People Before Profit blog

Black History Month is American History Month

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 15:42:00 +0000

W.E.B. Du Bois's magisterial book The Souls of Black Folk (1907) has left one particularly clear imprint on American conversations: its description, in the opening chapter "Of Our Spiritual Strivings," of African Americans' "double consciousness," their sense of being both within and without American identity, insiders yet outsiders to this national community. Yet in his closing chapter "The Sorrow Songs," Du Bois frames that relationship quite differently, and in a way that shows Black History Month in a new and important light.

Having analyzed the genre and importance of the African American spiritual, with musical selections from which he has begun each of his book's chapters, Du Bois pulls back and addresses European Americans directly, in a paragraph that demands quoting in full:

"Your country? How came it yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song - soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit. Around us the history of the land has centered for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation's heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this people, and they have found peace only in the altars of the God of Right. Nor has our gift of the Spirit been merely passive. Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation - we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise not Justice, Mercy, and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse. Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this work and striving? Would America have been America without her Negro people?"

Du Bois's fellow historian Carter G. Woodson put it this way: "We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history." Yet Woodson's most lasting legacy, the 1926 creation of Negro History Week that has been expanded into Black History Month, feels far too often as if its celebrations and commemorations treat African American figures and experiences, stories and histories, in the former way: as something separate, or at least distinct, from the broad sweep of American history.

To rename Black History Month as American History Month would be, to be sure, to risk diluting its necessary focus on those African American stories and histories - to parallel the slippage when critics argue we must abandon "Black Lives Matter" for "All Lives Matter" (as if the first does not already allow for the second). But what if we reframed the month's import and impact without changing the name? What if we consistently defined the month's figures and identities, events and stories, issues and histories as at one and the same time black history and American history, as indeed the vital threads in the American pattern that they represent?

This frame could be applied to any and all African American histories, but a specific example is Quock Walker, the Massachusetts slave whose 1781 legal suits and petitions, based in the language of both the Declaration of Independence and the Massachusetts Constitution, contributed significantly to that state's abolition of slavery. Better remembering Walker would certainly connect us to the national scope of the slave system, as well as to African Americans' active roles in resisting and ending it. But at the same time, Walker represents an exemplary Revolutionary American, and helps us see how the language, ideas, and effects of the Revolutionary era were engaged with and used by Americans far beyond the framers. What Quock Walker embodies, then, is precisely the inseparability of black history and American history, the vital influence of the former on the latter, and the necessity of remembering and telling both.

Black History Month is American History Month. It's too long for a hashtag, and perhaps for a slogan as well. But what better way to honor the legacies of founding African American historians like Woodson and Du Bois than to offer a more accurate assessment of the intertwined American stories and histories for which they argued and worked so potently.

Photo: W. E. B. Du Bois, photo taken in summer 1907 in connection with the annual Niagara Movement meeting. Wikimedia Commons/University of Massachusetts

Ben Railton is associate professor of English and coordinator of American Studies at Fitchburg State University. He's working to create public American Studies scholarship and to impact our collective memories and narratives, as evidenced by his books (most recently "The Chinese Exclusion Act: What It Can Teach Us about America"), his daily AmericanStudies blog, and many other ongoing projects. This article is reposted from We're History with permission of the author.

The poisoned cookie of “white skin privilege”

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 13:35:00 +0000

African Americans face discrimination in all economic and social arenas, including wages, employment opportunities, rents, interest and insurance rates, access to quality health care, education and public services, as well as in all phases of the criminal justice system from arrests to sentencing. According to the Pew Research Center the median wealth of white families was $141,900 in 2013, compared with $11,000 for Black families. However this gives a very misleading picture since it hides the enormous concentration of wealth in the hands of the super-rich. The wealthiest 10 percent of white families own two-thirds of the nation's wealth, while the bottom half of white families own only two percent. The median wealth for white working class families is much closer to that of Black families.

Nonetheless, the Black-white discrepancy is real and gives a bottom-line economic measure of the impact of racism in American society. This is sometimes called "white skin privilege." But while the discrepancy is real, it is also a trick bag that hides the harm racism does to white workers as well. It is a bag of poisoned cookies and the poison in the cookies attacks the brains of white workers who eat them and makes them think that African Americans are responsible for the inferior and oppressive conditions they face.

We are continually told by right-wing media and hate talk radio that, if there are problems confronting the Black community, it is due to "cultural shortcomings," "poor parenting," "lack of work ethic," and other ways of blaming the victim. While the poisoned cookies are primarily consumed by whites, there are even unfortunate instances of African Americans - usually in positions of power or affluence - who have been enticed to consume the same confection.

These ideas serve to cover up the real beneficiaries of racism, the real promoters of inequality and the fact that ultimately white people, particularly white workers, are also victims of the systematic racism in our society. Here is how it works.

There are approximately 100 million households in the U.S. According to the Federal Reserve, the wealthiest one percent (one million) have aggregate assets totalling $30 trillion. That is an average of $30 million per household for these people.

This massive wealth was created by the labor of the multi-racial, multi-ethnic working class, the most productive workforce in world history, which every year generates nearly $20 trillion in new wealth - the Gross Domestic Product. But, under the rules of capitalism and the laws enacted by its defenders, this wealth is appropriated by the tiniest minority of the population, people who mostly never did real work a day in their lives, but are able to actively resist unions and fund politicians to pass laws that maintain their position, power and profits. They benefit directly by getting extra profits from paying Black workers reduced wages and they benefit indirectly even more by putting the poison in the cookies to keep the working people divided and politically weak. This is accomplished by funding a vast network of right-wing media, think tank, religious and educational programs and institutions.

Consider what could happen if a progressive tax reform were enacted that abolished taxes on working people and left the wealthiest one percent with "only" $10 million per household. While they might not be able to indulge in the Wall Street casinos as much, they could continue to enjoy lavish lifestyles and $20 trillion would become available for public use. That's a lot of money!

Here are a few examples of what it could do. The American Society of Civil Engineers says the amount needed to bring the nation's infrastructure up to government standards is $3.6 trillion. A massive public works program to do this would create 100 million jobs paying $18 an hour.

According to the National Center of Education Statistics, government at all levels currently collects $0.6 trillion for public education. With the additional funding from progressive taxation it would be easy to double the current resources available. Tuition at all public universities could be made free for $.06 trillion. Student loan debt could be abolished for $1.2 trillion. Social Security benefits could be doubled for $0.8 trillion. All health care costs could be covered with $2.6 trillion. All these things could be done using only half the funds obtained by taxing the rich.

There was a time such far-reaching measures were adopted that put the tax burden on the rich, funded massive jobs programs, established minimum wages, empowered unions, and created Social Security and Unemployment Compensation. These were the measures collectively known as the New Deal of the 1930s. The New Deal was a huge advance in American history but also left a great deal undone. In particular, its programs required the support of the Southern Dixiecrats and left the system of Jim Crow segregation in the South and nearby areas intact.

Until the civil rights movement broke that up, Southern Blacks remained subject to the reign of KKK terror installed with the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Southern working class whites were fed a diet rich in poisoned cookies.which gave them "privileges" to vote, sit at lunch counters, send their children to schools with books, access hospitals and walk freely in the streets. On the other hand, they paid a deadly price for swallowing the poison. It prevented them from uniting with the Black community, and they got the lowest wages, most dangerous working conditions, worst education and health care and shortest life expectancy of whites anywhere in the country.

Today, President Obama has called for raising the minimum wage, increasing taxes on the rich, and rebuilding the infrastructure. But, given the right-wing extremist control of Congress, there is little immediate hope those measures can be achieved. We are at an impasse, but there is a way out.

Racism was central to the Republican right-wing extremist victory achieved in the elections last November. Their candidates refused to discuss any real issue the American people face. Instead, their tactic was to demonize Obama and his policies, particularly the Affordable Care Act. They attacked "Big Government spending," propagating the Big Lie that government programs primarily benefit people of color at the expense of hard-working white taxpayers. Given the failure of Democratic candidates to defend Obama and expose the obvious racist campaign, voter turnout collapsed with the exception of white Republicans, their bellies full of poisoned cookies.

Working people - black and white - may now face serious consequences. This is particularly so in states under right-wing control, where legislation is being advanced to impose greater austerity by further shifting the tax burden from the rich to the working class, defunding public education and local government services, and curtailing voting rights, the rights of women and protection of the environment.

Progressive people must rise to the challenge. We must make clear to white people that they are being conned by the frontmen of the one percent. We must show them that they are actually being held back, that their living standards and democratic rights are under attack by the racist system and its proponents, and that it is in their interest to unite with their African American brothers and sisters in the fight to end racism in all its forms. We must educate and mobilize working people to vote and to convince the entire working class and its allies of the truth of the fundamental trade union concept of Solidarity - "An Injury to One Is An Injury To All; United We Stand, Divided We Fall!" Working class, democratic, anti-racist solidarity is the antidote to the poison in the cookies. It is simple, extremely potent and it works!

Photo: United Steelworkers Local 7-669 rally, Oct. 11, 2014. USW/Flickr

Sara Alchermes, 100: tireless fighter for peace and social justice

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 12:44:00 +0000

On February 7, 2015, the world lost a tireless crusader for world peace, social justice, and equality. Sara Alchermes passed away in Walnut Creek at the age of 100.

Sara was born in 1914 to Esther and Marx Blashko. A native of Seattle, she moved to the Bay Area to work at the Richmond shipyards during World War II as a burner constructing Victory ships. After the war, she remained in San Francisco, working on production lines at Best Foods and later at MJB coffee, where she met Ernest, her husband of 54 years. Everywhere she worked, she was a strong advocate for the rights of individuals in the workplace.

The family later settled in Palo Alto, where Sara made many friends through her social activism and various jobs. Her friendly demeanor and can-do attitude drew many people close.

Throughout her life, Sara attended gatherings, joined picket lines, and wrote heartfelt letters to political leaders in an effort to make a positive and lasting change in the world. She was an active member of peace and justice groups throughout the Bay Area. Her tireless work inspired many around her to support important human rights causes.

She was a dedicated and enthusiastic supporter of the People's World. For years she helped to distribute the print edition, and more recently worked to build support for peoplesworld.org.

Sara's passion for knowledge never waned, and she was especially well read in current events. Her absence is deeply felt by all who knew her.

Sara is predeceased by her husband, Ernest, and three siblings: Beccy, Leo, and Abe Blashko. She is survived by her daughter Adria Schwartz (Norman), and granddaughters Allison and Julia.

Friends and family will gather for a celebration of Sara's life at Byron Park, 1700 Tice Valley Blvd., Walnut Creek, on Mar. 1 from 2-4 pm. Donations in Sara's memory may be made to Hospice of the East Bay or the charity of your choice.

Image: Throughout her life, Sara joined picket lines and was an active member of peace and justice groups. Drawing by Rini Templeton, riniart.org.

The significance of the Howard Morgan victory for our movement

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 11:20:00 +0000

No social movement for justice and equality can be sustained if it ignores the lessons of history, and history has for us both positive and negative lessons. I believe we must apply this principle in assessing the historical importance of the victory setting Howard Morgan free.

First of all let us sum up the background of the case. On the morning of February 21, 2005, Howard Morgan was pulled over while on his way home for an alleged traffic violation. After identifying himself as a police officer, Mr. Morgan was forced from his vehicle and shot 28 times by four white police officers. Twenty-one of those shots were to the back of his body. You may be asking yourself the question: How can someone identify themselves as a police officer and be shot 28 times by police officers? Howard Morgan is African American and the four officers who tried to murder him were white. They saw an armed Black man and panicked, that seems to be the most plausible explanation. This is the only explanation, unless they were intentional assassins.

Racial profiling by police and killing African Americans represents an unmistakable pattern of violence in these United States of North America. If Howard Morgan would have died in the hail of bullets on that desolate, winter morning then all we would have is a statistic, another Black life extinguished by this racist system.

Howard Morgan lived and in so doing he became the living voice for justice for the thousands unjustly killed by the police, for brothers like (15 year old) Dakota Bright, who was killed on February 21, 2013, exactly eight years later. But the criminal justice system as it is presently administered by police, prosecutors and judges did not indict and prosecute the intended murderers of Howard Morgan. Instead they let the police weave a web of lies that made the victim the assailant. The first trial ended in an acquittal. Then in blatant violation of the 5^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which outlaws double jeopardy, a second trial based on the same lies was held and Morgan was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison. A mass campaign involving tens of thousands prevailed upon former Governor Quinn to look at the case, and having looked, the Governor opted for justice and commuted the sentence of Howard Morgan to time served, after slightly less than three years incarceration.

Our movement led by the Campaign to Free Howard Morgan and the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression saw from the very beginning that we would have to build a mass protest movement to stop police crimes and to free Howard Morgan, and we did just that. However, it would be misleading not to recognize that the uprising of the youth and the urban working class in Ferguson, Missouri, and throughout the country created the moral and political climate that made Howard Morgan's victory possible. This mass protest against police crimes has awakened millions here and around the world to injustices we have been organizing against for decades. The struggle to free Howard Morgan now moves to a broader arena: not only must Howard Morgan be granted a full and complete pardon with expungement, but ALL victims of police crimes - especially torture and perjury - must be granted executive clemency and released from prison immediately!

Frank Chapman is Field Organizer for Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR)

Photo: Howard Morgan, Feb. 15, CAARPR Facebook

Muslim lives matter and all victims of hate crimes matter too

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 16:03:00 +0000

The following remarks were given at a recent memorial held at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, Feb. 17, for the three Muslim students slain in Chapel Hill, N.C. last week.

Good afternoon.

Muslim lives matter, but so does everyone else's who is a victim of hate crime. My name is Mateo Farzaneh and I am an assistant professor of history of Islamic civilization and modern Middle East here at Northeastern Illinois University. As a student of history, my comments today are grounded in historical fact.

Perhaps the mother of all evils, or shall we say, the most potent of all evils in history has been ignorance and greed. Ignorance and greed together have always created the most horrendous situations that have involved everyone living at a given moment in time. History has shown us that Ignorance leads to such nonsensical actions that strip the most basic of rights away from humans: the right to live.

If not addressed, ignorance can lead to disastrous consequences that are beyond repair. History is not short of tragic stories that have been caused by ignorant people. In many cases ignorance has been at the root cause for loss of precious life.

Deah Barakat, his wife Youser Abu-Salha, and her sister Razan were victims of ignorance left untreated. The killer of these three bright human beings is the exact opposite of them; he suffers from ignorance that has led him down a dark path.

But Deah, Youser and Razan, are the people most of us have gotten to know since their hateful murder last week, but we must remember that Matthew Shepard, the 22 year old human being who was lynched savagely for being gay, or James Byrd, Jr. who was brutally lynched and dragged for being black, or Dr. Prabjoht Singh, the Sikh Columbia university professor who was severely beaten mistaken by his ignorant assailants for being Muslim. All of these victims and countless others, have something in common and that is each of them paid a price for being different (therefore viewed as dispensable) in the eyes of their attackers.

Let us not forget that since the murder of Deah, Youser, and Razan in their apartment in Chapel Hill, 21 Egyptians were slaughtered like sheep in Libya, two humans were killed for gathering at a debate in Denmark, and Ozgecan Aslan, a twenty-one year old psychology student was burned after being raped in Turkey; all due to ignorance and hate.

Let us be reminded that if individual ignorance and hatred for others is not treated, it can lead to collective ignorance and hate and the consequences of that would be a million times more disastrous since it will take precious life out of millions of fragile bodies of humans and it will change the course of history.

Let us not forget Africans who were forced to board on ships to come to the colonies as slaves;

Let us not forget the American natives who were forced off of their lands and pushed to the corner if they did not obey the orders of the settlers;

Let us not forget Jews, Roma, and Poles who were forced into concentration camps and starved to death;

Let us not forget those who jumped out of tall buildings to escape the scorching heat of fire on September 11;

Let us not forget those prisoners who were defecated on in Abu Ghuraib;

Let us not forget the 69 youth workers who were murdered in Norway;

Let us not forget the Rohinga Muslims that were murdered by Buddhist monks in Burma;

Let us not forget the Kurdish women who hid under cow dong to escape rape and murder by savage criminals in Iraq and Syria;

Let us not forget the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo;

And, let us not forget Deah, Youser, and Razan.

Although hate-crime against various groups has always existed, unfortunately though, insulting, belittling, and fearing Muslims has become a trend that makes Muslim lives just as dispensable as any other hated group in the eyes of ignorant haters. Some hateful acts and opinions are hidden beneath and in case of Muslims it is audaciously flaunted. It only comes out under the darkness of night when the ignorant coward feels the night belongs to him.

But we have to be hopeful, despite the realities we're facing today. Why? Because there is no better option. Hope comes when we are all educated more about the people we don't know. I must learn about the peoples I might fear and treat my ignorance. I invite you, I challenge you to do the same. This is the time and place for it. Learn and let ignorance be a part of the past for a brighter future.

As I said, I'm a life-long student of history and let me leave you with the words of Howard Zinn, one historian that keeps teaching me: Howard writes:

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places-and there are so many-where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

Thank you. And now, please rise and let us observe a moment of silence and remember victims of hate: Deah, Youser, Razan and countless others.

Photo: Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. Frank Ross, center, speaks with other speakers and members of the NEIU community before the program starts as one of the photos from Deah Shaddy Barakat and Yusor Mohammed Abu Salha's wedding is shown on the screen. | Teresa Albano/PW

Three-fifths a citizen: Are corporations really people?

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 14:25:00 +0000

During the days before the Civil War, an enslaved person was counted as three-fifths of a citizen so that slave-holding states could use their human property to pump up their numbers in Congress.

This legal fake-out let white Southerners hold back the tide of change as long as possible, and after the war, their tricks to prevent black Southerners from voting continued to make the white South far more powerful in Congress than their actual numbers warranted.

Today there is another group who has figured out how to use the language of citizenship to twist the rules in their favor: Corporations.

When former presidential candidate Mitt Romney claimed that corporations are people, he was merely echoing a common theme amongst his peers.

You see the same thinking when companies such as Hobby Lobby argue that their religious beliefs should allow them to discriminate against women employees seeking insurance-covered birth control methods. Corporations-as-people have beliefs that should be respected; that is, if they're the ones in charge.

It's not too far from that stance to someday claim that a company, like a person, should have the right to be around (hire) only the people of their preferred political, religious and ethnic background.

Corporate people are more powerful than the unincorporated citizen. Their sway is stronger, their reach far greater than most of the American public. But not just anyone is a citizen.

If you're claiming people rights for your company, then we need to know how American you really are. Let's fill out a questionnaire.

We're only erring on the side of caution. If you're a company claiming to be a citizen, then we need full access to your banking records and investments overseas. We also need to know how much of your total workforce is comprised of foreigners.

For if you keep much of your profits in off-shore banks to avoid U.S. taxes, thus relying on the protection and bylaws of another country, right there that's dropping a few percentage points off your citizenship questionnaire.

What about your employees? Not just the cashiers and refinery workers you employ in this country, but also the customer service reps in India, as well as the factory workers in China and Bangladesh who make your products.

You claim people-rights, but you do it on the backs of everyone who works for you and who makes your products, so they have to be included.

Then there are the investments you've made in factories overseas, bank accounts in Switzerland, and subsidiaries in countries from Germany to Guyana.

That looks like a considerable amount of foreign involvement, taxes paid and agreements made, deals made that might be in direct conflict with U.S. law - and even more people on those payrolls who aren't Americans.

We'll have to dock a few more points off your citizenship quotient.

Turns out your company has foreign investors - might even have been purchased by a multinational corporation. You have a U.S. mailbox but your home office is in Brussels.

Let's add up the numbers and subtract where needed.

Oh my. Turns out that seventy percent of your product-making and customer care workforce is overseas and sixty percent of your investments are in China, while your stored-up wealth is largely in the Bahamas.

Doesn't sound very American to us. Based on those numbers, you'll need to earn your green card in order to become a legal resident through the usual channels.

What, no visa? This means you're a foreign national in this country illegally. Since you failed to volunteer this information before you began buying up judges and politicians - well, this is awkward.

Hate to do it, really. Uproot you from your nice house and make you and your company move to China, where the bulk of your products, workforce and investments happen to reside. Or make you move to the Bahamas to be near your money.

Think of it this way, though. Once you're abroad, you can apply to immigrate to the U.S. We wouldn't advise you trying to sneak back in. Not a safe plan. Too many walls, electric fences, drones, and armed guards at the border.

Perhaps we can work out some kind of arrangement here. We could count you as three-fifths of a citizen. You wouldn't be able to vote, of course, or own property, but at least you'd be allowed to hang on to that mailbox and wave a flag on the Fourth of July.

Otherwise, we'll have to call Immigration.

Photo: Toby Talbot/AP

Terrorism and the lessons of African American history

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 11:22:00 +0000

Recently, President Obama cautioned us not to judge the more than a billion and half Muslims from many places and cultures across the world, including the United States, by the actions of relatively few violent extremists. He went on to remind us that horrendous crimes have been committed throughout the ages by followers of virtually every religion, including Christianity. In what I would think of as in the true spirit of Christ he called for humility on the part of Christians in how they view Islam as a whole:

"Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."

Of course, as we know, there was tremendous pushback from right-wing commentators on the Fox network, radio, the print press, and the blogosphere condemning the president as anti-Christian, anti-American, and pro-jihadist (and even, again, a secret Muslim). How dare he compare U.S. and European Christians to Islamic terrorists who viciously murder people in public spectacles?

However, another news story that recently emerged is a report of the Equal Justice Initiative of Montgomery, Alabama. This report is the result of intense research into what the Equal Justice Initiative calls "racial terror lynchings" in the South between the decline of Reconstruction, beginning in 1877, and just before the advent of the modern civil rights movement in 1950. The report documents almost 4,000 lynchings, many more than historians had recorded before.

While we are generally aware to some degree that such racial violence took place in the United States, the actual nature of lynching, its frequency, and its character has generally been left out of education in the United States over the last few decades, especially in the states where it was most often practiced. One aspect of lynching that was well known to African Americans before the civil rights movement (and, for many, after) was the horribly public nature of lynching. Lynchings were often a sort of sick festival where huge mobs of white people would gather, bring their children, have their pictures taken next to the victims, make souvenir postcards from the pictures, and even take pieces of the victims for souvenirs. The violence visited on the often completely innocent victims, most often black men, but sometimes women, was insane in the extreme, with the murdered often simultaneously hung, castrated, and set on fire. Such mad, but all too common incidents of public violence might well remind us of the burning of the Jordanian pilot by ISIS that has, rightly, elicited much horror.

As the scholar Amy Louise Wood reminds us in a very interesting book, Lynching and Spectacle (2009), a version of evangelical Christianity was very important in the justifying of these U.S. horrors:

"In these ways, the defenders of lynching borrowed the language of evangelical moral crusades to justify - and sanctify - their own crusades against black depravity. But the actual rituals of lynching also uncannily reenacted evangelical church practices, including confessions and testimonials, attention to torment and suffering, and the act of witnessing, practices that publicly rehearsed narratives of human sin and divine judgment."

So, as President Obama, said (despite his ultra-right critics), U.S. Christians would do well not to stereotype Muslims on the basis of violence carried out by a small proportion of the Islamic world. As Jesus said, judge not lest ye be judged.

However, in the spirit of African American History Month, it is worth pointing out that the lynchings justified and self-righteously interpreted by a sick version of Christianity were even worse than the 4,000 horrible murders (that have been found so far) they entailed. As the Equal Justice Initiative report notes, these murders were a form of political terror. They were a key tool in the destruction of Reconstruction and its principles of a democracy in which race did not determine citizenship, by the segregationists who would lead the establishment of Jim Crow and the disenfranchisement of millions of black people in the United States. For example, such racial terrorism helped break the black and white coalition (the original fusion politics) that took over the state government of North Carolina in 1894, with the result that Jim Crow and black disenfranchisement dominated the state by the beginning of the 20th century.

As a result, democracy in the United States was severely damaged and deformed as the democratic advances of Reconstruction were largely destroyed by this terror. In short, as W.E.B. Du Bois argued many decades ago in Black Reconstruction, we missed a great chance to move forward, due in large part to the efforts of the 1 percent of that time. We feel the consequences in our politics even to this day, whether in the so-called red state-blue state divide, police violence against young people (and not-so-young people) of color, the school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately affects young black people, and the increasing segregation and crisis of our public education system, just to name a relatively small number of the negative results of this violence and the so-called Christian terrorists who carried it out and justified it.

Photo: An African American lynched by a white mob in Omaha, Nebraska, Sept. 28, 1919. Wikimedia Commons

Lilo Heller, 94: Holocaust victim and citizen of the world

Wed, 18 Feb 2015 12:32:00 +0000

Lilo Heller, a Holocaust survivor, was born in Germany in 1921 and witnessed the rise of Nazism. In 1939, she and her parents escaped the Nazis - by traveling to Holland and then to Jakarta, Indonesia, where she studied to be a nurse before joining the Dutch Army - and her parents by traveling to Quito, Ecuador.

All the other family members in Germany and Holland died in the Nazi death camps.

In 1942 the Japanese invaded Indonesia, and because she was a nurse in the Dutch Army, she was interned in Japanese prison camps for four years. After the Japanese surrendered in 1945, Lilo was caught up in the Indonesian War of Independence. She finally escaped on a boat to the U.S., with the help of the International Red Cross.

Settling in San Francisco, she met and married Harold Heller in 1949, and her twins Michael and Lee were born. The family then moved from San Francisco to Mill Valley, Calif. Lilo and Harold spent 50 years in the restaurant business in San Francisco, Mill Valley and San Rafael.

From the start of their marriage, Lilo championed progressive causes. She was inspired by Dr. W.E.B. DuBois' book about his life and she eventually ran the progressive bookstore in San Francisco.

Lilo was a friend of Harry Bridges and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, the United Farm Workers, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. In 1984, she was a delegate to an international peace convention in the German Democratic Republic.

She supported the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress of Racial Equality and the marches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., sending food and clothes to Mississippi and Alabama to support voter registration in the South.

Lilo also collected clothes and food to send to striking miners in Harlan, Ky., and in Idaho and Montana. She participated in peace marches in San Francisco and Berkeley to protest the Vietnam War, even picketing at the Naval Weapons Station in Concord. She traveled to Sacramento and throughout the Bay Area to support the United Farm Workers' boycotts and the march from Delano to Sacramento. Her favorite folk singer was Pete Seeger.

Lilo and Harold Heller will also be remembered for the picnics and events they held at their home for the People's World, which they helped to distribute in the Bay Area.

In her 2011 memoir, Lilo Speaks, written with author Tom Adams, Lilo details the journey of her life and spirit. The book received a Silver Medal for Memoirs from the Independent Book Society in New York. It is featured in the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., as well as in Steven Spielberg's Holocaust Memorial Library at the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation. An hour-long video accompanies the book.

In 2012, Lilo was recognized at the California Holocaust Memorial Ceremony in Sacramento.

In her last year, Lilo moved to Walnut Creek, residing in Byron Park, a community for active seniors.

Lilo leaves behind her two children, Michael Heller and Lee Heller, three grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and three great great-grandchildren.

Photo: This photo of Lilo Heller was taken in 2009 in Mill Valley, Calif. (Teresa Albano/PW)

Walking with the poor

Fri, 13 Feb 2015 11:44:00 +0000

"The poor you have with you always." Jesus of Nazareth is said to have spoken these words in three of the four Gospels. But he certainly didn't mean that his followers should aim to keep it that way. On the contrary, Jesus admonished them to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, succor the sick - and change the systems that keep people poor. That kind of change is a major theme of the Christian Bible, both in the Hebrew and Greek traditions. Poverty is mentioned more than two thousand times.

And yet, in a country that is roughly three-quarters Christian, the poor are largely ignored and occasionally demonized.

We are seeing this as the business community reacts to an initiative from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to raise the minimum wage. Over and again, businesses claim they will leave the city because they won't earn enough money to keep the doors open. That claim means that they will not make enough money to risk investment unless they can continue paying people a lot less than what it takes to live in our region. They are saying that their business depends on people doubling up in substandard apartments, kids going to school hungry, people not getting health care and dying early.

Periodically the economic pundits wring their hands over the new reality that California's population growth has slowed and that lots of folks are moving away. They say that businesses are leaving, and lament the high taxes that are supposedly driving this exodus. In fact, new stats show it's largely the lower-income households that are moving out of state. Wages aren't high enough to afford the cost of living here.

But adequate pay is only one way that public policy keeps people poor. You can count education as another. Higher education is supposed to be a means for the poor to get better jobs. Young people hear it over and over: Stay in school. Go to college. Train for a better job than your parents had. It isn't bad advice, but it ignores the desperate reality of poor people.

When I went to college, my family lived on about $300 a month. At that time a middle-class job paid somewhat less than $10,000 a year. We were on the low end of the scale. So I went to community college for the first two years, and worked about 30 to 35 hours a week at minimum wage, earning enough to pay for the rest of college without going too far into debt. Today that's not so easy, because despite a California law on the books since 1960 that requires community college to be tuition-free, students now pay, er, "enrollment fees." To do it these days, I would need significant loans or scholarships.

But student aid skews to the upper income brackets. As a Los Angeles Times Op-Ed piece reported, families earning $75,000 or more are twice as likely to receive student loans as families earning under $25,000. Tax credits for education also tilt towards the top, not the bottom. Meanwhile, Congress has cut funding for two significant financial aid programs aimed at low-income students. One declined 20 percent and another 54 percent in the last decade. At the same time, unsubsidized loans grew 156 percent. For the affluent, new opportunities. For the poor, fewer. Surely that is why the president called for tuition-free community colleges in his State of the Union address.

In addition to pay and education, the tax system also keeps people locked in poverty. Our system supposedly asks the wealthier to pay more and the poor less, but in truth it's the opposite. The poorest one-fifth of all Americans pays 11 percent of their incomes in local and state taxes, while the richest pay about 5.4 percent. Because the very rich earn most of their income from capital, they pay a significantly lower rate than people who earn a living by working. Plus they get bigger charity and mortgage deductions.

All this leads me to the conclusion that our country thrives on an unconscious collusion to keep the poor stuck in their condition. The economic structure depends on maintaining poverty. As activists, our work must give voice to the unheard, make visible the unseen, and walk alongside people who struggle to break the cycle of working poverty. In my reading, that's exactly what Jesus and the prophets - and all religions - teach us to do.

Rev. Jim Conn is the founding minister of the Church in Ocean Park and served on the Santa Monica City Council and as that city's mayor. He helped found Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, Los Angeles, and was its second chair, and was a founder of Santa Monica's renter's rights campaign.

Reprinted by kind permission of the author and Capital & Main. The original is here.

Photo: Pedro Ribeiro Simões

James Raines, 40; member of CPUSA and fearless organizer

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 14:06:00 +0000

James Raines was born near Detroit on May 1, 1974. A long-time member of the Communist Party, USA, "James lived Marxism to the core," said Tony Pecinovsky, head of the Missouri-Kansas district of the Communist Party.

Like many of his generation, James was born in a Cold War education vacuum. It was his life experiences - the economic hardship and decline of the post-industrial era - that led him to socialism and compelled him to care for those around him.

As he moved around the nation from Detroit to Houston to Fairbanks to Memphis to Kansas City, James threw himself tirelessly into the work of organizing for social and economic justice.

His talent resided in coalition building, bridging organizations together around common issues. An absolute natural at organizing, his specialty was asking the difficult questions. In fact, James was the common thread holding many local activist groups together.

He organized the Marxist Student Union at the University of Memphis, bringing well-known communists, including Communist Party's Jarvis Tyner, to that campus for speaking engagements. He worked for the Missouri State Workers' Union (CWA 6355). He was a leader of the Missouri/Kansas District of the Communist Party USA and an activist with Jobs with Justice. James connected all of his organizing - for students and adjunct professors, for state workers and for other comrades - seamlessly. James brought folks together.

As a union organizer, he worked the most difficult beats, almost with relish. As the southwest Missouri organizer for CWA 6355, he spent many a night in a small town hotel planning site visits and the following days knocking doors. James was a fearless organizer. His life should not only be celebrated for the impact he had on those close to him, but also for the lonely, grinding work of building a union in far-flung small towns taking on racism, sexism, and anti-union sentiment.

Every action was a strategic movement for James. He would find the perfect moment to stage a work action, an introductory handshake, or a verbal bombshell in debate. James loved to debate - a lifetime of study of history and theory was readily accessible at a split second's notice, delivered with relentless attack - as all of his friends will attest.

James was a practicing Buddhist. For James, this philosophy extended to the people's movement. He was also a talented poet.

Towards the end of his life, James worked for his favorite publication, the Peoples World. He had always wanted to work for the PW and the Party, and had spent much of the past four or five years regularly volunteering for both the PW and Party.

After the non-indictment of police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Mo., James wrote first-hand accounts of that struggle. While reporting, he was on the front lines, standing between riot police and protesters. He was pepper-sprayed and hit with a truncheon. He took photos with one hand, while with the other arm he protected protesters.

For fifteen years, James was married to the love of his life, Wendy Raines-Grew. Those years were an endless string of adventures across the U.S., bound by a romantic and humorous celebration of life. The visible electric bond they shared was impossible to ignore.

James was 40 years old at his passing in January. He is also survived his daughter, Emmaline, his parents, Sue and Jim Raines, brothers Brian, John, and Eli, and countless grieving comrades and co-workers.

Photo: James Raines's Facebook page

Buffalo Tiger, Miccosukee Indian rights warrior passes on

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 11:28:00 +0000

Born and raised in the Florida Everglades, Miccosukee Indian leader, William Buffalo Tiger had a remarkable life, not the least of which was meeting with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and storied revolutionary Che Guevara in 1959 in Havana. He walked on at 94 on January 6, 2015.

As a Native leader, his advocacy contributed to hallmarks not just for his own tribe but for others throughout the wide expanse of Indian Country. Among his many achievements were his involvement in the formation of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Act of 1975 and the founding of the United South and Eastern Tribes (USET) in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1969.

In a statement provided upon Buffalo Tiger's passing, USET President Brian Patterson eulogized, "We grieve the loss of a truly great leader, who will be loved and missed. From a time where Indian Country was shrouded in darkness with no money, no direction and no hope, we are thankful for the courage and medicine Buffalo Tiger gave us to advance tribal nations and future generations. For the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and all of Indian Country, Chairman Tiger was a trailblazer to help bring federal recognition and assistance for his tribe, a founding leader of USET, and an inspiration that there is hope beyond the darkness."

He served as Miccosukee Chairman from 1957 to 1985. Buffalo Tiger consistently utilized tribal sovereignty to preserve Miccosukee culture and traditions in the ancient homeland.

Some historical background is necessary to appreciate the circumstances that produced this outstanding Native leader. The Seminoles who fought three wars with the U.S. in the 19th century were mainly composed of two peoples - the Muskogee speakers (closely related to the Creeks), who became known as Seminoles, and the Hitchiti speakers (distantly related to the Creeks), now known as the Miccosukees. By the federal government they were collectively known as Seminoles. But the two peoples remained separate tribal entities.

These Indian peoples fought those three wars with the U.S. as a result of invasions by federal troops. The first of these wars began with U.S. aggression in 1818, led by that archenemy of Native people, Andrew Jackson.

Although considered part of the Seminole, the Miccosukee had long maintained their separation and tended to live in greater isolation in the Everglades. The U.S. government in the 1940s set aside reservations for the Seminole peoples. But the Miccosukee stayed on non-reservation lands in the lower Everglades.

In the 1950s, the federal government threatened to terminate the entire tribe - meaning to reduce or eliminate services and benefits guaranteed by law to American Indians. Remember, also, the Seminoles had never signed a peace treaty with the U.S., earning them the title "Unconquered."

Incensed at the proposed federal action, the two Indian peoples organized politically and were federally recognized as the Seminole Tribe of Florida in 1957. But there were significant political differences between the tribes. The Muskogee speakers, the Seminoles, had filed in 1950 with the Indian Claims Commission for compensation for lands taken by the federal government in the 1800s. The Hitchiti speakers, the Miccosukees, wanted the return of the land and refused compensation.

Over these differences, the Seminoles and Miccosukees formally separated. Buffalo Tiger led the Miccosukees to gain separate state recognition in 1957. In the meantime, the federal government failed to meet a critical deadline for recognition of the Miccosukees as a separate nation. In response Buffalo Tiger requested recognition of Miccosukee nationhood from other nations. The only country to respond was socialist Cuba, led by Fidel Castro. In 1959, Buffalo Tiger and other members of the tribal council traveled to Cuba and met with Prime Minister Castro, Che Guevara and other leaders of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist government.

Buffalo Tiger aptly described the situation in a 1987 Miami Herald interview:

"The government wanted to pay us money to shut up. We wanted land set aside for us and to be left alone. No one in Washington would listen to us. So when Castro took over, I went over there and smoked some cigars with him and Che Guevara and I asked them: "Do you recognize the Miccosukee Tribe?" Castro said he did. He said that if the United States would not give us a place to live, we were welcome to come over there and he would make room for us. When we got back, there were all kinds of phone calls from Washington. The government started dealing with us seriously then."

Castro recognized the Miccosukee as a separate nation. Buffalo Tiger presented Fidel with a statement on buckskin lauding the Cuban Revolution as a victory "over tyranny and oppression," and extended Miccosukee recognition to the socialist government. In response Castro recognized the "duly constituted government of the Miccosukee Nation."

In a signed document, Castro honored the Miccosukee leadership for "the long struggle of your Miccosukee Nation and the perseverance of your indomitable and freedom-loving people...."

The Cuba/ Miccosukee meeting was a diplomatic coup as the U.S. government did not want further exposure of its shameful treatment of Indian people. Throughout his long life Buffalo Tiger remained an outspoken leader of his tribe. His meeting with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in defiance of U.S. attempts to destroy tribal sovereignty will always resonate in the chronicles of American Indian history.

Historical records state that in the Seminole Wars the Miccosukee were "noted for their courage, dash and audacity." Buffalo Tiger maintained that proud tradition when Miccosukee sovereignty met with Marxism/Leninism.

Photo: Billy_Snakehawk/Flickr

A letter of hope to a nephew in prison

Tue, 10 Feb 2015 13:03:00 +0000

Dear Neph,

I guess it's better late than never. I apologize for not writing (I've never been one to write personal letters; never know what to say). In any case, Auntie Cassie shows me the letters you have been writing (I hope you're ok with that).

To start off, I want to say how proud I am of you! You have developed into a very thoughtful person with high moral values, one who cares about your loved ones and your fellow human beings. One who despises injustice wherever it might be, including and especially in the criminal "justice" system. Your development is all the more admirable given the difficult conditions of incarceration you have had to endure.

I think about you often. I think about the times you spent with us, how you loved it here and how we loved you in return. Though, in my case, I did not express openly the love I've always had for you. Thinking back now, I wish I had.

I also think of you when injustice rears its ugly head, especially when it's related to the treatment of our youth on the street, in the courts and the prisons. I admire your determination. I can only imagine how hard it must be. But, you rise above the fray and do things to stay positive!

Since the drive to privatize prisons some years back, the prison population has grown rapidly because there are big corporate profits to be made. The more prisoners in private prisons, the more money the state taxpayers have to dish out to these private sharks. Makes one wonder who are the real criminals? The worst ones come in fancy suits.

But it's encouraging that a good number of people are in favor of reforming the criminal "justice" system, including the prisons. You must have heard the majority of California voters supported the ballot proposition last November that called for reclassifying a lot of felony drug and property offenses to misdemeanor. This is resulting in the release of a lot of brothers and sisters. It's a small but significant step.

Life has taught me that change usually comes in small incremental steps, but over time these steps add up. Then comes a time of big changes like those that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led in the 1960s. So there is hope, and hope is what keeps us going.

Dear nephew, I hope that when you receive this letter you are doing well.

Things are going generally well with the family, though not without our own challenges.

Thinking of you. Love you!

Uncle Juan, aka Papi

Photo: Real Cost of Prisons Project/FB

Pass paid family and sick leave now!

Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:39:00 +0000

It's undeniable. American capitalism does not like the American family: Despite the fact that both parents are working in over 60 percent of families with children, the U.S. remains the only developed country without a paid family and sick leave policy.

It's also undeniable that the captains of industry and finance don't like mothers: Over 63 percent of women with children under five work for a living. They too are unable to take time off to care for their young ones without losing pay.

So much for family values.

The Family and Medical Leave Act passed under Bill Clinton's watch, which allows 12 weeks of unpaid time off is far from adequate. And with median family incomes declining by 15 percent from 1990 to 2012, working-class families are taking a beating.

The time has come to change this sorry state of affairs, where fathers and mothers are all too often forced to choose between going to work sick and/or sacrificing pay when they or their children become ill.

President Obama has a plan. Supporting the Healthy Families Act, sponsored by Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, the president is pushing for paid family and sick leave for all workers. Announced at the January State of the Union, the White House's proposal would allow employees to earn seven sick days a year. In addition, Obama is calling for up to six weeks of paid leave after birth or adoption. Federal workers will receive the paid leave benefit immediately.

The demand for paid family and sick leave has been growing all across the country, particularly in the last election. President Obama is the first U.S. president to endorse and place the issue before the American people.

It is now up to us to force Congress to make it a matter of law. Presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett put it well when she recently titled an article on the issue Why we think paid leave is a worker's right, not a privilege.

The pursuit of happiness requires economic security: Paid family and sick leave is a children's issue, a women's rights issue, a worker's issue.

All pressure must be brought to bear to make it happen. Sign and circulate petitions, call your elected representatives, march and protest. Let creative unrest be the order of the day until the Healthy Families Act become the law of the land.

Photo: New Yorkers Deserve Paid Leave Facebook.

Obama and the politics of outrage

Mon, 09 Feb 2015 13:50:00 +0000

Some of the commentary from the left on President's Obama's recent State of the Union address struck me as too negative, even cynical in a few instances. It's said that the speech was at once too little, too late, and too celebratory. Some left critics went further, claiming that it was nothing but idle, and even deceptive, chatter since the president knew that any progressive initiatives in his speech are dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled 93rd Congress.

This contrasts with the reaction of the larger movement. Labor's take on the speech was very positive. Much the same can be said about the African American community and other communities of color (for example, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and NAACP). The movements for women's and gay rights found stuff in the speech that they liked, as did many fighting for policing and sentencing reforms. Ditto the immigrant rights movement and the organizations and people fighting for livable wages and union rights. And progressives in Congress said they were buoyed by the president's speech. Photos showed them leading the cheers to the speech, while congressional Republicans, looking dour and sitting silent, inwardly burned with rage at Obama's every word and his mere presence at the podium.

In other words, the major democratic forces and movements got a lift from the speech, while understanding full well that the terrain of struggle is still uphill. They saw openings and opportunities in Obama's words, though not agreeing with his every word.

They liked how he framed many questions and the spirit and oratorical power that he exhibited to spotlight the deeply reactionary role of the Republican Party, even if they thought his counter-proposals should have gone further.

And they were encouraged by the fact that the speech signaled a refusal on the president's part to cede initiative and ground to the Republicans and their reactionary agenda over the next two years, despite enormous pressure on him to do so coming from many directions.

How do we explain this contrast, this differing take on this State of the Union address?

Speaking generally, the leaders of the democratic movements don't pigeonhole the president as simply an unreconstructed neoliberal. They don't peg him as nothing more than a centrist in the mold of Bill Clinton. Nor do they believe that he cynically "plays" the American people with his "fancy" rhetoric and oratory, while paying obeisance to his first and abiding focus group - Wall Street (and its deep pockets.) They also don't subscribe to the notion that Obama's presidency is summed up as "the triumph of identity as content" (Adolph Reed writing in Harper's). Finally, they are particularly aware of the toxic, crude, and unremitting racist invective directed at the president.

In other words, these mass movement leaders don't hollow Obama out to the point where he is nothing but an abstract and frozen political category with absolutely no progressive instincts, potential, or record of achievement. In fact, they note that the president has a genuine democratic sensibility and a list of political and legislative successes that have made a difference, large and small, in the lives of millions of working class people.

Moreover, in sharp contrast to some on the left, leaders of the main mass organizations want him on their side. Victories, they know from experience, are much more difficult to secure with a president opposing them or assuming a position of neutrality. They have no truck with a one-sided Howard Zinn view of historical progress and radical social change, in which political compromises, unreliable allies, tactical and strategic retreats, stages of struggle, participation in electoral politics, and so on are to be studiously avoided. Based on their real movement experience, they conclude that such a hopelessly uncomplicated reading of the past and what it will take to make a more livable future for the vast majority is politically wrong-headed and counterproductive.

Finally - and maybe above all - the leaders of the broader democratic movement are aware that the president governs in a concrete political context in which the singular mission of the opposition party, dominated by right-wing extremists, isn't simply to wreck the Obama presidency. It extends far beyond the occupant of the White House to every political, economic, and social right and gain secured over the past century - not to mention the institutional bases of the broad democratic movements, labor in the first place. The wholesale decimation of democratic rights, organizations, and institutions may seem an unlikely possibility to some, but leaders as well as activists of the broader movement are keenly aware that right-wing extremists, who are in the driver's seat in half the states and show no hesitation to use power in ruthless ways when given the opportunity, are only one election away from gaining control of the one remaining branch of the federal government not now in their reckless, authoritarian hands.

None of this makes the president above criticism in the view of progressive movement leaders, but when they offer criticism it is contextualized and carefully calibrated. Its purpose isn't to show up the president or bring him down. Or simply to be right without a thought as to how words and the way they are expressed educate or miseducate and mobilize or demobilize people. Its intent is to nudge, prod, and move President Obama, inch by inch if necessary, in a progressive direction. And we should never forget, as an astute trade union leader once reminded me, that a lot of people live on those inches.

Perhaps there is something that the left can learn from here.

Shouldn't our political categories and analysis - not only as it applies to the president, but to political phenomena generally - be more open-ended and elastic to allow for contradictions, inconsistencies, indeterminacy,new experience, and, not least, human agency?

Shouldn't we complicate our understanding of the process of social change and bid farewell to cut and dried schemes, pure forms, and pat answers?

Shouldn't we - much like the broader democratic movement does - make the actual balance of class and social forces, the depth of political understanding and unity of millions, and what people (not just the left) are "ready to do" an indispensable frame for our politics and practice?

Shouldn't we attach as much significance to the electoral and legislative arena as a major locus of power and necessary gateway to social change as the broader democratic movement (and perhaps even more so the right wing) does, even at this stage of struggle and level of political independence?

The point of this isn't to water down the critical-analytical, organizing, or visionary-programmatic role of the left, but to develop a politics - strategy, tactics, demands, message, language, etc. - that can break the current political impasse (now more than 30 years long), unite broad cross-sections of people, and lift the country to higher ground where freedom and justice penetrate every aspect of life - probably not all at once, but in the course of a protracted mass, nonviolent struggle that draws strength from the formerly passive and backward sections of the American people.

Without such a reset, I suspect that too many on the left will continue to spend too much time bellyaching, talking only to each other, living in their own cocoon of struggle, and missing opportunities to join with others in broader campaigns for justice, equality, and freedom.

The politics of "opposition and outrage," which too large a section of the left has turned into a refined art form over the past half century, is like a drug. It brings a momentary high, but later on leaves its practitioner feeling washed out and utterly frustrated. It may register some victories here and there, but it has no transforming potential.

What is to be done, someone, once asked long ago and then answered: Put an end to the past period. The left would do well to do the same, but that will only happen if we get rid of narrow, simplistic, schematic, and small-universe ideas - some of which have become nearly second nature to too many of us. And that can be easily done without sacrificing a morsel of our anti-capitalist perspective and goals - our freedom dreams.

Photo: President Obama delivers the State of the Union address in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2015. White House photo/Pete Souza

Time to save the children

Wed, 04 Feb 2015 14:01:00 +0000

Did you know that the U.S. is among 35 countries selected by the UN's Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OCED) that has the second highest child poverty rate, second only to Romania?

It's true. In addition, one out of every two black and Latino children born in the U.S. is brought into the world in a dire state of impoverishment.

A new report on child poverty by the Children's Defense Fund is replete with these numbing statistics and more, including, the proposition that for $72 billion a year child poverty could be reduced by a whopping 60 percent.

How? By simply implementing many of the proposals contained in President Obama's new budget, like raising the minimum wage, increasing food stamps (SNAP) and other safety net measures. The report goes on to argue, in the tradition of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., for cutting the military budget in order to make even deeper reductions in the child poverty rate.

All well and good but, as everyone knows, with Republican majorities in the House and Senate none of this has the slightest chance of happening inspite of the fact that it would cost less to solve the crisis than to continuing to pay for its ongoing effects. The report says, “Every year we keep 14.7 million children in poverty costs our nation $500 billion — six times more than the $77 billion investment we propose to reduce child poverty by 60 percent.”

Can anyone think of a better example of capitalism's irrationality?

The issues raised by the Children's Defense Fund are extremely important and they have done a service to the nation by keeping them front and center, including their taking note of the fact that Great Britain has managed to take important steps in addressing its child poverty crisis: they've reduced it by half in ten years!

It's time to save the children and solutions are possible. Much will depend on whether the political will can be mustered and that will depend on mass struggle.

Photo: Eric Miller/AP