People Before Profit blog

What Obama didnt say on Fathers Day

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:36:00 +0000

In a widely acclaimed speech at an African American church on Chicago’s South Side to commemorate Father’s Day, Barack Obama gave a presentation that, while acknowledging the racial challenges of the past, gave great weight to the themes of personal responsibility and moral uplift confronting African American men. The central theme that resonated through the presentation was “stop making excuses” for your own failings to be fathers.

Lamenting the growth in single-parent households, the number of which in the Illinois senator’s opinion has doubled in recent years, Obama called for greater moral fortitude to reverse the erosion of the Black family.

“Yes we need more jobs and job training and more opportunity in our community,” he thundered from the pulpit, “we know all that. But the change we need is not just going to come from government ... it’s going to come from us,” he continued to applause. Obama lambasted absentee fathers and men who “act like boys.

Responsibility just doesn’t end at conception,” he said, going on to add, “any fool can make a baby.

“We can’t just write these problems off to past injustices,” he declared. “Some of it has to do with a tragic history, but we can’t keep using that as an excuse.”

Obama, who obviously had a strong personal motivation for the Father’s Day address as his own dad was absent during his “Wonder Bread years,” seemed to speak openly and honestly about his own personal feelings, while also keeping in mind constituencies he hopes to win in the general election. Apparently he hopes to assuage certain fears that he is captive to “special” interests and that by standing above the fray and “telling it like it is,” he will appear presidential.

But is that really how it is? Is a major problem in the Black community the lack of responsible Black fathers?

I grew up in a Black community on the south side of Youngstown, Ohio. On West Marion Avenue, dozens of African American families raised their families on paychecks earned laboring in the town’s steel, electric and auto factories. In 99 percent of them Dad was there. I remember Mr. Mosley, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Bell, Mr. Sanki, Mr. Harvey, Mr. Goler and of course, my dad, Mr. Sims. Sure, there were some families headed by single mothers, but they were the exception not the rule. Today however, on Marion Avenue, that same constellation of families no longer obtains. What happened?

Anyone who is honest knows the answer. And you don’t have to look far to find it: the economy collapsed with the mass closing of factories in the early 1970s. Youngstown’s African American families collapsed along with it.

God, moral fortitude, personal responsibility, etc., had nothing to do with it. Corporate profits did. How are you going to be a man if you don’t have a job? And herein lies the dilemma. Young Black men are told time and again, “Be a man, Be a man,” and yet the means of “manhood” are placed largely beyond their reach. Personal responsibility is important, but meaningless without the means to do so.

As a result, my nephews and nieces have grown up in a community where three generations have never worked. Listen to what my nephew recently said to me: “Get a job? That’s not for people like me.”

And added to this is the sad fact that with the cost of living in today’s service economy you cannot raise a family microwaving burgers at McDonald’s.

In the last 10 years we have seen the Million Man March, the end of “welfare as we know it,” a speech by Bill Clinton chastising Black people for acting with “reckless abandonment,” and Bill Cosby’s recent campaign replete with themes similar to all of these. None of these were able to overcome job loss or its corrosive effects on the communities it impacts.

At the heart of the crisis in the Black, Brown and white working-class communities of today lies lack of decent-paying union jobs that would afford a standard of living adequate to raise a family. Obama has a great program to create millions of good paying jobs. That would be a Father’s Day message all would hear.

Joe Sims (joesims@politicalaffairs.net) is editor of Political Affairs.

EDITORIAL:Summer job blues

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:40:00 +0000

Youth joblessness is reaching record highs this summer, hitting 66 percent nationwide (the highest since unemployment data was first collected in the 1960s). These numbers rise dramatically for African American youth, who in Chicago face an unemployment rate of 85 percent. These numbers also rise across the board if you include young people who have given up looking for work, who currently go uncounted. But this is not a numbers game.

Summer jobs are not just a fun thing for kids to earn pocket money, or just a lesson in responsibility. They need these jobs! In today’s economy many young people have to pay for their own clothes, phones and school supplies. They rely on summer jobs to pay for school, rent, and help support their families. When they cannot fulfill these financial needs in the formal economy, some young people are driven to the “informal economy” of drugs and crime. Others join the military. Our youth need better options for a meaningful and constructive life.

Summer job programs are one of the ways that youth unemployment was curbed in the past. Similar programs are needed today.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley says youth employment is a part of his plan to curb youth violence. However, his program, which is arguably one of the better ones in the country, only employed 1,000 Chicago youth in the private sector last year.

Every year this program garners at least 40,000 applications, only a small fraction of Chicago’s unemployed youth, but some 75 percent are turned away because the program can only accommodate 10,000. And the program’s stringent requirements leave the city’s most in-need youth to fend for themselves in a collapsing job market.

A nationwide comprehensive summer jobs program is needed. Youth advocacy programs know the price joblessness has had on youth, from explosions in gang violence to hopelessness and poverty. That is why they are fighting for a federally funded summer jobs program that would allocate $2 billion to jobs for youth, and would bring at least 2 million youth into the job market. Now that’s more like it!

EDITORIAL: Sexism is poison

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:19:00 +0000

With the windup of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, much attention has been focused on the role of sexism in our national discourse.

Some of the discussion has sought to pit sexism against racism, suggesting that racism has become unacceptable in public life while sexism is tolerated. This is an unfortunate and obviously misguided notion. We have only to look at racist slurs against Barack Obama and his wife Michelle throughout the campaign, and continuing today, to see that public expressions of racism too often go unchallenged and continue to play a toxic role in our society.

At the same time, there is no doubt that sexism is a live and virulent poison that has reared its ugly head during this campaign targeting Hillary Clinton and, now increasingly, Michelle Obama.

Many cite MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson, who said on the air about Clinton, “When she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs.” Apparently, in Carlson’s view, a strong, articulate and combative woman political leader is a threat to his — and thus all men’s — masculinity. What is the message for women? Be meek and submissive, and better yet, stay home?

Early in the campaign a Washington Post article discussed the fact that Clinton’s (very businesslike) attire revealed her “cleavage.”

An anti-Hillary group advertised T-shirts reading “Citizens United Not Timid” — in case you don’t get it, what do the initials spell?

Too often, expressions of sexism are treated as something to snicker about, and not take seriously.

But winking at sexism takes a deadly toll. The toll is not only in the private abuse of women and girls by family members or others that is unfortunately too widespread in our country. The toll is also in the discrimination and abuse directed at women in the workplace, in health care, in family planning and reproduction. And it is in the failure to support women and children with the quality public services — child care, afterschool and other programs — necessary to fully empower working women and men alike.

Both men and women suffer as a result of sexism. Personal growth and relationships are damaged. Wages and benefits are lowered for all. And the common human bond so necessary to win advances for all is more difficult to forge.

Sexism in all its expressions is toxic.

Desolation in Myanmar

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:23:00 +0000

In the aftermath of a major natural disaster, the ongoing tragedy that is playing out in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is unnecessary and criminal.

The military junta, which had initially withheld relief aid from reaching the majority of the population most negatively impacted by the cyclone, has reportedly stolen much of the goods and have blocked people’s access to them.

Even today, a month after the cyclone struck, over 2 million are still homeless and hundreds of children have become orphans without steady caretakers. Early on, a peculiar relationship between the junta, U.S. political figures and business interests became quickly evident. Most notably Sen. John McCain’s political adviser, Douglas Goodyear, and Doug Davenport, another lobbyist linked to McCain and Myanmar, have played major roles in seedy dealings.

Another disturbing connection to the regime is energy company Unocal, representing another outrageous wrong wherein human rights and social justice are secondary concerns relative to wealth extraction, civilian exploitation and overall profit motives. Yet, few people outside of Myanmar seem aware of this association and the general populace in the country dares not contest the arrangement for fear of backlash.

Meanwhile food, drinkable water, clothing and shelter remain acutely needed, along with medicine and health care provision. All considered, the Buddhist monks have been doing their best under extremely difficult conditions involving desperate people and a paucity of lifesaving supplies. However, their attempts are being greatly curbed by the junta, which just this past weekend forced large numbers out of the refugee camps. These inhumane and imprudent maneuvers display an extreme disregard for humanity and a total indifference towards ethics even at a most basic level.

At the same time, U.S. ties to the military junta in Myanmar have gone mostly unreported or underreported by global mainstream media.

Brian McAfee, Muskegan, Michigan

A river walk and garden for the ages

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:15:00 +0000

The man was well dressed, one might even say dapper. He moved to the front of the packed room with a professorial air. Born of the 19th century and known for his advocacy for social justice, he took the podium and with his mere presence held the audience in rapt attention. In the state with the “shot heard around the world” and where abolitionism had deep roots, progressive and revolutionary ideas received welcoming attention.

And it was a tumultuous time. Many were unemployed and government was not responding. The speaker was known for his antipathy toward financial institutions, the military and war. He had written much and with a literary flair about such matters.

What would be his main thrust, his focus, his analysis and solution?

Some heard the topic just before he spoke. They thought it was a joke. Some thought for sure it would be a historical disquisition on the place where they sat. It turned out to be neither. With a calm, unassuming voice, he began.

“In the earlier days, even before this anniversary we are celebrating in Massachusetts now, this valley must have been a magnificent sight. The beautiful mountains on either side thickly covered with massive trees, and in the midst of it all, the Housatonic river rolling in great flood, winding here and there, stretching now and then into lakes which are our present meadows and so hurrying always on toward the sea. And I think everyone would realize then and now that the river was the center of the picture. In a sense the mountains exist for the river; and no matter how much one might climb their sides, they look back upon the river as the central beauty of the panorama.”

Who was this man speaking so eloquently of the environment? Henry David Thoreau? Good guess but wrong. It was W.E.B. Du Bois. The educator/scholar/activist who would traverse two centuries addressing such topics as the color line, war and peace and socialism, and would eventually join the Communist Party USA, was speaking to the annual meeting of the alumni of Searles High School on July 21, 1930. The 1884 graduate of that same school in Great Barrington, Mass., went on to presage the importance of passive open space green ways and an environmental consciousness 50 years ahead of its time.

“What has happened? The thing that has happened in this valley has happened in hundreds of others. The town, the whole valley, has turned its back upon the river. They have sought to get away from it. They have neglected it. They have used it as a sewer, a drain, a place for throwing their waste and their offal. Mills, homes, and farms have poured their dirt and refuse into it; outhouses and dung heaps have lined its banks. Almost as if by miracle some beauty still remains in places where the river for a moment free of its enemies and tormentors, dark and exhausted under its tall trees, has sunk back to vestiges of its former charm, in great, slow, breathless curves and still murmurs. But for the most part the Housatonic has been transformed into an ugly disgraceful thing. We have crossed it with bridges of unbelievable ugliness, we have choked the flow of its waters, and we have done this not only by filling up the river with refuse, but by denuding the guardian hillsides of their trees and shutting off the brooks.”

Du Bois went on to mention rivers of other countries. He emphasized while they were used as highways, people cultivated and appreciated their beauty. He continued,

“You know we are judged by what we neglect. … Perhaps the very freeing of spirit which will come from giving up our attempt to do the impossible, from our ignoring of our greatest source of beauty and completeness, and degrading it with filth and refuse, perhaps from that very freeing of spirit will come other freedoms and inspirations and aspirations which may be steps toward the whole vast problem of country life and the diffusion and diversification and enriching of culture throughout this land. Even if this vision sounds fantastic to the severely practical, certainly the cleansing of the Housatonic will mean better health, less typhoid, safer recreation and lovelier vistas of beauty.”

He urged “that we should rescue the Housatonic and clean it as we have never in all the years thought before of cleaning it, and seek to restore its ancient beauty; making it the center of a town, of a valley, and perhaps — who knows? of a new measure of civilized life.”

All too often powerful voices for social justice from our past are not recognized for the completeness of their vision for a better world. And those visions include the environment. This is doubly so for African American activists and thinkers.

This was not a “one shot deal” on the environment for W.E.B. Du Bois. In 1961, at the time he joined the Communist Party, he wrote the same Great Barrington Alumni Association about the Housatonic River and the environment.

Fortunately, some 30 years later, environmentalists, inspired by Du Bois’ eloquent words and vision, went to work. By the new millennium, 1,900 volunteers, with more than half school-age children and young adults, transformed the riverbank, removing 365 tons of debris, planting native flora and initiating a half-mile public walking trail. On Sept. 28, 2002, the W.E.B Du Bois River Garden was dedicated just a few paces from his birthplace.

In these times of hope and political change, Great Barrington’s river walk and the Dubois River Garden are beautiful destinations for all activists. While there, be sure to rekindle Dr. Du Bois’ other visions of peace and social justice.

Nick Bart is an environmental activist in Connecticut.

For more information and pictures of the Du Bois River Garden and public river walk go to . Art Perlo contributed research for this article.

Why are oil prices going through the roof?

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:31:00 +0000

As she watched the numbers flick upward while filling her car at a gas station in Providence, R.I., the other day, a woman turned to another customer with a grimace and said, “I told my kids we’re just not going anywhere. We’re going to be staying home.”

Similar conversations are heard across the U.S. as Americans worry about how to cope with soaring gas prices. In Rhode Island and much of the rest of the country gasoline is now nearly $4 a gallon, or more, jumping 13 cents in the last week.

A number of critics charge that Wall Street speculators and oil companies are key culprits in the price surge, and are calling for government intervention.

At a May 21 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Exploring the Skyrocketing Price of Oil,” oil company executives asserted that the price spikes had nothing to do with their practices, mammoth profits or luxurious compensation. Some claimed they did not even know how much they were being paid — a point that infuriated some senators.

“Consumers are angry — and they have every right to be — and the American economy is buckling under the weight of gas prices,” said Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), as quoted in The Hill. “And while consumers and businesses suffer from these price increases, the oil industry seems only to get richer and richer.”

Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, running for re-election this fall, chimed in that oil companies “don’t exist to produce the lowest possible price of fuel for our constituents. They exist to maximize their profits for their shareholders.”

The oil executives, and many on Wall St., argue that the oil price spike is out of their hands, caused solely by the anonymous world market — increased demand and tight supply. They say the answer is, leave them and their profits alone, and open up more federal land for drilling.

But earlier in the month, Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, told a House subcommittee that uncompetitive practices by oil companies and manipulation of the market by financial speculators are two big culprits behind soaring gas prices.

The five largest oil companies in the U.S. — Exxon Mobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, BP and Shell — have raked in $586 billion in profits since 2001, Slocum said in May 6 testimony. During that time, gasoline prices have risen 160 percent and diesel has gone up more than 210 percent.

At least 70 cents of the price you pay for a gallon of a gasoline is attributable to pure speculation, unrelated to supply and demand, he said.

Supply and demand are a factor in oil prices, Slocum told the World in a phone interview. “Oil is a finite resource, and the world is using a lot. It’s getting tougher and tougher to find productive oil fields.” However, “there’s clearly a disconnect” between those factors and the spiking prices, he said. “Speculators have gone wild.” With no regulation, “they’re free to do whatever they want.”

His point was confirmed by prominent Wall St. oil analyst Fadel Gheit in a Wall Street Journal interview in February. Gheit, a managing director at Oppenheimer & Co., told the Journal that more than half the price of crude oil can be attributed to financial speculators. World oil supply and demand, he said, has not fluctuated enough to explain recent sharp oil price spikes.

Gheit said oil companies can profitably replenish their supplies at $15-$20 per barrel. With the selling price of crude oil historically three times the extraction price, that would put crude oil prices at $45-$60 a barrel, he said. “So anything over $45 a barrel is all fat.”

Crude oil prices have jumped more than 40 percent since December and now hover around $130 a barrel.

The speculation that Gheit and others are talking about involves “hedge” funds, big banks and other big financial players who buy oil contracts at the current price, paying only a small percentage and borrowing the rest, betting that prices will rise and they will make big profits. The surge in such speculative deals has become self-fulfilling, driving prices up, experts say.

Last December, Gheit testified before a Senate committee hearing on the role of speculation in oil’s price surge. He argued that speculation accounted for much of the price increase in the last year, called for stricter regulation, and said serial violators should face jail time.

“Unless and until regulators step in and stop this toga party, this will dwarf the subprime debacle,” Gheit told the Journal.

A Senate investigation found that Goldman Sachs and another leading investment firm, Morgan Stanley, each earned about $1.5 billion from energy trading in 2005, Public Citizen notes.

The federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, apparently feeling the public anger, announced last week it is investigating possible price manipulation in U.S. oil markets.

Other factors cited as contributing to rising oil prices include the declining value of the dollar, which makes oil more expensive in dollars compared to other world currencies, and supply disruptions, in particular the Iraq war. Public Citizen and others also charge that oil companies are deliberately restricting supply by limiting refinery capacity.

Carl Wood, director of regulatory affairs for the Utility Workers Union and a former California public utilities commissioner, took issue with environmental advocates who say rising oil prices are a good thing since they will curb use of oil and promote alternatives. This ignores the impact on workers like Woods’ union members. “We don’t want unnecessary use of fossil fuels, but we don’t want profiteering either,” he said.

The question is, who is making the decisions about what’s important to society, and how it’s going to be paid for, Wood said. “As a society, our challenge is, how do you democratize the decision-making process within a profit-making economy? We have to both protect the economic interests of workers and their environment.” This is where regulation is so crucial, he said. “Regulation is a key exercise in democracy. That’s why the Republicans hate it so much.”

This will be “a key challenge” for all future administrations, and especially urgent for the next president and Congress because “this administration has been so reckless and destructive,” Wood said.

In his congressional testimony Slocum called on Congress to repeal all existing oil company tax breaks, including the roughly $9 billion a year in subsidies to oil companies, and implement a windfall profits tax, which would finance clean energy, energy efficiency and mass transit. He also called for a federal crackdown on anti-competitive practices by oil companies and investment firms, and re-regulation of energy trading exchanges.

Slocum urges public support for HR 5351, the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act, which would repeal roughly $18 billion in tax credits for oil and gas companies while extending tax credits for renewable energy and energy conservation programs. It was passed by the House in February, 236-182, with virtually all Democrats voting yes and virtually all Republicans voting no. Bush said he would veto it, and it is now bottled up in the Senate.