People Before Profit blog

The future of immigration reform

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:26:00 +0000

As the U.S. Senate begins the process of considering its immigration reform bill, S 744 (The Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013), and as the House of Representatives drafts multiple proposals, one of the dimensions that is likely to generate more heat than light is that of the management of future immigration flows.

Politicians, mostly Republican, who oppose any legalization of undocumented immigrants claim that to do so would open the floodgates to masses of new undocumented immigrants who would hoping for another legalization program in the future. Others insist that anybody here without papers who wants to be legalized go to "the back of the line" and wait their turn until all current applications for immigration visas have been attended to. Yet others say that immigration is good for the United States but that we have to tailor visa policy to specific needs of the economy (in other words labor demands of the corporations).

So S 744 proposes eliminating the Diversity Visa Program, reducing the scope of visas for family members of U.S. citizens by eliminating the eligibility for family based visas of brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens, and of sons and daughters 31 years old or older, and adding merit-based visas. The latter would be allocated on the basis of characteristics of the applicant deemed desirable, such as "educational degrees, employment experience, the needs of U.S. employers, and age."

To some extent, this would be balanced by measures to reduce the backlog of family-based visa applications.

However, strong objections, especially by African-American leaders and organizations, have been raised to eliminating the Diversity Visa Program. They point out that this program, which distributes 55,000 Permanent Legal Resident Visas per year by means of a lottery that is adjusted yearly to allow more visas for countries which have had fewer immigrants in the past, is one of the only ways that Africans can immigrate legally to the United States.

Besides trying to regulate the flow of new documented immigrants in this way, S 744 increases repressive mechanisms at the border and within the country. The former is by demanding that before legalization can be offered to the current undocumented population, estimated at about 11 million people, certain goals have to be achieved in terms of shutting down undocumented immigration across the southern U.S.-Mexico border.

Also, all employers would, after the passage of four years, have to use the EEVS or E-Verify to check up on the authenticity of the Social Security numbers presented by their employees. E-Verify is a government data base that employers can access. The worry is that people excluded from jobs that way will be forced to seek even worse jobs with under-the table payment arrangements, and also that errors in the government data base may harm the job prospects of people who are, in fact, legally authorized to work.

All of this has an air of unreality about it, when looked at in the context of the global dynamics that are driving undocumented labor migration today.

Profit-driven globalization, spearheaded by major transnational corporations and by the governments of the wealthy capitalist countries (including, but not only, that of the United States) has had an impact of eliminating the sources of livelihood of millions of poor farmers and workers worldwide. The often-cited North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is only one of the many international treaties and institutions under the aegis of which subsistence farming in poor countries has been replaced by highly mechanized agribusiness operations which are run by transnational corporations and which drive millions of peasants off their land. Other kinds of jobs are eliminated also, as national industries in poorer countries cannot compete with major transnationals. When poor countries are forced to hat in hand to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to get loans and development aid, the price is often austerity which involves laying off government employees, and rigged "free" trade which wipes out local industries. All of these things create unemployment and also push incomes down to the level that families can no longer feed themselves. Though many categories of people are thus negatively affected, typically those who hit the migrant trail are farmers and workers with little formal education, for whom obtaining legal immigration visas is very difficult.

There is another, increasingly important dimension, which is personal security. Economic crises combine in some countries with a violent crime crisis, causing people to flee to protect their families from violence. This is especially true in Central America right now. And Central America is where an increasing number of undocumented immigrants originate, especially the countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

Part of the reason is the massive drug trade controlled by Mexican cartels who have operations in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. In Guatemala and Honduras, corrupt right wing governments have contributed to the insecurity crisis through their history of repression. In Honduras particularly, which now has the highest murder rate in the hemisphere, the security crisis has ballooned since the June 2009 overthrow of progressive President Manuel Zelaya. So thousands of Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans risk their necks by climbing up on top of the cars of "la bestia" (the beast), the freight train that carries them from the Mexico-Guatemala border to the staging area for people trying to cross over into the United States.

The riders on "la bestia" are frequently assaulted, raped, and robbed by criminal gangs, as well as being harassed by Mexican police. Thousands of them simply have disappeared at the hands of the narco cartels. Others are kidnapped on the way North and held until their relatives in the U.S. pay ransom money. But still they come.

These are the realities which push undocumented immigration to the United States. If people can't come across the Southern border, as long as these conditions exist, they will come down through Canada or as increasingly the case, by sea, to the Gulf or West coasts of the United States.

These things are difficult if not impossible for most of our politicians to recognize, because they call into question the whole basis of U.S. trade and foreign policy. But that is precisely what must be questioned.

NYC transit worker’s death prompts training reflection

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:11:00 +0000

In the early morning hours of April 24, Transit Workers Union Local 100 member Louis Moore, who helped maintain the signal system of New York City's transit system, was struck and killed by a train while he was working on a track bed.

Moore's tragic death marks the end of the longest period in the history of the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) without the death of a union-represented worker on the tracks. This extended period of relative "on track" safety was likely the result of the unprecedented changes in track safety procedures that followed the deaths of Daniel Boggs and Marvin Franklin in 2007.

The deaths of Boggs and Franklin resulted in a sweeping review of safety procedures, spearheaded by the union's leadership, which also worked with the NYCTA leadership to initiate a historic training for workers and managers, which takes place on transit authority time. It is important to point out that all NYCTA mangers, from the bottom to the top, were compelled to participate in this training impress on all levels of management the primacy of track safety.

At this point a moment should be taken to fully appreciate this training. It really represented a unique achievement for TWU Local 100. Not only did it represent a high point for labor's achievements in the United States, but resulted in real improvements in worker safety for all. These improvements included not only track safety legislation and the establishment of a track safety committee with authority, but also concrete procedural changes, such as the definition of adjacent tracks, requirements that tower operators alert train operators to the presence of all groups or individuals working on the tracks and enhancements to point-to-point flagging protection for maintainers. This was the basis for the extended period of track safety.

Unfortunately, after five-six years, the momentum generated by this safety victory seems to have dissipated and safety has once again been sent to the back of the bus by transit authority management. Reportedly, within hours after the death of Moore, before any initial investigation could be concluded, management was again sending work crews out on the tracks.

Photo: Louis Moore (via TWU 100)

Bush Library: Brazen attempt to rewrite history

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:52:00 +0000

With a price tag of $250 million, the George W. Bush library is the biggest and most expensive of the 13 that have been opened to recognize the former presidents.

It is a major part of a well-orchestrated campaign underway for months now to whitewash what was very likely the worst presidency in the history of the United States. We don't believe the campaign will succeed , however, because the memories of the American people are not short enough for that to happen.

The theme of the new "library" is not George Bush, the failed president, but George Bush the "statesman" who had to make a lot of "decisions." Laura Bush showed the press yesterday how visitors will be able to enter an "interactive decision making room" where they can participate with the former president in making the many decisions he so bravely made.

"Bush made lots of presidential decisions," right wing pundit Charles Krauthammer opined yesterday on Fox. To all of this we say, "So what? What other kinds of decisions would a president make? The issue is not whether Bush was a major decision maker but what kinds of decisions he made.

He could have decided not to challenge recounts in Florida all the way up to the Supreme Court and allow the man who won the majority of votes in 2000 to become president of the United States or he could have decided to push the issue until the court intervened on his behalf and installed him into the presidency. He decided to push and we ended up with an unelected president. Wrong decision.

After 9/11 he could have decided to invade Iraq or he could have decided not to invade Iraq. He made the decision that cost thousands of American lives, a million Iraqi lives and perhaps more than a trillion dollars. Wrong decision.

He could have decided to tell the truth about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or he could have lied about them. He decided to lie. Wrong decision.

As Hurricane Katrina neared New Orleans he could have decided to monitor and take charge of the crisis or he could have decided to attend Sen. John McCain's birthday party. He decided to go to the party. Wrong decision.

He could have decided to fight for more regulation of Wall Street or he could have decided on less regulation. He went for less regulation and soon there was a total meltdown in the financial markets. Wrong decision.

He could have decided to give tax breaks to the rich or he could have decided not to give tax breaks to the rich. He decided on the tax breaks and plunged the economy into its worse crisis since the Great Depression. Wrong decision.

He could have decided to rewrite U.S foreign policy along the neo-con lines advocated by Dick Cheney, his pick for Vice President, or he could have decided not to do that. He decided to go the neo-con way with unilateral intervention in battles underway all around the world. Wrong decision..

He could have decided to hookup with the super rich and their efforts to buy lawmakers all over the country or he could have decided not to do that. He decided to do it by putting Karl Rove in charge of everything in that department, including his own reelection effort. Wrong decision.

The Bush library devotes a huge amount of space to what most say were his good efforts to fight AIDS in Africa. When all else fails the right wing Bush legacy rehabilitation teams point to the former president's support for the efforts to fight the disease as proof of his humanitarianism.

On this issue they fail to mention, however, that it was the Congressional Black Caucus that played the leading roll. It was the African American lawmakers who first raised the issue with the former president and who developed and drew up a program and a plan to deliver the help that saved millions of lives.

Adding to our outrage about the new Presidential library is the announcement that many of the records on storage there, even those covered under the Freedom of Information Act, will not be available to the public for at least ten years, if not longer.

No "library" operates this way. But we shouldn't be surprised. The Bush Library is nothing more than an expensive attempt to rewrite history - an attmpt to turn a failed president into a "statesesman" who had to make a lot of "decisions." That effort, we believe, like the Bush presidency itself, will fail. The American people will make sure of it., The memory of the American people can be counted on.

Photo: DonkeyHotey/Flickr (CC)

The last mainstream intellectual defense of austerity crumbles

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:54:00 +0000

In 2010, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff (know in the econ trade as "R & R") released a paper, "Growth in a Time of Debt." The paper's profile was boosted by the authors' rising fame and reputation from a magisterial study, published also in 2010, of debt and default through the past 1200 years.

The paper and the book became an ideological bulwark of "austerity policy makers", who exploited it worldwide for right wing purposes, despite the authors' moderate political views. Reactionary and Blue Dog shills for the banking industry have been flailing around for mainstream economic support for their "hungry dog hunts harder" austerity policies. Until R & R, they had to be satisfied primarily with a cult of "captains of sinking ships", dressed as economists, known as the Austrian school of economics.

Despite the millions of lost jobs, and mass suffering caused by the banks extracting every dollar from their profligate lending practices, austerity has not led to recovery, but instead to a double dip depression in Europe, and undermining recovery in the U.S.

R & R's main result asserted that median growth rates for countries with public debt over 90 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are roughly one percent lower than otherwise; average growth rates are several percent lower. Countries with debt-to-GDP ratios above 90 percent have a slightly negative average growth rate.

This has been one of the most cited stats in the public debate during the Great Recession. Paul Ryan's Path to Prosperity budget states their study "found conclusive empirical evidence that [debt] exceeding 90 percent of the economy has a significant negative effect on economic growth." The Washington Post editorial board flatly asserted that this was the "responsible" economic consensus view, stating that "debt-to-GDP could keep rising - and stick dangerously near the 90 percent mark that economists regard as a threat to sustainable economic growth."

Is it really true? No, it turns out. For several countries cited, the causation is definitely backwards, meaning that slower growth led to higher debt-to-GDP ratios, not the other way around. And it's not clear that ALL the examples are of this type. Josh Bivens and John Irons made this case at the Economic Policy Institute. This rebuttal assumed that the data in R & R is at least correct. But from the beginning, researchers trying to replicate the paper's results have complained that Reinhart and Rogoff weren't releasing the data for their results.

However, in a new paper, "Does High Public Debt Consistently, Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff," Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash, and Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst successfully replicate the results. How? After trying to replicate the R & R results and failing, they reached out to Reinhart and Rogoff and they were willing to share their data spreadsheet.

Economist Mike Konczal summarizes:

"They found that three main issues stand out. First, Reinhart and Rogoff selectively exclude years of high debt and average growth. Second, they use a debatable method to weight the countries. Third, there also appears to be a coding error that excludes high-debt and average-growth countries. All three bias in favor of their result, and without them you don't get their controversial result about the magic 90% debt to GDP ratio."

The technical glitch in the original R & R paper is mostly important because it has enabled and forced examination of the other flaws that were evident (and pointed out by some) from the start. Fundamentally, bad (austerity) policy was not the result of R & R and other academic papers. Austerity against the 99 percent has been the preferred policy of most of the ruling class for decades, with some differences in how to implement it. The R & R paper was a convenient justification-if it had not been written, others would have been used.

Nonetheless, ideas take on a life of their own. To the extent that the exposure of R & R will make a difference, it probably reflects a growing unease with the dangers posed by the slash-and-burn policies being implemented.

As Paul Krugman notes,

"...the coding error isn't the biggest story; in terms of the economics, the real point is that R & R's results were never at all robust... But economists have been making these points for years, to no avail. It took the shock of an outright, embarrassing error to shake the faith of the Very Serious People in a result they really wanted to believe. ... my vague, unquantifiable sense is that the debacle is changing the conversation quite a lot, even among the guys in suits. And it was the coding error that did it."

Photo: Protesters march in Chicago's financial district. Peoplesworld.org

Rest in peace, Richie Havens

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:05:00 +0000

Richie Havens, an African American musician, hit the folk scene big time with the classic "Mixed Bag" in 1967. His "Handsome Johnny" composition caught my ear first with its fast then light Spanish rhythm guitar, and a unique vocal style mixing blues and gospel and something uniquely Richie Havens. The song was political, an attack on racism and war, but not boring - an important attraction in the 60's!

By the time Havens opened the legendary Woodstock concert of 1968, he was a major player in the counter-culture firmament, arranging signature covers of Beatles and Bob Dylan songs that he liked, as well as his own material. Eleanor Rigby, Here Comes the Sun, Just Like a Woman were big hits, especially for songs coming from the folk movement.

Richard P Havens was born on Jan. 21, 1941, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. He was the eldest of nine children. According to the New York Times, his father made Formica tables for a living and played piano with various bands. His mother worked for a book bindery.

He began singing with street-corner groups and gospel singers when he was about 12. At 14 he joined the McCrea Gospel Singers. He dropped out of high school, but spent the rest of his life educating himself, and was proud of the results.

Now, at age 72, Richie Havens is dead of a heart attack. He kept touring, recording and making movies until a month ago. He was a steadfast activist for social justice and peace until the end.

In a Rolling Stone interview in 1971 he recounted his unexpected invitation to open the Woodstock concert because the scheduled opening act had been tied up in traffic - like thousands of others! Havens performed 6 songs and ran out of prepared material - he had only been told he would play for 45 minutes. He "remembered that word I kept hearing while I looked over the crowd in my first moments on stage. The word was: freedom."

Havens begin chanting the word over and over eventually morphing into "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child". The medley became a highlight of the Woodstock movie, which also immortalized Havens.

"My fondest memory was realizing that I was seeing something I never thought I'd ever see in my lifetime - an assemblage of such numbers of people who had the same spirit and consciousness..."

Rest in Peace, Richie Havens, you've earned it.

Photo: Flickr (CC)

“Sticks to your soul” writing: Tribute to Phillip Bonosky

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:34:00 +0000

[Editor's note: Peoplesworld.org received the following appreciation and unique tribute to author and activist Phillip Bonosky from a "discerning reader" and library worker in Pittsburgh. We reprint it here with the author's permission.]

Dear People's World and Daniel Rosenberg:

Many thanks for printing the obituary on Phillip Bonosky.

I've spent the past few weeks, maybe even a month now, spending valuable and sleep-deprived time with Phillip Bonosky's (last?) novel, The Magic Fern.

I was taking a break from reading said novel this evening when I decided -- or at least found myself -- meandering about the interwebs, and stumbled upon the news of his death.

I first read his (earlier) novel, Burning Valley, in college - a requirement for a class on "working class literature." The novel was available for assignment because it had been brought back into print by the University of Illinois Press as part of their "Radical Novel reconsidered" series (with a declared focus on the post-WWII proletarian novels -- a unique genre, if anyone is familiar with the proletarian artistic movement which reached a high point in the 1930s -- Steinbeck, Lynd Ward, Michael Gold, WPA-funded murals, etc., inspired by radical movements in Latin America and Europe; and by the 1950s -- Cold War, McCarthy, Korea, "domino" theory of U.S. foreign policy -- was unpopular to say the least, if not effectively dead...). This is, by the by, the only novel that I was introduced to by this particular class that had any effect on me. And I consider myself a fairly discerning reader (albeit, there's no accounting for taste).

I re-read the novel last year, and, inspired, I convinced a very generously obliging co-worker at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, where I am a library assistant, to purchase two copies for the fiction collection (the book was represented - by the main library - by one, off-site, reference copy). When we received our nice new copies, I wrote up Bonosky's Burning Valley as my "staff pick," which you can read here (scrolling down, down, down):

http://www.carnegielibrary.org/books/staffpicks/staff/miguel.html

It is a brilliant book.

After reading it this second time, I actually headed down to Duquesne to do what ended up to be a lot of misguided driving and walking about trying to find the setting of the novel. I spoke with a former resident of Duquesne who updated Bonosky's novel a bit for me (gave me a far more current portrait of the City of Duquesne), and overall, my trip was a wasted day in that strict sense of not accomplishing the specific goal I set out for.

BUT -- I managed to ask some old folk who were heading to evening services at a church if they knew of a hollow that'd been filled up (cf. the plot of the novel). After one man told me to hold on a minute and ran to grab an even older man ... this second man told me I must be speaking of nickee - mickey - something along those lines - hollow. Long gone. Head down that-a-ways and you can see where it was. I headed down and didn't see anything. Left Duquesne frustrated and what not... and hadn't even heard clearly what name he had given the hollow-that-was-but-is-no-longer. Then, later, back at the ranch, and poring over one of those new Arcadia Publishing series books, the not-quite-heard name was clarified: "Nick Lee Hollow." I subsequently contacted the Mifflin Township Historical Society, and they completed the picture (literally - sending me two photos of the nevermore hollow).

And now I've almost completed The Magic Fern, and I have definite plans to submit it for consideration of republication by the New York Review Books (reprinters extraordinaire; reprinted Attaway's Blood on the Forge, the profound proletarian Pittsburgh Great Migration novel). Never have I read such brilliant lyricism mixed with the grit of everyday life. Burning Valley shows great skill, but the story is remarkably simple despite itself. It's something like Van Gogh's Starry Night. The Magic Fern is among the most dispassionate yet compassionate novels I have ever read, detailing the triumphs and tragedies of the unionization of steelworkers. It is a panorama of the Mon valley in the 1950s. It is much closer in spirit (continuing with the fine arts analogy) to Picasso's Guernica. There beat many warm hearts throughout these pages; and despite Bonosky's card-carrying politics, neither workers nor management are "white-washed." Bonosky clearly prefers the side of the working wo/man, and while -- perhaps -- simplifying the potential complexity of the motivations of the wealthy mill owners and town politicians, he offers up no straw dogs, nor martyrs... just gray figures maneuvering through a gray world.

Bonosky surrounds you with his world and his vision: it sticks to your soul like the pollution of the works sticks to the throats and lungs of the residents of the bottoms. It moves with you; you become extremely conscious of swallowing. Bonosky only insists that, despite the smog and soot that hangs over industry and production and kills as it saves, a vision of right and wrong persists.

Morality is not subject to capital; that is Bonosky's legacy.

I was appalled that his death passed seemingly completely unnoticed by the press.

All this is to say, that while I apologize for the length, then, of this email... I at least wanted to thank you for recalling the contributions of one of the greatest American writers of the 20^th century, who happened to be born in, forever influenced by, and inspired to write of, southwestern Pennsylvania and its workers.

Sincerely,

Miguel

Photo: PW

Can Destry ride again? An essay on gun control

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:45:00 +0000

The 1939 George Marshall, Jimmy Stewart, Marlene Dietrich movie "Destry Rides Again" says nearly all that needs to be said on subject of gun violence. In sum, the movie's moral is: if you want to live in a civilized society, where everyone still has the right to occasionally be drunk, reckless, quarrelsome, a loudmouth, or stupid - you have to check your guns when you enter town.

The narrative and direction of Destry are surprisingly unstereotypical in the manner of many westerns. A town is drowning in lawlessness. Its corruption is costing innocent lives, promoting cowardice and crime, ruining families, and threatening children. The corrupt forces are so contemptuous of the townspeople that they appoint a drunk they treat as a joke to be sheriff. The drunk, however, sobers up and calls for help.

Tom Destry, Jr, son of a famous shoot-em-up lawman who was himself killed by a backshooter, becomes the new deputy sheriff. He arrives unarmed. He wins over a decisive majority of the townspeople with his peaceable and what we would call today conflict-resolution approach to disputes. Of course this only enrages the corrupt forces as they become isolated. In the end, a showdown of force - it turns out the son of Destry can shoot - must take place to put the corrupt forces down. Contrary to many Western and modern thriller scripts, Destry does not win by becoming a bullet-proof virtual superman.

Instead he mobilizes the entire town to crush the corrupt forces, establish law and order, and disarm the lawless. The outlaws'monopoly on arms and violence is surrendered to town law enforcement. And, once the bad guys stop shooting, Destry lays down his weapons too.

Of course, reducing gun violence in modern America, is not as simple as in Destry (although Destry was not that simple). But neither is it a lot more complicated!

The main difference today is that the modern, corrupt, parasitical, one percent elites, especially those tied to energy, defense, agribusiness, big real estate, pharmaceutical, and most finance corporations, are much worse than the hooligans of yesteryear and have access to a whole lot more weapons than the crowd defeated by Destry. More, they appear to have captured enough of the U.S. Congress and Supreme court to effectively nullify government action, even when the public polls nine to one in the opposite direction.

As if the fecklessness of government action and the propaganda of violence and criminality that saturates nearly all mass media were not enough provocation, the still-deepening chasms of inequality across this land and the class war assaults of the ultra rich on the 99 percent are spreading a paranoia and fear not seen since Vietnam. Maybe it's even worse than that. The negotiated social contract under Roosevelt that made it possible for the nation to defeat Depression and and win the war against fascism, and later to pass civil rights legislation --- that contract has been steadily shredded since Reagan and his followers seized power for most of the past 35 years.

The number of gun-owners is declining. But gun sales are through the roof. Arms caching is the only math that adds up. One feels the palpable weight of loss here. Not only did Senate Republicans and four Democrats defeat even the most modest of gun registration restrictions, shamefully refusing to allow even a vote in front of the families of Newtown, Virginia Tech, and other slaughtered youth. But, despite unctuous sputterings of "concern" about mental illness (which Republicans typically vote to under-fund), what did they propose as an alternative? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Maybe its not possible to disarm in such an environment. Maybe the blood must flow in rivers, before the light emerges through seas of tears. Maybe we are standing before a flood of corruption equal to the Confederacy, or the British imperial monarchy, and no less doomed to tear the country apart.

I would much prefer a Destry like solution. I stand virtually naked. I don't own a gun. I have only Dr. King's potential weapons of mass organized disobedience to the vast corruption spreading like a pandemic. "If there must be blood, let it be ours." proving with his own life the power of that slogan. Obama exerted all his persuasive power to overcome the NRA lobbying to block ANY restraint on gun violence. I believe him. But so did Salvador Allende of Chile strive to protect democracy against military dictatorship, and Abraham Lincoln to preserve the Union in the face of slavery and armed rebellion from the Confederacy. Will rising fears, and deeply anti-democratic forces conspicuously arming themselves, conspire to nullify our peace, our safety, and our democracy? Is that where we are?

Photo: Flickr (CC)

How to tax the rich and audit them too!

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:10:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Auditors at the IRS generally do a decent job identifying how much wealthy taxpayers are trying to shortchange Uncle Sam. But the understaffed IRS is only examining a fraction of the returns the wealthy file, just 12.1 percent of returns reporting over $1 million in income.

How much in additional taxes due might the IRS identify if audit rates rose? Plenty. On 2011 returns, just-released figures show, the IRS found an average of $117,116 in taxes due on each return it examined that reported more than $1 million in income. If the IRS had examined all 2011 returns reporting over $1 million, the total taxes due identified from millionaire filers would have likely leaped from the $4.9 billion actually identified to $39.7 billion.

CEO pay, USA Today reported (before the AFL-CIO released its comprehensive Executive Paywatch data on April 15) rose eight percent last year, a figure calculated to include the value of new stock and option awards execs grabbed in 2012. But if we examine instead what CEOs actually took home last year, after cashing out awards granted in previous years, their pay hike soars to 40 percent!

"I'm shell-shocked. I can't believe this can go on," said John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard mutual fund company. An AFL-CIO-sponsored website (below) will let you know the latest CEO pay-and-perk data, which CEOs offshore jobs, too, and if Bogle's mutual fund (and others) are enablers of such lavish compensation packages.

The high pay and perks don't much bother Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich. He's introduced a bill to repeal the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act provision that requires firms to disclose the ratio between what they pay their top exec and typical workers.

No firms have yet had to make this disclosure, since the Securities and Exchange Commission still hasn't written the regulations necessary to enforce it, thanks to CEO lobbying. Right Wing Rep. Nan Hayworth, R-N.Y., a Tea Partyite, introduced a similar ratio repeal in 2011. Voters repealed Hayworth last November.

More complete data - much more complete than in USA Today - is at www.executivepaywatch.org. It also has links for you act against the CEOs' pay abuses, once your blood pressure drops...

Meanwhile, Palm Beach - the 16-mile barrier island just off Florida's coast - boasts a heavier concentration of awesomely affluent than any other zip code in America. What Palm Beach also boasts: More periodicals per capita than any place in the world. The 5,000 households of Palm Beach can partake of Palm Beach Life, Palm Beach Illustrated, Palm Beach Design, Palm Beach Woman, Palm Beach Society, and the venerable Palm Beach Daily News, a paper printed on newsprint "that prevents ink from smudging on well-manicured fingers."

What makes these pubs so popular? Endless pages devoted to photos from the Palm Beach party scene. The lushest annual party? That may be the March gala of the local historic preservation society. This year's gala turned a ballroom "into a white Russian winter fantasy, complete with ballet dancers and ice sculptures of giant bears." In Palm Beach...yeah, right.

On another front, this week's award for Petulant Plutocrat Of The Week goes to Rebecca Arbogast. She works for cable giant Comcast, whose five top execs at cable giant Comcast are each making, at last count, over $15 million. CEO Brian Roberts, Executive Paywatch reports, made $29 million last year, all by himself.

What Roberts and his Comcast colleagues are not making: Much progress narrowing the broadband speed gap between the United States and other nations. No problem for Arbogast, the firm's public policy vice president. Her job: Justifying dismal U.S. broadband performance. Her strategy: Total denial.

Public angst over the "alleged failing" of U.S. broadband, she's charging, rests on "disinformation." Contrasts with nations like South Korea rate as "silly at best." One purveyor of this "silliness," NetIndex, last week had the United States 33^rd globally in speed. Arbogast's attitude isn't surprising to industry analyst Karl Bode. "Denial has long been the battle cry" of broadband's corporate giants, "who'd prefer things stay exactly as they are...uncompetitive and costly," he says.

And now, let's measure what we treasure: What if inequality in America had not grown over recent decades? Where would we be now? In Maryland, a landmark new report vividly relates, families in the state's poorest fifth would be making twice the $15,000 they take home today if they held the same income share Maryland's poorest held back in 1968.

And if Marylanders remained as equal today as then, the state would also have less crime, fewer divorces, and better health. How do we know? Maryland has, since 2009, been collecting data on the 26 measures of social, environmental, and economic well-being that make up the Genuine Progress Indicator, or GPI. Unlike the standard "GDP," this new study notes, the GPI measures what matters - and can help people understand the terrible price we pay for tolerating inequity.

Sam Pizzigati is the editor of "Too Much"

Photo: Flickr (CC)

Chaos, then inspiration after bombing

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:53:00 +0000

The People's World staff adds its condolences to the victims and their families of yesterday's despicable bombings at the Boston Marathon. In the wake of the awful news, we tweeted, "Heartfelt thoughts to those athletes, fans, families, first responders and all in #boston" with #solidarity. It was during the festivities of the marathon and Massachusetts' Patriots Day that the devastation occurred.

More than 170 people are injured with 17 in critical condition. Many lost their limbs in what Massachusetts General's Dr. Alasdair Conn called, "traumatic amputations." Three lost their lives, including an 8-year-old boy from Dorchester, Mass., Martin Richard. Reportedly, after his father, Bill, crossed the finish line, Martin ran to hug him. It was just after that embrace when the first bomb went off, killing Martin. His sister and mother were injured.

We condemn, in no uncertain terms, this and other such terrorist attacks. Whether the work of a group - of U.S. or other origin - or a deranged individual, no one yet knows. But that doesn't stop some with racist and xenophobic agendas to pollute the airwaves with their conjecture. Such talk can only fuel more tragedy and violence.

The last leg of the marathon was dedicated to Newtown, Conn., and the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. That should give us pause. Bombings, shootings, drug war, hot wars, maybe the time has come to confront the culture, causes and cycle of violence!

The bravery of the first responders, whether public workers, runners, fans or race volunteers, in rushing toward those who were hurt and towards the explosion, smoke and chaos is to be saluted and recognized. Thank you for showing the best side of humanity amidst the worst. As the Communist Party said in its statement, "The spirit of cooperation and community in the face of violence is our greatest asset." It's through those actions and impulses that we can tackle the complexities of violence.

Lastly, we look to and celebrate the spirit of the marathon athletes. Tens of thousands train tenaciously for the opportunity to run in one of the world's greatest races. Maybe because they love running, maybe to overcome a health crisis, maybe they have something to prove, like they can run 26.2 miles at, say, age 78; for whatever reason, those women and men - older and younger - first-timers or elite athletes who train for such a race, your toughness and resilience inspires all.

Photo: Medical responders run an injured man to an ambulance following explosions in Boston, April 15. Two explosions shattered the euphoria of the Boston Marathon finish line. Charles Krupa/AP

How was it growing up under communism?

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:06:00 +0000

In a recent article in the London Daily Mail. Suzanna Clark, now a British citizen, talked about what it was like growing up "behind the Iron Curtain" in Hungary in the Seventies and Eightees.

"Most expect to hear tales of secret police, bread queues and other nasty manifestations of life in a one-party state," she writes in an unpublished article quoted by that newspaper.

"They are invariably disappointed when I explain that the reality was quite different, and communist Hungary, far from being hell on earth, was in fact, rather a fun place to live.

The communists provided everyone with guaranteed employment, good education and free healthcare. Violent crime was virtually non-existent."

Clark says that the thing she misses most about living in a Communist country is the degree to which people cooperated with one another on a wide range of things.

"But perhaps the best thing of all was the overriding sense of camaraderie," she said. "a spirit lacking in my adopted Britain and, indeed, whenever I go back to Hungary today. People trusted one another, and what we had we shared.

I was born into a working-class family in Esztergom, a town in the north of Hungary, in 1968. My mother, Julianna, came from the east of the country, the poorest part. Born in 1939, she had a harsh childhood.

She left school aged 11 and went straight to work in the fields. She remembers having to get up at 4am to walk five miles to buy a loaf of bread. As a child, she was so hungry she often waited next to the hen for it to lay an egg. She would then crack it open and swallow the yolk and the white raw."

Refusal to live under such conditions and the determination of people to make things better, Clark said, were major factors in the 1956 uprising against Hungary.

"The shock waves brought home to the communist leadership that they could consolidate their position only by making our lives more tolerable," she said. "Stalinism was out and 'goulash communism' - a unique brand of liberal communism - was in.

"Janos Kadar, the country's new leader, transformed Hungary into the 'happiest barracks' in Eastern Europe. We probably had more freedoms than in any other communist country.

"One of the best things was the way leisure and holiday opportunities were opened up to all. Before the Second World War, holidays were reserved for the upper and middle classes. In the immediate post-war years too, most Hungarians were working so hard rebuilding the country that holidays were out of the question.

Change for the better

Clark says the 1960s were a time when things changed for the better.

"By the end of the decade, almost everyone could afford to go away, thanks to the network of subsidized trade-union, company and co-operative holiday centres.

"My parents worked in Dorog, a nearby town, for Hungaroton, a state-owned record company, so we stayed at the factory's holiday camp at Lake Balaton, 'The Hungarian Sea'.

"The camp was similar to the sort of holiday camps in vogue in Britain at the same time, the only difference being that guests had to make their own entertainment in the evenings - there were no Butlins-style Redcoats.

Clark had fond memories of her life as a youngster girl at home.

"My parents had about 50 chickens, pigs, rabbits, ducks, pigeons and geese. We kept the animals not just to feed our family but also to sell meat to our friends. We used the goose feathers to make pillows and duvets.

"The government understood the value of education and culture. Before the advent of communism, opportunities for the children of the peasantry and urban working class, such as me, to rise up the educational ladder were limited. All that changed after the war.

"There were also evening schools, for children and adults. My parents, who had both left school young, took classes in mathematics, history and Hungarian literature and grammar.

I loved my schooldays, and in particular my membership of the Pioneers - a movement common to all communist countries.

Her ideas about the Pioneers are at great variance with notions about the Communist youth groups that are normally prevalent in the press. "Many in the West believed it was a crude attempt to indoctrinate the young with communist ideology, but being a Pioneer taught us valuable life skills such as building friendships and the importance of working for the benefit of the community. 'Together for each other' was our slogan, and that was how we were encouraged to think.

As a Pioneer, if you performed well in your studies, communal work and school competitions, you were rewarded with a trip to a summer camp. I went every year because I took part in almost all the school activities: competitions, gymnastics, athletics, choir, shooting, literature and library work."

Clark does admit, however, that being a student in Hungary during the Communist days was far from easy.

"Hungarian schools did not follow the so-called 'progressive' ideas on education prevalent in the West at the time. Academic standards were extremely high and discipline was strict.

"My favorite teacher taught us that without mastery of Hungarian grammar we would lack confidence to articulate our thoughts and feelings. We could make only one mistake if we wanted to attain the highest grade."

Cultural facilities were widely available during the Communist era, according to Clark.

This meant lavish subsidies were given to institutions including orchestras, opera houses, theatres and cinemas. Ticket prices were subsidized by the State, making visits to the opera and theatre affordable.

'Cultural houses' were opened in every town and village, so provincial, working-class people such as my parents could have easy access to the performing arts, and to the best performers.

Programming on Hungarian television reflected the regime's priority to bring culture to the masses, with no dumbing down.

"When I was a teenager," she said, "Saturday night primetime viewing typically meant a Jules Verne adventure, a poetry recital, a variety show, a live theatre performance, or an easy Bud Spencer film.

Much of Hungarian television was home-produced, but quality programmes were imported, not just from other Eastern Bloc countries but from the West, too."

Clark points to her father as an example of how people got by in those days without the modern obsession on money. "As a mechanic he made a point of charging people fairly. He once saw a broken-down car with an open bonnet - a sight that always lifted his heart. It belonged to a West German tourist.

My father fixed the car but refused payment - even a bottle of beer. For him it was unnatural that anyone would think of accepting money for helping someone in distress.

"When communism in Hungary ended in 1989, I was not only surprised, but saddened, as were many others. Yes, there were people marching against the government, but the majority of ordinary people - me and my family included - did not take part in the protests," said Clark.

"Our voice - the voice of those whose lives were improved by communism - is seldom heard when it comes to discussions of what life was like behind the Iron Curtain.

"Instead, the accounts we hear in the West are nearly always from the perspectives of wealthy emigrés or anti-communist dissidents with an axe to grind."

Clark admits that Communism in Hungary had its down side. "While trips to other socialist countries were unrestricted, travel to the West was problematic and allowed only every second year. Few Hungarians (myself included) enjoyed the compulsory Russian lessons.

There were petty restrictions and needless layers of bureaucracy and freedom to criticize the government was limited. Yet despite this, I believe that, taken as a whole, the positives outweighed the negatives.

Twenty years on, most of these positive achievements have been destroyed.

People no longer have job security. Poverty and crime is on the increase. Working-class people can no longer afford to go to the opera or theatre. As in Britain, TV has dumbed down to a worrying degree - ironically, we never had Big Brother under communism, but we have it today.

Most sadly of all, the spirit of camaraderie that we once enjoyed has all but disappeared. In the past two decades we may have gained shopping malls, multi-party ' democracy', mobile phones and the internet. But we have lost a whole lot more."

Photo: The author notes that under capitalism, Hungarians can, on one hand, now enjoy shopping malls like the one above in Miskolc. But job security, healthcare, and affordable vacations are things of the past. Alensha/Wikipedia

Postal mail: There's no app for that

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:47:00 +0000

Possibly it is a day when I don't have enough to do, but I did read an email that referred to postal mail as "snail mail." That is a popular term with all the younger folks and those who are really hip with computers, tablets, phone apps, and such.

But I wonder if they have really given thought to what they are saying. Of course, digital, electronic, etc., is fast and probably everyone who can, uses them. But consider that the U.S. Postal Service is vital to many urban communities and indispensable to small towns and rural areas.

Even in New York City neighborhoods, where I live, honeycombed with every kind of cell phone, email, and apps galore, every threat to close a post office has been met with community protests, most of which have won.

Further, it is the communications monopolies and their tea party, ultra-right allies who are trying to get rid of the Postal Service and privatize all communication to boost their profits, as well as dispense with the union membership among postal and other communications workers.

For several generations, a job with the U.S. Postal Service was a road out of poverty for tens of thousands. It was a steady job with decent benefits, which meant a family could get a mortgage on a modest house and plan for their future. A great many African American, and Latino families benefited from a family member working for the USPS, and still do.

It is important to engender respect for civil service jobs and the positive role that government can fill in our social fabric. Postal workers work hard to fulfill their role. Why should their work be thought of as "snail" mail? It is no more difficult to use "postal mail," and it adds a tone of respect.

Photo: Sorting mail in a small town post office before an afternoon delivery run. (AP)

Literature in crisis

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:04:00 +0000

Earlier this month, The New York Times published a guest editorial by mystery author Scott Turow. Turow titled his piece, 'The Slow Death of the American Author' and opened with a lament that, as a result of a reversal of a prior court decision, foreign publishers would now be able to import cheaper editions of American literary works. Turow goes on to decry the various methods, both legal and otherwise, that authors works are reprinted, loaned and scanned that whittle away at their royalties. Before he concludes, Mr. Turow reaches deep down into an intellectual swamp and dredges up that old reliable New York Times approved canard of anti-communism. He comes up with a most curious observation. Last October, Mr. Turow informs us, he was in Moscow where he met with authors who described, as he put it, "the sad fate of writing as a livelihood in Russia." The myopic Mr. Turow then concludes that "Soviet-style repression is not necessary to diminish authors' output and influence. Just devalue their copyrights."

Soviet style repression? Mr. Turow should double check his calendar. The fate the Russian authors with whom he spoke were being expressed 20 years after the collapse of the USSR. In fact, one could describe the 'sadness' of trying to make any living at all in the Russia of today, regardless of your chosen endeavor.

It was the socialist system of the USSR that enabled people to adjust the focus of their lives from bread and shelter to education and erudition. The USSR was known as one of the most literate societies in the world and it was this focus on education - provided free - that allowed the Soviet people to delve into the works of such Russian authors as Tolstoy and Pushkin. It was not just the Russian classics that were brought to a wide audience however. The Soviet Union fostered and encouraged new talents, such as Mikhail Sholokhov who would thrill the world with his epic, 'And Quiet Flows the Don' and simultaneously amuse, educate and tug at the heartstrings of the reader with his vivid, 'Virgin Soil Upturned'. Sholokhov did not turn his back on the society that allowed his talent to blossom. He was a proud member of the USSR Supreme Soviet and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee. The whole world would go on to recognize his talent, and in 1965 he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature. I'll bet Mr. Turow wishes he had one of those.

When it comes to repression of the author Mr. Turow might find more fertile ground to explore in the capitalist countries, such as Turkey which revoked the citizenship of poet Nazim Hikmet in 1959 for doing nothing more than supporting the cause of the working class. Mr. Hikmet would have to flee to the 'repressive' USSR in order to continue his work and stay out of the capitalist prisons of his birth country. His grave in Moscow remains a place of pilgrimage for Turkish patriots and lovers of literature.

Perhaps someone should remind Mr. Turow that it was the capitalist Chilean homeland of famed poet Pablo Neruda that forced him to flee through a mountain pass to escape the repressions of the government there.

Some of Mr. Turow's works have inspired feature films. It might do him good to look back upon the shameful Hollywood blacklist, in which famed screenwriters like Lester Cole, the man behind such classics as Objective Burma! (1945) would be branded and cast aside, their talent and output no longer welcomed by an industry in the grip of fear mongers and the American ultra-right.

In the end we might suggest that Mr. Turow simply expand his reading list. Perhaps he could include the works of African-American poet Langston Hughes who, in his poem, 'Poet to Patron,' described the antagonism between capitalism, creativity, and culture this way....

What right has anyone to say

That I
Must throw out pieces of my heart
For pay?

For bread that helps to make
My heart beat true,
I must sell myself
To you?

A factory shift's better,
A week's meager pay,
Than a perfumed note asking:
What poems today?

Photo: gacabo/Flickr (CC)

Keep hope alive, build a transformative movement

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:40:00 +0000

It is easy to become frustrated with the pace and the scale of change in recent years. Over the past 30 years or more, we have lost far more battles than we have won. Nearly every section of the working class - none more so than racially oppressed workers - has lost income, job opportunities, and rights as the capitalist class has ferociously pressed its offensive. Entire regions have been turned into economic wastelands. Many cities have become placeholders of poverty, inequality, and racial segregation. The temperature of the planet tracks upward. And wars and the buildup to wars for geoeconomic and geopolitical advantage, albeit disguised in the language of containing threats to world peace and stability, continue apace.

The election of President Obama in 2008 and his reelection in 2012 gave millions hope that this awful situation would change for the better.

But that hope hasn't been fully realized.

Some positive changes have occurred over the past four years to be sure. Indeed, we make a mistake not to acknowledge them.

But the changes have been far fewer than most working people had expected. Their hopes for a progressive turn in U.S. politics have yielded to a day-to-day grind that feels more like the past than a future filled with promise - thanks in no small measure to the obstructionist actions of right-wing extremism and its corporate backers.

To gain some perspective on this turn of events, it is helpful to look at two periods in the last century - the 1930s and the 1960s - and the confluence of factors that resulted in progressive and democratic political transformations in both decades despite a determined and powerful opposition.

In those dramatic times, the conventional wisdom that legitimized reactionary politics and practices gave way to new democratic understandings among substantial segments of the American people. Broad democratic unity and alliances of diverse people and organizations were painstakingly constructed. Divisions in ruling circles were utilized by the mass movements. New leaders and organizations emerged and the left grew rapidly. Millions of formerly passive people shed their lethargy, took to the streets and streamed to the ballot box. And, above all, a transformative movement reaching far beyond the "politically active" materialized in both decades, not all at once, not out of thin air, and not out of "revolutionary rhetoric," but out of the lessons learned and relationships built in day-to-day struggles.

We see signs of many of these features in today's struggles. But it is also fair to say that they haven't matured to the point where a change in the political dynamics in a consistently progressive direction is imminent.

We take understandable pride in the steady emergence of a working class, multi-racial people's movement that reached a new level in last year's elections. But it still doesn't possess, in my opinion, the depth of the movements of the 1930s and '60s, that is, their ability to reach down below and engage masses of people who up to then had been largely observers of the political process.

How do we explain this? There are multiple reasons, but I want to focus only on one. The three-decades-old neoliberal corporate offensive - ramrodded by right-wing extremism first of all - has galvanized resistance to be sure. But it also has - and this goes under-appreciated - crushed the hopes of countless numbers of people for the possibility of social change, while at the same time pushing them to rely on individual (not collective) responses to the crisis of everyday living (overtime work, second and third jobs, debt buildup, entry of the whole family - mothers of young children, teenagers, retirees, etc. - into the workforce) - not to mention debilitating behavior such as alcoholism, drugs, crime, suicide, and violence, especially against women.

Thus a task of today's movement is ideological as well as practical. It will have to combine its day-to-day organizing with a compelling and hopeful narrative that convinces millions that collective (and militant) avenues of action will bring changes for the better in their everyday lives.

In doing so, it will take a step closer to acquiring a depth of participation similar to the movements of the '30s and '60s, and thus become a transformative agent in U.S. politics.

Keep hope alive!

Photo: Virginia Civil Rights Memorial, State Capitol grounds, Richmond, Va., commemorating protests that helped bring about school desegregation in the state. The memorial was designed by American sculptor Stanley Bleifeld (1924-2011). Ron Cogswell CC 2.0

For the millionth time: Hands off Social Security!

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:42:00 +0000

Is this déjà vu? Presidents get re-elected, they make proposals to cut or privatize Social Security and Medicare, the American people react with righteous anger and the president loses the battle.

Social Security is known as the "third rail" in American politics, because you touch it and ZAP ... you die (politically speaking).

It happened with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; a similar battle is shaping up with President Barack Obama.

In a wrong-headed budget proposal, President Obama ties Social Security benefit cuts to deficit reduction. It reduces cost-of-living-adjustments (COLA) - a tiny bit per year - but over the course of 10-20 years the cuts add up to an average of $1,000 per year. The cuts come from a change in a price/human-buying-behavior formula called "chained CPI."

According to the Social Security Administration, grandparents who retire today would get $650 less per year at age 75 and more than $1,100 less at age 85. That's money stolen out of our grandparents' pockets and pockets of all future retirees, veterans and people with disabilities, which could pay a month's rent or a few weeks of groceries.

This benefit theft pays for continuing tax breaks for oil companies, hedge fund managers and other "swag" for corporate elite. Objectively, the president's proposal fuels the one percenters' class warfare on the rest of us. The president was reelected to do just the opposite.

Even though Social Security has nothing to do with budget deficits (Social Security benefits are paid for by employee and employer contributions), the White House claims the cuts are in exchange for a deficit reduction "grand bargain" with Republicans.

At best, this is a fool's errand. The sequester-loving, intractable Republican leadership has no interest in any compromise with the White House. Even with these concessionary cuts the Republicans have already said the president's budget is DOA.

Today, 2 million signatures protesting the cuts are being presented to the White House. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., promises to do everything he can to block the chained CPI proposal and cuts to Medicare.

When you think about it, these benefit cuts threaten the unity and fighting capacity of the coalition that backed the president last year. Maximum unity is needed to win comprehensive immigration reform, investment in jobs, infrastructure, education and clean energy, federal action to reduce gun violence and pay equity for women - all critical for the president's agenda. Now significant sections of the Obama coalition are forced to spend resources and energy in rightfully fighting the president's proposal; resources that could have been used to win on other issues.

There are winning alternatives to the budget battles. Sanders and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., have introduced legislation to eliminate the Social Security payroll tax cap on income above $250,000, so millionaires and billionaires pay the same share as everyone else. President Obama endorsed this approach during his 2008 presidential campaign.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has introduced a "back to work" budget that cancels the sequester and funds infrastructure, education, other public works, and provides aid to states and local communities to rehire laid-off teachers, firefighters and other public employees. All funded by closing tax cuts and loopholes enjoyed by the super-rich and corporations, and cutting military spending.

You can tell the president you may support him on many issues - but not on these cuts! Sign the AFL-CIO's petition that says: Benefit cuts to Social Security and Medicare are unacceptable. I'm calling on you to oppose any and all cuts to Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid benefits and focus on immediate solutions to get Americans back to work, like repealing the sequester and ending tax loopholes for corporations and the richest 2%.

Photo: Alliance For Retired Americans Facebook page.

Thatcher - Britain's most-hated prime minister

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:17:00 +0000

Margaret Thatcher, who the Morning Star describes as the most hated British prime minister of the 20^th century, died yesterday.

Victims of her attacks in the 1980's against workers and their allies showed little sorrow. Celebrations actually happened in communities across the UK.

The strongest satisfaction upon hearing the news of her death took place in former mining and industrial towns ravaged by the policies of her Conservative Party (the Tories).

In 1984 there were 170 working coal mines in Britain employing more than 170,000 people when Thatcher drew up a "hit list" of mines it would close. The ensuing strike against job losses pitted the striking miners and their union, the National Union of Mineworkers, against the Thatcher government and its police. Chris Kitchen, general secretary of the NUM, told BBC yesterday that, "unfortunately, for the vindictive acts she did to the mining community, I'll not be shedding a tear at her demise."

Thatcher sent 5,000 police in to attack the 10,000 striking miners with scores of injuries resulting. "She used miners as a political springboard. She knew what she was doing and it was a horrible way to do it," Daren Vaines, a former miner, told the BBC. In coal country Thatcher is remembered as the person who took nationalized publicly controlled industries and sold them off to private bidders, tossing workers out onto the scrap heap. She branded the striking miners "the enemy within."

No wonder the bar parties last night in Yorkshire, North Derbyshire, Durham, Northumberland, Scotland, south Wales, Kent, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire!

The ex-miners in Yorkshire began celebrations early.

One of them said: "We meet in the club every Monday afternoon. We'd been putting a bit of money by for when she popped her clogs.

"One of the lads waked in, told us she was dead and tipped the money out onto the table."

Among the Yorkshire celebrants last night was Mick Appleyard, a former miner and union official. "She killed my village," he said. "Sharlston [in West Yorkshire] is now a low-wage, menial wage economy, for those who are lucky enough to find jobs. Our young people are on the streets. There's nothing for them. They turn to drugs and drink because there is nothing else."

Thatcher didn't limit her attacks on workers to ordering police to smash the heads of miners. Showing contempt for all of Britain's poor and for immigrants in particular she pushed hard for institution of a national poll tax. The fewer voters the better, she thought, in a chilling preview of the voter restriction efforts of her GOP admirers here in the U.S. decades later. The ensuing riots against the poll tax, replete with images of cars burning in London's Trafalgar Square, were watched live in the homes of millions around the world.

Then there were the U.S. Cruise Missiles pushed by the Reagan Administration that she so willingly stationed in Britain and the infamous headline - GOTCHA - in the Sun. The headline referred to the torpedoing of the Argentine cruiser Belgrano. The boat, filled with a crew of Argentine boys, was sunk while in full retreat from the Falkland Islands. The boys were dead and Thatcher gave the thumbs-up signal to the British press.

The singer Morrisey, the former Smiths front man, tore into Thatcher's legacy in an open letter. "Every move she made was charged by negativity." Morrisey said. Thatcher was "barbaric" and a "terror without an atom of humanity," he added.

Morrisey writes: "She destroyed the British manufacturing industry, she hated the miners, she hated the arts, she hated the Irish freedom fighters and allowed them to die (Ten Irish freedom fighters on a hunger strike starved in the infamous Maze prison during her tenure), she hated the English poor, she hated environmental protectionists, and she was the only European leader who opposed a ban on the ivory trade."

Perhaps the worst thing about her death, many progressives around the world feel, is that her policies haven't died with her.

The austerity policies she put forward are being applied in Britain and Europe today and they are being pushed in the U.S. too. Ten million more are unemployed in Europe today than at the beginning of the current economic crisis, due to these austerity policies.

Just days before Thatcher's death in Britain, members of Parliament made deep cuts in welfare programs and tax cuts were approved for the United Kingdom's wealthy.

The flood of positive media stories about her now that she is dead follow major efforts to make her look good that were already underway over the last several years. Maria Margaronis writes in the Nation how the Meryl Streep movie, "Iron Lady" and how recently released Falkland War archives that show Thatcher in tears at the prospect of the death of British boys were attempts to make her look more "human" and therefore make her policies more acceptable.

The major media, its corporate backers and many governments are heaping praise on the now dead "Iron Lady." She is being adored as a near-saint who made millions realize that it was capitalism, not unions and socialism, that is the way forward.

Millions of workers and their allies around the world, however, know better. Her demise is not a cause for their concern any more than it is for the people in the bars in Yorkshire. What they are concerned about is ensuring that Thatcherite policies go the way of the "Iron Lady" herself.

Photo: Police clash with striking miners picketing outside Britain's National Coal Board's area headquarters at Doncaster in South Yorkshire, March 27, 1984, as the strikers stepped up their efforts to bring working pits to a standstill. (AP Photo)

NCAA and truth of college sports

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:45:00 +0000

As college sports fans ready themselves for the NCAA Basketball National Championship Game, a new report from the National College Players Association and the Drexel University Sport Management Department highlights the level of exploitation these players face.

The report notes that from 2011 to 2015, men's basketball and college football players will be denied $6.2 billion in value that their labors have developed since college sports athletes cannot be paid. The report also notes that: "an FBS - or Football Bowl Subdivision, is the highest tier in college sports - school had a fair market value of $456,612 above and beyond the value of their scholarship. The average men's basketball player had a fair market value of roughly $1.06 million over four years, not including his scholarship. (That figure is even higher at Bowl Championship Series schools: $714,000 for the average football player and $1.5 million for the average men's basketball player.)"

While some will inevitably argue that a scholarship is payment, studies have also conclusively proven that many full ride scholarships for athletes do not cover the true cost of attending the university. Byzantine NCAA rules prevent players from taking "impermissible benefits" even in cases of selling their own game worn jerseys or their own personal property like awards they were given. The realities of top tier college sports also make getting a job nearly impossible. In fact, the NCAA's entire designation of "student athlete" was created as a legal fiction to avoid having to pay out benefits to the players.

Cases of alleged grade manipulation (i.e. UNC), sham online colleges like Western Oklahoma State College were used for students to maintain eligibility with the minimum of work (i.e. 3 credit hours for 10 days of lessons), the tragic case of Dasmine Cathey and other examples show that these athletic programs are often more interested in winning and getting the adults money than actual education for students. There is also no guarantee of a student maintaining a scholarship since it is at the discretion of the school on a yearly basis. So, if an athlete gets injured or lacks on field/court production, they may not be able to continue their education if their family can't afford to pay. Even acknowledging that a scholarship is somehow payment for their labor, it is still exploitative. After all, the students are "compensated" with a mere fraction of the billions that their blood, sweat and tears create.

Where does all the money go? It goes to increasing coaches' salaries. USA Today noted a 70 percent increase in the average football coach salary since 2006 with 42 Division I coaches making at least $2 million. In basketball, coaches like Louisville's Rick Pitino made $4.8 million coaching this season while his athletes work for free, including Kevin Ware who suffered the nationally televised gruesome leg fracture and has now become the school's rallying cry as they advance in the tournament.

The money also goes to huge expenditures on facilities and stadiums. As the NCAA's own Knight Report "Restoring the Balance: Dollars, Values and the Future of College Sports" noted: "...from 2005 to 2008, athletics spending increased at more than twice the rate of academic spending at nearly all of the 103 Football Bowl Subdivision schools. On average, FBS schools spend more than six times as much on athletics per capita than on academics. And most schools are forced to tap general university funds to balance their athletics budgets." Other reports agree.

Given these massive expenditures, it is no surprise that many of these schools are struggling with their academic mission and keeping education as open and affordable as possible. Auburn is seeing tuition increases as the school pays Gene Chizik $7.5 million to not coach the football team. Texas has raised tuition 55% since 2003 and is paying a massive contract to their football coach Mack Brown. Les Miles of Louisiana State just got a raise in his new contract while the school resorted to raising tuition by double digits. These are just a few examples of an egregiously offensive national trend of an "arms race" mentality to ensure their program keeps bringing in the top recruits so they can win more games and pay coaches even more money.

College sports have created a system that enriches conferences, the NCAA and top tier coaches while fundamentally altering the mission of the University system. From the demand that causes money to be diverted from the educational goals of the school to the crassness of many schools that don't care whether or not an athlete actually learns, but only that they maintain eligibility so they can play on game day, the comments by backup Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones come hearkening back about athletes "playing school" when they are really there to play sports.

We can have a system that respects schools, their academic missions and the players for the value that they create on the court or field. However, of course, power never gives up anything without a demand. It is up to advocates of social justice, workers rights and sports fans to help athletes fight for just compensation for their labor.

For further reading, the author suggests Taylor Branch's "The Shame of College Sports" from The Atlantic and his e-book "The Cartel"

Photo: Fans cheer as Louisville's Kevin Ware takes to the court before the first half of the NCAA Final Four tournament college basketball semifinal game against Wichita State, April 6 in Atlanta. (AP /John Bazemore)

The Cuban Revolution began in 1959

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:51:00 +0000

HAVANA TIMES - Under a title devoid of historical accuracy and objectivity, Roberto Zurbano (the director of Cuba's Casa de las Americas publishing house) is trying to characterize the situation of blacks in Cuba today. As a critical evaluator of the subject, I share some of his assertions, but not in such absolute terms, much less with the lack of objectivity with which these are formulated or his conclusions in a recent The New York Times article.

History

Claiming that "For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn't Begun," his argument doesn't hold up, not even within the complex reality of Cuba today. Truly at the crossroads, the country is trying to find its own economically sustainable model so as not to repeat undergoing the degrees of economic dependence to which it was subject during three periods in less than a century (under Spain, the United States and lastly the USSR). During the final period (1960-1991), which was the most beneficial for the island, time was too short to definitively overcome the realities of a developing country.

Therefore, any explanation of what's taking place today in Cuba with respect to blacks necessarily involves a deeper understanding of those periods of dependency, when poverty on the island was also massively white, though wealth was never black. This situation was something that dragged on for several centuries until the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.

It was then that the poor population in Cuba benefited from a social policy - an extraordinarily humanitarian one - that fought against and still fights against poverty and inequality to the very edge of egalitarianism.

Within the social reality generated by that policy, blacks and "mestizos" also benefited greatly. As a result, we now have a significant number of black physicians, scientists, intellectuals and skilled workers - a situation that we owe to this social policy that profoundly marked Cuban society during the 30 years after 1959.

There's no denying that mistakes were made. One of them - perhaps the most significant - was to not consider "skin color" as a variable of social differentiation.

It wasn't taken into account that because of their different historical starting point, blacks (in addition to being poorer) had suffered firstly for their enslavement and secondly from the disadvantages involved in their having had to endure racism and racial discrimination.

This meant they always stood in a position of disadvantage relative to whites, even though the latter were also poor in the main. Our society hadn't been designed for whites, blacks and mestizos to be equal.

During the years of revolution - despite how humanitarian and radical its efforts could have been - it wasn't possible to completely erase that ballast of colonial slavery. This is the explanation for many of the inequalities and social difficulties that continue to weigh upon us and that the revolution that started in 1959 has tried to solve.

Everyone involved in this process would like progress to be made more rapidly, but the subject is difficult and its treatment has been complicated by the accumulation of years of delay.

Continuing debate

Unlike what happened in 1962, when it was suggested that racism and racial discrimination had been overcome, and especially since post 80s crises that shook the Cuban economy, a debate on the subject has been continually growing.

The economic crisis served to show us that it had been idealistic to believe that the race problem had been solved or was being solved. This failed to correspond to reality.

In fact, the very economic measures taken to deal with the economic situation brought to the surface differences and inequalities. Despite the progress, these had still existed, though they had remained hidden, lurking in the shadows for a more opportune moment to reemerge.

Thus began a new period of the struggle against racism and discrimination. It was Fidel Castro himself who raised this in speeches at educational conferences, before UNEAC and during his speech in a church in New York's Harlem neighborhood. The "maximum leader" was aware that what he had insisted on in his speeches in March 1959 had still not been achieved.

With this, it was the leader of the revolution who reopened the issue and initiated a new debate, but with more understanding of the failures in social policy that had resulted in the inability to eliminate racism and racial discrimination.

New studies were initiated, experiences were analyzed, and like never since 1959 there appeared critical writings about this subject that began to permeate the intellectual world.

Several commissions on the topic were created at different levels within the PCC, UNEAC, the National Library, and community projects, etc. Likewise, there emerged several centers of debate, scientific conferences, film productions and academic courses.

Any explanation of what's taking place today in Cuba with respect to blacks necessarily involves a deeper understanding of those periods of dependency, when poverty on the island was also massively white, though wealth was never black.

Within UNEAC there exists a national commission that addresses the issue of race from a cultural vantage point. It takes the debate to the country's provinces and has twice promoted discussion in the Education Commission of the National Assembly of People's Power.

The government doesn't hinder those discussions and forms of action; on the contrary, it supports and promotes them. Actually, far from maintaining the subject hidden, this is increasingly the subject of discussion in various fields of intellectual, community and even political work, proceeding gradually to become a debate in all of Cuban society.

From UNEAC, a broad coordination process has been deployed to introduce the subject in schools and universities, as well as to improve these statistics and to more accurately count the numbers of blacks and mestizos in different sectors and to quantify their economic situation.

It also works to increase awareness of the presence of black leaders and patriots in our history through everything from monuments to commemorative days and their proper treatment in textbooks, for which it works actively in reshaping the presentation of our national history in our educational system.

Today

Given the above, we can say that we have moved to a point where the issue of race is being dealt with at all levels.

Everyone involved in this process would like progress to be made more rapidly, but the subject is difficult and its treatment has been complicated by the accumulation of years of delay. Nonetheless, all necessary steps are being taken and the practical commitment to collaborate and participate in addressing this challenge is greater - all with the awareness that this is a problem affecting us all.

None of the governments prior to 1959 did anything for the poor in general or for blacks in particular. Instead, the previous authorities ruled the country for the benefit of a few, with all the machinery and tools of a neocolonial administration that maintained racism and racial discrimination, corruption and poverty, displaying the model of exploitation and control that the US had designed for the island

Someone would have to be extraordinarily ignorant of history to think that a change in the political leadership in Cuba will benefit blacks. A thought like that can only come - as the title of the article states - from someone who thinks that "for blacks, the Cuban revolution hasn't started yet."

Article reposted from Cuba's Havana Times.org,

Photo: Esteban Morales' blog; you can read it in Spanish here.

Reader voices: Relationships with no rights

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 09:43:00 +0000

If we've learned anything from how capitalists conduct their economic blood sport, it is that they give nothing useful away for free. You can gauge how important something is by how hard they fight it.

In the case of having a federally mandated minimum wage, Big Business opposed organized efforts by working folks to have a green standard they could rely on. Even today, many Republicans are vocal in opposing this basic right.

That's one reason why the Supreme Court's decision regarding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), expected to come down in June, is important for all Americans, whether straight or nonstraight.

The forces opposing the overturning of DOMA, by and large, are the same ones we face in other areas, such as fair wages, work conditions, and various inequalities.

Generations of GLBT activists, many of them seasoned by the civil rights movement, have pushed this ball forward, only to have some corporate-backed Lucy snatch it away.

Overthrowing DOMA is a way of saying to GLBT couples, you've already accepted your responsibilities; finally, here are your rights.

I know about having the responsibilities one should expect in a relationship, yet with none of the rights.

During the long mental/physical illness and eventual death of my partner, Nita, I had (and am lucky to still have) a full-time job with benefits, which should have helped me in coping with her daily care and health crises. Instead, unlike my straight coworkers, I couldn't carry my partner on my insurance.

Our finances crashed, as a result. But, more importantly, I am convinced that had she received decent care early on, she might be alive today.

As polls notch steadily upward in favor of tolerance, some corporatists have begun to see the value of an openly integrated, equally treated workforce. Others, however, of a more conservative bent, continue to fight nature and historical necessity.

For them, this is a ballgame without an end. For the rest of us, we may finally see the clock ticking down to victory.

Photo: Flickr (CC)

Pattycake the gorilla made life better

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:53:00 +0000

I was 22 years old and living in my native Brooklyn when "Pattycake" was born in the Central Park Zoo on Sept. 3, 1972.

Her birth was celebrated almost universally by New Yorkers, weary as we were at the time with the news of financial crisis, higher-than-ever crime in the streets a president who was destroying democracy and his successor who was telling us to "drop dead' -- all while we were still trying to cope with the deaths of so many of our friends who had been shipped off to the jungles of Vietnam.

None of us even knew that Pattycake's parents Kongo and Lulu had mated until Pattycake was born into the world - the first gorilla ever to do that in New York.

We fell in love with Pattycake and we went through some anxious days when, at five months old, she broke her arm. At that time, there was a lot to worry about everywhere: nuclear arms buildup, new missiles in Europe, mass murder in Cambodia, starvation in Biafra and double digit inflation and unemployment at home. Somehow though, worrying about Pattycake's broken arm also seemed important.

Soon after, I learned that one of my good college friends had been killed in Vietnam. It was hard for me to accept his death and it took a long time to get over. But for me, hearing the story that Pattycake's arm was better, showed that some things at least do heal.

In 1983 our beloved gorilla was permanently moved to the Bronx Zoo where she became the best-known gorilla in the zoo and one of the biggest attractions in my entire hometown. For millions growing up during those years, Pattycake was their gorilla too. Every one of those millions has a special story to tell about one of the visits they made to Pattycake. It is doubtful that any pope or king ever received as many visitors as Pattycake!

Pattycake was one of the oldest gorillas of the 338 presently residing in North America. At 40, she surpassed the median life span for gorillas in zoos, which is 37 years.

Pattycake was the mother of 10, including twins born at the Bronx Zoo in 1995. In 1999 the Zoo opened its incredible Congo Gorilla Forest, one of the best zoo habitats for gorillas in the world.

The Zoo currently has three troops of western lowland gorillas, with 18 animals living in the Congo Gorilla Forest. The Zoo contributes admission fees to the exhibit to conservation efforts in Central African countries.

All three of the species of gorillas at the Bronx Zoo are classified as "critically endangered" due to hunting for bushmeat, loss of habitat, and the spread of the Ebola virus, lethal to gorillas as well as humans.

Pattycake was found dead in the zoo's Congo Gorilla Forest she had come to love as age crept up on her. She would interact with humans regularly in that "forest," humans who were providing her with care for her advanced age and treatment for some or her cardiac issues.

There are now 125,000 gorillas thriving in a national park in the northern part of the real Congo region - far more than there were when Pattycake was born in the Central Park Zoo. The conservation movement that helped bring that about results, in large part, from Pattycake having been thrust into the limelight here in New York.

She made life better for the gorillas.

I know she made life better for us.

Photo: An undated photo provided by the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, April 1, shows Pattycake, the first gorilla born in New York City. Julie Larsen Maher/Wildlife Conservation Society/AP