People Before Profit blog

“Lead Me On”: Being thankful in an unfriendly land

Wed, 26 Nov 2014 10:21:00 +0000

The late Bobby "Blue" Bland released a record called "Lead Me On" in 1960. Those days, he alternated blues shouters and smooth pop artiste sides.

"Lead Me On" was in the latter category. When I heard the song decades later, it shivered my spine. Spectral strings and a hushed, yet majestic vocal - but what struck me wasn't only the atmospherics, although brilliant, but also the lyrics (by Al Braggs). They said that you, the listener, understood what it was like to be a stranger in an unfriendly land. Not yelling at you this integral truth, but drawing you into the conversation. (Story continues after video.)

This feeling of perpetual apartness was all too common an emotion for me during my family's poverty-plagued pilgrimage across Texas. I won't bore you with tales of my particular traumas. Many of us have such scars. When I heard Bobby Bland's song, I thought: He knows me, and for the space of a song, I know him.

An emotional connection is no substitute for experience. Although I felt the song, and drew strength for my own struggle, my pain wasn't his.

Strangers in an unfriendly land. Many of us have a connection with what that's like, whether through personal experience or through that of our ancestors. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln decided that we as a nation deserved respite from a more organized form of hostility. Editor Sarah Josepha Hale helped inspire this move.

The official date of Thanksgiving, begun as a ray of light during the Civil War, has grown into a holiday celebrated by Americans of all stripes. While some may trumpet religiosity or poke holes in the narrative, it's a secular holiday blessedly devoid of most political shading.

Thanksgiving isn't free of baggage, however. It's not a holiday where one should forget about those who sacrifice to make it happen. If you're the person cooking the turkey, or cursed with working that day by heartless employers - no, you don't get to choose the giving.

Those who rode the Mayflower, the people whose hats we drew in first grade, weren't the first Americans. They weren't even Americans. Not yet. They were immigrants, some of whom belonged to a despised religious minority. Didn't speak the local language. Stubbornly clung to foreign customs.

For that matter, Pilgrims weren't the first strangers to this shore, for decades earlier, Spaniards settled in St. Augustine, Florida, establishing the first permanent, continuously Euro-settled city in what is now the United States.

There's evidence that St. Augustine was the site of the first Native-European Thanksgiving back in 1565.

It's a reminder that in many parts of our country the first European tongue heard by people of the First Nations wasn't English, but Spanish.

Each Thanksgiving as we celebrate, more newcomers join the gathering. New flavors are added. Some may not have familiar accents, nor may their papers be quite in order, but most are here with a benign purpose. Not to steal, but to give of their hard work, tax dollars, and ambition.

When politicians throw sludge in the gears of immigration reform, when their approach to such a contentious issue provides more bombast than insight - this isn't the American spirit that led Native peoples to share food and knowledge with newcomers.

Nor does Beltway inhospitality reflect the spiritual insights of Lincoln's original Thanksgiving proclamation, which pleaded of the Creator to "with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation...."

Let holiday table conversations gather us together rather than push each other apart.

Let Lincoln's words lead us back to remembering that this is a day of humility and healing, not of seeking bargains before the sun has set.

You may not feel particularly blessed right now. Not all of us have much to celebrate, but we can be kind to one another.

Make the day less unfriendly for those who toil far from the table of bounty. On this day, there are no strangers.

Photo: Diversity quilt, Oregon Department of Transportation CC 2.0

View from Indian country: Turkey with a side of death

Wed, 26 Nov 2014 10:17:00 +0000

Editor's note: This is one of several thought-provoking articles we are reposting for your holiday reading. This article was originally published Nov. 25, 2013. Your comments are welcome.

This week the nation will be gathering for a day set aside for turkey eating and football. But underneath all that merriment is a false history that is also celebrated. Most people here in the United States understand that the Thanksgiving Day myth was started in 1621. It's the story of how the Puritans and Pilgrims landed in Patuxet (Plymouth, Mass.), and had a large dinner in thanks for their first harvest. This myth that has been woven into our nation's creation story. However there is a story that is largely forgotten or overlooked, and that is a story of disease and of genocide.

The true story starts off like this ...

1620-1621:

In the fall of 1620 a Puritan ship called the Mayflower landed in the Village of Patuxet of the Wampanoag Nation. They found a village that once held 1,500 to 2,000 people completely abandoned due to illness that had raged through the area a few years before. The Pilgrims saw this a sign from God that this space was cleared out for them. They began to build a settlement. That winter the Pilgrims lost over half of the people who had come over on the Mayflower.

During this time the Wampanoag leader Massasoit saw the newcomers as weak and manageable, and as potential friends and allies against other tribes and groups of settlers. By the spring of 1621 the Pilgrims began talks with Massasoit through his English translator Squanto, who has made his way back home from living in England as a slave a few years earlier. Massasoit established relations with the English, making way for trade between the peoples. In the summer of 1621 Massasoit gave the settlers the Patuxet area and the surrounding hunting grounds, which the English would rename Plymouth.

In October 1621, an Englishman by the name of Miles Standish went into Pequot territory posing as a trader. He cut the head off a Pequot man named Wituwamat and murdered his family. Standish then brought back the head to Plymouth where it was displayed at the settlement wall on a wooden spike. That same week the Puritans held their first Thanksgiving feast to celebrate the harvest and the victory of Miles Standish against that Pequot community.

1637- Mystic River Massacre:

With tension high between the Indigenous people and the Puritan settlers, the trade between the Wampanoag and the settlers slowed down. By 1633 the number of settlers arriving by boat was in the thousands. They were pushing their way into Algonquin territory at an alarming rate.

In 1633 two European slavers from England went into Pequot territory looking for Indigenous people for the slave trade. The slavers were killed by the Pequot people. The local English settlers were outraged by the killings and demanded that the Pequot hand over the ones responsible. The Pequot refused to hand over the killers. The Puritans were furious. Preachers and religious people demanded action from the settlement leadership using quotes from the Bible like this one from Romans 13:2 "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, rseisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." This set the tone for religious zealousness and self-righteousness in their revenge on the Pequot people.

This turned into what is known as the Pequot War which stretched from Massachusetts to southeastern Connecticut. It all came to a dramatic head on May 26, 1637, when English Captain John Mason and few hundred men arrived at the Pequot fort near the Mystic River in Connecticut and surrounded it. The English attempted a surprise assault, but met Pequot resistance. Captain Mason gave the order to set fire to the village and block off all exit from it. The Pequot people were trapped inside, and those trying to escape were gunned down. In the end, 700 women, children and elders were killed. People who had managed to escape were found killed and scalped. This would be known as the Mystic River Massacre. When news was spread of Captain Mason's victory, celebrations of "Thanksgiving" were held all over the New England territory.

Today - remember and fight:

We as Indigenous people remember this not as a day of thanks but as a day to remember the genocide and colonization of our people that continues even today. We are on the front lines facing destruction of the land, exploitation of our children, and our culture reduced to mascots. In the face of all this we continue to fight imperialism with all of our strength, and find power in ouraAncestors before us.

Photo: A winter morning photo of the statue of Massasoit overlooking the site of Plymouth Rock. Taken by Greg Kullberg. Wikimedia Commons

We honor you for your work

Tue, 25 Nov 2014 15:11:00 +0000

With the recent commemoration of Veterans Day, we often heard the phrase "we honor you for your service" directed at those who served in the armed forces. And honored they should be, for they made great sacrifices while in the military. Some received serious wounds, both physical and mental; and if nothing else, they gave up years of their lives, while some were placed in harm's way in combat zones. We cannot forget the more than 100,000 Americans who gave their lives in conflicts just since World War II.

If one thinks about it, however, one rarely hears the statement "we honor you for your work." Very similar words, very different intent. Why is that? Even on Labor Day there are few statements honoring workers for their work, other than those from the AFL-CIO, a labor union, or from some in the progressive community. Almost nothing in the media or at sporting events (where professional team owners fall over themselves to honor veterans).

Everyone would agree that the average person who gets up in the morning and goes to work-in an office, a factory, a mine, or a hospital, for example-faces many difficulties. No one needs to go through the list of daily stressful conditions that can lead to burnout, injury, or illness. Not to mention the end product of their work, oftentimes a commodity that an owner sells at a profit.

The bottom line is that the two statements express two very different outlooks on life. Again, no one takes anything away from the veteran, yet the ubiquity of the phrase "we honor your service" is really the outgrowth of a system that has incorporated war and militarism into its basic fabric. "We honor your work" describes a view that the production of goods and services in a society is the result of people making a daily sacrifice-their time and their labor-so that modern civilization can exist.

Maybe it is unrealistic to expect a high level of respect for those who work in a capitalist society. It is only when people understand that labor is at the core of all we know that we will make progress toward the creation of a socialist society.

Photo: Welder works on boilers for a ship (CC).

President Obama on immigration: How we got here and what's next?

Tue, 25 Nov 2014 14:43:00 +0000

President Obama made his long-awaited announcement of "executive action" on immigration reform on Thursday evening, November 20. As predicted, it will provide relief for several million people. It does not cover everybody in need of help, and it made some concessions to business interests that may be criticized, but on the whole it was a positive move. It has been praised by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other immigrants' rights and labor leaders.

It has driven some sections of the Republican right wing off the deep end, to extent that there is even worry within the Republican Party that their brand may be damaged by ill-considered responses from the tea party extremists.

Three major benefits

The main positive features of the President's program are the following:

DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program for "Dreamers" (persons who were brought to this country without immigration papers when they were minors), is expanded, in the first place by removing the age limit for applying. When that program was first introduced by the Obama administration just before the 2012 general elections, persons over 31 years old could not apply and receive suspension of deportation plus work permits. Now that age limit is removed; anybody brought over as a child will qualify, except for people convicted of serious crimes. In addition, the former cutoff date for arrival, 2007, is now moved up to 2010. This means that an additional 290,000 childhood arrivals will be able to apply for relief.
Parents of U.S. citizen and legal permanent resident children will be allowed relief consisting of suspension of deportation as well as work permits as long as they have been here for at least 5 years and do not have criminal convictions. According to the 14^th Amendment of the Constitution, anybody born or naturalized in the United States or under its jurisdiction is automatically a citizen, so there are large numbers of families in the U.S. who are of "mixed status," for example including one undocumented parent, one legal U.S. resident parent (legally in the country but not a citizen), and U.S.-born and therefore U.S. citizen children.
The much-criticized Secure Communities Program, which blurs the line between the responsibilities of local police and immigration enforcement agents, and which is blamed for increases in racial profiling of Latino people especially, is reined in a bit. It should be noted that there has been a wave of refusals by local governments to cooperate with this program already.

Unfortunately, another large category of the undocumented is not covered, namely parents and other family members of youthful DACA recipients. The fight will go on to include them, as well as for other improvements.

But overall, the many immigrants' rights, labor and other organizations which have up to now been pressuring the White House to take this executive action will now be fighting hard against those politicians, mostly in the Republican Party, who have announced that they plan to stop or reverse it.

The number of people who will benefit has been estimated by the Migration Policy Institute as at least 3.78 million, not including the original beneficiaries of the 2012 DACA program or the new expansion of DACA for youth which could add another 1.5 million. Thus the total could be 5.2 million potential beneficiaries. This would bring relief to just under half of the estimated 11 million undocumented believed to be in the country.

Certain states will see very large numbers eligible for this relief: California with 1.57 million; Texas with 743,000, New York with 338,000, and Illinois with 280,000. This will have profound consequences for state policies such as the issuance of drivers' licenses. Little noticed in the corporate press is the fact that immediately all working people covered by these new categories of relief, including the DACA expansion, will be in a much better position to join unions and to fight for their rights on the job and in the community.

Triumph of a mass movement

The president's announcement was the product of a massive grassroots movement of almost unprecedented scale, and an illustration of the fact that such movements can triumph even when the legislative process is stalemated. Many helped, but the real heroes are the working class immigrants themselves.

In 1986, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed IRCA, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, a mixed bag of legislation which, however, allowed about 1.6 million undocumented immigrants to become legalized. In the same period, other legalization programs, including a special one for undocumented agricultural workers, brought the total legalized up to nearly 4 million.

Labor and community activists were involved in helping thousands of these immigrants through the paperwork required to benefit from the IRCA "amnesty," as it was called. They also were involved in teaching English as a second language and civics courses that were required to benefit for the program. In many cases, the now legalized, former undocumented workers ended up with a better knowledge of U.S. history and government than many born U.S. citizens possess. Subsequently many of them became citizens, active members of unions and community organizations, and voters, contributing mightily to struggles that have benefited all working people.

A new wave of immigrants...

After the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, under President Clinton, the number of undocumented immigrants sharply increased, as Mexican farmers could no longer compete with agricultural imports from the U.S. and Canada, and were driven out of agriculture and across the border. The U.S.-fomented civil wars in Central America had already created a wave of refugees in the United States from those countries; as the U.S. would not give them asylum or refugee status, they too became "undocumented immigrants."

So the push for a second "amnesty" began. Progressive changes in the U.S. labor movement played an important role. Under the presidency of John Sweeney from 1995 to 2009, and much more so under his successor, Richard Trumka, the AFL-CIO, the Change to Win Federation, and numerous individual unions, including the independent United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Union (UE), all played stronger roles, including mass demonstrations and political pressure campaigns.

At the other end of the political spectrum, anti-immigrant agitation was ratcheted up by reactionary nativist organizations such as the Minutemen, Numbers USA, and the "Center for Immigration Studies." Crackdowns on immigrants, such as the one imposed by proposition 187 sponsored by former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson in California, led the immigrant communities to organize more effectively in their own defense. This became an unstoppable process. In spite of wave after wave of racist, lying propaganda campaigns, the cause of the immigrants picked up ever greater support in the wider community.

In 2005, the right-wing Republican Congressman George Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) sponsored an extreme anti-immigrant bill in the House of Representatives, and it passed. To prevent it from becoming law, immigrants' rights organizations and their labor, church and community allies organized immense demonstrations on May Day 2006, with millions participating all over the country. Although the Sensenbrenner bill did not pass the Senate, efforts to pass a "comprehensive immigration reform" with a legalization program also failed.

At this point, some in the pro-immigrant movement began to call for an executive branch moratorium on deportations. But under what remained of the George W. Bush administration, raids and deportations sharply increased.

...and new expectations

Barack Obama's campaign for president in 2008 created expectations that, when elected, he would reduce the deportations and push hard for a legislative reform of the immigration system. In June of 2009, major labor and community leaders from across the country came together at Jane Addams Hull House in Chicago to announce a legislative proposal acceptable both to labor and business interests. This, however, was not adopted or promoted by the White House, which wanted a plan tilted a little more toward business so that it could be passed with bipartisan and not just Democratic support. Obama's then White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had told immigrants' rights activists not to expect immigration reform action in Congress until the first year of an Obama second term as president, beginning in 2013. In the interim, the pace of deportations continued at a high level.

With families being broken apart everywhere as breadwinners were deported, and with no possibility of legislative relief in sight (the GOP took control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections), the immigrants' rights movement turned more and more toward pressuring the White House to sharply scale back deportations. The call for "executive action" was taken up by members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and others. Meanwhile, undocumented immigrant youth organized the movement of the Dreamers to advance demands that children brought to the United States without papers be given relief so as to work and attend college. There were many courageous actions by people who, if arrested for civil disobedience, faced not just jail or a fine but deportation also.

In 2011, Obama asked government attorneys to explore what administrative relief could be promulgated without congressional action. The response was: A whole lot. At that point the government announced that it would use "prosecutorial discretion" in arresting and deporting people, targeting only people with criminal records. However, this program never got very far, partly because the group of people defined as "criminals" was much too large, and partly because the Homeland Security bureaucracy never implemented it.

Much more effective was the 2012 announcement of DACA. The fact that the anti-immigrant right, including the Republicans in Congress, had no effective response to it greatly encouraged the immigrants' rights movement to demand "DACA for all." The pressure for executive action to protect the undocumented grew exponentially, gaining the support of the AFL-CIO, major religious denominations and other sectors. President Obama made a series of promises to issue a new DACA-like executive order, but postponed it several times under political pressure from within the Democratic Party as well as the Republicans. Each time, Obama said he was giving the Republicans in the House one last chance to pass immigration reform similar to that passed by the Senate earlier in the term, but there was no response. Earlier this year he promised to announce his executive action at the end of the summer. But the Republicans took advantage of the double panics about "child migrants" and Ebola to stoke anti-immigrant fears; and Democratic Senate candidates pressured Obama to delay the announcement until after the 2014 midterms. This greatly annoyed the immigrants' rights movement, and evidently did nothing to help the Democrats retain the Senate, or reduce the GOP majority in the House.

Now what?

The Republicans made gangster-like threats against the president before his announcement, and these threats will now be made even more loudly. If, as some predict, the Republicans "shut down the government," they will shoot themselves in the foot: Voters' memories of the last shutdown are not positive. Lawsuits will not prosper: The government's lawyers did their homework and there are many clear precedents for this kind of administrative action, even under Republican presidents going back to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Republicans may block Obama's appointments, but they have been doing that anyway. Republicans threaten to strip funding for the enforcement of the new program; we shall see what happens with that.

There are many tasks left to be done. Some categories not covered by the executive order need to be brought out of the shadows, perhaps under another order in the future. Abuses of detention facilities will continue and this country's asylum policies will still be harsh and ungenerous. Even immigrants benefiting from the executive order will not be eligible for health services under ACA or for other government benefits. There is no path to citizenship stated or implied in the declaration.

All the relief is temporary and interim and, many activists fear, subject to repeal by the next administration, so the struggle for a legislative solution must continue, though it may take quite a while depending on what happens in the elections of 2016 and beyond.

Most of all, the order does nothing to deal with the reasons undocumented immigrants come to the United States in the first place, which has to do with the extreme inequality between and within nations under neo-liberal trade arrangements such as NAFTA and CAFTA, its Central American version.

But that is another story.

Photo: Chicago, Immigrant Youth Justice League rally, March 10, 2011, People's World.

Turning Ferguson outrage into united action for justice

Tue, 25 Nov 2014 14:17:00 +0000

Outrage. That's the sentiment in Ferguson and around the country in reaction to the failure of the Ferguson grand jury to indict Darren Wilson for the murder of Michael Brown.

The decision was not unexpected. From the outset, local and state authorities carried out a campaign to criminalize Brown: video footage was released of him allegedly shoplifting at a local grocery; even grand jury testimony of forensic evidence purporting to favor the policeman's version of the deadly encounter was leaked to the press.

Still many held out a glimmer of hope that a process leading to justice would prevail. Instead the worst fears of decent minded Americans were realized. Once again a deadly pattern of racist police murder of black and brown youth was upheld, a pattern that almost guarantees immunity for the perpetrators in blue.

Indeed, the grand jury process from the beginning had the appearance - if not reality - of being rigged. From the outset, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch's close ties to local police were cause for concern, concerns that were justified when the prosecutor failed to provide the grand jury with possible charges against Wilson. Calls for a special prosecutor went unheeded, additionally undermining public confidence.

It's no surprise then that faith in justice system, particularly among young people has been lost.

Sadly, some of the outrage in Ferguson took violent forms last night complete with the familiar pattern of police provocation and the reaction of some protestors. But the call of Michael Brown's parents along with the civil rights, labor and community organizations to honor his life with peaceful protests is sure to prevail.

Civil rights groups are calling for a completion of the Justice Department's investigation. Sign HERE to add your voice. The NAACP is calling for a 120-mile 7-day "Journey for Justice" march from Ferguson to the governor's mansion in Jefferson City.

The call for Governor Nixon to appoint a special prosecutor is ongoing.

The tragic events in Ferguson, beginning with killing of Michael Brown at point blank range, the military response of local police, culminating in the failure of the grand jury to return an indictment has indicated that a new movement against police crimes is being born.

The country may be reaching a turning point. The spate of police murder of young black and brown men is at new level. Nearly 400 are killed yearly by police, exceeding the numbers lynched during the height of Jim Crow.

Whether a turning point will be reached will depend on the degree of public pressure to insure justice is done.

We urge our readers to continue fighting for justice for Michael Brown by participating in the militant and peaceful protests occurring all over the country. Let's keep the pressure on!

Photo: Lesley McSpadden, second from right, Michael Brown's mother, is comforted outside the Ferguson police department as St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch conveys the grand jury's decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of her son, Nov. 24, in Ferguson, Mo. (AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Robert Cohen)

Op-Ed roundup: Failure of Republicans to act is why Obama must

Tue, 18 Nov 2014 17:00:00 +0000

WASHINGTON-In today's op-ed roundup, a number of columnists are pushing back against the ridiculous idea that Republicans could act on immigration reform if President Obama would only give them a chance. Remember: the GOP has had nearly two full years to pass legislation. The Senate did its job, and the Republican-controlled House could have followed at any time. But they didn't. At this point, the only two outcomes are 1) Obama acts to protect immigrants already here, or 2) we're stuck with the status quo (watch Diane Guerrero's video from yesterday for more on what life for immigrants today is like).

Check out Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast, where he hammers the part about Republicans having had the votes to pass reform this whole time. "So if it had the votes, why didn't it come up for a vote? Well, because it had the votes! The Republicans simply can't give Obama a victory of any sort."

So here's the reality. It's been 16 months, nearly 500 days, since the Senate passed the bill. The House could have passed it on any one of those days. But Boehner and the Republicans refused, completely out of cowardice and to spite Obama. Insanely irresponsible. And on top of that, Boehner told Obama in June that he was not going to allow a vote on it all year. In other words, the Speaker told the President (both of whom knew the bill had the votes) that he was not only going to refuse to have a vote, but that he was going to let the Senate bill die.

And now, when Obama wants to try to do something about the issue that's actually far, far more modest than the bill would have been, he's the irresponsible one? It's grounds for impeachment?

Eugene Robinson at Washington Post agrees [that] Obama is only acting now because Republicans have completely failed at their job:

All the melodramatic Republican outrage isn't fooling anybody. The only reason President Obama has to act on immigration reform is that House Speaker John Boehner won't.

I repeat: That's the only reason. The issue could have been settled a year ago. It could be settled in an afternoon. The problem is that Boehner refuses to do his job, preferring instead to spend his time huffing and puffing in simulated indignation...

The president has not just the right but also the obligation to "use all the lawful authority that I possess," as he promised last week in a long-deferred effort to repair an immigration system that both parties agree is broken. Law and precedent give Obama wide latitude, and at this point he can hardly be accused of acting rashly.

Instead of debating what kind of hissy fit they want to pitch, Boehner and his flock ought to be reading the Senate bill. They would find much to like.

Jamelle Bouie at Slate points out that if Republicans had tried to work with Democrats to pass immigration legislation in the House, they would've gotten a lot of what they wanted out of the process (even more border security, for example). It's their complete unwillingness to compromise that has led to this point where Obama must act unilaterally.

Given the high priority for immigration reform, there's no question Democrats could have worked with House Republicans to craft a counterpart to the Senate bill. And indeed, there's a good chance they would have made even more concessions if it guaranteed a vote. As with health care, Republicans could have gotten more conservative policy than they otherwise will if they had backed down from their relentless opposition.

When it comes to the prospect of a new, more liberal immigration regime, Republicans have themselves to blame. With a few concessions, they could have gotten more enforcement and tighter security. Instead, we'll have legal status for millions of immigrants, with few Republican fingerprints.

Steve Benen at MSNBC noted, as other articles have, that Obama would hardly be the first president to use extensive executive action on immigration. Every single president since Eisenhower has used that power-including Republican presidents like the two Bushes and Ronald Reagan. There was no outrage from Republicans on those earlier instances, so why are Republicans pitching a fit now?

It's possible that today's congressional Republicans have no idea that this history exists. It's also possible they just don't give a darn.

But for those who take the debate seriously, these precedents matter. The fact that Obama appears likely to follow a trail that's already been blazed flips the burden back to freaked-out lawmakers - if previous Congresses didn't descend into madness as a result of executive actions on immigration, why should this Congress behave differently?

Reposted from America's Voices blog.

Nuclear deal with Iran would be historic achievement

Tue, 18 Nov 2014 16:59:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Congressman Jim McDermott of Washington State took to the House Floor and delivered the following remarks on President Obama's leadership in light of a potential nuclear deal with Iran.

Mr. Speaker:

I rise this morning on what could be the eve of a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, as U.S., European, and Iranian negotiators head back to Vienna for a final round of talks.

With so much of the region in turmoil right now, it seems hard to imagine that we could be on the verge of arguably the most important diplomatic achievement in the Middle East in recent U.S. history.

The leadership of President Obama, the tenacity of the U.S. negotiators, and the sincerity of President Rouhani and his team have set the stage for a landmark agreement that would turn the page on decades of distrust, dissension and cynicism.

Here is what a nuclear deal would mean:

* A profound reduction in the decades-long tension between Iran, the U.S. and our allies that had set us on a path to war.

* A contained Iranian nuclear program with verifiable internationally-accepted limits.

* Meaningful sanctions relief that bolsters Iran's flagging economy and allows U.S. businesses access to a potentially vibrant market.

* An opening for a broader understanding between the U.S. and Iran, as well as an opportunity to court Iran as an ally in the fight against ISIS.

Like all compromises, there may be parts of this deal that some Americans may like and others may not like. There may be parts of this deal the Iranians may or may not like.

But such is the definition of cooperation: working toward something meaningful and building momentum toward a solution, even when the easier option is to walk away.

President Obama deserves enormous credit for his steely resolve in pursuit of a nuclear deal, especially in the face of those hoping that he would fail.

If we do not reach a nuclear accord next week, if a deal is delayed, or heaven forbid the talks collapse, I believe President Obama is still owed our thanks.

It's fashionable around these halls and certainly in the media these days to deride the 44^th president, to call him aloof when he acts methodically, to threaten impeachment when he acts decisively to promote the best interests of the American people.

The fact that the president has the audacity to try with persistence and openness, in the face of withering doubt from friends and allies, is the mark of a true statesman.

Many in this chamber have already raised their strong objections to a potential deal, and they've made no secret of what they think of President Obama and his "fools errand."

But I am reminded of what Teddy Roosevelt said of leadership:

"Credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood...who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat."

Photo: Given its geo-political importance, cooperation with Iran could help solve some of the conflicts in the Middle East (CC).

Wanted: an economy that puts people first

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 11:46:00 +0000

I have a confession to make. In the series of articles I have supposedly been writing about income inequality, I have really been writing about something else: need. Let's not fool ourselves or think I have been naïve. Raising the minimum wage or making minor redistributions of wealth, while likely to help many in materially significant ways, will not even minimally move us toward something remotely resembling income equality. The average American workers or unemployed and underemployed souls wouldn't suddenly find themselves rubbing shoulders with Jamie Dimon or some other fabulously wealthy CEO, even if such an infinitesimal narrowing of the wealth gap were politically orchestrated. What we are really talking about when we engage the issue of income inequality is finding a way to help those in "low-wage" jobs or in need of work earn enough to meet their basic needs, not actually equalizing incomes.

I am coming clean because I feel our political discourse is decidedly impoverished because of the absence of discussion about NEED. We dance about it in indirect ways, talking about raising the minimum wage, helping small businesses so they can hire, lowering taxes, creating middle-class jobs, etc.; but rarely, if ever, do we hear anyone talk about creating, or re-creating, an economy designed to meet basic human needs.

* * *

Routinely issues of need get recast in our limited bi-partisan political discourse into the vocabulary of jobs; and when Republicans speak about jobs, they typically do so with forked tongue, at once berating individuals for being unwilling to work (and hence opposing the extension of unemployment benefits because they disincentivize work) and also excoriating President Obama for his failed economic policies for not creating jobs. Obviously, the approach begs the question, how can we blame people for not working when there is a scarcity of jobs?

* * *

The approach is akin to blaming thirsty people in a desert for not looking hard enough for water-except with this key difference: in our world we arguably have enough water, but our system withholds it from those who can't find jobs in an economy in which jobs are scarce, operating on a logic that not only defies social reality but is illogically punitive and inhumane.

If we were to recognize the reality of need in our country and understand that our current economic system actually generates inequality and deprivation ... we might actually begin to focus policy-making on re-making the economy to meet rather than exacerbate human need.

At times we almost get there, but the habit of political thinking in U.S. culture tends almost invariably to retreat from critique of our economic system, into blaming people for not doing enough to succeed in a system that affords little opportunity.

For example, a recent Harvard Business School study "An Economy Doing Half Its Job," as you can tell from its title, highlights a malfunction in our economy manifested in the fact that working-class and middle-class citizens continue to struggle coming out of the recession while large and mid-size businesses are faring quite well. The study calls this divergence "unsustainable." Despite its critique of our current economic system, the main recommendation has nothing to do with repairing the system or even with redistributing wealth; instead, the study calls for American workers to increase their value by acquiring skills to compete in the global economy.

The folly of this approach, as well as its prevalence as a default habit in American political discourse across the board, is evident in a rather conventional speech President Obama gave in April 2012 at the University of Iowa. While addressing college students and discussing the need to address the debt burden caused by student loans, Obama expressed his desire for everyone to graduate college and succeed. U.S. culture loves this story of the individual's rise to success through education, ingenuity, or pure hard work. We love it so much it clouds our thinking. Certainly we can agree we live in a society in which anybody can make it. We see evidence of this fact all the time. But we don't live in a world in which everybody can make it. Even if every person earned an advanced degree, would there be jobs for everyone? Additionally, we would still need people to perform the socially necessary though stigmatized "low-wage" work. Yet we neglect to recognize this reality that our economy generates inequality and need, that it is inveterately an economy that does only half its job.

During the Great Depression, while people stood and starved in breadlines, farmers poured milk down sewers and burned crops in order to create scarcity to raise prices; that is, in order to get the economy working again, food was destroyed while people went hungry. This scenario presents quite a contradiction and underscores the degree to which our economy has become more important than the people living in it. We have come to serve the economy rather than the economy serving us. We ask people to suffer to save the system that produces suffering, instead of creating a system that seeks to eliminate suffering.

When will we fully recognize there is a problem with our economy and work to create a system that works for people and stop asking people to suffer to prop up an economy that doesn't work for people?

Perhaps when we truly recognize need.

Find the full article at politicususa.com.

Image: twicepix // CC BY-SA 2.0

Washington football team’s name must be changed

Mon, 10 Nov 2014 11:17:00 +0000

Several thousand people protested the name of Washington's football team at a Minnesota Vikings home game recently. In doing so, they joined a growing movement in our country demanding that the team be renamed.

Following the lead of Native Americans, a broad coalition is emerging in support of such a move. The campaign is having some effect. After pressure from many sides, including the Native American Caucus in Congress, The U.S. Patent Office, for example, appropriately cancelled the team's trade mark.

The FCC is now being petitioned to ban TV stations from saying the name as indecent content. The FCC's head Tom Wheeler agrees that the name is inappropriate.

So does the editorial board of the Washington Post who decided the name conflicts with its editorial policy.

This year members of Congress have also demanded the NFL join the call. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid gathered names from 50 members of the Senate in a letter calling on the NFL to support the name change.

They've taken strong issue with NFL head Roger Goodall's absurd claim that the name "honors" Native Americans. Some lawmakers are looking to challenge the NFL's tax exempt status if it refuses.

President Obama too has lent his voice to those calling for change.

Washington's owner, Daniel Synder, however, refuses so far to budge, carrying on a long and sad history of racist policy by the franchise. Its original owner, George Preston Marshall, was an ardent segregationist. The football team was the last in the NFL to integrate.

More pressure is clearly needed. Let's be clear, the Washington team's name is a racial slur pure and simple. There's no getting around that. Peoplesworld.org also pledges not to use it.

We urge our readers to sign and circulate the petition to change the team's name. The time to act is now.

Photo: Patric Schneider/AP

Which Rob Lowe is the real creep?

Mon, 03 Nov 2014 11:41:00 +0000

You may have seen the commercials - especially if you watch pro sports - with the two Rob Lowes:

The handsome, successful, cool, and wealthy Rob Lowe, and his nerdy, geeky, and creepy counterparts, well-played (with the help of talented makeup and wardrobe artists) by Lowe himself.

These ads for Rupert Murdoch's Direct TV are a version of standard celebrity product endorsement with an alter-ego twist.

So big deal, right?

We're used to seeing performers making a cool million or two (or more?) for a few day's work. Alex Baldwin, Morgan Freeman, Ellen DeGeneres, and Tina Fey all push high-interest, high-fee credit cards (let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're using the extra dough to fund a good cause).

But there's something I find particularly irritating about the Lowe spots.

It takes a special kind of hubris for a celebrity to hold up his real self for us to admire while making a fool out of lost souls and deadbeats.

Satirizing and disparaging shlumps and outcasts are always good for a laugh. Great comic actors excel at this. They show us the fool, but the fool within us all. Jackie Gleason's 'Ralph Kramden' (The Honeymooners), down on his luck and desperate to make something of himself, finds redemption at the end of every episode; his humanity and self-worth revealed; Lowe's characters are just gross.

Maybe it's ridiculous to be appalled by a particular television commercial when so much of the advertising industry is itself so offensive.

But my takeaway from those Direct TV ads is that it's the greedy, corporate ass-kissing Rob Lowe who may be the real self-centered creep.

This article was submitted by Lou Siegel, author of LaborLou.com