People Before Profit blog

Health care ruling changes national debate

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 16:16:00 +0000

DETROIT - Wow. How quickly the press changes their reporting.

With the Supreme Court ruling yesterday upholding the Affordable Care Act (ACA), today's front section of the Detroit Free Press has the following headlines:

"Hospital execs promise improved care"
"Up to 500,000 more poor people will get coverage in Michigan"
"Many find hope in ruling"
"Many of law's provisions already proving popular"

and a two-thirds page description of the law's consumer protections already in effect and those still to come.

I was amazed.

Why hadn't I seen such praises of the law before in the Free Press or other big media? How did momentum change so rapidly?

Yes, occasional pieces talked about the benefits, but nothing like this. Today's extensive array of articles speak of how as many as a half-million of Michigan's lowest income residents will get government-funded Medicaid insurance. They report that many are already receiving ACA benefits such as coverage for children with pre-existing conditions, seniors who get extra benefits and community health centers in line for extra funding.

Additionally, 10 insurers in Michigan who failed to spend more than 80 percent of their insurance dollars on medical care will be forced to mail rebate checks, averaging $214 each, to 114,000 residents. And in 2014, tax credits will help low to middle income people, who fall between 100 percent and 400 percent of the poverty level, buy insurance - very impressive when you think about the 50 million people without any health insurance.

All in all, today's reporting is a great breath of fresh air, but why such a big change?

Right-wing extremism, which demonizes and intimidates those with opposing points of view (to such an extent that one seldom hears those other points of view - except, for example, here at peoplesworld.org), suffered a big political defeat with the Supreme Court ruling.

Right wing Republicans have been attacking the health reform bill as un-American, an over-reach of big government, ridiculing it as "nanny state" politics and more. They have tried to paint President Obama as illegitimate, claiming both his birth certificate and his politics are foreign.

But with a ruling read by Chief Justice John Roberts, questions about Obama's "legitimacy" become much more difficult. A signature piece of his presidency was given a constitutional, born in the U.S., stamp of approval.

After the election of Obama in 2008, we may have fallen asleep at the wheel. Right-wing Republicans did not, and they obstructed every progressive piece of legislation Democrats introduced. With Thursday's court ruling the dynamic begins to change - if we act now.

We should be asking how to turn yesterday's victory into a bigger one. How do we fight to implement the best features in this law and improve those areas that need it?

How do we use the ruling to emphasize the main question is not how big government is, but rather, is government working to help people or not?

Yesterday's ruling also lends new momentum to defeat the Republican-backed, job-killing Ryan budget, with its emphasis on corporate profits, privatization and a dismantling of the social safety net. That budget runs counter to the intent of the ACA.

Momentum is shifting, a new debate is possible. The 99 percent, not right-wing extremism, won a big round.

Photo: Organizing For America volunteers collect signatures July 3, 2009, for President Barack Obama's health care reform initiative, which eventually became the Affordable Care Act. (Teresa Albano)

Syria and the Phantom

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 14:51:00 +0000

What was that Turkish F-4 Phantom II up to when the Syrians shot it down?

Ankara said the plane strayed into Syrian airspace, but quickly left and was over international waters when it was attacked, a simple case of carelessness on the part of the Turkish pilot that Syrian paranoia turned deadly.

But the Phantom-eyewitnesses told Turkish television that there were two aircraft, but there is no official confirmation of that observation-was hardly on a Sunday outing. According to the Financial Times, Turkey's Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, told the newspaper "the jet was on a test and training mission focused on Turkey's radar defense, rather than Syria."

Translation: the F-4 was "lighting up" a radar net. It is a common-if dangerous and illegal-tactic that allows one to probe an opponent's radar system. Most combat radar is kept in a passive mode to prevent a potential enemy from mapping out weaknesses or blind spots that can be useful in the advent of an attack. The probes also give you valuable information on how to neutralize anti-aircraft guns and ground to air missiles.

"Lighting up" radar was what the US Navy EP-3E Aries II was doing near China's Hainan Island when it collided with a Chinese interceptor in 2001. Nations normally take a very dim view of warplanes entering their air space, particularly if there is tension between the countries involved.

As a warplane, the F-4 is a pretty ancient. It was introduced back in 1960, and became the mainstay of the U.S. air war in Southeast Asia. In its day it was a highly capable aircraft, able to hold its own against interceptors like the MIG-21 in a dogfight, and could also carry heavy bomb payloads. It was also cheap and relatively trouble free, unlike the current crop of US high performance aircraft.

It is doubtful that Syria indentified exactly what the Turkish plane was, just that an unidentified warplane, flying low-generally the altitude one takes when trying to avoid radar-was in Syrian airspace. Paranoia? In 2007 Israeli warplanes-US-made F-16s, not Phantoms-slipped through Syria's radar net and bombed a suspected nuclear reactor.

Even if Syria identified the plane as a Phantom, they could have taken it for an Israeli craft. Israel was the number one foreign user of F-4s, although they retired them in 2004. Indeed, the Turkish Phantom might even have begun life as an Israeli warplane.

If the Syrians are on hair-trigger alert, one can hardly blame them. The US, the European Union (EU), and NATO openly admit they are gunning to bring down the Assad regime. Turkey is actively aiding the Free Syrian Army organize cross-border raids into Syria, and it is helping Saudi Arabia and Qatar supply arms and ammunition to the rebels.

For Turkey to send a warplane into Syrian airspace-or even near the Syrian border-on a radar mapping expedition at this moment was either remarkably provocative or stone stupid. The explanation could be more sinister, however.

NATO has established a command and control center in Iskenderun, Turkey, near the Syrian border, that is training and organizing the Free Syrian Army. It surely has a sophisticated setup for tapping into Syrian electronic transmissions and, of course, radar networks. If NATO eventually decides to directly intervene in Syria, the alliance will need those electronic maps. NATO aircraft easily overwhelmed Libya's anti-aircraft systems, but Syria's are considerably more sophisticated and dangerous.

There are a number of things about the incident that have yet to be explained. Turkey says the F-4 was 13 nautical miles from Syria when it was attacked-which would put it in international waters-but it crashed in Syrian waters. Damascus claims the plane came down less than a mile from the Syrian coast.

Turkey says one of its search planes was shot at as well-the Syrians deny this-and has called for a meeting of its NATO allies. So far, Ankara is only talking about invoking Article Four of the NATO treaty, not Article Five. Four allows for "consultations"; Five would open up the possibility of an armed response.

A thorough investigation of the incident seems in order, although Turkey's Davutoglu says, "No matter how the downed Turkish jet saga unfolds...we will always stand by the Syrian people until the advent of a democratic regime there." In short, regardless of what happened, Turkey will continue to pursue regime change in Damascus.

The Assad regime's heavy-handed approach to its opponents played a major role in sparking the current uprising, but the default position of regime change by the EU and NATO has turned this into a fight to the death. Assad is broadly unpopular, but not universally so, and the support of the regime is not limited to his own Islamic sect, the Alawites, or other minorities, like the Christians.

Nor is all of the opposition a paragon of democratic freethinking. The heavy role played by Saudi Arabia and Qatar in supplying arms and money to the rebels, means the deeply conservative Salafist sect of Islam has a major presence in the resistance. This is exactly how the Afghan mujahedeen mutated into the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The demand for regime change by the US, the EU, and NATO torpedoed the United Nations effort for a diplomatic solution. The Assad regime had no stake in a peaceful resolution, since it would mean its ouster in any case. And the opposition knew it need not respect a ceasefire, since everyone who supports them supports regime change.

It was into this situation that Turkey flew an F-4 Phantom through Syrian airspace. Exactly what did Ankara think Syria would do? On the other hand, maybe it knew exactly what Syria would do.

This article originally appeared in Dispatches from the Edge. Photo: Phantom jet, by Tim O'Brien.

Arizona needs a movement to repeal SB 1070

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 10:37:00 +0000

TUCSON, Ariz. - Was Monday's Supreme Court decision on Arizona's racist, anti-immigrant SB 1070 a victory for working people?

The decision has engendered lots of commentary in the media and among elected officials.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer claimed victory, alleging that the court found the core part of SB 1070 - "show me your papers" - is constitutional. The court did not say that.

Others, including some progressives, claim it was a victory for the Obama administration and human rights, because three parts were struck down and the Supremes implied that the rest of the law will probably not stand muster when it finally reaches the courts.

But what is the reality on the ground here in Arizona? How will regular working people be impacted? Will this racist law now be enforced?

Under the law, all Latino, Native American and other minority people are suspect and can be arrested and harassed if they aren't carrying papers. Let's be clear. SB 1070 is all about racial profiling.

White folks will not be asked to prove they're not Canadians, but Hopi, Pima, Apache, and Mexican American people will have to prove they're not Mexican.

SB 1070 passed the Arizona legislature in 2010 on a party-line vote. Panic ensued followed by massive protests. More than 150,000 people marched on the state Capitol braving Phoenix's three-digit summer temperatures. Soon after, a federal judge halted implementation of most of the law until it worked it's way up through the courts. So what will happen now?

Just this week, Raul Castro, a 95-year-old former Arizona governor and once the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina, was stopped, harassed and made to sit out in the 105 degree heat for an entire hour while he was being "checked" by Border Patrol. He was just a passenger in a car, but he is brown.

If the "highly trained" expert Border Patrol can't tell a governor of Arizona is not an undocumented immigrant, what can we expect from local cops or from Maricopa County's racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies who are now required to hold anybody they suspect might be an undocumented immigrant?

Lawyers are preparing challenges to the remaining sections, while some immigrants and their supporters are vowing to resist this law, but we must also target the source - the state legislature and Governor Brewer.

Arizona needs a broad-based movement to repeal SB 1070. A movement to repeal can bring together Mexican Americans, immigrants, labor and other progressive forces. Repealing SB 1070 means challenging the tea-party-dominated legislature. It's a movement that can bring new forces into the 2012 election battles. It's a movement that can change the direction of Arizona politics. After all, a legislature, and people's movement that repeals SB 1070 could also repeal Arizona's anti-union "right-to-work" laws, it can be a movement to tax the rich and fund our starving schools.

A coalition to resist and repeal SB 1070 has already been formed in Tucson. It's a great first step that must spread across our communities.

Photo: SEIU International // CC 2.0

New Yorkers debate ending “stop and frisk”

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:44:00 +0000

On June 24, the New York Friends of the People's World hosted a forum on ending "stop and frisk," the policy under which city police routinely stop and search people not accused of any crime. Opponents say the policy has led to racial profiling and an abuse of civil rights.

Speakers at the forum included Harry Levine, Professor of Sociology at Queens College; Lucía Gómez-Jiménez, executive director of La Fuente; and Libero Della Piana, vice chair of the Communist Party USA. Each discussed in depth the ramifications of this policy, which has been enforced especially harshly on the working poor and people of color.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly say the policy works and that it has reduced crime. Statistics prove otherwise. The number of stop and frisks has gone up since Bloomberg became mayor: In 2002, there were 80,176 stops; in 2011, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 685,724 times; and in the first three months of 2012, there were already 203,500 stops. Only 1 to 2 percent of all the stops made have led to criminal arrests.

Governor Andrew Cuomo tried and failed to change one aspect of the policy: the penalty for possession of small amounts of marijuana. The State Assembly decided to put off changing this part of the policy to a future date.

There is another question to be asked about this policy, said speakers, and that is the impact on the residents of certain neighborhoods - the Lower East Side, Harlem, Washington Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, Gramercy Park, sections of Greenwich Village. In those communities the policy has been creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear for long-term residents, making it easier to gentrify these neighborhoods.

A speaker noted that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said, "Over the past five years we have re-zoned over 4,000 city blocks in dozens of neighborhoods to allow for growth, and preserve community character where appropriate."

There were questions and comments from the audience and an exchange among the panelists. One participant said that gentrification is going on in her neighborhood, pushing long-time residents out and raising the rents.

Jiménez commented on the escalating numbers, saying, "The civil rights concerns are a lot more important than the small percentage of those who are being fined or arrested." Her group is an umbrella organization that brings together labor and community partners engaged in neighborhood based grassroots organizing around immigrant and worker rights issues.

Panelists and the audience discussed puting pressure on the mayor to end the policy. This, they said, is the opportunity - pointing to the many stories of corruption - to fight for an independent police civilian review board.

Della Piana talked about the parade of police cars - some thirty at a time - that just go around and around in his East Harlem neighborhood. When he asked an officer what was going on he was told, "It's a display of force, we are making a statement that crime isn't welcome in this neighborhood." The speaker commented that among other things, it's a huge waste of resources, which could be used to combate real crime.

Professor Levine pointed out the "terrible effect emotionally and long term it has on these young people. The humiliation - many of these young people are stopped multiple times. And many wind up with permanent criminal records. For example, if a person doesn't report for a court date, a bench warrant goes out and then if stopped again, is jailed."

For most of his career professor Levine has written about drug policy focusing on how the War on Drugs blames poverty and urban decay on low-income black and Latino young people and creates a kind of modern system of Jim Crow.

The question of quotas has also been in the media, which is connected to the stop and frisk policy. Last week in the New York Times, an op-ed piece by a retired NYPD captain pointed to quotas and how each NYPD administration is under pressure to show more arrests than their predecessor. This can only lead to more abuses of the stop and frisk policy.

Opposition to stop and frisk has been growing and culminated in a silent march of hundreds of thousands on Father's Day.

A big victory for health care

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:40:00 +0000

The Supreme Court ruling upholding President Obama's health reform law is a huge victory for the American people, and for the president.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA for short) came out of an enormous political battle two years ago. The profit-driven health industry (what a contradiction!) and its far-right political flunkies were on one side, and most of the American public was on the other side. Overwhelmingly, Americans were fed up with insurance companies' denials of coverage and their exorbitant cost. Millions were without basic access to health care.

Because of the power of the corporate right-wing, the bill that finally became law has many shortcomings, and does not solve our health care crisis. But it is an important step in that direction. It has begun to open up health care for millions of people. (See this striking infographic.) And, importantly, it has put the profit-driven health insurance industry on the defensive. That will help us move forward to a national system of affordable health care for all. And that's why the Republicans hate "Obamacare."

Predictably, House Republican leader Eric Cantor says the GOP-controlled House will again vote on repealing the entire law next week. Talk about wasting time and taxpayer money! Millions of Americans are desperate for jobs, our infrastructure is crumbling, our health, education and environment are eroding - and these shills for corporate profits are doing nothing about it! Worse, they are using their taxpayer-provided salaries (with accompanying health coverage!) to block any effort to improve Americans' well-being. Instead they are trying to undermine it, in the name of "freedom." Well, yes, freedom for Big Insurance, Big Pharma and other corporate Bigs.

Why did right-wing Chief Justice John Roberts decide to uphold the law? We suggest that he has his eye to the political winds. Occupy Wall Street's slogan of the 99% versus the 1% struck a chord with the American people and knocked the tea party off the front pages. Overtly political anti-Obama remarks by the Supreme Court's most extreme right winger, Justice Antonin Scalia, led the Washington Post, among others, to say the court's legitimacy is in question. Undoubtedly Roberts made a tactical retreat. It shows the power of the people.

It will take some time to see how the details of the court's ruling play out. That includes its limitation on requiring states to include the ACA's expanded health care access in their Medicaid programs.

As many are pointing out, what's needed immediately is to fully implement the Affordable Care Act's reforms on the ground - including making health coverage accessible and affordable to everyone. That involves a continuing fight with the for-profit health industry. It requires mobilizing a mass movement in every state.

Let's get going.

Photo: majunznk // CC 2.0

Children and the courts

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:06:00 +0000

Well, we can at least congratulate the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) for its recent decision that sentencing children to life in prison without parole is unconstitutional, as is the use of mandatory "one size fits all" sentences.

Justice Elena Kagan was absolutely correct in stating, in her majority opinion, that the brains (and hence the minds) of children are undeveloped in those areas governing maturity, ethical and moral development, impulsiveness, and judgment regarding the consequences of their actions. These areas of the brain are not fully functional until the mid 20s and children cannot be expected to behave as if they were already operational.

No matter what crimes children have committed it is neither just nor even sensible to lock them up for life and throw away the key. The adult personality of these children (with the possible exception of sociopaths or psychopaths) will be, with proper educational and environmental stimulation, completely different from that of the impulsive, immature juvenile offender presenting him or herself before a judge.

SCOTUS has made us a little more civilized with this decision but more has to be done. Specifically it must be found unconstitutional (on the same 8th Amendment grounds of cruel and unusual punishment) to try children as adults - after all they are not adults, they are children.

It is the not the fault of children that our capitalist society, plagued with institutional racism and inequality, throws many of them into horrible abusive environments devoid of decent educational opportunities, meaningful social programs, and inadequate living conditions (especially homelessness and uncaring foster care programs), and that as a result some of them end up in the criminal "justice" system - and often in for-profit penal institutions.

These observations are not just progressive rhetoric. They are based on current scientific studies. ScienceDaily for example, recently published an article called "Children, Brain Development and the Criminal Law." This article says, "The legal system needs to take greater account of new discoveries in neuroscience that show how a difficult childhood can affect the development of a young person's brain which can increase the risk of adolescent crimes, according to researchers."

Research has been carried out by a group directed by Dr. Eamon McCrory of University College, London, which show "that early adversity - such as a very chaotic and frightening home life - can result in a young child becoming hyper-vigilant to potential threats in their environment. This appears to influence the development of brain connectivity and functions."

Dr. McCrory's team also discovered that, with these brain changes, children may may engage in more impulsive risky behavior than others and this "may increase both their vulnerability to mental health problems and also their risk of problem behaviors."

Additional research at Oxford University, by Dr. Seena Fazel, shows that besides the risks posed by the social environment, children suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI), either by accident or abuse (such as assault), are much more likely to engage in violent crimes (thus coming in contact with the criminal "justice" system). On top of this Professor H. Williams (University of Exeter) has found that about 45% of "young offenders have TBI histories, and more injuries are associated with greater violence."

Professor Williams concludes, "There is big gap between research conducted by neuroscientists and the realities of the day to day work of the justice system. Although criminal behavior results from a complex interplay of a host of factors, neuroscientists and clinicians are identifying key risk factors that - if addressed - could reduce crime. Investment in earlier, focused interventions may offset the costs of years of custody and social violence."

But we should note, that even if early intervention fails, these children still need to be looked after as children who need and deserve our help. Surely it behooves the adults who must deal with these children on all levels to find ways to help them, not lock them away for the rest of their lives in adult prisons.

Photo: Timothy Pearce // CC 2.0

Today in labor history … Emma Goldman, IWW, anti-racism and more

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:54:00 +0000

1833 Prudence Crandall, a white woman, is arrested for conducting an academy for black women in Canterbury, Conn.

1869 Women's rights activist and anarchist Emma Goldman was born in Lithuania. She came to the United States when she was 17.

1872 Paul Laurence Dunbar, African-American poet and writer, was born in Dayton, Ohio.

1880 Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Ala. She embraced left and socialist causes, campaigning for peace, women's and labor rights; she was a member of the Socialist Party and IWW.

1905 The Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the "Wobblies," is founded at a 12-days-long convention in Chicago. The Wobblie motto: "An injury to one is an injury to all."

1935 Congress passes the National Labor Relations Act, creating the structure for collective bargaining in the United States

1985 A 26-day strike of New York City hotels by 26,000 workers - the first such walkout in 50 years - ends with a five-year contract calling for big wage and benefit gains

1993 A.E. Staley locks out 763 workers in Decatur, Ill. The lockout was to last two and one-half years. "We want to work to live, not live to work," the workers would chant on the picket line.

Is Obama's TPP trade deal worse than NAFTA?

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:22:00 +0000

The campaign against the new Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement is picking up steam. It's a bigger, maybe worse, version of NAFTA aimed at a tariff-free pacific rim, backed up by an extreme intellectual property rights protection agenda (software and pharma in the main). It establishes a supra-national authority, ultimately subject to the World Trade Organization, with power to overrule national laws to maintain consistent international trade terms. It reflects unstoppable pressures from globalization that are very likely irreversible.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP FTA) is discussed here, here, and here - in mostly negative terms. The articles raise the following questions for me.

1. How should international trade be governed, and by whom? Many objections are raised regarding environmental, sovereignty, democratic, workforce and labor rights and protections. But there is not much agreement on solutions.

2. What about consensus between all major stakeholders as a governance model in trade agreements? Would that work?

Since trading motivation ideally includes sacrificing some less-productive work in favor of focusing on the work you do better, or more productively, all trade impacts to some degree a changed division of labor within each trading country. People move from one occupation to another as one part of the previous division of labor is in decline, and another rising. Such change is inherently contradictory.

In addition economies of scale in both agriculture (for example, corn) and manufacturing (as with China) can easily make outcomes asymmetric. The classic example is U.S. corn inputs in Mexico under NAFTA driving millions of low-productivity farmers and farm labor to the United States.

There will never be unanimity between relative loser and winner interests in that process, no matter how "fair" the terms of trade are, as long as market commodities (scarce items allocated by price) are the things being traded. That is likely to be a long time.

So - not much trade would take place if unanimity is required. Perhaps some would prefer exactly that outcome - less trade. But it is naive to expect globalization to recede, given the technology available to us and the ability to buy and sell anywhere in the world for now and the foreseeable future.

3. How do you measure the relative values of market and non-market goods, market and non-market external factors? This is a huge problem in international negotiations when trying to weigh environmental and democratic "costs" or the real benefit of items like advanced labor rights or health care-in short, measurements necessary to accurately weigh benefits vs. harm of international economic agreements. Not so easy to do.

There is in fact no official statistic on public goods "benefit" value, and the energy lobby in the Senate once threatened to cut off funding for statistics agencies that even tried to calculate environmental cost indexes.

Nor is there agreement across different countries on how to measure the value of a public good. Or a partial public good, like software.

But, even if these measurements are technically challenging, there nonetheless must be a political answer and solution that results, practically, in the right number of votes on the governing boards and officers of the supranational courts and infrastructure established under trade agreements. What is that right number? It's clear only a president can appoint representatives to these bodies. Under what circumstances should labor or non-market stakeholders have veto power over an agreement? Right now only commercial stakeholders (mostly corporations) appear to be in on the negotiations.

The first step must be publish the voices of the working class stakeholders in all the countries considering participation in the TPP FTA.

The second is to seek an internationalist position that reflects the broadest common ground. Joseph Stiglitz's overlooked but outstanding agenda for globalization reforms is an excellent framework for seeking that common ground.

4. What about no governance? That's kind of "he/she who has the most guns wins" - we have a lot of that now and it aggravates global conflict and instability, especially in a depression. So, there must be governance. The real question then seems not to be "Will we lose sovereignty?" Yes, we will, and we should as the world becomes more integrated and interdependent culturally and economically.

Environmental protection is a public good that cries out for international governance.

Labor rights everywhere cry out for global governance and redress of grievances against multinational corporations.

Elementary democratic and human rights in the struggle for food, water, health and energy cry out for global protection, for trade that serves rather than harms social and economic development - as it often does, especially in the countries "cursed by oil."

5. How does support, opposition, or reform of TPP affect getting out of the depression? This will be the number one, question on the mind of every worker across the world. And they will be right. All other questions go nowhere and mean nothing if unemployment does not fall, and working class incomes continue their decline. Exports are an important component of job growth, although secondary to a substantial expansion of public works employment, in getting us out of the depression. A rigid defense of intellectual property rights will actually restrict rather than encourage innovation. Consider the predatory practices of IP trolls like former Microsoft Chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold.

We need more exports, and we have a ton of national side-effects of globalization that need to be addressed, but we need global labor unity most of all. This was a big defect in the fights over NAFTA. Let's not do the same on TPP. Those who do the work of the world need to speak together, if not in exact unison, then at least harmoniously.

Photo: Assistant US Trade Representative for Public & Media Affairs Carol Guthrie Meets with Labor Representatives at the 12th Round of TPP Negotiations in Dallas, Texas

After Arizona

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:23:00 +0000

In a 5-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected three out of the four tenets of Arizona's anti-immigrant law, SB 1070.

In the majority decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "The national government has significant power to regulate immigration...the state may not pursue policies that undermine federal law." This was the central argument made by the Obama administration when it challenged Arizona.

The ruling sends a signal to the right wing and lawmakers in Arizona, Alabama and elsewhere that state laws, recently put on the books for racist and political reasons across this country, are unconstitutional - or at least for the most part.

The court let stand - for the time being - the infamous "show us your papers" part of SB 1070. It allows police to demand proof of immigration status when stopping people for traffic or other minor violations.

This leaves a provision in place that will certainly lead to racial profiling and misery for immigrants and citizens. Activists have vowed to monitor the implementation of this provision.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Service Employees International Union and others have filed another suit against the Arizona immigration law, which focuses on racial profiling. (The federal suit explicitly excluded that issue from its arguments.) The court, while leaving the police-stop part intact, left the possibility that this may be reviewed at some future time. This is positive for the ACLU-MALDEF-SEIU suit.

In wake of the high court's decision, the Obama administration has suspended its agreements with Arizona under the 287 (g) clause of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. This law is the twin of the currently more famous Secure Communities Act, the difference being that the 287 (g) program is applied more to people already in jail while Secure Communities more to those out in the community. Nothing was said about Secure Communities, so far. However, many activists see the reform or end of Secure Communities as being part of the next steps in the democratic rights fight.

All should remember that the key factor in the court's ruling - and any of the positive moves by the Obama administration on immigration -- is the struggle by immigrants and their allies in the labor, civil rights and other movements. That united movement is needed now more than ever in the elections, the legislative process and the streets. Only with that movement will Congress be compelled to pass fair and humane immigration reform, including the DREAM Act.

In the end, the American people do believe that no human being is "illegal" and that our country is stronger because of the contributions of immigrants.

Photo: Campus Progress // CC 2.0

Rio environmental summit disappoints -- again

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:47:00 +0000

"An important biological species - humankind - is at risk of disappearing due to the rapid and progressive elimination of its natural habitat." - Fidel Castro, speaking at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

This year's official Rio +20 c onference, which ended June 22, was yet another disappointment to those around the world concerned with the rapid escalation of environmental threats. The weak-at-best conference s tatement merely reaffirmed the goals from 20 years ago for a sustainable world, without making any binding agreements which could make that actually happen.

Over 30,000 participants from 188 nations spent three days reviewing progress since the 1992 summit, and most observers concluded that not only has little progress been made, on the whole things have gotten worse. This follows several years of UN-sponsored climate change and environmental conferences which have also led to disappointing results - Cancun, Bali, Copenhagen.

As United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his opening remarks, "Let me be frank: Our efforts have not lived up to the measure of the challenge. ... Nature does not negotiate with human beings."

This Rio meeting, 20 years after the first one, shows the limits of weak governmental action without a sufficiently strong grassroots movement.

It shows the tendency of international negotiations to be sidetracked into frustrating and often pointless debates which appear to be about the environment but which under the surface are all about competing national and corporate interests.

It shows the need for local, national, regional, and global actions and laws and treaties, combined with local, national, regional, and global mass movements. It shows the need to focus those movements only in part on governmental actions and laws. Only a vibrant combination of education, mass action, laws and treaties, technological innovation, and individual action and change will accomplish what we need.

Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, noted, "The document reminds us that we can't rely only on the slow wheels of bureaucracy and government negotiators to address the urgent problems facing our planet. We must start doing it ourselves , and Rio proved that we are." He highlighted the tens of thousands of environmental activists from around the world who gathered alongside the "official" Summit and exchanged ideas and strategies they are already working on.

Carl Pope, former Sierra Club executive director and a co-founder of the Blue/Green Alliance with the Steelworkers, criticized both "ponderous conferences of distracted and un-ambitious governments " and "cobbled together partnerships among private and non-profit parties." For example, "the single biggest piece of policy alignment that would help move the Secretary-General's vision of Sustainable Energy For All forward would be elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, which the International Energy Agency says are responsible for a full 5 percent of the world's carbon emissions," Pope wrote. "But ending subsidies on fossil fuels, though officially called for years ago by the G20, went nowhere in Rio."

What the earth and humanity needs is becoming ever clearer.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Global Environment Report Fifth Edition (GEO 5), issued just before the Rio+20 conference, notes that the "World Remains on Unsustainable Track Despite Hundreds of Internationally Agreed Goals and Objectives."

A slide show on glacial retreat offers clear visual proof that the earth is warming.

Studies show that temperature increases across the U.S. are speeding up. Despite variations in heat increases by region, all regions are experiencing more rapid warming, as exemplified by the historic heat wave currently being experienced across the entire U.S. except for the Pacific Northwest.

The world's oceans are warming , expanding , and acidifying, due to human-caused climate change, and many ocean fisheries are collapsed, collapsing, or on the verge of collapse due to over-fishing, warming, pollution, and acidification.

There are some positive signs.

The U.S. and other countries agreed to much more comprehensive monitoring of ocean acidity. (An often forgotten part of the Bush administration attack on science were its efforts to de-fund environmental and climate monitoring and restrict the ability of government scientists to tell the truth). Even though this is not positive action on fighting ocean acidity, it is a step towards gathering more truth, more knowledge, more confirmation of what is actually happening. A small step, but positive.

The U.S. also agreed to partner with more than 400 companies, including Wal-Mart, CocaCola and Unilever, to support their efforts to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains by 2020. However, the history of many such public/private endeavors being used by corporations to "greenwash" their abusive practices leads to much deserved skepticism about whether the ultimate results will be positive or just more grist for corporate PR promotions. This is especially true of Wal-Mart, which tries to provide a "green" smokescreen for its labor- and environmentally-abusive practices.

CLEAN agreements (Clean Local Energy Accessible Now) are being implemented to develop over 1 gigawatt of solar power, which represents a significant leap in the development of clean energy generation.

The official results of international gatherings and negotiations are disappointing. But they do provide important benchmarks for how the world is reacting to the environmental crises facing us, valuable gathering points for thousands of activists, and an opportunity for worthwhile media coverage of the issues - an important part of building the massive worldwide movement needed to protect our environment, the natural world on which humanity depends.

Photo: Activists from several environmental organizations raise their hands in unison, voting to continue their protest at Rio+20, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 21. Victor R. Caivano/AP

Today in labor and peoples history: Custer's Last Stand

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 16:28:00 +0000

Today in labor and peoples history: On June 25 1876 the Arapahoe, Cheyenne and Lakota Native American nations defeated General George Armstrong Custer at the battle of Little Big Horn Montana. Custer led the 7th Calvary division of the U.S. Army. Custer's forces were completely defeated and the indigenous armies achieved an overwhelming victory.

"Custer's Last Stand" occurred the same year the U.S. celebrated its centennial. It shocked the nation and was a major setback to the emerging imperialist concept of Manifest Destiny.

Photo: Library of Congress

Sudan protesters call for replacement of Al Bashir regime

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:16:00 +0000

Protests are growing in the Sudan in response to the announcement last week by the government of President Omar Hassan Al Bashir that fuel subsidies will be discontinued, leading inevitably to even more increases in the cost of food and other things. Voices are now being heard for Al Bashir to be ousted from power.

Sudan's problems intensified last year when its southern provinces formally declared independence as the Republic of South Sudan after decades of war. Eighty percent of Sudan's oilfields, the major source of export earnings, ended up in South Sudan, but could only be shipped to world markets, including especially China, which is a major investor in oil in both countries, through pipelines that run from South Sudan northeastwards through Sudan to the Red Sea port of Port Sudan. The major refineries and other processing units are also in Sudan.

A dispute quickly arose over how much Sudan could charge South Sudan for the use of the pipelines. The two countries could not agree on a price. Sudan wanted to charge a fee of $36 per barrel (later lowered to $32.20), and South Sudan thought $1 per barrel was fair, so Sudan began to simply seize part of the oil and sell it itself. In response to this, the South Sudan government of President Salva Kiir stopped all oil exports in January, cutting a huge hole in Sudan's income (and South Sudan's). This, in turn, led to fighting along the border earlier this year.

That has died down, but the main conflict remains and the oil is not flowing. South Sudan has approached neighboring Kenya to explore the development of a new pipeline to run from South Sudan through Kenya to the port of Lamu on the Indian Ocean coast, and perhaps another one going through Djibouti. This would allow South Sudan to cut off all oil shipments through Sudan eventually, leaving the latter nation high and dry and in bad economic straights.

The new protests erupted when the government in Khartoum announced that, to plug a huge gap in the budget, subsidies for fuel would be phased out. In addition, public transportation fares are going up 35 percent in the context of 30 percent inflation. Salary increases had been announced, but these will be drowned by the increase in the cost of living.

The Al Bashir government is an international pariah, and its head is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes he is accused of in the Darfur conflict. Internally, he and his party, the National People's Congress, are opposed by a number of forces ranging from the Sudanese Communist Party to Islamic political parties such as the Popular Congress Party (PCP) of former Al Bashir ally Hassan al-Turabi, and the Umma Party. The Communist Party participates in a broad front called the National Consensus Forces, which also includes the PCP and others, and which is openly calling for the Al Bashir government to be removed. The opposition points out that Al Bashir's policies have isolated Sudan and led to constant wars within the country. They want a government brought in that will settle both internal and external conflicts, get the oil flowing again and divert needed resources from the bloated military. But another opposition group, the Umma National Party, has called for a temporary military government to replace Al Bashir.

There are also several illegal armed opposition groups.

There have been protest demonstrations against Al Bashir's government for more than a year, but these have been mostly small scale and confined to university students in Khartoum. After prayers on Friday, larger demonstrations were seen in more places, now involving sectors beyond the students. The government has been hitting back with various repressive tactics including the jailing of protesters, and has been trying to suppress the opposition press, including the Communist Party's newspaper al Midan.

The anger caused by the increases in fuel and food costs may bring Sudan, belatedly, into the "Arab Spring."

Photo: Protest in Sudan, taken from video.

Workers of the world are uniting

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 13:53:00 +0000

Last week IndustriALL, a new global union, was formed in Copenhagen, Denmark. It represents 50 million workers in 350 unions from all over the world. It was formed from the merger of three international labor federations: the International Metalworkers' Federation, the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers, and the International Textiles, Garment, and Leather Workers Federation.

Their founding slogan speaks volumes about the importance of this development, "Representing workers across supply chains in mining, energy, and manufacturing sectors at the global level."

This may well be a critical turning point in the history of the world trade union movement. It may be the point where "Workers of the World Unite" transforms from an important slogan into a whole new level of trade unionism with serious teeth to take on transnational corporations and capital.

In addition, IndustriALL self-identifies as a global union and not as a federation. This is telling. The deliberations of the founding convention bear out that this is a conscious move and not semantics. Think about the concept of "representing workers across [international] supply chains."

Just as unions developed first locally and then moved to the national level in single countries in order to deal with developing national industries, so too organizing across global supply chains is a practical and necessary step in dealing with global industrial corporations and monopolies. Supply chains stretch from some of the most exploited and oppressed workers (including children) in underdeveloped countries all the way though developing countries to developed industrial countries. Delegates repeatedly stressed the need to bring the bottom up.

For sure it will not be an easy transition. There are so many legal, cultural, and structural problems to be solved in truly functioning as a global union. But the determination to move that way is a critical first step. Think back to all the steps it took in the United States to move from craft unions to industrial unions.

As Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union, put it in Denmark, "It sends a message to greedy multinational corporations that we are not going to simply stand by and watch them trample the rights of workers, no matter where in the world it is happening. Our solidarity is not limited by borders, language barriers, or cultural differences. We are determined to break down any barriers that divide us so we can do a better job of standing up for the rights of all workers."

"It is important that we build the global infrastructure to be able to fight back in cases of aggression."

We should note the role in the founding of IndustriALL of the United Steelworkers, Workers Uniting, and Britain's Unite. Workers Uniting is the merger of the USW and Unite! - the largest industrial union in Britain. Workers Uniting is also a pioneering effort to form a global union structure.

There were 1,000 delegates for the founding in Copenhagen. While no credentials report has been made public yet, the convention's daily bulletin featured unionists from many countries, attesting to the international diversity of the delegates. Delegates are quoted from Colombia, India, Belarus, South Africa, Germany, Brazil, Bangladesh, Niger, Finland, and Cambodia. Others quoted included a delegate from the Namibian Union of Metal workers and Spanish union delegates representing striking miners.

The founding convention passed an ambitions plan of work, including a goal of doubling its membership from 50 million to 100 million.

Workers of the world will greet this important founding of IndustriALL with loud applause and fists held high. This is a clear signal for the left and all progressives to join in determination to help build global working class solidarity.

Photo: IndustriALL

Tom Morello documentary chronicles unity and “rebel songs”

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Perhaps no musician in the 21st century has stood up for the working class more than Tom Morello, who has provided words of encouragement and a rocking soundtrack to the Occupy movement and the struggles of workers and oppressed everywhere. Now, the guitarist has launched a free documentary called "World Wide Rebel Tour," which follows his newest music project, the Nightwatchman, performed in 42 countries.

Morello gave a spirited performance in May, during a day of action in Chicago with the National Nurses United, and more recently played in Madison, Wis., leading a valiant - but unfortunately, failed - effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

"World Wide Rebel Tour" - which will be available in 30 languages - seems to be the next logical step forward in building solidarity by way of music.

The 30-minute film was directed by Bobby Roth and filmed at Hensen Studios in Los Angeles in August 2011. It features live Nightwatchman performances and a question-and-answer session with the guitarist, who, as it turns out, has as much to say as he has to play.

"The World Wide Rebel Tour is a virtual tour spanning the entire planet," Morello remarked of the documentary. "From Malawi to Myanmar, from Uzbekistan to the U.S., people's voices and their struggles have made their way into my music. I'm returning the favor with this global, rebel-rocking throwdown! Free. Everywhere."

Interviewers during the Q&A will include notable faces in the music scene, such as Serj Tankian - the vocalist from alternative metal band System of a Down. Tankian is the co-founder, alongside Morello, of nonprofit organization the Axis of Justice, which seeks to unite musicians, music fans, and political activists under a banner of solidarity and progressive action.

Morello will now campaign for the "Robin Hood tax" - a tax of less than one percent on Wall Street transactions, which organizers realize could generate hundreds of billions of dollars a year. The campaign has the backing of the National Nurses United, and co-launching the fight alongside Morello is actor Mark Ruffalo (who people may recognize most recently for his role in the Avengers film).

"A Robin Hood tax would raise revenue on Wall Street while reining in their worst excesses," explained Ruffalo. That would help to "rebalance the American economy," he said.

"The tax is surprisingly small," he remarked. "It would apply not to ordinary Americans, but to Wall Street's sprawling, churning, predatory casino-style trading that helped drive the financial crisis. The tax is capable of raising hundreds of billions of dollars per year. The money could stop foreclosures, fund new jobs, and help repair the social safety net in the U.S."

Tom Morello is well known for having been a member of punk/hard rock/rap metal band Rage Against the Machine, and hard rock band Audioslave - two bands responsible for the sales of a combined 30 million albums world wide, and the former known for being progressively political right down to its provocative lyrics.

But due to his involvement in Occupy movements throughout the U.S., his fight for Korean guitar workers, his advocacy for unions and working people, and his outrage toward the Right Wing, Morello has generated much support outside of the music scene, and has already played roles in key political moments in history.

Because of such efforts, Morello was presented with the Sidney Hillman Foundation Officer's Award at the 2012 Hillman Prizes. This was a notable achievement; prior recipients of this award include Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., Sen. Edward Kennedy, Harry Belafonte, and others.

Photo: Morello is joined by Occupy activists in singing Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land." Jay Janner/AP & Austin American-Statesman

Snapshots of the super rich and the rest of us

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:45:00 +0000

Newt Gingrich, America's most over-the-top political self-promoter, thinks we may have a problem with our politics. Said Gingrich in a national TV interview: "I think the current system is rigged, frankly, in favor of the wealthy."

Gingrich, of course, should know. His campaign for the GOP presidential nod rested on the shoulders of a single billionaire. Now that billionaire - casino king Sheldon Adelson - has switched horses. In mid-June, Adelson announced a $10 million contribution to a Mitt Romney super PAC and hinted at "limitless" contributions to come, as much as $100 million in all.

Meanwhile, Politico reports several other conservative billionaires are busy raising a $1 billion war chest for November. That billion bucks would sit on top of the $800 billion the official GOP campaign apparatus expects to spend. Some perspective: John McCain spent $370 million in 2008, Barack Obama $750 million.

So have we reached a plutocratic tipping point - or passed it? Here's more information and inspiration to help you frame an answer:

CEO pay at America's seven largest banks averaged 100 times the median U.S. household income in 1989 -- and over 500 times that median in 2007.

European bankers have spent the last 20 years trying to catch up to that gravy train, and that catching up seems about to get much harder. The European Parliament, the Financial Times reports, appears poised to limit - this summer - all bank annual bonuses and related incentive pay to a total that does not exceed an individual banker's straight salary. Bonus pay today typically runs up to 10 times straight payouts.

Belgian Green Party lawmaker Philippe Lamberts led the push for the new banker pay cap. His measure would apply both to bankers working at European Union-based banks anywhere in the world and to EU-based staff of U.S. and Asian banks.

We're giving our "petulant plutocrat of the week" award to Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase. We still haven't figured out an award for the lawmakers who were supposed to quiz him. Maybe a dunce cap? Or a lollypop? They're appropriate.

Dimon, CEO of America's top bank, testified at the Senate Banking Committee. That panel could have grilled Dimon on JPMorgan Chase's recent $3 billion trading loss - and nailed him for opposing government regs that would prevent bankers from speculating with federally insured deposits. But no grilling ever came!

Most committee senators count JPMorgan as a major campaign donor. One senator did note JPMorgan benefited from taxpayer bailouts. Blasted back Dimon, incorrectly: "You're factually wrong."

And that multi-billion trading loss? Dimon did sort of pledge to "claw back" pay from those responsible. He made no pledge to claw back himself. Dimon has pocketed $138 million since taking over as JPMorgan CEO in 2006.

The Federal Reserve again counted up America's personal wealth - and omitted the nation's 400 richest from the final tally. But the new figures, even without those super-rich, show a divide still deepening.

In the middle of Middle America - in a suburb just outside Dayton, Ohio - funeral home owner Anne Dunbar noticed a rather unnerving new trend. Families used to want the obituary notices that Dunbar writes up to include a pitch for donations to their dear departed's favorite charity. Some families are now requesting notices that ask for donations toward their funeral expenses. With funerals costing five figures, no wonder.

You won't find Anne Dunbar's story - or any other anecdote about the collapse of America's middle class - in the Fed's latest Changes in U.S. Family Finances study. What you will find: The most exhaustive set of numbers yet on the devastation the Great Recession and decades of rising inequality before it wreaked on average families.

Most Americans, the new data help make plain, have essentially spent the last 20 years on a go-nowhere treadmill, at best. They're working longer and harder and have zero new wealth to show for their labor. As a matter of fact, they went in reverse.

In 2010, the net worth of the median, or typical, American family was $77,300, about the same net worth, after inflation, the typical family held back in the early 1990s. The median is the point where half of all families are above it and half are below.

Many families have the bulk of their net worth as equity in their homes. The pop of the housing bubble zapped that. Between 2007 and 2010, notes the Fed, typical families lost 38.8% of net worth and housing's crash accounted for three-fourths of the drop.

But home values, the Fed reports, haven't been the only aspect of middle class economic life to take a significant hit. Incomes plunged as well. The take-home of the typical family, after taking inflation into account, dropped 7.7% in the three years after 2007, down to $45,800. That's on top of a smaller slide in the three years before 2007, when the economy was supposedly in a recovery from the 2001 recession.

These numbers come from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, an intense series of field interviews they conduct every three years. Researchers completed just under 6,500 of these in-depth interviews for the 2010 survey. The Federal Reserve selected 5,000 of these families through a random sampling of U.S. households. But random samplings don't generate enough wealthy households to give a statistically rich enough sense of life at America's economic summit.

To help spotlight that summit, Federal Reserve researchers supplemented their basic 2010 sample with a list of another 1,500 families, all affluent, identified through tax records.

The resulting data from all these interviews paint the most statistically compre-hensive portrait of personal wealth in America available anywhere. But this portrait has one gaping hole. For confidentiality reasons, the Fed excludes from the survey interview process any family that appears on the annual Forbes 400 list of America's richest. (No Wal-Mart family members, for example.)

That exclusion means the new Federal Reserve numbers for 2010 understate by $1.37 trillion the total wealth of that year's Forbes 400, and America's actual level of wealth concentration.

The Federal Reserve's Changes in U.S. Family Finances report doesn't much concentrate on that concentration. It offers no specific wealth and income breakouts for America's top 1%. Analyses at that level will have to wait until scholars get their hands on the micro data the Federal Reserve's 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances generated.

The new Federal Reserve study gives us income and wealth breakdowns for America's top 10%. Those families made over $142,000 each in 2010. These families averaged $2.9 million in net worth, about 15 times the $199,000 average net worth of families in America's middle 20%. Between 2001 and 2010, America's top 10% gained net worth. Over that same span, all income brackets below the top 10% lost net worth.

Major swatches of American families below the top 10% tier, the Federal Reserve numbers also show, remain deep in debt. In 2007, only 56.4% of families found themselves able to do any saving. In 2010, even fewer families, 52%, saved any money.

Those families struggling the hardest? Federal Reserve data give that unsought distinction to families headed by 35- to 44 year-olds. Just 47.8% of these families did any saving in 2010. Between 2007 and 2010, their net worth fell a stunning 54%, down to $42,100.

Add together the net worth of over 80,000 of these families in 2010 and you'll have a fortune that equals the net worth of a single average deep pocket on that 2010 Forbes list of America's 400 richest.

Veteran labor journalist Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much Online, a newsletter about wealth and income sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies' Program on Inequality and the Common Good.

Photo: Protestors outside JPMorgan Chase after the annual stockholders meeting May 15, in Tampa, Fla. CEO Jamie Dimon kept his job after he disclosed a $2 billion trading loss by the bank. Scott Iskowitz/AP

Today in history: Musicians targeted in anti-Communist witch-hunt

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 07:33:00 +0000

On June 22, 1950, renowned musicians/performers Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lena Horne, Pete Seeger and Artie Shaw were labeled as suspected Communist sympathizers in the infamous publication "Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television." In the McCarthy witch-hunt era, being labeled a Communist or "Communist sympathizer" was a career-killer.

"Red Channels" was a tract issued by the right-wing journal Counterattack, the self-described "Newsletter of Facts to Combat Communism." By 1950, Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) had already been at work for several years, and figures like singer Paul Robeson and the so-called Hollywood Ten had already been blacklisted.

The evidence of Communist leanings offered in "Red Channels" included Lena Horne's appearance on the letterhead of a South African famine relief program, Aaron Copland's appearance on a panel at a 1949 Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace and Leonard Bernstein's affiliation with the Committee to Re-Elect Benjamin J. Davis, the African American Communist New York City councilman.

Those who stood up to McCarthyism, risking their careers and livelihoods, were vindicated and honored for their courage. "Red Channels" is no longer around, but the newspaper supported by many of its victims is still alive and kicking: now online here at peoplesworld.org!

Photo: Lena Horne in the film "Till the Clouds Roll By," 1946. (Public Domain)

Pass the Student Loan Forgiveness Act

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 16:19:00 +0000

Financial Aid Office, Business Office, Bursar: those are just some of the names that college students dread when it comes time to pay tuition.

Most students come into college with an eclectic mix of federal, state, and private financial aid. But for many the pitfalls of loans are unavoidable.

Many students graduate with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. It gets worse if they go on to graduate school, where often loans are the only way to pay for their advanced degrees.

But there is hope. Rep. Hansen Clarke, D-Mich., has introduced the Student Loan Forgiveness Act which will forgive the educational debt of certain former students.

The bill is designed to help college graduates who have ended up paying much of their income to student loans, by forgiving their debt via a 10-10 rule. Under Clarke's plan students who have paid 10 percent or more of their discretionary income for 10 years, will have their student debt forgiven.

A petition for Congress to pass the law already has over one million signatures on it.

This bill is a good place to start on reforming our higher education system.

But why not also focus on comprehensive higher education reform? Costs continue to go up. And while this plan helps students with lots of debt who are struggling years after school, it does nothing to help current or rising students who are being forced into the exact same situation to pay for their education. Comprehensive reform is needed.

Back in February I wrote an article on the value of public education. In that article I proposed a comprehensive solution for higher education. Under the plan loans would be phased out and replaced by permanent guaranteed federal scholarships available to all students who opt for a public college, university, or vocational/technical school. These scholarships would be funded through a strong central progressive taxation scheme with the burden being on the top incomes. Additionally we can expand Pell grants and state grants in the short term until such scholarships become available.

I applaud Rep. Clarke for sponsoring a bill that is an excellent place to start on loan and higher education reform. Recent budget cuts in the budget have resulted in reduced means of financial aid for students and increased tuition, housing and other fees, meaning students are forced to rely even more on loans.

The time for reform is now.

Photo: Marcus Bernales // CC 2.0

Labor and peoples history: Goodman, Chaney, Schwerner murdered in Mississippi

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:17:00 +0000

On June 21st, 1964 in Mississippi civil rights activists Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner went missing. The three were kidnapped and murdered by the local police and the Ku Klux Klan near Philadelphia Mississippi. Chaney, an African American was from Mississippi and worked with the the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Goodman and Schwerner were from New York.

The three were working on voter registration at the time of the kidnapping and murder. They were lynched after investigating the burning of a church. The film "Mississippi Burning" chronicles the tragedy.

Mississippi officials refused to prosecute those involved for murder. As a result several were charged with depriving the murdered activists of their civil rights and served brief jail terms. For 40 years the case lay dormant until Edgar Ray Killen was charged with murder in 2005. Killen, 80 at the time was convicted and sentenced to 3 consecutive life terms.

Greed and the pain in Spain

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 16:32:00 +0000

Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz characterizes the Spanish bank bailout as "voodoo economics" that is certain "to "fail." New York Times economic analyst Andrew Ross Sorkin agrees: "By now it should be apparent that the bailout has failed-or at least on its way to failing." And columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman bemoans that Europe (and the U.S.) "are repeating ancient mistakes" and asks, "why does no one learn from them?"

Indeed, at first glance, the European Union's response to the economic chaos gripping the continent does seem a combination of profound delusion, and what British a reporter called "sado-monetarism" -- endless cutbacks, savage austerity, and widespread layoffs.

But whether something "works" or not depends on what you do for a living.

If you work at a regular job, you are in deep trouble. Spanish unemployment is at 25 percent-much higher in the country's southern regions-and 50 percent among young people. In one way or other, those figures-albeit not quite as high-are replicated across the Euro Zone, particularly in those countries that have sipped from Circe's bailout cup: Ireland, Portugal, and Greece.

But if you are Josef Ackermann heading up the Deutsche Bank, you earned an 8 million Euro bonus in 2012, because you successfully manipulated the past four years of economic meltdown to make the bank bigger and more powerful than it was before the 2008 crash. In 2009, when people were losing their jobs, their homes, and their pensions, Deutsche Bank's profits soared 67 percent, eventually raking in almost 8 billion Euros for 2011. The bank took a hit in 2012, but the Spanish bailout will help recoup Deutsche Bank's losses from its gambling spree in Spanish real estate.

And, just in case you thought irony was dead, it was the Spanish housing bubble that tanked that country's economy-at the time Madrid's debt was among the lowest in the Euro Zone-and German banks (as well as Dutch, French, British and Austrian) financed that bubble. German Banks also financed the real estate bubble that crashed Ireland's economy. Some 60 percent of Deutsche Bank's income is foreign based.

Consider this figure: in 1997 real estate loans in Ireland were 5 billion Euros. By 2007 they were 96.2 billion Euros, a jump of 1730 percent. Real estate prices rose 500 percent, the same amount that Spanish housing prices increased. The banks didn't know they were pumping up a bubble? Of course they knew, but they were making money hand over fist.

When the American financial industry self-destructed in 2008, the Irish and Spanish bubbles popped, and who got the bill? Irish taxpayers shelled out $30 billion to bail out the Anglo-Irish Bank-essentially the country's total tax revenues for 2009-and in return got a 15 percent unemployment rate, huge cuts in the minimum wage, pension reductions, and social service cutbacks. Spain is headed in the same direction.

As Spanish economist and London School of Economics professor Luis Garicano told the New York Times, "Unfortunately, Spain did not manage to reach one of its main goals in the negotiations [over the bailout], which was to have Europe bear part of the risk of rescuing the financial sector, without letting it fall instead directly onto the shoulders of the Spanish taxpayers."

Garicano went on to complain, "Those who lent to our financial system were the banks and the insurance companies of Northern Europe, which should bear the consequences of these decisions."

But of course they will not. Instead, the banks got to go to the casino, gamble other people's money, and get repaid for their losses. That's sweet work if you can get it.

However, the "sado-monetarism" strategy is about more than just bailing out the banks at the expense of the vast majority of European taxpayers. It cloaks its long-term designs in coded language: "rigid labor market," "internal devaluation," "pension reform," "common budgetary process," "political union."

A quick translation.

"Rigid labor market" means getting rid of contracts that guarantee decent wages, working conditions and benefits, all won through a long process of negotiations and industrial action. As the New York Times put it, the current rightwing Spanish government is attempting to "loosen collective bargaining agreements."

The drive to scrap union contracts is coupled with "internal devaluation," which, as Krugman points out, "basically means cutting wages." If the working class can be forced to accept lower wages and slimmer benefits - and there is no better disciplinarian in these regards than a high unemployment rate - profits will go up. Sure, the vast majority will be poorer, but not the people who run Deutsche Bank.

"Pension reform" simply means impoverishing old people, who had nothing to do with the real estate bubbles that brought down Ireland and Spain. But again, someone has to sacrifice, and old people don't have all that much time left anyhow.

Oh, for ice floes to put them on.

"Common budgetary process" and "political union" means giving up national sovereignty in the service of keeping the banks solvent-in essence, the end of democracy on the continent. People could then elect any one they pleased, but no national government would have any say over economic policy. Want to do a bit of pump priming to get the jobless rate down and tax revenues up? Nope. But feel free to paint park benches any color you like.

The 100 billion Euro ($125 billion) Spanish bailout will fail for the average Spaniard, as bailouts have already failed the Irish, Portuguese and Greeks, and it will lock Spain into generations of debt. Italy is next (not counting the small fry like Cyprus and several Eastern European countries that may fall before Rome is finally sacked). The Euro Zone's economies are predicted to contract 0.1 percent for all of 2012, and the jobless rate for the 17-country bloc is 11 percent, higher than at anytime since the Euro was established in 1999.

Spain's right-wing prime minister, Mariana Rajoy, has tried to argue that the bailout was not as onerous as those imposed on Ireland, Portugal and Greece, but the Germans soon set him straight: "There will be a troika [the European Union, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund] and it will make sure the program is being implemented," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaube told the Financial Times.

It is not unlikely that the Euro will fall sometime in the next year, but of course the debts will remain. The dead hand of the past will lie on the brow of the living for a long, long time to come.

Financier George Soros puts much of the blame for the current crisis on Germany - indeed, he accuses Chancellor Angela Merkel of trying to establish a "German Empire" - but that is simplistic. Germany has certainly led the "sado-monetarian" charge, but this strategy is not just about unleashing the austerity Panzers to establish a Fourth Reich. All over the world, capital is on the march, with the goal of rolling back the social programs of the post-World War II period and returning to the Gilded Age when the rich did pretty much as they pleased.

Weakening unions is central to this, as is privatizing everything capital can get its hands on, and the economic crisis is the perfect cover to try an accomplish this. For a fascinating analogy, pick up Indian journalist P. Sainath's brilliant "Everyone Loves A Good Drought" that exposed how wealthy landlords in India manipulated a natural crisis to increase their grip over agriculture.

Former Deutsche Bank head Ackermann recently prattled on about the "social time bomb" of economic inequality, but so far he has not offered to share his 8.8 million Euro bonus. In the meantime, according to the International Labor Organization, youth global unemployment will reach 12.7 percent this year and stay there for at least four years, creating a "lost generation" of workers.

So, the answer to Krugman's question, "why are they repeating ancient mistakes?"

Because they are making out like bandits

This article originally appeared in Dispatches from the Edge.

Photo: CC BY-SA 2.0

Fish gotta swim and George Will gotta lie

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 14:17:00 +0000

Part of the mindset of ideologues of the right is their absolute disdain for government regulation of private corporations. They want none of it.

An example of this was on display in a recent Washington Post column by George Will, who is also a regular on ABC's "This Week" and a dean of the conservative movement.

Quoting the right-wing Hudson Institute's Charles DeMuth, Will writes that regulations are pursued to the point where they are "costly beyond any plausible measure of their benefits."

He goes on to say, again quoting DeMuth, that regulatory power easily becomes "arbitrary and capricious." It turns democratic governance over to the "Administrative State" - a state obviously not to Will's liking now that Barack Obama sits in the White House and Obama appointees run government agencies which regulate corporate practices much too much for Will's liking.

Indeed, government regulators are out of control in Will's view. "Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly and regulators, too, have a metabolic urge to do what they were created to do," he says scornfully.

I find this rant against governmental regulatory power bizarre, though not surprising. Will, not to mention his right-wing counterparts, has a lot of - I'll be polite - nerve to complain about regulatory overreach.

After all, the regulatory structure that grew out of the New Deal and the Great Society has been systematically dismantled over the past three decades, thanks to the ascendancy of the right wing and the rise of neoliberalism. The problem at this juncture is not too many regulations, as Will suggests, but too few.

But even a torn and tattered regulatory state is too much for Will to stomach; he won't be happy until every last regulation that limits corporate profit-seeking behavior is eliminated.

So what if a regulatory-free environment results in miners dying in unsafe mines. Or oceans, lakes and rivers turning into polluted sinks. Or carbon building up in the atmosphere to the point where humanity 's future is threatened. Or businesses discriminating against people of color, women, the disabled, and gays and lesbians. Or dangerous additives entering the food chain. Or financial markets and the broader economy going belly up, and in turn throwing tens of millions out of their jobs and homes.

Apparently, none of this is on Will's radar screen.

How do we explain this seeming indifference to the human and ecological costs of unregulated capitalism?

Will and his counterparts on the right have been captured by "market fundamentalism" - a belief that capitalist markets when free and competitive provide optimal solutions to both economic and social problems. In their view, capitalism, if not burdened by regulations, generates jobs for a growing workforce, lifts up living standards of working people, and operates at full or near-full productive capacity.

But this is a fairy tale, peddled as an unassailable scientific truth.

First of all, capitalist markets are neither free nor competitive, but rather are dominated by a few giant corporations in nearly every line of production. There are many small producers, but they don't control the capitalist economy and decision-making process. It is the mammoth transnational corporations who structure the markets and politics to their own class advantage - often at the expense of small producers along with the working class.

Second, an unregulated capitalism (or a regulated one for that matter) by no stretch of the imagination provides jobs for all or nearly all. The situation at this moment and in the foreseeable future is just the opposite. Much the same could be said about incomes of working people, that is, unregulated capitalism brings, not a tide lifting all boats, but instead wage stagnation or decline, and massive and growing income inequality between the 99 percent and the 1 percent.

Third, notwithstanding all the prattle of right-wing pundits about the "magic of the market," capitalism in its deregulated and regulated forms - as John Maynard Keynes and Karl Marx argued - has no inherent tendency toward full employment and full utilization of society's productive resources. In fact, stagnation is a more likely prognosis for contemporary capitalism than buoyant and steady growth.

It is hard to believe that Will doesn't know all this. The economic depression of recent years that has no end in sight should be enough to cast doubt on the efficacy of free, competitive, and unregulated markets. But he reveals that his views are shaped more by the needs of an exploiting class and the corrupting influence of access to power and privilege than by the painful lessons of reality.

In the short run that may serve Will and the class that he represents well. In the longer run it will be their Waterloo.

Photo: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0