People Before Profit blog

It has to be built

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 08:12:00 +0000

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman recently opined in his New York Times column that the about-to-be-released Obama plan to resuscitate a financial system on life support “is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair.”

Those are heavy words coming from an economist who was an early warner of the subprime and housing meltdown, which has infected the whole economy.

We agree with Krugman. The plan will let “investors” and the “market” decide what the value of the “toxic assets” are worth. (Many argue they are worthless!) The same “investors” that got us into this mess in the first place! Taxpayers could take a bath.

Krugman fears the current plan — a private-public partnership — will fail, and then, he argues, so will the Obama administration. The anger of the public over a “mere” $160 million for AIG exec bonuses will pale in comparison to the anger of a multi-billion boondoggle, he says.

Krugman, along with another Nobel Prize winner, economist Joseph Stiglitz, urges the government to “take over” or “nationalize” the insolvent banks.

There are solid and historical arguments for this necessary step.

We would add that it’s the stock holders and financial institutions that have eat their losses, not the taxpayers!

Up until now there has not been a groundswell from the grassroots for a government “take over” of insolvent banks. The anger people feel could be directed to advocating for this necessary step.

There are a few handles the grassroots can use to build such a groundswell. The AFL-CIO labor federation passed a resolution recently calling for government intervention that protects “the public interest,” and not merely rescues “executives or wealthy investors.”

The Obama administration’s announcement that it will seek the power to shut down troubled institutions like AIG is a good step.

Nationalization is not off the table. All is not lost, Krugman argues “the public wants Mr. Obama to succeed, which means that he can still rescue his bank rescue plan. But time is running out.”

Call for humanitarian signal on Cuba

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 07:06:00 +0000

On April 10, family members of the Cuban Five will again apply for U.S. visas. For Adriana Perez, it will be the 10th time she tries to obtain a visa to see her husband, Gerardo Hernandez, who has been serving an unjust sentence in U.S. prisons for nearly 11 years. Over that time, our government has denied this husband and wife any possibility of seeing each other. It’s time for a change.

Since 1959, Cuba has been subjected to invasions, sabotage and terrorist attacks, resulting in 3,478 deaths and another 2,099 wounded, thecuban5.org reports.

In 1976, 73 people died when a bomb exploded mid-air aboard a commercial Cuban airliner. The masterminds, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, are former CIA operatives who currently live in Miami.

In 1997, a bombing at Havana’s Hotel Copacabana killed an Italian tourist. Cuban authorities arrested a man who confessed to having been paid thousands of dollars by Miami-based anti-Castro groups to plant the bomb.

The U.S. failed to act to stop such attacks. So Cuba sent five people to Miami to gather information about plans for similar acts in order to derail them before they were carried out. The five found evidence implicating specific Miami groups and individuals.

In 1998 Cuban President Fidel Castro sent a personal emissary, Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, to deliver a note to President Clinton, asking that the U.S. take action. Castro wrote, “It is impossible to stop this terrorism without United States involvement. … Unless it is stopped now, in the future any country could be victimized by this new terrorism.”

Cuba gave the FBI detailed information on terrorist plotters in the U.S. But instead of going after those, our government arrested the Cuban Five.

Today, welcome winds of change are blowing in Washington. President Obama has made a first step to easing relations with our neighbor, Cuba, by dropping some Bush-imposed travel and financial restrictions.

Now a simple humanitarian gesture would send a message that the U.S. is launching a real “good neighbor” policy.

Contact Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ask that humanitarian visas be granted to the families of the Cuban Five.

The populist upheaval where is it headed and who can lead?

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:15:00 +0000

The populist outrage over AIG bonuses, and bailouts that seem to pay off the perpetrators of the financial crisis — while millions are left out of work with no medical benefits, and unemployment benefits running out long before job growth returns — is heading towards a social and political, not just economic, tipping point.

Already, the Obama administration is running out of political capital to legislatively pump more capital infusions into the existing banking system. But Republicans and conservative Democrats are prepared to block a public takeover of the banks that most of the world's economists are proclaiming essential to restoring the solvency of the banking system. In addition Republicans are working industriously and cynically to divert public frustration into dead-end criticism, attempting to blame anyone but themselves for the disaster they brought on the nation and the world. Thus Treasury Secretary Geithner's latest non-legislative initiative to clean out toxic assets is given a low chance of success by most observers. How soon till the tipping point? Well, it took only 72 hours following the Katrina disaster before scenes of horror took over in New Orleans — and many communities are beginning to look similarly devastated. Three of the most respected U.S. economists, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and Ken Rogoff, are starkly warning that not just an economic but a social catastrophe is looming if forceful action is not taken. But from this moment, it looks as if the U.S. political system, compromised over decades by corrupt and reactionary interests, is not capable — on its own — of making the adjustments necessary to meet the challenge of the unprecedented scale of this crisis. As Martin Wolf commented today in the Financial Times, it appears that President Obama will have to attend the critical G20 meeting of the top industrialized nations in London next week to address the global crisis without a clear recovery plan. And there is not much in the world that is scarier than that. The Lincoln-like demeanor and aspirations of President Barack Obama may be tested as none have been since the 16th president himself. The truth is that the destiny of our country is in the hands of the masses of working people of the United States. Right now. If we can move together to push the diversionary and backward-looking forces of finance capital and reaction to the side of the historical stage, then the mounting populist explosion can be directed toward insuring that the American story will play out in a new and higher quality of life for all. But if we do not, then it is hard to even measure the depth of the tragedies to come. Populist outrage can turn inward against itself if we do not put our hands to the wheels of cooperation, mobilization, organization and progressive change. Let’s talk to each other, take care of each other, and find the path that unites.

As Carl Davidson of Progressives For Obama signs his emails: “If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed” (Chinese proverb), and “If you don't have a strategy, you're part of someone else's strategy” (Alvin Toffler).

jcase4218 @ gmail.com

Bleeding communities dry: How local government aid cuts are hurting rural Minnesota

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 03:59:00 +0000

Original source:

No group of Minnesotans are more qualified to comment on the challenges of delivering public services during a period of diminishing resources than our state’s city mayors. Minnesota 2020, in partnership with the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities, and Macalester College, surveyed 43 greater Minnesota mayors about the critical issues facing Minnesota cities.

As a result of large reductions in state aid, Minnesota cities have been compelled to increase property taxes at the same time that they must cut essential services. From 2002 to 2008, real (i.e., inflation adjusted) per capita state aid to Minnesota cities declined by 47 percent. Because of their relatively low per capita tax base, greater Minnesota cities are more dependent on state aid than cities in general.

The Minnesota 2020 mayors’ survey highlights the harm done to greater Minnesota cities from past aid cuts and the damage of future aid cuts from the perspective of the greater Minnesota mayors. The responses, which clearly show the strain many of the cities are under to provide critical services with less and less, do not include the impact of the $66 million cut to city local government aid (LGA) and market value homestead credits in December 2008 resulting from the Governor’s unallotments. Those cuts occurred after the survey was conducted.

Ongoing State Cuts are “Devastating” to Minnesota Cities

Given that the state of Minnesota greatly restricts the abilities of cities to generate revenue from local tax bases, it is not surprising to learn that 81.4 percent of the mayors surveyed agreed that the state has an obligation to assist in funding city services.

In light of the fact that real per capita city LGA has been cut nearly in half over the last six years, 69.8 percent of mayors felt that the state was not providing enough aid to their city, while 74.4 percent felt that the state does not provide enough assistance to cities in general.

Given that state aids and credits comprise nearly 43 percent of the revenue base (i.e., property tax levies plus state aid) of greater Minnesota cities, it is not surprising that 74.4 percent of mayors felt that the elimination of LGA would be “devastating.” Of the remaining 25.6 percent, a large majority felt that LGA elimination would be bad but manageable.

If LGA were eliminated, 79.1 percent of the mayors surveyed said their cities would increase property taxes or cut services or both.

More than 90 percent of the mayors indicated that the large state aid cuts enacted in 2003 caused increases in property taxes or cuts in city services or both.

Large majorities of the mayors surveyed indicated that LGA cuts hurt economic development (79.1 percent) and the quality of life (90.7 percent) in their cities.

In the absence of adequate revenues, most mayors (72.1 percent) indicated that they would cut parks, recreation, and libraries. Nearly half (48.8 percent) indicated that they would cut public safety.

At the insistence of Governor Pawlenty, new restrictions on the ability of cities and counties to raise property taxes-referred to as “levy limits”-were enacted in 2008. Over three-quarters (76.7 percent) of the mayors who responded to the survey agree with the non-partisan House Research Department that levy limits are not effective in holding down property taxes over the long term.

Balancing the Budget on the Backs of Minnesota Communities

Since 2002, state leaders have solved a disproportionate share of state budget problems on the backs of cities and local property taxpayers through state aid cuts. Furthermore, some state leaders-most notably Governor Pawlenty-chide local governments for a lack of frugality, despite the fact the cities and other local governments have reduced their budgets more than state government. Within this context, it’s not surprising to learn that 55.8 percent of the mayors feel that state leaders do not value the state-local partnership, while 83.7 percent believe that state leaders do not understand the needs of cities.

The plight of Minnesota local governments has been well documented by Minnesota 2020 and others, as they are compelled to increase property taxes at the same time that funding for services and infrastructure is cut. However, it is one thing to look at this ongoing fiscal travesty by the numbers; it is quite another to hear about it directly from greater Minnesota mayors who have to manage the budgets of their cities under these circumstances.

As one mayor put it, “We do a good job and I find it unfortunate that some state leaders point the finger at us for property tax increases without acknowledging their own role in that problem by cutting aid or increasing mandates.”

This mayor has aptly described the crisis of accountability that has gripped the state-local fiscal relationship. The most frugal levels of government are vilified as big spenders, while the Governor-who manages the level of government with the most rapid rate of revenue growth-postures as the champion of “no new taxes.”

Pay More and Get Less

As the majority of mayors surveyed noted, when state dollars for property tax relief are slashed, property taxes will increase or funding for public services and infrastructure will be cut. In fact, frequently both happen simultaneously.

This situation is not unique to greater Minnesota cities. It is not difficult to find metropolitan cities that are in the same boat. Nor is the situation restricted to cities. Counties and school districts have also been compelled to increase property taxes while simultaneously cutting budgets.

Thanks to unsustainable tax cuts and a collapsing national economy, Minnesota is once again on the precipice of a deep fiscal chasm. If the state responds in the same way as it did six years ago, we can expect the same results: higher local property taxes and fewer public services and investments. In short, pay more and get less.

A Balanced Approach Is Needed

No one should be so naive as to think that the state will be able to resolve the massive $6.4 billion deficit (projected structural deficit for FY 2010-11 including the impact of inflation, not counting one-time federal recovery dollars) without some cuts in aid to local governments. However, based on the mayors’ responses, Minnesota 2020 recommends a balanced approach to the crisis.

A balanced approach will not require local governments to make far deeper budget cuts than state government. A balanced approach will not shift a greater percentage of the tax burden on to those Minnesotans with the least ability to pay through increases in regressive property taxes, while avoiding at all costs increases in progressive income taxes. Finally, a balanced approach rejects politically expedient dogma that automatically precludes the option of increasing state revenue.

Geithner's latest bank rescue plan: When Wall Street cheers people should worry

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:44:00 +0000

Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner unveiled March 23 the latest and most expansive bank rescue plan to date since the global financial crisis began to deepen in August 2007.

Billed as a 'public-private partnership' to take toxic assets off the balance sheets of major banks (such as JP Morgan, CitiGroup and Bank of America), the plan involves three programs that could rise to a staggering $2 trillion in public money put at risk to bailout private financial institutions that have run the world economy into the ground.

It also involves lending from the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), which is charged with safeguarding depositors in U.S. banks. The knee-jerk reaction on Wall Street was overwhelmingly positive with the major indices surging six to seven percent on Monday. Outside the halls of the major financial firms, however, there may be cause for concern.

As the New York Times noted on Tuesday in its front page story on Geithner's plan, the program 'offers private investors vast amounts of cheap, tax-payer supported financing for every dollar they put up of their own money.' Put another way, the New York Times described the plan as the 'Treasury and the Federal Reserve ... offering at least a tablespoon of financial sugar for every teaspoon of risk that investors agree to swallow.'

The first component of the plan involves the FDIC taking on a pool of bad home loans (mortgages in default or at risk of default) and auctioning them to the highest bidders. If the bank values them at $100 and the highest bid is $84, then the FDIC steps in to provide $72 in financing, the private investor puts up $6 and the Treasury (you and me) puts up $6. This amounts to a 6-1 leverage for the private investor - they get six dollars for every dollar they put up. The private investor then manages the assets, seeking to sell them off. Thus, with only $6 of capital risked, the private investor gets all the control, while the $78 of public money secures virtually no say in the asset management. If the assets decline in value or re-gain toxic status a result of a deepening of the economic crisis, the investor is only out the original $6 they put up. The public eats the losses.

The second part of the plan involves taking mortgage-backed securities and other risky assets off banks' balance sheets, hiring asset managers that raise $100 in private financing to purchase the assets, then gets matching funds from the treasury ($100) and a further $200 loan from the Treasury Department (2-1 leverage for the private investor). The asset manager controls the purchased instruments and shares the returns with the government (assuming there are any). If the assets revert to 'toxic' status, then the investor loses their original investment, but is not on the hook for the treasury loan or the Treasury's outright investment. In other words, all the risk is - once again - taken on by the public (you and me).

Geithner was careful to insist that there will not be any restrictions on compensation for those participating in the plans, attempting to avoid the 'stigma' now attached to the Troubled Asset Relief Plan (TARP) or the recent firestorm over exorbitant bonuses paid to executives at American International Group (AIG), recipients of huge bailouts from the TARP and outright government grants. Bill Gross, chairman of Pimco (the world's largest bond dealer) and a participant in the new program, described it as a 'win-win-win policy' and told the New York Times that he was ''intrigued by the potential double-digit returns' that it offered.'

As it stands, the plan amounts to a huge (probably the largest on record) transfer of public money to private hands, the very hands that have driven the global economy into crisis. This is a scenario that Naomi Klein describes in her book, 'The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.' In that well-researched and powerfully-argued study, Klein writes that a cornerstone of neo-liberal ideology as propagated by Milton Friedman and implemented by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was to either take advantage of or bring about major catastrophes to radically restructure the economic system by way of transferring huge amounts of public money into private hands. This usually involves seizing the opportunity of a major political upheaval, economic crisis, or natural disaster in order to push through programs that otherwise would meet massive public opposition. By the time the initial shock has worn off, the economic rules of the game have been fundamentally altered and the laws on the books designed to protect the people from catastrophe and the avarice of greedy capitalists have been changed or eliminated. This is what came to be known as the 'shock therapy' program imposed on the former Soviet Union and the former people's democracies of Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s (among many other countries pummelled by the scorched-earth campaign of neo-liberalism across the globe in the 1980s and 1990s). It is no wonder that Wall Street reacted so euphorically to the details of Geithner's plan.

As Sam Webb, national chair of the Communist Party of the USA, eloquently noted in his address to the party's National Committee on March 21, this is not a 'socialist moment,' however, it is a time when the idea of socialism (and the term itself) is being widely discussed. Wall Street celebrated Monday because many major financial firms believed that the Geithner Plan took 'bank nationalization' off the table as a government response to the economic crisis.

However, all it has done is massively expand the scope and amount of government give aways to the very institutions responsible for the current mess. It has not taken bank nationalization off the table.

It has made the discussion of socialism as an alternative to the current failed system more urgent than ever.

A 12-point program to combat the economic crisis

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:43:00 +0000

Because of the election of Barack Obama, the American people in their great majority have a leg up, but there is still a long way to go. To his credit, the new president is off to a quick start. In less than three months in office he has:

* Issued an order to close Guantanamo prison and end torture.

* Signed the Lilly Ledbetter bill, giving much greater scope to workers’ discrimination claims.

* Opened up a greatly needed dialogue with the Muslim and Arab world, including overtures to Syria and Iran.

* Ordered the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq no later than 2011.

* Rolled out a new framework for diplomacy and conflict resolution, notwithstanding an escalation of troops to Afghanistan, which we oppose.

* Reinstated Davis-Bacon Act provisions requiring paying prevailing (union scale) wages on public works projects.

* Changed the framework for nuclear nonproliferation and dismantlement in a very positive way.

* Reversed many Bush administration rulings that have been so harmful to the environment.

* Took some steps to reverse draconian policies toward Cuba.

* Dropped some of the worst aspects of our immigration policy.

* Placed health care at the top of the administration’s agenda.

* Supported new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis’ rulings overturning many anti-labor directives of the Bush years.

I could go on, but I think it is obvious that the Obama administration represents a qualitative break with right-wing extremism and free market fundamentalism.

Not to see this, not to acknowledge this, not to welcome this, no matter whether you live in or outside U.S. borders, is to act like the ostrich that sticks its head in the sand and misses what is happening on the ground.

Immediate challenge

As important as the initiatives are, the immediate challenge for the White House is to revive and then sustain economic activity. So far, the Obama administration has correctly ruled out some standard answers for addressing this economic crisis.

To begin with, no one in the administration thinks the economy on its own will return to near-full capacity and full employment.

Nor does anyone think that the Republican Party prescription to freeze spending is worth a moment’s consideration.

Nor can you find anyone in the White House who believes that the debt overhang — the enormous debt accumulated over nearly three decades — can be reduced except in the long term.

Nor can you find in the administration or among progressive Democrats in Congress anyone who subscribes to the notion that fine-tuning with standard monetary and fiscal tools is enough.

Finally, no one in the Oval Office sees punishing homebuyers as an anti-crisis measure. The fact is that homeowners and especially sub-prime borrowers are neither the cause nor responsible in any way for the housing market collapse.

Moreover, as Joe Sims has laid bare in his article, this Wall Street/Washington-nurtured crisis is steeped in cynical and virulent racism.

Lagging demand

Obama understands that the near- and medium-term problem is lagging demand for goods and services, in other words, insufficient purchasing power in the hands of working people — high income, low income and no income.

The president's stimulus package goes in this direction. Despite what Republicans say, it is a good measure that will ease the pain of this crisis, create jobs and begin to re-inflate the economy.

The president also understands that the economy has to be restructured if it has any possibility of rebounding in a sustained way. The stimulus package combines elements of stimulus and restructuring, as does his budget, which accents tax shifts and public-sector-led investment in health care, education and energy efficiency.

His plans to institute a new set of regulations on financial markets and his commitment to green jobs, energy and technology are also meant to fuse stimulus and restructuring objectives together.

More far-reaching steps needed

Given the depth and scope of this crisis, in my view, the administration will inevitably have to consider some more far-reaching measures.

At the top of my list are:

1. Counter-crisis spending of a bigger size and scope to invigorate and sustain a full recovery and meet human needs — something the New Deal never accomplished.

2. Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act in order to rebalance power between labor and capital in the economic and political arenas.

3. Managed trade and trade agreements that have at their core the protection and advancement of international working class interests.

4. Equality in conditions of life for racial minorities and women.

5. Amnesty, easy path to citizenship and full democratic rights for undocumented immigrants.

6. Turning education, child care and health care into “no profit” zones.

7. Rerouting investment capital from unproductive investment (military, finance and so forth) to productive investment in a green economy and public infrastructure.

8. Changing the direction of our nation’s foreign policy toward cooperation, disarmament and diplomacy.

9. A full-scale assault on global warming.

10. A serious and sustained commitment to assisting the developing countries, which are locked in poverty and misery.

11. Global cooperation on a new level and with a new content. The era of U.S. imperialism dictating to the world is over; in fact, no state has the political, economic and ideological capital to exercise a dominant influence on world developments. The world is multipolar and that isn’t going to change any time soon, especially as new states emerge, China in the first place, and new configurations of regional power become new global realities.

Unlike at the end of World War II when U.S. imperialism gave stability, coherence and rules to a new global capitalist order, no state today has that capacity, resources or legitimacy. These new correlations of power on a world scale can be an opportunity or a danger. International working class unity is imperative.

12. Democratization of economic life, beginning with democratic public takeover of finance, energy and other industries whose future is problematic if left in private hands.

Democratize our financial system

Public ownership of the financial system, as well as elimination of the shadow banking system and exotic derivatives, is imperative.

The banks and other financial institutions are insolvent because of their speculative activities. Simple capitalist justice would say that financial managers, stockowners and bondholders should eat their losses. Why should taxpayers pick up the tab for their high-stakes gambling in a financial casino?

Some say that financial institutions are too big to fail. But haven’t they failed, and failed spectacularly, already? Some will say yes to this question, but go on to insist that if banks to go belly up, the results will be catastrophic. They will remind us of the panic and credit freeze that followed the meltdown of Lehman Brothers.

The danger of panic, capital flight and market turmoil can’t be dismissed out of hand. Financial markets are deeply and broadly, vertically and horizontally, integrated on a global scale, probably more so than any other market in the global economy. As a consequence, they are quick to melt down steeply and suddenly and spread contagion to other countries, regions and worldwide.

Despite this, radical reform of the financial system — and I would include here the Federal Reserve Bank — makes good sense in the short and long term. We need an efficient, flexible and democratically controlled financial system that assists in the allocation of money to productive uses domestically and internationally.

What makes working people angry is that their tax dollars are going to bail out robbers and they get nothing in return except more debt to pay off in the future.

To allow this situation to go on can badly hurt the new administration and its recovery plans.

Our answer is democratic public ownership, but as important a measure as that is, it is neither a quick fix nor unproblematic. A lot of unknowns exist. The danger of further panic and flight is real.

It appears the president, following the advice of his Treasury secretary and main economic advisor, favors what I call a bank/hedge fund fix to revive our dysfunctional finance markets.

But we shouldn’t consider the case for public ownership closed. The pressure of economic events and the performance of financial markets going forward — not to mention the public anger — could bring this issue to the surface again.

----- Sam Webb (swebb @ cpusa.org) is national chair of the Communist Party USA. This is excerpted from his report to the party’s national committee, March 21, 2009.

We must incriminate the basic rules of capitalism: An interview with Paul Boccara

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 04:48:00 +0000

(Translated by Christine A.)

Communist economist Paul Boccara has just published a book about the transformations and the crisis of global capitalism, in which he deals with the financial crisis, among other topics. Paul Boccara puts forward proposals to initiate emancipation from this 'gone mad' system.

The financial crisis that originated in the United States is now severely shaking Europe and France. Why do you speak about a 'global crisis of capitalism' rather than a failure of Financial Liberalism?

Paul Boccara. I insist, in my book, on the crisis of global capitalism, but also on its deep changes. These changes exacerbate capitalism. The financial crisis is revealing the maturation of the crisis in capitalism. To be satisfied with challenging 'liberalism' or the lack of regulation or 'deregulated finance », as people typically say, is a basic error, leading to holding onto a system that is becoming more and more harmful.

It is not by deviating from a 'normal' capitalism that would be 'healthy', as claimed by Nicolas Sarkozy, because the system itself has gone crazy.

This system, now dominating the world, is mad because its logic of profitability is reaching its climax. That’s capitalism squared. It is therefore, capitalism as a system, which puts making money before and against people lives, that needs to be questioned.

It is futile to speak of 'morality' and 'transparency' without attacking the logic of the system. In addition, there is no possible going back to capitalism of grandpa, because the exacerbating transformations are irreversible.

You distinguish three 'revolutions' in the transformation of capitalism: information, monetary and ecological revolutions. In what respects are these mutations leading to an overall crisis ?

Paul Boccara. At the heart of this systemic crisis, which is much deeper than between the two World Wars, we can observe the revolutions of the technical and social operations. With the industrial revolution, material and money predominate against people in production. The accumulation of capital has helped to replace hand tools with machine tools. This has led to the firing of workers, to pressure on wages in favour of profit, while increasing production.

With the information revolution, there is a radical change. Science and information, rather than machines, now dominate production. Computers replace some functions of the human brain. This is an extraordinary change, since information, like research, can be shared throughout the world, while a machine tool can only be here or there and can therefore be privately owned.

This mutation gives rise to both a need for sharing and an expansion of the system. This is noticeable with the expansion of private multinational companies that are able to share the costs of global research, in contrast to purely domestic enterprises. Hence the new privatisations. Hence, too, deregulation of markets, opening them as much as possible and building multi-states, from the European Union to the global hegemony of the United States.

Other indications of the failure of capitalism : employees are competing worldwide (with the tremendous increase of workers and industry in emerging countries, particularly in Asia) and the enormous fall-back onto the use of the financial market by multi-national firms. It is this contradiction between financial accumulation and material over-exploitation, putting pressure onto wages everywhere, that provokes crises like the one in 2001 or the one that is looming behind the current financial crisis.

How does the monetary revolution that you analyse, fit in the financial crisis?

Paul Boccara. Historically, money has been gradually freed from gold, though ostensibly keeping gold as its ground basis. But the breaking off of this basis is now almost complete with the beginning of the monetary revolution. This allows for creation of seemingly limitless money, as with the dollar. But the absence of boundaries is a fantasy. This is one of the reasons for the enormity of the wild speculation that has led to the current financial crisis.

Speculation implies three things : a money supply, a requirement of a very high rate of profit, and a product with strong demand on which to speculate. Meanwhile, the start of the monetary revolution has over-enlarged the available monetary supply. Productivity of the information revolution and global competition of workers have strongly increased the rate of profit (15% and more), and speculation wants to increase it. Housing demand has become considerable.

The very low interest rates charged on the dollar allowed banks and speculative capital to borrow very cheaply, to then lend massive amounts (far beyond their capital) to individuals who went into debt to buy housing. These financial institutions have lent at increasingly high interest rates, drawing a profit from this rate difference, until such point as the buyers could not repay loans. Consequently, the repayment of debt, massively purchased by the banks in the United States and Europe, dropped sharply. Hence the bank losses.

This speculation relates to the inherent contradiction of capitalism : the system uses money to get money at the expense of exploited workers’ wages. Yet it is impossible to make money without consumers. In this instance, popular demand. resulting in enormous debts, has run up against downward pressure on wages, which has prevented the repayment of the debts.

And the ecological crisis ?

Paul Boccara. The ecological revolution is not only the threat of pollution increased to the point of a threat on the climate. It is also the development of biotechnology, the conquest of space, etc... The stupidity of pollution relates to the same system at work in the financial markets, with the waste of material resources, in production as well as in consumption.

Simple taxation cannot be the solution without compromising business management geared to this financial profitability, without getting help from new public service for new ways to produce and consume. Aiming for 'sustainable development' as we commonly say, from both the left and the right, is totally insufficient without other forces and funding that are incompatible with the requirements of capital.

Returning to the financial crisis, are the responses to this crisis implying the 'return of the State', entailing 'new regulations' ?

Paul Boccara. These calls for the state and market regulation reveal a new climate in favour of proposals to control markets and a capitalism gone mad. It is a shift from previous periods. But a greater involvement of the State in the market regulation will not suffice at all if the fundamental rules of the system are maintained. The left must break the traditional alternative : Market or State. On the State side, new powers are needed, powers of control, and of decisions made by workers and citizens, in businesses as in public services. On the Market side, markets need to be controlled by the distribution of equity and by innovative public services. Regarding the market for labour, there needs to be an emphasis on job and training security ; regarding the marketing of products, in favour of new management criteria ; and finally, regarding the financial market, in favour of public institutions and a new credit system.

Facing the serial collapse of banks, what can we do?

Paul Boccara. We cannot limit intervention to last-minute plugging holes that are multiplying without reforming the entire banking system. Of course, we could start taking some immediate steps, while at the same time developing overall plans based on a dialogue among workers, citizens and their organizations at the national, European and world levels. State control or participation in the banks has become inevitable, in the United States and in Europe. But they are ad hoc in emergency and seen as provisional. That is not enough at all. This is not a matter of eliminating state speculation at the expense of taxpayers, and then starting all over again with the same credit criteria. Choosing prevention ? But a European public fund to buy rotten assets, imitating the American Paulson plan, does not meet the need. Nor would simple guarantees on deposits, nor a public institution taking temporary participation in banks with no other criteria. An overhaul of the system is needed, with public involvement and nationalization, public and national centres of finance, a new bank credit, new public services for credit, and a cooperation among themselves for a local, European and global reconstruction.

What forms could take place in France, this financial public centre and the new public service of credit?

Paul Boccara. It involves setting up a new bank system of credit and building new institutions, such as the national public sector. The idea of a public financial centre, that we have proposed with the PCF, is now better understood and supported by others. It would connect in one whole the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, savings banks, mutualist banks, Oséo, the Post Office bank, etc... This proposal is extended now, as already in my book, to integrate the private sector banks, whether they face difficulties or not, but which are strategic and should be re-nationalized. This centre would regulate the remaining private institutions. But the root of the problem relates to a different credit. There has been enough of vague proposals, such as calls to for 'real' change instead of just 'financial' change, which echo the statements of Nicolas Sarkozy opposing creative capitalism to financial capitalism.

Asking for credit for 'worthwhile investment' or for 'social needs' is vague and does not define any criteria applicable to banking operations. Credit, implies strict technical criteria, and these must be made understood by everyone of course. It is selective and long term credit that we propose, with very low, to zero, (and even negative) interest rates, (i.e. with a decrease in reimbursements) for real, tangible investments, as well as intangible investments — like those for research and development. But above all, interest rates would be lowered even where planned new jobs proved to be sustainable, of quality and well paid, as well as effective training. It is also a question of giving an incentive to corporations and of developing management criteria that include social efficiency, saving resources by training workers.

We can design indicators, assessment tools, monitoring systems that are open to workers and their organizations’ participation, to supervise compliance with the new criteria for this credit. On the institutions behalf, the financial public sector can make possible this new credit. But to extend it to all banks, regional public funds, created locally, are needed. These would cover all or part of the interests of bank loans to companies (especially small and middle-size ones), for their real investments, with even lower interest rates when good jobs and training are planned. These funds would be claimed by the workers and their organizations in support of their counter-proposals to develop employment in their companies.

A regional budget of 8 million Euro would, with an interest rate of 4%, be able to lend 200 million Euro at zero interest rate. As of now, this is possible, considering the leftist majorities in most regions. At the national level, a fund of the same type, involved in the public sector, could be created. It would be financed by public funds that are now devoted to employer payroll tax rebates, which represent some 27 billion Euro out of a total of 33 billion in tax relief.

These tax rebates, unlike what Nicolas Sarkozy stated in Toulon, are indeed gifts to employers. These gifts are dangerous gifts, as they reduce labour costs, putting pressure on all wages, hence on the demand and, eventually, on employment. Whereas for small and middle size companies, it is better to reduce to zero the financial burden of credit, subject to recruiting. That is what would be conducive to a rise in employment.

From public funds dedicated to exemptions from employer contributions, let us take only 20 billion Euro. With these five times 4 billion and an interest rate of 4%, we would actually call for 500 billion Euro credit, with zero interest rate. This represents about twice the material capital investment, said to be fixed, of non-financial businesses ! Beyond this point, we are dealing with European institutions. We must organize the cooperation of new public services and national and public centres of credit. We can set up funds utilising public loans for guarantees, nationalizations with consultations, and that defines another role for the ECB. This new European construction can lead to other world-wide institutions.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve (Fed) policy of low rates since the Greenspan era, which contributed to speculation, is incriminated. Should the European Central Bank lower its rates ?

Paul Boccara. The Central Bank 'refinances' all banks by creating money. But the primary mission of the ECB against inflation, for a strong Euro, promotes assets exportation against industrial employment. This is one of the reasons why unemployment rate is higher in the Euro zone than in the United States, where employment is an essential task for the Fed. The ECB had to fly to the rescue of banks, and so did the Fed, in providing liquidity. But it can only do so in exchange for securities deposited by the banks. When these securities are rotten and bank shares are falling, banks are pushed into bankruptcy or have to be recapitalized by the states.

A simple drop in interest rates of the ECB, demanded by the right and the left, is not the solution. Yet the recent and simultaneous drop of the rates of six central banks around the world, including the ECB and the Fed, demonstrates the severity and novelty of the situation.

Low rates of the the Fed have fueled speculation. The issue is therefore to reduce the rates in a conditional or selective way : increase interest rates for loans to financial investments, and reduce to zero when for real investments, provided they are accompanied with more jobs and training . Also, the Stability Pact, directed against government spending, must be removed.

But, as I demonstrate in my book, behind the banking crisis is looming a serious economic crisis on a global scale, with a shaken dollar. This crisis will also reach emerging countries. Already, the fall of the stock exchanges are strong and are reaching Asia, as is the case with Japan. By laying the cost of their hegemony on the importation of capital from all around the world, the United States has contracted a colossal debt. This debt corresponds to the withdrawal of great masses of Treasury bills in dollars by central banks, European and even more by Asian banks. This leads to a dollar inflation that could ultimately lead to its rejection and would seriously weaken the international monetary and financial system. Besides, sovereign funds have started to use their dollars for partial acquisitions of U.S. firms.

A new Bretton Woods is invoked to reform the international monetary system. You develop a proposal for a common global currency. How to implement it?

Paul Boccara. The IMF is going through a very deep crisis. The voting rights of developing countries and emerging markets are extremely small. Dominique Strauss-Kahn wants to increase them a little. This would not solve at all the issue of the United States blocking power, which must be removed. The IMF discredited itself by playing the role of policeman against the developing countries. It has caused disasters by putting pressure on public and social spending, to the advantage of their creditors. It has given up its role, set up after the war, which was to support the whole world’s growth. This is leading some countries to want to free themselves from it. This is what the establishment of the South Bank by Latin American countries means. Such initiatives are positive. But beyond that, we need a radically new IMF, and we need to rebuild the world-wide economical organization with other criteria.

On a global scale, how to create a common currency?

Paul Boccara. To create a common world currency, emancipated from the dollar, we can rely on an already existing embryo : the 'special drawing rights' of the IMF (SDR). The IMF, a sort of central bank of central banks, manages a common pool of currencies and gold, set up by the Bretton Woods agreements in 1944. Each country was able to draw foreign currencies from other countries, in proportion to its gold deposit. The Special Drawing Rights, established in the early 1970s, are drawing rights without gold counter-part. It is a pure monetary creation of the IMF. But the United States opposes their use because they threaten the hegemony of the dollar. But we can already generate more SDRs, immediately, and then create from them a common global currency. This would refinance credits for employment or training, and public services. The common currency would help promote services and public property belonging to humanity (food, water, energy, transport, environment, culture, health, peace, etc..), and would thereby challenge the domination of multinational companies.

Finally, I mention in my book, 'a new global civilization' since transformation cannot be purely economic. Powers, culture, values are critical for a 'civilization for the whole of mankind'. Instead of competition, rivalry, monopoly at the expense of the people, and instead of the hegemony of the United States, it is about a civilization of cooperation and sharing.

Editorial: April 4 March on Wall Street

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:46:00 +0000

Last fall, Congress approved $770 billion to stave off financial collapse, to free up credit, to staunch the hemorrhage of layoffs and foreclosures. But the layoffs and foreclosures have gotten worse. The nation’s economy continues to plummet. What happened?

Wall Street bankers had other ideas on how to spend our money. AIG, for example, spent $165 million in bailout money to pay fat bonuses to their executives. The bankers are spending our tax dollars on stretch limos, corporate jets, yachts. Oh yes, and to lobby against the Employee Free Choice Act.

Don’t get mad, get even! Join the , April 4. Take to the heart of finance capitalism the message: “Beyond War: A New Economy is Possible … Yes We Can!”

The peace coalition chose April 4 because on that date in 1967, at Riverside Church, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for an end to the Vietnam War. King warned that a nation that spends more on war than it does in meeting human needs is approaching “spiritual death.” Exactly a year later, April 4, 1968, King was killed in Memphis marching with striking sanitation workers.

UFPJ urges people to work once again for the vision and values of Dr. King. That means struggling to end war profiteering by Halliburton, Blackwater and their ilk. It means bringing an end to boondoggling on weapons systems like Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor.

Plus it is a reminder that six years after George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. is now deploying tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan. The road home from Baghdad does not run through Kabul.

The sweeping election victory last November puts the peace and justice movement in a stronger position to win this new peacetime economy based on green jobs, health care for all, quality public education for our children. We can end the poverty that blights 40 million people’s lives, and win immigration reform with a path to citizenship for millions. We can win union protection for every worker. This is the “beloved community” Dr. King marched and died for. It’s time to march again!

AIG: It's obscene

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:07:00 +0000

Gregory Robinson is dead. Shot in a car. He threw himself on a baby in the back seat while the gun fired from an unknown assailant. He was only 14. His family said he died a hero. He’s the 28th Chicago Public School student to be killed by gun fire this school year.

Last year, it was 26 students. The year before it was 36.

The same time Robinson’s death was hitting the airwaves, the news that the humongous -- too big to fail -- insurance giant AIG was giving $165 million in bonuses to executives that helped create the mess that made AIG have to go to the government and get billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money. $165 million in extra pay! For what? Scamming people? Selling out people’s pensions, 401-Ks and homes?

When you hear $165 million -- after hearing $700 billion or $1.2 trillion -- it may not sound like much. But to ordinary people and their organizations it’s a fortune.

Take an anti-violence organization like CeaseFire. This is a grassroots group that actually has a track record of preventing gun and gang violence. A track record of saving lives by intervening before the shooting starts. They have field workers who are part of the community. Some of them are former gang members who realized that the thug life is no life. They get there before shots are fired.

CeaseFire had 75 percent of its budget cut in Illinois for 2007. A mere $6 million for a program that saves lives. Maybe it could have saved the life of Robinson, or Franco Avila or Johnel Ford or any of the other dozens of students in Chicago who were killed by gun violence. Six million dollars. How much is a life worth?

There is no guarantee that any of that AIG money would have made its way to Illinois to plug up its $11 billion budget deficit. But it makes you think. What are our priorities? And how can taxpayer money get to programs that can save lives, not destroy them?

It’s obscene.

A cure for todays Black depression

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:12:00 +0000

We knew that 2009 would be a historic year, with the inauguration of the first African American president and the deepening of what is likely to be the most serious fiscal crisis since the Great Depression.

Many American Blacks today are already experiencing a silent economic depression that, in terms of unemployment, equals or exceeds the Great Depression of 1929. Almost 12 percent of Blacks are unemployed; this is expected to increase to nearly 20 percent by 2010. Among young Black males aged 16-19, the unemployment rate is 32.8 percent, while their white counterparts are at 18.3 percent.

Overall, 24 percent of Blacks and 21 percent of Latinos are in poverty, versus 8 percent of whites.

In the corporate world, we are seeing the highest executive pay and the biggest bailout in history. CEO pay is 344 times that of the average worker, not including perks like bonuses, stock options, corporate jets and housing subsidies. The riches of a few mask the deepening recession in the working class and the depression in communities of color.

Extreme economic inequality (which the U.S. experienced in the 1920s and is again experiencing now) is often a key indicator of recession and/or depression. The Black depression of today may well foreshadow the depth and length of the recession the whole country entered in December 2007.

A deep recession would see median family income decline by 4 percent. Thirty-three percent of Blacks and 41 percent of Latinos would drop out of the middle class. The overall national rate would be 25 percent.

Economically, Blacks and Latinos have suffered disproportionately because of structural racism and the web of policies that evolved from it. Eliminating the racial wealth divide is an essential step toward eliminating institutional racism. A comprehensive economic policy could deal a knockout blow to structural racism and raise awareness of individual racism. The path forward abounds with possibilities for shrinking the racial wealth divide and further healing the racism that still afflicts our nation.

If we institute systematic wealth-building programs that help everyone, if we repair and reinvigorate the decimated watchdog policies governing all aspects of home ownership; if we target 2009 economic stimulus programs to investment, not investment in tax breaks for the rich, but in the building blocks of the American dream — affordable housing, education, job creation and savings among low- and middle-income people — we will make strides toward a more balanced economy.

Our nation’s economic policies have enabled the top 10 percent to accumulate 68 percent of the wealth, while sheltering the wealthy from sharing the nation’s risk. The children of the wealthy are not marching off to war because their economic alternatives are bleak. The rising cost of medical care does not require American millionaires and billionaires to cut back on food in order to pay medical bills. Thousands of additional layoffs will not harm the financial security of those in the owning class.

Fairer policies would share the risk of our entrepreneurial economy by helping balance the economic burdens among all of us, rather than piling them onto people of color, the poor and the middle class. Revoking the tax deduction for expensive second and third houses, ending offshore tax havens and policies that make it profitable to ship American jobs overseas, and calling — with a united voice — for those in the upper quintile of income and wealth to participate more fully in bearing the burden of fixing the economy would spread the risk more fairly.

Fairer policies would support low-cost mortgages, better and cheaper medical care for those making less than $200,000 a year, strengthening Social Security, and freezing or raising wealth taxes like the capital gains and estate tax.

Finally, we need to recommit ourselves, via policy and our unified voice, to affirmative action. We need recognition of and apology for the U.S. centuries of slavery and segregation. We need a commitment by the nation and its communities to acknowledge and repudiate the institutional and individual racism — epitomized by today’s Black depression —that still pervades our society.

With such actions we can move forward. The economic path behind us is collapsing in rubble. Looking backwards, we can freeze in fear, or we can turn toward a future whose economic health and fairness we jointly create.

---- Lawrence Thibeaux is president of the Northern California District Council, International Longshore and Warehouse Union. This article is based on his presentation at a Feb. 21 African American History Month celebration sponsored by the People’s Weekly World in Oakland, Calif.

COMMENTARY Denial is more than a river: The anti-immigration lobby exposed

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 07:48:00 +0000

The Southern Poverty Law Center released a bombshell of a report last month entitled “The Nativist Lobby, Three Faces of Intolerance.” The report is a bombshell because it ties three leading “immigration reduction” groups to a single founder with racist and extremist views: John Tanton. It rips off any mainstream façade these groups have carefully created.

The groups — Federation for American Immigration Reform, Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA — are darlings of the mass media. Whenever the topic of immigration is featured in news media, so-called “experts” from these organizations are sure to be a part of the mix.

FAIR was quoted in mainstream news some 500 times during 2008, with countless appearances on television shows, including CNN’s Lou Dobbs. (Dobbs, according to a detailed Media Matters report, “Fear and Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News,” is a prime pusher of immigration myths and has undertaken a crusader-type campaign against undocumented workers, devoting 70 percent of his 2007 shows to the topic.)

These groups’ connection to a racist extremist like Tanton could blow their cover of being “reasonable” immigration groups. They have carefully developed a fair-minded image since any whiff of anti-immigrant or racist extremism would put them far outside the mainstream.

And it’s the mainstream they seek to influence. The majority of Americans, time and time again, have come to reject overt immigrant-bashing and extreme racism, causing groups like these to have to “soft-sell” their approach.

For example, when you go to the NumbersUSA web site, the first listing under the About Us category is “No to immigrant bashing,” a message from the group’s founder and executive director, Roy Beck. At the same time, they post a nativist slander of the AFL-CIO, calling them “labor bosses” and condemning them for taking a pro-legalization position.

The SPLC report calls Tanton the “puppeteer” of these groups and ties them to long-standing nativist and neo-Nazi movements in this country. The report says its information and conclusions are based on Tanton’s own papers and writings stored at a historical library at the University of Michigan. In these 17 boxes are correspondence between Tanton and leading white supremacist activists.

“He has corresponded with Holocaust deniers, former Klan lawyers and the leading white nationalist thinkers of the era,” the report states. “He introduced key FAIR leaders to the president of the Pioneer Fund, a white supremacist group set up to encourage ‘race betterment’ at a 1997 meeting at a private club.”

FAIR went on to receive $1.2 million in funds from the group, which also promotes eugenics, a pseudoscience used by the Nazis to “better the Aryan race.” The Pioneer Fund has also concentrated on studies “meant to show that blacks are less intelligent than whites,” the report says.

The SPLC report is chuck full of details on the extensive ties between Tanton and neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan types.

Yet Tanton and organizations like FAIR deny such charges, claiming they are “different” from groups promoting fears and hatred of the past. Yet, the report says, “that is far from true.” The report’s editor says, “They have never strayed far from their roots.”

Tanton is on the board of directors of FAIR. A group Tanton founded, U.S. Inc., funded FAIR at least up to 2005. The so-called “independent” think tank Center for Immigration Studies, according to the report, was started by Tanton in 1985. He raised millions of dollars for CIS and “published the writing of top CIS officials in his racist journal, ‘The Social Contract’,” the report said. NumbersUSA’s Roy Beck was a 10-year employee of U.S. Inc., and NumbersUSA was until 2002 incorporated under U.S. Inc.

These intertwined organizations carefully cultivate their image and do a lot of denying that they are racist. But, as the song goes, “denial is more than a river.”

The SPLC report documents cases when these organizations’ leaders deny or downplay their relationship with Tanton.

The People’s Weekly World recently received a letter from a NumbersUSA attorney regarding an earlier story we published online about the SPLC report. There were two minor errors in that story, since corrected, but these did not change the premise of the story, which was to report the SPLC finding that these groups are “part of a network of restrictionist organizations conceived and created by” a “man with deep racist roots” — John Tanton.

The letter itself is an example of how these groups work extra hard to cover up their extremist roots with euphemisms, omissions or other trickery.

The attorney’s letter quoted this statement in the SPLC report: “Roy Beck says that he is no racist, that he opposes racist ideology with every fiber of his being — and his website and other writings do not contradict that.” However the letter fails to quote what the report goes on to say: “But when he is confronted with facts that seem to call that into question — in particular, his long and intimate relationship with John Tanton, and what looks a lot like his seeking to obscure that fact — Beck has declined to take an explicit position.” So reading the letter without the benefit of having read the report makes it sound like Beck is untarnished by the racist stench emanating from Tanton. Yet, according to the report, the opposite is true.

For example, the report notes that when questioned by a congressman on his relationship to Tanton, Beck denied having a “long and intimate relationship” with Tanton. Yet, the report continues, Beck had worked for Tanton for 10 years and even vacationed with him in 1997. It was on that vacation that Tanton took Beck to dinner and introduced him to John Trevor Jr., who is the son of the “key architect of the 1924 Immigration Act that formalized a racial quota system.” The son seems to have followed in the father’s footsteps, since he was a board member for several decades of the Pioneer Fund.

The letter prompted me to read from cover to cover the 21-page SPLC report. And eye-opening it is. A façade of tolerance has been manufactured by three extremely reactionary organizations, and it has worked. The report notes that NumbersUSA “flooded the Senate with more than a million faxes” in June 2007, effectively helping to scuttle any chance of immigration reform with a legalization component.

The American people deserve to know who is pulling the strings behind the immigration-restriction movement, so the more exposés on them the better.

talbano @ pww.org

The anguish of developed capitalism

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 01:52:00 +0000

Prensa Latina -- Last Monday the 9th, like all the rest, was a marvelous day of contradictions for developed capitalism in the midst of its incurable crisis.

That day, the British news agency Reuters, not suspected of being anti-capitalist, printed: “Latin America will grow substantially less this year, hit by a strong deceleration or even by recessions in some of its main economies, after years of bonanzas distinguished by rises in the prices of raw materials.

“If indeed the IDB isn’t making its own projections, Lora, an economist at the Industrial Development Bank, pointed out that ‘now nobody is talking about the fact that the region is going to grow more than one percent (this year), even if one were to review the latest projections there are drops in practically all the great economies of Latin America. If one looks at the projections, one understands why all the great economies are crashing’, said Lora.

“Deeply affected by the global financial crisis that has reduced the demand for its exports, the region will not be seeing any recovery soon, he pointed out.

“The crisis is not going to be something that lasts one or two years, for some Latin American countries it could last much longer’, said Lora quoting a survey taken by the IDB among opinion leaders which showed that a great majority predicts stagnation or a drop in the per capita income in the countries of the region during the next four years”.

That same day, the Spanish agency EFE informed:

“The production of cocaine has spread to several Latin American countries and has unleashed a tidal wave of violence and population shifts causing some to call for an approach of war against drug trafficking, the British daily The Guardian writes today.

“That industry which generates benefits of billions of dollars has forced many farmers to abandon their lands, has given way to wars between gangs and has corrupted state institutions, the newspaper states.

In Mexico alone, 6,000 people died last year because of that kind of activity and the violence is migrating northwards, towards the United States itself.

At the same time, a new drug trafficking highway has grown up so rapidly between South America and West Africa that the corridor which occupies ten degrees of latitude, linking the two continents, has been baptized ‘Interstate 10’.

“Almost everyone interviewed by the newspaper agrees that the insatiable demand for cocaine in Europe and North America has frustrated efforts, led by the U.S., to strangle the offer and has caused great harm to Latin America.

“’We believe that the war on drugs has been a failure because none of the objectives have been met’, declared Cesar Gaviria the former president of Colombia and the co-president of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy.

“According to Gaviria, ‘the prohibitionist policies based on eradication, prohibition and criminalization have not yielded the expected results. Today we are farther away than ever from the goal of wiping out drugs’.

“The strategy of the United States in Colombia and Peru consisting of fighting against the raw material has not worked, Col. René Sanabria, the Bolivian anti-narcotics police chief has acknowledged.

“A report by the Brookings Institution of the United States and an independent study by the Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, supported by 500 of his colleagues, have added their voices to those who are calling for a change of approach”.

AFP Agency publishes:

“President Felipe Calderon of Mexico called on the United States this Monday to assume ‘with facts’ its share of the responsibility in the fight on drugs, whose activities concentrate especially on the shared border.

“’On behalf of the hundreds of Mexican policemen who have died, it is fundamental that the United States assumes with facts part of the responsibility which corresponds to it in this fight against drug trafficking’, said Calderon at a press conference with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France who is on an official visit to Mexico.

“Moreover, Calderon asked Washington to share information about the activities of Mexican drug traffickers in the United States, the largest consumer market for cocaine in the world, chiefly supplied by cartels belonging to their southern neighbor.

'If the intelligence units or the special police or military agencies of the U.S. possess information about Mexican criminals in the United States, we want that information,' Calderon told journalists after meeting with Sarkozy in the National Palace.

'The Mexican government has unleashed a federal operation involving 36,000 soldiers in order to fight the drug cartels, embarked on a war because of the transporting of drugs to the U.S. which has left some 5,300 dead in 2008.'

That same day, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, declared that she was a firm supporter of increasing up to 15% the amount of ethanol in fuel to reduce the country's dependence on oil imports.

It is well known that ethanol in the United States is produced from the grain that holds a very important place in human development.

Editorial: The battle over health care

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:58:00 +0000

The White House health care reform summit March 5 set a new tone and scope for the struggle to fix our broken system.

Health care advocates had to spend the past eight years battling Bush moves to privatize Medicare and similar schemes.

With the election of President Obama, the debate has shifted dramatically.

Participants in the summit included a wide range of “stakeholders” representing competing class interests — insurance and pharmaceutical corporations and their friends, labor unions, advocacy groups for Native Americans, Latinos, women and other consumers, health professionals and reform advocates, including supporters of single-payer national health insurance.

They expressed general agreement on the need to invest in preventive care, in more hospitals, clinics and training facilities, and in boosting the number of well-trained health care professionals.

Sharp differences emerged, however, over Obama’s proposal for including a comprehensive public health care option.

Blue Cross Blue Shield CEO Scott Serota opined that a public option would be unfair competition for private insurers. “The private market might not exist if there is a public option,” he complained.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) fired back that the insurance companies are responsible for the current system’s out-of-control costs and its refusal to cover tens of millions of people adequately. SEIU leader Dennis Rivera argued that competition between private and public insurance would be beneficial, saying, “That competition is going to drive the cost down.”

How ironic. “Free market” promoters usually insist that private industry is more efficient and provides better service. Serota seems to be admitting that this is not so for health care — otherwise, why are he and fellow insurance execs so afraid of competing with a public plan?

We support “Medicare for All” as put forward in Rep. John Conyers’ HR 676. And we agree with advocates for a strong government health care plan as an essential part of any meaningful reform package. Aside from providing efficient, comprehensive coverage, it will force private insurers to compete in a way that pushes down costs for everyone. And it will demonstrate that health care can be liberated from the corporations that profit from illness. Thus it will be a giant step toward a national single-payer plan that puts health care before profits and gets rid of the bloated and wasteful private insurance companies altogether.

Winning a comprehensive public health insurance option this year will be a major battle. Health industry vested interests are fighting tooth-and-nail to hold on to their profit gravy train, at the expense of Americans’ health.

Everyone should get involved. in this struggle. Your life depends on it.

COMMENTARY: The battle for science continues

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 06:32:00 +0000

The 200th anniversary of the birth of British naturalist Charles Darwin, together with the upcoming 150th anniversary of his book “The Origin of the Species” has motivated more interest in the Theory of Evolution. It’s also highlighted the need for more science education.

This is more so after the end of the Bush administration which subverted science to the narrow electoral “needs” of the Republican Party and those of U.S. corporations. As the magazine Scientific American put it, the Bush administration “stacked numerous [science] advisory committees with industry representatives and members of the Religious Right.”

For eight years the Bush administration proposed the teaching of “Intelligent Design,” a religious doctrine disguised as science so as to surpass the constitutional separation of church and state, and was against stem cell research, which holds the promise of cures for many ailments, to appease the GOP’s fundamentalist religious base.

Bush’s anti-science agenda also helped the corporations by denying or minimizing global warming, air and water pollution, and other issues where there is broad consensus in the scientific community. They went so far as to changing data and conclusions in reports from science-based federal agency to conform to the Bush agenda. Scientists of all political persuasion felt the pressure and in 2004 15,000 of them signed on to a statement from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) condemning the administration manipulating science for it’s own narrow interests.

This situation got to a point to where scientists started organizing for a Scientist’s Bill of Rights. Last year, the UCS issued the call for these rights at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Boston in Feb. 2008 making it a demand on whatever new administration was to govern the country.

At the press event, Francesca Grifo, UCS scientific integrity program director, said, “As we transition to the next administration, regardless of who we vote to place at its helm, we must ensure that the falsifying of data; the fabricating of results; the selective editing; the intimidation, censoring and suppression of scientists; the corruption of advisory panels; and the tampering with scientific procedures all stop.”

Kurt Gottfried, professor emeritus of physics at Cornell and a co-founder of the UCS, said the scientists “call on he next president and Congress to codify the basic freedoms that federal scientists must have if they are to produce the scientific knowledge that is needed by a government dedicated to the public good.”

Gottfried said, in an interview with Scientific American writer Steve Mirsky, “For generations our citizens have supported the creation of many government agencies that use science to enhance public health and safety and to protect our environment. Unfortunately this tradition has been discarded in recent years by the government itself. An atmosphere that violates the codes of openness and transparency that are indispensable to both democracy and science has been created in many science-based federal agencies. Government scientists have their findings subjected to censorship and misrepresentation.”

Mirsky also interviewed Grifo who gave an example of how the manipulation of science helped corporations and harmed the public – in this case -- children.

Grifo said “One of the examples that is very near and dear to me, as a mother with children, has to do with lead in lunch boxes. I mean, why would you think that vinyl that's used in lunch boxes might have lead in it? But, in fact, it does.

“Scientists at the consumer product safety commission, which is the group and the government that is tasked with overseeing these kinds of imports, did some tests on these lunch boxes. They looked at them; they swiped them with a lead test… and, in fact, found high levels of lead. So, instead of immediately alerting the public and immediately expressing this concern, they went back and thought, well you know, if we take many, many swipes, if we just keep swiping, the numbers go down, because, in fact, with each swipe you remove the lead that's on the surface” and got an average level that was within safe limits, she said.

The concerns and protests against the Bush administration’s distortion of science became an issue and science supporters tried to get a public debate on science issues between Barack Obama and John McCain. While that did not happen, both candidates issued science statements that backed away from Bush policies.

Scientists, especially those in federals agencies, reacted with jubilation when Obama stated in his inaugural address, “We will restore science to its rightful place.”

However, the fight for science does not only happen at the federal agency level. It also is being fought at the state level, mostly in terms of public high school science education.

Last Jan. the Texas state Board of Education held a preliminary vote to revise the science curriculum in favor of teaching evolution as science. The vote will need to be finalized at its March 26-27 meeting.

After the decision of the Federal Court in the Pennsylvania Middle District which found the Dover school board had violated federal law in teaching “Intelligent Design” or ID. The court instituted a permanent injunction against the school board ordering it not to implement its “ID policy” nor require “teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution.”

Judge John Jones, a Bush appointed jurist with, reportedly, a conservative religious outlook, ruled that Intelligent Design is “a religious, alternative theory” to evolution and not science.

Jones noted that after a 1968 Supreme Court decision that overturned an Arkansas law prohibiting the teaching of evolution “opponents of evolution responded with a new tactic… namely, to utilize scientific-sounding language to describe religious beliefs and then to require that schools teach the resulting “creation science” or “scientific creationism” as an alternative to evolution.”

While the decision is only binding in the Middle District of Pennsylvania other jurisdictions looking at the case have decided not to go ahead with their laws. Jones noted in an interview that after the decision Kansas was having state school board elections. “This became and issue in Kansas, and Kansans did not elect proponents of ID, utilizing my decision I think… In Ohio, they had begun steps that would have allowed the teaching of ID, and the school board ruled the policy back because of my decision”.

Nevertheless, a bill was filed in Florida this week by a Republican state senator, Stephen Wise, to require teaching Intelligent Design. Wise said, “You have to teach the other side so you can have critical thinking.” However, the only “other side” ever mentioned is that of the Bible and never any of the over 50 creation religious views in the world today.

In the aftermath of the Dover decision, creationists have been trying to promote the teaching of the “strength and weaknesses” and the “teach the controversy” strategy as a back-door way of introducing religious concepts.

After the ID Policy was adopted in Dover and teachers refused to read a statement denigrating the science, school authorities went from room to room to read the statement. However, neither students nor teachers were allowed to discuss the issue.

The battle for science in Texas schools has been going on for years. State Sen. Rodney Ellis (D-Austin) has filed a bill to strip the State Board of Education of the right to set science curriculum and transfer that power to the Texas Education Agency. Ellis criticized the school board’s discussion on teaching creationism while in the country at large has a “healthy respect for science.”

When the board meets again in March it is expected to vote 8 to 7 against “teaching the controversy.” That notwithstanding, some of the creationists on the board were able to introduce changes in biology, geology and space science consistent with religion but not science.

Steven Schafersman of Texas Citizens for Science told the press that if the State Board of Education accepts these revisions in March, Texas will be seen as a “laughing stock” nation-wide. University of Texas professor David Hillis said “This new proposed language is absurd. It shows very clearly why the board should not be rewriting the science standards.”

Since school textbook publishers, for the obvious economic reasons, write the books depending upon the curriculum policies of large population states (Texas is the second highest buyer of textbooks), those policies affect the schools throughout the country and is important for every school district.

LETTERS

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:23:00 +0000

Spanish Civil War vet dies

Philip Crane , son of David and Esther Cohen, passed away on Feb. 20 at age 93, in Boca Raton, Fla. He was born in 1915 in the town of Stavishche, Russia, one of six children. Philip came to the United States with his family in 1923 and was raised in Manhattan.

A member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Philip was in Spain from December 1936 to November 1938. He returned to New York.

Philip was married to Jean Crystal for almost 59 years, until her death in 1998. In 1953, he moved with his wife and two children to West Chester, Pa., where he was a business owner before retiring to Florida in 1981.

Philip was preceded in death by his brother Sam and his sisters Aida and Nettie. He is survived by his brother Joseph Cohen in the Bronx, N.Y., Evelyn Zalph in Miami, his children Mitch Crane and Sydell Long, his granddaughter Elissa Potvin, and two great-grandchildren, Wenonah and Philip, all residing in Delaware.

Philip Crane was a wonderful man who always believed in social justice, and is loved and missed. At his request there will be no memorial service.

Elissa Potvin (granddaughter)

Dover DE

Prevent SS meeting in Latvia

On March 16, former members of SS associations and neo-fascists in Riga, Latvia, plan a march in honor of the Waffen SS as “national liberator of Latvia.” The International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR) — Association of Anti-Fascists, the umbrella organization of associations of former resistance fighters, partisans, deportees and internees, as well as victims of Nazi crimes and anti-fascists of today’s generations from 25 countries in Europe and Israel, calls on the president of the Republic of Latvia and the Latvian Parliament to prevent this meeting with all political means.

The International Court of Justice in Nuremberg in 1946 recognized the SS and all of its parts, including the Waffen-SS, as a criminal organization and declared it responsible for many war crimes and crimes against humanity. The recent United Nations General Assembly underlined this in a resolution on Nov. 4, 2008, and criticized all attempts at glorification of the fascist movement and former members of the Waffen SS.

We call upon the democratic and anti-fascist forces in Latvia and beyond to protest this historical and political provocation.

We appeal to the public, by writing to their own governments and the embassies of Latvia in their countries, to protest against the scandal of such an SS meeting.

Never again an SS-Europe!

Michel Vanderborght and Dr. Ulrich Schneider

The writers are president and general secretary, respectively, of the International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR) — Association of Anti-Fascists, Berlin, Germany.

The boss’ Armageddon

SEIU released a seriously hilarious video highlighting the Armageddon-type statements being made by opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act. The Newt inclusion is a late-but-great add. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOM0AMUqviY

Christy Setzer

Via e-mail

Landmines and cluster weapons

The following letter was sent to President Obama:

I call to your attention the upcoming international meeting in New York at the United Nations, March 18, for the signing and ratification of the International Landmine and Cluster Munitions Treaties.

Some of us have already lobbied you and Congress to:

1) make a more comprehensive law prohibiting landmines and cluster munitions and

2) join other nations in eliminating these lethal weapons, both stopping production and destroying stockpiles, banning sales, trade and use as well. The recent carnage in Israel/Gaza showed us, once again, the horrible effects of these munitions as over 1,300 men, women and children were killed and many injured.

Many activists have questioned whether you will reverse your predecessor’s policy of avoiding joining the international community and signing the treaties. You voted in favor of limiting the use of cluster munitions, and for this we applaud you.

In December 2008 the United States was absent while nearly 100 nations were gathered in Oslo, Norway, for the signing of the Cluster Bomb Ban Agreement.

A spokesman for your transition team said “the new administration would carefully review the new treaty and work closely with our friends and allies to ensure that the U.S. is doing everything feasible to promote protection of civilians.”

The U.S. is burdened with a tarnished reputation in the world. We now have a chance to shine up that tarnished image.

I urge you to join with other nations in protecting civilians worldwide and sign on to the ban against landmines and cluster munitions at the United Nations on March 18.

Arn Specter

Philadelphia PA

Dental care crisis

Illinois has among the lowest funding rates in the nation for government-funded dental care. Over the last three decades funding has decreased, dental clinics have closed and the dental care gap has widened. Despite an increase in enrollment for government dental programs, millions of children and adults go without dental care.

Children suffering from toothaches often have trouble focusing in school and may have trouble eating nutritious foods like fresh fruit and vegetables. In some cases tooth decay can be so severe that a child must have all of their teeth pulled. This causes developmental problems and contributes to low self-esteem and unsatisfactory school performance. For many families, public dental clinics are the primary source of care and increased demand has flooded an already overwhelmed system. Illinois has just one clinic per 8,400 children who rely on government insurance. Families often have to wait several months for an appointment, forcing many into emergency care.

Studies show that poor oral health may be linked to heart disease, stroke, pre-term childbirth and oral cancer.

It’s time for the state of Illinois to make funding dental care a priority. More and more Illinois families are out of work, losing health insurance and feeling the effects of the economic downturn. Children face enough challenges growing up; basic dental care should not be one of them.

Robert Rechner

Springfield IL

The writer is executive director of the Illinois State Dental Society.

Crooks

The stench of all these crooks increases by the minute. Clearly, it’s not just Madoff who made off with honest folks’ money. Or were the “victims” all that honest? They flew in their private jets to Antigua to check it all out? I find that hard to be sympathetic about.

But museums and health care? Now those are real issues. Bottom line: where is the control of schemers like “Sir” Robert Allen Stanford? And is it just individuals like him? We need a thorough housecleaning of banks and financial institutions as well.

Let’s support Obama’s investigations and changes.

Jean Anderson

Via e-mail

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Over 2 hours of TV daily raises asthma risk in kids

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:25:00 +0000

((China Daily/AFP)) Young children who watch lots of television each day could be at risk of developing asthma, according to a study published yesterday.

The findings are made in a long-term investigation by British doctors among more than 3,000 children, whose respiratory health has been monitored since birth in 1991 and 1992.

In a paper published in the specialist journal Thorax, the investigators looked into an increase in asthma that was noticeable between the ages of three and a half and 11 and a half.

Among children who did not have any asthmatic symptoms at the earlier age, six percent developed them eight years later.

But especially prominent was the increase among children who, according to their parents, watched television for two hours or more each day. In this group, the risk of developing asthma by 11 and a half was nearly twice that of counterparts who watched less than two hours.

The probe touches on scientists' suspicions that sedentary behavior and poor physical fitness has an effect on respiratory development, especially the airway tissue called smooth muscle. Television was taken as a proxy for sedentary activity because at the time - the mid-1990s - personal computers and games consoles were not widely available.

Other factors associated with asthma are obesity and environmental factors such as exposure to pollution.