People Before Profit blog

Superman: Truth and justice for all, not just the U.S.

Mon, 02 May 2011 15:10:00 +0000

To say the least, Superman always meant more to me than just fighting for "truth, justice and the American way." Recently he proved that.

In the latest Action Comics No. 900, the "man of steel" says he intends to address the United Nations in order to renounce his U.S. citizenship. He pledges to continue to fight crime globally. Superman's announcement has sparked controversy.

I grew up reading Superman comic books and his whole story is one that resonates with fighting for ordinary working people worldwide especially given the fact that he too was an immigrant, or an "alien" from another planet.

"I'm tired of having my actions construed as instruments of U.S. policy," Superman says. "‘Truth, justice and the American way' - it's not enough anymore. The world is too small, too connected." He adds he "can't help but see the bigger picture."

Superman's remarks come after a U.S. Secret Service agent, sent from Washington, reprimands him for supporting a non-violent protest in Tehran against the repressive Iranian regime. The Iranian government, however, believes Superman was sent by the U.S. and considered his support of the protest an act of war.

Superman first appeared as a comic book character in 1938 and has always had a long association with the U.S. Born on the planet Krypton and as its last survivor, Superman landed in Kansas and was unofficially adopted by a local farmer and his wife. The rest of his well known story until now is part of America's folk myth.

However, with his announcement in the latest issue, right-wing commentators are claiming Superman is "rejecting America."

But what did Superman really represent? And even more, what is he really rejecting?

I never imagined reading Superman as a teenager, and even now as an adult, that he represented the wealth and greed of this country's notorious fat cats. To me, Superman was always more than just a token fighter for American foreign policy.

In fact , he was always a global figure and true citizen of the world. I think it's about time that the world's most famous super hero detach himself from the grips of the ruling class's "super Americanism" and false patriotism.

We should be thankful that a hero as popular as Superman was rooted in this country and is now mature enough to recognize his mission on this planet is more than defending the interests of one country' rulers, especially one that has unilaterally and militarily dominated nations for decades.

Yes, it's true Superman was created as a hero to fight against fascism and later as force for anti-communism.

However, whether on television during the Cold War years or in Hollywood movies, Superman was construed as a metaphor. Keep in mind that even metaphors have class content. I know that Superman's heart and moral values were more about saving people all over the world from evil, including the special interests and global tentacles of U.S. imperialism and its capitalist greed.

In a recent joint statement, DC Comics Co-publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio downplayed the so-called anti-American rhetoric being spewed lately about the red-caped hero.

"In a short story, Superman announces his intention to put a global focus on his never ending battle, but he remains, as always committed to his adopted home and his roots as a Kansas farm boy from Smallville," they said.

DC Comics says it plans to unfold an emerging story that will lay the grounds for an "insanely epic story" that starts this summer.

I for one welcome the news about Superman's recent epiphany. Reading about comic book super heroes as a kid gave me hope and allowed my imagination to see a world where the greater good is worth fighting for. Never did I allow my comic book world and all its magical characters, both male and female, to be limited to narrow and shortsighted viewpoints or dogmatism. My heroes both in the fantasy world and in real life always believed in truth and justice for all people regardless of their ethnicity, race, religion or creed. And that is what Superman always stood for.

Photo: Actor Christopher Reeve is shown as the action-hero Superman in the 1981 sequel "Superman II." (AP Photo)

GOP strategy: limit voting rights

Mon, 02 May 2011 13:34:00 +0000

It appears that the Republican Party may be turning to a new strategy to win elections this upcoming cycle. In 33 states, new laws have been proposed or enacted that make voter laws much stricter. These laws appear to be aimed at groups that are historically presumed to be Democratic voters, including the elderly, poor, disabled, minority and youth voters.

These laws cause concern with Democrats and others. Presidential advisor David Axelrod told the Washington Post's The Fix that 33 Republican governors are trying to create tougher voting requirements and that most of those measures are aimed at young people.

The new laws require that voters present specific forms of government-issued photo IDs in order to receive a ballot.

In Texas, Missouri, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Minnesota and Ohio, voters must present a current state ID. Most states already require some form of identification to vote, however these can range from a driver's license to a bank statement.

These bills were introduced by Republican lawmakers under the premise of counter-acting voter fraud, when in fact no such phenomenon widely exists. Studies have shown that actual voter impersonation is so rare that it is practically non-existent.

While Republicans claim that the existence of voter fraud is so rampant that is has damaged their party's electoral successes, in the past five years only 120 people have been charged with the crime, and only 86 were convicted.

When juxtaposed against the tens of millions who voted in 2008 alone, it seems almost comical that it would be the focus of such a concerted effort. Yet still, many on the far-right cited ACORN as complicit in "stealing" the 2008 presidential election.

How much of an impact might these laws have upon the American electorate? According to studies by the Advancement Project, approximately 11 percent of American citizens (21 million) lack a current government photo ID. Percentages are higher among specific groups: 25 percent of African Americans, 20 percent of 18-29 year olds, 15 percent of those who make under $35k annually, and 18 percent of senior citizens are without a current government-issued photo ID.

Many may be confused as to how so many can be without a current photo ID, but many Americans do not own or drive a car, and may not be aware that they can go to a motor vehicle department to obtain a state ID card. Many more are ignorant of their states pre-Election day voter registration dates and requirements.

Due to the implications of these new laws, the head of the South Carolina NAACP dubbed his state's new voter ID laws, "Jim Crow Jr."

These new laws appear to be part of a larger movement of voter suppression across the country. This includes so-called voter challengers bill proposals that would require proofs of citizenship prior to registration, axing same-day registration, and limiting the voting rights of those with criminal records.

In Texas, the King Street Patriots, a tea party-backed group, has announced a "True Vote" campaign in which they pledge to place one million volunteers in polling places around the country. They would act as "challengers" to voters and would utilize the new photo ID laws to limit voter eligibility.

These efforts to limit voting access have been linked to right-wing partisan backers including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is funded by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, a major source of financial support for the tea party movement. The billionaire Koch brothers have been known to give to many pro-GOP campaigns; most recently to the campaign of Scott Walker who as the Republican Governor of Wisconsin has also pushed these voter-limiting laws as well as stripping union rights.

Many on the right claim that voting is a privilege, rather than a right. This claim has been recently reiterated by Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Zellers, a Republican.

Those who believe that the democratic process is a right to all citizens of the Unites States should be alarmed at these recent developments. According to Advancement Project's Denise Lieberman, "Elections cannot be fair and free unless they are open to every eligible voter."

Texas legislature offers grim solutions

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:29:00 +0000

The Texas Senate has passed its own version of a budget, and it would cause fewer than the 330,000 public worker layoffs than would the House version. Labor hails the improvement, but says it's still lousy.

But there's cheerful news, sort of, for those frustrated Texans who have completely given up. Our wise leaders in the legislature are offering us several simple shortcuts to offing ourselves.

First of all on the gun front: large numbers of Texans are now legally carrying concealed weapons, thanks to earlier efforts by the lawmakers. Just to show that they put their butts where their mouths are, the legislature lets them carry pistols into the State Capitol during sessions. In fact, they encourage it. People with a gun permit can go through the security lines faster than the general public; consequently, all the lobbyists are armed. Many of us in Texas already think that the corporate lobbyists, with their disdain for the general welfare, have to be sociopaths. So now we have armed sociopaths running around the Capitol every day. It's a wonder nobody has shot the place up, yet.

Our better-known shootouts occur on college campuses. To some of us, it makes sense that every college campus in the state has banned weaponry; but not to some in the legislature. They want to pass a bill that would override every Texas colleges' ability to disarm their campuses, so we'd have more, not fewer, armed students. The lawmakers are proud to be on record for allowing Texans to carry guns, and probably not far from making it mandatory.

For those averse to violence, Texas leaders offer us the option of slow death by poisoning. They are infamous for opposing all federal environmental rules, and they are intent on weakening the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality. Those who care about their air and water already consider the TCEQ a corporate house pet, but legislators believe it can be weakened further.

Another swell new option for ending it all in Texas is the state's highways. Texas drivers already terrify anybody who ventures here in a car from another state, but our legislative leaders, in their wisdom, want to raise the speed limit to 85 MPH.

Everyone is getting in on the act of finality. Even our adored armadillos, it turns out, are lethal. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that Texas Armadillos carry leprosy.

Graphic by Jim Lane

Budget in context

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:06:00 +0000

What's the budget debate about? Obama put the question of "how to balance the budget" in the context of "what kind of country will we be?"

The GOP puts the issue as entirely a matter of "living within our means"; it is strikingly silent on what kind of America will come out of the process. Despite Obama's recent speech, the predominant approach from the Democrats has also not really come to grips with what's happening to America and what to do about it.

The America of 2011 is not the country some thought it would be a decade ago when Washington and Wall Street prematurely laid claim to a "New American Century." Far from triumphalism, the mood and reality today define a country that is deeply troubled. The stock market is back and profits are at record highs, but the economy is very sick. No remedy is emerging to deal with chronic high unemployment and underemployment; disparity in wealth distribution has never been as great; health care costs are galloping out of sight and poverty is expanding apace; educational opportunity is eroding and the infrastructure of the country is descending into potholes.

The structure of the economy has undergone drastic changes: its manufacturing base has been decimated, unions have shrunk, jobs have gone overseas and multinational corporations are evading taxes on a grand scale. On top of all this is the cruel burden of unending and unwinnable wars, the unbearable cost of maintaining a gargantuan military establishment with thousands of overseas bases policing the world.

America remains powerful on the world stage, but it is not the superpower whose strength can dominate the course of international developments. There are self-confident rivals who act with independence in economic and political affairs. Moreover, in a world that is undergoing epic economic and environmental crises, we are failing even to face up to the existential problem of climate change.

All in all, our problems are not a matter of a temporary glitch that can be resolved by cutting social programs or waiting for an upturn in the economy. Any meaningful remedies require taking account of the dimensions of the crisis and decline that grips the country. It also requires, as Obama said, a vision of what kind of America will be shaped by the way in which our crisis is confronted.

The Ryan budget ignores everything about the present crisis but the federal deficit. The GOP says absolutely nothing about what America would look like if it were to get everything it's asking for: slashing education and basic services at every level, gutting Medicare and Medicaid, while shrinking revenue by cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

There may be no magical solution to all our problems, but we can achieve a great deal by practical and humane alternatives in the way we budget and allocate the government's resources. There is no mystery to the essential approaches that would both improve life for most Americans while reducing the federal deficit. (What's not simple is how the people can overcome the obstacles to progress manipulated by corporate wealth with all its lobbyists, politicians, and largely controlled media.)

The "People's Budget" put forward by over 80 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus points the way. It shows how to reduce the deficit while dealing more effectively with the nation's crucial needs. The remedy is threefold: increasing revenue by raising (rather than lowering) taxes on the wealthy, especially the extremely wealthy, and closing tax loopholes; gaining control of and reducing the costs of heath care; getting out and staying out of wars, and sharply reducing the bloated military establishment. How far we go in dealing with these three problem areas will influence what we can do to stimulate the economy, generate jobs, expand education, renew infrastructure, and become serious about developing alternative energy and confronting climate change.

Rightist and corporate resistance to both health care reform and significant retrenchment of the military-industrial complex threatens to dig the nation into an ever-deepening hole. On health care, necessary control over costs is impossible without placing the public interest over the profits of the mega health insurance and drug corporations. Medicare for all, cutting out the role of private greed, is the ideal solution, but at least some significant measures to strengthen the public's hand are essential.

As for the colossal "defense" budget, it was shaped by exploiting the exaggerated paranoia that marked the Cold War and it has continued to expand out of any reasonable relationship to present reality. As Defense Secretary Gates recently acknowledged, "any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined." Particularly irrational and dangerous is the hugely costly nuclear weapons arsenal. Beyond that, the vast network of bases abroad serves no worthwhile purpose since notions of "policing" the world prove illusory as well as provocative.

So there is an effective and humane way forward. Ryan's corporate backers tout his "courage" in putting on the table so-called "entitlements", the privileged set's euphemism for programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that meet fundamental human needs. The courage that's needed is what the Congressional Progressive Caucus has urged. One has to hope that the negative public response to the GOP-Ryan plan, the overwhelming nationwide opposition to gutting Medicare, will encourage a demand to go after the real "entitlements" of the corporate world: tax evasion, profiteering at the expense of public health, and the sacred cow that is the military-industrial complex.

Better than hope, what's called for is a lot more of the outpouring of anger and protest that Governor Walker has encountered in Wisconsin. It's time for the people to get into the debate.

Song and struggle: “The Internationale"

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:43:00 +0000

This is the first installment of what is intended to be a series on the rich left-wing musical tradition. Besides conveying the spirit of generations past in their struggles against capital, the songs hopefully also retain aesthetic value. YouTube links are given at the end of the article so the reader can appreciate them as they were meant to be - with the ears.

There's no other place to start in a left-wing culture-music series than The Internationale. It is the original left-wing anthem, honored by socialists, anarchists, and especially communists. There are versions of the song in hundreds of languages and music styles.

Russia's socialist leader Lenin wrote in 1913: "In whatever country a class-conscious worker finds himself, wherever fate may cast him, however much he may feel himself a stranger, without language, without friends, far from his native country - he can find himself comrades and friends by the familiar refrain of the Internationale."

One author pondered: "Those who sing it need know nothing about it, and be familiar with only the first verse and the chorus, yet feel a strong sense of international unity. Why has it proved both so durable and inspirational?"

The words were written in 1871 by the Frenchman Eugène Pottier. The year is no accident - only months before, the workers of Paris had taken power and formed the Paris commune. For a few months the working people of Paris had developed an egalitarian economic and political system, before they were brutally put down by the army, in collusion with the foreign powers with which France had been at war. It was the world's first experience with working class power, and it proved the naysayers wrong - workers' power and socialism were not utopian fantasy; such a society could exist.

Out of the commune came Eugène Pottier, a working person with a reputation as a poet who had risen to a few minor leadership positions. He escaped the bloody retribution but was forced into hiding. On the run and in fear for his life, he penned L'Internationale. This is what gives the song its force - it represents the real experience of working people in struggle.

Over a decade later, in 1888, a French socialist named Pierre Degeyter ground out a melody for the popular poem. These are the chords now associated with the song.

After Russia's 1917 October revolution, the Russian version of L'Internationale became the de facto anthem of the USSR. In 1944 it was replaced by the Hymn of the Soviet Union.

Lyrics

Debout, les damnés de la terre / Arise, damned of the earth
Debout, les forçats de la faim / Arise, prisoners of hunger
La raison tonne en son cratère, / Reason thunders in its volcano
C'est l'éruption de la fin / This is the eruption of the end
Du passé faisons table rase, / Lets make a clean slate of the past
Foule esclave, debout, debout, / Enslaved masses, arise, arise
Le monde va changer de base / The world is is going to change its foundation
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout / We are nothing, we will be all

Chorus:
C'est la lutte finale / This is the final struggle
Groupons-nous, et demain, / Group together, and tomorrow
L'Internationale, / The Internationale
Sera le genre humain. / Will be the human race

Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes, / There are no supreme saviors
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun, / Neither God, nor Caesar, nor tribune
Producteurs sauvons-nous nous-mêmes / Producers, let us save ourselves
Décrétons le salut commun / Decree the common salvation
Pour que le voleur rende gorge, / So that the thief expires
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot, / To free the spirit from its cell
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge, / Let us fan the forge ourselves
Battons le fer tant qu'il est chaud / Strike while the iron's hot

Chorus

L'État comprime et la loi triche, / The State oppresses and the law cheats
L'impôt saigne le malheureux; / Tax bleeds the unfortunate
Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche, / No duty is imposed on the rich
Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux. / The right of the poor is an empty phrase
C'est assez languir en tutelle, / Enough languishing in custody
L'égalité veut d'autres lois: / Equality wants other laws
«Pas de droits sans devoirs, dit-elle, / No rights without duties she says
Égaux, pas de devoirs sans droits!» / Equally, no duties without rights

Chorus

Hideux dans leur apothéose, / Hideous in their apotheosis
Les rois de la mine et du rail, / The kings of the mine and the rail
Ont-ils jamais fait autre chose, / Have they ever done anything
Que dévaliser le travail? / Than steal work?
Dans les coffres-forts de la bande, / Inside the strong-boxes of the gangs
Ce qu'il a créé s'est fondu. / What work has created is melted
En décrétant qu'on le lui rende, / By ordering that they give it back
Le peuple ne veut que son dû. / The people only want their due

Chorus

Les Rois nous saoulaient de fumées, / The kings made us drunk with fumes
Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans / Peace among us, war to the tyrants
Appliquons la grève aux armées, / Let the armies go on strike
Crosse en l'air et rompons les rangs / Stocks in the air, and break ranks
S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales, / If these cannibals insist
A faire de nous des héros, / On making heroes of us
Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles / They will know soon enough that our bullets
Sont pour nos propres généraux. / Are for our own generals

Chorus

Ouvriers, Paysans, nous sommes / Workers, peasants, we are
Le grand parti des travailleurs; / The great party of laborers
La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes, / The earth belongs only to men
L'oisif ira loger ailleurs. / The idle will go reside elsewhere
Combien de nos chairs se repaissent / How much of our flesh have they consumed
Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours, / But if these ravens, these vultures
Un de ces matins disparaissent, / Disappear one of these days
Le soleil brillera toujours / The sun will shine forever

Chorus

Modern versions

The question of modernizing the song, so that the language is less archaic and more reflective of current left-wing politics, has provoked strong emotions. To some, this can only mean sabotaging its ideology. To others, it means keeping the powerful song relevant.

Links

A typical French rendition
At a meeting of Nepali communists
From the Cultural Revolution play, "The East is Red"
A modern version, by Billy Bragg

Oh, how the song continues to torment the capitalist consciousness! From the movie Air Force One, the prisoners sing when the evil, ex-communist, terrorist General Radek is released from prison.

Image: Eugene Pottier writing The Internationale, as depicted in a Chinese poster.

Obama, Trump and the new racism of the right

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:19:00 +0000

Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern is no stranger to controversy. Many gay rights activists will remember her virulent homophobic statements both in the House chamber and out. In fact, that is pretty much what she is known for. However, she has recently drawn fire for offensive comments of a different stripe: racism.

Kern, 64, often serves as a caricature for her party's anti-LGBT views. She made headlines in 2008 when she described homosexuality as "the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism and Islam," saying that "what is happening now is they are going after, in schools, two-year-olds ..." In 2009 she authored a proclamation in which she blamed the economic crisis on President Obama's recognition of Gay Pride Month. She's claimed that "gays are infiltrating city councils." She has also introduced amendments banning the specter of sharia law, as well as allowing teachers to question evolution.

However, earlier this week, Kern inflamed a new segment of the population. While debating SJR 15, a bill introduced by a fellow Republican that would change the state's constitution to eliminate affirmative action, Kern suggested that perhaps the high proportion of incarceration and financial hardships of the state's African American population is due to laziness. Said Kern, "We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that's tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don't want to study as hard in school? I've taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn't study hard because they said the government would take care of them." Additionally, she went on to state that women tend to earn less than men because they "usually don't want to work as hard as a man ... women tend to think a little bit more about their family, wanting to be at home more time, wanting to have a little more leisure time." The bill passed by a large margin in the overwhelmingly Republican House.

Kern's comments drew condemnation from some of her fellow representatives. Rep. Mike Shelton, D-Oklahoma City, said: "This body will quote the Bill of Rights and then talk about Muslims every day. They'll talk about illegal immigrants every day. They'll talk about homosexuals." He added, "Oklahoma is a great state - as long as you fit the profile."

Of even more visibility is real estate mogul, reality TV star and potential GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. He has spent the past few weeks fanning the flames of the right's most ardent conspiracy theorists, the "birthers." He even claimed to have private investigators on the ground in Hawaii who apparently were telling him all sorts of crazy things.

Trump now has turned to questioning how President Obama, an African American, could have gained access to Columbia and Harvard universities, stating that he believed Obama's grades to be subpar, calling him a "terrible student." Trump has even tried to call into question Obama's authorship of his best-selling autobiography, "Dreams From My Father." He insinuated that Obama's admission to the two schools was a result of affirmative action, as if somehow Obama, as an African American, could not have gone to Columbia and Harvard otherwise. This line of thought was parroted by MSNBC's conservative commentator Pat Buchanan (who is virulently anti-affirmative-action, anti- multiculturalism, and anti-LGBT-rights), who claimed that the president's academic career was "affirmative action all the way."

However, the president graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude - it is nearly impossible to make better grades than that. Even more impressive, he was elected editor of the Harvard Law Review - which Buchanan also claimed was somehow due to affirmative action. Both Trump's and Buchanan's statements lead one to conclude that they think that is the only way an African American can gain access to the top schools in the country. While Trump would like us to believe that he has always had a good relationship with "the Blacks," his words (including those) say otherwise.

On more local levels, many in the GOP leadership have exhibited strains of racism. Tea partier and GOP central committee member in California Marilyn Davenport sent out an email depicting Obama as the child of two monkeys with the caption, "Now you know why no birth certificate." Davenport responded to critics by saying, "I didn't think people would be upset by it."

Between the birther claims (from the right), the countless racist emails from GOP addresses (including "Barack the Magic Negro"), and these comments by Republican officials, it would appear that the Grand Old Party might be beset by a racist element. Republicans like to brag that their party was the reason behind emancipation; but it was the conservative movement that opposed civil rights, and appears to, at some level, not be above courting the racist element of the right. Somehow, it would appear that the party of Lincoln has become the party of John Wilkes Booth.

Photo: Donald Trump at the Consrvatice Political Action Conference in February 2011. Gage Skidmore CC 2.0

Capitalism bad for the environment, says book

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:11:00 +0000

Book Review
Red Roots, Green Shoots
By Virginia Brodine, edited by Marc Brodine
International Publishers, 2007

In 2007, International Publishers released Red Roots Green Shoots. Since then, we have experienced another global financial crisis (April 2007 - present), the British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (March 2010) and the ongoing nuclear fiasco at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in Japan (March 2011 - present). These events highlight the need for us to reconsider our economic and environmental practices. This collection of Marxist environmentalism provides that opportunity. The book expands our timeline and looks back on the work of communist activist Virginia Brodine from 1976 to 1999. These essays, articles, speeches, conference papers and newspaper columns provide a detailed chronological account for this segment of the modern U.S. environmental movement.

Marc Brodine, the editor and son of the late author, wisely chose a variety of writings that reflect the important economic and political happenings of the times. These selected works include the necessary Marxist philosophies and examples of practice that make this book a living document. Most mainstream environmental groups and activists take a piecemeal approach when addressing ecological problems, rather than focusing on the capitalist treadmill of production. Red Roots provides a decisive analysis of our unsustainable relationship with the earth, and offers an excellent starting point to learn about environmental socialism or eco-socialism.

Specific themes and topics of the book include the anti-nuclear movement and the Committee for Nuclear Information, the needed unification of environmentalists and unions to create a global working-class environmental movement, a strong anti-military sentiment and the obvious ecological contradictions of capitalism.

Red Roots is presented in two segments; the first part outlines the Committee for Nuclear Information, reviews the Dialectics of Nature, discusses the environmental program of the Communist Party USA and then dives into several essays that demonstrate the intrinsic connections between workers and environmentalists.

The second half of the book is a slightly revised and updated version of the Communist Party's pamphlet "People and Nature Before Profits." As Marc Brodine admits, there is some duplication of material throughout the text. However, I think this accurately reflects the evolution of these ideas and activities. Social change builds upon itself, and incorporates past events, movements, and political victories into the next phase of society.

Red Roots is important for three reasons. First, it highlights the truth about capitalism's newest marketing campaign, "Sustainable Development." While many groups use this idea to guide human activities towards a more ecological way of existing, this terminology is primarily used to sell more commodities. The consumer sees "green," and the owners see money. Brodine does not mention this scheme, but gets straight to the point in discussing how the capitalist mode of production exploits and appropriates the earth and the workers during the extraction and manufacturing processes. The earth is further degraded when the water, soil and air are used as sinks to discharge waste. The only addition needed here is the understanding that our commodities are also pollution. Most of what we produce is used once and then proceeds to be dumped in the biosphere. We cannot consume our way to sustainability.

A second major contribution is the call for jobs that do not conflict with the need to protect the environment. The healthy functioning of ecosystems is directly related to community and individual wellbeing. The author is clear that we can create humane jobs, provide a livable wage and not degrade the planet. The military does not represent job security. The current system benefits no member of our planetary community. Even the capitalists making money are only slightly removed from the harm they inflict. For workers and environmentalists, the wedge driven between us is the same false consciousness used by multinationals to maintain their hold on private ownership. Brodine states, "A working-class environmentalism is needed that recognizes this fact of life under capitalism and realizes that production changes for environmental reasons can be in the self-interest of workers."

Finally, reading this book can help people realize the futility of our work-consume, work-consume, ad infinitum rat race. While this is a short collection, it steers readers towards the works of Barry Commoner and Gus Hall - two intellectual giants who bridge the realms of politics, economics and environment. As long as special interests groups continue to vilify socialism, we need publications that provide a critical analysis of our social system. Red Roots offers a much-needed voice to counter the fictition-based media and advertising that constantly reinforces our current paradigm. This work is a testament to Virginia Brodine and others who strive for equality among people and work towards a more earth-centered existence.

Alan Wight is a doctoral student in Educational Studies at the University of Cincinnati. He is an environmental sociologist who is working on the re-introduction of agriculture to schools and communities.

Two takes on 'royal' weddings

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:25:00 +0000

First off, columnist Walter Brasch opines:

Down for the count: America's fascination with royalty

In case you're in a funk because you didn't receive an invitation to the British royal wedding, the American media have a solution for you.

The media had been pumping out news, features, and gossip about the wedding for more than three months. Almost every radio, TV, and cable network, except for maybe the Cartoon Channel, will be covering the wedding on Friday. All. Day. Long.

Coverage begins at 3 a.m. EDT (8 a.m., British Standard Time) and finally ends before the bars close. In addition to extensive live coverage of the procession and wedding itself, ABC, CBS, and NBC are devoting five hours in evening prime time to reviews of the wedding.

WE TV has four one-hour documentaries: "Prince William," "Kate: The New Diana?", "Will + Kate Forever," and "William & Kate: Wedding of the Century." Apparently, the cable network that brands itself as "the women's network devoted to the wild ride of relationships during life's defining moments," believes there won't be a royal divorce, and that the marriages of Charles and Diana (which did end in divorce), Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier, Elizabeth II and Philip, and Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson in the 20^th century were only preliminaries. Lifetime, which bills itself as the cable network that "celebrates, entertains and supports women," has several one-hour documentaries, including "A Tale of Two Princesses," "William and Kate: A Love Story," and "Kate's Gown of Renown." The network is also cablecasting two two-hour docudramas, "Prince William" and "William & Kate."

If you don't have access to a TV set, You Tube is transmitting the events live to computers and every handheld device known to technology. Add in all the newspaper and magazine coverage - look for multi-page photo spreads in all major entertainment magazines in the next week - plus a million or so blogs, and there's no reason why anyone shouldn't know important details, including how many canapés were ordered for the after-wedding reception.

Although we organized a revolution to overthrow a monarchy, and created a president not a king as head of State, Americans have always had a fascination with royalty.

Among googobs of literary and movie princesses have been Cinderella, Snow White, and Leia who helped Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and that giant furry thing make the world safe for high-tech special effects. And, of course, there's the Lion King that made the Disney company rich enough to devour all other media companies, and take on the corporate shape of Jabba the Hut.

The greatest baron, pursued by ace aviator Snoopy, was the Red Baron. However, for some reason the media prefer to use the title "baron" to refer to evil "kingpins"- as in "drug baron," "robber baron" and, understandably, "media baron."

The music industry abounds with royalty. Bessie Smith was the Empress of the Blues; Roger Miller was King of the Road. Among other kings are those of ragtime (Scott Joplin), blues (W.C. Handy), swing (Benny Goodman), waltz (composer Richard Strauss or bandleader Wayne King), pop (Michael Jackson), and, of course, Elvis, the king of rock and roll. One of the best singers was Nat "King" Cole.

Aretha Franklin is the Queen of Soul. Rap singer Queen Latifah may think she's royalty, but British rock group Queen has a better shot at sitting in Buckingham Palace.

Among singing princes are the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, who doesn't do much singing or rapping any more, and Prince Rogers Nelson, who became known simply as Prince, and then the singer-with-the-unpronounceable symbol, who later regained a pronounceable moniker, and has the ability to predict purple rain.

Other less royal dukes have been baseball great Duke Snider and musical genius Duke Ellington who, had he gone to baseball games, would have had to sit in segregated seating in most ball parks. Sitting with him would be the Dukes of Dixieland. Upset there are no more segregated "colored" seats, drinking fountains, and rest rooms is David Duke who once cornered the market on pointy white hats and dull-witted whites.

Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat. But no royal monikers were attached to Roger Maris who broke Ruth's single season record or to Hank Aaron, who broke Ruth's lifetime record, and had to put up with numerous racist comments.

Nevertheless, the only royalty that matters to me are the Counts - Tolstoy, Dracula, and Basie.

Photo: Workers erect the broadcast platforms from which the world's media will cover the royal wedding, outside Westminster Abbey in London. (Matt Dunham/AP)

Way back in 1947, British royalty staged a lavish marriage of Princess Elizabeth to the scion of a wealthy, titled German family, Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh. The press devoted millions of words, entire pages and front page headlines to this event. On the day after the marriage our predecessor, the Daily Worker, under large headlines, ran the following page one story.

18 couples wed quietly, Non-royal lovers united in simple rights

by Bernard Burton

November 17, 1947.

Eighteen non-royal couples were wed quietly yesterday at the City Clerk's office in New York City's Municipal Building. An on-the-scene check revealed that the brides and grooms had come from such widely scattered points as the East Bronx, Flushing, Harlem, Yorkville, Chelsea, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Williamsburg, Flatbush, Bensonhurst and East New York.

The couple from East New York, both of them young and slightly awed, repeated the itinerary of their wedding procession as they waited in the anteroom, waiting for "next." The bride, attired in a pale blue, flowered print dress, purchased a week earlier at a prominent 14^th Street store, had left her mother's three-room apartment, Van Siclen and Livonia Aves. At 9:30 a.m. to meet the grooms at the I.R.T.'s New Lots Ave. Station.

The bride wasn't accompanied by her father, who had left several hours earlier for Manhattan to attend to his duties as a clothes presser in a building at Wet 37^th St. The prospective mother-in-law was also unable to participate in the procession, being compelled to attend to her three-year-old grandson, whose working parents reside in the same three-room apartment.

Walking with a buoyancy which ignored the dull, chill morning, the bride hurried her steps as she spied the groom waiting at the foot of the stairs to the El. They greeted each other with a graceful embrace and a kiss which left hardly a smudge of Prince Feather Lipstick on the groom's smiling lips.

The groom was also unescorted. He wore a gray suit, a topcoat, and the cool breeze ruffled his light brown hair. He was hatless.

The bride, who had ash blond hair, straightened her navy blue hat, which was trimmed with a wisp of veil, as the couple, holding hands, slowly climbed the steps. They were temporarily parted as the waiting crowd on the platform thronged abruptly into the same car.

The separation, however, lasted only to Utica Avenue, where they transferred for the Lexington Avenue Subway. This time, they vowed, there would be no separation. With the bride holding grimly to his waist, the groom, who stands five, ten inches, and weighs about 182 pounds, charged through the crowd. There was no seat for the non-royal couple. Nevertheless, the 20-minute ride to Brooklyn Bridge held its recompense. The couple stood close together, swaying in rhythm with the train, with the bride's veil occasionally tickling the groom's nose.

At Brooklyn Bridge they were hastily ejected from the car, but they again slowly mounted the steps, and made their way across the square which was crowded with cars honking their horns. Traffic police showed visible sign of losing their patience as they tried to keep the traffic moving.

As they reached the hallway to the City Clerk's office, they were unceremoniously ushered into the anteroom by other brides and grooms seeking to be first in line. One couple thought that they were about fifth.

The groom, who wore a ruptured duck [a slang term for The Honorable Service Lapel Button worn by World War II veterans] on his lapel, arose suddenly as a clerk called two names. "That's us, honey," he said, and they walled into the office with two witnesses, who had met them in the anteroom. They were shopmates of the groom, who holds the post of polisher in a Brooklyn metal plant.

In the clerk's office, a little tired man droned through the ceremony, waited for the 'I do's," and declared, "I now pronounce you man and wife."

They returned to the apartment of the bride's family where her mother greeted the newlywed with: "The folding bed came from the store. We'll put it up in the kitchen tonight."

There were no gifts from the White House.

(The article also appeared in the book, Fighting Words: Selections from twenty-five years of The Daily Worker, New Century Publishers, New York, 1949.)

"The Temperamentals" strikes a blow for the sexual revolution

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:10:00 +0000

Hard on the heels of its rollicking revival of Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock, The Blank Theatre Company is presenting the West Coast premiere of a bio-play about Harry Hay, card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA and a founder of the gay liberation movement. The Temperamentals is part of a significant emerging trend in contemporary American theater - progressive, left-leaning docudramas and other works about communists (as well as non-communist leftists). Most of these plays embrace their characters' politics with sympathetic portrayals.

Reds recently portrayed onstage as righteous and noble include Pablo Picasso, Pablo Neruda, Paul Robeson, Charlie Chaplin, Bertolt Brecht, Zero Mostel, various characters in Clifford Odets's agitprop Waiting For Lefty, Amy Herzog's After the Revolution and more.

Now we have Jon Marans' The Temperamentals, which unabashedly tackles the topic of Harry Hay's Communist Party membership, as well as that other grand American taboo and obsession: homosexuality. The five-actor, two-act, largely L.A.-based drama is called The Temperamentals (an old-fashioned code word for gay people). Its fact-based plot reveals that long before New York's 1969 Stonewall Riots, which are widely credited with kicking off the gay lib movement, Hay (Dennis Christopher, who appeared on Broadway opposite Elizabeth Taylor in The Little Foxes) co-founded the pro-gay Mattachine Society in 1950 with his then lover, Rudi Gernreich (Erich Bergen, who played Bob Gaudio in several Jersey Boys productions). Other original Mattachine members included Chuck Rowland (Mark Shunock), Bob Hull (John Tartaglia) and Dale Jennings (Patrick Scott Lewis).

The ensemble cast is well directed by Michael Matthews, eliciting worthy performances from each. Standing at the play's epicenter, Christopher delivers a convincing portrayal of a conflicted married man grappling with his own identity who finally comes - rather boyishly, buoyantly and flamboyantly - out of the closet, colorful shawls and all. Lighting designer Cameron Zetty and scenic designer Kurt Boetcher enhance The Blank's diminutive space with moody, gritty chiaroscuro.

Among other things, The Temperamentals is an entertaining history lesson. In a secondary role, Shunock portrays musical director Vincente Minnelli, supportive of the gay libbers' aspirations but too timid to publicly come out. (Interestingly, his daughter Liza performs at the same-sex marriage ceremony in last year's Sex and the City 2.) The 1948 third-party presidential candidacy of Henry Wallace is also depicted. There's a homophobic court case that reminded me of Oscar Wilde's 1895 sodomy and gross indecency trial. We see Hay teaching a music appreciation course at a Communist Party school. Intriguingly, Hay's amicable parting of the ways with a sorry-to-see-him-go party (which then had a no-gays-need-apply policy) is staged.

The Temperamentals' most noteworthy aspect is to remind us of the link between sexual revolution and the radical left. Marx and Engels critiqued marriage as a bourgeois institution, even as a form of prostitution, and Marxists such as psychologist Wilhelm Reich and Bolshevik Alexandra Kollantai advocated sexual, as well as economic revolution. Drawing upon Marxist formulations, Hay postulated that gays were an "oppressed minority." The personal is political, and when it comes to human relationships, one size clearly doesn't fit all. One wonders what the Mattachine founders would make of today's same-gender marriage (endorsed by the modern Communist Party), which may remain controversial in 2011 but probably was undreamt of 60 years ago.

The Temperamentals does theatregoers, members of the LGBT community and leftists a great favor by reminding us of these historical figures. In addition to being a secretive co-founder of the Mattachine Society and refugee from Hitler, Rudi Gernreich was a daring costume and fashion designer, who invented the topless bathing suit, the Pubikini, thong, and No-Bra Bra. Unlike Wilde Oscar, the idiosyncratic Harry Hay lived to a ripe old age, co-creating the Radical Faeries in 1978.

I first heard about Hay while researching blacklisted actor Will Geer (TV's Grandpa Walton), who married in 1934 but also had same-sex relationships, including with Hay. (Stuart Timmons's elegant biography The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement is the definitive source.) In 1934, Geer and Hay participated in the 83-day-long strike of the port of San Francisco, not mentioned in The Temperamentals. The play already covers lots of ground, but given recent worker uprisings in Wisconsin, etc., it would have been instructive to be reminded of San Francisco's landmark general strike.

The Temperamentals offers a simply illuminating, uplifting night at the people's theatre. It is performed Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm through May 22 at the Second Stage Theatre, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, CA, 90038. For info, visit the website. For tickets: (323)661-9827.

Image: L to R: Dennis Christopher, Erich Bergen and John Tartaglia during the first read-through of "The Temperamentals" (The Blank Theatre Company production) on Tuesday, March 1, 2011. Photo by Matthew Graber.

Tea party picked the wrong flag

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:55:00 +0000

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill into law last week that provides special protected status for the tea party's "Don't Tread on Me" flag.

This emblem, wielded by tea party activists in their 2009 demonstrations against health reform and President Obama, will now enjoy the same special protections afforded the Arizona state flag and the U.S. flag.

Simply put, the tea party has chosen the wrong flag as its symbol, as this move in Arizona so aptly reveals.

It is also offensive. The yellow, snake-emblemed "don't tread on me" flag as borne by these protesters is something of an ironic con job.

As is well known, the flag's origins date from the Revolutionary War period, during which citizens of the British Empire* living in the colonies protested the fact that they could not select their own local members of Parliament. Thus the protest: "no taxation without representation."

The tea party, a far-right, corporate-financed set of organizations, has twisted the meaning of that flag. They have always had the right and the opportunity to select their representatives. Unfortunately, most of them have chosen to believe and repeat racist lies about the legitimacy of the Obama presidency. Some tea partiers have even suggested a return to colonial-style restrictions on voting rights to property holders.

Despite these historical distortions, the main point is they have chosen to hoist the wrong flag.

Tea partiers frantically waved that flag at rallies during which the likes of Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and resigned former Alaska governor Sarah Palin spewed lies about health reform and the president.

Meanwhile, working-class Americans from diverse backgrounds from Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio carried the "stars and stripes" during their protests against real disfranchisement and real attacks on their basic rights to organize unions and collective bargaining - their basic rights to jointly represent themselves in the workplace.

While the owners of Koch Industries corrupted the democratic process with millions of dollars poured into Republican Party and tea party coffers, steelworkers and teachers, university students and firefighters, longshore workers and electrical workers, librarians and cops, janitors and mothers, farmers and teamsters, members of the national guard and veterans, together marched behind the American flag in Madison, Wis., to protect the right to organize unions.

While tea party Gov. Jan Brewer wasted taxpayer dollars to use her time and political clout to create special protections for that ugly yellow flag that no American has died for, working-class men and women have carried "Old Glory" in their hearts from the beaches of Normandy and the bridges of Selma, Ala., to the state Capitols in Madison, Indianapolis, Lansing, and Columbus.

*Because non-whites, women and working-class people were excluded from voting rights, the representation issue in the Revolutionary War period only held real immediate meaning for property owners. Still, the demand symbolized a democratic upsurge against British imperialism, and would over the next two centuries through the struggles of the disenfranchised come to include more and more people.

Photo: (Creative Commons)

NRA fights for right to torture pigeons

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:16:00 +0000

Take a pigeon.

Now put that pigeon, along with thousands of others, into small coops that don't give the bird much freedom to move.

Don't worry about food or water. It won't matter.

Take some of the pigeons - who are already disoriented from hours, maybe days, of confinement - and place a couple of them each into spring-loaded box traps on a field.

About 20 yards behind the traps have people with 12-gauge shotguns line up.

Release the pigeons and watch juveniles disguised in the bodies of adults shoot these non-threatening birds. Most of the birds will be shot five to ten feet from the traps; many, dazed and confused, are shot while standing on the ground or on the tops of cages. Each shooter will have the opportunity to shoot at 25 birds, five birds each in five separate rounds.

About a fourth of the birds will be killed outright. Most of the rest will be wounded. Teenagers will race onto the fields and grab most of the wounded birds. They will wring their necks or stuff them still alive into barrels to die from suffocation.

Some birds will be able to fly outside the killing field, only to die a slow and painful death in nearby yards, roofs or rivers. A few will live.

Now, do it again. And again. And again. All day long. At the "state shoot" in Berks County, about 5,000 birds were launched from 27 boxes on three killing fields.

And, just to make sure that you're a macho macho man, why not stuff a bird onto a plastic fork and parade around the grounds? How about wearing a t-shirt with language so nauseating that even Cable TV would have to blur the message?

By the way, make sure you collect your bets. Illegal gambling, along with excessive drinking, is also a part of this charade that poses as sport. The shooters don't make much, but thousands of dollars will exchange hands.

These are the same psychopaths who probably twirled cats by their tails, and used birthday money to buy BB guns to pluck birds from fences and telephone wires. In their warped minds, they probably think they're Rambo, their shotguns are M-16s, the cages are bunkers, and the cooing birds are agents of Kaos, Maxwell Smart's long-time nemesis.

This is what the NRA is defending as Americans' Second Amendment rights. And why the Pennsylvania legislature has been afraid to pass a bill prohibiting pigeon shoots.

For more than three decades, Pennsylvanians have tried to get this practice banned. For three decades, they have failed. And when it looked as if there was even a remote chance that a slim majority of legislators might support a bill banning pigeon shoots, the House and Senate leadership, most of them from rural Pennsylvania, figured out numerous ways to lock up the bills in committees or keep them from reaching the floor for a vote. In 1994, the House did vote, 99-93, to ban pigeon shoots. But 102 votes were needed.

But now a bill to ban this form of animal cruelty may be headed for a vote in the full legislature. SB 626, sponsored by State Sen. Patrick Browne, R-Allentown, forbids the "use of live animals or fowl for targets at trap shoots or block shoot" gatherings. It specifically allows fair-chase hunting and protects Second Amendment rights.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee finally got a spine, and voted 11-3 to send legislation to the full Senate to ban this practice. Six Republicans and five Democrats voted for the vote; all three negative votes were from Republicans, including the Senate's president pro-tempore. Many of those voting for the ban are lifetime hunters; many are longtime NRA members. They all agree that this is not fair chase hunting but wanton animal cruelty.

But, the NRA, with its paranoid personality that believes banning animal cruelty would lead to banning guns, fired back. In a vicious letter to its members and the media, the NRA stated that national animal rights extremists, whom they have also called radicals, are trying to ban what they call a "longstanding traditional shooting sport."

The International Olympic Committee and the Pennsylvania Game Commission disagree. In 1900, the Olympic committee banned pigeon shoots as cruelty to animals and ruled it was not a sport. The game commission says that pigeon shoots "are not what we would classify as fair-chase hunting." Also opposed to pigeon shoots are dozens of apparently other radical extremists - like the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association, and the Pennsylvania Bar Association. "Each pigeon shoot teaches children that violence and animal cruelty are acceptable practices," says Heidi Prescott, senior vice-president for the Humane Society.

The vote will be close in both chambers, mostly because of the financial power the NRA wields in the rural parts of Pennsylvania, and the NRA's fingernails-on-the-blackboard screeches to its members. On his blog, State Sen. Daylin Leach, D-King of Prussia, a member of the Judiciary committee, wrote that when he supported a ban on pigeon shoots in previous Legislative sessions, he "got more hate mail on this than any other issue I've been involved with." He stated he "got e-mails from all over the state telling me that I obviously hated America and that God, who wanted the pigeons he created to be slaughtered as quickly as possible, was very disappointed in me."

Failure to pass this bill into law will continue to make Pennsylvania, with a long-established hunting culture, the only state where pigeon shoots openly occur, and where animal cruelty is accepted.

Image: Pennsylvania is the only state to allow brave men hunt these terrifying creatures. Chris Isherwood // CC BY-SA 2.0

Cuba blockade is 50-year bad policy

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:26:00 +0000

Jimmy Carter is an exemplary ex-president. He beats the rest of his counterparts hands down. He is in a "league of his own."

The most recent confirmation of this fact was his March 28-31 visit to Cuba where he called for lifting the nearly 51-year-old blockade against Cuba (along with freedom for the Cuban 5 - more about that in another column). I hope that the Obama administration and a majority in Congress will heed his advice.

The blockade, put in place in October 1960, never should have been imposed on the young socialist state in the first place. There was no good reason then and there is even less reason now. A half-century has passed and regime change is still a fool's errand; the Cold War has wound down; and relations with other socialist states like China and Vietnam have been normalized.

Moreover, there is no widespread hue and cry among the American people to continue the blockade. To be sure, sections of the Cuban American community and other right-wing elements are rabid in their support of it, but is their opposition enough to sustain a 50-year economic embargo? I don't think so.

The explanation must lie in support for the blockade by sections of the ruling class and foreign policy establishment. Evidently some in these circles still can't stomach the fact that the Cuban people led by Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and other Cuban patriots had the temerity to make a socialist revolution that is still unfolding 90 miles from our shores.

Some in U.S. corporate and foreign policy circles still consider Cuba and the rest of Latin America "our backyard."

The election of Barack Obama and his expressed desire to reconfigure U.S.-Latin America relations offered hope that a change in our policy towards Cuba was in the making. But it hasn't yet occurred. Some initiatives have been taken by the administration, but they have been minor.

There has been no hint of any major overhaul of U.S.-Cuba relations, including the lifting of the blockade.

And, I'm afraid, that will remain the case as long as this administration, like earlier ones, insists on internal political changes in Cuba as the price that the Cuban government has to pay for the blockade to be lifted and relations normalized.

If this hasn't worked for 50 years why would anyone think that it will work now or in the future? Don't our policymakers know from experience that the Cubans won't yield to pressure, won't bargain away their independence and choice of social systems?

The Cubans make no such demands on us and we should make no such demands on them.

The Cuban people and their compatriots in the global South want a new political and economic order - free from U.S. dominance, blockades, sanctions and boycotts. They insist, rightly so, on equality and normalized relations. The sooner the foreign policy establishment and the Obama administration understand this and act accordingly, the sooner export trade (which equals jobs), the sale of farm products, and other forms of interaction between the two countries can begin.

In the spirit of Jimmy Carter - Lift the blockade! Normalize relations with Cuba!

Image: A view of Havana. Patxi64 // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Overturning child labor laws: top priority for GOP

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:37:00 +0000

Republican operatives recently opened up a new front: rolling back child labor laws. In Maine and Missouri, bills have been introduced into state legislatures to overturn legislation first introduced in the 19th century to prevent the exploitation of children.

In Maine, Republican state senators have introduced LD 1345, which would allow a sub-minimum youth "training" wage and significantly increase the number of hours teenagers are permitted to work while in school.

Maine was one of the first states to pass child protection laws in 1847.

The Maine bill, according to AlterNet, would "allow employers to pay anyone under 20 a six-month 'training wage' that falls more than $2 per hour below the minimum wage, eliminate rules establishing a maximum number of hours kids 16 and over can work during school days, allow those under 16 to work up to four hours per school day, allow home-schooled kids to work during school hours and eliminate any limit on how many hours kids of any age can work in agriculture (with a signature from their parents or legal guardians)."

A companion bill, LD 516, would permit teenagers to work up to 11 p.m.

The National Law Employment Project, along with the Maine Peoples Alliance, has taken out a statewide ad in Maine, calling on far-right Gov. Paul LePage not to support the move.

(Story continues after video.)

Gov. LePage enraged the labor movement recently by removing a mural dedicated to workers in the state Department of Labor office.

In Missouri, the proposals are even more drastic. The bill, SB 222, was introduced by state Sen. Jane Cunningham, and, under its provisions, "children under the age of 14 would no longer be barred from employment. They'd also be able to work all hours of the day, no longer need a work permit from their school and be able to work at motels and resorts so long as they're given a place to lay their weary heads each night. Moreover, businesses that employ children would no longer be subject to inspections from the Division of Labor Standards."

Even some Republicans in Maine are alarmed about the bill there. "This bill," writes Maine Republican Mark Bulmer in an op-ed for the Portland Press Herald, "will allow employers to hire fewer people currently in the unemployment line, while maximizing young people's working hours and pocketing more profit."

Bulmer got it right: big business and corporate profits are behind the effort: "Both bills, as you might imagine, are being championed by various industry groups, notably, in Maine, the Maine Restaurant Association," says AlterNet.

While Maine and Missouri are on the front line of the drive to exploit children, a broader effort is at work, as many in the extreme right Republican Party believe that federal protections on child labor are unconstitutional. Among them are Sen. Mike Lee,R-Utah, and GOP presidential hopeful Gary Johnson. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas has also expressed this point of view.

For Maine's Republican politicians, however, the issue seems to be strictly business: "Nobody objects when a kid gets on the bus at 2 p.m. and doesn't get home until 11 o'clock at night, nine hours later, because he or she is off playing a sport -some of those kids are working way more hours than 20," says Sen. Debra Plowman, a Hampden Republican.

Plowman is a sponsor of the bill.

A coalition of labor, families and educators in the last century came to together to oppose child labor to prevent exhausted children from falling asleep in class.

Image: Creative Commons 2.0

Republican rejection of science threatens humanity

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:42:00 +0000

ScienceDaily for April 19, 2001 has a disturbing news report ("Democrats and Republicans Increasingly Divided Over Global Warming, Study Says"). While scientists around the world are coming to a growing consensus concurring on the reality of global warming, Americans are being polarized along political lines with Democrats accepting the scientific consensus and Republicans rejecting it.

Dr. Aaron M. McCright of Michigan State University published "a first-of-its-kind" study of the politics of global warming. McCright, who was named in 2007 as a Kavli Frontiers Fellow in the National Academy of Sciences for his work on the sociology of climate change, says that it is "depressing" to see the gap growing between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of climate change. The gap jumped by 30% between 2001 and 2010. SD says McCright concludes that this gap keeps "meaningful national energy policies from being considered."

As long as science is rejected how can we meaningfully solve our problems? How could we have funded cancer research if Republicans rejected the scientific view that cancers exist? This is pretty much where we are at today on the issue of global warming.

McCright says, "Instead of a public debate about different policies to deal with global warming, a significant percentage of the American public is still debating the science. As a result, we're failing to significantly address one of the most serious problems of our time."

By going over 10 years of Gallup Poll results the study found that people on the political right are increasingly rejecting the scientific consensus on global warming while people on the political left basically accept it.

Other findings were that in 2001 49% of Republicans thought global warming was already having effects but this number dropped to 29% in 2010. In 2001 60% of Democrats thought global warming was under way, a number that grew to 70% by 2010.

If people did not call themselves Republicans or Democrats, but used the terms conservative and liberal instead then the gap grew from around 18% in 2001 to 44% in 2010.

Having a college degree makes it more likely that liberals and Democrats accept the scientific view but more unlikely that Republicans and conservatives will. If even college educated Republicans and conservatives are rejecting science then we are in real trouble. However, since we don't know how many of them got their degrees from bible colleges we can't really know for sure what's going on with them.

McCright explains these figures from the "prevailing" theory of how the American people get their political ideas - from "political elites." McCright says, "In the last few decades political elites have become polarized on climate change. This has driven the political divide on this topic within the American public, as regular citizens have taken cues from ideological and party leaders they trust."

People also tend to turn to media outlets that reinforce what they already think. For example Fox news vs. NPR (which itself has more conservative than liberal viewpoints expressed, yet is deemed liberal). People who like one rarely pay attention to the other. Yet one actually reports scientific findings and the other prefers pseudo-science.

Well, "this is not a recipe," McCright says, "for promoting a civil, science-based discussion on this very serious environmental problem. Like with the national discussion on health care, we don't even agree on what the basic facts are."

Are things looking better? Not according to Dr. McCright. SD quotes him as follows: "Many Republican Party leaders have moved further to the right since the 2008 presidential election. We've also seen attacks on climate science by Tea Party activists. It seems like climate change denial has become something of a litmus test for Republican candidates. This continued elite polarization on climate change means that the general public will likely remain politically divided on climate change for a while."

So, the future does not portend well for the US to do anything serious in the realm of climate change. With many scientists convinced that 350 Parts per million of atmospheric CO2 is the upper limit that our air can take that is compatible in the long run with most life on Earth (we are already at 391 ppm and growing by 2 ppm every year) the longer the Republicans ignore science and cater to special interest groups (i.e., the big capitalist corporations) the more damage they do to the entire planet for their personal short term agendas. This is a real crime against humanity now and in the future.

Photo: Physicist Janet Machol explains how her LIDR, an acronym for light detection and ranging, experiment, works aboard the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration research ship, Sept. 11, 2006 in the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston, Tex. The scientists on the ship were part of a team of more than 200 scientists, plus five aircraft and a multitude of land and sea-based sensors participating in the project known as the Texas Air Quality Study. (David J. Phillip/AP)

Five steps to get ready for 2012

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:20:00 +0000

The 2012 elections are casting a long shadow over the nation's politics, economics and public discourse.

For the Republican right, electoral success next year is crucial in order to radically transform the country to the advantage of the most reactionary sections of monopoly capital and their mixed bag of dangerous allies.

No one on their side, including tea baggers, is going to stay home on Election Day 2012. They will all be expected to march to the polls and bring others with them.

For our side of the struggle, the 2012 elections are of paramount importance too. No other struggle has the same possibility to rearrange the political balance of forces in a progressive direction, to put the working class and people's counteroffensive onto a new forward trajectory.

Some on the left disagree, and advocate either staying home or making a "strategic break" with the two-party system. But there are three questions that must be asked:

* Would staying home or making a "strategic break" enhance the chances of beating the right?

* Are millions of people and their organizations ready to drop the Democratic Party and form a big, broad, labor/people-based political party in the near term?

* Are the differences between Republican and Democratic parties so insignificant that it doesn't matter who wins?

I believe the answer to each of these questions is an emphatic "No."

While millions understandably feel dissatisfied with the Democratic Party, it hasn't risen to the point where they are ready to bolt anytime soon. Nor are they ready to dismiss the real differences, say, between House Republican Paul Ryan's draconian, fatten-the-rich long-term budget plan and the plan that President Obama outlined, in which he defended Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other public programs.

The aggressive role of right-wing extremism in recent months has only reinforced these sentiments.

Politics is a complex and impure process. And as the Rolling Stones sang, "You can't always get what you want." In which case, you try to get what you need with what is available. That's not pragmatism, but political realism informed by the overriding necessity to decisively defeat the right in next year's elections.

Thus, for now, the only vehicle - as inconsistent as it is - that can take down the right in an electoral contest is the Democratic Party.

So what is to be done?

Here are five things that strike me as critical.

* The further building of the spirited, hopeful, visionary, labor-led people's coalition and counteroffensive in every neighborhood, city and state, and nationwide, is at the top of the agenda - especially in the context of the elections.

This movement is the power base of any progressive turn in our nation's politics. Take it out of the equation and only minor reforms are possible at best; at worst, the Republicans go on the offensive as they are currently doing, Democrats waver and give in, and politics shift to the right.

But neither our nation nor the world can afford another era of right-wing-dominated politics. The price is too steep. The future of humankind and the planet is too fragile.

* The next task is to deepen the unity of this movement. Only a movement that unites all races and nationalities, young and old, men and women, immigrant and native born, gay and straight, urban and rural, workers and small business people, and labor and its allies has the political capacity to push the country down a progressive path and safeguard the future.

* A requirement of any progressive and radical agenda is an elevated and sustained struggle for racial and gender equality. Both are of strategic importance. Anyone who devalues the struggle for racial and gender equality and against racism and male supremacy limits the sweep of any potential victory, and provides an opening to the Republican Party and the most backward sections of our ruling class to mobilize people along racist and male supremacist lines.

* There is a burning need for us to engage our adversaries on an ideological level. Our side fights with one hand behind its back when it doesn't bring persuasive arguments and compelling stories into the marketplace of public opinion. Though we don't own the mainstream media, we should still fight to be heard in it and also take full advantage of online media.

When the broader movement takes part in the battle of ideas, people respond positively. Some of the ideas that already resonate with millions include: tax the rich, racism chains working people of all colors, economic crises hit racially and nationally oppressed people harder, wealth comes from labor and nature, working people have no stake in wars of occupation, and the country is not broke.

The image of socialism as economically just, ecologically sustainable, democratic, peaceful, and part of the American experience can and does resonate as well.

* Finally, a bigger left and Communist Party is necessary for any sustained and far-reaching political advances. It is a fact that progressive and democratic breakthroughs in our nation's history have been bound up with popular uprisings in which a growing left played a critical role. There is no reason to think it will be any different going forward.

But here's the rub. Both the left and the Communist Party are too small given the scope of today's challenges.

Photo: Liz Henry // CC BY-ND

Earth Day turns 41, now what?

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:50:00 +0000

As of April 22, Earth Day will be 41 years old. Started in 1970, this annual observance offers an opportunity to review the state of the earth and of the movement to save it. Many will focus on the thinking of Gaylord Nelson and Dennis Hayes, the "official" founders, and what they originally intended.

The problem with Earth Day is that it is usually accompanied by two divergent approaches. One is the nice, feel-good style of school observances, all about how we each can individually make a difference. The other is vaguely or explicitly apocalyptic, all about how dire the threats to our existence are.

It is easy to fall into despair about the future because there really are dire threats: global climate change, declining crops yields, increasing water stress, escalating extreme weather events, much faster rates of species extinction and deforestation, depletion of natural resources, to mention just some.

It is hard to find a balanced and sensible way forward in all this. New technical and scientific possibilities are seen by some as magic bullets to solve one or another of our environmental challenges. Others seem determined to dash any hopes for a better future, to find nothing but signs of impending disaster.

The environmental movement is not really a single movement with a unified approach. Some organizations focus on electoral activism (the League of Conservation Voters), others on preserving undeveloped land (the Nature Conservancy), others on legislative action and coalition building (the Sierra Club), others on threats of species extinction, to list just a few.

Alongside these movements, there are many scientists and inventors working hard at finding new and better ways of accomplishing energy production, manufacturing, agriculture, and transportation.

Additionally, there are many organizations, including unions, which organize to fight particular health and environmental threats, and there are many millions of people who strive to make better choices for the environment in their own lives.

We need to recognize the need for all these approaches. We need to unify a real understanding of the truly dire threats with a positive recognition of new scientific developments, with the understanding that the various environmental crises we face are not primarily technical problems but require mass movements and the involvement of tens of millions of people.

Earth Day is a moment to recommit ourselves to protecting the planet, and to building the mass movements and coalitions necessary to saving humanity and the planet on which we depend.

Image: Stephen Thomas // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

GOP budget would shift the country sharply to the right

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:18:00 +0000

President Obama got it right in his speech on the budget last week when he said the Republican Party's goal "is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America."

Forged in the great social struggles of the 1930s and 1960s, this social contract upholds the right to organize unions, a minimum standard of living for the elderly, as well as voting, housing and health care rights for victims of historic discrimination.

Undergirding this 20th century social contract is the idea that government has a role to play in regulating excesses in the capitalist economy and assisting the poor, the disabled and the elderly.

This role is now seen as harming the corporate bottom line. The U.S. ruling class and, indeed, the ruling classes of other developed capitalist countries see it as interfering with business "competitiveness."

As we noted earlier, large sections of European and U.S. business have come to an ideological and political consensus and concluded, "We can no longer afford it." As one German banker said, "Half of the social benefits [pensions, universal health care] have to go; people have to work more, longer hours, longer years; otherwise, it is impossible to continue to fund the present system."

These concepts have risen to the level of policy in the Republican Party budget, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last week. This budget would end the guarantee of Medicare and Medicaid, cut Head Start and Pell grants severely and slash food stamps by over 20 percent.

No longer content to posture on social issues like Planned Parenthood and abortion, investigation of Muslims and attacks on NPR, the GOP majority in the House almost unanimously has declared open class war on the American people.

This assault, combined with the union-busting and budget-cutting measures of Republican governors, is a clear and unequivocal sign of what will be in store for the country if the ruling-class extremists win in 2012.

Some Democrats, including the president, now seem to be taking a more assertive posture. Politics, however, does not begin at the top and, as recent events have clearly shown, cannot be left there.

A massive fightback down below unlike anything seen in recent memory is required to deal the right-wing extremists a severe blow. Only this will allow friendly but wavering politicians to do the right thing.

Republican Paul Ryan called the GOP budget "a defining moment." The congressional GOP's unanimous vote cast the die.

The battle for the soul of America has begun.

Image: Speaker of the House Republican John Boehner, GOP House budget committee chair Paul Ryan and fellow congressional Republicans. Talk Radio News Service // CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

A little poem ponders "birthers"

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:44:00 +0000

Who Knows?

Most people have birthdays ‹
so I've been led to believe.
A few, however, are suspect;
their birth is hard to conceive.

Take the tea party ranters:
instead of reasoning, they shout.
Perhaps they're from outer space ‹
they certainly are spaced out.

A senator from Arizona
invented a figure as actual.
His staff then clarified it:
it wasn't meant as factual

A Rep from Minnesota
is forever citing history.
Historians, however,
say her stuff's a mystery.

I wouldn't be surprised
if it were soon revealed
that body snatchers invaded
our porous political field.

Photo; The news about Newt Gingrich, back in 1995 when he was a congressman. (Joe Marquette/AP)

Happy Easter: a new world is coming

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:17:00 +0000

Easter isn't about Easter bunnies - or even about going to church in Easter bonnets. The real message of Easter speaks powerfully to everyone, whatever their religious belief or unbelief.

Easter got started when, after the revolutionary preacher Jesus was executed by the forces of empire, some of his disciples had powerful experiences that convinced them that he had beaten death and was still present with them - and that Jesus's victory over death was the start of a new world in which all oppression and injustice would be defeated. Some might argue that those experiences were fantasy or hallucination - but what those disciples then did was certainly no hallucination: they went on to build a movement, especially among the poor and oppressed, that shook the Roman Empire to the point that its rulers ultimately felt compelled to take it over and co-opt it. Yet even through all the centuries that ruling classes have tried to suppress the revolutionary element of the Easter message, people's forces have time and again reclaimed it. Just look at the peasants' revolts in medieval Europe, liberation theology in Latin America, and Martin Luther King and the civil rights and other people's movements in our own country.

People of any faith or no faith should look beyond the bunnies and eggs and flowers to that original revolutionary Easter message: another world is not only possible - it's already on its way. Easter should spur us on to the struggle to bring that new world to birth.

Image: vanherdehaage // CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

“My Perestroika”: Russians cope with capitalism in fascinating documentary

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:19:00 +0000

Movie Review
My Perestroika
Directed by Robin Hessman
2010, 87 mins, Unrated

In 1949, essays by six ex-Communists about why they quit their pro-Moscow parties appeared in the book The God That Failed. Contributors included American and French men of letters such as Richard Wright and André Gide - but none from the Soviet Union. Now documentarian Robin Hessman, an Academy Award-winning Yank who spent years in Moscow, has directed/produced My Perestroika, an 87-minute film about five Muscovite classmates who grew up together back in the USSR and now live in the Russian Federation ruled by Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin and company.

Few films released in the West have shown how the transition from socialism has affected Russians and other Eastern Europeans. Hessman's doc, released as the world commemorates the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, does not paint a pretty picture of socialism's lost generation; My Perestroika is no my blue heaven.

American audiences, who grew up believing the "Russkies" were our rivals, if not outright enemies, will be intrigued by revealing glimpses of life in the USSR. The award-winning film deftly weaves archival footage, news clips and home movies of the Soviet yesteryear's then children with original material shot by Hessman of the now adults. Early on we see black and white 8 mm shots of Olga, remembered as the prettiest girl in the class. My Perestroika then jump cuts to today's 40-ish Olga: Time has not been kind to the former beauty, now a solo mom earning a living by overseeing billiard tables. This startling juxtaposition seems to sum up My Perestroika's viewpoint about what has happened to that generation ravaged by the collapse of socialism, and now plunged into the dog-eat-dog world of a not-so-free market system.

The quintet look back with irony at how they grew up with Young Pioneers and propaganda. Each, however, tellingly recounts how they nevertheless enjoyed happy childhoods - in contrast to some of their children. Sure, there was indoctrination at schools, in the media, etc., but none of them suffered material hardships, they felt nurtured and had a sense of purpose living in a country that claimed to be advancing toward an egalitarian classless society. As grown-ups, the former Komsomol members may now mock the party line, but there is something to be said for opposing imperialism and nuclear war with Reagan's America, and working for peace. Perhaps when party lines are ridiculed we should apply a sort of line-item veto: While some should be discarded, others (like supporting the Spanish Republic, Nicaragua's Sandinistas, etc.) are worth remembering and keeping.

How this lost generation has coped from Brezhnev-style rule to Gorbachev's Perestroika (reconstruction) to Yeltsin/Putin/Medvedev capitalism is a fascinating odyssey. The Muscovites age and grow and adapt - or don't - in different ways. The musician Ruslan, a former punk rock star, strikes a Brechtian dissonant chord, rejecting the consumerism and money madness that has befallen his troubled nation. No orthodox party liner, he yet seems to retain some Marxist ideals. At the opposite end of the continuum, Andrei has prospered as a successful businessman in the new Russia. In between the two poles, Borya and Lyuba, married history teachers, express alienation, as does the faded Olga. Perhaps they've seen better days.

It's fascinating what happens to human beings when their "god" fails them. My Perestroika explains that after the collapse of Gorbachev's socialist reform effort, masses of people turned to mysticism. The god today's free-enterprise Russia worships is the Almighty Ruble. Hessman also shows that the worst excesses of bourgeois society, scorned by conservatives - drugs, punk rock and the like - were, amusingly, hailed as "freedoms" during and after Gorbachev. One man's freedom is another man's poison.

My Perestroika doesn't show, unfortunately, that there was probably more media freedom under Gorby than in today's Putinized, scrutinized Russia. Nor that for all its drawbacks and flaws, the collapse of the Soviet bloc has meant that U.S. imperialism is no longer opposed by a potent countervailing force. Washington's post-Soviet war mongering plus NATO expansionism now go largely unchecked by a comparable superpower.

It's often said that Marx and Engels were mistaken when they wrote that socialism could only be achieved by international revolution in the industrially advanced countries. Instead, we have seen that largely rural, peasant nations have attempted to bring about socialism. My Perestroika made me reconsider that Marx and Engels said exactly what they meant and were correct.

In any case, it would be fascinating if Hessman returned to her quintet and periodically filmed sequels of their life journeys as Russia continues to evolve. Watch for My Perestroika in your area.

Photo: In a scene from the film, Borya and son Mark watching home movies of Borya's childhood during the 1970s in the USSR. Courtesy Red Square Productions.