People Before Profit blog

Close to half of all Americans live near poverty

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:22:00 +0000

Living one paycheck away from poverty is a familiar experience for many working-class Americans. However, a new study by the Corporation for Enterprise Development says that close to 43 percent of all of the people living in the U.S., or 127 million people, are living this way.

The study points to the growth of "liquid asset poverty households," ones that "lack the savings or other assets to cover basic expenses for just three months if a layoff or other emergency leads to loss of income."

For these families a medical emergency or the loss of a job is a catastrophe.

That these issues confront a growing share of the population is not new. Indeed, a study by the Census Department in December indicated that close to 100 million people, or a third of the U.S. population, live at or near the poverty line. The data in that report "shows that 51 million Americans live on incomes less than 50 percent above the poverty line while 49.1 million are below the poverty line which translates into $24,343 for a family of four."

However the news that the on-the-brink situation extends to close to half the country is dramatic - and important.

Tens of millions of families are working regularly but have little savings and are on the brink of disaster.

With the economy only slightly improving, high unemployment, continuing drops in home property value and rising foreclosures will mean most will live this way.

All the signs point to increased class and democratic struggle. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal sees it: "Again, we seem to see the country bifurcating. There are those households that are doing OK and are continuing to spend through these tough times. Yet, there are a large number of people that have to watch out where every penny of their income is going. This means that the economic recovery will not only remain weak, but it will be fragile and susceptible to unexpected shocks."

The broad working-class public sees it as well. A full 66 percent mark the conflict between the rich 1 percent and the rest of the country as "very strong" according to a new Pew poll. Folks are fed up and with good reason. As Senator Bernie Sanders recently said "How can anyone defend the richest 400 people in this country having more wealth than the bottom half of America, 150 million people?"

The struggle is about jobs and job security and who is paying their fair share.

As the election season heats up these issues will not go away, nor will the ongoing attack on labor. The GOP seems to be making sure of that with Republican state governments continuing to push "right to work" laws in Indiana, Michigan and other states.

While focusing on the economy and the issue of fairness, President Obama's State of the Union speech did not mention his American Jobs Act, a desperately needed piece of legislation if job stability and economic confidence are to be restored.

A campaign to reintroduce this and other pieces of jobs legislation would be an important part of making sure the struggle for jobs remains the centerpiece of the election struggle. What could be fairer than the right to have a shot at economic stability and a meaningful future of work?

Photo: peoplesworld.org

Obama's State of the Union: combative and centrist

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:18:00 +0000

President Barack Obama delivered a well-calibrated State of the Union speech last week that was combative in parts, forward looking as a whole, and carefully designed to influence the broad swath of independent voters who consider themselves in the center of the American political spectrum.

Judging by polls after the speech that showed higher approval ratings, he hit his mark.

Obama outlined policies that centered on growing the economy in the near and longer-term: He called for rebuilding the manufacturing base, an end to subsidies for big oil companies and a broad approach to energy that includes new ecologically sound technologies, fairness in taxation, a modernized education system, help for the victims in the housing crisis, immigration reform, and cuts in military spending.

Given the low level of confidence the American people hold in banks, financial institutions and Wall Street, the president announced creation of a special Department of Justice unit to investigate financial crimes.

These are all pieces of a program that the president says can and must be won if the economy is to recover from crisis and move forward. He called it a blueprint for "An America Built to Last."

In some cases, the president's proposals are spot on. Investing in clean energy and education, getting rid of Bush-era tax giveaways to the ultra-wealthy, passing the DREAM Act, providing more help for homeowners holding underwater mortgages and rebuilding the manufacturing base of the nation can help create jobs. The proposals made by the president can help alleviate the daily insecurities of millions - insecurities that result from capitalism's economic crisis.

It is important to recognize, however, that the president's proposals are just minimum proposals, and that much more will be needed to truly tackle the unemployment and poverty crisis.

Plus, at a time when the racial edge of income inequality is most severe, special steps must be taken to close income, education and health gaps caused by racism.

In some cases, the president's speech contained proposals that the labor and people's movements may find problematic.

The "all of the above" approach he said was needed for energy development is not without its negatives.

For example, fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, which is the removal of natural gas by breaking underground shale, is a controversial policy, to say the least. Toxic chemicals used in the process have been found in underground wells and drinking water. There is even evidence that fracking causes earthquakes.

A foreign policy that includes new military bases in the Pacific or threats and sanctions against Iran could set in motion new dangers of war and violence or loss of life and money that threaten the interests of the American people and the world. NATO intervention in Libya, for example, was more of a disaster for both the people of Libya and the stability of the world than the "official line" is willing to admit.

There were many applause lines in the speech. One such section was the president's case for comprehensive immigration reform and passing the DREAM Act. Standing up for immigrant young people at a time when they are being vilified and criminalized is praiseworthy. It breaks down barriers and helps influence in a better direction those who may be under the sway of anti-immigrant rhetoric.

The president excels at threading the political needle and taking combative, principled stances on issues considered left-of-center. Unfortunately, however, in his speech, as he has at other times, he tossed right-wing compromises into the mix that were not just wrong, but unnecessary, even from a "pragmatic" point of view.

By way of example, he coupled his proposal for higher taxes on billionaires and millionaires and eliminating the Bush tax cuts for that group with calls for "reform" of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Progressives know all too well what too many of our politicians mean when they say these programs need to be "reformed" or "strengthened." We don't believe that the president needs to hold out the prospect of cuts in Social Security to sweeten the idea of the rich paying their fair share in taxes. Poll after poll shows that the people already have the president's back on taxes and that they oppose any cuts in Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

Unfortunately, the State of the Union speech makes too many such trade offs. Again, if the argument is that such tradeoffs are needed to win the support of the broad center, we say, "look at all the polls."

The majority of Americans, Republicans included, want no cuts in Social Security or Medicare.

The majority of Americans, Republicans included, are furious at the profiteering Wall Street banks.

The majority of Americans, Republicans included, want the rich to pay their fair share in taxes.

With the rampant far-right obstructionism, the continual barrage of political attacks and the racism directed at him and the labor and people's movements, it takes more than opinion polls to influence politics and events. It takes mass action and unity at the grassroots.

President Obama deserves credit for delivering a State of the Union message that clearly shows he hears the concerns of the people of the United States.

We must not forget in this election year that in contrast there are the Republicans. Their single-minded goal is the defeat of that president.

Photo: President Barack Obama greets soldiers following his remarks at Buckley Air Force Base in Denver, Colo., Jan. 26, as part of his post-State of the Union tour. (White House/Pete Souza)

Egypt's new labor movement comes of age

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:54:00 +0000

On the desert-battered outskirts of Cairo, in a kitsch marble convention centre, the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) has just announced to Egypt and the world that it has come of age. EFITU was born in the inspiration and chaos of Tahrir square, exactly 12 months to the day. Since then they have been organising, organising and organising. Today was a chance to show the results and I was blown away.

The federation claims to have organised a phenomenal 2 million workers into 200 unions in barely a year. Of course, many of the new independent unions have their roots in the underground workers' struggles throughout the past decade. And without clear ways to keep membership records, the total figure may be in doubt, but as an accurate figure emerges it will still be the single most impressive organising effort I've ever come across (And this is just one of the two new independent federations: the Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress (EDLC) claims to have signed up 214 unions with a seven figure combined membership also).

Legitimacy means everything to this nascent movement. So long denied a voice in the workplace and a voice in society, they are determined to be democratic and everywhere. "We bid farewell to land-lord run unions" of Mubarak, said Kamal Abou Aita, the acting President of EFITU.

And they did so in meticulous-style: each of the 264 delegates would vote, one-by-one, walking up onto the congress stage, showing their ID, filing out their ballot and putting it in a large glass box for the entire hall to see. "How powerful is that?" I thought after the first few votes. "How long will this take?" I thought after three hours and only 140 delegates in. More hours passed and I realised that these guys have pyramid-building patience and that I'd nodded off and drooled a bit.

But by then the party had set in. Us international guests filed some dead air time by firing off our best platitudes from the podium. I took the liberty to pass on your solidarity, and then joined in a few chants that I didn't understand. By the time I left the congress in the wee hours the votes for the finance committee were only just rolling in.

What about the role of women in this new Egyptian union movement I hear you ask? Sure they were at the forefront of the revolution but early photos I saw of this new union movement showed a room full of men, straining the definition of middle-aged.

But today's congress showed progress and promise. "It fills us with pride that the youth represent the vast majority of our union organisation, and that women play a pivotal role in our union," said Abou Aita. And I could see that he wasn't wrong. Further, it was these delegates that moved an amendment to EFITU's constitution to put in place a 25 per cent quota for women. No mean feat in this part of the world.

But the journey for women's empowerment in Egypt will be a long one. Take this sobering passage from the ILO's latest global employment trends report on Egypt, Libya and Tunisa (page 75):

The unemployment rate for young people in the region was 27.1 per cent in 2011, the rate for women stood at 19.0 per cent and young women faced an unemployment rate of 41.0 per cent.

Even where they have a job, "female workers and those in the private sector work in slave-like conditions", concluded Kamal Abbass, the acting leader of the EDLC, after describing the extreme overtime, poverty wages and high levels of harassment they face. With British business sourcing from these export zones of "slave-like conditions", we need to play our role.

The new unions are still very much workplace based, yet to make connections with those in the same sector, or region, but the links are emerging. But workshop sessions throughout the week are pulling together key workers in the same sector, their respective global sectoral union federations helping with the speed-merger-dating.

And bizarrely, it got exciting: "We have formed 23 committees! And I'm on the fishing committee!", yelled out one speaker to thunderous applause and more infectious chants that I didn't understand. I wished I was on the fishing committee.

These workers are from workplaces across Egypt. I spoke with welders, justice ministry workers, bus drivers, teachers, farmers, postal workers, and nurses. Abou Aita also spoke proudly of the vulnerable - "peasants, casual workers, informal economy workers and street vendors" - swelling their ranks.

What impressed me greatly is that these folks aren't waiting for some legislative silver bullet to deliver a union movement to them. They are going out there and making it under laws that haven't changed since Hosni Mubarak owned the country.

And it's tough. Most of them don't have offices, and are barred from opening bank accounts. All of them face workplaces where the official stooge unions of the old regime are still collecting compulsory dues against the wishes of the workforce. To join a real union in Egypt you have to pay double.

Further, the new government may be dominated by Islamic parties that swept the recent elections, and a new law on trade union freedoms is yet to be enacted. But these won't stop this chanting hall of workers whose time has come. They've already sunk their roots too deep.

Reposted from Stronger Unions, a news and comment blog about the British trade union movement, managed by the UK Trades Union Council . Ben Moxham is a policy officer with the TUC's European Union and International Relations Department. Photo: Egyptian telecommunications workers block off Ramses Street in Cairo during last year's uprising, Feb. 9, 2011. Jano Charbel // CC 2.0

Cuba sets socialist example on LGBT rights

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:15:00 +0000

For years Mariela Castro, daughter of Raul Castro and niece of Fidel Castro, has combated ignorance and discrimination towards gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Cubans. She is considered by many in the international LGBT rights movement to be the founder of the modern Cuban gay rights movement. She is the foremost straight ally of LGBT Cubans.

Mariela Castro is director for the National Center for Sex Education where she leads the fight for appropriate sexual health care and human rights for sexual minorities.

Conditions in Cuba have improved remarkably for gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals in recent years. Today LGBT Cubans can be seen in public together, have access to social services and discrimination-free employment, march in government-sponsored pride parades, and partake in public social events.

Things weren't always so open. In the early years after the Cuban revolution, LGBT people in Cuban society were horribly stigmatized and not given recognition by the government. But in 2008 changes started to occur. Transgender individuals were given the right to change their legal gender free of charge through surgery provided by Cuba's free universal health care system. In 2010 Fidel Castro even apologized to the LGBT community, saying that discrimination was wrong and the past discrimination against them was unfortunate.

Mariela Castro has introduced a civil union bill into the Cuban National Assembly several times. Although it did not pass initially, the bill is being reintroduced this year and is in the legal research phase, meaning the Assembly is assessing its legal impacts. The bill would also prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity both in the Communist Party of Cuba and in public life.

To say how great something like this is would be an understatement. Cuba is advancing a broad-based human rights agenda for LGBT people ahead of the United States, which continues to have a muddied and mixed track record at best on LGBT issues.

The time has come for the United States to end the embargo and perhaps take a lesson from the book of Cuban human rights in regard to LGBT issues. In the United States it's illegal to have a sex change and to be recognized as the opposite gender in three states: Tennessee, Ohio and Idaho. And there are still sodomy laws here in the United States despite the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision that decriminalized same-sex relationships.

That isn't to say that Cuba doesn't have more progress to make in overcoming stereotypes about "masculinity" and "femininity," and prejudice and discrimination against those who defy the stereotypes. But thankfully the National Center for Sex Education and Mariela Castro are empowering the Cuban population through education to eradicate these stereotypes and advance equality.

If her bill passes in Cuba, the island nation will be not only a leader in tolerance and human rights for LGBT people but also set an example for both the developing world and other socialist countries that LGBT rights are compatible with a socialist agenda. Who knows the broader impact of this legislation? Maybe China or Vietnam will feel compelled to follow their Cuban comrades and enact pro-LGBT legislation as well. There surely is a Chinese version of Mariela Castro.

In the People's Republic of China, a sexologist named Li Yinhe, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has reportedly introduced bills to allow same-sex marriage. As a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference she has spoken in defense of the Chinese LGBT community and that is where she has introduced her bills as well.

Although China is not on the same level as Cuba in LGBT rights, things seem to be improving. In the late 2000s the Chinese government opened the first state-sponsored LGBT health and community centers where members of the LGBT community could meet and receive sex education advice and basic health services. Polls among the average Chinese population indicate that the current general perception of LGBT people continues to improve.

In Vietnam the atmosphere regarding LGBT people appears to be improving too. Many young people are reported to be understanding of and sympathetic to the problems of the LGBT community. Health care for LGBT people is free especially for those who have HIV or are in need of testing. This is done irrespective of sexual orientation or gender identity.

So the situation for LGBT people in socialist countries seems to be rapidly looking up. Cuba is on the verge of equality. China and Vietnam are moving forward by making access to health care and social services for LGBT people easier to obtain. These countries could take the next step forward by outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Gay people like me are everywhere. We come in all shapes and sizes, colors and voices. We're diverse and we would like you to welcome us with open arms. These socialist countries are making steps towards that. The U.S. has made gains, but we have a ways to go.

Photo: Mariela Castro answers questions during a news conference in Havana, May 10, 2008, at the launch of a campaign to defend the rights of gay and lesbian minorities in Cuba. Javier Galeano/AP

Mitt Romney running a seminar on inequality

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:13:00 +0000

BOSTON - Should we all start praying for Mitt Romney? The GOP presidential hopeful from Bain Capital has become a walking, talking object lesson on how our plutocracy works - and why we desperately need to end it.

Egalitarians seem to be doing a lot of praying since Saturday's GOP primary in South Carolina. If you listen closely, you can almost hear their prayer: Please, Lord, let Mitt Romney win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Why this swelling of affection for one of the richest Americans ever to run for the White House? Over recent weeks, Romney has put a long-overdue "human face" on American plutocracy at its job-destroying, tax-avoiding worst. No wonder one of his Republican primary foes labeled his actions "vulture capitalism. "

Thanks to Romney, millions of people now understand how private equity kingpins funnel fortunes, to themselves, out of middle class misfortune. Millions more, thanks to Mitt's on-the-stump candor, have a window into the world of people so rich that $370,000 - Mitt's income from speaking fees last year - rates as "not very much."

Every day seems to bring another "teachable moment" on plutocracy from the Romney campaign: The intricacies of the "carried interest" loophole one moment, the allure of Cayman Islands offshore tax haven the next.

All of this came before Mitt released his tax returns. That release only redoubled the scrutiny. Mitt has, to be sure, already spilled his basic tax return beans. His overall federal income tax rate last year, Romney has shared, hovered around only 15 percent. (As Warren Buffett would say, that's less than the rate his secretary pays.)

Mitt's campaign as a teachable moment machine has one other fantastic advantage: Matt had a wealthy father. Even better, Mitt's wealthy father, American Motors CEO George Romney, released 12 years of his tax returns when he ran for the 1968 GOP presidential nomination.

These papa Romney tax returns offer a window of their own - into just how amazingly rich people-friendly America's current tax code has become.

From 1955 through 1966, George Romney reported income of $2.97 million, about $22 million in today's dollars, and paid 36.9 percent of that in federal income tax.

George in his heyday rated as one of America's highest income-earners. In 1960, his rewards from American Motors helped bring his total personal income to $661,423, equivalent to a bit over $5 million today. The IRS only counted 533 taxpayers who made between $500,000 and $750,000 in 1960 - and only 508 taxpayers in the entire country who made more than $750,000.

How did George Romney's tax rate compare to the tax rate of his fellow rich? George actually paid a smaller share of his income to Uncle Sam than his peers, mainly because he donated almost a quarter of his income to charity and church.

America's 1960 rich in George's $500,000-to-$750,000 cohort - a range that would equal from $3.8 million to $5.7 million today - paid an average 45.3 percent of their incomes in federal taxes, after exploiting every tax loophole they could find.

The true millionaires of 1960 - the 306 taxpayers who reported at least $1 million in income, the equivalent of $7.6 million today - paid taxes at a slightly higher rate, 45.8 percent. These millionaires averaged, in today's dollars, about a little over $15 million each in income.

How does that $15 million average for America's richest in 1960 compare to the income of America's richest today? The 1960 rich, even after adjusting for inflation, only made a tiny fraction of the incomes our rich today pull down. America's top 25 hedge fund managers http://www.peoplesworld.org/a-modest-essay-on-extraordinary-paychecks/ averaged $882.8 million-each - in 2010.

Their tax rate? We don't know that for sure. But hedge fund managers exploit the same "carried interest" loophole that has proved so lucrative to private equity power suits like Mitt Romney.

The top 25 hedge fund manager federal income tax rate most likely floats between 15 percent-Mitt's rate-and 18.1 percent, the average federal income tax rate on America's 400 richest taxpayers in 2008, the most recent year with IRS data available.

So let's review the bidding here. Today's top hedge fund managers make 59 times more income than the richest Americans in 1960, after taking inflation into account. Yet the richest Americans of 1960 paid three times more of their income in federal income taxes than today's top hedge fund managers pay.

Statistics as revealing as these are haven't yet filtered into America's political consciousness. But just wait. If Mitt Romney gets the Republican nod, the wonderfully illuminating national seminar on inequality that his campaign has become will be running, glory be, straight into November.

Photo: Detail of the front page of the estimated 2011 IRS 1040 tax form for Mitt Romney & his wife Ann. Yes, he's really rich. His returns, released under political pressure Jan. 24, represent an extraordinary financial accounting of one of the wealthiest U.S. presidential candidates in generations, with his annual income topping $20 million. (AP Photo/Romney Campaign)

Documentary shows a "different" side of Fidel

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:30:00 +0000

Movie Review
Looking for Fidel
Directed by Oliver Stone
2011, 60 minutes, Not Rated

In Looking for Fidel, award winning director Oliver Stone interviews Fidel Castro on a wide range of issues. While the discussion took place in Havana in 2003, before Castro stepped down as president for health reasons, the documentary is still informative and thought provoking.

Castro garnered lot of respect for being one of the principal founders of the first socialist state in the Caribbean, 94 miles off the shore of Florida. However, he also has his detractors, who view him as an authoritarian leader who tolerated no dissident. Stone begins by grilling Castro on the treatment of dissidents. In 2003 the Cuban government arrested, tried and imprisoned 75 anti-government activists. Castro indicates that he does not have any problems with criticism of the Cuban government. He says, though, that these activists are not prisoners of conscience but rather "mercenaries" financially supported by U.S. government agencies such as the US Agency for International Development to work for regime change. He says the Cuban government does not have a policy of harassing government critics.

Stone includes interviews with anti-government activists in Havana, two of whom verify Castro's allegation of being paid U.S. agents. One dissident freely admits that he is living on a $50,000 US grant given to him by the New York Parkinson Foundation, an enormous amount in Cuba where salaries average U.S. $30-40 per month today. The wife of one imprisoned activist says she is living on money sent to them every month by a Miami-based newspaper sponsored by the anti-Castro community.

This U.S. financing of dissidents in Cuba is also confirmed by independent organizations such as the U.S.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

Castro shows Stone pictures of the U.S. ambassador meeting with these dissidents and remarks that he was supplying them with electronic equipment and money. Stone includes news clips of US sponsored terrorist attacks against the island.

Apart from harassing phone calls and graffiti painted on their houses, none of these Cuban dissidents are able to demonstrate that they are being persecuted by the Cuban government, as they allege.

Stone takes Castro to task for the execution of three hijackers that kidnapped a ferry in Havana harbor in 2003 and threatened passengers at knife point if the captain did not take them to U.S. shores. Castro says that the executions were an extreme measure to discourage a wave of kidnappings. The U.S. government will grant residency to any Cuban citizen who reaches the U.S. by any means, including kidnapping planes and boats.

The Cuban leader even takes Stone to a prison to meet a group of 8 men who were caught plotting to kidnap a plane to Miami and were awaiting trial. One prisoner remarks that the U.S. Embassy in Havana grants few visas to Cubans wanting to legally immigrate to the U.S.

Stone asks Castro why he did not step down after being president for 43 years and let younger leaders take over. The Cuban leader answers calmly that he sees himself more as a spiritual leader and that, unlike American presidents, the country's constitution strictly limits his powers. Castro says he is not president of the country but rather President of the Council of Ministers, and he does not even have the power to appoint cabinet ministers, ambassadors or friends to key posts. He says that he believes he can assist his country because of the experience and knowledge he has gained over many years. Castro never angers at Stone's probing questions.

The documentary ends with Castro taking Stone around Havana in his car, discussing among other things several of the 700 CIA attempts to kill Castro. The one that nearly got him was when a U.S. paid mercenary at the Havana Libre hotel nearly dropped cyanide into a chocolate milk shake Castro had ordered. The man lost his nerves at the last moment and the half frozen pill disintegrated in his hand.

Looking for Fidel provides needed balance to the negative media portrayal of the former Cuban president, who is demonized by the mainstream corporate owned media. Stone's documentary is a fascinating watch.

The first casualty of war

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:09:00 +0000

It was really disheartening watching the Republican presidential wannabes debating in Florida last Monday (1-23-12). Three of the four blithely told the American people that there was, with respect to the war in Afghanistan, no substitute for victory and they would not pull out until our ally, the Afghan army, was ready to take on the Taliban and protect the country on its own. Their implication was that Obama would pull out early because he is not up to the task of seeing U.S. through to victory.

It has well been said that truth is the first casualty of war. The American people have been consistently misled about the war in Afghanistan-just as they have been about Iraq (we left behind a "democracy"), Vietnam, and every other war we have waged since the end of World War 2 (not excluding the Cold War).

Let's look at what is going on now in Afghanistan according to recent headlines in the New York Times (1-20-120). This front page headline should tell U.S. what is really going on vis-à-vis building up our "ally" the Afghan army: it reads, "Afghan Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces." In fact so many U.S./NATO troops are being killed by our Afghan allies that NATO, after declaring this was a small insignificant problem, announced that it would no longer issue the statistics regarding the number of allied troops killed by Afghan soldiers!

Let's take a closer look at this story. The NYT got hold of a classified report by the U.S. side ("the coalition"-i.e., 80,000 U.S. troops and a smattering of others from NATO to create an international flavor) and, in a Wiki Leaks moment, decided to reveal its contents. It says the Afghan forces being trained by the U.S. side are killing more and more of the very coalition troops that are supposed to be training them as our allies. This is a symptom of the "contempt" with which the Americans and Afghans hold each other-"never mind the Taliban."

The increased violence against the U.S. forces by its own puppet army brings into doubt any future role the U.S. may have in the country and any hopes it may have of leaving behind a puppet army that will look out for its interests and be able to stop the Taliban. What is more, "the failure by coalition commanders to address" the violence and the deteriorating situation can only exasperate the problem. The U.S. does not want this to be a problem so it pretends that it is not. How can this work?

The contempt that American troops have towards the Afghan people was demonstrated by the recent videos of U.S. troops urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban soldiers. While this was condemned by U.S. officials, the NYT reports that Facebook and chatrooms maintained by U.S. troops were "full of praise for the desecration". This indicates that whatever the U.S. says officially, the actual environment in which our troops are operating is permeated with racism and even hatred for Afghans-the racism that permeates American society can't be left behind when we go overseas.

With respect to the increase in the killing of U.S. troops and their allies by members of the Afghan army, the Times reports that U.S. and NATO officials publicly downplay its significance by issuing press statements that the killings are "isolated incidents" or done by "disturbed individuals" or "Taliban infiltrators." Not to worry!

However, the secret report made by and for the coalition forces indicates that what our officials tell the press, for domestic consumption, is the opposite of the truth. The NYT quotes the report as follows: "Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between 'allies' in modern military history"). And the official statements "seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest."

Did the secret report teach out military spokespeople anything? Well here is what Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings, U.S. spokesperson, had to say for public consumption, "incidents in the recent past where Afghan soldiers have wounded or killed I.S.A.F. [the American led International Security Assistance Force] members are isolated cases and are not occurring on a routine basis. We train and are partnered with Afghan personnel every day and we are not seeing any issues or concerns with our relationships." Then why order a report and then keep it secret? Personally, I don't believe much from the Pentagon anyway; most everything they and NATO say is just lies to befool the American people-and they are very successful at least with Republican presidential candidates.

What type of "Afghan personnel" do we get to join our puppet army in the first place? This is how an Afghan commander (an Afghan Army Colonel) describes his own troops, according to the NYT, they are "thieves, liars and drug addicts." Not the best raw material to build an army to defend the "democratic gains" of the Afghan people with. These troops also don't like our troops. The colonel added, "The sense of hatred is growing rapidly" because the Americans are "rude, arrogant bullies who use foul language."

The sooner we leave Afghanistan the better. How can we possibly think we can create a strong Afghan force when we don't respect them and they don't respect us? It is just another imperialist dream that ignores the world as it really is and operates on the assumption that the world you want to be in is the real world. It would be a great disaster for the American people, the Afghans, and everyone else for that matter for a Republican to take over the presidency this year and try and pursue the war in Afghanistan to "ultimate victory."

Class war: They started it

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:10:00 +0000

The Republican presidential hopefuls are traveling through primary and caucus states with sundry campaign themes. But one of them is decrying Democrats - and unions - for engaging in "class war."

They're right that unions are engaged in it. But the Republicans quite conveniently forget that they started the class war - and they've been winning it for years.

Study after study, from both U.S. and international sources, point to the ever-widening gap between the rich and the rest of us. More importantly, that gap has grown since the early 1970s, approximately the time of the first Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies oil embargo, which in itself was a massive transfer of wealth away from the middle class.

Now the top one percent of the country controls more than 40 percent of the nation's wealth. Virtually all of the nation's gross domestic product gains since 1980 have disappeared into the pockets of the top one percent, or even the top 0.1 percent. Median family incomes were flat from 1973-2000 and have been declining since then.

And the policies put into place since 1973 have served to enrich the rich:

Tax rate cuts that reduced the top marginal rate from 91 percent in the Eisenhower era to 39.6 percent today, and 15 percent for capital gains, where the rich get their cash.
Actual tax cuts that funneled the huge majority of their benefits to the top one percent.
Outrageous and unlimited pay and perks for the financial finaglers who drove the economy into the ditch - pay and perks made possible by the 1999 Wall Street securities deregulation law, topped by a drastic decline in enforcement since then.
Systematic destruction of systems, notably labor law protections, that helped workers - the other 99 percent-defend themselves against the depredations of the wealthy.
Policies that encouraged investment in pieces of financial paper. Firms such as Bain Capital shuffled steel companies, airlines, newspapers, and even bakeries around like so much Monopoly money, just to gorge themselves on profits and cash. And then the financiers discarded, via bankruptcy, the actual companies that made things, leaving shells of firms, ghost towns, and millions of workers out of jobs.
Manipulation and purchase, via campaign contributions and, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaign ads of politicians to do their bidding. That applies to both parties.

If all this isn't class war, declared by them - the rich - on us - the rest - then what is it?

And they're winning.

So what can we do?

We can start with taxing the rich at higher rates, as President Obama and organized labor propose. We can demand repeal of laws that let the rich get away with anything, starting by outlawing the fiction that corporations are persons and enjoy the same rights as persons. And we can put teeth into labor law. And then we can rise up and demand an economy that works for us and not for them.

We'll leave the other details of how to do that to drafters from unions and allies. But the point is the rich started the class war on us. It's time for us to dedicate ourselves to winning it - and destroying them and their power.

Photo: Occupy Wall Street, November 11, 2011. May S. Young CC by 2.0

Alabama-Arizona immigration laws recall 1935 Germany

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:49:00 +0000

Is Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach - he who roams the nation promoting vicious anti-immigration laws and ordinances - a latter-day Julius Streicher?

If television were reality, Kobach's disturbing career could be scheduled as a hideous remake of "Welcome Back Kotter."

In the original, Kotter returned to his high school alma mater as a teacher and took under his wing a motley assemblage of wayward students and mentored them toward near-adulthood.

In the racist reality version, Kris Kobach has returned to his native Kansas after a stellar academic career at Harvard, Oxford and Yale Law. He has taken under his wing a motley assemblage of nativist racists, often mistaken for tea party evangelicals.

He is mentoring them in formulating Nazi-reminiscent anti-immigration laws and therein resembles not at all the fuzzy, warm-hearted teacher but rather the jack-booted, brown-shirted Julius Streicher, "Jew baiter number one;" promulgator of the fascist Nuremburg Laws of 1935 and among the very few non-military Nazis executed for crimes against humanity by military tribunals at Nuremburg after World War II.

From 1923 until the fall of the Third Reich in 1945 Streicher was editor of the German tabloid Der Sturmer (the Attacker), possibly the 20^th century's most racist tabloid. The focus of Der Sturmer's attacks was, of course, the Jews.

Streicher's role gave him the platform to advocate for greater Nazi bureaucratic efficiency in the legal crackdown on Jewish participation in everyday life.

While the original Nuremburg Laws served to criminalize sexual relations and contacts between Aryans and Jews, later additions to them, primarily by Joseph Goebbels, addressed economic and everyday social relations. For instance, entering into a contract with a Jew became illegal. Renting to a Jew was illegal. Providing social services to Jews became illegal. Jews were relegated to their own schools. Ultimately it became illegal for Jews to have money. Naturally, the intent of all this was to get Jews to leave Germany.

On Sept. 16, 1936, The New York Times reported Streicher's explicit remarks to newspaper reporters. The article, sub-headlined "The Way to Solve the Problem Is to Exterminate Them," reported, "The Nuremburg high-priest of anti-Semitism (Streicher) ... announced that in the last analysis, extermination is the only real solution to the Jewish problem. Mr. Streicher made it clear in his address that he was not discussing the question in regard to Germany alone ... but of a world problem."

Though the Nuremburg Laws were, we would like to think, far more extensive, invasive and racist than anything that could possibly be accepted anywhere in America in 2012, there is a disturbing overlap of key provisions of the laws - and the intent - to get the Jews in Germany, and undocumented immigrants here, to "deport themselves."

Below are some key provisions of Alabama's new immigration law. In parentheses we've added the word "Jew" to underline the commonality of Alabama and Nuremburg.

One of the most controversial aspects of Alabama's new law is a requirement that public schools check students' immigration status in order to collect and track data (similar to the role IBM played in Germany collecting and tracking data on Jews). However the law does not bar undocumented workers or their children (Jews) from attending schools.

Among others:

prohibitions against most contracts entered into by most undocumented immigrants (Jews);
bars on undocumented immigrants' (Jews') "business transactions" with the state;
criminalizing undocumented immigrants' (Jews') failure to carry registration documents (currently blocked by court challenge);
prohibitions against most contracts entered into by unauthorized immigrants (Jews).

One key, and controversial, aspect of Alabama's new immigration law is a requirement that law enforcement officers seek to determine the immigration status of individuals subject to arrest, detention or a traffic stop whenever "reasonable suspicion exists that a person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States."

Backers of such laws claim the laws do not promote racial profiling, but that makes no sense. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented white people in the U.S. rarely get stopped and carded, because they are assumed to be U.S. citizens.

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a brief with the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals saying the Alabama law is not only unconstitutional, it is nothing more than an attempt to get undocumented workers "to deport themselves," much as Streicher tried to do.

Kobach's role in all of this has been ample. As chief legal consultant for the far-right FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) he engineered the formulation of the Alabama and Arizona immigration laws and has worked diligently to try to make them appeal-proof. He's launched other attacks elsewhere with mixed results.

On behalf of FAIR, Kobach sued the state of Kansas for granting in-state tuition to undocumented students. That suit was dismissed for lack of evidence. He was more successful in California where his suit originally prevailed but was later overturned by the California Supreme Court.

Kobach also served as the lead attorney defending the city of Valley Park, Mo. in a federal case that challenged an ordinance sanctioning employers who hire the undocumented. After several appeals the ordinance was held to be legal.

In Farmers Ranch, Texas, Kobach led the city's defense of ordinances barring property owners from renting to undocumented workers. Those laws were struck down.

In appearance and intellect Kobach is no Streicher. He's intellectual, talented and worldly. His studies at Oxford resulted in a treatise on the development of capitalism in South Africa. However, just as David Duke attempted to wrap the Ku Klux Klan within a buttoned-down, pin-striped image a generation ago, Kobach is doing the same today for the far right.

Supporters of Julius Streicher (yes, they still exist) argue he got a raw deal at the tribunals that had him hanged. Had he lived in the U.S., they say, he would have been protected by freedom of speech laws. They could be right and apparently a lot of people in Alabama and Arizona agree.

Photo: Chart to describe Nuremberg Laws, 1935. The "Nuremberg Laws" established a pseudo-scientific basis for racial identification. Only people with four German grandparents (four white circles in top row left) were of "German blood". A Jew is someone who descends from three or four Jewish grandparents (black circles in top row right). In the middle stood people of "mixed blood" of the "first or second degree." A Jewish grandparent was defined as a person who is or was a member of a Jewish religious community. Also includes a list of allowed marriages ("Ehe gestattet") and forbidden marriages ("Ehe verboten").

Jean Damu is a member of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. He can be reached at jdamu2@yahoo.com.

Unions blast flood of corporate campaign cash

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:11:00 +0000

WASHINGTON -With the U.S. political system inundated by a flood of unchecked, uncontrollable corporate campaign cash funneled through unaccountable political campaign finance committees, unions blasted the tide of contributions. One, the Communications Workers, backs a constitutional amendment to halt the deluge.

The union statements about the overwhelming influence of money were triggered by the second anniversary of a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling (Citizens United vs. FEC), which said corporations and unions could contribute and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as none went directly to candidates.

The ensuing result has been a surge of corporate spending via so-called "SuperPACs," which can accept unlimited contributions, while hiding the identity of the contributors. The SuperPACs are supposed to be independent of candidate control.

The corporate tide had a huge impact on the 2010 elections and will have an even larger impact this year. Already, for example, right-wing Las Vegas multi-millionaire Sheldon Adelson pumped $5 million into a SuperPAC supporting ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, enabling the outspent Gingrich to clobber supposed GOP front-runner Mitt Romney in South Carolina - after the SuperPAC ads trashed Romney.

All that led the AFL-CIO, the Communications Workers, the Steelworkers, the Service Workers, and other unions to blast the Citizens United ruling. The AFL-CIO is setting up its own SuperPAC to fight back, while CWA joined Common Cause's campaign for a constitutional amendment to strip corporations of their status as "persons" under the law. Doing so would bar them, with legislation, from giving unlimited amounts of money.

Urging its members and allies to join the constitutional crusade, CWA is telling people "to stand up and say you're a person, and that corporations are not."

"The 2010 mid-term election was the most expensive in U.S. history, and the 2012 election will likely shatter that record as more and more corporate money corrupts our democracy," the union added. "Elections should not go to the highest bidder. Corporations are not people and should not have unrestricted influence on our elections."

"We can't afford to celebrate the Citizens United anniversary again. We are working with our allies to stand together and fight back," the union remarked. The union augmented its statement with anti-corporate rallies on Jan. 20 in Phoenix, Jacksonville, Miami, Kansas City, and Sacramento. Other organizations protested in the nation's capital.

The CWA, the Auto Workers, and the Service Employees also united behind a New York state initiative for public campaign financing. The proposal, by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), would build on a successful matching funds program - keyed to small grassroots contributions-now present in New York City elections.

CWA President Larry Cohen, UAW President Bob King, and SEIU President Mary Kay Henry wrote Cuomo that enacting the matching funds program "would provide a beacon of hope that our democracy can effectively respond to the voice of the people."

Whether such a program would stand up to judicial scrutiny is another matter. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out a different Arizona matching funds program, to help candidates counter self-financed big-money hopefuls, several years ago.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and AFT President Randi Weingarten also blasted Citizens United. Weingarten said the ruling is "corroding our democracy."

It "gives powerful corporations a disproportionate amount of influence in our elections. Big corporations are using their record profits to try to silence the voices of Americans who work hard every day teaching our children, healing our sick and serving our communities," she added.

"Instead of working to create jobs and build a better future for our children, big corporate donors hide their identity while they flood the system with hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to pass an extreme agenda to gut the salary, health care, and pensions of workers. They are siphoning more money out of our classrooms and communities and into the pockets of those who don't need it."

Trumka agreed, but stopped short of endorsing the amendment as a solution:

"Citizens United further tilted the playing field in favor of the one percent and against the 99 percent whose voices are being drowned out by excessive corporate spending and influence," he said. He noted Occupy Wall Street had since then put the question of corporate clout on the national agenda, while garnering support for solutions to that ill.

"The labor movement wholeheartedly supports restoring corporations to their proper role. Corporations are not people. They are man-made creatures of law that exist to generate economic activity and create jobs and income. The notion they should enjoy the same or greater rights and protections than natural persons is absurd, and it is destructive to our democracy," Trumka added.

"To restore the corporation to its rightful place, we need to reform the system. But in doing so, the greatest care must be taken to ensure the Bill of Rights' protections for real people, including protections for democratic organizations and movements, are not inadvertently weakened. The AFL-CIO will support efforts to rein in corporate power that simultaneously protect" rights, he added.

Photo: People's World

Etta James and Johnny Otis: R & B Revolutionaries

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:31:00 +0000

Two Los Angeles-based legends of Rhythm & Blues passed away last week: Etta James and Johnny Otis. Both of their stories intertwined in the fabric of the music genre they had a major role in creating, and in the turbulent times they lived through. Their careers helped shatter "color lines" in music for a mass, multiracial audience; in the process they shaped a truly diverse People's Music: an amalgam of Jazz, Pop, Gospel, Blues, and R & B.

Johnny Otis, born John Veliotes, the son of Greek immigrants, as a youth became so immersed in African American music and culture that he considered himself "Black by persuasion." He started out as a musician playing drums in big bands, first in the West Oakland Houserockers, later relocating to Los Angeles with Harlan Leonard's jazz orchestra. By 1945 Otis had formed his own band, and recorded his first hit, "Harlem Nocturne."

Later in the forties, he toured with his California Rhythm and Blues Caravan, featuring thirteen-year-old vocalist Esther Phillips. The group had 10 top 10 R & B hits in 1950. Otis' bands developed a hybrid sound combining the high technical standards of big band jazz with raw gutbucket energy of gospel and blues - in the process bringing what was considered "Black Music" to a diverse audience and laying down the foundation for Rock & Roll. In fact, Otis co-wrote and played drums on the original version of "Hound Dog" in 1953, but was later dropped from the writing credit on the Elvis Presley version.

In addition to Esther Phillips, another of Otis' amazing discoveries was the prodigious singer Etta James. Born Jamesetta Hawkins, and having started singing at age five in a Los Angeles Baptist church, Etta James was soon performing with the choir on radio. Otis signed James to a record deal in 1954, and at age 15 she co-wrote and recorded her first hit, "Roll with me Henry" (1955). The teenager's huge voice and lively delivery made the song an instant classic. DJs, uneasy with the perceived suggestiveness of the song, changed the title to "The Wallflower." Later, as was the practice in the days of segregation, a white artist covered a watered-down version of the song, which became a bigger pop hit.

Johnny Otis released his signature pop crossover hit "Willie and the Hand Jive" in 1958, but his music career stalled a bit during the sixties with the advent of the Beatles and subsequent "album rock." However, by the early sixties Etta James had moved to Chess Records and had a string of hits that established her as one of the first R & B singers to reach a broader "mainstream" (i.e. white) audience. James' full-throated, yet supple voice could deliver a sound that was in turns infused with lust and passion, playful raunch and soul-deep pain. The influence of James' vocal power can be heard in the work of later artists such as Janis Joplin and Beyoncé Knowles.

Her range is exemplified by her standout recordings "All I Could Do Was Cry" (1960), "Something's Got a Hold on Me" (1962), "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (1963), and "I'd Rather go Blind" (1967). Her signature song, the slow, smoky ballad "At Last" took on new meaning when Beyoncé performed it at President Obama's historic inauguration in 2009. James famously complained that she hadn't been invited to do the honors-with no small justification, given that she was still making stunning recordings well into the 2000s.

Turning his attention to civic engagement in the sixties and seventies, Johnny Otis' involvement in progressive politics complemented his antiracist cultural practice. He began by doing community work in South Central Los Angeles, ran (unsuccessfully) for the California State Assembly, and became a member of the L.A. County Democratic Committee. He also served 10 years as deputy chief of staff for Mervyn Dymally, the first Black state senator of a western state, California's first black lieutenant governor, and later Congressional Representative.

Otis also had a long-running music show on L.A.'s Pacifica station, KPFK.

Otis and James crossed paths again in 1994 when James inducted Otis into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. James' 1995 autobiography, "Rage to Survive," documented her struggles with heroin and cocaine. She was inducted in the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001

And received a Grammy lifetime achievement award 2003.

Etta James died January 20^th in Riverside, California at age 73.

Photo: Etta James performing at the 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Jeff Christensen/AP

In their war against workers, corporations increasingly choose lockouts

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:14:00 +0000

Republicans increasingly claim that when President Obama sides with workers in a labor dispute he is, in effect, waging "class warfare."

Workers and their allies counter that employers have been engaging in class warfare for quite some time now and that recently they have added lockouts to the long list of weapons they have used to wage that warfare.

Workers at the American Crystal Sugar Company believe that 1,300 of them are currently locked out in the upper Midwest because the company has made a strategic decision to climb aboard a nationwide anti-union bandwagon.

Employees were locked out in three states last Aug. 1 after the workers, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers, Local 167G, rejected the company's final offer by a nine-to-one margin.

American Crystal hired more than 900 replacement workers at its seven plants in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa. A 30 year worker at American Crystal's Moorhead, Minn. plant, Tony St. Michel, said that what has happened at his and at all the other American Crystal plants provides ample proof that companies are using lockouts in a new and cynical way.

St. Michel said that for the last 30 years contracts have been almost routinely renewed and that there were no strikes at all. He insisted that the sugar beet growers have made lots of money and that profit rates were up at the time workers were locked out. "The only reason they're doing this is they figure they can join in the gang up on unions," he said.

St. Michel claims that the company didn't just decide to lock out its workers after they rejected a contract offer. "They planned this from the very beginning," he said, by starting with the placement of ads in August 2010. "They sent managers into the plants to learn what workers do on a daily basis," he said, charging that six months before the lockout workers were " already being shadowed by managers compiling data on everything we do."

The union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the company of refusal to negotiate seriously.

Recent statements by company officials tend to lend credence to the charges by union workers.

Just weeks before last Thanksgiving, American Crystal CEO David Berg told shareholders in North Dakota about a friend of his who had a massive cancerous tumor removed. "He was sick for a long time," said Berg. "We can't let a labor contract make us sick forever and ever and ever. We have to treat the disease and that's what we are doing here."

Berg later repeated his cancer analogy, saying, "At some point that tumor's got to come out. That's what we're doing."

"The fact that Dave Berg would refer to our union, our contract, as a cancerous tumor is deeply offensive to me and many of my co-workers. Some of us have had cancer or have lost loved ones to cancer. It's a tragic, devastating disease," said Sarah Gust, a 40-year employee at American Crystal.

"We've seen Dave Berg's true colors. He is determined to treat contract negotiations as a disease, a tumor to be removed," said John Riskey, president of the union local.

American Crystal is far from alone on the list of companies using the lockout tactic.

From the New York City Opera in Manhattan to last year's 130-day lockout of players by the National Football league, companies are putting the squeeze on workers by locking them out if they don't agree to concessions or, as in the case of American Crystal, laying plans for a lockout well before negotiations even begin.

Workers and their unions see lockouts as one more weapon in a long list of weapons used by corporations in their "class war" against workers.

On top of the frozen wages, layoffs, and forced strikes workers have always had to contend with, they say, lockouts have been added to the list of their problems.

Workers generally strike only when employers leave them no other choice. No one wants to give up paychecks, which is what happens, of course, during a strike. With lockouts, however, companies are in total control - they don't require any votes by workers, for example, as would be the case for a strike. And lockouts happen purely at the discretion of the company, with workers having no say whatsoever.

The number of strikes, in fact, have declined by more than 80 percent over the last 20 years but lockouts by companies, are at record levels. According to BNA, a labor news service, at least 17 corporations locked out their workers last year, telling them to stay home unless they were willing to accept new contracts with cuts in pay and benefits.

Companies use lockouts too because they believe the chances of success in meeting company goals are greater than with other methods. Last summer Armstrong World Industries locked out hundreds of workers at a tile plant in Marietta, Pa. after they rejected proposed cuts in pension and health benefits.

After a five-month lockout workers ended up going back to work with a contract that was not too much better than the one they turned down in the first place.

Lockouts have a devastating effect not just on the workers locked out but on many more workers in the communities in which the locked out employees live.

Estimates are that the local economy in Minnesota's Red River Valley has had direct losses of more than $30.5 million. The losses are documented in a December 2011 report titled "A Region on the Ropes," commissioned by the Bakery Workers union.

"This lockout has divided families, friends, neighbors," said North Dakota state Rep. Elliot Glassheim. "And it's part of a national movement to bust unions. There is no other explanation."

Union members are particularly angry and frustrated because the lockout came as the company was recording excellent profits.

"Their financials looked very good right up until the lockout," said Renae Frederickson, a locked out worker. "Dave Berg told the shareholders that our contract was like a tumor and that his strategy is to cut that tumor out, and that strategy is coming at a high cost to all of us."

Photo: Union workers locked out in a contract dispute protest outside American Sugar Crystal headquarters Aug. 11, 2011, in Moorhead, Minn. Dave Kolpack/AP

Don't be fooled by the Newt-Mitt-Rick show

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Listening to the exchanges among the main Republican presidential candidates, it is easy to think that the debates are a television "reality show."

Newt attacks Mitt for his role at the private equity firm Bain Capital. Mitt assails Newt for his ties to Fannie Mae and his dismal performance as speaker of the House in the 1990s. And Rick Santorum when he gets a word in edgewise claims that neither Romney nor Gingrich is the real deal, that is, a true conservative. That tag belongs to him, he says - only he has a franchise on it.

Oops! I almost failed to mention Ron Paul, who is no better than the frontrunners, but he is more of a footnote in the primary contests at this point.

But there is more to these debates than political theater, more than attack and counterattack. What is striking, but goes unnoticed in this clashing free-for-all, is the similarity in basic policy positions of the leading Republican presidential hopefuls.

When it comes to rapid and broad expansion of domestic oil and gas exploration regardless of environmental damage, they are for it.

When it comes to deregulation and discredited "free market solutions," they want it.

When it comes to broad-scale privatization of education, they support it.

When it comes to tax breaks for the wealthiest, they can't get enough of it .

When it comes to repeal of Roe v. Wade and with it women's reproductive rights, they are chomping at the bit to do it.

When it comes to aggressive projection of military power in the Middle East and elsewhere, they strongly advocate it.

When it comes to stacking the courts with right-wing judges, they champion it.

When it comes to the elimination of racial and gender inequality, they want none of it.

When it comes to drastic slashing of the federal budget, they are all for it.

When it comes to immigrant and gay rights, they are against it.

When it comes to overturning the Obama health care act, they salivate over it.

When it comes to disempowering people's organizations, they are determined to do it.

When it comes to climate change, they deny it.

And when it comes to economic relief ... on jobs, foreclosures and food insecurity ... they do nothing about it.

In other words, even though they trade charges and counter-charges (usually true), Romney, Gingrich and Santorum (and Ron Paul too with a few variations) are of like mind. They are on the same page.

If any one of them is elected and if the Republicans gain control of Congress, they will set out to complete and consolidate the counterrevolution that Ronald Reagan initiated.

Reagan began this counterrevolution three decades ago. Its aim was to employ the state to shift the balance of political forces to the side of the most reactionary sections of the capitalist class.

Everything that was won by an aroused people over the course of the 20^th century was to be eliminated hook, line and sinker. Nothing of the edifice of rights and social gains was to be left standing. The people were to be rendered impoverished as well as defenseless against the monster of a corporate-controlled market and state.

Beneath the discordant sounds of the current Republican Party debates lies a shared vision that would throw the country back to the Gilded Age when corporate elites did as they pleased and the people had no rights that corporate capital had to respect.

Some suggest that there is no difference in vision between President Obama on the one hand and Romney, Gingrich and Santorum on the other. But this is not only wrongheaded, but also politically dangerous.

Only yesterday I read an article by Chris Hedges that goes in that direction.

It sounded militant and righteous, but if taken seriously it's a fool's errand and will isolate the left from the broad currents of American politics this year. And nobody who cares about social progress should want to do that.

What the Oscars ignore: Progies spotlight films you should see

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:10:00 +0000

In an attempt to draw attention to films of social significance with progressive content, film critic and author Ed Rampell developed The Progie Awards. A collective of international film writers, The James Agee Cinema Circle (JACC), named after the prominent 1930's film writer, nominates films and actors for these special progressive awards. They're timed to catch some of the Oscar buzz, hoping to influence Academy members and film lovers about progressive films that have much to offer but risk being overlooked.

This year only a few titles appear on both lists, The Help, Hugo, War Horse, The Artist, and the amazing Iranian film, A Separation, are films that JACC members feel also have some progressive merit. Actors Demián Bichir (A Better Life) and George Clooney (The Descendants) are the only other duplicates in both The Oscars and The Progies.

The rest of the Progie nominees contain a wealth of progressive content and contain many suggestions for progressives viewers to watch ... if you can find the films at your local theater, on TV or anywhere in the U.S.!

Other Progie nominees for Best Picture include A Better Life about a Mexican laborer in LA whose truck is stolen thus his job threatened. Compared by some to the classic Italian film Bicycle Thief, it's a moving film worth seeing. Although The Time That Remains came out in 2010 it qualifies for this year's Best Picture Award because it's American release occurred in 2011. A rare cinematic glimpse of the Palestinian Nakba, done in the unique comic style typical of accomplished Palestinian director Elia Sulieman, The Time That Remains leaves powerful images in the viewers mind of the tragic loss of a people's entire homeland.

It's hard to imagine that anyone can seriously believe that the Oscars award the best acting performances in the world. With the hype and corporate advertising campaigns, it seems at times that nominees are sold to the highest bidder. There are just too many fantastic performances in foreign and alternative cinema that it almost makes the task of selecting 5 nominees futile and certainly political. There's no way you could exclude Peter Mullan's performance in Tyrannosaur, or ANY of the actors in Le Havre, Potiche, London River, Mooz-Lum, Pariah or Polanski's Carnage to name just a few. Danny Glover's contributions to progressive cinema are numerous and his amazing performance in Mooz-Lum deserves special attention.

This year's candidates for JACC's Lifetime Achievement Awards include George Clooney, Sean Penn and the recently deceased Chilean director Raoul Ruiz, who fled Chile after Allende was overthrown and lived as an exile in France the rest of his life. An innovative intellectual director of over 115 feature films, Ruiz is pretty much unknown in America. (So there are 115 more films to look up!)

My favorite category in the Progies is Best Progressive Picture Deserving Theatrical Release in the US and Distribution in Other Countries. This category is simply a list of great suggestions from informed progressive film writers, rather than having a single title chosen as winner.

Members of JACC feel the frustration of narrowing down the list to just a few candidates when there are so many great progressive films and talent deserving of recognition. I focus on what I consider the best in progressive cinema in my columns for People's World; I would just have to advise the reader to see ALL the films I write about. And although that's many titles, it's only a touch of the many great films available to see!

Some great titles that were nominated but didn't make the final list include, Snows Of Kilimanjaro (France), Free Men (France), Habanastation (Cuba), Film Socialisme (Jean Luc Godard), God Bless America, Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding, Meek's Cutoff, Pink Ribbons, Inc., Brother on the Line, Loving Story, If a Tree Falls (also an Oscar nominee) and the amazing 15 hour classic study of the history of cinema, Story of Film: An Odyssey by Mark Cousins.

The Progies cleverly named each category after a progressive hero of cinema. For example, the 13 Awards include The (Paul) Robeson for Best Film About People of Color, The (Pier Paolo) Pasolini for the Best Gay Rights Film and the (Dalton) Trumbo for the Best Progressive Picture.

The complete list of 2012 Progie nominees can be seen here.

Photo: Film poster of A Better Life from their Facebook page .

What does the future hold for disabled Americans like me?

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:09:00 +0000

Part of my disability is poor motor control and clumsiness. I walk with an uneven gait at times, and balance can be an issue occasionally when I may lose my footing and involuntarily grab onto anything to keep myself from falling. Other times I have difficulty doing certain body moves and positions that normal people can do. The way I talk makes people uncomfortable. I'm not good at carrying on a conversation or with a large group of people.

The challenges people with disabilities like me face every day at home, at work and in school are everywhere. Not only did I get looks and taunts in college but I got them in high school as well. All for being different; all because I didn't fit into the definition of "normal." People with disabilities often face many challenges when trying to navigate the world.

Just 22 years ago it was legal to not hire, to fire, or discriminate against Americans with disabilities.The Americans with Disabilities Act, enacted in 1990, did things like repeal the last of the ugly discriminatory laws that prohibited people with disabilities from coming out in public, and required employers to provide accommodations for disabled workers on the job. Employers also were not allowed to discriminate against potential employees with disabilities during the interview process and pass them over for a non-disabled applicant. Employers were forbidden to ask if a person is disabled as well during an interview. The ADA empowers the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to file lawsuits against employers who violate the law.

I remember one of the first disability rights actions I took part in was in 2010 when Senate tea party candidate Rand Paul said he opposed the Americans with Disabilities Act. For a short while disability rights activists and their advocates came together to protest. I took part in organizing an online campaign to get an apology and even attended a protest. We never did get our apology but it just shows you the kinds of things people with disabilities face every day from ignorant people who walk all over us. Some of it's intentional and other times it's not.

So what can we do for people with disabilities to make discrimination go away?

Employers often successfully challenge the ADA's statutes in court and often win. In 2008 it became necessary to rework the entire law because it had been severely weakened by court challenges from employers who didn't care one bit about the workers they fired or otherwise discriminated against. The 2008 ADA Amendments Act clarified and broadened the disability definition. And it required courts interpreting the ADA and other federal disability nondiscrimination laws to focus on whether the employer has discriminated, rather than whether the individual seeking the law's protection has an impairment that fits within the technical definition of the term "disability."

The amendment act has successfully restored much of what the ADA was originally intended to do. As a result, the EEOC now has the tools to do its job. But we have to make sure that employers and sympathetic courts do not continue to obstruct the ADA.

We can also expand education programs and social services for people with disabilities.

Educational services are already in place in public schools and higher education by law. By law and court rulings public schools are required to identify and test individuals with disabilities and provide them with a "least restrictive environment" and a "free public and adequate education." This can be done by providing accommodations in the classroom for the student or through special education.

In higher education things are very different. Students with disabilities have the burden of proving to colleges and universities that they have a disability before they can receive accommodations in the classroom. Once this is done students receive accommodations free of charge to help them in their class work. These vary. A student with a learning disability might get extra testing time or a quiet testing environment. A blind student would get books on tape or in Braille and a tape recorder to record lectures. Education services for students with disabilities are some of the best in the world, but more can be done to expand access to these services.

Health care is an area that is quite lacking for people with disabilities.

My parents' insurance plan is very resistant about paying for my medical costs and care. At one point it became so bad that I had to apply for Medicaid. Medicaid helps hundreds of thousands of Americans with disabilities live independent lives and pays for the care we need. To think the Republicans in Congress want to turn Medicaid into block grants for the states! A progressive state like Vermont would keep a program for people with disabilities intact. But other states such as the Southern Republican strongholds might divert the money somewhere else and simply shut down these programs, leaving thousands of people with disabilities without coverage.

Third, we can make disability care assistance an easier process to navigate for Americans with disabilities. Many cannot work or aren't ready to work. Families can't afford to take care of their disabled children or adult family members who are too sick or infirm to partake in society. Bring back the CLASS Act and fully fund it this time. The CLASS Act was the brainchild of Senator Edward Kennedy and was passed as a rider within the Affordable Care Act. It would have created a government-run disability insurance program for all Americans. Unfortunately it was defunded by Republicans and has not been resurrected.

Fourth, we can unite all the scattered and underfunded state vocational rehabilitation programs under the banner of the federal government. Fund a federal system of work relief and job counselors for people with disabilities so they can find employment or help with employment. Right now I work with Pennsylvania's Office of Vocational Rehabilitation. A federal vocational rehabilitation system would help many more people with disabilities and would have the benefit of far more funding than the state programs have.

We'll see what the future holds for disabled Americans like me. As more and more equality legislation is passed we will have more and more of the same chances every other American has. To work and partake in society like everyone else is what we want.

For years we've been subject to mistreatment and then pity, and more mistreatment - not equality. There's still a long way to go for equal access to society. But we're getting there.

Image: Illustration for ADA checklist for polling places.

Professor lists Obama accomplishments: Over 244 and growing

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:08:00 +0000

Florida Professor Robert P. Watson who teaches American Studies at Lynn University has compiled a list of 244 accomplishments by President Obama since he took office despite fanatical Republican opposition aimed at wrecking his presidency.

The list does not include Obama's decision to halt the tar sands pipeline that would have endangered the Oglalla aquifer in pumping 700,000 gallons daily of the world's dirtiest oil from western Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Prof. Watson, whose specialty is presidential history, began preparing his list back in Nov. 2009 to counter the lies and disinformation spread by the corporate media and the Republican right.

"The misinformation and venom that passes for political reporting and civic debate is beyond description," Dr. Watson wrote. "There is a need to set the record straight." His list then contained 90 plus achievements which he has now updated to 244.

He praised Obama for pushing through measures vital to the national interest not through a "heavy-handed or top down approach" but through efforts to "reach across the aisle, encourage vigorous debate, and utilize town halls and panels of experts in the policy-making process."

On the list (a few have been added by this reporter):

Overhauled the food safety system;

Approved the Lily Ledbetter "Equal Pay" for women rule;

Ended "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" discrimination in the military;

Passed the Hate Crimes bill in Congress;

Appointed two progressive women to the U.S. Supreme Court including the first Latina;

Pushed through the Affordable Health Care Act, outlawing denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, extending until age 26 health care coverage of children under parent's plans, steps toward "Medicare for All;"

Expanded the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) health care for children;

Pushed through a $789 economic stimulus bill that saved or created 3 million jobs and began task of repairing the nation's infrastructure;

Overhauled the credit card industry, making it more consumer friendly;

Established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and used a recess appointment to keep it on track in the face of GOP attempts to derail it;

Also outmaneuvered GOP in naming two members of the National Labor Relations Board blocked by the Republicans in their attempt to shut down the NLRB;

Won two extensions of the debt ceiling and extensions of unemployment compensation in the face of Republican threats to shut down the U.S. government;

Pulled troops out of Iraq and began draw down of troops in Afghanistan.

Since he prepared the list, it has been posted and reposted on the Internet hundreds of times with scores of bloggers commenting on it and adding to the list.

Writing in Washington Monthly's Political Animal column, blogger Steve Benen, points out that many of Obama's achievements have been won through painful concessions he was forced to make with intransigent Republican obstructionists on Capitol Hill.

The tendency has been to focus on his concessions while ignoring what he won in return. Benen cites the lame duck session of Congress in December 2010 following the disastrous elections a month earlier in which the Democrats lost majority control of the House.

There were predictions that nothing would be achieved in that lame duck, Benen said. "But for all the grief he's gotten over this, its worth keeping in mind that Obama got a helluva lot.... In the end, he got a Food Safety bill, passage of the START Treaty, a stimulus package, repeal of ‘don't ask/don't tell' and a First Responder bill" that provided health coverage for firefighters, police officers and other workers injured during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack. Incredibly, the Republicans tried to block it.

Obama was forced to make the same concession just before Christmas, yielding on his repeated demands for termination of a trillion in tax cuts for the rich in order to win approval of an increase in the debt ceiling and extension of jobless benefits for five million unemployed workers.

Yielding on tax cuts for the rich hurt those fighting for tax justice. But there is little doubt that those hard pressed, if not desperate unemployed workers, viewed this as an "accomplishment" and Obama deserves full credit.

Under a headline, "Who is Washington's Most Effective Politician?" Benen scoffs at those who pick Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell's job was "easy," Benen writes. He twisted Senate rules to make himself "Obstructionist in Chief." No, he says, Obama is the most skillful, "perhaps the most effective politician since LBJ" for winning that long list of victories in the face of unprecedented obstruction, lies, and misinformation.

Plenty of voters are now preparing lists for themselves of Obama's accomplishments as they work to insure he wins a second term next Nov. 6.

Photo: Whitehouse.gov

GOP prez candidates help themselves on taxes

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:43:00 +0000

If it weren't so shameful it would almost be funny.

The Republican presidential candidates, even if only unintentionally, made it clear in the latest installment of their unmercifully long string of debates, why they have been resisting the releasing of their tax statements.

Romney has finally released one year's worth of returns - his 2010 document. Even though it is easy, when you release just a year, to doctor things up so they look pretty good, the Romney returns for that one year pose at least six major problems.

First, they show he has a lot of offshore tax shelters.

Second, they show he paid less than 13.9 percent of his income in taxes during the year 2010, which is far below what most American workers pay.

Third, they show that the reason he paid so little in taxes is that his income comes from capital gains on investments and taxes on capital gains are far below what workers pay on their hard-earned wages.

Fourth, they show that he has undisclosed amounts of funds hidden in the Cayman Islands and other overseas locations. Since the amounts are undisclosed it can be assumed the sums stashed in those shelters could be quite large.

Fifth, workers can't pay the low tax rates Romney pays because they don't earn money from capital gains and they don't have overseas tax shelters.

Sixth, the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from his one year release is that for most of the other years about which he released no information he probably paid even less or perhaps even nothing in taxes.

All these problems haven't stopped Romney from proposing a tax plan that would actually cut what little taxes he did pay in half. Romney proposes a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires, including himself, that is twice as large as the tax cuts engineered by George Bush, when he was president.

Then we have the Gingrich plan which calls for the elimination of all taxes on capital gains and the institution of a flat rate 15 percent tax for everyone, regardless of income.

Gingrich bent over backwards during the Florida debate to assure Romney that he had no problem with Mitt paying as little as he did. "I just want everyone else to pay the low rate you pay," said Gingrich.

It wasn't lost on Romney, of course, that under the Gingrich plan, Romney would pay no taxes whatsoever!

It's no surprise that Gingrich has no problem with Romney's avoidance of taxes.

According to Forbes Magazine, Gingrich avoided tens of thousands of dollars in Medicare payroll taxes by classifying most of his income from two companies he owns as profits and dividends, therefore avoiding the payroll tax. The IRS has long been on to this type of scheme and has consistently disallowed it.

Then, after Romney accused Gingrich of influence peddling and demanded he release documents regarding his work for Freddie Mac, Newt Gingrich released a "contract" that the New York Times described as "legal boilerplate" and that contains no details about the advice he gave or ways in which he made use of his political contacts to benefit the people paying him.

Despite his absurd insistence that he was never a lobbyist, the contract showed that Gingrich was hired by the division of Freddie Mac responsible for lobbying - and that Gingrich was paid $300,000 for his "non" lobbying.

Romney's sanctimonious attacks on Gingrich about this matter on Monday in Florida were also quite disgusting. ThinkProgress pointed out today that Romney's own investments in Freddie Mac have netted him tens of thousands of dollars in income.

President Obama is expected to call in his State of the Union Message for fairness in taxation. As he has in the past, he is expected to insist that the wealthy in this nation pay their fair share of taxes. This is the view of the overwhelming majority of Americans. On the question of taxes, as on so many other issues, the Republican presidential hopefuls are swimming against the tide.

Hopefully, it will be only a matter of time before they sink.

The human dimension of long-term joblessness

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:36:00 +0000

According to recent news reports the number of workers filing for new unemployment benefits dropped to a near four-year low. And with the national unemployment rate at 8.5 percent, many are optimistically expecting renewed consumer confidence as we head into the 2012 elections cycle.

While this is good news, it isn't sunshine and rainbows for everybody. Millions are still out of work or underemployed, and our economy isn't anywhere near full capacity.

However as an optimist, it seems to me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel for many people - people who have had to rely on unemployment, their savings, and/or the generosity of family and friends.

Yet, something missing from the recent positive reports is the human dimension, the impact long-term unemployment can have on families as they struggle to pay the utility bills, the bank notes, the doctor's bills or buy groceries.

In fact, long-term joblessness can have a dramatic and sometimes contradictory impact on people's lives as they balance their economic reality with their expectations of the American Dream. For some the idea of the American Dream has been shattered, along with their sense of self-worth.

While unemployed some people feel worthless. They feel like it's their fault, like they're not working hard enough to find another job. Like there is something wrong with them.

Others feel angry and resentful, even justifiably pissed-off, that they were let go or laid off due to no fault of their own. This anger and resentment can sometimes hinder the search for other employment opportunities.

Furthermore, some people have worked the same job for 15, 20, 25 years and have a hard time believing they have the necessary skills or education to compete in today's economy, with younger, better educated and less expensive workers - workers with very little "legacy costs" attached with them.

And undoubtedly, it is intimidating and scary to change jobs and/or go back to school.

All of this and so much more weighs on the minds of the unemployed and their families.

For example, my mother was let go almost two years ago. She had worked for the trash company. My stepfather had lost his job a few months before her. He worked as a mechanic for the same trash company.

All of a sudden their lives were turned upside down. She had dedicated 15 years to the company; he had dedicated 25 years. They had a mortgage, two car payments, utility bills, doctors' bills, credit card debt, etc.

Understandably, they were both pretty angry and hurt by the situation. They had to use their savings and 401k investments to supplement the unemployment benefits. They didn't have health insurance; the COBRA payments were just too much. Additionally, mom stopped taking her MS medicine since it was too expensive.

And to top things off, as the months turned into nearly two years, frustration and depression made it almost impossible to get excited about the grandkids' birthday parties, or the holidays with family.

Tension and fear about the future turned into guilt.

In fact, my mother and stepfather blamed themselves for not being able to give my wife and me a wedding present when we got married last May. My mother actually apologized to me, and said, "I wish we could do more."

Fortunately, after almost two years my stepfather got a job as a welder. His mood changed overnight. He could finally do something productive with his time, feel good about what he was doing and pay the bills.

And just last week, my mother got a job at a union manufacturing plant. She was so excited when she called to tell me. I could hear the pride in her voice, and the weight being lifted off her shoulders.

For many of us, our self-worth is wrapped-up in our ability to work, to pay the bills, "do right," get by and retire with dignity - the American Dream. Being without a job for months or years can dash all of those expectations, can drag us down and make us feel worthless, make us blame ourselves for the economic situation we didn't cause, and make us feel guilty as if we did something wrong.

Fortunately, my mother and stepfather have been able to weather the storm - victims of a social-economic system designed to benefit the 1 percent - and eventually, after much heartache, move on to greener pastures.

While many people are finding work as the economy slowly recovers, many more aren't. Add into the mix a society and economy that perpetuates and reinforces the idea that poverty is a result of laziness and ignorance, and long-term unemployment can have a devastating impact on how people feel about themselves.

Ultimately, we need a full-employment economy, and better laws designed to protect workers and their jobs during times of economic distress. Ultimately, our society can and should do better. Our families deserve better.

Photo: Jobs with Justice // CC 2.0

Left on the bookshelf: "Blacks, Reds and Russians"

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:24:00 +0000

Book Review
Blacks, Red, and Russians. Sojourners in Search of the Soviet Promise
By Joy Gleason Carew
Rutgers University Press, 2011, 304 pages, paper $28.95

The story of the United States occupies a unique place in world history because of its growth and shaping by immigration. The immigrants were the unsatisfied natives of their home countries. This included the earliest pilgrims whose religious observances did not fit with those of the English aristocracy as well as German "48ers" who fled the persecution of the ruling class after a failed people's revolutions. The building of America by these rebels is an inspiring story.

There is a much less known story of another group of immigrants who sought freedom and opportunity, but it wasn't to America but to the Soviet Union that they fled.

Their story is documented in the book: Blacks, Red, and Russians. Sojourners in Search of the Soviet Promise by Joy Gleason Carew. Although authored by an academic and published by a university press, the book does not read like a dry anthropological study of an unrecorded subculture. It is, in fact, a colorful account of the adventures, challenges and triumphs of a group of unique and forward thinking African-Americans whose courage, idealism, and in many cases, simple survival instincts led them from the land of their birth to a new world few knew much about.

Obtaining any accurate information regarding the history and culture of the Soviet Union from western sources is difficult indeed. Thankfully this particular volume of Soviet history proves to be an exception, and contains none of the usual hysterical anti-communist canards that are all too familiar, and can be so problematic for the American reader.

The exploration of the motives of the sojourners often leads us to an understanding of the barriers to professional and personal advancement not only in the Jim Crow South but also in the U.S. as a whole. Through the stories we learn that these individuals did not seek egotistical self-aggrandizement, but rather the opportunity to go as far as their talents would take them in a society that made the eradication of racism one of the hallmarks of its foundation.

Joy Gleason Carew's vivid profiles of the sojourners put us in the time and place of their pilgrimage. One can almost see George Tynes, American citizen turned Soviet, as he shuttles between Soviet Georgia, Estonia and the Ukraine and finally to Moscow, where, in his retirement, he proudly trod the streets wearing the medals bestowed upon him by the Soviet state for his achievements in fish and poultry breeding. It was his talents that led the USSR to win first prize at a European agricultural exhibition in the 1950's.

Carew puts us in the footsteps of actor Wyland Rudd, who became the first black man to perform the role of Othello in Russian.

These are intensely human stories, filled with joy as well as hardships and sometimes great humor. The amusing anecdotes often take the form of "fish out of water" culture clashes between the recently arrived immigrants and the Russians whose knowledge of America at the time was limited at best. The description of the farcical failure of the Soviet attempt to produce a film, shot in Russia and starring African-American actors, and meant to portray a strike at a Southern US steel mill is worth a book all its own.

Readers can be grateful that this unique intersection in U.S. and Soviet history, as well as the African American experience, has been properly recorded and is available for the enjoyment of the reader as well as the study of the student and academic alike.

Winners and losers in South Carolina

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:52:00 +0000

If we go by the official election results Newt Gingrich won the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina with 40 percent of the vote, and Mitt Romney came in behind him with 27 percent. Pulling up the rear were Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.

While Gingrich won, the concerns of the American people were the biggest losers.

The American Federation of Teachers put it this way in a commentary today: "As Republicans continue their efforts to select their nominee, one thing is clear. These leading Republican candidates are out of touch with the concerns of middle-class America, and as president, neither (Gingrich or Romney) would fight for the 99 percent of Americans."

Gingrich repeated his racist charges that President Obama is a food stamp president, and he repeated his attacks on labor laws, including, outrageously enough, child labor laws. After the primary he called again for the elimination of unionized school janitors and replacing it with a setup that involves one "master" janitor and a team of children working under that person to take care of the school buildings. What could possibly be more out of touch with the concerns of the working-class majority than these ideas?

Billionaire Romney continues to speak about how corporations are people, how he comes from the "American street," how he has experienced the fear of being fired and he even described the $374,327.62 he earned in speaking fees as "not very much" money. It's hard to be more out of touch with workers than that.

Paul and Santorum offer no improvement over the front-runners. All the GOP candidates have fallen over one another promising to support anti-worker right-to-work (for less) bills, constitutional amendments to balance budgets (at the expense of vital people-serving programs), attacks on women's reproductive rights such as laws to define fertilized eggs as human beings, and unlimited spending by corporate PACs on election campaigns.

All have pandered to the right-wing morality police and their political intrusions into the moral behavior and beliefs of Americans. Ironically, Gingrich himself had his personal morality brought up to him in a national debate.

Gingrich also suffered from the $13 million Romney's PACs spent on anti-Gingrich ads. It's hard to feel sorry for him about this, however, considering his support for the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that allows the PACs to spend unlimited amounts.

The real shame is that all the GOP candidates have spent millions to advance a program for the 1 percent, not a platform that benefits the broad majority. And even worst than that, all the Republican presidential primary candidates seem to be working in overdrive to do whatever they can to destroy not just President Obama, but any effort that is under way to bring about economic and social justice.

Photo: Other South Carolinians at a march and rally at The Statehouse, Jan. 16, Columbia S.C., to honor the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and protest the state's repressive voter identification law. Mary Ann Chastain/AP