S. government was discretely offering non-interference in return for Iranian co-operation and non-intervention in the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan.

In this context few suggested all-out solidarity with the fundamentalist fascists in Afghanistan, who in turn are opposed by the fundamentalist nationalists in Iran on a religious, not political, basis.

The green light from Tehran for the U.S. Afghan military and economic campaign also enabled the U.S. to silence its sabre-rattling while maintaining its anti-Iranian rhetoric.

Thus the reinstatement of Ahmadinejad was greeted by the U.S. with muted expressions of concern for the democratic process and crocodile tears for the deaths of post-election demonstrators gunned down by Ahmadinejad’s thugs for expressing their own democratic concerns in major cites throughout Iran.

Virtually from the outset, the Iranian election was likely to be rigged. Such an outcome is always possible when a dictatorship faces widespread opposition. However, mass participation in the election also places the dictatorial regime on the back foot.

Since his last “election,” Ahmadinejad has postured around the world as a great leader, boasted of his conversations with God, denied the Nazi Holocaust, trampled on human rights in Iran, jailed his opponents. However, above all, Ahmadinejad is a willing and enthusiastic representative of the Iranian theocratic and mercantile class. The same class which has squandered for almost 30 years the anti-imperialist ambition of the ’79 revolution, repressed working class and student organizations, indulged in brutal and primitive torture and executions, imposed severe restrictions on the rights of women as well as those with other religious convictions, and now dresses in pseudo anti-imperialist clothes. The reality is the president has no clothes.

This must be the basis for any progressive assessment of political reality in Iran. Wide sections of the Iranian population have taken this as their starting point and have expressed their opposition on the streets. It is their experience which informs and motivates the protest, and like all dictatorships faced with democratic people’s opposition, the regime has responded with violence and tragedy.

Now it is the Iranian masses and their autonomous organizations which need support. The clerical regime is continuing with its posturing, hiding behind its trade links with other nations, claiming conspiracies, seeking scapegoats and responding with its customary iron fist.

There are many comparisons in the history of world politics, but whatever subtleties of difference there are, the theocratic regime in Iran has clearly demonstrated it is on the wrong side of history. Supporters of the movement for peace, independence, freedom and liberty in Iran should not be dragged alongside.

Navid Shomali is secretary of the International Department of the Tudeh Party of Iran (Party of the Masses), Iran’s Communist Party.

COMMENTARY The health care crisis becomes personal

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:01:00 +0000

I had the recent misfortune to fracture my right ankle, having a little too much fun on it. It has impacted my mobility, reduced my hours at work, and not least of all, cast me into the purgatory that is the contemporary health care system. I am additionally burdened by being one of the tens of millions of Americans without health insurance, a fact that has immediately and radically colored my hospital experience.

My initial intake wasn’t so bad, though the comrade who took me to the hospital was thoroughly appalled at the open-coughing, hurry-up-and-wait atmosphere at the nearest hospital to where I live. Actually, I’ve done a lot worse. I’ve spent much longer wait times in much greater pain, on a weekend night at the local federally-funded hospital while the shooting and stabbing victims kept jumping the triage line. Waiting two or three hours to see whether I’d get taken care of was a minimal expectation under the health care system as it’s existed for the entirety of my adult life.

The news, however, was bad: it was fractured, and I’d need a cast. However, the surprising part was that they weren’t going to cast it that day. They splinted it, with plaster strips and an ace bandage, and told me to come back Tuesday. I’d had the misfortune of damaging myself at the start of a holiday weekend, and there was only one orthopedist on premises.

So I returned the next Tuesday, and stood in line with my broken ankle. When I got to the desk, the first question was what insurance I have. Well, um, I don’t have health care insurance. As an alternative, I could pay $250, up front, for the appointment. I just shrugged-- I bring home $8 an hour from my job as a retail clerk. I never have that kind of extra money. Well, in that case, I was informed, it would take permission from an unnamed, unspecified ‘supervisor’ before the hospital could actually put a cast on my broken ankle. I sat and waited.

I waited 90 minutes, in the course of which I observed barely-controlled pandemonium at the nurses’ station in orthopedics. Twenty-two patients were waiting to be seen, and the co-receptionist had called in sick, so that one nurse with a splitting headache was left to sort through everyone’s insurance situations. Furthermore, the printer was taking 15-20 minutes to print the paperwork from each ‘print’ command. At some point, a “suit” showed up and demanded to know what the hold-up was. He left the lone receptionist muttering that she wished she’s get suspended from her job, because she couldn’t take much more of this.

I followed up with expressions of empathy for the fact that she was overwhelmed and in pain-- in fact, my situation didn’t differ that much. She in turn got back on the phone and got me my authorization, warning me that if I didn’t successfully get on ‘Emergency Medicaid,’ I would have to pay before any more appointments. Well, I reckoned, at least they’re not ‘rationing’ care around here!

My cast went on without incident, except I couldn’t have any pain medication stronger than ibuprofen, because I’m not insured. When I asked for one of those little cast-bootie things, I was told to use a sock. I’m not supposed to get my cast wet, but I have to wash the street grime off my toes every night. My ankle is healing apace, not least because I sprang the nearly $20 for these wonderful calcium-vitamin D supplements. As for the prescription, Advil was cheaper. Also, since I lost a whole shift at work, I’m getting enough sleep, though I’m not sure what I’m going to eat after I pay rent next month. It could have been worse-- I could have lost two shifts, but they worked with me. Unfortunately, working with me did not include offering me health care for my labor. Retail sales are radically down, you know, and in a very real sense, I'm lucky to be working at all... particularly with a disability.

Wiser folks than I have written that it is the duty of Communists to locate themselves at the heart of the struggles of the people, as they’re experienced in real time. Well, that’s unwittingly what I’ve done, as I’ve in effect thrown myself on the tender mercies of the contemporary American healthcare system, with a real need and no insurance. I suppose I should, according to some ‘reasoning’ in the current health care debate, rest assured that some ‘Washington bureaucrat’ isn’t ‘rationing’ my access to health care. After all, an overworked and harassed nursing-station receptionist and her threatening boss got me a cast, if not painkillers or a cast slipper, right? And that represents the 'best' health care system in the world, buddy! Indeed, I rest assured.

Specifically, I reassure myself that if I can’t get on ‘Emergency Medicaid’ (as if there’s any other kind), and so can’t pay for my next appointment, I can at least wait the six weeks and remove the cast myself. Actually, I’ll ask my boss, the nursing student, to do it with one of the power tools at work. Because that is the reality of American health care in 2009-- you might as well do it yourself, because the hospital administration may well deny you the care you need, unaccountably and without excuse or apology, if the insurance company doesn’t say ‘no’ first.

Frankly, I don’t see that theoretical 'government bureaucrat’ as much of a threat, from my admittedly subjective point of view. After all, they at least have a boss somewhere, whose job depends on the next election.

COMMENTARY The mentality of marginalization

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 05:59:00 +0000

Because of McCarthyism, the Cold War, the long economic expansion following WW II, and a resistence to think anew, the Left has been on the edges of politics for more than a half century. During this time, our ability to impact on broader political processes in the country has been narrowly circumscribed – nothing like the 1930s, nothing like the Left in many other countries.

While we stubbornly fought the good fight and made undeniable contributions over the past half-century, we were not a major player; we didn’t set the agenda or frame the debate; we didn’t determine the political direction of the country; we were not a decider.

But the past doesn't have to be prelude to the future. Because of the new political landscape, the Left has an opportunity to step from the edges into the mainstream of U.S. politics. It has a chance to become a player of consequence; a player whose voice is seriously considered in the debates bearing on the future of the country; a player that is able to mobilize and influence the thinking and actions of millions.

Whether we do depends on many factors, one of which is our ability to shake off a “mentality of marginalization” that has become embedded in the Left’s political culture over the last half of the Twentieth Century.

How does this mentality express itself? In a number of ways – in spending too much time agitating the choir; in dismissing new political openings; in thinking that partial reforms are at loggerheads with radical reforms; in seeing the glass as always half empty; in thinking that our outlook is identical with the outlook of millions; in turning the danger of cooptation into a rationale to keep a distance from reform struggles; in enclosing ourselves in narrow Left forms; and in damning victories with faint praise.

In this peculiar mindset, politics has few complexities. Change is driven only from the ground up. Winning broad majorities is not essential. There are no stages of struggle, no social forces that possess strategic social power, and no divisions worth noting. And distinctions between the Democratic and Republican parties are either of little consequence or disdainfully dismissed.

Unless the Left – and I include communists – sheds this mentality, it will miss a golden opportunity at this moment to engage and influence a far bigger audience than it has in the past six decades. Where do we begin? The fight for a public option is a good starting point even for those of us (and I include myself) who prefer single payer.

COMMENTARY Blood and oil in Central Asia

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:41:00 +0000

Original source: . Reposted by permission of the author.

In the past month, two seemingly unrelated events have turned Central Asia into a potential flashpoint: an aggressively expanding North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a nascent strategic alliance between Russia and China.

At stake is nothing less than who holds the future high ground in the competition for the world's energy resources.

Increasing competition

Early this summer, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicted a sharp drop in world oil reserves. According to energy expert Michael Klare, the 'era of cheap and plentiful oil is drawing to a close,' and is likely to result in 'a new era of cutthroat energy competition.'

In early July, after a full-court press by Washington and an agreement to increase its yearly rent, Kyrgyzstan reversed a decision to close the U.S. base at Manas, thus giving the United States a powerful toehold in the countries bordering the oil- and gas-rich Caspian Basin.

While Manas is portrayed as a critical base in the ongoing campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the war in Central Asia is less over 'terrorism' than it is over energy. 'Never reading the words 'Afghanistan' and 'oil' in the same sentence is still a source of endless amusement,' says the Asia Times' Pepe Escobar.

Escobar, who has coined the term 'Pipelineistan' to describe the vast network of oil and gas pipelines that 'crisscross the potential imperial battlefields of the planet,' sees Afghanistan 'at the core of Pipelineistan,' strategically placed between the Middle East, Central and South Asia.'

As Escobar points out, 'It's no coincidence that the map of terror in the Middle East and Central Asia is practically interchangeable with the map of oil.'

The role of NATO

For most Americans and Europeans, Afghanistan appeared on their radar screens shortly after the 9/11 assaults on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. But according to Escobar, three months before the 2001 attack U.S., Iranian, German, and Italian officials met in Geneva to discuss toppling the Taliban because it was 'the proverbial fly in the ointment' in a scheme to run a $2 billion, 800-mile natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via southern Afghanistan.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO moved aggressively to fill the vacuum left by the demise of the Warsaw Pact, quickly recruiting former Soviet allies and provinces.

According to Escobar, one of NATO's first forays in the energy war was the Balkans, which NATO represented as a fight to liberate the Albanians in Kosovo. Moscow and Beijing, however, viewed it as an opportunity for the Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corporation (AMBO) to build a $1.1 billion pipeline to bring Caspian Basin oil to the West, thus bypassing Iran and Russia. The AMBO pipeline — due to open in 2011 — will transport Caspian Basin oil via Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania.

'How could Russia, China, and Iran not interpret the war in Kosovo, then the invasion of Afghanistan (where Washington had previously tried to pair with the Taliban and encourage the building of another of those avoid-Iran, avoid-Russia pipelines), and finally Georgia (that critical energy transportation junction) as straightforward wars for Pipelineistan?' Escobar asks.

For every action, however, there is an opposite and equal reaction.

Competition increasing

In 2001, Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan founded the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which now has observer status from Iran, Pakistan, and India.

Unlike NATO, the SCO is a regional organization, not a military alliance. Counting observers, it embraces the bulk of humanity, much of the world's energy resources, and a growing section of its GNP.

However, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), made up of all of the SCO members, plus Belarus and Armenia, is a military alliance. Last February, CSTO created a collective rapid reaction force which, according to Russian expert Ilya Kramnik, 'will give CSTO a quick tool, leaving no time for third parties to intervene.'

The only 'third party' capable of intervening in Central Asia is NATO.

Chinese linchpin

In many ways, Beijing is the linchpin in this 21st-century 'great game,' because China is weathering the current worldwide depression better than most countries. While its exports have taken a beating, the Chinese have successfully fallen back on their enormous internal market to take up some of the slack. As a result, China recently opened the aid spigots to nations in the region.

In June, China loaned Turkmenistan $3 billion, which will give it a stake in the Turkmen's enormous Yolotan Osman gas field, rumored to be the world's largest. The Turkmenistan loan also benefits Moscow by underwriting the Russian oil company Roseneft, and the pipeline builder Transneft. Kazakhstan got a $15 billion loan, giving China a 22% share in Kazakh oil production.

According to former Indian diplomat and current Asia Times commentator M.K. Bhadrakumar, after years of tension between Moscow and Beijing, the two countries are burying that past and 'steering their relationship' in the direction of a 'strategic partnership in the overall international situation,' rather than competing over energy resources.

This past April, Russia and China signed a $25 billion oil agreement that will supply Beijing with 4% of its needs through 2034. The two countries are currently negotiating a natural gas deal.

Beijing is planning an almost 4,000 mile, $26 billion Turkmen-Kazakh-China pipeline to run from the Caspian Basin to Guangdong Province in China. Included in the deal is a proviso to keep 'third parties' — NATO bases — out of Turkmenistan.

In the meantime, Russia is paying premium prices to lock up Kazakh, Uzbek, and Turkman gas. It's also negotiating to buy more Azerbaijani oil which, if successful, could end up bankrupting the western-controlled BTC pipeline that runs through Georgia.

Writing in BusinessWeek, S. Adam Cardais, former editor of the Prague Post, says that Russia is 'doing its damnedest to keep Europe out of Central Asia,' and that Russia and China 'may have already outmaneuvered Europe.'

U.S. still in game

But Washington is hardly throwing in the towel. The Manas coup is a case in point, and the Obama administration is increasing aid to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

In short, the Central Asian chessboard is enormous, the pieces are numerous, and the stakes are high.

Pipelineistan isn't limited to the Middle East and Central Asia. It exists wherever gas and oil flow, from the steamy depths of Venezuela's Oronoco Basin to the depths of the South Atlantic off the coast of Brazil.

'Oil and gas by themselves are not the U.S.'s ultimate aim,' argues Escobar, 'It's all about control.' And if 'the U.S. controls the sources of energy of its rivals — Europe, Japan, China, and other nations aspiring to be more independent — they win.'

The U.S. has enormous military power. But as Iraq, and now Afghanistan, makes clear, the old days of cornering a market by engineering a coup or sending in the Marines are fast receding. The old imperial nations are fading, and the up-and-comers are more likely to be speaking Portuguese, Chinese, and Hindi than English. The trick over the next several decades will be how to keep the competition for energy from sparking off brush fire wars or a catastrophic clash of the great powers.

Conn Hallinan is a columnist.

COMMENTARY Calif. budget crisis who should pay the bill?

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:30:00 +0000

WHITTIER, Calif. — California’s state budget is still being debated with continued threats of cuts and services to the most needed in our state.

Here in California we all continue to be on pins and needles not knowing what the end result will be and who will be left without a job and or services. People with disabilities, children and the elderly continue to be threatened with cuts and some cuts have begun to occur. My own brother's Saturday transportation service has been eliminated and I will have to find an alternative way to get him to his Saturday activities — this may seem like a luxury to most, but it is of vital importance to him and his state of mind to keep active on a daily basis. It allows him to keep active and live with me and avoid going to a nursing home, which in the long run will cost the state more money.

State Assemblymember Tony Mendoza has released the results of a survey he took among his constituents, of which I am one, related to the state budget crisis. He thanks us all for sharing our thoughts and providing feedback on how to solve the crisis.

'As a part of my open discussion on budget solutions and operations,” he writes, “I want to share with you results of my recent district survey.'

Below are some of his findings:

“Of particular interest was the response on methods to raise new revenues. A tax on pornography was the clear leader of the responses, followed by an increase to the tobacco tax.

“It is clear to me that education remains an area we need to continue to protect from cuts, while 45.9% are clearly concerned about jobs and the economy. A plurality of responses would like to see cuts to the prison system and at the same time, would like to have prisoners with no legal status deported to their country.

“The survey also netted a three-way tie wanting to sell surplus state property, raise taxes on those earning over $500,000 annually and legalize and tax marijuana as a means to increase revenues.”

“This information is essential to the debates I participate in and helps to bring the concerns of the 56th Assembly District to the table,” writes state Assemblyman Mendoza.

Although I don’t disagree with taxing pornography or a tobacco tax, I believe that the wealthy are still not sharing in this load as evidenced by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s and his fellow Republicans’ refusal to raise taxes on them. California is the only oil-producing state that doesn’t tax oil extracted within its borders.

LETTERS Importance of standing up, coverage of N. Korea, Iran, Honduras, Health care for all

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:56:00 +0000

Importance of standing up While I was sitting in the VA hospital waiting room, I struck up a conversation with an elderly lady. She explained to me that her husband was undergoing an extensive surgery and she was extremely worried for her husband’s life. During the conversation, I noticed a cute little dog that was on a leash next to her feet. I asked if I could pet her dog (since I am a major dog lover) and the dog was just as loving as could be. The dog then jumped on the chair next to the nice lady. She explained how the dog was her lifeline to her survival. She explained that she had violent seizures. She had no idea when her next seizure would be and her fall might kill her. The dog would sense then a seizure was imminent and would tug the line and would refuse to move any further. When this would occur the lady would lie down and prepare for her seizure. As a south Georgia country boy, I know how special dogs can be. I replied how special her seizure dog was. It was an awesome experience for me to meet this special lady and her special little dog. About that time a VA policeman came up an asked if the dog was a “seeing eye dog.” The elderly lady explained that it was a “seizure dog.” She tried to explain the purpose of this dog to no avail. The VA policeman ordered the seizure dog out of the hospital. The lady then started crying. At this point I stood up and said, “NO!” I took this fine lady to the patient representative’s office where I presented her case and the lady and her dog got written permission to stay. If a dog could smile this little dog did. The lady hugged my neck and thanked me again. The VA cop glanced at me and told me I was a troublemaker. I replied, “If you only knew!” Richard Bennett South Georgia Read Richard Bennett’s wonderful

Re: N. Korea test People’s Weekly World is to be commended for Owen Williamson’s “Scientists question North Korea nuclear test.” It brings to the broader public information which the main stream media avoids or ignores. At a time when the Obama administration is reviving a revisionist Truman–MacArthur policy towards North Korea, it becomes ever more imperative to debunk it. Demonizing Pyongyang will not bring North Korea back to the six party talks, nor will it lessen the taut trip wire to war. Mr. Obama has embarked on a diplomatic and military policy which has but one goal: to force North Korea into “complete surrender” on the nuclear issue, advanced rocketry and geopolitical concerns favorable to the United States and its South Korean and Japanese allies. Obviously, he and his team at State and the Pentagon have misread its long, sorry history in dealing with North Korea. RJ Cambria New York NY RJ Cambira is the former managing editor of The Korean Review.

Where is coverage on Iran? I expected that Iran’s recent unrest and people’s movement will attract your attention and results on a reflection of what’s going on in Iran on PWW. This is a very important event that will shape the future of our country and don’t know how you guys have ignored it? Iranians need the support of all progressive parties including communists. Believe me it not less important than many other issues you got on PWW. Hamid Vakili British Columbia, Canada Editor’s note: The PWW has given a lot of coverage about the democratic and workers’ struggles in Iran — both in the wake of the 10th presidential elections and before the recent uprising. The current website search engine and article organization can be problematic. But if you search for Iran, numerous stories will come up. We hope to have a better way to organize and present our extensive coverage from Iran to Honduras and other international stories, to the labor and people’s movements in the U.S. with our new website. Donations can be sent to 235 W. 23rd St., NYC, NY 10011 or made online at pww.org.

SourKraut Charles Krauthammer in the article, “Obama attains arms-reduction-but at a price” stipulates that he wants Obama to terminate negotiations with Russia and thus, invite the Russians to build more missiles and watch the Russians drive themselves into bankruptcy as happened during the Cold War. In effect, he would plant the seeds for war by encouraging a policy which resulted in Russia building more missiles. It is totally insane for him to suggest that even more missiles be added to the nuclear arsenal of Russia or any other nation such as the United States. Krauthammer has the mind of the German High Command from 1932 till 1945 where the warmongers of that time needed more weapons to prepare for war but ended up destroying themselves. His advocacy of more militarism on the planet instead of the peaceful plans of Obama would make the whole planet a pile of rubble when nuclear weapons bounce off their targets. The short run idea of his would cost humanity a higher price in the long run. Raymond Daugerdas, Pittsburgh PA

Honduran coup not ‘glorious’ The following is a copy of the letter to the editor sent to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Former Honduran Justice Minister Carlos Pivel argues that the military coup against the Honduran people was a “Glorious Revolution” (On a Path to Dictatorship, July 5, Philadelphia Inquirer). Pivel gave as the pretext the invention that Zelaya “contemplated running for a second term. A true picture of the coup was given by rally participant Alejandra Fernandez, a university student. Ms. Fernandez explained to a journalist, that Zelaya “raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving light bulbs, decreased the price of public transportation and made scholarships available for students. That’s why the elites can’t stand him and why we want him back.” Lou Incognito, Philadelphia PA

Health care for all Senator Max Baucus is going around Montana about health care. The people of Montana are demanding single payer, national health care, Medicare for all, no one out everybody in. But you know what Baucus is saying to the people of Montana? Congress will not pass single payer national health care for the people. What he really means is Senator Max Baucus was going to different cities in Montana and telling the people that Congress and Senator Max Baucus have completely sold out to thieving capitalist health insurance corporations that profit from the sickness of Montana’s people. Senator Max Baucus doesn’t belong to the people of Montana but to the health insurance industry, he is trying to guarantee profits for the health care industry instead of health care for all of the people of Montana. Daniel Gawain Waters Troy MT

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Will the Communists nationalize Juniors junkyard?

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:19:00 +0000

Today is Saturday, so I crank up my old pickup truck and head down the old dirt road to see my good friend Junior. I love this old truck and every rattle that goes with it. One thing about south Georgia is the washboard roads. They are very difficult to navigate at times. The 8-track player blares out “your cheatin’ heart” as my hound dogs (pronounced ‘dawgs’) bark and bay at every turn we make — the day is starting out great. This is going to be a wonderful day.

After a while, I see a sign that reads “Junior’s Junkyard — the best junk in south Georgia.” My truck skids to a halt under the old oak tree. I get out and walk over to Junior and extend greetings by saying, “Howdy, Junior, how’s your mamas and them?” “Tolerable.” In Junior I see a man weighing around 265 pounds, wearing overalls, checkered shirt, ball cap and broughams. “Junior, you should run off and join the circus.” Junior responds, “What you mean?” I look at him, with a smile, and state, “Well, son, you are the only good ole boy I know that can chew ‘backer, dip snuff, smoke a cigarette, a ten cent cigar, chew on a toothpick, drink an R.C. and eat a moon pie at the same time.”

Junior looks at me and says, “My wife says my mouth looks like a cesspool. She says I have to quit all this or she won’t kiss me anymore.” I must admit Junior sure looked sad.

As I sat on an old R.C. crate, Junior asks, “Son, when you Reds take power, will ya’all take my junkyard away from me?” I replied, “What do you mean ‘you Reds’? Don’t tell me your wife has you reading Steinbeck?” Junior paused for a second then replied, “Yeah, I just finished two of his books, “In Dubious Battle” and “The Grapes of Wrath.” I looked at him with a smile and said, “Son, the Communists have no interest in taking your junk away from you. Besides, we have enough junk of our own.”

About this time Junior’s lovely, petite wife June walked up and sat down. She is a teacher at the county primary school and has so many educational degrees that we call her Doctor Fahrenheit. After listening to our discussion progress, June stated, “I almost wish the Communists would take his junkyard away from him. He seems to love that damn junk more than he does me.”

After visiting with Junior and his wife, I came to the conclusion that while the Communists would not nationalize Junior’s junkyard, his wife just might!

LONESOME HOBO ECONOMICS Mountaintop removal on recovery road

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:19:00 +0000

... but I did not trust my brother, I carried him to blame. Which led me to my fatal doom To wander off in shame ...

— Bob Dylan, “Lonesome Hobo,” 1967

In the Coal Creek river valley in Southern West Virginia actress Daryl Hannah and NASA climatologist James Hansen were arrested protesting continuation of mountaintop — “surface” — mining, warning of dire environmental consequences and unfunded costs exceeding the value of coal mined. According to Robert Kennedy Jr.'s eloquent appeal over 500 mountaintops have been lost, mostly in Appalachia, to mountaintop removal. Debris and waste from surface mining dam up rivers and valleys, and of course head downstream.

Coal company funded groups, and the miners themselves, gathered to brand the environmentalists as 'outsiders' and 'tree-huggers' determined to destroy the few remaining jobs above minimum wage in Coal Creek.

The miners have a point about the jobs. I cannot recall any environmental protest seeking to ban some kind of unclean industry or practice that ever paid the slightest honor or consideration to the lethal, dangerous and hard labor performed by generations of workers. Everyone works under light bulbs and burns the power that coal, oil and nuclear power workers have made abundant and reliable. Maybe it happened somewhere — but I never saw the celebrities demand — lip-service will not do — that ANY and EVERY worker sacrificed to cleaner energy be fully retrained and compensated, along with his or her children who were counting on those miner wages and benefits to get to college, and have access to health care. After Daryl is gone, if the protest is successful, families will be watching their miner parents head to Wal-Mart to work for beans until they are dead or unable to stand.

On the other hand, West Virginia receives (thanks to having two of the most powerful U.S. senators) a huge amount of federal anti-poverty and other aid. So the term 'outsiders' does not really apply to any U.S. taxpayer! Plus, the risks to public safety and health in failing to make a sharp turn toward renewable energy technologies are abundant. Only mine owners who are also into Rapture theologies really can't see this obvious truth — there are some, by the way, who boldly assert: 'the world won't even exist in a decade, so who cares about the environment.'

'Clean coal' is a scientific fiction, made of whole cloth. Most of us, of course, are not committed to the Rapture. But it’s easy to get lazy and underestimate the climate change issue. You, dear reader, may NOT be one of those fools who, like me, carelessly made jokes for years about global warming every time there was hard winter freeze, or a cool summer breeze. I was eventually humiliated one Christmas morning with 'Global Warming For Dummies' books, my gift from relations clearly tired of my act.

So, I agree with the protesters on all the dangers. But I stand with the miners if push comes to shove and someone thinks there is a path to progress that trashes workers' families and lives. There will be no green recovery, or any recovery, in our country if the rights of working people to full compensation for their labor, and full investment in their abilities and security, are put on the back burner.

John Case (jcase4218@gmail.com) hosts the morning radio show “Winners and Losers” out of Shepherdstown, W.Va.

What will Sarah do?

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:32:00 +0000

I know predictions are risky in politics — but who wants to “play it safe?” Not me. So here it goes.

I think Sarah Palin is definitely going to build a national network for her presidential run in 2012. She has backing from some GOP elite, like William Kristol, for example. The GOP is desperately looking for people who can excite its base, and what we saw in 2008 is that Sarah Barracuda can do just that. But it’s the fascist-leaning part of the GOP’s base. And that is what she is going to build on. Remember those rallies during the presidential campaign? She brought the crowd to a fevered pitch where Obama was called “traitor” — and everything but a child of God – as my mother used to say.

So here is my prediction: she’s going to criss-cross the lower 48 and build up her storm troopers on a national level. Those in the GOP elite think this is the way to go. The more moderate still left in the GOP are a weak minority. The GOP has gone more and more to the far-right since the election of Obama. Witness the increasing shrillness of Rush Limbaugh — the self-proclaimed leader — of the GOP, Newt Gingrich and the others in the media blabosphere like Glenn Beck.

Why else would Obama-hater Jon Voight get such an enthusiastic response to his pseudo-religious and apocalyptic speech where he compared the president to Julius Caesar and then applauded all those bloviators who “stay on course to bring an end to this false prophet, Obama.” (Et tu Brute? Julius Caesar asks just before getting assassinated.) This is how low the GOP is stooping and Palin is gonna jump on that bandwagon. She has already greeted – as governor – a political party that wants Alaska to secede from the United States and has ties to neo-Nazi groups. Her husband is a member of that party.

Second prediction: Three areas Sarah Barracuda is going to attack the Obama administration and try to drum up support on: racism, role of government and the role of the United States in the world. These themes are dynamically intertwined and are the heart and soul of the ideology of the far-right and corporate power. Already attacks on the role of government are happening — using anti-Communism (i.e. everything the government plays a role in is “socialistic”) and racism. And on a new foreign policy — that Obama is making America “weak.” Militarism, racism and anti-Communism are a potent mix and standard fare for the pro-corporate far-right. Palin will do all that with her “family values” sex appeal.

They are doing everything in their power to limit and roll back the tremendous people’s victory last November and Sarah is going to try to be their gal to do it.

Third prediction: It will get ugly — but they won’t be successful.

Teresa Albano, talbano@pww.org, is editor of the People’s Weekly World.