People Before Profit blog

Letter from a reader: Freedom means choice

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:45:00 +0000

"If you tell a lie enough times, it becomes truth."
To start with, I live in the great state of Louisiana, the pelican state.
If you do not know where Louisiana is, its' down south, land of the blues.
Enough said.

I awoke the morning much like many other Americans,
had my coffee and assumed the ranks of the unemployed.

You know, if you do the same things, you will get the same result...
Freedom at the ballot, means choice. Since both parties are different sides of the same
coin, not much will ever change.

Oh, just a little about myself.
I am married and have a dog named Buddy.
I did not have a six figure income, and probably never will and
I do not own a yacht. However if it does prove a tax advantage, I am sure that I can
come up with a tub and 2X4 and probably get one together.
I guess I need to check the tax code on "yachts" first.
Oh well enough about me.

Did I mention that I am unemployed?
Lets see here, telling a lie enough times it becomes truth.
With the right media it is still a variation of the same... old... song.
Most Americans are unaware that there are choices out there, its' just that it was not mentioned.
Look at other countries and not the ones that we control.

Oh well enough said again.
Maybe I will start a yacht company, offer jobs to the unemployed,
and most important, find special tax considerations for myself.

Till next time,

Greg

U.S. Commerce Department: The economy sucks!

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:39:00 +0000

The Commerce Department reported earlier that the economy sucks.

No, they didn't use those words. What they said was: The economy grew at a real annual rate of about 0.8 percent in the first half of the year (0.4 percent in the first quarter, 1.3 percent in the second quarter). This is far below the 2.5 percent growth rate needed to keep unemployment from rising.

John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics, was quoted as saying, "The word for this report is 'shocking.'"

Sorry, Mr. Ryding, and all you other corporate economists. Why are you shocked?

The 20 million unemployed, many out of work for more than a year, aren't shocked.

The million families losing their homes this year aren't shocked.

The growing number of workers in low-wage, unstable jobs aren't shocked. In the last year, employment in low-wage occupations grew by 3.2 percent, while high-wage occupations fell by 1.2 percent.

The college graduates with record student loans and lucky to be working at Starbucks aren't shocked. Of those graduating in 2009 and 2010, barely half have found jobs. Of those, half are working in industries that don't even require a college degree.

State and local government workers aren't shocked. Hundreds of thousands have been laid off, and millions have taken cuts in pay and benefits.

The 90,000 workers laid off by the Federal Aviation Administration and its construction contractors aren't shocked. In a rehearsal for the debt-limit showdown, the Republicans have refused a routine measure to continue the FAA's operations. This sabotage of that nation's airports is part of an effort to make it almost impossible for transportation workers to join unions.

There are even a few economists who are not shocked at the sorry state of the economy. Nobel Prize winners Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz have been warning for months that cutting government spending is the worst policy in the current situation.

But you don't have to have a Nobel Prize to know what's going on. Knocking on doors for a local election campaign this week, a woman in a working-class neighborhood came to the door, saying, "I've just been watching TV about the debt ceiling. Nothing is going to be solved until we have jobs, jobs, jobs." Polls show the overwhelming majority of Americans agree.

Unfortunately, the result of the standoff in Washington is likely to be a choice between deep cuts and very deep cuts. This policy is known by economists as "austerity." It means that after working people have already been forced to tighten their belts through lower wages and benefits and fewer jobs, they will be forced to tighten their belts even more through cuts to education, government pensions, medical care, transportation and everything else governments do that make modern society work. That is the policy in most European countries, including Britain, where the result has been renewed recession and growing unemployment.

Why follow a policy that is the economic equivalent of driving an ocean liner full-speed into an iceberg? According to a JP Morgan investment report, profit margins at biggest corporations are at levels "not seen in decades" and "reductions in wages and benefits explain the majority of the net improvement in margins."

First translation: While we've been forced to tighten our belts, the fat cats are getting fatter - at our expense.

Second translation: Don't talk to me about icebergs! Just keep the caviar and champaign flowing in the ballroom. And shut off those noisy pumps that are bailing out the ship so there is more hot water for the first-class bathrooms!

Before these parasites drown us all, call your congressional representative. Tell them to support HR 2663 for a "clean" increase in the debt ceiling; that will help our leaking economic ship avoid another iceberg. Then, tell them to support the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget proposal to end the wars, tax the rich, close corporate loopholes and rebuild America - a measure that will repair some of the leaks, and even improve conditions for the crew and the third class passengers.

Socialist U.S.? Science says it can happen

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:56:00 +0000

One of the things many who consider themselves politically active would like to do is fundamentally change the United States from capitalist to socialist. But to do that we would have to have the majority of the people begin to believe that socialism is a better system than capitalism.

Getting the American people to change their attitudes towards socialism and communism has always been a worrisome problem for socialist activists. But now science has come to the rescue and has revealed how a tiny minority can, by sticking to its principles, get the vast majority to come around to its way of thinking.

Science Daily reported on research carried out at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute by SCNARC (Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center) that shows "when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of society." This finding applies to many types of belief, including political views.

People often tell me that it will be a few more generations before we can have socialism in the U.S. Some have said it will take 500 years. But according to SCNARC, we only need to get 10 percent of the people for socialism and the trick is done, since the majority always end up adopting the minority view.

Granted, we have to get the 10 percent to have "an unshakable belief" in the socialist ideal, so we shouldn't talk too much about "flexible interpretations of Marxism." Another thing is we have to hurry up and get that 10 percent, because it is the tipping point.

"When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent," the SCNARC director Bolesaw Szymanski said, "There is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority. Once that number grows above 10 percent the idea spreads like flame." The age of the universe is considerably longer than 500 years, so socialists and communists really have to get working.

The article also reports that it doesn't matter from where or from whom the 10 percent comes - just as long as the level of "committed opinion holders" reaches 10 percent. The conclusions reached by the scientists were based on computer models of different social networks where a society with a given belief system held by a majority population, which was also open minded, had introduced into it an additional 10 percent of people who were "true believers." In every case, the beliefs of the introduced 10 percent were soon widespread and became the new majority consensus.

Sameet Sreenivasan, another SCNARC investigator, said, "In general, people do not like to have an unpopular opinion and are always seeking to try locally to come to consensus. We set up this dynamic in each of our models. As agents of change start to convince more and more people, the situation begins to change. People begin to question their own views at first and then completely adopt the new view to spread it even further. If the true believers just influenced their neighbors, that wouldn't change anything within the larger system, as we saw with percentages less than ten."

The scientists are not just engaging in idle research. There are real world situations to which this research will be applied. Gyorgy Korniss, who co-wrote the research paper, says, "There are clearly situations in which it helps to know how to efficiently spread some opinion or how to suppress a developing opinion. Some examples might be the need to quickly convince a town to move before a hurricane or spread new information on the prevention of disease in a rural village.

In fact, I don't think the researchers had in mind getting people to adopt socialism. Note well that remark above about knowing how "to efficiently spread some opinion" and "how to suppress a developing opinion." The report lists the major funders of SCNARC, and we see money coming from the Army Research Laboratory, the Army Research Office and the Office of Naval Research among others.

The true purpose of the research seems to me to be how to set up groups of government agents to disrupt liberal and progressive groups (remember the larger group is made up of open minded people and the true believers are "unshakable.") We are also told that the scientists want to study a polarized society where there is not just one traditional viewpoint to be changed. They want to expand their research to a society with two opposite major outlooks: "An example of this polarization would be Democrat versus Republican." Indeed.

The real practical value for socialists is to see that our major traditional group is neither Republican nor Democrat but the large groups of progressives, liberals, the left, minorities and working people who make up the real majority in the US. If we can get 10 percent of this group to favor a principled socialist agenda a new world really would be possible.

Cuba and Venezuela shape new generation of "Revolutionary Doctors"

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 17:07:00 +0000

Book Review
Revolutionary Doctors
By Steve Brouwer
Monthly Review Press, 2011, 256 pages, $18.95 paperback, (also available in hardcover and electronic editions)

Steve Brouwer identifies his physician father as the only socialist he knew growing up. The elder Brouwer listened to patients, and he was incensed if they stayed away because of no money. Such early awareness evidently prepared the way for the author's remarkable book "Revolutionary Doctors."

Brouwer traces the evolution of Cuba's health system that has led to Cuban-Venezuelan collaboration in providing health care for their people and medical assistance throughout the world.

His book recovers history, outlines visionaries' political groundings, and details the activities of Cuban and Venezuelan doctors and medical students.

For Brouwer, Dr. Ernesto "Che" Guevara's teachings, exemplified in his 1960 speech "On Revolutionary Medicine" , have borne fruit. Che believed, "the best way of telling is doing." He judged doctors "by their practice of solidarity and equality."

The book should be an eye-opener for students and those who put serving people first. Touching upon recent Latin American political history, "Revolutionary Doctors" sets the stage by reviewing Latin American expressions of "socialism of the 21^st century." It centers on momentous Cuban-Venezuelan experimentation in medical education, while outlining Venezuela's efforts to provide health care for 80 percent of its population, previously underserved.

Brouwer explores new doctors' thinking and assesses their community impact. He describes U.S. government harassment directed at this medical care revolution.

The Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America, the solidarity alliance known as ALBA , receives special emphasis. Brouwer reports on Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine that over six years annually has prepared 1,500 new doctors to take up medical work in dozens of home countries.

The author lived in the hillside village of Monte Carmelo on the outskirts of Sanare, a small city in Venezuela's northwest. There he came to know people from poor families who, astoundingly, were studying medicine without leaving home. He became acquainted with Cuban doctors who were both caring for patients and teaching the students.

The students and teachers represent a pioneering effort to put 30,000 Venezuelan young people from working-class families on track to become doctors. When in several years they have qualified, another same-sized group will be enrolled. (Several thousand additional medical students continue at tuition-based Venezuelan medical schools.)

Uniquely, medical education takes place in non-institutional settings in rural areas and small cities. Medical educators worldwide know that most young primary care physicians, given the opportunity, like to practice close to where they were trained and/or raised. In Cuba too, medical students increasingly attend schools without walls.

That Cuba since 2004 has maintained some 15,000 physicians in Venezuela is crucial to this endeavor and also to meeting Venezuela's unmet health care needs. Along with thousands of other health workers, teachers, and "sport-trainers," Cuban doctors provide basic services, especially in poor urban barrios and rural areas. Newly trained Venezuelan doctors will eventually take over their work. Brouwer's book details Venezuela's health care reorganization, the work of Cuban doctors, and the doctors' Herculean efforts to become pedagogically qualified in order to double as teachers.

Readers learn about tens of thousands of Cuban doctors who've worked in over half the world's countries. Brouwer tells how since 1998 Cuban health workers have provided most of the medical services in Haiti , especially in rural areas. Numbers the author cites testify to the vast scope of this medical revolution. With a combined population of 39 million, Venezuela and Cuba now provide free medical education for 73,000 medical students. By contrast, the United States, population 307 million, is educating 70,000 future doctors.

The medical revolution began in earnest in 2000, says the author, when Cuban leaders proclaimed a "battle of ideas." The time was ripe for reassertion of socialist values: globalized capitalism reigned supreme and hard times during the waning "special period" had entailed capitalist accommodation. Now, up against an "army in white jackets, Washington strategists are totally unprepared and unequipped mentally to mount a defense." The Cuban doctors "represent a moral and ethical weapon that is striking at the hollow core of capitalist values."

"Revolutionary Doctors" deserves wide distribution and reading. (A few proofreading lapses will undoubtedly be corrected in future editions.) This reviewer, mindful of perspective, notes the failure years ago of a U.S. attempt to launch a community health center movement. Planners serving President Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty" used the writings and experience of the Israeli and South African physician Sidney Kark, among others, to develop health centers attending to the health needs of the community. Ultimately, isolation of services for poor people and reliance upon precarious funding mechanisms stymied a project carried out under capitalist rules.

Readers should note that Cuba's health care efforts began long ago. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, Robert Ubell in 1983 noted Cuba's burgeoning specialty medical services, growing research capabilities, effective first-contact and preventative health care, doctors working abroad, and new medical schools and hospitals. He describes "a national medical program that is the envy of many developing nations. For some of these nations, it is not Boston, Massachusetts, but Havana, Cuba, that is the center of the medical world."

Photo: Steve Brouwer with his sons Ari and Jan when they lived in a small rural village in the mountains of Venezuela in 2007-2008.

Is the welfare state sustainable?

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:36:00 +0000

David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, recently opined, "The current welfare state is simply unsustainable and anybody who is serious, on left or right, has to have a new vision of the social contract."

Brooks comment gets my back up, but before I tell you why a few words about the welfare state seems in order. It has a negative connotation in the minds of some people, but it is no more than the set of institutions, agencies, social programs, laws, and rights won in the course of powerful mass struggles that protect and promote the economic and social well-being of the American people.

It doesn't perform flawlessly as the current crisis reminds us; many people fell and continue to fall through its cracks and gaps. But notwithstanding that, it does buffer some of the worst aspects of capitalist exploitation and crises.

Which brings me back to Brooks who is eager to retire the welfare state. He doesn't seem to think for a moment about what the impact would be on the lives of tens of millions.

That is reprehensible, but what is really troublesome is the fact that his sentiments are shared by every, or nearly every, section of the capitalist class. They too believe that the welfare state is out of sync with the times in which we live, that the American people should no longer expect its steady expansion. Indeed, they should expect less.

If there are differences among them, they are over the degree to which the "welfare state" should be downsized. Some say that the "welfare state" has no place whatsoever in the 21st century. And it's not only because the country and government can no longer afford it. They argue that the "welfare state" was a mistake from the very start.

Others spokespeople for the capitalist class take the position that the "welfare state," while still necessary, should be scaled back in light of economic realities, that is, an intensely competitive and globalized economy.

Neither position has any merit.

After all, we remain a wealthy country, in fact the wealthiest in the world. We have enough resources to provide every American a decent standard of living, a healthy social, cultural and natural environment, and a broad set of democratic rights. But this fact seems to be lost on the main sections of the capitalist class.

Not surprisingly, driving their campaign politically (capitalists prefer to hide behind the scenes) is the extreme right. This political grouping has shamelessly turned the debt crisis into a Trojan horse to wreck the welfare state.

Insisting that austerity measures cannot be delayed to a later time when the economy is recovering, right-wing extremists are demanding immediate, deep, and sweeping cuts in the welfare state in exchange for their agreement to lift the debt ceiling.

The plan of Speaker of the John Boehner cuts spending by $3 trillion over 10 years - a big chunk of which would come from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social safety net programs. The New York Times describes it as "irredeemably awful."

As bad as this plan is, it should be seen as only a down payment for much deeper cuts that would virtually eliminate the institutions, agencies, programs and rights of the welfare state that provide protection from the vagaries of the capitalist market.

It is true that the plan of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is nothing to write home about, but neither he nor his colleagues are powering this assault.

So what is to be done? First, contain the damage of this right wing contrived debt-ceiling crisis.

Beyond this immediate horizon, the main task is to further build the labor led people's movement. Such a movement, if it gains in reach, influence and unity can turn this right wing led capitalist offensive around.

It wouldn't be the first time that a mass, energized, sustained and multi-racial movement repelled an attack and went on to extract major concessions from the corporations and capitalist state.

Indeed, the struggles 1930s and 1960s remind us that a powerful people's coalition, up against seemingly impossible odds, can win historic victories.

Photo: (PW/John Bachtell)

Racial wealth gap grows to record highs

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:31:00 +0000

The Pew Research Center released stunning statistics on the aggravation of inequality by race, ethnicity, class and gender since the onset of this depression. The study focuses one of the broadest measures of overall social and economic progress: wealth.

Wealth is the sum of assets (houses, cars, savings and checking accounts, stocks and mutual funds, retirement accounts, etc.) minus the sum of debt (mortgages, auto loans, credit card debt, etc.). Wealth is different from household income, which measures the annual inflow of wages, interest, profits and other sources of earning. It does not include wealth in public goods, which in some countries (and some U.S. areas) might be substantial - subsidized health care, retirement, transportation, communication-media infrastructure, education, etc.).

Wealth gaps between whites, blacks and Hispanics have always been much greater than income gaps. Nonetheless, the changes have never seen the magnitude witnessed in the past few years.

Pew reports that the median wealth of white households is now 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.

"These lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago and roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession that ended in 2009," according to the report.

The 2006 fall of the housing market and the depression that has followed from late 2007 took a far greater toll on the wealth of minorities than whites. Plummeting house values were the principal cause of the recent erosion in household wealth among all groups, with Hispanics hit hardest by the meltdown in the housing market.

According to Pew, "From 2005 to 2009, inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66 percent among Hispanic households and 53 percent among black households, compared with just 16 percent among white households. As a result of these declines, the typical black household had just $5,677 in wealth (assets minus debts) in 2009, the typical Hispanic household had $6,325 in wealth and the typical white household had $113,149."

These numbers represent median wealth figures, thus tens of millions - concentrated in African-American, Latino, and Asian communities - are completely underwater, are insolvent, and bankrupt.

The foreclosed homes that most of this collapsed wealth represents stand abandoned and unused in cities and towns with no property income to sustain necessary school, public safety, or health services.

An underlying, perhaps more profound, message in the Pew wealth report is that it completely refutes any remaining hopes in the viability of the bush "ownership society" as the path to popular wealth, at least as long as market fundamentalism holds sway or veto power over economic policy. This holds true for working-class and middle-income whites, whose wealth has also dropped, and whose economic security is inextricably bound to the wellbeing and economic security of communities of color.

Combined with income statistics that also show recent aggravated overall inequality layered on top of 30 years of median income stagnation or decline, and Miles Davis Bitches Brew barely captures the bad mood swirling like mouse droppings in every corner of the land. There is no reason why gains in productivity (and thus wealth) should not be distributed so that, at least, the median, ordinary person's overall wealth grew or declined in direct proportion. When working people's income diverges downward from their rate of improved productivity - the math tells the truth - there is robbery taking place. Reagan told us it was so eventually the pie in the sky it would trickle back down us.

Perhaps the media is not watching closely enough - but the chief victims of the unrelenting forces of austerity - minorities, youth, seniors, workers - are going to be descending on state and national Capitols in multitudes of hunger, health care and jobs marches. Frankly, they got nowhere else to go to get answers.

They are coming to say: Stop - Turn around, get real and tell the truth!

Texans soak up union culture

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:41:00 +0000

DALLAS - North Texas Jobs with Justice and UAW Local 848 co-sponsored a "Union Song Revival" in Grand Prairie July 24. Old and new union songs, poetry and information were presented to a group of about 50 people from all over the area.
Many of the participants may have begun like songwriter Jack Hardy, whose song "I Ought to Know" was sung by Lisa Markley early in the program. It includes these lyrics:

I ought to know the songs of Joe Hill
I ought to know Trotsky, Marx and Hegel
I ought to know about the Haymarket hangings
And the HUAC
This I ought to know
But I don't.

By the time the two-hour program was over, people knew and appreciated a lot more about the progressive history of unions and the common people of America.

Dean Reklaw sang his great parody, "Unemployment" to the tune of "Poison Ivy." His "Bring Back the WPA" was listed in the program, but he sang "Mister Boehner, Where Are the Jobs?" to the tune of "Mister Sandman." It was particularly appropriate in light of a national call for public actions August 8 on the slogan, "Where are the Jobs?" Here is the last verse:

Mister Boehner, where are the jobs?
Don't tell us jokes, you're no Calvin and Hobbes
We live on junk food; it's all empty calories
Who needs a tax cut when we have no salaries?
Johnny, we won't harass,
If you're not serious, you're out on your ass
Don't make us form angry mobs, Mister Boehner
Tell us, please please tell us, Mister Boehner, where are the jobs?"

The program included traditional union songs such as "Which Side Are You On" by Florence Reese and "I'm a Union Card." The latter is on a CD published by the Smithsonian Institute and was sung by its author, Kenny Winfree. The great union standup singalong "Solidarity Forever" ended the program to a great ovation.

Photo: Dean Reklaw singing "Unemployment" at the union song revival. Jim Lane/PW

Step up, speak out today on debt crisis

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:54:00 +0000

There seems to be a groundswell of opposition to the outrageous Republican/tea party budget-slashing, defense of the super-rich, and efforts to force a default as a way to bring down the Obama administration in 2012.

According to polls, public opinion is against the Republicans.

However it will take a lot more than polls to force these ruthless operatives to back off.

MoveOn reports, "Progressives organized over 800 rallies nationwide that generated a flood of pressure on Republicans. The president's speech led to so many people contacting Congress that the switchboard jammed."

Like many other crucial times in our nation's history, the American people step up and speak out for democracy and fairness.

This is one of those times.

People, speak up and call your senators and representative immediately. Demand an immediate lifting of the debt-ceiling logjam, and a deficit fix that includes ending tax loopholes for billionaires and corporate jet owners, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, investing to create good-paying jobs, and protecting Social Security, Medicare AND Medicaid!

It will take more than progressive activists to win this fight. It will take a rainbow coalition of women and men, teenagers and seniors, from all walks of life to end House Republican leaders' hostage-hold on the U.S. economy and political system, just so they can protect billionaires, gas and oil corporations and corporate jet owners.

Enough is enough.

Call today. Click here to find your senators' and representative's numbers. Tell them what you think. And then, get your family members, neighbors and friends to do the same.

To call directly to the U.S. Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121.

If you are in the Washington, D.C., area, send a public message by attending an American Dream Rally at the Capitol tomorrow - Thursday, July 28 at 12 noon - organized by MoveOn.org and the American Dream Movement. It will be on the east side of the Capitol Building (First Street NE).

Enough is enough. We the people must act.

Photo: (PW/Teresa Albano)

The real problem with Glenn Beck’s Norway comments

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:06:00 +0000

Glenn Beck has become America's right-wing sweetheart. The boisterous, overly emotional faker has captivated dim-witted audiences for years, and has ventured into the "non-fiction" and fiction realm of print, and even had the audacity to publish a children's book. Although on the surface his anger and positions may seem sincere, and have surely mobilized a new generation of right-wing nut-jobs known as the "tea party," Beck has admitted that he only looks for two things: money and fame. And he will do whatever it takes to get it.

Shortly after the news of the Norway bombing and massacre was released last Friday, Beck called the idea of having a politically-oriented summer camp "disturbing" and likened those attending to members of the Hitler Youth, the Nazi Party's youth wing.

"There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like the Hitler Youth, or whatever," Beck said. "I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." You can hear the clip here.

What Beck did not mention is that his political cadre - the 9/12 Project - held several summer camps including one in Tampa, Florida ... disturbing, but not uncommon for this snake.

In the same show, Beck tied Anders Behring Breivik, the man who confessed to carrying out the two-pronged massacre, to supporters of "big government."

"He is doing the work of a madman. He is doing the work of what all people who want big government always do, and that is commit terrorist acts," Beck said.

If Beck had taken the time to read the manifesto, or even skim the thing, he would realize that this is the opposite of what Brevik urged. An ideological ally of Beck, albeit one who is actually willing to put his hateful words into hateful actions (unlike Beck who just wants to see the money), Breivik was a Christian, anti-Muslim, anti-Marxist, small government, right-wing, lunatic. Sound familiar?

Getting into every household

Having been mostly a morning shock-jock failure, by 2000 Beck began to devote more and more time, and eventually the entire program, to his political ranting. Taking pointers from Limbaugh and Hannity, Beck combined his over-the-top style, which got him fired from nearly every job he held previously, with his simplistic and largely incorrect political and historical rhetoric which made him incredibly popular, and incredibly rich. By April of 2010, Forbes Magazine said "Glenn Beck has managed to monetize virtually everything that comes out of his mouth."

The same article revealed that Glenn Beck Inc, made $32 million between 2009 and 2010. In an interview Beck admits to being nothing more than an "entertainer," and said he does not "give a flying crap about the political process." In February of 2010 he told USA Weekend that "you'd have to be an idiot" to "not notice the temperature change" caused by global warming, and that he thinks mankind may play a significant role in the phenomenon. Beck has previously described himself as "a rodeo clown" and conceded, "If you take what I say as gospel, you're an idiot."

The missing Beck of the Left

The plain truth is that the idiots are out there, and they are listening. Glenn Beck epitomizes how the ruling elite can - through the right mouth, on the right face and with the appropriate amount of disinformation and theater - dilute and confound the working class. Playing off fears of Nazism and communism (Beck's two favorite misunderstood fetishes) and compiling a completely incoherent historical framework, Beck has - along with his Fox News compatriots Fox News and Rush Limbaugh - bamboozled working people into believing that they have the same interests as Rupert Murdoch and the wealthy elite.

What Beck shows is that with the right amount of charisma and elitism, people will swallow just about any pill, no matter how bitter. The left, and certainly the radical left, has been unable to muster someone like him. Partially because of the dedication to truth-telling (something Beck does not worry about) and the inability to present said truth in a Beckist type of way, the ability to reach people in nearly the same way as Beck is completely lost on the left.

We need a Glenn Beck for the working class, and so far they appear to be waiting in the wings. However, in the age of watered-down online content and the tall and strictly controlled totem pole of cable news anchors and pundits, the ability for a thoughtful, truthful and reasonable Beck of the Left to come forward is retarded by the interests of the elite who own newspapers and cable stations. This is also why Beck has been so successful. Those of us who wish to challenge the elite and their interests are not given the opportunity to do so because of modern censorship. Therefore, we must reach people through unconventional means, and perhaps if the owners of cable news networks see a buck in it, they will give us a chance.

A longer version of this article appears at Kevin Gustafson's blog.

Photo: David Shankbone // CC 2.0

Debt-ceiling struggle: time to look deeper

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:37:00 +0000

The latest news shows stocks down and bond interest up in the wake of Republican House Speaker John Boehner walking out of debt-ceiling negotiations with the president. The Sunday night deadline President Obama set for congressional action passed without any new agreement to raise the debt ceiling.

Financial markets are jittery. Take note: There will be little warning before the exact moment a new financial crisis starts, and jitters turn into an avalanche of selling off U.S. Treasury bonds. A fundamental shift in confidence of foreign owners of U.S. debt that they will ever be paid in full will create panic. And ordinary Americans will pay the price. Economists call it a 'Minsky moment," after economist Hyman Minsky, who is back in vogue after being exorcised academically for decades for calling capitalism "inherently unstable."

It's looking more likely now that Congress may cross the complete-gridlock line. It may not be able to pass legislation raising the debt ceiling. The president's remarks to the nation last night said it straight - a grave crisis is approaching. He is not bluffing.

There is a faction in the Republican Party that simply wants to strangle public goods and public works. Period. It does not matter if this reckless arrogance is born of stupidity, or meanness, or greed. Under the extreme pressures of this depression, some are captured by, and cannot seem to escape bankrupt ideologies like Reaganism - no matter the contrary arguments and common sense presented. These people ALWAYS advocated "progress" through soaking the working people, "fixing unemployment" with more layoffs and tax cuts for the rich, and other completely refuted, dead-end and used-up so-called "market fundamentalism" ideas.

We are in this crisis because the Reagan framework of privatization, union-busting and financialization of the post-Vietnam war economy has collapsed in pieces - it does not work. A new industrial and financial policy is needed. It must include a framework that redefines
the proper relations between public and private to match a world rich in human capital, services, and more public goods and works, alongside a more transparent, less corrupt private financial sector focused on innovation. How we get there - that's the "what is to be done" for this era.

What lies immediately ahead is unknown. Even if a deal is struck at the last minute, or if President Obama invokes power under the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling on his own, this controversy reveals a political system in serious need of repair, a system becoming increasingly paralyzed. A new financial crisis is a certainty if we go into default, but is also a possibility even if we avoid technical default. Confidence in the United States is being shaken. The road to austerity is the only matter now being discussed - and that road leads to national disaster, in my opinion. The slightest external factor - say, the unwinding of the Greek default beyond what the European Union can handle - can sink the ship.

It's time to look deeper, and ask some basic questions - in case we survive the imminent economic tsunami and decide to mount a successful economic and democratic revival in our country.

Deep Question number one: The only program capable of redressing this crisis is one AT LEAST as democratic, as progressive, as working class oriented, as Franklin Roosevelt's. For many reasons, some likely personal style and philosophy but most rooted in different historical relations of forces, Obama, so far, is governing from a more centrist, friendlier-to-Wall Street position. This is seriously compromising a turn away from austerity politics. How do we shift the center leftward?

Deep Question number 2: The first question implies an effort on the scale of World War II, both economically and politically. If Hitler had not attacked, Roosevelt would have left office in 1941 with 16 percent unemployment. What is the non-military analog to World War II that works as the great mobilizer today?

Deep Question number 3: How, and in what forms, can market-based sectors of the economy both grow and be stabilized - in what will be a mainly services, knowledge-based, more socialized economy of a better future? The "more socialized" will come from the need to curtail "too big to fail" private enterprise, and from strengthening the safety nets and investment in the abilities of our people, and from a more coherent industrial policy that addresses public private partnerships in "green" challenges on a large scale. Clearly the Reaganite-financialization model has failed. What, exactly, replaces that model?

Deep Question number 4: Another financial crisis coming short-range threatens to fuel the kind of thing that happened with pre-World-War-II Germany: an austerity program and then, when depression hit, growth of fascist tendencies. Is the Norway mass murder spree a wakeup call for us all? Are there not serious fascist, anti-democratic dangers emerging and reflected in far-right Republican efforts to "reduce government to a size where it can be drowned in its bathwater"?

As we approach the 2012 election cycle, the debt-ceiling showdown is showing that big questions are becoming immediate ones, not just subjects for long-range speculation. The stakes are immense, both nationally and globally. What we do will "light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation."

Don't neglect to view or dial into Communist Party USA economics analyst Art Perlo's presentation on the debt ceiling, deficit and jobs crisis, tonight (Tuesday), 8 p.m. ET.!

Scott Walker's new voter suppression ploy: shutting DMVs

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:08:00 +0000

You recall the old phrase, "If you can't beat them, take away their ability to vote"? Well, neither do I, but that appears to be Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's latest political mantra. Following a string of hotly contested bills passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature, including a controversial voter ID bill, Walker has his next target in sights: close down state motor vehicle offices, in Democratic-leaning districts. But don't worry, it isn't a brazen attempt to limit possible Democratic voters' access to the now-required IDs; it's just about the money.

Since taking office in January, Scott Walker and GOP state lawmakers have sped full steam ahead with a slew of ultra-right-wing measures that have upset a large number of his constituents. Along with passing a business tax cut to the tune of $67 million, Walker and his allies insisted that massive cuts to public workers and education were needed to balance the state's budget.

Further, Walker and the GOP steamrollered legislation that would bar most public workers' unions from collective bargaining, even though he admitted that his union-busting would not save the state any money.

After witnessing thousands of angry protestors at the state Capitol and his poll numbers plummet, Walker now seems to be going the extra mile to try to tip the electorate in his favor. First he got passage of a voter ID bill that would particularly impact likely Democrat voters, and now he is now proposing making it harder to get the necessary identification.

Many point out that such voter ID bills do much more harm than good. These new laws require voters to present a government-issued photo ID before being allowed a ballot. Unfortunately, there are millions of American citizens who do not have a "valid ID." The groups most affected by these new restrictions - the elderly, African Americans and Latinos, the poor, and college students - are all groups that are historically considered strong Democratic voters. Furthermore, experts say these laws are unjustified, as voter fraud is so rare under existing rules that it is practically nonexistent. Not surprisingly, these laws are pushed by right-wing groups, including those run by the billionaire Koch brothers - big donors to Scott Walker's campaign.

By closing DMVs, in what his opponents claim are largely Democrat-leaning areas, Walker and his colleagues appear to be taking the process of voter suppression to a new low point.
Democrat Andy Jorgesen is a Wisconsin state representative whose Fort Atkinson district is losing its DMV, making the next closest office 30 minutes away in Watertown, represented by a Republican. "What the heck is going on here?" Jorgesen asked, "Is politics at play here?"

Walker plans to drop the number of DMVs from 88 to 78, which in many cases would result in more difficulty in obtaining the needed ID to gain ballot access. The money saved will then be used to extend hours at DMVs that Democrats say are in Republican districts. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, state Transportation Department executive assistant Reggie Newson claims, "This has nothing to do with politics."

Apparently Wisconsin is supposed to believe Scott Walker when he claims that proposing strict voter ID laws to combat a nonexistent threat of fraud, and then making it more difficult to obtain those IDs, is just good for the budget. The fact that it stands a good chance of reducing the number of Democratic voters is just a coincidence, apparently.

Although, if all this fails, there's always a Waukesha County clerk that can mysteriously find a few thousand extra votes to swing an election.

Oslo lessons: right-wing terror and the Cuban 5

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:02:00 +0000

The unspeakable tragedy in Norway reminds the whole world of the need for renewed vigilance against right wing terrorism.

Oslo and Otoya Island in Norway, Havana in Cuba, and Oklahoma City in the U.S. are thousands of miles apart. Still, people in all three countries have been victims of mass slaughter by right-wing fanatics.

In each of these countries, young people were the special targets of the diabolical killers. The Norway murderer targeted youth at a summer camp. The Oklahoma City bomber's victims included 19 children at the Federal Building day care center. The bombers of a Cubana air flight killed all 78 on board, including the teenage members of the Cuba's Olympic Fencing team.

The Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh has been executed and Anders Breivik is awaiting trial in Norway. But the perpetrators of the Cubana Airline bombing are still at large in Miami. Meanwhile, in a gross travesty of justice, five Cuban men who risked their lives trying to expose and stop the right-wing terrorists are serving long sentences in U.S. maximum-security prisons.

Today, on July 26, as peace-loving Americans send greetings to the Cuban people in honor of Cuba's national holiday, let us also direct an urgent message to Washington DC. In the name of anti-terrorism we demand freedom for the Cuban 5!

Photo: At the Colon cemetery in Havana, Cuba during a ceremony in memory of the Cubana Airlines victims. The 1976 bombing killed 73 people. (Javier Galeano/AP)

"Project Nim": Gripping film poses tough questions

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:03:00 +0000

Movie Review
Project Nim
Directed By James Marsh
2011, Documentary, 93 mins., PG 13

By the 1970s geneticists had calculated that the DNA of human beings and chimpanzees was more than 98 percent identical. In the previous decade of the 1960s, noted psycholinguist Noam Chomsky challenged the prevailing "behavioral wisdom" by hypothesizing that the acquisition of language, defined as the ability to formulate sentences in an ordered way, was a trait uniquely encoded in humankind's genetic mapping. Chomsky's concept was that children were innately guided by virtue of their human heritage to learn sentence structure at an early age. It seemed only a matter of time and circumstance before these areas of study on the forefront of science coalesced.

In order to test Chomsky's idea from a cross-species perspective, Dr. Herbert Terrace, a psychology professor at Columbia University, set out to investigate "scientifically" whether a chimpanzee separated at birth from its mother could live with humans and learn to communicate through the use of American Sign Language (ASL) with its human family. The chimp chosen for the project was given the name Nim Chimpsky. While Terrace's work in the area of inter-species communication was not the first attempted by investigators, it garnered the most notice from popular media.

James Marsh, following up his excellent Man On Wire with the new documentary Project Nim, now playing nationwide, grippingly focuses on the impact of this experiment through the use of talking-head interviews with principal participants, archival footage, home movies, film of recent developments, and occasional brief re-enactments of actual events. He takes the viewer on a journey through the initially stirring exploration into the capabilities of a non-human sentient being, and beyond to the less than stellar outcome for the experiment and, sadly, for Nim Chimpsky.

The film begins at the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma, where Nim is forcibly taken as an infant from his mother after she is shot with a tranquilizer dart. The newborn, suddenly motherless ape is immediately whisked away and moved across country to a tawny brownstone in Manhattan occupied by Stephanie LaFarge, her husband Lars, and their blended family of seven children. Ms. LaFarge had previously served as a graduate assistant for Terrace while at Columbia and had impressed him with her intuitive intelligence; the two had also been lovers for a time.

That Stephanie knew no ASL was apparently not a consideration, nor did it occur to her to consult with her husband and children about the advisability of introducing a new "infant" into their midst. Nim is brought into a joyous and chaotic environment where anarchy reigns. The "parental" supervision, such as it was, for the newest member of the family was decidedly laissez faire. "It was the seventies, after all," recalls one of LaFarge's now adult daughters.

Terrace, who had been only an occasional presence, jarringly re-enters the picture and decides that the lack of scientific rigor is untenable. After two years with the LaFarge family, Nim is removed to a more structured learning environment - not the chimp's last move.

As the story unspools, one is struck by the frequent collisions that occur between those in authority and those who wish to exert more control over the study. Is the enterprise an example of true science on the verge of an astounding breakthrough, or a calamitous off-the-rails circus starring humans and a rock star primate?

Almost from the outset, the smell of tainted data lodges itself into the proceedings. A viewer wonders how any verifiable conclusions could be drawn about Nim's language abilities. Another aroma that certainly wafts about in the footage as Nim is put through his paces comes from the joints that the twenty-something experimenters share with their young primate protégé, who loves getting high on pot or a nice cold one fresh from the refrigerator.

As Nim grows from an adorable and loving child-like rascal into a physically imposing, intelligent, manipulative, and at times dangerously aggressive male animal, difficult choices regarding his care are made. Much of what ensues from such choices is heartbreaking for filmgoers to watch.

Marsh asks his audience to consider difficult questions regarding the use of animals for the benefit of humans by showing real and disturbingly vivid scenes of medical experiments performed on chimpanzees in horrifying prison-like environments. How far should science go in service of our species? How much experimentation is necessary? Who profits the most from these experiments? Are alternative methods available that can further the development of medicines and vaccines to treat human disease and ease our suffering?

Many viewers will leave the theater with both a heavy heart and a gnawing sense of ambivalence, as there are no pat answers provided in this exceptional piece of filmmaking.

Photo: http://www.project-nim.com

Harry Potter and the tide of history

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 12:52:00 +0000

Movie Review
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II
Directed by David Yates
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint
2010, 130 mins., PG-13

The final installment of the Harry Potter movie series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, has been accompanied by chatter about what it all means.

Some Christians have complained that the books on which the films are based, with all their magic and wizards, were causing children to accept demonic ideas (though the Catholic Church seems to have given up that fight with the good review it gave to the first Deathly Hallows film). Some atheists jumped into the discussion, arguing that the adventures were actually no good because they were very Christian.

While this debate drew some attention, it's irrelevant and boring. Perhaps demons and sorcery in a novel might have been taboo in Oliver Cromwell's England, but not for modern audiences. Overly defensive atheists should lighten up; the western world was dominated by Christian ideas for centuries, and that cultural background that can't help but make its way into fiction.

Far more interesting is the series' relevance to the previous century and our modern world. It's a thinly veiled allegory for humanity's heights and pitfalls over the past 100 years or so. In that sense, both installments of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows work together as a fitting epilogue to the film series, telling a longer story in sequential order but also expressing the fear and hope many feel when dealing with the 21st century world.

Those who love the series often note, despite the magical plot elements, how realistic it is as a coming-of-age story. Unlike most other young adult fiction, Potter doesn't candy coat anything. The earlier books, about a younger Potter, are indeed cheerful, but as the characters grow older the books - and the films - grow darker. Growing up often includes casting off the happy naiveté of childhood and learning that there are actually bad people - even if they aren't magic - in the world. We also learn that nothing is black and white, including goodness itself: Even the heroes battle their inner demons, and sometimes they turn against everything they stood for.

But viewing the story only as a well-written parable of becoming an adult misses a lot. Humanity itself came of age in the 20th century, in which more blood was spilled in war and violence than any other combined, and Potter alludes to that.

Despite previous wars, humanity was optimistic as the 1900s dawned. A faith in the future and invention prevailed. At that time there was no such thing as a world war, and no term had yet been invented for what would become known as genocide, the extermination of an entire race.

As the century bore on, the worst-ever war broke out, only to be outdone by an even worse conflict. Fascism and the total state made their debuts, and just before the century's mid-point came its "midnight." As Hitler rose and launched that second war, Stalin signed a pact and the western powers appeased. Hitler was toppled, but at great cost - 60 million dead - and a dark new word, genocide, was added to the vocabulary. Add the Cold War, international terrorism, and global climate change into the mix, and humanity reached adulthood, naiveté no longer intact.

How the century's midnight must have felt is well summed up in The Deathly Hallows Part I. The liberating Ministry of Magic had become a dictatorship in its fight against Voldemort's minions, and Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), along with Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), fled underground.

But while that movie ended with the death of Dobby, the liberated house elf, and a victory on the part of Voldemort, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, stunningly directed by David Yates, is much more hopeful.

As it opens, magical fascism is in full swing: The Ministry has fallen to racial-purity-obsessed Voldemort supporters and civil society seems dead. But shortly after the movie opens, we are, for the first time in years, back at Hogwarts, and insurrection is brewing. It seems that the magical community, no matter how repressed it is, and despite Ministry propaganda, is at all times only a step away from insurrection. Shortly thereafter, a full-scale revolution is in swing (along with the necessary cruelty: Professor McGonagall orders all members of the Slytherin house held in the dungeon, just in case).

In a sense, the two final films of the series work together to present different visions of humanity's future. The first film is dark and pessimistic, its soul the same as a world destroyed by climate change and extreme right-wing terror. Part II is a film of insurrection and revolution, democracy and humanity.

Which path will humanity ultimately choose? That is yet to be determined. But it is fitting that the film came out shortly after the Arab world began throwing off its own Voldemorts.

In John Sayles' "Amigo" God was busy somewhere else

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:07:00 +0000

Movie Review
Amigo
Directed by John Sayles
2010, 128 Minutes, Rated R

In the year 1900, the leader of a tiny Philippine village listens to his Roman Catholic wife tell him that God may deliver the villagers from the misery created by American military occupiers. "God is busy somewhere else," he replies.

After my movie buddy and I watched the credits to make sure it had a union bug (it did: AFTRA), I asked two different people what they thought of it. Both agreed that it was important for the history of the American occupation that it portrayed. Neither had realized that American imperialism had established itself so early in this important island, but both knew that Americans are still there.

John Sayles, one of America's most important and progressive independent filmmakers, has done us a service in detailing the day-to-day events in a small village occupied by American troops. He hardly hits us over the head with the anti-imperialist message; the American soldiers are too stupid to hate, but he makes sure we see several of the basic elements of military occupation: racism, torture, murder and betrayal.

The main villains are unseen in the film, as they are in Washington, D.C. The villagers, the surrounding guerrillas, the imported workers and the soldiers are the victims, then and now. One can see the movie as only a history, or one can, as Sayles almost certainly intended, draw parallels between the disaster unfolding on the screen and the larger disasters of modern American invasions and occupations.

It would be wonderful to be able to add that this long film has breathtaking pacing, thrilling romance or characters that will burn themselves into our memories, but it doesn't. Sayles is a novelist as well as a filmmaker, and may have mixed up the methodology. Perhaps the narrative was too important to clutter it with emotional highs and lows. Or maybe there is just way too much to say about the effects of imperialism for just one movie.

Herman Cain’s peculiar politics

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:07:00 +0000

Besides being the only minority in the GOP presidential field, Herman Cain also stands out from his competitors in another way: his lack of political experience, which Cain cites as an advantage. In fact, although he is relatively new to the public, he has been involved in national politics since at least 1996.

Cain's background seems to be consistent with the "American Dream." The son of a maid and a chauffeur, he graduated from Purdue with a Master's in Computer Science and worked for the Navy before moving on to Coca-Cola as a business analyst. After working as an executive for Burger King, he was appointed president of Godfather's Pizza, a Pillsbury subsidiary. Under Cain, Godfather's Pizza was so profitable that he was able to buy it from Pillsbury.

In 1996 he became CEO of the National Restaurant Association, a lobbying group. That same year, he served as senior economic advisor to Bob Dole's presidential campaign. Cain also briefly ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000, and in 2004, for a Senate seat in Georgia. During this time he also served as a commentator for Fox Business and hosted his own radio show in Atlanta.

However, it is his current presidential attempt that is the most newsworthy. In December 2010, he was the surprise winner of a poll on the conservative website redstate.com. He was also declared the winner of the Fox News GOP primary debate in New Hampshire by a poll of a sample of the audience.

Perhaps in an effort to show off his conservative potential, Cain has made a string of controversial comments.

Among the most controversial are his statements about Muslims. He has voiced concerns about "creeping" sharia law, and has said he would not be comfortable appointing Muslims to his administration. When pressed at the New Hampshire debate, he conceded that he might appoint a Muslim, but he or she would be held to higher loyalty standards than other appointees. He claimed this is not "bigoted, it is called being careful and cautious" to keep "jihadists" out of the government.

Cain even got involved in the recent Murfreesboro, Tenn., anti-Mosque hysteria. He proclaimed that communities "have a right" to ban mosques, adding that such a ban doesn't violate the separation of church and state because "Islam combines church and state."

Cain says he wouldn't have a problem appointing an openly gay person, because they wouldn't try to "impose sharia law." However, as he has previously described being gay as "sinful" and a "choice," the openness seems more theoretical than actual - especially in light of rumors that his campaign has been purging gay staffers.

Cain has applied a similar mix of confusion and ignorance to his foreign policy as well. He has said he doesn't know enough about Afghanistan to voice an opinion, but he certainly has plenty to say on Israel. His "Cain Doctrine" is "You mess with Israel; you are messing with the United States." During a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace, Cain was asked whether he supported the right of displaced Palestinians to return to Israel. Appearing to have no idea what Wallace was talking about, he responded that he supported it because he felt Israel would have no problem with it - showing profound ignorance of Israel's long-standing hostility to the "right of return."

And how would Cain solve the problem of illegal immigration? He wants to emulate the Great Wall of China on our southern border. Cain's wall would be a "20-foot wall, barbed wire, electrified on the top" with a "moat" on the other side. And yes, Cain would "put those alligators in that moat!"

Cain would put oil and coal companies in charge of EPA regulations. He says he would create a special "regulatory reduction commission" to cut down environmental regulations, and would appoint industry insiders, including the CEO of Shell because Shell has been "abused" by the EPA.

Back when Donald Trump was promoting "birtherism," Cain was on board with that. During a March interview with a Florida conservative group, the Shark Tank, Cain said Trump's birth certificate allegations against President Obama weren't "off base" and that he hadn't studied the issue enough to have an opinion, but that Obama should "prove he was born in the United States of America."

In fact Cain believes that Obama was "raised in Kenya." Perhaps he has been misled by his fellow Fox employee, Mike Huckabee, who claimed that Obama witnessed the Kenyan Mau Mau revolution.

In light of all of this, perhaps it isn't surprising that Cain opposes the minimum wage, wants to defund Planned Parenthood and privatize Medicare, and believes Social Security is a "scam."

So what's next for this CEO-turned-lobbyist-turned-alligator-in-moat-enthusiast? Probably not the White House.

Photo: Gage Skidmore // CC 2.0

Worth a trip: Berkshire diary

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 11:17:00 +0000

Berkshire County, the westernmost slice of Massachusetts bordered by New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, is a storied vacation spot year-round, but especially in this season. The summer home of the Boston Symphony is here at Tanglewood; nearby is Jacob's Pillow, a seasonal dance festival. Famed residences and museums devoted to Edith Wharton, Herman Melville and Norman Rockwell are here, precious colonial-era townships featuring historic churches with white steeples and Victorian stone, and lovely, winding byways providing charming New England vistas at every turn.

The year 1761 was a significant one in this part of the country: The towns of Pittsfield and Great Barrington, both sitting along the picturesque Housatonic River, were founded, making 2011 their 250th anniversary. A visitor may be able to catch special events celebrating this milestone. Pittsfield, the traditional county seat and former home of a large GE plant, which polluted the river generously with industrial effluvient, is still recovering from massive job loss. Great Barrington, in the southwestern corner of the state, is the 1868 birthplace and early home of famed writer, scholar, and civil rights leader W. E. B. DuBois, who in his tenth decade of life joined the Communist Party USA, moved to Ghana, and died there. His African grave cites his Great Barrington origins. The rest of his family - wife, children and others - are buried at the Mahaiwe Cemetery in Great Barrington. The town also prides itself as the seat of a seminal 1774 action of organized resistance to British rule.

This summer the Barrington Stage Company (located in Pittsfield despite its name) is offering Mark St. Germain's new play The Best of Enemies, inspired by a book of the same name by Osha Gray Davidson. The play recounts, with much pathos and also much humor, the story of an unlikely friendship between Ann Atwater, a black civil rights leader in Durham, North Carolina, in the early years of desegregation, and a dyed-in-the-wool Klansman, C. P. Ellis. Their hearts, full of hate and based on centuries of rage, gradually turn to hope as they contemplate a rewarding future for all our country's children. The play runs through August 6.

At the very northwest corner of the state, in Williamstown, home of Williams College and the famous Williamstown Theatre, stands the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. One of the nation's premier small museums, the Clark permanently houses an impressive collection of American and European artistic gems.

Through October 2, the Clark is featuring a magnificent exhibition with borrowed work from dozens of other collections worldwide, called "Pissarro's People." If you are anywhere within striking distance of the Clark, run, do not walk, to revel in this stunner of a show. Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), a Caribbean-born French painter based in Paris and environs from 1855 on, is recalled as the "dean of Impressionism," most commonly for his landscapes. But this exhibition concentrates on Pissarro's politics as expressed in his art, focusing more on people than scenery. Perhaps more properly, people in their natural environment as life should be, a normal, voluntary integration of self-directed work and leisure in the fields and orchards, not meant for profit but for sustainability and egalitarianism. For in his day, Pissarro was a committed and energetic anarchist, a follower of Proudhon and Kropotkin. His apple-pickers and wheat-gatherers were no employees or farmhands or serfs on the land, but free men and women who cherished their communal rights to love, to create, and live without shame and want.

Pissarro expressed his vision of society in an 1889 folio of drawings called Turpitudes Sociales (Social Disgraces), a virtual catalogue of the evils of capitalist society, from drunkenness to homelessness, to dangerous working conditions and suicide, to "banksterism" - speculation and high finance on the tophatted stock market. His art prefigures the protest of Daumier, George Grosz, William Gropper, Robert Minor, Ben Shahn, Charles Keller, and others. On the final page of his book comes the glorious Insurrection. Though his language may seem quaintly situated in 19th century Romanticism, Pissarro's spirit soars to capture today's headlines from Cairo, Tunis, Madison, and who knows, perhaps a factory or state capital near you.

At the Clark's Stone Hill Center, just a minute's drive or eight-minute forested walk away, you will find a trio of large-scale 21st century masterworks by Nigerian artist El Anatsui, who has taken thousands of bottle caps and liquor bottle casings, untold numbers of little wires threaded through tiny punched holes, and a brain full of references to alcohol, colonialism, the independence movement, and the rich tradition of African textiles, and woven flowing, almost free-associative wall hangings that remind a viewer of the lush and glowing paintings of Gustav Klimt. You can stand in awe before these inspired installations through October 16.

Photo: Old Berkshire County courthouse. Jimmy Emerson // CC 2.0

The Republicans’ slimy “Obama Agenda Survey”

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:51:00 +0000

Recently my father-in-law received a letter from the Republican National Committee. The letter asked for his help in making sure "that Barack Obama is a one-term president."

My father-in-law is a life-long union member. He has spent 30-plus years as a union roofer; before that he was a Teamster truck driver. He's Catholic, and he is a member of the National Rifle Association, the NRA - which is probably why he received the RNC letter.

The RNC letter asks him to "read and complete" an enclosed "2011 Obama Agenda Survey" which is "REGISTERED in your name and affixed with a tracking code" assuring it is "accounted for in the tabulated results."

Before I deal with the content of the "2011 Obama Agenda Survey" I want to point out the misleadingly dramatic urgency of the RNC letter.

The Republicans' labeling of their letter as "REGISTERED" and "affixed with a tracking code" is a clever attempt to mislead. They are implying that this is an official communication - much-like the Publishers' Clearing House sweepstakes letter claiming that you may have just won a million dollars! Obviously, you haven't won a million dollars; and obviously, this seemingly official letter, "REGISTERED" and "affixed," was mailed to millions of other people - who, like my father-in-law - did not ask to receive it.

They continue with the false urgency: "So please, no matter what, do not discard or destroy your survey," and "you must return your survey" because "the RNC is working to keep the political debate focused" as "Obama and the Democrats want to take our country - towards socialism ..."

And, unless you want "ever-expanding federal government, sky-high taxes and a foreign policy of apology and appeasement ... please respond immediately. ... We don't have a moment to waste."

As the ominously worded "2011 Obama Agenda Survey" shows, the Republicans have absolutely no problem confusing facts with far-right conspiracies and lies. However, in an attempt to treat the "survey" fairly, I want to make clear that some of the questions are objective yes or no questions - questions like "Should English be the official language of the United States?" and "Do you believe President Obama has done a good job of managing the war in Afghanistan?"

Most questions, however, are entirely misleading, deny factual data and are designed to cause an overwhelming fear of government - BIG government! - imposing its will on a powerless citizenry.

For example, they ask, "Do you support creation of a national health insurance plan that would be administered by bureaucrats in Washington D.C.?"

First, a "national health insurance plan" isn't even on the table in the House or Senate - unless, of course, the Republicans are talking about Medicaid and Medicare, which the majority of Americans want and support. The Affordable Care Act, which they are alluding to, isn't a national health insurance plan; it is a health care consumer protection law. Moreover, when its provisions are enacted they won't be "administered by bureaucrats in Washington D.C." In fact, most of the ACA's provisions will be administered by state and local governments and private firms.

Other survey questions are meant to provoke ugly racism. For example, "Are you in favor of the expanded welfare benefits and unlimited eligibility (no time, education or work requirements) that Democrats in Congress are pushing to pass?"

Let's dissect this sentence.

As to "expanded welfare benefits," the Republicans must be talking about unemployment benefits, as no other "welfare" expansion programs are being pushed by anybody right now. Never mind the fact that unemployment insurance isn't "welfare." It's your money: you put it in; you get it back in times of unemployment.

As to "unlimited eligibility (no time, education or work requirements)," this is an outright lie! No one, ever in the history of American politics, has ever argued for "unlimited eligibility" on anything, especially welfare reform. This question is meant to provoke racist images of inner-city African Americans "living large" - indefinitely - off the backs of hard-working, tax-paying white folk. It is akin to "Cadillac driving welfare queens," a fable, a lie, and crass attempt to use racism and sexism to divide the working class.

While there are many other questions in the RNC "2011 Obama Agenda Survey," I think you get the picture. Their "survey" is nothing but propaganda.

In short, the Republicans aren't concerned with balancing the budget or governing, as the deficit debacle demonstrates. They aren't concerned with making our country better, as their disregard for our infrastructure and job creation makes perfectly clear. And they aren't concerned with simple, good old-fashioned honesty, as this letter makes abundantly clear.

In fact, the only thing honest about the RNC letter is its repeated request for money.

Michael Moore's film fest blooms in Traverse City

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:58:00 +0000

Michael Moore's influence in the film industry has given birth to one of the most progressive film festivals in the world. Nestled in an unlikely little resort town in northern Michigan, the people of Traverse City now bear host to an event that rivals some of the world's more established film festivals.

The whole project started out with the renovation of an old run-down shuttered movie house, The State Theater. It is now a year-round, community-based, mission-driven and volunteer-staffed art house that sits in the heart of downtown and serves as the cornerstone of the new festival. The volunteer workers take pride in its beauty with a display of marquee lights that are never missing a bulb, a theater ceiling that is a custom made light show representing the stars in the real evening sky. The highly respected and loved progressive filmmaker Moore now makes his home in Traverse City, runs the festival and serves as president of the board of directors.

What makes this whole festival unique is the way Moore has involved what seems to be the entire city in the massive project of bringing quality independent cinema to the general public, progressive content notwithstanding. 150 screenings of 150 films will take place at seven venues scattered throughout this quaint resort town. Also on the agenda:

* Free family feature films will be shown nightly on a 100 foot inflatable screen framed by the beautiful Grand Traverse Bay as background.
* Gearing up for the State Theater's 100th anniversary, one 100-year-old film will be featured each year until 2016. The epic 1911 silent film, L'Inferno, Italy's first feature film, based on Dante's Inferno, will be accompanied by live organ music.
* Community-in-the-round discussions will take place twice daily to let people share their thoughts and reactions in a stimulating outdoor environment.
* Free daily film industry panels will take place at the City Opera House, featuring informal discussions with actors and directors from many of the featured films in the festival.
* Twice daily classes at the Film School are available for those who want to study the art of filmmaking.

This and many other novel approaches to involving the public in the joy and power of cinema will be offered in this people-friendly festival.

Indications that this might be one of the most progressive festivals in the nation are revealed in the following examples:

* The festival kicks off with two films that happen to be top Progie Award winners for Best Progressive Films.

Icíar Bollaín's Spanish drama, Even the Rain scripted by Ken Loach's screenwriter, Paul Laverty, focuses on the historic water war in Bolivia, where local natives fought off corporations to retain free access to rain water.

This is joined by the powerful and inspiring true story, Made in Dagenham, starring Bob Hoskins and Sally Hawkins, about the women's fight for equal pay in the British Ford factory in Dagenham in 1968. To top this off, four women who were involved in the real life events portrayed in these two films will appear in person after the screenings.

* The first-ever film produced by the Traverse City Film Festival, Habanastation, by Cuban filmmaker Ian Padron, will be premiered here. The Cuban-Michigan co-production lists the people of Traverse City as producers and is the first film completed using the TCFF Cuban Film Fund.

* A major salute to public employees and unions spotlighting the 75th anniversary of what the BBC calls "one of the most important events in the history of Western Civilization," the Great Flint Sit Down Strike, will include two working-class documentaries, one old and one new. The world premiere of a film by Victor Reuther's grandson, Brothers on the Line, is joined by a rare screening of the classic 1979 documentary about the women at the Flint Strike, Babies With Banners.

* This six days of carefully crafted cinema watching closes with a "salute to the working people who make this country what it is" and to the power of cinema to represent the struggle, with a special screening of Chaplin's 1936 silent masterpiece, Modern Times, the ultimate comedic satire of capitalism and it's assembly line mentality.

These and all the other important films that will be shown at the 2011 Traverse City Film Festival can be found at the website.

Photo: A scene from Made in Dagenham from the film's website.

Holding Americans hostage

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:01:00 +0000

The fallout from the 2010 elections reverberates in the budget hostage-taking now going on in Washington. Who are the hostages? Working class America. The problem is not so much a "gang of six" now making deals, but the gang that took over the House of Representatives and statehouses and governorships across the country last fall. We're now seeing in full bloom the deadly consequences of that shift in the political balance of power.

The issue is not really the national debt. This gang sees its opportunity to do what it's been trying to do since Newt Gingrich and friends set out to "drown government in a bathtub" in the 1990s. These folks are the direct descendants of that section of corporate America who never accepted the New Deal and its principle that government exists to advance "the general welfare" - social and economic justice.

In 1937, in his second inaugural address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said the New Deal was addressing "a deeper need - the need to find through government the instrument of our united purpose to solve for the individual the ever-rising problems of a complex civilization."

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics," Roosevelt said.

"Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays. We are beginning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the ideal; and in so doing we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better world," FDR said.

"We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life."

And Roosevelt declared, "We have begun to bring private autocratic powers into their proper subordination to the public's government. The legend that they were invincible above and beyond the processes of a democracy - has been shattered. They have been challenged and beaten."

Well, they were beaten for a while, but they're back. With a vengeance.

And their immediate targets are some of the hallmarks of the New Deal. We've seen the assault on the Wagner Act and collective bargaining in statehouses around the country. Now, the assault on Social Security has taken center stage in Washington.

The urgency now is real. Social Security expert Nancy Altman has called the Republican maneuvers in Washington a "game of chicken," with Social Security used as a bargaining chip.

For this gang, it matters not that Social Security has NOTHING to do with the deficit. The deficit is an excuse to do what they've been wanting to do all along - get rid of this and other "elementary decencies of life."

Two urgent actions we all need to take:

* Call or email your senators and representatives and the White House today: Hands off Social Security. Tax the rich.

* Get involved now in organizing to boot the Republican gang out of office ASAP, out of your statehouse and out of Congress.

Image: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com CC 2.0 via Flickr