BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : 'We Are Many' Offers Thoughtful Analysis of Occupy Movement

11 December 2012

BOOKS / Ron Jacobs : 'We Are Many' Offers Thoughtful Analysis of Occupy Movement

From occupation to liberation:
A review of 'We Are Many'

By Ron Jacobs / The Rag Blog / December 11, 2012

This aesthetically pleasing volume has the best overall take to date on the meaning of Occupy, its shortcomings and strengths, and its potential future.

[We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy, edited by Kate Khatib, Margaret Killjoy, and Mike McGuire; Afterword by David Graeber (2012: AK Press); Paperback; 355 pp; $21.]

Despite a myriad of obituaries for the movement that began in Manhattan in September 2011, the people of Occupy refuse to let it die.

There are hundreds involved in the Occupy Sandy effort in the New York City region following the devastation of Tropical Storm Sandy. Individuals and groups connected to Occupy Wall Street have organized relief efforts that are feeding and caring for thousands of people left without power, work, and homes.

Those being helped are primarily the working poor and folks on assistance. They are also those traditional relief efforts tend to ignore, precisely because of their income status and, in the USA, also perhaps because of their skin tone or ethnic origin.

The vastness of the Occupy Sandy effort is testament to the Occupy movement's most obvious strength: its ability to organize rapidly and from the ground up.

Since the advent of Occupy and the demise of its encampments, there have been millions of words written about the movement. From Fox News to the Revolutionary Communist Party's journal Revolution; from Le Monde to the Jerusalem Post; and numerous journals, websites, blogs and television networks, Occupy Wall Street and the movement it spawned provoked a storm of commentary.

Some of it was sensationalist and some of it perhaps overly academic. It was occasionally overly laudatory and often overly critical. Overall, however, the press coverage did something that one could argue no left-leaning movement since the 1960s and 1970s had done. It changed the nature of the national conversation.

Like the black liberation and antiwar movement of those decades long past changed the way mainstream America thought about the treatment of African Americans and the nature of its foreign policy, Occupy changed the way mainstream America thought about its economic system. Or, maybe it just vocalized thoughts people had held but did not know how to vocalize in a way that would draw some attention.

A year later there have been a number of column inches written about Occupy and its meaning. The articles written in the mainstream press tend to acknowledge Occupy's influence in the national conversation. At the same time, these articles tend to diminish its long term role. Perhaps because it is too early to tell. Perhaps because they hope it doesn't have one.

Occupy was the greatest manifestation of anti-authoritarian organizing in the United States in recent history. It proved that spontaneity can work. The taking of property and occupying it is a radical act in itself and obviously one the powers that be find threatening.

The involvement of the houseless was and is important. Their presence and involvement not only made the gross shortcomings of monopoly capitalism real, they also provided food and a reaffirmation of value to those on the streets and an experience at self organizing for all. Yet, it suffered from some of the same ills present in the larger society: racism, sexis, and questions around violence and leadership.

Occupy was/is not a movement that began with highly defined politics. This was its strength and its weakness. Many different philosophies set up camp under its banner. Anarchists, socialists, libertarians, and liberals. Even the occasional tea partier and Democrat.

Yet, despite this multitude of philosophies that came to share the Occupy camps, the one that was its impetus remains a generally defined type of left anarchism. Somewhat situationist like the poster artists of Paris in May 1968 while also derivative of the squatters' movement of the 1970s and 1980s in Europe, Occupy also drew from the anarchism of the Yippies, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the punk culture that came later. Therefore, it would seem that the best analysis of Occupy would come from folks that had similar roots.

Guess what? The best analysis of Occupy does come from such folks. Titled from Occupation to Liberation and published by AK Press, this aesthetically pleasing volume has the best overall take to date on the meaning of Occupy, its shortcomings and strengths, and its potential future.

Never shortchanging the arguments within the movement, the writers collected in We Are Many take on the questions of racism, sexism, the Black Bloc, and the cops, and they do so in an intelligent and lively manner. No other group of writers has done so well in exploring the Occupy movement from within its ranks. In fact, no other group of writers has done so well in exploring the Occupy movement, period.

Unlike earlier books about Occupy, most of which were published either during the life of the encampments or immediately after, We Are Many has the perspective a little time often provides. Away from the intensity of battles with police and the day-to-day reality of camping in the middle of some urban space, this book presents the reader with thoughtful essays designed to raise questions about strategy and politics that might have been pushed aside in the aforementioned day-to-day reality.

Earlier writings about Occupy were often chronicles of organizing; sometimes those chronicles were objective attempts to describe the daily life of the writer and those around them; other times they were impressionistic attempts to do the same thing.

We Are Many has its share of these essays, yet even those indicate a deeper reflection and understanding of Occupy's historical meaning and the potential it unleashed for the future of oppositional and extra-parliamentary movements, especially in the United States.

Writers who appear in this volume include some names fairly well known in anti-authoritarian and left circles: Cindy Milstein, Vijay Prashad, Frances Fox Piven, Andy Cornell, David Graeber, George Cicciariello-Maher, and the Crimethinc Collective, to name just a few. This list is a small representation of the more than 50 writers and artists collected here.

AK Press has done a great service by publishing them together in this volume. Like so many of the publications released by this collective, not only is this book filled with good, thoughtful writing and great art, it is attractively presented. These writers take a hard look at manifestations of racism and sexism in the movement; they discuss the nature of violence and its role in popular movements; and they discuss these and other questions from a perspective that represents the grassroots democratic and anti-capitalist philosophy that motivated the movement.

We do not know what will happen next with the movement awakened by that first presence in lower Manhattan back in the autumn of 2011. In Europe, general strikes and daily protests continue to occur as neoliberal capitalism takes its ransom from governments across the continent. In the Middle East and Central Asia, wars continue to flare and military occupations continue to be challenged.

In North America, the corporate and financial elites continue to ravish the economy and politicians conspire to destroy the remaining social welfare and retirement systems previous generations fought hard to build. WalMart workers are organizing unions and Quebec students fought against university privatization moves and won.

It is not the end of the battle, but the beginning. Onward.

[Rag Blog contributor Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way The Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. He recently released a collection of essays and musings titled Tripping Through the American Night. His latest novel, The Co-Conspirator's Tale, is published by Fomite. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. Ron Jacobs can be reached at ronj1955@gmail.com. Find more articles by Ron Jacobs on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

Paul Buhle : Comix Artist Spain Rodriguez (1940-2012)

12 December 2012

Paul Buhle : Comix Artist Spain Rodriguez (1940-2012)

Spain Rodriguez's Trashman. Image from Dissent.
The passing of a comix pioneer:
Spain Rodriguez (1940-2012)

By Paul Buhle / Dissent / December 12, 2012

In Trashman: Agent of the Sixth International, the signature saga of his early years, Rodriguez's revolutionaries took revenge on a truly evil American ruling class.

We are now so far from the 1960s and ’70s that the crucial locations, personalities, and moments of one very popular art form’s transformation have been largely forgotten. Spain Rodriguez, with a handful of others (the best remembered are happily still with us: Gilbert Shelton, Robert Crumb, Bill Griffith, Kim Deitch, Art Spiegelman, Trina Robbins, and Sharon Rudahl, to name a few), pushed the comics agenda so far forward that no return to the limitations of superheroes and banal daily newspaper strips would ever be possible.

Comic art, belatedly recognized in The New York Times (and assorted museums) as a real art and not a corrupting children’s literature, owes much to them.

Spain (his birth name was Manuel, his father a Spanish immigrant, his mother an Italian-American artist) grew up in Buffalo, New York, a rebellious working-class kid who wore long sideburns and was impressed by the civil rights movement. He dropped out of art school in Connecticut and, after returning to Buffalo and working a factory job with a motorcycle gang engagement, landed in New York in time for the efflorescence of Underground Comix (styled with an “x” to distinguish itself) in a comic tabloid offshoot of the East Village Other.

His colleagues were a strangely mixed crew, all of them old enough to have been influenced by EC Comics, the most politically liberal and artistically accomplished of the old comics industry, and the one hardest hit by the congressional hearings of the McCarthy era. (As with attacks on the Left, every charge of subversion and perversion hid Middle-American outrage: these were Jews corrupting innocent American youth.)

In a sense, every “underground” artist of these early days sought revenge in the name of comic art, and realized it through the depiction of sex, violence, and anti-war and anti-racist sentiment unthinkable in what remained of the mainstream. Sex and violence, lamentably, became chief attractions to many readers, recalling the “headlights” (aka “sweater girl”) crime and horror comics of the late 1940s, albeit with a left-wing or libertarian ambience.

The whole comix artistic crowd moved to San Francisco around 1970, joining Robert Crumb and a few others already there, part of the acid-rock, post–Summer of Love setting. Underground comix, replicating the old kids-comics format but now in black and white, grew up alongside the underground press, whose reprinting of comix created the market for the books.

Crumb was the artist whose work sold the best, in the hundreds of thousands, but Spain was widely regarded as the most political. He was heavily influenced by the most bohemian of the EC comics world, wild man Wallace Wood, whose sci-fi adventures depicted civilizations recovering from atomic war and whose Mad Comics stories assaulted the 1950s commercialization of popular culture. Wood’s dames were also extremely sexy, too overtly sexy for the diluted satire of the later Mad Magazine.

Spain Rodriguez. Photo by Sean Stewart / Babylon Falling.
Trashman: Agent of the Sixth International was Rodriguez’s signature saga in these early years, serialized in underground papers, comix anthologies, and eventually collected in comic book form as Subvert Comics. These revolutionaries took revenge on a truly evil American ruling class in assorted ways, many of them violent, but they also had fun and sex, and were subject to many self-satirizing gags, in the process.

By the middle 1970s, his work had broadened into more social and historical themes, often with class, sex, and violence highlighting his points. Histories of revolutions and anti-fascist actions (and all their complexities) inspired some of his closest reading of real events, but he had no fixed point on the left-wing scale.

He admired and drew about anti-Bolshevist anarchist leader Nestor Makhno and also anti-Stalinist Spanish anarchist Durruti, but he also drew about Red Army members facing death fighting the Germans, and so on. (Several of these pieces are now reprinted in Anarchy Comics: The Complete Collection, an anthology from that 1980s series, just published by PM Press.)

In recollections of the internal conflicts among comix artists, sometimes pitting feminists against male-dominated circles, Rodriguez is remembered as having been unusually helpful and egalitarian, a memory that contrasts curiously with his sometimes sado-masochistic plot lines but not so curiously with the gender-equality of the sybarites (“Big Bitch” was Trashman’s female counterpart, the tough working-class broad with sex cravings for weaker men).

He poked and prodded San Francisco’s self-image as a haven of liberated sex, sometimes making his younger self a player on the scene. He also helped set in motion the vital murals movement in San Francisco’s Mission District, but was likely best known on the West Coast for his many posters of San Francisco Mime Troupe openings.

Spain Rodriquez lasted long enough to see his work in square covers (if not often hard covers), his unique and quasi-realistic modernism preserved for generations ahead.

The validation of comic art from near the end of the century onward -- Spiegelman’s Maus and left-wing lesbian Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home high among the evidence of artistic achievement -- found Rodriguez with a Salon series, “The Dark Hotel,” and several books of his own. Devil Dog, a biography of disillusioned Marine Corps general Smedley Butler, and Nightmare Alley, an adaptation of the classic noir novel, are easily among the best. Che, his graphic biography of Che Guevara, reached the furthest, with editions published everywhere from Latin America to Europe, Japan, and Malaysia.

At the time of his death, Rodriguez was amid “Yiddish Bohemians,” a strip about Jewish-American puppeteers during the 1920s and ’30s, in what would be the last in a stunning series of collaborations with playwright-professor Joel Schechter. Rodriguez had started a Woody Guthrie poster for an upcoming Bay Area concert and, had he lived, would have drawn a history of the 2003 San Francisco hotel strike.

After more than 40 years (and the disappearance of well over 90 percent of many little-remembered artists’ work in yellowing pulp), the impact of the Underground Comix world remains more a matter of style than substance, daring more than narrative and artistic content. This is unfortunate, because so many artists had particular contributions worthy of note, worthy of reprinting for the sake of comic art alone.

Spain Rodriquez lasted long enough to see his work in square covers (if not often hard covers), his unique and quasi-realistic modernism preserved for generations ahead. That he never lost his political vision or his sense of humor should go without saying, but those of us lucky enough to see him teach or to be taught by him felt the deep impact of his humanism as well.

Rodriguez died at home in San Francisco, with his wife, Susan Stern, a documentary filmmaker, and his daughter, Nora Rodriguez, by his side. A retrospect of his work, including a short documentary film made by his wife, is now in place at the Burchfield Penny Art Center in Buffalo, the second exhibit in Buffalo to honor this improbable local hero.

[Cultural historian Paul Buhl is professor emeritus at Brown University. He publishes radical comic books and graphic novels. Buhle was the editor of Che and is co-editor of the anthology Bohemians, to appear in 2013, with two strips by Rodriguez. Read more articles by Paul Buhle on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

Bob Feldman : The Rise of the Klan in Texas, 1920-1930

12 December 2012

Bob Feldman : The Rise of the Klan in Texas, 1920-1930

Flyer for "Ku Klux Klan Day," October 24, 1923. Image from The Portal to Texas History.
The hidden history of Texas

Part 10: 1920-1930/1 -- The rise of the Klan in Texas

By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / December 12, 2012

[This is the first section of Part 10 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

Between 1920 and 1930, the number of people living in Texas increased from over 4.6 million to over 5.8 million, and the percentage of Texas residents who now lived in urban towns and cities with populations above 2,500 people increased from 34 to 41 percent.

By 1930, over 292,000 people lived in Houston, over 260,000 people lived in Dallas, over 231,000 people lived in San Antonio and over 163,000 people lived in Fort Worth -- although the number of people living in Austin in 1930 was still less than 54,000.

Between 1920 and 1930 the percentage of farmers in Texas who were now just tenant farmers also increased to 61 percent. And in Texas during the "Roaring Twenties,” as Randolph Campbell recalled in his book, Gone To Texas:

Thousands upon thousands of farmers continued to live in destructive poverty as tenants and sharecroppers. Giant corporations still wielded monopoly power because anti-trust and regulatory laws had always aimed more at "foreign" businesses... Laws protecting children in industry... went unenforced... The doctrine of white supremacy ruled race relations, and in South Texas Anglo bosses exploited Texans of Mexican descent politically and economically...

Alwyn Barr’s Black Texans, observed:

Mob violence increased in the early 1920s with the rise of the new Ku Klux Klan... Klansmen branded a black bellhop in Dallas with acid and castrated a light-skinned Negro accused of relations with a white woman. They raided the office of the Houston Informer and threatened the Dallas Express, both black papers. Hooded groups beat a black youth in Texarkana, removed two Negroes from the Denton jail to flog them, and forced black cotton pickers near Corsicana to end their strike for higher wages...

In addition, during the 1920s, “the new Klan, which claimed over 100,000 members in the state, proved powerful enough... to help elect Earle B. Mayfield, a Klansman, to the United States Senate from Texas,” the same book noted.

According to Gone To Texas :

The KKK arrived in Texas in September 1920 when a kleagle came to Houston and recruited 100 men into the state’s first local chapter. "The initial roster represented literally a glossary of Houston ’s Who’s Who," wrote one observer. The charter members were silk-stocking men from the banks, business houses, and professions...

From its Houston beginning, the Klan spread rapidly across the state. In January 1922, when membership reached more than 75,000, Texas was organized as a realm of the "Invisible Empire" under its own grand dragon, A.D. Ellis, an Episcopal priest from Beaumont. That same year women... obtained a Texas charter as the Women of the Invisible Empire of America. In June 1923, 1,500 masked and robed klanswomen held a parade through Fort Worth. Eventually male membership alone stood at approximately 150,000.

Some opposition to the KKK’s growing influence in Texas electoral politics began to develop within Texas white power structure and political establishment circles (who then backed state-wide candidates that were able to defeat some KKK members who ran against them) by 1924. But as Merline Pitre’s In Struggle Against Jim Crow noted:

The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s was a viable force in Houston and throughout the state. In Texas, this vigilante group occupied a position of power and influence unequaled in any other state, giving Texas the designation of Star Klan State. Houston was dubbed as the Star Klan City...

In 1921, Houston Klansmen, led by Deputy Sheriff George E. Kimbro, attacked and castrated a black dentist and beat a white lawyer who represented him. Several years later, the Klan tarred and feathered a black physician. In 1928, a Houston mob dragged a black man, accused of killing a white police officer, from his bed in a local hospital and hanged him from a bridge -- a murder for which no one was ever convicted. Additionally, a Klan newspaper, Colonel Mayfield’s Weekly, circulated throughout the city.

[In Houston ] in 1920, backed by a city ordinance, the American Legion excluded blacks from the annual Armistice Day parade. Blacks also were prohibited from voting in the municipal elections of February 1921. In 1923 and 1924, respectively, blacks were banned from standing in the same lines as whites to purchase stamps at the post office and to pay property taxes at the Harris County Courthouse. In 1925, the Electric Company excluded blacks from riding its buses, while in 1926, the Majestic Theater refused to admit blacks on weekends.

In 1921, Houston ’s Democratic Party also passed a resolution "allowing only whites to vote in the upcoming Democratic primary;” and in 1923 the Texas state legislature passed a law stating that “only white Democrats and none other” could vote in primary elections, according to the same book.

Between 1920 and 1930, the KKK was also visibly active on the streets of Austin, Texas . In 1921, for example, “500 white-robed and hooded Ku Klux Klansmen from Austin and San Antonio marched single file in silence up and down Congress Avenue, while thousands of spectators looked on,” according to David Humphrey’s Austin: An Illustrated History. The same book also observed:

Capital City Klan No. 81 was organized in 1921 and a year later had 1,500 members including the sheriff of Travis County and apparently other highly placed city and county police officials. The Klan thrived in Austin in the early and mid-1920s... In the mid-1920s the Klan even purchased a sizable piece of property off South Congress Avenue and erected a hall or "Klan haven"…

So, not surprisingly, Austin’s “1928 city plan recommended that East Austin be designated a `Negro district’ and that municipal services for blacks, such as schools and parks, be confined to this district” and so “thirteen-acre Rosewood Park in East Austin provided recreational facilities for blacks, but other city parks were closed to them,” according to Austin: An Illustrated History.

[Bob Feldman is an East Coast-based writer-activist and a former member of the Columbia SDS Steering Committee of the late 1960s. Read more articles by Bob Feldman on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

Bangladesh Sweatshop Fire

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Bangladesh Sweatshop Fire

Bangladesh Sweatshop Fire

by Stephen Lendman

Corporate predators seek cheap labor worldwide. Countries like China, India, Honduras, Jordan, Haiti, and Bangladesh provide it.

Transnational giants are unaccountable. Global sweatshops supply them. Workers endure horrific conditions. Some work up to 90 or more hours weekly.

They're wage slaves. They earn sub-poverty pay. They're subjected to punishing harassment, beatings, sexual abuse, and rape.

According to the group Sweatshop Watch:

"A sweatshop is a workplace that violates the law and where workers are subject to:

• extreme exploitation, including the absence of a living wage or long hours;

• poor working conditions, such as health and safety hazards;

• arbitrary discipline, such as verbal or physical abuse, or

• fear and intimidation when they speak out, organize, or attempt to form a union."

Women are exploited. Around 90% of the workforce is female. Most are aged 15 - 25. Globalization also takes a heavy environmental toll.

It includes air pollution, ozone layer depletion, acid rain, ocean and fresh water contamination, and an overtaxed ecosystem. Unsafe living conditions exist worldwide.

Charles Kernaghan is a longtime worker rights advocate. He's executive director for the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights (IGLHR).

It "investigates and exposes human and labor rights abuses committed by (transnational) corporations producing goods in the developing world."

IGLHR described horrific conditions at Bangladesh's Ashulia district Tazreen Fashion Factory. Wages are some of the world's lowest.

Helpers earn 18 cents an hour ($8.44 a week for 48 hours).

Junior sewing operators earn 21 - 22 cents an hour ($9.85 - $10.69 a week).

Senior sewing operators earn 23 - 26 cents an hour ($11.26 - $12.66 a week).

Workweeks average 72 - 81 hours. Workers get two days off each month. They're cheated on wages. Overtime is mandatory. Complainers are fired. It's at regular pay. Half of it goes unpaid.

Physical abuse is commonplace. Supervisors curse, slap and punch female workers for sewing errors or staying in the bathroom too long.

Maternity leave is denied. So is sick leave. Workers arriving late three times for any reasons are automatically fired.

Workdays run from 8AM - 8PM. An hour for lunch is provided.

Tazreen was authorized to build a three-story factory. It built a nine-story facility. No one in government objected. Safety precautions were ignored. Few fire extinguishers were available. Small ones couldn't be contained. Major blazes assured disaster.

On November 24, fire began on Tazreen's ground floor. Upper floor workers were trapped. At least 112 died. Another 150 were injured. Containing the blaze took hours.

Fire department operations director Major Mohammad Mahbub said Tazreen's building had no escape exits.

"The factory had three staircases, and all of them were down through the ground floor," he said. "So the workers could not come out when the fire engulfed the building. Had there been at least one emergency exit through outside the factory, the casualties would have been much lower."

On November 26, The New York Times headlined "Garment Workers Stage Angry Protest After Bangladesh Fire," saying:

Thousands of workers were involved. Much of Ashulia was paralyzed. Roads were blocked. Many factories closed for a day. On Monday morning, fire broke out in a second garment facility. No casualties were reported.

Bangladesh officials blamed sabotage for both blazes. They lied. Criminal negligence was involved. Company and government officials bear full responsibility.

In 2010, a Hameen factory fire killed 29 workers. Many were locked in. Others jumped to their deaths. Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce head, AK Azad, blamed sabotage. He also lied. Investigations are never conducted.

Tuesday was an official day of mourning. Many workers demonstrated.

Some carried black flags. They blocked traffic and vowed revenge. One worker perhaps spoke for others, saying:

"Never shall we give up demands for punishment for those responsible for the tragedy."

A May 2011 audit rated Tazreen "high risk" on safety. The company operates death traps. It doesn't care if workers live or die. Profits alone matter.

Brutal exploitation and horrific working conditions maximize them. Other global sweatshops operate the same way.

When Tazreen's fire alarm went off, supervisors blocked workers from leaving. Doors were locked. Some victims jumped to their deaths.

Tarzeen's fire was perhaps the worst industrial one in Bangladesh's history. Local labor leader Kalpona Akter toured the facility after the blaze was contained. Well-known labels were found.

"These international Western brands have a lot of responsibility for these fires," she said. "In this factory, there was a pile of fabrics and yarn stored on the ground floor that caught fire. Workers couldn’t evacuate through the stairs. What does this say about compliance?"

Workers Rights Consortium Executive Director Scott Nova said Walmart’s "culpability is enormous." It's Bangladesh's largest buyer.

"So Walmart is supporting and incentivizing an industry strategy in Bangladesh: extreme low wages, non-existent regulation, and brutal suppression of any attempt by workers to act collectively to improve wages and conditions."

Other major retailers and global brands share guilt. They demand low prices and get them. They're mindless about working conditions, pay, safety, and employee abuse.

Bangladesh is a garment sweatshop cesspool. It ranks second to China. It produces over $18 billion in annual exports.

Around three and a half million workers are employed in about 5,000 factories. Most are young women and girls. Fundamental rights are denied.

Besides horrific conditions and sub-poverty wages, Bangladesh fire safety is notoriously poor.

The Clean Clothes Campaign said over 500 Bangladeshi workers died in factory fires since 2006 alone. More tragedies ahead are certain.

IGLHR published eyewitness Tazreen testimonies. A senior worker said:

On November 24, fire started around 6:30PM. It broke out on the ground floor. "It quickly spread to upper floors. About 1,800 workers were trapped."

"Our production manager, Mr. Monju, pulled down the collapsible gate on the third floor, forcing us to continue working."

"We pleaded with him to let us out, but Mr. Monju assured us that nothing was wrong and we should keep working. He told us not to listen to any rumors. He said again, ‘Nothing has happened, just keep working.’ "

"We smelled the fumes and saw the flames coming from the ground floor of the factory. There is no emergency exit in the factory. Some of the finishing section workers managed to escape, but the sewing section workers were trapped inside."

"Some workers broke the windows and jumped from the building."

"I saw some workers were jumping from the broken windows. Some workers jumped from the roof and died. Most of the women workers were trapped inside the factory and burned alive."

The official death toll is 112. Workers interviewed said they believe over 200 were killed. Another 300 or more were injured. Tazreen and complicit government officials want the disaster downplayed. Many bodies were so badly burned they can't be identified.

Neighboring buildings were destroyed or damaged. Human tragedies can't be reversed.

Criminal negligence continues unaccountably. Dozens of deaths change nothing. Government officials and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) never implemented legal factory ordinances.

Worker rights and safety don't matter. Made in Bangladesh has special meaning.

A Final Comment

On August 23, The New York Times headlined "Export Powerhouse Feels Pangs of Labor Strife," saying:

Police and "paramilitary officers" attacked Ishwardi Export Processing Zone protesting garment workers.

They were "protecting two ingredients of a manufacturing formula that has quietly made Bangladesh a leading apparel exporter to the United States and Europe: cheap labor and foreign investment."

Special police patrols protect industrial areas. Intelligence operatives "keep an eye on labor organizers."

One closely watched was Aminul Islam. He was found "tortured and killed in April." The murder remains unsolved.

Garment exports are vital for Bangladesh's economy. Its development is considered a national security issue.

Consulting giant McKinsey calls Bangladesh the "next China." Its garment exports could triple by 2020.

Transparency International says that "politics and business are so enmeshed that one is kin to the other."

Worker rights are systematically denied. Police attack protesters demanding higher wages and better working conditions. They're criminalized for challenging authority.

Alternative Movements for Resources and Freedom executive director, Khorshed Alam, said "no one wants to join unions out of fear." It doesn't matter if they did. Rights don't come with membership.

"The local owners, the brands, the government, their positions are all the same on this. They know that if (large numbers of) workers get organized, they will have to start listening to them."

Corporations rely on Bangladesh for some of the lowest wages anywhere. One observer calls it "the cheapest place under the sun."

Labor activists say factory owners, international retailers, and government officials want it kept that way.

IGLHR assistant director Barbara Briggs said:

"In our experience these sorts of issues will continue to arise, as long as brands in the US and in Europe are able to go around the world and do business on the basis of a race to the bottom."

"Over and over again we see companies have made lovely codes of conducts, but are workers’ rights being respected? No."

No one can live on sub-poverty wages. Occasional raises don't match cost of living increases. Labor code of conduct standards exist in name only.

Bangladesh prioritizes garment industry growth. Expect sweatshop wage slavery to expand with it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War"

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

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

Lawsuits for Information on Drones

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Lawsuits for Information on Drones

Lawsuits for Information on Drones

by Stephen Lendman

Drones are increasingly becoming America's weapon of choice. They're used to kill and spy. Domestic warrantless surveillance is illegal.

It's done extrajudicially on a regular basis. By around 2020, eyes in the sky spying will cover America. Fourth Amendment freedoms are null and void. It states:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Privacy no longer exists. Drones are now instruments of state terror. No one anywhere is safe. A previous article discussed ACLU lawsuits.

At issue is obtaining legal justification for conducting predator drone killings abroad. The ACLU sued the Defense, State, and Justice Departments. They stonewalled information requests. So did the CIA at a time Obama prioritizes killing by drones.

The ACLU wants information on "when, where and against whom drone strikes can be authorized, and how the US ensures compliance with international laws relating to extrajudicial killings." It faces stiff headwinds getting it.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also filed suit for information. On October 31, it headlined "EFF Demands Answers About Predator Drone Flights in the US: Government Shares Drones with Law Enforcement Agencies Across the Country."

On October 30, EFF sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It functions like a national Gestapo. It doesn't secure. It terrorizes ordinary Americans extrajudicially.

Muslims, immigrants, people of color, and dissidents are most at risk. EFF wants answers about how and why Predator drones are increasingly used for law enforcement.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP - a DHS division) uses UAVs to patrol borders. Video cameras, infrared ones, heat sensors and radar are used for constant spying.

Super high resolution "gigapixel" cameras enable tracking above 20,000 feet. They can monitor up to 65 enemies simultaneously. They can see targets up to 25 miles away.

Electronic transmissions can also be monitored. Cell phones, Wi-Fi networks, and text messages can be intercepted covertly.

Drone use is expanding. Greater surveillance is planned. Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are involved. "EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request asking for more information about these drone flights."

EFF stressed immediacy. It wants CBP records and logs on spying done with other agencies. DHS stonewalled. EFF Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch said:

"We've seen bits and pieces of information on CBP's Predator drones, but Americans deserve the full story."

"Drones are a powerful surveillance tool that can be used to gather extensive data about you and your activities."

"The public needs to know more about how and why these Predator drones are being used to watch U.S. citizens."

On October 30, EFF also sued the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It wants "the latest data on certifications and authorizations the agency has issued for public drone flights in the U.S."

Earlier it filed suit in January. FAA agreed to provide information requested. So far EFF got far less than requested. US secrecy exceeds acceptable standards. It replicates police state levels.

Millions of documents are classified without justification. At issue is concealing what free societies make public. Lynch added:

"FAA's foot-dragging means we can't get a real-time picture of drone activity in the U.S. If officials could release their records in a timely fashion – or publish it as a matter of routine on the FAA website – we could stop filing these FOIA requests and lawsuits."

Predator drones are used to kill abroad. Unarmed UAVs are used domestically. They can be weaponized with tasers, bean bag guns, and other devices able to harm or perhaps kill.

In 2007, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) authorized spying through the National Applications Office (NOA). It was described as "the executive agent to facilitate the use of intelligence community technological assets for civil, homeland security and law enforcement purposes within the United States."

With or without congressional authorization or oversight, the executive branch may authorize state-of-the-art technology. It includes military satellite imagery and other ways to spy on Americans covertly.

Plans are to monitor virtually everyone everywhere once full implementation is achieved. By 2020, up to 30,000 UAVs may spy domestically. They'll be virtually everywhere across America round the clock.

Privacy rights are gravely impaired. Major constitutional issues are stake. Courts willingly compromise them. Congress did so years ago. It wants domestic drone use fast-tracked. So does Obama.

In February, the FAA Modernization and Reform Act (MRA) of 2012 was enacted. It provides $63.4 billion in FAA funding over four years.

An MRA provision authorizes exponentially expanded domestic drone use. Provisions to ease and quicken law enforcement licensing was approved.

By 2015, commercial operations may apply for drone use authorization. In response to EFF's January lawsuit, information gotten determined that "60 public entities and 12 private drone manufacturers sought permission to fly" drones domestically.

EFF sought but didn't obtain information on how and for what purposes these drones will be used. Federal, state and local authorities will use them extrajudicially for warrantless searches.

Privacy and transparency are on the chopping block for elimination. Big Brother wants everyone watched all the time. There's no place to hide.

The ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, EFF, and similar organizations want government agencies held accountable. It's no simple task at a time repressive laws threaten everyone.

Freedom in America is fast disappearing. It's no exaggeration saying police state justice replaced it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

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

Syria: Tightening the Noose

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Syria: Tightening the Noose

Syria: Tightening the Noose

by Stephen Lendman

Since conflict erupted last year, Washington, other NATO states, and regional allies recruited, armed, funded, trained and directed Syrian insurgents.

Public admissions emerge slowly. Language conceals what's been ongoing all the time. On November 29, CNN said Washington is "weighing whether or not to provide arms to the Syrian opposition."

US Syrian ambassador, Robert Ford, said Obama "never (took) the provision of arms off the table." They've been supplied regularly under it covertly.

On December 9, Los Angeles Times columnist Doyle McManus headlined "A call to arms for Syria's rebels."

Within days, Washington is expected to recognize the illegitimate opposition coalition as the "legitimate representative of the Syrian people." In November, Britain and France announced support.

The EU moved closer to official recognition. Member state foreign ministers extended their endorsement. At the same time, Germany expelled four Syrian embassy staff members.

Assad's ambassador was forced out in May. Britain, France, Italy and Spain took similar actions.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said:

"Shortly ahead of" the December 12 Friends of Syria meeting in Morocco, "the EU has given another clear signal of the upgrade and support of the coalition."

He added that doing so "promote(s) the erosion of the Assad regime."

EU members previously accepted Syrian National Council (SNC) 2.0 members (National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces) as representatives of Syrian "aspirations."

They did so despite strong internal Assad support. Majority "aspirations" don't matter. Washington diktats overrule them. That's how imperialism works.

Increased funding and other aid will be provided. US officials argue "that the new national coalition won't succeed in winning support on the ground unless it amasses more of the currency of power in any insurrection: military supplies."

Until September, Frederic C. Hof helped direct State Department policy on Syria. "We need to exercise some leadership and a management role in the arms business," he said.

"We need to try to dominate the logistics and the decision making on who gets what and who doesn't. We need to do it working hand in glove with others; you don't want it to be seen as an exclusively American effort."

He added that public posturing about not wanting to "further militarize the situation….no longer (is) relevant." Of course, it never was. The mask slowly comes off. Reasons why conflict erupted and continues are suppressed.

On December 9, the London Sunday Times said Washington decided to supply Syrian insurgents with heavy weapons. They include rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank missiles, and anti-aircraft heat-seeking SA-7 missiles.

State Department officials maintain daily contact with insurgent commanders. Obama authorized covert CIA and special forces help months earlier. It's been ongoing for months. Increased aid is planned.

On December 10, the London Guardian headlined "Army's plans to support Syrian rebels," saying:

UK military chiefs drew up "contingency plans to provide Syrian rebels with maritime, and possibly air, power in response to a request from (Prime Minister) David Cameron, senior defense sources said on Monday night."

They added that Britain won't intervene unless America does. At the same time, concerns about doing so were raised.

One unnamed source said, "We are a long way from doing anything. The US is leading the way. We are not there yet."

In November, UK defense chief General David Richards met with senior military officials from America, France, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, and other Gulf states. Strategy was discussed at length.

Other UK officials have been meeting with Western and regional counterparts. At issue is destroying Syria entirely.

Most high-level UK military officials say intervening is far more complex than against Libya last year.

On December 11, the London Independent headlined "Exclusive: UK military in talks to help Syria rebels," saying:

An "independent coalition including Britain" plans to support Syrian insurgents "with air and naval power…."

Washington, key NATO partners, and Gulf allies believe conflict "reached a tipping point and it has become imperative" to help insurgents "make a final push against" Assad.

Western boots on the ground aren't planned. Libya 2.0 appears likely. Doing so will circumvent Security Council authorization.

Installing offensive Patriot missiles in Turkey "camouflage(s) intervention." Claims about doing so for defensive purposes don't wash.

US, British, French, and other NATO officials say intervention "is now inevitable." It's just a matter of when.

On December 9, Mossad-connected DEBKAfile (DF) asked, "What comes first - a Syrian chemical attack or a US-led military showdown?"

Fabricated claims about Assad using chemical weapons continue. DF says US, Israeli, Jordanian and Turkish special forces are operating in Syria.

They're armed with special protective gear. They're positioned near alleged "convoys carrying canisters, shells or bombs loaded with poison gas…."

Concerns about non-conventional weapons belie the fact that disquiet about them wasn't raised before nor was anything done about them. Whether destroying them ahead of full-scale Western intervention remains to be seen.

On December 8, Der Spiegel interviewed Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi. He was asked about looming full-scale war on Syria.

He said Assad poses "no threat to the region or world peace."

"Military forces infiltrating Syria" want the conflict "internationalize(d). If the region goes up in flames, then they have achieved their objective."

Without "a sense of proportionality," Western and regional states "will fall into the trap of the extremists."

He knows Washington backs them. US hardliners want pro-Western Islamofacist regimes throughout the region. They want Assad and Iran's government ousted. They'll stop at nothing to achieve their aims. They risk potentially catastrophic conflict.

On December 10, Voice of Russia (VoR) interviewed Damascus Research Center director Bassam Abu Abdullah. He called so-called Friends of Syria its enemies. Washington largely controls them.

"Their goal is to destroy the country by force and use its strategic geographical location for their own purposes."

He called supplying humanitarian aid to Syria "one big lie." So are claims about insurgent successes. Media scoundrel misinformation reports them. It's done to enlist public support and raise opposition forces' morale. Seizing one tank means nothing.

"They suffer hundreds of times more losses, but al Jazeera and al Arabiya are keeping silent about this."

"And as soon as one regular army soldier is killed, they boost, as if they have won a victory over a whole military unit."

"The only problem of the Syrian army is their infinite number of suicide bombers."

He repeated what other Syrian officials said many times. Damascus has no intention of using chemical weapons. At the same time, he fears insurgents may use them "to accuse the Syrian regime of doing this."

Damascus agrees with Russian proposals for peaceful conflict resolution and fair elections. "(T)his is the kind of democracy" that Washington and other Western states forgot, he added.

They deplore it at home and abroad. Washington and key NATO allies want one independent country after another attacked and destroyed. They're willing to ravage the entire region to control it.

Body counts and human misery don't matter. Imperial rogues want dominance at any cost. They used death squads against Libyans. They murdered thousands of Syrians.

Civilians suffer most of all. Assad loyalists are most vulnerable. Dozens or hundreds die daily. At the same time, Syrian forces inflict heavy losses on terrorists. Scoundrel media misinformation suppresses what readers and viewers most need to know.

Washington planned war on Syria years ago. Other countries are enlisted, pressured or bullied to go along. Last year it was Libya. Earlier it was Iraq and Afghanistan.

Proxy wars rage against Yemen, Somalia, and drone-targeted Pakistan areas. Occupied Palestine is attacked multiple times daily. America’s dirty hands are involved. US special forces operate covertly in over 120 countries. CIA elements are everywhere.

Longstanding US policy bears full responsibility for regional carnage and beyond. One war begets others. Obama has lots of governments he wants ousted.

He's got another four years to destroy them one at a time. Perhaps he plans two or more simultaneously. He's America's most belligerent president in history.

He outdid George Bush. He's a war criminal multiple times over. He has years of blood on his hands to answer for. His second term may eclipse his the worst of his first.

At the same time, he's ravaging social America to feed Washington's war machine, enrich corporate favorites, and enforce police state harshness on resisters.

Where this ends who knows. It bears repeating. America never was beautiful. It's no fit place to live in. It's unsafe for anyone opposing government for the privileged few alone. The worst of times approaches. It won't be pretty when it arrives.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

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

Waging War on US Workers

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Waging War on US Workers

Waging War on US Workers

by Stephen Lendman

America's war on workers dates from the 19th century. Labor learned the hard way what it takes to win.

It requires organizing, pressing demands, taking to the streets, going on strike, holding boycotts, battling police and National Guard forces supporting management, as wells paying with blood and lives to get results.

They came. Workers got an eight hour day, a living wage, important benefits, pensions, and passage of the landmark 1935 Wagner Act. For the first time, labor could bargain collectively with management on equal terms.

Grassroots struggles prevailed. Management and government give nothing unless forced to. Today, virtually everything gained was lost. Federal, state and local Republicans and Democrats wage war on worker rights.

Obama did straightaway in office. Serving business ahead of workers became policy. In March 2009, he told auto executives, "We cannot, must not, and will not let this industry vanish."

His message was clear. Business got bailed out. Labor got sold out. Rank and file members were forced to make painful concessions.

They include permanent job losses, temp or part-time employment in place of full-time work, lower wages, fewer benefits, gutted work rules, forfeited security through pensions and retirement benefits, as well as other sacrifices.

Obama showed Democrats can trash worker rights like Republicans. He wants them treated with 19th century harshness.

Organized labor is a shadow of its former self. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder delivered the latest blow. On December 11, he signed right-to-work legislation. It takes effect in April. More on Michigan below.

Twenty-three other states have similar laws.The 1947 Taft-Hartley Labor-Management Relations Act precipitated labor's decline. It's one-sidedly pro-corporate.

Harry Truman called it a "slave labor bill." He hypocritically used it 10 times. No president since matched him. It destroyed hard won Wagner Act benefits.

Union violators face stiff penalties. Corporate bosses at most get hand slaps. "Unfair (union) labor practices" were enacted.

They include jurisdictional strikes (relating to job assignments), secondary boycotts (against firms doing business with companies struck), wildcat strikes, sit-downs, slow-downs, mass-picketing against scabs, closed shops (mandating union membership), and more.

At the same time, Taft-Hartley legalized employer interventions aimed at preventing union organizing. Doing so seriously eroded union bargaining power. Workers were headed on a slippery slope toward losing all rights.

Presidents are empowered to halt strikes by court-ordered injunction for 80 days. They can claim national security or whatever reasons they invent.

Under Section 14(b), states may enact laws exempting workers from union membership as a condition of employment.

Right-to-work laws prohibit unions and workers from entering into agreements requiring they join. They also forbid mandating dues and fees be paid to stay employed.

Although union shops are allowed, states can proscribe them. Non-union members in companies having them get the same benefits as organized workers. Unions call them "free riders."

Right-to-work advocates argue that union membership shouldn't be a condition of employment. Organized labor believes that right-to-work laws let "free riders" benefit at the expense of union members.

Unions also say these laws weaken organized labor en route to destroying it altogether. They attack collective bargaining and worker rights. They earn on average $1,500 less pay and fewer benefits.

Mostly southern and western states have these laws.

Northern ones include Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and now Michigan. Once it was one of the most unionized states in America. No longer.

Less than 20% of its public and private workers are organized. Right-to-work legislation assures many more will lose out.

Indiana, under Republican Governor Mitch Daniels, became the first midwest state to adopt right-to-work. It was the first state to do so since Oklahoma in 2001.

Union bosses bear much responsibility. They resist weakly, then yield. They accept false notions that lower wages and fewer benefits make companies and states more competitive. They betray their rank and file in the process.

A race to the bottom heads workers toward near wage slave status. In November 2003, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) offered hope. It went nowhere during Bush's tenure. Obama was no friendlier.

In July 2009, he and Senate Democrats agreed to eliminate EFCA's "card check" provision from pending legislation.

It would have required employers to recognize the right to organize once most workers signed union cards freely and openly. Hope for passage died. So did worker rights.

Union bosses side more with management than rank and file. So do government officials. The UAW reflects organized labor's decline. At about 380,000, its membership barely exceeds one-third its total eight years ago.

In the 1950s, about 35% of workers were organized. In 1979, it was around 24%. At the end of the Reagan era, it was 16.8%. In 2007, it was 12%. In 2011, it was 11.8% and declining.

Public union membership is about 37%. Less than 7% of private workers are organized. It's the lowest percentage in over 100 years. Unionized worker membership is the lowest since Depression era organizing struggles.

Democrats, Republicans and union bosses conspire to let workers live or die by market-based rules rigged against them.

Michigan is the latest battleground. Right-to-work was enacted. United Auto Workers (UAW) bosses did nothing to block it. They betrayed their rank and file. They did numerous times before.

Other union heads operate the same way. They feign worker support while conspiring against them behind their backs. They're well compensated for selling out.

They're not about to sacrifice their own welfare for rank and file members they represent.

Workers have been ill-represented for decades. The 1981 PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) strike was seminal. It was a shot across organized labor's bow.

Over 11,000 workers lost jobs. AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland conspired with Ronald Reagan in union-busting. During the 1980s alone, coal miner, steel worker, bus driver, airline worker, copper miner, auto worker, and meatpacker strikes were defeated.

Union bosses sold out worker interests. They virtually abandoned their most effective weapon. They rarely strike. They block collective struggle.

They tell rank and file members one thing, then spurn them privately. UAW president Bob King conspired with Michigan Governor Snyder the way he and other union bosses do with management.

Dues workers pay goes to anti-worker Democrats. It also affords union bosses substantial six-figure salaries, generous benefits, and affluent lifestyles.

In January, King spent thousands of dollars of union dues traveling to Davos, Switzerland. He participated in the 2012 World Economic Forum.

Global high-level business, political, media, academic, think tank, and union bosses met. Each year, they flaunt predatory capitalism and party. They plot year ahead strategies.

They advance their own interests at the expense or workers and others losing out. They do it annually. Showing up makes union bosses complicit in securing the divine right of capital.

No wonder unionism today is a shadow of its former self. It's headed for extinction without committed worker activism to save it.

Union bosses are their enemies, not allies. Rank and file members are on their own to fight back. They won’t regain lost rights any other way.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

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