People Before Profit blog

Economic blockade against Cuba – still alive and dangerous

Mon, 06 Jun 2016 13:34:00 +0000

"The first thing that may be useful to clarify is that Cuba and the United States have never had normal relations." Cuban historian Elier Ramírez Cañedo covers the gamut from predatory U. S actions against Cuba in the 19^th century to U.S. assault on Cuba's socialist revolution after 1959. Economic blockade was the keystone of that assault, he claims. Despite signs recently of improved bi-national relations, the blockade remains in force, weighing on people's lives in Cuba.

Cubans still live with restricted imports of U.S. goods- except for agricultural products - and with the impossibility of selling Cuban products and services in the United States. Foreign companies still face large U.S. fines when products they sell to Cuba contain U.S. components or are the result, even in part, of U.S. investment. And ships bringing goods to Cuba from anywhere still may not dock in the United States for 180 days following a call to a Cuban port.

The U. S. government in recent years has imposed fines against the banks of many nations for the offense of handling dollars in business transactions with Cuba. The most recent three-year total for such fines against third country banks exceeds $10 billion - an amount that includes fines for violating U. S. sanctions against countries other than Cuba. Effects in Cuba are disastrous. The flow of payments for Cuban goods and services has slowed, and also of money from loans and grants. Pay for Cubans (such as doctors) serving abroad sometimes doesn't arrive FC.

Cuban officials were thus elated when the Obama administration announced March 15 that the U. S. dollar, the standard currency used in international commercial transactions, was freed for use in Cuba's monetary dealings abroad. No longer would banks and other financial institutions face penalties.

But the U.S. government hasn't implemented the order. Within days of the U. S. announcement, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez observed that, "the US Government is required to issue a political statement as well as clear and precise instructions that would provide legal and political guarantees to banks, in order to halt financial persecution."

That hasn't happened, and in April the chief executive of the Cooperative Bank of Great Britain informed Bank customers that his bank no longer would be serving a British Cuban solidarity group. He explained: ""by adhering to US sanctions, the Co-operative Bank is complying with US extraterritorial legislation."

In fact, the U.S. blockade is as strong as ever. The Austria-based global courier service TNT informed Cuba's Embassy in Austria May 12 that in obedience to U.S. anti - Cuban sanctions it would no longer be delivering messages and packages to the Embassy. (The U.S. FedEx Corporation had recently purchased TNT.)

And, in accordance with a policy of importing from Cuba only those products produced by non-state entities, the U. S. government announced April 22 that coffee produced by Cuban cooperatives could now enter the United States. Nevertheless, a month later, the prior ban on coffee imports remained in practice.

And, in late 2015 the European branch of PayPal, respectful of U.S. sanctions against Cuba, blocked payments from theatergoers planning to see a show whose title contained the word "Cuba." A German court unblocked the payments in a ruling April 20.

In February the U. S. Treasury Department fined Halliburton Corporation and its foreign subsidiaries $304,706 for supporting oil and gas prospecting in Angola. The announcement indicated that, "the Cuban Company Cuba Petroleo had five percent interest in the oil and gas consortium executing those works."

Other recent news: foreign companies, having purchased Cuban rum and nickel, found their U. S. lines of credit cancelled and discovered also that no longer could they use U.S. banks to transfer funds, in any currency. And, foreign banks closed the bank accounts of Cuban health workers in Africa even though, again, no U. S. dollars were involved. Also, foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies routinely deny services to Cubans working abroad.

Some tiny openings are detectable. Cuba's national telecommunications company ETESCA reached agreement on cooperation with telecommunications entities in the United States. Cuban businesses have contracted with two U.S. hotel companies to administer hotels in Havana.

In February the two governments agreed that commercial flights between the two countries would resume. However, the U. S. government has not responded to airlines' requests to set the process in motion.

Agribusiness interests in 2000 persuaded the U.S. Congress to legislate an exception to the blockade. U.S. exporters gained authorization to sell food products to Cuba, which even now imports more than 70 percent of food consumed on the island. Nevertheless, after a few flush years, U.S. producers lost market share in Cuba. The problem, as claimed recently by the group "Engage Cuba," is that U.S. food exporters are still not allowed to extend credit to Cuban food purchasers who must deliver cash so that food products may be transferred to a ship. Because U.S. banking services are off limits to Cuban importers, they must rely on the banks of third countries - at additional cost.

Historian Elier Ramírez Cañedo asks: "Why has not Obama exhausted the full executive prerogatives at his disposal for converting the blockade against Cuba to an empty shell?"

In his recent article "From Euphoria to Skepticism," Cuban academician and international relations expert Francisco López Segrera has an answer: "U.S regulations for adjusting the blockade have the object of supporting Cuba's private sector ... policy is aimed at 'empowering' the self-employed workers and private capital to the detriment of the public [sector], that is to say, the Cuban state."

Photo: Despite the February announcement that direct commercial flights to Cuba can begin, the U.S. still has not responded to airlines' requests to set the process in motion. | Granma.cu

This month in LGBTQ history: A poem to the continuing struggle

Mon, 06 Jun 2016 10:59:00 +0000

The month of June is LGBTQ Pride Month, and we inaugurate it with "One November Night" by North Carolina poet Janet Joyner.

One November Night

After "The Burning of Paper Instead of Children"

by Adrienne Rich

1. The phone startles me out of sleep, into a groggy reach for the receiver as my eye registers the clock's 3:22 am while the ear detects heavy breathing, a pause. Then: "Is this the PFLAG number?"

    Neck hairs alert. With anger.
    Another crank caller. This is
    a big mistake. To let them
    publish my number.

2. "Ah, no, this is my private residence, but I work for PFLAG, actually for their youth group. It's called YFLAG. Can you speak a little louder? I can barely hear you."

3. "No Ma'am I can't. See, I'm gay, and my parents might hear. Their room is next door. And they're keeping me locked up, except for school."

    Neck hairs stiffen. Brain in high gear.
    Running through the checklist.
    First job, keep her talking, keep
    her alive. Get help. Where? How?

4. What the retiring Director of School Counselors (quite possibly gay, which is why we got our foot in the door...after a year and a half of administrative obstruction, runarounds, passing the buck, months to return phone calls. Not kidding.) had agreed to was to let PFLAG present, once, to a meeting of school counselors (attendance optional) a pre-approved, verbatim script about our support group for students whose failed attempts at suicide had landed them in hospital. (Again, not kidding.) I know the sanctioned protocol.

    Neat dodge. Send them to us.
    And their hands are clean.
    They will have done something.
    For the sick. The damned.

5. "Well, first of all, know that it's OK to be who you are, you are one of God's creatures, not an abomination. And if your parents aren't supportive, you should consult with your school counselor."

   That was the agreement.
   With the brave Director.
   With the Assistant
   Superintendent who will
   be allowed to resign her post.
   No Savonarolas here.

6. "Well, Ma'am I already did that and she outed me to my parents. And they are Christians and can't tolerate the sin in me. So now they allow me go to school, but nothing else. Then lock me in my room for the rest of the day and night. And I'm going crazy. I don't know what I'm gonna do. A friend at school said he'd heard about this group for people like me that meets at some church here, and he let me borrow his cell, which is how I'm calling you now. I was thinking, maybe if it's at a church, which he said it was, my parents will let me go, but I don't have a license to drive. I don't know what to do"...line goes dead.

7. Then: CLICK.

From Janet Joyner's recently published collection Waterborne, the 2014 Holland Prize winner. The Holland Prize, named for Larry Holland, originated in 2005 to recognize the best unpublished book of poetry in American English. This volume is number nine. Reprinted by permission of the author. PFLAG is Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays.

Photo: Gay equality activist Barbara Gittings picketing Philadelphia's Independence Hall in 1965. | Wikipedia (CC)

How to build the unity needed to defeat Trump

Fri, 03 Jun 2016 10:43:00 +0000

The Democratic presidential primaries are winding down; the last Super Tuesday will be June 7. At the same time, the right wing's attempt to capture the White House seems to be ratcheting up and spreading out.

To halt the onslaught from the right, organizing against Donald Trump alone will not be enough. The Democrats will need a campaign based on comprehensive, honest, workable answers to the problems plaguing Americans.

In fact, focusing exclusively on the dangers of Trump might play into the hands of right wingers who will be bombarding voters with their own alternatives to the billionaire crypto-fascist. (And you better believe that they will be using that term and worse to describe Trump.)

The anti-Trump, rightist Libertarian Party is launching a presidential campaign with the backing of a large number of big money businessmen. Their nominee is Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico.

Furthermore, Bill Kristol, a longtime leader of the so-called "conservative" movement is putting together a campaign for an "independent" right winger, maybe David French, an Iraqi war veteran and writer. Kristol is the political guru for some of the most wealthy right wing political donors in the U.S.

Both the Libertarian Party and the Kristol-backed candidate will, like Trump, point to what is scaring working people: the plummeting standard of living, fear of being ruined by health care costs and many other things that add up to economic insecurity. Like Trump, they might play on the racist fear infecting many white workers, the fear of being lost in the growing diversity of our population.

And the anti-Trump rightists will, like Trump, offer as solutions the same pro-billionaire programs and policies that got us into the current mess.

However, the anti-Trump rightists will avoid hate speech. They might even call for "unity among all Americans." They will criticize Trump as being self-serving, anti-worker, racist and xenophobic, in much the same way that progressives call him out.

By giving him targets to rail against, the anti-Trump, "establishment" rightists might actually help him by putting to rest the fear among his followers that he's sold out to the "establishment."

In any case, both pro-Trump and anti-Trump rightists will certainly saturate the airwaves with misleading solutions to the problems facing workers; solutions that are sure to make life worse for all but the top one percent.

Progressives cannot count on defeating the right because its ranks are split. Without a massive, on-the-ground campaign that reaches workers with a progressive alternative, voters could very easily rally en masse around one of the right wing alternatives or just sit out the election.

There are not enough super rich progressive donors, so launching a winnable third party campaign is out.

In any case, we don't have to.

There is growing within the Democratic Party the exact type of coalition that elected President Obama: working people, minorities, millennials, women's rights advocates, immigrant rights activists and others.

If it stays together, this coalition could not only defeat Trump and the other right wing candidates, it could also push America forward along a peoples' path to justice and prosperity.

Within the coalition, there are supporters of both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, but the energy, enthusiasm and organizational structure for a movement to ween workers away from right wing charlatans has been built within the Sanders campaign.

From the beginning, Bernie himself made clear that he was using his election campaign as an engine for firing up a political revolution, a grassroots movement to fight against the corporate takeover of American politics, for an end to discrimination based on race, religion or gender identity; and for a $15 minimum wage, free college tuition, Medicare for all, strengthening Social Security and much more.

Bernie's mantra has been "no one person can bring our government back to serving the people instead of the one percent. It will take millions and millions of us standing up to the billionaires and Wall Street."

The political revolution had been aiming to establish a vehicle to promote progressive politics over the haul after the November presidential election is over.

It turns out, however, that the political revolution has already gained traction among the American people. To date, well over 10 million people have voted for Bernie Sanders in primaries and caucuses. What has been built is needed here and now. It could be a major force in convincing workers that there's a better way to address problems than voting for the right wing in November.

Bernie's political revolution has attracted the very groups that the Democratic presidential candidate will need to win the election.

What's more, candidates in all-important races for the House and Senate who have adopted the goals of the political revolution have gained the support of millions of voters.

As the Democratic primaries draw to a close, most sober analysts give Bernie credit for making front runner Hillary Clinton a more electable candidate. If Hillary had not moved closer to Bernie, she would be more vulnerable to losing the election.

Nevertheless, the drumbeat is getting louder calling for Bernie to drop out of the race before the Democratic National Convention.

For him to do so would be a disservice to Hillary Clinton, to the Democratic Party, and to the nation.

Fortunately, most Democratic Party leaders understand that pushing Bernie to withdraw now could alienate the very people Hillary Clinton will need if she becomes the nominee. To win, the Clinton campaign will need the enthusiasm and energy generated by those now part of the Bernie campaign.

That's why the leadership of the Democratic Party is eager to continue to negotiate with the Sanders campaign and why they gave him five seats on the National Convention platform committee.

Most leaders of the Democratic Party know that the best way to build unity is to encourage free discussions of disagreements at the Convention to be held in July. They also know that preventing such discussions leads to disaffection.

What's more, there is a massive movement within the Democratic Party to push for reforms and platform provisions that will keep the political revolution alive and channel it toward defeating the right in November.

This movement includes We the People, The Brand New Congress, The Progressive Democrats of America, Democracy Spring, Democracy Awakening, The Peoples' Summit, and at least 20 Democratic candidates for the House and Senate, not to mention many mainstream leaders of the Democratic Party.

No one within this movement is obsessing over the possibility of a Bernie or Bust Movement or an attempt at a third party. They understand these "threats" exist largely in cyberspace, on social media, and not in real life. They know from experience that such attempts generally fade away. For example, although around this time in 2008 over half of Hillary Clinton supporters said they would never vote for Obama, they did just that when faced with the Republican opposition.

The vast majority of people within this Democratic Party movement are concentrating on continuing to attract those who have been Sanders activists. They understand that a victory in November could very well depend on the Sanders folks.

On the other hand, Democratic Party leaders know that keeping Sanders supporters on the defensive by continually demanding they swear fealty to the Democratic Party is the best way to lose them.

Instead, Democratic Party leaders are, by and large, preparing for a convention in which all views will be expressed, and expressed forcefully.

From that kind of process will come unity behind a program that truthfully speaks to the problems facing Americans today and that is needed to stop the pro-billionaire, anti-worker right wing.

Photo: Bernie Sanders continues to draw huge crowds in California. Many Democratic Party leaders say a vigorous discussion of issues at the party's convention will strengthen Hillary Clinton in November. | Rich Pedroncelli/AP

“Lynching” conviction of Black Lives Matter leader seen as crushing dissent

Thu, 02 Jun 2016 15:17:00 +0000

A young African American political activist is trembling today at the thought of having to face as many as four years in prison after becoming the first black person ever to have been convicted of the charge of felony lynching.

Jasmine Richards, a leader of the Black Lives Matter movement in Pasadena, Calif., got the word yesterday while she waited with her lawyer, Nana Gyamfi, at the Pasadena courthouse.

Richards was grabbed by cops and charged with felony lynching two days after she had been at a Pasadena restaurant in which a black woman was detained on August 29, 2015 for allegedly failing to pay for a meal.

Eyewitnesses say the store owner ran out of the restaurant chasing the young woman who had allegedly not paid her check. The woman ended up across the street at a small gathering of Black Lives Matter activists who had just taken part in a local protest.

When police arrived, they told the owner he would have to make a citizen's arrest because they had not witnessed the supposed incident. The owner agreed to do so, and police say that at that point they were required by law to carry out the arrest.

Police Lt. Tracey Ibarra told local press that officers "attempted to go ahead and make contact" with the accused woman, but that when they proceeded to detain her "part of the Black Lives Matter protest group attempted to intercede."

Two evenings later, police arrested Richards and charged her with four crimes she allegedly committed that day outside the restaurant. They included inciting a riot, child endangerment, delaying and obstructing peace officers in the discharge of their duties, and felony lynching. In the time between the arrest and the trial, all charges but felony lynching have been dropped.

As she was handcuffed and escorted out of the courtroom after the verdict Harris chanted, "It is our duty to fight for our freedom."

"It is our duty to win," her supporters chanted in response. "We must love one another and support one another."

"We have nothing to lose but our chains!" Harris shouted as she entered a holding cell in the court house.

"This was a political prosecution, not a criminal prosecution," her lawyer, Gyamfi told the local press. "This was a jury that could not tell the difference between a loud black person and a violent black person."

Frank Chapman, a field organizer for the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) spoke with People's World by phone from the group's headquarters in Chicago. "The conviction of this young woman is a horror, a stain on justice," he said. "The fact that they selected that charge sends a frightening message to all people who support democracy and civil rights. Be very careful about where you go in this country because in many places power is still in the hands of people who have no respect for either democracy or civil rights."

The actual charge that came down from the court with the final verdict was "Attempting to Remove a Suspect from Police Officers." The "lynching" language was dropped from the law after a firestorm of protests against comparing political protests with the crime of lynching.

California's lynching law took effect in 1933. It was designed to keep mobs from forcibly taking people out of police custody for hangings or other forms of vigilante justice.

Many thousands of black people in southern states and elsewhere have historically been grabbed from police custody or even at random by white lynch mobs for the purpose of hanging them to death.

Groups like the NAARPR see Richard's conviction, not what she did at the restaurant that day, as the real crime here. "Finding her guilty of felony lynching. That's the real lynching," said Chapman, "It was an attempt to shut down a political activist."

Richards was not the only person at which the lynching law has been aimed.

Maile Hampton, another young African American woman, had also been originally charged with felony lynching in connection with the incident at the restaurant. The charges against her were eventually dropped.

Hampton and Harris are both well-known activists in Pasadena. Both have been involved in many of the protests over police killings of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice.

Hampton too had been arrested several days after the misdeeds she had allegedly committed. Police identified her as a person attempting to pull people away from officers during a protest. She was arrested later, in her case at her home.

Linda Parisi, Hampton's lawyer, was quoted as saying, "It's an irony that a woman of color, who was at a public rally to shine a light on police brutality, is arrested for lynching."

There is already broad support for a move to amend the California penal code. "The current 'lynching' definition is an affront to the estimated 3,500 African Americans and 1,300 whites who were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1962 as a means to threaten and intimidate African Americans from exercising their right to vote," said California State Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) in a recent interview with the Sacramento Bee.

Lynching typically involved a mob seizing a Black person from a jail or from anywhere else, including his or her home, beating and torturing that person, sometimes burning the individual with torches, and even drowning the person before hanging him or her from a tree or a street lamp where the public could see the mob's handiwork.

White people, although in lesser numbers, were also victims of this crime, as were large numbers of people of Mexican descent in the Southwestern part of the U.S.

Although the real numbers of African Americans lynched in the U.S. will probably never be known, the Equal Justice Initiative published a report covering lynching in 12 Southern states between 1877 and 1950 that documented more than 3,900 cases.

Bills to outlaw lynching failed to pass the U.S. Senate and the Congress repeatedly from 1922 until 1935. It was only in 2005 that a measure condemning the lynching of thousands of Black people, drafted by Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana), finally passed in the Senate.

Photo: Jasmine Richards, left, at a protest with two friends. | Video screenshot courtesy of Democracy Now

Trump’s presidential bid is a scheme to get richer, quicker

Thu, 02 Jun 2016 10:29:00 +0000

Donald Trump might be in it for the money.

According to Don Lee and Jim Puzzanghera writing in the Chicago Tribune, "If elected, nothing under current federal law would force Trump to sell his companies or stay out of their business decisions."

If not for the money, why would Trump bother to run?

To put it mildly, he has never been known for his dedication to public service. Nor is he known for his civic-mindedness. If he's elected, he'll be the only president never to have served in the government, military or court system. He began his career by destroying communities in New York City with his super-developments and has gone on to do the same around the world.

Trump's campaign itself is making him richer. Because his name and his antics saturate the media 24/7, sales of his products are soaring and his hotels are filled worldwide.

When he won the primaries in Michigan and Mississippi last March, his victory speech was not about his policies; it was about his products. He displayed Trump red, white and rose wines, cases of Trump water and two butcher blocks heaped with Trump steaks.

It's true that Trump has lost some deals because other business people are disgusted by his xenophobic, racist, misogynistic statements. Recently, no corporation would sponsor a World Golf Championship event at one of his golf courses, so the PGA moved it elsewhere.

By and large, however, Trump is doing very well for himself.

Many of our presidents, from George Washington to FDR to JFK have been very rich, but Trump is in a league by himself. He would be the first president to preside over a global business empire.

According to Lee and Puzzanghera, Trump is an executive trustee or member of about 480 corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies or foreign entities. He owns golf courses, country clubs, hotels, casinos and ice rinks as well as companies selling steaks, magazines, water and wine.

What he's making by campaigning is peanuts compared to what his haul could be if elected.

Of course, he would fight to change tax laws and business regulations to benefit billionaires like himself.

But that's not the worst of it.

"There are well-established conflict-of-interest rules for other executive branch officials and less-strict ones for members of Congress," Lee and Puzzanghera state, "... [but] in a 2004 report on conflicts of interest in the executive branch, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service noted that the criminal statute requiring officials to recuse themselves from government matters in which they have a financial interest 'expressly excludes the president and vice president.'"

Conflict of interest laws would ban actions Trump might take as president to benefit his financial interests, but there are no laws that would prevent Trump the businessman from taking an action that would benefit from policies or programs being passed by Trump the president.

To avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, presidents have generally put their investments in blind trusts, but that's only a tradition; not a law.

The idea of a blind trustee is to have stocks and other assets managed, bought and sold by an independent third party without the knowledge of owner.

Trump has said he will have his children manage his enterprises if he became president, although according to Lee and Puzzanghera, the Office of Government Ethics specifically states that a blind trustee cannot be a relative.

Anyway, a blind trust would probably not work in Trump's case. Too much of his wealth is tied up in properties and ventures bearing his name. For example, even if Trump turns his many Trump Towers over to a blind trust, how can he forget he owns them?

"He cannot put businesses he owns in a blind trust and suddenly get a case of amnesia," attorney Kenneth Gross, an expert in such matters, told the Chicago Tribune.

"The potential conflict would come," Gross said, "if a future Trump administration, for example, declared a parcel next to a Trump golf course as public land, causing the value of his golf property to triple."

Or what if, Gross asks, "a President Trump had dealings with a leader of a foreign country where businessman Trump operates a casino?"

The latter is not a "what if." It's a reality.

Kevin Sullivan reports in the Washington Post that Trump has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of interest in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Azerbaijan. He sold the use of his name to Anar Mammadov, whose family is part of an oil-soaked oligarchy plagued by corruption.

At present, the project, located in Azerbaijan's capital of Baku, stands only partially completed. It's stuck on hold because of the plummeting price of oil.

If Trump is elected president, he will have a tremendous incentive to continue America's dependence on oil in hopes that prices will rise and with it his tower in Azerbaijan.

"Trump has not said precisely how he would separate his personal financial interests overseas from his administration's policies," Sullivan writes.

That non-answer alone is more than enough reason to work hard to make sure Trump is not allowed anywhere near the Oval Office.

Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Two of Virginia's Congressional districts get re-drawn over GOP objections

Tue, 31 May 2016 12:57:00 +0000

The chances Virginia Democrats might win a congressional seat in November went up sharply because of U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week. Currently, Democrats hold three of the eleven Virginia House seats.

Southern Virginia's congressional districts were re-drawn by a three-judge panel after Republicans had tried twice to pack African-American voters into one congressional district.

"This is a victory for the people of Virginia who deserve to have their votes count and to have a real opportunity to choose their representatives," said state Sen. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, in a prepared statement.

McEachin and Chesapeake City Councilor Ella Ward will seek the Democratic Party nomination for Fourth Congressional District seat in the June 14 primary.

The new 4^th District will add the cities of Richmond and Petersburg, both Democratic strongholds. The new 4^th District increases the African-American population of voting age from 31.3 percent to almost 41 percent. The new district boundary is seen as a plus for Democrats because it moves Democratic-majority Richmond and Petersburg into the new 4^th.

In the 2012 elections, President Barack Obama received nearly 49 percent of the votes in the 4^th District under its previous boundaries. The president would have received 61 percent of the vote in the district newly drawn by the judges.

Republicans in the Virginia legislature had twice been called out by the federal courts for attempting to pack too many African-Americans into the 3^rd District, which diluted minority vote influence in surrounding areas and boosted Republicans.

Three Virginia Republican congressmen appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, saying these changes would make it harder for them to win re-election. The Supreme Court didn't buy that argument.

Before the court ruling was announced, 4^th District U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes had already moved to Virginia Beach so he could run in the new 2^nd District, whose incumbent Republican Congressman, Scot Rigell, is retiring.

Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Westmoreland and Rep. David Brat, R-Henrico, claimed adding Democrats to their district would make it harder to win re-election.

Forbes told the Supreme Court he would move back to his former district if it rejected redistricting. Forbes' attorney later said the congressman planned to run in the Virginia Beach-based 2^nd district regardless of the court's ruling.

The Supreme Court ruled that Virginia congressional Republicans didn't have legal standing to appear because they were not able to show injury, due to the decision of Forbes to change seats.

"Given this change, this court does not see how any injury that Forbes might have suffered is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial opinion," Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote.

McEachin has the support of the state Democratic Party leadership. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's Emerging Race program added McEachin in April. He has the backing of Governor. Terry McAuliffe, Lieutenant Governor. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring.

Ward also served the state Board of Education. She was unsuccessful in challenging Forbes for his congressional seat in 2012.

Both McEachin and Ward are African-American. If either wins on June 14, Virginia will have two African-Americans in the House of Representatives.

Virginia's incumbent African-American in the House, U.S. Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-Newport News), also saw changes to his 3^rd district. The new map drops the African-American voting age population in the 3^rd District from 56.3 percent to 45.3 percent. His district used to stretch from Richmond to Newport News. Now, it will be anchored in Hampton Roads.

However, this is still considered a safe seat for the Democrats.

Map attribution: Stephen Wolf

Trump v. Bernie: First as farce, then as tragedy

Fri, 27 May 2016 14:49:00 +0000

On May 25, on Jimmy Kimmel Live, presumptive Republican nominee for president Donald Trump was asked if he would consider a debate with Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. Trump agreed saying, "If he paid a sum toward charity I would love to do that."

Shortly after, the Sanders campaign twitter tweeted out "Game on. I look forward to debating Donald Trump in California before the June 7 primary."

Having decried the lack of mainstream media coverage around Sanders and the initial shortage of debates on the Democratic side, I would be among the first to insist for more primetime platforms for Senator Sanders but this is too much, too late.

I'm a Bernie partisan because I like that he is an independent whose values weren't subject to the whims of a party machine and that he doesn't back down from a fight. I voted for him in the Illinois primary, stuck with him through the Democratic campaign against Hillary Clinton, and donated to his campaign (and will continue to do so as he expands his down-ticket fundraising).

With Donald Trump finally wrapping up the nomination on the Republican side there is nothing I'd love to see more than Bernie Sanders exposing Trump's faux-anti-establishment rhetoric and revealing him for the shameless, hypocritical turd he is.

As sweet as that would be, the circumstances surrounding the debate stand to endanger the anti-Trump forces.

Hillary Clinton is 78 delegates from crossing the finish line for the Democratic presidential nomination and that makes a debate between Bernie and Trump for charity a lose/lose for everyone but the charity. Especially since Trump has vanquished his 16 Republican foes and has surpassed the necessary pledged delegate count for his party's nomination.

Plus, it's already been done.

Comedians and improvisers Anthony Atamanuik and James Adomian have been taking their Trump Vs. Bernie comedy debate tour across the country since last fall. The show itself is genius as the characters of Trump and Bernie are heightened to their platonic ideals.

Adomian's Bernie is the fundamental hippie grandpa. His ideal romantic outing with his wife ("I think her name is Jane") involves going "out to Lake Champlain, turning on a Dead album, lying in a sloop and reading each other statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics." Not only does he think that gay marriage should be legal, he thinks experimenting outside of ones sexuality should be "encouraged and subsidized." His hand gestures perfectly mirror Sanders' tendency conduct an invisible orchestra.

If Adomian's Bernie were running for office, he'd still have my vote.

Atamanuik's Trump on the other hand probably wouldn't have made it onto the ballot (but who knows the depths Republicans are willing to sink to anymore).

Trump is so vile that the crowd I saw it with was just as likely to groan as it was to belly laugh and yet, contrary to what you may, think it's Atamanuik's Trump, through masterful satire, who speaks most pointedly against his subject's incipient fascism.

When asked during their Fusion Channel special if "black lives matter or if all lives matter, Trump responds "My life matters more than any of them, I think everybody should believe that. But I have to tell you this, and this is very important," showing his mastery of Trump's word salad style, "slavery was a terrible deal, let me tell you that, and then we moved on and said 'we can't have plantations anymore, so let's turn them into prisons."

With these two perfect distillations playing small-to-mid-size clubs and theaters across the country and having already put out two televised specials for Fusion and Comedy Central's @ Midnight, who needs the real thing anymore?

Not only do we not need the real thing, the real thing could be dangerously empowering to Trump.

Trump will be able to make the argument that what the undecided voters need is a "winner," and, in the Republican race, Trump is the winner.

Trump will be able to make a direct appeal to Sanders' independent voters by highlighting what many, including Trump himself, regard as the DNC's bias against him. What's scarier than a sympathetic Donald Trump?

What do you do if you're Sanders then? If they find common ground on being anti-DNC it could be argued that Sanders has "gone rogue" and he could stand to undermine his gentle pre-convention détente. If Sanders back-pedals, his arguments for reform are hurt.

Furthermore, Trump, having proven himself unable to take firm positions on anything, could conceivably agree with Sanders on a number of issues like trade and make a play to white, working class voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Michigan. Pennsylvania and Ohio in particular are of outsized importance this general election.

It's not that I don't have faith that Sanders could shellac Trump in a proper debate, anytime, anywhere. It's just that Trump has nothing to lose and his past performance has shown that he doesn't do his debating in the realm of policy where Sanders has the upper hand. These factors together make this political intramural debate a bad idea.

Sanders supporters should advocate against this and advance more productive uses for his time. For example, a debate for charity with the Libertarian and Green Party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein would do more to enhance democracy than would this perilous decision.

The only possible upside to a Trump Vs. Bernie, real life debate is if they end it the way that James Adomian and Anthony Atamanuik end their fake one: with a delightful song and dance number.

This week in LGBTQ history: Celebrating and honoring Christine Jorgensen

Fri, 27 May 2016 13:32:00 +0000

Christine Jorgensen was born 90 years ago, on May 30, 1926. An American trans woman, she was the first person to become widely known for having sex reassignment surgery. Upon graduation from the Bronx's Christopher Columbus High School in 1945, she was drafted into the U.S. Army for World War II. Afterward she attended several schools, worked, and then heard about transitioning surgery. She traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark, and began undergoing a series of operations starting in 1951.

She returned to the United States in the early 1950s and became an instant celebrity, using her newfound platform to advocate for transgender people.

Christine Jorgensen was named George William Jorgensen, Jr. at birth. She grew up in a crime-ridden area and described herself as having been a "frail, blond, introverted little boy who ran from fistfights and rough-and-tumble games."

Jorgensen began taking the female hormone ethinyl estradiol and researched transition surgery with the help of Dr. Joseph Angelo, the husband of a classmate at school. She originally intended to go to Sweden, where the only doctors in the world who performed the surgery were located, but during a stopover in Copenhagen to visit relatives, she met Dr. Christian Hamburger, a Danish endocrinologist and specialist in rehabilitative hormonal therapy. Jorgensen stayed in Denmark and took hormone replacement therapy under Dr. Hamburger's direction and obtained special permission from the Danish Minister of Justice to undergo a series of operations in that country.

On September 24, 1951, surgeons at Gentofte Hospital in Copenhagen performed an orchiectomy (removal of the testicles) on Jorgensen. In a letter to friends on October 8, she referred to how the surgery affected her:

"As you can see by the enclosed photos, taken just before the operation, I have changed a great deal. But it is the other changes that are so much more important. Remember the shy, miserable person who left America? Well, that person is no more and, as you can see, I'm in marvelous spirits."

Thirteen months later, doctors at Copenhagen University Hospital performed a penectomy (removal of the penis). She then returned to the U.S. and obtained a vaginoplasty (creation of a vagina). Jorgensen chose the name Christine in honor of Dr. Hamburger.

Entering the public eye

As a spokesperson for transsexual and transgender people, Jorgensen entered the public eye. She influenced other transsexuals to change their sex on birth certificates and to change their names. Christine Jorgensen's case is significant because, for the first time, it led to new conversations about sex, science, and the changing definition of sexuality. Gender had been thought of as a set binary (one could only be permanently male or female), but now doctors were redefining gender with the term "psychological sex." By this new definition one might not relate to one's biological sex.

The question of what determined sex emerged, and the spectrum of sexuality identity included chromosomes, genitalia, and body actions. But which of these three determined someone's sex? The topic was complicated, as doctors tried to define and reclassify sexuality. For example, doctors strove to distinguish transsexuality from transvestism and homosexuality, and tried to make it simpler for people to understand. Traditional gender norms were questioned, and Jorgensen reinforced what it meant to be a woman despite her original sexuality. She took on the notions of femininity. She saw herself as a founding member in what became known as the "sexual revolution."

To the extent that she freed herself, she also brought liberation to everyone who dared to challenge gender constrictions.

Despite the publicity at the time, the claim that this was the first "sex change" was not true, as this type of surgery had previously been performed by pioneering German doctors in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Danish artist Lili Elbe and "Dorchen," both patients of Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) in Berlin, were known recipients of such operations in 1930-31. (The recent film The Danish Girl was about Lili Elbe.) What was different in Jorgensen's case was the added prescription of female hormones.

Jorgensen penned the first authorized account of her story in the February 1953 issue of The American Weekly. Although she tolerated some good-natured joshing about what she recognized as a still difficult subject, Jorgensen could be outraged by some comments. When she appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, he asked a question about the status of her romantic life with her wife, and Jorgensen walked off the set. As she was the only scheduled guest, Cavett spent the rest of that show stating that he had not meant to offend her.

Twice Jorgensen planned to marry but could not. In 1959 she announced her engagement to Howard J. Knox, but the couple was unable to obtain a New York marriage license because Jorgensen's birth certificate listed her as male. In a report about the broken engagement, The New York Times noted that Knox had lost his job in Washington, D.C., when his engagement to Jorgensen became known.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Jorgensen toured university campuses and other venues to speak about her experiences. Known for her polished wit, she once demanded an apology from U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew when he called another politician "the Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party" (Agnew refused, and later resigned on charges of bribery and conspiracy).

Jorgensen also worked as an actress and nightclub entertainer and recorded several songs. In summer stock, she played Madame Rosepettle in the play Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. In her nightclub act, she sang several songs, including "I Enjoy Being a Girl," and at the end made a quick change into a Wonder Woman costume, which Warner Communications, owners of the Wonder Woman character's copyright, required that she stop using. In 1984 Jorgensen returned to Copenhagen to perform her show and was featured in Teit Ritzau's Danish transsexual documentary film Paradiset er ikke til salg (Paradise Is Not for Sale).

Jorgensen said in 1989, the year of her death, that she had given the sexual revolution a "good swift kick in the pants." She died of cancer shortly before her 63rd birthday.

In 2012 Jorgensen was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display in Chicago which celebrates LGBT history and people.

Adapted from Wikipedia.

Four labor/community leaders receive Hershel Walker Peace & Justice Award

Fri, 27 May 2016 11:25:00 +0000

Four labor/community leaders were recently honored with the Hershel Walker Peace & Justice Award for their work in creating a more just and equitable society.

Walker was a St. Louis trade unionist and human and civil rights leader committed to the struggle for peace and justice. He devoted his life to movements for social transformation and joined workers across the world for jobs, peace and freedom.

The 24^th annual awards ceremony was hosted by the Missouri/Kansas Chapter of The People's World. The People's World is a daily news website that covers movements for jobs, peace, equality, democracy, civil rights and liberties, labor, immigrants, LGBT and women's rights.

This year's awardees included: Steve Wayland, director of business development at Painters District Council 58; Al Neal, a coordinator at SEIU Healthcare; Megan Green, St. Louis City Alderwomen, Ward 15; and Christine Assefa, an organizer at the Organization for Black Struggle.

A diverse group of 150 people attended the ceremony, which was held May 14 at the Painters District Council 58 Union Hall in St. Louis. Tiffany Dena Loftin, racial justice program coordinator for the AFL-CIO's Civil, Human and Women's Rights Department, served as the event's keynote speaker.

In February 2015, the AFL-CIO formed the Racial and Economic Justice Commission in response to activism surrounding the Black Lives Matter Movement shortly after the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson. Loftin was hired to coordinate and manage the commission.

She organized a series of six nationwide, day-long meetings for the newly formed commission that brought together national and local labor leaders for frank, candid and honest discussions about race and the Labor Movement. One of the meetings was held in St. Louis.

"Because St. Louis had this hearing, other states and locals across the country are encouraged and inspired to have the exact same conversation," Loftin said. "St. Louis, you are paving the way to the country."

She applauded the ceremony's four awardees for taking the next step to create a more just and equitable society. She said to them, "I want to pause to celebrate your hard work and achievements of leading by example and walking what you preach."

Hershel Walker Peace and Justice Awardees:

• Steve Wayland is director of business development at Painters District Council 58 and chairman of the council's Community Organizing for Real Economics (CORE) Program. Wayland led the effort to create the Advanced Skills Workforce Center (ASWC), which is committed to providing essential training and related support to disadvantaged youth, particularly youth of color.

First organized by District Council 58 under the auspices of a new national training effort of the International Union of Painters & Allied Trades (IUPAT), the St. Louis ASWC effort became the second such program in the nation in January 2015. So far, 90 percent of the program's graduates have been placed with contractors.

• Al Neal is a coordinator for SEIU Healthcare representing Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kansas. He worked as the chief negotiator during the recent SSM-SLUH contract negotiations. He also serves as secretary-treasurer for the Mid-South Organizing Committee (Fight for $15). "As organizers, our real work is in the background," he said. "I accept this award on behalf of healthcare workers and Black Lives Matter."

• Megan Green is a St. Louis City alderwoman representing Ward 15, which is the Tower Grove South neighborhood. She is highly visible in her community and champions the Black Lives Matter, womens, workers, gay rights and economic justice movements. She is currently working on a People's Agenda in St. Louis that emphasizes policies that support everyday working people over special interests and corporations.

• Christine Assefa is an organizer with the Organization for the Black Struggle. She is a Missouri born child of East African refugees and uses her upbringing in a predominately immigrant community as a foundation to educate and empower marginalized people on issues relating to racist and predatory policing. As an organizer, Assefa has facilitated anti-oppression workshops, house parties, political education sessions, people's assemblies and direct actions.

Photo: Sheri Gassaway

Missouri senate defeats “paycheck deception” bill

Thu, 26 May 2016 14:33:00 +0000

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (PAI and St. Louis Labor Tribune) - It was a close call in Jefferson City, but the Republican-run state senate narrowly upheld Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon's veto of the right-wing Republicans' "paycheck protection" scheme, which workers call "paycheck deception." That kills the bill, at least for this year.

The 22-10 Senate tally fell one vote short of the 23 votes needed to override Nixon and write paycheck deception into state law. Earlier, the GOP-run Missouri House voted to override Nixon's veto, 109-47.

The paycheck deception bill, HB1891, is one of a raft of anti-worker bills pushed through the Republican-run state legislature - and not just in Missouri. Similar bills have passed GOP-run legislatures, and were signed by GOP governors, elsewhere nationwide.

Other such Republican anti-worker moves in states include so-called right to work laws, bans on project labor agreements, decertification of public worker unions, restrictions on voting rights and even denial of teacher tenure - all part of the massive national right wing campaign against workers, their families and their allies.

Missouri's paycheck deception bill would have required public employees such as nurses, teachers, social workers and other public workers to give annual written consent for money to be taken out of their paychecks for union dues or political activity.

"We thank and applaud the members of the Senate who stood up for working people and voted to sustain Gov. Nixon's veto of this flawed paycheck deception bill," said state AFL-CIO President Mike Louis. "The sole purpose of this legislation was to weaken and ultimately silence the voices of those who speak up for working families."

Thousands of union members lobbied against the bill and the veto override during a rally in Jefferson City on March 30, as well as making phone calls and sending letters to their lawmakers.

AFSCME members like Travis Case, a shopkeeper employed in the Missouri Department of Corrections, and Malissa Parker, a certified nursing assistant at the Missouri Veterans Nursing Center, called their legislators, wrote letters, sent e-mails and signed petitions opposing the legislation. Hundreds of AFSCME members joined other union members and allies for the March rally.

Missouri Jobs with Justice delivered nearly 400 letters from faith and community leaders to legislators, moved prominent community allies to speak out against attacks on workers, and testified against the legislation.

"This is a back-door way to right-to-work," AFT Local 420 President Mary Armstrong of St. Louis said before the House vote. "They're not saying you can't have dues deduction, but they're saying you have to get written permission each year. That's costly to an organization. We don't have the staff to do that and it's costly to the school district because they have to re-input that information every year."

Now that the legislative session has ended, union leaders said the focus must be on this fall's election and supporting worker-friendly candidates.

"We know big corporations won't stop in their efforts to silence the voices of working people," Louis said. "So we will focus our efforts on electing candidates this November that will support all working families and oppose legislation like paycheck deception."

Nancy Cross, vice president of Service Employees Local 1 Missouri Division, said the solution is to change the makeup of the legislature by getting more worker-friendly candidates into office. "There are a number of seats available for us to take back this fall," she said. "And I think all of labor will be working together."

The Senate's eight lonely Democrats first tried to talk the bill to death before the override vote, launching a 4-hour filibuster. They - and especially workers - convinced two of the Republican majority, state Sens. Ryan Silvey of Kansas City and Gary Romine of Farmington, to cross party lines and vote to uphold Gov. Nixon's veto.

"I'm grateful for those folks that came to our side from other side of aisle," Senate Minority Leader Joe Keaveny, D-St. Louis, said of the veto's two Senate Republican backers. "I'm glad they recognized this for what it was."

Sen. Paul Wieland, R-Imperial, was a "no" vote earlier in the session, but switched his vote. Silvey and Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, voted "yes" initially to pass the bill, but switched their votes on the veto override. Keaveny said the bill attacking working Missourians was unnecessary "in more ways than one."

"In my opinion they were attacking the people that least deserve to be attacked. Most of these jobs are barely middle class jobs. In fact, they're less than middle class. The health care workers and social workers and janitors. I guess they decided to pick on people that can least defend themselves and I'm glad they weren't successful," he said.

State Sen. Gina Walsh, D-Bellefontaine Neighbors, a retired member of the Heat and Frost Insulators, said HB1891 was bad for Missouri's working families and, by weakening unions, would have created a bigger divide between the haves and the have-nots.

"It's mean-spirited and has no place in the Missouri legislature," Walsh said. "America was founded on people bettering themselves and getting together to organize and bargain collectively, just like we do, for better hours and wages and health care. We have philosophical differences in the Legislature, and I respect that, but I'm not going to sit down when working men and women of this state are under attack."

Tim Rowden is Editor, St. Louis Labor Tribune

Obama admin. should resist order to hand over names, info of undocumented immigrants

Wed, 25 May 2016 15:49:00 +0000

In a bizarre, almost hysterical ruling, the judge who has gummed up the Obama administration's attempts to provide relief to some of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States has now added another element to the fear mongering against immigrants.

On May 19, federal District Court judge Andrew Hanen ordered the Justice Department to hand over to him the names and other identifying and contact information for approximately 100,000 young immigrants who the DOJ granted, before Hanen issued an injunction in February 2015, the right to live and work in the U.S. for three more years under the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program.

Hanen blocking DACA/DAPA implementation

DACA was initiated by an executive order by President Obama in 2012, after years of Republican obstructionism made it impossible to get a humane and practical legislative solution to the issue of undocumented immigration. Under the original DACA, people who were brought to the United States without immigration documents when they were minors, and who had not yet reached 30 years of age, could apply for authorization to stay and work in this country. The authorization would last for three years but could be renewed for two. In 2014, Obama issued an expanded DACA order, which eliminated the 30 year age cap, advanced the cutoff date for having arrived in this country from 2007 to January 1 2010, and lengthened the extensions from two years to three. Obama also created the DAPA program, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents. Together, the two executive orders make it possible for about 5 million people to remain and work in the United States, at least for the time being.

But in February 2015, Judge Hanen ruled in favor of a suit filed against the federal government by 26 Republican state attorneys general, and issued a temporary injunction to delay implementation of extended DACA and DAPA. The case is now being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, which is likely to issue a ruling next month.

When the original DACA program was announced, immigrants' rights and community organizations worked feverishly to get eligible young people to sign up for it. But one problem they ran into was fear that if such people filled out the paperwork, they might expose themselves to arrest and deportation at some later date. This made some people hesitant to apply. The government assured them that their information would be treated as confidential and would not be abused, so hundreds of thousands applied for DACA relief and got it. But for many the first three years are up so they have had to apply for extensions.

Hanen had already ordered Department of Justice lawyers to take courses in legal ethics. He claimed that the government attorneys had misrepresented their actions to him and had concealed the fact that a large number of three year extensions had been granted even before he issued his injunction. Hanen accuses the government of having handed out the three year extensions without telling him. He characterized this as a violation of legal ethics; hence the order to take classes. (The administration denies the accusation.)

Now he has added to that strange order another one which requires that the government hand over to him personally the names, addresses and other information of all the DACA extension recipients in question.

Immigrants could face persecution

For many, but not all young immigrants who have applied for the three-year extensions, Judge Hanen's latest order-to hand over their names and contact information by June 10- represents a serious danger.

This would cover people in those states whose attorneys general are part of the suit against extended DACA and DAPA. These are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin (Virginia was originally in the suit but withdrew). Hanen wants this information by June 10. He says he will keep the information sealed until the Supreme Court rules on the main case, but when it does he might be open to sharing this information with the state attorneys general so that they can, for example, stop issuing drivers' licenses or allowing in state college tuition to some of the individuals. But these are politicians who have already demonstrated hostility to undocumented immigrants and opposition to their legalization; for them to get their hands on such information is hair raising.

Resisting an extremist judge

Immigrants' rights defenders reacted with consternation, anger and a determination to fight back against this newest peril. Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, said "This is the latest of a long line of outrageous and outsized orders from this extremist court...The clear disdain for the administration and our families inherent in Judge Hanen's actions is further evidence that this lawsuit has never been about the law, but, rather, is purely about politics. What Judge Hanen is demanding is tantamount to a witch hunt intended to instill fear in immigrant youth with DACA and perhaps even those who would benefit from a positive Supreme Court decision".

This latest intervention from Judge Hanen comes in the context of a bitter election campaign in which undocumented immigrants have been made the all-purpose scapegoat for the nation's ills by Republican candidate Donald Trump, and also by other Republican candidates down-ballot. This may explain Ms. Hincapié's characterization of the judge's order as being about politics rather than law.

Immigrants' rights advocates are calling for the Obama administration to resist Hanen's order. This would entail appealing it. Some fear that the administration might not do so, so some organizations are looking for ways to intervene in court themselves, perhaps filing an appeal in the name of persons who would be negatively impacted by the order. On Friday May 21, attorney Nina Perales of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, along with others, filed papers pointing out that last year a federal appeals court that three of their clients should be given status to intervene in the original DAPA suit.

United we Dream, one of the main organizations that has been fighting for the legalization of the "Dreamers", young people brought into the United States without papers when they were children, has insisted that the U.S. Attorney General and President Barack Obama do all they can to resist this attack on immigrant youth by Judge Hanen.HHH

United we Dream is circulating an online petition which urges the Obama administration to resist Judge Hanen's order on the handing over of names and contact information of the DACA beneficiaries.

We urge all our readers to sign it and to circulate it as widely as possible to friends, co-workers, neighbors and contacts.

Photo: U.S. Southern District Judge Andrew S. Hanen, left, joins with Filemon B. Vela, Jr. and Blanca Vela for the Pledge of Allegiance during a ceremony in Brownsville, Texas. Hanen's move to block President Barack Obama's orders on immigration lays bare a pervasive practice in federal district courts: venue shopping. Immigration advocates say that lawyers for the state of Texas were seeking a court with sympathetic judges when they filed their case in Brownsville. | The Brownsville Herald & Brad Doherty/AP

Why Bernie should stay in the race

Tue, 24 May 2016 16:07:00 +0000

Here in Arizona, Bernie Sanders supporters started meeting last summer, more than a year before the nominating convention, and I mean citizens' meetings not politicians.' Thousands greeted Bernie at campaign rallies, donated to the campaign and helped spread the word on social media. Countless meetings were held and as primary time approached they staffed phone banks, canvassed neighborhoods, passed out literature and talked to their friends and co-workers

In other words, they joined the "political revolution." They not only didn't seem to mind that Bernie is a socialist, many welcomed it. "It's not like capitalism is working for us," many said. In my 50 years working elections I've never seen as many yard signs for a candidate as I saw while out canvassing in Tucson last February.

Last year, when Bernie launched his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, most political pundits dismissed it as a quixotic effort that would go nowhere. They did not understand that the campaign was different from anything we've seen in America for many, many years.

Bernie himself made clear that the campaign was not about him. It was about building a political revolution that would last years after the election itself was over. Using the election campaign as an engine, he was firing up a grassroots movement to fight for an end to discrimination based on race, sex, religion, or gender identity; to push for a $15 minimum wage, free college tuition, Medicare for all, and much more, a political revolution that builds class consciousness and opposes corporate robbery.

Sanders' unique campaign has given millions of otherwise disaffected Americans the opportunity to voice anger over conditions that had been plaguing them: their standard of living had plummeted; students started their work lives crushed by debt; workers were wracked by fears of the future. These are the very groups the Democratic presidential candidate needs to win the election.

Most importantly, even Democratic Party leaders give Bernie credit for convincing Hillary Clinton, to adopt many of the goals and programs promulgated by the political revolution; goals and programs that speak directly to the crisis in which many Americans find themselves.

Nevertheless, now that the primaries are winding down, some are calling for Bernie to immediately drop out of the race and throw his support to Hillary, a move sure to mean the end of the political revolution before it becomes strongly rooted and able to be sustained after the elections. It could also mean alienating the very people Hillary Clinton will need if she becomes the nominee. The Democratic candidates for all offices will need the enthusiasm and energy generated by those now part of the Bernie campaign if they wish to defeat the extreme right come November.

So why are some people calling on Bernie to withdraw from the race now? Is it because their state has already voted and the excitement has abated a little? Is there a good reason why California, New Jersey and voters in seven additional primaries should not experience the same excitement and progressive movement-building that the other states have enjoyed?

California is our biggest state and still growing. It's becoming a majority nonwhite state moving to the Left and promises to be a leading progressive force in our country's future. A campaign such as Bernie's that helps build class consciousness can only help. We need California, New Jersey and the other states yet to vote to share in the excitement of this great campaign. It will benefit all working people.

Another important reason for Bernie's political revolution to remain in the race until the Philadelphia convention is that the more Sanders delegates there are, the better the chance for democratic reforms to be adopted by the Democratic Party and the better the chance of adopting a progressive platform that could become the manifesto for the sustainable grassroots organizations that will inherit the mantle of the political revolution.

Already, even before the final primaries, Sanders has said he is pleased with the makeup of the platform committee that the campaigns and the DNC have negotiated. It has a progressive majority thanks to the strong Sanders campaign. Why quit now just when the strategy of carrying on seems to be working best?

The Sanders campaign has demonstrated that people will vote for candidates who support their interests and who campaign on working class issues. Sanders has promised to keep up the campaign to and through the nominating convention and he will keep his promise to his supporters.

Holding high the issues that matter to working class Americans can only help all Democratic candidates in November. The general election will not be held for three and a half months after the convention. Plenty of time to unite against Trump.

In the meantime, let's hope America feels the Bern - It will do us no harm.

Photo: Supporters for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT., cheer during a campaign rally, March 19, in Phoenix. Ralph Freso | AP

Obama threatens defense bill veto over anti-LGBTQ, anti-worker provisions

Tue, 24 May 2016 12:07:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Anti-worker and anti-gay worker provisions, inserted in a huge Defense Department bill by the House's ruling Republicans, are among the raft of reasons the Obama administration told Congress the president's top advisors "would recommend he veto the bill."

But whether that threat will move lawmakers remains to be seen. The monster bill also busts the budget caps for next year while not providing any money after April to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The administration objected to those sections, too.

The measure, HR4909, passed the House 277-147 on May 18, with 40 Democrats joining 237 Republicans in voting for it. Only five Republicans and 142 Democrats opposed it. The 147 votes against it are enough to uphold a veto, however.

Besides the provisions that drew Obama's ire, the measure lays out defense spending priorities in excruciating detail. And the congressional report on the bill - not the bill itself - includes language from Rep. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., an IBEW member and former Southern New Jersey Building Trades Council president, telling DOD to educate its up-and-coming officers on the value of project labor agreements in defense construction contracts.

One labor section that drew Obama's ire was inserted by House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., who is also a member of the Armed Services Committee, which wrote the bill. Kline banned DOD from following Obama's executive order saying that defense contractors must obey labor laws in order to win bids.

"The administration strongly objects to section 1095, which would roll back important safeguards established by the president to ensure that taxpayer dollars do not reward corporations that break labor laws and thereby jeopardize the performance and cost of federal contracting," the Office of Management and Budget said.

"These safeguards give contracting officers the information they need to assess a contractor's record of integrity and assist contractors with significant labor violations in improving their labor law compliance. In doing so, these protections help ensure law-abiding contractors do not have to compete with those who offer lower bids based on savings from skirting the law.

"The administration is committed to working with contractors who invest in their workers' safety and maintain a fair and equitable workplace, and section 1095 would impede efforts that will bring efficiencies and cost savings to the federal government."

Kline's home-state colleague, Rep. Keith Ellison, DFL-Minn., also criticized the move. But the House Rules Committee, which decides those amendments lawmakers can debate, wouldn't even let Ellison try to defend Obama's "Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces" order. The committee defeated Ellison's proposal to overturn Kline's move on a 9-3 party-line vote.

"While millions of Americans are struggling to get by and sustain their families, Republicans are trying to make it easier for employers to steal their wages. Right now we know that there are reports of at least $5 million in stolen wages and penalties from the U.S. contract companies," Ellison told his colleagues.

"This executive order helps ensure companies with federal contracts are following federal labor laws, like protections against wage theft, workplace safety rules, and the right for workers to organize. It is the result of years of advocacy by workers, labor rights activists, members of the Progressive Caucus, and members of Congress generally.

"Let's at least have a debate about it. Let's at least debate whether or not workers should get protection from wage theft." He called the Rules panel decision "no surprise... because they don't want to have to debate this in front of the American people. The American people might like to know there are companies that are stealing workers' wages but...now the Republican majority is trying to stop the president from protecting those workers."

The talk of a presidential veto too because of the anti-gay provisions the GOP slipped into the bill, comes only six days after the Senate, on May 17, finally confirmed Eric Fanning as Secretary of the Army. The confirmation makes him the first openly gay civilian head of the service n history.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., blasted the GOP for overturning, in the bill, Obama's government-wide ban on discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people. The ruling Republicans claimed they were protecting religious liberty.

"Gimme a break," Nadler replied. "The bill contains language adopted...at 1 in the morning the other day with no warning that would effectively overturn President Obama's executive order protecting LGBT workers for companies with private contracts.

"In other words, private contractors using our federal tax dollars in any area-not just in the defense area, by the way-would be allowed to fire someone just because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. This is unacceptable, it is cruel, and it is totally unnecessary.

"It says private contractors, in the exercise of their religious liberty, may discriminate. It disallows the president's executive order, and so the effect is that private contractors may discriminate on the basis of sexual identity or gender if that is their religious belief."

The Office of Management and Budget stated Obama would cite that provision as another reason to veto HR4909. "The administration strongly objects to section 1094, which would undermine important protections put in place by the president to ensure federal contractors and subcontractors do not engage in discriminatory employment practices," OMB said.

"This administration is committed to promoting equal employment opportunities for all Americans regardless of who they are or who they love while at the same time preserving longstanding safeguards in the law for religious liberty, including the religious exemption" in civil rights law. "In authorizing certain federal awardees to discriminate in government-funded jobs, section 1094 represents a step in the wrong direction for our country that will keep qualified American workers from being able to hold jobs funded by the American people."

Photo: AP

This week in history: American Humanists organize

Mon, 23 May 2016 15:45:00 +0000

Seventy-five years ago, in 1941, Americans humanists, with secular and religious leaders from the traditions of Unitarian Universalism, Ethical Culture, Humanistic Judaism and others, came together as the American Humanist Association (AHA) to declare, "We don't believe in supernaturalism or theism. What, then, do we believe?"

"Humanism is an ethical worldview based on rationality and scientific reasoning," says a recent AHA statement, "and we reject the divisive superstitions and stereotypes that have long marginalized certain groups of people such as women, people of color, and LGBTQ individuals, and denied them their full humanity."

AHA members do not seek redemption or eternal justice in the world to come: "After all, this is the one life we have, and it must be characterized by justice and equality for all."

Though the AHA was founded in 1941, its history goes back to 1927, when professors and seminarians at the University of Chicago organized the Humanist Fellowship, and began publishing the New Humanist magazine. By 1935 the Humanist Fellowship had become the Humanist Press Association, replacing the New Humanist with the Humanist Bulletin. The Humanist Press Association reorganized itself in 1941, forming the AHA, which began printing The Humanist magazine as the Bulletin's successor.

AHA claims 180 local chapters and affiliates around the country, with 32,000 members and supporters, and many more followers on the Internet. Many of their members will be devoting energy to the November elections "as a turning point in the humanist movement's future." Much depends on the electoral outcome. "Today," AHA says, "in a dangerously increasing number of countries around the world, atheists and humanists are restricted from expressing their nonbelief in public. In the United States, religious extremists slander us as unpatriotic, simply because we advocate for monuments and memorials that represent all veterans and respect their differing beliefs."

The struggle for religious freedom in the U.S. - and for freedom for nonbelievers - goes back to the very beginning of European settlement in the New World. Today, the U.S. has a higher percentage of humanists, atheists, agnostics and freethinkers than ever before. Some 30 percent of incoming college students now identify their religious belief as "None." The "Nones" are increasingly vocal in their demand for public institutions and government to maintain, or reclaim, their secular character.

AHA has often joined with such organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State to stop public prayer (usually Christian) in schools or government meetings, and to halt the mounting of Ten Commandments monuments on state property. In a recent Arkansas case, State Senator Jason Rapert supported such a monument by videotaping himself tearing up the AHA's legal letter on the subject, and ranting that the AHA is a "communist" organization!

The right wing relies on religious arguments to push its backward agenda in such areas as abortion and reproductive rights, same-gender marriage, and climate change. In its extreme forms, groups such as the Ku Klux Klan claim to be "Christian" in their bigotry against people of color, Jews, Catholics, immigrants and others.

Humanism is not antithetical to religion as such, but only when it is imposed on others, which has been the case in one form or another for most of American history. Humanist leaders and activists enroll their young children in humanist Sunday schools and sponsor learning opportunities for those who wish to further explore humanist philosophy. More and more, people are seeking out humanist officiants for weddings and funerals, and there is growing demand for humanist chaplains at universities, hospitals and in the military.

AHA publishes The Humanist magazine, and posts regularly at TheHumanist.com. The Humanist Press issues books of progressive nontheistic scholarship.

The AHA holds its 75^th anniversary conference May 26-29 in Chicago. People's World will be there providing coverage. For more information, see americanhumanist.org.

Women's rights group hails and right wing slams new overtime rule

Mon, 23 May 2016 13:48:00 +0000

A top women's rights group is hailing - and the ruling congressional right wing Republicans are slamming - the new final overtime pay rule the Labor Department announced on May 18.

The rule, which takes effect Dec. 1, will make hourly workers earning up to $47,476 yearly eligible for overtime pay after they toil more than 40 hours a week. That time-and-a-half pay would aid an estimated 37 percent of all U.S. workers, up from 7 percent the current 10-year-old overtime rule covers.

"Middle-class jobs deserve middle-class pay, and when you work extra, you should be paid extra. It's very simple," Obama administration Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said.

The old rule, promulgated by the GOP George W. Bush regime, set the cap for overtime pay at $23,660. While that figure was higher than in prior years, the Bush government also exempted so many workers from overtime pay that even newspaper editorial assistants - "copy boys" - were sometimes left out. The new rule has a "duties test" that will bring those workers back in under the rule, DOL fact sheets show.

"The final overtime rule will finally end the days when people who work long hours for poverty wages are not required to receive overtime pay," said Debra Ness, executive director of the National Partnership for Women and Families.

"By updating wage and hour protections that have been allowed to erode for decades, the new rule will put more money or more time in the hands of workers who have long deserved more of both. It will make an enormous difference for millions of working women that this economic lifeline is finally restored."

Ness called the new rule "an historic advance for fair pay and equal opportunity, and workers and families in every corner of the country will benefit." She noted it includes an automatic escalator, adjusting the cap upwards every three years to keep pace with wage growth.

"The Economic Policy Institute estimates 12.5 million workers will be newly eligible for overtime pay or see their existing rights strengthened, including 6.4 million women. As key breadwinners and primary caregivers in most families, women's wages and time are essential for their families' and our economy's financial security and well-being," she said.

The Republican right was another matter. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., and Workforce Protections Subcommittee Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., called DOL's rule "extreme and partisan" and predicted "it will hurt the very individuals they claim it will help" by reducing job prospects and flexibility.

And Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who heads the House subcommittee that actually helps dole out funds for DOL, talked of inserting a section in the agency's money bill banning it from spending funds to enforce the new overtime pay rule.

Image: Millions of workers would become eligible for overtime pay under the new rule the Labor Department announced on May 18. The largest groups are in Texas, California, Florida, New York and Illinois. Labor Department graphic via PAI Chart Service.

Hartford's "Fighting for Our Future" rally inspires struggle

Mon, 23 May 2016 12:57:00 +0000

HARTFORD, Conn. - Big changes require big struggles, and "May Day 2016 -- Fighting for Our Future" set a powerful and inspiring framework for the labor battles and elections this year.

An enthusiastic and diverse crowd at the King Davis Labor Center in Hartford on May 1 gave a standing ovation to People's World editor John Wojcik whose eloquent and hard-hitting speech quoted extensively from Albert Parsons' last statement made in 1886 before being hanged on a frame-up charge. He had been accused of murder following a huge rally for the eight-hour work day in Chicago's Haymarket Square.

Parsons used his statement to expose the corporate owned media for trying to discredit the workers' movement by creating hysteria around the lie that he threw a bomb at a time and place where he was not even present. Wojcik made the connection to the role of the mass media today in promoting the interests of giant corporations and politicians like Donald Trump, emphasizing the great need and role of the People's World to tell the workers' side of the story.

"In today's battle for what we believe and what we know is right, unity and resolve are very important," said Wojcik quoting Albert Parsons, "The people will not be deceived."

The annual People's World celebration included a panel discussion which called upon the Connecticut state legislature to reject an austerity budget with layoffs and cuts in public services and instead increase taxes on the top 1 percent. A large scroll petition signed by all present was delivered to the Speaker of the House the next day.

Tom Connolly, vice president of CSEA Retirees and a member of Better Choices for Connecticut, listed specific choices that could bring in revenue and create savings as an alternative to a budget "that hurts working people and poor people." He concluded with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Never adjust to economic conditions that take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few."

Although the austerity budget was not passed that week, the legislature did pass the budget in special session soon after. Next steps in this struggle are now being planned.

Ciro Gutierrez, a building cleaner and member-leader of SEIU 32 BJ who came to the United States from Peru for a better life, exemplified the international struggle for workers' rights, citing the struggle for the eight-hour work day which was won in Peru in 1918. Speaking of the hardships of income inequality on workers today, he upheld the Fight for $15 minimum wage victory in New York state and called for making this an issue in the 2016 presidential election as part of the effort to defeat Donald Trump. He also urged support for a Janitor's Bill of Rights, and for inclusion of security guards under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Panelist Alexandra Marks, a New Haven high school student, received a standing ovation after presenting the work of the YCL and New Elm City Dream in the Jobs for Youth - Jobs for All campaign. She presented a slide show of all the marches, rallies and actions held since 2011, emphasizing that in a survey they took, 85 percent of youth said jobs would reduce violence. Among the victories won is funding to re-open the Q House, a community center in the African American community that had been closed for a decade. "We are fighting on!" she said, calling for participation in the Yale Unions' rally on May 5 for job security.

A slide show, "May Day Around the World," depicted common workers' struggles on every continent. It focused on countries in Latin America, where unions, peasant organizations and indigenous people are defending popular governments against corporate right wing attacks; and in Europe where workers and young people are battling years of austerity imposed by the German and other powerful bankers.

Also highlighted were the low-wage workers' April 14 demonstrations for decent pay and work schedules, taking place in dozens of countries and in 320 cities in the US including Hartford.

The concluding message was that, as workers around the world confront similar conditions, "this same globalization also gives rise to international solidarity, as it becomes clear everywhere that multinational capital is our common enemy. The international solidarity we have seen this May Day gives us hope for the future. Workers of the world, Unite!"

"I loved the slide show because it let me know that what we are facing is not just here, and that there are people like us organizing for change everywhere," said a 14-year old YCLer.

In his remarks opening the panel, SEIU 32 BJ leader Alberto Bernardez captured the essence of May Day when he paid tribute to low wage workers forced to work multiple jobs today, "worked to death by corporations who only give employees a few hours work each week so they don't have to pay healthcare." These workers, said Bernardez, are continuing the international struggle for worker's rights, dignity and peace called for when the holiday was established 130 years ago.

Prior to the event, Wojcik spent several days touring Connecticut where he attended Workers' Memorial Day and met with union and community leaders and elected officials including a round table discussion with five members of the New Haven Board of Alders who are also union members and leaders in their unions..

Photo: Editor John Wojcik speaks at People's World "Fighting for Our Future" May Day rally in Hartford, Conn. Art Perlo | PW

Report: Fatal crash wouldn’t have happened with proper backup

Fri, 20 May 2016 14:26:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - A National Transportation Safety Board report on the fatal Amtrak crash in north Philadelphia last year shows that if there had been a second engineer in Train 188's cab, there would have been no accident, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen/Teamsters President Dennis Pierce says.

But because there was only one engineer in the Amtrak cab, because he was distracted by an accident on the opposite southbound tracks, and because positive train control - an automatic system that slows a train down when it's going too fast, as Train 188 was - wasn't installed, the train derailed and crashed, killing eight passengers and injuring almost 200 more.

The NTSB, an independent safety investigation agency, previously said lack of positive train control was a key factor in the crash. But its report also assigned some blame to the engineer, citing his "loss of situational awareness" as one reason the train was traveling 106 mph in a 50 mph zone. The engineer thought he had cleared the 50 mph zone. He also was distracted by too many tasks in his cab and the commuter train accident on the other tracks.

"Task overload and distraction have been issues of grave concern for the BLET and its members for many years," Pierce responded. "A key part of our concern is that terms like 'the loss of situational awareness' attempt to place blame on the engineer, without considering that any human being can be given too many tasks at any given time, resulting in task overload."

Railroad unions and workers have been campaigning for years to keep 2-person crews - at least - on all freight and passenger trains, citing safety reasons. The carriers have been demanding single-person engineer only crews, and one top executive even told a rail conference in Chicago last year that he favors crewless freights.

The second crew member would be an even better safety move than PTC, Pierce said, directly rebutting that railroad executive.

His union, other rail unions and Railway Workers United-an organization of rank-and-file rail workers from the Teamsters Rail Conference, Smart's Rail Division, the Machinists and other unions-have all campaigned for both PTC and a second crew member on all trains.

The Federal Railroad Administration now advocates and is ordering railroads to install PTC on all lines, despite strong railroad resistance that pushed the PTC deadline back by years. The board stopped just short of recommending the agency back 2-person crews, too.

The transportation safety board said post-accident reports should include how many crew members were in the train cab at the time. It then adds FRA should "use the data regarding number of crewmembers in the controlling cab of the train at the time of an accident to evaluate the safety adequacy of current crew size regulations."

But Amtrak wasn't solely to blame for the crash, Pierce stated. Congress has to take its share of responsibility, too.

"We would be remiss if we did not also clearly state that Amtrak's decision-making in phasing in life-saving safety redundancy was constrained by decades of inadequate funding by Congress. Therefore, we also renew our long-standing call for full funding for the nation's passenger railroad," he said.

Photo: AP

Florida activists confront the dangers of a Donald Trump presidency

Thu, 19 May 2016 16:01:00 +0000

What some saw as an electoral stunt concocted by a reality-TV star and four-times-bankrupt businessman to garner publicity has now developed into a campaign that may well land Donald Trump in the White House. If people didn't first take seriously the man who claimed that upon becoming president he would suspend Muslim entry to the United States, deport 11 million immigrants, and build an $8 billion wall (for which Mexico would supposedly foot the bill),they are being forced to now. He has gone from being the leading Republican presidential candidate in a very crowded field to the last man standing for the GOP nomination.

Not only has he vanquished all his Republican competitors, but a report by Working America months ago found that Trump held an 18 percent lead over Democratic Party candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton among working class voters who had made up their minds regarding the presidential election. Those surveyed were from families that made $75,000 or less a year. The report warned that Trump's bid for the presidency had "opened up a vein of right-wing rhetoric that has appealed to many Republicans and to middle-of-the-road white working-class Democrats as well." It went on to note that Trump's candidacy is "legitimizing a hard-right agenda among working-class voters, similar to the re-emergence of right-wing political parties throughout Europe." Couple this with more recent polls showing Trump's continued popularity, and you've got a situation that should give every activist cause for concern.

What's at stake

How likely is a Trump win? What would a Trump presidency look like? What's at stake for working people across America if an extreme right-winger like him is allowed to take the highest office in the land? These questions and more were discussed in a meeting of Florida activists at a retreat hosted by the Communist Party USA from May 13 through May 15.

A wide range of people participated in the meeting. They work in a variety of jobs and are active on various issues ranging from mental health advocacy to women's reproductive rights. The retreat was led by Communist Party national chair John Bachtell, who opened the discussion with a survey of the group. He asked for people to answer, by show of hands, what they would do if Clinton was to become the Democratic presidential nominee. Bachtell gave the following options:

1. Vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party or another third party candidate;

2. Sit out the elections because they can't stand either Clinton or Trump; or

3. Join with labor and allies to defeat Trump and elect Clinton and a Democratic majority in Congress and statehouses.

A few hands in the crowd went up for option one. Many more were raised for options two and three respectively, but they looked pretty evenly matched. It was clear that there wasn't a unanimous consensus among participants on the strategy going forward if Clinton is the Democratic nominee against Trump. But instead of going down the rabbit hole on the shortcomings of Clinton's political past, the focus of the meeting shifted to what a Trump presidency could mean.

Bachtell stated that allowing Trump to take the White House would "elevate voices of racism, misogyny, and hate to the highest levels of government, with all the power to set the national discourse, executive power, and legislative and judicial power." Bachtell asserted that issues such as "a national right-to-work law, Supreme Court appointments, and 'renegotiation' of the UN Climate Agreement," all mean that time is not on the side of working people. He noted that it wasn't just a matter of a single person becoming president, but of "an administration coming into power." "Can you imagine," Bachtell asked, "if Chris Christie is appointed as Attorney General?"

A dehumanizing political debate

Retired school teacher and Tampa resident John Streater pointed out the issue of racism when it comes to Donald Trump. Streater noted that Trump "helped to make it so people can say and do openly racist things." He believes that for the first time in a long time, people feel it is acceptable to openly express racist views. Trump has given their views a new sense of legitimacy. Participant Jesse Napier, a mental health advocate and member of the band Whiskey Faithful (which describes its music as "proletarian punk rock"), labeled Trump a "fascist." When asked to expound on what he meant by fascist, Napier explained that Trump was an "authoritarian nationalist" whose presidency would be bad for most Americans. Napier also commented, though, that Clinton's political past was also "not the best."

A retired public school teacher and union worker asked, "What happened to being politically correct," when remarking on the tone of the Republican debates. "Humanity is being taken away," she noted. "I don't even want my children to watch the debates or the election coverage."

Participant Yennifer Mateo spoke about Trump's deportation threats aimed at undocumented people. "As an immigrant woman, I fear for the safety of myself, my family, and other immigrants," Mateo said. "Trump has created an atmosphere of violence and hate toward immigrants. People have gotten beat up in and outside of Trump rallies. A Mexican man was urinated on and beaten with a metal pipe after a Trump rally in Massachusetts." "If that's happening now," she said, "imagine how poisonous things will be if Trump wins in November."

Labor organizer Josh LeClair blamed the Republican Party for the emergence of Trump. "[Republicans] have created this of sort of mentality. It's important to defeat it culturally. The atmosphere is scary right now. A minimum wage increase is not something we can win under any Republican president or Congress. We might be seeing right-to-work across the country." He went on, saying, "This is an important battle for us to win. We have to continue to fight for the Sanders platform after the elections." (story continues after video)

People need something to stand for

Despite the initial lack of consensus on what road to take in the event of a Clinton nomination, it was clear that all the attendees were in agreement that a Trump victory would be a huge setback. A few participants noted, however, that it is not always easy to just organize voters around what (or whom) they are against. Sometimes, people need something to be for.

One person argued that, given her political past, it would be hard to trust Clinton, let alone convince others to believe she would be any better than a Republican president. Participant Jessi Dover's response to this sentiment was that, "She [Hillary] is a Democrat and she's not Trump. If you don't vote for Clinton, you're voting for Trump."

Bachtell explained the need to see Clinton as part of the larger political context. "Yes, she has connections with the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party, but she is subject to influence by the wider social context, what is happening in society at large." "She is influenced," he noted, "by what is happening in the Democratic Party, the primaries, and by the movements." Bachtell suggested that everyone should keep in mind that, as he put it, "2016 is not 1992." He made the case that, "The country has changed. New issues have emerged. [The] Democratic Party is not the same. Yes, it is still dominated by corporate forces, but the DLC [Democratic Leadership Council] and "third way" politics have collapsed while left/progressive forces have grown."

Focusing on the positive, Bachtell asserted that Clinton's election "would be a powerful blow to sexism and misogyny, just as Obama's election was a powerful blow to racism." He also stated that what approach progressives take post-election will depend on whether we achieve a victory or suffer a defeat. This would entail "two entirely different tactics," he said. "Victory would create conditions for a political advancement around issues of the election, a new more favorable political terrain for the working class. A defeat would mean fighting from a defensive position and a period of demoralization."

Toward the end of the meeting, it became clear that, despite some disagreement on tactics, participants were in agreement that much was at stake if a Trump presidency comes to fruition. The prevailing sentiment was that the worsened conditions working class Americans would probably see under a President Trump would not lead them to seek out some sort of revolutionary upheaval. Few really embraced the old notion that the worse things get, the better they get. Instead, it was understood that it is important to fight for an improvement in conditions if you want to build up people's confidence and their willingness to join in struggle. Further, it was agreed that the momentum around the Sanders platform needs to be built upon even after the election.

The session came to a close with Bachtell concluding, "The defeat of the extreme right is one stage in the long-term struggle for socialism; one of many stages." He asked participants to see the struggle against the extreme right as a necessary stage toward transforming American society. "It is part of moving the broad democratic movement toward higher stages of development, stages that will draw millions into struggle to defend and expand economic and political democracy and address the dangers of climate crisis and nuclear war."

"Politics will never be the same again," he said. "What we're doing today is part of the revolutionary process."

Photo: Chauncey K. Robinson/PW

Activists begin hunger strike, call for halt to detention of transgender immigrants

Thu, 19 May 2016 13:26:00 +0000

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- "We cannot be excluded. We also need to be part of the conversation." That's what Jennicet Gutiérrez, a leader of the transgender immigrant rights movement, said about why she and others have launched a hunger strike in this Southern California city. They are demanding an end to the detention of transgender immigrants both locally at the Santa Ana City Jail and nationally at the facilities of DHS's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The city of Santa Ana, one of the most Latino and most immigrant cities in the country, contracts with ICE to detain immigrants at a rate of $105 per person per day. Activists say the facility maintains specific pods (or holding areas) for transgender and queer detainees. The issue most recently came to national attention when it was highlighted on a Human Rights Watch Report concerning the deplorable conditions transgender women face in the detention system, and especially after community members defeated a February attempt to expand the scope of immigrant detention in the facility.

People's World met up with Gutiérrez in Sasser Park on day one of the hunger strike. She and fellow hunger striker Jorge Gutierrez, both immigrant rights activists with an emphasis on the immigrant transgender community, spoke with us about their demands and hopes for immigration rights and transgender visibility.

Roberto Herrera, a member of DeColores Queer Orange County, and one of the organizers of the hunger strike reported that at the Santa Ana city council meeting held Tuesday May 15, it was decided to let the contract with ICE run out in 2020 but not to expand or end it any sooner. "We will continue the hunger strike until Friday and then begin a campaign to educate council members on transgender issues," said Herrera.

Deyaneira García, a youth organizer and another of the strikers, stated, "There is no such thing as a humane way to detain someone. Rather than provide cover for ICE and DHS, Santa Ana's Council members should stand with the community and become leaders in the fight against trans detention by rejecting ICE's dirty money, and ending their jail contract with the deportation agency."

Jorge Gutierrez, who has also lost a family member to deportation, wanted to send a message to the eligible voting public regarding the upcoming elections and the continued fight for justice. He explained, "Our message for this election year, as you hear candidates like Trump running on such a homophobic, transphobic, racist, anti- women agenda [know] that there is another world happening that we're creating. Like this one here, where we're really fighting for racial justice. We're fighting for the dignity of our people. [People] should keep that mind and do whatever they need to do. Whether that's voting, organizing, talking and educating their own communities, that we need to do the best that we can, so that those people who end up in power really do represent our communities."

The demands issued by the strikers include:

1. That the Santa Ana City Council schedule a vote to cancel the city's jail contract with ICE, which allows the city to profit from the detention of undocumented immigrants, including transgender women.

2. That the Santa Ana City Council advocate for the release of transgender immigrant women from detention centers across the country.

3. That the Department of Homeland Security and ICE end the use of detention for transgender immigrant women, who face disproportionate abuse and rights violations inside both private and public detention centers.

Hunger striker bios:

Deyaneira García is an 18 year old, undocumented youth organizer from Santa Ana who migrated from México City. She is currently finishing her senior year at Segerstrom High School. García began organizing around immigrant rights - focused on bringing the voice of people her age into the movement. She has participated in various community events through the Orange County Immigrant Youth United and RAIZ (the Orange County, CA chapter of the Immigrant Youth Coalition) on behalf of young adults, immigrants, and residents of Santa Ana. Her biggest achievement has been the creation of a curriculum for students in order to make their transition into organizing spaces smoother. García believes that migration is not only a human right but a community concern that everyone should come together to protect.

Jennicet Gutiérrez is a transgender activist and organizer from México who currently resides in Los Angeles. She is best known for shedding light on the plight of transgender women in immigration detention centers through her organization FAMILIA: TQLM (Trans Queer Liberation Movement). She made national news when she interrupted President Obama during his White House speech in honor of Pride Month, calling attention to the struggles of trans immigrant women. Jennicet believes in the importance of uplifting and centering the voices of trans women of color in all racial justice work, and will continue to organize in order to end the deportation, incarceration, and criminalization of immigrants and all people of color.

Jorge Gutierrez is an UndocuQueer organizer born in Nayarit, Mexico, and was raised in Santa Ana, California. His organizing bridges immigrant rights, racial justice, and LGBTQ rights and works across issues and communities in order to end the systems that are killing, incarcerating, and deporting people of color. Most recently he is the founder of FAMILIA: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, a national and local organizing, political and cultural home for the LGBTQ Latin@/Latinx/Latino community in the United States. Familia: TQLM is currently leading a national campaign #EndTransDetention to end the detention and deportation of trans undocumented women and stop all deportations. In addition, he has co-founded various organizations focused on social justice for the LGBTQ, Latinx and immigrant communities: DeColores Queer Orange County, the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance (CIYJA), and the founder of the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project (QUIP).

Photo: video snapshot showing transgender activist Jennicet Gutierrez.

Stopping Trump at the top of the peoples’ agenda

Wed, 18 May 2016 16:14:00 +0000

Donald Trump is an incipient fascist. It's time for the pundits to stop beating around the bush with phony claims that he reflects some kind of legitimate anti-establishment, anti-government populism and state the naked truth. Consciously or not, Trump is aping Mussolini and Hitler.

For a long time many have correctly recognized that the Republican Party has been taken over by the right-wing extremist section of corporate power - the Koch brothers, etc. But Trump is something new.

Previously, the GOP only covertly empowered racist, anti-immigrant and fascist-like forces in its base to get elected in order to enact tax, war and union-busting policies favorable to the billionaires.

Trump has openly embraced, encouraged and identified with this base. He has incited violence against his opponents at rallies, scapegoated minorities and immigrants for the problems created by Wall Street, and posed as a savior uniquely capable of addressing the real insecurities of the people.

His slogan, "Make America Great Again," is code for white supremacy and global domination by U.S. imperialism. He glorifies militarism abroad and racist police violence at home. He reminisces from the pulpit to a time in American history where mob violence could be used to put down protest .

Whereas previously, the slogan of progressives was "defeat right wing extremism," this now must be modified to address the more immediate danger of incipient fascism. The strategy remains to build a broad coalition of democratic forces against this threat. The question now is one of tactics.

Labor and its grassroots allies have sounded the alarm. At the last AFL-CIO executive board meeting, President Richard Trumka denounced Trump as "an anti-American bigot." Leaders of 21 highly respected progressive grassroots groups representing women, immigrants, students, environmentalists, labor organizations and the LBGTQ community have issued an open letter, "a five-alarm fire for our democracy," calling for "a voting renaissance and mass nonviolent mobilization to stand up to Trump's bigotry and incitement of violence."

These statements must be circulated widely, publicized to the membership of all labor and grassroots movements and endorsed by every religious, labor and community organization possible. This includes reaching the members, leaders and candidates of all political parties and insisting that they speak out forcefully and denounce Trump as a fraud seeking to destroy our living standards to satisfy his over-blown ego.

In terms of tactics, Trump may be using or planting disruptors at his events to justify goon violence. Instead, democratic forces should organize picket lines outside his events and hold mass peaceful disciplined demonstrations. If any violence occurs, it must be crystal clear that Trump and his supporters initiated it. We must be ready to isolate provocateurs. We must send a strong message to Trump and the GOP that this is what is in store for them as they prepare to nominate Trump.

Trump is an incipient fascist, but unity and mass mobilization of democratic forces can nip this danger in the bud.

Photo: Nam Y. Huh/AP