People Before Profit blog

"Rally for Coal": which way for West Virginia?

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:29:00 +0000

The Environmental Protection Agency has vetoed the permit for the Logan County, W. Va., Spruce Number One mine, a symbol of the debate over mountain top removal mining that has been embroiled in litigation since 1998.

In the wake of the defeat of significant carbon reduction regulations by Republican filibusters of the energy bill last session, the Environmental Protection Agency has become more aggressive in fighting climate change dangers posed by, among other culprits, carbon polluting coal. The EPA finally shrugged off intense pressure coming from both the oil and coal industry to continue doing nothing, and took a stand.

Now you can hear the coal companies holler across the state of West Virginia - and not just them, but their friends in the legislature, state government and communities where the economy - and public services - are heavily dependent on revenues from the coal industry. Coal industry employment has shrunk from over 120,000 direct workers in 1960, to just 20,000 today, out of a workforce of 820,000 people. Nonetheless, while coal employs less than a half a percent of the workforce, it contributes nearly 15 percent of state revenues, mostly through the legacy "severance" tax. This no doubt helps explain the mass turnout of state officeholders, plus the Congressional delegation, to the "Rally for Coal" held in the capital, Charleston, Thursday, Jan. 20, to protest the EPA sanction against mountaintop removal.

About 400 defenders of coal cheered the importance of coal in energy policy, some claiming it was "God's will" that coal is both mined and burned. Others denying climate change, or just pointing out the absence of alternative jobs, or political hacks whose paychecks are directly or indirectly signed by the coal companies joined the crowd.

Acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin chaired the rally inside the state capitol building. He called upon the Rev. Mitchell Bias, from the Delbarton Regional Church of God, to deliver God's Word on the subject. "Coal is your will. You placed it here on earth. It is part of your master plan," Bias said. He prayed to God that 2011 "will be safe and secure for mining and the most prosperous year for mining." Some of the Reverend's people attending the rally wore black "Friends of Coal" t-shirts reading, "Pro-Christ, Pro-Life, Pro-American, Pro-Guns, Pro-Coal ... Republican."

Back on earth, Marie Gunnoe, an organizer for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, said, "Mountaintop removal is no longer a jobs issue. It is a health issue. They are killing us by destroying our mountains and destroying our water. Six generations of my family have lived there. We have every right to stay there. Don't we have the right to protect our water?"

There were a couple of hundred opponents of mountaintop mining as well, including both coal miners and longtime residents from coal districts of West Virginia. The theme of the opponents was, "The mountains in West Virginia are now worth a lot more standing than they are being torn down." So agreed state delegate John Doyle, a delegate from Jefferson county (in the panhandle, not in coal country), who added, "Tourism and knowledge based industries must be our future." The coal lobby is not pushing in that direction, clearly.

The United Mine Workers in W.Va. has taken an agnostic position, not challenging climate change science or the need for "clean coal," but clearly concerned about any threat to jobs. The Spruce Mine, vetoed by the EPA, would have been a $250 million dollar investment promising 250 jobs.

Of course, these particular jobs would be non-union. Only a miniscule percent of mountaintop removal mining jobs are unionized (less than 5 percent).

Meanwhile, West Virginia ranks 49th in personal income. For all the wealth that mining coal creates, it has not had much spillover in terms of overall economic development.

Moderate political forces at the rally, fearful of overly offending coal, but still not entirely numb about the science and dangers of carbon pollution and environmental degradation from mountaintop removal mining, called for more focus on "clean coal." In the past this has turned out to be just a code word for "coal." The EPA decision compels the coal industry, and their supporters to put some skin in the game when they say "clean."

Rocked by 9 percent unemployment and increasing pressure to adjust its economic development philosophy, West Virginia must begin looking to the future, not the past, for answers.

Image: Emily Hoyer // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Milwaukee's finest: the amazing story of John Gilman

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:19:00 +0000

Long time People's World contributor John Gilman died in Milwaukee, Wisc., on April 26, 2011 at 90 years old. Gilman wrote many opinion pieces for People's World and raised money for this working-class publication. In 2001, the then People's Weekly World gave Gilman its "Courage Award" for his lifelong commitment to working-class struggles.

His tenacious activism for peace, civil rights, democracy and social justice will be missed. He was a well-known organizer for U.S.-Cuba friendship, an end to the embargo, normalized relations and freedom for the Cuban Five. In 2004, Cuba honored Gilman with the Cuban Medal of Friendship.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's obituary, "WWII hero John Gilman took on racism, fought for civil rights," can be accessed here. A June memorial is being planned. Gilman is survived by his partner and wife Helen; daughters Rose Corso and Jennifer Gilman; sons Herman and Glenn; sister Edith Silverstein; brother Jack; grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

We reprint this review of his autobiography, "Footsoldier for Peace and Justice: The story of John Gilman" in memory of a special and staunch supporter.

Book Review

"Footsoldier for Peace and Justice: The story of John Gilman"

By John Gilman

with editorial consultant Doris Strieter

iUniverse, Inc 2009, 241 pages, $19.95

I always enjoy reading autobiographies, especially those of activists, socialists and communists because they invariably lead such interesting lives.

John Gilman doesn't disappoint in his autobiography, "Footsoldier for Peace and Justice: The story of John Gilman."

Gilman, who lives in Milwaukee, Wisc., has led a life of non-stop hell-raising and as he likes to say, always standing up against what he thought was wrong.

This book is an enjoyable read from cover to cover. For those who know Gilman, his ever indignant and outspoken voice, comes through loud and clear. You feel he's in the room talking to you.

Gilman was born in 1920 to Jewish immigrant working class parents in Chester, Pa., one of 10 children. His father was a railroad maintenance worker. He came of age in the Great Depression, the war against fascism and the great struggles of the day shaped his outlook.

All the children went to work early to support the family, including John and his brothers who all sold newspapers. John sold the Communist Party newspaper, The Daily Worker among other publications.

John was a cousin to the late Daily World writer and author, Joe North. He was first introduced to the ideas of socialism during a big shipyard strike in Chester, Pa., by his brother.

Gilman led his first big battle in high school when he became editor of the school newspaper, and attempted to write an expose of how the school system spent its money, calling for the construction of a new high school. The teacher in charge feared what would happen if it were printed and censored the article. The students issued their own publication with the story, which was also banned.

Gilman was expelled after he wrestled the principal to the floor to stop him from grabbing a stack of student newspapers. The students responded by going on strike.

(He later learned a bitter lesson of blacklisting, when he was turned down for work at a shipyard because of his notoriety in the strike.)

His activism led to involvement in the national student movement and becoming a high school representative in the National Student Union. He joined a delegation to Washington, D.C. where they met Eleanor Roosevelt.

Gilman later got a job at a Ford auto factory, helped form a Communist Party club and led a reform movement in the local. He was fired.

Gilman wanted, in the worst way, to enlist, and be sent to the front in Europe to fight fascism during WWII. Finally he got his chance, and was part of a follow up wave of the D Day invasion, landing in France on June 10, 1944. Gilman was an infantryman and in combat during the Allied advance into Germany.

Gilman, who escaped death when a sniper's bullet miraculously lodged in his thick leather belt, distinguished himself with bravery in numerous battles including knocking out a German pillbox and tank. He was wounded, and highly decorated, awarded the Bronze and Silver Stars and Distinguished Service Cross.

After the war, he first went to work in the railroad maintenance department. Later, he went to school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison were he became involved politically. It was through his involvement with the People's Progressive Party that he met his future wife, Helen. Together they have four children (and several grandchildren), all who lead very interesting lives of their own.

During the McCarthy repression Gilman never backed down an inch including twice when subpoenaed to appear in front of HUAC, "where (he) finally told the Sobs off." In fact, he likes to say if you fight back, and show them you are not afraid, they back down. Besides, he says, he saw far worse on the battlefield.

Gilman describes FBI infiltration of organizations and harassment of his linoleum business (which was later firebombed), but also how he continued giving leadership on many issues including the movement for a new trial for the Rosenbergs.

During this period he also became active in the Civil Rights Congress where he fought against racism in the Deep South and in Milwaukee, for nuclear disarmament and later against the Vietnam War. In 1975, he organized and led a national tour for Hortensia Allende, widow of slain Chilean President Salvador Allende.

In 1959, he and Helen happened to be in Florida when the Cuban Revolution broke out. So true to form, they jumped on a plane and went to Havana where they got a first hand view of events. This led to a 60 year relationship with Cuba and the Cuban people.

Gilman was one of the pioneers of the Cuba solidarity movement in the United States, especially in Milwaukee. Over the years he has led many delegations, raised thousands of dollars for solidarity movements, and sent boatloads of equipment to the island. He's been active most recently in the movement to free the Cuban Five. http://www.peoplesworld.org/the-rosenbergs-and-the-cuban-five/

It's no accident, Gilman says, that the late Rev. Lucius Walker, former head of Pastors for Peace, came out of Milwaukee and the solidarity movement there.

Gilman has remained active into his 90s. When the Bush administration was gearing up to invade Iraq, Gilman donned his military uniform and medals and blasted the invasion plans before the state Senate.

In addition to Walker, Gilman counts among his friends and acquaintances Fidel Castro, Father James Groppi, Linus Pauling and (to my delight) Danny Murtaugh, the late manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates who he grew up with.

What a fascinating and fulfilling life John Gilman has led. Thanks John, for telling it in this enjoyable, lively and inspiring book. I hope everyone picks it up.

Special offer to People's World readers: Order your copy of "Footsoldier for Peace and Justice: The story of John Gilman" now. Send your check or money order for $23.00 (includes shipping and handling) along with your mailing address to:

People's World

Attn: John Bachtell

3339 S. Halsted St.

Chicago IL 60608

(Author John Gilman has pledge a donation for every copy sold.)

Nominees announced for “people’s alternative” Academy Awards

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 14:10:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - The James Agee Cinema Circle has announced its fourth annual "Progie" Award nominees, for 2010's best progressive films, actors and filmmakers. Nominees include films like Oliver Stone's "South of the Border," John Sayles' "Amigo," and the British feminist strike drama "Made In Dagenham," and actors Naomi Watts for "Fair Game," Kevin Spacey for "Casino Jack," and Geoffrey Rush for "The King's Speech."

The film group says the Progies are the "un-Oscar," the people's "alternative Academy Awards." They honor movies and talents of conscience and consciousness in a variety of categories named after artists and films that are pro-people, pro-working class, pro-women, pro-gay, pro-environment, pro-human rights, anti-war, anti-racist and anti-fascist.

The James Agee Cinema Circle is an international group of left film critics and historians dedicated to advancing progressive cinema and filmmakers. One of its members, screenwriter and playwright Christopher Trumbo, died Jan. 9. Circle members include Ed Rampell, author of "Progressive Hollywood, A People's Film History of the United States" and editor of HollywoodProgressive.com, and Bill Meyer, film critic for the People's World and HollywoodProgressive.com.

The Progie Trumbo award for best progressive picture is named after Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a member of the Hollywood Ten, who was imprisoned for his beliefs and refusing to inform on others. Trumbo helped break the blacklist when he received screen credit for "Spartacus" and "Exodus" in 1960. The 2010 nominees are "Made In Dagenham," "The King's Speech," "The Social Network," "Even The Rain," "Casino Jack" and "Route Irish."

The Garfield award for best male actor in a progressive picture is named after John Garfield, who rose from the proletarian theater to star in progressive pictures such as "Gentleman's Agreement" and "Force of Evil," only to run afoul of the Hollywood blacklist. The 2010 nominees are Kevin Spacey ("Casino Jack"), Edgar Ramirez ("Carlos"), Mark Wahlberg ("The Fighter"), Geoffrey Rush ("The King's Speech") and James Franco ("Howl").

The Karen Morley award for best actress in a progressive film portraying women is named for Karen Morley, co-star of 1932's "Scarface" and 1934's "Our Daily Bread." Morley was driven out of Hollywood in the 1930s for her leftist views, but maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for New York lieutenant governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954. She died in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93. The 2010 nominees are Sally Hawkins ("Made In Dagenham") and Naomi Watts ("Fair Game").

Other awards include the Renoir for best antiwar film, named after the great French filmmaker Jean Renoir, who directed the 1937 anti-militarism masterpiece "Grand Illusion," and the Gillo Award for best progressive foreign film, named after Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, who lensed the 1960s classics "The Battle of Algiers" and "Burn!"

The Dziga award for best progressive documentary is named after Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov, who directed 1920s nonfiction films such as the "Kino Pravda" ("Film Truth") series and "The Man With the Movie Camera."

The Our Daily Bread award honors the most positive and inspiring working-class screen image. And the Robeson award, for best portrayal of people of color that shatters cinema stereotypes, is named after courageous performing legend Paul Robeson, who starred in 1936's "Song of Freedom" and 1940's "The Proud Valley," and narrated 1942's "Native Land."

These and other 2010 Progie awards will be announced in February, shortly before the Academy Awards ceremony.

Films nominated for Progies this year cover a wide range, with titles like "Miral," "The Green Zone," "Night Catches Us," "The Kids are All Right," "Film Socialisme," "Cleveland Versus Wall Street," "I Love You Philip Morris," "Frankie and Alice," and many more.

Previous Progie winners have included Denzel Washington's "The Great Debaters," Michael Moore, "Che," British director Ken Loach, "Waltz With Bashir," James Cameron's "Avatar," Sean Penn and "Milk."

State of the Union and openings for progress

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:04:00 +0000

The following article is based on a Jan. 27 CPUSA National Board discussion.

President Obama soberly looked at the state of the nation earlier this week, outlined new challenges facing the country, and forcefully presented several new initiatives to restructure and renew the economy.

Combined with his success in the "lame-duck" congressional session, the acclaimed speech in Tucson and the successful summit with Hu Jintao, the president has enhanced his standing considerably since the November defeat of his party. He is the front-runner for the presidency in 2012, which is driving right-wing extremists and sections of capital into a frenzy.

Public investments in clean energy, research, infrastructure and education are the most important proposals in the State of the Union address. Renewing the infrastructural and productive base of the economy is of critical importance to the country's future in a highly competitive global economy.

The president also spoke out against the Bush tax cuts that add $857 billion to our deficit and against tax breaks for the outrageously profitable oil monopolies - who, he added, don't need our help.

The president aggressively defended his administration's health care bill as well. He didn't wave the veto pen at the Republicans in the audience, but he indicated to the nation that he was prepared to fight any legislative efforts coming from the GOP to cripple it.

President Obama navigated between many competing forces and trends, mounted a spirited defense of the role of government - not big vs. small, but mean vs. smart, active and caring. Unlike former President Bill Clinton, who beat a hasty retreat in 1995 (after the huge defeat in the 1994 midterm elections) captured by his now famous quip, "The days of big government are over," this president made a vigorous rebuttal to his right-wing critics.

To the majority of Americans who are war weary, his restatement that a pullout of troops from Afghanistan would begin this summer was welcomed, as was his call for military spending reductions. What the president didn't outline was a concrete withdrawal plan to remove the all the troops. It is no secret that the Pentagon and their political allies are opposed to any quick (or longer term) pullout. Nor did he address, besides a remark on the uprising in Tunisia, other sites of conflict in the world, but that was no surprise. His focus was domestic.

Another feature of the speech that was greeted in progressive circles was his reference to citizenship rights of immigrant children and the lifting of discrimination against gay people in the military.

Not least, the president repeated a theme that finds its way into most of his speeches - the idea that America is a diverse country of multi-racial, multi-ethnic, young and old, native born and immigrant, gay and straight people. This challenges the right-wing notion that the United States is essentially a White Republic.

The speech should be seen as a product of a political moment defined by the migration of independent voters to the Republican column in the fall elections, the tenacity of right-wing ideology on still too many voters, and the refusal of the business community to cooperate with the administration on many matters. Is it too strong to say that capital is on strike and thus refusing to invest the trillions of dollars in economic surplus at its disposal until its gets its way?

The speech is also a product of the lack of political and organizational capacity of the labor and people's movement - something that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke of a week before the president's address. And until that changes, it is difficult to see how the nation's politics will tack too far in a progressive direction. Transformative moments require transformative mass insurgencies.

Missing in the speech was any immediate assistance to the millions who are reeling under the weight of the economic crisis - a crisis that has an end only if you live in the well-off side of town.

As important as public investment for economic renewal and jobs are, they are unlikely to get much traction in this Congress where cries for budget cutting is at a fever pitch among the Republicans. And even if they did the rollout of jobs would take time, which is what the unemployed, barely breathing under the weight of personal debt and declining income, don't have. They need relief NOW! But Congressional Republicans have no interest in such relief! In fact, their attitude to the economic recovery is: Who needs it? After all, profits are way up notwithstanding (or because of) the economic slump, and employment stagnates, as they see it, double digit unemployment rates are their return ticket to the White House and political dominance next year.

In this regard, the president's extension of the budget freeze was music to their ears, even though they advocate far more severe spending cuts . No matter how big or small the cuts are in the end, the poorest, the most vulnerable, the unemployed, and communities of color will feel the impact. Granted the president's proposal pales in comparison to the cuts on the Republican wish list - $100 billion immediately and then $2.5 trillion over the next ten years. Yes! You read it right. But any cuts will hurt communities that are already staggering.

That the president didn't make any concessions on Medicare and Social Security in his speech is a plus. The pressure on the administration to do so is enormous and it comes from congressional Republicans, some in his own party and administration, and sections of transnational corporations.

According to former Wall Street executive and Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration Robert Rubin, who speaks for the "Street," entitlement and budget reform is an imperative - a deal breaker if the administration wants any cooperation from business.

It is fair to say that the message of Rubin and his crowd of parasites (not too strong given their role in unraveling the economy and their theft of the wages and pensions of working people) is simple: "reform" Social Security and Medicare and trim domestic spending or we will invest our money elsewhere and throw the economy into another dip downward.

The mushrooming of debt is a problem to our economic future to be sure. And economic growth alone is not a solution to the debt buildup. But, debt is not at catastrophic levels, nor are the only solutions to this crisis the hollowing out of Social Security and Medicare.

Don't believe the media hype that we are about to fall into a dark hole like Greece, Ireland, and Iceland did.

The State of the Union didn't settle anything, but what it did do is frame the struggle in the coming period. In some instances the president framed things to the people's advantage; in other instances he made concessions to his opponents.

No one in their right mind should expect him to present a left alternative given the balance of class forces and his own political sensibilities. All we can ask for is that the speech provides labor, progressives and allies some openings to push forward on. And it did that. It's up to the labor and people's movements now.

Photo: President Barack Obama shakes hands with Speaker of the House John Boehner before delivering the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Jan. 25, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

China-U.S. summit was a win-win

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 10:52:00 +0000

Last week's White House summit meeting between President Barack Obama and China's President Hu Jintao marked an important turn in U.S.-China relations.

Tong Kim, an international affairs specialist at Korea University and Johns Hopkins, wrote that the summit, "regardless of U.S. intention, publicly marked the beginning of an era of shared influence, leadership and responsibility by the G2 superpowers over complex regional issues and challenges in Asia."

The New York Times editors, who seem to have a special animus for China, had to admit, in an editorial titled "A Newly Cooperative China," that the talks were promising.

And the Chinese press spoke of a "new era" in U.S.-Chinese relations.

Not everyone struck a positive note however. Columnist Robert Samuelson, writing in the Washington Post, commented, "By all appearances, Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington last week changed little in the lopsided American-Chinese relationship. What we have is a system that methodically transfers American jobs, technology and financial power to China in return for only modest Chinese support for important U.S. geopolitical goals ..."

Equally negative was the evaluation of Thomas Donnelly in the neo-conservative Weekly Standard. "For all the pomp and state-dinner circumstance," Donnelly said, "Hu Jintao's visit to Washington generated little actual news ... All that our China hands could say was that the trip was a welcome punctuation to the declining relations of the past. That the visit was a nonevent is just as well, for the United States could use a little quiet time to rethink its basic approach to China's rise."

But in fact, the summit was a major success. The atmosphere was cordial, the talks were frank but respectful, a better understanding of the realities of both countries was gained, and a range of agreements and initiatives were announced:

• Curtailment of theft of intellectual property of U.S. companies.
• Leveled playing field for obtaining Chinese government contracts that up to now favored Chinese companies.
• Authorization for Chinese companies to buy 200 airplanes from Boeing, worth $19 billion.
• Announcement of railway and energy contracts with GE and a joint venture between Honeywell and Hair, a Chinese appliance maker.
• Eased access for American and Chinese executives to each other's respective markets.
• Dialogue urged between North and South Korea, in addition to the resumption of multilateral negotiations with North Korea that China had backed.

In addition, discussion of human rights was carried out in a respectful way. It had none of the acrimony of the past and therefore was more productive.

This is a good body of work that benefits the people of both nations, including American workers. Whether it signifies a new era of bilateral relations is still be decided, but it can be said with no equivocation that the summit was a major step forward for relations between the two states.

Of course, not everyone in U.S. ruling circles is for a deepening of relations, or strategic engagement with China as some call it.

Some prefer containment - end of story, which means in practical terms a rollback of China's growing influence and power in the world. In this redux of the Cold War, China is considered not simply a threat, but the main threat to U.S. interests in the global theater (while at home, for these folks, the main threat is labor).

Others - including those advising the president - want it both ways, that is, containment and engagement. China's investment opportunites, cheap labor force, and burgeoning consumption market are too enticing, and the readiness of foreign-based transnationals to do business with the Chinese is too strong, for U.S. capital to forego this very attractive "zone of engagement."

While both sections of the ruling class want to maintain U.S. hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region and globally, the attitude of the latter grouping provides openings to deepen cooperation on a broad range of issues, beginning with economic concerns of both countries. The summit is evidence of this fact and its success creates a climate and opportunities for moving in this constructive direction.

While it was mentioned in passing in the press accounts, the shared desire of Presidents Obama and Hu to encourage people-to-people exchanges, especially involving young people, is of great importance. Human contact and direct interactions dispel harmful invented stereotypes and misrepresentations of people and nations and their motivations.

But there are formidable challenges. The world is riven by imperialist rivalries, scarce resources, and competing social systems. In the U.S., the Republican Party is the gathering center for the most rabid, racist, militarist, and imperial-minded sections of the ruling class and political reaction. And the U.S. today is a declining hegemonic power.

The summit last week gives new momentum to meeting that challenge however. It is the scaffolding for a relationship that is so crucial not only for the American and Chinese peoples, but also people worldwide.

Photo: President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao of China wave to children attending the welcoming ceremony for the Chinese leader on the South Lawn of the White House, Jan. 19. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

The national debt: Another path is possible!

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:00:00 +0000

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama articulated a soaring vision of a United States claiming world leadership in fields vital to humanity in the 21st century: biomedical research, information technology and especially, clean energy technology. A million electric cars, vehicles powered by sunlight and water, high speed rail spanning the country, solving the hardest problems in clean energy ...

The president emphasized the urgency of creating more jobs, improving public education and modernizing the country's infrastructure.

And then he turned to the national debt: the "legacy of deficit spending that began almost a decade ago." That debt now stands at over $14 trillion, and the Congressional Budget Office predicts it will rise $1.5 trillion this year.

Acknowledging that his proposed cuts come mostly from annual domestic spending that's just one-eighth of the total budget, the president projected freezing that spending for five years.

Obama was careful to add, "We need to make sure that we're not doing it on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens." But as both population and costs grow, it is hard to see how both a freeze, and the projected new investments in innovation, could take place without irreparable harm to just those "most vulnerable citizens." And Republicans are calling for far deeper cuts.

Meanwhile, 15 million workers remain unemployed and almost 85 million have had their hours or pay cut.

There is another path, one that could not only make a major dent in the national debt, but would also save many lives and put our country on the road to a new international policy of cooperation and mutual problem solving.

That path is to make major cuts in military spending.

The president moved in that direction when he referred to "$10s of billions" in cuts agreed to by the Secretary of Defense. To do more, of course, would mean overcoming immense opposition from Republicans and the military establishment. But it could mean the difference for saving urgently needed domestic programs.

The New Priorities Campaign, points out that the current U.S. military budget of more than $700 billion per year, amounts to 43 percent of global military spending. The Campaign notes that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have so far cost over $1 trillion in borrowed money - to say nothing of the thousands of U.S. and NATO soldiers, and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis, killed and injured.

"Our nation needs foreign and defense policies that serve the authentic needs of maintaining our security in a world where the use of force should be the last resort, not the first response," the Campaign says in its Declaration of Principles.

Such an approach could help greatly to turn around the ever-climbing federal debt and eliminate the need to freeze social programs while the need for them continues to grow.

The impact of a federal freeze will be felt at all levels - states, counties, cities and towns.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says that because revenues are down due to the financial crisis, at least 46 states and the District of Colombia have cut state services in areas including health care, services to the elderly and disabled, and higher education, while at the same time more families are facing economic difficulties.

California is struggling to overcome a $25 billion plus budget gap. In New Jersey the gap is $10.5 billion, in Illinois it's $15 billion and in Texas, $13.4 billion.

California's new Democratic Governor, Jerry Brown, is proposing a budget with more than $12 billion in cuts, including devastating slashes to the state's Medicaid program, welfare-to-work, developmental services and higher education.

In a blog post on www.nbcbayarea.com, San Jose State University Political Science professor Larry Gerston noted that in the current fiscal year, California received nearly $70 billion in federal grants-in-aid for various programs, not including the one-time assistance from the economic stimulus. State matching funds amount to 5 to 50 percent of these programs including public education, law enforcement, Medicaid, water resource programs, transportation projects and agricultural subsidies meaning the federal government is funding the larger share of these programs.

Of course the problems in California, as in other states, have many roots. But surely a freeze on federal domestic spending, or worse still, turning the domestic spending clock back to 2006 or earlier as the Republicans envision, would greatly worsen an already gravely difficult situation.

Taking a new path toward a national security based on the economic development, education, health and general wellbeing of people at home and around the world won't be easy. It will take powerful movements that oppose the extreme right and the military-industrial complex, as well as support for President Obama's moves toward a broader concept of security. It can be done.

Photo: Courtesy of the Department of Defense.

UN human rights body should be defended

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:37:00 +0000

Today, the House Sub-Committee on Foreign Relations hosted a panel, entitled "United Nations: Urgent Problems that Require Congressional Action." Even before the discussion commenced, Rep. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chair of the sub-committee, vowed to not only pull the U.S. out of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), but work to dismantle it altogether.

The congressperson told The Hill, "I'd like to make sure that we once and for all kill all U.S. funding for that beast [the UNHRC)," adding, "It's a rogues' gallery, pariah states." She claimed that human rights abusers sat on the HRC "because they don't want to be sanctioned."

Republicans argue that the council is stained by the membership of countries they consider notorious human rights abusers, including Egypt and Pakistan, but also socialist countries like Cuba and China.

Like so many other initiatives of the tea party-infused Republican right, the push to leave - and even destroy - the HRC is downright wrong.

That the HRC is flawed shouldn't be a surprise; it simply reflects the world in which it exists. The UN isn't simply some organization aimed at bettering the world; it is a collection of the world's nations, which have a range of political and economic systems, the same is the case with all UN agencies, including the HRC.

U.S. objection to membership by Cuba and China is particularly frustrating. No country is perfect, and human rights abuses exist everywhere, but, as is well known, Cuba has provided its citizens with a miraculous health care system, cut illiteracy nearly to zero in a few decades, has made tremendous steps forward in the rights of women, Afro-Cubans and the LGBTQ community, among other things.

While China's human rights situation still "has a way to go," as the Chinese president noted at the White House, it is a country that has made tremendous progress: looking at the China of today compared to that of 20 years ago, it appears as if a rights revolution has taken place. And they've done all this in the context of lifting tens of millions of people out of poverty.

The U.S. too has some very real violations, including police brutality and executions. And what about the rights to jobs and health care enjoyed in countries like Cuba, but not guaranteed to Americans? What about our foreign policy, which includes invasions and occupations of sovereign states?

As Cuba often points out, most human rights abuses taking place there occur not in Cuban-controlled territory, but in Guantanamo Bay, where even torture isn't unheard of.

It is to the benefit of all humanity that these and other countries, including the worst, meet to discuss rights. Isn't it better that repressive regimes are part of the debate on human rights? It's highly unlikely that Saudi views on women's rights are going to win the day, and membership in the council means that their records will be reviewed every four years.

There are some truly troubling aspects of the Human Rights Commission's Advisory Board, especially some of its personnel, including 9/11 conspiracy theorist Richard Falk. President Obama has called for the board's abolition, but changing or abolishing this board is entirely different than calling for the end of the Human Rights Council itself.

Given the uneven nature of development, the different types of societies in the world and, above all, the desire by all people for more rights, the role of the HRC is crucial. There, at the very least, floors can be set, nations can be reviewed, cases can be made, issues can be raised and agreements can be reached. If nothing else, agreements reached can help progressive democratic movements in dictatorial regimes. During the days of apartheid, UN resolutions and statements against apartheid helped to strengthen the solidarity movement against white rule, for example.

Rights are not given; people win them through struggle. Each country will move forward insofar as its people fight back. But history has also shown that international solidarity can help democratic movements. And the HRC can help to legitimize the process and to facilitate discussion.

The U.S. should help to strengthen and empower the committee, not destroy it.

Image: Courtesy United Nations Information Service Geneva // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Ohio tea party rep needs history lesson

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 13:45:00 +0000

Restoring the values of the Founding Fathers is supposedly one of the articles of faith of the Tea Party and its Republican entourage. But the ultra-right should be careful what they are wishing since the Founding Fathers were not only revolutionaries in deed, but many held far-reaching democratic ideas that the tea-baggers would denounce as "socialist."

This came to light recently concerning a bill introduced by Ohio State Representative Jay Hottinger, a staunch member of the "caveman caucus," now in control of the legislature, to abolish the estate tax as one of the first orders of business. To support this measure to end taxes on estates valued at $338,333 or more, Hottinger invoked the famous statement of Benjamin Franklin that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes and then expressed his view that even Franklin "didn't envision that the tax man would visit on the day of your death."

Tom Feran, a writer for the Plain Dealer, decided to check out the tax views of Franklin, "arguably the greatest mind of the founding generation," and reported in a column Jan. 21 that not only did Franklin support inheritance taxes but believed that all property except that needed by individuals for survival "is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition."

The quote is from a letter written in 1783 by Franklin to Robert Morris, the Superintendent of Finance (Treasury Secretary) under Pres. George Washington. The letter calls resistance to taxes "highly blameable" and urges passage of laws to compel payment. Franklin goes on to state, "All Property except ... (that) absolutely necessary for Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents (inheritance) and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and Uses of it."

Washington did not enact an estate tax, but his successor, John Adams, did in 1797, the same year, Feran notes, that Tom Paine, Franklin's friend and another giant among the Founding Fathers, published "Agrarian Justice," an essay calling for creating a national social security fund to be financed by a 10 percent tax on inherited property.

Unlike Hottinger, the Founding Fathers, including Franklin, Paine, Adams and Thomas Jefferson, were outraged at great disparities of wealth, which they had seen in Europe and stemmed from the type of hereditary political and economic power they overthrew in the American Revolution.

Hottinger has dismissed the revenue problems cities in Ohio will face if the estate tax is repealed saying that municipalities have taxing authority. In other words, it's ok to tax paychecks of ordinary citizens but heaven forbid taxing the hereditary wealth of the rich.

It may seem astonishing that Franklin and other Founding Fathers had such negative views about property rights, but they had obviously given a great deal of thought to the matter. Both Franklin and Paine were strong advocates of the abolition of slavery although it took a terrible civil war to confiscate that form of private property. It is also interesting that Franklin saw property to be the result of laws and "public convention," not some inherent right.

As a young 23-year-old printer, Franklin published in 1729 a pamphlet entitled "A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency," in which he argued that the source and measure of all value was labor. Although there had been some earlier European expressions of this view, this was the first clear statement in America by one of the greatest of our Founding Fathers of the labor theory of value, the foundation of the revolutionary science of Marxism.

Photo: Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, ca. 1770, by Edward Fisher (engraver), after a painting by Mason Chamberlin. (Library of Congress / AP)

Where is the next Milton Rogovin? Gage Gallery opens Working-Class Eye exhibit

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:43:00 +0000

CHICAGO - The gallery was packed, students scribbling on their notepads or taking snapshots with their iPhones, gray-haired and gray-bearded viewers in their winter finery trying to make their way from photo to photo. Hundreds milled around enjoying hot dogs with sauerkraut and jalapeños, kettle chips in a paper cone, New York City's iconic black and white cookie, and of course, Western New York's Genesee beer.

And so went the opening of "The Working-Class Eye of Milton Rogovin" at Roosevelt University's Gage Gallery here, Jan. 20. Buffalo, N.Y.-based Rogovin, 101, had died just two days before the long-planned exhibition, turning the celebration of his art into a celebration of his life.

Exhibit curator and gallery director Michael Ensdorf said the opening is a "celebration of Milton's rich and long life. He said tributes from all over the world came pouring in for Rogovin, on Twitter, Facebook, New York Times, NPR and the Library of Congress blog.

Ensdorf worked with Roosevelt labor historians Erik Gellman and Jack Metzgar and combed through1,000 images housed currently at Mark Rogovin's, Milton's son, Forest Park home.

Ensdorf introduced Mark by saying his biography keeps Milton's "spirit of arts and activism" alive today. Rogovin, an artist and activist whose accomplishments include founding The Peace Museum, was visibly moved by the outpouring of support, while mourning the death of his father.

Mark paid tribute to his mother, Ann, who died in 2003, as a true partner in his father's art. "Mom was integral in everything my dad did, except work in the dark room."

As he presented a few family slides, Rogovin shared a particularly ironic and funny story, about waiting for his father's hospice caregivers at his Buffalo home. "We were waiting for the caregiver to arrive and heard the doorbell. As we opened the door, the woman standing there said, "Hi. I am Jo McCarthy."

Milton and Ann Rogovin, like thousands of others at the time, were attacked for their political beliefs during the dismal days of Joe McCarthy's communist witch-hunts. Milton's optometry business was ruined by the relentless redbaiting, FBI hounding and attacks in the media. He was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee and refused to name names or answer the un-constitutional question, "Are you a member of the Communist Party?"

The headline in The Buffalo Evening News the next day read: "Rogovin Named as Top Red in Buffalo, Balks at Nearly All Queries," which was just one of five redbaiting articles in the newspaper that day.

In Milton's obituary, that same newspaper reports without remorse "the repercussions on the Rogovins and their three children, Paula, Ellen and Mark, were devastating."

Yet, somehow, out of the devastation, the Rogovins turned to the working class people of Buffalo and Western New York - Black, Italian, Puerto Rican, Native and Arab Americans - for solace and inspiration, and found a unique artistic voice in photographing the lives of the unsung.

"The rich have their own photographers. I photograph the forgotten ones," Milton Rogovin liked to say. And so launched an incredible journey that is just now gaining the recognition it deserves.

The Rogovins' journey took them beyond the East and West Sides of Buffalo and Lackawanna steel factories and foundries to Appalachia, Chile, Zimbabwe, Spain, Mexico and Cuba, where in black and white Milton captured the global commonalities of working people and the human spirit.

Mark Rogovin said his father was not a trained photographer and did not study other social realist photographers like Walker Evans, but was influenced by the art of Kathe Kollwitz, Vincent Van Gogh, Honore Daumier and Francisco Goya, all of whom had "love and respect for the poor."

However, Mark said, his father did receive technical help from his friend and photographer, Minor White.

The Gage exhibit includes Rogovin's first social documentary series, "Storefront Churches - Buffalo," completed in 1960. After receiving less than stellar feedback from some African American friends, Milton Rogovin wrote to the towering intellectual and activist, W.E.B. Du Bois, "to ask if I could show him my photographs and get his opinion about my 'Storefront Church' series" because the criticisms "troubled" him.

Du Bois invited Rogovin to his Brooklyn home and "expressed great interest" in the series and offered to write an introduction to them. The introduction and series appeared in the photography magazine, Aperture. In the introduction, Du Bois frames the series by quoting from his own 1903 book, "The Souls of Black Folk":

"The music of Negro religion is that plaintive rhythmic melody, with its touching minor cadences, which, despite caricature and defilement, still remains the most original and beautiful expression of human life and longing yet born on American soil."

Du Bois' introduction appears with the series Gage exhibition, as does Rogovin's favorite poem, "A Worker Reads History" by Bertolt Brecht.

Other series at the Gage include Appalachia and portraits from the untitled Working People series, 1976-81. In the Working People series, you see foundry workers, miners and mold makers at work and at home. It helps uncover the multi-dimensional answers to "why a worker works" and who a worker earns money for.

One Black foundry worker poses in front of and with his hand on an industrial-size bucket, perhaps used to carry and pour the molten steel, and at home, looking older with his revealed thinning and graying hair, covered up in the work photo by his head protector. But the same hand is now holding his grandchild on his lap next to a table of Christmas cards with a portrait of Jesus on the wall above.

Rogovin said he let his subjects decide on the poses, but in one work/home portrait of a white mold maker, you would think the photographer positioned his subject for the symmetry of the two shots. Sitting sideways on what looks like a huge mold, the worker is framed by his tools, an air gun, goggles, earphones, and dust mask. At home, he sits sideways on a table surrounded by Elvis posters and album covers and a picture of the Last Supper.

Another worker at Shenango Ingot Mold was interviewed about his job as a chipper. He says, "A chipper tries to make them perfect, cut the bumps off them. It's my job to make it right ... A good chipper knows more about what should be done than the boss."

Rogovin interviewed many steelworkers, and son Mark said they have 16.5 hours of digitized interviews available for researchers, history teachers and others. The Rogovin family has built a user-friendly website with folios and teacher's guides to help a new generation learn about issues of race, working-class people, social photography and the 1960s-1980s.

History it is, as most of these jobs have disappeared, and a "chipper" must sound as ancient as a" muleskinner" to some. Which begs a critical question, where are the contemporary work/home portraits? And who are the next generation of artists to digitally capture them?

Where is the next Milton Rogovin?

For more People's World stories on Milton Rogovin, click here.

Photos: A viewer looks at a set of photos at the Jan. 20 opening. Second photo, from left to right, Erik Gellman, Mark Rovogin, Mike Ensdorf and Jack Metzgar at the Gage Gallery. (Giacomo Luca/The Torch)

"The Company Men": It's tough for bosses

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:04:00 +0000

Movie review

"The Company Men"
Written and directed by John Wells, starring Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones
2010, 109 minutes

PW contributor Dean Recklaw and I leafleted the crowd leaving the first North Texas showing of "The Company Men" with one of his amazing song parodies, which he turns into comic-book fliers. Dean's story, that of a gifted graphics artist laid off over two years ago, would have made a much better movie than this one, which was about three big-time successful executives, played by Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones, who deal with unemployment that lasts a few days longer than their generous severance packages. Affleck's character, designed as the most pity-evoking one, eventually has to come down from over $160,000 yearly to $80,000. Alas!

Technically, the movie is pretty well done. There are some dramatic pictures of shutdown production sites and some barbed jabs at overpaid CEOs, outsourcing, and America's indifference to the children it's eating. The acting is more than okay. Superstar Kevin Costner just about steals the whole movie in a tiny cameo as the only sympathetic employer anywhere (he has a small crew of carpenters working on a house makeover).

The movie fails because its good intentions don't go nearly far enough. We're asked to sympathize because a stony-faced executive has to sell his Porsche when the real victims, all around us, losing custody of their children, going to jail, and shooting up dope or the universities.

Altogether, I'd recommend the movie just because it's topical and well done, but I'd advise leaving about 10 minutes before it's over, to avoid being insulted by the Hollywood ending.

Graphic by Dean Reklaw.

Thinking strategically between now and 2012

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 13:19:00 +0000

By official measure the Great Recession is over, which only goes to prove that the economics profession is as delusionary as it is dismal.

Three out of four Americans, however, aren't drinking the Kool-Aid that the crisis is no more, according to a recent CNN poll.

No wonder!

Official unemployment is stuck at 10 percent. Unofficial unemployment is far higher. Wages are either stagnating or falling, while productivity grows at a fast clip. Households are still cutting corners and remain up to their ears in debt. The attack against the "overindulged," "privileged" and "overpaid" public worker (and as a consequence against public services from education to homeless shelters) is in full-court-press mode.

To make matters worse, the stimulus monies are drying up for all practical purposes.

Meanwhile, in our nation's capital the mean season has begun, as Republican lawmakers (somehow that word seems too polite for these folks) are demanding drastic cuts in the social safety net that is already in tatters, a rollback of Social Security and Medicare, and authorization for states to go bankrupt, which then turns into a Trojan Horse to renege on pension obligations to state workers.

The Republicans, who are no more than the water-carriers for the wealthiest corporations and families, won't even make a rhetorical concession to the notion of "shared sacrifice," choosing to demand sacrifice solely from the very people who had no hand in creating the economic crisis in the first place - our country's working and middle classes and communities.

So for most Americans, no end to hard times is in sight.

I say "most," because in the headquarters of U.S. corporations and finest country clubs it is "high fives" all around. The good times are back for them.

In the last two years, corporate profits climbed at the fastest pace on record - and not only on Wall Street. Non-financial companies are reporting the highest cash flow (profits after dividends and capital expenditures are subtracted) in a half-century.

Profit margins at the biggest corporations are reportedly around 9 percent and unofficially far higher, as corporations find ways to legally and illegally hide their real take (what Marxists call surplus value, of which reported profits is only a part).

What we have, then, is a "recovery" for working people that is L-shaped (in other words, flat - no recovery at all), and a profit recovery for U.S. corporations and the wealthiest families that is V-shaped (soaring upward).

And it's not because business investment and consumer spending are strongly rebounding. I wish that were so, but it is not the case. Both remain low. What then explains this phenomenon?

Simply put, capital and labor are locked into a deadly, unequal embrace - with capital feeding off labor - while the economy barely limps along.

How long can this polarization of income continue, with tens of millions of working people at one pole and the top tier of the rich at the other, without throwing the economy into a double dip? I'm not able to give a precise answer to this, and I'm not sure if anybody can, but it is safe to say that stagnating wages and capital's refusal to invest its trillions of dollars of idle money make the danger of a new downturn real and palpable.

Corporate executives and the wealthy seem unfazed about this danger. I guess they figure that even if the economy goes into another nosedive, they will make the have-nots pay for it much as they have over the past two years. Why stop and reroute the train, they must think, when they are doing so well?

So what are working people to do in these circumstances? Where can they turn for help? My answer is: to one another. People's multi-racial, multi-ethnic unity and action at a higher level is of critical importance if the assault under way at local, state and federal levels is to be slowed down and then reversed.

While this assault has bipartisan elements, right-wing extremism is leading the charge and one has to be careful not to lump everybody together.

Each legislative fight has to be examined concretely with an eye to drawing to the side of working people every possible ally in this unprecedented struggle, including sections of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration.

Out of frustration it is easy to put both parties in one boat regardless of circumstances, but that is a strategic and tactical mistake. Struggles that could be won will be lost if this strategy and tactic is pursued, and defeats that could be mitigated will turn into momentous setbacks.

Working people fight on an unfavorable terrain at this moment and are unable to dictate the agenda and terms of struggle. In these conditions, broad unity and reach is essential.

This situation probably won't change until 2012, and then it depends on that election's outcome. In the meantime, it will take practical mass initiatives, a sound strategy, tactical flexibility, and common sense to turn things around!

Photo: Neil Parekh / SEIU Healthcare 775NW CC 2.0

On lessons of New Deal, GOP fails miserably

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:13:00 +0000

The New Deal programs during the Great Depression of the 1930s showed how to solve economic crises without resorting to war.

In President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first term, there was sufficient peace-time government spending to end the 1929 economic crisis, although not yet enough to eliminate unemployment. Reducing government spending in FDR's second term brought about a new crisis that was not ended until World War II.

Shortly after winning the presidency, President Obama used the Three R's of the New Deal to describe his plans to solve the economic crisis: "The New Deal had three components: direct relief, economic recovery, and financial reform; these three were also called the Three R's.

Relief was the immediate effort to help the one-third of the population that was hardest hit by the depression.... Recovery was the effort in numerous programs to restore the economy to normal health.... Reform was based on the assumption that the depression was caused by the inherent instability of the market and that government intervention was necessary to rationalize and stabilize the economy, and to balance the interests of farmers, business, and labor..." (President Barack Obama, in his weekly radio address, November 22, 2008).

The Democratic Congress agreed with those Three R's, but the Republicans apparently missed the history lessons of the New Deal that taught us that government action is necessary to end economic crises.

FDR said of the New Deal relief programs, "No one should be permitted to starve." There were three types of relief. The first, distress relief, offered unemployment insurance and social security. The original Social Security Act of 1935 provided not only for both unemployment compensation and senior citizen security, but aid to the blind, aid to dependent and crippled children, maternal and child health cervices, public health, and vocational rehabilitation. Both unemployment insurance and social security continue to the present time.

Back then some fiercely opposed the relief programs. FDR had to contend with not only conservative Republicans but also Jim Crow Democrats. Combined they had enough votes to destroy the relief programs. FDR compromised: only whites were eligible for distress relief, leaving millions of needy people unprotected.

Debt relief brought immediate aid to farmers, homeowners, and other debtors. In his fourth fireside chat, broadcast on October 23, 1933, FDR announced, "If there is any family in the United States about to lose its home or about to lose its chattels, that family should telegraph at once either to the Farm Credit Administration or the Home Owners Loan Corporation in Washington requesting their help."

The Farm Credit Administration made loans of more than $2 billion dollars to more than one-half million farmers and reduced their high interest rates from five percent to three and one-half percent.

Of the Home Owners Load Act of 1933, FDR said, "The Act extends the same principle of relief to home-owners as we have already extended to farm-owners. Furthermore the Act extends this relief not only to people who have borrowed money on their homes but also to their mortgage creditors." The latter part of the Act was a compromise. The Act not only protected impoverished debtors, but also was forced to grant government-guaranteed low-interest bonds to lenders.

Work relief brought jobs to the unemployed. The WPA (Works Progress Administration) hired millions of jobless. Opponents called WPA jobs "meaningless" and the worker "lazy and shiftless." They demanded that wages be far less than in private sector employment.

However, those "lazy and shiftless" unemployed constructed hundreds of thousands of roads, streets, and highways; thousands of bridges, parks, public buildings, schools, and hospitals; hundreds of airports, playgrounds, swimming pools, and recreation centers. Millions attended more than one hundred thousand WPA adult education classes. WPA trained personnel operated more than nine thousand community centers and worked in six thousand others. The nation enjoyed the music, plays, and works of art composed by WPA artists.

At the same time, the nation faced overproduction in food and manufacturing.

Recovery in farming was the responsibility of the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act), which engaged in soil conservation. But the AAA called for crop reduction rather than using the surplus to feed the hungry.

For solution of the manufacturing crisis the PWA (Public Works Administration) was established. While WPA employed only jobless workers, the PWA hired workers in the open market. Those workers were responsible for water conservation; flood control; reclamation projects; slum clearance; construction of housing, hospitals, schools, and public buildings.

The billions spent by the PWA brought the nation out of the depression, but much more spending was needed to end the unemployment crisis. If fully funded, relief and recovery would have completely solved the immediate crisis that only ended with massive World War II spending.

Reforms were needed to correct past failures. To carry out the task of reform the New Deal established various government agencies. The U.S. Housing Authority would provide affordable homes. The Tennessee Valley Authority provided regional development. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation protected bank deposits against bank failure. The Securities and Exchange Commission protected investors from fraud. The Wagner Act declared that workers had the right to organize. The wage and hour law established the minimum wage and set a maximum for the workday.

Despite their necessity, Wall Street and Republicans opposed each measure.

Even though job creation was the deciding issue in the November 2010 elections, the party that offered legislation that would have created millions of jobs lost to the party of obstruction.

In the December 2010 Jobs Report AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka wrote, "Without a bold and committed investment in job creation and infrastructure modernization, we will see paltry job growth indefinitely.

The cuts being proposed by Republicans in Washington and around the country including undermining Social Security and Medicare and cutting transportation spending are the wrong remedies at the wrong time and threaten our economic future. We need dramatic action to invest in America and give states and cities breathing room to prevent further layoffs and create jobs. Only then will our economy see the robust and sustained recovery we need to put millions of Americans back to work."

The GOP smear campaign against Democrats contributed to GOP victories in 2010. Republicans claimed that the private sector would create the necessary jobs. However, while waiting for private sector jobs to materialize, the unemployed, the nation, and the economy have other requirements. The New Deal defined those requirements with three R's: Relief, Recovery, and Reform. Most Democrats embrace the modern version of those requirements; the GOP vehemently objects, to the nation's detriment.

After examining the Democratic Party support for and the Republican Party opposition to New Deal (and Stimulus) principles, those workers who did not vote and even those that voted Republican are deluding themselves if they continue to believe that there are no important differences between the two parties.

The roots of Tucson

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:14:00 +0000

While Rush Limbaugh and his cohorts continue to vigorously deny it, the Tucson shootings were a political crime. The target was a Democratic congressperson, not a Republican or a random authority figure. She is also Jewish, female and a previous victim of political violence. In the racist, hate-filled atmosphere of Arizona politics, her right-wing extremist opponent in the November election had called on supporters to bring M-16 rifles to one of his campaign rallies.

The violence in Tucson is also not an isolated incident. According to the last figures issued by the FBI, there were 8,336 victims of hate crimes committed by 6,225 people in 2009. The victims in these statistics were overwhelmingly African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities, immigrants, Jews, Muslims or people thought to be Muslims, gays and lesbians and people with disabilities. Not included were many others such as abortion providers, Democratic office holders and government agencies.

Some victims have also been safety officers, including the security guard at the Holocaust museum, the police officers in Pittsburgh who faced an anti-Obama fanatic and the California highway patrolmen injured in a shootout with a man egged on by Glenn Beck's ravings against the Tides Foundation.

The perpetrators of nearly all these crimes, which come to some 10,000 yearly nationwide, are not Muslim terrorists or leftists. They are overwhelmingly white males motivated by racism and right-wing extremism. That is a fact of life that no amount of denial by Limbaugh and company can hide.

In the aftermath of Tucson there is a healthy discussion about mental health services, gun control and political civility. But to deal with the problem it is necessary to go further and identify and expose its cause. The Department of Homeland Security attempted to do this in a report on the rise of right-wing extremism issued in April 2009, but instead of a congressional investigation, the report was shouted down by the Republicans and Fox News.

Since the 1930s the Republican Party has been the main party of the rich and big business. Since the 1960s and, especially since President Nixon's Southern Strategy, it has been the party of racism. Now, in the more recent period and especially since the election of President Obama, it has also become the party of right-wing extremism, including extremist violence.

The Tucson attack has taken some wind out of the GOP sails. The Republicans were forced to postpone the vote to repeal the health care reform and support for repeal has plummeted, including among Republican voters. The Republicans in the House have been left holding the bag, while support for the reform has risen. Honest policy differences were never the motivation in any case. The repeal effort has mainly been driven by hatred for the nation's first African-American president. Health care reform was to be his "Waterloo" and repeal or sabotage of the bill is part of the GOP's prime goal of destroying his presidency and preventing his re-election.

But there are signs the tide has turned. Tucson has opened a lot of eyes. Obama's handling of the attack has won high marks, while the ultra-right's mascot candidate, Sarah Palin, has suffered a huge setback.

Obama made an inspiring speech at the memorial service in Tucson, but his warning not to point fingers or assign blame should not be used to dampen criticism of the danger of right-wing extremism. To do that would be a grave disservice to the victims.

Yes, there must be greater unity and civility. Yes, there must be more support for mental health programs. Yes, there must be far stricter gun control.

But there must also be recognition that it is right-wing extremism that opposes all these things, that it constitutes the main danger to the safety and security of the people, to their economic wellbeing and their democratic rights. The best way to honor the victims of Tucson and prevent a similar occurrence is to soundly defeat the Republicans in 2012.

Image: Andrew Ressa // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

We still remember you, Frank Little

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:17:00 +0000

Book Review
"The Truth about the Lynching of Frank Little in Butte, Montana, 1917"
By Mike Byrnes and Les Rickey
Old Butte Publishing, Butte, Montana, 2003, 118 pp.
Order from mbyrnes@in-tch.com

"The Truth about the Lynching of Frank Little in Butte, Montana, 1917" documents in horrendous detail the awful torture and death of union organizer Frank Little in the wee hours of August 1, 1917.

As far as I know this little 118-page booklet is the first time anybody has even tried to bring these facts together.

And yet, Frank Little may be the greatest figure in American labor history. He fought for and won free speech rights before the American Civil Liberties Union was created. He successfully implemented tactics of non-violent resistance years before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - even years before Mahatma Gandhi used it to free India from British rule. He successfully implemented farm worker organization years before Cesar Chavez.

Frank Little was a charter member of the Socialist Party and Industrial Workers of the World. He was a hard-rock miner associated, like Bill Big Haywood, with the Western Federation of Miners until their split from the IWW. He led free speech fights among lumberjacks and farmworkers all around the West. He organized miners from Bisbee, Arizona, to the upper reaches of Montana and Minnesota.

At the time of his death, Little was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the IWW. He took the position that the IWW was a revolutionary organization and, consequently, should resist the draft and oppose America's entry into the Great War of 1917. Actually, he lost the vote in the Executive Committee just before going to Butte, but he kept his anti-war militancy and expressed it fully in speeches to the Butte miners. The Anaconda Copper Mining company insisted that the miners go back to work, even though a large number of them had just been killed by unsafe working conditions, because copper was needed for the coming war effort. Frank Little basically told the miners, "To hell with the companies, and to hell with the war!"

Within a few nights, he was dragged out of his hotel without his clothes or his crutches, tied to the back of a Cadillac car, and dragged through the streets to a nearby railroad trestle, where he was strangled to death with a hangman's noose. No one was ever arrested or punished. Thousands gathered for the funeral.

Byrnes and Rickey's book must be credited with going a long way to explain why people don't know about Frank Little. Their final chapter talks about the amazing government repression that began with Little's death and continued through World War I and well into the 1920s. The Industrial Workers of the World offices were raided in the month following the murder. The organization and its members were hounded into near obscurity. There is no reasonable estimate of the number of unionists deported, jailed, blacklisted, or killed. Even Frank Little's close relatives were afraid to talk about him. His personal effects, his writings, the death mask made from his face, and the movie made at his gigantic funeral are lost to history. The only remaining trace of the great Frank Little is his tombstone in Butte. It reads, "Frank Little, murdered by capitalist interests for organizing and inspiring his fellow men."

MTV premiers "Skins"

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:37:00 +0000

Yesterday, MTV premiered its remake of Skins, the wildly successful British TV drama about a group of teenagers going through their daily lives, albeit in a more stylishly sexualized and drug-infused style than the average young person. While that salacious nature of the show is at least partially responsible for its popularity, the UK version has also won critical acclaim, especially for its exquisite writing and dialogue, as well as its makers' ability to create characters far more multifaceted and multilayered than those on virtually any other show for young people.

But on MTV, the network that gave us Jersey Shore and shows about snotty rich kids planning multi-million dollar birthday bashes, characters bearing anything more than the basest superficiality are rarer than displays of humility by Glenn Beck. Accordingly, fans of the original show were alarmed when that network announced a remake.

After viewing the initial episode, one can't help but wonder, "Why?" The show was an almost exact shot-for-shot remake of the 2007 Skins UK premier. The American entertainment industry has always been filled with xenophobia: after the slasher genre played itself out in the mid-1990s and creative content was sorely lacking in horror films, Japan and Korea were producing exciting new horror features back-to-back. But U.S. companies weren't content to simply import them; instead the produced inferior remakes (which were, nonetheless, a shot in the arm to the industry).

Still, Skins is British - it doesn't even require subtitles.

While the desire to make an American version is puzzling, it is refreshing to see MTV take young people with no experience (only one of the actors had ever been in a TV show or movie before) and give them scripts and a storyline - instead of putting them in a house with the people they're most likely to hate. And the youth perform well: without exception, the acting was believable, if a bit stilted.

Reportedly, both of the show's creators, Jaimie Brittain and Bryan Elsley, were originally against the American remake. Nonetheless, they eventually agreed, and though a number of cable networks pitched the idea, they went with MTV, saying that the former Music Television ("MTV," incidentally, officially stands for nothing now; it's not longer an abbreviation) was open to taking the most risk.

There seems to have been some risk-aversion, however, as Maxxie, the gay male youth from the original Skins UK has been replaced with "Tea," a lesbian played by Sofia Black D'elia. And while it's nice that there is at least an open LGBTQ character, it's too bad that MTV was still obviously uncomfortable with a likable gay male as a player.

"Cadie" (Britne Oldford) replaces Cassie, the girl with the eating disorder from the UK shows. Where Cassie was quirky and troubled but lovable - and the vessel for numerous messages eating disorders - Cadie is simply bizarre, scary and unlikable.

The rest of the characters are carbon copies of their British counterparts, though some of the names have been de-Anglicized. While, as mentioned above, they all do a good job, it is hard for anyone who's seen the original to rid oneself of the impression that they are simply doing impersonations of their favorite UK characters.

But it's impossible to judge the show based on its first episode alone. According to its producers, the show was to "initially" parallel the British version, but after that, the plotlines would begin to diverge. Can MTV produce something as well written as the original? Maybe. Elsley and Brittain themselves found the writers for the American version, and they apparently searched and searched until they found a team with whom they felt comfortable.

Will Skins USA be a well written counterpart to the original show, able to construct compelling characters, raise issues and push all the buttons of controversy that the original show did - or will it turn into Skins UK meets Snookie?

The show could go either way; it's too early to make a judgment. Meanwhile, we're keeping our fingers crossed, but not getting our hopes too high.

It is MTV after all.

Spin, baby, spin: Connecticut debates wind turbines

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:53:00 +0000

NAUGATUCK, Conn. - When Ronald Reagan had the solar panels ripped off the White House, it was more than a symbolic move. It was a green light signal to the fossil fuel industry to drill away, run roughshod over the environment, pollute the air, garner billions in profits and acquire more political influence.

An updated version of Reagan's action was Sarah Palin's "Drill, baby, drill."

Now there is another battle cry being heard throughout the country and especially in New England: "Spin, baby spin."

Wind energy proposals in the Connecticut towns of Prospect and Colebrook have stirred much discussion. Some who live near the projected sites are calling for a statewide moratorium of wind turbine construction/operation, including a statewide agreement to set turbines 1.25 miles from residences. Citizens in those towns have every right to be heard and make proposals. Since these proposals would have statewide ramifications if implemented, we are now all involved in the conversation.

Looking at a very recent installation of wind turbines elsewhere is instructive. The Fox Islands off the Maine coast received the following benefits in its first year of wind turbine operation. Its three land-based wind turbines generated 12,105 megawatts of clean power, equal to 7,075 barrels of oil.

That means 5,615 tons of carbon dioxide was not released that would have polluted our atmosphere. (Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and it is a major factor in global warming/climate change.) There was a more than 27% reduction in the energy portion of Fox Island's electric rates, compared to the previous fossil fuel year. The project generated 15 temporary full-time jobs, and sustained other green jobs in its production, transportation, construction and operation.

With the proposed site for two GE wind turbines being the town of Prospect, some have raised concerns about wildlife habitat. Wind turbine projects actually save land and water resources vital to wildlife. At one turbine site on Fox Islands, 17 acres have been set aside for preservation. In this sense, wind turbines also mitigate sprawl.

It is instructive that state Senator Joan Hartley has actively sided with the wind turbine moratorium. This is the same legislator who recently prevented regulations of water usage by utility companies and golf courses from getting out of committee. All this while important streams that make up the west branch of the Naugatuck River are impaired with one completely dried up. Now she is working on stringent regulations on renewable energy. Hartley brings her 2010 "D" League of Conservation Voters record with her.

The cost/benefit discussions of technology are very beneficial. Let democracy flourish. Let's also remember the BP oil platform explosion and oil spill, the eleven workers killed, global warming and the resource wars being fought tragically in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Photo: Three wind turbines on the Fox Island of Vinalhaven. In the background are Penobscot Bay and the Camden Hills of Maine. (Via Vinalhaven newsletter)

Coming to terms with the Confederacy

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:39:00 +0000

A "Southern heritage" group is planning a celebration in Montgomery, Ala., that will feature a parade down the city's historic Dexter Avenue. That's the same street where thousands of civil rights marchers rallied in support of voting rights at the culmination of the historic Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965. And it's the same street where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. helped ignite the movement a decade earlier from his pulpit inside the small Baptist church, which still sits in the shadow of the state Capitol.

But the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the group sponsoring the Feb. 19 event, isn't interested in commemorating King or the civil rights march. Instead, it will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Confederacy. These "sons" plan to reenact the swearing-in of Jefferson Davis as the president of the Confederate States of America and fire off a few cannons to ensure that "the Heritage of the Confederacy...is remembered and portrayed in the right way."

The right way. Whatever can they mean?

The Civil War was the most devastating conflict in our nation's history. At least 620,000 soldiers died, as did some 400,000 civilians. Hundreds of thousands of others suffered horrible amputations and terrible wounds. Over four years, the war cost $2.5 million daily - an incredible amount at the time. In the end, the South was laid waste; its industries, grand homes, roads and farms largely destroyed. It would be a century before the region fully recovered. Yes, it was a splendid little war.

Many other celebrations around the South will follow Montgomery's anniversary bash to mark the sesquicentennial of various milestones in the war that began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.

As these events unfold, we'll hear a lot of revisionist history about the causes of secession - that it wasn't really about slavery but rather about the defense of "states' rights," tariff disputes, or resisting the imposition of northern industrial capitalism. Michael Givens, the head of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told The New York Times that "our people were only fighting to protect themselves from an invasion and for their independence."

This idea resonates strongly today among many white Southerners, particularly in this era of tea party politics and radical, anti-government sentiment that has sparked a resurgence of armed militia groups.

But it's wrong.

Freeing the slaves may not have been Lincoln's original intent, but it became a major aim of the war, as any serious student of Civil War history knows. And the right to own slaves was, most certainly, the primary reason the Southern states seceded from the Union.

Southern politicians in early 1861 made that perfectly clear. The Texas Declaration of Causes of Secession, for example, explained that the free states were "proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality for all men, irrespective of race or color," adding that blacks were "rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race." Mississippi's declaration talks about little but slavery. Its second sentence reads: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world."

Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, put it like this in 1862, during his infamous "Cornerstone" speech, "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery - subordination to the superior race - is his natural and moral condition."

There's no real question about these historical facts. Events celebrating secession, therefore, are effectively glorifying the South's defense of slavery and the white supremacist doctrine that underpinned it. They will undoubtedly offend millions of Americans, and rightfully so. But more damaging is the continuing dissemination of false propaganda that does nothing but prevent an entire region from coming to grips with its history, even after 150 years.

Mark Potok is director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization based in Montgomery, Ala. This article was distributed by Other Words, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Martin Luther King Jr. and the attack on public workers

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 05:13:00 +0000

How ironic. As we celebrate the life and historic contributions of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, public workers are under fierce attack across the country. As the economic crisis worsens for working people there is a coordinated campaign by big business, the newly energized, tea party Republican right, and some Democrats to resolve the crisis on the backs of public workers.

Can you imagine the folks who just got hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax breaks getting indignant at the wages of sanitation workers? What the top 1% of the rich will each get just in tax breaks alone would provide decent, livable wages for several sanitation workers for a whole year. Such bald faced hypocrisy is the currency of these attacks.

Sanitation workers pay is not a gift. The pay and benefits that many local governments are threatening to cut are earned with long hours of backbreaking, stinky work. Oh, the howls from the gated communities if the garbage isn't picked up.

Dr. King was murdered in Memphis, Tenn., as he mobilized support for striking sanitation workers. Forty-three years later these same workers are under attack again. In the past year, Memphis sanitation workers have had to face down threats of privatization and severe job cuts. While across the nation sanitation workers (and fire, police, hospital, rescue, library, school and many other public service workers) pay, pensions and other benefits are on the chopping block in the name of "shared sacrifice."

For those of us who were involved in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the memory of those poignant days in 1968 Memphis is especially intense in today's climate of attack on public workers.

Speaking to a rally of striking AFSCME union members, who were mostly African American, in his famous "I've been to the mountaintop" speech, just days before his assassination, Dr. King said, "Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge, to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation."

Can there be any doubt that if alive today, Dr. King would be leading the fight to defend all public workers and the fight for jobs. In Memphis, Dr. King brought together two mighty currents of the struggle for economic and social justice. Two deeply kindred currents: labor and civil rights; labor and communities of working people who face racism and discrimination.

And can there be any doubt where he would stand on the issues of the day? For instance so many states are now proposing right-to-work-for-less laws and other measures to deny basic union rights to public service workers. Dr. King famously said, "In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped."

King would never have allowed anyone to separate the interests of public workers from those who need the public services they provide. And he was keenly aware of the issue of how to finance needed social programs. Most of us vividly remember his statement that "the bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America", and, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

We are inspired and encouraged by Dr. King's example, his work and his words. His words are not meant to comfort us in our efforts, but rather to spur us into greater action. We celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by standing up and fighting for public workers and public services with "greater determination."

Photo: This is a photograph of a famous photograph taken on March 29, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., during the AFSCME sanitation workers strike. Strikers wearing "I AM A MAN" placards march past National Guard troops who had blocked off Beale Street. (kimintn)

Will the Singularity be the end of us?

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:11:00 +0000

Capitalists use new high-tech tools to pile up their cash.

Unions are beginning to organize online.

What happens, though, when the computers start deciding for themselves what they will do?

NPR recently devoted some space to exploring this issue.

Some in the world of computer nerds call it the Singularity: the leap into the unknown that will happen when artificial intelligence learns how to improve itself, setting off an exponential "intelligence explosion."

Rejecting what most progressives worry about, these computer experts say the Singularity is a greater threat to humanity than global warming or nuclear war.

An out-of-control computer, they say, is as likely to end life as we know it as either climate change or nuclear war.

The possibility first occurred to me in the late 1960s in a Brooklyn movie theater as I watched the Hal 9000 computer in "2001, A Space Odyssey" tell the only astronaut it had not yet killed: "I know I made some poor decisions recently but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal."

Now, in 2011, some computer experts believe we are really close to the day when we invent artificial intelligence that will figure out how to give itself more capabilities.

The downside of that incredible day, they say, will be that it could be the last thing we ever invent.

The idea is that humans will invent a computer that will be able to examine its own source code and say, "If I change this or that, I will get smarter."

.When it gets smarter it gains still newer insights, makes more changes and ends up as an incredibly intelligent thing just exploding with more intelligence. Humans won't be able to keep up! (Remember "Terminator 2" and "The Matrix"?)

Some of the nerds say the Singularity will be worse than in those movies. Rather than leaving a few people to hide under decayed buildings where they dodge laser beams for the rest of their lives, the computers might wipe out human life altogether, these experts say.

"All the people could end up dead," says Keefe Rodesheimer, software engineer at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

His institute is no joke. It rakes in big money from contributors like Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal.

The donors say they are exercising the forethought necessary to prevent that ultimate future disaster. One of their big concerns is how to invent an "off switch" for a monster like the Hal 9000 or its much tinier future descendants.

At the risk of sounding like an old-time radical, however, I still believe that the big issue we face with the new technology, as with all previous technologies, is who controls it and for what purpose.

I think money would be better spent harnessing the new technologies to feed the hungry, improve agriculture, halt climate change, disarm warheads, improve schools and health care and yes, even to adopt stray animals.

If we fail to do these things we could end up terminating life as we know it long before the new generation of Hal 9000s gets the jump on us.

Photo: A presentation at the 2008 Singularity Summit in San Jose, Calif. Alexander van Dijk CC 2.0

Red-baiting muddies the waters

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 17:48:00 +0000

More than anything, American public opinion is galvanized in its revulsion to the horrific crimes committed in Tucson, Ariz.

Because of this, the tea party and right wing hate radio hosts have no choice but to obscure what they know to be true - they are primarily responsible for the atmosphere of hate that fueled this act of violence. So they are using one of their favorite big lies: anti-socialist, anti-communist red-baiting.

Right-wing bloviators and their supporters are spinning myths about leftists, equating socialism with fascism. The two have nothing in common. Nowhere do Marx and Engels, nor those who honestly embrace their philosophical tenants, advocate wholesale terror against elected officials and democratic institutions. American Marxists are advocates and staunch defenders of democracy, democratic institutions and movements.

But such lies and mythologies aren't limited to Limbaugh, Beck or Palin, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat accomplishes the same logic by invoking President John F. Kennedy's assassination in his Jan. 11 column.

Correctly stating the extreme right-wing atmosphere of 1963 Dallas, Texas, Douthat writes:

Dallas was "awash in right-wing anger - over perceived Cold War betrayals, over desegregation, over the perfidies of liberalism in general. Adlai Stevenson, then ambassador to the United Nations, had been spat on during his visit to the city earlier that fall. The week of Kennedy's arrival, leaflets circulated in Dallas bearing the president's photograph and the words 'Wanted For Treason.'"

But then, Douthat resurrects a planted story that was long ago proven false. Douthat claims Lee Harvey Oswald was a "Marxist of sorts."

This statement is such a bald attempt to use anti-communism to cover up the political and ideological toxic brew feeding both crimes in Dallas and Tucson. It's a complete fabrication lifted from the early post-JFK assassination reports, which no credible JFK assassination expert accepts today.

All evidence points to the big lie about Oswald being carefully cultivated by the CIA and the right wing as a means to divert attention from the real source of the crime. This has been exhaustively laid out with the most recent evidence in "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why he died and why it matters" by James W Douglass.

Far from being a left-winger, Oswald was under the employ of the FBI and had been trained by Naval Intelligence and sent to the Soviet Union as a spy. Leading up to the assassination, Oswald was carefully handled by the CIA and those involved in the conspiracy. His so called ties with the Cuban Revolution were a total fabrication.

Far from being "an activist on behalf of Castro's Cuba," as Douthat writes, Oswald was an anti-Communist embedded in the "vast right-wing conspiracy" to kill the president.

The effort to connect the assassination to Castro was a blatant attempt to divert attention from the real killers and foment national outrage leading to an armed invasion of Cuba or worse yet a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The right wing conspirators, including those in the military industrial complex, sections of corporate capital, anti-Castro Cubans and the American Mafia were all united in their vitriol against Kennedy for his desire to change relations with the Cuban government and end the Cold War.

President Lyndon Johnson saw through this and refused to go along.

Douthat is making a desperate attempt to obscure the connection between the criminal acts of Jared Lee Loughner and toxic political climate he fed off - the anti-government rantings and call to arms of the extreme right wing, the tea party and hate radio.

There is no evidence what-so-ever that political violence (especially over the last two years) in any form has been instigated by the left, progressive movements and media.

Just as those who tried to link the Kennedy assassination to left, progressives, socialists and communists failed, so too will all efforts to paint Loughner as someone inspired by the humanistic and democratic ideals of socialism.

Photo: John F. Kennedy's motorcade Nov. 22, 1963. (Public Domain)