People Before Profit blog

What do trade deals have to do with the Occupy movement?

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:45:00 +0000

On Monday, October 24, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon signed a $4.4 billion trade deal with the worlds' fastest growing economy, China.

At about the same time, activists from Occupy St. Louis were meeting to discuss an up-coming Union Appreciation Day, where local unions and Occupy activists plan to barbecue, host educational workshops and collectively discuss the role of the labor movement.

What do these two seemingly different events - the China trade deal and the Occupy movement - have in common?

For starters, both in their own way, directly confront the most pressing issue of the day. Let me explain.

Governor Nixon's export agreement with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade is expected to spur Missouri's long-term economic growth by opening doors to the Chinese market.

According to published statements, the governors' motives are pretty cut-and-dry: This is about jobs!

As Governor Nixon, a moderate democrat seeking re-election next year, said, "When Missouri businesses sell more goods overseas, it creates jobs at home and moves our economy forward."

Nixon has also negotiated separate individual trade deals with various Chinese provinces; both the Zhejiang and Hebei provinces' have signed $200 million trade deals with the Show-Me-State, making the total trade deal worth $4.8 billion.

The Governor's initiative is a welcomed change, especially as the Republican-dominated Missouri Legislature has failed twice this year to pass jobs legislation.

First, the Republican-dominated House and Senate spent the entire regular Legislative Session (January through May) attempting to pass legislation that would hurt working families - anti-union, so-called 'Right-to-Work' and 'Pay-check Protection' legislation, attacks on Missouri's minimum wage, attacks on Missouri's Non-Discrimination Act, attacks on child labor laws, etc.

But, not one single jobs bill.

Second, the Republican-dominated House and Senate spent the past 50 days in Legislative Special Session (at a cost of $280,000 to tax payers), and have nothing to show for it!

Initially, hopes were high. Legislation creating incentives for the construction of a China Hub at St. Louis' Lambert International Airport and a 'Made in Missouri' jobs bill were both on the table. An estimated 15,000 jobs would have been created - many of which would have been good-paying union jobs.

Unfortunately though, the Republican 26-8 majority in the Senate and 105-54 majority in the House - the largest Republican majority in Missouri history - blocked the jobs initiatives, and dashed the hopes of thousands of Missouri residents desperate for work in these tough economic times.

Tragically, the Republicans aren't just obstructing the creation of jobs here in Missouri.

All over the country - in state Houses and in Washington D.C. - the Republicans and their tea party pals are standing in the way of progress, and in the process smashing the hopes and dreams of the American people - the 99 percent the Occupy movement represents.

As the Occupy St. Louis folks, and their union and community supporters would say, wealth is concentrated in too few hands. The rich are getting richer. The poor are getting poorer. And the economy isn't working for working people.

In fact, I've personally talked with an unemployed carpenter, an unemployed Iraq War veteran and numerous unemployed youth at Occupy St. Louis. I've talked with union leaders who have seen thousands of their members laid-off. I've talked with families desperate for relief as they rally outside of Bank of America demanding a moratorium on foreclosures.

And every single person I've talked with wants the same thing. A J-O-B!

So while the connection isn't immediately apparent, the Occupy movement has at least one thing in common with Governor Jay Nixon's export trade agreement with China: Jobs!

Connecting this spontaneous grassroots upsurge - the Occupy movement - with the very real impact mainstream politics and politicians have on our families, our future and our lives is probably the most important thing we can do right now.

Channeling this energy, where possible, into the 2012 elections could make all the difference in the world. It could break the Republican and tea party gridlock on progress.

The Occupy movement connected to and collaborating with the labor movement, community organizations, youth and student groups, the African American community, and people of faith can take back our country and show the Republican and tea party obstructionists that we are the mainstream of American politics, that we are the 99 percent, and that we aren't going to take it anymore!

The wind is on our backs. The momentum is shifting.

Occupy movement can win with nonviolence

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:52:00 +0000

Wisconsin state police earlier this year escorted protestors into the state capitol so they could sit-in and sleep-in, in an act of non-violent civil disobedience. Police could just as easily have blocked demonstrators from entering, by any means necessary.

Why this course of action by state police in Wisconsin? After all, it could easily be argued that police and firefighters, whom Republican Governor Scott Walker had exempted from his attack on public employees, had no immediate incentive to cooperate with demonstrators. But they did.

They understood that in broad unity lay the secret to victory for all: "An injury to one is an injury to all." They understood they would be next on the chopping block.

Now, obviously no such gesture can be expected from the Oakland Police Department, which has an ugly history of use of excessive force in African American, Latino, Asian American and Native American communities in Oakland.

The latest tragedy inflicted on Iraq veteran Scott Olsen, a peaceful man, by Oakland cops is becoming a galvanizing moment to root out right-wing and racist elements long embedded in the city's police department.

We can expect no less from public officials and even from forces within the police department itself who recognize they are part of the "99 percent," as filmmaker Michael Moore so aptly pointed out recently at Occupy Oakland.

But in order to win this battle, we - Occupy Oakland - must remain strictly nonviolent in our acts of civil disobedience.

To be sure, the Occupy Oakland movement has conducted itself in the spirit of non-violent civil disobedience of two American legendary giants, the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Cesar Chavez.

Any effort by a tiny minority to break the unity of action of our movement must be repelled.

Anything short of strict nonviolence will play into the hands of the right-wingers in the police department, and into the hands of Wall Street.

There is nothing Wall Street and right-wingers at all levels of government would love more than to have today's public anger against them turn into its very opposite.

When engaging in civil disobedience, let's employ non-violent tactics that will galvanize broad unity with the people of Oakland and nation.

Tactics that will win over even misguided working people and students influenced by Fox television and other media outlets at the service of Wall Street and the far right.

To the extent we succeed in isolating Wall Street and the right wing from the masses of the people of Oakland and the nation, to that extent victory will be ours, the "99 percent."

Occupy Oakland, let's not squander this moment.

Let's keep our eyes on the prize.

Photo: (Marilyn Bechtel/PW)

What does the U.S. working-class look like these days?

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:29:00 +0000

When did your family arrive in the U.S.? Some of my ancestors came from parts of Eastern Europe around 125 years ago. Others came from parts of Western Europe before our civil war. They were pretty much all various shades of white, although some had strong, Asian-looking Slavic features.

Peoples have been arriving on the North American continent for thousands of years, over land bridges and across oceans, some on foot. Some came as adventurers, some were dragged from their homes and sold here as if they were farm animals, some were lured with false promises, some fled famine or pogroms.

I live in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. This is an area near the old meatpacking plants written about by journalist Upton Sinclair in The Jungle. Workers at these plants came from all the immigrant pools as they arrived and from the sons of former slaves who migrated north (see Bill Duke's powerful 1985 film, The Killing Floor). It was a struggle for union organizers to get information out in all the languages spoken by the workers.

The Irish who arrived here were canal diggers and the story of them and their families was movingly told by Virginia Warner Brodine in her novel, Seed of the Fire.

Some of my neighbors in this working-class section of Chicago are recent arrivals and some are third, fourth and umpteen generations here. According to the real estate section of the big newspaper (often a good source of information) the largest ethnic population here is Mexican and the fastest growing is Chinese. Actually, Asian Americans as a whole are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population.

I see by the AFL-CIO Now Blog a new report is out that "shreds stereotypes of Asian Americans." Does it ever! This is something we all should be reading. The name of the report is "Community of Contrasts: Asian Americans in the United States." A downloadable PDF of the 68-page report is available at the website of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice.

I found some of the more important sections of the report to be the ones dealing with poverty, voter registration and union membership, extremely important issues for all organizers and activists in our political process.

The blog's author, Adele Stan, also provides information on the work of the AFL-CIO constituency group APALA (Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance). The group's work includes everything from rallying small business owners in Ohio to oppose Ohio's anti-labor bill SB5 to working with some 800,000 Asian Pacific American workers represented by public sector unions. (The Community of Contrasts report highlights the benefits of union membership for Asian Americans, just as it is for all workers.)

As has always been the case in this country of immigrants, many Asian Americans are immigrants, some with children born here and some who were brought here themselves as children. They have been studying and working hard here and need a fair path to citizenship, especially the children. According to the report, one in 10 of the youth qualifying for the DREAM Act is Asian American.

Well, here we all are now and it's 2011. Workers are fighting to organize unions and to protect collective bargaining. Young people and retirees, unemployed workers and those who've lose their home in foreclosures are Occupying Wall Street and dozens of other places across the country. We need to know and understand where we came from, how we got here, and our common interests, all of us in the 99 percent.

Photo:At a WageTheft protest by the San Francisco Progressive Workers Alliance and supporters, part of National Day of Action against Wage Theft initiated by Interfaith Worker Justice. In Nov. 2010 Marilyn Bechtel/PW

A common sense plan to end homelessness among veterans

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:43:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - The other day, a military veteran told me he was just out of the service and was homeless. He asked how he could resolve this situation.

That started me thinking. It occurred to me that the government, specifically the Veterans Administration should make available to all veterans that are homeless, as well as their accompanying immediate family, temporary free housing on inactive military bases in the United States, until they are able to find a job and affordable housing. This is the least we can do for the men and women that have been in the service of the country. And for the new veterans, who are returning to find an unemployment crisis like never before. They could receive job training as well to help them transition.

Of course the question is how to pay for this in this period of low government revenue caused by the tax breaks given to the millionaires, the banks, the corporations and the Wall Street stock transactions and by a military budget that takes more than half of all discretionary spending in our federal budget.

The obvious answer is raise the taxes significantly for those mentioned above and reduce the inflated military budget.

Given the fact that the majority of our representatives in Congress don't want to tax the groups above, it seems to me that since there are only about 200 countries in the world and we have over 750 U.S. military bases spread among these foreign countries we could close many of these down with out losing any defense capability and bring those troops home to bases located here at home. This would be a huge savings that would still pay for the active military and also pay for the emergency veteran and family temporary housing program.

Keeping military bases in foreign countries is very expensive and we don't need all 750 - really more than that - given the technology we now have in order to maintain defense.

Close down the redundant bases abroad and give veterans and their families some respect and dignity is what I say.

Photo: This Iraq veteran lives under a bridge. Color was added by photographer. (Big Grey Mare/CC)

Labor history conferees examine role of Communist Party USA

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:17:00 +0000

DETROIT -- The 2011 North American Labor History Conference at Wayne State University covered a wide variety of topics which centered on the growing focus over both current and past struggles for equality and justice.

With topics ranging from guest worker programs, which point out the hypocrisy of business' support for stricter immigration legislation, to discussions of former mayor Richard Daley's work in Chicago to break teachers' unions, the conference offered a valuable look into the labor movement from the literary and researching fields.

The conference was held at Wayne State University near downtown Detroit, surrounded by working class neighborhoods and suburbs. The NALHC is held annually to support and promote the field of labor studies.

I was given the opportunity to speak at this conference on my study of the Communist Party USA's work in labor unions during the 1930s, as part of a comparison to struggles we see around us today. My research emphasized the importance of re-evaluating the level of integration and support the CPUSA gave to working Americans, as opposed to a narrow view of the party as an organization supporting foreign powers.

Well received and noted by varying attendees, the panel on Leftist Union Activity (which mine was on) was the most attended panel of the entire conference, overfilling the room it was booked for.

The conference also had a wide variety of topics and lectures of equal importance on other issues throughout American history.

A panel on the migrant Guest Worker programs focused on highly skilled South and Central Americans brought into the United States to work. Befitting this portrayal of labor being brought in despite tensions over immigration, panelists emphasized that "Capital, as Marx put it, wants to generate a dedicated wage labor army in abundance."

Other panelists compared shifts in other economies, such as Japan and Europe.

Lastly, the conference concluded with a great panel focused on Mexican immigration and working-class immigrants. Panels covered the rise of Mexican labor following the 1915 Mexican Revolution and its effect on Mexican culture in subsequent years; the tensions between the rights of men and women in the Mexican workforce; and the fascinating history of street-vendors throughout Mexico who fought for union protection during the 1970s.

As surveyors and supporters of labor, it is our duty to support and champion efforts such as the NALHC's for their desire to continue to shed light on the importance of labor within historical and sociological fields.

The NALHC was very much like Dr. Jack Metzgar's Working Class Studies Association conference held in June of 2011, which invited labor groups from all over the United States. It is efforts like these which drive the cause of labor to some of its most fundamental roots: education.

Photo: A crowd of 20,000 Communists and "radical" supporters rally at Union Square in New York City on May 1, 1930, demanding relief for the unemployed. (AP Photo)

Occupy Wall Street is too big to jail

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:19:00 +0000

Painfully, the nation has watched, during the last 48 hours, as police departments in Oakland, Atlanta and elsewhere used excessive force against thousands of peaceful demonstrators.

The disturbing scenes of women, children, seniors and even disabled people running under clouds of tear gas and being hit by flash grenades and rubber bullets are reminiscent of attacks in the middle of the last century against civil rights and antiwar demonstrators. The scenes are hard to stomach, also, because they look too much like what is happening today in the streets of Damascus, Syria.

The vicious crackdowns are an assault on democracy and they endanger the public safety. In Atlanta and Oakland both, as in cities elsewhere, many of the demonstrators who were attacked are people who have lost their homes, their jobs or the vital services they require just to keep going every day.

We applaud statements by the leadership of the AFL-CIO and by unions and their allies all over the country that have condemned these attacks. We urge the elected officials in the cities involved to call a halt to the violation of the democratic rights of their people.

Our best wishes and prayers go out to Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen who was critically injured in Oakland after being hit by a police projectile at the rally in that city on Oct. 25.

In addition to violating democratic rights, repression by city governments serves to take the focus off the main culprit here: the banks and big corporations of Wall Street.

When a mayor in Oakland, Atlanta, Chicago or elsewhere orders police to break up a peaceful demonstration the focus is shifted from people vs. Wall Street to people vs. the police.

Occupy Wall Street became powerful and continues to grow because it fights for the rights of hundreds of thousands who have lost their homes to live inside a warm comfortable house. Opponents of the movement would like nothing more than to reduce Occupy Wall Street to a fight between the police and several hundred who want to spend the night out on the streets.

If history is any guide, the "1 percent" will attempt to dampen this movement of the 99 percent. The methods of the 1 percent will include ordering police to break up peaceful demonstrators. The methods of the 1 percent include the sending-in of provocateurs to trigger violence.

The encouraging thing, however, is that Occupy Wall Street, against all the original, "official" expectations, has spread around the world and continues to grow.

It is not the Wall Street banks, but rather the 99 percent, that are too big to fail.

Photo: Iraq vet Scott Olsen critically injured by police at Occupy Oakland. Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Manufacturing jobs coming back to the U.S.? What’s the catch?

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:08:00 +0000

If you're out of work, you may have been heartened by news of recent reports that manufacturing jobs are coming back to the U.S.! The big-name Boston Consulting Group issued a report titled "Made in America Again: Why Manufacturing Will Return to the U.S."

But the key word in the title is why. And the reasons they give will make a jobless worker's guts churn.

Here is a telling quote from the report comparing what's happening now in China (the country often blamed for U.S. joblessness) to the declining working conditions here:

Rising wages, shipping costs and land prices - combined with a strengthening renminbi [China's currency] - are rapidly eroding China's cost advantages. The U.S. meanwhile is becoming a lower-cost country. Wages have declined or are rising only moderately. The dollar is weakening. The workforce is becoming increasingly flexible. Productivity growth continues.

So manufacturing businesses should consider coming back to the U.S. because now U.S. workers will do more for less? And the "beholding-to-billionaires" Republican governors are leading the way in trying to trash collective bargaining? This is good news?

Here's the way the report ends: "As long as it provides a favorable investment climate and flexible labor force, the U.S. can look forward to a manufacturing renaissance." It makes one wonder who they think the U.S. is? The people who do the work or the people who make the profits? Kind of reminds you of the 99 percent versus 1 percent protests.

When the report was released in August, it received positive attention in the major media as some kind of hopeful sign for millions of out-of-work Americans. But the invaluable news source Remapping Debate (the folks who like to ask why and why not) did an in depth analysis of "Made in America" that is worth reading for everyone who is unemployed and by anyone with a job today but worrying about tomorrow.

The Remapping Debate findings are present in "Looking beneath a consulting firm's facade of objectivity," by Mike Alberti. That report quotes Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO's Industrial Union Council, a guy who knows whereof he speaks: "Free market advocates like BGC have no sense of national interest. They're in it for the profit."

So no point in holding our breath waiting for business to "solve" the jobs crisis that they in fact created. This puts even more emphasis on the need for a federal jobs program to hire millions of unemployed to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure that relocated companies stuck us with. Until a new version of the successful jobs programs of the 1930s can be won, the best use of our time and energy is to make sure the president's American Jobs Act passes.

Photo: Line at jobs fair, Sept. 15, in Portland, Ore. Several thousands attended the one-day event. (Rick Bowmer/AP)

Do plutocrats need to worry about potholes?

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:30:00 +0000

NEW YORK - One luxury automaker is betting big that America's most affluent feel no responsibility to the greater society crumbling all around them.

Audi, the automaker, has a new ad campaign out; you may have seen its TV spot. The new campaign is running full-page newspaper ads as well. Who's Audi targeting? People of means, obviously. The targets are people who can afford, even in the Great Recession, a $50,000-plus automobile.

The affluent already have, of course, plenty of choices, and that makes life rather difficult for luxury carmakers like Audi. They need ever-fresher messages to attract the wealthy into their showrooms. And Audi now has one.

In Audi's new ad campaign, you won't find any clichéd references to "tasteful hand-finished appointments," or "head-turning style." Audi ripped its new sales message straight from Forbes and Wall Street Journal headlines that scream "budget crisis" and "government funding cutbacks."

"The roads are underfunded by $450 billion," the Audi message pronounces. "With the right car, you may never notice."

Subtle? No. Powerful? Yes. Audi is speaking straight to the anxieties of America's affluent - and offering a reprieve from an increasingly revolting reality. Sure, the new Audi ads acknowledge that the country really is falling apart. Potholes everywhere. But you don't have to worry. You can buy your way out, with their comfortable car.

As a "successful" person, the Audi ads preach, you have a responsibility only to yourself. What about those shrinking highway maintenance budgets? Not your problem. And you, as a person of means, certainly shouldn't have to pay any more in taxes to get those potholes fixed. You've made it - you can afford a car smart enough to dodge any pothole those crumbling roads throw at you.

Michael Halloran heard this message loud and clear when he read the Audi ad in the New York Times. Halloran, a past president of the Rhetoric Society of America, who teaches communications theory and practice, pays fairly close attention to the rhetorical appeals that regularly bombard us.

Halloran also, with a little jiggling of his "spending habits," could afford the new "smart" A6 luxury model Audi is now pushing. "I could enjoy the temperature-controlled leather seats and state-of-the-art audio system," he noted earlier this month, "while letting the Audi quattro drive system, Google Earth navigation system, and Audi drive select system take care of our crumbling roads."

But Halloran is passing up the Audi opportunity. He'd rather, as an affluent American, pay "more in taxes to get started on a serious effort to fix our deplorable roads." Why?

"For one thing," Halloran explains, "neither Audi nor any other car manufacturer has yet developed a soft-landing system to protect me from a bridge collapse. For another, I have grandchildren, and I'd rather not bequeath to them an America bidding for third-world status."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agrees. The 5.6 percent surcharge on income over $1 million that Reid proposes would raise the tax bill of only the wealthiest 0.2 percent of Americans, a Citizens for Tax Justice analysis shows. In only one state, Connecticut, would as many as one percent of taxpayers face a higher tax bill. In over half of the nation's states - 27, to be exact - the surcharge proposal would impact only the richest 0.1 percent of taxpayers.

Yet the Senate GOP talked the surcharge, and President Obama's jobs bill, including its section to rebuild the roads, to death. Why? Because the surcharge would pay for the repairs, and much more. Reid vows to try again.

Demos think tank analyst Dianne Stewart notes that affluent Americans like Michael Halloran "think of themselves not merely as taxpayers, but as citizens, and they view taxes not just as dollars out of their pockets, but as civic capital that finances America's quality of life."

Back in the mid-20th century, a time of much greater income equality in the U.S., most affluent Americans felt that way. The 1950s rich faced tax rates much higher than the rich do today, and yet, as the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell noted last month, they "paid their taxes and went about their business."

"The wealthy of that era," Gladwell adds, "could have pushed for a world that more closely conformed to their self-interest and they chose not to."

Our wealthy today face the same choice. They can pay more in taxes or let budget cuts continue to decimate our roads, our public schools and hospitals, our firefighters, and police.

Audi's betting, suggests Diane Stewart of Demos, that today's affluent will "simply buy the cars, the school tuition, the health care, and the private security services that will allow them not to notice the giant holes in local, state, and federal budgets."

Plenty of nationally prominent politicos in the U.S. are essentially making that same bet. If they win, we all lose, even the affluent.

"In the long run," as Theodore Roosevelt, then a former president, told his fellow Americans back in 1912, "this country will not be a good place for any of us to live unless it is a reasonably good place for all of us to live in."

Teddy will likely never make it into an Audi ad.

Photo: An employee of the German carmaker Audi inspects an Audi A6 Avant model at the end of production line in Neckarsulm, Germany, in this Jan. 21, 2005 file picture. (AP Photo/Thomas Kienzle)

Suspicions confirmed: It’s lack of demand, stupid!

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:17:00 +0000

Lack of demand, not government regulation, is the big problem with the economy.

People who are unemployed or underemployed, those who've lost their homes in foreclosure - even those who have a job today but worry about tomorrow - all have greatly cut back on their spending.

If there were any doubt, this is confirmed by findings from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank that since the recession began in 2007 we spent $7,300 less per person (in inflation adjusted dollars).

In the Chicago neighborhood where I live, the main shopping streets have more closed-up storefronts than open ones. The resale shops and dollar stores do a brisk business. And I frequently see "recyclers" picking through the trash containers for cans to sell for cash at the scrap metal yards.

Having less money to spend results in less spending. Less spending means some small businesses won't make it at all, and larger, more substantial businesses will make cutbacks. It all ends up as more people out of work.

Yet beholden-to-billionaires, right-wing Republicans blame everything on government regulations, either existing regulations on business or proposed regulations, such as those on greenhouse gas emissions.

It's always good to have someone in authority confirm what we have long suspected. On Oct. 25, Dr. Jan Eberly, Assistant Treasury Secretary for Economic Policy, presented hard data showing lack of demand for their products, not government regulation, is what keeps businesses from creating jobs:

If regulatory uncertainty was a major impediment to hiring right now, we would expect to see indications of this in one or more of the following: business profits; trends in the workforce, capacity utilization, and business investment; differences between industries undergoing significant regulatory changes and those that are not; differences between the United States and other countries that are not undergoing the same changes; or surveys of business owners and economists...none of these data support the claim that regulatory uncertainty is holding back hiring.

The full report, including graphs and references, is here.

Even the Wall Street Journal, in a survey of economists, found that about two thirds of the respondents agreed that a lack of demand, not government policy, was the reason for not hiring.

These findings bring up two immediate issues: getting the millions of unemployed in this country back to work, and fighting for important, beneficial regulations while opposing wanton deregulation.

Across the U.S. today, thousands and thousands are rallying and marching, visiting elected officials and testifying at hearings and town halls. Participants include students and retirees, union workers and jobless, first responders and teachers, farmers and small business owners, immigrants and DREAMers. This impatient army can succeed in getting the American Jobs Act passed and getting people back to work now.

Troops coming home from Iraq - can Afghanistan be next?

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:54:00 +0000

President Obama's announcement Oct. 21 that all U.S. troops still deployed in Iraq will come home by the end of 2011 is very welcome news.

Where once some 160,000 U.S. soldiers were in Iraq, now about 40,000 remain.

Since the Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003 based on a cluster of lies, a million U.S. troops have served there. Over 4,400 died and 32,000 were wounded, many with injuries they will suffer for a lifetime.

The war's costs so far to the U.S. are estimated at $1 trillion - a sum that could have kept thousands of public workers including teachers and health workers on the job, repaired vast amounts of crucial infrastructure, and more. Many of the costs are not yet calculated, including those for the future care of veterans.

The war's consequences for the Iraqi people have been catastrophic. Estimates are that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died. Millions more have become refugees in neighboring countries. Countless communities have been destroyed; strife among Shiites and Sunnis, Arabs and Kurds has intensified. Some Iraqi politicians blame the U.S. invasion for driving the country toward civil war.

Efforts by the Obama administration and some in Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's government to have several thousand U.S. troops remain after Dec. 31 reportedly foundered on U.S. insistence that its troops be immune from prosecution under Iraqi law.

The Iraqis' rejection of this condition would appear totally justified, given the record of abuse and murder of Iraqi civilians by both U.S. troops and contractors.

It is also worth noting that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is the largest embassy in the world. The State Department says some 5,000 security contractors will remain in the country to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities around the country.

As important as the troop withdrawal is what happens to them after they leave. Will they go now to Afghanistan? Will they serve in some other location abroad?

Or will they, and the funds needed to deploy and maintain them, come home, where funds and people can be employed instead to build a truly 21^st century network of education, health care, child care, affordable homes and human services for all?

We hope withdrawal from Iraq will be a giant step toward full withdrawal of all troops and contractors from Afghanistan and adoption of a U.S. foreign policy based on cooperation and development aid, not on dispatching "military advisers," troops and military contractors to locations around the world.

The next step will require a vast movement of all who seek a world of peace, economic and social justice.

Photo: Father and soldier son reunited at a homecoming ceremony in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette/AP)

TV’s Supernatural: A horror-drama about real family values

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:53:00 +0000

Supernatural is a horror-drama series that centers on two brothers, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles). Part of a family of 'hunters,' the two travel the country in Dean's car, a black Impala, set to a soundtrack of classic rock and heavy metal, pursuing the "family business." In other words, this means hunting monsters and saving countless lives in small towns throughout the U.S.

Now in its seventh season, the show elaborates, through its stories, on America's rich history of folklore and urban legends, with the Winchesters hunting everything from vampires and demons, to werewolves, to more obscure things like shapeshifters and haunted ships.

The brothers are often joined by a motley crew of supporting characters, including Bobby (Jim Beaver), a good-natured man who runs an auto repair shop, and Castiel (Misha Collins), an angel who rebelled against the dogmatic ideas of Heaven.

Throughout Supernatural's run, the show has served as a vehicle for commentary on family values, working class ideas, and particularly a firm stance against religion (the characters have always advocated "free will," as opposed to spiritual ideas like destiny or divine intervention).

In fact, many episodes have made bold and powerful statements against religion and politics that few other shows have dared make.

A great example lies in this year's seventh season opener, in which Castiel, assuming the role of God, begins setting things right in the world. One of these includes dismantling the Westboro Baptist Church and defending LGBT rights ("God is indifferent to sexual orientation," Castiel claims). The second involves the angel attacking the campaign office of one 'Michelle Walker,' who has "caused people in poverty to suffer in God's name." 'Michelle Walker,' of course, was a play on Republican politicians Michelle Bachman and Scott Walker.

In addition to tapping into the zeitgeist of modern America, Supernatural carries emotional volume unrivaled by almost any other series and focuses on the importance of family and friendship in a time when most shows have taken morally ambiguous routes.

Interestingly, the series has a very down-to-earth, all-American format, exploring the rich cultures of rural or small town areas. However, the writers are able to achieve philosophical depth and analysis within this basic, relatable context. Supernatural has questioned everything from the nature of a human soul (and how one can define existence and freedom of choice) to the very structure of humanity and how no choice we make may ever be perfect.

"What would you rather have, Dean?" says Castiel in the critically acclaimed finale of the fifth season. "Peace...or freedom?"

As for the stories, they are always well-executed and even unnerving. With a limited makeup and special f/x budget, the show has done bold and convincing things with monsters, particularly with the latest team of dark creatures the brothers must contend with: leviathans.

No matter how dark or chilling the events of the show get, it always falls back on an important thing: the bond of family, and what either of the brothers is willing to do to save the other. Supernatural is a show with heart at its core, and it is this that drives and molds the stories in each episode, and draws viewers back in, season after season.

"It's always been a show about family," said series creator Eric Kripke. In fact, he elaborated, "The mythology is an engine to raise issues about family. A big brother watching out for a little brother, family loyalty versus the greater good, family obligation versus personal happiness...These are all issues that [Sam and Dean face], and in my opinion, they are just as rich, if not richer, than [stories about] psychic children and demonic plans. It's always going to be a show about brothers."

Meanwhile, we are taught, through powerful metaphor, and sometimes satire, that Heaven and angels may be little more than idealism in the long run, and that what matters is right here on Earth, in the people around us.

Dean Winchester has sacrificed everything to save his brother Sam and surrogate father Bobby, and continues to do so time and again throughout the series, indeed illustrating the significance of loyalty.

In short, his opinion ultimately describes the message of the show at large: He'll take the pain, he'll take the trials and tribulations that come along with the family business - because, it's about saving people; that's the reward in defeating monsters. And in the end, it's people - and family - who matter.

Photo: Sergei Bachlakov/The CW official Supernatural website.

Arctic drilling? Cain should not be able!

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:36:00 +0000

GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain wants to achieve energy independence in the U.S. He believes that to do so, we should tap into the oil reserves of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to the Fiscal Times. The same refuge that provides a home to countless species of wildlife, some of which are endangered. The same refuge that has trouble enough due to climate change, which is currently putting walruses at risk.

And, as someone who has witnessed firsthand the aftereffects of an oil spill, I believe we cannot simply cross our fingers and hope the drilling process goes smoothly. If something went wrong, it would destroy one of the most majestic ecosystems we have.

I took a trip out to the city of New Orleans this year, where, for the second time, I observed the damage done to close-knit communities on the bayou by the BP oil spill. The aftermath of the disaster has left working class people reeling, and trying to pick up the pieces - to say nothing of the unfathomable harm done to wildlife there.

The GOP's pro-oil 'Drill, Baby, Drill' campaign had quickly turned into 'Spill, Baby, Spill,' and both decent people and the environment paid the price for corporate greed.

Now, Cain has a campaign of his own: he calls it 'Drill Here, Drill Now.' Saying nothing of the potential harm his pursuits could inflict, he comments, "The area could yield billions and billions of barrels of recoverable oil. It's as if the answer to energy independence is close at hand, but excessive regulations and environmental extremists who influence timid legislators are holding America hostage to foreign oil."

Really? I hardly consider it extremism to be concerned for environmental safety, and remember vividly the images of oil-soaked pelicans, only some of which were lucky enough to survive. How long before 'Drill Here, Drill Now' leads to oil-soaked animals on the tundra?

Cain's decision to support drilling into the sensitive Arctic tundra is not only careless - it is ignorant. In keeping with that consistency, Cain also noted, in his book "This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House" that he believes solar and wind energy, as well as other green alternatives, have little to no potential.

"Even the Department of Energy's 'Billion Dollar Study' shows that [solar and wind energy] combined could at best provide only five percent of our total energy needs," Cain stated in a report by Politifact.

The Billion Dollar Study is a 2005 report by the U.S. Department of Energy, and focuses on biological material that can be used to create energy. It does not say what Cain claimed it did; rather, it mentions solar and wind energy in passing, and instead explores the possibility of replacing 30 percent or more of petroleum use in the U.S. with green materials.

Daniel Matisoff, who studied environmental policy at Virginia Tech, believed that we could be looking at not five, but 10 percent of our energy needs taken care of by solar and wind energy in the near future. "It's not just possible," Matisoff said. "It's likely."

Scientists also believe, said the report, that solar and wind energy can support many of the country's needs with the right policy and infrastructure changes.

My general feeling on Cain is that he doesn't believe America will ever be able to begin relying on green energy for sustainability. Funny then, how it is being implemented with a level of success in other countries.

However, getting back to the current problem at hand, I believe that we need to prevent, at all cost, a repeat of the BP oil spill. If the Right Wing and big business do not care about the wellbeing of this ecosystem, the working class has to act.

According to the Wilderness Society, "What's at stake is America's last great frontier, a vast land of wild tundra plains and epic migrations of caribou herds. From the boreal forests of the Porcupine River uplands to the slopes of the Brooks Range and the arctic tundra of the coastal plain, the Arctic Refuge contains a variety of landscapes that have sustained Gwich'in Native communities for thousands of years. This sanctuary also is vital to polar bears, musk oxen, caribou, fish and migratory birds. It is the crown jewel of the National Refuge System."

So at a time when I have personally experienced environment-destroying atrocities, and in the midst of climate change, when the fragile Arctic refuge is so vulnerable, I believe that Herman Cain should not be allowed to add to the damage already done by oil drilling.

Photo: An area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Wikipedia

Herman Cain: Defense of bigotry, the ultra rich and the ultra right

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:11:00 +0000

After watching the Republican debate one is left with the impression that the GOP candidates have been in a time capsule for 80 years. They want everything to be returned to the way it was under Herbert Hoover.

Capitalism should operate as it did before the New Deal; and race relations should go to the period before the 1960s.

The GOP candidates desire a time when U.S. imperialism was top dog and there was no social safety net, labor rights, and civil rights.

And what they want most of all is a time when there was no African American in the White House.

In this regard, Herman Cain, the black GOP candidate, is as right wing as the rest of them.

Perhaps because he is African American he seems to try even harder to prove to his Republicans cohorts he's as reactionary as they.

The almost totally white and wealthy Republican crowds at the debates just love him. The cruder he acts, the more he scoffs at not knowing what he should know, the more he acts likes a comic rather than a candidate for the highest office in the land, the more he slams Obama and other black leaders, and liberals, the more the right-wing Republican audiences adore him.

And the reason they love him most is because he absolves them of their deep-seated racist beliefs.

Cain's main role is to give a kind of seal of approval to the racism, and bigotry of the Republican Party and he does it well.

This is why he's now the frontrunner.

For example, Mr. Cain says "the tea party is not racist," despite the fact that the nation's largest civil rights organizations argue the contrary.

Said Cain, "A lot of these liberal, leftist folk in the country that are black, they're more racist than the white people that they're claiming to be racist," which is a prime case of blaming the victim if there ever was one.

Speaking of the president, Cain charges that Obama has never been part of the black experience in America.

He has also said that he was more "authentically black" than Obama.

Cain also said, "African Americans are generally on a level playing field with other Americans and sometimes use racism as an excuse for being poor.

If he is elected with this attitude, the question has to be raised: will he enforce civil rights laws?

On the Occupy Wall Street Movement Cain asked, "Why don't they just go get a job? What do they want these bankers to do? Write them a check?"

His advice is that they go protest at the White House, not on Wall Street.

On immigration, the black Republican called for the construction of an electrified fence on the Mexican border with high voltage to keep people out. When later challenged on this outrageous proposal he said, "It was a joke. America needs to get a sense of humor".

What kind of person much less the frontrunner for his party's presidential nomination makes a joke like that?

And then there is Cain's 999 flat tax proposals. It is estimated that it will mean $500,000 in tax break for millionaires and a 7 and a half tax hike for working people.

Not even one of the other Republican challengers supports Herman Cain's 999 tax program.

Cain also said that the reason black people vote Democratic is because they are brainwashed.

Needless to say, he is insulting African Americans with that statement.

Actually, as a group of voters, African Americans have been the most sophisticated in their tactics and the most consistently progressive in casting their votes.

Why would they embrace the Republicans when that party is doing everything they can to suppress the votes of blacks, Latinos and other Democratic voters?

African Americans don't vote Republican because the Republican Party has over the decades especially the last 30 years become the party of racism and reaction. And in a thousand ways they have put up the "Blacks are not welcome" sign on their front door.

Cain is not the first black to run for the GOP's nomination. There was also Allen Keys. He is however the first to lead in the polls among Republican voters. At the same time, he has less money and almost no organization compared to other "top tier" GOP hopefuls.

No one is predicting that he will win the nomination, not even Cain himself.

I'd say he has about as much chance of winning the Republican nomination as becoming the Exalted Cyclops of the KKK. Still if not challenged, he can do a lot of damage along the way.

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth: A mighty tree for civil rights

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:04:00 +0000

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth's church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed the first time on December 25th, 1956. It was bombed three times. In that first bombing, dynamite was placed right outside his bedroom window in the parsonage. Though it suffered severe damage, Rev. Shuttlesworth walked away unhurt. He immediately sent word to the Klan that nothing, including bombing, could make him move away or stop organizing.

Growing up in the South of the early 1960's, I have vivid memories of watching civil rights marches in Birmingham on TV. I marveled at the bravery and determination of the marchers as the fire hoses and police dogs were turned lose on them. But it wasn't until several years later that I learned Rev Shuttlesworth was leading them.

Rev. Shuttlesworth's fingerprints are all over the history of the Civil Rights movement. He was a founder with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Rev Joseph Lowery, Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin and many others of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Rev. Shuttlesworth also was a great leader of the earlier Southern Conference Education Fund (SCEF) that helped pioneer much of the civil rights movement in the 1940's, 50's and 60's. Heavily redbaited by racist anti-integration forces and political figures, SCEF refused to give in to the McCarthyite anti-communism of the day and remained a mainstay of the fight for civil rights and economic justice in the South.

Rev Shuttlesworth also helped lead many other important civil rights, economic and social justice organizations in the South. He was a founder, with Anne Braden, of the Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice, (SOC for short). I first met him when he was meeting and mentoring young folks from the Southern Student Organizing Committee, a group that worked on civil rights, anti-war, labor and economic justice issues throughout the South.

Later I saw him in action at early meetings of SOC in the 70's where he always played a role of calling for action and being blunt about who and what the movements were up against. His dogged determination to resist the powers of racism and inequality were legendary, as the Klan and the notorious "Bull" Conner learned in Birmingham. Along with his strong faith he stood in front of many an oppressor to lead in struggle. He will be missed. He helped jolt many into action that continue his fierce fight for justice and equality both today and tomorrow, until we win.

Senator Rubio's credibility gap

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:44:00 +0000

Senator Marko Rubio, R-Fla., is fighting back after he was exposed juicing up his official biography in order to appeal to the ultra-right. Rubio is known as a tea party Republican who wants to get rid of Medicare and cut back Social Security , according to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Rubio, recently elected to the Senate from Florida, has been touted in some quarters as a potential vice-presidential candidate on the Republican ticket in 2012, and The New York Times calls him "charismatic."

The Senator, however, has been exposed as claiming to be the son of Cuban exiles who had to flee the "evil regime of Fidel Castro" to find freedom in segregationist Florida. In fact his parents came over to the Sunshine State in 1956, before the Cuban revolution. So if they were escaping anyone it was Batista and his capitalist dictatorship.

But in Rubio's version, dished out to Florida voters and, until recently, a part of his official Senate biography, he said his "Cuban-born parents came to America following Fidel Castro's takeover." Well, that has been removed from his official bio when it was pointed out that Cuba was liberated from the Batista dictatorship in 1959 not 1956.

Rubio who once said about his parents that "They were immigrants, and they were also exiles. That is the essence of my story." The "essence" of his story turns out to be one big fat whopper - not easily digested. Called out on his "exiles" story Rubio said it was "outrageous" to think he might have, as the Times put it "embellished his family story for political advantage." Duh!

It seems he just got confused about the dates. He said that "In hindsight, I wish I had found out about the dates. But it was not relevant to the important narrative about what my experience was." Not important! The son of people fleeing communist "tyranny" or just the son of run of the mill immigrants looking for more moolah than they could make under the Batista dictatorship is "not relevant"?

But it is relevant. George Gonzalez, a Cuban-American teaching at the University Miami, is quoted in The New York Times as saying: "Every Cuban-American knows when their parents arrived and the circumstances under which they arrived. That's part of the Cuban exile experience, the political and psychological trauma of it. So the idea that he was murky on those ideas does not cut ice."

Most of them chose to come here so it's not really so much exile as becoming expats.

The people of Florida are stuck with this phony for six years, then they should dump him.

Support to repeal Ohio anti-labor bill grows

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:46:00 +0000

While the race had been tightening, recent developments have boosted chances that Senate Bill 5, the union-busting measure enacted this year by Ohio's Republican Gov. John Kasich and the Republican-dominated legislature, will be repealed in the Nov. 8 election. They include a stepped up mobilization by labor and its allies opposed to the law, revulsion at dirty tricks tactics of its supporters and the Occupy Wall Street movement that has spread to at least six cities in the state.

The measure appears as Issue 2 on the ballot and early voting began Oct. 5. In a Public Policy Polling survey released Oct. 19, 56 percent of voters reject the Issue, while 36 percent support the law to strip collective bargaining rights from 360,000 public employees in Ohio. While the margin for repeal had been as high as 24 percent, PPP reported the race had closed in August to 11 percent.

In response, We Are Ohio, the labor-community coalition heading the repeal effort, made urgent appeals for volunteers to cover phone banks and canvas voters door-to-door. A strong response has come especially over the past month from thousands of union members and their allies. The unions have also stepped up literature distributions by mail and at work sites.

In addition, unions and others including Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, have decorated neighborhoods with a multi-colored array of yard signs. The Cleveland Firefighters have a major mobilization planned for the traditional tailgate parties before this Sunday's Cleveland Browns game, including bagpipe brigades, literature and football-shaped stickers urging fans to vote no on Issue 2.

Protecting Ohio's Protectors, a coalition of safety forces, held press conferences earlier in the week to release a study showing that through collective bargaining public employees had made over $1 billion in concessions in the past few years and that they are in no way the cause of the budget crisis alleged by Kasich.

Much has also been made of the deceptive and desperate campaign of Building a Better Ohio, the law's supporters, who took footage of the elderly Marlene Quinn from a We Are Ohio ad calling for defeat in Issue 2 for an ad implying she supported the law.

In the ad, Quinn said she knew that the ability of firefighters to negotiate safe staffing levels was critical after her son and great granddaughter were saved in a fire. She said she felt "violated" that her words were "stolen and twisted" and demanded an apology, but Kasich said the misuse of the footage was "fine" with him.

This was in line with previous pro-Issue 2 ads aimed at confusing voters on the impact the law would have on public services. The same mindset was displayed by Republican former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, supposedly a deeply religious man, who told a group of Ohio Republicans supporting Issue 2 that if they found anyone opposed to the bill they should "make sure they don't go vote. Let the air out of their tires on election day. Tell them the election has been moved to a different date. That's up to you how you creatively get the job done."

Building a Better Ohio refused to denounce the statement despite appeals from the NAACP and a number of religious leaders that it was a blatant call for vote suppression.

"Huckabee's disgusting comments show that Building a Better Ohio and its corporate-funded supporters will do anything, even advocate for illegal tactics, to keep Ohioans from voting against Issue 2."

The Occupy Wall Street movement has opposed Issue 2 from the beginning and has galvanized mass anger at right-wing attacks on working people. Occupations are under way in Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, Youngstown and Cleveland, where occupiers set up a "working group" to help the effort to repeal SB 5.

Photo: Progress Ohio // CC 2.0

GOP insincerity shows when it comes to the environment

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:34:00 +0000

Republicans have rejected every single jobs measure since President Obama has been in office. They won the 2010 elections by saying they would cut spending, but they failed to mention a single specific program. Now, they are claiming that those programs, which win majority approval in every poll, are "job killers." The GOP agenda favors Wall Street to the detriment of the nation's needs. The Republican Party jobs program would work if we were willing to sacrifice our environment and our health, but most of us are not so willing; private sector jobs are important, but our democratic rights are more important.

Republicans, claiming concern for job loss, oppose regulations that are good for the country. Three of the Republican presidential candidates would severely weaken the EPA; each of the others would destroy it. Mitt Romney believes that the EPA should not regulate carbon emissions since he does not think "carbon is a pollutant in the sense of harming our bodies."

Rick Perry, who has taken $11 million from the oil and gas industries since 1998, would put polluters in charge of the EPA: "I'll tell you one thing: The EPA officials we have an opportunity to put in place, they're going to be pro-business, and there's not going to be any apologies to anybody about it. Those agencies won't know what hit 'em."

John Huntsman, a heavy investor in his family's Huntsman Corporation, said that the EPA is guilty of "gross regulatory overreach," and promised to "dramatically rein in the EPA" if elected.

Herman Cain says that he would eliminate the EPA because "it's out of control. Newt Gingrich ("I fought guys like you in WWII" - Representative Sam Gibbons) said that he would scrap the EPA and its regulations and replace it with an Environmental Solutions Agency that rewards innovation.

And Ron Paul's energy plan is to "eliminate the ineffective EPA. Polluters should answer to property owners in court for the damages they create - not to Washington."

According to a recent EPA Report, with extensive review and input from Council on Clean Air Analysis, the 1990 Clean Air Act, which reduced fine particle and ground level ozone pollution, will provide $2 trillion in economic benefits and save 230,000 people from early death in 2020. "The Clean Air Act's decades-long track record of success has helped millions of Americans live healthier, safer, and more productive lives," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. The 1990 Act, by preventing early death, heart attacks, and asthma attacks, and reducing the number of sick days for employees far exceed costs of implementing clean air protections. The EPA adds, "These benefits lead to a more productive workforce, and enable consumers and businesses to spend less on health care - all of which help strengthen the economy."

Private sector jobs are important, but government regulations that protect our environment, and physical and financial health, are more important (plus, the EPA and other regulatory agencies are sources of new jobs).

The EPA is responsible for enforcing the provisions of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. In 2010 alone, The EPA prevented more than 160,000 cases of early deaths, 130,000 heart attacks, 1.7 million asthma attacks, and 13 million lost work days.

The Clean Air Act protects us from cholera diseases that, in the past, plagued the country. In the middle of the 19th century, at the start of the U.S. industrial revolution, the factory pollution resulted in numerous deaths from typhoid fever, typhus, and cholera epidemics. If the Republicans succeed in closing down EPA rules and regulations, they would have driven the nation back more than 150 years.

When the EPA shuts down coal mines, the GOP pretends to go to the defense of jobless workers. However, if Republicans were sincere, they would call for green jobs and for extending and increasing unemployment benefits. They are not only insincere, but they ignore life-threatening health problems. Pollution due to burning coal (and oil) cuts short lives. A vote for the GOP is not a vote for ending future tragedies.

Photo: Progress Ohio // CC 2.0

Recent college graduates see lower wages

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:27:00 +0000

Even if President Obama's jobs plan were to be voted on and passed today, it will not overnight solve the problem that workers everywhere are suffering from the economic crisis and jobless "recovery." Some, however, fare better than others.

Since the end of World War II with the advent of the G.I. Bill, higher education has been touted as the means by which working class people can push themselves ahead and into the fabled "middle class." This has resulted in a dramatic increase in the enrollment of students in universities and colleges. These institutions have seen their numbers skyrocket since the recession began in 2008. After 60 years of this trend, one can test whether the hypothesis regarding the benefits of advanced education has proven true.

After World War II the truth of the theory was nearly self-evident. Workers who had bachelor's degrees in 1975 had an unemployment rate of 2.9 percent and made an average wage of $15.91 in today's dollars, well above the rate of their less educated counterparts. Likewise, in 1979, a male college graduate could expect wages around 20 percent higher than a male high school graduate, a gap that jumped to over 40 percent in 2000. For women, the advantage of a college degree in terms of real wages was significantly more.

Today, the trend seems to be declining. The average pay for those with bachelor's degrees has fallen from an hourly rate of $22.75 in 2000 to $21.77 in 2010 and they struggle with an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent. As the Economic Policy Institute reports, the average starting salary of young college graduates, adjusted for inflation, has dropped by almost a dollar in the last 10 years.

Compare this to CEO pay. In real terms, the median pay for an American CEO was $2,436,000 (or $1,171.15 per hour!) in 1989 and $10,775,000 by 2010. While the average worker in 2010 made $21.77 per hour, the CEO made $5,180.29! In 1965, CEO pay was 26 times that of their average worker. In 1980, it was 40 times. In 1989, it was 72 times. In 1999 it had risen to 310 times, according to a survey from the accounting firm Towers Perrin. Today, CEO pay has reached 500 times that of their workers.

Several factors account for the downward trend in college graduates' wages. First, high levels of unemployment mean that as more workers are looking for jobs, they become more willing to sell their labor to employers at discounted rates. When forced to choose between going to bed hungry and working for discounted wages, any reasonable worker will chose the latter. Employers have exploited this fact while simultaneously cutting or gutting benefits packages under the guise of "cost savings."

Many recent graduates have trouble getting into the workforce as they lack adequate experience. The high levels of unemployment disproportionately affect these workers in that they have an advanced degree (which formerly meant higher wages - not a favorable quality to profit-seeking employers) but little experience. Since there are millions more job seekers than just a few years ago, there are also less educated workers who have been in the field longer applying for the same position as the college educated. This encourages employers to hire those with more experience in order to continue to pay menial wages.

The lethal combination of tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt and the higher rate of unemployment for many means a myriad of tough choices.

For many it means begin forced to default on student loans (which not even bankruptcy can get rid of). The national two-year student default rate rose to 8.8 percent last year, from 7 percent in fiscal 2008, according to figures released by the Department of Education. Others have had to choose to move back in with their parents. Others are still having to make ends meet at jobs which in no way relate to their degree or field of study.

House Resolution 365, a bill that seeks to provide student loan debt forgiveness as a means of economic stimulus, has been proposed by Congressman Hansen Clarke, D-Mich., but is sure to go nowhere in today's austerity-happy Congress.

Despite all this, it is important to note that a college education still seems to be the right choice. As David Leonhardt of the New York Times shows:

Relative to everyone else, college graduates have never done better than they are doing right now. In absolute terms, of course, they too have been hurt by the deep recession that began in late 2007. But they have suffered much less, on average, than workers with less education. They have been less likely to lose their jobs, and their paychecks have survived the downturn much better.

The main lesson to take from all of this: Go to school, it is still worth it and it is loads of fun. But be prepared to join the struggle for jobs and for more support for students.

Photo: A banner at Occupy Philadelphia earlier this month. peoplesworld

Chicago exhibit shines light on communist art

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:44:00 +0000

"For many decades, communists were the only political group in South Africa who were prepared to treat Africans as human beings and as their equals." These immortal words of Nelson Mandela adorned the wall at the entrance to the Smart Gallery in Chicago's showing of "Vision and Communism," an exhibit of the artwork of Viktor Koretsky.

Koretsky was famous for his dramatic style and bold portrayals of the war on fascism and his critiques of treatment of Africans in Africa and in America. Koretsky was most famous from a war poster he created with a woman and her young son reminiscent of Madonna and child facing a swastika emblazoned bayonet that is dripping with blood. His shocking art won great favor during the Great Patriotic War (WWII), giving him prominence in his field of soviet propaganda design.

This showing is based around his work on the question of African liberation and most specifically against the apartheid government of South Africa. Walking through the gallery the contrast of paintings of men holding missiles while donning a Klan robe and the South African protest music pumping through the speakers was cryptic and reminded one of the true horrors that occurred in South Africa and at home in America and the fierce opposition that suffered greatly from them.

While images of skeletons and dollar signs made of rope encircling African necks shocked as intended, some other subject matter was displayed. Many anti-war posters simply proclaiming "peace" with images of people of all colors holding a red flag were juxtaposed against images of American GIs flaunting the watches and gold chains they attained as war spoils, and a poster of a young Vietnamese child reading a communist book on the wing of a downed American airplane.

Koretsky's in your face style and black and white view of the political world show a real connection between modern art and it's distant soviet counterpart. Both in style and in execution many artists today screaming at the injustices in the world through their canvases can see that even decades ago, on the other side of the planet, artists were paving the way for their arrival.

The Smart Museum is also currently displaying another small exhibit called 'Process and Artistry in the Soviet Vanguard' which shows the process by which some of the most famous soviet era propaganda posters were created step by step. Both exhibits run until Jan. 22, 2011, and are free to the public, and well worth the trip.

Elouise Cobell, leader of landmark Native American lawsuit, dies at 65

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:33:00 +0000

Elouise Cobell, age 65, treasurer of the Blackfeet Nation, died this past Sunday, October 16. She is especially honored for her role as the lead plaintiff in a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit, spanning the past 15 years, charging the U.S. government with cheating Native Americans out of billions of dollars in royalties from use of their land. This particular lawsuit, filed in 1996, was unlike any other in the history of the United States. Over 500,000 American Indian plaintiffs have been identified in the case.

A Los Angeles Times obituary notes, "Growing up on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Northwest Montana, Cobell often heard her parents and neighbors wonder why they were not being paid for allowing others to use their land."

In 1976, Cobell became treasurer of the tribe and was responsible for repairing a system that many would say was set up to fail and in "total chaos," as she told the LA Times in 2002.

To put things into perspective, this system was designed as part of the 1887 Dawes Act implemented under the Grover Cleveland administration. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, the Dawes Act was the "culmination" of U.S. government attempts "to destroy tribes and their governments and to open Indian lands to settlements by non-Indians and to develop railroads."

As the LA Times put it, "The act tried to erode the tribal system by granting parcels of land to individual Native Americans, but not allowing them to control their new property. Instead, the land was placed in trust with the promise that owners would be paid royalties for oil and gas, grazing or recreational leases."

However the Indians received little or no payment, the Times reported in 2009.

Then, on December 8, 2009, a $3.4 billion settlement to the class action lawsuit was announced. $1.4 billion of the settlement was allocated to the Native American plaintiffs in the suit, and up to $2 billion was allocated for re-purchase of lands distributed under the Dawes Act.

President Obama signed legislation authorizing government funding of a final version of the $3.4 billion settlement in December 2010, raising the possibility of final closure after fourteen years of litigation.

This June, a federal judge approved the $3.4-billion settlement. It is the largest payment Native Americans have ever received from the U.S. government.

The settlement has yet to be distributed to the plaintiffs due to the complications in allotting such a widespread settlement with over 500,000 tribal members claimed. Cobell is among many who will never see the culmination of her work of mettle and courage.

Cobell will be remembered by her husband, Alvin; son, Turk; brother Dale Pepion; sisters Julene Kennerly, Joy Ketah and Karen Powell; and two grandchildren; as well as by millions of Native Americans around the country.

Photo: Elouise Cobell, in front of an oil well on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Browning, Mont., Sept. 8, 1999. (AP/Ray Ozman)