People Before Profit blog

On May Day

Fri, 29 Apr 2016 16:38:00 +0000

It's often forgotten, but May Day, the original, real, workers' holiday, originated in the U.S. And specifically it originated to honor the memory of labor's four martyrs unjustly sent to the gallows, in an atmosphere of hysteria and anti-worker oppression after the so-called Haymarket "riot" of 130 years ago, on May 4, 1886.

An extensive history of Haymarket and its aftermath, written about 40 years ago by William Adelman of the Illinois Labor History Society, sets out the genesis of May Day and links the commemoration with the protest - and the campaign for the 8-hour working day.

"Workers in the U.S. had been fighting since the days of Andrew Jackson's administration for shorter working hours," Adelman explains in Haymarket Revisited. "Under President (Martin) Van Buren, federal employees won the 10-hour day. The government was expected to be a model for the private sector, but private employers refused to follow voluntarily the government's example. Workers found they had to strike each individual employer to win the shorter hours."

The first connection between May Day and workers was in Chicago in 1867, Adelman asserts. But the movement gained momentum in 1884 when the Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada - which later renamed itself the American Federation of Labor - passed a resolution making May Day the workers' day.

"Resolved," said the resolution, offered by Gabriel Edmonston of the Carpenters, "that eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor, from and after May 1, 1886, and that we recommend to labor unions throughout this jurisdiction" - both countries - "that they so direct their laws to confirm to this resolution."

They sure did. That May 1, 340,000 workers in 12,000 U.S. factories laid down their tools and struck. Almost one-quarter of them were in Chicago. The leaders of May Day - including Albert Parsons, one of the unionists later unjustly tried and hanged for inciting Haymarket - led an 80,000-person parade, marching arm-in-arm, singing, through downtown.

The factors that led to the Haymarket trial and verdicts, including police repression of workers, corporate criminals determined to crush any sign of resistance, skewed press coverage and more than a little class warfare, were present then. They're present now.

And the lack of a political path to power - ballot-box stuffing and outright fraud had deprived workers' candidates of election victories - sent workers into the streets, too.

Does all this sound familiar? Unjust trials of workers on trumped-up charges with false evidence have occurred in the U.S. down through the years. The radical right and its business backers have spent the last six years disenfranchising workers. We have had to take to the streets - North Carolina's Moral Mondays movement is only the latest instance - in protest.

And class warfare continues, pitting the 1 percent against the rest of us.

Oh, yes, one more thing: When courageous politicians stand up for workers, the rich, the right wing and the corporate criminals unite to undo our gains and beat them at the polls.

Just ask John Peter Altgeld. May he, who pardoned the remaining Haymarket prisoners, accompanying that with a scathing indictment of the criminal injustice system, rest in peace.

And, despite all the disappointments we have because he did not push workers' rights, labor law reform and more pro-worker legislation, just ask Barack Obama.

Steelworkers President Leo Gerard was right, more than a year ago, when he bluntly said that the reason the Right and the Republicans oppose and hamstring everything Obama tries - including the Employee Free Choice Act - is because of the president's race.

So as we pause on May Day, let's remember those who struggled and those who died in the workers' cause. They deserve much more than just a march or two.

They deserve like courage and resolve from the rest of us, to fight the continuing battle against those who would divide and conquer - men and women, black, brown and red and white, gay and straight - and put workers down.

Photo: Chicago, May 1, 2008. | Pepe Lozano/PW

May Day from the Haymarket gallows: Albert Parsons' words of 1886

Fri, 29 Apr 2016 15:05:00 +0000

In cities around the world, workers will be marching on May Day this weekend. In almost every country (except the United States and Canada), May 1 is International Workers Day - a day of protest, solidarity, and celebration. Even though bosses and governments have tried to erase the memory of May Day for generations, the truth is that it was born right here in the U.S.A. On May 1, 1886, over 340,000 workers from 12,000 factories across the country laid down their tools and hit the streets to demand an eight-hour workday.

In Chicago, more than 80,000 people marched up Michigan Avenue, sending shockwaves through employers who feared a workers' revolution might actually break out. Chicago Police attacked picketing workers outside a plant, killing two. A demonstration against the brutality was held in Haymarket Square on May 4. One of the speakers who addressed the rally that night was Albert Parsons - a printer, editor of the labor paper The Alarm, a founder of the Chicago Trades and Labor Assembly. As a teenager from Alabama, Parsons had served in the Confederate Army, but later became an activist for labor rights for former slaves.

His wife was Lucy Parsons, a talented organizer famous in her own right. She had been born a slave in Texas, worked for the Freedman's Bureau after the Civil War, and remained a radical and labor activist all her life.

As the rally in Haymarket was ending, police attacked the assembled workers and an unknown person threw a bomb. In the end, seven policemen and four workers were dead. Martial law was declared throughout the nation and labor unions were suppressed in the weeks that followed. Albert, who had actually already left the rally by the time the bomb exploded, was put on trial for murder along with other rally organizers and participants. Eventually, seven of the eight defendants - including Albert Parsons - were ordered to hang. Below is an excerpt from Albert's eight-hour testimony before the court.

As we pay tribute to Parsons and the other Haymarket martyrs, People's World wishes all our readers in the United States and internationally a Happy May Day.

Now, then, I want to call your attention to what I regard as the origin of this bomb at the Haymarket. I believe it was instigated by Eastern monopolists to produce public sentiment against popular movements, especially the eight-hour movement then pending, and that some of the Pinkertons were their tools to execute the plan.

To sustain this accusation, I submit to you the following facts: Just exactly four days before the grand strike for eight hours throughout the United States, and only one week before the Haymarket tragedy, the New York Times, one of the leading organs of railroad, bank, coal, telegraph and telephone monopoly, published the following notice, under date of April 25, 1886, in an editorial on the condition of the market and the causes of the existing decline and the panicky symptoms which existed. The New York Times says: "The strike question is, of course, the dominant one, and is disagreeable in a variety of ways. A short and easy way to settle it is urged in some quarters, which is to indict for conspiracy every man who strikes and summarily lock him up. This method would undoubtedly strike a wholesome terror into the hearts of the working classes. Another way suggested is to pick out the leaders and make such an example of them as would scare others into submission."

This was the 25^th of April, an editorial in the New York Times, written in view of the contemplated strike on the 1^st of May for eight hours. The New York Tribune...the servile organ of the most oppressive forms of monopoly, said just about this time in an editorial: "The best policy would be to drive workingmen into open mutiny against the law." The New York Herald, at the date suggested by its contemporaries to make examples of the leaders in the short-hour movement, said: "Two hours taken from ten hours of labor throughout the United States by the proposed short-hour movement would make a difference annually of hundreds of millions in value, both to the capital invested in industries and to existing stock."

The issue of the hour, then, with the New York and Chicago Stock Exchanges and Board of Trade and Produce Exchanges was how to preserve the steadiness of the market and maintain the fictitious values then and there rapidly falling under the paralyzing influence of the simultaneous eight-hour demand throughout the United States.

Your Honor, so common is this impression among people, so common is this belief among the labor organizations and workingmen of this country, that I wish to impress upon you the view which I present. I am a member of the Knights of Labor, that is an organization of nearly a million and a half American workingmen. I am a member of my union, the Printers' Union, and have been for fourteen years in the city of Chicago. This is a national and international organization with some sixty odd thousand members in the United States.

These organizations publish a great many newspapers in America, and every single one of them believe that that bomb at the Haymarket was instigated by the monopolists to break down the eight-hour movement. Hear our side. You have heard the Citizens' Association's side of this question, you have heard the bankers' side, you have heard the railway magnates' side, you have heard the Board of Trade's side; we have not been convicted for any act done, but simply because of speeches made and of opinions expressed.

I am, therefore, showing you that that bomb was hurled by labor's enemies at the instigation of the monopolists, and not by us. Their speeches, their utterances, their newspapers openly counseled and advised by "speech and print" just such things. Did they not? Then are they not the guilty perpetrators? The question, to use your honor's language, is "not whether they did it with their own hands, but whether they (the monopolists) set causes at work which did end in the Haymarket tragedy?" By their own proposals I have shown you that they did.

What socialism is - Socialism, your honor, means the abolition of wage slavery, because it allows the people to carry on production and consumption by means of a system of universal co-operation. That is what I said at the Haymarket. I pointed out at the Haymarket the fact that the workingmen were being deprived, according to Colonel Wright, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States. He proves by the statistics that they were producing values to the extent of $10 a day, and receiving $1.15; that they were deprived of $8.85.

Now, I said to them: "Here," said I, "Socialism will give you that $8.85; under Socialism you would get that whole $10, whereas under the wage system you receive $1.15 of it. But that is not all: socialism will make labor-saving machinery a blessing instead of a curse to you; by it wealth will be increased, and drudgery diminished indefinitely.

Socialism is simple justice, because wealth is a social, not an individual product, and its appropriation by a few members of society creates a privileged class - a class who monopolize all the benefits of society by enslaving the producing class."

Now, your honor, this is what makes the monopolists mad at the Anarchists. This angers the corporation men. See what they say. The result is that a verdict must be brought against Socialism; because, as the District Attorney states here, the law, and the government, and Anarchy are upon trial. That is the reason. Not for what I did, but it is for what I believe. It is what I say that these men object to.

The verdict was against socialism - as said by the Chicago Times the day after the verdict. "In the opinion of many thoughtful men, the labor question has reached a point where blood-letting has become necessary," says the Chicago Iron-Monger...

"The verdict of death pronounced by a Chicago jury and court against these Socialist malefactors is the verdict of the American people against the crime called Socialism," says the Chicago Times. By the American people the Times means the monopolists.

In more familiar words, as used heretofore by the Times, "other workingmen will take warning from their fate, and learn a valuable lesson." The Times in 1878 advised that "Hand-grenades (bombs) should be thrown among the striking sailors," who were striving to obtain higher wages, "as by such treatment they would be learned a valuable lesson, and other strikers would take warning from their fate."

So it seems, "hand-grenades for strikers," and "the gallows for Socialists," are recommended by the organ of monopoly, as a terror to both.

Socialism aims not at the lives of individuals but at the system which makes paupers and millionaires possible. Socialism aims at the death of no man nor the destruction of property, and the capitalistic press lies, and they know it, when they make such charges against Socialists.

They lie about us in order to deceive the people; but the people will not be deceived much longer. No, they will not.

Photo: Haymarket Memorial with Flowers, corner of Desplaines and Randolph, Chicago,

August 14, 2008. Seth Anderson CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

GOP bill overturns Labor Dept. restriction on financial advisers; Obama promises veto

Fri, 29 Apr 2016 13:13:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - By a 234-183 party-line vote - with every Republican for it and every Democrat against it - the GOP-run House passed legislation on April 28 to overturn the Labor Department's new rule that orders financial advisers to workers and citizens to put clients' interests first, not their own.

But the measure, HJRes88, is headed for the graveyard. Even if the GOP-run Senate agrees to it, President Barack Obama's Office of Management and Budget says in no uncertain terms that he will veto it.

The DOL rule orders financial advisers for workers' 401(k) accounts, or to anyone for anything else, to put their clients' interests ahead of their own gains. Republicans, led by the fiercely ideological majority on the Education and the Workforce Committee, claimed DOL's rule would force the advisers to stop serving workers and small businesses on investments.

The OMB called the GOP's claim poppycock, in so many words.

"The outdated regulations in place before this rulemaking did not ensure financial advisers act in their clients' best interest when giving retirement investment advice. Instead, some firms have incentivized advisers to steer clients into products that have higher fees and lower returns - costing American families an estimated $17 billion a year," OMB's statement said.

"The rule will ensure workers and retirees receive retirement advice in their best interest, better enabling them to protect and grow their savings. The final rule reflects extensive feedback from industry, advocates, and members of Congress, and has been streamlined to reduce the compliance burden and ensure continued access to advice, while maintaining an enforceable best-interest standard that protects consumers. It is essential that these critical protections go into effect.

"If the president were presented with HJRes88, he would veto the bill," the statement concludes.

Graph: U.S. Department of Labor.

Labor, progressives warn Congress: Keep ideological agenda out of spending bills

Thu, 28 Apr 2016 14:43:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) - A group of 172 progressive lawmakers is warning House leaders - particularly leaders of its GOP-run Appropriations Committee - not to use upcoming legislation to fund federal agencies to enact ideologically-motivated and mischievous "riders."

If the leaders try that trick, the group warns, they'll vote against any of the funding bills that come down the pike. And major unions back their stand.

The letter, initiated by Reps. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., is important to workers because right-wing and Tea Party members of the House GOP often use such "riders" to promote anti-worker causes. Past "riders" have, for example, attempted to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act, which mandates prevailing wages for federally-funded construction projects.

Thus unions, including the Steelworkers, the Teamsters, AFSCME, the AFL-CIO, the Teachers, the Service Employees, the Auto Workers and the National Education Association, backed the progressives' warning. The unions are part of the 100-group Clean Budget Coalition lobbying for rider-less money bills.

"Riders from the Republican leadership are a way to manipulate the rules in favor of the wealthy few and big corporations. Working families want Congress to do its job and send President Obama clean spending bills," Peter Colavito, SEIU's legislative director, stated.

Lawmakers can also use riders to insert complex legislation into the money bills. The controversial law that lets financially-endangered multi-employer pension plans cut payments for current retirees and survivors, to keep the plans fiscally viable in the future, was inserted in the 2014 end-of-the-year money bill to keep the government going.

"Divisive partisan policy riders have no place in our appropriations bills," Schakowsky said. "Last year's two-year budget agreement should've settled the issue and allowed both parties to work together to craft the 2017 appropriations bills.

"However, with the budget process breaking down there is a danger that conservative" lawmakers "may try to break down the appropriations process by including radical policy riders to these bills. These provisions could block gun violence research, gut financial regulations in Dodd-Frank, limit reproductive choice, harm Social Security and Medicare, or prevent the United States from joining international climate agreements," she added.

Gallego said such "poison-pill" riders could lead to yet another government shutdown, similar to the two-week closure engineered in the recent past by the Tea Party and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, now a GOP presidential hopeful. "Democrats are united in calling on Speaker Ryan to end this pattern of reckless brinksmanship and pass clean appropriations bills to fully fund the federal government."

"Most riders are little more than sweetheart deals for big corporations and special favors for ideological extremists that could not become law on their own merits," the coalition said.

Photo: American Progress

Award-winning elementary principal criticizes Mayor Rahm Emanuel, loses job

Wed, 27 Apr 2016 14:01:00 +0000

CHICAGO - To many community members in Chicago's Wrigleyville neighborhood, Blaine Elementary School Principal Troy LaRaviere's "reassignment" to a different position during spring break smelled like retribution for the outspoken and popular principal's public criticism of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. During an April 25 public hearing on the matter, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) representatives, who offered only vague accusations against LaRaviere, made little headway in dispelling that notion.

Given LaRaviere's objective success at leading Blaine, the disciplinary action by CPS came as a surprise to many teachers and parents, who suspected political motivations could be behind his removal. LaRaviere earned the Chicago Principal Merit Award Bonuses three years in a row and raised the school's reading standards from fourth to first out of 600 neighborhood schools.

Despite this, the chief education officer of CPS, Janice Jackson, told the confused and angry crowd of about 300 at the hearing that she thinks "you can be high-performing and still break the rules."

What rules did LaRaviere break? The twelve specific charges were not revealed, despite desperate requests from parents. The only information given was that the charges fall under three broad categories: dereliction of duties, ethical violations, and insubordination.

Parents and teachers, and even a student, pressed Jackson to reveal any details, sometimes resorting to lawyerly phrasings, all to no avail as she continued to stonewall.

Blaine parent Sandra Hamilton summed up the frustration, writing in a press release, "CPS has removed our principal against the school community's wishes as a part of a political vendetta and without explanation. What kind of lesson is it for our children when their principal disappears over spring break for the crime of daring to speak truth to power?"

LaRaviere keeps a blog where he has been highly critical of everything from the education budget and state budget crisis to standardized testing. When his school's PTA sent letters encouraging parents to opt their children out of the Common Core-aligned PARCC test (just one of many standardized tests students must prepare for), LaRaviere sent out a letter of support, citing the importance maximizing of students' "instructional time."

This brought a warning resolution from the Board of Education. After continuing to speak out, he received a written reprimand in December that cited his "unethical political activity" during the 2015 mayoral race.

It was this sort of outspokenness that endeared LaRaviere to so many in the community. People outside of the school before and after the meeting sold t-shirts reading, "I stand with Troy."

But it was this same outspokenness that may have doomed him, as he has been a critic of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his appointed school board at every turn. He has criticized Emanuel's privatization of janitorial services, endorsed Emanuel's opponent Chuy Garcia in the 2015 mayoral race, and criticized the Mayor's Democratic superdelegate vote for Hillary Clinton (even appearing in a Bernie Sanders ad).

Without an elected school board, the mayor of Chicago wields near-total power over school policy through his appointments to the board. Despite the denials from Chicago Public Schools, this is the connection that many parents are beginning to make when it comes to LaRaviere's removal.

Amy Jacobson, a mother of Blaine students, called it a "witch hunt." She speculated, "I think that this is all about him writing his blog during school hours, but I suspect that many teachers do." She continued, "I think this is a dog-and-pony show. What's going to happen next is whatever they want to happen next. Their job is to show up and act like they care, but they don't care."

For parents like David Kraven, who has two children in Blaine Elementary, what unfolded during the meeting was exactly what he expected.

"The CPS sent someone whose primary job was to not answer questions. They have put administrative formality over children. It was a typical decision from the CPS, I'm disappointed but not surprised."

People's World has reached out to Principal LaRaviere for more information on the specific charges. He has responded in an email that he is writing a response to the charges which will be "detailed and comprehensive" and that a press conference will be announced when his "statement is finalized." This Friday, Principal LaRaviere will attend a "pre-suspension hearing" where he will be able to provide evidence and witnesses in his defense. That hearing is closed to the public, but People's World will be following the story closely.

Photo: Patrick J. Foote/PW

Hillary and Bernie eye a wall to keep out right wingers

Wed, 27 Apr 2016 11:44:00 +0000

The Democratic presidential primaries held yesterday in five Northeastern states can be summed up as "same old, same old." More exciting is the fact that despite some recent acrimony borne of media-fanned campaign fever, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are keeping their eyes on building a wall to protect the White House from being captured by right wingers.

Yesterday, Clinton won in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland and squeaked out a victory in Connecticut. Sanders won in Rhode Island. However, all Democratic primaries award delegates proportionally, so when all was said and done, Clinton's lead over Sanders remained about the same.

Meanwhile, conversations have begun about blending Sanders' political revolution with Clinton's more traditional political campaign.

It will require some give and take.

Republican Party danger

The Republicans also held primaries yesterday in the same states as did the Democrats. Donald Trump swept the field.

In her speech last night, Clinton said that if the Republicans win the White House they will take more rights away from the American people.

"We will unify our party to win this election," she said. "No matter if you support me or Senator Sanders, there is much more that unites us than divides us."

Beating whoever the Republicans finally put up for election might not be easy. For example, the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Patriot-News reported that more than 60,000 Democrats in Pennsylvania switched to the Republican Party recently. The paper says that in large part the switching was due to "Donald Trump's appeal to working-class, blue collar workers."

Moreover, the majority of these voters said they will support whoever is the Republican nominee. One of the biggest challenges to those who are truly pro-worker is to convince working people like those in Pennsylvania that they are being misled into voting against their own interest.

All the Republican candidates are against Obamacare, the IRS, the EPA, and any other government agency or policy that endeavors to stop corporations from completely running roughshod over the American people.

Democratic Party dynamics

Every poll among the general public shows that Sanders could beat both Trump and Ted Cruz in the general election by more votes than Clinton. They also show Sanders beating John Kasich while Clinton would lose to him.

Polls also indicate that Sanders could eat into Trump's hold on blue collar workers.

Further, every poll shows Clinton having a very high unfavorability rating among the general public and Sanders' having the highest favorability rating of all candidates, Democratic or Republican. (By the way, polls show that Trump has the highest unfavorability rating in the history of polls.)

So why is it that Clinton has won over 300 more delegates than Sanders in primaries and caucuses and has more than ten times the number of super delegates? (Super delegates are Democratic elected officials and party leaders who can support whoever they wish to, regardless of how their constituents vote in primaries or caucuses.)

Why the disconnect between electability in the general election and votes in primaries and caucuses? It's because internal party dynamics play a huge role in primaries and caucuses.

Bill and Hillary Clinton have helped many of the men and women who are now super delegates get elected to public office.

Furthermore, the Clintons are funneling money into the campaigns of down ballot Democratic candidates through the Hillary Victory Fund, which is run jointly by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee itself.

No wonder that even though super delegates can change their allegiance at will, almost none have switched from Clinton to Sanders.

Moreover, right now, Clinton's delegate count almost assures her of clinching the nomination.

Democratic Party leaders feel that despite the polls, Hillary's message of "I know the presidential ropes. I can get things done" will triumph over any candidate that the Republicans throw against her.

Let's hope they're right.

Democratic Party leaders are counting on enlisting Sanders supporters into the Clinton campaign. They would bring with them much needed enthusiasm and energy. Also, Clinton needs the support of the millennials and trade unionists now working for Sanders.

Furthermore, if Clinton is elected, to accomplish anything she'll need strong organizations on the ground to elect Democrats to the House and Senate and to wrest control of governorships away from incumbent right wingers.

Building a progressive movement

As news analyst Alex Seitz-Wald points out, "Sanders has always been as much a movement leader as he is a politician and hundreds of volunteer groups have sprouted up organically across the country ..."

These groups are already talking about joining with others to build a progressive movement that will continue to influence federal, state and local politics for years to come. For her part, Clinton is beginning to reach out to this movement.

Here's the rub: the Clinton political campaign is organized like ... well, a political campaign. Whereas the Sanders campaign is more like an organizing drive, with grassroots leaders across the country bringing people together to fight at every level of government for a wide range of progressive goals.

Sanders has already assured the Democratic Party that he will support Clinton if she wins the nomination.

However, meshing Sanders' political revolution with Clinton's run for the presidency will take more than a nod from Sanders. It will take Clinton winning over the political revolution's grassroots leaders by encompassing their goals.

She has begun to do this.

Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager, recently wrote: "Our political revolution has already forced a former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State to change her mind on matters as critical as international trade, the Keystone Pipeline and the federal minimum wage."

Win or lose, Sanders is determined to go to the Democratic National Convention in July with as many delegates as possible pledged to support reforms within the Democratic Party and strong progressive planks in the Democratic Party platform.

One reform might be to do away with super delegates to assure that candidates have the support of the rank and file. Another might be to open up primaries to all and not restrict them to registered Democrats. The balloting would then reflect the will of the general public and lessen the role of internal party politics.

The Sanders delegates will also go to the Convention to fight for a platform that includes universal health care, the speedy development of sustainable energy sources, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, debt-free higher education, breaking the hold Wall Street has on our economy, criminal justice reform and campaign finance reform.

An indication that the goals of the political revolution might be adopted as planks in Democratic Party platform is that in her speech last night, Clinton listed them as her own.

Even if the Democratic Party platform includes all the goals of the political revolution, history shows that there is a rather loose correlation between what's in a platform and what candidates actually do when elected.

For that reason, there are discussions across the country to create a new political movement that would hold elected officials accountable and that would actually help them accomplish progressive goals.

For example, according to Alex Seitz-Wald, an organization called People for Bernie is scheduled to hold a two-day People's Summit in mid-June between the final set of primaries and the Democratic National Convention in late July.

"There's a vibrant conversation going on about what happens to the movement after the primaries are over," said Charles Lenchner, People for Bernie co-founder. '[There are] a collection of groups that share a lot in common and want to work together in the future and who represent a significant portion of the coalition that has come together around Bernie Sanders."

The first focus of the new group will probably be the upcoming general election, according to Seitz-Wald.

Aside from People for Bernie, these groups include the National Nurses United union, the environmental group 350.org, the Progressive Democrats of America and the Democratic Socialists of America.

In addition, at a recent Labor for Bernie meeting in Chicago, Peter Olney, former organizing for the Longshore and Warehouse Union called for "unions that have embraced Bernie and the call for political revolution to stick together ..."

Leaders of both People for and Labor for are determined to work within the current political landscape, but want to avoid what happened to Organizing for America, a grassroots group initiated by President Obama. It withered when the Democratic Party withdrew its funds.

To build a progressive movement that can sustain itself, Olney said at the Labor for Bernie meeting, "[unions and other groups must] agree to provide sufficient resources to coordinate our work.

"It will require," Olney concluded, "union leadership forming a coordinating body and staff to begin implementing a unifying program in selected campaigns at the state and national level."

Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP

Hillary is not a neoconservative, but her foreign policy bears watching

Wed, 27 Apr 2016 09:47:00 +0000

Liberal supporters of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary hopefully got a rude awakening Sunday when her acceptability and in some cases active support by right wing extremism was exposed in the media.

Previously her endorsement by the liberal section of corporate power, including by billionaire investors Warren Buffet and George Soros, had been well established and acknowledged by Clinton, herself.

But, on Sunday, the fascist-minded Charles Koch made the shocking announcement that, while dismissing GOP front-runners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, he just might endorse Clinton for president.

In addition, the April 24 New York Times magazine ran a lengthy piece documenting Clinton's close ties to some of the most ferocious war hawks in the military-industrial complex. Regarding a possible endorsement from Koch, Clinton has indicated that she is "not interested" in the backing of a person who backs the reduction of voting rights across the country.

Actually, right wing extremist support for Clinton is not entirely new. As Branko Marcetic pointed out in In These Times (March 23) Clinton has long had the enthusiastic support of prominent neocons like Eliot Cohen, Richard Perle and George Schultz, as well as Senators Lindsey Graham and James Inhofe. Clinton, herself, has boasted her conduct as Secretary of State was praised by Henry Kissinger, the notorious mastermind of U.S. imperialist foreign policy, who has been indicted for war crimes by courts in France, Spain, Argentina and Uruguay. As Marcetic noted Clinton was described in the neocon Weekly Standard as "The Great Right Hope."

The Times piece, "H is for Hawk," states that on foreign policy Clinton is to the right of Trump and Cruz and reports that the "greatest single influence on the way (she) thinks about military issues" is retired four-star General Jack Keane, who, aside from being "the resident hawk on Fox News, where he appears regularly to call for the United States to use greater military force in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan," is "a well-compensated member of the military-industrial complex, sitting on the board of General Dynamics and serving as strategic adviser to Academi, the private security contractor once known as Blackwater." Clinton, the article states, has had a long and close political and social relationship with Keane dating back to when she was a freshman senator in 2001. Clinton is evidently also viewed favorably by other militarists, including the disgraced former generals, David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, the article states.

All this places greater urgency on the demand by Bernie Sanders that Clinton release the transcripts of her foreign policy speeches to Goldman Sachs and other big Wall Street banks. As Clinton has stated, these speeches related to the lessons she learned as Secretary of State, not to the financial manipulations of the billionaires. In other words, we may surmise, they express her support for continuing Wall Street's reckless and militarist policies for world financial domination.

On the other hand, it is clear that the entire ruling class, both its liberal and right-wing extremist sections, are not yet united behind Clinton and it must be recognized that her domestic policies, at least as stated in the heat of the Democratic primary, indicate she would oppose policies that move in the direction of fascism and would stand up for improving living standards and protecting democracy. What is important is that, if she does get the Democratic nomination as now appears increasingly likely, working people should support her, but with eyes wide open. Endless, expanding war in the Middle East, not to mention in other hot spots like Korea and the South China Sea, could undermine the possibility for any progress on the domestic front.

As the Democratic nominee, she would have the united support of most grassroots progressive forces, including labor, the Black and Latino communities, women, the LGBT community, environmentalists and others. But, as Sanders has insisted, the enthusiasm of this support will depend, primarily, on what she says and how she campaigns, and progressive forces have as a top responsibility to do everything possible to prevent a right wing extremist takeover of our government.

If Clinton wins the nomination, it only means that the progressive movement, currently led by Sanders, is not yet strong enough and sufficiently united, and that in the coming four years we have a lot of work to do.

Photo: Jim Cole/AP

Divest from Pentagon, invest in people

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 13:06:00 +0000

SAN DIEGO - The tiny house on flatbed wheels skittered around the corner of the impressive new public library. Small and light enough to be pushed from behind and guided by a hand on the front trailer hitch, it made its way to the library steps. At final rest, it faced out at a vacant lot lined with the tents and shopping carts of the dispossessed. Amazed faces stared at the windows that let in the light, and the door fitted out with shiny lock and key.

On Tax Day, April 15th, protesters were staging a press conference with the latest attempt at temporary housing for the homeless, a one-room, full bed-sized frame structure assembled from a kit provided by Amikas of San Diego. In this public redirection of resisted income taxes, the Southern California War Tax Alternative Fund (SCWTAF) divested and redirected $6,000 from the Pentagon to the people, including $1,000 for this tiny home to its makers, the Amikas' "Homeless to Housed" program.

Other grant recipients were the Peace Resource Center of San Diego, Alternatives to Violence/Los Angeles, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) of Livermore, Calif., the Nevada Desert Experience of Las Vegas, and 9to5 Working Women LA.

"I pay my taxes, but not to the Department of Defense. I pay them instead to the people here working to create peace in San Diego," said event organizer Anne Barron of SCWTAF. "War is violence in the extreme. I cannot pay for the bombs we rain on countries half-way around the world."

According to member Cathy Deppe, war tax resistance and redirection are conscientious objection and nonviolent direct action to defund endless war. "Once we said, 'What if they gave a war and nobody came.' Draft resistance and the larger peace movement helped end the American war in Vietnam. Now, after 15 years of war in Afghanistan, we say, 'What if they gave a war and nobody paid.' It is urgent we take direct action to end this addiction to endless war and militarism."

SCWTAF is a project of Southern California War Tax Resistance, established in 1979. The group of war tax resisters has redirected over $60,000.00 since its founding, all of it with tax money that would have been used for war and preparations for war. To donate to the alternative fund, email info@scwtr. For local and national information see: http://www.scwtr.net, Southern California War Tax Resistance, and http://www.nwtrcc.org (National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Council).

Photo: Sara Haldeman-Scarr, pastor, First Church of the Brethren, San Diego | Cathy Deppe/PW

Hope vs. horror: Realities of U.S. immigration and foreign policy

Mon, 25 Apr 2016 12:16:00 +0000

LUMPKIN, GA - From April 5-9, People's World accompanied a local faith based advocacy group to visit immigrants being held at Corrections Corporation of America's (CCA) Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA. What we witnessed is criminal.

U.S. actions drive immigration

Before I delve into details of the trip, let's review a few things about the realities of immigrants in the U.S.

We cannot even begin a conversation about immigration without first addressing why people leave their home countries and begin a dangerous and often deadly journey to the U.S. We must first start with understanding how U.S. foreign policy and imperialism have been the root of many of the conflicts, economic insecurity, forced relocations and even genocides in much of the developing world. Let's start with what I know about my home country, the Dominican Republic.

On April 28th, 1965, 405 U.S. Marines landed in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, to support the U.S. backed military dictatorship in their fight against the Constitutionalists and revolutionary forces; a dictatorship responsible for over 50,000 murders including the Parsley Massacre and the disappearing of numerous political and union activists. To this day, U.S. and Canadian businesses through economic and political means, continue to make it nearly impossible for the Dominican people to make a life for themselves and determine their own political destiny. Please go here for a more detailed history of U.S. involvement in the Dominican Republic.

A more recent U.S. supported military coup took place in Honduras with Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton playing a role. W.T. Whitney reported for People's World that "the United States backed the Honduran government formed by plotters who had arranged the military coup overthrowing President Jose Manuel Zelaya in June, 2009. Now the U.S. government supports a successor regime headed by President Porfirio Lobo, elected under dubious circumstances. Lobo's visit to Washington in October 2011, got red carpet treatment." See full article here.

All this because, Whitney writes, "Zelaya experimented with land reform and called for a minimum wage, thereby enraging local political bosses. The U.S. government was offended by his having led Honduras into the anti-imperialist ALBA alliance of Latin American countries."

These are just two examples in the Western hemisphere, but these types of actions have been taking place globally since World War II, fueled by the U.S.'s policy of regime change in the name of anti-communism and "democracy." To me, as an American citizen who knows the consequences of U.S. foreign policy, we as a nation have a responsibility to those who have been displaced by the actions of the United States.

Now to speak to the myths told about immigrants here in the U.S. Many people believe that undocumented immigrants pay no taxes and therefore do not contribute to our national, state and local tax base, but this is simply untrue. According to a study by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), "undocumented immigrants paid $10.6 billion in state and local taxes in 2010, a figure that includes $1.2 billion in personal income taxes, $1.2 billion in property taxes, and more than $8 billion in sales and excise taxes." The same article notes that "a 2013 Social Security Administration report estimated that undocumented immigrants and their employers paid $13 billion in payroll taxes. And according to a recent Harvard University study, undocumented immigrants' payroll contributions to Medicare totaled more than $3 billion each year."

Another myth is that undocumented immigrants "drain the system." An article in CNN Money says that "undocumented immigrants do not qualify for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and most other public benefits. Most of these programs require proof of legal immigration status and under the 1996 welfare law, even legal immigrants cannot receive these benefits until they have been in the United States for more than five years." The CNN Money article goes on to note that "A CBO report on the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 concluded that a path to legalization for immigrants would increase federal revenues by $48 billion. Such a plan would see $23 billion in increased costs from the use of public services, but ultimately, it would produce a surplus of $25 billion for government coffers."

For more myth debunking, read the full article here.

A visit to Stewart Detention Center

Now let's talk about my trip and what I witnessed. I was invited by a friend and local social justice leader Janet Bernhard from the Coronado Community United Methodist Church in New Smyrna Beach to attend a trip to Lumpkin, Ga. to visit detainees at Stewart Detention Center, a for-profit prison.

Stewart Detention Center, operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), is a notoriously inhumane prison that has been described as a "living nightmare." Azadeh Shahshahani of Huffington Post wrote that immigrant detainees at Stewart have insufficient or no access to translators, poor or no medical care, food infested with maggots and unsafe high temperatures. In 2009 Roberto Medina Martinez, a 39 year old Mexican immigrant and detainee at Stewart, died from an easily treatable condition while being transported by ICE to the closest hospital in Columbus, Ga., nearly 45 minutes away. And this is just one known example; others have perhaps not made the news because communication between detainees, their families, and advocates is extremely difficult.

Heavy restrictions are also put on those who want to visit detainees, including family and attorneys. All visitors must wear "socially accepted" clothing which prohibits shorts, tank tops, sleeveless shirts, above mid-thigh skirts, "short dresses," open-toe shoes, leggings, pants/jeans with holes in them, half or no sleeve blouses, any see-through garments, hats and caps. Womens' underwire bras also frequently trigger the metal detectors, disqualifying them from visiting detainees. If you have a medical condition or implant that sets off metal detectors, you must bring medical documentation. Also, you cannot bring anything into the visitation room, not your phone, a note pad and pen, reading material, nothing. Many visitors to Stewart Detention Center are not aware of these restrictions and are turned away.

Now about the treatment of visitors by the staff of Stewart Detention Center. I was shocked by the way the guards addressed myself and my fellow visitors. They were excessively rude and mean, yelling at us to stop talking (forcing us to whisper), sit down (no standing up no matter how long you have been waiting), there are no bathrooms, no water fountains, and again, you cannot have any belongings with you (no books, magazines, papers, phones, nothing) and you cannot wait in your vehicle. I waited a total of three hours to visit with no access to a bathroom or water. I should state that, judging by the way we were treated by the guards, I cannot imagine how they interact with the detainees. After all, these detainees are not formally "prisoners" and Stewart Detention Center is not a "prison," but a holding center for immigrants being processed by ICE.

When I finally got to visit a detainee after a three-hour wait, he arrived chained to a wheel chair and with his face masked like a scene from Silence of the Lambs. I soon found out that he was being held in segregation, also known as solitary confinement. Previously, we heard stories of detainees being punished with "segregation" for arguing for their right to a $2 a day job within Stewart, asking questions, complaining about food and conditions, conversing with staff when not prompted to and others. Roque Planas of Huffington Post has written about detainee abuses at Stewart Detention Center.

After the detainees we were visiting arrived, the guards removed his mask and our conversation immediately started flowing (he had been in "segregation" for 4 days with 16 days to go). The effect that solitary confinement had on him was obvious. He was so excited to be able to talk with someone and be able to converse in Spanish. I was surprised about how optimistic he was, speaking about going to college, seeing his family, cooking food he loved and missed and leaving his current detainment in the past. Our conversation was abruptly ended by a guard who pulled him back into his wheelchair, put him back in chains and pulled him away with no consideration of our exchange.

El Refugio, a hospitality house in Lumpkin, Ga. near the Stewart Detention Center which serves the family and friends of men detained there, briefed visitors on what to expect and how to conduct ourselves while at Stewart, but there is no substitute for firsthand experience. Amilcar Valencia, Executive Director of El Refugio, told us to not use the names of detainees we visited in any sort of story or article because of retaliation against them, but through El Refugio we could correspond with the detainees.

El Refugio is a non-profit that provides free meals and lodging for families of detainees, friendship and comfort, and arranges visits with the detainees at Stewart. There are no hotels or other lodging in Lumpkin, Ga. and El Refugio provides a priceless service to the families and friends of detainees that they otherwise would not have.

Upon returning home, I researched the history of Stewart Detention Center and was even more shocked about what the detainees go through. Stewart is only one of many for-profit immigration detention centers used by ICE, and how profitable and prolific the privately owned prison business is.

Sharita Gruberg of the Center for American Progress reported that the "increase in detention bed space coincided with an increase in spending on immigration detention from $700 million in FY 2005 to more than $2 billion today (Dec., 2015). Not surprisingly, this spending increased revenues for CCA and the Geo Group (another for-profit prison company)." Gruberg went on to note that ICE contracts alone account for 13 percent ($28 million) of CCA's $221 million revenue in FY 2014. At the same time their revenues doubled between 2005 and 2015, CCA spent $18 million on lobbying Congress with more than $8.7 million spent solely on Homeland Security appropriations.

It is obvious who has had the largest impact on our national immigration policy and who is responsible for the misery that many immigrants endure while in detention here in United States: those who profit from it.

I can't help but think of all the families that these companies and policies have hurt over the years; people being disappeared on their way to work, families having their doors kicked in in the middle of the night, U.S. citizens and permanent residents being illegally detained for months because of their names. It's sickening. I also know that this could easily happen to me or someone in my family at any second.

Let's make sure we elect a president and Congress this fall that will rid us of this horrible business of detention and misery. A president and Congress to help our undocumented sisters and brothers become citizens and live in peace, not fear.

Photo: Stewart County GA

Flint doctor awarded for exposing poisoned water; three officials get charged

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 14:35:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Yesterday, the attorney general of Michigan brought charges against three government officials for being part of a conspiracy to cover up the fact that the water in the city of Flint was poisonous. At almost the same time, the Nation Foundation and others gave the Ridenhour award to a Flint pediatrician for bringing the danger to light.

She is Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the director of the pediatric residency program at Hurley Children's Hospital and assistant professor at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. The Ron Ridenhour award, for "truth-telling," is given here annually by the Nation, Fertel, Mott foundations in honor of the veteran who exposed the massacre by American soldiers of noncombatant men, women and children at the village of My Lai during the Vietnam war.

Flint's water became contaminated with lead in April, 2014 when the city was under the dictatorial control of an "emergency manager" appointed by the governor. To save a little money, the governor, Rick Snyder ordered that the source of Flint's water be switched from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The reason was to save about $100 a year per Flint resident.

Snyder had been elected by promising to run Michigan "like a business."

To continue to keep costs down, the state did nothing when Flint River water was discovered to be highly corrosive, which caused lead to leach from Flint's aging pipe system into the water residents used for drinking, washing and bathing.

Flint residents, predominantly low income African Americans, began to get sick almost immediately. They suffered painful rashes and disabling internal ailments of all kinds. Two people died.

For 18 months, residents protested. They brought bottles of yellow water to city officials and to various public meetings. They were told the water was perfectly safe and to stop complaining. Some residents were arrested for making a fuss.

Meanwhile, hundreds of children showed symptoms of lead poisoning: lower cognitive functioning, irrational behavior and a wide variety of illnesses.

Uncovering the truth

Dr.Hanna-Attisha knew that routinely drawn blood-lead level data existed for thousands of Flint-area children, especially those on Medicaid or who live in high-risk areas for lead exposure. So she turned to the Genesee County Health Department, which told her test results are kept in individual patient files and could not be easily analyzed, and she faced similar challenges getting blood-lead levels from the state.

Undaunted, she decided to look into more than 3,000 files of children at the hospital where she worked - drawing comparisons before and after the water source switch.

She and her team found that the percentage of children with elevated levels of lead in their blood had nearly doubled, and in some neighborhoods even tripled. Given the public health emergency, she skipped the typical approach of publishing her findings in a medical journal and, instead, called an immediate press conference to alert the public.

She was ridiculed by state officials. Her license to practice was threatened.

However, the public outcry grew so intense, state and city officials was forced to reconsider attacking Dr. Hanna-Attisha and finally admitted she was right.

In January, the state and federal governments declared a state of emergency in Flint and started to truck in bottled water for use of the residents.

The cover up

Why did it take so long for state officials to admit they had made a mistake by not treating the water from the Flint River?

Part of the answer was given yesterday by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette in bringing charges against Mike Glasgow, Flint's laboratory and water quality supervisor; Mike Prysby, a Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) official; and Stephen Busch, who was an MDEQ district coordinator during the time the people of Flint were complaining about the bad water.

The charges against the three include falsifying water quality results, and "conspiracy to temper with evidence."

Schuette said, there charges "are only the beginning, I can promise you that." No one is above the law, not on my watch."

Many Flint residents expressed skepticism about bringing the real culprit to justice.

For example, Mikki Wade, one of the first Flint residents to speak out about the poisoned water said, "We are afraid that [the three charged] are just being scapegoated. The person really responsible is Governor Snyder.

"He should definitely be charged. He should resign and maybe be put into jail."

Meanwhile, the lead content of Flint water remains way above safe levels.

The people of Flint are still forced to use bottled water only for drinking, washing and bathing.

Dr. Hanna-Attisha now leads a new to research, monitor, and mitigate the impact of lead in Flint's drinking water on more than 27,000 children. She and her colleagues have also established the Flint Child Health & Development Fund to collect donations for Flint children's long-term needs.

Photo: People unload bottled water at a community center in Flint. | Carlos Osorio/AP

We need affordable housing, not condos and townhouses

Wed, 20 Apr 2016 15:37:00 +0000

"Pipers Glen will have the benefit of a private community within a very public neighborhood setting," says the publicity touting the new townhouses and condos going up at 7048 Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy, just outside Philadelphia.

Just what we need---more condos and townhouses--- starting at $450,000 and $315,000, respectively, while affordable housing needs and Section #8 units (which have a two year waiting list) continue to get short shrift.

And just think, those who can afford such units don't even have to write letters to the editor or demonstrate outside a politician's office to get their housing desires met. The units just appear "like magic" by developers who want to make enough to get their beach condo at the shore.

This is not particular to Germantown or Philadelphia. Housing needs for the "less-to-do" v. the well-to-do continues to be in short supply all over the nation.

But some of those in need of affordable housing are no longer taking this quietly.

In March, community activists in Oakland, Calif., shut down the Chamber of Commerce's Economic Development Summit about "real estate opportunities" with demands such as ,"Housing is Human Right! That is why we have to fight." This occurred only after the city ignored a year of traditional protests for affordable housing, approving instead a luxury development overlooking a scenic lake.

As one activist said, "there is a time to write letters, a time to meet, and when all else fails, a time to take to the streets."

Photo: Bebeto Matthews/AP

Ending corporate personhood: A bipartisan unicorn?

Wed, 20 Apr 2016 12:53:00 +0000

". . . corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their 'personhood' often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of "We the People" by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."

~Supreme Court Justice Stevens, January 2010

In this age of extremist politics, there seems to be very little that political parties agree upon across the board. Conservatives have set their sights on 'making America great again' while left-leaning progressives never fail to remind those around them that they "feel the Bern." Yet, there is an underlying similarity among both "Berners" and "Trumpeteers" as both their campaigns are mobilized by a mutual outrage and opposition to insider politics.

Due to voters' wariness of Wall Street 'elites' it comes as no surprise that there exists support for the elimination of corporate personhood on both ends of the political spectrum. Move To Amend is just one of many organizations working to overturn the Citizens United ruling, which the Supreme Court decided in 2010, granting Constitutional protection for limitless political spending as a form of free speech. We The People defines itself as transpartisan- they view the issues of corporate personhood beyond the Democratic-Republican dyad. One of the major campaigns they have been advocating is the 'We The People' amendment -- a house joint resolution introduced April of 2015-- which brings attention to the wording of the US Constitution as unequivocally stating "inalienable rights belong to human beings only." Additionally, it highlights the fact that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment, and that it can be regulated in political campaigns.

Ridding the system of money in politics has become a significant factor in the ongoing presidential election cycle. Candidates like Sanders and Trump both have boasted that their electoral platforms are individually funded; Sanders has continued to raise an astonishing number of individual donations, with about $75 million raised by small contributions. Trump, on the other hand, has matched those efforts by releasing public records showing that he is the primary self-funder in his campaign. The distrust of big business by the American voters has become more prevalent over the course of the impending election as a result of the Wall Street contributions that drive politicians to the top of the polls. It is a strong indicator of the sentiments being echoed by working class citizens, whose electoral efforts have long been overshadowed by Super PACs.

Keyan Bliss, communications coordinator for the Move to Amend campaign, spoke with People's World, saying the campaign originally started with just 12 people in a living room on the day of the Citizens United decision. "The campaign" was organized as a demand to reverse this decision," Bliss said.

Since then, Move to Amend has grown exponentially; hundreds of thousands of individuals have demonstrated their interest in ending corporate rule and building a vibrant democracy that is accountable to the people. They have accumulated over 404,318 signatures on their motion to amend the U.S. Constitution, and acquired over 72,000 likes on Facebook.

It appears that Move to Amend has struck a chord with American voters, who have been calling for more overall accountability and legislative transparency. Kent Greenfield, from The Atlantic, pointed out that there are other similar organizations rallying to challenge the politics of corporate identities. He notes that, "Public Citizen-the liberal litigation group founded by Ralph Nader- also argues that rights protected by the Constitution were intended for natural people. (Free Speech for People, one of the groups most influential in the anti-personhood movement, is pushing a "People's Rights Amendment - as well as a variety of other organizations to the anti-personhood project-MoveOn, Sierra Club and NAACP chapters, and United Steelworkers (USW) and SEIU locals.)

While Move to Amend holds similar long term goals, the organization sets itself apart from the pack by looking beyond the Citizens United ruling. They believe that in order to truly challenge the role of money in politics, one must first dismantle systems of oppression, and specifically address issues within sections of the population that were initially left out of the Constitution. When originally drafted in 1787, the Constitution considered just 10-20 percent of the population as being worthy of legal protection. It excluded slaves, indigenous communities, immigrants, women and other non-property owners. Since then, it has been amended 27 times -- but even with those changes it continues to need substantial revisions.

Since Move to Amend launched in 2010, the campaign's leaders have managed to pass local resolutions in over 600 cities and towns across the United States. They have also helped 16 state legislatures pass resolutions in support of an amendment, and passed referenda in support of the amendment at the ballot box in over 300 jurisdictions--in both conservative and liberal areas. Bliss described Move to Amend's transpartisan appeal in local communities. "You look at places like Breckesville, Ohio - which voted for Mitt Romney in 2012- where we were able to pass one of our resolutions with a margin of over 70%," he said. These actions were made possible, not just by the organization, but by the local groups and individuals who lobby state legislators to push for the amendment.

While ending corporate personhood is key to re-envisioning a new Constitution, Bliss emphasizes that it is not the end of the road, "We view this not as a race to the finish, but as a marathon. We don't believe this is going to happen necessarily overnight." In the meantime, Move to Amend continues to rally legislators and organizations to publicly support the "We the People" amendment. Despite the long challenge ahead, Bliss remains confident that ending corporate personhood can unify a drastically divided Congress, and revolutionize a nation that is being held hostage under the domination of the one percent. "When I talk to Republicans or Democrats and I tell them that constitutional rights belong to natural persons - everyone is on board. It's common sense, whether you are conservative, liberal, libertarian, green, or independent."

Photo: Thirteen.org

Over 100,000 New Yorkers banned from voting in primary

Wed, 20 Apr 2016 11:58:00 +0000

NEW YORK - The big question was: after unusual acrimony between the candidates, would the Democratic Party emerge unified after yesterday's presidential primaries in New York? It did, although - no surprise - the Republican Party did not.

The outcome of the primaries were no surprise, either. As universally predicted, Donald Trump clobbered Ted Cruz and John Kasich in the Republican balloting and Hillary Clinton won handily, although the relative standing in the Democratic presidential nomination race between her and Bernie Sanders remains about the same.

What is shocking is that some 126,000 New Yorkers, mostly Democrats and mostly in Brooklyn, found themselves disenfranchised. They've sued the New York Board of Elections.

According to Election Justice USA, a grass roots voting rights advocacy group, people went to their polling places only to be told their names had been purged from the voting lists and that they could not vote. Election Justice filed a court suit on their behalf.

The New York State Board of Elections claims that those purged from the lists had not voted in the past two elections and that when inquiries were mailed to them, the U.S. Post Office marked the mail "undeliverable."

A similar situation came up months ago in Nevada. Many people had lost their homes in the 2008 recession and were forced to move. It was difficult for the Post Office to track them down.

However, in New York there was an additional problem: some voters found that their party affiliation had been changed without their authorization.

Along with the lawsuit, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for an investigation.

Even without list purges, New York State makes it difficult for people to vote, especially in primaries. You have to register to vote, and list your party affiliation, at least 25 days before the balloting. To register, you need a "valid" ID. Unlike many states, you can only vote in the primary of your own party. To vote by absentee ballot, you have to prove you'll be out of town or are physically unable to go to a voting site.

Worst of all, there is no early voting in New York State.

According to the New York Times, "because the act of voting is cumbersome and uninviting ... [New York] has one of the worst voter turnout records in the country. ... New York [is] 44th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia for voter participation."

Acrimony, unity

Clinton and Sanders were unusually harsh with each other during the primary campaign. Sanders blasted Clinton for taking millions of dollars from Wall Street and for unfairly (but legally) maintaining a joint fund raising operation with the Democratic Party itself. He also questioned Clinton's judgement in supporting the war in Iraq as a senator and of helping to create chaos in Libya as Secretary of State.

Clinton accused Sanders of peddling "pipe dreams" of universal health care and free college tuition without having "concrete plans" for achieving these goals. She also said he doesn't have the wherewithal to reform Wall Street.

Observers said Sanders and Clinton were doing in New York what New Yorkers are famous for doing: being direct.

They're probably correct. Sixty eight percent of New York Democratic respondents in a CNN poll said that the Sanders-Clinton clashings energized the party.

On the other hand, 57 percent of Republican New Yorkers said that the carryings-on between Trump and Cruz split their party even more than it had been.

In fact, one of the GOP's top strategists, Cheryl Jacobus, is suing Trump for $2 million.

However, progressives should not take comfort in the Republican implosion. No matter who emerges victorious, billionaires will back that candidate with untold sums of money. And if elected, that candidate will allow huge corporations to run roughshod over the American people and will try to turn back the clock on voters' rights and women's rights.

More delegates than any state to date

At this writing, the New York Democratic Party is still applying its rather complicated formula for allocating delegates, but so far Clinton has won 135 and Sanders 104.

In a press release, the Sanders campaign points out that it has picked up more delegates in New York than in any other primary or caucus to date.

Including the incomplete New York totals, Clinton has won 1,446 delegates through balloting. Also, 469 super delegates have said they will support her at the Democratic National Convention in July.

Thirty-one super delegates have pledged to support Sanders and he has won 1,200 delegates through balloting.

In other words, Clinton has won 246 more delegates than Sanders through primaries and caucuses, more or less the same lead she has held throughout most of the campaign season.

A candidate must have the support of a total of 2,383 delegates to win the Democratic nomination.

There are seven more weeks to go of primaries and caucuses before Clinton and Sanders can tote up their final delegate support numbers.

Meanwhile, both candidates have been stressing that their top priority is protecting the White House from being captured by the right wing.

As Hillary Clinton said in her victory speech last night, [As Democrats] "there is more that unites us than divides us."

Photo: Voters in Yonkers at Lincoln High School on Apr. 19. Over 126,000 New Yorkers found that their names had been purged from registration lists when they arrived to vote. | AP

At U.S. Capitol: 1,275 arrested fighting for democracy

Tue, 19 Apr 2016 11:35:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - We refused to disband our rally at the U.S. Capitol Building yesterday, so police officers herded 300 of us away six by six.

Our nonviolent, civil disobedience was one action among many during a week-long mobilization aimed at starting a new, broad-based movement to restore democracy in the U.S.

We wanted to dramatize the fact that like our democracy, the Capitol has been captured by the far right to serve corporations and billionaires instead of the American people.

I was honored to be arrested with NAACP President Cornell Brooks, Sierra Club President Aaron Mair, labor leader Larry Cohen and Rev. Dr. William Barber, head of the North Carolina NAACP and a major leader in the fight against that state's vicious voter suppression laws. Others arrested included student activists, leaders of the women's rights movement and advocates for immigrants.

All are active in Democracy Spring and Democracy Awakening, allied coalitions of about 400 organizations that are beginning to work together to get big money out of politics and to protect voters' rights.

Since Monday a week ago, close to 3,000 activists came here representing organizations in these coalitions - or just themselves. They held teach-ins, rallies and marches and lobbied legislators.

There were sit-ins at the Capitol every day. Altogether, some 1,275 people were arrested for refusing to leave restricted areas.

Former Texas Agricultural Commissioner Jim Hightower explains that "... this is the start of something big ... to make democracy happen again."

Hightower points out that the House and Senate have done nothing to address America's widening wealth gap nor the plummeting American standard of living. Legislators have also ignored the huge debt burdening college students, the fossil fuel-caused climate change that is destroying the planet and the growing threat to women's right to choose.

He says "progress on every one of our issues is hopelessly walled in by corporate bribery funds, K Street lobbyists, crony capitalism, Koch-headed ideology and nefarious voter suppression."

As President Obama said in his State of the Union address, elected officials feel free to ignore the American people because instead of voters choosing who will represent them, representatives are choosing who will vote for them. They've gerrymandered voting districts to ensure the re-election of right wing incumbents and have passed laws making it harder for working people, minorities and students to cast ballots.

Worst of all, the Supreme Court has made it legal for corporations and billionaires to buy elections.

"We want our democracy back"

Addressing the crowd prior to yesterday's rally at the Capitol, Larry Cohen, the immediate past president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said "today we're sending a message to Congress: what you are doing isn't working. We want our democracy back!"

He said that if all movements in the U.S. united "and stayed together down the long road, we can restore and expand voting rights, get big money out of politics and fix the Senate, which is refusing to do its job and is instead blocking consideration of the President's nominee to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat."

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Director of the Social Justice Organizing Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, added, "Voting is a sacred act and so is civil disobedience to restore voting rights and to reawaken our democracy."

After Liebling spoke, almost a thousand people marched to the Capitol.

On their way, they passed some 4,000 immigrant rights advocates holding a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court. The Court was deliberating whether or not to uphold President Obama's executive order giving protection to undocumented immigrants whose children are American citizens.

People from both groups cheered each other and joined together before the marchers continued to the Capitol. Once there, march participants were arrested for refusing to disband.

When he was arrested, Rev. Barber said "we are building a new Reconstruction movement. It's only in its adolescence. Those who don't want it to mature are trying to stunt its growth."

Also arrested was Jim Pandaru, who had travelled to Washington from West Haven, Connecticut.

"I wanted to take part," he said, "because I want to be an example to others that it might take more civil disobedience and ratcheting up the movement to counter the assault on our rights.

"Activists from all different groups need to stand shoulder to shoulder. I believe this is the beginning of a great and much needed awakening of our entire society."

CWA President Christopher Shelton was also arrested. He said "our democracy is not for sale. Starting today, we are taking back our democracy.

"Today starts the new American revolution!"

Photo: NAACP Pres. @CornellWBrooks arrested at #DemocracyAwakens to honor his grandfather James Edward Prioleau. NAACP twitter.

Mass movement for democracy is being born

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 11:17:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Determined to start building a mass movement for democracy, this week people came here from every state in the union and every walk of life. They staged sit-ins, held teach-ins, gathered in rallies and marched to the Capitol. Some had marched here from Philadelphia at the beginning of the week.

They're angry that our democratic system is being undermined by voter suppression laws and the legalized ability of billionaires to control American politics.

But, as Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch, said "... a mass movement can build the political power necessary for taking back our democracy and ousting the plutocrats who've stolen it."

Hauter spoke at a rally preceding the march to the Capitol. Other speakers included Cornell Brooks, president of the NAACP; Rev. William Barber, head of the North Carolina Moral Monday movement; Delores Huerta, civil rights leader and Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen.

Several union leaders also spoke, including Tefere Gebre, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO. He told the crowd that "the AFL-CIO is proud to be part of this Democracy Awakening. The unions of the AFL-CIO are committed to broadening our democracy; to having the voices and votes of working people heard. That's why we will continue to fight the corrupting influence of corporate cash."

Aaron Mair, Sierra Club president, said, "When our democracy is not working, it is our most vulnerable communities that bear the brunt of dysfunction. Low-income communities and communities of color that already face disproportionate impacts from pollution also face disproportionate disenfranchisement from assaults on voting rights.

"To protect our environment, we must protect our democracy."

At the rally, speaker after speaker called on the Senate to hold hearings to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Anthony Scalia.

After the rally, participants marched to the Capitol building to dramatize their call for "Congress to stand up for democracy."

They then continued the march to a nearby park and held a faith rally.

Rabbi Mordechai Liebling and Rev. William Lamar retold the parable of the "Golden Calf" to illustrate how "idolatry of money" in the U.S. is stifling our democracy.

Sit-ins, teach-ins

Saturday, some of the nation's leading experts on voter suppression laws and the effects of money in politics participated in "teach-ins."

Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, pointed out that "in the 22 presidential debates, not once has the erosion of voting rights been discussed.

"Yet," Berman continued, "there have been some 180 new voting restrictions adopted by 41 states in the past two or three years. These include ending early voting, disenfranchising ex-felons, and requiring sometimes hard-to-get IDs.

"The whole purpose of these restrictions is to make voters older and whiter, to stop the fastest growing demographic groups from voting."

Derek Cressman, author of When Money Talks, concluded a teach-in by urging the crowd not to be afraid of being arrested to fight for democracy. "It's not scary," he said, "it can be fun."

Throughout the week, some 650 people were arrested for siting on the steps of the Capitol building and in the rotunda to dramatize their demand that Congress pass four bills that would create a public campaign financing system, put in place strong voting rights protections and overturn the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case that allows corporations to spend unlimited sums in elections.

Many of those arrested said the experience helped them gain understanding and to become better equipped to nurture the growth of a new movement.

Throughout the week, the Ben and Jerry's ice cream company gave out free ice cream.

Overall, all week the mood was more festive than angry because people from a wide range of organizations gave each other hope by pledging to work together over the long haul.

More than 300 groups began to work together to forge strategies aimed at protecting democracy. These include student, civil rights, environmental and peace groups; also unions and organizations advocating for LGBTQ rights and for the right of women to control their own health care.

The groups have formed two closely allied coalitions: Democracy Spring and Democracy Awakening.

The week-long mobilization is scheduled to end Monday, April 18, with a large demonstration including civil disobedience. Union leaders and heads of Democracy Spring and Democracy Awakening organizations have pledged to participate.

"Now that we've woken up, we're going to stay awake," says Cornell William Brooks, NAACP president.

"This is just the beginning," adds Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. "We're going to reach out to working people. We're going to say: 'you're right to be angry about low wages, no job security and poor healthcare. But many of you are looking in the wrong places for solutions.'

"Join our movement to take back the government. This is our country ... our time."

Photo: Larry Rubin/PW

Hundreds arrested at U.S. Capitol for demanding restoration of democracy

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 12:23:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Demanding the passage of four bills that would limit the ability of billionaires to control American politics, over 400 people were arrested yesterday for sitting in at the U.S. Capitol. Many of the demonstrators had marched some 150 miles from Philadelphia to dramatize the fact that the voice of working people is being drowned out by the super rich.

"Today, I join others in non-violent civil disobedience in order to ... draw attention to our corrupt campaign finance system and rigged voting laws," said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), one of about 100 national organizations, unions, churches and community groups backing the demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol and the Philadelphia to DC march.

The marchers, including people from at least 33 different states, were welcomed by churches and community groups along the route and joined by Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, author-activist Frances Moore Lappé, Congressman C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D. Md., actor Sam Waterston and actress Gaby Hoffman.

At the Capitol, as they sat in front of the east side of the building, demonstrators chanted "one person, one vote" and "money out of politics." One sign read "Things go better without Koch," a reference to right wing billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch who have announced they are throwing some $900 million into political campaign this election cycle.

The demonstrators also protested state voter suppression laws such as the requirement that voters obtain and show "valid" IDs.

Some participants in the sit in protested the Democratic Party's designation of "super delegates" - party figures, such as members of Congress, who are given votes at the Democratic National Convention but who are not elected in primaries or caucuses. (In the Wyoming caucuses last weekend, for example, Bernie Sanders won the vote overwhelmingly but Hillary Clinton walked away with the majority of the delegates.)

The demonstrators were arrested on charges of "unlawful demonstration activity." Police handcuffed them before putting them in vans and buses.

Yesterday's sit in is the first in a series of demonstrations scheduled to take place every day this week. Some 3,600 people, including prominent elected officials, activists and celebrities have pledged to participate and risk being arrested.

The organizations sponsoring the sit-ins have formed a coalition called Democracy Spring.

The coalition is calling on Congress to pass four bills: the Government by the People and Fair Elections Now Act, the Voting Rights Advancement Act, the Voter Empowerment Act and the Democracy for All Amendment.

Together, these bills would create a public campaign financing system and restore a provision of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court that requires federal oversight of voting procedures in states that have histories of voter suppression and discrimination. The bills would also overturn the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case that allows corporations to spend unlimited sums in elections.

This coming weekend, a related coalition, Democracy Awakening, will hold teach-ins, panel discussions and lobbying activities protesting the growing number of state voter suppression laws.

Sunday, April 17, there will be a march and rally at the Capitol and on Monday, in what is being called A Conscience Day of Action, hundreds of people from both Democracy Awakening and Democracy Spring will stage a civil disobedience action.

"This is a huge moment for our country," said Democracy Spring lead organizer Kai Newkirk. "Almost every American agrees our democracy is seriously out of whack; that our elections and government are dominated by wealthy special interests.

"And yet Congress is doing nothing," Newkirk continued. "So we say: 'no more'! This inaction is not acceptable. The enthusiastic public response to Democracy Spring demonstrates Americans' deep frustration with a political system they no longer feel hears their voices. Democracy Spring [and Democracy Awakening] will turn widespread frustration into a powerful force to fulfill our country's promise of government of, by, and for the people."

Photo: Alejandra Pablos of Arizona leads a chant as voting rights reform demonstrators stage a sit-in at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, April 11, 2016, urging lawmakers to take money out of the political process. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Dead miners’ families react to coal criminal Blankenship’s 12 month jail sentence

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 15:50:00 +0000

CHARLESTON, WV - Convicted coal criminal Don Blankenship appeared in federal court for sentencing before U.S. District Judge Irene Berger last Wednesday. His court appearance came one day following the sixth anniversary of the April 5, 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners in Raleigh County, WV.

On December 3, 2015, a jury found Blankenship guilty of conspiracy to violate mine safety and health standards at the Upper Big Branch Mine [UBB] of Massey Energy's coal operations in southern West Virginia. After many delays before Blankenship's jury trial and another before his sentencing hearing, the gavel finally sounded last week on this coal baron's fate.

Although Blankenship did sort of express some sorrow by stating, "the lost miners were great coal miners," his assertion before the court that "I am not guilty of a crime" tends to belie any remorse, or any appreciation of the gravity of his part in the deaths of those 29 miners who will never see their families again. Judge Berger handed down the maximum sentence allowed by law: 12 months in prison, $250,000 fine, and an additional year's probation after his incarceration. His attorneys promised to appeal and, to the disappointment of many, he walked from the courthouse free.

Before sentencing Blankenship, Judge Berger made a condemnatory statement regarding the responsibility of coal mining employers in general. She directed it specifically at Blankenship, saying that he was "ultimately responsible" for working conditions of the mine. She went on: "Each day and each shift that miners don their hats and boots and proudly go underground, generally without any trepidation to make a living for themselves and for their families, they necessarily rely on owners and operators and administrators of these mines to provide a safe workplace."

Dr. Judy Jones Petersen, who lost her brother, Steve, in the UBB explosion, seemed to accept that Judge Berger had done all within her power to hand down justice. She said of Judge Berger's statement that she said exactly "what needed to be heard" and further commented that it wouldn't have mattered what happened in court that day because it "wouldn't have been enough penalty" for what Blankenship deserved. She mused that the miners' families will have to accept what happened in court and be content with what Judge Berger had said. Dr. Jones Petersen also commented that Blankenship's apology was "too little, too late."

In our interview with Dr. Jones Petersen, she told us that she was glad the Judge gave Blankenship the maximum sentence. She explained that he was still not in jail because of his right to appeal. The appeal may be the reason that no report date [to prison] has been set.

Tommy Davis was one of the most outspoken family members as Blankenship left the courthouse. He had lost a son, Cory, as well as a brother and nephew at UBB. He shouted at Blankenship that he (Blankenship) didn't have a heart. He commented later that Blankenship never came to him or to his mom and dad in the six years since the UBB explosion. Davis said that his mom and dad grieved themselves to death and that Blankenship never came to apologize or say anything to him or his grieving family.

I asked Dr. Jones Petersen about Mr. Davis's statement and she said, to her knowledge, Blankenship never apologized to any of the families nor did he visit the funeral home, attend the funeral, or even send flowers.

She did recount that Blankenship expressed sorrow that the "families were hurting and emotions were running high." She remarked that, as he said that, he seemed "detached from taking responsibility." She took consolation from the sentencing hearing that, "more importantly, Judge Berger had said what needed to be said."

The problem with Blankenship's lenient sentence, though it is the maximum allowable by law, is that the laws themselves permit only a 12-month prison term and a $250,000 fine for conspiracy to violate mine safety and health standards. Yet such actions result in the deaths of those workers who must eke out a living underground digging coal.

The grief, disappointment, and even the righteous anger of those dead miners' families is understandable. While Blankenship is directly culpable for the deaths of those 29 miners, our system of justice has also failed those miners and their grieving families.

Photo: Clay Mullins, left, who lost his brother Rex Mullins in the Upper Big Branch explosion, reads the statement that he was not allowed to read during the sentencing of former Massey CEO Don Blankenship as Gary Quarles, right, who lost his son, takes in the emotion of the day, April 6, in Charleston, W.Va. F. Brian Ferguson/Charleston Gazette-Mail | AP

Limited ACCESS for undocumented students

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 14:07:00 +0000

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Student organizations from across Illinois gathered April 5 at the state capitol to rally for the ACCESS bill. If it passes the state senate, ACCESS would allow undocumented students to apply for scholarships at four-year public universities in Illinois. According to the bill's supporters, a coalition of student organizations, universities, and nonprofit groups called ACCESS IL, it would cost the state no additional money, but rather would redistribute the existing pot of funds among public institutions. According to ACCESS IL's official website

"The legislation does not have a fiscal impact because it does not require the state to appropriate additional resources for higher education ... The bill simply provides 4-year public universities the legal authority to offer financial aid to undocumented students."

The ACCESS Bill, SB 2196, was approved 7-3 on April 5, just passing the mark for the required number of supporting votes it needed in order to go to the full state senate for consideration. Undocumented students and allies cheered as the motion passed, though they remain cautiously optimistic about the results. "I'm excited that politicians are seeing that this is a great investment," said Jaime Nolasco, an undocumented student at the University of Illinois/ Urbana-Champaign. "Today is a pivotal change - this is the just step one but we are on the right track to do this!"

Beyond the possible funds that the ACCESS bill would make available, however, undocumented students have few options when it comes to continuing their quest for higher education. They are not only ineligible to receive federal student aid, but programs such as the Dream Fund-which creates access to financial resources and professional development for the immigrant student leaders-is constrained by limited funding. Meanwhile, MAP Grants, which previously provided money to Illinois residents who attend approved Illinois colleges and demonstrated financial need, have suffered under Gov. Bruce Rauner's budget cuts, making the scramble for private funding that much more intense.

Tanya Cabrera, director of the Illinois Dream Fund, was present at the hearing and spoke to People's World about the need for additional alternatives, "We have to create funding, and the way we do that is through student-driven initiatives." Cabrera has been working with undocumented students since she was a school counselor in 2004. She first began getting involved in the politics of their situation when an undocumented student came to her for guidance and discovered that there were few to no college pathways available. "How does a community thrive if you don't provide access to your populations?"

Currently federal law allows individual state legislatures to offer undocumented students eligibility for state financial aid. Passage of the Student ACCESS bill would allow 4-year public universities to offer financial aid to every student enrolled at their institution on a competitive basis.

There is no doubt that undocumented students have a long battle ahead of them. Cabrera said that the best way to advocate for ACCESS is to educate the public about how everyone benefits when students receive financial aid. "We need to show legislators the numbers of undocumented people in their districts. If that is an entire section of the population that goes uneducated, then that has an effect on the economy."

There are presently an estimated 1500 undocumented students attending public universities in the state of Illinois, and many more that go unaccounted for in private universities. Despite President Obama's enactment by executive order in November 2014 of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) continues to terrorize undocumented communities and the students living within them. With their livelihoods on the line, and educational opportunities limited by federal policies, states are now the Dreamers' best hope. Organizers continue their push for legislative reform, while undocumented students everywhere await their opportunity to step out of the shadows.

Video by Earchiel Johnson and Michelle Zacarias | PW

Photo: Michelle Zacarias | PW

Clinton, Sanders campaigns clash; commitment doesn't

Fri, 08 Apr 2016 12:02:00 +0000

There's no doubt about it. Bernie Sanders' victory in the Wisconsin primary Tuesday proves the "political revolution" has emerged as a full-blown mainstream movement. Democratic Party leaders recognize it is ratcheting up the enthusiasm and energy needed to protect the White House from the right wing.

The question is: can unity be maintained while the Sanders and Hillary Clinton campaigns compete with each other for delegates in upcoming primaries and caucuses? Also, Sanders is now reaching out to superdelegates who had previously declared for Clinton.

Wisconsin was Sanders' sixth victory in a row. Clinton has won 20 statewide contests and Sanders 16, including balloting around the world by Democrats Abroad.

Not bad for a campaign that started out with just three percent support in the polls.

Today, polls show that Sanders tops Clinton in beating Trump, Cruz or Kasich.

Furthermore, polls show Millennials of all races and ethnic groups overwhelmingly support Sanders, as do Latinos. Some 70 to 80 percent of Democrats rate Sanders as "trustworthy" while only 20 to 30 percent attribute this characteristic to Clinton.

In Wisconsin, Sanders won 71 of 72 counties, proving he can win in urban, suburban, and rural areas. He also won around 30 percent of the African-American vote.

Paul Begala, a top Democratic Party strategist and staunch Clinton supporter, said on CNN that the fact that Sanders did not attack Clinton in his Wisconsin victory speech is sure evidence he is eager to maintain unity within the Democratic Party.

Begala also said last Tuesday night he did not believe speculation that Clinton would launch personal attacks against Sanders.

Nevertheless, the very next day it appeared she did just that.

On the MSNBC Morning Joe Show, Clinton said Sanders had fumbled questions asked him by the New York Daily News, "and that does raise a lot of questions."

The Washington Post ran the headline: "Clinton questions whether Sanders is qualified to be president."

Sanders responded by saying he abhors getting personal, but if pushed he would respond in kind. He said the American people might think Clinton is "not qualified" because she gets money from super PACs, supported the Iraqi War and has advocated for job-killing free trade agreements.

The acrimony was more or less put to rest when Clinton denied she had questioned Sanders' qualifications and said that "If it's between Bernie and Trump or Cruz, I'll take Bernie any day."

Wooing superdelegates

A much more serious rift could be in the making, however.

In speech after speech, Clinton has been accusing Sanders of not being a real Democrat.

Although during his 25 years in Congress Sanders has always caucused with Democratic legislators, Clinton reminds her audiences that he has been an Independent and is a democratic socialist.

"He's a relatively new Democrat, and, in fact, I'm not even sure he is one," she says. "I think he himself doesn't consider himself to be a Democrat."

Democratic Party leaders such as Paul Begala, Donna Brazile and David Axelrod have all said they welcome Sanders into the Democratic fold because as an erstwhile "outsider" he has been able to swell the ranks of the party with badly needed, enthusiastic newcomers.

Nevertheless, Clinton is questioning Sanders' party loyalty. TV commentators and newspaper reporters say she's doing this to dissuade her superdelegates from switching.

Sanders' top advisor, Tad Devine, has been talking with superdelegates pledged to Clinton. Devine has been a Democratic Party insider for 30 years.

Seven hundred and twelve people who have a vote at the Democratic National Convention are superdelegates. That's 15 percent. Mostly, they're men and woman who have been elected to public office. They are not bound by the votes of their state's primary or caucus, but many announce early who they "intend" to support. They're allowed to change their mind at any time.

Clinton began her campaign with 362 superdelegates . She now has 483. Sanders began with eight and now has 31.

Despite their announcements of "intention," Devine told the Associated Press that the Sanders campaign is betting superdelegates will not make their final choice until "after the voters have spoken ... not before."

In fact, in 2008, many superdelegates pledged to Hillary Clinton switched to Obama when he began winning primaries.

Holding on to superdelegates

This time around, however, Clinton is bound and determined not to lose any of her superdelegates.

She often reminds listeners that she and Bill have campaigned for many officials who are now superdelegates. Furthermore, she and Bill have donated many millions of dollars to the Democratic Party and have raised millions more.

Furthermore, Counterpunch online magazine reports that superdelegates from 33 states are beholden to Clinton for helping them raise money for their own campaigns for various offices. For example, the Hillary Victory Fund splits its proceeds between the Clinton presidential campaign and state Democratic organizations. It's run jointly by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee itself.

On the other hand, Sanders has raised no money for the Democratic Party itself nor has he campaigned for many Democratic Party activists.

How could he? Up until a short while ago he was an Independent.

Tad Devine told CNN "[Clinton] is right [Bernie] is a new Democrat, he was elected as an Independent. ... Bernie Sanders can pull together and unify the Democrats, and he has brought thousands of new voters to the party."

Will the current competition between Clinton and Sanders harm the building of unity? Both have a long way to go before reaching 2,383, the number of delegates needed to secure the presidential nomination. Currently, Clinton has a combined delegate and superdelegate total of 1,749. Sanders has a combined total of 1,061.

Most observers are saying that unlike the Republican candidates, both Sanders and Clinton are committed to doing what's best for the nation. They have disagreements, but beneath it all, the commentators say, they have goodwill toward each other.

For example, even while criticizing Sanders this week, Clinton said "Look, he's raised a lot of important issues that the Democratic Party agrees with; income inequality first and foremost."

Photo: Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton during the Univision, Washington Post Democratic presidential debate at Miami-Dade College, March 9, in Miami. Wilfredo Lee | AP

Rebellion growing in Juarez border factories

Thu, 07 Apr 2016 11:34:00 +0000

Ciudad Juárez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, is the center of a growing rebellion of laborers in the border factories. Since September, workers have set up encampments, or plantones, in front of factories, they've marched through the streets, they've demanded recognition of independent unions. In response, the companies have fired hundreds and tried to stop the workers' movement from spreading.

About 255,000 people work directly in Juárez' 330 maquiladoras, about 13 percent of the national total, meaning Juárez has one of the largest concentrations of manufacturing on the U.S./Mexico border. Almost all the plants are foreign-owned. Eight of Juárez's 17 largest factories belong to U.S. corporations, three to Taiwanese owners, two to Europeans, and just two to Mexicans. Together, they employ over 69,000 people- nearly 30 percent of the city's total.

Five companies (two U.S. and all three of the Taiwanese companies) are contract manufacturers of electronics equipment sold under the familiar brand names of huge corporations. One, Foxconn, is the world's largest contract manufacturer. Its Ciudad Juárez plants assemble products for Hewlett Packard, Cisco and Dell. Three Juárez plants produce auto parts and electronics, including the city's two largest factories: Delphi, which employs 16,000 workers, and Lear, which employs 24,000 workers.

In most other maquiladora cities like Tijuana or Matamoros, workers are rigidly controlled- and independent organizing is suppressed- by a political partnership between the companies, government authorities and unions tied to Mexico's old ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Juárez has been an exception. Its selling point to major corporations has been the fact that it has some of the lowest wages anywhere on the border; the average pay of Juárez maquiladora workers was 18 percent less than the average for manufacturing workers in Mexico's other border cities.

The new workers' movement in Juárez began last August at four maquiladoras: Foxconn, ADC Commscope, Lexmark, and Eaton Corporation. Commscope manufactures laser optic cable, Lexmark makes cartridges for inkjet printers, and Eaton is an auto parts plant. On September 16, Mexico's National Independence Day, a group of 190 Commscope workers went to the local labor authorities at the Conciliation and Arbitration Board, and filed a request for a registro, or legal status, to form an independent union. At Foxconn, workers also asked for a registro for their own union that same month.

Both efforts were greeted by mass firings, which led workers to set up encampments in front of those plants last fall in protest. At Lexmark, 120 workers were fired in December for protesting bad wages and conditions, and they have maintained a plantón there ever since. Workers lifted similar worker encampments at Foxconn and Commscope after the companies promised them a registro in November. At the time of this article's writing, the Lexmark plantón continues in front of that factory. A network of supporters in the U.S. has organized solidarity demonstrations, including a concert headlined by folksinger legend Charlie King. One demonstration has even confronted the company at its headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky.

This insurgent wave of worker protests threatens the established economic order at the center of maquiladora production on the border, as Mexico continues to feel the impact of the U.S. recession. By U.S. standards, the companies are huge: Foxconn's two factories alone employ over 11,000 people while Commscope employs 3,000 workers, and Lexmark another 2,800 workers.

While a wave of worker activism spread through Juárez in the 1990s, such militancy declined as the city's women became victims of a notorious series of mass murders that terrorized the city for a decade. Juárez has become a huge metropolis built on the labor of tens of thousands of young women, overwhelmingly migrants, who have traveled north from cities, small villages, and rural areas in central and southern Mexico. Between 1993 and February 2005, over 370 women had been murdered. In 2010 alone, 247 women were murdered, and between January and August of the following year, another 130.

The mothers of Juarez organized despite the terror to fight for the lives of their daughters. They charged that larger social forces are responsible for creating a climate of extreme violence against women. This new wave of worker protests, therefore, is breaking the cycle of fear and terror that has gripped working-class neighborhoods for over a decade.

In the two personal accounts that follow, Verónica Rodríguez, a fired Commscope worker, and Elvia Villescas, a community organizer, explain the origins of this new workers' movement, and what it might mean for the maquiladora workers of Juárez.

VERÓNICA RODRÍGUEZ, who was fired from ADC Commscope:

I've worked in many maquiladoras. I have three kids- two boys and a girl- and I went to work there because I was only able to complete secondary school. The workday is nine hours. You can get Saturday andSunday off, so you can do the work you have at home, and at the end of the day you're with your family and can help your children with their homework. But you have to ask permission from the company to let you go if your child is sick, and you practically have to pray on your knees. It's kind of contradictory.

I began working at ADC Commscope twelve years ago. I worked for eleven years, was out for three months, and then came back for a year after that. When I began there, I worked really hard so that I could get a better job. But when I achieved that, I could see that there were a lot of abuses.

The other supervisors wouldn't give them permission to leave the line, for instance. One of them I fought with all the time. Once a worker asked for the next day off because he had an appointment for his son, who'd just been born. The supervisor said, "No, tell him [the doctor] to do it another day." I told him, the appointment is for tomorrow- he couldn't change it. In the end, the supervisor said he had to find someone else to replace him, and so I told him I'd do it.

The same thing happened when another woman, María, had to go to the doctor. She was a good worker, and never asked for time off. But the supervisor said, if she leaves, you have to do her job.

If older workers need to go to the bathroom more often, they have to wait til the break. I heard him tell one older woman not go to the bathroom: "If you can't do the work, you should just leave. There are more people who want to work out there, young people, 18 or 19 years old. You should leave so they can come to work." There's an area at work they call the jail. You can't get up from your position. You can't go to the bathroom, except for the ten-minute break you have in the morning or afternoon. Another woman began looking ill at work one morning. She had low blood pressure, and she looked pale and couldn't stand up. She asked to go home, but the supervisor wouldn't let her. At the end of the day, she could hardly walk out of the factory. Later we heard that she died at eight o-clock that evening.

Sexual harassment is a big problem at Commscope as well. Young women who try to complain about it with Human Resources don't get help. They say there's a hotline, but no one ever answers the phone. Lots of supervisors demand that young women go out with them to eat or go dancing. When they say "No," the supervisor talks with the person in charge of their line and they give the women more work or a difficult job to complete. If a new girl comes in, the supervisors gather around her and talk with her and touch her. Supervisors have been found having sex with girls in the parking lot, and nothing is done about it. There's no punishment.

When I went to work at Commscope I was making 145 pesos [roughly $8.40USD] per day. Now with the movement we've organized, they've raised it to 172 pesos [roughly $10USD] a day. They raised the wages in a lot of the maquiladoras after we started our movement. It's given us a little more money for our families, but it's not much better because the prices have been going up for food, clothing, school- all the things we need.

Our wages were never enough to support a family. The economy in Mexico has been in the dirt for years. The wages have never been enough. We could never eat meat much- maybe one day a week. And it was the cheapest meat- ground meat or chicken. Meat like chops would cost 100 or 120 pesos [approximately $6 or $7USD] a kilo. You'd have to work a whole day for a kilo of meat. When school starts you have to buy uniforms, shoes and other things. But many families can only afford second-hand clothes and shoes. That's the only thing mothers can afford, and both husbands and wives have to work.

There are a lot of young people working at Commscope who are 16 or 17 years old. Their parents give permission because the family needs another wage to survive. The children have to work for the family to eat, and at 16, adolescents have their own needs too. Sometimes they're trying to earn enough money to go to school, because their mother and father don't have enough to pay for it. So they leave school and go into the factory.

Now we're speaking up about it. We're telling the companies what they should be paying. These are huge corporations that make millions of dollars. What's their justification for paying such miserable wages?Now we're speaking up about it. We're telling the companies what they should be paying. These are huge corporations that make millions of dollars. What's their justification for paying such miserable wages?

The movement in Commscope began when we decided to organize a union and we went to a lawyer to find out what we had to do. At our first meeting we expected 30 people to show up and we ended up with 200. The lawyer told us we had to get a registro from the authorities [the government's legal recognition of the union's existence, which was very hard to get. But he said we could do it. On September 16 we went with him to the labor board to get the registro. And on October 12 we had a small meeting at work - a symbolic one really. We wanted to show the company that we had made this decision. But after that the supervisors and Human Resources began harassing us. They said organizing a union was a waste of time and they'd never permit it. They told us to go back to work. And on October 19 we were fired. They say it's because we organized a work stoppage, but we never did that.

So we decided to organize an encampment in front of the factory and hold a press conference. We lived there for 43 days, in a very organized way. We had groups of 15 or 20 people, and each group had a shift of 6 hours. We were there in the plantón day and night. The company called the police on us. They said we couldn't have the planton there, that we'd have to do it somewhere else. Everything we did was legal, and within our rights, but the police kept harassing us on behalf of the company.

Finally the state labor secretary visited us, the right hand of Governor [César] Duarte. He asked us to lift the plantón because we were damaging the company's image. We said we wouldn't leave. We asked him to get us the registro for our union, and he refused. We looked at the example of Foxconn, where workers ended their encampment after they got a promise of a registro for their union. But they didn't give them anything, and none of the fired workers there were rehired. We told the labor secretary that if we got a registro for our union, we'd lift the plantón. He came a second time in November and they didn't give it to us then either, so we organized a march to demand it. We waited for four hours outside the Labor Board office, and he finally came out and said he'd give us the registro.

In the end we got the registro, but that was all. The 173 people who were fired at Commscope, like me, have not been rehired. We're demanding, not just our reinstatement, but reinstatement with a union. The company is telling everyone that we don't want to work. We have the registro, but outside the plant we can't do anything. We have people inside, who belong to the union, but they're afraid they'll be fired if they show support for it. We go out to the neighborhoods looking for the workers, so we can talk with them at home.

Part of our strategy is to come here, to the U.S., and ask people to support us. We met with the head of the labor council in San Francisco. He told us the city is installing new fiber optic cables, which is the product we make in the plant. He said his union will make sure the city won't buy cables from Commscope unless we're rehired and the company negotiates with us.

We want to put pressure on the government too, so that they'll go to the company and demand our reinstatement. We have a legal case over the firings, demanding that the company recognize us and accept us. The government has to enforce the labor law and protect our rights, and not be so on the side of the companies.

Our perspective for the future is to struggle, struggle and struggle for better conditions in the maquiladoras. The company has to understand that we want to work, but with our union. That's the way we're going to win improvements in our situation. We just want better wages, better jobs, and a better life for our families.

ELVIA VILLESCAS, director of Las Hormigas (The Ants), a community-organizing project in Juárez:

We're located in Anapra and Lomas de Poleo, very marginalized communities in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, on the U.S. border. We began Las Hormigas to organize educational and human development projects. Anapra and Lomas de Poleo became famous because of the number of women's bodies found there during the feminicides. In both neighborhoods there are many families that have lost a daughter or have a sister who disappeared or was murdered.

Anapra is a community that has been abandoned. On the surface it looks developed. It's on a big highway, and big trucks go by all the time to the border crossing. There are some big businesses along the highway because the government has opened this commercial space for them. But if you walk just one or two blocks into the neighborhood, you'll see very dire poverty. Anapra has about 20,000 inhabitants. People living there have major health problems because the sanitation is so bad. Many homes still have no sewers or drains, so the wastewater runs into the streets. The government hasn't invested money in the schools. So in that sense, there is a lot of repression against this community.

The majority of the people living there are migrants, and a great number work in the maquiladoras. In Las Hormigas, we've done mini-surveys during our workshops, asking people to raise their hands if they work in a maquila. Out of 30 people, 10 or 12 will raise their hands. So imagine that in Anapra 30 or 40 percent of the people living there work in a maquila. There's a great need in this community for education- not schoolbook education, but education in rights and solidarity.

The media refuse to run stories about this movement in the four maquiladoras or treat it with the importance it deserves. At Commscope, 178 workers were fired, and there are four maquilas where this has happened. Yet people have little information about this. Those who do know about it don't want to talk because they're afraid that if they say anything they'll be identified as troublemakers and the companies will start watching them.

There is a list of workers who the companies are watching and following. There are threats all the time that if you do something they don't like, you'll never get a job in a maquiladora. Workers in the maquilas are always very afraid that anything they say may lead to the loss of their jobs. And a maquila job is still seen as a job with some security. Very poorly paid, but at least you're working.

The workers are producing all the wealth, but receive very little benefit from it, while the companies make a lot of money. The maquiladoras will not permit workers to organize unions. To allow that would mean that they would have to listen to them and respect their labor and health rights. The maquiladoras have no conscience, no sense that workers have rights. They comply with the minimum that the law demands, but there's no sense that because they have thousands of workers they should give them better wages or a clinic or a child care center for the women workers.

People are tired of the wages. At 170 pesos [less than $10USD] a day you can't buy anything. You go to the store and buy three or four things and you've spent 500 pesos [approximately $29 USD]. But I think that in Mexico generally there is also growing feeling of exhaustion. People have grown tired of the fact that so many abuses are tolerated by those who are on top, whether it's a maquiladora or the authorities. The demand is growing that they begin to respect peoples' rights. This process has developed over a long time, and we're reaching the breaking point. That's important because for so many years we've been living with everything.

This movement of people in the maquilas is very important. We have to know about it and support it. It is the power of unity against the economic power. It's something incredible.This movement of people in the maquilas is very important. We have to know about it and support it. It is the power of unity against the economic power. It's something incredible.

A union with power here would make a very big difference. It would give power to the people, to the workers. Instead of just working to earn their 800 pesos people will feel they have the ability to make decisions, to demand what they need. Right now, if you are a worker and if you need someone to take care of your child, that means nothing to the maquiladora. You say, I need someone to take care of my baby, but the maquiladora doesn't hear your voice. But if there's a union, with the strength that comes from unity, the maquiladora will have to listen.

I love my country but sometimes it gives me great pain. We need to wake up and recover who we are. We have to change the direction everything is going, all the corruption. It's a very important moment. This movement of maquiladora workers is taking the leap, making us question who we are. It's a very positive signal that things might be difficult, but that we are going to see a change.

Photo: Elvia Villescas (left) and Veronica Rodríguez (right), activists in the Juárez workers movement. | David Bacon