People Before Profit blog

Latest figures show slowing economic recovery

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:21:00 +0000

Hopefully, the weather this weekend will be a lot better than the economic news.

The government reported this morning that GDP growth slowed dramatically in the second quarter.

"The United States economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter," according to the latest Commerce Department report. That was after expanding 3.7 percent in the previous few months.

Since most economic forecasters are predicting even slower growth for the second half of the year, generally around a rate of 1.5 percent. At that rate it will take years until the economy returns to anything like the level it was at before the financial crisis hit.

Adding to the bad news was the latest foreclosure data.

"In the first half of 2010," McClatchy reports, "More than 1.6 million U.S. properties were hit with foreclosure filings, which include bank repossessions, default notices and auction sale notices. That's up eight percent from the first six months of 2009 and puts the U.S. on pace to top three million filings this year.

"From the Bush administration's HOPE for Homeowners program to the TARP-funded HAMP program," McClatchy said, "community groups, consumer advocates and homeowners themselves say anti-foreclosure programs have been largely ineffective because banks don't have a strong incentive to modify loans that favor them financially."

The housing crisis, it seems, has created still another problem. Evidence is piling up that it has become a major contributor to the unprecedented lack of mobility on the part of American workers.

An article in the Washington Post noted that "with many people locked in homes by underwater mortgages, only 1.6 percent of Americans moved between states in a one-year period that ended in March 2009 - a labor stagnation not seen in half a century."

"In the past, people tended to move where the jobs are," said Assistant Treasury Secretary Alan Krueger. "Now it is necessary to have more of a strategy to move the jobs and create new jobs in areas where the people are."

The labor movement and its allies, of course, have been saying that massive job creation programs are needed to get the nation out of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Progressives have also been saying that were it not for the job creation that resulted from President Obama's first stimulus program, the nation might have already slipped into a full-scale depression.

Banks and financial institutions, however, have not given credit to job saving and job creation programs. There have even been a number of Wall Street-funded studies lately that try to say the taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street are the main reason a depression was avoided.

Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research has challenged the line of reasoning in those Wall Street studies. "It effectively assumes that if we did not do the bailouts, that we would have done nothing, even as the financial sector melted down.

"This is comparable to doing an analysis of the benefits of eating chicken where the counterfactual is that people are eating nothing. Needless to say, we would find very large benefits to eating chicken in such a study," he said.

The Republican and conservative agenda, meanwhile, continues to put forward no solutions to the problems reflected in this week's poor economic data or the economic crisis, in general.

In an interview, Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was asked what Republicans would do for the economy. "I'd revisit some of the major issues over the last year. Health care, energy, taxes, financial regulation," he said.

"Ah," said Mark Thoma, professor of economics at the University of Oregon in Eugene. "So his solution to uncertainty is to create even more uncertainty about the policies that will be in effect next year?"

Photo: (CC)

Chicago Bears preview: offense needs work

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:05:00 +0000

In a couple of weeks the Bears will play their first game of the 2010 NFL season. If you are a huge Bears fan, and can't wait until the season opener, you can see them in Bourbonnais at Olivet Nazarene University where they are attending training camp. Fans have very high expectations. Here is what they would like to see.

The offense has improved a bit, but needs work. The Bears didn't add any new receivers. They will have to rely on Devon Hester who has been put as wide receiver last year.

Johnny Know is a good receiver, but still has much to learn. Harvey Unga and Chester Taylor are two newly-added running backs that will make a great addition along with Matt Forte.

Unfortunately the Bears don't have a good supporting offensive line to help.

Quarterback Jay Cutler needs to step up and be the face of the franchise because frankly linebacker Brian Urlacher is not cutting it any more. Cutler has to start hitting his wide receivers and cut down on the interceptions.

Chicago has been known for its defense but all that can soon change. The drafted rookie defensive end Corey Wootton in the fourth round from Northwestern is a great addition because his speed and size that separates him from most defensive ends.

"I'm really excited about heading to training camp later this week. It's a dream come true for me to join an NFL team. Especially such a historic franchise like the Bears and this is a great opportunity." he said in one of his blogs.

The Bears have also added the once great Julius Peppers, who use to play for the Carolina Panthers. Fans don't know what to expect form him since he has never played outside Carolina. He is also not playing his usual position. He is past his prime and a step slower but hopefully he can still make a difference.

Urlacher makes his return after sitting most of last season out due to a wrist injury. He had surgery to repair his wrist, and some critics say he will not play the same.

"If someone says something I don't like, I'm not going to hold my tongue. It's not fair for us to have people go out there and say stuff about us but there are no consequences to what they say. The consequences are us firing back. They can say whatever they want to about me. There's nothing worse they can say about me. But I get irritated when they talk about my teammates and my coaches." he said to the Chicago Tribune.

Overall the Bears have to have a good upcoming season in order to keep Coach Lovie Smith. He cashed in after taking the Bears to Super Bowl XLI in 2006, signing a four-year, $22 million contract extension the following March. It all went down hill after three straight seasons missing the playoffs entirely.

"Lovie is one of the best coaches I've been around," Cutler said to BearReport.com, "and I know that everyone on this team has a great amount of respect for him, as he does for us. I know that some of the guys who have been here longer than me definitely have a lot of ties with him and want to go out there for him and play well."

Photo: The 2007 Chicago Bears huddle up during pre-game warmups. (CC)

Marxism, truth, lies and politics

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:46:00 +0000

There are so many lies being churned out by the ultra-right corporate propaganda machine. It is difficult to separate fact from fiction. The Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, said the more often you lie and the bigger the lie, the easier it is to get people to believe.

With "climate-gate," the ultra-right seized on some email improprieties by several leading climatologists to further their ends (financed by big oil) to discredit the global warning models agreed to by the overwhelming majority of scientists concerned with the matter.

There is huge potential financial loss for some involved in the shift away from fossil fuels to a more green economy. And, of course, the nuclear power industry has tried to weasel in on the green label, to get their share of the money to be made on the shift.

So what is a worker to do, to wade through all this baloney?

An old Marxist organizer named Daniel DeLeon, active from the late 1800s up to just before World War I, gave an interesting stump speech when developing Marxist analytical skills among working people. He called it "the elephant and the blind men."

DeLeon's message to workers was that the truth of a situation or development can be understood by the fable of the five blind men and the elephant. The first blind man grabbed the elephant's trunk and said, "The elephant is like a snake," and he sat down. The second blind man grabbed the elephant's tail and said, "The elephant is like a whip," and he sat down. The third blind man grabbed the elephant's leg and said, "The elephant is like a great tree trunk," and he sat down. The fourth blind man grabbed the elephant's ear and said, "The elephant is like a large wing," and he sat down. The fifth blind man touched the elephant's side and said, "The elephant is like a great wall," and he sat down.

Each of the five blind men spoke the truth as they felt it. Getting ideas solely from individual experience sometimes can amount to this.

Theory is often times understood in American culture as just any old wild unproven idea. So, ultra-rightist demagogues can say, "The theory of global warning is just a theory or the theory of evolution is just a theory. It's not fact."

Marxism shows working people who study it that theory is in fact the careful summary of large amounts of experience and observation from different perspectives, summarized and consistently tested and retested and then reconfigured when new information is gathered. This outlook is reflected in all forms of genuine scientific search for truth. It is part of what is referred to "as the scientific method."

If one of the blind men in DeLeon's fable was a Marxist organizer, he would get everyone together, summarize the experience of all perspectives, and search out others who had contact with elephants, then gone to the library and studied the scientific literature about elephants, and without denying the truthful experience of each individual's contact with the elephants, summarized all the other experience and study together, to form an idea of the truth about elephants. Then he would be open to new information that would add to, modify, or update this body of thought. Only then could he say he had "a theory of elephants."

A common experience of many working people in our society is having been lied to by people in authority. I can still remember the ad in an old Life magazine from the 1930s that showed a medical doctor smoking a cigarette, and the ad said, "More doctors recommend Chesterfield cigarettes than any other brand. They promote relaxation."

My dad who was shot in the chest in combat in World War II-this wound destroyed one of his lungs-still smoked two and a half packs of cigarettes a day for years after World War II, shortening his life.

Images such as a doctors recommending cigarettes from the advertising industry, linking science and product development, has gone a long way towards discrediting the scientific method amongst working people. It's not surprising that a common working-class saying is "ideas are like (name your favorite body part); everyone's got one."

The theory of evolution was described in a lunchroom discussion, that I was a part of, as another "one of those goofy theories dreamed up by some egg-head whose never done an honest day's work in his entire life. The Bible's where the truth is at. End of story."

Global warming theory was described to me by another fellow worker "as another liberal idea that will make our country weak, and besides, they said on the radio that oil is being created all the time so all this crap about us running out of oil is just that."

The battle for scientific thought against reactionary ideas goes back hundreds of years. Galileo was put on trial for saying the earth revolved around the sun. A witch hunt is being organized by the ultra right against all scientific thought that doesn't fit their agenda.

Within the working class movement, we must struggle for the scientific method. Ultra-right ideas are fertilized and grow in the absence of the scientific approach to the truth.

I won a fellow worker over to openness to the theory of evolution by explaining to him the reason why his ill son kept having to change antibiotics was because antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria were evolving constantly and the theory of evolution is the only way of understanding this, so that the doctors can search for the medicine that will help your child.

"Climate-gate" is an ideological diversion to distract people from the overwhelming evidence that global warming is here; it is real, affecting all of us and must be dealt with.

The Blue-Green Alliance is a developing coalition of labor and environmentalists around the country, begun by the United Steel Workers and the Sierra Club, dealing on a positive political level with global warming. Look the Blue-Green Alliance up, get involved, and defeat the ultra-right in the November elections, and keep doing your science homework. It's a matter of saving the planet.

Policing by skin color

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:50:00 +0000

A recent New York Times article gave the stark facts. Nearly 9 out of 10 people in New York City charged in marijuana arrests are Black or Latino. This is the case even though national surveys have shown that whites are the heaviest users of pot.

The top 10 precincts for marijuana arrests in the city averaged 2,150 arrests for every 100,000 residents. The population in those precincts is generally 90 percent or more nonwhite.

The 10 precincts with the lowest rates averaged 67 arrests per 100,000 residents. The population in most of those neighborhoods is 80 percent white.

The results are undoubtedly similar throughout the country.

An experience my daughter recently had shows how discriminatory drug enforcement takes place in other ways too.

She recently went to a Jack Johnson concert at Madison Square Garden in New York and, in her words, "there was a lot of maryjane in the air." (I'll admit I had to Google Johnson.) The police wouldn't have had to stop and frisk; the smoking was done in clear view. But no one was being arrested or told, "Take your smokes elsewhere."

If you can afford to pay big bucks for a concert ticket and sit in the air conditioned comfort of your Madison Square Garden seat, you don't have to worry about adding possession of drugs to your resume.

It appears you also don't have to worry about being ticketed for violating New York's no-smoking.

This free pass at concerts is pretty much a fact throughout the country - although what is acceptable can change with the venue. I think many concertgoers expect it to be part of the package when they pay for their ticket.

Are New York City and other cities afraid their tax haul will be lower if concertgoers begin to be arrested? Do concert promoters worry tickets will be harder to sell if there are crackdowns? A majority white audience of some 20,000 - as the NYC Jack Johnson concert was - has a large economic pull.

Whatever the reason, it is shamefully wrong and discriminatory to stigmatize people of color for a so-called crime when the only real crime is being poor and non-white. In effect you are arrested for "smoking while black or brown."

That arrest carries a high price that further stigmatizes its victims. It increases the burden one must bear in ways both big and small. It becomes even more difficult to find a job, further increases the cost of car insurance (because you'll pay even more with that arrest on your record) and much more.

I'm not advocating legalization or criminalization; I'm advocating an end to racism in our criminal justice system.

In New York City the stop-and-frisk practices police used in minority neighborhoods were cited as the reason for more arrests. In one such neighborhood an analysis by The New York Times found police conducted, on average, one stop and frisk a year for every one of the 14,000 people who lived there.

Ninety-nine percent of the residents were not arrested or charged with any wrongdoing. However when you stop and search people in mass, you are going to get arrests. You would get even more in wealthy neighborhoods.

This is policing by skin color. That's racism pure and simple.

Photo: PW

Latin America rejects neoliberalism

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:39:00 +0000

Movie Review

"South of the Border"

Directed by Oliver Stone

2010, Unrated, 78 min.

Have you ever wondered how seven important Latin American nations are coping while defying the International Monetary Fund and "free trade" neoliberalism? With partial guidance from Tariq Ali and Mark Weisbrot as co-writers, U.S. film director Oliver Stone brings his talent into the effort of explaining something that is entirely new to the south of the United States. As Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Venezuela, to one degree or another, break with imperialism for the first time in our combined American history.

First, the bad news. The sound was inconsistent in the theater where we watched. While filmmaker Stone put himself definitely on the side of the people's movement in South America, his revelations in this film were not particularly new. The questions he asked of these important leaders were hardly piercing, and he did not lead us toward any particularly worthwhile conclusions.

My movie buddy and I kept thinking that we'd have learned almost as much from interviews on the morning TV shows like "Today" or "Good Morning America."

Stone's problem seemed to be his own lack of appreciation for the astounding change in Latin America represented by anti-imperialist leadership in these major countries. At one point, he takes his distance from some of the anti-capitalist comments of the people he interviews. He says he favors a kind of "benign capitalism."

While watching heads of state deliver opinions, one might wish to hear from more ordinary people, but the movie might have been too long. One might have wanted new insights into the developments in Nicaragua and Guatemala but for the same limitation.

Neither Stone's nor the viewers' politics detract from the main value of "South of the Border." It holds our attention because of the dramatic changes in Latin America, where leaders tell how they manage to operate with the dark cloak of U.S. imperialism waiting to envelop them again.

Stone travels through the nations with soft questions to their leaders. His admiration for Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez is especially strong. President Chavez is the centerpiece of the entire film. He is credited with standing up against the usual aspects of carnivorous imperialism, but also standing up to an actual military coup. President Evo Morales of Bolivia is a partner in this grand adventure. Stone and Morales chew coca leaves together while discussing world politics.

Argentina is examined as another example of democracy in South America. Stone discusses IMF objectives and the future of Argentina with former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner and with his wife, current Argentine President Cristina Kirchner. President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, President of Paraguay Fernando Lugo and finally life-time President of Cuba Raul Castro are all presented in Mr. Stone's documentary.

Through their words, we in the film audience examine the "free-trade" economic policies pushed by U.S. finance capital and International Monetary Fund. We see how these policies failed to promote Latin America's rise, while we share the promise of the present leaders. The film explains that financial depressions in Latin America and resentment over the selling off of natural resources by multinational companies led to the present peoples' democratic rebellions across the region.

One theme that runs through nearly all of the interviews is distaste for mainstream "news" sources, and particularly those that cloud the views of North Americans. President Morales says flatly that they are his worst enemy. Somewhere within the film, almost every viewer is sure to realize that these important figures have not appeared in interviews on North American television. Almost everything said about them here, the film makes clear, is twisted with ugly, malevolent, outright lies. Director Oliver Stone may not have conducted the best interviews possible, but they are the only open interviews we have seen and are likely to see while corporations throttle the truth in the United States.

Few Hollywood directors expose this bias and it would be hard to avoid admiring the politics and unpredictability. It is an impressive piece of work to store indelibly into memory. Go watch it now!

Photo: Director Oliver Stone and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez greeted by the press. (Jose Ibanez/southoftheborderdoc.com)

Why working in the fields is no laughing matter

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:42:00 +0000

My family and many others spent well over 25 years organizing and eventually founding the United Farm Workers Independent Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, based in San Jose, Calif. Led by Oscar Gonzalez, from 1961 to 1983, we were able to organize committees throughout California, specifically in the coastal areas from Northern California down to the Mexican border.

It was during that time, in 1966, that the UFW, IBT merged with the National Farm Workers association led by César E. Chávez and others and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO, thereafter becoming the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).

Since having worked alongside "braceros" in the vegetable industry in Oxnard, Calif., in the early 1960s, I was able to understand the issues involved in foreign contract labor then embodied in the Bracero Program. At that time people like the Hon. Dr. Ernesto Galarza, César E. Chávez, Gilbert Padilla, John Soria and others opposed this inhumane system of indentured servitude, which did not allow workers protections, the right to decent wages, or the right to decide whether to have a union of their choosing represent their interests.

Although the Bracero Program was abolished through the efforts of Galarza, Chávez, Padilla and others, it has now resurfaced as the "guest worker" program.

Recently, Arturo Rodriguez, president of the UFW, appeared on Comedy Central's Steven Colbert Report to encourage U.S. workers to take jobs in agriculture.

Along with UFW's "Take Our Jobs" Campaign, the union comes out in support of proposed federal legislation called Ag-Jobs.

In essence, Ag-Jobs would allow the recruitment of foreign workers from countries like Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam to labor in U.S. fields as "guest workers."

In coming out in support of Ag-Jobs, ironically the UFW is taking on a contradictory role, being a union in defense of farm workers' rights and now acting as agents in the recruitment of foreign agricultural workers for the U.S. corporate agri-business-industry.

Ag-Jobs is heavily supported by the National Farm Bureau, California Nisei League, Western Growers Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party and President Obama.

The need for an overhaul of our immigration laws is not in question here. The issue is that at a time when unemployment is estimated at between 18 percent and 21 percent in California's Central Valley and there are over 10 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. it is a complete farce to mislead the public by promoting and pushing for importing cheap foreign labor through a guest worker (Ag-Jobs) program.

What we need are decent wages and working conditions and humane immigration reform.

A great example is the recently introduced State Bill 1121 by State Sen. Dean Florez, which would allow agricultural workers to earn overtime for more than eight hours worked in a day and 40 hours in the work week. However, the same corporate growers who are in favor of guest workers testified in opposition to this bill, while continuing to work farm workers overtime at 10 hours per day and over 60 hours per work week. Corporate growers have testified and argued that "agriculture is very unique," in other words, agricultural workers, who are majority Mexicans and other people of color, can be treated with indifference.

The real issue is organizing and representing workers and the workers' right to negotiate a union contract. The real issue is legalization for all immigrants who are here to work because their home economies are being devastated by free trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA.

The real issue is the millions of American workers who are unemployed and struggling to feed their families, while the White House and Congress bail out Wall Street to the tune of billions of dollars.

I, and others, believe that the UFW needs to concentrate on organizing and representing workers. The real issue is decent wages, benefits, safety protections, and the right to unionize, NOT more guest worker programs that exploit workers who are not free to unionize and who are completely in the hands of the employer who is free to hire and fire at will.

If agricultural growers paid a decent wage, U.S. workers would apply for those jobs and there would be no need for guest workers.

Al Rojas was formerly a farmworker, and UFW labor organizer from 1961 to 1979, coordinator for the Pittsburgh Grape Boycott from 1968-1970, SEIU Local 1000 labor leader and former California State Deputy Labor Commissioner. He is currently vice-president of the Sacramento Labor Council for Latin American Advancement chapter.

Photo: A farmworker harvests spinach on a field in Colorado. (Howard F. Schwartz/Colorado State University/CC)

Shining the light of “The New Colossus” into Arizona

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:08:00 +0000

Two things are assured this coming week. One is that Arizona will do its best to put into practice its controversial anti-immigration bill. The other is that a federal district court will rule whether that law is constitutional.

The Arizona law requires all law enforcement officials who stop anyone for any reason to determine if that person may be a legal resident. If the person can't produce documentation, the police are required to detain the individual and to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The Arizona law is mostly based upon the fear by Arizonans that the state is being overrun by Hispanic "illegals," and that the federal government isn't curbing the problem. However, the Obama administration has increased both personnel and funding for immigration enforcement.

Critics have also complained about President Obama's recommendation for a one-time general amnesty for undocumented workers and their families who have no criminal records. That same proposal by George W. Bush, which included other immigration reform, was never enacted into law because of the opposition by the extreme right wing.

Most law enforcement officers, including most Arizona police don't like this law. It takes away time and resources; it also creates a barrier between police and undocumented workers, who often cooperate with the police in their investigations because they know the police will not notify ICE. There is no doubt that police will have a serious problem locating undocumented workers who could be witnesses. More important, police community relations will deteriorate under the new law.

Contrary to the panic and fear demonstrated by certain citizens, contrary to the politician rants to get media attention, and contrary to the media which have under-reported the good that minority cultures bring to the nation but have exaggerated criminal activity, most undocumented workers are neither lazy nor are criminals. Most don't use the welfare system or hospital ERs because they are afraid of being caught and deported.

The federal lawsuit avoids the Constitutional issues of civil rights and due process violations. It asks the federal district court in Phoenix to rule that the Constitution reserves all immigration issues and enforcement solely to the federal government. No matter what the ruling, it is likely there will be an appeal, which will eventually reach the Supreme Court.

Perhaps it's time to reflect not upon the words not of myriad bloggers, pundits, and politicians, who have flooded the airwaves with their own opinions, mostly unsupported by facts, but upon the words of one American poet from more than a century ago.

At the base of the Statue of Liberty, carved into bronze, is a sonnet written by Emma Lazarus in 1883. It was written in support of a fund-raising drive to get enough money to build the pedestal. The sonnet is titled, "The New Colossus":

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus was a relatively wealthy Portuguese Jew, whose family had emigrated to America and lived in New York City for generations. But in 1882, the year before she wrote her sonnet, she began working with masses of Russian Jews who had come to America to escape poverty and persecution. She helped teach them English and job skills. But in America, the Jews were discriminated against-often by the children of immigrants from other cultures who now worried that America was being overrun by immigrants.

Perhaps Arizonans and the nation, most of whom are the descendants of immigrants, need to again hear the words that the descendant of immigrants once wrote-the words that America was a place of refuge for the tired, the poor, the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

Walter Brasch's latest books are the witty and probing "Sex and the Single Beer Can," a look at American culture and the mass media; and "Sinking the Ship of State," an overview of the Bush-Cheney presidency. Both are available at amazon.com, and other stores. You may contact Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu

Photo: Brian Auer/CC

“Inception” has viewers guessing ― dreams vs. reality

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:33:00 +0000

Movie Review

"Inception"

Directed by Christopher Nolan

2010, PG-13, 140 mins.

If you like action and suspense packed with a mind-blowing plot then Christopher Nolan's new film "Inception" is the one to watch. From beginning to end "Inception" has viewers guessing about what's real and what's not.

The beefy plot makes one recall the popular 1999 film, "The Matrix."

In "Inception," characters are mostly in a dream state hooked up to IVs while another is awake to monitor them as they sleep. The film's star, Leonardo Di Caprio, plays Cobb, who is hired to get in the head of a young business man while he sleeps.

Cobb is accused of killing his wife in the movie and is in exile from the United States. He's on the run and his number one goal is to do whatever it takes to get back to his two young children.

He takes on this high-risk mission to plant an idea in a young man whose father just died. The father ran some huge profit-making corporation and Cobb is hired to get into the head of the son and make him take over the empire and hopefully crumble it altogether.

Throughout the film, Cobb assembles a team of dream hackers that include a dream architect, a chemist to produce a powerful enough sedative to keep them under and a forger who impersonates an uncle close to the young man in order to manipulate his thoughts.

There are even times when Cobb's team goes further into a dream within a dream.

There is plenty of action and intense scenes in the film including one where as time moves in reality those in a dream state lose all sense of gravity. This particular scene is by far the best and most exciting.

Similar to "The Matrix," where the bad guys were the "agents," in "Inception" the main characters deal with agents of their own known as the "projectors," which are people in the dreamer's subconscious out to kill.

There are all kinds of puzzles and scientific elements portrayed in the film including mathematical equations, architectural constructions and physics concepts. It's all very intriguing.

The film overall was well acted and also stars Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine and Pete Postlewaite.

There really isn't one boring moment in the film, which is a long 140 minutes.

"Inception" definitely has you guessing and may even confuse you at times but as Cobb's mission escalates viewers hope he and his dream team are successful.

This is one of those movies that have you twisting and turning may leave you guessing.

Overall it's worth watching and viewers may have to see it twice to understand all the ins and outs.

One thing for sure is that after seeing this movie and when you go home to sleep later you'll definitely wonder what yours dreams really mean. You'll wonder if someone is hacking them and planting ideas in your subconscious.

But don't worry there's no Freddy Kruger in this movie.

Sweet dreams.

July 26, Cuba: absolved by history

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:48:00 +0000

On July 26, 1953, a small band of Cuban revolutionaries launched an armed attack on the Moncada Barracks in the city of Santiago. The attack was intended to start a revolution against the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, and was led by a young man named Fidel Castro, who had been an activist student at the University of Havana.

The rebels did not succeed on that day. Some were killed and many others became prisoners, some of whom were murdered by Batista's goons. But eventually a mass campaign led to the amnesty of Castro and other remaining prisoners.

But the 26^th of July was the beginning, not the end. Moncada led to the formation of the 26^th of July Movement, which became the central organizing force of the Cuban Revolution. The seeds sown on July 26, 1952, germinated on January 1, 1959, as the victorious July 26^th movement marched into Havana as the last of Batista's top cronies fled for Miami.

On trial, Fidel Castro famously said "history will absolve me." That turned out to be an understatement. Not only has the Cuban Revolution survived 10 hostile U.S. presidencies, it has been a beacon of hope to the oppressed worldwide.

Besides transforming Cuba, it has contributed mightily to ending colonialism in many parts of the world, and especially to putting an end to the odious apartheid regime in South Africa.

Today, the Cuban Revolution, through its medical and other aid projects, has extended a hand of help to earthquake victims in Haiti, people with hearing and vision problems in the Andes, and many thousands more around the globe. Cuba's leaders, including Fidel, continue to speak out fearlessly on every topic, from peace to global warming.

It's in the American and Cuban people's interests for us to fight harder than ever to abolish the 50 year trade blockade against the island. We can start by getting our congressional representatives to support HR 4645, a bill to end the restrictions on travel to Cuba, which will also loosen restrictions on food sales to Cuba.

And let us not forget that five dedicated Cuban patriots are serving outrageously unjust jail sentences in U.S. prisons for the "crime" of working to stop terrorist attacks on Cuba. Let us resolve to celebrate July 26 by intensifying our work for the freedom of the Cuban Five!

Photo: The Moncada Barracks in Santiago is now a 26 of July Historical Museum. (GNU)

Sherrod, Obama, and the strength of roots

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:29:00 +0000

How would members of the Obama administration have reacted to racist pressure from the Deep South in the early '60s? Would they have fired Justice Department civil rights monitors who antagonized hard-line segregationists?

For those of us with long memories, this is one of the key questions posed by the firing of Shirley Sherrod in a fit of official over-reaction to the shameful right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart. It is true that the administration reversed course quickly after the true story was revealed, but that the Obama administration can be spooked so easily by Glenn Beck and FOX News raises a serious question: if they are so tough on national defense, drugs and crime, where is their resolve against the deceitful attack dogs of the right?

My introduction to virulent southern racism came in 1961 when I ventured to Albany, Georgia, first to write an article about the Deep South organizing done by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] and, second, to become a freedom rider on a train to Albany that December.

It was then I met, and came to admire, a brave young civil rights worker named Charles Sherrod, whom everyone in the movement simply called "Sherrod." Albany was a segregated town near Plains, Georgia, and the home of Hamilton Jordan who went on to become Jimmy Carter's chief of staff. Sherrod was the kind of front-line young militant who eventually brought about the New South of Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, among others. Sherrod had to face violence, and the possibility of death, every day in his effort to mobilize young people and their parents against the suffocation of fear.

Sherrod, and his equally committed wife Shirley, made a conscious decision to stay in rural Georgia long after the voting rights laws were passed and the national media departed. I left Albany after my two brief and harrowing experiences in 1961, and never returned until I spoke at commemoration of the Albany civil rights movement a few years ago. The Sherrods were still there. She was engaged in programs supporting rural farmers, while he had served on the city council and was a minister in a nearby state prison. There were 500 people at the event, the stalwarts of the past.

So Shirley Sherrod's life cannot be reduced by a dishonest and amoral right-wing blogger into a few seconds of videotape 25 years old. She is one of many thousands who had the force of character to face racist abuse, and seemingly immovable state power, when they were demonized and disenfranchised. They were the trees standing by the water, and they would not be moved. They tried to bring their morality to politics, not accept the politics of Machiavelli.

Our leaders today could learn from this strength of long ago. In fairness, government officials and leaders of large organizations, who are beneficiaries of the Southern civil rights legacy, have institutional reputations to protect. They should avoid needlessly provoking the right, and have every right to pick their fights intelligently. But years of battering from the right have bred a defensive anxiety in the ranks of too many Democratic liberals. They flinch before they fight. It's almost as if they internalize the right-wing refrain that they are weak, tea-sipping elitists. They give far greater consideration to conservatives, militarists and bankers who rarely vote for them than to the millions of activists in social movements who actually made their power possible.

This is a moment when roots should be remembered, recovered from oblivion and venerated, not airbrushed out of history and polished resumes.

The barbarians are at the gates

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:18:00 +0000

Finally an unemployment extension bill has passed - no thanks to Senate Republicans. With the exception of the two senators from Maine who broke with their party, the rest stood firm in their opposition to a bill that is good for both the unemployed and the economy.

Since the election of Barack Obama, the Republican organizing principle has been to obstruct every political initiative of the president. In doing so, they hope to divide and frustrate the loose coalition that elected the president, turn off the average voter to electoral politics, rally their right-wing constituency with anti-government and racist rhetoric - and thus put themselves on a fast track back to political power. Don't let anyone tell you that elections don't matter!

As outrageous as this is, it isn't out of character. The GOP was always an amalgam of the most conservative sections of corporate capital and other like-minded elements in the body politic. Its modern variant, however, is dominated by the most reactionary and racist sections of that amalgam. And as we know only too well from experience, this grouping commands the loyalty of an organized grassroots constituency, controls a far-flung media apparatus that manufactures its worldview and mobilizes millions, and prefers authoritarian rule when in power.

In the unemployment extension standoff, this right-wing juggernaut went into action, evoking the specter of rising federal deficits, attacking the "tax and spend" Democrats, appealing to racist susceptibilities of white people, insisting on spending cuts, urging its constituents to raise hell, and employing the filibuster to trump majority rule.

No doubt we will witness more of this in the months ahead. For a party that tells lies as fast as McDonald's makes burgers, there are no moral restraints, only the overarching desire for power.

Now, it is true that rising government debt and budget deficits could become a problem in the long term, but only if the economy remains stagnant as it is now. Marxist and mainstream economists that I respect say that the immediate danger isn't rising deficits, but insufficient demand for goods and services and a potential deflationary trap - a general fall in prices that once started can easily snowball into a deep-going crisis, as spending and borrowing freeze up.

Moreover, they add, the crisis and the exploding increase in debt is largely (though not solely) the handiwork of the Republicans and their reckless policies over the last decade.

But listening to Republican leaders, you would never know that the origins and size of the debt crisis are traceable to their policies, especially during the Bush-Cheney years. Nor would you hear that a repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the rich would reduce the deficit by $680 billion.

In their self-serving and falsely constructed narrative, mounting federal debt began with Obama and continues because of his policies - the latest being the White House decision to insist on the extension of unemployment benefits.

Like Paul Revere and Tom Paine, we must sound the alarm and appeal to the American people's common sense. The barbarians - aka the Republicans - are at the gates and we must rebuff them at the polls and in the streets.

Yes, many Democrats are a problem too, but not the main problem. To say that they are is to leave the world of concrete realities and dwell in the home of broad generalizations - the two parties are parties of capitalism. That's true, but to leave matters there is of little help (strategically and tactically) as to what is to be done on the level of concrete reality to move the chain of struggle forward.

Nazis on border support SB 1070

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:53:00 +0000

As a Jew, I have become alarmed over recent events on the immigration issue regarding the Arizona Law SB 1070 signed by Arizona Governor Brewer. The law which goes into effect 7/29/2010 apparently was written by a lawyer named Korbach, a member of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. The group is listed in the "Hatewatch" journal of the Southern Poverty Law Center. According to "Hatewatch," this group wears Nazi armbands and swastikas and does not deny their beliefs. They speak outwardly of being against what they call "the browning of America."

The July 18 San Antonio Express News raised concerns in "Civilian Border Watchers Raising Alarm." They explain that the border watchers are a Neo-Nazi group led by J.T. Ready, an ex-marine who proudly wears a U.S. military uniform. He is armed and proudly believes, "only white, non Jewish heterosexuals should be American citizens and anyone who is not white should leave the country." The police expressed concern about the armed groups.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center the organizations who are known white hate groups such as A3P (American third Party) and stormfront.org (the oldest on line white hate group) are working the hardest to bankroll Governor Brewer's HB 1070 Legal defense fund against seven lawsuits to stop the law.

This week, a progressive group the Southwest Workers Union, which has done a lot of work against the SB 1070 law in San Antonio by organizing protests both here and in Phoenix Arizona, had their office on Commerce Street attacked by someone shooting a semi automatic rifle. They severely injured a young 23 year old intern and nearly hit six other youths who were in the same room.

Finally, during a youth workshop at the National Council of La Raza in the Convention Center last week, numerous young Hispanic people stood to say they had recently become afraid to walk or go outside and that over half the group of 200 agreed they had been stopped more than once for minimal activities on the way to the store or park.

During the City Council meeting Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg of Synagogue Rodfei Shalom in San Antonio and a group of four congregants stood to describe the suffering of Jewish immigrants and gave support to a resolution to go to the state legislature in Austin to stop another copycat of the Arizona law being enacted here. I am proud that he spoke out for the Jewish community.

Unfortunately, the unfair trade laws such as NAFTA have driven many Mexicans off their land and there has been a mass migration in which many have risked their lives crossing the deserts to come here to try to have a chance to work and survive. Most of these people work like all immigrants, long and hard. They are honest and have close families and abide by the law. Often their employers fail to pay legal wages and sometimes cheat them of their wages because it is known that they have no recourse. They live in fear, risk arrest, and four million of their children have been orphaned due to ICE raids in workplaces.

We do not need individual states to create laws that copycat SB 1070. We DO need federal immigration laws that are inclusive, humane and enable a way toward citizenship, not force people to remain as a hidden second class of workers that are treated unfairly and bring all our citizens down economically and spiritually.

The armed "border watchers" and "Nazis" running around in uniforms with guns need to be arrested. Governor Brewer should be arrested, too, for accepting contributions from these dangerous, violent, anti-democratic and anti American criminals!

Photo:http://www.flickr.com/photos/45976898@N02/4575184210/sizes/o/

Cheers and jeers, from pregnancy fraud to Social Security birthday

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:41:00 +0000

CHEERS to efforts to get Congress to sponsor legislation to stop anti-choice "crisis pregnancy centers" advertising what appears to be real crisis center assistance and then when the woman comes in doing everything to block her from choosing abortion. (From NARAL via Viviana in San Antonio, Texas)

JEERS to French MPs who voted overwhelmingly to ban Islamic full veil in public. President Nicolas Sarkozy backs the legislation. (From the BBC via Brian in Massachusetts)

CHEERS to the Democratic Socialists of America for endorsing the Oct. 2 One Nation Jobs March. (From DSA newsletter via Brian in Massachusetts)

CHEERS to unionists in 23 states who began their on-the-job electoral activities July 13 with the theme of jobs. The nationwide campaign runs through July 25. (From AFL-CIO blog)

JEERS to the Dallas newspaper that tried, with a full-page "historical" article, to whitewash its role in applying the misleading phrase "right to work" to its other anti-union activities in 1941. (From the Dallas Morning News)

CHEERS to the retirees nationwide who are getting ready for big celebrations of the Aug. 14 anniversary of Social Security. (From Alliance for Retired Americans)

Comcast, NBC merger: What’s it mean for young people?

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:16:00 +0000

Many people in my age group don't read the news because they are simply not interested. But, the youth of our nation need to be informed though because many things of what's happening today in the world factor a role in our life.

For those who are not aware, Comcast has announced they will merge their company with NBC. Many view it as a way for Comcast to increase its content business. NBC will own 49% of the new deal. Comcast will own and will manage 51% of the new entity.

This new entity will be worth over $37 billion. This merger is the second largest merger after AOL and Time Warner, which was valued at $350 billion.

The FCC had a public forum that I attended downtown at Northwestern University Law School. It was a great forum. Commissioner Michael Copps made a magnificent introduction. Speakers Jeffrey Blum, Susan Crawford, Markham Erickson, Travis Parsons, Josh Silver, Scott Wallsten and Susan Whiting gave remarks on a panel about the merger and online video distribution considerations.

Some of the speakers seem to be advertising their companies, but then again that is their job. Others were dramatic about the impact of the merger, saying that lots of people would cut-off their cable TV subscriptions and switch to online media. Other gave facts and figures.

The youth should get more involved like issues like these and voice your opinion because you can and will be affected by these ongoing issues.

For example, Comcast and NBC said, "The combination of assets creates a leading media and entertainment company with the proven capability to provide some of the world's most popular entertainment, news and sports content, movies and film libraries to consumers anytime, anywhere."

But what does that mean for young people? Other cable providers will have to buy rights to carry NBC content. This will cost companies money which means they will raise prices and who will be affected? The answer is you, the consumer. That's money out of your pocket.

There is an upside, though. If you are a customer of Comcast you will have free access to NBC content for three years.

This new jointure will own the majority of popular cable television channels such as Bravo, Syfy, CNBC, Oxygen, E!, A&E etc.

Comcast is also is the one who controls the "pipes," which other companies use for online content. Comcast has been penalized in the past for limiting bandwidth to promote its own content.

The companies' jointure will mean there will be multiple positions that consist of the same thing so many people will lose their job. That is crucial to people suffering in this economy today.

Photo: Comcast Corporation Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts, left, John Wells, president, Writers Guild of America, West, center, and Mark Cooper, director of Research Consumer Federation of America, testified before a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on consumers, competition, and the proposed Comcast-NBC merger. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

FDR and the New Deal for Beginners

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:13:00 +0000

Book Review

"FDR and the New Deal for Beginners"
By Paul Buhle and Sabrina Jones, afterword by Harvey Pekar
2010, For Beginners Books, paperback, 160 pages, $14.99

In the throes of this Great Recession, during the presidential campaign of a promising, well-spoken candidate with a political repertoire deeply affected by community service, celebrated historian Paul Buhle was struck by inspiration. Buhle, after writing and/or editing a wealth of texts, turned his attention to progressive comic-art histories several years ago. He sees this trend as a powerful means to reach the youth of this time - an extension of the Left's cultural institutions of days past, particularly those led by activist-artists of the 1930s. So how could he pass up the opportunity to reintroduce yesterday's fight-back now?

The latest release of the "For Beginners" series, Buhle's collaboration with underground comic artist Sabrina Jones brings the New Deal's politics and radicalism to life in a relevant time. Herein we find the backstory to Roosevelt's rise and his ideological awakening, the incalculable importance of First Lady Eleanor's role, the revolutionary struggles which helped to forge the New Deal, and the breadth of that platform's reach.

While choice passages are liberally illustrated in post-punk sturm und drang, the pair worked individually more often than not, with Buhle writing extended passages of text and Jones creating other entire sections, shifting gears dramatically. "FDR and the New Deal" is itself revolutionary in that this is the first "For Beginners" book set up in this way, with the artist refusing to simply serve as text illustrator, and the author laying claim to space so he can write unimpeded.

Buhle, ever the progressive historian, delves deep into the nuances that allow the New Deal to shine well beyond its period of success (relatively short) while also focusing on FDR's personal challenges, peccadilloes and heroic stature for a decimated nation. Furthering this call to arms is a sprinkling of vintage political cartoons amidst the copy. The legendary William Gropper leaps straight from the pages of the "New Masses," and his angular, oft-times ferocious, art captures the contemporary eye and heart, immediately drawing one to today's jobless figures and news of foreclosures. Samplings of Bits Hayden's illustrations and those of Fred Ellis, Jacob Burck, Gus Peck, John Heiker and others blend into the thick, darkened contours of Jones' own work - like film noir invaded by grainy newsreel footage in a Brechtian landscape.

"FDR and the New Deal for Beginners" lays out the era in chronological sections which tell of Roosevelt's early Hudson Valley life, his initial attempts in the political world, his governorship of New York, his struggle with disability, and his immersion into the fabric of the people. We see how the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) led into the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and how the latter bore the Federal Arts Project, a favorite target of a rabid right. Buhle and Jones display working class struggle and wealthy patronage, the AF of L and the CIO, the roles of labor and populism, war and peace, racism and internationalism; the social service of Harry Hopkins, the Allies' fight against fascist domination, the unreachable Second Bill of Rights, the lost promise of Henry Wallace and the frosty winds of the early Cold War. Seeing all of this in perspective offers not only a radiant sense of hope but downright excitement about just what a new New Deal would mean to the contemporary U.S. - and ultimately to the world. As Harvey Pekar writes in his Afterword, this book "offers a novel approach ... both as history and as a lesson for today's world."

Agitated by the radical visions of generations past and the urgent needs of right now, "FDR and the New Deal for Beginners" speaks to us in a gripping prose that is at once warmly familiar and startlingly relevant, right here, right now.

Photo: Detail from the cover of "FDR and the New Deal for Beginners."

Is the U.S. slouching toward Bethlehem?

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:24:00 +0000

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

- from W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"

It's hard not to fall prey to apocalyptic thinking as one comprehends the combination of the recent unemployment reports, the Gulf Oil catastrophe, and the blog wars between economists debating whether the future will bring a "slow recovery" (synonym for "no recovery that working families will be able to see or feel") or "a double dip recession" (synonym for a pit whose trough cannot yet be discerned).

Add to this the deteriorating prospects, and permanent legacy, of two expensive and ill-advised wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; states, cities and counties defaulting on their pension, education, environmental, health, welfare and emergency services; unjustified and unsustainable inequality - the fundamental cause of the Great Recession - increasing, not decreasing.

Millions are saying: if this is a recovery, how much worse can hell be?

Of course, starved of resources or leadership, or both, history - remember Katrina and New Orleans? - advises that there is no depth to which human society cannot sink if fundamental assumptions, or "states of mind", about economic - and thus political - sustainability secede from reality. Recent trends in the distribution of wealth actually accentuate inequality, but the spread bears no relation to real productivity, real increases in the values produced by working people. And this has been true for most of the past three to four decades.

The labor theory of value implies that economic value (in the sense of market value or average price) consists wholly of the amount and quality of some quantity of human labor - "dead" labor in the form of a piece of manufactured capital equipment, or live hours being added each day. A brick of solid gold embedded in a mountain has value, but no economic value, until it is mined and made available as a commodity, processes that are all subjects of work.

We add value to each other's lives as we exchange, usually via money, new goods or services we create or help create - things we do not, and cannot, produce for ourselves.

The study of labor markets in industrialized countries over most of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries - a big slice of capitalist history - shows that there has been a strong, long-range, tendency for real average wages and salaries to track average national productivity gains. Yet since 1975 - with a couple of exceptions in the late 90s --this trend has NOT been holding. Not surprisingly, economic and political instability in the United States is also, decidedly, increasing.

There are some objective forces to keep in mind. For example: many states are now insolvent. If they cannot borrow, even from the federal government, they will have no alternative other than defaulting on obligations - pensions, health, etc. - plus cutting essential services. People will sue, go on strike, protest, and more - since state constitutions typically require states to pay all contract debts. But barring federal bailout, there will be little standing between the citizens and the collapse of a growing number of public institutions and services.

In addition, globalization has and will continue to greatly - but very unevenly - diversify the global distribution of wealth. Only strengthening the enforcement powers of international democratic institutions like the ILO (the UN's International Labor Organization) can ultimately remedy the negative impact of openness to trade on hard-won national protections for workers. Many American workers, and businesses, will have to aggressively retrain, re-educate and reinvest in very high-productivity work to maintain and advance their standard of living. No employee should expect that the ups and downs of the protectionist debates in Congress, which are mostly noise, will give them much of a breather.

Perhaps even more ominous, for the long run, are emerging calculations on the national state of workers' pensions, health coverage costs and reduced wages in the wake of the Great Recession. These calculations show a sustained 20 percent decline in real wages and overall wealth for working people since the "bubble cap" year of 2007. Keep in mind that 2007 "capped" 35 years of either a worsening or a flat labor market.

It is hard to find a pension plan in either the private or public sector - other than TIAA-CREF - that is not grossly underfunded, if not in actual default. Despite the president's efforts to move universal health coverage forward, rising costs are still years from being contained - meaning years of still rising deductibles and co-pays even for those who are covered. Even if coverage becomes more universal, a big struggle lies ahead to insure workers can actually afford to use the coverage.

Economist Paul Krugman cited the Yeats poem above using "the worst lack all conviction" to indict the Blue Dog tendencies: opportunistic, short-change, dead-end and duck-your-head positions.

But the answer has to lie in the fires that can be built in each town or city to mobilize majorities to get organized and take responsibility for themselves and their own protection. Elected representatives at every grassroots level must be, or become, champions of redressing inequality and restoring equity, or be replaced by leaders who are such champions.

Current polls offer the humorous (if the situation were not so serious) conclusion that 60 percent of the country is unsatisfied with Obama, 70 percent is unsatisfied with the Democrats, and 80 percent is unsatisfied with the Republicans!

The left is small in the U.S. - but, like in Bethlehem, big things can happen. To the Beast approaching: "No pasaran!" Each town can say: You shall not pass!

World labor today

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Last month's congress of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), in Vancouver, Canada was an eye-opener. It is obvious from any national perspective that the global economic crisis is challenging labor in every country to shift gears and rethink how to fight. But this congress gave a clear picture of how the crisis is bringing to life "workers of the world unite" in real time.
As discussion in the ITUC congress made clear, many of labor's most critical battles can only be won with a global fight. These issues critical to world labor will be fought out not only economically, but politically as well, requiring new levels of international trade union unity and solidarity.

In the first place, global finance capital has never been more free and more agile to move about the globe in search of plunder and profit. It is this global mobility that means highly dangerous and risky hedge fund bets on bundled subprime loans in the US can shake big banks around the world.

The ITUC congress took the view that more controls on finance capital is a must. Not only in each country, but also that world labor needs to champion international regulations on banking and finance. There was much discussion and debate on how labor can be more of a global player. Many called for fighting for a seat at the table of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other existing international finance institutions. No delegates thought this would be easy, but all called for struggle to democratize these international finance institutions and mass struggle for labor's voice at all levels of planning and decision making.

Others called for greater use of, and more power for the United Nation's International Labor Organization (ILO) because labor already has a seat at that table. They noted that the ILO is more independent of corporate and banking capital control and provides a voice for labor from both developed and developing countries.
There was also much discussion of the need for labor in every country to fight for ratification of the ILO conventions. The US has not ratified all of them. And as some in the AFL-CIO have pointed out, ratification of the ILO's "freedom of association" convention would mean the need to repeal "Right-to-Work" (for less) laws in the U.S.

Another big theme of the congress was the need for massive public spending on new green technologies and industries to spur growth and development. Speaker after speaker rejected right-wing mantras by the deficit hawks in their countries and instead demanded public spending to build for people's needs and to put money in the pockets of working people as the way out of the crisis.
Perhaps the most unified position of the congress was on the need for taxing big business and finance capital to pay for putting people back to work and ending the crisis. Many echoed AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, when he said that the bankers and speculators who caused the crisis must pay to clean up their mess. Most cited the need for national, and even international, stock transaction taxes to fund jobs and put controls on risky investments.

A thread that ran throughout the discussion was the call for a "new global economic order." Delegates spoke of reigning in capital and putting economic justice and the rights of working people first. And as one of the delegates from Germany said to me in private, that economic order has a name, it's socialism.

This congress was not just a talk fest. The call to action was clear. Perhaps the most dramatic example was concrete plans for a European Union wide demonstration, September 29th against austerity programs, cuts in social programs and wage and benefit cuts for workers. The Spanish delegates announced united action by all the union federations and the left for a general strike on that day, while other countries were also exploring the possibility for general strike action.

During the congress, at a special meeting for the US delegation, the United Steelworkers and the Los Mimeros (the National Miners Union of Mexico) discussed their plans to merge the two unions creating the first North American wide industrial union. This merger arises out of concrete joint struggle against giant companies operating throughout the continent. Speakers pointed out the need for united action regardless of national borders against giant corporations that respect no national boundaries for profit and exploitation.

Another important development at the congress was the election of Sharan Burrows, past president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, as general secretary of the ITUC, its highest office. She is the first woman to hold the post and continues an international trend in labor like the election of Arlene Holt Baker and Liz Schuler to two top offices of the AFL-CIO in 2009.

I came away from this congress of the ITUC with two basic conclusions. First it is clear that there is a rising tide of labor militancy, unity and action everywhere. It is a rising tide that is gathering power and class consciousness.

Secondly it is also clear that the time for global labor unity is now. The ITUC, like most labor organizations represents many different political trends from left to right including communists, socialists and labor conservatives. It can be no other way as trade unions are mass organizations that must represent all workers. All unions struggle for unity in action. Democratically overcoming political differences in order to present a united collective face is critical to winning for workers; from bargaining to political action.
It is time to heal the cold war split in labor. This requires all sides getting over past differences and uniting based on common action and immediate fightback. It further requires conscious initiatives and action from the leadership of all global labor federations for unity. An important model can be found in the work of many of the specific trade federations, like metalworkers and transportation, that include unions affiliated with many of the main global federations including both the ITUC and the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU).
"Workers of the World Unite" cannot be just the slogan of the left. Now more than ever in today's world where global capital cruises the world in search of plunder and profit, workers of the world united is a must for economic and social justice.

Photo: Scott Marshall

Arne Duncan's $800 million fight

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:28:00 +0000

$800 million is a lot of money but in comparison to the total federal budget of $3.6 trillion is represents less than .00022 percent. So why is Education secretary Arne Duncan fighting so hard to keep $800 million?

According to media reports, the $800 million comes out of his "Race to the Top" and other education reform programs to help offset a $10 billion package to protect education jobs in the House supplemental appropriations bill, which includes $33 billion for the wars.

Leading House Democrats proposed the offset in response to public school teachers who oppose some of the provisions of the "Race to the Top" program.

Teachers say the "Race to the Top" reforms emphasize testing and school privatization over a needed commitment to professional development and financial support for ailing schools. Under the reform, teachers argue, schools are forced to teach to tests or face closure and mass firings of school personnel.

The offset proposal has the administration in something of a quandary. It supports the provision of resources to help keep jobs, but it doesn't want to give in on one of its key reforms.

"The administration supports passage of the House supplemental appropriations bill which included $10 billion for education jobs," Secretary Arne Duncan emphatically told reporters Thursday, July 15 by teleconference. As recovery act funds that protected hundreds of thousands of public school jobs for the 2009 and 2010 comes to an end, more will be needed for this coming school year to help states avoid balancing their budgets by firing teachers, he warned.

From California to North Carolina, Missouri to Washington state, school districts may be forced to layoff thousands of teachers before the new school year starts to make ends meet, Duncan pointed out. If forced to do so, the people hurt will be kids and their families, administration officials pointed out.

White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer estimated that 100,000 to 300,000 teachers and school workers face layoffs if direct support isn't supplied to the states quickly.

Congress needs to pass the supplemental to make this money available as quickly as possible. But the these funds shouldn't be offset by eliminating money for the administration's reform agenda, Duncan insisted. "We want to thank Congress for recognizing the critical importance of preserving education jobs and keeping the economic recovery going," he added, "and we want to fight a way to pay for this without compromising education reform."

"Jobs and reform have to continue to go hand in hand," he said.

White House Director of the Domestic Policy Counsel Melody Barnes added a warning. "We don't have to make a choice between reform and making sure that teachers are able to stay in the classroom," she said. While the President supports the money for education jobs, "we will recommend a veto if the final bill includes cuts to reform programs" like "Race to the Top."

White House advisers and officials have to decide if they are seriously willing to recommend vetoing a jobs bill to protect Arne Duncan's $800 million.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/americagov/4661101918/sizes/o/

Cheers and jeers, from the Gulf to the Vatican

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:50:00 +0000

CHEERS to President Obama for sending the fourth bill for cost of cleanup in the Gulf to BP. Paid to U.S. government so far: $221.9 million. (From the BBC via Brian in Massachusetts)

JEERS to the CEOs on Wall Street for calling Obama "anti-business" and accusing him of stopping job growth despite the rise in corporate profits since his inauguration. (From New York Times via Brian Fitzpatrick)

JEERS to BP for costing 11 lives by taking safety shortcuts during Deepwater Horizon inspections and destroying the jobs of many fishermen on the Gulf, all while permanently destroying the ecosystem. (From Labor Express Radio via Derek Souleotes)

JEERS to outrageous CEO pay! (From Daily Finance via Jim Lane)

JEERS to Rand Paul for indicating his opposition to workers' rights across the board. Rand Paul answered a questionnaire by the Coalition to Protect Kentucky Jobs, saying that he opposes the Employee Free Choice Act and all of its various parts. Paul would rather protect the rights of corporations than the rights of the workers. (From USW's Blog via Derek Souleotes)

CHEERS to the Latino baseball players who want the All Star game moved away from Arizona! (From AFL-CIO blog via Jim Lane)

JEERS to the Vatican for issuing stronger rules against child abusers, while not bringing known criminals to justice. (From New York Times via Brian in Massachusetts)

Wall Street reform overcomes Wall Street blockade

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:39:00 +0000

After a year of intense protest and struggles on one side, and bank lobbying on the other side, Congress yesterday passed Wall Street reform, securing the second major piece of reform legislation on President Obama's agenda.

The bill curbs some financial hanky-panky, establishes a consumer financial protection agency, and adds new regulation of big financial institutions.

A major cause of the financial crisis was too many undocumented, or worse, fraudulently documented derivatives. The package includes new restrictions on the sale of these products. Derivatives are basically insurance designed to hedge risk. If you are a farmer who just invested heavily in new see, or farm equipment, you might want to buy a "derivative" that will pay off some of your losses if you run into bad weather. If you are a trucking company dependent on fuel, you might want to buy a "derivative" in case fuel prices unexpectedly rise. The new legislation provides that most derivatives must now be sold on exchanges where the documentation that shows what kind of real assets are behind the derivative can be inspected.

A consumer financial protection agency charged is created charged with protecting the public against fraudulent financial services. This is a big step forward, especially for the millions of homeowners who were sold very flaky mortgages and steered into high-interest, high-fee credit cards.

The creation of a resolution authority for large non-bank financial institutions is a positive step. It removes much of the regulatory confusion that complicated the initial steps by the Federal Reserve and Treasury to stem the crisis when the failure of Lehman Brothers and A.I.G was imminent, and that led to the very unpopular bank bailouts.

A big hole in the resolution authority is the fact that no pre-funding mechanism was put in place. That will await future legislation. A tax on the biggest banks and a transaction tax on all financial services are among the proposals.

The bill includes an audit of the Federal Reserve's special lending facilities, as well as ongoing audits of its open market operations and discount window loans. This is a big step towards increased openness of the nation's banking system.

The big question is: will this reform really prevent future crises? The answer is: it will probably help, but key issues remain unaddressed.

The "Volker rule" - former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volker's proposal to break up big banks - did not make it into the bill, raising the risk of future capture of the regulators by the big banks.

Other steps did not get included that would have removed clouds from the future.

These include placing all derivatives in public exchanges, separating investment from commercial banking operations, and guaranteeing independence of the new consumer financial products regulation from the Federal Reserve (which is still a quasi-public institution of bankers).

But, considering the powerful forces lobbying Congress against any reform - the bill is an important victory for Obama, and for forces seeking to protect public institutions from being held hostage by banks and their risky adventures making money at democracy's expense.

But the settlement of Goldman Sachs' criminal trickery in the derivative business, which netted them billions in fees, for a fine equalling four days of its profits, sends an uneven message, to say the least.

The battle is not over. Workers have not lost. But they have not yet vanquished the dangers.