People Before Profit blog

Where is the movement to turn around this economy?

Mon, 31 Mar 2014 16:44:00 +0000

For the month of February the U.S. economy added , according to government figures, 175,000 jobs. Of those jobs 99,000 were gained by women, but they can be described as jobs marked by very low pay and bad working conditions. To really keep up with just population growth some 200,000 good jobs, ones that pay a living wage, need to be created each month.

For January the job creation stood at 129,000 and for December only 74,000 jobs were added to the economy. Where then is the recovery?

To be quite frank, the Obama administration is doing next to nothing to create jobs for the unemployed. The administration keeps proposing "toddler steps" to address the problem. Just these past weeks we hear rumblings of proposals to change overtime rules and then the ever-present battle to raise the minimum wage. While these are steps in the right direction they are "toddler steps" nonetheless , considering the gravity and extent of the economic situation.

In November, 2013 some 203,000 jobs were created and in October 204,000 were added. Typically, the quality of these jobs has been deplorable. All through 2013 and during the last four years of the current Administration the same has been true. Essentially low-paying jobs have been created rather than the types of jobs on whose income one can sustain a family.

Low paying restaurant, retail , bar or warehouse jobs have comprised most of the so-called job gains. As a result, many are toiling at two or more such jobs to make ends meet. The result, as one worker lamented , is "We don't even have a life." Low paying jobs have provided 61 percent of U.S. employment growth. Part-time work has been 77 percent of job growth for 2013. This is no recovery!

The lower-paying jobs such as those performed by waiters , hotel workers, bartenders, and health care aides, have not declined because they can't be automated as with other sectors. For for the media and the administration to tout such so-called job growth represents a shoddy attempt to perpetuate fraud on the American people. Indeed, with such huge swaths of suffering rampant throughout the land, the people - metaphorically speaking - should be ready to march on Washington with pitchforks and torches, doing it with the alacrity of enraged townsfolk in an old Frankenstein movie. Poverty is at its highest level in U.S. history. But, the people need to be organized ! Where is the peoples movement ?

In mid-2013 , Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman called this a "terrible, terrible economy." He said the economy was at best "creeping along, just treading water." Even with a huge injection of capital at that time- $ 85 billion a month in bond buying- the economy was still only growing at less than 2 percent per quarter.

In May only 175,000 jobs were created , but this was considered a positive report, only because there was such depression about the economy that even low figures were celebrated or - as the media always croons - " a better than expected report. " But, honest economists considered the May report lackluster job numbers - not positive economic growth.

Not doing enough

At present the Obama administration is not doing enough to help the poor and the working class. There are tremendous swaths of poverty and suffering throughout the cities , and the country in general. For this journalist, who is an Obama supporter, this inaction has become hugely frustrating. The president has had more than four years to take decisive action on the economy.

For over 90 percent of the American people in the last 15 plus years there has been no positive movement in economic status - the only movement has been in a downward direction; 95 percent of the country is not benefiting from the stock market boom.

Jobs that are created are not paying enough for a worker to provide food and housing for his or her family on a weekly basis. For the government and the mainstream media to hail these monthly jobs reports is simply to perpetuate a farce on the people. An economic recovery can't be based on such flimsy employment, But , quite frankly , the people are not fooled by these fraudulent reports. What the people need is to be organized !

It has been contended by some economic analysts that manufacturing is making a comeback. Let's take a look. Since 2007 the U.S. has lost 2 million manufacturing jobs (keep in mind that the economic news often tends to be very bipolar and contradictory) and 7 million have been lost overall in this sector since 1979. These jobs went overseas. Some economists classify the loss of manufacturing jobs as "stunning."

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in late July of last year that manufacturing was "growing." But not according to job figures from other sources, which disclosed that this sector lost 6,000 jobs in the same time period. This administration is playing loose and reckless with the figures to tamp down public discontent.

But some factory jobs have returned to the U.S. - jobs that had gone to Japan , Mexico and China. Why the return? Surely, not because of the goodness of corporate hearts. Some jobs are returning because wages are rising overseas, a good example is China, and because factory wages are continuing to fall in the U.S. This is not a recovery!

The rapacious corporations are pursuing profits like slobbering, predatory beasts pursuing hapless prey. This time, again, the prey is the U.S. working class.

Economists now estimate that 345,000 to 400,000 jobs a month for several years are needed to significantly reduce unemployment. Moreover, these need to be good jobs , not just in the retail and service sectors. Again, jobs at a living wage.

In June, 2013, 195,000 jobs were created . The news media , lowballing again, said job creation exceeded expectations. This is nonsense and the most ignominious of frauds !

Some commentators have opined that Mr. Obama wants to be seen as the jobs president. But, so far his administration has followed a hands-off policy on the economy, hoping that the system will rebound on its own. But, at this stage of the ongoing general crisis of capitalism, this will not happen. Further, Congress has likewise refused a hands- on policy for the economy.

The economic growth rate of only 2 percent per year is considered by many economists to mean that the economy is actually falling further behind. It is seen as no recovery at all.. There is no plan by the Obama administration to deal with the ongoing jobs crisis. This , at a time when the economy has the lowest labor force participation since 1979.

There is gross , grotesque, obscene inequality with agonizing suffering increasing exponentially daily. Left and progressive leadership is needed. When will there be the needed organizing for decent jobs and economic equality?

Photo: Workers struggling to turn low-wage jobs into family-supporting ones. AP

Wind gives small towns a boost

Fri, 28 Mar 2014 17:42:00 +0000

The wind energy industry has been a big boost to communities across the country, providing a new income source to farmers and ranchers that host projects, reinvigorating small communities by providing new economic opportunities and funding for fire and police departments, schools, infrastructure, and other public services.

State renewable energy standards and the national Production Tax Credit (PTC) have been major drivers of wind energy development in the US.

Renewable energy standards require utilities to generate a certain percentage of their power from renewables, while the PTC gives project developers 2.3 cents for every kilowatt of power their projects produce.

At the end of 2013, the PTC expired, and its uncertain future has left potential projects in limbo. Threats to state renewable energy standards have had a similar effect, threatening much of the progress that the wind energy industry has made.

144 members of Congress recently signed letters asking fellow members to support renewal of the PTC. While national lawmakers are acknowledging the benefits of a growing wind energy industry to our economy, some states like Kansas may do away with their renewable energy standards that helped encourage its growth.

Support for wind energy has helped the industry grow, bringing new jobs and investment to our communities, and has helped the United States to become a leader in the industry. But pulling that support now would make the future of the industry-and the jobs and revenue it has brought to small, rural communities-unclear.

Reprinted with permission from the Center for Rural Affairs

Established in 1973, the Center for Rural Affairs is a private, non-profit organization working to strengthen small businesses, family farms and ranches, and rural communities through action oriented programs addressing social, economic, and environmental issues.

Photo: Center for Rural Affairs Facebook page

De Blasio calls for unity in the fight for quality education

Fri, 28 Mar 2014 13:13:00 +0000

NEW YORK - In an effort to set the record straight and heal a rift with New York State's Gov. Cuomo and charter school supporters, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio made a major speech on his education policies at Riverside Church last Sunday.

Setting a unifying tone, the mayor said, "We made some decisions in the last weeks, striving for fairness. But, I have to tell you I didn't measure up when it came to explaining those decisions to the people of this city."

That was a reference to his decision to not allow 3 of 17 charter schools to expand the space they occupy in certain public school buildings because, by doing so, it would have been necessary to unfairly displace disabled students.

The space in those public school buildings was promised to the charter schools by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is a strong supporter of the charter school movement.

Usually a charter school occupies a section; let's say two floors or so, of a larger public school building. The sections occupied by the charter schools are off limits to the children in the rest of the building. Mayor De Blasio and the former Chancellor of the Board of Education allowed 14 charter schools to take more space but denied that permission for three charters because they would have taken the space occupied by disabled students.

The mayor's administration committed to finding other appropriate space for the charters but the people from the "Harlem Success Academy" accused the mayor of being against charter schools. They proceeded to organize a big demonstration in the State Capitol and initiated a multi-million dollar media campaign to rally parents and the public against the mayor.

It was a CIA-type disinformation campaign with the narrative that "the wonderful charter schools are being destroyed by Mayor de Blasio." The idea, of course, was to deflect attention from the fact that the charter school movement is being used to destroy public schools.

Public schools were severely under-funded and suffered under former Mayor Bloomberg.

In his Riverside speech, the mayor clarified his position. "We want children to have good options. But good options have to serve both the children they are intended for, while not displacing or harming other children in the schools to which they may go."

The Bloomberg administration set up the system of public charter schools in order to push towards privatization. Corporate hacks with no educational training were put in charge of those schools. Opponents of those moves note that it is wrong to use public education money to fund a corporatized system of education in New York City or anywhere else.

Bloomberg and his corporate and charter school backers blamed the problems of the public schools on the teachers and tried to greatly weaken their union. They ran the schools like a business and in the process, with charters, created another tier of education in the nation's largest school system.

The Bloomberg policies pitted parent against parent and student against student and gave the priority to the charters for space and funding to provide superior facilities. All the while they over-tested and under-educated the children entrusted to them. They gave a "premium" education to the few at the expense of the vast majority of students. The right to a quality education for all children was disregarded.

Mayor de Blasio, who was elected in a landslide, has called for a reversal of those policies and seeks to create a more progressive education system that moves towards quality education for all.

In his Riverside speech he stated, "Despite the good effort of so many, the school system is still broken in so many ways. Our brothers and sisters in the charter movement point to this reality. And I acknowledge that many people of good will in that movement are trying to shake the foundations, and we will work with them in good faith. But we need to find a solution for the whole ..."

I think it is an interesting move by de Blasio to reach out to the parents of charter school children, many of whom agree with his universal pre-kindergarten plan, for example.

The corporate and hedge fund leaders of the charter school movement, however, are not pushing for fairness for the children. Their priority is profits and outrageously high salaries for themselves. They are the people behind those deceptive ads in the mass media that have eroded the mayor's poll numbers.

People behind the charter school movement operate under a double standard. They criticize "failing" public schools but they say nothing about the charter schools that are failing. They protest what they wrongly described as an attack by the mayor on a successful charter school but fail to voice protests of any kind when public education funds are cut and public schools are forced to close.

Mayor de Blasio has spoken about the importance of teachers to the future of the city. They are now in negotiations for a wage increase long denied by former Mayor Bloomberg.

De Blasio has yet to really activate his huge support base in the city and beyond. With New York State's Gov. Cuomo running for reelection, working with the charter leaders and against those who would tax the rich, united action to push for solutions for all the children becomes more urgent. The support base will have to be mobilized.

The struggle for quality education has entered a new stage. This basic democratic struggle for quality education for all can and must be won.

Photo: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio stands with supporters after speaking at a universal Pre K rally at the Washington Avenue Armory, March 4, in Albany, N.Y. De Blasio was in Albany mobilizing support for a tax hike on wealthy New Yorkers to fund universal pre-kindergarten and expanded after-school programs. The tax is opposed by Cuomo and the Republicans in the state Senate. Mike Groll/AP

The war that won't go away

Wed, 26 Mar 2014 14:34:00 +0000

Staff Sgt. Melvin Morris received a Medal of Honor this month, Mar. 2014. Mr. Morris is 80 years old. Why is he receiving this honor belatedly? Because evidence shows he was discriminated against during the time of the U.S. War in Vietnam. He received the Distinguished Service Cross at that time. Mr. Morris is African American.

This news is appearing alongside the latest Ted Nugent rant, which was aimed at President Obama. Not indirectly, directly. He referred to the President as a subhuman mongrel.

This may seem incongruous to Generation X'ers or Millennials. For those of us who lived through the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, it makes perfect sense. It has to do with militarism, racism, and the U.S. War in Vietnam. It is about the war that won't go away. Let's take Nugent's latter invective first. Mongrel is used referencing an animal resulting from the cross of different breeds. This is usually reserved for dogs. But when connoting humans, it certainly is an offensive term.

Dogs themselves have been invoked before in an offensive manner. Remember the Maoist expression - Running Dogs Of Imperialism? That was used to pillow those who justified foreign military intervention, usually by the United States.

The Nugent's former reference, subhuman, has an even darker past. This charge was the key rationale for slavery and the slave trade. After all, the slavers reasoned, we are doing these subhumans a favor by taking them out of the bush to a more productive life. If there are too many on board, which threatens the safety of the slave ship, we can simply chain them, throw them overboard, and claim them as an insurance loss. After all, they are subhuman. When one ship was running out of water, they did just that.

Why was Charles Darwin attacked so viciously in the mid-1800s? Was it his discovery of the motor of evolution via natural selection? In part. The rest of the story completes the canvass we're painting here. He said we are all, black, white, and other hues, part of the same family. We are all of the human family. Part of the ideology of slavery came tumbling down.

Some anti-slavery leaders in the 19^th century would quote the Bible to counter the subhuman charge. Activist Thomas Clarkson stated that planters would incur the " . . . heaviest judgment of Almighty God, who made of one blood all the sons of men." Darwin supplied the data and earned the vitriol of slave owners. He later said look to Africa for the origin of the human family. Fossils and DNA have proved how right he was.

The recent spate of slavery films - Twelve Years A Slave is the best example - and civil rights era days - The Butler - may leave the unsuspecting movie-goer the view that these are settled grievances, a done deal. But the juxtaposition of Nugent's broadside and Mr. Morris' belated honor tell a different story. As Yogi Berra once famously said, "It ain't over 'til it's over." With the so-called pivot to Asia by the Obama administration, it certainly isn't over.

In 1972, I sat in a concert audience at Harvard University. It was Phil Ochs who reminded us that the U.S War in Vietnam had a particularly racist edge. He did this by belting out his song about White Boots Marching In A Yellow Land. When U.S service men referred to the Vietnamese as gooks, it served to dehumanize these mostly peasant people.

Taking a people out of the family of man domain has justified the worst of genocidal crimes. How else can one hear the infamous statement by a G.I. during the U.S. War in Vietnam, we had to destroy the village to save it, and not make this connection?

If they were not fully human then why not destroy and make unlivable their environment. The U.S., with the help of Dow Chemical and Agent Orange, made an area the size of Massachusetts just that - unliveable. Attacking the environment and food sources are considered a war crime under U.N. policies. Where are the reparations for this war crime?

A string broke on Ochs' guitar that evening as he both entertained us and urged us to participate in the 1972 election campaign. Little did we know at the time that Richard Nixon, his hatchet men in The Committee To Re-elect The President, derisively referred to as CREEP, and their thugs, The Plummer's, were hard at work to thwart then anti-war Sen. McGovern from getting anywhere near the presidency.

Ochs played through that broken string and the audience went wild. The message was clear. We need to help people make the connection between militarism, war, and racism, especially with young people. It is a substantial part of the pathway to peace with social justice in the 21st century.

Time for a 21st century U.S. foreign policy

Tue, 25 Mar 2014 15:58:00 +0000

With 16,000 of the world's 17,000 nuclear bombs in the U.S. and Russia, the U.S. should certainly not be fanning the fires for a new cold war after the distressing events in Crimea and the Ukraine.

Rather, we should acknowledge our broken promise to Gorbachev that we wouldn't expand NATO if Russia didn't object to a reunified Germany's entry into NATO when the wall came down, and promise not to invite the Ukraine or Georgia to become members of our old Cold War military alliance.

We should be disbanding NATO and working for reform of the UN system so that it can fulfill its peacekeeping mission without archaic reliance on regional military competitive alliances. Further, we should remove our missiles from Poland, Romania and Turkey and negotiate the space weapons ban which China and Russia repeatedly proposed, and which only the US blocked for several years in the UN's committee on Disarmament in Geneva which requires consensus.

We should also reinstate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which Bush walked out of in 2001 and take up Russia's offer to negotiate a treaty to ban cyberwarfare, which it proposed after the U.S. boasted about its virus attack on Iran's enrichment facilities and which the U.S. rejected out of hand.

We need to stop being the world's bully, as described last week by Jack Matlock, Reagan and Bush's ambassador to Russia, who has examined our provocative actions towards Russia which resulted in these terrible events in Crimea.

It's ironic that Obama is now in the Hague at his third "Nuclear Security Summit" to talk about locking down and securing loose bomb-making materials, without any discussion about how to honor our Non-Proliferation Treaty promise to eliminate our massive nuclear arsenal, for which we are planning to spend $640 billion over the next 10 years for two new bomb factories, and new lethal delivery systems - missiles, planes, submarines.

The sad history of our bad faith relationships with Gorbachev and Putin and our aggressive military provocations, including today's announcement that NATO will be doing military war games in Poland, will do nothing to make our world a safer, more peaceful place.

The U.S. needs more creative 21^st century thinking on how to relate to the rest of the world.

Alice Slater is New York director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and serves on the Coordinating Committee of Abolition 2000. This article originally appeared at commondreams.org

Photo: President Obama meets with advisors in the Oval Office to discuss sanctions against Russia prior to his statement to the media, March 20, 2014. Taking part in the meeting are, from left: National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice; Tony Blinken, deputy national security advisor; Chief of Staff Denis McDonough; Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor for strategic communications; National Economic Council Director Jeffrey Zients; and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Writing on Amtrak

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 16:18:00 +0000

More than 30 years ago, Amtrak paid for my train fare and sleeper in return for a travel story.

This week, the rail passenger service rolls out a promotion, which will select 24 writers for an "Amtrak Residency." A December New Yorker story about writing on trains created a social media buzz which Amtrak has latched onto. A requirement that participating writers surrender publishing rights and allow their musings to be used in a future marketing or advertising campaign has garnered additional publicity for Amtrak.

I was mildly interested in the controversy but what captured my attention was that the last leg of my big move west in 1981 was - thank you very much - courtesy of Amtrak.

I was leaving behind Vermont, New York, and other points east for California. At the time, I had been covering the politics of passenger rail, had many contacts at Amtrak and took up the fight when President Reagan's first budget cut its federal funding.

So before leaving, I arranged to do a travel piece for my former employer, the Vanguard Press, an alternative weekly published out of Burlington. For three years, I had been writing news, politics and culture from the nation's tiniest capital city, Montpelier (pop: 8,000).

I was in D.C. than South Florida before boarding the Sunset Limited in New Orleans for my free-bee two-day trip to L.A. Though I didn't know it then, this train was famous for, among other things, helping African Americans leave Louisiana and Texas to work in the war industries in Los Angeles during World War II.

Three months later, from my apartment in Santa Monica, Calif., I wrote this piece for the July 17, 1981 issue of the Vanguard Press. It began:

"It's like fishing" explained a passenger aboard the Sunset Limited as we rolled through bayou country near Lafayette, Louisiana. Holding that rod and reel for hours without a bite teaches patience, and so does long distance train travel. Looking out the window of the observation car we devised our own quiet sport, scanning the swamps for alligators, but it was hard to distinguish them from soaked logs. "They're out there," insisted another traveler, a local boy. "They were put on the endangered species list so you can't hunt them and now they're all over the place."

Not only were we trying to spot an endangered species [I wrote], we were riding one.

A little contrived, but not bad. And then came my segue:

The Sunset Limited and dozens of other passenger trains will vanish into history with the steamboat and the stagecoach if the Reagan Administration gets its way. The President's warriors on government spending have opened fire on Amtrak... ... etc., etc.

The rest of the piece touched on economics, transportation policy, energy, political posturing, and finished with anecdotes about bad plumbing in one of the train's cars and the kitchen running out of butter.

Looking back, I'm surprised the article didn't focus more on the the enormous change I had made in my life, leaving cozy rural Vermont for SoCal's anonymity and sprawl.

That's what I was thinking early in the morning, 40 miles east of Los Angeles, looking through the window at the back side of what I would learn to call the Inland Empire.

Soon we'd be snaking through the freight yards and pulling into the Amtrak platform at L.A.'s Union Station. It was a dramatic opening scene - almost cinematic - filled with promise.

I'd arrived well rested and in style, ready to take on the town.

This article was originally posted at Lou Siegel's blog LaborLou.com and republished with the author's permission.

Photo: via LaborLou.com

Melba Hernandez, 93; leader of the Cuban Revolution

Thu, 20 Mar 2014 13:30:00 +0000

On Mar. 9, Cuba and the world lost a remarkable revolutionary figure, Melba Hernandez Rey, age 93. The cause of death was complications of diabetes.

Melba Hernandez was born in Las Cruces in 1921, and trained as an attorney at the University of Havana, graduating in 1943. Her family had been involved in the struggle for Cuba's liberation from Spanish colonial rule, so it is not surprising that she threw herself unhesitatingly into the struggle against one of Cuba's worst 20^th century despots, Fulgencio Batista.

On July 26, Melba Hernandez, along with Haydee Santamaria, was one of the women who participated actively in attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago, under the leadership of Fidel Castro. The attack failed, and Melba Hernandez was imprisoned along with others in the women's prison in Guanajay. Far from being warned off further revolutionary activity, upon her release Melba immediately returned to the struggle, and was instrumental in assuring the publication of Fidel Castro's famous courtroom speech "History will Absolve Me", one of the most important documents of the Cuban Revolution. She traveled to Mexico along with Fidel and other amnestied prisoners, and continued to work in the leadership of what became the July 26^th Movement, along with Fidel, Ernesto "Che" Guevara and her future husband, Jesus Montane, who died in 1999.

When she was able to return to Cuba, she became an active fighter in the Third Front, under the command of the late Comandante Juan Almeida Bosque

After the triumph of the Revolution on January 1, 1959, Melba Hernandez was one of the founders of the reconstituted Communist Party of Cuba, for which she carried out many important tasks. She was an elected member of the Cuban "People's Power" parliament from 1976 to 1986 and was elected again in 1993.

She also served as president of the Cuban Committee in Solidarity with South Vietnam, and later with the Committee in Solidarity with Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. She was part of the Presidium of the World Peace Council, and Secretary General of OSPAAAL, the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. She also served as Cuban ambassador to Vietnam and Cambodia (then Kampuchea), among many posts.

Melba Hernandez was one of a constellation of brilliant Cuban women revolutionaries that included, besides herself, Haydee Santamaria, Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin, the late wife of Cuban President Raul Castro. Though they have passed from the scene, they leave a glorious record in all areas of the struggle for a better world, and for socialism, and for the rights of women everywhere.

Photo: Melba Hernandez. AP

Do we need public education?

Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:08:00 +0000

The last two mayors of Chicago do not seem to think that we need public education. They have been busy privatizing education. Just weeks after Mayor Rahm Emanuel's appointed school board closed 50 public schools, they approved the opening of seven additional private charter schools. These charter schools are privately controlled but publicly funded. They are not supervised by any public agency. They report to no one other than their company's CEO. The public, which pays for charter schools through their taxes, has no input into any educational practices of the charter schools. Unlike Chicago public schools, where key decisions are made by an elected Local School Council, neither parents nor community control anything a charter school does.

In just a few years, many private charters have been opened and many public schools have been closed. Already, 20 percent of students funded by Chicago taxpayers attend the private charter schools, some of them run for profit. Does that matter?

Although evidence shows the contrary, Emanuel and pro-charter politicians claim that charter schools are better. The present day Republican Party and Democrats like Emanuel claim private business is more efficient than government operation. So why not get rid of all the public schools and let private business run them? Do we need public education?

Well this writer had a scary experience that I think sheds some light on this issue. From 1954 to 1962 we lived in Gary, Ind., sitting on the shore of lovely Lake Michigan, part of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are the largest surface freshwater system on Earth. Only the polar ice caps contain more fresh water. But even though we lived in Gary, we could not get city water. The very profitable, high priced, private water supply company was not a public service. Then called the Gary Hobart water company, it is now part of a national company, the American Water Company. They operate in 30 states and parts of Canada delivering water at a profit to 14 million people.

Back in 1958, Gary Mayor Chacharis put a referendum on the ballot to empower the city to make the water supply a public service. The private water company hired smart advertisers who defeated the referendum with the slogan: "Keep the politicians dirty hands out of our water."

That had some bad consequences for my Wooded Highlands neighborhood. We could not get city water unless we paid the entire cost to install pipes to bring the water to our community. Well we could not individually afford to pay the many thousands of dollars involved. For the city, that would have been a normal investment paid for by the city as a whole. But the city did not own the water supply and could not force the company to lay the pipes. On the company's part, they refused to make the investment because it was not profitable enough. And profit was their only motive. So we continued to drink water from wells, 30 percent of them contaminated. And our children continued to get sick.

I realized then that there are some essential services that government must perform, that they cannot sell to a private company. Pure water supply is one of them. And education is another.

If we think privatization through to its logical conclusion, it becomes clear that the school closings and massive spread of private charter schools is more than an attack on public education. It is an attack on the whole idea of education for all. And sadly, it goes beyond education to the destruction of whole communities. But that is a subject for other blogs.

Let's think this through. Suppose all public schools were privatized and replaced by charter schools. They would be owned by a helter-skelter pattern of different owners. Where would they get their school curriculums? Well where do charter schools get their curricula now?

Most base their instruction on the public school's curriculum. But if there were no public schools? OK, charter schools can find curriculums in the textbooks published by the highly monopolized industry. But where do these textbook companies get their curriculums? Now they are all scurrying to base their textbooks on the Common Core State Standards. And where did the Common Core State Standards come from? According to the official history, they come from " ... the excellent foundation of standards states have laid ..." But if we take the state out of the education business? See how ridiculous it gets!

So where do we go from here? It's not too late to save public education, although I agree with Diane Ravitch that we are approaching a "tipping point," at least in our large cities. The first step in saving our schools is obvious. As demanded by the Chicago Teachers Union, stop opening any more new charter schools. Then we can plan the re-integration of charter schools as public schools. If a charter school claims to have developed any innovative features, those should be maintained. The original suggestion for charter schools came from Albert Shanker, as a way to try innovative ideas. But Shanker, a president of the American Federation of Teachers AFL-CIO, proposed charters as part of the public schools, not as private schools.

Some good steps towards fixing the charter school mess were advanced by Diane Ravitch in the July 16, 2012, Washington Post blog.

First, insist that all new charters are endorsed by the local school district and the union representing teachers.

Second, bar all for-profit management.

Third, insist that all charters recruit and enroll only the lowest-performing students, the students who have dropped out and the students who are doing poorly in their present public school.

Fourth, require that charters collaborate with the public schools and share whatever they learn.

Fifth, to truly revive the spirit of Shanker's proposal, bar all corporate-owned charter chains. Authorize only stand-alone charters that are created by teachers and parents in the district to serve the children of that district. No chains, just local charters committed to that community.

It is obvious that the teachers' unions must play a central role in saving public education. And they are trying to do that. But it is also obvious that teachers cannot win without massive community support. That kind of support was growing around the 2012 Chicago Teachers Strike. The union could not have won without it. But it is not yet strong enough to stop the school privatizing privateers. In my opinion, nothing short of a mass social movement can build the strength needed to reverse privatization and build the public school system our children need and deserve. It was that kind of movement that won public education in the first place. And we saw the beginnings of it in the last Chicago Teachers Union strike and hopefully, in the New York City mayoralty elections.

This article was originally posted at Citizen Action - Illinois, republished here with author's permission.

Photo: Rochester, N.Y., public school students. AFT Facebook page.

Tony Benn: British labor giant dies

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 15:42:00 +0000

The death of Tony Benn is devastating to me, obviously to his family and to millions all around Britain and the world who recognized him as a friend, an honest man, and someone who passionately believed in the cause of socialism and humanity.

Tony was an MP for 50 years, with only a very short break between a sad defeat in Bristol East in 1983 and his election to Parliament as MP for Chesterfield nine months later.

His contribution to Parliament was magnificent in every way. He saw it as an institution to be revered and supported, but which he wanted to make more effective.

He was a real democrat who understood the broad sweep of history and how today's parliamentary democracy is a product of the Peasants' Revolt, the English civil war, the Great Reform Act of 1832, the Chartists, and the radical movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Tony was a minister in the 1964-70 and 1974-79 Labour governments. A far-thinking postmaster general, he went on to become minister of technology.

He recognized Britain's need to develop high-quality cutting-edge engineering as the way forward, and through his personal intervention he saved the Concorde project from cancellation in 1974.

As minister for industry in the second Wilson government, Tony developed the lessons of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders' work in 1971 as a way of defending industry from the predators who only saw assets to be stripped.

As secretary of state he steered through the public ownership of shipbuilding and aircraft manufacture, supported the Triumph Co-operative at Meriden and spoke at enormous Institute for Workers' Control conferences.

I worked at the Engineering Union in the early 1970s and Tony came to our offices to seek support for his industrial strategy because he felt he was being obstructed by the dead hand of officialdom in Whitehall.

He encouraged us to produce a blueprint for workers' control of British Leyland. Sadly he was moved on from his ministerial position before this bold move could take place.

Some of those who vigorously opposed Tony in the 1980s have surfaced again in the aftermath of his death, and are retrospectively trying to blame him for Labour's 1983 election defeat.

Yet the manifesto on which that election was fought would be highly appropriate today to deal with the finance and banking crisis that has been visited upon the poorest people in Britain and, indeed, across Europe.

The real reason for Labour's 1983 defeat was the defection of a number of leading figures in the Labour Party to the SDP, allowing Thatcher to be re-elected on the same vote as she had achieved in 1979 while calling it a triumph.

When the miners' strike took place in 1984-5 it coincided with Benn's election campaign in Chesterfield - and what a pleasure it was to campaign with him there, where he was elected and subsequently re-elected.

The miners' strike in many ways saw Tony at his finest, tirelessly travelling the country supporting picket lines and the Women Against Pit Closures, managing to unite inner-city struggles with the mining communities and always bringing a strength of internationalism into all of his speeches, regardless of the fact that it might be at 5 a.m. on a freezing picket line with an enormous menacing police presence threatening the miners and their families.

Tony, apart from being a great writer of diaries and a highly optimistic political philosopher, was fascinated by discussions and ordinary people's stories.

For a time in the late 1980s we held meetings of the Independent Left Corresponding Society, so named in memory of the radical correspondence societies during the dark days for radicals in Britain in the early part of the 19th century.

These meetings which included such luminaries as Ralph Miliband, Jim Mortimer, Tariq Ali, and Hilary Wainwright, took themes for discussion about party structures, the development of democracy and the effectiveness or otherwise of trade unions. In many ways this was my university education.

Tony never shied away from supporting equality, anti-racism, and causes that didn't get much attention from the media or the political establishment.

He supported the black community in Bristol when it boycotted the buses in 1959 because of the racism in the recruitment of drivers and conductors. He wanted to negotiate and talk with Sinn Fein when it was being isolated and ostracised.

Before the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991 he went to Baghdad with Edward Heath to try to obtain some kind of agreement, and memorably said when the war started that George Bush Sr. had declared himself at war with humanity.

Tony later was hugely active in the foundation of the Stop the War Coalition in 2001 and was president at the time of his death. He had been an inspirational figure at every rally, particularly the million-plus rally in Hyde Park on February 15, 2003. Right up to the end Tony was supporting and speaking at peace events.

An imaginative thinker, he founded the Coalition of Resistance as a way of uniting people in opposition to the austerity program being promoted by George Osborne and David Cameron whose method of restructuring society remains to increase inequality and to concentrate wealth in the hands of the minority.

I have so many personal memories of Tony. I first met him in the late 1960s as a young activist and it's been a privilege and honour to work with him on so many causes for so long.

My memories include little vignettes of life such as, at a moment of enormous tension in Brighton as Tony was about to lose the deputy leadership of the Labour Party election, he was frustrated that he couldn't get a cup of tea because the kettle wouldn't work. I suggested that this should not have been a problem for him as a former technology minster, at which he smiled.

Later, when my eldest son Ben was just a few months old, I brought him into Parliament, and he sat on Fenner Brockway's knee in the parliamentary cafeteria while Tony fed him and talked to him, both of them oblivious to what was going on around them as they concentrated on each other.

Tony had a great sense of history and wanted Parliament to commemorate those who had made a difference, including Emily Wilding Davison and her census-night sojourn in the broom cupboard under Westminster Hall.

I had the pleasure of helping Tony put the plaque up late one evening after the house had finished its business for the day.

We went to Tony's car and collected the plaque and an electric drill and as we made our way via the crypt a policeman approached us.

I thought the game was up and we'd be asked about the drill and electric tool box, late at night.

While I was trying to dream up the appropriate explanation to offer, the policeman approached and simply offered to carry our bags for us.

Tony told him that we were on our way to the chapel, at which point the policeman offered to escort us but Tony insisted on privacy.

On another occasion we went to Belfast to observe a "supergrass" trial, where the juries did not exist and the judge made a decision on the basis of evidence given from an informer who in return was given anonymity, a change of identity and a very large sum of money to start a new life.

When we arrived we went and queued up with other families to go into the public gallery and the court master saw us and said he'd find a space for us in the well of the court.

Rather undiplomatically he explained that in the public gallery one couldn't see or hear anything because the glass screen was scratched and there was a very poor PA system.

When we reached the well of the court, to the chagrin of our host, there were no seats available until the empty 12 seats in the jury box were spotted and we duly sat in them.

The barrister for the defence spotted an opportunity and announced to the judge that he was surprised at how small the new jury was but that he was happy to accept its wisdom.

Tony leaves behind the books and wonderful diaries he wrote and the enormous admiration and the friendship of millions of people.

He died with his family around him and while it is desperately sad for all of the family, his children Hilary, Stephen Melissa and Josh, he also leaves behind a wider family who he loved and adored.

At a Stop the War conference in the Emmanuelle Centre late last year, he was treated with overwhelming warmth and reverence by the international gathering.

He realised his legacy is a belief in people, progress and our abilities to shape our own lives, not leave it to the powerful and the wealthy.

Thanks, Tony, for everything that you did and the path that your writings will continue to show about how to bring about change. It was been one of the great privileges of my life to have known you so well and worked with you on so many causes.

Jeremy Corbin is a long-time meember of the British parliament from the Labor Party. This article appeared in Morning Star.

Photo: Tony Benn. Wikipedia (CC)

Straight talk on the U.S. and Ukraine

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 12:21:00 +0000

It's been interesting to observe the large numbers of people who suddenly think they're experts on the ongoing crisis in Ukraine-both those on the left who blame it on Obama for intervening too much and those on the right who blame it on Obama for not intervening enough.

As someone who has spent his entire academic career analyzing and critiquing the U.S. role in the world, I have some news: While the United States has had significant impact (mostly negative in my view) in a lot of places, we are not omnipotent. There are real limits to American power, whether for good or for ill. Not everything is our responsibility.

This is certainly the case with Ukraine.

Delusions of grandeur

On the right, you have political figures claiming that Obama's supposed "weakness" somehow emboldened Moscow to engage in aggressive moves against Crimea. Sarah Palin, for example, claims that Obama's failure to respond forcefully to Russia's bloody incursion into Georgia in 2008 made Russia's "invasion" possible, despite the fact that Obama wasn't even president then and therefore couldn't have done much.

Even some Democrats, like Delaware senator Chris Coons, claim that Obama's failure to attack Syria last fall made the United States look weak.

In reality, there seems to be little correlation between the willingness of Moscow to assert its power in areas within its traditional spheres of influence and who occupies the White House: The Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956 when Eisenhower was president; the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 when Johnson was president; the Soviets successfully pressed for martial law in Poland in 1981 when Reagan was president; the Russians attacked Georgia in 2008 when Bush was president. In each case, as much as these administrations opposed these actions, it was determined that any military or other aggressive counter-moves would likely do more harm than good. Washington cannot realistically do any more in response to Russian troops seizing Crimea in 2014 in the name of protecting Russian lives and Russian bases than Moscow could do in response to U.S. troops seizing Panama in 1989 in the name of protecting American lives and American bases.

There is an equally unrealistic view of supposed American omnipotence from some segments of the left in their claims that the United States was somehow responsible for the popular uprising that toppled the Yanukovych regime last month.

First of all, it's not true that the United States government "spent $5 billion to destabilize Ukraine," as some agitators have claimed. That figure is the total amount of money provided to the country since independence in 1991, which includes aid to pro-Western Ukrainian administrations (which the United States presumably would not have wanted to destabilize). Like most U.S. foreign aid, some of it went for good things and some for not so good things. There was also some funding through the National Endowment for Democracy and other organizations to some opposition groups that were involved in the recent insurrection, but this was in the millions of dollars, nothing remotely close to $5 billion. And this aid went primarily to centrist groups, not the far right, so claims that the United States "supported fascists" in Ukraine are without foundation.

It's also unfair to imply that such aid was somehow the cause of the uprising, thereby denying agency to the millions of Ukrainians who took to the streets in an effort to determine (for better or worse) their own future. To claim that U.S. aid was responsible for the Orange Revolution of 2005 or the more recent revolt is as ludicrous as President Reagan's claims in the 1980s that Soviet aid was responsible for the leftist revolutions in Central America.

The uprising that overthrew Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and his allied pro-Russian oligarchs was not a classic nonviolent pro-democracy uprising like those that have toppled scores of dictatorships in recent decades. Yanukovych was democratically elected, and the forces that ousted him included-though were not dominated by-armed, neo-fascist militias. At the same time, Yanukovych's rampant corruption, repression, and divide-and-rule tactics had cost him his legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of Ukrainians. The protesters were primarily liberal democrats who engaged in legitimate acts of nonviolent resistance against severe government repression, many of whom spent months in freezing temperatures in a struggle for a better Ukraine dominated by neither Russia nor the West. To label them as simply puppets of Washington is as unfair as labeling peasant revolutionaries in El Salvador as puppets of Moscow.

At the same time, given that the new government includes corrupt neo-liberal oligarchs along with representatives of the far right, it would be equally wrong to assume that the change of government represents some kind of major progressive democratic opening. And the refusal of the opposition to abide by the compromise agreement of February 21, which called for early elections and limited presidential powers, and seize power directly raises questions regarding the legitimacy of the new government. Whether for good or for ill, however, and despite whatever attempts Western powers have made to influence the outcome, the change of government is ultimately the responsibility of Ukrainians, not the Obama administration.

While the United States and the European Union no doubt want to lure Ukraine in a pro-Western direction and the Russians even more desperately want Ukraine to stay within their orbit, Ukrainians themselves-given the country's centuries of subjugation-are strongly nationalistic and do not want to be under the control of Russia or the West. With a population of 45 million and significant agricultural and industrial capacity, they are not a country that would passively accept foreign domination.

Just as U.S. military action in the greater Middle East in the name of protecting Americans from Islamist extremism has ended up largely encouraging Islamist extremism, Russia's actions in the name of protecting Russians from right-wing Ukrainian ultra-nationalists will likely only encourage that tendency as well. The United States, therefore, needs to avoid any actions that could encourage dangerous ultra-nationalist tendencies among either Russians or Ukrainians. Polls show most Russians are at best ambivalent about the Kremlin's moves in Ukraine. Provocative actions by the United States would more likely solidify support for Russian president Vladimir Putin's illegitimate actions.

One factor that may have partly motivated Russian moves in Ukraine could have been talk by U.S. officials of incorporating Ukraine in the NATO alliance, a move which-given the history of foreign invaders conquering Russia through the Ukraine-would be completely unacceptable to the Kremlin. However, Russia's moves in Crimea may make such a scenario more likely rather than less likely. To ease such tensions, even such hawks as former U.S. National Security Advisers Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski acknowledge the limits of American power in such a situation and have proposed a compromise whereby Ukraine, like Finland during the Cold War, would be prohibited from joining any formal military alliance, and the Russian-speaking areas would be granted a degree of autonomy. Should President Obama consider such a compromise, however, he would almost certainly be attacked not only by Republicans but by hawkish Democrats as well. Indeed, Obama's former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in comparing Putin to Adolph Hitler, has contributed to a political climate making the Obama administration's ability to accept such a compromise all the more difficult.

U.S. leadership

Thousands of Russian troops have fanned out from Russian bases in Crimea and, under Russian control, the Crimean parliament-dominated by ethnic Russians-has unilaterally declared independence and called for a snap referendum to reincorporate the peninsula into Russia. This is a clear violation of the 1994 Budapest Treaty-signed by Russia, Ukraine, the United States, France, Great Britain, and China-guaranteeing, in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear arsenal inherited from the Soviet Union, the country's territorial integrity and security assurances against threats or use of force.

As a result, there does need to be a strong international response to Russia's aggrandizement. Unfortunately, the United States is hardly in a position to take leadership on the matter.

For example, Secretary of State John Kerry has chastised Putin's actions in Crimea on the grounds that "You just don't invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests," adding that Russia's actions constituted a "direct, overt violation of international law." While this is certainly a valid statement in itself, it's ironic coming from a man who so vigorously supported the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq on the phony pretext that Saddam Hussein had "weapons of mass destruction." Indeed, while Obama, to his credit, opposed the Iraq War, the fact that he appointed so many supporters of that illegal invasion and occupation to major foreign policy positions in his administration has severely weakened the United States' ability to assume leadership in challenging the Kremlin on its own unilateral excesses.

Similarly, in 2004, Kerry, Joe Biden, and other members of Congress who later became key Obama administration officials unconditionally endorsed then-Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's plan to incorporate large sections of the occupied West Bank into Israel, a proposal denounced by international legal authorities worldwide as an illegal annexation. This makes it very difficult for the Obama administration to be taken seriously when it denounces the illegality of the proposed referendum to have Crimea incorporated into Russia.

There is also the fact that the Obama administration appears willing to accept Morocco's illegal takeover of occupied Western Sahara (under the autocratic monarchy's dubious "autonomy" proposal) in defiance of international law, a landmark 1975 World Court decision, and a series of UN resolutions. While illegitimate, the Russians are at least willing offer the people of Crimea a choice in a referendum. By contrast, the United States has effectively abandoned the United Nations' insistence that there be a referendum in occupied Western Sahara, apparently in the recognition that the vast majority of Western Saharans would vote for independence.

In short, given the history of U.S. support for its allies' land grabs and its own history of illegal invasions, this leaves the United States with little credibility to take leadership in this crisis. This in no way justifies or minimizes the seriousness of Russia's aggression, of course. However, it underscores the fact that international leadership is not just a matter of being "tough." It means being willing to abide by and defend the same international legal norms for yourself and your allies as you demand of your adversaries. Until there is such a change in policies, there is little the United States can do.

This article was originally posted at Foreign Policy In Focus. FPIF columnist Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco.

Photo: For better or worse, the revolution in Ukraine was the work of Ukrainians, not Washington. The U.S. isn't in a position to govern what happens next, nor should it be. (Photo: Sasha Maksymenko / Flickr)

Hang in there, Mayor de Blasio

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 12:15:00 +0000

The wolves of Wall Street are out to destroy New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's universal pre-kindergarten plan (UPK).

The plan was a centerpiece of de Blasio's election campaign last fall. He won with 72 percent of the vote.

UPK, when enacted, would provide full-time pre-kindergarten to over 50,000 children who currently receive part-time or no pre-k. More than 73,000 four-year-olds will benefit from UPK when it is fully implemented.

To pay for it the City of New York is calling for a five-year income tax increase from 3.876 percent to 4.41 percent on those who make over $500,000.

This tax increase on wealthy New Yorkers will bring in $530 million a year to fund the plan. This price tag is less than what a New York state judge determined New York City schools are owed in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit seeking more funding public schools.

For the UPK measure to pass it must be approved by the state legislature and there is real opposition including from Gov. Andrew Cuomo who is opposed to any new taxes.

This tax increase is smaller than what the legislature in Albany has granted the three previous New York mayors for priority issues. It is an increase of slightly more than 0.5 percent.

For someone with an annual income of $600,000 (or $50,000 a month), the increase would be an extra $500 in taxes annually.

Rather than tax the rich, the governor's proposal is to use the state's budget surplus to pay for pre-k statewide. Pre-k should be available to all the children of the state. But Mayor de Blasio argues that if it relies on the state budget surplus and not a dedicated tax, as soon as the economy dips and overall tax revenues decline, we can say "Goodbye pre-k." A dedicated tax will insure it stands regardless of the ups and downs of the economy.

According to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), New York state has one of the least regressive tax systems in the country. Combining all state and local taxes, all but the top 1 percent pay at roughly the same rate. The richest 1 percent, essentially those with incomes over $500,00, pay substantially less: roughly 4 percentage points less.

The bottom line is this: Under the de Blasio proposal, those making over $500,000 would still be paying a smaller percentage of their total income (for all state and local taxes) than the other 99 percent of New Yorkers. The de Blasio proposal is perfectly reasonable.

The wealthiest New Yorkers will still get a better break on state and local taxes than the average working person.

But the governor and the wolves of Wall Street are campaigning hard against UPK and they are using the excuse of charter schools to do so.

Keep in mind that the hedge funds who back for-profit charter schools are making money. In fact Eva Moskowitz who runs 22 charter schools in New York including the "Harlem Success Academy" makes over $475,000 and her for-profit schools get subsidized by New York taxpayers through millions in public school funds and tens of thousands of square feet of space in public schools rent free and at the expense of public school children.

The de Blasio administration is not opposed to charters. In fact the mayor points out that of the 17 proposals to put additional charter schools in public school space this year, his administration approved 14 which included five schools run by Moskowitz, who is the main person behind multi-million-dollar media ads against the mayor.

The Board of Education denied three spaces to charters because they would have replaced space used by disabled special needs children. The attack ads keep running even though the administration has pledged to find spaces for them.

There is a lot of talk in the media that UPK is dead. I say "Hang in there, Mr. Mayor". This battle may take time but it can be won.

This struggle is just beginning. The voters knew what they were voting for when they elected de Blasio. They want the best for the children of our city. We have not fully heard from most of them.

We also have not heard from the majority of families of the 1.2 million students in public schools that support UPK, are starved for funds and have been squeezed out of their spaces by hedge fund backed charters.

We have not heard from the 100,000-plus teachers and other organized workers and their families.

These folks are very supportive of many of the mayor's policies including finding a way to give public workers a raise.

As the mayor said in his recent Albany speech, "The facts are on our side. The people are on our side. Now we have to get Albany on our side."

Hang on, Mr. Mayor. Keep standing up and call on the people. Don't back down. The people have got your back. This battle can be won.

Photo: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio talks with children after reading them a book in a pre-kindergarten class at P.S. 130 in New York, Feb. 25. De Blasio stopped by the classroom after a news conference about his plans for universal pre-kindergarten in New York City. Seth Wenig/AP

Starkovich loved unions, children, flowers....despised redbaiters, unionbusters!

Fri, 14 Mar 2014 11:08:00 +0000

SEATTLE---Nearly 200 people gathered at the Urban Horticulture Center on the University of Washington (UW) campus, Mar. 9, to honor George Tony Starkovich for his lifelong work as a union organizer, an activist for jobs, peace, and equality. Starkovich died February 26 at age 91.

His family, including his widow, Pat, were in the crowd for the celebration. Daffodils and ornamental trees that George Starkovich once tended were coming into full bloom on campus.

Born April 27, 1922, Starkovich became a coal miner at age 15, following his father into the mines near Bellingham, WA. He became class conscious and kept that understanding the rest of his life. His parents were immigrants from the town of Lic, Croatia and Starkovich visited his relatives there over the years.

Dick Major, Secretary of the Croatian Fraternal Union Lodge #439 said he and George Starkovich were considered "young turks" who resisted pressures that pulled other immigrant groups to the right. When Starkovich's father died, George asked Major to deliver the eulogy. "For me, George was a friend. Rest in peace, George."

Robby Stern, President of the Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action (PSARA) called Starkovich "a passionate man" fired by a love of working people and their unions.

But Stern recalled that Starkovich "had a temper. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) knew about that."

David Loud, a staff representative of Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) read a letter from McDermott hailing Starkovich as "salt of the earth. Loud told the crowd details of Starkovich's combat with HUAC. When the witch-hunt committee came to Seattle in 1954 they attempted to grill Starkovich on his leftwing affiliations.

George had served as a medic in the South Pacific during WWII. When a bomb exploded, Starkovich continued to treat wounded GIs even though he himself was wounded. He won a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for bravery.

Starkovich was not about to have his loyalty questioned by HUAC demagogues. One of them called Starkovich "The most contemptuous witness I have seen since I have been a member of this committee."

Starkovich fired back, "I do have contempt for this committee and I want that in the record so that it will be known in the future that I expressed my contempt for this committee."

The People's World reported the story in its June 18, 1954 edition under a blazing headline, "WAR VET HURLS PEACE CHALLENGE AT VELDE PROBE." And PW staff writer, Will Parry, in the Friday Mar. 11, 1955 edition wrote a story about Starkovich's struggle with HUAC headlined, "New Battle for a War Hero."

Starkovich was cited with six counts of "contempt of Congress." In the years that followed he and dozens of other leftwingers, including members of the Communist Party, were hounded and harassed by the FBI. His daughter, Patty Starkovich, told the World, that her dad was fired 17 times during a two-year period. Finally, she said, Joe Forza, an immigrant Italian gardener hired Starkovich in 1957 and resisted all FBI pressures to fire him. Later, he worked as a self-employed gardener. In 1965 the UW hired Starkovich as a full-time gardener.

(U.S. Judge, George Boldt, ultimately threw out all the contempt charges. Boldt later handed down the landmark ruling that the Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest are entitled to half the salmon catch each year).

Mel Hearn, an African American gardener at UW said, "George actually taught me how to be a union activist. You meet someone sometimes who touches your heart. George was that kind of person. He's up there in gardening heaven with all the gardening angels, organizing."

Greg Devereaux, Executive Director of the Washington Federation of State Employees, said Starkovich organized the UW gardeners from about 200 members to 1,000 members. Starkovich was repeatedly elected vice president and president of AFSCME Local 1488.

"George helped organize his local into a powerful force statewide," Devereaux said. "For George it was always the union against the boss. The University of Washington is a wonderful institution...but George was a leveling force. He was fearless in defense of those who needed defense the most."

Under his leadership, Local 1488 won its first contract with the UW. He led the fight for equal pay for women and secured jobs for women in previously all-male job categories.

Libby Sinclair said she and her family moved into an apartment downstairs in the same house with Pat and George Starkovich. Soon they became surrogate grandparents to her children and trusted friends they discussed political issues with. "We knew we could always trust George because his instincts were so clear," she said.

Sinclair is a 5th grade school teacher and often invited Starkovich to speak to her classes about issues confronting the nation. "He never said no," she said.

Patty Starkovich told the crowd her father "considered himself lucky throughout his life," lucky to have immigrant parents and a coal miner for a father, lucky to have survived WWII, to have met and married Pat, "lucky to have found an old gardener who didn't care that the FBI was coming around trying to get him fired."

Tears welling in her eyes she added, "Just a few weeks ago, he would look at my mom and get that smile. Until the end of his life they were so devoted to each other." They were struggling with Starkovich's Alzheimer's, she said, and Pat "always made sure his life was filled with love and dignity."

Photo of George Tony Starkovich courtesy the family.

Is the Earth overpopulated?

Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:32:00 +0000

Recently I've been facilitating two groups studying global warming. (I will send my annotated 10-book syllabus to anyone who asks for it). Our current discussions are based on Alan Weisman's new book, "Countdown." While the book contains statements indicating it is not so simple, Weisman's main point is that overpopulation is at the core of our environmental problems.

I've also been reading Clive Ponting's "A New Green History of the World." Ponting concludes that: "The current environmental problems in the world can only be understood in the context of the nature of the world economy produced since 1500."

At first glance these points of view appear to restate the old argument between Malthus and Marx. Malthus argued in 1798 that food production could never match population growth, and so, the masses were doomed to starvation. Marx, on the other hand, maintained that there would be enough for everyone if the earth's resources were distributed fairly. He attacked Malthus for placing blame on the victims of capitalist exploitation rather than on the capitalists, who were the real culprits.

Raised by two sets of Old Left parents, and coming of age as a New Left Marxist, I initially rejected all claims that we could eliminate poverty and environmental damage through population control. However, in 1798 when Malthus first staked out his position, there were fewer than one billion people on the planet, and when Marx critiqued him there were no more than 1.5 billion. The world's population has recently topped 7 billion, and is headed for nine or ten billion in the next several decades. Marx was right that when Malthus propounded his theory it was a self-serving defense of inequality, but since then, overpopulation has become a major problem.

I also agree with Ponting that the world's current unequal distribution of resources is responsible for environmentally-devastating first world overconsumption and mass human suffering. But capitalism's love affair with increasing population is a key part of the current global economy. More people equals more workers willing to work for less as they compete with each other. More consumers buy more, generating more profit. A system based on perpetual growth serves its principal beneficiaries when individuals consume more AND there are more individuals doing the consuming. Is it possible that Weisman and Ponting are both correct?

Seven billion people are way too many, and 10 billion will just hasten disaster. Weisman's point is well-taken; we must and can bring down the population through universal education, and government assisted family planning programs, and doing so is a necessary condition of controlling global warming. Weisman, laments that all we lack is the political will to do so. He writes: "why [are] health decisions about Mother Nature ... made by politicians, not by scientists who know how critical her condition is." But as Ponting makes plain, the nature of our global economy means that politicians serving multinational corporate masters will continue to make such decisions. As long as the world's economy is driven by competition, profit and growth, efforts to reduce substantially either our population or consumption will be ineffective.

It is not a question of one or the other. Both are essential and we must address them in conjunction.

This article originally appeared at the Robert Meeropol's blog.

Photo: Tomonari Suzuoki CC

Animals: Thinking, feeling, and emotional individuals

Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:04:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS - I cannot observe an animals' expression - its eyes, its behavior, its purring, its social structure, its unwavering will to survive - and convince myself that it is anything other than a thinking, feeling, and emotional individual.

I cannot witness the millions of vegetarians throughout the world, the scientific studies, the evidence all around me, and convince myself that meat is nutritionally necessary. I cannot shop at the same grocery stores as everyone else, and see a nearly unlimited supply of fruit, vegetables, rice, and beans and convince myself that I could not live well without meat.

I know of many compelling reasons to abstain from animal products, but cannot think of a single good reason to use animals in this way.

Animal production has devastating consequences on the global environment. It manifests some of the most horrendous working conditions on the planet and creates negative health consequences for consumers. But even in the best of cases, given that the use of animals as products is not necessary, it is still unethical behavior.

In the best case scenario, farmed animals are exploited for their resources. In the worst case scenarios they are subjected to the most horrendous torture conceivable.

As the world's population grows, our thirst for flesh increases, big agribusiness is only becoming worse in its treatment of animals. You might be thinking: What about humanely farmed animals? But I argue that this, more than veganism, is a bourgeois notion. It is nearly impossible to know the source of most meat. In addition, meat cannot feed the world's population. It is environmentally unsound. And it is still exploitative.

Since consuming animals is not nutritionally necessary, it is only done for pleasure (taste, tradition, convenience), and exploiting a sentient being for pleasure is wrong.

Animals are individuals, not products. Unfortunately, the bodies of animals are used to provide privilege, luxury, and profit not to meet needs that cannot be otherwise met. Capitalism encourages us to value exchange above all else. It erodes the intrinsic value of social relationships, labor and materials that go into production.

Furthermore, it is the hierarchical structure of capitalism that allows us to believe that one class of humans can have, and should have, dominance over another. Similarly, it allows us to believe that humans should have dominance over other animals and the environment itself.

It allows us to ignore the individualistic nature,and the personalities of animals, and to view them as products. But by turning a critical eye toward our own choices in our daily lives, we can begin to dismantle this oppression, and lessen the suffering of animals and people throughout the world.

Rebecca Bolte is a small businessperson and an animal rights activist.

Photo: The author sees animals as thinking, feeling, and emotional beings. Blake Deppe/PW

Nuclear disarmament policy a mixed bag, at best

Tue, 11 Mar 2014 16:44:00 +0000

NEW YORK, Feb 25 2014 (IPS) - If psychosis is a loss of contact with reality, the current status of nuclear disarmament can best be described as psychotic.

On the one hand, the nuclear issue is beginning to creep out from under the rug where it has lain dormant for several decades. On the other hand, the commitment of the nuclear weapon states to a nuclear weapons-free world is honored more in the breach than in the observance.

U.S. policy on nuclear disarmament is at best a mixed bag; that of the other eight nuclear-armed powers is not much better.

Let us begin by adding up the pluses and the minuses of nuclear disarmament.

On the plus side, we have a president of the United States, which is central to the problem, who has spoken out repeatedly on the subject, albeit in a decelerating mode. In a speech at Purdue University on Jun. 16, 2008, he said, "It's time to send a clear message to the world: America seeks a world without nuclear weapons ... we'll make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy."

There was no reference to how long it might take. A year later, in the famous Prague speech of May 6, 2009, Obama said, "I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," but he added, "This goal will not be reached quickly - perhaps not in my lifetime."

He was 48 at the time. Four years later, on Jun. 19, 2013, in Berlin, Obama said, "Peace with justice means pursuing the security of a world without nuclear weapons - no matter how distant that dream may be."

In all fairness, the trajectory to abolition announced in Prague has either been implemented or blocked through no fault of the president: A substantial reduction in nuclear arms has been negotiated with Russia and the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security strategy has been lessened.

The ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the negotiation of a Fissile Materials Treaty, both of which the Obama administration favors, have been held up, one by the U.S. Senate, the other by another country.

But reduction is not elimination and the Defense Department (DOD) and Department of Energy continue to pursue policies that are clearly incompatible with nuclear disarmament, to wit:

The Nuclear Employment Strategy of the United States, issued by the DOD on June 19, 2013, states that nuclear weapons will be used only in extreme circumstances, but that it is too early to limit their employment strictly to deterrence.

The Assessment of Nuclear Monitoring and Verification Technologies, released by the Defense Science Board in January, 2014, concedes that for the first time since the beginning of the nuclear age the United States needs to be concerned not only with horizontal proliferation, i.e. to countries not possessing nuclear weapons, but also with vertical proliferation, i.e. in nuclear weapons countries.

But the 100-page report makes no reference to monitoring and verification requirements in a nuclear weapons-free world.

On Feb. 6, in an apparent violation of at least the spirit if not the letter of the Nonproliferation Treaty, the U.S. announced that it had conducted a successful impact test (not involving an explosion) of the B-61 nuclear bomb. Donald Cook, deputy administrator for defense at [DOE], said that engineering on the new bomb had commenced and that this would make it possible to replace older models "by the mid or late 2020s."

Thus, U.S. policy on nuclear disarmament is at best a mixed bag; that of the other eight nuclear-armed powers is not much better.

Now for the good news. Last year saw more encouraging action by non-nuclear powers than most previous years:

In February the Foreign Ministry of Germany, a member of NATO, hosted a Forum on Creating the Conditions and Building a Framework for a Nuclear Weapons Free World convened by the Middle Powers Initiative. It was attended by 26 governments and a number of civil society organizations.
In March, the Foreign Ministry of Norway, another NATO country, convened in Oslo a Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, attended by 128 governments, and numerous civil society organizations.
On Oct. 21, Ambassador Dell Higgie of Norway delivered to the First Committee of the U.N. the statement adopted by 125 countries, many of whom had attended the Oslo conference. It declared that the only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons will never be used again is through their total elimination.
A Governmental Open Ended Working Group on Nuclear Disarmament met for the first time in May in Geneva and produced in August a report to the General Assembly that outlined a variety of approaches to reaching nuclear disarmament, including a section on the role of international law.
Also for the first time, on Sept. 26, the General Assembly held a high level meeting on nuclear disarmament in which country after country, represented by presidents, foreign ministers and other high officials, called for prompt and effective progress toward a nuclear weapons free world.
Finally, and most importantly, during the follow-up conference to Oslo held in Nayarit, Mexico, Feb. 13 and 14, Sebastian Kurz, the foreign minister of Austria, announced that he would convene a conference in Vienna later this year because "the international nuclear disarmament efforts require an urgent paradigm shift."

The Vienna conference will not be simply a third rehearsal of the unspeakable horrors of nuclear weapons. It will get down to serious business, perhaps even the commencement of drafting a convention banning the use and possession of these weapons, as suggested by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

But there is a problem: The countries that have nuclear weapons have boycotted both Oslo and Nayarit. What if they boycott Vienna as well? That is the question. It is also the challenge facing the growing anti-nuclear weapons community, both official and unofficial. Embarrassment can be a tool of diplomacy.

The Nonproliferation Treaty, to which the nuclear powers pay lip service, requires good faith efforts by all states to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world. This is a good time to remind the nuclear states, and particularly the big five, of that all-important obligation.

Peter Weiss is President Emeritus of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy. The article above is a reprint and was published Feb. 25 by the IPS Inter Press Service news agency.

Photo: On April 5, 2009, in Prague, Czech Republic, President Barack Obama delivers his speech in favor of a treaty clamping down on production of the stuff of nuclear bombs. Herbert Knosowski/AP

We are not going back!

Tue, 11 Mar 2014 15:34:00 +0000

From the 16^th to the 19^th centuries 12 million Africans were hunted down, kidnapped and chained in the bowels of ships for the long middle passage to the western Hemisphere to be slaves for life. They were taken to the Caribbean and to locations all over Central and South America.

When I look out at this large multi-racial audience this evening (black, Latino, white, Native American Indian, Asian and Pacific) I see people who have had special relationships to the 12 million survivors of the middle passage.

W.E.B. DuBois estimated that an additional 13 million lost there lives in the capture and forced transport to the North and South American continents.

This is black history month but this story, this history, is not just about black people. This is a story of epic proportions that has had a profound impact, not only on our nation, but globally. The legacy of slavery has affected us all.

From slavery to today's struggles against structural racism and for democracy for all, the African-American people continue to play a strategic role.

Slavery and racial genocide and oppression were a decisive part of the economic and cultural development of US capitalism from the beginning. Today racism continues to be a main ideological weapon of the 1 percent. Racism is used to divide and conquer. For working people, it makes enemies of allies and allies of enemies. The worse expressions of racism come from the extreme right but it poisons all sectors of the ruling 1 percent.

Over 90 percent of African Americans are in the working class. They play a critical role in the working-class movement.

Because their struggle for freedom naturally combines the fight against racism and capitalist exploitation, the liberation movement of African Americans has a great revolutionary potential. Millions of African-American workers have a long history of civil rights and union activism and that gives them a higher level of consciousness and militancy when it comes to fighting against the system.

The centrality of the struggle of the African American people in the total fight for democracy and freedom is rooted in the class composition of black people and the culture of resistance and struggle that made it possible to survive the horrors of human bondage and oppression for over four centuries.

The struggle continues and we pick up the torch of liberation and freedom and we will not go back.

But what is the great challenge in the struggle for African-American freedom today?

It is clear to me that the main obstacle to progress today is the extreme right wing which is the dominant force in the Republican Party.

Who is the main block to all civil rights and pro-working-class legislation today?

Who is pushing voter suppression all over the country?

Who is fighting against any raise in the minimum wage?

Who is the most organized opposition to a woman's right to choose and marriage equality?

Who is pushing "stand your ground" and "stop and frisk legislation?" Who is the main proponent of mass incarceration of blacks and Latinos?

Who is opposed to any form of gun control?

Who is the main opposition to quality pubic education for all?

Who is blocking the extension of unemployment benefits and is pushing for big cuts in housing programs and food stamps?

Who is the main obstacle to doing something about climate change?

Who is the main supporter of fracking and openly opposes government creation of vitally needed public works and green jobs?

Who is the most active and open opposition to any government programs that help working families? Who is the most organized opposition to taxing the rich?

Who is openly for the destruction of unions and against workers rights? Who is the strongest organized movement that is for the total rollback of the New Deal reforms including Social Security? They are the main problem.

It is the extreme right wing, the tea party and libertarians, with billions of dollars in corporate money that has taken complete control of the Republican Party. Today they are the main obstacles to advancing the cause of racial equality.

They hate President Obama with a passion because on most of these domestic issues his positions are in harmony with the needs of the working class. Leo Gerard, leader of the Steel workers said, "They hate Obama mainly because he is black."

Their hate for the President is poisoning the political atmosphere and is discouraging racial unity and encouraging the racist lunatic fringe. That's how they think they will win elections. They are acting against the best interest of the nation.

With all the money and power they have you would think they couldn't be defeated. But they have been and will be defeated. They are in a fight for their political lives. Their reliance on racism and anti-communism is moving them to the political fringe. This is a weakness, not a strength. The main electoral base of the tea party and Republicans is among white male and Southern voters. They cannot win elections without voter suppression.

The Republican Party will collapse if it loses the South.

It matters who is elected to public office. We have to be a part of those who are for defeating the right wing Republican majority in the House.

It matters who is elected to public office. Trayvon Martin and Jordon Davis might be alive today if it wasn't for the Republican majority in the Florida legislature that passed "stand your ground."

The Arizona legislature recently passed a Jim Crow-type law against the basic rights of our LGBTQ sisters and brothers. The law, had it not been vetoed, under pressure, by the governor, would have allowed a store or restaurant to deny service to anyone who is perceived as being gay. The legislator who introduced the bill said it was about "freedom of religion." What church does he belong to? The Church of the KKK?

Now we know about that and we know that they are opposed to civil rights and racial equality in general. Rand Paul says that the civil right act should be enforced in the public sector but not in the private sector. These are basically positions that will nullify the gains of the 1960s and legalize discrimination everywhere.

Your vote and your political work matters. The last election cycles show that. We cannot let our long term goals be an obstacle to getting involved in the urgent immediate struggles that are before us today. Understanding that reality is key to moving our country towards a new progressive era.

This is no time to retreat. We are not going back. On most issues, with struggle, these battles can and will be won.

So, in conclusion, I say 2014 must not be a repeat of 2010. 2014 must be a historic setback for the extreme right and a great opening to new victories for the people.

Jarvis Tyner is executive vice chair of the Communist Party, USA. The above are the remarks he made at a New York City celebration of African-American culture and struggle held on Feb. 26.

Photo: Moral Monday march in Raleigh, N.C. North Carolina NAACP Facebook page.

Students empower themselves through union solidarity

Mon, 10 Mar 2014 11:09:00 +0000

EUGENE, Ore. - Have you ever been in a space where everyone felt drained? Like there was no control over what your life would be like because someone or some institution made the rules and you were reaching for any opportunity you had to make it better? Well, if you have you know that it sucks. It is the kind of feeling that undergraduate college students have been feeling for a very long time.

I used to sit in those rooms and be frustrated with my fellow peers. Now, I sit in rooms with groups, including my own, the University of Oregon Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), where we push back.

The University of Oregon is in a relatively liberal school in a liberal state. We are not an anti-worker state. We still have work to do on same-sex marriage, marijuana legalization, and of course, corporate tax loopholes, but we are making some strides in those areas. What UO does have though, is high union density. Our campus has three unions that represent faculty (including adjunct), classified staff, and graduate teaching assistants. The United Academics, SEIU, and Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (GTFF) have all been tremendous powerhouses in their fight for better working conditions at the University of Oregon.

Student power has been key to ensuring they have momentum in the bargaining fights. The UO Student Labor Action Project is a direct action organizing student group that works on economic justice campaigns. We are not a union but we are representing ourselves and our peers. Our solidarity work with the unions on our campus has been pivotal to our growth as well as theirs. Whether they want to admit it or not, administrators get concerned and nervous when undergraduate students who do not seem to have a direct stake in what happens show up at rallies and bargaining sessions for our faculty and staff. And, they should. Because it means that we are all talking to each other.

The importance of a work sector being organized is unparalleled but what really counts is when it creates a ripple effect on the surrounding sectors. You will find students, faculty, and workers at a rally for graduate teaching assistants. We support each other because we know that if we are in it together then we can win all of our fights. These cross-connections make us stronger and are necessary to our victories.

These victories can be as small as helping a union by just being there, or can be as big as escalating tactics that a union doesn't have the resources to do, but a student group might.

When SEIU almost went on strike on the UO campus last fall, SLAP was going to do a rolling sit-in at the chancellor's office. We understand the importance of the student voice in worker struggles and were willing to do whatever we needed to ensure that our staff, as well as the other six public universities' staff, got the fair contract they deserved.

These are the types of tactics we can do together to reach our greater goal. Unions are a positive influence on our campus for the workers and students. It is essential to the labor movement and student movement that unions and students work together. We are doing that at the University of Oregon and we have control.

Joanna Stewart is co-chair of the Student Labor Action Project at the University of Oregon.

Photo: University of Oregan Student Labor Action Project members welcome new students to campus, Sept. 26, 2013. UO Student Labor Action Project Facebook page

Saber rattling over Ukraine needs to stop

Tue, 04 Mar 2014 17:03:00 +0000

Much of Washington and the corporate media are outdoing one another with their saber rattling over the crisis in the Ukraine. Columnists and U.S. senators alike have called upon the Obama administration to come up with billions of dollars to bolster an unelected government in Kiev that is led by various stripes of ultra rightists, including fascists. Not surprising, but Fox News commentators have even called for the dispatch of a U.S. naval armada into the Black Sea.

Although President Obama has thankfully shown no inclination to carry out any such armed intervention, the administration has found common cause with neo-conservatives and Cold War warriors on this crisis, and, moreover with its unnecessary belligerent stance towards Russia. Threats to the Russians about the "price" they will pay for an "invasion" only serve to heighten tensions in an already extremely dangerous situation.

First some facts:

Russia has not invaded the Ukraine. Russian troops in Crimea have been there for many years by treaty agreement to guard a nuclear-armed military base and other installations. There is an information battle in the Russian, Ukrainian and Western media, including on the interpretations of the treaty.
There are millions of Russian-speaking people in the Ukraine - half the population - who have legitimate concerns about their rights and what could happen if Russia's nuclear naval base falls into the hands of Ukrainian ultra nationalists.

Secretary of State John Kerry's pronouncements about how wrong it is to invade a sovereign country on "phony" pretexts ring hollow on many counts, including the United States' own inclination to invade and/or bomb countries on pretexts that turned out to be phony and destabilizing. (Invasions and bombings in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya; drones in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia; regime change in Honduras and attempts in Venezuela, just to name a few places.)

The Obama administration and the European Union actively supported protestors, many armed with AK47s and Molotov cocktails, to overthrow an elected government after its president, Viktor Yanukovych, backed out of a deal with the EU. Righteous reasons like opposition to corruption may have motivated many of the protestors, but it is clear that the government was taken over by well-finance and armed groups, not by democratic-minded demonstrators.

To end the standoff in the square, Yanukovych and the opposition negotiated a deal that would have defused the crisis. It would have brought protestors into the government, amnesty for all involved and new elections in several months. Despite President Obama's assurances that the U.S. would hold everyone to the deal, not a word was said when it was broken by the coup-inclined opposition two days later.

The band of ultra nationalists and fascists now running things in Kiev ignored the deal, took over the government buildings, and immediately passed laws discriminating against the 50 percent of Russian-Ukrainians and legalizing the display of the swastika and other fascist symbols. Reacting to anti-Semitism, now rampant in Kiev and elsewhere, the chief rabbi of Kiev urged Jewish residents to leave the city for their own safety.

The scuttled agreement between the EU and Ukraine - the alleged reason why the protests started - would have forced the Ukraine to separate itself from Russia economically and institute a harsh austerity program - a program like the one that destroyed the Greek economy.

Ukraine receives its energy from Russia and conducts 60 percent of its trade with that country. Western attempts to tear it out of that relationship and make it subservient to the International Monetary Fund, NATO and the EU were in the interests - not of the Ukrainian people but of the corporate 1 percent. Yanukovich's rejection of the EU austerity deal while Russia offered a $15 billion aid package seems understandable.

The geo-political goals of U.S. imperialism remain the plundering of this resource rich region. Nearer term, the U.S. ruling class interests see capitalist Russia as hindering their ability to expand their dominance of the world markets. Since Napoleon oligarchs of one type or another have had that dream.

As Americans, our interests lie in a reduction of these dangerous tensions and a peaceful, democratic resolution. We all stand to benefit from cooperation between Ukraine and Russia and all the countries of that region, as well as U.S.-Russian cooperation.

Photo: A pro-Russian soldier stands by a billboard with a map on which is written "Autonomous Republic of Crimea." Local Crimean officials have said there will be a referendum in March to determine the status of Crimea.