People Before Profit blog

Occupy victory in Illinois

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:23:00 +0000

Hooray for the Occupy movement and the general uprising against corporate greed! It's having an impact.

Yesterday, enough Illinois lawmakers got the message loud and clear. They defeated a massive tax break for giant Chicago-based financial corporations: the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and its partner the Chicago Board of Trade, plus Sears Holding Corp.

Can you imagine giving $100 million to a corporation like CME, whose profits shot up 69% this quarter to $316.1 million? That gift would cut the financial giant's state taxes in half!

Meanwhile Illinois is cutting $76.3 million from community services for people with developmental disabilities, $56 million from group homes, day centers and temporary housing for homeless families, and a whopping $180 million from education with preschool children taking the biggest hit!

Add that to a state with double-digit unemployment, poverty surging to nearly 2 million people, foreclosures increasing and student loan debt averaging almost $24,000, with tuition continuing to soar.

It's these kinds of conditions that have given rise to the outrage and the Occupy movement.

Occupy Chicago, like its counterpart in New York, targeted the city's financial district, occupying the intersection in front of the Chicago Board of Trade and the Federal Reserve Bank. It really is a place where "The banks are made of marble, with a guard at every door. And the vaults are stuffed with silver that the workers sweated for," as the song made famous by Pete Seeger goes.

Financial districts are crime scenes where the insatiable greedy drive for maximum profit, whether through derivatives or subprime loans, loosed this current economic crisis on the world. And they still want more! The big banks and financial institutions are the epitome of the 1%.

Of course, some elected officials went for the tired old threat that if CME and Sears don't get their way on taxes then they will take their marbles (jobs) elsewhere. But people are sick and tired of being held hostage by these corporate giants and their CEOs.

State Republicans fully backed this tax giveaway bill, as did, disgracefully but not surprisingly, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and both Democratic state House and Senate leaders.

But enough House Democrats heard from their constituents and shot the bill down in a whopping 99-8 vote.

Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn has been standing strong. He said, "[I]f you're going to have any kind of tax relief package, it must have significant relief for working families raising kids and working hard. Unless that happens, there won't be any tax relief."

Republicans rejected efforts to raise the Earned Income Credit for low and middle-income families, wanting the bill to focus solely on tax gifts to corporations, reports the Chicago Tribune. The word "hypocrisy" doesn't do these so-called tax-abolishing Republicans justice. Class war is a better description.

Emanuel-type Democrats better heed the uprising warning: People are sick and tired of politicians going to bat for corporations while passing on the economic pain to the most vulnerable and struggling.

Photo: Labor and community groups join Occupy Chicago at a protest for jobs in front of the Chicago Board of Trade. John Bachtell/PW

Go see "Hugo," "Descendants," skip "Melancholia"

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:22:00 +0000

Movie Reviews:

Hugo, Directed by Martin Scorsese, Rated PG, 127 mins.

The Descendants, Screenplay and Direction by Alexander Payne, Rated R, 115 mins.

Melancholia, Directed by Lars von Trier, Rated R, 136 mins.

To get to the picture show at Valley View Center, my movie buddy and I had to walk through the desolation of the mall. It's still beautiful and still has a palatial 150 ft ceiling in the middle. The floors are clean and the plants have been watered, but it's hollow. Our footsteps echo. There aren't any shoppers to speak of, even on the four days of the busiest shopping, and the day after Thanksgiving.

We were early on the first day, so we walked the entire perimeter of both floors. We counted the empty storefronts -- carefully camouflaged with gay advertisements -- until we grew tired of counting. We talked about what used to be here, and what used to be there. We wondered what happened, and we asked the same question that has been bothering us since the Great Recession started, "What can they do with an empty shopping mall after all the shoppers have gone?"

On the upside, another long-standing question was answered for us: "Why did so many people go to the movies during the last Great Depression?"

On the first day, we saw "Hugo" in 3D. It's a wonderful moviegoer's movie about movies. The dreadful hopelessness of an orphaned child in 1930s Paris is happily rescued by movies and by moviemakers.

There are a lot of clips from early French filmmaker Georges MÈliËs, to whom the entire film seems dedicated. There are a lot of other tributes to films and filmmakers. I don't think it's a coincidence that the title character, played very ably by Asa Butterfield, is a ringer for early child star Freddie Bartholomew. A barely-connected subplot gives actor Christopher Lee a chance to display the movie majesty that made his Dracula pictures so elegant. Sasha Cohen almost steals the movie with his villain's portrayal. He is a gendarme lifted directly from Inspector Clouseau. Several other headline stars add cameo performances.

"How wonderful!" we might exclaim, and "What recession?" we might ask.

"The Descendants" is another excellent exploration of contemporary people by Alexander Payne. Super star George Clooney is more than the box office guarantor; he is perfectly cast as the tragically comic lead. With his character's wife in a coma, Clooney has to figure out what to do with his two daughters and the rest of his relatives. Like "About Schmidt" and Payne's other movies, it's a lot better than it sounds.

If the recession is getting you down, then Melancholia might be the perfect film. Danish auteur Lars von Trier spends the second half of the movie preparing for the end of the world, and the first half showing why it was too dreary to save to begin with. My movie buddy was relieved when I told her, afterward, that I didn't like it either.

Our problem with "Melancholia" might not be a distraction for other people. We've liked Lars Von Trier's other weird films, but he didn't give us anybody to like in this one. An ultra-rich artsy family indulges some other ultra-rich artsy people in a decadent wedding reception at their opulent estate, where they usually have nothing more to do than to dress up like Englishmen and ride around on their horses.

It seems almost fortunate, for them, that von Trier has arranged for a large planet to smash into the Earth and kill everybody. For us, it was at least the end of the long movie.

Too bad it didn't also end the recession, which was still vacuuming the life out of Valley View Mall each time we left the magic movie world.

Photo: A still from the film Hugo's official website.

Politics isn’t a morality play

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:17:00 +0000

In times like these some might ask: does a strategic focus on defeating right-wing extremism continue to make sense? I think so, and here's why.

The main (not the only) obstacle to social progress remains the right wing and its corporate backers who dominate the Republican Party. This bunch casts a reactionary shadow over the whole political process.

Its overarching goal in next year's election is to regain control of all three branches of the federal government. That would set the stage for a period of extreme right-wing onslaught like we haven't yet seen.

In the bull's-eye would be every democratic right, economic protection and people's organization.

In Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, when right-wing Republicans took control of the levers of power in 2010, they immediately and ruthlessly rolled back rights, eliminated social programs and attacked the trade union movement.

That gives us a glimpse of what the Republican Party would do if it regrabs command of the federal government next year.

By contrast, the decisive defeat of the right would weaken Wall Street and the entire corporate class. It would give leverage and momentum to the people's movement and open up the possibility of an era that puts people and nature before profits.

In other words, the defeat of the right at the polls next year is not simply to the advantage of the Democratic Party; it could also change the balance of power in favor of the labor-led people's movement. To affirm one doesn't deny the validity of the other.

This election, then, is not about choosing a lesser evil. Politics is not a morality play and the Obama administration and Democrats are not evil. It's about our nation's future: are we going to move in a progressive-democratic direction or a right-wing anti-democratic authoritarian direction?

Thus, the labor-led people's coalition must make every phase of the election process a number one priority.

Not everyone shares this view. Some think the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans. Others go further and say the Democrats are worse because they create popular illusions that change is possible within the two-party system. Still others say the electoral process is so compromised by corporate money that participating in it is a fool's errand. And finally there are advocates for a third-party presidential candidate in this election.

I can understand these sentiments, but only up to a point. In the end, neither objective conditions nor common sense support non-participation in the elections or a third-party candidacy in 2012.

Millions of Americans go to the polls in spite of their misgivings. They are invested in the electoral process. And the Democratic Party remains the vehicle of reform for tens of millions, the majority of whom are working and oppressed people.

Labor will throw itself into the campaign to elect Democrats, moderate as well as progressives, although - and importantly - from its own organizational base.

Much the same can be said about the racially and nationally oppressed. Ditto the women's and seniors' movements. The majority of youth will also take part in the elections, and like four years ago, on the side of President Obama and the Democrats.

A third-party presidential candidate would only help the extreme right.

The two parties of the capitalist class have similarities. That is undeniable. But differences also exist at the level of policy, which can be widened under the impact of a powerful people's movement, as they were in earlier historical periods.

The past three years have been frustrating to be sure; much the same could be said about the past three decades. But frustration and impatience are a poor excuse for a strategic and tactical policy in relation to the coming elections and politics generally.

Only a very sober and objective analysis should guide our thinking and actions. It is easy to imagine any number of electoral strategies, but the question is: which one is rooted in current realities and advances class and democratic struggles - which one fits this particular moment?

I wish the movement were not only ready to form an independent labor-based people's party, but also to help elect a consistently anti-corporate government, which under certain conditions could open up a path to socialist transformation.

But I don't believe that we are at that stage of struggle yet. And wish as we might, we won't be until our movement is broader, deeper and more conscious of its tasks and objectives.

In the meantime, there is work to be done.

Photo: League of Women Voters California // CC 2.0

The Muppets occupy Hollywood

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:53:00 +0000

Movie Review
The Muppets
Directed by James Bobin
2011, 98 mins., Rated PG

The Muppets occupy Hollywood? Well, not really. Perhaps (if this movie had been made a bit later), a Muppets encounter with the Occupy movement might have made for a more interesting reboot of the franchise. As it is, The Muppets is an often charming and funny film that is weighed down by its very slightness and over dependence on worn out kid's movie clichés. While kids and their Generation X parents will get a kick out of the familiar nuttiness, self-parody, celebrity cameos, and pop culture references, "The Muppets" doesn't entirely live up to the 98 percent positive rating it racked up on Rottentomatoes.com.

The film's plot is a textbook example of what Slavoj Zizek calls "Hollywood Marxism"-when the villain is a greedy corporate type, who is defeated by a reassertion of the socially-redeeming underlying values of good 'ol Free Enterprise. The Muppets version more accurately could be called Disney Marxism: it's the triumph of the Little Guy-the theme the House of Mouse is so famous for. Here, the bad capitalist is oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper), who plans to foreclose on the Muppet Theater in order to tear it down and drill for oil.

The only way Kermit the Frog can save the theater is to raise $10 million so he can buy it back from Richman. Meanwhile, an emerging Muppet named Walter arrives in Hollywood on vacation from Smalltown, U.S.A. with his human brother, Gary (Jason Segel), and Gary's fiancée of 10 years, Mary (Amy Adams). They arrive just in time to help Kermit reunite the gang and put on a telethon to raise the money. Complications arise with Miss Piggy's diva antics and Tex Richman's greedy tenacity: at a key moment in the film, he evicts the Muppets from their theater by thundering: "this is private property!"

Despite the self-referential silliness that characterizes the film (characters are constantly calling attention to the film's budget, musical numbers, use of montage, etc.) the film doesn't apply this satirical grounding to the film's central premise: we're supposed to be cheering Kermit as he raises this huge amount of capital for a real estate purchase. The fun and frivol of "putting on a show" proves to be an expediency for assembling gobs of cash in this recession-free universe.

Further, Kermit is a "little guy" in stature, but not status. He lives, like a one-percenter, in a mansion! The class differences among the Muppets go unexplained and unexplored: entertainment mogul Kermit and Vogue editor Miss Piggy are clearly "bourgeois," and Gonzo even owns a toilet factory. But other second-tier Muppets like Fozzie Bear have to sweat it out as wage earners. In one funny scene, we find Fozzie working in a cheesy casino, fronting a faux-Muppet band called the "Moopets," with Dave Grohl filling in for Animal on drums.

Class analysis aside, "The Muppets" is at it's best when it indulges in anarchic wackiness and unapologetic nonsense. The best bits are most reminiscent of the original TV show, such as when Gonzo's chickens perform Ceelo Green's "Forget You." Another engaging aspect of the movie is the way the Muppet and human universes intersect and commingle: at times the Muppets are the serious ones, and the humans behave like cartoon characters, and vice versa. This aspect of Muppet-human tensions ties into the film's other main theme: the need to grow up and find one's identity. Both Muppet Walter and human Gary realize they haven't yet "found" themselves; part of the film's resolution involves their finding their places in their respective worlds.

Jason Segel, who co-wrote the film, clearly demonstrates a special relationship to the material and has a good sense for the Muppets' humor. He also seems to have a sense for the audience-a lot of the gags are targeted to Gen Xers who grew up with the Muppets. For example, Kermit's butler/chauffeur is "Eighties Robot," a dingy toy robot that spouts outdated phrases like "gag me with a spoon." This approach would be natural for Segel-after all, he originally appeared in "Freaks & Geeks," the short-lived TV show about eighties youth that became a Gen X touchstone.

Although the film flirts with "deep" themes, nothing is taken too seriously (which is good). Problems are solved almost as soon as they arise, with a song and dance number and plenty of schmaltz. The storytelling at times feels like it's on autopilot, and the film's sweetness veers towards saccharine. Chris Cooper should've put a "no rapping" clause in his contract. Still, it's a good time, and provides an excellent springboard for a discussion with the kids about economics and private property!

Don't be cruel: Extend lifeline for millions now!

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:33:00 +0000

Two million desperate job hunters will, on Jan 1, 2012, lose the only lifeline that keeps them and their families surviving. That number will swell to 6 million over the course of 2012 if Congress fails to renew the emergency federal extension of unemployment benefits.

The level of cruelty involved in not extending benefits is unimaginable. Yet this is precisely the cruelty that is being practiced by House and Senate Republicans led by Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, respectively.

Rather than rescuing millions of fellow Americans from joblessness and deepening poverty, Boehner has made it clear that his priority for the next month is to kill jobs programs and attack workers' rights, workplace safety and environmental protection.

The Republicans have made it clear that they could care less about the desperation of the millions of workers who must struggle and squirm for every available job, to feed their kids and keep their home. This cruelty has an especially racist and anti-woman edge as men and women of color and women, in general, face higher proportions of layoffs, joblessness and poverty.

Boehner and his cohorts could care less about the damage that playing such politics brings to the economy and this nation.

At the same time, this crisis is really far larger and deeper than it appears. There are millions of jobless workers who have run out of their unemployment benefits or never even collected their benefits. Jobless rates overall continue to stay at 9-10 percent, and up to 50% and higher for young people of color, and double digits for veterans and students.

The Republican tea party propaganda depicts the unemployed as "lazy." This is to cover up their unthinkable inaction in the face of the worst economic crisis in generations. And worse ... they have totally blocked any initiative to stimulate the economy and create more jobs for their own narrow agenda, namely to win the White House in 2012.

Case in point is President Barack Obama's American Jobs Act, a modest bill that would help save and create jobs, extend unemployment benefits, rebuild the infrastructure, and give a tax break to working-class families. Yet, the GOP, cynically blocks it in an effort to turn people's real anger and angst about the economy towards the president. Even though the overwhelming majority of the country supports a tax increase on the 1%, the Republicans refuse to listen, continuing to serve their 1% masters.

Tell the Republicans in Congress that you will not be a party to their disgraceful behavior. They must end their shameful policies and act now to extend federal emergency unemployment benefits. Click here to sign the petition.

Black Friday's heart of darkness

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:05:00 +0000

Everyone should have paid attention recently as people massed in public, in numbers greater than ever. Of course, the story had elements of tragedy and violence as well. Am I talking of the Occupy movement? No, sadly it's just good old Black Friday.

Black Friday has been around quite some time, but lately it seems that it has grown in importance. Once it was merely the shadow of the quaint, comforting day of Thanksgiving, at best an excuse to get a small amount of exercise hunting for bargains after feasting with family. In recent years it has become arguably more prominent than the holiday it follows.

This year the clamor of consumers invading shopping malls and big-box retailers seemed stark and especially alarming. Against the backdrop of deepening economic gloom the desperate activity comes off as a both enigmatic and upsetting. Many of us have felt encouraged by people in great numbers shaking off apathy and focusing on the problems we all face. The fact that far greater numbers will march on Best Buy and Target and Wal-Mart for imagined "savings" seems like a bad joke. It's all good news for the retail industry, but what sort of news is it for society?

The juxtaposition of the Occupy drama and the stories surrounding this year's Black Friday "festivities" seems instructive. In past weeks people were shocked by police violence against protestors. Far more shocking, however, was the story of shoppers in a West Virginia Target who stepped over or around a dying man to get their beloved merchandise (the man later died at a nearby hospital). Perhaps this tells us more about our society. On a smaller scale is the viral footage of a riot triggered by $2 waffle makers in a Wal-Mart. While Occupy frames a discussion on corporate greed, let us let these words and images from the shopping swarms open up a discussion of the greed more widespread and perhaps just as harmful.

Perhaps we're dealing with a sort of contagion. In many ways the mania for bargains, and indeed the whole culture of consumerism is an extension of corporate greed. We often fall prey to feeling the desire or even need of things, ignorant of the fact that we've been programmed and persuaded. As a veteran of the advertising industry I'm all too familiar with the process, yet I find myself falling for it despite my knowledge. Marketing can be insidious. Thinking about marketing can be helpful, however.

The great innovation several decades ago that evolved advertising into marketing was the embrace of targeting audiences for consumer persuasion. The ad business of earlier days could be seen as earnest showmanship and, however sophisticated, not far removed from what any pitchman or carnival barker long practiced. Marketing, in contrast, is a science. It applies more precision in developing messages that motivate us to spend, and is far more reliable. It has also become far more widespread in our present society. Indeed, it is nearly inescapable. Most information has conformed to the goal of persuasion. Entertainment and journalism are far more injected with commercial content than ever. In a real way we're always shopping, never away from the marketplace. Black Friday is a symptom of this pervasive pathology.

There has to be an effect felt from the level of commercial messaging we're faced with. I often wonder what portion of those identifying as the 99% merely want more of the stuff the 1% have. One would hope there's a promise of a society where we can reach beyond just who has what or how much, to a place more about sharing than taking. But a path towards such ideas begins with examining greed wherever it lives. Not just in the boardrooms, but in the aisles of the big-box stores. Perhaps Black Friday this year can be a dark mirror. If we can learn from the excesses and the tragic edge that will be something of real value.

Farewell to McRib (at least for now)

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:54:00 +0000

The famous McRib pork patty has once again made a brief appearance at a McDonald's near you. For a brief three weeks, October 24 to November 14, the elusive pork patty was available to the masses of gustatory-challenged carnivores who have become addicted to its unique combination of nutritionally disastrous chemical toxins.

From its first appearance, 1981-1985, (occasioned by a dearth of chickens available for nuggetivation) the McRib has been on and off the McDonald's menu several times. It was widely available after being reintroduced in 1989-- until removed again in 2005. Since then it has had a sporadic career in different parts of the McDonald's Empire (except for Germany where it has always been available due to their unquenchable appetite for all things porky). But in the last couple of years the Empire has begun to make it available nationwide but only for a few weeks at a time with long periods between appearances.

What is the nature of this pork patty? It has no ribs in it so its name is somewhat misleading. Like a Hollywood star its real name, McRestructured-Meat-Product, was deemed by its creators too off putting to gain much attraction or many fans. Even McPork-Patty did not seem to have much appeal. But who doesn't like ribs? And who wouldn't fall for a juicy plump (at least in its roll) glob of restructured meat product with fake rib indentations slathered in barbecue sauce and introduced as the McRib sandwich (the name that brought it fame)?

But behind that lovely exterior McRib hides a sordid past. Its popularity masks its history of chemical dependence. It cannot show up to perform its culinary wonders unless it has been provided with seventy different chemicals and compounds by its legions of enablers.

It starts life on the slaughterhouse floor of Smithfield Foods which supplies McDonald with the raw meat that will become McRib. This relationship may soon end as the Humane Society of the United States is even now exposing what it calls cruel and inhumane treatment of the animals Smithfield slaughters and is asking for the intervention of the federal government to halt the company's alleged truly odious practices.

McDonald's takes this meat - basically pork shoulder mixed with pig tripe (the next door neighbor of chitlins in the pig digestive system), hearts, and scalded pig stomach, technically known as "restructured meat (pork) product." However, due to the company's friends in Congress, this is listed for the public as "pork." It's mashed up into a mush to which about three dozen chemicals and compounds are mixed (including sauce and bun) to make it appear presentable and salable to the public. Since you can imagine what this slop might taste like in its natural state, it needed all sorts of artificial flavors and colors mixed into it, and its sauce and bun, before anyone could be lured into embracing it with the love it so richly does not deserve.

One of its flavors comes from the 980 mg of salt it gets along with 26 grams of fat, including trans fat, and 41 percent of your daily maximum of cholesterol. McRib is now ready to weigh in at 500 calories, slightly less than the lead star at McDonald's, the Big Mac. And, if you find McRib's bun nice looking, one of the reasons is it is bleached with azodicarbonate, a chemical more commonly used in making foamed plastics in shoe soles and gym mats. By the looks of some McRib's fans, azodicarbonate may be the closest they will ever get to a gym.

Why the periodic appearance of McRib? I don't know, might it have something to do with the fact that different states have different times of expiration for their statutes of limitation on personal injury law suits?

In any case, the McRib is once again in semi-retirement. If we are lucky, maybe by next Thanksgiving McDonald's will have McTurkey ready for us.

Photo: justgrimes CC BY-SA 2.0

Motorcycle madness and fighting for what’s worth saving

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:19:00 +0000

There she sits, in all her stark glory. A shimmering image in black, waiting in the shadows to be noticed by a friend or any stranger. Her beauty is not a thing of youth, but of decades and generations of full living. Whenever my fingers caress her, I am reminded of life and what it means to be living. I have dubbed her "The Inglorious Basterd" because of where she came from, what she is made of, and I think it sounds right to my ears. My relationship with her is a trying undertaking, a constant struggle to find the middle ground that makes us both happy. She is a part of my family, and she is a motorcycle.

This beast came into my life when I was 11 years old. In 1970, my old man picked up an old scooter for 200 bucks. Money was tight, and here was this 1948 Indian Motorcycle waiting for an owner. It had been chopped down to the barest of bones. A Harley Sportster front end from the ‘60's had been thrown on to make it look like a mean chopper. No speedo, no front brakes, and not even a kickstand. With a three-speed hand shifter and a foot clutch, this thing used to get looks even in the ‘70s. Moses (Daddy Dick) would come see me play football in junior high and have to lean it against a light pole. I have a photo of me riding it at the age of 16, my long curly locks and bell-bottom jeans blowin' in the wind. In 1980, my infant son nestled with his proud grandpa on that chopper in one of my favorite captured images. It was always a struggle to keep that old machine running, and Moses claimed he had permanent damage to his leg from kick starting it for 40 years. When he died abruptly, early in 2010, it was the only material possession he had expressly written into his will. He wanted me, orders from the grave, to be the new guardian of this creature.

It has been a struggle. I am starting to feel what the old man must have gone through for those 40 years. The beast will run great for a couple of weeks (he used to say "It's runnin' like a Honda"), then the next time out I'm pushing it up the driveway. My kicking leg is developing a swollen calf and knee, and I am becoming a reluctant Indian mechanic. Recently, a close friend said I should get rid of her. That is not an option. The struggle is nominal compared to the legacy and memories that surround The Inglorious Basterd. When she is cooperating with my spirit to ride her tearing up the asphalt together, the emotions I feel, no words can describe. Unless some filcher carries her away in the middle of the night, or we die together in a fiery crash, I hope to always be with her. I think my wife understands.

The nature of struggle has been on my mind lately for more reasons than this tale of motorcycling madness. We, the postal workers of this nation, are engaged in an epic struggle to save our venerable institution from privatization or, worse yet, imminent destruction. Our union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, has been carrying on a crusade to activate and educate our members to Save America's Postal Service.

Many of our members are becoming politically active for the first time in their lives, but so many more are remaining on the sidelines, waiting for other folks to do the grunt work of union struggle. One carrier asked me about the future of the Postal Service, and I gave her a blunt answer. "It depends on how hard we fight for our jobs and demand the Postal Service remain a public institution," I replied.

"But I don't want to have to fight to keep my job," she told me honestly. I have given her petitions to fill out, legislators' phone numbers to call, flyers on rallies and union meetings, and a variety of other activities to help her save her job. I have not seen her participate in any of these activities. She can not yet find the time for struggle. Woefully, she is in the majority of letter carriers I know. It is said Americans watch five and a half hours of television a day. If that is true, it is pitiful. It may be one of the reasons why the working class is in the shape it's in. I have listened to people at work able to give sporting events eight hours of their attention on a Sunday, but yet not able to give their union one hour to help save their job.

I have found that throughout my lifetime, whether it is my marriage, family, or job, struggle is inescapable to creating a meaningful existence. We have to fight to be fulfilled. Struggle begets meaning.

In our city of Detroit, the history of the working class struggle weaves a wonderful tapestry. The Metro Detroit AFL-CIO Civil Rights Committee recently sponsored a movie night at our letter carrier branch office. We showed a short documentary that featured, amongst other subjects, the last known survivor of the Ford Hunger March. His name was Dave Moore, and he died last year at the age of 97. He recounted the struggle of the Unemployed Councils during the Great Depression and the historic march on the Ford Rouge plant in March 1932. Five marchers were killed and many more injured by the thugs guarding the plant. None of the Ford security was ever charged with a crime for killing those young folks. It was an amazing movie about what the generations before us have sacrificed and taught us about struggle. Yet, during this time of upheaval in the Postal Service, only four letter carriers from my branch joined us that night.

I do have a motorcycle that is in rank contrast to the Inglorious Basterd. I wrote previously about the Great White Steed, and she sits stabled in my garage next to her elder sibling. She is reliable, has never given me a mechanical problem, and has taken us as far as Alaska and back. But I don't have a true connection with her; and I'll be trading her in for another version next year. The one that I will never forsake is the beast that gives me the struggle, my lust for life. Every time I kick it, or curse it, or ride it, I think of my old man. He spent decades grappling with her temperamental nature, and now it is my turn. I know it will be well worth the fight. I hope that more of us take the time to fight for what is worth saving.

Bad things happen when good people do nothing.

Happy Holidays, yap at ya next year!

Photo: John Dick rides his 1948 pride and joy. Beverly Roberts, courtesy John Dick

Alabama's racism

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:46:00 +0000

An editorial from Press Associates Union News Service

Given its ugly history, it's no surprise that Alabama approved racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic law HB56. The law, passed by the GOP legislature and pushed through by the GOP governor, cries out for a nationwide counterattack.

This law actually makes the notorious Arizona anti-Hispanic statute, SB1070, look "moderate" by comparison. Not only does Alabama criminalize anyone who looks different, it criminalizes anyone who helps people who look different.

Like the Arizona law, HB56 lets law enforcement stop anyone on sight, or, exercising their authority during investigation of another possible offense - such as, say, traffic stop -- demand immediate proof of legal residency.

If such proof is not provided, the person is arrested, detained and deported.

But then Alabama goes far beyond Arizona:

* If a person needs a lift and he or she looks "different" i.e. Hispanic, and you stop and offer a lift, you're breaking the law. You're aiding the alleged "criminal," so you're a criminal yourself. Same thing if you even offer a drink of water.

* If you sign a business contract and the other signer is "illegal," you've broken the law. You're a criminal, too.

* If you rent out an apartment and the renter is undocumented, you've broken the law. You're a criminal, too.

* If you're a six-year-old kid in school and you look "different," the principal is strongly encouraged to ask you if you're legal, and if your parents are. "Think of the fear" that puts into a child, says Service Employees Secretary-Treasurer Eliseo Medina.

* "Different" kids are also barred from higher education.

The law only took effect, partially, in September. What are the results, so far?

Some families with Hispanic names, regardless of their status, are signing over custody of their children to non-Hispanic families, just in case. Parents are pulling their children out of school. Workers have quit their jobs. Families are literally packing up and fleeing the state in the dead of night.

The union movement, workers' rights groups, civil rights groups, and Hispanic organizations, among others, have banded together in a national campaign to get Alabama to repeal HB56. Even some business groups have signed on. After all, they've lost employees, customers, or both.

But the provisions of the Alabama law, its wide sweep and its criminalization of not just Hispanics but of anyone who even lifts a finger to help them reminded a colleague of ours at the Peoples World of some gruesome history.

To be precise, he cited Nazi Germany before the War, when Jews were fired, barred from occupations, herded into ghettos, demonized, criminalized, beaten, persecuted, and physically singled out: By an identifiable symbol, the six-pointed star with the word "Juden" (Jew) for their religion, which they had to wear pinned to their clothes.

And we know what happened after that first racism in Nazi Germany and Nazi-overrun Europe. It's enough to make you shudder, then raise hell against Alabama.

Because in Alabama, our colleague says, "All that's missing is the star."

Photo: Protestors march outside the Alabama Capitol during a demonstration against Alabama's immigration law, in Montgomery, Nov. 15. (Dave Martin/AP)

Stop police brutality against peaceful protesters!

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:55:00 +0000

Since Saturday night, millions of Americans have watched blast after blast of pepper spray directed at seated, passively resisting protesters at the University of California, Davis. The chemical was fired into their faces and on their bodies at point-blank range.

Two campus police officers are captured on video spraying the poisonous chemical.

The attack on the protesters was completely unjustified even according to the questionable standards of law enforcement, which allow the chemical's use in cases of a clear threat to the life and safety of police carrying out legitimate duties.

Criminologists across the country have joined in expressions of outrage, noting that police pepper spray can be even more dangerous than a Taser.

A victim of pepper spray first feels sharp burning and pain and then coughs as breathing becomes more difficult. Soon the victim's lungs begin to bleed, as was the case with several of the victims at the University of California last weekend.

This is not an isolated incident.

Police in New York used pepper spray on the first day of the Occupy Wall Street protests. When New York's billionaire mayor eventually evicted protesters from Zuccotti Park, it was supposedly out of concern for public safety.

In Portland, Ore., protesters were hit with pepper spray last week. Photographers captured the horrific image of a young woman having the spray pumped directly into her mouth, nose and eyes.

The same dangerous chemicals were also sprayed on Occupy protesters in Seattle.

We believe that it is time for the federal government to move in and stop what has become a pattern of attacks on the fundamental rights not only of Occupy Wall Street protesters across the country, but on the rights of all Americans to engage in peaceful protest.

This has historical precedent. When workers occupied an auto plant in Flint, Mich., in the 1930s, U.S. troops were sent in to protect the occupiers from the police who were attacking them.

During the upsurge of the civil rights movement in the 1960's, our government again sent troops in to protect the public against police who used tear gas, water canons and attack dogs against civil rights demonstrators in the South.

As more and more members of the 99 percent majority exercise their rights to public assembly and free speech, we should, in a democracy, expect nothing less.

We are clearly in an era now where protests are becoming a daily, business-as-usual event. This demands a reassessment of how police forces, nationally, need to change the way they behave when "protecting" the "public." Even the definition of the "public" itself has changed as, more and more, the public and the protesters become one and the same.

One of the big issues for Occupy Davis students is the ceaseless round of tuition hikes resulting from the state's cuts to education. Previous generations of working-class youth attended that institution for free. Today, the tuition stands at almost $14,000 a year and it is climbing.

On Monday, New York City students at CUNY protesting tuition increases were also victims of police brutality at the Baruch campus.

Students all across America, asking for nothing more than what was granted to generations who came before them, should not have to face the threat of police attacks on their peaceful protests.

There are demands to fire the police chief, the officers involved and the University's Chancellor at Davis. While we support all of those demands, they are only first steps.

It's time for our elected leaders to speak out and take action against police brutality. The Justice Department today needs to step in with strict guidelines that protect all the people. And it should investigate the police departments involved for violating protester's civil rights.

Photo: One of the many pepper spray memes that popped up and went viral, this one depicting spraying at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Wall Street wants to “occupy” Detroit’s finances

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:15:00 +0000

DETROIT - This city is running out of money, and by April of 2012 it may be out of cash and subject to takeover by a state-appointed financial dictator. Such "financial managers" have already replaced the people's elected officials in majority black cities around the state, and made draconian austerity cuts to public workers and public health, welfare and safety services. This puts Detroit between a rock and a hard place, forcing the mayor and City Council to consider harmful cuts, but less than what a financial dictator would make.

Mayor Dave Bing is pushing for privatization of services and asking the city's public unions to take a 10 percent cut in wages that non-union employees took a couple of years ago. The mayor is also seeking medical benefit and pension cuts.

Some on the council, worried the mounting debt will enable Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to appoint an emergency financial manager, talk of even greater sacrifices: laying off 2,300 public workers, closing recreational centers and eliminating subsidies to city museums, the health department and the Detroit Zoo. Last week the mayor volunteered himself to be the emergency financial manager, but that proposal was opposed by all.

The law regarding the appointment of emergency managers was changed by Gov. Snyder and the Republican-dominated legislature to give more powers to the financial dictator than the old law provided. A financial manager will now usurp the powers of democratically elected officials in order to give priority to financial and Wall Street interests over the interests of city workers and citizens' city services.

If an emergency financial manager is appointed for Detroit, it will result in mass firings and harsh wage and benefit reductions for Detroit city workers. City worker jobs, government jobs, public jobs are real jobs. Losing jobs will add to the city's deficit because of lost taxes from income and property. It will, of course, put more Detroiters into economic dire straights.

The appointment of an emergency financial manager to solve the city's economic crisis would be profoundly un-American and undemocratic. It would be a violation of Detroit residents' right to self-determination.

Who is to blame for this crisis?

Detroit's financial crisis is rooted in the problems of the city's automobile-dependent economy. While the auto industry is making a small comeback, it will never be what it was. Hundreds of thousands of good paying auto jobs, and the tax base they provided, were lost, never to be seen again.

We live in a private enterprise system. This means that private business leaders, not public officials, make the decisions that determine the ups and downs of our economy. The tea party and Republican story (pushed 30 years ago by former President Reagan) that "government is big and bad, and free enterprise is lean and mean," has been exposed in the last several years as a big lie put forward by the system, threatening bankruptcies of the private sector's largest corporations and financial institutions.

Where should the money come from to fix Detroit's deficit? The federal government - and I say that without any hesitation. If Wall Street could be bailed out to the tune of $11 trillion (as once reported by the Financial Times; the amount is probably more than that by now), Detroit can be bailed out for $300 million or $400 million, or more.

Wall Street banks were more broke than Detroit, and they were bailed out by the mythically inefficient public sector, "Big Gov'ment." Some of that federal money (that they gave the Wall Street banks) is our tax money, money from the people of Detroit.

Importantly, it is not Detroit officials' corruption or incompetence that has led to the fiscal crisis, but the economic and financial incompetence and greed of banks and corporations. Whatever faults they have, these local public officials, largely African American and including many women, are no worse than the dozens of white men who exclusively ran Detroit city government for so many decades.

Detroit's deficit is also due to the decisions by the private sector to move so much of the former robust Detroit business sector out of the city over the last 50 years. This is another way in which the private sector is responsible for Detroit's plight. As I said, as this is a private enterprise system and Detroit public officials have essentially no power over this major trend. They have no authority to start city-owned enterprises that might substitute for the runaway plants, shops and businesses.

This city's financial problems are not fundamentally due to city officials' bad decisions, to but the disinvestment from and failures of corporate America in Detroit. The last thing the city needs is a "CEO thinking" emergency manager. It was CEO thinking that bankrupted Wall Street, General Motors and Chrysler! No exaggeration.

Given the revenue streams that go straight to Wall Street from Detroit, it is not far off to characterize any emergency financial manager as a Wall Street financial dictator.

I say "Occupy" Wall Street financial dictators.

Photo: Occupy Detroit Oct. 14. John Rummel/PeoplesWorld.org

Occupy Wall Street and the elections

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:17:00 +0000

The voters of the United States will go to the polls one year from now to elect a president. It seems to have become a cliche every four years, but one cannot deny that the election will be a very important one for our country. One need not be a political scientist to see that there are forces arrayed on the right who are working full-time, using millions of corporate dollars to defeat President Obama and install an extremist in the White House. The question is how can progressives, working with those in the center, defeat this dangerous force?

The seeds of victory in 2012 are being planted now. When historians look back at 2011 they will be able to call this year a turning point in our political history. The massive union-led fightback against the anti-labor legislation drafted by Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin and copied by the governors of other states highlighted the first half of the year, reaching its high point with the successful recall of two Republican Wisconsin state senators who supported the Governor. In Ohio, on Election Day, the campaign to repeal a similar law, SB 5, won in a landslide.

As the summer waned, a number of activists started a protest against the power of financial capital by camping out in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan. Thus was born the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has spread to over a thousand communities across the country (and beyond) and has galvanized the energies and re-invigorated the idealism of millions of people.

The Occupy movement is a diverse one that draws support from all sectors of society that are impacted by an increasingly dysfunctional capitalist system. It includes people from a vast array of ideological, cultural, social backgrounds. No one viewpoint predominates.

Some have said that this lack of focus, or the absence of a codified political manifesto hurts the movement. Others reply that this inclusiveness is at the core of the movement's strength.

When compared to other great peoples' struggles in the past, such as Abolitionism, the fight for women's equality, or the labor movement, the Occupy movement is in its infancy. It is much like the early solar system, which formed from a cloud of gas and dust particles that, over time, coalesced into the Sun and planets we know today.

Given time, openness, and a democratic spirit, Occupy Wall Street will develop a clearly defined program and a way to bring its demands into reality.

It is very important, however, that the Occupy movement not let pass a major opportunity to influence the 2012 presidential election and to shape the future of our country. There are a number of ways in which this can be done.

The Occupy Wall Street movement and organized labor are natural allies and have been working together in many ways over the past two months. The AFL-CIO and its member unions have been deeply involved in electoral politics for many years. It has the organization and the people to influence races at all levels of government all over the United States. Even in a short time, one can see a coming together of the two groups.

On October 5 a number of unions, including autoworkers, the Teamsters, nurses, teachers, and government workers, led a march of tens of thousands to Zuccotti Park. Labor is redefining its demands in terms of "We are the 99 percent." It is vital that unions and activists across the country work for common goals: jobs, financial reform, relief from foreclosures and student debt, and a reduction in the defense budget.

*Community activist groups are another key component of the movement. They have the know-how and organizational skills to work with the unions and Occupy movement to elect people who support its goals.

*There are politicians at all levels of government who endorse the aims of the Occupy movement. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, an organization of over seventy federal lawmakers, is working to implement changes expressed by Occupy Wall Street supporters across the United States.

*It is always a good time for activists to put themselves forward as candidates for political offices at all levels of government. If the incumbent politicians are in the pockets of the corporate elites, now is the time to challenge them.

*In some states, particularly those with fusion voting, there are progressive parties, such as the Working Families Party (WFP), that provide a political platform for the working people. They endorse candidates of other parties (in New York in 2008 they endorsed Barack Obama), but are always willing to run independent candidates. The WFP was a prime mover of the October 5 march in New York.

As one can see, there are a number of ways that those of us who have organized to fight the corporate power can make their voices heard in the next twelve months. At the end of 2011 we may be early in the days of a new protest movement, but we have an opportunity to change history next November. Let us seize the moment.

Occupy Dallas evicted and arrested, not beaten

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:04:00 +0000

DALLAS -- On Nov. 19 Occupy Dallas held its first widely-publicized march since the group was evicted from its encampment Nov. 8.

A diverse crowd of 250 turned out at Pioneer Park and marched through downtown to two separate rally sites before returning to their starting place. "We are, we are, here to stay," they chanted. "You can evict people, but not ideas," read one of the many pertinent handmade signs.

I walked along with an old salt who, like me, has been protesting on Dallas streets for the last 30 or more years. He told me that it looks like Occupy Dallas and the protest upsurge it generated is about cooked. He told me that their first march, October 6^th, had more than 400 people and that, if the people of Dallas truly supported them, we should have had a lot more than that now that the Dallas police, like thieves in the night, arrested 18 of them and evicted them all.

He told me that Dallasites were even more fearful than before, and that the outrage people felt over the city's highhanded treatment was not enough to bring them out, even on a reasonably nice autumn day.

He claimed that the newspaper articles against the tent colony had done their work in undermining support. The Dallas newspaper wrote extensively about the violence that broke out at a Bank of America rally on November 5^th, or at least they did until a video showed that one of their policemen had started it by pushing a protester off a 4-foot perch.

He talked about the same newspaper's reports of minor scandals and divisions and fights between some of the occupation people and claimed Dallasites were gullible enough to withdraw from the overall movement.

Between chants, my old friend told me that the leading economic indicators were up, that Wal-Mart had made a fabulous 3^rd quarter profit, and that initial unemployment claims were down. The economy is slowly recovering, he told me, unemployment will cease to be a problem, and economic injustice will be harder to see.

He told me that most people don't really care that much about the erosion of our fundamental democratic rights, as long as it's only the young protesters losing out and not that noticeable in their own humdrum lives.

He told me, in other words, that the protest upsurge in Dallas is on the wane and will soon be over. I told him he was crazy!

Six incredibly bad films inspired by the Cold War

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:59:00 +0000

After the end of World War II, the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., former allies in the fight against fascism, confronted each other as opponents in a "Cold War." The world was seen to be more and more splitting into two rival camps. Berlin and Germany were divided into "East" and "West." The United States' use of nuclear weapons against Japan ignited the atomic age and began an "arms race" with the Soviet Union.

The apocalyptic power of nuclear weapons precluded their use in a "hot" war. Instead, the Cold War was fought mainly through espionage, proxies, and propaganda. McCarthyism infused American culture with conformity and paranoia. Reds were under every bed and rightwing politicians like Richard Nixon made careers of making a show of smoking them out. Nuclear war with Russia seemed imminent as personal bomb shelters became the rage and "duck and cover" became the catchphrase in schools.

For some filmmakers, the Cold War became a convenient excuse for moronic plotlines, insufferable jingoism, and unapologetically reactionary politics. The U.S. government, typically through the military, produced its own propaganda shockers ("Red Nightmare"). Low-budget "exploitation" filmmakers sought to cash in on the zeitgeist with efforts such as "Rocket Attack U.S.A.," "Beast of Yucca Flats," and "Red Zone Cuba." In the eighties, fear of Reagan's "Evil Empire" inspired American and British movie studios to churn out bigger budgeted (but just as schlocky) Cold War actioners like "The Final Option" and "Red Dawn."

For those nostalgic for the bad old days of Cold War angst, add these cheesy classics to your holiday viewing queue:

Rocket Attack U.S.A. (1961, Barry Mahon, Dir.)

An American spy (John McCay) parachutes behind the Iron Curtain to uncover Soviet rocket secrets and save the world. He gains access to the Soviet rocket program by playing wing-man to a bloated, hard-partying, Khruschev-esque General, who he hooks up with an accommodating (if lethargic) female double agent (Monica Davis). The Yank spy unsuccessfully storms a missile silo with the help of barely-accented British spy Phillip St. George. Mutual Assured Destruction is triggered, and the world ends in a hail of stock footage.

Red Nightmare (1962, George Waggner, Dir.)

Jack "Joe Friday" Webb narrates as the Reds take over Main Street U.S.A. in this short produced by the U.S. Army. An average American dad (Jack Kelly) watches in horror as his daughter happily goose-steps off with the Red Guard and his hardware store is collectivized. The Commies are about to send him to a re-education camp, but whew! It's only a dream. Or is it?

Beast of Yucca Flats (1961, Coleman Francis, Dir.)

Pro Wrestler and Ed Wood Jr. regular Tor Johnson plays Russian atom scientist Joseph Javorsky, who defects to the West (Nevada, to be precise) and is pursued across the desert by KGB agents. Just when the agents are about to liquidate the lumbering scientist, they all stumble into an atomic test site, a bomb goes off, and the released radiation turns Tor into some sort of badly scarred homicidal mutant. The enraged "monster" kills everyone he randomly encounters. "The beast" is eventually conquered, and in the film's final poignant shot a wandering bunny rabbit sniffs his prone corpse. Low budget auteur Coleman Francis's bizarre direction (endless shots that pan across dirt and focus on pretty much anything other than the story's action) and non-sequitur narration ("a man runs. Somebody shoots him,") give this film an art house feel.

Red Zone Cuba (aka Night Train to Mundo Fine, 1966, Coleman Francis, Dir.)

Coleman Francis returns, this time starring as well as producing, directing, etc.

Francis plays escaped con Griffin, who, desperate for a few bucks, signs up to join the Bay of Pigs invasion. This fever dream of a film features endless takes, stilted dialogue, and nonsensical voice-overs. Of course the invasion ends in debacle, and the film ends with another touching Coleman Francis signature death scene: "Griffin ran all the way to hell... with a penny, and a broken cigarette."

The Final Option (aka Who Dares Wins, 1982, Ian Sharp, Dir.)

According to this movie, the anti-nukes movement was entirely funded and directed by the Soviet Union. In it, Soviet-sponsored terrorists, "The People's Lobby," demand a nuclear freeze and take American dignitaries hostage. Peter Skellen (Lewis Collins) is the catatonically suave undercover Special Air Service (SAS) agent who infiltrates the group and seduces its leader (a young Judy Davis in a mortifying early role). The film's final act is essentially a commercial for the British SAS, which efficiently massacres the bloodthirsty peaceniks and rescues Europe from the scourge of nuclear disarmament.

Red Dawn (1984, John Milius, Dir.)

When the U.S.S.R. and Cuba team up to invade Colorado, Patrick Swayze and his teen commandos (eighties icons C. Thomas Howell, Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Grey and Lea Thompson) form the Wolverines to fight back. This film was recently remade by Dan Bradley, but is currently stuck in distribution limbo. The bad guys in the Red Dawn reboot were originally portrayed as "Red" Chinese. But in an effort to not alienate the burgeoning China film market, the flags, logos, etc. of the invading force in the movie were digitally altered to be those of North Korea. The original Red Dawn's director, John Milius, has recalibrated his rightwing paranoia to keep up with the times: he recently commented that he thought the new film's villains should be "illegal aliens."

Talking turkey on Turkey Day

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:44:00 +0000

For me, the best parts of the holiday meal at my mother's home include mashed potatoes, dark turkey meat with gravy, stuffing and cranberry sauce.

The least favorite part of that meal is the conversation with Dorothy and Izzy, my mother's upstairs neighbors.

Izzy says there is absolutely no need for the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, NASA, Amtrak or the Department of Agriculture. Nothing, not even the turkey we are eating, needs to be inspected by a government snoop.

Dorothy sees the unemployed, hippies, communists, vegetarians and President Obama as all being "un-American."

While just about nothing anyone can say will budge either of them from their positions there is a lot we can say, if we sit down to dinner with a plan, that will be useful in clarifying things for the other people around the table. And when you add up all those "other people" at Thanksgiving dinner tables around the country, you're talking about millions.

Working America, in a recently published guide, offers four tips for "talking turkey" at the dinner table this year.

The first is to keep the tone conversational. When "Izzy" says that corporations need tax breaks in order for them to be able to create jobs, don't rant and rave. For the benefit of everyone else around the table, try asking a question: "CEOs are making record profits right now. So how do more tax breaks for them create jobs?"

The second tip is to carefully get out any fact that might be relevant to the conversation. The idea here is not to win the argument right there but to equip everyone at the table with a fact they will remember the next time they hear Izzy or someone like him making that same claim.

Example: The richest 5 percent of households obtained roughly 82 percent of all the nation's gains in wealth between 1983 and 2009. The bottom 60 percent of households actually had less wealth in 2009 than in 1983, meaning they did not participate at all in the growth of wealth over this period.

When people start talking about politicians, try to steer the conversation toward issues. While Rick Perry's debate flubs, Herman Cain's memory lapses, and anybody's sex scandals are easy to talk about, issues, when brought up clearly, will be remembered for a long time.

Example: Wall Street control of government is a big problem. When there's a revolving door between lobbyists on K Street and Capitol Hill, you have total corporate control of government.

The fourth overall tip is to end with a solution. Example: We need to invest in jobs, not corporations.

To help with the second tip, getting out a relevant fact, Working America provides a bunch of facts about both the 99 percent and the 1 percent.

To name just a few:

The average wealth of the 1 percent is 225 times higher than the wealth of the typical household.

In just one generation the 1 percent almost quadrupled their incomes.

Thirty years ago, the average CEO made 40 times as much as an average worker. Now, it's 200 times as much.

The 1 percent is not an accident - it is the result of policies pursued by lawmakers under their control.

When you sit down to dinner be prepared to use your questions, your observations, and your facts to debunk major myths that are sure to be told and re-told at the dinner table.

My mother reports that Izzy is already telling people in the building that the Occupiers are "America-hating elites who don't even know what they stand for."

She will be ready for him Thursday when she tells him the Occupiers come from all walks of life. They are teachers, unemployed, mothers, youth, seniors, professionals, construction workers, firefighters and so on and so forth.

Their message is clear: We need to end a situation where the 1 percent have almost everything and the 99 percent have almost nothing.

As for the protesters being un-American: This kind of protest is part of a proud American tradition protected by the U.S. Constitution.

The other people around her table will have more good information to take home with them.

New military base in Australia: wrong direction

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:12:00 +0000

On Nov. 17, President Barack Obama announced in Darwin, Australia, U.S. plans to increase its military presence in the East Asia-Pacific area.

Specifically, the president, who was joined in a news conference by Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, announced the creation of a U.S. Marines base in Darwin, which is on Australia's North coast, close to Southeast Asia.

Some 250 Marines, along with military hardware, will constitute the initial force. Eventually 2,500 Marines will be circulated through the base.

The United States has had a military alliance with Australia since World War II, but this development is a significant new projection of forces in the region.

The U.S. announcement, which also coincided with a get-together of the Association of East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Indonesia, comes in the context of ongoing friction with China on a number of issues including, currency and trade practices, U.S. and NATO intervention in Libya, and South China Sea jurisdiction.

The United States has been ostentatiously supporting the claims of its ASEAN ally, the Philippines, over the waters, which not only are militarily and geopolitically important, but are also thought to contain hundreds of billions of dollars worth of petroleum reserves.

The U.S. is boosting its military presence in the Philippines also. Other countries in the area, including socialist Vietnam, also challenge some of the Chinese claims over the waters.

Although President Obama stated in Darwin that the new U.S. deployment is not aimed at China, several days earlier U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. plans a more robust presence in the area specifically to counter Chinese influence, and its economic rise. Part of this may involve a rapprochement with Burma (Myanmar), in an effort to reduce Chinese influence on that country.

U.S. military might has too often been used to protect corporate profits and control strategic regions of the world for their narrow interests. Oil and rare earth metals come immediately to mind.

While the president has said the U.S. "welcome[s] a rising, peaceful China," many in U.S. ruling circles see China as a competitor for the earth's natural resources.

Plus, this new base should be seen in the context of an overarching foreign policy that still seems to be based in the anti-Communist Cold War and containment approach.

More U.S. military force in the Asia-Pacific area is provocative and unnecessary. Instead of building more military bases, we should be closing them. The money dedicated to this new military buildup would be far better utilized in creating jobs and protecting the social safety net right here in the United States.

Asian-Pacific nations are perfectly capable of reaching negotiated settlements of their regional disputes without U.S. interference.

Photo: President Barack Obama delivers remarks honoring 60 years of the U.S. and Australian Alliance to a crowd of some 2,000 soldiers and guests at the Royal Army Air Force Base in Darwin, Australia, Nov.17. (White House/Pete Souza)

Racism: pollutant that serves GOP, Wall St interests

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:07:00 +0000

To win victories requires unity. Communists understand that well, but so do corporate America and the far right. Thus they work overtime to divide the people's movement.

They pit employed against the unemployed, men against women, straight against gay, believers against nonbelievers, workers against welfare recipients, native born against immigrant, old people against young people, labor against environmentalists, occupiers against election activists, and white people against people of color.

Each of these deserves some elaboration, but what I would like to do is focus on the fight against racism.

Racism is the most persistent and pernicious form of division in our country. It creates a fault line in the labor and people's struggles that, if not overcome, irredeemably weakens them.

Racism appears in structural and ideological forms. It is more than prejudice or attitude. It rests on the systematic elaboration of the notion of white superiority.

This notion has its origins in, and is sustained by, racist practices and structures that confine people of color to a subordinate status relative to white people in nearly every area of life.

Much has been said in recent years that the country is in a post-racial era. The only problem with this claim is that there is little evidence of it.

By every social measure people of color find themselves in inferior conditions. A quick glance at unemployment rates or life expectancy rates or wealth accumulation rates or incarceration rates or poverty rates offers ample proof of this fact.

Nor has racism in its ideological form abated. Perhaps its contemporary expression is different than it was a half century ago, but its essence hasn't changed.

In a column a few weeks ago, Pat Buchanan wrote:

"Can Western civilization survive the passing of the European peoples whose ancestors created it and their replacement by Third World immigrants? Probably not, for the new arrivals seem uninterested in preserving the old culture they have found."

He doesn't say segregation now and segregation forever, but it is a hardly concealed appeal to the worst instincts of white people.

Buchanan is not a lone voice in the wilderness however. Since his election President Obama has been the object of open and unrelenting racist vilification by the Tea Party and others.

"He's not a citizen," "he's in over his head," "he's Hitler in a black face," "he's a tribesman," "he's a dick," "he's your boy," and on and on.

All of these vile expressions of racism pollute our political culture, rationalize the harsh conditions in which people of color live, fatten the corporate bottom line, and sustain the rule of the most reactionary sectors of our society.

It is also the ticket of the party of white supremacy - the Republican Party - to return to the White House next year.

This racist ideological offensive attempts to convince white working people that they share common cause with the reactionary right.

But there is no evidence for this claim. While the program of the extreme right falls especially hard on people of color (cuts in people's programs, denial of voting rights, obstructing jobs legislation, etc.), it also negatively impacts on white working people.

This is the common thread that binds the multi-racial working class together. And this is especially so if the democratic demands of people of color and other oppressed people combine with the overall demands of the working class and people as a whole.

Thus, what is urgently needed is a broadly-based and sustained struggle for economic justice and equality.

Such a struggle not only brings relief to the victims of racism, other forms of oppression, and class exploitation, but it also constitutes the strategic cornerstone of a winning struggle against the Republican right in the elections next year.

I emphasize this question because there is a tendency to lose sight of the special oppression those sections of the working class experience, and the democratic demands associated with that oppression. This is a mistake at any time, but particularly now when such grave dangers are facing our country and the world.

Photo: Workers cheer President Barack Obama during 2010 Laborfest in Milwaukee. (Marguerite Herbst)

Global super-rich stash: Now $25 trillion

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:41:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Still another financial firm has tallied how much net worth is sloshing in the pockets of the world's most spectacularly wealthy. So when will the time finally come to stop the counting - and start the taxing?

In today's astoundingly unequal global economy, banks can go either of two routes - or both - to bag ever-larger returns. They can squeeze the 99 percent with nuisance fees and penalties. Or they can cater to the richest of the rich.

But both routes have bumps. The 99 percent can squeeze back, as they did earlier this month when Americans by the tens of thousands shut down their Bank of America accounts to protest the bank's $5 debit card greed grab.

As for the richest of the rich? To cater to these fortunates, you first must find them; that can be difficult.

Fortunately, financial industry consulting firms have stepped up to help. These firms have started publishing annual global wealth surveys that pinpoint where banks - and luxury retailers and anyone else who wants in on top one percent action - can find "high" and "ultra-high" net-worth individuals.

Last week, a new global firm, the Singapore-based Wealth-X, entered the global wealth survey fray, joining a crowded field that already includes Capgemini and Merrill Lynch, the Boston Consulting Group, Credit Suisse, and Deloitte LLP.

Each of these firms has tried to carve out a unique market niche. The Wealth-X specialty? The world of the ultra rich, those individuals who can claim at least $30 million in net worth. And the researchers at Wealth-X haven't just counted these ultras in their first annual global wealth census. They've tiered them.

For the entire world - and major nations - Wealth-X teases out subsets of the super rich, from the $30 million-to-$50 million set to the $1 billion and up.

For the first time, thanks to Wealth-X, one can compare the barely ultra with the comfortably ultra and those super ultras who can make the comfortables seem pinched.

"Our report maps exactly where the biggest money is located," Wealth-X CEO Mykolas Rambus boasted at a Geneva news conference last week, "and just how much there is."

The Wealth-X research answers "how many" as well. The firm counts 185,795 individuals worldwide with at least $30 million net worth. These ultra-high net-worth individuals - UHNWs - hold $25 trillion in combined wealth.

The global economy may be tottering, as the new Wealth-X World Ultra Wealth Report 2011 goes on to inform, but the "lifestyle habits of UHNW individuals have not been severely impacted."

"Simply put," the Wealth-X analyst team gushes, "the world's wealthy elite are in a class of their own."

In that class, Americans pack a bunch of the rows. Of the near 186,000 global ultra rich, 57,860 - 30 percent - carry U.S. passports. These American ultras hold a combined net worth of $7.6 trillion, an average of $131.4 million each.

That average masks a huge concentration of wealth at America's summit. The 455 deep-pocketed Americans worth at least $1 billion hold half a trillion more in wealth than the 29,415 Americans in the Wealth-X $30 million-to-$50 million tier.

These numbers need a bit more context to have any real meaning, and we can take a stab at providing that context by glancing over at the "super committee" deficit-reduction deliberations now underway in Washington, D.C.

The 12 lawmakers on this congressional super committee - six Republicans and six Democrats - are trying to trim $1.2 trillion off federal red ink over the next ten years. On their chopping block: Medicare, Social Security, and assorted other programs essential to the wellbeing of America's other 99 percent.

The super committee reporting-out deadline comes Nov. 23. No one knows how much budget-cutting pain the panel will be recommending. But panel members could actually avoid all that pain - and raise over $1 trillion in new money for investing in America - simply by subjecting all U.S. individual net worth over $30 million to a modest wealth tax.

Our U.S. ultra-wealthy, Wealth-X calculates, together hold almost $5.9 trillion over this $30 million threshold. An annual five percent wealth tax on this overage would raise over $293 billion a year, or $2.9 trillion over the next decade - more than double the $1.2 trillion the super committee is so desperately looking to find.

The most amazing part of this? America's ultra-rich could easily pay this five percent annual wealth tax for the next ten years and remain as rich as ever.

That's because wealth begets wealth. All those trillions of dollars America's ultras currently hold don't sit under some mattress. The ultra-wealthy have those trillions invested in assets that generate short-and long-term returns.

If America's ultras averaged returns on those investments not that far above five percent over the next ten years, they could pay the wealth tax and still end the decade with higher personal net worths than when the decade began.

Back in the 1990s, a public-spirited financial industry superstar, multimillionaire San Francisco money manager Claude Rosenberg, spent a sizeable chunk of his personal fortune campaigning to get a similar message across about the enormous wealth of the wealthy.

Rosenberg's particular point: America's fabulously rich could hike their annual contributions to charity by tenfold and still end up with higher personal fortunes. Rosenberg started a research group dedicated to sharing this message and the analysis behind it. He wrote a book and peppered the periodicals that rich people read with op-eds that detailed his group's number crunching.

In the year 2000, Rosenberg's researchers would document, households with $1 million or more in income could have given $128 billion more to charity than they actually did in fact give, without losing any net worth over the course of the year.

Claude Rosenberg died three years ago at age 80, with his message to the super-rich essentially totally ignored. The vast increase in charitable giving by the rich he had hoped to inspire never materialized.

So what is the message to the rest of us from Rosenberg's noble effort?

The excess wealth our ultra wealthy hold, if put to the public good, could change the trajectory of America's future. The ultra-wealthy don't seem to be willing to do that on their own. But with a few tweaks of our tax code, we could do that for them.

Photo: Screen shot from YouTube video "Wall Street Mocks Protesters By Drinking Champagne."

Shame on the Supreme Court!

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:55:00 +0000

Clearly the anti-democratic, corrupt right-wing majority on the Supreme Court is again laying plans to nullify the election of a Democratic president. The court has decided to "review" the historic Obama health care reform act solely on the grounds that its "mandate" for nearly universal coverage "has no legitimate constitutional foundation," in the words of Ron Paul.

This assertion is nonsense and has no constitutional precedent. Congress has passed a zillion laws "mandating" universal compliance with behaviors and protections that serve the national interest. The commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution unambiguously declares: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."

Everyone needs health care at some point. The costs of charity, instead of universal coverage and participation, simply shifts costs to others whose premiums go up to cover the cost of free riders. It is no different than a selfish and narcissistic person refusing to pay for a local fire house on the foolish assertion that his house won't ever burn down, so he shouldn't pay for putting out a fire at someone else's home.

But look beyond the false legal arguments. They are all flim flam, a cover for blatant and truly unconstitutional interference by the Judiciary in the political process. If the "mandate" provision of the Affordable Health Care Act (AHA) is struck down, the entire effort to reform health care becomes unaffordable and the Republicans are handed a big stinking fish to foul the political waters just six months before the election. The fish is no less rotten than the infamous Citizens United decision that has empowered the rich and corporations to corrupt the political process anonymously and without financial limit.

Millions of jobless and underemployed youth who rely upon the AHA to keep them covered under their parents' policies will be thrown off. Working people will be denied coverage for a host of pre-existing conditions for which, thanks to AHA, they are now covered. Caps and impossible co-pays on chronic illnesses barred under AHA will be eliminated, and tens of thousands left to fend for themselves, or die. Exchanges designed to bring coverage to the 25-30 percent unable to afford care in most states will be stopped in their tracks. Workers whose existing plans have been under steady attack with higher and higher premiums, co-pays and deductibles - and cherry-picked coverage - will see no bottom to this trend. People of color, women, the poor, immigrants and youth will be the chief victims.

The same Supreme Court that reversed the will of the American people in the Bush-Gore election, that stood by and allowed the state of Texas to become a charnel house of executions, that sanctions prisons and arrests of refugees, that continues to undercut the rights of women to control their own bodies, and that nullifies democracy at every turn in favor of corporate interests - now boldly removes its cloak of impartiality to become a sordid adjunct to the Republican political machine.

Shame. Shame. Shame.

To my Republican friends in the health insurance, pharmaceutical and medical professions that may be misled into thinking this will be a boon to your economic interests, I advise a word of caution. Do not cut off your nose to spite your face. The Obama Health Reform is the best deal you are going to get to enact a mixed private/public health care system. If you succeed in killing it again - now for the second time, counting the effort by the Clintons in 1994 - you may be certain the movement will in short order be resurrected again! Except next time the lesson learned will be - there is no point in engaging in compromise with the private side of the system: if you want health care, the warrants will be issued to put its enemies out of business for good - and perhaps arrest some judges too. The New York Times concludes correctly: "All of these issues are best resolved in the political system, not the courts. The Supreme Court ought to show judicial restraint, adhere to precedent and uphold the constitutionality of health care reform."

You can't evict the 99 percent !

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:05:00 +0000

One after the other, city governments across the country have been ordering their police departments to evict protesters in the Occupy Wall Street encampments.

They have used, as their excuse, concerns about violence and public safety.

The protests, which have been going on now for two full months, have been overwhelmingly peaceful and crime-free.

The demonstrators are exercising their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly. New York's billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, makes the ludicrous claim that through discussion groups in the park and not by camping out, demonstrators can make their point.

Staying put - whether it be by sitting in, teaching in, or sleeping in - is a time-honored form of protest. Often, as is the case with Occupy Wall Street, it draws attention to injustice in a dramatic fashion unlike any other form of protest.

The Occupy Wall Street encampments have captured both the imagination and the support of the American people. To forcibly dismantle them is to infringe on the constitutional rights of everyone. Those rights supersede local ordinances governing activity in city parks.

However, the Occupy movement has to take a sober look at the viability of encampments going forward. Concerns range from the winter weather to public fatigue to the safety issues that do exist in the encampments.

While public opinion supports the 99% movement, it doesn't support any kind of crime or violence in the camps or towards the police. Any case of violence, sexual assault or other crimes does a huge disservice to the Occupy movement. There is no justification for it.

In the end, the Occupy movement is fighting for something much more important than what piece of what public park they can sleep in. A movement cannot just use one form of protest either.

The Occupy movement is a reflection of the demands by millions of Americans that they, the 99% majority, can sleep in a house with a roof over their heads, and have gainful employment.

The protest is a reflection of the demands of millions for a fair share of the wealth they produce.

The protest reflects the concerns of the 99% majority in our country.

Breaking up the encampments will not stop the movement. In both Chicago and New York, for example, there is talk of even expanding the protests as winter sets in by occupying foreclosed properties and homes.

Certainly, the next step is to build for the November 17 day of action to celebrate Occupy's two-month anniversary. There are activities scheduled all over. To join in, participate and help organize, click here.

We are living through the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. As they did, during those years, the people are fighting back again.

The people's movements in the 1930s - and the 1960s - did not stop when city governments told them they were violating various ordinances. They organized and fought on, and shifted the entire country in a new direction.

This is precisely what is happening with Occupy Wall Street and all the labor and people's movements today.