People Before Profit blog

Tales of hard times on the coast

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:27:00 +0000

MCKINLEYVILLE, Calif. - Being a self-described "radical engineer" and engaged in political and human activism and advocacy on the North Coast of California, each day presents new and varied challenges.

Up here, the sea has provided many a worker and family a decent living. But nowadays, too many boats of our union fishing fleet are for sale. Cheap. The ocean has been hurt deeply. Fish are scarce. Because of overfishing by "factory ships," natural and manmade global warming and pollution, most of our fishermen have had to take work far from their beloved sea.

One such out-of-work fisherman is Karl. He lives in an old tool shed down the road. He's getting along by taking odd jobs and recycling. He has had to leave his family behind so they might receive a modicum of welfare and health care. Karl, himself, has no real health care and is often sick and cannot leave his shed.

Pete, a neighbor and a single parent to his three-year-old son, often tries to help Karl out, but because of the depressed local economy he has great problems of his own.

Pete, a hard worker, is employed but receives a low wage. After paying his rent, utilities, food and health care costs, he has nothing left for child care. I'm trying to assist him with filling out forms and papers so his son can attend the Head Start program and the Well-Baby Clinic.

Another man I'm assisting is an old friend named "Tree." He's a disabled and homeless man, a Vietnam-era vet, who was (and is) a master wood craftsman. Ten years ago he seriously injured his back and had to retire from labor.

A few weeks back, I invited Tree over to a barbecue at my house. I had forgotten to buy hot dogs so after we shared a few beers, Tree volunteered to walk to the store and purchase our dinner's meat. He never showed back up that day and I worried.

I found out later that as he was walking to the store, the sheriff, having profiled him as homeless and indigent, arrested him for public intoxication and took him to jail. Tree was certainly not intoxicated and warranted no arrest. At the jail he demanded his rights and answers to his questions. The sheriff "educated" him against doing this and he was gifted with a broken leg.

Tree was "released" shortly after his schooling and now faces possible surgery and months of pain in a cast. I look forward to testifying on his behalf in a civil law suit he has brought against the county's constabulary.

As these stories demonstrate, we need to come together and unify our efforts to bring about complete, comprehensive national health care, quality preschool and day care for all children and the immediate repeal of Patriot Acts One and Two to restore our constitutional legal rights. Furthermore, we must go forward and guarantee all people the right to "living wage" employment and safe affordable housing. These are but the basic needs a humane society must provide to its citizenry.

Photo: www.northcoast101.com/nc101/images/12a.jpg

More thoughts about Michael Moore’s ‘Capitalism’

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:36:00 +0000

Michael Moore is somewhat slovenly and unkempt. Even were he to don a tuxedo, one would feel he got it second-hand from some rag-and-bone man. Because of his bluntness and dubious taste, he is easy to disparage. But for me, Moore is the closest thing we have to a contemporary Tom Paine and one of the few liberals who not only speaks truth to power but actually gets out there and dirties his hands tossing manure at his adversaries.

"Capitalism: A Love Story" is a pertinent, persuasive, and blunt analysis of the way that a small, affluent, and greedy minority has succeeded in dominating 95% of the American population. The "love story" element of the film is pure tongue-in-cheek. For Moore, the greed of capitalists and the "love" of their domination over us poor suckers is what enables the romance to flourish. No one is spared from Moore's whiplash. Robert Rubin, Tim Geithner, Henry Paulson, all emerge in the film like fugitives on a post office bulletin board. To watch the film and then relate it to current events is to appreciate the candor of Mr. Moore's revelations, which, despite the fact they have been proselytized by journalists and theorists, seem to have left little mark on citizens grown accustomed to the false shibboleths that are at the bedrock of American democracy.

Once the recession really hit in '08 and early '09, Washington's first impulse was to rescue the Wall Street interests that, it was abundantly clear, were largely responsible for the economic fiasco. As billions in bailouts were doled out to the most favored financial institutions - in most cases to the very executives responsible for causing the blight - millions of Americans lost both their jobs and their houses, not to mention their dignity. When slight signs of recovery were bruited, those optimistic words referred not to the millions who had lost their jobs but to the recovery of banks that had benefited from the government's intercession. Again, the state of the union was measured not by those who suffered the most severe losses but by that small, well-heeled minority who inflated their bonuses and squirmed out of that very financial quicksand that sucked in hundreds and thousands of working people; what you might call "middle class America" although labeling them simply the "victims of corporate greed" would be a more accurate description.

One of the great virtues of Moore's documentary is that it provides the historical basis for the catastrophe that, despite optimistic forecasts, still envelops the nation. Clearly, the election of Ronald Reagan, captive of the nation's corporate interests and guardian of Wall Street sovereignty, was the first lurch in the fatal direction and once the supremacy of corporative domination was established, it remained protected by every succeeding president as if it were a principle in the presidential oath of office. Had it been properly disseminated, there might have been a little more furor about the injustice, but it was simply taken for granted. Capitalism and its bitter enemy, the will of the people, were forever enshrined in the Republic's tautology.

The great value of Moore's blunt indictment of capitalism is that it musters just enough salient examples to prove his point. We are a nation victimized by a small, greedy minority of bankers, speculators, and exploiters and we lack the gumption or the will to rise up and try to change a situation that subtly envelops three quarters of the nation - even when the evidence of exploitation is revealed to us every moment of every day in books, media, and the spiritual diminution of our private lives.

Tom Paine, like Michael Moore, constantly hammered out his own message of "change." Another was eloquently expressed by President Obama during the presidential campaign although signs of it are very scarce now that his presidency is almost a year old.

What Moore's film does, better than anything like it now in circulation, is to provide both facts and examples of how low we have sunk in 21st century America. But what it also does is suggest that, given the unpredictable American spirit, it may still be possible to reverse a diabolical trend that inflicts misery on a large majority of the population. All the truth needs is one disruptive breakthrough and the character of an entire nation can be altered. Films like Moore's are a salvationary form of agit-prop. If it doesn't enrage you, there is something amiss with your metabolism.

It would be ridiculous to try to evaluate "Capitalism: A Love Story" simply in cinematic terms. It would be like evaluating Paul Revere's ride in terms of equestrian skill. It doesn't matter that the documentary is fragmented, editorially sloppy, reminiscent of earlier Moore films, and unabashedly left-of-center propaganda. It's what it says that matters - and the relevance of that should goad a soporific public into action.

Reposted from swans.com with permission of the author.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakecaptive/ / CC BY 2.0

Keep pushing

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:13:00 +0000

Assurances from Washington that a health care reform bill, which includes a public option, will reach the Senate floor are a welcome sign that the tide in this country has turned in favor of substantial change. The people are not buying the false notion that so-called "free market" is the answer to all their problems.

The fight for a public option could not have survived in the halls of a Congress where corporate health insurance lobbyists wield enormous power, however, without a mass movement that singled out the insurance companies as the profit-hungry culprit whose role it is to make money, not to make people healthy.

The response of the mass, and we should point out, labor-led, movement to the corporate-funded tea partiers at town hall meetings in August was a steady stream of street demonstrations, Internet campaigns, TV and radio ads, and lobbying in congressional offices - including in the offices of many financially beholden to those very insurance companies. A lesson here: grassroots, mass political pressure can make a difference. So much for all the naysayers who proclaimed the public option was "dead."

But this mass movement isn't going to rest on its laurels - and knows it can't. There are a few versions of the public option, so pressure for the best, most democratic and robust public option has to be continued.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just introduced the House version, and it is not the most "robust" favored by her and others in the Progressive Caucus. However as the Progressive Caucus co-chair Lynn Woolsey, D-Calf., said, the fight is still on. "It's not even the fourth quarter," Woolsey said. "We will be insisting on the option being as strong as it possibly can be."

Health care reform should be paid for by taxing the rich, not workers who currently have employer-based health insurance. The public option must be available to everyone. That's the only way it will be able to offer meaningful competition to the profit hungry insurance companies. A meager, weak "public option" could be a set up for failure, thereby giving fuel to the anti-government arsonists.

The polls show that despite the vast media coverage "tea partiers" got, the majority of people want a government role in health care.

The will of the majority - affordable health care for every person living in this country - will be achieved only if the movement that has kept the public option alive keeps united and keeps on pushing.

A victory will allow the people to push open many of the other doors that need to be opened - doors to meaningful jobs for all, the right to form unions, curbs on the finance industry and so many more.

Deficit lies

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:29:00 +0000

The Republican attacks on extending the economic stimulus, on universal health care, on climate change legislation and financial reform all make reference to the exploding deficit and to the burden an immense debt may place on succeeding generations.

The ultra right and their Wall Street backers are issuing false alarms that all the reform efforts currently underway to address this crisis are too expensive and mortgage away the future of our children.

Right now the "deficit spending" so maligned by the right wing is actually essential to rebuilding our economy. It does not necessarily follow that doing more for workers today means their children will have less in the future.

Deficit spending works as long as economic growth in the future indeed adequately exceeds the borrowing costs (i.e. interest).

Here lies the critical importance of what the deficits are invested in. First, are they directly putting unemployed people to useful, creative work? Second, are they laying the necessary infrastructure, health, environmental and educational foundations for sustainable development and advancing incomes for all workers in proportion to the wealth they create?

Both these requirements must be met if the stimulus delivers the kick-start needed now.

The tough, down-to-the-wire struggles on health care reform, and upcoming financial reforms, may have blown some holes in the Obama administration's hopes for more comprehensive change. Unemployment lines keep ratcheting up. If that does not turnaround, then a failure in public confidence in the stimulus and reform efforts could contribute to a stall in the recovery and another crash.

Investments in people pay quick returns. Economists estimate that every dollar spent on the first stimulus actually added only 60 cents to the deficit, and even that, for only a short term.

Millions of new, productive, and tax-paying workers will be the best long term cure for the budget deficit.

The message is simple: aggressively expand national service to put all who are able back to work - with educational and health benefits. And double down now on mass transit projects, green energy incentives and education- especially in sciences.

We cannot nickel and dime our way to recovery. Big, bold investments made today will create the bigger, better economy we want tomorrow.

Still disappointed, haiku swine flu and other letters to the editor

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:51:00 +0000

Still disappointed

Thank you for the recent opinion article and letter to the editor regarding the left being more patient with President Obama. We are all relieved that ABB (Anybody But Bush) prevailed last November and yet another election was not stolen, although over 50 million votes were sadly cast for the GOP.

But neither writer made the point that there is a huge disappointment with the present administration. Our struggle is far from over. The election talk has definitely not been backed up by an in office walk. That we have a Democrat instead of a Republican seems to be making little difference. We are still far away from a true health care plan and we are waging wars in many places. Remember that Obama, despite his party label and likely intent is still a capitalist.

By definition, therefore, he prefers to wage war rather than use diplomacy to deal with our concerns. The Israeli, insurance and military complex lobbies reign supreme in Washington, so evident in how we are treat Third World people as subhuman. Just as the scorpion fatally bit the life supporting frog because the scorpion was a scorpion and did what scorpions do, capitalists do what capitalists do. They wage war. Obama is apparently of that mind.

Our struggle continues. We must not ease up because of our hopes and aspirations. We need to walk, not talk.

Don Sloan

New York NY

Haiku: swine flu

original bug

came with the founding fathers

has been with us since

Gary Hicks

Oakland CA

Preliminary win

I got this news story about a preliminary injunction against In-Home Support Services cuts from the Service Employees Union site of United Long Term Care Workers, this is the part of SEIU that represents all us home care workers. We are workers who care for a loved one, parent, child, sibling or close friend and get paid for this care; it is beneficial to the state because it keeps the person home as opposed to placing them in a nursing home which is more costly.

The state had sent many notices stating that the hourly pay was going to be cut by $1. The only ones who were not going to be affected are those caring for individuals classified as requiring protective supervision, which are very few.

Many workers get minimal hours yet some dedicate their entire day to the care of their loved one.

It was reported tonight at our union meeting that the state is requiring all caregivers to be fingerprinted, at their expense, which can bring the state over $2 million. The problem is that many families cannot afford the cost of these fingerprints and the agencies don't have a way to process them through the IHSS system.

Rossana Cambron

Los Angeles CA

A sampling of comments from peoplesworld.org

Re: We're back

I'm glad to see you back to daily reports on the net, and I hope we can get this out to people without computers too. Really good stories in this pilot issue. I salute your efforts and your commitment to a cause that you value.

The greater the change we bring about by the power of our eternal union, the less the need for sacrifice and bloodshed in bringing forth justice into our world.

Samm Dickens

Re: Specter of big government? Get real

Times are tough and it isn't easy to talk to people on the right but their pockets and hearts are talking for them.

Recently in the middle of a ferocious downpour we met to demonstrate in front of the Blue Cross Blue Shield building in San Antonio, Texas. I was drowning when a young woman came over to put her umbrella over me. She wanted to talk and energetically began to tell me how as a single mom with no health insurance she was worried because her two young sisters had breast cancer and she was next.

This was why we are fighting for universal health care and the public option I said. As she continued with her fears I suggested possibly contacting Planned Parenthood to get some info. She jumped back and got upset about the abortion issue but then went on to talk to me more about possibilities, even while she brushed away her friend and it turned out she was with the tea baggers!

That's the point. She came with some of the tea baggers but immediately connected herself with those of us fighting for the public option. I hope we meet again.

Viviana Weinstein

Re: Out of Afghanistan

This will all be solved within twenty to thirty years when China, no longer the U.S., is the chief power in the world. The U.S. will have to keep its nose out of where it doesn't belong just to feed bucks into its military-industrial capitalists.

Don Farrow

Re: San Francisco hotel workers take to the street

God bless all the strikers and I hope you win. It's a wonder the police didn't stop you from picketing. Keep up the great work.

Morris Meyers

From the editor

Please remember that those current subscribers who do not have Internet access can get on the list to receive the new print edition starting in January.

The deadline to get on the list is Oct. 31.

I have received a number of calls, voicemails and letters asking to be put on the list, so thank you. Each person will receive a note from me in the next month or so informing you of the cost and to confirm your request.

If you have access to the Internet the new print edition is available to you, NOW! Just go to peoplesworld.org and click on the download button on the right-hand side of the page. There will be a list of the downloadable weekly print editions in PDF format starting with the Oct. 1 issue.

These new print editions can be printed, copied and distributed locally.

In solidarity,

Teresa Albano

Chicago IL

A ragged process

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:16:00 +0000

Slightly over a year ago, the American people elected a young African American to the presidency and increased the Democratic majorities in the Congress. President Obama's victory represented a repudiation of the right-wing ideology, politics and economics. It constituted a serious setback for neoliberalism in both its conservative and liberal skin.

The defeat of right-wing extremism was a long time in coming, but when it finally happened it did so not only because of the brilliance of the candidate, now president, but also due to the broad wings of a people's coalition. Not in our lifetime have we participated in such a movement.

This swing in the political pendulum in the direction of economic justice, equality and peace ushered in the possibility of a new era. After 30 years of right-wing dominance, the balance of class and social forces is tilting once again in a progressive direction, but not to the degree that a people's agenda is simply rolled out and easily enacted.

That would be wishful thinking and we shouldn't engage in such thinking, as tempting as it is. The struggle ahead, much like the struggle over the past three decades, will be fierce. There will be no easy victories. But political advantage has shifted to our side and that's no small accomplishment.

To turn this advantage into a new New Deal will take many things, but two I consider fundamental: a proper strategy and a sense of process.

Some may wonder why I don't mention tactics. They are important to be sure, but they are shaped by strategy and process, not the other way around. Tactics are a dependent variable in this equation.

A proper strategy envisions the main class and social groupings and personalities that have to be assembled and united to transform the possibility of this moment into a concrete, lived reality for millions of people.

The strategic thrust of last year - to defeat the ultra right, especially as expressed by the Republican Party, at the polls - doesn't quite fill the bill any longer. Right wing extremism is still a factor, as demonstrated by the health care battle, but as a result of the election's outcome, it is on the defensive, no longer able to set the agenda and frame the debate to its desire.

At the same time a pure anti-corporate strategy doesn't quite fit either, given the configuration of forces coming out of the elections and the political agenda going forward.

The coalition to deepen and consolidate the promise of our time, in my view, stretches (for now) from President Obama to the core forces of the people's movement: labor, African American, Latino, and other the racially oppressed people, women, and youth. It also includes those who sat out last year's election, small and medium sized businesses, dissatisfied grassroots supporters of the right wing, sections of the Democratic Party and even corporate capital - depending on the issue at hand.

So the task - and it won't be easy - is to activate and maximize the unity of this very diverse, multi-class, and fluid coalition in the course of concrete struggles.

There will be competing views. Not everyone will be on board on every issue; the lineup and mix will change as the agenda and struggle changes. Some participants will be dependable and clear headed - the core forces - while others will be unreliable and temporary.

The notion of the capitalist class on the one side and the working class on the other may sound "radical," but it is neither Marxist, nor found in life and politics. Pure forms exist in high theory, but nowhere else. It would be a profound mistake to distance the core forces of this coalition from others who are temporary and unreliable at this and subsequent stages of struggle.

As for process, it is imperative to have a sense of the ebbs and flows of mass struggle - the contradictions and the dialectics - plus the near constant reconfiguration of this broad, multi-class coalition. Progress (and process) is never a straight line forward nor neatly packaged. It is usually ragged.

The main elements of the New Deal, for instance, were won not in 1933, which was Roosevelt's first year in office, but in 1935-1937. These elements were the fruit of a many-layered, multi-faceted struggle of a motley group of social actors.

I suspect the future will be much the same.

Powerful films progressives will want to see

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:39:00 +0000

Progressive Cinema: Toronto International Film Festival 2009, Part 4

Among the more than 350 films shown this year at the Toronto International Film Festival, several are of importance to a progressive audience. In addition to titles mentioned in previous columns ("The Time That Remains, "Capitalism: A Love Story," "The Informant!" "Men Who Stare at Goats" and others), the following are just a few of the many at the festival that draw interest for progressive filmgoers.

Of course one of the most famous political activists in American history, Daniel Ellsberg, receives his very own personal documentary, "The Most Dangerous Man in America." This is the tag Richard Nixon affixed on Ellsberg when he exposed the Pentagon Papers. The film recounts the events in detail and is a thoroughly engrossing account of how Ellsberg enlisted his friends (and son) to photocopy thousands of pages of classified Pentagon documents. His actions certainly shortened the war in Vietnam and Ellsberg went on to support antiwar causes to this day. He and his wife, Patricia, received a five-minute standing ovation from the sold-out Canadian showing.

Another likely box office hit shown in Toronto was "Creation," a British drama centered around the time in Charles Darwin's life when his 10-year-old daughter died of a tragic illness. Darwin and his God-fearing wife, played by real-life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, struggle with differences around religion, at a time when Charles is writing his "Origin of the Species" and developing a more secular humanist approach. The plot centers mostly around his struggle writing while his daughter is suffering from her illness. Friends and associates encourage him to continue writing what they feel will be a groundbreaking study of evolution. It changed the world. The acting, sets and music are stunning, and you can certainly say it's the best drama ever made about Charles Darwin. There are no others.

A Chinese film, "City of Life and Death," deals with the relatively unknown 1937 Japanese attack on the then Chinese capital, Nanking. It is controversial in that Japan denies the death toll count of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and the reported rape of 20,000-80,000 women during the surprise attack and six-week-long brutal occupation. The black and white Chinese production is awesome and epic in scope, utilizing thousands of extras and extensive special effects. The acting, sets and music are of topnotch quality, far surpassing, as the recent Chinese Olympic festivities showed, audience expectations. An amazing antiwar film! (See mediaasia.com/cld/eng.)

Another historical drama, "The Front Line," examines the Italian extreme left terrorist group that formed in the '70s patterned after the Red Brigade but more violent and extreme. What starts out as idealist youth angered by corporate power and exploitation leads to bombings and assassinations, and an eventual and tragic disconnect with the masses they felt they were fighting for. The film follows the core leaders and their advancing destructive tactics which led to imprisonment for all of them that survived. The film separates itself from others by its compassion for all the subjects on both sides of the struggle. There is a real attempt to understand motivation, responsibility and commitment to a cause. The non-stop action and growing tension among the members of the failing faction make the film engrossing and rewarding cinematic fare.

And one more well known historical event is addressed in the film "Jean Charles." After the 2005 London subway bombings, a young Brazilian man was tracked down and shot as a suspect in the alleged terrorist plot. The film follows his arrival in London and experiences in finding employment and housing. Jean Charles became well liked in his community and was just making headway when he was fatally shot by the police. The rest of the film follows his friend's attempts to prove his innocence and find consolation for his Brazilian family.

Another of the many titles that warrant viewing is "Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags," by Marc Levin, director of "CIA: America's Secret Warriors" and "Slam." "Schmatta" beautifully tells the story of the New York garment industry and the workers and unions that kept it going. Loaded with political awareness, the film is a testament to the working class and its rich history.

And finally, to briefly mention a few more films that should be of interest to progressive viewers: "Max Manus," the epic adventure film about the famed Norwegian World War II resistance fighter; "Moloch Tropical," a Haitian allegory on the abuse of power, by Raoul Peck (who also did "Lumumba"); and "Balibo," which relates the chilling murder of five Australian journalists during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor.

Photo: Rape victims in "City of Life and Death."

All Americans deserve health care

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:46:00 +0000

All Americans deserve health care. Private insurance companies are not getting the job done. Solving this serious national problem is a legitimate function of government. It requires a public solution.

The effects can be seen locally. For example, workers who retired after 2008 and today from Hamilton Sundstrand (where I work) have no employer-funded health care. People who are on indefinite layoff as a result of good Sundstrand jobs being moved out of town will likely suffer the same fate. If the company continues to let the air out of the Rockford plants, more of us will join the growing ranks of the uninsured - estimated at over forty-seven million nationwide.

Surging health care costs are already threatening millions of families with bankruptcy and putting others at risk of losing their homes. According to a recent Harvard University study, the medical crises contributes to one-half of all home foreclosures and could put as many as 1.5 million Americans at risk of losing their homes each year.

As layoffs continue, more Americans will lose health care benefits. Preventative care for these people will be out of reach. Many more will then be forced to use the most expensive and least efficient venue: hospital emergency rooms.

We need a health care system that puts the well being of our families, friends, neighbors - and the USA - ahead of the dollar. Today, however, a triad of pharmaceutical, hospital and insurance corporations engages in the destructive practice of rationing health care for profits.

Take the insurance industry. Its bottom line takes precedence over availability to health care. Aetna CEO Ron Williams made this very clear in a July 27 conference call to analysts: "We would be willing to forgo membership growth if necessary. We have a clear bias toward profitability over growth."

Families USA cited these statistics in March-April 2008: "... 18,000 adults nationwide died in 2000 because they did not have health insurance... 22,000 adults died in '06...

"... Uninsured Americans are sicker, uninsured adults are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely, and Americans between 55 and 64 are at much greater risk of premature death than their insured counterparts. This makes lack of health insurance the third leading cause of death for the near-elderly, following heart disease and cancer."

Corporate lobbyists are sparing no expense in a mind-bending campaign to steer our legislators away from universal health care. They are pitting the insured against the uninsured and the healthy against the sick. They want us to believe that our own democratic form of government is a monster and that private insurance companies will treat us more fairly than any public solution. These are the same companies that get between us and our doctors - the same companies that have made a science out of using words like "pre-existing conditions" or "reasonable and customary" to cancel coverage or deny claims.

Although health care is a necessity not a commodity like a TV set, taking on an abusive insurance company or finding affordable insurance is neither fair nor competitive. We need a level playing field for consumers and a competitive alternative to private insurance. Only a public option, which favors healthcare delivery over profitability, can provide these critical components.

Luke 14:13 states plainly: "But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind."

We are a nation of great wealth and great promise - fully capable of providing a health care safety net for all Americans. The public option means one more vital choice in the marketplace. That's why we need it.

Debunking GOP lies

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:00:00 +0000

The GOP uses deception and fears to try to break the president and his agenda for change. Ultra-right broadcasters even lie about our World War II enemy. Their claims about health care, big business and "socialism" in Nazi Germany are not only untrue, but vicious and ignorant.

Right-wing radio and television propagate the lie that the Nazis supported national health care. Germany's national health care system was created under Otto von Bismarck in 1883, nearly 40 years before fascism in Italy and nearly 50 years before Nazism. Nazi Germany, like the present Republican Party, opposed the policy but failed to defeat mass sentiment. The right-wing claim is not only a lie, but an insult to our World War II troops. Those troops did not fight against an enemy that supported health care rights; they fought against and saved the world from fascist dictatorship. The Republican Party leadership utters not one word of protest for this monstrous lie. But there are more GOP lies.

When they claim that Hitler and the Nazis hated big business, the right wingers once again ignore and desecrate history. Hitler did nothing to reduce the profits of and exploitation by German and even U.S. corporations. Large firms, including U.S. employers, cut labor costs drastically. According to Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels in "Profits Above All: American Corporations and Hitler," Ford-Werke reduced labor costs by 25% under the Nazis. Coca-Cola bragged that workers at the Coke plant in Essen were "little more than serfs forbidden not only to strike, but to change jobs." Workers were driven to work harder and faster while their wages "were deliberately set quite low." The Nazis murdered workers in the service of corporations like Krupp and I.G. Farben. The Nazis dissolved labor unions and threw anti-fascists into jail and concentration camps. The profits and power of big business increased in Nazi Germany to unprecedented heights.

The claim that the Nazis were socialists is another lie. Socialism was on the agenda for nearly five decades in Germany. German fascists used the term "national socialist" to attract voters, but they were most certainly not socialists. Nazis were and remain violently opposed to socialism. A socialist government sides with trade unions. A socialist government by definition demands health care, public education and all other democratic rights. A socialist government does not wage aggressive wars. A socialist government does not use war economy to avoid crises. A socialist government does not deny workers' democratic rights. A socialist government certainly does not imprison, torture, and murder anti-fascists. Big business did not support the Nazis in words and deeds to bring about socialism; they turned to fascism to protect wealth and privilege.

The Nazi opposition to health care, the Nazi support for big business, and the Nazi opposition to socialism, trade union and other democratic rights are eerily similar to the GOP compliance of the ultra right in Congress and on the air-waves.

Texas execution could end death penalty, if we act

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:35:00 +0000

The fire that killed Cameron Todd Willingham's three daughters in 1991, a tragedy for which he was found guilty and executed by lethal injection under Texas Gov. Rick Perry's watch, was not a case of arson but the result of an accidental fire. This is according to the Beyler Report, commissioned by the Texas Forensic Science Commission. This report confirms what several of the country's leading fire experts have already found: the prosecution's case relied not on science-based evidence, but instead on the testimony of expert witnesses whose methods resembled more those of psychics than specialists in the study of arson.

However, the Texas Forensic Science Commission is not being allowed to present these findings to the public in its official capacity. Recently, Perry replaced four members of the panel, stymieing the commission's business. Although he denies any political motive, by manipulating the composition of the panel Perry is stalling what will likely be the unprecedented announcement, namely that the state of Texas killed an innocent man.

Surely, Perry saw this coming. On Feb. 14, three days before Willingham was scheduled to be executed, his attorney asked the governor to postpone the execution; newly-obtained expert evidence showed that Cameron did not kill his daughters. On the day of the execution, the governor was faxed a five-page report detailing the evidence. The guilty verdict in doubt, Perry went ahead with the execution as scheduled.

With alarming frequency, individuals are released from prison when review finds fault with the evidence convicting them, incompetent attorneys, prosecutorial misconduct, or new evidence showing the condemned could not have committed the crime for which they have been convicted. To date, nearly 250 individuals have been exonerated by DNA evidence alone. According to the Sentencing Project, 15 percent of those freed by DNA were imprisoned on the false testimony of jailhouse informants (a key piece in the case against Willingham was the testimony of an unreliable jailhouse snitch).

When the innocent are wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to prison, the state can correct the error by freeing them and clearing their name. To be sure, liberated individuals have lost a great deal of their lives behind bars for no good reason. But those released from prison have two things the executed do not have: more life to live and the knowledge that their claims of innocent have been vindicated. The number of guilty verdicts overturned by careful review of capital cases tells us that the system does not work with the certainty required by reason to justify a sentence that cannot be reversed once carried out.

Fallibility of the system is not the only problem with capital punishment. The system discriminates against the poor and minority offender. Those of higher socioeconomic status are less likely than the poor to be convicted and sentenced to prison. White men are less likely than black and Hispanic men to be convicted and sentenced to prison for the same crimes.

Earlier this year, Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock of the University of Colorado published a survey that found that 88 percent of leaders in the field of criminology do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent when compared to long-term imprisonment. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the death penalty promotes extra-legal homicide, what researchers call the "brutalization effect." Murder rates are lower in states without the death penalty, and murder rates tend to fall following discontinuation or abolition of the death penalty. The South carries out over eighty percent of the executions in the U.S., yet it has the highest murder rate of any region. States that kill sanction lethal retribution as a proper method for settling disputes, thereby setting a bad example for its citizens.

Incapacitation via death is not a viable argument in the penalty's favor when less onerous alternatives exist. The risk of escape by prisoners from maximum security facilities is near zero; the death penalty is unnecessary to protect society from the convicted.

The cost of maintaining the death penalty is staggering. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the 2008 murder conviction of Brian Nichols in Georgia cost the state $2.3 million and Fulton County three-quarters of a million dollars. Another $300,000 was spent for state-supplied staff and other expenses. The defense bill came to $463,000. In the end, the jury sentenced Nichols to life in prison without parole. All that money spent when the effective verdict could have been obtained for a fraction of the cost.

We can salvage something from Cameron Todd Willingham's death. If we act to join reason with justice, we can mark his case as the beginning of the end of the death penalty in America.

Photo: Willingham's cousin holds a picture of him with his child. AP

Religion and the economy: A theologian challenges ‘status quo’

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:43:00 +0000

Book Review

"No Rising Tide. Theology, Economics, and the Future," by Rev. Dr. Joerg Rieger
Fortress Press, 2009
Paperback,160 pages, $20

Author Joerg Rieger is well known in Dallas for his 10 published books, his scholarship at Southern Methodist University, and his activism with Jobs with Justice and the Workers' Rights Board. Rieger has worked to form coalitions with church people and union leaders. He recently joined Texas AFL-CIO President Becky Moeller to speak on fighting back against the economic crisis.

In his latest published work, Rieger continues to challenge the idea that Jesus Christ's teachings must be contorted into support for big business and the "status quo." He completely turns the tables on economists and political leaders who seem to have appointed themselves high priests of which way is up and which way is down. With aphorisms like "A rising tide lifts all boats," and "Just let the market do its work," they try to get Americans to ignore what is really happening.

On an Oct. 19 radio broadcast, Rieger said that many such economists and politicians are substituting "blind faith" for reason, and hoping that the American people will do the same. The new book is not about how theologians use economics, but how economists are using their own brand of blind faith religion in the worst possible way.

"The time is long past for European and U.S. theologians to engage the crisis of current market economies," says Mark Lewis Taylor, Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Theology and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. "Theologian Rieger in "No Rising Tide" challenges the market s own fetishes and belief structure, criticizes Christian theology for its complicity in underwriting our economic crisis, but then also mints theology anew for a Christian practice of economic justice. Rieger s book is where Christian theological reflection on the economy must now begin."

Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/22779530@N02/3985490626/

‘District 9’ — profoundly racist

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:47:00 +0000

"District 9"

Directed by Neill Blomkamp

2009, 112 min., Rated R

What D. W. Griffiths did to U.S. history in his technically magnificent but thematically racist "Birth of a Nation," Neill Blomkamp does to Africa in the profoundly racist "District 9."

The "Nigerians" in "District 9" inherit the depictions of slaves and freed Blacks in the Griffiths epic: they are snarling, monstrous, cannibalistic, sexually depraved and murderous. And they are the only Africans in the film other than the few African residents of the future Republic of South Africa in which the story takes place.

And what about the South Africa shown in this film? Is there any sign that the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela have influenced the character of this future South African society? No way! Not in Blomkamp's vision. The South African technocracy is pretty much lily white, with just a few Africans who have become qualified to work in the corporate and state institutions. And this in a country that is almost 90% African and only 10% European.

What's more, the few representatives of poor Black South Africans who speak to reporters in the film's newsreels are depicted as callously unsympathetic with, even hostile toward, the alien "prawns" even though the South African government has forced the aliens to live in concentration camps like those in which indigenous South Africans were confined under apartheid.

Blomkamp has received praise for his seemingly "humanistic" treatment of the "prawns," but in fact the South Africa that he projects into the future is one that is an apartheid-supporter's ideal: wealth, power and know-how are in the hands of whites. The "liberal" message of this movie is that aliens and humans can "just get along" so long as both groups successfully control, and even exterminate, the African "savages" so familiar to Western fantasies from the 1800s on.

It is heartening to see that the Nigerian authorities and others in Africa are exposing the racism that "District 9" represents and mounting boycotts of the film. But it is not encouraging to see how easily the racist themes have escaped the notice of almost all American film critics.

The next nasty attack from the right

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:16:00 +0000

"So, have you enjoyed the debate over health care reform?" Paul Krugman asked in late September. "Have you been impressed by the civility of the discussion and the intellectual honesty of reform opponents? If so, you'll love the next big debate: the fight over climate change," the New York Times columnist wrote.

Sarcasm aside, the discussion - if one can call it that - of global warming is going to be painful, particularly if the make-Obama-fail crowd has its way, and if the major media does its usually sloppy job of defining the issue. Nonsense like "death panels" comes to mind.

The whole world is anticipating the UN-sponsored climate talks in December in Copenhagen where another attempt - post-Koyoto - will be made to reach an international agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions by sharply reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Washington observers say the original plan was for President Obama to go to the Danish capital with a pledge from the U.S. to do its part, backed up by new "cap and trade" regulations enacted by the U.S. Congress. Now there is speculation he may not go to Copenhagen at all. And the probability is that if he goes, it will be with empty hands.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spelled out the problem in clear, unmistakable, and probably undiplomatic, clarity. The European Union can get together in advance and proceed to the Copenhagen talks with a unified position, she said; the U.S. cannot. What U.S. negotiators can present is subject to U.S. politics. Therein lies the rub. The European Union Environment Council met this week in Luxemburg for further work on its common front. Meanwhile, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Monday Brazil wants to arrive at a common position among all Amazon basin countries for Copenhagen and is considering inviting presidents of all Amazon states to discuss the issue November. 26.

"The issue of climate change is seen in Berlin as one of the most important facing the world this year as the effort continues to come up with an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012," says the German magazine Spiegel. "Germany, together with the European Union, has set a target of a 20 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 relative to 1990 levels. The EU has said it would up that target to 30 percent if other major polluters join them. A panel of United Nations scientists has said that a 25 percent to 40 percent reduction by industrial countries is necessary to avoid catastrophic consequences stemming from global warming."

Legislation is currently before Congress for a 17 percent reduction in this country's CO2 emissions by 2020 relative to 2005 levels, with an 83 percent reduction by 2050. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel "has been quick to criticize the proposal," telling Spiegel the U.S. needs to do more and that when it comes to dealing with the climate claim threat, "the U.S. and Europe live in two different worlds."

The U.S. House of Representative has already passed a cap-and-trade climate bill, the Waxman-Markey act - which the Europeans say is not strong enough - but which if it were enacted would lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. As with the health care debate the biggest problem is the Senate and there, the political right and the Republicans are geared up for a knock-down-drag-out fight.

In a very real sense, the fate of the world's deliberations on climate change and probability of failure at Copenhagen is being held hostage by the volatile politics of the U.S. The political right is geared up to take the president down on this issue and any others they identify.

The naked attempt to undermine the Obama presidency is becoming more shrill each day. Last week, the cat dragged in none other than Alan Keyes, a 2008 presidential candidate who is a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Obama's citizenship. "Obama is a radical communist, and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it's true," Keyes told a radio interviewer. "He is going to destroy this country, and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist."

And the shock troops are ready. In come the "tea bag" people. A few days ago, the Internet web publication Human Events sent out an appeal to its readers to "join the conservative revolution. "Just before the 2008 elections, the conservative economist and commentator Thomas Sowell warned that a Barack Obama presidency would prove a `point of no return' for America." Said the appeal: "Why? Because once in power, Dr. Sowell explained, President Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress would effect such radical changes in our nation's economy, legal structure and social fabric that there would be no rolling them back. Today, we stand on the brink of Dr. Sowell's predictions coming true."

The appeal went on cataloging things on the brink of happening, like health care reform, a "wise Latina" on the Supreme Court, and progressive income taxes. Among them is the charge that we are on the brink of "enacting ‘cap- and-trade' legislation that will cripple American competitiveness in the global economy, double home utility bills, add thousands to the cost of new cars, and cost U.S. workers an estimated 2.5 million jobs per year - while doing next to nothing to impact a `global warming' problem that is largely fictitious to begin with."

The "conservative revolution" says, "here in the conservative underground you're free to speak your mind" even if (among other things) "... you don't believe that Barack Obama is the Second Coming of J.C. (unless that J.C. is Jimmy Carter) and "... you don't believe that man-made ‘global warming' is a proven fact - much less an excuse for destroying the U.S. economy - just because Al Gore says so, especially when hundreds of respected scientists publicly disagree with him."

"Barack Hussein Obama is actively pursuing cap-and-trade legislation," says the CR. "Ironically, instead of taxing the very air we breathe, it would instead, in a manner of speaking, tax the air we exhale and give the government unprecedented control over the economy and American businesses."

Admittedly, Human Events and the people activating the "conservative revolution" are the far right. However, as has been demonstrated clearly in the campaign against health care reform, the efforts fit right in with the political objectives of the broader political right and the current Republican Party leadership

Consider the views of Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the ranking Republican on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, who says he plans to be in Copenhagen in December as a " one-man truth squad." He recently told an interviewer, "God's still up there. We're going through these cycles. ... I really believe that a lot of people are in denial who want to hang their hat on the fact, that they believe is a fact, that man-made gases, anthropogenic gases, are causing global warming. The science really isn't there."

Inhofe recent reiterated what he told the Senate back in 2003, that "much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science," global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" and that "environmental extremists exploit the issue for fundraising purposes, raking in millions of dollars, even using federal taxpayer dollars to finance their campaigns."

The Right has added new elements to its propaganda this time around. In addition to claiming the Obama administration is out to wreck the economy they are attempting to convince black people that action on climate change is not in their interest (witness black "conservatives" Thomas Sowell and Alan Keyes). As if African Americans and other peoples of color should somehow have less concern than other people for the future of life on the planet. Or, as if many people recognize that those communities most immediately and directly threatened by rising sea levels are in the delta areas of Africa and Asia.

Actually, all working people have ample reason to support early and effective action on climate change. U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently joined in the call for meaningful action by Congress:

"Comprehensive energy legislation will unleash the American innovation machine to create new industries and clean source of energy to power our economy," he said. "It is the single most important step we can take to secure our economic prosperity and leave a healthier planet for future generations."

A national commitment to resolutely confront the climate change challenge will facilitate the development and deployment of new technologies, creating a cleaning environment, refurbishing the nation's physical infrastructure and helping to alleviate the unemployment crisis. We all have a stake in this.

Reposted from blackcommentator.org with permission of the author.

Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/green4all/2899657071/

The importance of being Ardi: An emerging picture of human origins

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:14:00 +0000

The announcement by a team of U.S., Ethiopian and international scientists of the results of their study of the fossil remains of the hominid Ardipithecus ramidus, a likely human ancestor from the Middle Awash region in Northern Ethiopia, fills in some important gaps in the scientific record of human evolution.

The existence of Ardipithecus, who lived some 4 ½ million years ago as a predecessor of Australopithecus (the genus which includes the famous "Lucy"), has been known since 1992, from minimal, fragmentary remains. The new reports are based on a much larger and more complete collection of remains, now totaling about 110 individuals, including a nearly complete skull with most of its teeth. The reports also summarize the analysis of the geology, botany and zoology of the place in which they lived.

What is new is that the remains, analyzed by Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Bernawe Asfaw, Yonas Beyene, Gilday Wolde-Gabriel, Tim White, Gen Suwa, C. Owen Lovejoy and a large interdisciplinary team, are not more similar than are those of Australopithecus to modern day chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas. For example, the canine teeth, so large in chimpanzees, are much smaller in both Ardipithecus, Australopithecus and modern humans. This strongly suggests that the big canines of the modern apes are not an ancient survival which direct human ancestors lost over millions of years, but rather a new feature which evolved in response to specific environmental conditions.

So the common ancestor of chimps and humans did not start out with huge fang-like canine teeth like those of male chimps today. We humans have retained those small canines, while the size of the canines of chimp ancestors probably increased over the millennia. This has also lead to the markedly prognathous (sticking-out) lower face of the chimpanzee. This feature was not so pronounced in Ardipithecus, and even less in a possible Ardipithecus ancestor, Sahelanthropus tschadensis, from 6 to 7 million years ago, which was almost as vertical-faced as modern humans.

While our ancestors were evolving in a specifically human direction, chimp ancestors were not frozen in time, but were also evolving in a specifically chimp direction. While humans were becoming more human, apes were becoming more ape.

Evolutionary biologists since Darwin have always said that apes and humans derived from a common ancestor. But in the popular imagination, this was changed into "humans descended from apes." The new discoveries may help to correct this.

There is also the question of descent from the trees and upright posture. It is clear from the new reports that Ardipithecus was capable both of tree climbing and of upright walking, though it was not as comfortable in the latter as modern humans are. Also, the analysis of the botany of the area shows that at the time, there was much more tree cover than there is today. Our ancestors were already "down from the trees" and walking on two feet before the trees disappeared. This suggests that the distinctive "knuckle-walking" of chimps, bonobos and gorillas is also a specific adaptation in their evolutionary line, rather than something our ancestors formerly did.

What is the significance of all this for understanding human nature?

Big fangs in chimpanzees are used in eating, but also in fighting other males over females, and in fighting other groups of chimps over territory. One theory has been that the smaller canine teeth of Australopithecus were an adaptation to the huge growth in that creature's molars, itself an adaptation to eating fibrous foods. It was thought that the canines got smaller as the back teeth got bigger-a question of space. But the loss of the function of big canines in fighting seems a more likely explanation. As hominids became more oriented to cooperative life in social groups, the need for the big canines decreased, and they shrank.

The upright posture of Ardipithecus, and the specific anatomy of its hands suggest that they may have been able to manipulate objects as tools for a long while, though there is no sign so far that they were actually making tools. But the potential already existed with Ardipithecus. Modern ape hands are different, specifically adapted to grasping tree branches.

These studies validate the idea that human beings became what we are through a process of increased socialization of human activities, i.e. of more and more social cooperation. Brain size followed this, with Ardipithecus having a brain volume of about 300-350 cubic centimeters (comparable to a chimp) and modern humans averaging 1350 cubic centimeters.

The Zulu people of Southern Africa have a phrase: "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu." "A person becomes a person in relationship to people." These new paleoanthropological findings reinforce this wise position, so different from modern bourgeois ideology of individualism and competition.

The results of the new study are published in Science Magazine, and can be accessed at sciencemagazine.org.

California proposition to limit voter choices

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:08:00 +0000

Be aware Californians, on your June 8, 2010, direct primary ballot will be a dangerous proposition, which appears harmless. It is called the Top Two Candidates Open Primary.

I had always thought the purpose of a primary was to allow each political party to select who would run in the general election against the winners of the other parties. However, the purpose of this proposition is to put all candidates, for the same office on the same ballot. Here's the killer: only the two candidates with the highest vote totals for each office, regardless of party preference, would then compete for the office at the ensuing general election. This will probably result in one Democratic and one Republican candidate for each office.

However, in some cases it could be two Democratic candidates and in other cases it could result in two Republican candidates.

If passed, voters will be denied the opportunity to vote in the general election for a third party candidate. The passage of the "Top Two" proposition will reduce your choices in the general election to only two.

In order for a third party to remain qualified as a recognized political party in California it must receive two percent of the vote for one of its statewide candidates in a gubernatorial general election. This sounds like a small amount of votes, but depending on voter participation, that is between 150,000 and a quarter million votes.

The Peace and Freedom Party has met that test every time with the exception of 1998 when the party was removed from the ballot. It took a great deal of energy and money to carry out a registration drive that resulted in Peace and Freedom Party being the only party in the history of California to requalify for that state's ballot. Since it is unlikely a third party candidate will come in first or second for a statewide office, it would be impossible to obtain the votes necessary to be a recognized political party.

If a party fails to obtain the votes needed it can still qualify to run candidates in the "voter-nominated" primary by having 88,991 people registered to vote with the party.

However, except for presidential candidates, it would be a real fluke for any third party candidate to be on future general election ballots.

Third party advocates charge that over 90 percent of the districts are rigged, legally rigged, by gerrymandering them into safe one party districts. So the question becomes "if a candidate receives an absolute majority of the vote in the primary why do we need an expensive runoff election?"

For that matter, by using an instant runoff voting (IRV) method, where voters would simply rank the candidates 1, 2, 3... in their order of preference, an absolute majority would be obtained with only one election. With IRV no expensive general election is needed. IRV would be an ideal way to elect people to statewide offices where only one person is to be elected.

On the other hand, Peace and Freedom Party does not advocate any electoral system for state Legislature and U. S. House of Representatives except for one that allows each political party to be represented in direct proportion to the number of votes received in the general election. If we had a proportional system Peace and Freedom Party would have several people elected to partisan office.

Third party advocates are fighting for our lives so to speak. We need to educate people about this proposition and build strong opposition to it now. If we were voting today it would pass. If it passes, Peace and Freedom Party will lose its ballot status.

Please help spread the word about this wolf in sheep's clothing.

When capitalism destroys democracy

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:32:00 +0000

Or the breathless and lonely journey of the sheriff of Everyman

Capitalism: A Love Story

Directed by Michael Moore

2009, 120 min., Rated R

There's a purpose why Michael Moore presents a two-hour, rapid fire account of harrowing, horror and arresting stories in his newest film "Capitalism: A Love Story." There are too many stories.

We meet teenagers thrown into a private for-profit juvenile prison contracted by the state for minor offenses and find out the judge received $2.5 million in kick-backs from the prison. A new spin on no child left behind.

We meet many families, from Peoria, Ill. to Miami, Fla., whose homes are in foreclosure and they are being evicted.

We meet pilots who have second jobs or had to go on food stamps. Hero pilots who testify to Congress on cuts in pay and safety from the airlines corporations.

We meet a family whose father tells us how he loved Wal-Mart until his wife, who worked there, had an asthma attack, went into a coma and died. They owe $100,000 in medical and funeral bills. But Wal-Mart made $80,000 on her death. They had a "Dead Peasants Policy" (industry lingo for life insurance on employees).

Moore produces layers and layers, connecting these stories to a much broader picture of our country under capitalism.

Scene after scene, from old home movies to a rubble-strewn lot in Flint that used to be where his father worked for GM, appear rapid fire on the screen.

Until Moore, the people's sheriff, declares war. Quoting a secret Citigroup memo that says the wealth owned by 99 percent of the people adds up to less than the wealth of the top 1 percent, Moore says it's our duty to revolt.

It's here where Moore also points out the fundamental change that happened in 1980. The Ronald Reagan administration raised up the flag of Wall Street, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and the secret corporate armies of the night.

And right in the midst of that madness, a touch of sanity comes for a moment when some workers in Chicago, cheated out of their last paycheck, and their factory closed, decide to occupy their door and window company and forced Bank of America to provide the funds they were owed.

But then there's Michael, coming to our rescue in his armored bank truck, pulling up to Wall Street and taking yellow crime scene tape and roping it around a square block. And over his megaphone, he orders insurance giant AIG to return the bail-out money and he demands a citizen's arrest of the CEO.

There are some bones to pick. Is Moore suggesting that late-1950s GM capitalism is good capitalism? Or was it a militant United Auto Workers with the shadow of the famous sit-down strike of Flint? But wasn't 1950s capitalism cold and Cold War-creating? Did black people, other people of color, women, farmworkers, people in the hollers of Appalachia thrive? How did they fare?

A tiny flash on the screen provides two images. One is dogs attacking civil rights protestors in the South, the other is B-52 bombers unloading on Vietnam.

Moore's movies are heartfelt, humorous, corny and theatrically absurd. No matter how many times we see him schlumping up to headquarters, calling out the villain for a duel in the sun, it always works. He's part Mister Rogers, part Eddie Haskell, a chubby Charlie Chaplin of class-consciousness. He's dedicated to chronicling the madness of the empire and the absolute right to a people to overthrow it, when it no longer serves them.

Website kudos, climate change and other letters to the editor

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:21:00 +0000

Website kudos

I would just like to say thank you for the positive intensity in converting one of my most reliable news sources. I am a college student studying architecture, and I read the People's World every day. I have been reading the People's Weekly World since I was 13, and I have really noticed the recent changes.

I love the paper's honesty, thoughtfulness, and expanded accessibility. My one humble suggestion is that the paper's slogan be changed to "We have a world to win." I think it better reflects our stance as Marxists in a nation that is spiraling towards the possibility of real change. Thank you so much for all of your hard work!

Michael Kowalchuk

Via e-mail

Nice re-do on the site. Several tech-savvy friends of mine think the remake is quite classy. While "not commies" they spent quite a bit of time reading on the site. (I heard "I didn't know that" quite a bit.)

I received my first copy of the print PW yesterday. (USPS likes reading my magazines before I do. Go figure.) Nice pro-labor focus. Well written too. Better than the local paper, and Buffalo's supposedly a "union town."

Keep up the good work. I'm hoping to be able to continue supporting the site and paper.

Donald Tpak

Via e-mail

Climate change action

Good to see your cover story, "Climate change: Are you scared now?" (PW 10/10-16) However, you're missing the grassroots activism. 350.org is organizing an international day of climate action for Oct 24 to lobby for real action in Copenhagen. Greenpeace has jumped on board, too. One thousand-plus events worldwide.

There's also new science confirming the urgency of drastic action. The window of opportunity is closing FAST.

Check out James Hansen on carbon dioxide and 350 parts per million. Check out the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change revising the target from 450 to 350 ppm recently. See "Climate Roulette" by Mark Hertsgaard in the Oct. 26 Nation. Check 'em out.

Miriam Senviro

Via e-mail

Unity building

Can we hope that Juan Lopez's terrific article "Obama's peace prize: a wise and timely decision" will jog us all - new left, old left, non left - to move us ahead in our work to build a coalition strong enough to force Congress and the national administration to support Obama's Nobel Prize vision?

Lopez's article makes crystal clear the fact that criticism for delays and in-fighting must not concentrate on Obama, who cannot simply wave a wand to bring about peace, health care and education reform. Only a strong, more organized and more focused movement can convince Congress and the administration that these are the demands of a whole people.

Had the left been more involved within the pre-2008 electoral struggles, we all would now be in a stronger position to fight for a real, broad program.

But we do have a broad call for such a program, not yet strongly organized and focused. The talk is there, but not yet enough organization and experience. Our essential efforts must concentrate on becoming one of the catalysts for such organization, for inter communication and development of a common program among the varied and isolated pro-Obama formations.

Fortunately, within this broad call for change, the labor movement has functioned as a center which has led the fight to build an organized coalition including the Democratic Party and its allies. Yet sectors within the left have not been a force within this coalition because of tendencies to boycott anything with a Democratic Party tinge. Now we must enter into this coalition whole-heartedly to save us from the acute dangers of a right-wing take-over. This path offers us the avenue which will restore hope and generate activity to move us on the path.

I would argue that we readers of the PW, and their contacts, can begin the job of seeking inter-communication between groups on how to develop tactics which encourage unity and common action.

The labor movement has consistently sought to move the Democratic Party and its allies to more progressive positions. Can we talk about how to develop an active conscious alliance of pro-Obama groups with labor? Through our history, the left has accepted the necessity of working directly with groups not yet ready for socialism, generating the action and the experience which bring the demand for substantive change into being.

Billie Wachter

San Jose CA

Mercedes Sosa

I was reading my new PW and saw we have lost a wonderful singer and activist. Mercedes Sosa was an unbelievably talented artist that I was privileged to hear many times in the late 1960s and 1970s. I still have several of her albums and even have some of my favorite songs on my computer. I have not heard a word about her death or even about her life on main stream media. Thank you PW for giving her life meaning by remembering her incredible voice as well as her years of struggle for quality for so many. I will miss this woman with the beautiful black hair and the voice of freedom.

Sheila Malone

Waterville ME

Where have all the jobs gone? and other letters to the editor

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:09:00 +0000

Where have all the workers gone?

Back in the 1990s I worked for a company that made machinery used by injection molding outfits. My job was to travel around the country installing and repairing that equipment at the customer's plant.

One plant I worked at quite often was a GM plant in Adrian, Mich. It was one of those places where if you looked down a main aisle the end could hardly be seen. Supervisors ran around on Cushman scooters and the workers got around on three-wheel bicycles with a box on the back to carry the tools of their trade.

Hundreds of workers getting good wages and benefits kept the place humming 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I enjoyed going there! Working with the various trades (pipefitters, electricians, machine repair, tool and die, machinists and even carpenters) to get the job going was rarely boring. And always fun, as anyone who ever worked in a big union shop knows.

One day, after being elsewhere for a few weeks, I walked in and noticed banners and literature announcing the plant was being reorganized and would be now known as Delphi.

GM was spinning the place off its books telling the workers they were going to come out of the transition smelling like a rose. Their jobs would be safe with the additional customers they would be getting.

I was telling anybody and everybody to watch out. GM was coming after them and their UAW contract.

I quit that job in 1999, so I don't know the day-to-day story of how it happened, but the plant no longer exists.

At times I wonder what happened to all those good, hard-working folks?

And I worry. Because I recently learned, while browsing the Internet, that Lenawee County is building a new and bigger county jail in Adrian.

Bill Appelhans

Chicago IL

OSHA remembers fallen workers

Steve Sallman of the United Steelworkers Health, Safety & Environment Department wrote me that while attending a meeting at the Department of Labor-OSHA in Washington D.C., he saw in the main conference room 15 photos on the wall, including my brother Gary Puleio. It was Steve's understanding that Jordan Barab, acting assistant secretary of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, directed his staff to hang up pictures in the building of workers who had lost their lives on the job and to remind them why workers need a strong OSHA.

My family and I are grateful for the efforts of Jordan and people like Steve who continue the fight for workers' safety. I take solace in the fact that regulatory agencies are now headed by people, such as Hilda Solis and Jordan, who put workers first and not corporations.

I will forward this to all my relatives and post it on the blog I created about Gary http://garypuleio.blogspot.com. I am looking forward to 2010 Workers Memorial Day.

In solidarity,

Donna Vincene Puleio

Via e-mail

Nobel Peace Prize

Not only President Obama needs the Nobel Peace Prize this year, but also the world needs it in Obama's hands. Once again this prize has a very noble and important objective as its creator, Alfred Nobel, proposed:

"To the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congress." (Paris 27, 1895)

Let's not forget about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about the coup d'etat in Honduras, U.S. prisons around the world and schools of torture, as SOA. There are even more important issues to be dealt with for peace, as the reduction (it should be elimination) of nuclear weapons. All those projects are in Obama's promises since his presidential campaign. Up to now, these promises have been dealt with only in talking.

In accepting the Nobel Prize Obama is pledging to accomplish it all. He is the only person in the world who can begin the diplomacy of peace making. He has the understanding and needs the power to do it. The Nobel Peace Prize, the watch of the world and the people who wish for world peace will make sure he will do it, even against the U.S. war and nuclear mongers! I welcome the Nobel Peace Prize for President Barack Obama.

Teresinka Pereira

Via e-mail

Teresinka Pereira is president of International Writers and Artists Association.

Four out of five dentists... eat Halloween candy!

It's that time of year - when kids dress up in costumes and prowl the neighborhood for candy. Less well known is news from a recent poll of dentists that reveals they regularly sneak candy from their kids' bags!

With candy everywhere, even the most steel-willed can be tempted to overindulge. In our survey, 80 percent of dentists with children at home 'fessed up to sneaking candy from their children's Halloween bag.

Adding to that temptation are aisles of candy invading stores before kids have returned to school. Half of our dentists surveyed say that they buy too much candy at Halloween. Here are top tips from dentists for overcoming temptation during Halloween:

Buy candy you don't like.
Keep the candy hidden until the big day.

Get rid of leftovers.
Give out something other than candy. While most dentists surveyed said they will be giving out candy this year, non-edible items, like crayons, stickers, glow sticks are other options.

Keep up a good oral health care regimen at home. Brush your teeth after eating candy (or at the very least, rinse with water), in addition to your regular brushing and flossing.

The Chicago Dental Society will be helping Chicagoans with that last piece of advice by handing out toothbrushes and toothpaste to trick-or-treaters at Lincoln Park Zoo's Spooky Zoo on Sat., Oct. 24.

Chris Martin

Chicago IL

Chris Martin is a PR consultant for the Chicago Dental Society.

Generals aren't in charge

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:04:00 +0000

Recently the Republicans, determined to escalate the war in Afghanistan, have insisted that Gen. McChrystal, commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, be called in to testify before Congress.

The general has openly called for the deployment of tens of thousands of additional American troops. His public calls are themselves a problem - which we will get to in a moment.

President Obama has let it be known that his administration is conducting a review of its strategy and tactics in Afghanistan and will not be bullied into making a quick decision. The GOP, of course, wants to use testimony by the general to beat up on the president and pressure the administration into making a bad decision.

Even Karl Rove got into the act by saying that if it were up to former President George W. Bush, the opinion of the generals would be paramount.

Rove must have forgotten that even when his "hero" was in office the generals were told "no" when they asked for more troops in Afghanistan.

But that's all beside the point.

The last time we checked, we still had a constitution in this country. That constitution still indicates that the president, in this case Barack Obama, is the commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and that it is his job to tell the generals what to do. The generals, in fact, have no business, under that constitution, leaking word out to the press or anyone else about what they want and don't want on the battlefield.

When Gen. MacArthur did that during the Korean War he was removed by President Truman. For their own cynical political purposes Republicans would destroy one of the basic tenets of U.S. democracy - the armed forces are subject to the will of the people as represented by our elected, civilian government.

We want our money back

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:54:00 +0000

In a true democracy the finance industry would be the servant of the Main Street economy, not its master.

That's the message being sent to the American Bankers Association by the labor-led coalition of demonstrators at the association's gathering in Chicago Oct. 25-27.

A year ago, taxpayers bailed out Wall Street's biggest banks. And what have people gotten in return, the demonstrators ask?

According to the call to action from Jobs with Justice for an Oct. 27 demonstration, the big banks are:

foreclosing on one home every 13 seconds;
denying credit to small and large businesses, forcing layoffs and causing a 10 percent unemployment rate;
charging inflated interest rates on loans and credit cards (how does 26 percent sound? outrageous!);
spending millions on lobbying against reforms and regulations.

And to top all those outrages, they are doling out BILLIONS of dollars to themselves!

Darn right, there has to be some redistribution of wealth. And here are some initial steps to make it "trickle down."

Solving the mess requires financial re-regulation; radical steps to protect consumers; massive creation of productive, necessary green jobs; transforming the minimum wage to a livable wage; and, most important, fixing the staggering imbalance between the bargaining power of workers and the bosses.

Passing and signing into law the Employee Free Choice Act would go a long way to addressing that staggering imbalance.

It was deregulation and its resultant financial gimmickry that plunged the world into economic crisis.

It was financial deregulation that piled mountains of debt on top of workers, leaving them defenseless when the crisis hit.

It was financial deregulation that diverted precious resources away from the real economy and into the pockets of the gamblers at the Wall Street casino.

Financial re-regulation is necessary because Wall Street has proven that it doesn't have a clue.

Then there is the tax code. Get rid of the Reagan-Bush era regressive tax breaks for the super-rich. And how about imposing a tax on financial transactions, like the buying and selling of derivatives or other "financial instruments"? These taxes would be used to invest in alternative energy, education and health care, creating jobs as well.

The cry from the right wing and their corporate sponsors is: with the bad economy we can't afford wage hikes, stronger unions, health care reform, pensions, infrastructure repair, schools, nurses, firefighters, police or well-paid airline pilots. This is nonsense. As far as the workers are concerned, an economic crisis is precisely the best time to step up the fight for all of these things. It's the only way out of this crisis.

Photo: stopbankgreed.org