People Before Profit blog

Will America ever wake up?

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:47:00 +0000

On December 7th, 1941 the Empire of Japan attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, launching our entry into the Second World War. That attack was followed by the phrase, "waking a sleeping giant." In this case, it meant that America became an unstoppable military machine - run by its people and working for a common cause. This sleeping giant needs to awaken from its slumber once more. This time it is not to defend our people from the imperial designs of foreign powers but to protect its people from the economic interests of 21st century Robber Barons.

The protests in Wisconsin over the governor's bill to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights and to force them to make financial concessions, after he signed into law a massive tax cut for businesses, was a good sign. However, Wisconsin is small fries compared to what is being perpetrated on the national scene. The middle class is being decimated and the working class is being punished. Public workers, including teachers, firefighters and police officers are being cut all across the nation. The income disparity in this nation has grown to a level not seen since the 1920s. Before the Reagan 80s, the top 10 percent of earners owned approximately one-third of the nation's wealth. Now the richest 5 percent own over 63.5 percent of the nation's wealth, while the bottom 80 percent own a measly 12.8 percent. The right constantly complains about "income redistribution"- well what would you call that? This is no longer class warfare, this is class massacre.

What caused this mess? Were teachers and cops being too greedy, with their $50,000 and $30,000 a year (if they're lucky) salaries? Are the poor just big mooches? No, the answer lies in the crash of 2008. If one inquires about our current financial woes, one simply needs to look towards Wall Street. The massive mega-banks made billions trading bad loans, bad mortgages as well as trading bets on anything you can imagine. Wall Street, which had been steadily more deregulated since the 80's, finally caught up with its own greed and crashed. To stave off total catastrophe, we loaned them billions and with that money, they began giving each other multi-million dollar bonuses- as if they were celebrating how stupid we are.

Did anyone go to jail for the numerous illegal activities that contributed to this mess? Are you kidding? Now, in the midst of a huge mortgage fraud, it looks as if these same banks will get off again. They do own Washington D.C., after all.

Our democracy has effectively turned into a plutocracy, where the rich and their corporations (whom, the Supreme Court now claims are "people") can buy politicians and twist them into ridiculous subsidies and tax breaks.

The U.S. Government now gives away around 70 billion dollars per annum to the oil industry (the richest industry in the history of the world), as well as 16 billion to farmers to grow corn. We can fund massive unnecessary military projects, and not care when we get blatantly cheated (Halliburton). Yet- when it comes to education (which is public, not some private industry superpower), we can't seem to find a dime. Many profitable corporations have even weaseled out of paying taxes altogether, such as: Bank of America, Verizon, GE, Exxon Mobil and Citigroup. Carnival Cruise lines and Goldman Sachs only paid a 1.1 percent rate. All of those companies have profits in the billions last year. Yet, no one can spend a dollar to save a firehouse.

Where is our sleeping giant? Where are the protests in the streets of D.C.? Where are the public outcries for reform and for justice?

Our America is being sold, yet no one really seems to care. We find out every day about some new fraud that some major corporation has committed, yet no one gets upset that they aren't charged with a crime. Have we become complacent to the fact that we will soon have to fight over what scraps Wall Street, the Koch brothers and big oil see fit to leave for us? What will it take for America, real America not the corporate entity we have become, to wake up and fight back?

Will it take Big Pharma being allowed by congress to over-charge us for medicines? Already happened. Will it take a "health care reform" that was in essence a gift to the insurance companies? Already happened. Will it take massive education cuts and teacher, police and firefighter layoffs, while spending billions on tax breaks and oil subsidies? Already happened.

You tell me America, what will it take? Don't think about it for too long though, you don't have much time left.

Ryan C. Ebersole is a M.S. counseling psychology student at the University of Southern Mississippi.

A modest essay on extraordinary paychecks

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:46:00 +0000

Even Sarah Palin, my fellow Idahoan (she was born there), agrees that greed caused the financial crash. That's the crash that has visited the despair of unemployment to some 13 million Americans, evicted millions in foreclosures, and a cast a gloom over the future of young Americans now exiting universities. "I think the corruption on Wall Street. That's to blame. And that violation of the public trust. And that contract that should be inherent in corporations who are spending, investing other people's money, the abuse of that is what has got to stop."

Public Citizen hereby presents some startling figures on the object of that greed: "Hourly Rates: A Modest Essay about Extraordinary Paychecks."

For example, every fourteen minutes in 2009, hedge fund manager David Tepper made President Obama's annual salary. No matter how well compensated our Hollywood and sports stars are, the real money comes from the business of money.

The AFL-CIO's PayWatch noted that recently major bankers, apparently embarrassed by their dependence on record taxpayer subsidies, have tightened their belts. Thomas Montag, president of global banking at Bank of America, received only $29 million, or $14,500 an hour.

But the hedge funds have demonstrated no such restraint. The magazine Institutional Investor declared David Tepper the best-paid hedge fund manager in 2009 at $4 billion. To put this in perspective, that is $2 million an hour. That is one million dollars every half hour. A Pittsburgh native, he donated $55 million to Carnegie Mellon University, which gratefully changed the name of a graduate program to the David Tepper School of Business. That was half a week's paycheck.

None have pinned the crash on David Tepper. But the lure of such large paychecks led many to shed prudence for pecuniary pursuits.

This article originally appeared in Citizen Vox. The author is the Financial Policy Advocate of Public Citizen.

U.S. & Libya: Many questions remain

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 22:23:00 +0000

After President Obama's March 28 address to the nation on the U.S. and NATO military intervention in Libya, many questions remain.

We have already spoken in these pages about our opposition to the intervention. Now that it has begun, the question is: how long will it continue?

Our lengthy military engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq should warn us that once begun, operations expected to require only a limited period of time can easily stretch into the indefinite future.

An end date should be set.

Another question is what role the U.S. will continue to play. President Obama spoke of a significantly lowered U.S. involvement because the main weight of military operations is being shifted to NATO. That is hardly reassuring.

Shifting responsibility for the no-fly zone, arms embargo and protection of Libyan civilians to NATO does not mean the United States no longer plays a significant role in the military effort, for the U.S. is by far the wealthiest and most powerful member of NATO. And if military action becomes long-term, U.S. involvement may well grow again.

In addition, there are divisions in NATO regarding the goals and scope of the operation, raising the risk of possible ground intervention.

Participants in Libya's uprising certainly deserved protection from the brutal attacks the Gaddafi regime unleashed against them. But military intervention hardly seems the best way to do so, as many countries including some who supported the UN resolution are starting to say.

It is ironic that an international conference of over 30 countries, to consider, in the president's words, "what kind of political effort is necessary to pressure Gaddafi, while also supporting a transition to the future that the Libyan people deserve," is being held after the military intervention began.

Had such discussions taken place earlier, one wonders if a consensus could have emerged for more powerful political and economic measures, short of military intervention, to protect Libyan civilians and open a space for a popular uprising.

There is also the obvious contradiction between the UN Security Council's emphasis on protecting civilians and the aim the president stated, to remove the "tyrant" Gaddafi. And, an obvious question being asked by members of Congress: Why was the U.S. military engagement not brought before that body?

We join those who call for an end to U.S.-NATO military action and a negotiated solution to the crisis. Our country cannot afford to find itself mired in a third military adventure. Call your representative and senators and demand a speedy end to U.S military involvement in Libya. The peace majority in the U.S. needs to be heard.

Social movement unionism is coming alive

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:43:00 +0000

It wasn't long ago that a criticism directed at trade unions was they were only in it to service their members on a limited number of issues in exchange for dues. The fight of workers for a better workplace was not linked to organizing those workers to fight for a better world for all.

The argument had some merit, but the happenings in Wisconsin over the past two months blew all of that criticism - and that thinking - to shreds. Construction workers joined with teachers. Government workers joined with students. All joined with the people of faith, environmentalists, LGBT activists, peace activists and more to form a diverse coalition that declared, "We are Wisconsin." And the "we" were demanding a state that represented all, not the wealthy few at the top or those fortunate enough to be members of a union.

This emphasis on fighting for all and fighting on a range of issues affecting all working people, including racism and all forms of discrimination, the environment, peace, education and other matters, is called "social movement unionism."

That vision came from the Communists, socialists and other activists who built the U.S. labor movement. Somewhere along the line that outlook was lost.

At the bargaining convention of the United Auto Workers last week, the union's president, Bob King, noted that in the 1930s, '40s and '50s people thought the "UAW cared about and fought for everybody."

He continued, "The struggles in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan and throughout the country give us the opportunity to show we're not just fighting for ourselves, we're fighting for every worker in America."

Fighting for every worker has never been so important because globalization changed the rules of the game on how organizing is done. With the same companies producing the same goods throughout the globe, workers no longer can fight battles on their own. King says the pensions, wages and benefits his members deserve are going to continue to erode unless the power of the American labor movement is rebuilt and global solidarity becomes the norm.

While social movement unionism is reappearing in the UAW, problems and challenges remain. For example, the union has negotiated contracts with two-tier wages that pay different rates to workers doing the same job.

But solving these problems requires leveling the now very unequal playing field between unions and companies by building a broad social justice movement, unionizing non-union plants and building worldwide labor solidarity.

The success of social movement unionism begins with power built from and resting with the membership. That is exactly what we are seeing in Wisconsin and elsewhere, with union membership and leadership not only building a revitalized labor movement, but joining with others to build a new nation.

That point was driven home by actor and activist Danny Glover at last week's UAW convention. He told delegates, "The economic paradigm has failed us. We need a new vision of humanity. Whatever we call it, it is being built by workers in Wisconsin and Indiana."

When Glover finished, delegates rose to their feet in loud applause. They were ready to build a new social movement.

Photo: Jobs, justice, peace - Aug. 28, 2010: UAW members march in downtown Detroit. International Union, UAW via Facebook

"Potiche": entertaining film features stars, strikes, class struggle

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:37:00 +0000

Movie Review

Potiche
Directed by Francois Ozon
Starring Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu
2010, France, 103 mins.

Cinema often reflects, predicts and influences what's happening in the world. We appear to be entering a period of global upsurge similar to 1968: mass uprisings spreading from North Africa and the Middle East to the Midwest. As Vietnam vet Ron Kovic (played by Tom Cruise in Oliver Stone's 1989 antiwar classic Born on the Fourth of July) declared on stage at the March 19 anti-war rally in Hollywood, "The power of the people is unbeatable. We see it in Tunisia, Cairo. We are not exempt in this country from sweeping change... It can happen here... We are moving into a period of great change."

In recent years, the movies have been addressing social upheaval. Cut in the merry mode of Karel Reisz's 1966 Marxian madcap Morgan!, Canadian writer-director Jacob Tierney's uproarious 2009 The Trotsky stars Jay Baruchel as a Montreal high school student who fantasizes he's the reincarnation of the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and sets about trying to organize a union at his dad's factory. The 2010 British film Made in Dagenham stars Sally Hawkins as a factory worker who leads a real-life strike for equal wages and women's rights. And just now a re-mastered version of Sergei Eisenstein's immortal 1925 Potemkin is being theatrically released.

Now that quintessence of French femininity, the exquisite Catherine Deneuve, is getting into the act. Writer-director Francois Ozon's Potiche, based on a play by Barilet and Gredy, is the latest addition to the growing cinematic strike wave. Deneuve's Suzanne Pujol is related to the owners of an umbrella factory in a French provincial town, formerly owned by her late, paternalistic father, and now run by her despotic, reactionary, philandering hubby, Robert (Fabrice Luchini).

The French word "potiche" translates as "a vase or decorative object of little value," but idiomatically stands for Suzanne's role as a bourgeois trophy wife, mother, and homemaker (with the help of the help, mais oui). When first seen onscreen, Denueve, long renowned for her unearthly beauty, looks positively shlumpy. Initially, I felt disheartened to see the Chanel model and actress looking so plain: Since Luis Buñuel's 1967 surrealist classic Belle de Jour, she has exemplified "class" and elegance for a generation of viewers.

But as strikes sweep her family's factory in 1977, Suzanne finds inner resources of resolve, and there's more to this ornamental madame than meets the eye. She seeks out Babin (Gerard Depardieu, another heavyweight of French cinema), the mayor who is a member of the French Communist Party (PCF), to amicably settle the brewing brouhaha. Here, the story takes an unexpected turn, in terms of the relationship between the proletarian man of the people and the bourgeois do-gooder.

Once Suzanne enters the fray, she becomes transformed, psychologically as well as physically, as Deneuve's renowned radiance returns to illumine the screen. Finding her footing, Suzanne transcends the economic realm and enters politics.

In fact, the politics of Potiche are peculiar. Suzanne rejects right-wing austerity economics (a knowing nod to today's dire crises). But the film does not see Babin's PCF as an alternative, either. Depardieu (who in 1983 portrayed the title role in the Polish director Andrzej Wajda's film Danton about the French revolutionary) depicts Babin with empathy. He has several good lines about being a devoted lifelong leftist who may never live to see the revolution he's dreamt of and worked for. But Depardieu's obesity, never commented upon onscreen, may be an oblique criticism of a sclerotic bureaucracy that has grown fat off the class struggle and union dues.

Like Daniel "Danny the Red" Cohn-Bendit's Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative, written in the wake of the historic May 1968, worker-student revolt in France, Potiche seeks a third way, another path between the traditional right and left. But instead of opting for anarchy as Dany le Rouge did, Potiche chooses a combination of feminism and Suzanne's late father's paternalism - a sort of matriarchal maternalism.

Even if Potiche's politics aren't precisely your cup of tea, it's a heady brew of comedy, romance, class struggle and song - yes, the great Deneuve proves she is an enchanting chanteuse as well as a stellar actress. And it's a kick to see those French cinema stalwarts Depardieu and Deneuve, who first co-starred in Francois Truffaut's 1980 anti-Nazi The Last Metro, reunited onscreen. The delightful Potiche tackles the class war in an extremely entertaining, thought-provoking, funny way. Don't miss it.

Image: Deneuve shines in Potiche.

Abe Blashko, artist and political satirist, dies at 90

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:45:00 +0000

Abe Blashko, artist and political satirist, died at age 90 Jan. 13 from complications of pneumonia. Among his large body of work were important contributions to progressive publications, including the New Masses and People's World.

Born in Seattle, Blashko was self-taught. He started his professional career in 1938 with a solo show of 25 drawings at the Seattle Art Museum. Reviewer Kenneth Callahan noted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that his drawings were remarkably fully developed for a young man of just 18.

During the Great Depression he was a warehouse worker while continuing his development as an artist.

In 1943 Blashko moved to New York City, where he worked for Paramount Studios as an animator, and later did commercial artwork.

In a recent letter, Blashko told Patricia Junker, curator at the Seattle Art Museum, what inspired his work. "The turbulent social and political events of the 1930s were major contributors to my early development of a point of view. I was able to feel the pulse of that period and was fascinated with the faces and activities of the people around me, a fascination with their work, play, determination, strength, greed and evil."

Blashko was affiliated with a number of galleries, including the Susan Teller Gallery which hosted a 75-year retrospective of his work in 2010. His work is in many permanent museum collections including the Library of Congress and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Portland, Ore. Art Museum, and University College, London.

Abe Blashko is survived by his sister, Sara Alchermes, a niece and two grandnieces.

Image: "Transnationals" by Abe Blashko. Courtesy the family.

"Have you left no sense of decency?"

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:26:00 +0000

In the midst of the battle in Wisconsin, the Republican Party has revived McCarthyism to attack William Cronon, a distinguished professor of history at the University of Wisconsin.

Cronon dared to write an op-ed column for the New York Times criticizing Governor Scott Walker, the Republicans, and their corporate sponsors for union busting. Now the state Republican Party has demanded that the university turn over all email from him with the words "Walker," Republican," "rally," etc.

Cronon has academic tenure and is a public employee (many of whom have trade union protection and seniority rights). The University of Wisconsin faculty is not unionized. What the Republicans probably want to do is to have the university fire Cronon because of his criticism. This would threaten not only all university faculty everywhere, both tenured and those who struggle to get tenure, but also the seniority rights and protections of all public employees.

The title of this article quotes attorney Joseph Welch's retort to Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, the most famous moment from the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. McCarthy, a role model for Walker, had run rampant for four years inverting and expanding the anti-Communist fears generated by early U.S. cold warriors.

Funded by powerful reactionaries and aided and abetted by most of the press and political establishment, McCarthy blustered and bullied until he went too far, attacking his own Republican administration the way some "tea party Republicans" today are attacking the Republican leadership.

McCarthy died of both his alcoholism and his sociopathic delusions in 1957, but Wisconsin's McCarthyite Republicans, whatever their mental state and blood alcohol levels, are using his methods in their attacks on Cronon.

In the old days, of course, the FBI and the CIA hid their mail openings and wiretappings without warrants. Teachers, scholars, and intellectuals were always targets for McCarthyites but the main target was always the labor movement, primarily the industrial unions in those days, whose gains in members and rights they fought to take away.

I know and respect William Cronon's work. It deals with the relationship of human societies to the natural world, looking at the interactions of native peoples and settlers in colonial New England and later in the American West. Cronon has won many distinguished awards for his writing and teaching.

But that is not the point. Cronon's op-ed piece for the New York Times looked at the organized campaign to enact anti-public-employee-union legislation throughout the country and also to disenfranchise working-class and minority voters who are both the victims and the political enemies of the right.

With all of his achievements, including the fact that he is the incoming president of the American Historical Association, William Cronon is a public employee of the state of Wisconsin, a commodity no different to Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans than any janitor or secretary whose trade union rights they are seeking to destroy. And they see themselves, the Walker administration, not as "public servants," elected officials, but as his employers, with the right to hire or fire him as they see fit and then use that as a precedent to destroy public employee unions.

Of course, intellectual freedom is not only the basis of all serious learning and teaching; it is the foundation of citizens' democratic rights. In the attack on William Cronon, we see exactly the kind of bullying and intimidation that employers in non-union situations have always used against workers when it suited their interests. It is evidence that labor's struggle and Wisconsin's struggle are everyone's struggle.

But what can and should be done?

First, University of Wisconsin officials, whose own prestige and high salaries are based largely on the achievement of Cronon and other working faculty at the university, should defend everyone's civil liberties and democratic rights by refusing to yield to these attacks and not turning over anything.

Secondly, the movement to recall the sort of Republican legislators who have brought about this crisis in Wisconsin should use the assault on Cronon's citizenship rights as a rallying point, the way people's movements have used other vicious assaults on the rights of individuals to rally support.

Finally, what is needed in Wisconsin today and nationally is a new version of the La Follette civil liberties committee, a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate's Labor Committee during the late 1930s.

The La Follette Committee investigated attacks on trade unionists and teachers, subpoenaed business executives and officials of private detective agencies, and turned the tables on the intimidators. We need little La Follette committees to protect rather than - in the McCarthyite tradition - attack civil liberties at the state level, and we need a big committee at the national level. These would help throw the bullies back, because bullies are almost always cowards and cowards run when they face serious resistance.

Photo: U.S. Army counsel Joseph Welch, left, and Sen. Joseph McCarthy, right, at the hearings in the Army-McCarthy dispute, Washington, D.C., June 1, 1954. (Bill Allen/AP)

Leonard Weinglass, defender of civil rights, dies

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:58:00 +0000

All lovers of human and civil rights were saddened last week to hear of the passing of the outstanding attorney Leonard Weinglass, who succumbed to pancreatic cancer on March 23.

Born in New York in 1933, Weinglass earned a law degree from Yale University in 1958, and from that time until shortly before his death, dedicated all his efforts to the defense of people who were being persecuted for their political views and actions.

After military service, he joined the famous civil and constitutional rights law firm of Rabinowitz and Boudin in New York. During the protests against the Vietnam War, Weinglass participated, along with another legal giant, the late William Kunstler, in the defense of the "Chicago 8", who were arraigned by the Nixon administration for having organized massive protests against the war, especially on the occasion of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968.

Although what happened in Chicago was really a "police riot", the eight activists were prosecuted for conspiracy. The defendants and their legal counsel, including Weinglass, had to deal with one of the most arrogant and prejudiced judges imaginable, the late Julius Hoffman, who among other arbitrary acts separated the one African-American defendant, Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers, from the other seven and created a spectacle to amaze the world by having him bound and gagged throughout his trial. The competent and passionately committed way in which Weinglass, Kunstler and their colleagues conducted the defense would have been enough to ensure their everlasting glory, but this was only the beginning.

Weinglass participated in many other cases with strong civil liberties dimensions, including the trial of the Communist Party's Angela Davis in 1973, in which the then governor of California, Ronald Reagan, played the role that Nixon played with the Chicago 8, of tilting the scale in favor of injustice by his inflammatory public statements.

Weinglass also helped to defend Daniel Ellsberg in the "Pentagon Papers" case. He was involved in several other high profile cases, including those of other war resisters, of fighters for the independence of Puerto Rico, and of Mumia Abu Jamal.

At the time of his death, he had been working since 2002 on the case of the Cuban Five during its appeals phase. These are five Cuban patriots who are serving outrageous jail sentences in U.S. federal prisons because they came to the United States to monitor the actions of extremist right wing exile groups in South Florida, actions which included plans for terrorist attacks against Cuba.

Weinglass threw himself into this work, not confining himself to the technical legal aspect but turning himself into a major public advocate for the prisoners.

In the legal process of their appeals, there were frequent setbacks, but Weinglass was never daunted, and his spirit inspired us to continue also.

He was still working on a habeas corpus-based appeal for two of the five, Gerardo Hernandez and Antonio Guerrero, who have been given life sentences based on trumped up charges of "murder" for the shooting down of two Cuban exile airplanes in 1996, an act with which they had nothing to do.

Ironically, one of the main terrorists whose associates the Five were monitoring, Luis Posada Carriles, is now on trial in a federal courtroom in El Paso, Texas, for perjury and immigration infractions.

One of the five, Gerardo Hernandez, who is confined in the federal prison at Victorville, California, expressed the feelings of many when he wrote, quoting Cuban patriot Jose Marti:

"Death is not real when one's life's work is done well."

Amen to that. Leonard Weinglass, ¡Presente!

Photo: Leonard Weinglass speaks with reporters at a Miami press conference on the Cuban Five case.

Defending public radio and TV is a working-class issue

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:59:00 +0000

The ultra-right leadership of the House of Representatives has decisively moved to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public radio and public television. They argue that "conservative taxpayers" should not have to "subsidize liberal media."

These ultra-rightists leave out the fact that taxpayers who are not pro-corporate conservatives massively subsidize Fox News and right-wing talk radio, both of which are basically lobbying firms broadcasting corporate political ads disguised as news and "guy on the street" opinions.

In 1987 the Reagan administration abolished the Federal Communications Commission's Fairness Doctrine, opening the door to the brazen corporate political advertising we now refer to as Fox News. The Fairness Doctrine required holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance and to do it an honest, equitable and balanced way.

The Reagan administration's action gutted the fundamental premise of the 1949 FCC report that established the doctrine. This premise was that the electronic airways are a publicly owned resource and, as the Supreme Court said in upholding the doctrine in 1969, radio and TV station owners are "public trustees" obligated to air honest, equitable presentations of opposing views. No wonder that the Wall Street Journal has editorialized against the Fairness Doctrine.

By abolishing the Fairness Doctrine the Reagan administration established a different broadcast doctrine: media companies "own" the airwaves that used to belong to the public, and these companies thus have the right to broadcast political advertising and call it news with no obligation to truth or objectivity.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently reported, in an article on Reader Supported News, that Fox News abandoned efforts to establish a Canadian Fox News because Canada still has a Fairness Doctrine that makes it illegal to knowingly broadcast lies. The right-wing Canadian Prime Minister tried to abolish this rule but Canadian lawmakers said no. Fox News threw in the towel.

We, the American working-family majority, have been forced to hand over ownership of the airwaves for a pittance to corporate media hacks who can then broadcast falsehoods to gain political and economic advantage over us, the very same folks they hijacked the airways from.

Right-wing commentators' answer to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is: get with market-oriented programming, win a bigger audience and advertisers, get off the public "dole." But the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 defines the most important purposes of public broadcasting to be "instructional, educational and cultural," not market-driven broadcasting.

To see the difference, let's look at one aspect of public broadcasting's content. One rule of the market is "please the customers and advertisers." Science education requires pursuit of the truth based on fact not popularity. Real science education can be fun, but it cannot be based on current market popularity. It must be based on deriving the truth from studying reality in all human arenas. Must public television's "NOVA" stop broadcasting the massive evidence for evolution in markets where it's not popular? Must NPR's "Science Friday" stop discussing global warming facts because some listeners or advertisers might be offended?

Imagine if in 1987 the Reagan administration had said to the American people, "Hey, let's turn over the public airwaves to a few media giants, and we are going let them have the airwaves for a song, and we are going to let them lie in their self-interest with impunity, and they will make billions and use your airwaves to destroy your economic well-being - what do you say folks?" We might have reacted more forcefully to the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. (Hey, wait a second, maybe somebody on one of those crazy educational channels said exactly that, but who was listening?)

Chipotle fires Mexican workers for crime of working

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:02:00 +0000

The words "Mexico" and "Mexican" can hardly be found on the website of the country's largest chain of Mexican fast food restaurants, Chipotle. Yet almost everyone working in almost every location is Mexican, or at least Latino.

Mexican workers are often an invisible but indispensable workforce. They clean office buildings at night, pick fruit and vegetables miles from most urban Americans, and cut up cows and pigs in giant anonymous factories hidden away in Midwest small towns. But Chipotle's effort to make its workers invisible is deliberate, not an accident of time or geography.

Three months ago the chain that made its fortune selling Mexican food made by Mexican workers fired hundreds of them throughout Minnesota. Their crime was that they worked, but had no immigration papers.

One was Alejandro Juarez, who spent five years at the Calhoun Lake Chipotle in Minneapolis. Juarez came here nine years ago, leaving two daughters and a wife at home in Mexico. Once he arrived, he could never risk going back, not even once, to see them grow up. Crossing back over the border to return to work would have cost more than $2500, a prohibitive expense for a fast food worker. Over the years Juarez learned how to fix stoves, grills, refrigerators and hot tables, for which he was paid $9.42/hour. He worked hard, sent money home, put his girls through school, and knew their voices only from the telephone.

In the restaurant, he says, you couldn't think about that because the company had a rule that you had to smile all the time. "People would come to work leaving sick kids at home, not able to get enough hours to pay the rent, and then had to smile for fear of losing their job," he recalls. "It was humiliating."

Last December he and coworkers all over the state were called in by managers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security, had audited the company records, they said, and told Chipotle to fire them. So managers told them not to come back the following day.

Since 1986, federal law has required employers to verify the immigration status of workers. Job applicants fill out an I-9 form and provide identification showing they are citizens or are immigrants authorized to work in the U.S. In effect, this provision of the law, called employer sanctions, makes it a federal crime for an undocumented immigrant to hold a job. The governments's existing strategy for enforcing immigration law in the workplace results in firings of hundreds, even thousands of workers.

For over 20 years the federal government has used various methods to enforce the law. Under President George W. Bush, black-clad immigration agents holding submachine guns charged into meatpacking plants and rounded up workers for deportation. Bush proposed a regulation that would have required all employers to fire all workers whose Social Security numbers didn't match the SSA database, presumably because they were undocumented. That regulation was challenged by unions and enjoined in Federal court.

President Barack Obama and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano have said they favor a "softer" strategy.

Instead of Bush's "all employers at once" approach, ICE now audits the records of employers one by one. Social Security numbers, once intended to benefit workers by tracking contributions for retirement and disability benefits, have become the tool for identifying and firing the undocumented.

President Obama says sanctions enforcement targets employers "who are using illegal workers in order to drive down wages-and oftentimes mistreat those workers." An ICE Worksite Enforcement Advisory claims "unscrupulous employers are likely to pay illegal workers substandard wages or force them to endure intolerable working conditions." Curing intolerable conditions by firing workers who endure them doesn't help the workers or change the conditions, however.

Over the last two years, thousands of workers have been fired. In Minneapolis, Seattle and San Francisco over 1800 janitors, members of SEIU union locals, have lost their jobs. In 2009 over 2000 young women at the sewing machines of American Apparel were fired in Los Angeles. No one, except perhaps ICE, knows exactly how many how many more workers have been terminated, but ICE director John Morton last year said ICE had audited over 2900 companies.

One might think that the current and previous administrations, bent on using this brutal tactic to force undocumented immigrants to leave the country, would also address the reasons why people cross the border to begin with. The North American Free Trade Agreement, for instance, allowed huge U.S. corporations from Archer Daniels Midland to Smithfield to flood Mexico with subsidized corn and meat, making it impossible for farmers to compete and survive. Six million Mexicans have come to the U.S. as a result, since the treaty took effect.

"NAFTA and the effects of globalization create great migration pressures on Mexicans," says Bill Ong Hing, a law professor who investigated meatpacking raids for the United Food and Commercial Workers. "Utilizing employer sanctions to address Mexican migration causes misery for workers, but does not reduce displacement and the flow of people."

Yet despite campaign promises, the administration has no intention of renegotiating that agreement, and plans to ask Congress this year to ratify new ones with South Korea and Colombia. Last fall William Daley, who shepherded NAFTA through Congress for President Bill Clinton, was appointed Obama's chief of staff. Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, became his top economic advisor on jobs. Immelt's predecessor at GE, Jack Welch, famously declared that the corporation's future lay in Mexico. He meant that GE saw Mexico, not as a market, but as a reserve of labor at wages a fraction of those in its US factories.

The proliferation of starvation-wage jobs didn't keep people in Mexico. Instead it forced them to come north looking for work. Chipotle was only one of thousands of U.S. employers who saw that gold mine.

Those displaced workers coming north couldn't get visas, however, and therefore no Social Security cards or "work authorization." Hungry migrants invented or borrowed numbers, gave them to Chipotle and thousands of other employers, and went to work for the lowest wages in the U.S. economy. Despite the administration's claim that it's penalizing those low-wage employers, the companies audited by ICE get immunity from penalties if they cooperate in firing their workers. The only ones punished are workers themselves.

The administration has no intention of stopping migration. With its emphasis on free trade, couldn't even if it wanted to. And if somehow it could force millions of undocumented workers to leave, the economic consequences would be disastrous, as the basic workforce would disappear in many industries.

Bush's Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, explained this apparent contradiction in policy by saying the purpose of enforcement was to "close the back door and open the front door." The intent of that policy became clear when ICE agents did an I-9 audit last year at Gebbers Farms, an apple grower in remote eastern Washington. At ICE's insistence, Gebbers fired 500 workers, some of whom had worked at the ranch for years. In the tiny town of Brewster (population 2100) 90% of the school students were Mexican.

After the firings, Gebbers applied for 1200 H2-A visas, allowing it to bring workers from other countries (including 300 from Jamaica) to pick its crops. The visa is tied to work, and these "guest workers" have to leave once the work is done.

Enforcement didn't do away with immigrant labor, but allowed an employer to bring workers under conditions called "Close to Slavery" in a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The use of these programs is expanding. All the comprehensive immigration reform bills in Congress over the last five years have tied enforcement to these labor supply schemes.

"We have to look at the whole picture," urges Renee Saucedo, former director of San Francisco's day labor program. "So long as we have trade agreements like NAFTA that create poverty in countries like Mexico, people will continue to come here, no matter how many walls we build. Instead of turning people into guest workers while firing and even jailing those who don't have papers, we need to help people get legal status and repeal the laws that make work a crime."

Saucedo and a group of unions and immigrant rights organizations around the country have proposed an alternative immigration policy based on human and labor rights, called the Dignity Campaign, that would also change U.S. trade policy.

In Minneapolis, SEIU Local 26 has helped workers caught in the audits to organize marches and demonstrations. When the Chipotle workers were fired, the union cooperated with the Center for Workers United in Struggle, a local workers' center, and the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee to fight for back wages and vacation pay. Supporters were even arrested in civil disobedience at a Chipotle restaurant.

The terminated Chipotle workers have also demanded that the company support immigration reform. Chipotle might actually like proposals that would give it access to guest worker programs, enforced with the threat of employer sanctions and firings. But after getting fired themselves, that's undoubtedly not what its workers have in mind.

Photo: Workers and activists protesting at Minneapolis chipotle. SEIU

Mergers harm democracy

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:40:00 +0000

AT&T announced its intentions to buy T-Mobile, whose parent company is German government-owned Deutsche Telekom, for $39 billion. It will pay $25 billion in cash, and the rest in shares, leaving DT an 8 percent stake in the new entity.

It's hard for us mere Main Street mortals to imagine paying $25 billion in cash!

AT&T wireless has a unionized workforce of some 42,000 workers. The U.S. labor movement said this merger could be a good development for workers and consumers.

T-Mobile is notoriously anti-union in the United States and fights any attempt by T-Mobile workers to organize and bargain collectively. But Deutsche Telekom is unionized in Germany. Communication Workers of America and a German union, ver.di, have partnered to support U.S. T-Mobile workers to exercise their right to organize.

It makes sense for labor, especially CWA, to issue positive statement given these dynamics.

Yet, there are other economic and political forces at work in this merger than union vs. nonunion.

Merger-mania is a hallmark of capitalism. Its track record is littered with mass layoffs, price hikes, union-busting, monopolization and attacks on democratic rights , all dangerous trends for society. (One only has to mention the phrase, "too big to fail," as an example of the 2008 financial disaster.)

Mergers usually come with the promise of "efficiency" and therefore a better deal for consumers. With that "efficiency" prices go down, profits up and the economy grows, which is supposed to be good for all.

But at closer look, "efficiency" reveals something else entirely. In an article about the announced deal, The New York Times says the deal would provide a "significant cost savings, roughly $3 billion a year," meaning higher profits for stock holders, not lower prices for consumers or more wages for company workers.

And how would $3 billion a year be realized?

Again, The Times says, "The combined company is expected to close hundreds of retail outlets in areas where they overlap, as well as eliminate overlapping back office, technical and call center staff."

That means layoffs at a time when unemployment stubbornly hovers between 9 and 10 percent.

For consumers, it is unclear how the merger will affect prices. The hypothesis is a company becomes more efficient and passes off the cost-savings to the customer.

For all the breakthroughs in technology and global production - all good for efficiency - why aren't prices decreasing? In fact, in many basic spheres of life: energy, food, health care and communication, prices have gone up and take a bigger bite out of family income.

Mergers tend to create higher prices because less and less companies compete, and the few that remain can - and have, although it's supposed to be illegal - conspire to keep prices artificially high. (Lest we forget the landmark antitrust lawsuit against AT&T that resulted in the 1982 break-up of the monopoly into the eight "Baby Bells.")

T-Mobile customers usually pay less than AT&T's. Don't count on that after this merger.

It is hoped by some that this merger will facilitate building broadband high-speed wireless networks in all communities - urban, suburban, rural - an important goal, indeed.

However, it's not clear if the merger will guarantee that.

Capital investment flows to where it can make the greatest rate of profit. Not just any profit - but maximum profit.

Who is to say that building high-speed networks for Hibbing, Minn., Missoula, Mont., or Chattanooga, Tenn., would mean maximum profit for the mega-corporation?

There has been a longstanding struggle to limit this tendency in capitalism toward monopolization.

Perhaps most notably were President Theordore Roosevelt's battles with "the trusts."

With the Reagan Revolution, antimonopoly regulations and enforcement were among the casualties of "no government except to help the super-rich and corporations" ideology.

By the time George W. Bush took office the Department of Justice - which is tasked with anti-monopoly law enforcement - became a handmaiden for corporate mergers, helping mega-corps get around any of the remaining laws and regulations.

Now we have the U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United ruling that has increased megacorporations' influence in elections and the legislative arena.

Mega-corporations put billions of dollars into anti-Democratic attack ads and campaigns during the 2010 midterm elections. They are now getting their payback with anti-worker and anti-civil rights bills and actions sweeping GOP-ruled states: Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Michigan, New Jersey, Maine to name a few.

We won't even get into the tea party House of Representatives and their attacks on democracy and freedom.

These mega-corps and their mega-bucks have a negative impact on the country's democracy that leads to more and more extreme attacks on rights and freedoms.

As advocates of socialism, the corporations that command the economic heights need to be democratized and run fully in the public's interest. Capitalism cannot guarantee such democracy and as such, if this editorial board was running the show, we'd say no to the merger.

But, the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission, along with committees in Congress, are the ones that have the oversight capabilities. They should use it to the fullest extent to guarantee that workers and consumers interests are put ahead of private profits.

Photo: Mark Klein is a former AT&T technician who blew the whistle on the telecom giant for their cooperation with the Bush administrations illegal warrantless wiretapping program. Klein came forward with hundreds of pages of documents showing how AT&T broke the law and gave the NSA unfettered access to their customer's records and calling data. (Quinn Norton/CC)

Tucson's Cesar Chavez march says "Save ethnic studies"

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:10:00 +0000

TUCSON, Ariz. - On Saturday, March 26th, Tucson celebrated the legacy of Cesar Chavez with the 11th Annual Cesar Chavez March and Rally. The two-mile march started at Pueblo High School and ended at Rudy Garcia Park.

This year's theme - "Save ethnic studies" - was in response to the draconian HB 2281 legislation, which would ban all ethnic studies from being taught in schools.

The Republican leadership at the State Capitol, who pushed the law, didn't even take into consideration that students who enrolled in ethnic studies courses continued their education beyond high school more than those who had not. HB 2281 is nothing more than Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne's personal vendetta against the Tucson Unified School District and its students.

Before the march began, the Aztec Dancers called the community together with their up-tempo opening ceremony of the Dance of the Hummingbird, followed by an opening prayer.

Several local dignitaries and Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva spoke to the marchers on such topics as the legacy and spirit of Cesar Chavez, unions, ethnic studies, voting, children's education and our future.

The march started with the Aztec Dancers leading the procession of over 300people. Tucson students kept everyone's spirits up with chants like, "Education, not deportation!" Children and parents shared this day with recently established traditions: families come out, enjoy their time together and always remember the moment for generations to come.

A constant face in Tucson marches for the past year has been the Brown Berets, who help in peacekeeping with their silent demeanor but strong presence. Along with the Tucson unit was another unit, recently formed, from Tolleson, Ariz.

Upon arriving at Rudy Garcia Park, the smell of food was in the air and music could be heard. People at the park welcomed the marchers with applause and cheers as family and friends were united again.

All in all, the Cesar Chavez March and Rally never disappoints anyone, whether they are marching for the first time or are veterans. Cesar Chavez would be smiling as his message of dignity, justice and nonviolence are practiced to this very day by many people of different colors and backgrounds. As long as there is one man, woman or child who is being treated unfairly by anyone, there is someone who will stand up for them and give them a hand-up, pat on the back and an encouraging word. That is the spirit of Cesar Chavez, in each and every one of us.

Poem of the week: Marge Piercy and workers of the world

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:59:00 +0000

Marge Piercy will turn 75 on March 31. She is the author of 17 books of poetry and 15 novels. Her novels and poetry often focus on women's lives, almost always working class women and wide-ranging social concerns, although her settings vary. She has won many awards, and one of the most influential writers on women's concerns and issues.

Raised in Detroit and deeply affected by the Great Depression, Marge Piercy was the first in her family to attend college. Piercy's maternal grandfather Morris was a union organizer, murdered while organizing bakery workers. Her maternal grandmother, Hannah, of whom Piercy was particularly fond of, was born in a Lithuanian stetl, the daughter of a rabbi and was a great storyteller.

Piercy's poetry tends to be highly personal free verse. Her work shows a lifelong commitment to progressive social change (what she might call, in terms, tikkun olam, or the repair of the world). The poem below, "To be of use", exemplifies her love of those who do the work of the world.

She lives in Wellfleet, Massachusetts with her husband, Ira Wood.

To Be Of Use

by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Photo: Marge Piercy from her Facebook page or visit her website.

AFRICOM and the Libya War

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:27:00 +0000

U.S. participation in the war in Libya appears to be coordinated out of a former French Foreign Legion base in Djibouti, a tiny country of a half million souls at the very tip of the Horn of Africa. This is the forward base of AFRICOM, the unified command for African action set up in 2007 by former President George W. Bush and his Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who has continued in that post under President Barack Obama. Why the United States has set up such a special Africa operation, and what this portends, bears examination.

The original reason given for the creation of AFRICOM, with its main base not in Africa but in Stuttgart, Germany, was to coordinate anti-terrorism efforts in countries such as Somalia, where the collapse of organized government had led to a very unstable and dangerous situation. But although some African countries were happy to take military hardware from the United States, many of them, including especially South Africa, expressed qualms.

Other than the anti-terrorism motive, commentators have raised the issue of oil. Oil industry analysts predict that by the year 2015, the United States will be getting 25 percent of its imported oil from African sources. The biggest oil producers in Africa are Libya, with 47 billion barrels in proved reserves (and maybe lots more yet undiscovered), Nigeria (37.5 billion barrels), Angola (13.5 billion barrels), Algeria (13.4 billion barrels) and the Sudan (6.8 billion barrels). Smaller African countries, including Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, have large-scale oil production proportional to their size. Writing in 2008, Antonia Juhasz posits an oil politics motive for the creation of AFRICOM. "The concern is that, as it has in Iraq, a larger US military presence in Africa will strain the overburdened military while increasing internal hostilities, regional instability and anger at the United States," he said, adding, "The ultimate objective of the two efforts is the same: securing big oil's access to the region's oil."

Libya, Nigeria, Angola and Algeria are all member states of OPEC, the cartel of oil producing countries, whose joint actions in setting production quotas have a profound effect on the price of oil. Numerous U.S. oil companies are invested in the African oil-producing countries, including Libya. Even though leader Moammar Gadaffi's government nationalized a lot of foreign oil facilities when it took power from King Idris in 1969, some major foreign, including U.S., oil companies have investments in Libya, in joint operations with the Libyan state. These include Marathon, Hess, Conoco, Gulf, Occidental, BP, Repasol (Spain), Eni (Italy) and Total (France) among others.

In 2009, Gadaffi started suggesting that he might nationalize the remaining foreign oil assets in Libya (AFRICOM had already been set up by that time), and he has renewed that threat since the NATO intervention began last week. But right now sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union have reduced Libya's oil exports to a trickle, resulting in a worldwide jump in fuel prices. A drastic intervention leading to the removal of Gadaffi and greater freedom of operation for these oil companies might well be part of the motive for the intervention, especially on the part of major European Union countries dependent on Libya for their energy needs.

Another reason given by some analysts for the creation of AFRICOM is as a counter to Chinese commercial advances in Africa. AFRICOM is mainly a military entity, but includes civil operations that are supposed to win the hearts and minds of Africans through development projects.

Carmel Davis, Chairman of Roger Holdings, Inc., raised this issue in a 2008 paper. To Davis, countering Chinese influence in Africa is good, because Chinese companies tend not to interfere with the existing governments of African countries in which they invest. Davis feels that this is bad; he'd rather use American commerce to bring about political changes in African countries so that they can develop in a democratic capitalist direction. Though Davis' company seems to be involved with restaurants and not petroleum, he may be onto something when he says, "The experience of China may resonate with African leaders" because of the way China has achieved massive growth without loss of power by the ruling Communist Party. Further "What China offers may also resonate: Instead of the conditionalities of aid provided by the Bretton Woods organizations [the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank] and Western governments influenced by NGOs and public opinion, China offers a market-oriented relationship with willing buyers who explicitly eschew conditionality."

In plain English, burgeoning trade with China may be seen by Africans as meeting economic needs without political interference under the pretext of "humanitarian intervention" or not. And China buys lots of African oil.

Image: Previous and current commanders of AFRICOM respectively, Gen. William E. “Kip” Ward (left) and Gen. Carter F. Ham. Courtesy U.S. Army.

Near disaster at airport fitting tribute to Reagan’s legacy

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 12:51:00 +0000

It's happened again: In the middle of the night of March 22-23, two passenger aircraft with more than 250 people on board called into the control tower at Reagan Airport just outside Washington, DC, to get landing instructions and nobody answered, not even "voice mail." The same thing happened about a year ago.

The airplanes were finally able to land, but it was a dangerous situation. Reagan, which used to be called National Airport, sits right on the Virginia bank of the Potomac River, incredibly close to important sites in Washington DC, including the Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington Monuments, the White House, the Capitol and the Pentagon. Although there is little air traffic in the wee hours, the airplanes could have crashed into equipment or ground crews, or ended up in the river.

Last year, says the Washington Post, the same thing happened. In that case the person in the control tower left his post temporarily and forgot to take his electronic access card with him. When he tried to get back into the control room, there was no way for him to do it. Now authorities claim that the person in the tower snoozed off. He has been suspended and ordered to take a drug test.

But this is not a story about some worker goofing off on the job, or sloppy work habits. That is the old scapegoating scam once more. It is, rather, a story about the legacy of Ronald Reagan. It seems that for the late night shift Reagan Airport has only one person working in the control tower. This isn't some little rural airport, which services Piper Cubs and crop dusters. This is one of the most important airports in the country. And one suspects that this staffing pattern is characteristic of our whole air traffic control system.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood deplored the situation, and said that he would make sure that from now on there are two people staffing the Reagan tower during the night shift.

All around the country, air traffic controllers have been complaining that their work loads are so ridiculously heavy that they live in constant fear that they will miss some clue and that a catastrophe will result, as two packed jetliners crash into each other in midair. Such dicey situations are sharply increasing.

Do you remember Ronald Reagan and the air traffic controllers' strike of 1981? That was the year Reagan destroyed PATCO, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers' Organization, which had gone on strike to get improvements in wages and also in working conditions that impinged on the safety of the public. Reagan invoked the hated Taft-Hartley Law to break the strike, and more than 11,000 air traffic controllers around the country lost their careers and livelihoods. They were replaced by hastily recruited and trained scabs.

This was one of the first major attacks by the federal government against the labor rights of public service workers. The nationwide attacks against government workers and their unions, which we see today, are the long-term follow up to Reagan's brutal action against PATCO.

For a long time when one would fly into Reagan Airport from some other part of the country, the pilots and other air crew members would continue to call it "National Airport," possibly to avoid jinxing everything by mentioning Ronnie's name. Now Ronnie's political offspring are trying to do the same with all categories of public service workers.

Had Ronald Reagan, whose name now adorns this airport, not destroyed the union of air traffic controllers in 1981, these things would not be happening. This is yet another reason why we must fight against the current wave of attacks against the unions that represent government workers.

Triangle fire: then and now

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:23:00 +0000

While walking through the Evergreen Cemetery recently, located in Ridgewood Brooklyn, I came across a section dedicated to eight unidentified young women who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire on March 25, 1911. This particular cemetery is extraordinary for its history. Among this extraordinary history is this beautiful sculpture dedicated to the 146 women who died on that fateful day. The monument depicts a kneeling woman in mourning for the victims, mostly of Jewish and Italian heritage.

Tomorrow, March 25^, 2011, will mark the 100^th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. As I walked the neighborhood with a labor historian recently, it was chilling as he pointed to the eight and ninth floors of the former Asch Building (now the Brown building on Greene St. and Washington Place) and explained why these young immigrant women jumped to their death.

The tragedy of that day has brought about some laws to protect workers who toil to earn a living, raise families and all that that involves. Yet we know all to well that whatever safeguards were put in place after that tragic day are still inadequate. Witness the (preventable) mine explosion at the Massey mines last year that killed 29 coal miners.

How far we have come as a nation protecting our people is linked to the economic system that dictates how effective or how deficient of real safety mechanisms are put in place.

Stories surface today about the new immigrants who work the sweatshops. Unfortunately, they go pretty much unnoticed by the nation's massive media. The attack on immigrants by the far right and the misguided continues to place hurdles in the effort to organize these workers.

And now we have Rep. Peter King from Long Island, N.Y., targeting yet another immigrant community - Muslims -- with his bogus Homeland Security Committee hearings.

As the capitalist system continues to unravel, more and more pressure will be brought to bear on working families. That is why the tragedy 100 years ago must be kept alive as a reminder of what we must continue to fight for: humane and safe working conditions for all who work for a living.

Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, the owners of Triangle Shirtwaist, were put on trial and found not guilty, even though the locking of the doors of the factory led to the needless deaths of 146 women. Three years after the fire, on March 11, 1914, 23 individual civil suits against the owner of the Asch Building were settled. The average recovery was $75 per life lost.

There are many resources available about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, the trial and the historical times in which it happened. The Department of Labor has a mobile-friendly website dedicated to the 100 year anniversary, which includes a tour of the relevant locations.

Photo: Part of the memorial for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in The Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn, N.Y. (semarr/CC)

Have women come a long way? Yes and no

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:25:00 +0000

Women in the U.S. won the right to vote in 1920. They won sweeping economic, social and personal rights in a wave of legislation and court rulings spurred by the civil rights and women's liberation movements in the 1960s and '70s.

So, have women "come a long way, baby" - as the notorious 1968 cigarette ad proclaimed? Well, yes and no.

Young women today say their lives are better because of the gains won in the past, but they grapple with both old and new challenges: struggling for equality on the job and in social life, confronting stereotypes about femininity, balancing work and family, and coping with the notion that women now "can do it all."

To mark Women's History Month, I asked a number of women, age 20-something to 40, how they feel they have benefited from the struggles of their mothers' and grandmothers' generation, and what challenges they face as young women today.

"My access to education and varied employment opportunities is by far one of the largest benefits from both the civil rights and women's struggle," said one young woman, age 30. "I am working on my PhD to eventually become a professor and president of a university - that was unthinkable for my mother and not even in the realm of possibility for my grandmother."

Yet, she added, "there is a perception that we have come so far from where we were, but the discrimination is there."

A 29-year-old said, "I know that compared to my mother's generation, I probably have way more freedom in being able to do the things that I want to do, and be single in my 30s and have children on my own or in a variety of relationship arrangements, and I am grateful for that. I have benefited by being given more of this freedom to decide what's right for me, but it's still not where it needs to be."

Progress has been real

"My mother was not allowed to continue her education after high school because my grandfather did not allow it (she grew up in Mexico)," said a 27-year-old woman. "When I was growing up, my mother didn't consider it an option for her daughters not to earn a degree and start a career. It was because of her experience growing up that my sisters and I feel empowered and capable of doing things that neither she or her mother were able to do."

A 30-year-old said, "While there are certainly still barriers for women entering certain jobs, it is a lot more acceptable and even respected for a woman to fight for her right to have the job/career she wants."

Today "it's even acceptable for a woman to work while her husband stays home," noted a young mother. "There are many partners that I know where the woman is the main income for the home." As a woman, she said, "I feel supported in pursuit of a career, and one that actually interests me."

One woman spoke of female role models in leadership positions "that I might never have seen had there not been a women's liberation or civil rights movement."

One of the most important benefits those movements have given her, she said, is "self-respect and expectations." Among them she cited managing her own finances, getting her car serviced by a mechanic who doesn't take advantage of her, and expecting to marry a man who will share responsibilities "without any expectations of what will be the ‘man's role' and the ‘woman's role'."

But there's a ways to go

"On a daily basis I see and feel the slights against myself for being both female and black," the graduate student said. "Gender bias and patriarchy continue to play out in many ways. The attacks on teachers are a pertinent example. Teaching is considered to be women's work, therefore less valuable. In contrast principalship and superintendentry is considered a man's domain and you don't hear about cities firing all of their superintendents."

A high school teacher said, "I feel like men naturally have a leg up at work in terms of getting respect from co-workers and administration (and students)." Over time, the attitudes become "a more accurate reflection of your actual work and character," she said, "but I feel like it takes a lot longer for women to establish that."

"I think I have probably spent a lot more time thinking about how I am perceived by others than my male counterparts," she added.

And she commented, "I know that they all have ‘poker night' from time to time and my female friends and I think of this as sort of a stupid old (young?) boys' club."

Still grappling with stereotypes about femininity

At work, "I always feel like I have to do all this extra thinking about how to say things so as not to come off as rude or aggressive or intimidating," one woman said.

"I worry sometimes about my image when I participate in sports or dress in athletic clothing - as if heterosexual women really interested in sports may still be unaccepted," said another.

A 29-year-old objected to "the expectation that I have to follow a prescribed path of marriage and children by a certain age or else I do not fit into the accepted mold for someone my age. I also feel that men are ‘permitted' to be single and unpressured for much longer than women."

Another said "dating is tough" due to the "overly-blatant sexuality of popular culture" and emphasis on "hook-ups."

Another woman talked of stereotypes affecting gay women. "I am a black, queer, femme woman," she said. "I like keeping house, cooking, and doing the things my mother did to show us she loved us. I don't feel like this is looked at as admirable and often seen as regressive because my partner is male identified."

Work-family conflict

A recently married young woman said she worries about economic insecurity, and would like to go back to school to get a graduate degree, but feels pressure to have children soon.

A stay-at-home mother said she appreciated that for her, this was "a choice rather than an expectation. I was able to attend college and establish a career before getting married and having children, which provides me the opportunity to have a career later in life as well."

"I realize the importance of education and choice for women but also believe that our roles as mothers supersede some of those goals," she said.

A working mother said, "I hear a lot of talk from the older generation of women about their pride in the sacrifices they made to enter the work force and an expectation that I should actually relish having the same experience." Instead, she said, "I want to spend time with my family not just for their sakes but for mine as well."

"There is a serious need for a national conversation about maternity and paternity leave, part-time work options and good child care options," she continued. "It is insane that as a society we accept the idea that a woman should return to work when her child is six weeks old."

Another mother who works full-time spoke of feeling "trapped." Women's "right" to work has become a requirement, she said. "We can't survive without two paychecks."

Expressing "stress and guilt related to being torn in opposing directions," she said. "My career is important to me, but if I could work part-time and also stay home and be a mom part-time, I would relish it. But, crazy enough, I have to work full-time in order to afford child care."

One woman said her best friend, a working mother, "is afraid that she would loose her job because she has to take time off to take her sick kids to the doctor. In a world that is supposed to be equal she should not have to feel so afraid." The husband's job provides health insurance "so he can't take the time and risk loosing their lifeline."

"Laws and employers still aren't always on the side of working mothers and families," she commented.

Can women "do it all"?

Several spoke of the pressure of "a society that expects women to do it all."

"Winning the battle for equal rights at work seems to have also won me the expectation that I be all things to all people," said a 30-year-old. "I don't know one woman of my generation who feels like she is adequately meeting her family and work obligations."

"The idea that women have been 'liberated' is simplistic," said a 33-year-old. "Liberated into doing everything and no one noticing? I feel burdened by the amount that I need to earn, the responsibilities to myself, my child, my husband, and my job. I feel like I am torn in too many directions."

The "you can have it all" ideal for women today is false, she said.

Progress, challenges

What do you think? Post your comments below.

Photo: A Lego version of DC Comics' Wonder Woman. levork CC 2.0

Is democracy inherent in socialism?

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:45:00 +0000

I was once told that the term "democratic socialism" is redundant. Socialism, it was said, is in its very nature democratic. Where there is socialism, there is democracy. With one comes the other. Democracy is inherent in socialism.

Actually, that is how it should be, but looking back on the experience of the Soviet Union, it is apparent that Soviet socialism had a democratic deficit, that democracy wasn't inherent in its socialism.

Soviet working people were not the authors of their own lives and the architects of their society in any deep sense. Despite the existence of local councils, trade unions and other organizations, political power wasn't really diffused to the various layers of society. Instead it was concentrated in the hands of the ruling Communist Party, and in too many instances employed arbitrarily. The party's near-monopoly of power foreclosed popular participation in and outside of the institutional structures of Soviet society.

In other words, the state and society had a democratic shell, but lacked a democratic substance.

This reality stained the image and attractive power of socialism in the non-socialist world. Citing the many accomplishments of socialism in the last century - and there were many - doesn't change the fact that deep democracy, that is, democratic structures and processes of popular participation and control, didn't exist in any full-blooded way.

What did exist were formal structures of representation and governance that gave people a faint but not decisive voice in policymaking. Over time this, along with socialism's poor economic performance relative to the capitalist countries, undermined working people's confidence in the efficacy of socialism and the authority of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. To ascribe the collapse of Soviet socialism to Mikhail Gorbachev and his team, as some do, is to miss the forest for the trees.

Socialists in general and communists in particular in the United States have to learn from this experience. Of the many lessons that can be drawn, I want to only mention a few here.

One lesson is that the people's organizations (or civil society as some call it) have to have an independent life of their own. Such organizations shouldn't be arms of the state or a ruling party.

Another is that the structures of democratic power and governance have to have decision-making capacity, including the opportunity to deliberate over competing alternatives.

A third lesson is the necessity to uphold the rule of law, expand constitutional rights, and preserve existing democratic freedoms and civil liberties.

The late historian E.P. Thompson wrote,

"I am told that, just beyond the horizon, new forms of working class power are about to arise which, being founded upon egalitarian productive relations, will require no inhibition and can dispense with the negative restrictions of bourgeois legalism. A historian is unqualified to pronounce on such utopian projections. All that he knows is that he can bring in support of them no evidence whatsoever. His advice might be: watch this new power for a century or two before you cut down your hedges." ("Whigs and Hunters," 1975)

Thompson is strongly suggesting, albeit with a little humor, that the history of socialist experience over the past century shows that socialism cannot "dispense" with accepted notions of freedom of expression and other civil liberties. Indeed, they are essential "for a century or two" to the building of an enduring and vibrant socialist society.

A fourth lesson is that it is necessary to complete the unfinished democratic tasks left over from existing capitalism, especially the elimination of racial and gender inequality. It is hard to conceive of a democratic society and state in which more than half the population has a less than equal status and voice.

Five, socialism has to allow for a multi-party system and the alternation of parties in power if the people so decide. Every political party or broader political formation should stand periodically before the people in fair and free elections.

Six, a public media, independent of private corporate interests and state control as well, is indispensable in a socialist society, which especially needs an informed citizenry.

Finally, the builders of socialism have to understand that the ownership of the means of production and structures of working class power are only facilitating mechanisms of socialist development. They create only the possibility of a socialist society. Socialism becomes socialism only to the degree that working people exchange alienation and powerlessness for engagement, empowerment, a sense of real ownership, and full democratic participation in every aspect of society - the state, economy, social organizations, media and culture.

Otherwise, socialism's structural foundations become shells that appear socialist, but hide un-socialist, undemocratic structures and practices, as occurred in the Soviet Union. In that case, social relations and structures became alien, distant and bureaucratic, and eventually lost their legitimacy in the people's eyes. If that occurs, the soul and substance of socialism wither away and its liberating promise goes unrealized.

So, is democracy inherent in socialism? Yes, but only if the opportunity to leave the restrictive, badly flawed shell of capitalist democracy and move to the higher ground of full-blooded socialist democracy is seized by tens of millions of ordinary people and their political representatives.

Image: Chuck Coker CC 2.0

Banker’s deficit solution: work longer with less pay and half the benefits

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 13:02:00 +0000

Everyone knows that capitalism has become globalized. What begins in one part of its international system quickly spreads to another, be it financial crisis or economic policy.

Consider then, the recent remarks of a German investment banker who has a quick fix for European capitalism's woes: Work harder, longer, for less pay and cut social benefits in half.

This is what Hans-Jörg Rudloff, who works for Barclay's Capital, said recently. In his own words:

Europe is carrying a social rucksack, which makes us uncompetitive in this world. We have provided living standards for our populations which are unheard of, which no one ever thought would be possible, for the last 50 years. People do not want to give up these living standards.

He continues, "Populations are not ready to voluntarily discipline themselves in more work, less rewards, and less security." Since, he says, it's only natural that the population would react like this, what's required is his brand of "democratic leadership and a question of whether indeed we are able to reinvigorate ourselves and to state publicly in this world that that we want to be competitive."

His solution, according to Business Insider:

Half of the social benefits (pensions, universal health care) have to go; people have to work more, longer hours, longer years; otherwise, it is impossible to continue to fund the present system.

If this sounds similar to the GOP politicians aboard the tea party express, don't worry too much. So far, as Raw Story reports, the Republicans who campaigned last November promising jobs have instead called for:

Curtailing abortion rights;
Getting rid of Planned Parenthood;
Defunding NPR;
Investigating Muslims;
Affirming "In God We Trust"; and
Making English the official language of the U.S.

It seems the GOP national committee is leaving its more direct class war tactics to state governors. However, should the Republicans win in 2012, get ready for 16-hour days at less pay and a 50 percent cut in benefits. And if we're lucky they just might spread the pain, by adding child labor.

Think that's too far fetched? This week we commemorate the centennial of the Triangle Shirt factory fire, in which many children died.

If the GOP attack on collective bargaining succeeds, those unhappy days may again be just around the corner.

“Potemkin”: The greatest film of all time.

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 09:43:00 +0000

Movie Review

Potemkin
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein
1925, 75 mins., Not Rated

In my view, the best movie ever made was before the cinema had sound or color (except for that hand-tinted red flag!). Nor are there movie stars or a sexy love story in Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 Potemkin, based on the real-life saga of a revolt aboard a ship that spread like wildfire to the Ukrainian port city of Odessa.

But there is a kind of romance in this Soviet classic (also called Battleship Potemkin), of which a newly remastered version is being theatrically re-released.

When I was a student I read Rosa Luxemburg's stirring 1906 pamphlet The Mass Strike, and never forgot one indelible line: "But in the storm of the revolutionary period even the proletarian is transformed from a provident paterfamilias demanding support, into a 'revolutionary romanticist,' for whom even the highest good, life itself, to say nothing of material well-being, possesses but little in comparison with the ideals of the struggle."

Yes, in the excitement of revolution, people are lifted out of their petty mindsets and ruts, and all things suddenly seem possible. Unlike general strikes, which are generally planned and called for by trade unions, mass strikes usually originate spontaneously and, in fertile soil, mushroom and go viral. Most recently, a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in order to protest the state's abuses, setting off the uprisings now rocking North Africa and the Middle East - and arguably Wisconsin.

In Potemkin, as the title cards reveal (all 146 have been restored), as upheaval sweeps 1905 czarist Russia, sailors refuse to eat maggoty meat, touching off a mutiny, and then a strike by Odessa's working class. A literal cast of thousands pours across the screen in support of their mutinous mates. This movie's "stars," of course, are the aroused workers and sailors, finally asserting their rights and breaking the chains of oppression in order to win a new liberated world. Supremely notable is the mass psychology of the people in the act of defiant solidarity and rebellion: They are nearly ecstatic. We saw this elation among the crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square as they threw off their tyrants.

Of course, the czarist thugs must put the workers back into their place and stamp out this outpouring of mass joy and unity, so they sic their Cossack dogs on the unarmed civilians in what is arguably the silver screen's most terrifying scene of mass violence. The Odessa Steps sequence is a dramatic tour-de-force of montage, with rapid editing that pops your eyes and tugs your heartstrings. These five minutes will have you on the edge of your seat.

The carnage, however, never happened as portrayed onscreen. According to legend, while planning Potemkin Eisenstein stood atop the Odessa Steps taking in the waterfront vista and chewing cherries. Spitting the pits out, he noticed them bounce down the stairs, and an idea was born. This unforgettable spectacle of slaughter, brilliantly shot by Eduard Tisse, only "lies" in order to tell a larger truth about brutal czarist repression.

The sailors aboard the Potemkin boldly respond to the mass killing, but the czarists deploy a squadron to defeat the mutiny. Undaunted, the Potemkin courageously steams toward the entire battle fleet.... What happens next is not only one of the greatest moments in the history of revolutions (yes, it actually happened!), but in film history, and we won't spoil it for you.

Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin declared: "For us, the cinema is the most important of the arts." Alas, he didn't live long enough to see Eisenstein's Potemkin. With its jubilant, triumphant vision of human solidarity, it arguably did more to spread the gospel of revolution than any book or pamphlet ever did.

Warning! From its opening, symbolic shots of pounding waves, to the final shot of the approaching battleship, Potemkin retains its revolutionary wallop. This painstakingly restored 35mm version, which features Edmund Meisel's stirring symphonic score from 1926, may inspire you to stage a strike and stand up to the next capitalist oppressor who tries to cross you. For about 70 minutes you'll be transformed into an idealistic if armchair revolutionary romantic - talk about getting your money's worth!

Below is the schedule for the upcoming national re-release of this cinematic masterpiece: The revolution is coming soon - and to a theater near you!

Arizona Loft Cinema: Tucson, August 28 & 30
California Landmark Nuart Theatre: Los Angeles, March 18-24
Connecticut Cinestudio: Hartford, April 10-12
Michigan Detroit Film Theatre: Detroit, March 26, Michigan Theater: Ann Arbor, August 7 & 9
Missouri Tivoli Cinemas: Kansas City, April 8-14
New York Cinema Arts Centre: Huntington, March 29, Proctors Theatre: Schenectady, September 25-26
Pennsylvania County Theater: Doylestown, May 2, Ambler Theater: Ambler, May 4
Washington Northwest Film Forum: Seattle, May 20-26

Don't miss the best movie ever made! The revolution is coming soon, to a theatre near you!

See excerpts here.