Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty
Founded in 1928, MCADP is the oldest active anti-death penalty organization in the United States.
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Detail of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco from the cartoon of a mural by Ben Shahn © Estate of Ben Shahn /Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
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MCADP, MA Citizens Against the Death Penalty
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last update 11/6/10
Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty
Presents the 2009
The HERBERT AND SARA EHRMANN AWARD
Honoring
The Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project
Presented by Special Guest and former Ehrmann Award Recipient,
Sister Helen Prejean
&
The HUGO ADAM BEDAU AWARD
Recognizing
Professor Professor Michael Meltsner
Matthews Distinguished Professor of Law, Northeastern
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Ehrmann Awards Presentation 4:30PM *
Reception following
Harvard University Science Center, Hall B
One Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Admission - Free
Space is limited, so please RSVP
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Please note:
MCADP is pleased to present this year’s awards in conjunction with a program presented by the
Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project at the Harvard University Science Center.
The complete program will begin at
2PM with a presentation of an excerpt of the play, followed at
3PM, by a panel discussion moderated by Sr. Helen Prejean with a number of
distinguished participants, and the program will culminate at
4:30 with the presentation of the MCADP Ehrmann/Bedau Awards.
You may join the audience at any point during the afternoon, space permitting.
Directions to Harvard Science Center
The Harvard Science Center is a large, multi-tiered building just north of Harvard Yard near the juncture of Massachusetts Avenue and Cambridge Street, a short walk from the Harvard T stop.
Copyright © 2002 Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty, Inc.\
Sunday, November 21, 2010
From The "Left In East Dakota" Blog -On Capitalism And Election Blahs
LEFT IN EAST DAKOTA
I WOKE UP DURING MY AMERICAN DREAM
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
The only democratic body of the United States government is now controlled by a backwards political party based in fear and superstition. This is the result of the "lesser of the two evils" mindset. Inevitably, the greater evil will return. Until we break with this dogmatic viewpoint and build a class independent alternative to the the two-party dictatorship of capital, this shit-show will continue...
JOIN THE CAMPAIGN FOR A MASS PARTY OF LABOR!!
posted by Graeme at 4:11 PM Comments
Friday, October 29, 2010
Change
hunting and gathering to herding and settling
Things haven't always been this way and things won't always remain this way. Much like our underlying knowledge we will someday be no longer, we all understand this but don't particularly care to dwell on it. While we can physically see many of the more tangible things change- like our jobs, friends, homes, physical appearances- we sometimes don't see, or maybe even refuse to see, our institutions, our political realities, our "world," so to speak, change.
For much of the 200,000 years us homosapiens have been around, we've been communists. Now, as far as words in the English language with baggage attached to it go, communism must be close to the top of the list. Let me explain. Of course I'm not talking about the "Communism" we all learned about in school with its gulags, its Stalin, its dreary sunless and Godless skies; I'm talking about hunter-gatherer societies where every able bodied person went to find food and share it with the rest of the group. It took several of us slow, clawless, dull-teethed humans working together with our big brains to catch anything substantial to eat. Everything that was collected was consumed and the few tools and other items crafted were held in common. This went on for a mind-boggling amount of our existence. In fact, modern humans lived this way until the Neolithic Revolution, which is dated around 8000 to 12000 years ago. (So we were communists, albeit primitive ones, for at least 185,000 years!) The Neolithic Revolution ushered in agriculture, which made it possible for us to stop chasing food. Soon (at least historically speaking) the taming of animals provided another much more reliable source of food. From hunters and gatherers, we became herders and settlers.
whose surplus?
Eventually we got pretty good at growing food and raising livestock. We became so good that we produced more than we needed. A surplus started piling up. It didn't take long before someone figured out that if they controlled that surplus, they ruled the roost. This was the beginning of class society. The men who could talk to God argued it was God's will they control it; the warriors demanded they control it or they'll cut your head off; the Royalty argued it was God's will and they'll cut your head off; and so on. Inevitably, power sharing deals were made. Different modes of production brought different ruling classes, with their power still resting on their control of the surplus that was created. This was the case even during times of famine, whether natural or created, when there was no surplus. Once that power was taken, society was built around those relations as if things had always been that way, surplus or not.
But who created the surplus? For much of history, this was a fairly straight forward question. In a slave society, for example, clearly it's the slave who is creating the surplus for the slave owner. During Feudalism, it's the serf who works the land for the nobleman, who in turn is loyal to his King. In both these cases the exploitation, and brutal dehumanization, is clear. But there is also a growing of the productive forces. Both the slave owner and the nobleman were interested in increasing their own wealth and this created rivalries, wars, old Gods dying, new Gods being born, etc. But it also created an ability to produce more of a surplus, that is as mentioned, a growth in the productive forces.
don't tread on me
Eventually a ceiling is hit. There tends to be a lot more slaves than slave owners and sooner or later they often decide they are sick of being worked to death against their will. (Who would have thought?) And as the folks below the Mason-Dixon Line in the United States found out, there is a distinct limit of technological advancement that can be achieved under a slave economy. Technological innovation requires an educated work force and the last thing a slave owner who is attempting to breed tranquility wants is a tech savvy slave. Not to mention the fact that the slave would have exactly zero motivation to use the machines in a way that would be of use for the slave owner. The ruling class also used socially constructed racism, a huge issue still a problem today, as a way to divide the surplus creators and many slave owners no doubt believed their own rhetoric and thought their slaves weren't capable of learning anyway.
We saw a ceiling get hit in economies dominated by Feudal relations as well. A straw, as is said, broke the camel's back. A period of heightened class struggle seemingly erupted out of nowhere, but really was there all along buried under layers of contradictions. Even then the world was getting smaller. Kings from there were consolidating land by marrying queens from here. Skilled craftsman were making much better quality goods and new inventions were making production easier. Along with more goods came more selling of goods, and with that the rising of people who sold them. The merchants that did this found themselves in a historically important role. They also found themselves gaining more and more power. But they still were operating under the economic laws of Feudalism. From village to village within the same kingdom there were different currencies and taxes, creating an obvious nightmare for someone trying to sell goods. The land was tied to the nobility and passed on through birth as opposed to being up for sale. There was no urban work force to speak of as most worked the land as peasants or were craftsmen who specialized in one craft. Things needed to change in order for society to move forward.
capitalism
Obviously, I'm being brief, but the general direction of where I'm heading leads us to where we are now, with the merchants owning industry through a system of market exchange and private ownership of the means of production. This is called Capitalism. Our idea of what a country is was also developed in this period. Capitalists needed uniform currencies and laws in certain areas to govern trade, buying and selling, etc. That isn't to say, however, we made a clean break with times past. History certainly doesn't flow uninterrupted in a straight line. In France, the idealistic fervor of the rising bourgeoisie led to the French Revolution trying to go much further than was historically possible. This ushered in Napoleon, who was the right person at the right place and time (at least from a certain power structure's point of view). In the United States, on the other hand, the pragmatic ideals of many of the leaders allowed a backwards slave society to exist well into the middle of the 19th century, until the Civil War (which would be more accurately called the finale of the U.S. Revolution) finally secured a victory for Capitalism.
Capitalism is tricky. It takes something that is relatively simple- production and consumption of goods- and confuses it to the point of creating complex financial instruments, such as derivatives, that no one seems to really understand. Those very few individuals who own industry are constantly looking for new ways to turn money into more money, and again, as those of us in the U.S. are keen to, this means a shift away from manufacturing actual goods.
Despite the lack of transparency, we can gather that Capitalism isn't any different than other modes of production in the sense that a surplus created. But it is different regarding how it's created. Capitalism needs free laborers, that is people who are free to sell their labor power on the open market. When we go look for a job we are advertising ourselves as someone who can make our employer money. We often give this little thought as it has been our reality our entire existence. But what are the greater implications of the profit motive? And where does profit come from?
Because we distribute goods on the basis of creating profit for private individuals, some things are inevitable. There are those with great amounts of wealth and those with little to none. This is certain so long as we operate under the profit motive. There is no getting around it. It is an endless source of misery and death for millions upon millions of people. We are told much of this comes down to how hard people work. And to some extent, there is truth in this. Certainly Capitalism allows a degree of social mobility. It would be too obvious, like the slave and Feudal systems of old, if it didn't. Within certain contexts people can gain more wealth by putting forth more effort, knowing how to position themselves favorably within certain structures, and so on. This is the same in many organizations- from organized crime, to a multinational corporation, to a totalitarian government. But even a tacit grasp of reality quickly dilutes the significance of this argument. Surely know one can disagree that if I was born a female in the slums of Kinshasa I wouldn't be sitting in an air conditioned room right now with a fridge full of food, car in the drive way, and HD satellite TV in the living room. This is not because of my "work ethic," but because of the environment I was born into. That obviously is an extreme example, but the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" argument conveniently fails to account for the even this, let alone the more subtle environmental differences within our own personal communities.
So what about profit? Capitalism demands profit in order to stay in business. But who creates the profit? We are told profit is created by a company selling a commodity for more money than it cost them to acquire or produce it. In other words, profit is made during exchange. Profit is solely dependent on the price of a commodity. This effectively shuts production out of the equation. Production is a mystery, not to be talked about during our economics classes. There is a distinct reason for this. In reality, profit is based off of a commodity's value. Not only its exchange value, but also its use value. (For example, a hammer's exchange value is how much it costs at the Home Depot. Its use value is its ability to pound a nail into the wall.) When we look up the Wall Street Journal's dress, we see that value is actually created during production. Labor, from research and development to the actual transformation of raw materials into a exchangeable commodity, adds value to a substance. A pile of cotton has a certain amount of value. It isn't until labor transforms it into a comfortable yet fashionable t-shirt that its value increases. The price reflects that value. Of course the price is also affected by stuff like supply and demand, marketing driven fads, etc. But in the final analysis, despite how distorted the relationship between price and use value can sometimes be, there's a definite amount of value created by definite amount of socially necessary labor time. (Socially necessary means exactly that. Even if it takes you a day to do something that takes someone else an hour, tough luck, the socially necessary labor time to produce that good is an hour.)
the secret that shook the world
The implications of this are astounding. If labor is what adds value to a good, how come labor isn't reimbursed fully for this? Why is it capital treats labor as just another expense, like a machine or a building? This is the primary contradiction Marx exposed in his famous works entitled "Capital." Because the Capitalists have ownership over industry, they are able to take the surplus value created home for themselves. This allows them to accumulate vast amounts of wealth, wealth that they didn't create. This is how workers are exploited under Capitalism. They are exploited, not only in the moralistic sense, but also in a very scientific sense. Even those who are paid relatively well have to be paid less than the value they create or else there would be no profit for the Capitalist to usurp.
This secret was enough to alter the very foundations of economics. The labor theory of value was scrapped. You won't hear any mainstream economist talk about it today, even though Adam Smith, the father of Capitalism, firmly understood it as a basis of his theories. This is not surprising. During other modes of production there were also loads and loads of charlatans who made quite comfortable livings convincing people things today are how they have always been and how they'll always be. Any sort of real change is to be "unrealistic" or "radical." Today, ours write for the NY Times and talk on CNN.
TINA
There is no alternative. After the collapse of the totalitarian distortion of "socialism" that existed in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, this was the answer we got if we dared question the omnipotent wisdom of the market. I always thought this was a bit strange given it was coming from the same message machine that also told us we can "be anything we want." The words "anything" and "no alternative" seem to clash a bit. In fact, it's pretty much the exact opposite. We can't be anything we want, a sentiment I believe most children can grasp, and there is an alternative. There always is.
And the alternative isn't the failed example of the Soviet Union, as so commonly is said. There are many reason why Russia turned out the way it did. When the Bolsheviks took power, they intended to be the flicker that started the flame of a world revolution. Just like the Capitalists had done away with Feudalism, they expected the Socialists to do away with Capitalism. But when the spreading of the revolution failed, primarily because of the working class leadership in the developed countries, we saw it degenerate. Similar to the French Revolution allowing a situation in which Napoleon was able to take power, the objective situation following the Russian Revolution allowed Stalin to rise. Without the spreading of the Revolution into the more advanced countries, it would die. The original Bolsheviks knew this, which is why Stalin and his rising bureaucracy had them all executed.
The Stalinist bureaucracy's power was, however, based on a certain economic structure. This was something that went largely unpredicted by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, the founders of scientific socialism. While the state was in effect a workers' state, meaning the commanding heights of the economy had been nationalized and were potentially able to be controlled by the people who actually did the work, political power rested with a bureaucratic elite. Much like Napoleon charging through Europe abolishing serfdom and replacing it with the economic structure that benefited his rule, the Stalinists shored up as much influence as they could post WWII. There were the more subservient bureaucracies throughout the Eastern Bloc, but there also were some who became independently powerful while adopting a very similar structure. China's peasant revolution, for example, took Russia's ready made degenerated state and basically started where they left off. But this hardly meant the Chinese were pawns of the Soviets, nor were the Vietnamese Stalinists pawns of the Chinese. If they largely owed their liberation to themselves (Tito's Partisans in Yugoslavia are another example) they earned a degree of independence. This was something the Capitalist west failed to understand, and it showed, particularly in Vietnam, put also in various Latin American countries. Given Stalinism, carefully portraying itself as "Socialism" or "Communism," was the only major alternative to the imperial domination of the colonialist countries, most of the anti-colonial struggles ended up adopting some form of this distorted ideology. This confused, and continues to confuse, many of the left in the developed countries.
You suck, but so do you
During the Cold War the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in a war of propaganda, among other things. What's so interesting about this war of ideas is the glaring fact that both sides really didn't have to make that much stuff up. It's true, the United States was, and is, an extremely financially polarized society that despite being the richest in history fails to provide even basic living standards for many of its citizens. It's also true that the United States is perpetually at war in an attempt to maintain its post-WWII worldwide dominance. This has cost millions of people their lives. In contrast, it's true the Soviet Union was a ruled by a totalitarian bureaucracy that regularly murdered and jailed citizens that dared question the privilege of the ruling stratum. It's not surprising those who benefited from this arrangement had no desire to highlight the fact that U.S. Capitalism at one time, and even more so in western Europe, gave enough concessions to allow a fairly stable standard of living to a sizable chunk of its population. (This period, however, is now over. These are the "good old days" we see the "Tea Party" movement today yearn for in a sad, historically ignorant way.) Nor is it surprising U.S. imperialism had no desire to highlight the enormous gains of the planned economy. Russia went from a backwards peasant country to producing the first satellite to orbit the earth, all within 40 years. That's simply incredible. That would be like Pakistan today placing the first human on Mars a couple generations from now. It's almost unthinkable. But such is the power of humanity harnessed with a rational plan of production.
real change
The Soviet Union failed because they lacked democracy. It's one thing to plan national space program bureaucratically from the top, but it's quite another to produce people's favorite pair of jeans or the toothpaste most would prefer to use. But just as Capitalism shows us the enormous productive power we hold, the "Communist" countries showed us how we could potentially harness that power to make sure every single human has the basic necessities to shape his or her life in the way they see fit. Democracy provides a check and balance to planning. It's needed at every level.
This is the primary concern of those with power. Democracy threatens power. This is why they demonize government, even though our current government governs a state that's primary purpose is to keep current property relations intact. The idea of "big government" is translated to the average person as a long wait at the post office. In reality, the ruling class isn't real concerned with mix-ups at the DMV. They are, however, very much concerned with the theoretical possibility of government being used to take away their privileges.
This is why we must engage in the political process, no matter how corrupt and ridiculous it may be. Right now in the United States we have no political party, but this will have to change. The working class will be forced to enter into politics as Capitalism no longer has the room to offer as many concessions as it did before. (I'm involved in a campaign that calls for a mass party of labor which I urge you to check out.) Apathy is not atrophy, and American workers will move. And when they do, the world will shake.
It's extremely simple, but also unforgivingly complex. For me, and perhaps this isn't so flattering, reshaping society isn't about "the common good" so much as it's about individual freedom. I want a world where much of my life consists of me doing what I want, not what I'm financially compelled to do. If we allocate the world's resources based on need as opposite to profit, we are actually providing the only possible way to have true individual freedom. It simply can't be done so long as the economy is controlled by a few people; be it kings and queens, state bureaucrats, or domineering capitalists. We have got to take power. This is our historical task.
I WOKE UP DURING MY AMERICAN DREAM
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
The only democratic body of the United States government is now controlled by a backwards political party based in fear and superstition. This is the result of the "lesser of the two evils" mindset. Inevitably, the greater evil will return. Until we break with this dogmatic viewpoint and build a class independent alternative to the the two-party dictatorship of capital, this shit-show will continue...
JOIN THE CAMPAIGN FOR A MASS PARTY OF LABOR!!
posted by Graeme at 4:11 PM Comments
Friday, October 29, 2010
Change
hunting and gathering to herding and settling
Things haven't always been this way and things won't always remain this way. Much like our underlying knowledge we will someday be no longer, we all understand this but don't particularly care to dwell on it. While we can physically see many of the more tangible things change- like our jobs, friends, homes, physical appearances- we sometimes don't see, or maybe even refuse to see, our institutions, our political realities, our "world," so to speak, change.
For much of the 200,000 years us homosapiens have been around, we've been communists. Now, as far as words in the English language with baggage attached to it go, communism must be close to the top of the list. Let me explain. Of course I'm not talking about the "Communism" we all learned about in school with its gulags, its Stalin, its dreary sunless and Godless skies; I'm talking about hunter-gatherer societies where every able bodied person went to find food and share it with the rest of the group. It took several of us slow, clawless, dull-teethed humans working together with our big brains to catch anything substantial to eat. Everything that was collected was consumed and the few tools and other items crafted were held in common. This went on for a mind-boggling amount of our existence. In fact, modern humans lived this way until the Neolithic Revolution, which is dated around 8000 to 12000 years ago. (So we were communists, albeit primitive ones, for at least 185,000 years!) The Neolithic Revolution ushered in agriculture, which made it possible for us to stop chasing food. Soon (at least historically speaking) the taming of animals provided another much more reliable source of food. From hunters and gatherers, we became herders and settlers.
whose surplus?
Eventually we got pretty good at growing food and raising livestock. We became so good that we produced more than we needed. A surplus started piling up. It didn't take long before someone figured out that if they controlled that surplus, they ruled the roost. This was the beginning of class society. The men who could talk to God argued it was God's will they control it; the warriors demanded they control it or they'll cut your head off; the Royalty argued it was God's will and they'll cut your head off; and so on. Inevitably, power sharing deals were made. Different modes of production brought different ruling classes, with their power still resting on their control of the surplus that was created. This was the case even during times of famine, whether natural or created, when there was no surplus. Once that power was taken, society was built around those relations as if things had always been that way, surplus or not.
But who created the surplus? For much of history, this was a fairly straight forward question. In a slave society, for example, clearly it's the slave who is creating the surplus for the slave owner. During Feudalism, it's the serf who works the land for the nobleman, who in turn is loyal to his King. In both these cases the exploitation, and brutal dehumanization, is clear. But there is also a growing of the productive forces. Both the slave owner and the nobleman were interested in increasing their own wealth and this created rivalries, wars, old Gods dying, new Gods being born, etc. But it also created an ability to produce more of a surplus, that is as mentioned, a growth in the productive forces.
don't tread on me
Eventually a ceiling is hit. There tends to be a lot more slaves than slave owners and sooner or later they often decide they are sick of being worked to death against their will. (Who would have thought?) And as the folks below the Mason-Dixon Line in the United States found out, there is a distinct limit of technological advancement that can be achieved under a slave economy. Technological innovation requires an educated work force and the last thing a slave owner who is attempting to breed tranquility wants is a tech savvy slave. Not to mention the fact that the slave would have exactly zero motivation to use the machines in a way that would be of use for the slave owner. The ruling class also used socially constructed racism, a huge issue still a problem today, as a way to divide the surplus creators and many slave owners no doubt believed their own rhetoric and thought their slaves weren't capable of learning anyway.
We saw a ceiling get hit in economies dominated by Feudal relations as well. A straw, as is said, broke the camel's back. A period of heightened class struggle seemingly erupted out of nowhere, but really was there all along buried under layers of contradictions. Even then the world was getting smaller. Kings from there were consolidating land by marrying queens from here. Skilled craftsman were making much better quality goods and new inventions were making production easier. Along with more goods came more selling of goods, and with that the rising of people who sold them. The merchants that did this found themselves in a historically important role. They also found themselves gaining more and more power. But they still were operating under the economic laws of Feudalism. From village to village within the same kingdom there were different currencies and taxes, creating an obvious nightmare for someone trying to sell goods. The land was tied to the nobility and passed on through birth as opposed to being up for sale. There was no urban work force to speak of as most worked the land as peasants or were craftsmen who specialized in one craft. Things needed to change in order for society to move forward.
capitalism
Obviously, I'm being brief, but the general direction of where I'm heading leads us to where we are now, with the merchants owning industry through a system of market exchange and private ownership of the means of production. This is called Capitalism. Our idea of what a country is was also developed in this period. Capitalists needed uniform currencies and laws in certain areas to govern trade, buying and selling, etc. That isn't to say, however, we made a clean break with times past. History certainly doesn't flow uninterrupted in a straight line. In France, the idealistic fervor of the rising bourgeoisie led to the French Revolution trying to go much further than was historically possible. This ushered in Napoleon, who was the right person at the right place and time (at least from a certain power structure's point of view). In the United States, on the other hand, the pragmatic ideals of many of the leaders allowed a backwards slave society to exist well into the middle of the 19th century, until the Civil War (which would be more accurately called the finale of the U.S. Revolution) finally secured a victory for Capitalism.
Capitalism is tricky. It takes something that is relatively simple- production and consumption of goods- and confuses it to the point of creating complex financial instruments, such as derivatives, that no one seems to really understand. Those very few individuals who own industry are constantly looking for new ways to turn money into more money, and again, as those of us in the U.S. are keen to, this means a shift away from manufacturing actual goods.
Despite the lack of transparency, we can gather that Capitalism isn't any different than other modes of production in the sense that a surplus created. But it is different regarding how it's created. Capitalism needs free laborers, that is people who are free to sell their labor power on the open market. When we go look for a job we are advertising ourselves as someone who can make our employer money. We often give this little thought as it has been our reality our entire existence. But what are the greater implications of the profit motive? And where does profit come from?
Because we distribute goods on the basis of creating profit for private individuals, some things are inevitable. There are those with great amounts of wealth and those with little to none. This is certain so long as we operate under the profit motive. There is no getting around it. It is an endless source of misery and death for millions upon millions of people. We are told much of this comes down to how hard people work. And to some extent, there is truth in this. Certainly Capitalism allows a degree of social mobility. It would be too obvious, like the slave and Feudal systems of old, if it didn't. Within certain contexts people can gain more wealth by putting forth more effort, knowing how to position themselves favorably within certain structures, and so on. This is the same in many organizations- from organized crime, to a multinational corporation, to a totalitarian government. But even a tacit grasp of reality quickly dilutes the significance of this argument. Surely know one can disagree that if I was born a female in the slums of Kinshasa I wouldn't be sitting in an air conditioned room right now with a fridge full of food, car in the drive way, and HD satellite TV in the living room. This is not because of my "work ethic," but because of the environment I was born into. That obviously is an extreme example, but the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" argument conveniently fails to account for the even this, let alone the more subtle environmental differences within our own personal communities.
So what about profit? Capitalism demands profit in order to stay in business. But who creates the profit? We are told profit is created by a company selling a commodity for more money than it cost them to acquire or produce it. In other words, profit is made during exchange. Profit is solely dependent on the price of a commodity. This effectively shuts production out of the equation. Production is a mystery, not to be talked about during our economics classes. There is a distinct reason for this. In reality, profit is based off of a commodity's value. Not only its exchange value, but also its use value. (For example, a hammer's exchange value is how much it costs at the Home Depot. Its use value is its ability to pound a nail into the wall.) When we look up the Wall Street Journal's dress, we see that value is actually created during production. Labor, from research and development to the actual transformation of raw materials into a exchangeable commodity, adds value to a substance. A pile of cotton has a certain amount of value. It isn't until labor transforms it into a comfortable yet fashionable t-shirt that its value increases. The price reflects that value. Of course the price is also affected by stuff like supply and demand, marketing driven fads, etc. But in the final analysis, despite how distorted the relationship between price and use value can sometimes be, there's a definite amount of value created by definite amount of socially necessary labor time. (Socially necessary means exactly that. Even if it takes you a day to do something that takes someone else an hour, tough luck, the socially necessary labor time to produce that good is an hour.)
the secret that shook the world
The implications of this are astounding. If labor is what adds value to a good, how come labor isn't reimbursed fully for this? Why is it capital treats labor as just another expense, like a machine or a building? This is the primary contradiction Marx exposed in his famous works entitled "Capital." Because the Capitalists have ownership over industry, they are able to take the surplus value created home for themselves. This allows them to accumulate vast amounts of wealth, wealth that they didn't create. This is how workers are exploited under Capitalism. They are exploited, not only in the moralistic sense, but also in a very scientific sense. Even those who are paid relatively well have to be paid less than the value they create or else there would be no profit for the Capitalist to usurp.
This secret was enough to alter the very foundations of economics. The labor theory of value was scrapped. You won't hear any mainstream economist talk about it today, even though Adam Smith, the father of Capitalism, firmly understood it as a basis of his theories. This is not surprising. During other modes of production there were also loads and loads of charlatans who made quite comfortable livings convincing people things today are how they have always been and how they'll always be. Any sort of real change is to be "unrealistic" or "radical." Today, ours write for the NY Times and talk on CNN.
TINA
There is no alternative. After the collapse of the totalitarian distortion of "socialism" that existed in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, this was the answer we got if we dared question the omnipotent wisdom of the market. I always thought this was a bit strange given it was coming from the same message machine that also told us we can "be anything we want." The words "anything" and "no alternative" seem to clash a bit. In fact, it's pretty much the exact opposite. We can't be anything we want, a sentiment I believe most children can grasp, and there is an alternative. There always is.
And the alternative isn't the failed example of the Soviet Union, as so commonly is said. There are many reason why Russia turned out the way it did. When the Bolsheviks took power, they intended to be the flicker that started the flame of a world revolution. Just like the Capitalists had done away with Feudalism, they expected the Socialists to do away with Capitalism. But when the spreading of the revolution failed, primarily because of the working class leadership in the developed countries, we saw it degenerate. Similar to the French Revolution allowing a situation in which Napoleon was able to take power, the objective situation following the Russian Revolution allowed Stalin to rise. Without the spreading of the Revolution into the more advanced countries, it would die. The original Bolsheviks knew this, which is why Stalin and his rising bureaucracy had them all executed.
The Stalinist bureaucracy's power was, however, based on a certain economic structure. This was something that went largely unpredicted by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, the founders of scientific socialism. While the state was in effect a workers' state, meaning the commanding heights of the economy had been nationalized and were potentially able to be controlled by the people who actually did the work, political power rested with a bureaucratic elite. Much like Napoleon charging through Europe abolishing serfdom and replacing it with the economic structure that benefited his rule, the Stalinists shored up as much influence as they could post WWII. There were the more subservient bureaucracies throughout the Eastern Bloc, but there also were some who became independently powerful while adopting a very similar structure. China's peasant revolution, for example, took Russia's ready made degenerated state and basically started where they left off. But this hardly meant the Chinese were pawns of the Soviets, nor were the Vietnamese Stalinists pawns of the Chinese. If they largely owed their liberation to themselves (Tito's Partisans in Yugoslavia are another example) they earned a degree of independence. This was something the Capitalist west failed to understand, and it showed, particularly in Vietnam, put also in various Latin American countries. Given Stalinism, carefully portraying itself as "Socialism" or "Communism," was the only major alternative to the imperial domination of the colonialist countries, most of the anti-colonial struggles ended up adopting some form of this distorted ideology. This confused, and continues to confuse, many of the left in the developed countries.
You suck, but so do you
During the Cold War the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in a war of propaganda, among other things. What's so interesting about this war of ideas is the glaring fact that both sides really didn't have to make that much stuff up. It's true, the United States was, and is, an extremely financially polarized society that despite being the richest in history fails to provide even basic living standards for many of its citizens. It's also true that the United States is perpetually at war in an attempt to maintain its post-WWII worldwide dominance. This has cost millions of people their lives. In contrast, it's true the Soviet Union was a ruled by a totalitarian bureaucracy that regularly murdered and jailed citizens that dared question the privilege of the ruling stratum. It's not surprising those who benefited from this arrangement had no desire to highlight the fact that U.S. Capitalism at one time, and even more so in western Europe, gave enough concessions to allow a fairly stable standard of living to a sizable chunk of its population. (This period, however, is now over. These are the "good old days" we see the "Tea Party" movement today yearn for in a sad, historically ignorant way.) Nor is it surprising U.S. imperialism had no desire to highlight the enormous gains of the planned economy. Russia went from a backwards peasant country to producing the first satellite to orbit the earth, all within 40 years. That's simply incredible. That would be like Pakistan today placing the first human on Mars a couple generations from now. It's almost unthinkable. But such is the power of humanity harnessed with a rational plan of production.
real change
The Soviet Union failed because they lacked democracy. It's one thing to plan national space program bureaucratically from the top, but it's quite another to produce people's favorite pair of jeans or the toothpaste most would prefer to use. But just as Capitalism shows us the enormous productive power we hold, the "Communist" countries showed us how we could potentially harness that power to make sure every single human has the basic necessities to shape his or her life in the way they see fit. Democracy provides a check and balance to planning. It's needed at every level.
This is the primary concern of those with power. Democracy threatens power. This is why they demonize government, even though our current government governs a state that's primary purpose is to keep current property relations intact. The idea of "big government" is translated to the average person as a long wait at the post office. In reality, the ruling class isn't real concerned with mix-ups at the DMV. They are, however, very much concerned with the theoretical possibility of government being used to take away their privileges.
This is why we must engage in the political process, no matter how corrupt and ridiculous it may be. Right now in the United States we have no political party, but this will have to change. The working class will be forced to enter into politics as Capitalism no longer has the room to offer as many concessions as it did before. (I'm involved in a campaign that calls for a mass party of labor which I urge you to check out.) Apathy is not atrophy, and American workers will move. And when they do, the world will shake.
It's extremely simple, but also unforgivingly complex. For me, and perhaps this isn't so flattering, reshaping society isn't about "the common good" so much as it's about individual freedom. I want a world where much of my life consists of me doing what I want, not what I'm financially compelled to do. If we allocate the world's resources based on need as opposite to profit, we are actually providing the only possible way to have true individual freedom. It simply can't be done so long as the economy is controlled by a few people; be it kings and queens, state bureaucrats, or domineering capitalists. We have got to take power. This is our historical task.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
The Latest From The National Committee To Free The Cuban Five
Click on headline to see the latest on the world-wide defense of the Cuban Five. Free them ahora!
From The "By Any Means Necessary" Blog- On Leonard Peltier
Former FBI Agent, “Peltier was Wrongfully Convicted”Posted: November 19, 2010 by Rowland Túpac Keshena in Ideas: Secret State, Places: Southern Turtle Island (United States), Struggles: Indigenous Struggles, Struggles: Prisons/Prisoners
1A Native comrade on Facebook put me onto this. Thanks go out to him.
M. Wesley Swearingen, FBI Secrets: An Agents Expose (Available on Amazon.com ):
Former FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen, stated:
“I was an FBI agent in Los Angeles when Leonard Peltier was convicted, and I know from FBI documents that I read and from statements made by fellow FBI agents, that Peltier was wrongfully convicted of murdering two FBI agents just because the agents investigating the case wanted someone to pay for killing the two FBI agents. I know, for a fact, that the FBI is also covering up its culpability in the death of the two FBI agents.”
Swearingen is the same agent who exposed the FBI misconduct in the case of Geronimo Pratt, whose conviction was eventually overturned. Pratt was set free after 20 years of false imprisonment. If you still think that the FBI and the U.S. government are the good guys.. stop and think again.
1A Native comrade on Facebook put me onto this. Thanks go out to him.
M. Wesley Swearingen, FBI Secrets: An Agents Expose (Available on Amazon.com ):
Former FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen, stated:
“I was an FBI agent in Los Angeles when Leonard Peltier was convicted, and I know from FBI documents that I read and from statements made by fellow FBI agents, that Peltier was wrongfully convicted of murdering two FBI agents just because the agents investigating the case wanted someone to pay for killing the two FBI agents. I know, for a fact, that the FBI is also covering up its culpability in the death of the two FBI agents.”
Swearingen is the same agent who exposed the FBI misconduct in the case of Geronimo Pratt, whose conviction was eventually overturned. Pratt was set free after 20 years of false imprisonment. If you still think that the FBI and the U.S. government are the good guys.. stop and think again.
From The Rengade Eye BLog-After The Obama Mid-Term Elections
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Stratfor: The World Looks at Obama After the U.S. Midterm Election
By George Friedman
November 04, 2010
The 2010 U.S. midterm elections were held, and the results were as expected: The Republicans took the House but did not take the Senate. The Democrats have such a small margin in the Senate, however, that they cannot impose cloture, which means the Republicans can block Obama administration initiatives in both houses of Congress. At the same time, the Republicans cannot override presidential vetoes alone, so they cannot legislate, either. The possible legislative outcomes are thus gridlock or significant compromises.
U.S. President Barack Obama hopes that the Republicans prove rigidly ideological. In 1994, after the Republicans won a similar victory over Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich attempted to use the speakership to craft national policy. Clinton ran for re-election in 1996 against Gingrich rather than the actual Republican candidate, Bob Dole; Clinton made Gingrich the issue, and he won. Obama hopes for the same opportunity to recoup. The new speaker, John Boehner, already has indicated that he does not intend to play Gingrich but rather is prepared to find compromises. Since Tea Party members are not close to forming a majority of the Republican Party in the House, Boehner is likely to get his way.
Another way to look at this is that the United States remains a predominantly right-of-center country. Obama won a substantial victory in 2008, but he did not change the architecture of American politics. Almost 48 percent of voters voted against him. Though he won a larger percentage than anyone since Ronald Reagan, he was not even close to the magnitude of Reagan’s victory. Reagan transformed the way American politics worked. Obama did not. In spite of his supporters’ excitement, his election did not signify a permanent national shift to the left. His attempt to govern from the left accordingly brought a predictable result: The public took away his ability to legislate on domestic affairs. Instead, they moved the country to a position where no one can legislate anything beyond the most carefully negotiated and neutral legislation.
Foreign Policy and Obama’s Campaign Position
That leaves foreign policy. Last week, I speculated on what Obama might do in foreign affairs, exploring his options with regard to Iran. This week, I’d like to consider the opposite side of the coin, namely, how foreign governments view Obama after this defeat. Let’s begin by considering how he positioned himself during his campaign.
The most important thing about his campaign was the difference between what he said he would do and what his supporters heard him saying he would do. There were several major elements to his foreign policy. First, he campaigned intensely against the Bush policy in Iraq, arguing that it was the wrong war in the wrong place. Second, he argued that the important war was in Afghanistan, where he pledged to switch his attention to face the real challenge of al Qaeda. Third, he argued against Bush administration policy on detention, military tribunals and torture, in his view symbolized by the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
In a fourth element, he argued that Bush had alienated the world by his unilateralism, by which he meant lack of consultation with allies — in particular the European allies who had been so important during the Cold War. Obama argued that global hostility toward the Bush administration arose from the Iraq war and the manner in which Bush waged the war on terror. He also made clear that the United States under Bush had an indifference to world opinion that cost it moral force. Obama wanted to change global perceptions of the United States as a unilateral global power to one that would participate as an equal partner with the rest of the world.
The Europeans were particularly jubilant at his election. They had in fact seen Bush as unwilling to take their counsel, and more to the point, as demanding that they participate in U.S. wars that they had no interest in participating in. The European view — or more precisely, the French and German view — was that allies should have a significant degree of control over what Americans do. Thus, the United States should not merely have consulted the Europeans, but should have shaped its policy with their wishes in mind. The Europeans saw Bush as bullying, unsophisticated and dangerous. Bush in turn saw allies’ unwillingness to share the burdens of a war as meaning they were not in fact allies. He considered so-called “Old Europe” as uncooperative and unwilling to repay past debts.
The European Misunderstanding of Obama
The Europeans’ pleasure in Obama’s election, however, represented a massive misunderstanding. Though they thought Obama would allow them a greater say in U.S. policy — and, above all, ask them for less — Obama in fact argued that the Europeans would be more likely to provide assistance to the United States if Washington was more collaborative with the Europeans.
Thus, in spite of the Nobel Peace Prize in the early days of the romance, the bloom wore off as the Europeans discovered that Obama was simply another U.S. president. More precisely, they learned that instead of being able to act according to his or her own wishes, circumstances constrain occupants of the U.S. presidency into acting like any other president would.
Campaign rhetoric notwithstanding, Obama’s position on Iraq consisted of slightly changing Bush’s withdrawal timetable. In Afghanistan, his strategy was to increase troop levels beyond what Bush would consider. Toward Iran, his policy has been the same as Bush’s: sanctions with a hint of something later.
The Europeans quickly became disappointed in Obama, especially when he escalated the Afghan war and asked them to increase forces when they wanted to withdraw. Perhaps most telling was his speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, where he tried to reach out to, and create a new relationship with, Muslims. The problem with this approach was that that in the speech, Obama warned that the United States would not abandon Israel — the same stance other U.S. presidents had adopted. It is hard to know what Obama was thinking. Perhaps he thought that by having reached out to the Muslim world, they should in turn understand the American commitment to Israel. Instead, Muslims understood the speech as saying that while Obama was prepared to adopt a different tone with Muslims, the basic structure of American policy in the region would not be different.
Why Obama Believed in a Reset Button
In both the European and Muslim case, the same question must be asked: Why did Obama believe that he was changing relations when in fact his policies were not significantly different from Bush’s policies? The answer is that Obama seemed to believe the essential U.S. problem with the world was rhetorical. The United States had not carefully explained itself, and in not explaining itself, the United States appeared arrogant.
Obama seemed to believe that the policies did not matter as much as the sensibility that surrounded the policies. It was not so much that he believed he could be charming — although he seemed to believe that with reason — but rather that foreign policy is personal, built around trust and familiarity rather than around interests. The idea that nations weren’t designed to trust or like one another, but rather pursued their interests with impersonal force, was alien to him. And so he thought he could explain the United States to the Muslims without changing U.S. policy and win the day.
U.S. policies in the Middle East remain intact, Guantanamo is still open, and most of the policies Obama opposed in his campaign are still there, offending the world much as they did under Bush. Moreover, the U.S. relationship with China has worsened, and while the U.S. relationship with Russia has appeared to improve, this is mostly atmospherics. This is not to criticize Obama, as these are reasonable policies for an American to pursue. Still, the substantial change in America’s place in the world that Europeans and his supporters entertained has not materialized. That it couldn’t may be true, but the gulf between what Obama said and what has happened is so deep that it shapes global perceptions.
Global Expectations and Obama’s Challenge
Having traveled a great deal in the last year and met a number of leaders and individuals with insight into the predominant thinking in their country, I can say with some confidence that the global perception of Obama today is as a leader given to rhetoric that doesn’t live up to its promise. It is not that anyone expected his rhetoric to live up to its promise, since no politician can pull that off, but that they see Obama as someone who thought rhetoric would change things. In that sense, he is seen as naive and, worse, as indecisive and unimaginative.
No one expected him to turn rhetoric into reality. But they did expect some significant shifts in foreign policy and a forceful presence in the world. Whatever the criticisms leveled against the United States, the expectation remains that the United States will remain at the center of events, acting decisively. This may be a contradiction in the global view of things, but it is the reality.
A foreign minister of a small — but not insignificant — country put it this way to me: Obama doesn’t seem to be there. By that he meant that Obama does not seem to occupy the American presidency and that the United States he governs does not seem like a force to be reckoned with. Decisions that other leaders wait for the United States to make don’t get made, the authority of U.S. emissaries is uncertain, the U.S. defense and state departments say different things, and serious issues are left unaddressed.
While it may seem an odd thing to say, it is true: The American president also presides over the world. U.S. power is such that there is an expectation that the president will attend to matters around the globe not out of charity, but because of American interest. The questions I have heard most often on many different issues are simple: What is the American position, what is the American interest, what will the Americans do? (As an American, I frequently find my hosts appointing me to be the representative of the United States.)
I have answered that the United States is off balance trying to place the U.S.-jihadist war in context, that it must be understood that the president is preoccupied but will attend to their region shortly. That is not a bad answer, since it is true. But the issue now is simple: Obama has spent two years on the trajectory in place when he was elected, having made few if any significant shifts. Inertia is not a bad thing in policy, as change for its own sake is dangerous. Yet a range of issues must be attended to, including China, Russia and the countries that border each of them.
Obama comes out of this election severely weakened domestically. If he continues his trajectory, the rest of the world will perceive him as a crippled president, something he needn’t be in foreign policy matters. Obama can no longer control Congress, but he still controls foreign policy. He could emerge from this defeat as a powerful foreign policy president, acting decisively in Afghanistan and beyond. It’s not a question of what he should do, but whether he will choose to act in a significant way at all.
This is Obama’s great test. Reagan accelerated his presence in the world after his defeat in 1982. It is an option, and the most important question is whether he takes it. We will know in a few months. If he doesn’t, global events will begin unfolding without recourse to the United States, and issues held in check will no longer remain quiet.
RENEGADE EYE
Stratfor: The World Looks at Obama After the U.S. Midterm Election
By George Friedman
November 04, 2010
The 2010 U.S. midterm elections were held, and the results were as expected: The Republicans took the House but did not take the Senate. The Democrats have such a small margin in the Senate, however, that they cannot impose cloture, which means the Republicans can block Obama administration initiatives in both houses of Congress. At the same time, the Republicans cannot override presidential vetoes alone, so they cannot legislate, either. The possible legislative outcomes are thus gridlock or significant compromises.
U.S. President Barack Obama hopes that the Republicans prove rigidly ideological. In 1994, after the Republicans won a similar victory over Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich attempted to use the speakership to craft national policy. Clinton ran for re-election in 1996 against Gingrich rather than the actual Republican candidate, Bob Dole; Clinton made Gingrich the issue, and he won. Obama hopes for the same opportunity to recoup. The new speaker, John Boehner, already has indicated that he does not intend to play Gingrich but rather is prepared to find compromises. Since Tea Party members are not close to forming a majority of the Republican Party in the House, Boehner is likely to get his way.
Another way to look at this is that the United States remains a predominantly right-of-center country. Obama won a substantial victory in 2008, but he did not change the architecture of American politics. Almost 48 percent of voters voted against him. Though he won a larger percentage than anyone since Ronald Reagan, he was not even close to the magnitude of Reagan’s victory. Reagan transformed the way American politics worked. Obama did not. In spite of his supporters’ excitement, his election did not signify a permanent national shift to the left. His attempt to govern from the left accordingly brought a predictable result: The public took away his ability to legislate on domestic affairs. Instead, they moved the country to a position where no one can legislate anything beyond the most carefully negotiated and neutral legislation.
Foreign Policy and Obama’s Campaign Position
That leaves foreign policy. Last week, I speculated on what Obama might do in foreign affairs, exploring his options with regard to Iran. This week, I’d like to consider the opposite side of the coin, namely, how foreign governments view Obama after this defeat. Let’s begin by considering how he positioned himself during his campaign.
The most important thing about his campaign was the difference between what he said he would do and what his supporters heard him saying he would do. There were several major elements to his foreign policy. First, he campaigned intensely against the Bush policy in Iraq, arguing that it was the wrong war in the wrong place. Second, he argued that the important war was in Afghanistan, where he pledged to switch his attention to face the real challenge of al Qaeda. Third, he argued against Bush administration policy on detention, military tribunals and torture, in his view symbolized by the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
In a fourth element, he argued that Bush had alienated the world by his unilateralism, by which he meant lack of consultation with allies — in particular the European allies who had been so important during the Cold War. Obama argued that global hostility toward the Bush administration arose from the Iraq war and the manner in which Bush waged the war on terror. He also made clear that the United States under Bush had an indifference to world opinion that cost it moral force. Obama wanted to change global perceptions of the United States as a unilateral global power to one that would participate as an equal partner with the rest of the world.
The Europeans were particularly jubilant at his election. They had in fact seen Bush as unwilling to take their counsel, and more to the point, as demanding that they participate in U.S. wars that they had no interest in participating in. The European view — or more precisely, the French and German view — was that allies should have a significant degree of control over what Americans do. Thus, the United States should not merely have consulted the Europeans, but should have shaped its policy with their wishes in mind. The Europeans saw Bush as bullying, unsophisticated and dangerous. Bush in turn saw allies’ unwillingness to share the burdens of a war as meaning they were not in fact allies. He considered so-called “Old Europe” as uncooperative and unwilling to repay past debts.
The European Misunderstanding of Obama
The Europeans’ pleasure in Obama’s election, however, represented a massive misunderstanding. Though they thought Obama would allow them a greater say in U.S. policy — and, above all, ask them for less — Obama in fact argued that the Europeans would be more likely to provide assistance to the United States if Washington was more collaborative with the Europeans.
Thus, in spite of the Nobel Peace Prize in the early days of the romance, the bloom wore off as the Europeans discovered that Obama was simply another U.S. president. More precisely, they learned that instead of being able to act according to his or her own wishes, circumstances constrain occupants of the U.S. presidency into acting like any other president would.
Campaign rhetoric notwithstanding, Obama’s position on Iraq consisted of slightly changing Bush’s withdrawal timetable. In Afghanistan, his strategy was to increase troop levels beyond what Bush would consider. Toward Iran, his policy has been the same as Bush’s: sanctions with a hint of something later.
The Europeans quickly became disappointed in Obama, especially when he escalated the Afghan war and asked them to increase forces when they wanted to withdraw. Perhaps most telling was his speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, where he tried to reach out to, and create a new relationship with, Muslims. The problem with this approach was that that in the speech, Obama warned that the United States would not abandon Israel — the same stance other U.S. presidents had adopted. It is hard to know what Obama was thinking. Perhaps he thought that by having reached out to the Muslim world, they should in turn understand the American commitment to Israel. Instead, Muslims understood the speech as saying that while Obama was prepared to adopt a different tone with Muslims, the basic structure of American policy in the region would not be different.
Why Obama Believed in a Reset Button
In both the European and Muslim case, the same question must be asked: Why did Obama believe that he was changing relations when in fact his policies were not significantly different from Bush’s policies? The answer is that Obama seemed to believe the essential U.S. problem with the world was rhetorical. The United States had not carefully explained itself, and in not explaining itself, the United States appeared arrogant.
Obama seemed to believe that the policies did not matter as much as the sensibility that surrounded the policies. It was not so much that he believed he could be charming — although he seemed to believe that with reason — but rather that foreign policy is personal, built around trust and familiarity rather than around interests. The idea that nations weren’t designed to trust or like one another, but rather pursued their interests with impersonal force, was alien to him. And so he thought he could explain the United States to the Muslims without changing U.S. policy and win the day.
U.S. policies in the Middle East remain intact, Guantanamo is still open, and most of the policies Obama opposed in his campaign are still there, offending the world much as they did under Bush. Moreover, the U.S. relationship with China has worsened, and while the U.S. relationship with Russia has appeared to improve, this is mostly atmospherics. This is not to criticize Obama, as these are reasonable policies for an American to pursue. Still, the substantial change in America’s place in the world that Europeans and his supporters entertained has not materialized. That it couldn’t may be true, but the gulf between what Obama said and what has happened is so deep that it shapes global perceptions.
Global Expectations and Obama’s Challenge
Having traveled a great deal in the last year and met a number of leaders and individuals with insight into the predominant thinking in their country, I can say with some confidence that the global perception of Obama today is as a leader given to rhetoric that doesn’t live up to its promise. It is not that anyone expected his rhetoric to live up to its promise, since no politician can pull that off, but that they see Obama as someone who thought rhetoric would change things. In that sense, he is seen as naive and, worse, as indecisive and unimaginative.
No one expected him to turn rhetoric into reality. But they did expect some significant shifts in foreign policy and a forceful presence in the world. Whatever the criticisms leveled against the United States, the expectation remains that the United States will remain at the center of events, acting decisively. This may be a contradiction in the global view of things, but it is the reality.
A foreign minister of a small — but not insignificant — country put it this way to me: Obama doesn’t seem to be there. By that he meant that Obama does not seem to occupy the American presidency and that the United States he governs does not seem like a force to be reckoned with. Decisions that other leaders wait for the United States to make don’t get made, the authority of U.S. emissaries is uncertain, the U.S. defense and state departments say different things, and serious issues are left unaddressed.
While it may seem an odd thing to say, it is true: The American president also presides over the world. U.S. power is such that there is an expectation that the president will attend to matters around the globe not out of charity, but because of American interest. The questions I have heard most often on many different issues are simple: What is the American position, what is the American interest, what will the Americans do? (As an American, I frequently find my hosts appointing me to be the representative of the United States.)
I have answered that the United States is off balance trying to place the U.S.-jihadist war in context, that it must be understood that the president is preoccupied but will attend to their region shortly. That is not a bad answer, since it is true. But the issue now is simple: Obama has spent two years on the trajectory in place when he was elected, having made few if any significant shifts. Inertia is not a bad thing in policy, as change for its own sake is dangerous. Yet a range of issues must be attended to, including China, Russia and the countries that border each of them.
Obama comes out of this election severely weakened domestically. If he continues his trajectory, the rest of the world will perceive him as a crippled president, something he needn’t be in foreign policy matters. Obama can no longer control Congress, but he still controls foreign policy. He could emerge from this defeat as a powerful foreign policy president, acting decisively in Afghanistan and beyond. It’s not a question of what he should do, but whether he will choose to act in a significant way at all.
This is Obama’s great test. Reagan accelerated his presence in the world after his defeat in 1982. It is an option, and the most important question is whether he takes it. We will know in a few months. If he doesn’t, global events will begin unfolding without recourse to the United States, and issues held in check will no longer remain quiet.
RENEGADE EYE
From The HistoMat Blog- Why Obama Was Shellacked
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Grace Lee Boggs on why Obama was shellacked
Two years ago, in the fall of 2008, over a million citizen activists of all ethnic groups, mostly young people, often accompanied by middle-aged or elderly independents, went door to door, urging voters to go to the polls and elect Barach Obama to the White House.
We/they did this because we believed and hoped that this charismatic black man could bring about the transformational changes we urgently need at this time on the clock of the world when the U.S. pursuit of unlimited economic growth has reached its social and ecological limits.
In 2010, despite the impassioned appeals of Barack, Michelle and Democratic Party stalwarts, many of us didn't even go to the polls ourselves on November 2, let alone urge others to do so, Ralph Nader estimates there were 28 million NoShows.
We need to probe the lessons of this experience, shared by many millions directly or indirectly.
The main lesson, I believe, is that the tremendous changes we now need and yearn for in our daily lives and in the direction of our country cannot come from those in power or by putting pressure on those in power.
We ourselves have to foreshadow or prefigure them from the ground up.
Civil and Voting rights for blacks didn't come from the White House or from masses demonstrating in front of the White House. They came after the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-6, the Freedom Rides in 1961, the 1963 Children's Crusade in Birmingham, Mississippi Freedom Summer and Freedom Schools, and the 1964 Selma to Montgomery March.
In other words, they came only after hundreds of thousands of black Americans and their white supporters had accepted the challenge and risks of ourselves making or becoming the changes we/they want to see in the world...
Full article here - see also this piece by Charlie Kimber. The struggle against Obama's and Cameron's imperialist war in Afghanistan continues this Saturday with a demonstration in London, Afghanistan: Time to Go
Labels: afghanistan, America, Barack Obama
posted by Snowball @ 6:53 PM 0 comments
Grace Lee Boggs on why Obama was shellacked
Two years ago, in the fall of 2008, over a million citizen activists of all ethnic groups, mostly young people, often accompanied by middle-aged or elderly independents, went door to door, urging voters to go to the polls and elect Barach Obama to the White House.
We/they did this because we believed and hoped that this charismatic black man could bring about the transformational changes we urgently need at this time on the clock of the world when the U.S. pursuit of unlimited economic growth has reached its social and ecological limits.
In 2010, despite the impassioned appeals of Barack, Michelle and Democratic Party stalwarts, many of us didn't even go to the polls ourselves on November 2, let alone urge others to do so, Ralph Nader estimates there were 28 million NoShows.
We need to probe the lessons of this experience, shared by many millions directly or indirectly.
The main lesson, I believe, is that the tremendous changes we now need and yearn for in our daily lives and in the direction of our country cannot come from those in power or by putting pressure on those in power.
We ourselves have to foreshadow or prefigure them from the ground up.
Civil and Voting rights for blacks didn't come from the White House or from masses demonstrating in front of the White House. They came after the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-6, the Freedom Rides in 1961, the 1963 Children's Crusade in Birmingham, Mississippi Freedom Summer and Freedom Schools, and the 1964 Selma to Montgomery March.
In other words, they came only after hundreds of thousands of black Americans and their white supporters had accepted the challenge and risks of ourselves making or becoming the changes we/they want to see in the world...
Full article here - see also this piece by Charlie Kimber. The struggle against Obama's and Cameron's imperialist war in Afghanistan continues this Saturday with a demonstration in London, Afghanistan: Time to Go
Labels: afghanistan, America, Barack Obama
posted by Snowball @ 6:53 PM 0 comments
Friday, November 19, 2010
*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-"Free Leonard Peltier"
Click on the title to link a YouTube film clip from AIM performing Free Leonard Peltier.
In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist. Sadly though, hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground and have rather more often than not been fellow-travelers. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.
******
Markin comment:
Free Leonard Peltier Now and not just in song either.
In this series, presented under the headline Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist. Sadly though, hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground and have rather more often than not been fellow-travelers. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.
******
Markin comment:
Free Leonard Peltier Now and not just in song either.
From "The Workers Press"- On Union Organizing
Thursday, November 11, 2010
You know what's disgusting? Union-Busting!
My fiance stumbled upon something this week when asked by her supervisor at work to check the company email for a pending order. The owner of the business where she is employed - who knows Julie's political association and my history working with unions and helping organized membership in St. Louis' SD MNEA SEEA - has been receiving email offers to attend an online "webinar" course on how to identify and squash union organizing drives in the workplace.
This is nothing new, of course, as the bosses have been keeping each other up to speed on the best tactics to counteract workplace unionism since the beginning of the organized Labor Movement. The link to this particular training course, however, reveals a network dedicated to the purpose of busting workers unions and allowing management to maintain and tighten their dictatorship over the average worker and thereby increase exploitation of labor.
This is just one more concrete example of why legislation like The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is absolutely ESSENTIAL reform legislation, one which workers and their unions ought not compromise on, under any circumstance. Also, ongoing oppression of workers and ever shrinking workers' unions in the private sector and the continued reliance of Organized Labor upon the "democratic" Party for struggle on the political front further necessitate that Labor break cleanly away from the Dems and found a party of our own, truly of, for, and by the vast Working Class majority; a mass Party of Labor. Only thus can we build the sort of grassroots, local campaigns to build a mass basis for a strong national campaign for legislation like EFCA and to fight uncompromisingly for the REAL interests of America's Working Class majority.
The link to this "webinar" is posted below. I think I just found my next project, investigating and exposing the networks employers and management use to prevent workers from organizing and establishing even the faintest hint of workplace democracy or collective bargaining.
Here is the link:
http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/glp/34507/index.html?campaigncode=268BWN
Posted by PaulJosephPoposky at 1:17 PM Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz
You know what's disgusting? Union-Busting!
My fiance stumbled upon something this week when asked by her supervisor at work to check the company email for a pending order. The owner of the business where she is employed - who knows Julie's political association and my history working with unions and helping organized membership in St. Louis' SD MNEA SEEA - has been receiving email offers to attend an online "webinar" course on how to identify and squash union organizing drives in the workplace.
This is nothing new, of course, as the bosses have been keeping each other up to speed on the best tactics to counteract workplace unionism since the beginning of the organized Labor Movement. The link to this particular training course, however, reveals a network dedicated to the purpose of busting workers unions and allowing management to maintain and tighten their dictatorship over the average worker and thereby increase exploitation of labor.
This is just one more concrete example of why legislation like The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is absolutely ESSENTIAL reform legislation, one which workers and their unions ought not compromise on, under any circumstance. Also, ongoing oppression of workers and ever shrinking workers' unions in the private sector and the continued reliance of Organized Labor upon the "democratic" Party for struggle on the political front further necessitate that Labor break cleanly away from the Dems and found a party of our own, truly of, for, and by the vast Working Class majority; a mass Party of Labor. Only thus can we build the sort of grassroots, local campaigns to build a mass basis for a strong national campaign for legislation like EFCA and to fight uncompromisingly for the REAL interests of America's Working Class majority.
The link to this "webinar" is posted below. I think I just found my next project, investigating and exposing the networks employers and management use to prevent workers from organizing and establishing even the faintest hint of workplace democracy or collective bargaining.
Here is the link:
http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/glp/34507/index.html?campaigncode=268BWN
Posted by PaulJosephPoposky at 1:17 PM Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz
From "The Rag Blog"-Alice Embree : Making the War Personal at Under the Hood
We can’t give you anything...
Making the war personal
By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / November 14, 2010
We can’t give you anything but war, buddy
That’s the only thing we’ll hire you for, buddy...
These lyrics, to the tune of “I can’t give you anything but love, baby," were on my mind as several of us made a now familiar drive to Killeen, Texas, last weekend. The words were written by Vernell Pratt of the 70s-era Soeur Queens. They have a relevant ring in this recession.
Attend the 'Hoodstock Flashback' benefit for Under the Hood at Jovita's in Austin, Sunday, November 14, 2010, 6-11 p.m. See details below.
I probably wouldn’t have known anyone in our current “volunteer” army if I hadn’t gotten involved with the coffeehouse Under the Hood in Killeen, Texas. Comparisons are often made to the Vietnam-era GI resistance, particularly because Under the Hood’s predecessor, the Oleo Strut, was well known in that resistance.
Yes, there was a Vietnam-era draft that made the war personal for a generation. You could avoid mucking through the jungles in the boot-steps of French colonialists if you were privileged. George W. Bush is certainly an example. But what was markedly different was the economic landscape. This recession has provided a perfect storm for military recruitment. Piled onto the jobless landscape, you have escalating college, health care, and housing costs.
The soldiers entering the military in the post-911 atmosphere do so for reasons of patriotism and pocketbook. They are lured by lies about Iraq’s relationship to the Twin Towers and never told about the previous U.S. relationship with jihadists in Afghanistan while the Russians were there. But the lure of steady pay, bonuses, and benefits is almost a no-brainer given the devastated job market.
Monthly paychecks, housing subsidies, recruitment bonuses, deployment bonuses, medical and dental care for soldiers and their dependents, post-discharge VA care, and assistance for education. It is no accident that soldiers refer to their “job” and their “contract” all the time. It is no accident that any soldier who resists a deployment is forced to make a careful calculus of the monetary cost. An “Other Than Honorable” discharge often means re-paying a bonus, losing healthcare, and losing access to college assistance.
The Baby Boomers who were in Austin remember college with $70 rents, tuition of $50 a semester, coffee for seven cents in the Chuck Wagon. Not so, in this environment where college graduation means the “commencement” of daunting loan payoff.
Meanwhile we veer through the current political landscape with blinders. Does anyone, besides Michael Moore, ever speak about the relationship of mounting deficits and endless war? Does anyone really believe that continuing tax cuts for the wealthy has a relationship to job creation? Haven’t the tax cuts been in place? How’s that been working out for job creation?
We are in one of the best run shill games ever. Stagnant wage growth, transfer of wealth to the wealthiest, a ransacked job market, global companies packing manufacturing jobs off to the lowest bidders on the planet. The “housing bubble” was a Wall Street con man’s paradise with average folks piling on debt and Wall Street trading derivatives of that debt until the house of cards fell down and they got bailed out with taxpayer dollars.
Meanwhile, back at Fort Hood in Killeen, suicides are continuing their record-breaking pace. Multiple deployments with no end in sight have taken their toll with outright casualties and walking casualties, with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We hear about it on Veteran’s Day and then almost everyone tunes it out.
Please don’t tune out an alternative this Sunday. Support Under the Hood’s mission to provide a free speech zone, a pro-soldier, anti-war presence a mile from the gates of the largest military base in the country, Fort Hood. Sunday, November 14th, 6-11, Jovita’s in Austin, $10 dollars. If you can't attend, you can support Under the Hood through its website, here.
[Alice Embree is a long-time Austin activist and organizer, a former staff member of The Rag in Austin and RAT in New York, and a veteran of SDS and the women's liberation movement. She is active with CodePink Austin and Under the Hood Café. Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and is treasurer of the New Journalism Project.]
Making the war personal
By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / November 14, 2010
We can’t give you anything but war, buddy
That’s the only thing we’ll hire you for, buddy...
These lyrics, to the tune of “I can’t give you anything but love, baby," were on my mind as several of us made a now familiar drive to Killeen, Texas, last weekend. The words were written by Vernell Pratt of the 70s-era Soeur Queens. They have a relevant ring in this recession.
Attend the 'Hoodstock Flashback' benefit for Under the Hood at Jovita's in Austin, Sunday, November 14, 2010, 6-11 p.m. See details below.
I probably wouldn’t have known anyone in our current “volunteer” army if I hadn’t gotten involved with the coffeehouse Under the Hood in Killeen, Texas. Comparisons are often made to the Vietnam-era GI resistance, particularly because Under the Hood’s predecessor, the Oleo Strut, was well known in that resistance.
Yes, there was a Vietnam-era draft that made the war personal for a generation. You could avoid mucking through the jungles in the boot-steps of French colonialists if you were privileged. George W. Bush is certainly an example. But what was markedly different was the economic landscape. This recession has provided a perfect storm for military recruitment. Piled onto the jobless landscape, you have escalating college, health care, and housing costs.
The soldiers entering the military in the post-911 atmosphere do so for reasons of patriotism and pocketbook. They are lured by lies about Iraq’s relationship to the Twin Towers and never told about the previous U.S. relationship with jihadists in Afghanistan while the Russians were there. But the lure of steady pay, bonuses, and benefits is almost a no-brainer given the devastated job market.
Monthly paychecks, housing subsidies, recruitment bonuses, deployment bonuses, medical and dental care for soldiers and their dependents, post-discharge VA care, and assistance for education. It is no accident that soldiers refer to their “job” and their “contract” all the time. It is no accident that any soldier who resists a deployment is forced to make a careful calculus of the monetary cost. An “Other Than Honorable” discharge often means re-paying a bonus, losing healthcare, and losing access to college assistance.
The Baby Boomers who were in Austin remember college with $70 rents, tuition of $50 a semester, coffee for seven cents in the Chuck Wagon. Not so, in this environment where college graduation means the “commencement” of daunting loan payoff.
Meanwhile we veer through the current political landscape with blinders. Does anyone, besides Michael Moore, ever speak about the relationship of mounting deficits and endless war? Does anyone really believe that continuing tax cuts for the wealthy has a relationship to job creation? Haven’t the tax cuts been in place? How’s that been working out for job creation?
We are in one of the best run shill games ever. Stagnant wage growth, transfer of wealth to the wealthiest, a ransacked job market, global companies packing manufacturing jobs off to the lowest bidders on the planet. The “housing bubble” was a Wall Street con man’s paradise with average folks piling on debt and Wall Street trading derivatives of that debt until the house of cards fell down and they got bailed out with taxpayer dollars.
Meanwhile, back at Fort Hood in Killeen, suicides are continuing their record-breaking pace. Multiple deployments with no end in sight have taken their toll with outright casualties and walking casualties, with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We hear about it on Veteran’s Day and then almost everyone tunes it out.
Please don’t tune out an alternative this Sunday. Support Under the Hood’s mission to provide a free speech zone, a pro-soldier, anti-war presence a mile from the gates of the largest military base in the country, Fort Hood. Sunday, November 14th, 6-11, Jovita’s in Austin, $10 dollars. If you can't attend, you can support Under the Hood through its website, here.
[Alice Embree is a long-time Austin activist and organizer, a former staff member of The Rag in Austin and RAT in New York, and a veteran of SDS and the women's liberation movement. She is active with CodePink Austin and Under the Hood Café. Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and is treasurer of the New Journalism Project.]
From The SteveLendmanBlog-Class Warfare Jeopardizing American Workers' Security
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Class Warfare Jeopardizing American Workers' Security
Class Warfare Jeopardizing American Workers' Security - by Stephen Lendman
Warren Buffett once said:
"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning," Obama's deficit-cutting agenda the latest battle.
On May 4, Hugo Radice, Life Fellow of the University of Leeds School of Politics and International Studies, headlined an article, "Cutting Public Debt: Economic Science or Class War?" asking:
"Is cutting the public debt really an objective economic necessity, or is it actually a deeply political stance, reflecting the interests of the business and financial elites?"
Analyzing historical public policies, he explained the shift from earlier Keynesianism to "the unchallenged hegemony of free-market neoliberalism since the early 1990s." In fact, over the past three decades, it was notable, beginning under Britain's Margaret Thatcher and America's Ronald Reagan, establishing practices that succeeding administrations hardened. As a result, Britain's New Labour governs like Conservatives while American Democrats mimic Republicans, especially on imperial and pocket book issues.
Radice calls it class warfare, pitting private wealth against public good, "a new common-sense" based on property rights, individualism, and notion that free markets work best so let them, including the right to demand massive public spending cuts, ones Radice says "are not, repeat not, economically necessary."
Nonetheless, for over 30 years, they've been ongoing. Since the mid-1970s, real wages haven't kept pace with inflation. Benefits have steadily eroded. High-paying jobs disappeared. Improved technology forced wage earners to work harder for less. More than ever, "free" markets work only for those who control them.
As a result, the class struggle between haves and have-nots escalated. A handful of powerful winners emerged. Wealth disparity extremes became unprecedented. Exploitation increased and successive crises, busts following speculative booms. Easy credit fueled them by excess lending and spending as well as high public and private debt levels. To heal, officials now call for "shared sacrifice," their sharing, our sacrifice.
Richard Wolff calls mainstream economics "faith-based." For Michael Hudson it's "junk economics," a Wall Street power grab, holding industrial America and wage earners hostage, debt peonage the final solution, benefitting only a powerful, elite few.
Today's buzzword across Europe and America is austerity, Obama's deficit commission declaring war on ordinary workers. Targeted are their jobs, benefits, standard of living, and retirement futures from draconian cuts. A scam to transfer greater wealth to the rich, trillions more than already looted, the grandest of grand theft, class warfare of the worse kind, a bipartisan scheme to wreck the economy and working Americans for profit.
After endorsing deficit commission proposals, a second New York Times editorial headlined "Waiting for the President," saying:
There's "no way to wrestle the deficit under control without both cutting spending and raising taxes." Everything "must be on the table," Obama out in front promoting it. Watching from the sidelines increases odds "it will never go anywhere." Strong White House leadership is needed to support "the commission's plain truths."
The Times editorial, other mainstream opinions, and Obama's deficit cutters avoided constructive alternatives, the right way to address high debt, foster economic growth, and lift all boats equitably. Obvious ones include:
-- waging war on concentrated wealth and power;
-- an across-the-board populist agenda, elevating social justice as issue one;
-- slashing the defense budget, minimally in half, ideally much more, including closing overseas bases, reducing force levels, ending foreign occupations, and renouncing imperial wars;
-- a progressive income tax replacing today's dysfunctional one;
-- removing the payroll tax ceiling, taxing all earned income at the same rate;
-- empowering workers to bargain collectively with management on equal terms;
-- a guaranteed living wage, adjusted by urban, rural, state and local considerations;
-- a guaranteed income for the indigent;
-- real regulatory reform, reinstituting vital ones eroded or lost;
-- abolishing monopoly and oligopoly power;
-- strengthening public education;
-- enacting universal, single-payer healthcare, excluding predatory insurers, except as a voluntary option;
-- returning money creation power to Congress as the Constitution mandates;
-- a Tobin Tax to make Wall Street and rich investors pay their fair share; and
-- establishing government of, by, and for the people for real.
Benefits of a Tobin Tax
Besides discouraging speculation, economist Robert Pollin estimates that at one-half of one percent, about $350 billion annually can be raised. A one-tenth of one percent tax on the estimated $500 trillion in annual derivatives trades could bring up to $500 billion a year. Depending on volumes and taxable trading threshold levels, those figures might be greater or smaller but nonetheless considerable. Most important, they'd help grow the economy productively, cut the deficit, and raise everyone's standard of living equitably, especially working Americans left out of bipartisan equation thinking - corrupted for America's aristocracy, Wall Street giants most of all.
Instead ordinary Americans are sacrificed on the alter of capitalist excess, their pain the price for its gain, a shocking indictment of a broken system - venal, depraved, degenerate, and criminal, deserving a dagger in its heart to kill it before making workers serfs, including destroying their retirement security.
America's Growing Retirement Crisis
In the May 2006 issue of Monthly Review, Teresa Ghilarducci titled her article "The End of Retirement," saying:
"Scarcely a day passes without a new pension nightmare: Social Security privatization," corporations ending private pensions, declining household savings, cancelled retirement healthcare benefits, and "401(k) accounts becoming '201(k)s,' " having replaced traditional pensions, defined benefit obligations fast disappearing.
These developments reflect a nightmarish reality. Today's "ownership society" forces everyone to manage their financial futures, leaving them vulnerable to marketplace uncertainties, a task few have enough expertise to handle, especially during hard times, eroding years of built up resources savagely, what older workers may be unable to recoup.
Conditions are far worse today than in May 2006. Yet Ghilarducci said "For the first time in US history, every source of retirement income is under siege: Social Security, personal savings, and occupational pensions." Also Medicare for retirees, their dependents, and the disabled, as well as Medicaid for the nation's poor - vital income-equivalent plans without which millions would be uninsured or underinsured, leaving them vulnerable to the catastrophic illness costs.
In July 2010, Professor James W. Russell, writing in Socialism and Democracy, titled his article, "Retirement Crisis in the United States," saying:
"The great 30-year experiment in 401(k) and similar retirement financing schemes that depend on stock market investments has failed. Even before the" 2008 crash, it was clear, the signs "everywhere that very few workers would be able to accumulate enough wealth through these accounts to insure" their retirement futures.
Like Russell, economist Richard Wolff explains that until 1980, each generation since the 19th century was better off financially than previous ones, including more retirement security. No longer, workers since victimized by institutionalized inequality. Examples include eroded union representation, mostly in commerce and industry, stagnant wages, weakened or lost benefits, and high-risk defined contribution plans replacing secure defined benefit ones.
By 1935, during the Great Depression, 34 European nations and America established social insurance programs. It was a watershed time, "consistent with the socialist value of solidarity through socialization of support for children, the elderly, the disabled, and others unable to" to work productively for a living.
Social Security in America As Amended
The Social Security Act became law when Franklin Roosevelt signed it on August 14, 1935, perhaps his finest hour, a measure during hard times against the 50% poverty rate. It still is when US poverty rates are soaring, perhaps heading for Great Depression levels or higher.
The program works well as mandated, taxing active workers and their employers to support eligible retirees, their dependents and the disabled. As Russell explains: "It is a formula that has worked remarkably well since its inception, producing the federal government's most successful and popular domestic program."
Employers also began offering pensions in a package of other benefits. It worked the same way, they and workers contributing for retirees, "a pay-as-you-go formula" - simple, effective, and assured, based on employment tenure under individual company plans.
The Revenue Act of 1978, however, changed things, its sections 401(k), 403(b), and 457 letting retirement plan contributions be made with pretax dollars. Though intended to encourage workers to participate in defined benefit plans, employers used it advantageously, increasingly switching them to defined contribution ones, providing no assurance of enough income at retirement.
In contrast, "defined benefit plans are progressive reforms within capitalist societies that are consistent with guaranteeing old age support as worker or social rights." Today, they're fast disappearing, victimized by neoliberal "reforms" for business, especially financial industry predators, not employees.
Russell cites two reasons why 401(k)s failed:
-- by falsely assuming worker investments (mostly stock market ones) will provide a secure retirement; given other lifetime obligations, including medical expenses, home purchases and mortgage payments, and college tuitions, it's not possible for most people; and
-- the financial services industry profits hugely from private investment plans, siphoning off large commission amounts that add up through the years; as a result, American workers have subsidized the industry's expansion while jeopardizing their own futures.
In contrast, government or business provided plans are "dedicated purely to supporting retirement instead of creating private wealth," often more for investment firms than their customers, and therein lies the problem. Instead of secure retirement income, having enough depends on marketplace uncertainty that in crisis times can be ruthless, destroying years of savings quickly, savagely, and unfairly.
As a result, for millions, 401(k)s and similar plans have been poison, failing to deliver on promises. Three arguments were made to sell them:
-- they'd way outperform traditional pensions - untrue;
-- retirement income would "owned" - true, but it hardly matters; and
-- they'd be portable - importantly true in a highly mobile society, jobs and careers today changed more often than earlier.
A major problem is how commonly these plans are used - for home purchases, medical expenses, college tuitions, other needs, or discretionary ones, depleting funds intended for retirement.
In contrast, Social Security works as intended by financing it, not private wealth or profits for industry predators. Bogusly, critics claim it's going bankrupt when, in fact, it's sound and secure if properly administered, needing only modest adjustments at times to keep it that way.
Moreover, as explained above, simple revenue enhancement methods exist, including a progressive income tax; removing the payroll tax ceiling, taxing all earned income at the same rate; and instituting a Tobin Tax - combined they might keep Social Security flourishing for a millennium, for sure a century or two, and more.
"They could and should be (ways to expand) Social Security benefits and (begin) phas(ing) out employment-based retirement plans" that don't deliver on promises. Retirement plans should have fundamental goals - to provide predictable, adequate income amounts, adjusted for inflation, delivering as much annual working lifetime earnings as possible. Achieving it depends on replacing today's "three-legged stool" - "Social Security, employment-based benefit(s), and personal savings - with a national system in which Social Security accounts for the" lion's share of income, "topped off by personal savings" that for most people are meager.
A Final Comment
For American workers, achieving retirement security is simple and achievable, but not with opposition from powerful, destructive forces - financial giants complicit with government, willing bipartisan majorities plotting to jeopardize the future of millions. A previous article explained how, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/obama-teams-deficit-cutting-proposal.html
Only mass outrage can stop them from slashing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social benefits on the way to ending them - a venal plot to make America another banana republic, its working millions oppressed serfs, their present and future security destroyed. Obama and congressional majorities support this in league with big money backers, largely Wall Street racketeers profiting hugely from sucking public and personal wealth to themselves. The die is cast. It's their future or ours. There's no in between. Grassroots activism only, or lack of it, will decide.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 4:46 AM
<< Home
Class Warfare Jeopardizing American Workers' Security
Class Warfare Jeopardizing American Workers' Security - by Stephen Lendman
Warren Buffett once said:
"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning," Obama's deficit-cutting agenda the latest battle.
On May 4, Hugo Radice, Life Fellow of the University of Leeds School of Politics and International Studies, headlined an article, "Cutting Public Debt: Economic Science or Class War?" asking:
"Is cutting the public debt really an objective economic necessity, or is it actually a deeply political stance, reflecting the interests of the business and financial elites?"
Analyzing historical public policies, he explained the shift from earlier Keynesianism to "the unchallenged hegemony of free-market neoliberalism since the early 1990s." In fact, over the past three decades, it was notable, beginning under Britain's Margaret Thatcher and America's Ronald Reagan, establishing practices that succeeding administrations hardened. As a result, Britain's New Labour governs like Conservatives while American Democrats mimic Republicans, especially on imperial and pocket book issues.
Radice calls it class warfare, pitting private wealth against public good, "a new common-sense" based on property rights, individualism, and notion that free markets work best so let them, including the right to demand massive public spending cuts, ones Radice says "are not, repeat not, economically necessary."
Nonetheless, for over 30 years, they've been ongoing. Since the mid-1970s, real wages haven't kept pace with inflation. Benefits have steadily eroded. High-paying jobs disappeared. Improved technology forced wage earners to work harder for less. More than ever, "free" markets work only for those who control them.
As a result, the class struggle between haves and have-nots escalated. A handful of powerful winners emerged. Wealth disparity extremes became unprecedented. Exploitation increased and successive crises, busts following speculative booms. Easy credit fueled them by excess lending and spending as well as high public and private debt levels. To heal, officials now call for "shared sacrifice," their sharing, our sacrifice.
Richard Wolff calls mainstream economics "faith-based." For Michael Hudson it's "junk economics," a Wall Street power grab, holding industrial America and wage earners hostage, debt peonage the final solution, benefitting only a powerful, elite few.
Today's buzzword across Europe and America is austerity, Obama's deficit commission declaring war on ordinary workers. Targeted are their jobs, benefits, standard of living, and retirement futures from draconian cuts. A scam to transfer greater wealth to the rich, trillions more than already looted, the grandest of grand theft, class warfare of the worse kind, a bipartisan scheme to wreck the economy and working Americans for profit.
After endorsing deficit commission proposals, a second New York Times editorial headlined "Waiting for the President," saying:
There's "no way to wrestle the deficit under control without both cutting spending and raising taxes." Everything "must be on the table," Obama out in front promoting it. Watching from the sidelines increases odds "it will never go anywhere." Strong White House leadership is needed to support "the commission's plain truths."
The Times editorial, other mainstream opinions, and Obama's deficit cutters avoided constructive alternatives, the right way to address high debt, foster economic growth, and lift all boats equitably. Obvious ones include:
-- waging war on concentrated wealth and power;
-- an across-the-board populist agenda, elevating social justice as issue one;
-- slashing the defense budget, minimally in half, ideally much more, including closing overseas bases, reducing force levels, ending foreign occupations, and renouncing imperial wars;
-- a progressive income tax replacing today's dysfunctional one;
-- removing the payroll tax ceiling, taxing all earned income at the same rate;
-- empowering workers to bargain collectively with management on equal terms;
-- a guaranteed living wage, adjusted by urban, rural, state and local considerations;
-- a guaranteed income for the indigent;
-- real regulatory reform, reinstituting vital ones eroded or lost;
-- abolishing monopoly and oligopoly power;
-- strengthening public education;
-- enacting universal, single-payer healthcare, excluding predatory insurers, except as a voluntary option;
-- returning money creation power to Congress as the Constitution mandates;
-- a Tobin Tax to make Wall Street and rich investors pay their fair share; and
-- establishing government of, by, and for the people for real.
Benefits of a Tobin Tax
Besides discouraging speculation, economist Robert Pollin estimates that at one-half of one percent, about $350 billion annually can be raised. A one-tenth of one percent tax on the estimated $500 trillion in annual derivatives trades could bring up to $500 billion a year. Depending on volumes and taxable trading threshold levels, those figures might be greater or smaller but nonetheless considerable. Most important, they'd help grow the economy productively, cut the deficit, and raise everyone's standard of living equitably, especially working Americans left out of bipartisan equation thinking - corrupted for America's aristocracy, Wall Street giants most of all.
Instead ordinary Americans are sacrificed on the alter of capitalist excess, their pain the price for its gain, a shocking indictment of a broken system - venal, depraved, degenerate, and criminal, deserving a dagger in its heart to kill it before making workers serfs, including destroying their retirement security.
America's Growing Retirement Crisis
In the May 2006 issue of Monthly Review, Teresa Ghilarducci titled her article "The End of Retirement," saying:
"Scarcely a day passes without a new pension nightmare: Social Security privatization," corporations ending private pensions, declining household savings, cancelled retirement healthcare benefits, and "401(k) accounts becoming '201(k)s,' " having replaced traditional pensions, defined benefit obligations fast disappearing.
These developments reflect a nightmarish reality. Today's "ownership society" forces everyone to manage their financial futures, leaving them vulnerable to marketplace uncertainties, a task few have enough expertise to handle, especially during hard times, eroding years of built up resources savagely, what older workers may be unable to recoup.
Conditions are far worse today than in May 2006. Yet Ghilarducci said "For the first time in US history, every source of retirement income is under siege: Social Security, personal savings, and occupational pensions." Also Medicare for retirees, their dependents, and the disabled, as well as Medicaid for the nation's poor - vital income-equivalent plans without which millions would be uninsured or underinsured, leaving them vulnerable to the catastrophic illness costs.
In July 2010, Professor James W. Russell, writing in Socialism and Democracy, titled his article, "Retirement Crisis in the United States," saying:
"The great 30-year experiment in 401(k) and similar retirement financing schemes that depend on stock market investments has failed. Even before the" 2008 crash, it was clear, the signs "everywhere that very few workers would be able to accumulate enough wealth through these accounts to insure" their retirement futures.
Like Russell, economist Richard Wolff explains that until 1980, each generation since the 19th century was better off financially than previous ones, including more retirement security. No longer, workers since victimized by institutionalized inequality. Examples include eroded union representation, mostly in commerce and industry, stagnant wages, weakened or lost benefits, and high-risk defined contribution plans replacing secure defined benefit ones.
By 1935, during the Great Depression, 34 European nations and America established social insurance programs. It was a watershed time, "consistent with the socialist value of solidarity through socialization of support for children, the elderly, the disabled, and others unable to" to work productively for a living.
Social Security in America As Amended
The Social Security Act became law when Franklin Roosevelt signed it on August 14, 1935, perhaps his finest hour, a measure during hard times against the 50% poverty rate. It still is when US poverty rates are soaring, perhaps heading for Great Depression levels or higher.
The program works well as mandated, taxing active workers and their employers to support eligible retirees, their dependents and the disabled. As Russell explains: "It is a formula that has worked remarkably well since its inception, producing the federal government's most successful and popular domestic program."
Employers also began offering pensions in a package of other benefits. It worked the same way, they and workers contributing for retirees, "a pay-as-you-go formula" - simple, effective, and assured, based on employment tenure under individual company plans.
The Revenue Act of 1978, however, changed things, its sections 401(k), 403(b), and 457 letting retirement plan contributions be made with pretax dollars. Though intended to encourage workers to participate in defined benefit plans, employers used it advantageously, increasingly switching them to defined contribution ones, providing no assurance of enough income at retirement.
In contrast, "defined benefit plans are progressive reforms within capitalist societies that are consistent with guaranteeing old age support as worker or social rights." Today, they're fast disappearing, victimized by neoliberal "reforms" for business, especially financial industry predators, not employees.
Russell cites two reasons why 401(k)s failed:
-- by falsely assuming worker investments (mostly stock market ones) will provide a secure retirement; given other lifetime obligations, including medical expenses, home purchases and mortgage payments, and college tuitions, it's not possible for most people; and
-- the financial services industry profits hugely from private investment plans, siphoning off large commission amounts that add up through the years; as a result, American workers have subsidized the industry's expansion while jeopardizing their own futures.
In contrast, government or business provided plans are "dedicated purely to supporting retirement instead of creating private wealth," often more for investment firms than their customers, and therein lies the problem. Instead of secure retirement income, having enough depends on marketplace uncertainty that in crisis times can be ruthless, destroying years of savings quickly, savagely, and unfairly.
As a result, for millions, 401(k)s and similar plans have been poison, failing to deliver on promises. Three arguments were made to sell them:
-- they'd way outperform traditional pensions - untrue;
-- retirement income would "owned" - true, but it hardly matters; and
-- they'd be portable - importantly true in a highly mobile society, jobs and careers today changed more often than earlier.
A major problem is how commonly these plans are used - for home purchases, medical expenses, college tuitions, other needs, or discretionary ones, depleting funds intended for retirement.
In contrast, Social Security works as intended by financing it, not private wealth or profits for industry predators. Bogusly, critics claim it's going bankrupt when, in fact, it's sound and secure if properly administered, needing only modest adjustments at times to keep it that way.
Moreover, as explained above, simple revenue enhancement methods exist, including a progressive income tax; removing the payroll tax ceiling, taxing all earned income at the same rate; and instituting a Tobin Tax - combined they might keep Social Security flourishing for a millennium, for sure a century or two, and more.
"They could and should be (ways to expand) Social Security benefits and (begin) phas(ing) out employment-based retirement plans" that don't deliver on promises. Retirement plans should have fundamental goals - to provide predictable, adequate income amounts, adjusted for inflation, delivering as much annual working lifetime earnings as possible. Achieving it depends on replacing today's "three-legged stool" - "Social Security, employment-based benefit(s), and personal savings - with a national system in which Social Security accounts for the" lion's share of income, "topped off by personal savings" that for most people are meager.
A Final Comment
For American workers, achieving retirement security is simple and achievable, but not with opposition from powerful, destructive forces - financial giants complicit with government, willing bipartisan majorities plotting to jeopardize the future of millions. A previous article explained how, accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/obama-teams-deficit-cutting-proposal.html
Only mass outrage can stop them from slashing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social benefits on the way to ending them - a venal plot to make America another banana republic, its working millions oppressed serfs, their present and future security destroyed. Obama and congressional majorities support this in league with big money backers, largely Wall Street racketeers profiting hugely from sucking public and personal wealth to themselves. The die is cast. It's their future or ours. There's no in between. Grassroots activism only, or lack of it, will decide.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
posted by Steve Lendman @ 4:46 AM
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The Latest From "Socialist Appeal"-"French Workers Show The Way"
French Workers Show the Way
Written by Socialist Appeal
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
In Europe as in the US, workers are being told that austerity is the only way to deal with the crisis. In other words, workers are supposed to pay for the bosses’ mess! While the rich continue to get richer, the majority are supposed to tighten their belts further and “take one for the team.” But in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Ukraine, and above all in France, workers and youth are fighting back.
Despite all the anti-French jokes and “Freedom Fries” mania of the last few years, let’s give the French workers and youth their due: when their rights and quality of life is being threatened by the capitalists and their political representatives, they fight tenaciously to defend what is rightfully theirs. They pour onto the streets, organize strikes and paralyze society as a way of showing the power of the working class if it is organized and mobilized. With even worse attacks on US workers in the pipeline, their struggle is an example we can learn from!
The economic crisis of the last two years has increased France’s state debt to 80% of GDP and the ruling class wants to make the workers pay for it. After handing out billions of Euros to the banks, now the state hopes to “save” 70 billion Euros with an attack on workers’ pension rights. Sound familiar?
The pensions “reform” is seen as crucial for the ruling class in France. Under current legislation, French workers can choose to retire at 60 years of age if they have accumulated 41 years of Social Security contributions, and can draw a full state pension at 65. The right wing Sarkozy government wants to increase the minimum retirement age to 62, with 42 years of Social Security payments, and the full pension age to 67.
On Friday, October 22, the French government managed to get the pensions package passed through the Senate. The increasingly unpopular government of Sarkozy, faced with an unprecedented movement of strikes, demonstrations, road blockades, mass pickets and general assemblies, hoped that this, would bring the mass movement to a halt. This does not seem to be happening, however. Opinion polls showed that 59% of the population were in favor of the continuation of the movement even after the approval of the law. The government refers only to a “minority of radicals holding the country to ransom” and the media hide the real extent of the strike.
But the support for the movement has been broad indeed and there is a growing mood in the movement that isolated “days of action” are no longer enough to force the government to retreat. Since the beginning of September there have been six days of action, three of which saw the participation of more than three million people in demonstrations all over the country. After the national day of action on October 12, with 3.5 million people on the streets, a number of sectors started indefinite strikes, notably the refinery workers and the railway workers. Despite the stubborn refusal of the national trade union leaders to call a general strike, section after the section of workers have joined a growing national movement whose focus has become the idea that only by bringing the economy to a halt can the government be defeated.
“Given the mood of the rank and file we cannot put an end to the movement,” trade union leaders both from the CFDT and the CGT, explained, almost apologetically. However, instead of giving the movement a clear lead, calling for a general strike, the only step that would make the movement stronger they called for yet another two “national days of action.” As a matter of fact the trade union leaders seemed to be more worried about “debordement” (being overtaken by the movement), than about giving the struggle a clear lead.
This left the movement without a clear direction, but despite that, stoppages, road blockades, strikes and all sorts of initiatives to maintain the movement strong developed at the initiative of the rank and file and local and regional trade union bodies. On the eve of the vote on the law, thousands of workers and students marched in Paris in two separate demonstrations, one called by the student organizations, the other at the initiative of General Assemblies of railway workers, postal workers, and others. Both demonstrations attempted to reach the Senate building, but were stopped by anti-riot police. The main problem was that, lacking a call on the part of the national leadership, they did not have the necessary numbers.
The government has responded with violence and repression. There are now plenty of eyewitness reports and video evidence showing the presence of agent provocateurs at student demonstrations and orchestrating violence at demonstrations in general. The CGT union has denounced cases of plain-clothes police officers wearing CGT stickers or even CGT steward arm-bands playing a role in creating violent incidents during demonstrations. In order to defend their demonstration against provocateurs and anti-riot police, the last student demonstration was stewarded by trade unionists.
At the same time, realizing the key role in the movement played by the strike at the refineries, the government has used violent and legal means to attempt to break the resolve of the workers.
Using emergency laws which are supposed to deal with cases of “national emergency” the government moved to “conscript” all workers at the Grandpuits refinery on Friday 21, after violently breaking up the picket line. With 430 workers, Grandpuits is the smallest of the six Total refineries in the country, but supplies 70% of the Ile-de-France region. In effect this means that workers are ordered to go back to work or else they face jail sentences. This is an unprecedented attack on the right to strike, which shows the truth contained in the Marxist analysis that the capitalist state (police, the laws, etc) is, in the last analysis, “armed bodies of men in defence of private property.”
The movement of the French workers has captured the imagination of millions of workers, youth and trade union activists all over the world. They can see the French workers taking a firm stand against attacks which are very similar to the ones they are suffering.
It is an extraordinary confirmation of the power of the working class today. What is needed is a clear call for a general strike. If this does not come from above, the local and regional inter-professional general assemblies should link up at a departmental and also national level, through elected representatives, in order to give the movement a clear leadership. Despite all the obstacles that they face, the French workers have marvelous revolutionary traditions. This is the country of the General Strike of 1936 and the revolutionary events of May 1968.
But make no mistake about it: US workers also have magnificent, militant working class traditions. We at Socialist Appeal are confident that American workers will have a few surprises in store for the capitalists in the tumultuous battles of the class struggle that lie ahead.
Written by Socialist Appeal
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
In Europe as in the US, workers are being told that austerity is the only way to deal with the crisis. In other words, workers are supposed to pay for the bosses’ mess! While the rich continue to get richer, the majority are supposed to tighten their belts further and “take one for the team.” But in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Ukraine, and above all in France, workers and youth are fighting back.
Despite all the anti-French jokes and “Freedom Fries” mania of the last few years, let’s give the French workers and youth their due: when their rights and quality of life is being threatened by the capitalists and their political representatives, they fight tenaciously to defend what is rightfully theirs. They pour onto the streets, organize strikes and paralyze society as a way of showing the power of the working class if it is organized and mobilized. With even worse attacks on US workers in the pipeline, their struggle is an example we can learn from!
The economic crisis of the last two years has increased France’s state debt to 80% of GDP and the ruling class wants to make the workers pay for it. After handing out billions of Euros to the banks, now the state hopes to “save” 70 billion Euros with an attack on workers’ pension rights. Sound familiar?
The pensions “reform” is seen as crucial for the ruling class in France. Under current legislation, French workers can choose to retire at 60 years of age if they have accumulated 41 years of Social Security contributions, and can draw a full state pension at 65. The right wing Sarkozy government wants to increase the minimum retirement age to 62, with 42 years of Social Security payments, and the full pension age to 67.
On Friday, October 22, the French government managed to get the pensions package passed through the Senate. The increasingly unpopular government of Sarkozy, faced with an unprecedented movement of strikes, demonstrations, road blockades, mass pickets and general assemblies, hoped that this, would bring the mass movement to a halt. This does not seem to be happening, however. Opinion polls showed that 59% of the population were in favor of the continuation of the movement even after the approval of the law. The government refers only to a “minority of radicals holding the country to ransom” and the media hide the real extent of the strike.
But the support for the movement has been broad indeed and there is a growing mood in the movement that isolated “days of action” are no longer enough to force the government to retreat. Since the beginning of September there have been six days of action, three of which saw the participation of more than three million people in demonstrations all over the country. After the national day of action on October 12, with 3.5 million people on the streets, a number of sectors started indefinite strikes, notably the refinery workers and the railway workers. Despite the stubborn refusal of the national trade union leaders to call a general strike, section after the section of workers have joined a growing national movement whose focus has become the idea that only by bringing the economy to a halt can the government be defeated.
“Given the mood of the rank and file we cannot put an end to the movement,” trade union leaders both from the CFDT and the CGT, explained, almost apologetically. However, instead of giving the movement a clear lead, calling for a general strike, the only step that would make the movement stronger they called for yet another two “national days of action.” As a matter of fact the trade union leaders seemed to be more worried about “debordement” (being overtaken by the movement), than about giving the struggle a clear lead.
This left the movement without a clear direction, but despite that, stoppages, road blockades, strikes and all sorts of initiatives to maintain the movement strong developed at the initiative of the rank and file and local and regional trade union bodies. On the eve of the vote on the law, thousands of workers and students marched in Paris in two separate demonstrations, one called by the student organizations, the other at the initiative of General Assemblies of railway workers, postal workers, and others. Both demonstrations attempted to reach the Senate building, but were stopped by anti-riot police. The main problem was that, lacking a call on the part of the national leadership, they did not have the necessary numbers.
The government has responded with violence and repression. There are now plenty of eyewitness reports and video evidence showing the presence of agent provocateurs at student demonstrations and orchestrating violence at demonstrations in general. The CGT union has denounced cases of plain-clothes police officers wearing CGT stickers or even CGT steward arm-bands playing a role in creating violent incidents during demonstrations. In order to defend their demonstration against provocateurs and anti-riot police, the last student demonstration was stewarded by trade unionists.
At the same time, realizing the key role in the movement played by the strike at the refineries, the government has used violent and legal means to attempt to break the resolve of the workers.
Using emergency laws which are supposed to deal with cases of “national emergency” the government moved to “conscript” all workers at the Grandpuits refinery on Friday 21, after violently breaking up the picket line. With 430 workers, Grandpuits is the smallest of the six Total refineries in the country, but supplies 70% of the Ile-de-France region. In effect this means that workers are ordered to go back to work or else they face jail sentences. This is an unprecedented attack on the right to strike, which shows the truth contained in the Marxist analysis that the capitalist state (police, the laws, etc) is, in the last analysis, “armed bodies of men in defence of private property.”
The movement of the French workers has captured the imagination of millions of workers, youth and trade union activists all over the world. They can see the French workers taking a firm stand against attacks which are very similar to the ones they are suffering.
It is an extraordinary confirmation of the power of the working class today. What is needed is a clear call for a general strike. If this does not come from above, the local and regional inter-professional general assemblies should link up at a departmental and also national level, through elected representatives, in order to give the movement a clear leadership. Despite all the obstacles that they face, the French workers have marvelous revolutionary traditions. This is the country of the General Strike of 1936 and the revolutionary events of May 1968.
But make no mistake about it: US workers also have magnificent, militant working class traditions. We at Socialist Appeal are confident that American workers will have a few surprises in store for the capitalists in the tumultuous battles of the class struggle that lie ahead.
From The "In Defense Of Marxism" Website-Britain: Biggest student demonstration in decades ‑ and this is just the beginning
Britain: Biggest student demonstration in decades ‑ and this is just the beginning
Written by Adam Booth and Ben Peck
Friday, 12 November 2010
Events have taken a turn in Britain as the first mass reaction took place this week against the programme of vicious cuts being introduced by the Tory-led coalition. On Wednesday, November 10th, London witnessed an overwhelming response from the students as a demonstration of over 50,000 marched in protest at the attacks taking place in Higher Education.
The demonstration, a joint demo by the National Union of Students (NUS) and the University and College Lecturers Union (UCU), marked a turning point for the class struggle in Britain, which will be seen by workers everywhere as the first expression of the anger and frustration developing within society as a whole. Not since the protests against the Iraq war have such numbers been seen in Britain, and even the famous student protests against the Vietnam War in Grosvenor Square in 1968 were only slightly larger.
Fees and cuts
In 1998 the New Labour government scrapped free education and grants. Despite an election promise not to, New Labour passed a law in 2004 to increase the cost of tuition fees in Higher Education (HE - university level education) from £1,250 to £3,290 per year. The law only narrowly passed in the House of Commons, with Tony Blair having to rely on support from the Tories in order to overcome a Labour backbench rebellion.
In light of the capitalist crisis the Browne Review recommended on October 12th this year that universities be allowed to charge unlimited fees for tuition, going significantly further than what had been expected. This reveals the depths of the crisis. Despite the new Tory-Liberal coalition government promises to take on board the recommendations of the Browne review, the government drew back from the brink for fear of the social and political consequences. In the end they announced plans to allow fees of up to £9,000 per year. Although students will not be required to pay any of this money upfront, the debt that they accumulate will be borrowed at interest – interest that will go straight to the banks!
In addition to the increasing fees, the coalition government announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) on October 20th that the teaching budget to universities would be cut by 40%. This raises the possibility of entire universities closing, along with course closures at most universities. Students, therefore, will not be the only ones affected by the cuts; the UCU estimates that over 22,000 jobs in universities are at risk, including both lecturers and support staff.
The picture is just as bleak in FE (Further Education - education for 16 to 18 year olds), with planned cuts of 25%. FE institutions educate and train more over-16 students than sixth forms and universities put together. They are clearly needed: some one million 16 to 24-year-olds are classified as "NEETS" – not in education, employment, or training. The education maintenance allowance (EMA), of up to £30 per week for poor families, is to be scrapped. Nationally 46% of FE students get the EMA; in poorer areas the figure is nearer to 80%.
These cuts, which form part of a generalised attack on public services, are tearing up the so-called consensus politics of the past two decades. The illusion that in Britain there existed a type of "meritocracy", no matter how imperfect, where your kids had the opportunity to reach the top with a bit of hard work, has been shattered. It is of no surprise, therefore, that bubbles of anger are beginning to float to the surface.
National demonstration
Until recently the movement against university cuts had been primarily led by university staff, who were facing the more immediate repercussions of the crisis, in the form of job losses, wage freezes, and attacks on pensions and conditions. As a result, the UCU has been out on strike a number of times over the past year, both in HE and FE institutions.
The NUS leadership, however, has not matched this level of militancy in the recent period, and even went as far as to abandon its official position on campaigning for free education at the 2008 national conference.
As details of the Browne Review and the CSR emerged over the last month, activity in universities began to accelerate. Student unions across the country, with the backing of the NUS, gave a great deal of support to the protest, and meetings about how to fight fees and cuts grew in size. Protests at individual universities, such as the 1000-strong march at Oxford University, gave an indication of the mood that was developing.
On the day of the march it was clear from the beginning that there was a change in the air. The roar of students marching in the distance could be heard at the starting point. A carnival atmosphere seemed to take hold of the march. It was clear to see, as more and more students arrived, and the scale of the turn-out became apparent, that the demonstration was becoming intoxicated with recognition of its own strength.
Since the financial crisis in 2008 many have watched what is being prepared in society with a sort of stunned silence. People have grumbled that there is no voice or movement for those who wish to fight the cuts. Yet the atmosphere among the students was electric. It was as if, after a period of feeling impotent and isolated, the students had found that they were not alone, that they were part of a bigger movement with a definite purpose.
A last minute surge of attendees from universities, along with the presence of many school students from London who had boycotted school for the day, pushed the numbers to over 50,000, according to estimates given by the NUS. Such numbers were truly staggering, and were an amazing sight to behold, with the vibrant student protest filling the streets of central London for over five hours. The number of 50,000 was all the more impressive considering that the protest was almost entirely made up of students, with some university staff, and that it was the middle of the week, thus requiring students to skip classes and not allowing other workers to show solidarity. So buoyant was the mood of the students that, as opposed to the typical stereotype of student lethargy, the march spilled out of its starting position and left before the scheduled time.
New layer of students politicised
It was clear that for the majority of the people on the demonstration, this was their first experience of a large scale protest. This is an extremely positive step for the student movement and for the class struggle in general. A mass movement of workers and youth will be needed to defeat the cuts, and a new generation of student activists is a necessary step towards such a movement.
The large number of new student activists was also reflected by the political slogans on display. In general, the majority of people were angry about the rising fees. This was especially the case for the large number of school students at the demonstration, who will be the first in the firing line when it comes to the proposed £9,000 per year fees. The majority of banners and chants were for “free education”, and not for the official NUS position of a "graduate tax" (in which a progressive tax is placed upon the income of graduates once in work). This shows that the new layers that were getting involved are far ahead of the NUS leadership.
There was an excellent turn-out from Scottish students, who are not immediately affected by the measures being introduced by the Tories, but clearly understand that they will not be able to escape the attacks that are coming.
Despite the leadership of the NUS, with its support of a graduate tax and with no clear strategy to defeat the cuts, the mood was excellent. In particular the school students, many who said they were encouraged to skip classes by their teachers, were grabbing bundles of Socialist Appeal leaflets and handing them out. Flyers were literally being torn out of the comrades’ hands. Again this shows the political nature of the demonstration and the need for a leadership with a clear strategy to fight the cuts.
History shows that the mood that develops among the student population is a reliable barometer for the mood in wider society. This was famously the case in France in May '68, where it was first the movement of the students that anticipated the magnificent movement of the French workers, who later carried out the 10 million-strong general strike which almost toppled capitalism in France.
Sit-down protest in front of Parliament. Photo by Porstmouth Student Union.Recent events in France have certainly been an inspiration for British workers and youth, and there is no mistaking the fact that British society has been influenced by the example of France.
This fact, in relation to the student demo, has been commented on by much of the bourgeois media - that the NUS and the UCU carried out a "French-style" demonstration. The Wall Street journal comments that perhaps Prime Minister David Cameron should be asking Sarkozy to loan them the notorious riot-busting CRS to tackle the students. When the British students are accused of "acting French", what is being acknowledged is that the students are becoming radicalised.
NUS leadership miscalculates
Before the day of the march Police estimates were for a turnout of 10,000. The estimate coming from the NUS was 30,000. Both clearly misjudged the mood that had been building up among the student population as over 50,000 students turned out.
This is an answer to those on the left who have tried on numerous occasions in the past period to play the very irresponsible game of demanding the creation of a “new, radical, democratic, fighting” national union of students. Essentially they have tried to split the NUS, claiming it only fit for beer tokens and clothing discounts. What they have not understood is that the NUS is the traditional organisation of the student movement in Britain. In the 1960s it moved radically to the left under the pressure of events. The present leadership of the NUS was shaped in a period of relative class peace, which was based on the boom. It is only an imperfect reflection of the consciousness of the movement below, which in turn is shaped by the hammer blow of events. In the coming period the NUS will be pushed much further to the left as the students try to shape it into an organisation that represents their interests.
Students shouting slogans. Photo: Geoff Dexter.Today, with over 80% of students having to work part-time to make ends meet, the student body as a whole has become proletarianised and is very definitely on the left. As the crisis has struck, this has been shown in practice: faced with increasing anger amongst students, the NUS leadership was forced, firstly, into organising a special “cuts conference” in June 2009, and then to announce a national demonstration jointly with the UCU. Such announcements represented a qualitative change in the student movement, which has been confined to small-scale university occupations over issues such as Gaza in recent years.
As a traditional organisation of the students the reserves of support that the NUS has at its disposal cannot be underestimated, as Wednesday's mobilisation reveals.
The NUS leadership has been dominated by reformist careerists in the last decade. The last thing NUS president Aaron Porter wanted – who, unlike his New Labour predecessors, has had the misfortune of being “born in interesting times” – was this demonstration, which he was forced to call under pressure from below. The choice of a weekday for the demonstration was meant to keep the attendance low. The NUS leadership hoped that the protest could be used to quietly allow students to let off some steam, in much the same way as trade union leaders in Europe have used one-day general strikes to allow some pressure out of the labour movement. In reality the national demonstration of students was a success despite the leadership, and will only have served to raise the consciousness of the new layer of youth that has entered onto the arena of the class struggle. What shaped the mood was the widespread discontent which exists throughout British society, and has been concentrated in the "excluded generation" of under-25s who are fast realising what impact the cuts will have.
Millbank
Students protesting outside Tory HQ. Photo: Geoff DexterAn attempt has been made by the media to play down the real meaning of this mass demonstration of students, by concentrating all their reports on what happened at the Millbank Tower, which hosts the Conservative Party headquarters. The windows of the building were smashed in, with a few dozen student occupiers reaching the roof. This attracted a much wider periphery of two or three thousand (or more), who stood outside the building directing chants against the Tories for several hours, until police reinforcements arrived to beat back the remaining protestors and evacuate the building. Although the attack on the Millbank Tower was clearly initiated by a minority of ultra-lefts, it was evident that large numbers of students looked on with sympathy. One student said: "this is what happens when those in power attack ordinary people".
In and of itself this action has solved nothing and is not a method that the labour movement would adopt. But one has to recognise that the severity of the government's attacks is provoking an extremely angry mood among students and the responsibility for such a situation should be placed where it belongs, on the shoulders of the Tories and the boss class they represent.
In his response to the media, Porter, unfortunately preferred to use his air-time to concentrate on condemning the occupiers of the Millbank Tower, accusing an “unrepresentative minority” of “ruining it for everyone” rather than directing his main fire at the Tories for the violence they are visiting on the British working class. Such outbursts of violence are nothing compared to what the Tories have in store for working people and youth in this country.
Students getting inside the Millbank building. Photo: Geoff DexterThe capitalist press have jumped on this question. It is in itself a sensationalist news story that will sell a lot of papers. More importantly it distracts from the real question, which is, in the first place, "why are the students marching?" Cameron and fellow Tory, London Mayor Boris Johnson, have been quick to condemn the students. One student commented online that the they had gone from being portrayed as "lazy hippies to hooded yobs", and that while it is merely "hi-jinks" for the Bullingdon club (a notorious and exclusive Tory dining club at Oxford university) to smash up restaurants, when Tory HQ is attacked "things have gone too far". Cameron, who has been on a trade mission to China, explained to the Chinese press that British students were experiencing a tax-hike "so that foreign students can pay less (!)".
Had the anarchists gone tearing down Oxford St, smashing shop windows, it would have been seen as the usual crowd of ultra-lefts carrying out acts of vandalism. However, the Millbank incident will have been seen in a different light by many. This is because this was the headquarters of the party of the bankers and big business, the party that is destroying the very basis of a civilised existence for millions of workers.
Students have reported a sympathetic response from ordinary working class people. An example of this was reported by students of Worcester University, who on the way back from the demo stopped off at a service station, where a little old lady serving behind the check-out, on recognising the students from the news, reportedly remarked "…good on you lads, somebody has to show those Tories we will not be walked over."
The role of the police at the Millbank occupation presents an interesting question. Thatcher in the 1980s always took care to look after the police, raising their wages whilst they attacked the miners and printers. Today this is not the case and the police are suffering the same cuts. A couple of years ago 25,000 police marched through the streets of London in protest over their wages and conditions. This shows us the depth of the capitalist crisis, where the bourgeoisie are eating into their traditional reserves of support.
Occupiers on the roof of Tory HQ. Photo: SonniesEdgeHowever, we have to distinguish ordinary police officers from Chiefs of Police. In the bourgeois press the next day the message to the police was clear. Under the guise of "sincere concerns" that the police had been cowed by the previous years' bad press at the G20, where a demonstrator – Ian Tomlinson – died after police brutality, the question was raised: "are the police too restricted in their actions?' The message is clear. From now on, we will see a much more aggressive stance on the part of the police in the coming period. And that is not because of what happened at Millbank. The bourgeoisie has launched a severe attack on workers and there is no room for compromise.
The serious bourgeoisie will not be too concerned about a little damage to private property, which they can easily afford to replace – and which in any case comes in very useful as a propaganda tool to justify their stepping up of police repression. What they are concerned about is this militant mood of the students infecting the rest of the working class. The government knows it has no concessions to offer - therefore it will offer the baton instead. What was in their interests was to let the occupiers have their way, to let rip and provide the bourgeois press with some images to splash on the front pages. They wish to demonise the students, and the idea of fighting the cuts. More importantly they wish to prepare public opinion for the real battles they foresee against an aroused working class in the future.
Having considered all the above, what would be dangerous is the idea that "direct action" by students alone can stop the Tory attacks. Effective direct action can only be carried out by the organised labour movement, mobilised with a programme to nationalise the banks under the democratic control of the working class – the only class that has the power to take on the bankers and capitalists and their stooge Tory government.
Where next for students?
For most of the 50,000 students at the national demonstration, the question in the minds now will be “what next?” It is clear that demonstrations alone will not defeat the cuts. The huge demonstrations of over one million people in London in 2003 against the Iraq war failed to stop the Blair government. The ruling class can tolerate demonstrations, however strong, as long as these do not challenge their right to govern over society. What is required is a movement that can bring this government down.
The immediate task for students now is to build a fighting campaign against the fees and cuts in every university, in association with school students and university staff. Pressure must be put on student union leaders on every campus to call for mass meetings of students, along with the various unions representing staff – the UCU, Unite, and Unison. These campaigns must be linked up with the local labour movement, in order to build a mass movement of workers and youth against the cuts. The great events of May 1968 in France have shown what is possible when students and workers unite and fight.
Ultimately we must tell the truth to students and workers: the reforms of the past – free education, universal healthcare, retirement at 65 on a decent pension – are no longer possible under capitalism. A radical transformation of society is needed.
The national demonstration of students was important because it was the first step in linking up the student movement with the wider working class. What was clear was that this changed mood has not dropped from the sky. It is the first point of escape for the seething discontent that has accumulated as a result of the cuts. This mood the Tories cannot cut back, and is raging just beneath the surface.
Thousands of students went home to their respective universities with a story to tell and a political education a hundred times more valuable than what can be gained from a textbook or a seminar. Hundreds of thousands of others looked on, and are beginning to draw their own conclusions.
Remember the 10th of November. It marks an important beginning in Britain. The movement of the students marks the first step in the class struggle, a prelude to the awakening of the British working class.
Photo gallery
See also Geoff Dexter's gallery:
Written by Adam Booth and Ben Peck
Friday, 12 November 2010
Events have taken a turn in Britain as the first mass reaction took place this week against the programme of vicious cuts being introduced by the Tory-led coalition. On Wednesday, November 10th, London witnessed an overwhelming response from the students as a demonstration of over 50,000 marched in protest at the attacks taking place in Higher Education.
The demonstration, a joint demo by the National Union of Students (NUS) and the University and College Lecturers Union (UCU), marked a turning point for the class struggle in Britain, which will be seen by workers everywhere as the first expression of the anger and frustration developing within society as a whole. Not since the protests against the Iraq war have such numbers been seen in Britain, and even the famous student protests against the Vietnam War in Grosvenor Square in 1968 were only slightly larger.
Fees and cuts
In 1998 the New Labour government scrapped free education and grants. Despite an election promise not to, New Labour passed a law in 2004 to increase the cost of tuition fees in Higher Education (HE - university level education) from £1,250 to £3,290 per year. The law only narrowly passed in the House of Commons, with Tony Blair having to rely on support from the Tories in order to overcome a Labour backbench rebellion.
In light of the capitalist crisis the Browne Review recommended on October 12th this year that universities be allowed to charge unlimited fees for tuition, going significantly further than what had been expected. This reveals the depths of the crisis. Despite the new Tory-Liberal coalition government promises to take on board the recommendations of the Browne review, the government drew back from the brink for fear of the social and political consequences. In the end they announced plans to allow fees of up to £9,000 per year. Although students will not be required to pay any of this money upfront, the debt that they accumulate will be borrowed at interest – interest that will go straight to the banks!
In addition to the increasing fees, the coalition government announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) on October 20th that the teaching budget to universities would be cut by 40%. This raises the possibility of entire universities closing, along with course closures at most universities. Students, therefore, will not be the only ones affected by the cuts; the UCU estimates that over 22,000 jobs in universities are at risk, including both lecturers and support staff.
The picture is just as bleak in FE (Further Education - education for 16 to 18 year olds), with planned cuts of 25%. FE institutions educate and train more over-16 students than sixth forms and universities put together. They are clearly needed: some one million 16 to 24-year-olds are classified as "NEETS" – not in education, employment, or training. The education maintenance allowance (EMA), of up to £30 per week for poor families, is to be scrapped. Nationally 46% of FE students get the EMA; in poorer areas the figure is nearer to 80%.
These cuts, which form part of a generalised attack on public services, are tearing up the so-called consensus politics of the past two decades. The illusion that in Britain there existed a type of "meritocracy", no matter how imperfect, where your kids had the opportunity to reach the top with a bit of hard work, has been shattered. It is of no surprise, therefore, that bubbles of anger are beginning to float to the surface.
National demonstration
Until recently the movement against university cuts had been primarily led by university staff, who were facing the more immediate repercussions of the crisis, in the form of job losses, wage freezes, and attacks on pensions and conditions. As a result, the UCU has been out on strike a number of times over the past year, both in HE and FE institutions.
The NUS leadership, however, has not matched this level of militancy in the recent period, and even went as far as to abandon its official position on campaigning for free education at the 2008 national conference.
As details of the Browne Review and the CSR emerged over the last month, activity in universities began to accelerate. Student unions across the country, with the backing of the NUS, gave a great deal of support to the protest, and meetings about how to fight fees and cuts grew in size. Protests at individual universities, such as the 1000-strong march at Oxford University, gave an indication of the mood that was developing.
On the day of the march it was clear from the beginning that there was a change in the air. The roar of students marching in the distance could be heard at the starting point. A carnival atmosphere seemed to take hold of the march. It was clear to see, as more and more students arrived, and the scale of the turn-out became apparent, that the demonstration was becoming intoxicated with recognition of its own strength.
Since the financial crisis in 2008 many have watched what is being prepared in society with a sort of stunned silence. People have grumbled that there is no voice or movement for those who wish to fight the cuts. Yet the atmosphere among the students was electric. It was as if, after a period of feeling impotent and isolated, the students had found that they were not alone, that they were part of a bigger movement with a definite purpose.
A last minute surge of attendees from universities, along with the presence of many school students from London who had boycotted school for the day, pushed the numbers to over 50,000, according to estimates given by the NUS. Such numbers were truly staggering, and were an amazing sight to behold, with the vibrant student protest filling the streets of central London for over five hours. The number of 50,000 was all the more impressive considering that the protest was almost entirely made up of students, with some university staff, and that it was the middle of the week, thus requiring students to skip classes and not allowing other workers to show solidarity. So buoyant was the mood of the students that, as opposed to the typical stereotype of student lethargy, the march spilled out of its starting position and left before the scheduled time.
New layer of students politicised
It was clear that for the majority of the people on the demonstration, this was their first experience of a large scale protest. This is an extremely positive step for the student movement and for the class struggle in general. A mass movement of workers and youth will be needed to defeat the cuts, and a new generation of student activists is a necessary step towards such a movement.
The large number of new student activists was also reflected by the political slogans on display. In general, the majority of people were angry about the rising fees. This was especially the case for the large number of school students at the demonstration, who will be the first in the firing line when it comes to the proposed £9,000 per year fees. The majority of banners and chants were for “free education”, and not for the official NUS position of a "graduate tax" (in which a progressive tax is placed upon the income of graduates once in work). This shows that the new layers that were getting involved are far ahead of the NUS leadership.
There was an excellent turn-out from Scottish students, who are not immediately affected by the measures being introduced by the Tories, but clearly understand that they will not be able to escape the attacks that are coming.
Despite the leadership of the NUS, with its support of a graduate tax and with no clear strategy to defeat the cuts, the mood was excellent. In particular the school students, many who said they were encouraged to skip classes by their teachers, were grabbing bundles of Socialist Appeal leaflets and handing them out. Flyers were literally being torn out of the comrades’ hands. Again this shows the political nature of the demonstration and the need for a leadership with a clear strategy to fight the cuts.
History shows that the mood that develops among the student population is a reliable barometer for the mood in wider society. This was famously the case in France in May '68, where it was first the movement of the students that anticipated the magnificent movement of the French workers, who later carried out the 10 million-strong general strike which almost toppled capitalism in France.
Sit-down protest in front of Parliament. Photo by Porstmouth Student Union.Recent events in France have certainly been an inspiration for British workers and youth, and there is no mistaking the fact that British society has been influenced by the example of France.
This fact, in relation to the student demo, has been commented on by much of the bourgeois media - that the NUS and the UCU carried out a "French-style" demonstration. The Wall Street journal comments that perhaps Prime Minister David Cameron should be asking Sarkozy to loan them the notorious riot-busting CRS to tackle the students. When the British students are accused of "acting French", what is being acknowledged is that the students are becoming radicalised.
NUS leadership miscalculates
Before the day of the march Police estimates were for a turnout of 10,000. The estimate coming from the NUS was 30,000. Both clearly misjudged the mood that had been building up among the student population as over 50,000 students turned out.
This is an answer to those on the left who have tried on numerous occasions in the past period to play the very irresponsible game of demanding the creation of a “new, radical, democratic, fighting” national union of students. Essentially they have tried to split the NUS, claiming it only fit for beer tokens and clothing discounts. What they have not understood is that the NUS is the traditional organisation of the student movement in Britain. In the 1960s it moved radically to the left under the pressure of events. The present leadership of the NUS was shaped in a period of relative class peace, which was based on the boom. It is only an imperfect reflection of the consciousness of the movement below, which in turn is shaped by the hammer blow of events. In the coming period the NUS will be pushed much further to the left as the students try to shape it into an organisation that represents their interests.
Students shouting slogans. Photo: Geoff Dexter.Today, with over 80% of students having to work part-time to make ends meet, the student body as a whole has become proletarianised and is very definitely on the left. As the crisis has struck, this has been shown in practice: faced with increasing anger amongst students, the NUS leadership was forced, firstly, into organising a special “cuts conference” in June 2009, and then to announce a national demonstration jointly with the UCU. Such announcements represented a qualitative change in the student movement, which has been confined to small-scale university occupations over issues such as Gaza in recent years.
As a traditional organisation of the students the reserves of support that the NUS has at its disposal cannot be underestimated, as Wednesday's mobilisation reveals.
The NUS leadership has been dominated by reformist careerists in the last decade. The last thing NUS president Aaron Porter wanted – who, unlike his New Labour predecessors, has had the misfortune of being “born in interesting times” – was this demonstration, which he was forced to call under pressure from below. The choice of a weekday for the demonstration was meant to keep the attendance low. The NUS leadership hoped that the protest could be used to quietly allow students to let off some steam, in much the same way as trade union leaders in Europe have used one-day general strikes to allow some pressure out of the labour movement. In reality the national demonstration of students was a success despite the leadership, and will only have served to raise the consciousness of the new layer of youth that has entered onto the arena of the class struggle. What shaped the mood was the widespread discontent which exists throughout British society, and has been concentrated in the "excluded generation" of under-25s who are fast realising what impact the cuts will have.
Millbank
Students protesting outside Tory HQ. Photo: Geoff DexterAn attempt has been made by the media to play down the real meaning of this mass demonstration of students, by concentrating all their reports on what happened at the Millbank Tower, which hosts the Conservative Party headquarters. The windows of the building were smashed in, with a few dozen student occupiers reaching the roof. This attracted a much wider periphery of two or three thousand (or more), who stood outside the building directing chants against the Tories for several hours, until police reinforcements arrived to beat back the remaining protestors and evacuate the building. Although the attack on the Millbank Tower was clearly initiated by a minority of ultra-lefts, it was evident that large numbers of students looked on with sympathy. One student said: "this is what happens when those in power attack ordinary people".
In and of itself this action has solved nothing and is not a method that the labour movement would adopt. But one has to recognise that the severity of the government's attacks is provoking an extremely angry mood among students and the responsibility for such a situation should be placed where it belongs, on the shoulders of the Tories and the boss class they represent.
In his response to the media, Porter, unfortunately preferred to use his air-time to concentrate on condemning the occupiers of the Millbank Tower, accusing an “unrepresentative minority” of “ruining it for everyone” rather than directing his main fire at the Tories for the violence they are visiting on the British working class. Such outbursts of violence are nothing compared to what the Tories have in store for working people and youth in this country.
Students getting inside the Millbank building. Photo: Geoff DexterThe capitalist press have jumped on this question. It is in itself a sensationalist news story that will sell a lot of papers. More importantly it distracts from the real question, which is, in the first place, "why are the students marching?" Cameron and fellow Tory, London Mayor Boris Johnson, have been quick to condemn the students. One student commented online that the they had gone from being portrayed as "lazy hippies to hooded yobs", and that while it is merely "hi-jinks" for the Bullingdon club (a notorious and exclusive Tory dining club at Oxford university) to smash up restaurants, when Tory HQ is attacked "things have gone too far". Cameron, who has been on a trade mission to China, explained to the Chinese press that British students were experiencing a tax-hike "so that foreign students can pay less (!)".
Had the anarchists gone tearing down Oxford St, smashing shop windows, it would have been seen as the usual crowd of ultra-lefts carrying out acts of vandalism. However, the Millbank incident will have been seen in a different light by many. This is because this was the headquarters of the party of the bankers and big business, the party that is destroying the very basis of a civilised existence for millions of workers.
Students have reported a sympathetic response from ordinary working class people. An example of this was reported by students of Worcester University, who on the way back from the demo stopped off at a service station, where a little old lady serving behind the check-out, on recognising the students from the news, reportedly remarked "…good on you lads, somebody has to show those Tories we will not be walked over."
The role of the police at the Millbank occupation presents an interesting question. Thatcher in the 1980s always took care to look after the police, raising their wages whilst they attacked the miners and printers. Today this is not the case and the police are suffering the same cuts. A couple of years ago 25,000 police marched through the streets of London in protest over their wages and conditions. This shows us the depth of the capitalist crisis, where the bourgeoisie are eating into their traditional reserves of support.
Occupiers on the roof of Tory HQ. Photo: SonniesEdgeHowever, we have to distinguish ordinary police officers from Chiefs of Police. In the bourgeois press the next day the message to the police was clear. Under the guise of "sincere concerns" that the police had been cowed by the previous years' bad press at the G20, where a demonstrator – Ian Tomlinson – died after police brutality, the question was raised: "are the police too restricted in their actions?' The message is clear. From now on, we will see a much more aggressive stance on the part of the police in the coming period. And that is not because of what happened at Millbank. The bourgeoisie has launched a severe attack on workers and there is no room for compromise.
The serious bourgeoisie will not be too concerned about a little damage to private property, which they can easily afford to replace – and which in any case comes in very useful as a propaganda tool to justify their stepping up of police repression. What they are concerned about is this militant mood of the students infecting the rest of the working class. The government knows it has no concessions to offer - therefore it will offer the baton instead. What was in their interests was to let the occupiers have their way, to let rip and provide the bourgeois press with some images to splash on the front pages. They wish to demonise the students, and the idea of fighting the cuts. More importantly they wish to prepare public opinion for the real battles they foresee against an aroused working class in the future.
Having considered all the above, what would be dangerous is the idea that "direct action" by students alone can stop the Tory attacks. Effective direct action can only be carried out by the organised labour movement, mobilised with a programme to nationalise the banks under the democratic control of the working class – the only class that has the power to take on the bankers and capitalists and their stooge Tory government.
Where next for students?
For most of the 50,000 students at the national demonstration, the question in the minds now will be “what next?” It is clear that demonstrations alone will not defeat the cuts. The huge demonstrations of over one million people in London in 2003 against the Iraq war failed to stop the Blair government. The ruling class can tolerate demonstrations, however strong, as long as these do not challenge their right to govern over society. What is required is a movement that can bring this government down.
The immediate task for students now is to build a fighting campaign against the fees and cuts in every university, in association with school students and university staff. Pressure must be put on student union leaders on every campus to call for mass meetings of students, along with the various unions representing staff – the UCU, Unite, and Unison. These campaigns must be linked up with the local labour movement, in order to build a mass movement of workers and youth against the cuts. The great events of May 1968 in France have shown what is possible when students and workers unite and fight.
Ultimately we must tell the truth to students and workers: the reforms of the past – free education, universal healthcare, retirement at 65 on a decent pension – are no longer possible under capitalism. A radical transformation of society is needed.
The national demonstration of students was important because it was the first step in linking up the student movement with the wider working class. What was clear was that this changed mood has not dropped from the sky. It is the first point of escape for the seething discontent that has accumulated as a result of the cuts. This mood the Tories cannot cut back, and is raging just beneath the surface.
Thousands of students went home to their respective universities with a story to tell and a political education a hundred times more valuable than what can be gained from a textbook or a seminar. Hundreds of thousands of others looked on, and are beginning to draw their own conclusions.
Remember the 10th of November. It marks an important beginning in Britain. The movement of the students marks the first step in the class struggle, a prelude to the awakening of the British working class.
Photo gallery
See also Geoff Dexter's gallery:
Thursday, November 18, 2010
The Latest From The School Of The Americas Watch Website- Down With American Imperialism In Latin America! Close The Fort Benning SOA!
Click on the headline to link to the School Of The Americas Watch website.
From The United For Peace With Justice Website.
Vigil to Close the School of the Americas
Submitted by ujpadmin on Sat, 07/17/2010 - 1:50pm.
When: Thursday, November 18, 2010, 1:00 am to Sunday, November 21, 2010, 11:00 pm
Where: Fort Benning, GA
Start: 2010 Nov 18 - 1:00am
End: 2010 Nov 21 - 11:00pm
The November Vigil to Close the School of the Americas at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia will be held from November 18-21, 2010. The annual vigil is always held close to the anniversary of the 1989 murders of Celina Ramos, her mother Elba and six Jesuit priests at a the University of Central America in El Salvador.
November 2010 will mark the 20th anniversary of the vigil that brings together religious communities, students, teachers, veterans, community organizers, musicians, puppetistas and many others. New layers of activists are joining the movement to close the SOA in large numbers, including numerous youth and students from multinational, working-class communities. The movement is strong thanks to the committed work of thousands of organizers and volunteers around the country. They raise funds, spread the word through posters and flyers, organize buses and other transportation to Georgia, and carry out all the work that is needed to make the November vigil a success. Together, we are strong!
Vigil and Rally at the Gates, Nonviolent Direct Action, Teach-In, Concerts, Workshops and a Anti-Militarization Organizers Conference
There will be exciting additions to this year's vigil program. Besides the rally at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia with inspiring speakers and amazing musicians from across the Americas, the four day convergence will also include an educational teach-in at the Columbus Convention Center, several evening concerts, workshops and for the first time, the Latin America Solidarity Coalition will stage a one-day Anti-Militarization Organizers Conference on Thursday, November 18, 2010.
Shut Down the SOA and Resist U.S. Militarization in the Americas
Our work has unfortunately not gotten any easier and U.S. militarization in Latin America is accelerating. The SOA graduate led military coup in Honduras, the continuing repression against the Honduran pro-democracy resistance and the expansion of U.S. military bases in Colombia and Panama are grim examples of the ongoing threats of a U.S. foreign policy that is relying on the military to exert control over the people and the resources in the Americas. Join the people who are struggling for justice in Honduras, Colombia and throughout the Americas as we organize to push back.
Spread the word: Click here to tell a friend about the November Vigil.
For more information, visit www.SOAW.org.
From The United For Peace With Justice Website.
Vigil to Close the School of the Americas
Submitted by ujpadmin on Sat, 07/17/2010 - 1:50pm.
When: Thursday, November 18, 2010, 1:00 am to Sunday, November 21, 2010, 11:00 pm
Where: Fort Benning, GA
Start: 2010 Nov 18 - 1:00am
End: 2010 Nov 21 - 11:00pm
The November Vigil to Close the School of the Americas at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia will be held from November 18-21, 2010. The annual vigil is always held close to the anniversary of the 1989 murders of Celina Ramos, her mother Elba and six Jesuit priests at a the University of Central America in El Salvador.
November 2010 will mark the 20th anniversary of the vigil that brings together religious communities, students, teachers, veterans, community organizers, musicians, puppetistas and many others. New layers of activists are joining the movement to close the SOA in large numbers, including numerous youth and students from multinational, working-class communities. The movement is strong thanks to the committed work of thousands of organizers and volunteers around the country. They raise funds, spread the word through posters and flyers, organize buses and other transportation to Georgia, and carry out all the work that is needed to make the November vigil a success. Together, we are strong!
Vigil and Rally at the Gates, Nonviolent Direct Action, Teach-In, Concerts, Workshops and a Anti-Militarization Organizers Conference
There will be exciting additions to this year's vigil program. Besides the rally at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia with inspiring speakers and amazing musicians from across the Americas, the four day convergence will also include an educational teach-in at the Columbus Convention Center, several evening concerts, workshops and for the first time, the Latin America Solidarity Coalition will stage a one-day Anti-Militarization Organizers Conference on Thursday, November 18, 2010.
Shut Down the SOA and Resist U.S. Militarization in the Americas
Our work has unfortunately not gotten any easier and U.S. militarization in Latin America is accelerating. The SOA graduate led military coup in Honduras, the continuing repression against the Honduran pro-democracy resistance and the expansion of U.S. military bases in Colombia and Panama are grim examples of the ongoing threats of a U.S. foreign policy that is relying on the military to exert control over the people and the resources in the Americas. Join the people who are struggling for justice in Honduras, Colombia and throughout the Americas as we organize to push back.
Spread the word: Click here to tell a friend about the November Vigil.
For more information, visit www.SOAW.org.
**From The Jaan Laaman Blog- A Shout-Out For The Partisan Defense Committee- A Shout-Back-Free The Ohio 7s Jaan Laaman And Tom Manning Now!
Click on the headline to link to the Ohio 7s' Jaan Laaman Blog
Markin comment:
A Shout-Back Free The Ohio 7s Jaan Laaman And Tom Manning Now!
Markin comment:
A Shout-Back Free The Ohio 7s Jaan Laaman And Tom Manning Now!
From The Free the San Francisco 8 Website-Latest Update
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Report from court November 18 - Delay and phantom evidence
In a brief appearance in court today on the last remaining charge in the San Francisco 8 case, Judge Moscone set December 3 to hear arguments as to whether there will be an evidentiary hearing on possible wiretap evidence. The defense filed a motion for the hearing after a retired San Francisco police officer let slip his having heard of such evidence, which had previously been denied by the prosecution. Although supporters in the courtroom were fewer than before, there was still a visible presence reaffirming to all parties that we are not going away.
If the judge grants the motion, the evidentiary hearing will be held December 15. Note that this will be limited to the existence (or not) of wiretaps; it is not the long-delayed Preliminary Hearing to determine whether there will even be a trial. The continued delays and the piecemeal revelations of lost, hidden, destroyed, and phantom evidence only strengthen the defense motion to drop the "charges" due to prejudicial delay. Actually, the "charges" have now dwindled to a single charge against a single remaining defendant, Francisco "Cisco" Torres.
In addition to hearing arguments on the motion for an evidentiary hearing, the judge will also use December 3 to schedule future court dates.
Come to court December 3 at 9:30 a.m., Department 23. Representing our continuing support is crucial, even at these "routine" court appearances
Posted by SF8 Webster at 2:55 PM
Report from court November 18 - Delay and phantom evidence
In a brief appearance in court today on the last remaining charge in the San Francisco 8 case, Judge Moscone set December 3 to hear arguments as to whether there will be an evidentiary hearing on possible wiretap evidence. The defense filed a motion for the hearing after a retired San Francisco police officer let slip his having heard of such evidence, which had previously been denied by the prosecution. Although supporters in the courtroom were fewer than before, there was still a visible presence reaffirming to all parties that we are not going away.
If the judge grants the motion, the evidentiary hearing will be held December 15. Note that this will be limited to the existence (or not) of wiretaps; it is not the long-delayed Preliminary Hearing to determine whether there will even be a trial. The continued delays and the piecemeal revelations of lost, hidden, destroyed, and phantom evidence only strengthen the defense motion to drop the "charges" due to prejudicial delay. Actually, the "charges" have now dwindled to a single charge against a single remaining defendant, Francisco "Cisco" Torres.
In addition to hearing arguments on the motion for an evidentiary hearing, the judge will also use December 3 to schedule future court dates.
Come to court December 3 at 9:30 a.m., Department 23. Representing our continuing support is crucial, even at these "routine" court appearances
Posted by SF8 Webster at 2:55 PM
A Jeff Bridges Retrospective-The Taming of the Old American West-“Bad Company”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Bad Company
DVD Review
Bad Company, Jeff Bridges, Barry Brown, directed by Robert Benton, Universal, 1972
No, I am not going to start off this piece by going on and on about how Jeff Bridges’ Oscar-winning performance in Crazy Hearts as down-and-out country singer/songwriter Bad Blake was merely an extension of him as a modern young Texas dude, Duane Jackson, in Peter Bogdanovitch’s film adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show. Although, now that I think about it, I could. Rather, though I want to use my time to look at this film, Bad Company, as an example of that then (1972) fairly new look at the old American West through other than rose-colored glasses.
McCabe and Mrs. Miller and The Wild Bunch are probably better known, and rightly so, for breaking down the black and white view of the old wild West that those of us who came of age in the dawn of the television era (black and white television, to boot) of the early 1950s and formed our view of the “cowboys and Indians” from the seemingly endless Westerns that ran on Saturday morning (and Saturday afternoon at the movie house, alternating with scary horror or monster movies). The good guys wore white, the bad guys black and the Indians, well, it was kind of left unsaid but the only good one was a dead one. The above mentioned films, this film, and writers like McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy helped to bring some realism, some naturalism to the layers of myth and mis-history.
Take the plot of Bad Company. A young man (Barry Brown), the hero of the film or rather better the anti-hero, of good Ohio family, aided and abetted by that family, is furnished with the means to avoid being conscripted into the Union Army during the later stages of the American Civil War. Said naïve young man learns the lessons of survival in the rough and tumble West before he even gets past Missouri. From there, aided by roustabout and ne’er-do-well Jeff Bridges (being, well, prankster Jeff Bridges), and his gang, he pushes on trying, trying against all odds to keep on the right side of the law (read: frontier justice, not necessarily the same thing). In the end, he does what he has to do to survive. Old Gene Autry, old Hop-along Cassidy, old Roy Rogers might not have been able to fathom that, but you and I can.
DVD Review
Bad Company, Jeff Bridges, Barry Brown, directed by Robert Benton, Universal, 1972
No, I am not going to start off this piece by going on and on about how Jeff Bridges’ Oscar-winning performance in Crazy Hearts as down-and-out country singer/songwriter Bad Blake was merely an extension of him as a modern young Texas dude, Duane Jackson, in Peter Bogdanovitch’s film adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show. Although, now that I think about it, I could. Rather, though I want to use my time to look at this film, Bad Company, as an example of that then (1972) fairly new look at the old American West through other than rose-colored glasses.
McCabe and Mrs. Miller and The Wild Bunch are probably better known, and rightly so, for breaking down the black and white view of the old wild West that those of us who came of age in the dawn of the television era (black and white television, to boot) of the early 1950s and formed our view of the “cowboys and Indians” from the seemingly endless Westerns that ran on Saturday morning (and Saturday afternoon at the movie house, alternating with scary horror or monster movies). The good guys wore white, the bad guys black and the Indians, well, it was kind of left unsaid but the only good one was a dead one. The above mentioned films, this film, and writers like McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy helped to bring some realism, some naturalism to the layers of myth and mis-history.
Take the plot of Bad Company. A young man (Barry Brown), the hero of the film or rather better the anti-hero, of good Ohio family, aided and abetted by that family, is furnished with the means to avoid being conscripted into the Union Army during the later stages of the American Civil War. Said naïve young man learns the lessons of survival in the rough and tumble West before he even gets past Missouri. From there, aided by roustabout and ne’er-do-well Jeff Bridges (being, well, prankster Jeff Bridges), and his gang, he pushes on trying, trying against all odds to keep on the right side of the law (read: frontier justice, not necessarily the same thing). In the end, he does what he has to do to survive. Old Gene Autry, old Hop-along Cassidy, old Roy Rogers might not have been able to fathom that, but you and I can.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
**On The Engagement Of The United Kingdom’s Prince William And His Kate- The View From The Left- Abolish The Monarchy, House Of Lords And State Churches- In Honor Of Gerrard Winstanley
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for 17th century English communist, Gerrard Winstanley
Markin comment:
Okay, this should be short and sweet and a “no-brainer” for international leftist militants. In fact it seems odd, and should give us pause, that we have to comment on the question of the abolition of the monarchy, especially in the homeland of the first serious and important bourgeois revolution in Western society, the United Kingdom. But, to paraphrase a remark Karl Marx once famously made, mankind makes its own history…but not always to its own design, or liking.
Obviously from reading the headline to this entry I, for one, am not weak in the knees and all weepy over the recent announcement from the British royal family that Prince William, eldest son of Prince Charles and a leading heir to the throne, in short, on the short list in line to be the once and future king, Defender of the Faith, and a million other titles attached from sunnier Empire days, including, for all I know, Emperor of India, that he and his Kiss Me, Kate were engaged. From the media blitz (and future blitz) on this we will hear from every possible source about their doings or not doings from here on in. Every teary-eyed closet monarchist in the world, including not a few not so-closeted British Laborite monarchists like Mr. Anthony Blair will have his or her say on the matter. Including the numerous misty-eyed closet (and not so-closeted) monarchists here in republican America.
Now I have nothing personal against Prince William. I have nothing personal against marriage, his or any other, but I most certainly have something against the remnants of medieval society that should have been abolished (and stayed abolished) about 1650. And moreover, cruel as history is, come revolution time, our socialist revolution time, old Prince William or whatever king or queen is on the throne at the time can act, as they have acted in history, as a focal point for counter-revolutionary resistance. So to avoid all that unpleasantness (nice British English word, right?) fight to abolish the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the state churches now. Then Citizen William and his fetching Citizen Kate can enjoy the benefits of our socialist future just like everyone else. And Gerrard Winstanley can officially take his rightful place as one of the early innovators of British and world human progress.
Markin comment:
Okay, this should be short and sweet and a “no-brainer” for international leftist militants. In fact it seems odd, and should give us pause, that we have to comment on the question of the abolition of the monarchy, especially in the homeland of the first serious and important bourgeois revolution in Western society, the United Kingdom. But, to paraphrase a remark Karl Marx once famously made, mankind makes its own history…but not always to its own design, or liking.
Obviously from reading the headline to this entry I, for one, am not weak in the knees and all weepy over the recent announcement from the British royal family that Prince William, eldest son of Prince Charles and a leading heir to the throne, in short, on the short list in line to be the once and future king, Defender of the Faith, and a million other titles attached from sunnier Empire days, including, for all I know, Emperor of India, that he and his Kiss Me, Kate were engaged. From the media blitz (and future blitz) on this we will hear from every possible source about their doings or not doings from here on in. Every teary-eyed closet monarchist in the world, including not a few not so-closeted British Laborite monarchists like Mr. Anthony Blair will have his or her say on the matter. Including the numerous misty-eyed closet (and not so-closeted) monarchists here in republican America.
Now I have nothing personal against Prince William. I have nothing personal against marriage, his or any other, but I most certainly have something against the remnants of medieval society that should have been abolished (and stayed abolished) about 1650. And moreover, cruel as history is, come revolution time, our socialist revolution time, old Prince William or whatever king or queen is on the throne at the time can act, as they have acted in history, as a focal point for counter-revolutionary resistance. So to avoid all that unpleasantness (nice British English word, right?) fight to abolish the monarchy, the House of Lords, and the state churches now. Then Citizen William and his fetching Citizen Kate can enjoy the benefits of our socialist future just like everyone else. And Gerrard Winstanley can officially take his rightful place as one of the early innovators of British and world human progress.
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