People Before Profit blog

What Frederick Douglass tells us about today

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Mr. Lincoln’s election breaks the enchantment, dispels this terrible nightmare, and awakes the nation to the consciousness of new powers and the possibility of a higher destiny than the perpetual bondage to an ignoble fear.

— Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was one of the great people’s leaders of the 19th century. And yet his towering intellect and multifaceted political experience have been insufficiently appreciated.

My objective here isn’t to reclaim Douglass’s legacy (see Henry Winston, “Strategy for a Black Agenda,” and Philip Foner, “The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass,” both from International Publishers), but more modestly to point to some of his strategic and tactical ideas that retain contemporary relevance in a moment marked by enormous fluidity and promise.

Douglass’s political life began in the Garrisonian wing of the abolitionist movement, named after William Lloyd Garrison, the formidable anti-slavery leader and editor of The Liberator. This wing rejected legislative and electoral struggles, considered the Constitution a corrupted document that sanctioned slavery (a “pact with the devil”), advocated the dissolution of the union (“no union with slaveholders”) and relied solely on direct action and moral suasion.

Above all, the Garrisonians insisted on the immediate abolition of slavery — immediatism — and refused to entertain measures that fell short of this goal.

Douglass, however, bid farewell to this wing of the abolitionist movement early on and embarked on a political journey over the next two decades that took him from the Liberty Party (an abolitionist party) in the early 1840s to the Free Soil Party in the mid-’40s and in 1856 to Lincoln’s Republican Party, where he remained.

All of which begs the question: why did Douglass distance himself from the Garrisonians? Why did this great abolitionist, this former slave, join the Free Soil and Republican parties, both of which only opposed slavery’s extension to new territories, not its abolition in the states of the South where it existed? Why did he defend a Constitution that in the eyes of the Garrisonian abolitionists breathed legitimacy into the “peculiar institution” — slavery?

Mobilizing a majority

The simple answer is that the politics of the Garrisonians, no matter how morally righteous their message, were too narrow and too sectarian to mobilize a majoritarian multiracial, multiclass coalition that had the capacity to overthrow slavery. The abolition of slavery, in Douglass’ view, required several things — participation in the main organizations in which millions of people of varied political outlooks gather; engaging slave power on more than one level of struggle; skillful combination of partial demands, such as prohibiting slavery in new territories, with the overarching demand for slavery’s complete abolition; drawing inspiration from the revolutionary traditions and founding documents of a young republic; readiness to operate within as well as outside of state structures; and an unyielding determination to wrest those same structures from the grip of the planter class and, in turn, to utilize them to effect the weakening and eventual abolition of slavery.

Agitation and abolitionists had a place in the antislavery struggle to be sure — in fact an important place. But both had to be embedded in a larger political process and movement that would draw millions into the “irrepressible conflict.” To expect large sections of white people to be won to a consistent antislavery posture by agitation alone Douglass considered naïve and wrongheaded.

Douglass said:

“We may stand off and act the part of fault finders — pick flaws in the Free Soil platform, expose the weakness of some persons connected to it — suspect and criticize their leaders, and in this way play into the hands of our enemies, affording the sticks to break our own heads.” (“Life and Writings,” vol. 2, p. 71)

And on another occasion: “[A man is not] justified in refusing to assist his fellow-men to accomplish a good thing, simply because his fellows refuse to accomplish some other good things which they deem impossible assuredly. That theory cannot be a sound one which would prevent us from voting with men for the Abolition of Slavery in Maryland simply because our companions refuse to include Virginia. In such a case the path of duty is plainly this; go with your fellow citizens for the Abolition of Slavery in Maryland when they are ready to go for that measure, and do all you can, meanwhile, to bring them to whatever work of righteousness may remain and which has manifest to your clear vision.” (same source, p. 84)

In both these passages, Douglass was criticizing the Garrisonians. What Douglass possessed and what the Garrisonians and their followers lacked was strategic depth. That is, the knowledge that a broad array of forces with diverse motivations and in varied organizational forms could be (and had to be) assembled, if the slave system was to be vanquished and extirpated. From this followed his tactical flexibility and unsurpassed ability to articulate a path of struggle that would transform antislavery politics from protest to power.

From protest to power

Better than anyone else, Douglass understood (Lincoln to his great credit came to understand this later), that a struggle to prevent the expansion of slavery where it didn’t exist could easily transform and grow into a struggle to abolish slavery where it existed, given the slaveowners’ resistance to any infringement of their power and the logic and dialectics of the antislavery struggle.

For instance, while Douglass wasn’t a great supporter of Lincoln in the 1860 elections (he later became, in fact, a great admirer), when asked what he thought about Lincoln’s election that year, Douglass astutely said: “Not much, in itself considered, but very much when viewed in the light of its relations and bearings. For fifty years the country has taken the law from the lips of an exacting, haughty, and imperious slave oligarchy. The masters of slaves have been the masters of the Republic. Their authority was almost undisputed, and their power irresistible. They were the President makers of the Republic, and no aspirant dared to hope for success against their frown. Lincoln’s election has vitiated their authority, and broken their power. It has taught the North its strength and the South its weakness. More important still, it has demonstrated the possibility of electing, if not an Abolitionist, at least an anti-slavery reputation to the Presidency of the United States. The years are few since it was thought possible that the Northern people could be wrought up to the exercise of such startling courage. Hitherto the threat of disunion has been as potent over the politicians of the North, as the cat-o’-nine tails is over the backs of the slaves. Mr. Lincoln’s election breaks the enchantment, dispels this terrible nightmare, and awakes the nation to the consciousness of new powers and the possibility of a higher destiny than the perpetual bondage to an ignoble fear.” (“Life and Writings,” vol. 2, p. 528)

It is correctly said that all analogies suffer to one degree or another. Nevertheless, I would argue that the same dialectic would operate today. Just as Lincoln’s election broke the spell, dispelled the terrible nightmare, and awakened the country to the consciousness of new powers and the possibility of a higher destiny than the perpetual bondage of an ignoble fear, the election of Barack Obama — symbolizing and carrying forward the legacy of slaves who toiled from sunup to sundown, who possessed no political rights whatsoever, and who were instrumental in the Union’s victory over the Confederacy — would dispel the nightmare and break the grip, in this case, of Republican right-wing extremist rule and awaken the consciousness of the American people to new powers and possibilities of progressive advance.

This article is from the People's World archives, originally published Sept. 8, 2008, and republished Feb. 14, 2011, as part of Black History Month celebration and Doublass's birthday. Feb. 14, 1818 was the birthday of Frederick Douglass.

OPINION: Finances and the current crisis: How did we get here and what is the way out? Part 1

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:48:00 +0000

In a vote that was heard around the world, reactionary Republicans along with some progressive Democrats in the House torpedoed a bill to stabilize financial markets. The compromise deal was better than what was initially proposed by Bush and Paulson, but did little to stimulate the economy or attend to the crisis of everyday living experienced by millions of ordinary Americans — who, it should be said, played by the rules. In fact, the plan goes in the opposite direction — it asks the American people to pony up to the tune of $700,000,000,000 even though they had no hand in causing this crisis.

As this point it is unclear whether some form of the existing deal will manage to finally squeak through. One thing is clear though — the American people are furious at Wall Street, the Bush administration and congressional leaders of both parties.

We should see this struggle over the bailout package as a skirmish, an eventful and seismic one, but a skirmish nonetheless, in a protracted struggle that labor and its allies can win.

One immediate line of action is to fight for a moratorium on foreclosures, debt forgiveness, and renegotiation of mortgage terms going forward. As long as the housing slump continues, the overall economy will slide downward and markets will churn.

Another is to demand the passage of a stimulus bill of a half trillion dollars, paid for by repealing the Bush tax cuts and by a special tax on financial transactions and institutions.

Still another is to impose a new regulatory environment on financial markets.

A fourth is to rapidly end the Iraq war and initiate a peace process in Afghanistan that helps the people of that country.

Finally, a debate over the merits of public takeover of our financial and energy complex is in order. Can our country, given the challenges we face now and through this century, afford to allow these industries to remain in the hands of profiteers?

Defeat for U.S. capitalism

The prevailing ideologies and practices that have driven U.S. capitalism for the past three decades have run up against their own contradictions and conjured up new and old oppositional forces both domestically and internationally. Notwithstanding the agreement on a bailout package, what we are seeing is a massive defeat for U.S. capitalism.

Financialization, financial-led globalization and neoliberalism are not yet corpses. But their future is very problematic, although I would add that history tells us that discredited ideologies and practices never exit from the stage voluntarily. They have to be pushed, and pushed by a new political coalition that commands broad-based support, is united in action and possesses the skills to construct a people’s alternative. But isn’t such a coalition, of which we are a part, forming before our very eyes?

Moreover, this coalition is ready to strike the first and absolutely necessary blow in a few weeks, that is, to elect Barack Obama and bigger majorities in the House and Senate by a landslide.

If people haven’t enough reasons to join this effort, the current implosion on Wall Street and the new constraints it will place on the federal budget should give them reason to roll up their sleeves and get the job done on Election Day.

From another angle, the implosion of U.S. financial markets has delivered a debilitating body blow to the hopes of U.S. imperialism for unrivaled hegemony in the 21st century. When combined with the Iraq disaster, the worldwide anger over global neoliberalism and structural adjustment policies, and the emergence of new global powers in nearly every region of the world — China in the first place, it signals a new stage in the hegemonic crisis of U.S. imperialism and the final chapter of a unipolar world. Giovanni Arrighi, a world systems theorist, says that at the end of what he calls a systemic cycle of capitalist accumulation, leading hegemonic states invariably pursue a path of financial expansion, and its aim is to re-inflate its declining powers. The Dutch pursued this path in the 17th century, followed by the British in the 19th and early 20th century — successfully for a while, but in the end to no avail. Both eventually lost their leading position in the world capitalist economy and were replaced by another hegemonic state that established the rules, conditions and institutional framework for capital accumulation and system-wide governance.

Much the same fate, according to Arrighi, now awaits U.S. imperialism. The only question that Arrighi doesn’t answer is: will U.S. imperialism adapt peacefully to new world realities or will it engage in, to use his words, a policy of “exploitative domination” to maintain its standing in the world? Bush tried the latter, but failed and will leave the White House in January completely discredited.

Longer-term processes

While the present turbulence was triggered by mountains of borrowing on thin capital reserves, predatory lending, risky financial instruments, deregulation and bubble economics, it is also the outgrowth of longer-term processes that go back to the mid-’70s.

At that time, the U.S. economy was stumbling along, battered by the combination of inflation, high unemployment, slow economic growth and a declining rate of profit across U.S. industries. The confluence of these conditions prompted Paul Volcker, then chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, to drive up interest rates to nearly 20 percent. Not surprisingly, this spike in interest rates reined in inflation, restored confidence in the dollar, and attracted mobile capital around the globe to U.S. financial and real estate markets.

It also generated an unprecedented shift of wealth in favor of the very wealthiest families and financial institutions, and set off an explosion in the financial sector in terms of its size, scope of activities, debt obligations and players.

At the same time, rising interest rates slowed down the economy, big swathes of industry shut their doors, union jobs were lost, wages stagnated, the social safety net was hollowed out, entire communities nearly collapsed and the labor movement was thrown on the defensive. Not since the Great Depression has productive capital been destroyed, living standards driven down and the relative strengths of competing financial and non-financial corporations reshuffled so fast and so broadly.

Much the same was occurring in the global South. In these countries finance-led globalization was responsible for massive drops in living standards, astronomical indebtedness to U.S. banks, privatization of industries and services, currency devaluations and unconscionable poverty. It was the convergence of these conditions that set into motion the eruption of political movements in Latin America that are either winning or contesting for state power.

Of course, it took more than shock therapy in the form of high interests rates to effect changes of this magnitude. If Volcker struck the first blow, it was the Reagan administration entering the White House less than a year later that was the main political agent of this upheaval.

The Reagan counterrevolution

At the ideological level, the Reaganites said that government is best that governs least; that markets are self-correcting; that income inequality is a good thing; that deregulation and privatization are the best fix for what ails the economy; that we live in a post-civil-rights era where affirmative action has no place; and that tax cuts for the rich trickle down to working people, thereby lifting all boats.

At the political level, the Reaganites framed the agenda of struggle and employed state power in its varied forms with a ruthlessness seldom seen. Remember PATCO.

Finally, at the economic level, the Reaganites dismantled much of the old Keynesian model of economic governance at the state and corporate level — a model that had its origins in the New Deal and was expanded by successive administrations in the next three decades. It rested on a measure of class compromise, societal obligations, formal equality and expansive macro-economic policies that favored broadly shared prosperity.

In its place, they constructed a new model of economic governance, popularly called neoliberalism. Its main features included flexible production networks on a global scale, union-busting, deregulation, low-wage labor, low inflation, free flow of goods, services and capital, shrinkage of the public sector, re-embedding of racist and sexist practices into political, economic and social life, restructuring of the state’s role and functions, and reassertion of finance.

It is against this backdrop that I will discuss financialization in Part 2. (Read Part 2 here.)

Save Main Street not Wall Street!

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:20:00 +0000

The following is a call for action issued Sept. 22 by the Communist Party USA.

The Bush administration has proposed a massive bailout plan of at least $700 billion (maybe as much as $1.7 trillion) to stabilize the financial system amid the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a Bush appointee, and the president are pushing for Congress to rapidly pass the plan this week with little debate and no amendments. The right wing and the banks want a plan that gives a blank check to Wall Street with no oversight.

We join with others who call on Congress to bail out Main Street before Wall Street. The process should include full debate and transparency.

While the full extent of the current crisis and its impact on working people cannot now be fully known, we do know that the crisis is deep and not easily resolved. Furthermore, we must insist that the criteria for any plan to solve the crisis must be what’s good for the working people of this county and the world, not what’s good for the mega-rich and massive monopolies that got us into this mess.

The situation is so dire that some type of dramatic action is needed to avoid disaster for U.S. workers. Organized labor, community groups and others are increasingly angry at the bailout currently on the table. Any plan before Congress must:

1) Protect homeowners faced with foreclosure by restructuring mortgage rates to be in line with family income.

2) Create economic stimulus for working people and small businesses.

3) Provide $100 billion in emergency relief to state and local governments wracked with budget cuts and diminished tax revenue.

4) Bar CEO severance packages and cap the pay of executives receiving a bailout.

5) Regulate banking and finance with transparent public oversight.

6) Maintain public control over monopolies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that have a decisive role in the economy.

7) Control speculation and increase revenues by taxing large financial transactions.

8) Ban predatory lending and cap interest rates on all types of debts.

9) End the war in Iraq, which is draining $700 million a day from public coffers.

Developments are moving quickly and their full impact has yet to be felt, but let’s make sure that American workers — those who made this country rich — do not further suffer at the expense of the financial elites, those who have created this crisis.

Call Congress today! Tell them no blank check for Wall Street!

LETTERS: September 23

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:08:00 +0000

Wrong?

In your introduction to your online “A complete guide to the Wall Street crisis” you say: “The week of September 15, 2008 has been a dramatic and unprecedented period in the world of high finance. The economic crisis is not over despite what some pundits and politicians have claimed. A series of government interventions have changed the map of banking and finance.”

This is incorrect and misinforms your readers. This has happened over and over again. Please correct this. The whole point is that the global bankers have repeated this scenario repeatedly, and the political repression to follow will likewise be a repetition of history.

And please, hurry up.

David Rubinson Via e-mail

Editor’s note: “History repeats itself. The first time tragedy, second time farce,” Karl Marx once said in an essay taking issue with German philosopher Georg Hegel who argued that there “is nothing new under the Sun” and historic facts appear again and again. With history — economic, political and social — there is always the new and developing.

Capitalism in crisis

The United States is facing the worst crisis of the capitalist system since 1929. I go to the PWW to read the CPUSA reaction. There is none. Wonderful new headquarters, but the party cannot put together a rapid response as the giants of the capitalist system collapse! The last thing on the PWW blog: the Large Hadron Collider explained via hip hop, on Sept. 17. On the front page of the PWW website there are two stories dated Sept. 18: Hurricane Ike and another Obama campaign process story. Marx, Engels, Lenin — they’re rolling in their graves.

Mike Donovan Via e-mail

Editor’s note: Well, Mike, our small staff was working on our print edition deadline, and posted all the stories on the meltdown as quick as we could, on Sept. 19. We’re not at the rapid response level of The New York Times, yet. But you can help us get there. Donate to the fund drive and get others to do the same: .

The truth about oil

There is a lot of hoopla about American oil for American use. Expand drilling and reduce U.S. dependency on “foreign” oil! Beat OPEC, Russia, Mexico, Venezuela, et all-them-fureners cetera. In Colorado, beat Wyoming out of those “generous” oil field fees! Pass House Bill whatever it is!

Sounds good? A pity it isn’t true. The truth is that superior quality U.S. oil will go on the “global free market” to compete not for lowest but for highest prices. Which we’ll have to pay to buy back our used-to-be own oil. Actually, not even oil but “oil futures” contracts. The happy playground for the rich and greedy. Called speculator. The hidden hand of the euphemistic free market. A cover-all term for gotcha!

And just another Ponzi scheme which, if allowed to continue, will almost certainly result in another “too big to fall” taxpayer bailout. Just like the savings and loan fiasco of the 1980s and the recent mortgage market one. To be financed by even more taxpayer deficit spending.

Oh well, it’s all just play money anyway isn’t it? Roll the presses! Keep selling T-bills to China and cover the interest on these with more deficit spending and more T-bills and more balance of trade deficits so they have the money to buy more T-bills to collect even more interest to require even more — et bloody cetera!

With the ultimate bailout after the crash coming from where?

Bill Ramsay Clifton CO

Editor’s note: Reader Ramsay sent this letter via USPS Aug. 27. Prescient!

9/11

Your editorial, “Wrong course after 9/11,” avoids bringing up the many contradictions of the official government report of the 9/11 tragedy which was undertaken at the demand of families who had lost loved ones. In the end, some families rejected the official report as a complete whitewash.

The PWW editorial accepts the government line that it was Osama bin Laden (a creature of the CIA) and his assorted terrorists that pulled off this remarkably sophisticated technological feat.

It has been well noted that this was the first time in all the history of burning skyscrapers that the steel superstructure was not left standing after the building had burned away. There is so much factual material by engineers, architects and research scholars, so many books written about the true nature of this horrendous event, proofs showing how controlled demolition brought down the three skyscrapers. A brief hint that there were dissident voices would have been closer to the truth in your editorial.

Philip Stein New York NY

Land for the landless

Paraguay’s new leader Lugo is providing land for the landless of Paraguay. If Paraguay can do this for their people then surely the richest nation on earth can nationalize land and distribute it to the landless here. Our congressmen should stop being puppets of the Empire and give the land to landless poor families, land for public housing for the homeless. This is real family values.

Here in Montana land for the landless means Plum Creek land for the landless of Montana, for the poor families and for out homeless.

Daniel Gawain Waters Troy MT

OPINION: Ramming through the bailout

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:02:00 +0000

Bush, Paulson make Dillinger look like a Boy Scout

As the Bush administration attempts to ram a bailout package of nearly one trillion dollars through Congress, it begins to feel like Colonel Sanders asking the public to trust him to take care of the chickens.

If it weren’t so damn serious, there would be something almost comical about it. Here we have the White House, which has squandered trillions of dollars over eight years, and its point man, Hank Paulson, fresh from 38 years of gaming the financial system while working at Goldman Sachs, insisting that Congressional leaders hand over a trillion dollars to them with no debate and no strings attached.

In this real life drama, Bush and Paulson make John Dillinger, the legendary bank robber of the Depression years, look like a Boy Scout.

Nothing to do with socialism

This is not “socialism for the rich,” as some have suggested. Socialist measures would thoroughly clean up and stabilize the financial system to be sure, but a socialist-led government would also place the good as well as the bad assets of the responsible parties (commercial and investment banks, private equity firms, and hedge funds) into the hands of a public democratically run authority. It would turn the Federal Reserve Bank, which during the Greenspan era was one of the main architects and cheerleaders of bubble economics (hi-tech, stock market and, its latest version, housing) into a publicly controlled institution. And it would bring those responsible to trial and penalize them appropriately, if convicted.

At the same time, a socialist-led government and its congressional allies would funnel money to homeowners and working people and enact special measures to assist communities of the racially oppressed, not to mention our rural towns. It would rebuild our nation’s deteriorating infrastructure, invest in renewable energy and green jobs, and bring the Iraq war to a quick end. It would also propose the people’s takeover of the energy complex, which has also turned into a cash cow of the wealthiest corporations.

Use common sense

Does it make any sense to give control of our financial and economic system for the indefinite future to the same individuals, who while gaming the system, got us into this mess in the first place? I can’t think of anything that is less democratic or goes against the grain of common sense.

In the money and banking textbooks that I read years ago, our financial institutions and system supposedly channeled idle money to productive uses – to new technologies and business startups, to build homes and create jobs, to invest in new plant and equipment, and to construct and renew our nation’s infrastructure, while extracting handsome profits all the while.

Looking back, it is fair to say that banks and investment houses did perform this function for a period in capitalism’s development, but that period has largely passed.

Finance capital’s rise and ultra-right rule

Indeed, with the rise to dominance of the extreme right and the reassertion of power by finance capital three decades ago, our financial system has operated more or less independently of other sectors of the economy, functioned largely free of any regulatory body, and grown exponentially.

Finance capital – in its quest to maximize its rate of profit – has drained dollars from the private economy (especially the manufacturing sector) and the public treasury into incredibly risky and speculative financial schemes; it has spawned a series of complex financial instruments and paper transactions which few understand, but fabulously enrich the buyers and borrowers of these exotic instruments, most of which have nothing to do with the real economy.

Finance capital has facilitated megamergers, takeovers and corporate flight to off shore locations; it has wreaked havoc on sovereign states and their economies, particularly in the developing world; it has without as much as a thought introduced enormous instability into the arteries of the U.S. and world economy, evidenced by the frequent financial contagions at home and globally.

And, it has been one of the main class agents to successfully engineer the biggest transfer of wealth in our nation’s history from wealth creators -- the world’s working people -- to wealth appropriators, the upper crust of U.S. finance capital, while leaving at the same time our nation with an astronomical pile up of household, government and corporate debt that cannot be unwound overnight.

In short, the reassertion of finance capital to a dominant position in the political economy of our country, which was only possible because of the right wing dominance of our nation’s political levers of power, has come at a heavy price for the American people and people worldwide.

Clinging onto power And yet, despite this incredible wreckage, this almost incomprehensible corruption, this reckless speculation, these merchants of plunder, debt and hardship are still attempting to resolve this financial crisis in a way that continues to leave them in charge of the main levers of power and their wealth intact.

As I said earlier, this is not socialism. A more apt description is parasitic state monopoly-finance capitalism. According to marxism, the main mission of the state is to reproduce the conditions for the reproduction of the class structure and economic relations of capitalism. If I am not mistaken, isn’t this precisely what Bush, Paulson and team are doing now?

Arena of struggle Of course, marxism also says that state is an arena of struggle. While the ruling class employs the state apparatus, including violence when necessary, to impose its interests on society, a united working class and people can successfully resist these measures from within as well as outside state structures. This was done in the 1930s and in so doing, secured important victories for the nation’s working class and its allies. It was also done in the 1960s and in doing so brought down the system of legal segregation. And we see it again today in the incredible efforts of millions of working people of all races and nationalities and their allies to elect Barack Obama and larger Democratic Party Congressional majorities in November. Indeed, it is a task that takes on even greater significance given the financial storm that is shaking our country.

For the moment however, the American people and their friends in Congress are faced with a first class challenge – to impose their own imprint on the way in which this financial crisis is resolved. Let’s have no doubt that our financial system can be stabilized and restored to its orderly functioning in a way that meets the needs of the American people and our country. But will take a fight!

Sam Webb is chairperson of the Communist Party.

OPINION: The Rosenberg case revisited: heroes and betrayers

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:50:00 +0000

The ugly days of the 1950s witchhunts returned to the headlines this month, hitting me in a very personal way.

Transcripts of grand jury testimony in the Ethel and Julius Rosenberg case were released to the public Sept. 11 following a lawsuit by the independent National Security Archive and a coalition of historians. The transcripts reveal that the claims used to convict Ethel — and thereby send the couple, parents of two young children, to the electric chair — were nowhere to be found in the original testimony.

The next day, The New York Times front-paged an article based on an interview with Rosenberg co-defendant Morton Sobell, now 91. Sobell, according to the reporter, said that he as well as Julius gave non-atomic, defensive military information to the Soviet Union during World War II in an effort to help them defeat the Nazis (at a time when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies).

Days later, the reporter contacted this newspaper, inquiring if this revelation left us “feeling betrayed.”

My father, Oscar Vago, was among the grand jury witnesses whose testimony was made public. Reading the transcript of that long-ago inquisition shed new light for me on some details. Most of all, though, it reminded me of who were the heroes and who were the betrayers in that time, and now.

So it was with great appreciation that I read a message sent out Sept. 18 by one of the Rosenbergs’ sons, Robert Meeropol.

His conclusions are profound:

“All that I have learned in the last week,” he wrote, “coupled with all that I have gleaned from the information already available, reinforces the biggest lesson to be taken from my parents’ case — that the U.S. government abused its power in truly dangerous ways that are still very relevant today. “Those in power who were involved in my parents’ case:

* Created and fueled anti-communist hysteria

* Capitalized on that political climate by targeting my parents, then making them the focus of the public’s Cold-War-era fear and anger

* Manufactured testimony and evidence

* Facilitated judicial misconduct

* Hounded witnesses for their political beliefs and associations rather than about any alleged illegal activities

* Arrested Ethel simply as leverage to try to get Julius to cooperate with the prosecution

* Used the ultimate weapon — the threat of death — to try extort a confession from my parents and to force them to name and testify against others

* Created the myth that there was a key “secret” of the atomic bomb, and then devised a strategy to make it appear that Julius had sought out and passed on that “secret”

* Executed Julius when he refused to cooperate, despite knowing that the “secret” used to justify the death penalty was a prosecution-created fallacy

* Executed Ethel when she refused to cooperate, despite knowing that she was not guilty of ANY charges against her and was not an active participant in ANY espionage activities.

“And finally, the agencies and individuals involved in my parents’ case systematically and emphatically covered up and denied all these abuses.”

This is the real story of the Rosenberg case.

How startling that the transcripts became public on Sept. 11. Using that 2001 tragedy, the far-right successors of the 1950s witchhunters thought they could repeat history. They whipped up flag-waving fear-of-terrorism hysteria in order to launch a policy of militarism and aggression and to slash civil liberties and intimidate dissent. But fortunately, it didn’t take long for the public to reject this “red-alert” fear-mongering.

The American people had been there before.

Some five decades earlier, as World War II drew to a close, right-wing forces seized the opportunity to launch a fear campaign to justify a switch to a militarist Cold War foreign policy and to destroy the mass democratic movement that swept our country before and during the war.

This progressive majority upsurge had demanded action to defeat fascism; organized industrial unions; fought racism, segregation, anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant chauvinism; won Social Security, unemployment insurance, labor rights and other landmark reforms, and sparked a flowering of progressive culture.

Key to destroying this popular front was sowing fear by manufacturing the idea that communists, socialists, trade unionists, liberals, civil libertarians, civil rights advocates, were “un-American,” disloyal, foreign agents, traitors. The atom bombs that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki offered horrifying images that could be used to fuel this terror campaign (as they were used in 2002 to sell the Iraq war). What could be more terrifying than “atom spies”?

How many people lost their jobs and had their lives torn up because they refused to sign “loyalty” oaths or name names? How many unions were weakened or destroyed by anti-communism? How much was the labor movement set back by the Cold War Taft-Hartley Act? How much was democracy in our country damaged by this reign of terror? We continue to struggle with the damaging legacy of the spy hysteria to this day.

Who were the heroes? Those who refused to comply. Modest, unassuming people like my father, and like the Rosenbergs, who made the ultimate, unimaginable sacrifice because they believed that a better world is possible and necessary. They stood up to the witchhunters, the anti-Semites, the labor-baiters and the immigrant-haters who did such harm to our country.

Who do I feel betrayed by now? Those who would try to find in the historical record some justification for this shameful, destructive episode in our history.

The evidence just released confirms that the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg was a terrible blot on our nation’s history — a gross miscarriage of justice. Yet the right-wing forces of that time and of today have not succeeded in suppressing the struggles of the American people for democracy, peace and social and economic justice. Just look around you.

Susan Webb (suewebb@pww.org) is associate editor of the People’s Weekly World.

OPINION: A dose of 'socialism' to forestall financial disaster

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:10:00 +0000

It's easy to become apocalyptic contemplating the vast sums of wealth being destroyed in the unfolding financial crisis gripping Wall Street. The economic tsunami unleashed there will soon reach every corner of the nation. Indeed globalization will insure that few in the world will escape suffering.

Every emerging crisis facing both U.S. and world workers, from food to energy to health to retirement to manufacturing decline to declining real incomes, will be aggravated and amplified. Already unemployment stats are rising above 6 percent in many states. The New York, New Jersey and Connecticut region will be hit first and hardest in the U.S. No one knows how far-reaching the damage will be, but nationwide unemployment exceeding 10 percent is now likely. And 2009 may be the worst year since 1981-82, if not since 1929.

A global panic is not yet inevitable, but not unlikely either. All the inequities and conflicts that threaten peace will intensify.

The interventions by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Department have been dramatic and unprecedented in many ways. Against hysterical and ignorant criticism from the free-marketers in their own party, Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson appear to have drawn the correct conclusions, albeit at least eight years after the they were due — that a measure of “socialism” is the only, repeat only, course that can avert global catastrophe. The only question is: will it be enough “socialism” to stay the dragon of worldwide depression and the fires of war that would surely follow in its wake. Obviously I do not mean that the bailout actions amount to real socialism (as some on the far-right will scream), but they do in fact constitute a huge socialization of formerly private wealth, and thereby offer an outstanding platform on which to fully develop a real socialist program of reforms and recovery actions.

Bernanke and Paulson have clearly been reading Hyman Minsky and Charles Kindleberger — latter-day closet Marxians and 'long wavers' — and they GET IT: when markets fail, the chaos that follows is NOT self-correcting, and governments MUST act. This is a profound fact that neoclassical economic training — which tends to pay virtually no attention to history — tends to ignore; thus many, but fortunately not all, economists simply cannot believe the scale of the dangers at hand, nor do they have the intellectual or scientific tools to evaluate them. I do not argue that mathematical models are not important, even mandatory in developing economic and social policy. But seeing the big picture requires careful attention to economic history, which gives abundant evidence that raw capitalism is NOT a stable system.

Recent history gives solid examples of how smart socialization is the only corrective. Sweden, for example, confronted financial collapse in the 1990s by nationalizing its banks and absorbing the toxic bubble before selling the institutions back in a more carefully regulated environment. Japan, on the other hand, allowed its real estate market to collapse without intervention 20 years ago, and they have not recovered growth rates since.

When Bernanke subsidized the bailout of Bear Stearns creditors, but not its stockholders, when Paulson effectively took control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac WITHOUT compensation to the stockholders, when the Fed seized 80 percent control of AIG — the largest business insurer in the world — at a paltry price of $87 billion (the company earlier this year reported over a trillion dollars in assets), when the government is now considering a new 'Resolution Trust' company over 1,000 times bigger than the one that nationalized the savings and loan assets 20 years ago — economically speaking, a new outbreak of socialism and social democracy is on the agenda!

Even within a week Obama’s polling has regained some umph, while Bush is hardly even president anymore! Now is the time for Obama's much stronger economic platform of sound and smart government intervention in the economy to be the rallying cry. Yet even he must be prepared to change course and be even bolder, for the worst is yet to come. If Paul Krugman's estimates of $4 trillion-$6 trillion of bubble in the U.S. credit markets alone are correct, we are not even halfway there.

Unfortunately, even a healthy dose of “socialism” is not going to reverse the collapse of the credit/mortgage bubble. Nothing can stop that. But doing everything possible to avert panic and catastrophe for literally billions of people around the world in the process, putting much increased public investments in the right place — the pockets of the people! — and truly enacting the needed transparency reforms in financial markets to forestall disaster — these items are life and death matters.

Less than a year ago, neither Ben Bernanke nor Henry Paulson would have dreamed of seeing themselves say and do the things they have said and done in the past month. (If they had, surely Bush would never have appointed them!). But I applaud both their courage and tenacity in the forceful and essentially correct actions they have taken.

In a few more weeks they might even consider taking the dark glasses off the term “socialism” and putting it back in its correct context: the only remedy to what Marx famously characterized as the contradictions of capitalism.

However, there is, in my opinion, more to this financial crisis than a debate over how much socialism is required. There is a key shift in the world balance of forces taking place, reflected first of all in the global distribution of capital, and the consequent division of world labor. The United States, it is now clear, spent most of the first decade of the 21st century wasting huge sums in fictitious investments, while the Chinese, on the other hand, spent the decade investing in infrastructure and production. The Beijing Olympics — an astounding and splendid success despite efforts of many enemies to demean them — are the most striking counterpoint in the world to the decadent U.S. mortgage 'security' market. In a fitting irony, the former CEO and founder of AIG, Hank Greenburg, let it slip that many of AIG’s assets will almost certainly be purchased by Chinese corporate or sovereign wealth funds.

Last, but hardly least, previous major historical shifts in the wealth of nations have always been associated with war. As we exert all efforts in our communities and workplaces to help and defend each other against the certain hardships that immediately face us, it is the challenge of our times to find or build the paths of cooperation, the institutions and strong expressions of working class solidarity that can save us from the peril of another world war. Forty million died in World War II to give the birth of the United Nations the chance of life. Let’s not go there again! Let's NOT succumb to the temptations of apocalyptic terrors and fear.

jcase @commonhumanity.info

To help everyone, lift the blockade

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 04:44:00 +0000

The world has watched with enormous admiration as storm-battered Cuba pulls itself together after the unprecedented devastation of Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike.

Despite immense losses to agriculture, industry, housing and infrastructure, loss of life was minimal. Over one-fifth of Cuba’s people were evacuated. Shelter and emergency help were there for millions.

In impressive signs of recovery, nearly 2.5 million students started classes this week. And in hard-hit Holguin, nickel production was already resuming.

All this is a tremendous tribute to a society committed to the well-being of all of its people, and a people committed to mutual solidarity and collective action.

Help has poured in from around the world.

But in a shocking display of callousness, the Bush administration offered a paltry $100,000 in immediate aid, from what it said was a $5 million package, and insisted a U.S. assessment team must inspect the affected areas.

Cuban authorities assured Washington their own specialists could survey the damage. They also made clear Cuba could not accept aid from a country that for nearly half a century has maintained a blockade which Cuba says “causes yearly damages higher than those caused by Hurricane Gustav.”

The Cuban government instead called on the United States to lift all restrictions permanently. It also urged that Cuba be allowed to buy materials from U.S. firms to repair damaged buildings and restore the electrical system, and that U.S. companies be permitted to provide Cuba with private credit to buy food.

Not only would lifting the blockade be humane and consistent with majority U.S. opinion, it could also boost our battered economy. For years, delegations from our agricultural states have visited Cuba to sign mutually beneficial agreements for Cuba to buy U.S. farm products.

What if Cuba could buy cars and car parts? Agricultural and industrial machinery? Medical equipment?

Florida, just 90 miles away, could be the first to benefit. Michigan and Idaho could see their markets grow, and U.S. auto and farm workers could see their paychecks fatten.

Ending the blockade is a sure way to help people on both sides of the Straits of Florida.

EDITORIAL: Bail out Main Street

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 04:39:00 +0000

The largest crisis in U.S. financial history shook the foundations of Wall Street this week. The aftershocks of the earthquake that toppled the 158-year-old Lehman Brothers investment bank, Merrill Lynch and the AIG insurance giant — all within a 24-hour span — shook capitalist markets around the globe.

At one time in capitalist development, financiers “greased the wheels” of industry, turning out real goods, infrastructure and services.

But in the era of deindustrialization, mega-mergers, deregulation and privatization of public institutions, the “industry” that finance capital greased — in its global search for the highest rates of profit — was a house of cards built on subprime loans, speculation and other financial devices. A rickety, greed-based structure that created nothing of use.

This led not only to the biggest financial crisis in U.S. history, but also to the largest global income gap in history with a few at the top enjoying trillions while 95 percent of us struggle.

Today 3 billion people in the world live on less than $2 per day. In the U.S., workers are earning less and have a declining standard of living even though they are more productive than ever. The average U.S. household is $9,000 in debt.

The government is injecting billions to bail out failed financial companies. Don’t the nation’s communities and working families deserve the same so they don’t “fail?”

So what to do?

For starters, Congress should enact an immediate stimulus package that includes extension of unemployment benefits for the duration of unemployment, a moratorium on foreclosures, public investment in needed infrastructure projects and an infusion of federal tax dollars back to hard-hit state and local budgets. The AFL-CIO has proposed such a package.

Two, the federal government must invest in manufacturing, science and technology so we get back to producing “real” goods, infrastructure and services to rebuild a “real and green economy,” while protecting our planet. Investment in our nation’s human capital — creating well-paid jobs, quality public education and universal health care — is the key restoring our economy.

Three, banks and financial capital must be closely regulated — for the benefit of the public.

None of this will happen if the country is saddled with another anti-worker, Wall Street administration like the current one. All that would do is cause a whole lot of McPain for working people.

Taxation and you: Obama vs. McCain

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:36:00 +0000

The numbers are finally in! John McCain’s Double Talk Express has been hitting Barack Obama hard at every opportunity spreading all kinds of misinformation about his tax plan. According to McCain, Obama’s tax plan will mean more taxes for you. By “you,” either McCain is mistaking his audience for wealthy businessmen, or he is outright lying. Either way, the numbers are in, and the right-wing “maverick” has gone down hard over the facts.

According to CNN, using statistics from the Tax Policy Center, here’s how things break down for the two tax plans.

MCCAIN OBAMA Income Avg. tax bill Avg. tax bill Over $2.9M -$269,364 +$701,885 $603K and up -$45,361 +$115,974 $227K-$603K -$7,871 +$12 $161K-$227K -$4,380 -$2,789 $112K-$161K -$2,614 -$2,204 $66K-$112K -$1,009 -$1,290 $38K-$66K -$319 -$1,042 $19K-$38K -$113 -$892 Under $19K -$19 -$567

I don’t think any of us require economics degrees to make sense out of this information. Simply put, if you’re making less than $112,000 a year (that’s you and me … or at least me), you will see your taxes go down //significantly more// under Barack Obama’s plan than John McCain’s. Perhaps McCain thinks giving tax breaks to the rich will stimulate the economy in a trickle-down fashion, similar to the policies of George W. Bush. Judging by our recession, do we seriously want to give such policies another four years? McCain’s plan will also involve increasing the federal deficit by about roughly $4.5 trillion, while Obama’s plan would only increase the deficit by about $3.3 trillion. While Obama’s plan is still an increase, it’s smaller and will assist working class families much more than McCain’s plan.

Obama’s program also calls for improving health care and education — two sectors in desperate need of repair — while pulling resources out of Iraq, lifting the massive financial burden it has placed on our country. McCain’s economics only favor the super-rich who are making health care so expensive, while calling for vouchers in order to siphon state funds from public to private schools, not to mention his declaration that we should remain in Iraq for another century if necessary.

Given these numbers, we establish one critical fact. Obama’s plan not only lowers the tax burden for us working folks and our families, but to puts us in far less debt than McCain, all while spending the money far more wisely than McCain! If there was ever a clearer choice as to who would better represent the interests of American workers, that time is now. — Martin Droll, a student in Philadelphia

Unity the only road to victory

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 07:14:00 +0000

Recently, at political events I attended, I came in contact with supporters of Ralph Nader and Green candidates. They held forth on how those candidates were “much better than Obama” because they took “much better positions.” What folks tried to explain to them was that it isn’t what you say but what you do that counts, that the huge people’s movement behind Obama could actually defeat the ultra-right and create conditions for real, progressive changes! Nader, Greens and others are just not in that position.

What came to mind, for me, was the tough strike of United Steelworkers of America shipyard workers at the Newport News Shipyard in Virginia, a decade and a half ago. At this huge struggle of over 9,000, mainly African American, shipyard workers, there was a particular white skilled worker, who described himself as a “progressive leftist,” who broke the picket line and scabbed throughout the strike. The union wasn’t “democratic,” wasn’t conducting a “militant enough” fight, or so he said. Therefore, he stated, he “had to go to work, and work to organize a more progressive union.” He actually drove to work, through our picket lines, in a vehicle with “Think Globally, Act Locally” and “Peace, Now” bumper stickers. He wore a peace symbol button and he talked about his support for a “progressive union movement.”

In a vacuum, his verbiage sounded pretty good. However, it was what he did that counted. And what hedid was scab on his union! What he did was weaken the all-important unity of the workers and give aid to the corporate enemy.

Working folks, the organized labor movement, learned long ago, through tough and bloody struggles, that the only way they could prevail over a powerful, entrenched corporate enemy was through building unbreakable unity. Even though there were bitter fights, even among different unions, in the Democratic primary this year, once the battle was joined against their main enemy, all have locked arms and are marching in lockstep together. The African American people’s struggle for civil rights had, at its core, the same lesson, that United We Stand and Divided We Fall!

A century and a half ago, the fight to end the scourge of slavery in our nation taught that same lesson. Confronted with deeply entrenched slave power, which had selected every president before then, abolitionists were unable to dislodge them working by themselves. They built the Liberty Party as a political party based on the goal of immediate abolition of slavery. While morally “pure,” they were politically weak. They were unable to unite a wide enough coalition to defeat the slavocracy. Only when a wider new Republican Party, which united workers as well as northern capitalists, farmers and others interested in stopping the spread of slavery with abolitionists, was formed were they able to build a broad enough coalition to change the balance of forces and, ultimately, defeat slavery.

The people supporting Nader or Greens have never learned these lessons. They have no understanding of the strength of the entrenched corporate power around Bush/McCain. Unfortunately, they, likewise, have no understanding of or strategic approach toward winning real changes. Speaking in support of national health care is not the same as changing the balance of forces that can make it possible for the organized people’s movement to actually win that change.

What the balance of forces is at any particular time is what makes it possible to raise, and subsequently win, any specific issue. It is here, as well, that the forces around Nader, Greens and the ultra-left are wildly off base at this time. While the window of opportunity has opened, and the creation of a huge people’s front has been created around the Obama candidacy, making it possible to defeat the ultra-right and create the needed new balance of forces, these groups raise issues such as the right to run for office, inclusion in debates, etc. Again, while these are, in a political vacuum, good political issues, at this time with the balance of forces against the people, they are only a distraction — and unfortunately, one that could derail the people’s train!

It is true that there are many good, honest folks within those camps, people who are with the people’s movement on a number of other issues. Regrettably, today, they stand against the people. Hopefully, they will come around to supporting the needed changes when we are able to change the balance of forces.

Our job now is to unite and put every shoulder to the wheel, every resource available to the task of electing Obama and defeating the ultra-right. Only then can we go on the offense and actually build the struggles that can win health care for all, end the wars, win back labor’s right to organize, get a new green jobs program and win back pension rights!

Bruce Bostick is a retired steelworker and union activist in Columbus, Ohio.

The union and I why labor unions are good for labor

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:29:00 +0000

Workers’ Correspondence

I arrived at the University of North Florida (UNF) in the fall of 1979 as an untenured faculty member with two contractual guarantees. The first was the bargaining agreement between the faculty union and the state Board of Regents, in effect a due process document that offered collective protection and a route for protest that could end in the final court of appeal for labor agreements — binding arbitration. The second was a four-year “letter of appointment,” in effect a separate employment contract. It was issued to protect me against the uncertainties of the special pot of money dedicated to supporting my new faculty line.

When this special funding dried up halfway through my first year the university administration showed its true colors. In total defiance of its own special guarantee, to say nothing of law and human decency, it started issuing termination letters — in fact, three in a row over the next three years. Thanks to the ongoing efforts of the union I survived, ultimately retiring in mid-2008. In theory private legal action might have achieved the same result, but I could not afford that alternative — in dollars or in time.

By the fall of 2007 the personnel situation in my unit had become unbearable. I faced the prospect of at least one year, probably two or three, of grievance proceedings — quite possibly ending in arbitration. I went to the union and said, “Buy me out.” My strengths were the presence of the union, a bargaining agreement with binding arbitration, and — a strong case. By this time I had the experience of serving in almost every post within my union local, including president and grievance representative; I knew that the odds in arbitration would greatly favor me. Apparently the administration agreed — I received a substantial special settlement for retiring.

In between: After five years in the defined-benefit Florida Retirement System program the union negotiated into existence the defined-contribution Optional Retirement Program — the first-ever exception to the FRS. I went ORP and never regretted it, though I realized later (after I decided to stay at UNF) that I was paying a price. Then, in 2007, the union negotiated the opportunity for ORP members to buy back into the defined-benefit FRS! I did so, and my retirement income is substantially higher as a result. The presence of a union lobbying politically on behalf of its members made the difference.

There is a reason that labor unions speak of “brothers” and “sisters.” It really helps to have a family backing you up and working on your behalf. The union helped me more than once, and I gladly repaid the favor. Was it worth it? When your local president sends out a retirement announcement that says: “Stan has been no sunshine unionist. He has been there for UFF through thick and thin — in good years and in lean years” – I guess so! Perhaps the best one-line summary of my view on the value of unions is from a labor song made famous by the late Joe Glazer:

“On a union job you can have some dignity.”

— “Brother Stan the Union Man” (Stanley L. Swart), Jacksonville, Fla.

EDITORIAL: Wrong course after 9/11

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:18:00 +0000

The seventh anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States passes this week with Americans united in their terrible memories of the loss of life and destruction that resulted from the attack. We are united also in our determination to do whatever we can to prevent it from happening again.

But unity, whether it’s from a natural disaster or from a human-made one like 9/11, is momentary. Why? Because larger forces come into play.

Instead of taking the outrage and sympathy generated from the 9/11 tragedy and giving leadership in making it into a real worldwide effort to end such senseless violence, the Bush administration used 9/11 for its own narrow aims.

The world responded in 2001 with solidarity and sympathy. People marched in Tehran with candles lit expressing their human ties with us. Cuba offered medical help and a political initiative to end worldwide terrorism through international cooperation. Sudanese teachers sent messages of solidarity to their union counterparts in the U.S. French communists stood for a moment of silence to honor the victims of 9/11.

Despite all the calls here and abroad to respond in a unifying, thoughtful and effective way, the Bush administration unleashed U.S. military might: first invading Afghanistan in October 2001 and then Iraq in March 2003. Neither military adventure has brought our country any more security. In fact, U.S. international relations are severely damaged and terrorism is on the rise.

Then the Bush administration unleashed its agenda for the domestic front under the guise of fighting terror. With great fanfare it rounded up people who it said were terrorists and imprisoned them at Guantanamo, throwing out international and U.S. laws and principles. It rammed through new laws that allow it to spy on the American people. After all this, Osama bin Laden continues to operate freely and no one has even been successfully brought to trial for 9/11.

To this day many brave first responders and other victims of the 9/11 tragedy go without the medical and other care they need.

Yet in this election cycle, as it did in 2004, the GOP continues, despite its disastrous leadership in the fight against terrorism, to use the tragedy to try to scare up votes.

We wonder whether the CEOs who watched the Twin Towers crumble that day realized how rich many of them would become as a result of the tragedy. Yes, the Republicans proceeded to shower their corporate sponsors with countless lucrative military contracts. So, seven years after 9/11 a lot of Republicans have gotten rich but we are no safer today than we were then.

The policies of militarization, invasion, imposing “democracy” at the barrel of a gun and feeding the military contractors cost American lives and treasure. They have not and will not make the world free of terrorism. Only a new approach that emphasizes cooperation, working together with other nations to solve global problems — from climate change to poverty — can bear fruit in the struggle to end terrorism.

Is Freddie Mac REALLY never coming back?

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:41:00 +0000

The Bush administration seized control this week of the scandal-ridden mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the drive for profits by the corporate executives running them threatened both the financial markets and the entire U.S. economy.

President Bush, departing from his almost religious belief in an unregulated “free market,” said the government takeover was necessary to keep Fannie and Freddie from collapsing, an option he called “unacceptable” for an already battered economy.

The move comes after many months of skyrocketing mortgage rates, sinking demand for homes by buyers, plunging home values, mortgage foreclosures and a growing lack of affordable housing generally.

The two giant lenders were on the verge of a collapse that could have all but destroyed the ability of most Americans to get any type of home loan, auto loan or any other form of credit and could have destroyed the ability of countless businesses to finance their operations. In addition, financial markets around the world could have been dealt severe, if not deadly blows.

The two companies, which together own or guarantee about $5 trillion in home loans, about half the nation’s total, have lost $14 billion. The likelihood is that the losses would amount to only the tip of the iceberg as the housing market continues in its slump.

Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association) was created in 1938 as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. Private lenders refused to give home loans during the Great Depression when the housing market collapsed. It was the new government bank’s job to provide local banks with federal money to finance home mortgages at low interest rates. This resulted in increasing levels of home ownership and the availability of affordable housing.

It also eventually led to the development of what is now called the secondary mortgage market. This came about because Fannie Mae borrowed from foreign investors at extremely low interest rates it could get because it had the backing of the U.S. government. Fannie Mae’s profits came from the difference between the low interest rates paid by American borrowers and the even lower rates charged by foreign lenders. From the 1930s until the 1960s Fannie Mae had the monopoly on this secondary mortgage market.

In 1968, however, Fannie Mae became a “government sponsored enterprise” (GSE). This was a scheme to essentially turn it into a private corporation replete with private executives in charge and stockholders to which it was now beholden. Since the new GSE also had a “public” mission to provide affordable housing, it was given exemption from taxes, regulation and oversight. The Lyndon Johnson administration wanted to unload it from the federal budget partly to hide from the public the devastating effect on that budget of the war in Vietnam. There was some objection to turning over to an essentially private corporation the monopoly on the secondary mortgage market. Therefore Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) was formed soon after to help quash that objection. Now there were two GSEs and no single company had a monopoly.

The privatization scheme spurred enormous growth for the mortgage giants. The current assets of the two companies combine for a total that is 45 percent greater than that of the nation’s largest bank.

The benefits of becoming a private corporation while holding onto tax exemption and government handouts funded by taxpayers did more than just spur company growth, however.

Since the 1990s, like the Wall Street financial giants, Fannie Mae has turned into a government-backed wealth generator for its executives — private wealth gained at the expense of a working class that is paying the taxes.

From 1990 to 2000 the value of the company’s stock grew 500 percent as James Johnson, its CEO, earned nearly a billion dollars — a huge amount, particularly for that time, and without precedent for a “government sponsored enterprise.”

District of Colombia officials, in the 1990s, mounted challenges to this privileged status. They said that with so many people at Fannie Mae becoming rich, the company should pay some taxes to the cash-starved city.

To head off objections like this in the future, CEO Johnson responded by putting former elected officials and government figures into top executive positions. Their jobs were just as much to lobby friends in government as they were to help manage the company.

The thing to watch, now, is how the government will use its takeover of the companies. Will it say they got too big and should be broken down into smaller private companies? Or will the people’s movements be able to exert the pressure needed to reverse the privatization schemes altogether and return the business of mortgage assistance for affordable housing to a trustworthy public body in the spirit intended during the New Deal?

Letters: September 6

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 06:50:00 +0000

Needed: new voters

It’s no secret that our nation has regular elections and low turnout. This year there is a renewed struggle led by the Obama campaign to change the low turnout with a massive voter registration drive and voter education to improve turnout. In the early ’90s Democrats tried to enact legislation that would make voter registration easier. This led to Motor Voter, a piece of federal legislation which, though passed, was watered down by a relentless ultra-right and for the past eight years has been largely unenforced.

Most readers are aware of the state-by-state effort by the right to enact legislation that will limit mass efforts of democratic, civic and labor organizations to register voters — and of course, the recent decision of the Supreme Court validating the Indiana law that requires new and more difficult personal identification to register. All in the name of preventing fraud. The fraud, however, is being perpetrated on U.S. citizens. The fraud is a backdoor to make voting for the affluent and to restrict the registration and voting of millions who are seeking the ballot — their voice in the life of our nation.

Supporting the drive to register and educate millions is critical for this election and for the building of a stronger democratic movement. Older PWW readers will remember Si Gerson, who never let an election go by without one or more articles reminding readers of the particular and ongoing reasons and activity to support and participate in voter registration. Make sure you and everyone around you is registered. Support voter registration drives.

Beth Edelman Philadelphia PA

Good book

This is a very good book and interview: “The Minsk Ghetto 1941-1943, Jewish Resistance and Soviet Internationalism,” by Barbara Epstein. The interview on KPFA’s “Against the Grain” on Aug. 26 with the author is excellent: .

David Kuehn Atlanta GA

Showdown?

Looks as if we’re heading towards a showdown with the Russians once again. Our elites need to gin up a new threat, so as to continue justifying their three-quarters-of-a-trillion-dollar war budget. So, it’s time to throw down NATO’s military gauntlet over the ridiculous Republic of Georgia, a tiny nation known, if for anything, as the birthplace of Josef Stalin and the locus of a strategic oil pipeline financed by Western interests.

Most voters are unaware of John McCain’s close personal and political stakes in Georgia. One of his top aides has been a paid lobbyist for the Georgian regime. McCain has publicly encouraged Georgia’s impulsive President Mikhail Saakashvili’s most imprudent military gestures against Russia’s natural interests in the Caucasus region.

In the early 1990s, the people of Ossetia fought and won a war of secession against Georgia. Since then, Russian peacekeepers, authorized under European legal auspices, have been defending the Ossetians from Georgia’s heavy hand. Nevertheless, on Aug. 7, Saakashvili’s troops staged a midnight attack on Ossetia, murdering some two dozen Russian peacekeepers and at least several hundred sleeping Ossetians.

Not one leading Democratic or Republican official has uttered a word of condemnation about Georgia’s perfidy in this connection. Instead, we’re told it’s all Russia’s fault. Let the new Cold War commence. With the Iraq expedition winding down in intensity and McCain’s presidential ambitions in need of a freshly belligerent theme, U.S. military industrial corporate oligarchs see future prospects for bigger profits and domestic political control through stoking tensions and instability along Russia’s borders.

Cord MacGuire Boulder CO

Single-payer

Today’s (8/27) New York Times reports that for the year 2007, the number of Americans without health insurance decreased by more than a million, although the number without insurance stood at 45.7 million. This sounds like corporate-speak for progress. An alternative explanation might be just as true. The million without health insurance who are not now counted simply died of their illnesses. We desperately need a single-payer insurance plan. Keep up the good work.

Betty Smith New York NY

Stop thieves

The theft of the 2008 presidential election has already begun and has been going on for some time now. The Republicans and the Bush White House, through the deliberate loss of Democratic voter registrations, illegal and unethical purging of Democratic voter registrations, misuse and abuse of electronic and optical scanning voting machines, etc., has already begun, and is in fact well into, the theft of the presidential election. I hope, with all my heart, that the readers of the PWW go to investigative journalist Greg Palast’s web site and check out his and Robert Kennedy Jr.’s excellent articles on how the Republicans are stealing the 2008 election, just as they stole the 2000 and 2004 elections. Also, Mr. Palast has another web site where he goes even more into depth about the dishonest and unethical things the Republicans are doing to steal the election.

Gary De Santis Hamilton Township NJ

Being in Denver

Thanks for the article “A mile high: Being in Denver, being part of history” online at pww.org. It really added to my sense of what was happening at the convention, beyond what I could get by watching on TV.

John Streater Tampa FL

Editorial: Union organizing helps the economy

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 06:35:00 +0000

The labor movement’s nationwide drive to get a minimum of 1 million signatures in support of the Employee Free Choice Act is close to the 75 percent mark. It has caught on like wildfire.

In less than six months, almost 750,000 people have signed cards to tell the next president and Congress that workers want them to enact the EFCA.

This is good news because it is only possible to turn America around if we take an indispen-sable first step. That first step is to restore the free choice of working people to come together in unions and bargain for better wages and benefits and a real voice on the job.

The EFCA, which requires employers to recognize a union as soon as a majority of their workers sign cards indicating they want that representation, will do precisely that. Enactment of the bill will end company-rigged “elections,” mandatory anti-union propaganda sessions and harassment and firing of workers who support union organizing drives.

Existing labor law does not offer these protections. The attack on unions has resulted in stagnating wages, spiraling prices and massive joblessness while CEO salaries and corporate profits soar.

With less and less money in the hands of the majority, less of what is produced can be purchased, and the whole capitalist economy breaks down, hurting millions of people in its wake.

The right wing is working overtime to kill the EFCA. The business lobby is running TV ads warning people that enactment would mean loss of their right to vote in secret. This is nonsense. People join organizations by signing up for them. Why should it be any different for joining a union? The anti-EFCA campaign is nothing more than the fat cats wanting to hold onto their power, their tax breaks and their government handouts while they pay the rest of us as little as possible.

Unions don’t get either the tax breaks or the government handouts that big business and Wall Street financiers get. Restoring the right of the majority of our people to choose unions will restore fairness and it will restore the balance our economy needs so that it can actually work for everyone, rather than the privileged few.

New political realignment takes shape

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 06:08:00 +0000

Obama movement vows to ‘put Barney Smith before Smith Barney’

DENVER — Sitting in Invesco Field at Mile High here Aug. 28 was awesome. The significance of Barack Obama’s historic presidential nomination was reflected in the inter-generational crowd of 84,000, many union members, all races and nationalities, moved to activism by their own life stories under the cruel, greedy and corrupt Bush administration.

“A new revolution has begun...” said a text message scrolling across the big screen.

Looking around at this beautiful mosaic of America, it was clear that a much needed and long fought for political realignment is underway in our country.

Describing his plight, a lifelong Republican from Indiana wrapped it up in a nutshell and got a standing ovation when he said, “We need a president that puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney! The heartland needs change and with Obama we’re going to get it.”

The victories of the Aug. 28, 1963, civil rights march opened the doors for thousands of women, African American, Hispanic, Asian-Pacific Islanders and youth to win election to public office from the local level all the way to Congress. But divisive and racist corporate right-wing strategies especially targeting the South and rural communities are yet to be broken. John McCain, claiming to be for change, represents this old style politics of control.

When Barack Obama declared to the stadium and worldwide television audience, “This election is not about me it is about you,” he brought everyone to their feet with hardly a dry eye in the crowd.

The challenge before this broad, all people’s movement is to turn out the maximum vote in every state and flip key states in the West, Midwest and South from red to blue. Colorado, with a large Latino vote, and a governor committed to alternative energy, hopes to lead the way.

The impact of the labor movement echoes large in this new expanded electorate. The tone was set by a united AFL-CIO, Change to Win, National Education Association rally which exposed McCain’s 17 percent labor record and championed Obama’s 98 percent. McCain voted against the Employee Free Choice Act which Obama co-sponsors.

Delegates were urged to speak forthrightly with co-workers who may be influenced by racism. Barack Obama is the candidate who represents their needs. Michelle Obama’s working class family story adds to the message.

Women’s, youth, African American, Hispanic, senior and veterans’ caucus meetings heard reports that their main issues got into the platform. Hillary Clinton was cheered as she urged those who supported her in the primary to now join her and work as hard for Obama and Biden.

This movement goes beyond the confines of the Democratic Party. It is a product of years of work to create a broad, all peoples front against the ultra right.

A new direction in the country is vital to open up the possibilities for a people’s movement to win basic change in foreign and domestic policy.

Within this context many convention delegates participated in workshops, rallies and marches that set the stage to continue the momentum post-election.

A peace march of 10,000 called for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, full veterans’ benefits and reparations for the Iraqi people.

An immigrant rights march of thousands led by former Denver Mayor Federico Pena presented its demands for comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship.

A labor rally called for passage of HR 676 for universal single payer healthcare “The majority of people in our country want HR 676. It’s just a matter of time,” said Rep. John Conyers.

Recalling the 1963 march on Washington at which he was a speaker, Rep. John Lewis told the crowd at Mile High Stadium, “For those of us who stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial this moment is a testament to the determination of the people to make a difference.”

Referring to the nomination of Obama as a down payment on the dream, Lewis exclaimed, “We must march again on Nov. 4 to the ballot box in every city like we’ve never marched before to elect the next President of the United States.”

The McCain campaign will spend millions to forestall this political realignment.

It is up to each and every one who demands a change in priorities from war to rebuilding, from fear to hope, to join with co-workers, family, neighbors and friends to realize the spirit of Denver and turn around our country in the next 59 days.

joelle.fishman @pobox.com