People Before Profit blog

COMMENTARY Psychopaths wanted for high court appointment

Sun, 31 May 2009 07:18:00 +0000

Wow, is Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, ever in for it!

Mark Kirkorian of the anti-immigrant “Center for Immigration Studies” told the press this week that it is incorrect to pronounce her name SotomayOR with the accent on the last syllable as she and anybody who knows a smidgeon of Spanish pronounces it, but that the name should be pronounced “SotoMAYur,' with the accent on the second to last syllable. Why? Because this is America, and people should Americanize the pronunciation of their foreign names if they want to stay here. We have reliable information that Kirkorian, for example, pronounces his typically Armenian name as “Chumley”.

This is the tip of the iceberg of the racist and sexist attacks and insults to which Ms. SotomaYOR is being subjected as her confirmation proceeds. Worse than refusing to patriotically mispronounce her own name, she confesses to being influenced by her environment. And horrible to relate, President Obama has said he was looking for judges who exhibit “empathy.'

The Republican right ran to their dictionaries to look up “empathy” and found that it means “ability to understand the feelings of others,' or some such commie claptrap. So of course, they’re “agin’” it. “Empathy” has no place on the Supreme Court.

Well, I did some research and found out that by definition, a person without empathy is a “psychopath.' Yes, psychiatrists define psychopaths as people who are unable to exhibit “empathy or remorse.' So if the right wants people without empathy on the Supreme Court, what they are really looking for are psychopaths in black robes.

I think this is perfectly reasonable. After all, psychopaths have had distinguished careers in both the executive and legislative branches, so why not in the judiciary also? Having an all-psychopath, no-empathy bench would solve several current legal dilemmas like the argument over whether people who are actually innocent should be executed because their incompetent legal counsel did not file appeal papers on time (I kid you not, this is actually being discussed).

But there is another problem. Judge Sotomayor is quoted as having suggested in a 2001 speech that the environment in which she and other judges grew up might have a positive influence on their ability to understand their duties. Of course, Ms. Sotomayor grew up as a working-class daughter of Puerto Rican parents, and was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

Most people who read her whole 2001 statement conclude that it’s just common sense. Judges like anybody else are influenced by their life experiences, and this is bound to be reflected in some of their rulings.

It is also ridiculous and offensive to claim that a Puerto Rican woman from a working class background would be negatively affected, as a judge, by her life experiences, but a white male from an elite background would only be positively impacted by his own life experiences. It is tantamount to saying that only rich white men are eligible to do the judging.

As a friend said “anybody who believes this nonsense must be living on another planet.'

So maybe that is the solution to the dilemma of judges being influenced by their life experiences: Find Supreme Court candidates from other worlds beyond our solar system. They would have been influenced, perhaps, by their experiences growing up on their own planets, but not by the human situations which the form the context of the cases on which they are supposed to rule, which is what we are trying to avoid here.

Of course, being brought in from outer space would mean that they are not U.S. citizens and therefore ineligible for judicial appointments. But that can be solved as it was for media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who suddenly was made a U.S. citizen, butting ahead in line in front of several tens of millions of people so he could own TV and radio stations here.

So how’s that for a plan? Psychopathic space cadets for the Supreme Court!

The Republican right should be very pleased with that, as they would have plenty of candidates for future openings, including a former vice president.

Little relationship between immigration and unemployment, studies show

Sun, 31 May 2009 07:09:00 +0000

The current economic crisis has intensified the tendency to cast immigrants as scapegoats for this country’s economic problems. Mexican and Latin American immigrants are portrayed as inveterate job thieves who take “American jobs” from “American workers.” Yet new studies cast doubt on this characterization.

The two studies (a third is in the works), produced by Rob Paral and Associates as special reports for the Immigration Policy Center, are titled: “Untying the Knot, Part I of III: The Unemployment and Immigration Disconnects” and “Untying the Knot, Part II of III, Immigration and Native Born Unemployment Across Racial/Ethnic Groups.' Both can be found online at www.immigrationpolicy.org.

The first study attempts to answer the general question of whether new immigration contributes to unemployment. The study compares census regions, states and counties in terms of the correlation between the unemployment level and the proportion of relatively new immigrants in the population. Contrary to the expectations of anti-immigrant zealots, no correlation between new immigration and unemployment can be demonstrated. In fact, there are many examples which seem to go the other way.

“Recent immigrants comprise 8.4 percent of the Pacific region (California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii), but only 2.8 percent of the population of the East North Central Region (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin). Yet these two regions have nearly the same unemployment rate: 10.8 percent in the Pacific region and 10.0 percent in the East North Central region.

“In counties with lowest unemployment rates (below 4.8 percent) 4.6 percent of the population is composed of recent immigrants. But in counties with the highest unemployment rates (over 13.4 percent) only 3.1 percent of the population is composed of recent immigrants.”

The authors conclude that variations in the unemployment rate by county do not correlate with levels of new immigration, but rather reflect other things: Whether a county is in a metropolitan concentration or not, and whether manufacturing has been a part of a county’s economic life or not. They find that non metropolitan counties have higher unemployment rates (9.4 percent of labor force) than metropolitan ones (8.3 percent), but non-metropolitan counties have far fewer recent immigrants (1.3 percent) than do metropolitan ones (5.4 percent).

Similarly, manufacturing counties have higher unemployment rates (9.9 percent) than do non-manufacturing ones (8.1 percent), but fewer new immigrants (2.1 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively).

Today, new immigrants are typically working in construction and service industries rather than manufacturing, a situation different from that of 100 years ago.

In other words, immigrants are not to blame for closing auto factories and steel mills, the corporate owners are. At any rate, if new immigration were any kind of a contributing factor in unemployment, you would expect opposite results to these.

The second study, “Immigration and Native Born Unemployment Across Racial/Ethnic Groups,' uses similar methodology to try to determine if new immigration is contributing to higher unemployment rates among certain groups of native-born workers, especially African-Americans.

The authors conclude that “States and metropolitan areas with the highest shares of recent immigrants in the labor force do not necessarily have the highest unemployment rates among native born blacks, whites, Hispanics or Asians. Nor do locales with the highest rates of unemployment among native born blacks, whites Hispanics or Asians necessarily have the highest share of recent immigrants in the labor force.”

Again, there are examples of states with high immigration having relatively low unemployment. “In Maine, recent immigrants are only 1 percent of the labor force, while in California they are 8 percent of the labor force. Yet native born Blacks in California have an unemployment rate that is about 3 percentage points lower than native born blacks in Maine.”

The authors conclude that higher unemployment levels among African Americans are not related to immigration, but to things such as “levels of educational attainment and work skills.” They should have added ongoing racial discrimination in hiring and on the job.

The studies are very limited both conceptually and methodologically (the results of the 2010 census will help clarify some rough areas), but are convincing as far as they go.

Of course, anti-immigrant bigots will not be convinced by these studies, or any studies that anybody might conceivably put out. The anti-immigrant crowd’s method of analysis is to find a social problem (unemployment, crime, taxes, the mortgage crisis, the health care financing crisis, swine flu, salmonella in the tomato crop etc.) and then try to find a way to pin it on “Mexican illegals.”

They then highlight anecdotal evidence, often about individual cases instead of statistically detectable patterns, to bolster their bigoted arguments, and ignore contrary evidence such as these two studies. They are helped to do this by media hacks like Lou Dobbs of CNN’s cable programming, and the whole yammering Fox News crowd.

This is important since on June 1, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations, backed by a large number of immigrants’ rights, civic, community and religious organizations, will be announcing a new legislative program for comprehensive immigration reform, which will include a mechanism to legalize the status of most undocumented immigrants in the country. It is a sure bet that all the misinformation about immigrants taking jobs and causing crime waves will be trotted out by the ultra right to oppose this effort.

Emile Schepers is a political activist in Virginia and writes frequently on immigration and civil liberties.

Teens and sex: Is the Internet accurate?

Sat, 30 May 2009 07:20:00 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE May 29 Below the Belt: A Column by NOW President Kim Gandy

We live in a society obsessed with sex. Our relationship with sex, however, is conflicted and more than a little dysfunctional. Mixed messages abound. Popular culture and various institutions both glorify and demonize sex. And much of this is played out via the female body.

As young women attempt to navigate the sexual minefield laid out by the patriarchy, they need information that won't steer them wrong. The stakes are high -- unplanned pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, a life forever altered, a future interrupted. So how do they get good information?

Enter the Internet -- perhaps the most awesome research tool ever. With all that information at our fingertips and theirs, some of it's bound to be wrong, right? Right. In fact, new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital demonstrates that health websites often provide teens with factually-challenged and incomplete information about sex and sexuality.

Heading up the study was Dr. Sophia Yen, a specialist in adolescent medicine at Packard Children's Hospital, a clinical instructor of pediatrics at Stanford, and a longtime NOW supporter and advocate (not entirely relevant, but I have to brag).

Yen warns: 'Teens should be cautious about finding sexual health answers on the Web. . . . Even widely trusted sites like WebMD are not that accurate when it comes to adolescent reproductive health.'

In a review of 35 popular health websites, Yen and her team identified the top six sexual health myths lurking online. These myths are the result of websites leaving out key pieces of information altogether, or simply failing to update their sites to reflect changes in knowledge or clinical recommendations.

Two of the myths involve emergency contraception (EC). A number of websites had not been updated to indicate that, as of August 2006, women 18 and older could purchase EC without a prescription in the U.S., and additionally that minors can buy EC directly from authorized pharmacists in nine states (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington state). Within weeks of the release of Yen's study, the FDA lowered the EC non-prescription age to 17, further underscoring the need for health websites to stay on top of such developments.

In addition, 29 percent of the sites neglected to note that EC does not cause an abortion if the woman is already pregnant when she takes it, and is not the same thing as RU-486, the early abortion pill. This is a common misconception that reproductive health sites would be wise to correct.

Sixty percent of the sites incorrectly stated that birth control pills can cause weight gain, even though recent research has shown that this is not true with modern oral contraceptives. And how many people know that IUDs are a safe form of birth control for adolescents? Not nearly enough, I'm sure, since only a fraction of websites providing information about IUDs even mention their use by adolescents, and several wrongly state that only women who have given birth should use IUDs.

While online information about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) was relatively accurate, less than half delivered the news that some STIs, such as Herpes, can be contracted through skin-to-skin contact or kissing. Finally, the study found that many sites had not updated guidelines for age and circumstances of first recommended pap test.

The prevalence of inaccurate information on trusted health websites is particularly alarming given other recent reports. Last year I wrote about a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study estimating that one out of every four teenage girls -- 3.2 million young women -- 'has at least one of the most common sexually transmitted infections.'

As if that weren't bad enough, after a decade of declining teen pregnancy, birth and abortion rates, the birth rate for teens has risen for the past two years.

Surely misinformation is to blame, at least in part, for this troubling reversal. After all, we've just come out of eight years of aggressive funding for abstinence-only education programs (thanks, George W. Bush), which proved to be ineffective and riddled with falsehoods. President Obama has removed much of this funding from his 2010 budget, but abstinence-only proponents are working hard to maintain their funding in Congress.

And don't get me started on crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), which present a 'compassionate' front to women who think they may be pregnant, but really exist to prevent women from obtaining or even considering abortion. Deception, misinformation, propaganda and shame are the tools of their trade. According to Legal Momentum, 'CPCs are increasingly receiving federal and state funding for these activities -- with dangerous consequences for women's health and wellbeing. . . . the largest source of government funding for CPCs is federal abstinence-only program grants. This funding has brought inexperienced CPC employees and volunteers into schools to teach abstinence-only programs, replacing trained sexual health educators who had provided comprehensive sexual education.' Not to mention all of those 'Choose Life' license plates that funnel money to these same groups.

Let's face it, teens are curious about sex -- sexual imagery is everywhere, and their hormones are surging. They want to know about sex, and many of them will engage in sex, whether or not their parents or some representative on Capitol Hill thinks they're ready for it. To those who prefer that teens be unprepared to protect their reproductive health, who think that girls who dare to have sex should be punished with STIs or unplanned pregnancies, your reign will soon be over.

Let's give girls and women full authority over their reproductive lives and the information to make sound choices about their sexual health. The iconic 1989 art piece by Barbara Kruger declared: 'Your body is a battleground.' How satisfying it would be to see that come to an end at last.

Kim Gandy is president of the National Organization for Women.

Baseball fans celebrate Sotomayor

Thu, 28 May 2009 06:09:00 +0000

New York City sports pages are now aglow with the 1994-95 decision by federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor that imposed an injunction on the Major League Baseball owners, which stopped them from imposing their own labor rules as the players strike was taking place.

Every decent sports columnist has heralded that move as saving the players’ work rules and benefits against a ruthless employers association. The baseball owners wanted to break the players union so that they would have the ruthless, anti-player power the football owners achieved. And they almost got their wish.

Yet, Sotomayor imposed that injunction, according to reports, to save collective bargaining. Now, there is a justice who puts her sports fan status at the front her decision-making!

Sotomayor is reported to be a major Yankees fan. Being from the South Bronx, the Yankees are her hometown team. How many politicians run to the ballparks to get fan support and then turnaround and do anti-worker, anti-player actions? Far too many.

Let’s hope she gets confirmed in time for the playoffs. If the Yankees make it to the playoffs, they will have one fan in the stands, who having had the opportunity, that did the right thing.

Now, what about Employee Free Choice?

Too many Democrats, and even some labor policy wonks, are going along with the erroneous conclusion that organized labor leaders and lobbyists have given up on the Employee Free Choice Act. Clearly, the White House hasn’t.

You hear more and more that the struggle to pass EFCA might take too much time. And if it is passed, as the story goes, the Supreme Court will knock it down.

That is deflating some of the early support for Free Choice.

Some are even offering half-baked adjustment to the NLRB rather than Employee Free Choice Act.

A balanced playing field between labor and management is clearly on the minds of the White House, many other politicians and labor leaders.

An unintended consequence, or maybe intended consequence, of Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court bench will be to make sure that all workers get their rights.

The president has shown himself on more than one occasion that he supports workers and their unions in regard to their right to a level playing field against employers.

Sotomayor may not just be the one judge on the SCOTUS, assuming confirmation, who has more experience as any sitting justice has, she will be the first who has sided with workers and their unions.

EDITORIAL No way to act

Wed, 27 May 2009 07:04:00 +0000

North Korea's recent nuclear test, as well as its subsequent test firing of two missiles, represents a grave threat to peace and stability in the region, the fight to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world and, more generally, the fight for peace and social progress.

We condemn these reckless and provocative acts.

North Korea has claimed that it has been the victim of imperialist aggression, specifically from the United States. The United States has refused to sign a peace treaty with North Korea, has hedged on agreements made in the six-party talks aimed at solving the nuclear issue, and, over the decades, worked to isolate North Korea.

And it was the U.S. that fought in the war which divided the country into two -- a war that has never officially ended. The border between North and South Korea is one of the most militarized in the world.

Nonetheless, building nuclear weapons, which endanger the very existence of humanity itself, can never be justified.

Recent changes in the world make the test all the more irresponsible. Today, Barack Obama is the U.S. president and as such pledged to reduce nuclear arsenals, to sign a treaty that would ban all nations, including the U.S. itself, from any nuclear tests. Unprecedented vows from any U.S. president, and one that has been welcomed around the world.

The current fight for progressive forces is to make sure that such a nuclear policy is implemented. North Korea's tests do exactly the opposite. They play into the hands of those in the U.S. who want to derail the Obama presidency, as well as into the hands of those in Japan who would like to destroy the nation's “peace constitution” and turn Japan itself into an aggressive power.

The North Korean news agency said, “The test will contribute to defending the sovereignty of the country and the nation and socialism and ensuring peace and security on the Korean peninsula and the region.' However the world sees it differently, including North Korea's socialist neighbors, China and Vietnam, which have condemned the tests.

Dick Cheney's magical mystery media tour

Tue, 26 May 2009 15:56:00 +0000

Dick Cheney has apparently been on a magical mystery media tour.

He has sought out and been interviewed by more TV journalists and talk show hosts during the past month than during the eight years he was vice president.

The topic is always the same. Torture was done during the Bush-Cheney administration, and it was effective. Persons held at Guantanamo Bay are evil and should never be released. President Obama's actions are a threat to national security. Cheney claims that because of the actions he and George W. Bush took after 9/11, there were no more attacks upon the United States.

Here's what he doesn't say.

Prior to 9/11 his administration rejected pleas by the FBI to increase funding and manpower for counter-terrorism. He doesn't say that CIA intelligence reports told the President that al-Qaeda was planning a major attack, probably by air. He doesn't tell us that following 9/11, the Administration carried out a systematic shredding of six Constitutional amendments in the mistaken belief that somehow snipping away at America's fabric would protect us from further harm. He doesn't tell us that although torture was used, contrary to every international law, it did not, according to senior officials at both the FBI and CIA, produce valuable intelligence. He doesn't tell us that it was probably his paranoia and fears that pushed the nation's military and intelligence communities to use torture.

He doesn't tell us that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction or ties to al-Qaeda and 9/11. He doesn't say that by diverting America's military forces from Afghanistan to Iraq, his Administration probably allowed Osama bin Laden and a significant part of al-Qaeda to remain at large for almost eight years, while more than 4,000 Americans were killed and another 30,000 wounded, many with injuries that will never heal.

Here's another thing that Dick Cheney doesn't say. According to major independent research polls, only 20 to 22 percent of Americans now identify themselves as Republicans. Does anyone wonder why four-fifths of Americans don't want to be tainted by the actions done by the Bush-Cheney administration and the direction the Republican Party has taken the past couple of years to eliminate any Republican who is not in lock-step with its extreme right-wing agenda?

Dick Cheney can spin the truth all he wants. But the reality is that 9/11 occurred on his watch.

Walter M. Brasch (www.walterbrasch.com) is a university professor of journalism, social issues columnist, and the author of 17 books. His current book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush, available from amazon.com, bn.com and other stores.

Memorial Day: You cant see change when its happening

Tue, 26 May 2009 04:07:00 +0000

Out walking with my dog this morning, down the street from the local Catholic college, we passed a couple of yards strewn with blue plastic beer cups, left over from a night of graduation celebrations. A scene replicated on campuses and surrounding neighborhoods across America, as Memorial Day weekend is a traditional time for college graduations.

Around the corner, this quiet sunny holiday morning, a woman was planting tomato seedlings in front of her house, and a man sat on his shady porch eating breakfast cereal as the birds chirped in the trees and bushes. A grill and bag of charcoal sat waiting in a backyard.

Down in Philadelphia, Celeste Zappala, whom I’ve interviewed several times over the past few years, wrote on her Facebook page this weekend about her son, Sherwood Baker, killed in Iraq five years ago. I recall she told me how Sherwood had joined the National Guard because he had seen them helping sandbag against floods in Wilkes-Barre, and he wanted to serve his community like that.

Where are we at in America this Memorial Day? Young people stepping out into the future, a mother mourning her son lost in a war based on lies. Planting gardens, cutting the grass, barbecue in the afternoon.

Life goes on. Customs endure. Yet change has come in our country. And more is coming. How do I know? Most of the time you can’t see change when it’s happening. There are the big events that everyone notices. The beginnings of wars. 9/11. Stock market crashes. Presidential elections.

But the tides of history surge as ordinary people take stock, grapple with their problems, look around them, shift their thinking. It may be imperceptible, but it’s happening.

It took three decades. People had to think things through. They tried the flight-suit-on-the-aircraft-carrier way. They tried the drown-the-government, ownership-society way. They tried the “moral values” way. Finally, they had enough. They elected the most progressive president in my lifetime. (I was born a year after Franklin Delano Roosevelt died.)

Now, people have to think things through some more. They have to see some good things happening, some results, things that point the way forward. And if you want to make more change, you have to be part of this. Cynicism will get you nowhere. Complaining about the most progressive president you’ve ever had will not help move forward the partying college grad or the woman planting tomatoes or the man eating cereal on his porch or the laid off steelworker at your neighbor’s barbecue.

You can’t see change when it’s happening and when you are in it. But you need to be in it, with the college student, the laid off steelworker at the barbecue, the woman planting her garden, the man sitting on his porch. These are the people who will make the changes we need.

suewebb @ pww.org

Remember Sgt. Provost and other soldiers Memorial Day 2009

Mon, 25 May 2009 12:48:00 +0000

Just in time for Memorial Day, I took out the medals won by Roland Francis Provost for “combat valor” in World War II, pinned them to the flag draped over his casket and hung it up on our bedroom wall in Baltimore.

Those medals have been stored safely out of sight in a file cabinet for as long as Joyce and I have been married. He was the father she hardly knew. He died and was buried near the family home in Orlando, Fla., when she was just a little girl.

I did some research on the War in the Pacific pinpointing where Provost was at various stages of the conflict. It is a story of a fiasco, a debacle, a huge human tragedy imposed on humanity by fascism and imperial ambitions.

That war has been called “The Good War.” Whether “good” or “bad,” World War II was a completely avoidable war. If the U.S., France and Britain had heeded the Soviet Union’s call for “collective security” measures against Nazi Germany and the fascist axis, the war could have been prevented.

Provost was a U.S. Army Air Corps Master Sergeant, an aircraft engine mechanic, and a navigator stationed at Hickam Airfield, Hawaii, when Joyce was born Jan. 26, 1941. He was a doting father.

But with ominous war clouds gathering, Provost was assigned to the 30th Bomber Squadron and flew Sept. 20, 1941, in a flotilla of hundreds of B-17s and B-25s bombers to Clark Air Field in the Philippines leaving his wife, daughter, and stepson behind in Hawaii. A few weeks later they survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

One day later, Dec. 8, 1941, the Japanese attacked Clark Air Field destroying all but 14 of the planes on the ground, even though General Douglas MacArthur had been forewarned that the Philippines would be Japan’s next target. Somehow, Provost escaped, flying with his comrades to an airbase outside Darwin, Australia.

A few days later, they flew back to Bandeong, Indonesia, joining in a futile attempt to block the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia. Among Provost’s papers is a yellow, mimeographed sheet dated Feb. 12, 1942, and signed by Commanding General L.H. Brereton, citing Provost and his fellow airmen for “combat valor.” They were awarded the Silver Star, the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross even as the Japanese Imperial Army closed in for the final kill.

Outnumbered and outgunned, their defenses crumbling, Provost and his comrades scrambled their planes and fled back to Darwin, March 6, 1942.

Provost moved on a few months later to an airbase near Port Moresby, Papua, New Guinea and probably helped provide air cover for the U.S. Navy during the “Battle of the Coral Sea” May 3-7, 1942.

Retreat sometimes brings out acts of heroism, amid panic and confusion, even braver than offense when the attacker has the advantage of treachery and surprise.

I am reading, now, the memoirs of Gen. Georgi Zhukov, who commanded the Soviet Army during World War II. He provides many examples of bravery among the Soviet people in the early weeks of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

German General Hans Guderian, for example, was driving with an enormous force of Panzers and crack Wehrmacht infantry divisions to the southeast of Moscow. His aim was to capture the town of Tula, famed as the “Czar’s armory,” and swing around to encircle the Soviet capital. Fighting desperate defensive engagements, the Red Army was in retreat. Workers in the Tula plants left their lathes and drill presses, took up rifles and marched out to reinforce the Red Army. The Nazi advance was halted.

Workers in Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad and other cities carried out similar acts of mass heroism during the “Great Patriotic War,” Zhukov writes. They were motivated by their hatred of fascism and fascist atrocities and their love of the socialist homeland.

The flower of Soviet society, those most loyal to the October Revolution of 1917 died, a blow that may have been a factor in the collapse of the USSR fifty years later.

So what if “collective action” had successfully blocked the fascist war?

Tens of millions of lives would have been saved. Joyce would have grown up with a father. This is not idle speculation about how we might have avoided a war fought 67 years ago. Every war fought since then has been avoidable, a squandering of life, a waste of material resources needed to improve the living conditions of humanity.

On this Memorial Day, lets remember the words on those Quaker yard signs that went up five years ago and never came down: “War is not the answer.”

Tim Wheeler (greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com) is a veteran journalist for the People’s Weekly World and its editor from 1992-2003.

Farewell Phil Stein, brave comrade

Mon, 25 May 2009 04:28:00 +0000

Original source: Political Affairs blog

Phil Stein passed away last month and there is an obituary to him in the New York Times.

I knew Phil for many years and often met him and his wife Gertrude at events and rallies in New York. I also knew Phil's very good friend, comrade, and fellow artist, Charles Keller, who passed away a number of years ago.

The New York Times obituary, as it deals with Phil's contributions to art is well done (his best known work perhaps is the large mural at the Village Vanguard) but one aspect of it made me very angry. Phil is referred to as an 'ardent leftist' when the obituary mentions that he spent three months in prison in 1946 for his part in the Hollywood studio strike. But he is never referred to as a Communist, which is what he was when I first met him and what he had been long for a very very long time before that. Actually, the obituary mentions that Phil went to study in Mexico in 1947 because 'work was scarce' in Hollywood in 1947. Isn't mentioned as such.

Ironically I participated a number of years ago with Phil, Charles Keller, and others in interviews for a documentary for South Korean television on the postwar repression. The group interview was held in the reference center for Marxist Studies at the CPUSA's national headquarters on 23rd street.

But it may not be so useful to criticize the obituary on that point because a capitalist newspaper is a capitalist newspaper. Anti-Communism is always about the anti-Communists, their fears and ignorance. And even in the NYT obituary, Phil was in very good company. The obituary notes that Phil worked with 'the great Mexican muralist, David Alfaro Siqueros,' who became the central influence in Phil's development as an artist. But it doesn't mention that Siqueros was also a very prominent Communist.

I guess this is a little bit like the old joke about Albert Einstein. 'If he succeeds, the Germans will call him a German and the French will call him a Jew. If he fails, the French will call him a German and the Germans will call him a Jew.' If a Communist like Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, Irish playwright Sean O'Casey. Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer (who among many other things played an important role in the design of the UN building, even though as a Communist he was barred from visiting New York for years to look at the building he designed) makes a large contribution to the arts, sciences, and professions, they are 'depoliticized,' so that 'Communism' as an abstraction can continue to be demonized, even in 2009.

But let's celebrate Phil a little (he earned it). Phil didn't talk too much about himself so I never knew that he was part of a weather forecasting unit of the U.S. army that moved across Europe with U.S. forces as they advanced from D Day to their meeting with Red Army Troops at the Elbe River. I had seen Phil at so many peace rallies and demonstrations in New York and Washington to I knew about his work in the Hollywood strike and his work in Mexico with Siqueros. I knew also about his remarkable achievements as an artist, but not that he had begun to teach himself painting as a teenager in Newark. I knew about his love of jazz, which I have long shared, but not that his sister, Lorraine, was the wife of Max Gordon, who founded the Village Vanguard (she now manages the club) I knew vaguely that he and Gertrude had lived in Spain in the 1980s, (in the obituary, Gertrude says that 'we were looking for a place with a good vibe') but I didn't know he had a radio show devoted to Jazz on a local station.

Phil played an important role in helping to involve me in in the 1990s in the struggle against the U.S-NATO war to dismember Yugoslavia and its accompanying propaganda campaign aimed at demonizing the leadership and people of Serbia. It was through Phil that I met Barry Lituchy, Director of the Jasenovac Research Institute(JRI) , which has sought to educate Americans and people everywhere about the history of the Holocaust in wartime Yugoslavia and use that education to actively resist neo fascism today. Phil and Gertrude strongly and consistently supported the work of JRI as they strongly and consistently supported a myriad of peoples struggles in a marriage that spanned nearly seven decades.

If there are readers of our blog who knew Phil, I would like to hear their comments. I am sure there will be tributes. Phil was a Marxist in theory and a Communist in practice, a gifted artist who worked with and learned from one of the great artists of the twentieth century, and a person who by synthesizing art and politics made both and his society better. He was also, as jazzmen would say, a cool cat.

To order Phil Stein's book on the life of Siqueiros, published by International Publishers, go to

MUSIC REVIEW Two giants of music, Bob Dylan & Steve Earle, release new CDs

Mon, 25 May 2009 03:29:00 +0000

MusicREVIEW

Together Through Life

By Bob Dylan

Columbia Records

Townes

By Steve Earle

New West Records

Two music giants released record albums around May Day last month. While their ages are quite disparate by about 20 years or so, they are beginning to share the same audiences. True, Dylan’s audiences are far broader, but a portion of his appeal is similar to Earle’s. And, of course while Earle is a giant, Dylan’s giant size is far larger.

Steve Earle has on more than one occasion voiced his admiration for Dylan’s writing and poetic works. Now, they are sharing living conditions: Steve Earle moved from Nashville, Tenn., to the Village in NYC a few years ago and is building an extension on his newly acquired Woodstock, N.Y. home, with his wife, singer/songwriter Allison Moorer.

The Village and Woodstock is total Dylan folklore.

But, in “Townes” Earle wanted to make it clear that his true mentor and leader in his music world was, and remains, Townes Van Zandt, the historic and legendary song writer and performer.

For Earle’s 13th studio CD, he chose just 15 of Van Zandts’ songs that Earle felt were both important and not overly played and recorded. Of course, sticking to his unpredictability, Earle starts off his CD with one of Van Zandt’s better-known songs, “Pacho and Lefty.” While, very popular, most people are not aware that he wrote it. The truth is that not enough people know Townes Van Zandt and his body of work. Willy Nelson made the song very popular. Earle chose not to include one of Van Zandt’s greatest working class songs: “Tecumseh Valley.” Too bad. I guess that fell under the heading of being recorded by many others.

In the course of his promotional tour and the interviews, Earle has added to the CD many biographical points to Van Zandt’s life. He makes it clear that he is not just telling his mentor’s good side. He starts off all interviews by being up front about his afflictions lead by drug and alcohol abuse. It is clear that Earle wanted Van Zandt to be around far longer than he lasted, lasted in the sense of being able to produce quality music.

Earle’s CD songs include many blues songs of Van Zandt. He said that Van Zandt was a blues singer and that he spent a lot of time with Lightening Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb. Most people who know Van Zandt would agree, but you won’t find him in the Blues section of music store categories.

The release of the CD was preceded by a major promotion spread in the New York Times Entertainment Section. Steve Earle has broken through.

In his interview with WFUV, a highly regarded New York City music radio station, he sang a few of the CD’s songs, but then, in keeping with Earle’s political activism, changed the tone of the interview. He said that he was extremely happy that Obama won the election. He said he voted for him and has never regretted it at all. He said that he has patience with the administration’s position on Iraq and Afghanistan. But, he did say that he has told him where he stands. He won’t be happy until every soldier was back home in the U.S. He then sang his great anti-war song, “Rich Man’s War.”

Earle described the start of his music career being part of a Van Zandt’s Texas “cult” of friends. They included Guy Clark and Lucinda Williams.

It is sort of ironic that Earle finally decided to produce an album of Van Zandt’s songs as he moved into his 54th birthday, Van Zandt died at the age of 53, in 1998. Van Zandt battled severe depression all of his life.

“Together Through Life” is Bob Dylan’s 33rd studio album. And, in keeping with his unpredictability, this one defies easy description. Suffice it to say, it is an album of human relations with a lot of rhythmic music. The song, “I Feel a Change Comin On” has been interpreted as a boost from the recent national election. But, given Dylan’s refusal to describe his music, who knows?

For example, a casual listener might simply say that Dylan was looking for a low key, romantic kind of CD. But, then you come across “My Wife’s Home Town.” This was written, as the CD says by Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter with the lyrics by Dylan and the legend Willie Dixon. He then gives, “Special thanks to the estate of Willie Dixon and the Blues Heaven Foundation.” There is more to this CD then meets the eye.

Dylan fans will like this album.

Steve Earle’s album might become a legend itself. It has already made Billboard’s top 20. Dylan’s CDs always sell well.

A concert tour between Earle and Dylan would be real nice.

COMMENTARY Amid losses, India's left will grow stronger

Sun, 24 May 2009 09:36:00 +0000

NEW DELHI -- While the Left parties here went from 61 seats to 25 seats in the parliamentary elections, their mood is upbeat. The coalition which includes CPI and CPI-M will continue the strategy of building a Third Front, meaning building up non-Congress forces and anti-BJP forces. The BJP is a far-right, Hindu chauvinist party and the main opposition to the Congress-led government.

In the Left's bastion of West Bengal, where the Left Front has governed for more than 30 years, the parties lost ground, going from 35 seats to 15. Recognizing the severe blow, the parties said a thorough evaluation of the loss would take place.

In Kerala, another left ruled state with a total of 20 seats, voters have fluctuated between the Congress Party and the Communist parties ffor the last 50 years. This time the Congress Party got the benefit from being the opposition. The Congress-led coalition won 16 seats and the Left won only four.This is not new in Kerala.

In the third communist-ruled state, Tripura, with only two seats at stake, both seats were retained by the left.

Corporate India and their supporters abroad have never really accepted the left, even during the four years the left supported the Congress Party-led government from 2004-2008. Every week they had been scheming to torpedo it. The left parties stood in the way of anti-people economic 'reforms' like not allowing the selling off of state-owned banks,, preventing the privatization of public pensions and not allowing them to become part of market-driven speculations. The left fought to uphold labor laws in opposition to forces that seek to make them more 'employer-friendly.'

The left also initiated many programs for which the Congress Party got credit. Putting public funds to benefit farmers and waiving their loans were programs the left initiated. Thousands of farmers have committed suicide in recent years because of their huge debt burden. This program helped relieve the suffering.

The breaking point between the left and Congress was over the Bush-initiated nuclear agreement. The left had placed in the Common Minimum Program with Congress the continuation of an independent foreign policy. The left said the U.S.-India nuclear agreement violated an independent foreign policy and was detrimental to India's interest. The left organized mass marches and rallies to warn Indian people of the dangers. They sought to postpone the signing until after the U.S. and Indian elections. But all of this was ignored. The Congress won support from the Socialist Party and managed to survive the no-confidence vote. The left parties withdrew its support from the government.

Indian politics are very complicated. Whlie the unity between the Left and Congress forces existed, the far-right coalition, led by the BJP, was building up its forces. The NDA coalition, led by the BJP, is the most favored Indian political formation by the forces of neo-liberalism and privatization at the World Bank and World Trade Organization.

Some planning to eject the left out took place outside India, including at a meeting in Japan. Corporate India, it seems, colluded with the NDA to get rid of the Congress with a no-confidence vote and then win the election. For example before the elections, the Indian corporate giant, Tata, withdrew its Nano car factory project from West Bengal and moved it to NDA-ruled state of Gujarat. However the NDA came in a distant second with 180 seats to Congress' 206 (with another possible 55 from allies). The left went to third place with a total of 80 seats. The left is claiming credit for helping to limit the NDA's seats.

It seems that in this election, voters wanted a stable government at the center. This gave Congress major campaign leverage. The hurridly-assembled Third Front did not win the confidence of the people.

But the coming struggles to defend people's rights and improve living conditions will galvanize the left and Third Front. The working millions of India and the middle class will find the left fighting for them, which will, in turn, grow the Third Front.

Ramakant Sharma, a retired doctor, is a veteran activist from the CPI and active in the United States on peace and justice issues.

EDITORIAL Cost of anti-immigrant laws

Sun, 24 May 2009 07:40:00 +0000

State after state, some 45 in all, continue to suffer major budget shortfalls due to increased costs of anti-immigrant “enforcement only” local laws.

According to a report released last January by the National Employment Law Project, laws designed to “crack down” on undocumented immigrants lead to struggling economies after immigrant families abandoned the state.

It’s no surprise that the country’s estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants represent an important sum contribution to the local economies where they reside. Yet anti-immigrant and crack-down policies subject towns and cities -- and the country as a whole -- to grave economic risks. Immigrants are people who work hard and pay taxes -- sales tax, property tax, income and Social Security taxes and more -- that help stimulate and boost state economies.

The report found that Utah, Arizona, and Colorado are spending millions of taxpayer dollars in on punitive anti-immigrant ordinances that deny people basic human services. That denial of services, along with whipped up fear, drive both documented and undocumented from the area.

In Arizona, economic output would drop $29 billion annually if all non-citizens, including undocumented workers, were removed from Arizona’s workforce.

Many ordinances lead to costly and unnecessary litigation as well. In Riverside, N.J., a town of 8,000 has already spent $82,000 in legal fees defending its anti-immigrant ordinance, which was rescinded in September 2007.

The federal raid on the meatpacking plant in Iowa last year cost U.S. taxpayers $6.1 million, with a price tag of $5.2 million for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, followed by another $1 million for the U.S. Marshall and U.S. District Court.

There is also a human cost to such broken policies. A two-month year-old baby of immigrant parents had diarrhea for ten days in Oklahoma. The child’s parents were afraid they would be deported under a state law if they admitted him to a hospital. By the time they took him to a clinic it was too late and the child died of a ruptured intestine that could have easily been treatable.

States anti-immigrant laws cost $1.8 billion in economic losses as foreign-born workers continue to flee.

The real problem for state treasuries come down to unscrupulous employers who pay workers “off the books” and fail to offer a lawful wage or safe working environment. Labor laws that protect all workers -- with or without papers -- coupled with comprehensive immigration reform are what cities and towns nationwide should demand.

No U.S. employer should be allowed to exploit any employee or deny any worker the right to organize and join unions, nor should they be allowed to use the threat of raids and deportations against their employees trying to win better conditions by collective organizing.

We are living in a time where jobs are scarce, business is down and unemployment is up. The country is suffering its biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression and towns, cities and states need to see immigrant communities as part of the answer, not the problem.

Now more than ever is the time for practical, long term solutions. All Americans should let President Barack Obama and Congress know you support passing comprehensive immigration reform, which includes a path to legalization and citizenship. The economy can only gain from it.

SPEECH The impossible becomes possible

Sat, 23 May 2009 06:10:00 +0000

The following is a speech given by Communist Party National Chair Sam Webb, at the PWW’s Better World Awards banquet in New York City, May 17, 2009.

On the heels of the first 100 days of our new President, we heard nearly endless commentary and analysis. Much of it was favorable; and some wasn’t.

I would like to briefly add my two cents

After the first 100 days I would say without hesitation or qualification that the political atmosphere, landscape, conversation and agenda compared to the previous eight years of the Bush administration have changed dramatically.

To borrow an expression of Jarvis Tyner, the executive vice chair of our party, “What was once impossible during the Bush years has become possible, thanks to the election of Barack Obama.”

In this new political climate, we can foresee winning a public option, like Medicare, in the current legislative fight over health care reform.

We can visualize enacting tough regulatory reforms on the financial industry that brought the economy to ruin.

We can imagine bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, while being part of a regional process that brings peace and stability to the entire region.

In this new political climate, the expansion of union rights in this legislative session is not only sensible, it’s doable.

Much the same can be said about winning a second stimulus bill, and we sure need one, given the still rising and likely long term persistence of unemployment with the heaviest burden, as usual, falling on communities of color.

Isn’t it possible in the post-Bush era to launch a vigorous attack on global warming and create millions of green jobs in manufacturing and elsewhere?

Can’t we envision taking new strides in the long journey for racial and gender equality in this new era, marked at its beginning by the election of the first African American to the presidency?

And isn’t the overhaul of the criminal justice and prison system – a system steeped in racism and employing punitive treatment as it organizing principle – no longer pie in the sky, but something that can be done in the foreseeable future?

All these --- and many other --- things are within our reach now!

We can dream again, knowing that the gap between our dreams and reality is bridgeable.

We can turn King’s words --- that “justice roll down like a mighty stream” --- into a living reality for every American.

We can re-bend the arc of history in the direction of justice and peace.

But only if we, and millions like us, do our part in these struggles, much like we did last year.

Neither President Obama nor progressive congress people can do it by themselves --- they can’t be the only change agents.

After all, they are up against formidable opposition.

On the one hand the extreme right is badly weakened, but is still a poisonous and reactionary political presence in our nation.

On the other hand, the Obama change coalition includes people and groups that want to cut down on the scope and sweep of the reform agenda.

So both the new president and new congress need our help. Our responsibility is support them as well as prod and constructively take issue with them when we have differing views.

But more importantly – and this is the nub of the problem – we have to reach, activate, unite and turn millions of Americans into change agents who can make the political difference in these struggles.

Changes of a progressive nature, especially major ones--- if history is any guide --- usually combine the bottom up and the top down.

So the challenge facing the discontented of our land is to be the bottom up change agents this year and in the years to come.

Our parents and grandparent did exactly that in the Depression years. Not happy with the pace and substance of change, they sat down in plants and in the fields, marched on Washington, petitioned local relief agencies, lobbied for a social safety net, established unemployed and nationality (immigrant) groups, organized industrial workers, opposed discrimination and racism, elected New Dealers to Congress and re-elected Roosevelt in a landslide in 1936, and turned (not all at once and not perfectly) multi-racial unity into an organizing principle.

I am confident the American people in their millions – reeling under the weight of this terrible economic crisis and yearning for a more decent, equal, peaceful and just world – will follow their example and turn this country into a more perfect union.

Yes we can --- Si se puede!

swebb@cpusa.org. For more information on the Communist Party go to www.cpusa.org.

What your donation to the People's Weekly World does

Fri, 22 May 2009 06:59:00 +0000

It takes money to deliver the kind of working-class oriented news and analysis that the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo does.

We are glad to have volunteers who write for and promote our web site (pww.org) — and print editions.

But there’s still a lot of overhead. And we do not get corporate advertising to pay our bills.

It costs close to a million dollars a year to produce the PWW online and in print.

That’s a lot of money for us. May not be for AIG or Bank of America, but for working class people and organizations — it’s a lot.

When you break down the costs, here’s what you get for your donations.

With $10, you are paying for a reporter here in Chicago to get to and from two picket lines or rallies on the subway or bus.

With $25, you are helping to pay for sending a weekly e-mail headline alert to readers.

With $50, you are paying for a complimentary subscription for a prisoner or an international solidarity sub.

With $100, you are helping to pay for postage to guarantee that 250 readers get their subscription renewal notices on time.

With $500, you are covering a year’s dues to enable the PWW to continue being part of the major national labor press organization — the International Labor Communication Association — and benefiting from membership in the labor-focused Press Associates Union News Service.

With $1,000, you are helping to pay for a significant portion of our new PWW web site, the 21st century’s “printing press,” to be launched later this year.

In the first few weeks of May — responding to a letter from the editor, and through May Day/Cinco de Mayo ads, phone banking and local events — you helped raise $30,000! Thank you.

It puts us at $64,135 raised so far in this year’s fund drive — leaving $110,865 to go to reach our $175,000 goal — and that’s just a portion of what it costs to produce the PWW. So don’t delay. Donate today.

Three easy ways to donate:

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Washington Times fanned stereotypes with Obama daughters' picture

Fri, 22 May 2009 06:17:00 +0000

Original source: BlackNews.com

The Washington Times quickly yanked the picture of Malia and Sasha Obama juxtaposed with the screaming headline “36 Chicago area kids killed sets record.” Times editor John Solomon blamed it on a computer auto file error. No word from Editor Solomon who or what programmed the computer, and no formal apology either for the slander.

No matter, the Times blunder(?)dumped back on the table the sensitive, troubling, and polarizing issue of and racial stereotyping. And that’s the issue of the blanket typecasting of young blacks, as crime and violence prone no matter who they are. The plague of gang killing and violence and murders in Chicago that stirred the Obama-murder connection has stirred even more vivid, and lurid images of young blacks as lawbreakers.

The relentless media and public tagging of young black males as gangsters hasn’t helped matters. When some young blacks turn to gangs, guns and drugs, and terrorize their communities, much of the press busily titillates the public with inexhaustible features on the 'crime prone,' 'crack plagued,' 'blood stained streets' of the ghetto. TV action news crews routinely stalk black neighborhoods filming busts for the nightly news.

The explosion of gangster rap and the spate of Hollywood ghetto films convinced many Americans that the gang lifestyle is the black lifestyle. They had ghastly visions of the hordes of gang members heading for their neighborhoods next. The overwhelming majority of the victims of gang attacks are blacks, and the violence almost is exclusively confined to battles over drugs and turf control in poor urban neighborhoods. But with public panic over gangs, and with few accurate numbers on just how many urban youth are actually gang members, some police and city officials play fast and loose with the numbers.

In Los Angeles, police claim that more than 700 gangs with 40,000 members ply the streets of the city committing murder and mayhem. Police and city officials have tossed similar colossal figures on gang affiliation around in other big cities, Chicago included.

The Washington Times juxtaposition of the Obama girls with crime and violence, no matter how fleeting, was just another in the long litany of sorry examples of how crime and violence are inextricably woven in the brain cells of far too many with blacks. That is even blacks named Malia and Sasha Obama.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, “The Hutchinson Report” can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on blogtalkradio.com.

EDITORIAL Unity on health care

Thu, 21 May 2009 05:11:00 +0000

Two months ago, we wrote:

“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.”

And we warned:

“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.”

Earlier this month, the giant private insurance, pharma and hospital lobby groups told President Obama they were on board with health care reform and promised to cut health care costs over the next 10 years to help pay for expanding coverage. Many questioned their sincerity and motives, seeing it as a ploy to buy their way into blocking a public option.

It only took a few days for the big-money lobby spokespeople to back off on their cost-cutting promises, claiming they were misquoted. Then, a couple days later, it was: yes we really do promise. Clearly, the corporate health industry (an oxymoron if ever there was one) is somewhat divided on what tactics to pursue to preserve their ill-gotten gains.

But the people’s movement for health care reform shouldn’t be divided or diverted.

Health care reform legislation is going to be passed and signed into law this fall. The focal point now is whether or not a public, Medicare-for-all type plan will be part of the package. Big Insurance, Big Pharma and the rest of the profit-laden health industry are pouring millions into “Swift boat” attacks on that public option. Progressives, health reform advocates, unions, workers, families — all of us need to come together now, mobilize, and deliver a strong united message to Congress: We want and need a public option.

EDITORIAL Pelosi and the CIA

Thu, 21 May 2009 04:33:00 +0000

The Republicans, with their fever-pitched attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for what and when she knew about the Bush administration’s torture policies, are only adding to and continuing a national disgrace.

The Bush administration carefully devised and implemented a policy of torture of U.S.-held prisoners that took the nation’s national character, its principles and its constitution and threw them into the garbage pail.

We now know that Bush and Cheney lied about even the purpose of the torture. It wasn’t to keep Americans safe, but to torture prisoners into admitting the existence of a link that wasn’t there: a fabricated link between the 9/11 terrorists and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. With such a false confession, they could cobble together a justification for their invasion of a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Now they say Pelosi knew “everything” because the CIA had briefed her and it is not CIA policy “to mislead.”

Tell that to the now dead, arch-conservative Barry Goldwater who, when he was on the Senate intelligence committee many years ago, complained that the CIA had “lied” to him “on a regular basis.”

The GOP exposes itself as caring not one bit about the real issue -- that an administration, in violation of the law, devised a systematic system of torture and abuse of human rights. And they can’t even use the excuse that they did it to “protect” Americans.

Their attacks on Pelosi are , at best, a cynical maneuver to try to stop any investigations of Bush and Cheney or, at worst, a diversion to keep Pelosi and the broad based progressive coalition of which she is both a part and a leader, from doing its work.

They don’t hate Pelosi because she may have known something about torture. They hate her because the most powerful Speaker of the House since the days of Sam Rayburn is a woman who says things they don’t want to hear. They don’t want a Speaker who, like Pelosi, told 3,000 trade unionists in the nation’s capital last week that America’s middle class is only as strong as its unions.

They don’t want a Speaker who, when Bush was devising his torture plans, was busy as a congressional leader helping to put together the legislative coalition that in a few years would help defeat the ultra-right in this country.

EDITORIAL Regulation: the next frontier

Thu, 21 May 2009 03:11:00 +0000

Now that U.S. taxpayers have invested a trillion dollars -- plus $10 trillion more in credit -- many are asking 'What happens next to prevent a repeat of this fiasco?'

Part of the answer can perhaps be seen in Congress recently where banks and credit unions killed a bill that would empower bankruptcy judges to reduce homeowners’ mortgage debt in proportion to their loss of home value, and thus provide a substantial cushion against foreclosures.

Reflecting the lobbying power of the banking industry, every Republican and 12 Democrats voted against the measure. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a lead sponsor of the bill, could not even get the ''bailed-out' banking representatives to discuss the matter. 'They own this place...,” he said on Bill Moyers show.

Also unanswered at the Treasury are 'stress tests,' which recommended effective national control of Citigroup and Bank of America and eight other banks, but postponed fundamental restructuring questions.

The most important reform is plain: the financial industry needs to get smaller, and less powerful than it is right now. But bending overall investment more toward public priorities like 'green' energy, education, health and transportation objectives requires more organized power than the people currently possess.

The next battle will be over President Obama's proposal to 'strongly regulate' the $10 trillion market in “derivatives' -- complex 'bets' on whether commodities, currencies or -- even other derivatives -- will move up or down in price. This is a direct assault on the heart of huge 'shadow' markets that brought countries and people to the brink of hell.

Insuring that financial markets are grounded in real vs fictitious values is the chief goal of regulation. But this too will mean making this sector significantly smaller. Expect a sharp and unremitting struggle from the banking sector until the future after restructuring becomes clearer.

Some may say the banks are too big, too powerful to take on. But worry not. As if this struggle were not difficult and complicated enough, consider the impact of the decline in the dollar, the further collapse of auto, commercial real estate and credit card markets!

The pressures for reform are going to continue to increase, and will not let up, until democratic forces overwhelm the once dominant, still powerful, but decaying power of the 'too big to fail' banks.

EDITORIAL Want to secure Social Security? Lift the cap

Thu, 21 May 2009 03:09:00 +0000

Right-wing Republican Party-linked think tanks want to eliminate Social Security. They are using a recent report from the Social Security trustees that indicate the recession has harmed the long-term financial security of the program's trust fund to claim the program needs reform, i.e. privatization, slashing benefits and raising the retirement age.

Financed largely by Wall Street interests, these groups basically want to get their hands on the money in the Social Security trust fund.

Despite the collapse of the banking and investment industry, they still insist that the private market can better provide retirement security for America's seniors than the Social Security program.

Of course it is plain to most Americans that had 64 million retirees been forced to rely on the private banking and investment industries for their financial security over the past six months, many millions of them would have been forced into dire poverty. The loss of about 40 percent of value in the stock markets since the financial collapse would have devastated millions of privatized Social Security accounts.

No thoughtful person should believe the private banking and investment marketplace can or should be relied on to play the same role Social Security now plays: providing a basic minimum income for retired Americans.

By contrast to the Wall Street meltdown, the new financial picture painted by the Social Security trustees registers as little more than a blip on program's long-term radar screen. According to noted economist Henry J. Aaron of the Brookings Institution, the recent decrease in trust fund revenue will account for less than a few one-hundredths of one percent decrease in the 75 year projection for the Social Security Trust Fund.

In fact, negative portrayals of Social Security's financial health rely on arbitrary and distorted claims of how it works. High unemployment and underemployment, along with wage stagnation, have harmed the level of payroll taxes that finance the Social Security Trust Fund over the past year. The loss of almost 6 million jobs in a very short period of time will do that. No one presumes that this situation is permanent.

Despite recession, however, the surpluses in income over the payout of benefits have created a trust fund worth trillions, which will be able to pay the current level of benefits to retirees for many decades to come. In fact, in terms of cost effectiveness of the program and its irrefutably secure financial condition, Social Security is one of the strongest and most reliable federal programs around.

If any reforms are ever to be needed in the program, the first principle must be to avoid putting at risk the program's basic goal: to provide a basic income for retired Americans.

There is one reform, however, that might adhere to that principle while strengthening the program's financial footing: lifting the cap starting with the highest incomes.

Right now the payroll tax that finances the program is capped at $106,800. This means that for the wealthiest Americans, ever dollar over that amount goes untaxed. Effectively, every wage earner taking in more than $106,800 pays a smaller percentage of their income into the Social Security program that people who earn less than that amount. But wealthier retirees get better benefits.

While Congress has provided for raising this cap slightly each year over the past decade or so, the fairest solution would be to tax all Americans fairly. Lift the cap. Not only does it treat everyone equally, it could eliminate any doubts about the long-term financial security of Social Security and guarantee the stable benefits for all.

COMMENTARY The Pelosi distraction

Mon, 18 May 2009 15:56:00 +0000

The cable news programs are full of indignation about Nancy Pelosi supposedly lying about, and thus insulting the CIA.

For those who have been vacationing on another planet, Speaker Pelosi last week claimed that the CIA had lied to her about whether they were using the method of torture called “waterboarding” on “war against terror” prisoners.

The way the corporate press is handling this situation is a worthy object of study for those who would understand how ideology is formed and perpetuated in this country.

The issue is this: It appears that the CIA has been torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and very likely secret sites around the world. To defend itself, the CIA claims that such torture is necessary because of the “ticking bomb” scenario in which they have to apply torture to get information about an imminent terrorist attack in which thousands could die.

Former Vice President Cheney, who is making a sort of second career out of his efforts to prove to the world that torture works, claimed that CIA records will demonstrate specific cases in which bloody mayhem was averted by the use of torture. Conveniently for both Cheney and itself, the CIA refuses to release this so called information, so the truth of Cheney’s statements can not be tested.

Now the information is coming out that certain individuals were waterboarded scores of times, not to find out the truth about some “ticking bomb”, but in order to get them to state that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were abetted by the regime of the late Saddam Hussein of Iraq (one of the people so tortured, Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi, has now supposedly committed suicide in a Libyan prison, sealing his lips forever).

In other words, they weren’t torturing people to get the truth out of them, but to force them to lie so as to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

There is a ring of truth to this, as it jibes with the famous “Downing Street Memorandum,' a leaked top-secret British government document in which advisors to then Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that the U.S. government was set on war and was shaping and manipulating intelligence data in order to justify an attack. The various lies about weapons of mass destruction and supposed communications between Iraqi agents and Al Qaeda operatives were part of this, and it is possible that some of the torture was part of this strategy of deception, aimed largely at U.S. voters

If this turns out to be true, it reveals not only violations of U.S. and international law regarding torture, but a criminal assault on the democratic institutions of this country. The Bush administration would have been using illegal torture to create a deception to fool the American people so that it could start an illegal war. This certainly would merit criminal prosecutions of those involved, at all levels from Bush to the people who did the physical torturing.

But why should anybody be surprised? Since it evolved out of the old OSS after World War II, the CIA has been a lot more than an espionage agency. It has been the off-the-books, above the law dirty tricks weapon of successive administrations. It has been torturing people, or training police and military authorities of other countries to do so, for years. These activities have led to thousands of deaths of innocent people, and heads of foreign governments, all over the world.

This is what should be the focus of discussion on TV and radio, in the print media and on the internet. Instead, we now have the distraction of a huge uproar about Pelosi 'insulting' the CIA.

Instead of being a tiny part of the story, this has now become the whole story.